by D. J. Gelner
My jaw went slack, my tongue numbed at Burnham’s proclamation.
“Well fuck me with the devil’s dick,” was all I could muster.
Corcoran glanced over at me, “Say, wasn’t there something that Burnham mentioned about a ChronoSaber, something like that?”
Yes! Yes you fucking dolt! I thought. They’re the reason we’re on this sick, twisted temporal scavenger hunt, I’m sure of it! That fresh-faced nincompoop that brought us to the suite will run it some day, and then they can pin a fucking medal on your rube chest while no one ever acknowledges the advancements that Phineas Templeton has provided the world!
“Indeed,” I said.
I could remind Corcoran about whatever details of ChronoSaber’s existence that I had been able to glean thus far a few minutes from now. For the moment, I needed to get at Burnham, which would be no small task. As the applause died down, and Huey Lewis of all people took over the role of M.C. and got the crowd back into the swing of the festivities, I made my way over to the curious little man who dawdled off the stage.
“Mr. Burnham!” I called out to him. “Mr. Burnham! A word, please?” Burnham met my gaze and smiled slyly. He waved away the guards who flanked him and escorted me over to an area along the wall.
“What in the hell are you doing?” I asked
“What the fuck do you mean?” Burnham must have still been in good spirits; otherwise I fear I would’ve received a gut punch for my trouble.
“SABERCorp? ChronoSaber? Don’t you see the connection?”
“Now that you mention it…” Burnham said with a wry smile.
“You knew that you were going to do this! And why haven’t I heard of SABERCorp before?”
Burnham raised his eyebrows playfully, “Questions, questions. And so little time for answers. What am I saying? You have all of the time in the universe! Come now, my dear Doctor Templeton,” he lapsed into what seemed to be an incredibly-practised English accent. “Do you think that either the kindly grandfather or the hillbillied yay-hoo that you’ve met this evening is what I’m really like?”
Though I had been chased by a T-Rex and nearly killed by Mayan warriors over the past several days, it was the first time that a pronounced chill leaked down my spine.
“As far as SABERCorp is concerned, they have instructions to stay largely behind the scenes as a cadre of shell companies and fronts do their work for them until a very specific date, one that you’re no doubt unfamiliar with as of yet, at which time a ‘corporate consolidation’ will once again bring SABERCorp to the forefront, as well as a number of subsidiaries with which I’m sure you are familiar.”
“But you—you’re not Victor Burnham then?”
He laughed a haughty English laugh, “Who is? The poor bastard who was killed in Vietnam whose identity I assumed? I’m just as much Victor Burnham as Trent Albertson is Jesus Christ. Which is to say simultaneously not at all and always. And who are you, dear Templeton? Someone lost to history? A man without an identity? Tell me now, what does that make you? A fucking ghost. Poof!” His hands radiated outward quickly, “and you’re gone.” His brow reddened as sweat poured off it.
“Can you stop this? Can you call off this scavenger hunt I’m on with Corcoran and Bloomington? Can you send me home?”
Burnham chuckled, “Can I prevent World War II? Can I warn the passengers who got on those planes on 9-11? Sadly, I cannot. What I can offer you is a warning.” His eyes turned pale and grave as he placed a hand on my shoulder, “You’re involved in a conspiracy more dangerous than you can possibly imagine. A pawn in a game for Rooks and Queens. Always remember that, no matter what, no matter how indelible things may seem,” he paused to loosen his collar, “you make the choices. You’ve…always…made the choices. And you are doomed to make those…same choices…”
Burnham’s full weight collapsed on my shoulder.
“…again,” he spat out as his body went slack. I stared, mouth agape, for several moments as I looked down at the bald spot on Burnham’s head.
“Medic!” I yelled. “Doctor! Is anyone a doctor?”
Chapter Sixteen
The room descended into chaos as Burnham’s guards threw their weight around in a vain attempt to clear the area.
“The old cuss finally bit it,” one onlooker said with a bit too much glee. I imagine he had been a bitter business associate.
One of the guards flung Burnham over his shoulder like a sack of meal and waded through the crowd. The hulking bouncer signaled Garrett, who sprinted toward the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please!” the fresh-faced young ginger said. “Please calm down!” He brought both hands out wide and attempted to calm the room. “It appears that Mr. Burnham’s blood sugar has dipped a bit low. Nothing to be alarmed about—I assure you, he will be fine in the light of day.” His smile was a bit overbroad, in that way that a parent tries to conceal bad news from a child.
Corcoran glared at me, clearly thinking that Burnham looked to be far from okay.
“Stock price,” I mouthed. The light went on in Corcoran’s head. He promptly shook it off.
Bloomington buzzed next to him, “No fucking shit, man. That guy did a fuck-ton of blow. I’m surprised he lasted that long.”
Now it was my turn to glare, “I thought you said that he died in the mid aughts?”
Bloomington shrugged, “Yeah, I mean, I think so.”
I widened my eyes and raised my eyebrows at the portly scientist, and he returned the gesture as if to mock me.
“If he dies tonight, doesn’t that throw a wrench in the whole ‘whatever happened, happened,’ business?” I asked.
Almost on cue, a hushed gust of noise rose like a cresting wave from the exit. Burnham’s previously inanimate body stuck up a hand, contorted into the universal symbol for time travel, or the “Live Long and Prosper” sign, as these hapless fools would understand it. I thought it to be one final twist of the knife by Burnham aimed at us, but as far as the crowd’s mood went, concern melted to a chorus of cheers and applause as the room went wild. A hearty breeze blew over my face; I thought it was likely a collection of top Burnham Herrington shareholders exhaling simultaneously.
Garrett applauded vigorously into the microphone, to the point where the obnoxious noise buzzed and stung my ears. It rather seemed like something that Bloomington might do, just to wind me up.
“You see? He’s okay!” Garrett swept a hand toward the exit. “Well, now that Mr. Burnham has made one of his trademark exits,” a brief pause for a round of phony guffaws, “We can get back to the task at hand, which, as I’m sure you’re all well aware, is to par-tay!”
Another token round of cheers and laughs was followed by applause to chase Garrett away from the stage. As soon as he was away from the microphone, Garrett’s smile darkened into a scowl as he motioned at Huey to start playing once more. Huey cringed visibly, before he brightened and approached the mike.
“All right everybody! Good to see Mr. B’s okay. Let’s get things rockin’ again! 2, 3, 4!” As Burnham’s choked-out exhortation rattled inside my head, “Back in Time” boomed from the loudspeakers. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at how many of the partygoers shrugged the whole deal off, and went back to their drunken carousing without skipping nary a beat.
What did surprise me, though, was that two of the said coterie of revelers were Corcoran and Bloomington.
I suppose that’s not an entirely accurate sentiment; it didn’t surprise me that the utterly-stoned Bloomington was one of the first to pick up a random drink from a nearby table and guzzle it down when the music restarted.
Corcoran, though, was another matter entirely. Before I could even turn to relay the specifics of my conversation with “the real” Victor Burnham (as much as his identity could be ascertained due to the vagaries of time travel), Corcoran had hooked a slinky-looking blonde around each elbow. As reluctant as I am to admit as much, each one was rather attractive despite the curious fashion choices of t
he day.
Frustrated, I tapped Corcoran twice on the shoulder.
His clenched jaw when he turned betrayed his own feelings.
“What now, Doc?” he asked.
“I have something to discuss with you of a rather urgent na—”
“Oh, come on. What could possibly be so urgent right now.”
I nodded at each of the women in turn.
“I apologise, ladies; lovely as you both may be, it’s a conversation of a decidedly private and confidential nature that I must have with the Commander here.”
“I didn’t know that you’re in the Navy!” one of the blondes exclaimed with a bit-too-practised naïveté.
“Somethin’ like that, darlin’.” Corcoran’s own “country boy” affectation was in full force.
“Commander, I must insist—”
“Oh, lighten up already, Doc.” He gritted his teeth into a scowl and glared at me before he turned to each woman in turn and grinned. “Ladies, can you excuse me for just a moment? My colleague and I need to have an ‘impohhhtant and confiden-chial conversaaaation.’” Corcoran drew out the last part in an (admittedly, pretty good) stodgy, mocking British accent of his own.
The ladies laughed at my expense (as has so often regrettably been the case) and Corcoran grabbed me by the arm and dragged me off to the side of the stage.
“This better be fucking—”
“Burnham is an Englishman.” I decided the direct route to be best.
“What?”
“His whole backstory is a fraud. He’s an Englishman, sure as I am.”
“I thought you said you were born in America?”
“I…never mind that. For all intents and purposes, I’m still—”
Corcoran shrugged, “So what?”
“Pardon?”
“So what if he’s a Brit?”
I literally took a step back, “You mean you don’t find it the least bit pertinent or odd that this old billionaire made it a point to lie to us for a half hour earlier this afternoon as to who he was? You don’t find it the least bit suspicious that—”
“Look, you said it yourself, people come to the past to escape their old lives. So what if he’s not a hardened, Vegas hustler?”
“You mean, so what if he’s a fraud?”
For a moment, I thought Corcoran may hit me.
“HE’S ALREADY A FRAUD!” It was all Corcoran could do to keep his voice at a hissing whisper. “Don’t you get it? He’s conning everyone here! He’s no ‘self-made’ millionaire.”
“Billionaire,” I corrected him.
For this transgression, I did receive a quick slap on the cheek from the Commander.
“That’s not the point. The point is, what does it matter if he’s English or American or Martian?”
“I just think that it might have some bearing on how the whole ChronoSaber mess affects me—us.” I quickly corrected myself.
Corcoran shook his head, “Why did I need to hear about this right now?” He asked. “Can’t you see I’m busy here? We’re stuck here until around noon tomorrow, aren’t we? Tell ya what, I’ll chat up these lovely young ladies for the rest of the night, you stay the fuck outta my way, and tomorrow you can tell me all about what the old cokehead told you just before he collapsed from a heart attack, okay?”
I opened my mouth to rebut, but before I had a chance to respond, Corcoran patted me twice on the shoulder and bolted off to take his rightful place between the two fetching women.
Had the time machine been ready to go, I would have gladly left Corcoran and Bloomington to their own devices in the eighties, content to do all of the cocaine and zonked-out groupies that they could afford.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I instead opted to make my way over to the bar, where the capable bartenders were presently overwhelmed by the “post-death-scare” demand. One of them had carelessly left a full bottle of Macallan Eighteen on the edge of the bar. After all of the rubbish that Burnham had put me through, I felt but a small twinge of remorse as I carefully lifted the bottle from the edge of the bar.
Perhaps because I was still shaken up by the whole ordeal, and precisely because I was trying to be so suave, I fumbled the vessel and it fell to the ground with a thud. I experienced a moment of sheer panic when I saw that perfect, pure bottle of scotch (from 1967, mind you!) tumble to the ground. All I could think of as it connected with the floor was that had I somehow smuggled it into the future, it would be worth potentially thousands, even though it would likely taste little different than the Macallan eighteen being served in 2032.
I cringed, and anticipated the loud crash and shattered glass. Instead, the bottle let out a sharp “PING,” muffled by the din of patrons ordering drinks. I released a hearty sigh and picked up the bottle with far less panache than before. I found a glass and a seat at a table somewhere near the bar and began to pour.
This is where my usual hyper vigilance fades away to something far less comprehensive, that wonderful creature that I’ve heard referred to as a “brown out.” I remember the next hour or so, as I spent the first portion commiserating with an elderly Jewish couple about the state of politics in the Mideast in 1985, and whether the “current” war between Iraq and Iran would potentially escalate into something catastrophic for Israel. Instead of inducing what would surely be a second heart attack that evening in either the shrunken little fellow or his wife by explaining the full extent of what was in store for the region in the coming years, I listened patiently and intently, and did my best to steer the conversation toward other topics.
Eventually, the couple excused themselves and a fortiesh brunette sat next to me. Her expression was downcast, her curly hair puffed out to the very limits of hairspray, and her mascara racooned around her eyes. She looked like she could use a drink, so I offered her one.
“Huh? Oh, sure. I mean, ‘yes, please.’” she said.
“Rough night?” I asked as I tilted the bottle toward her glass and gave her a generous pour.
“You have no idea.”
“Oh, I have some idea,” I said.
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“Try me.”
“Well…sure, why not?” she sighed as she let out an exasperated laugh. “Who better to tell all of my problems to than some random Brit at Victor Burnham’s party?”
“Sometimes strangers have the most objective point of view, and thus the best advice to offer,” I said.
“And sometimes they’re some kind of…serial killer…or…”
“Time traveller?” I offered.
She nodded as she downed a gulp of whisky, “Or ‘alien,’ or other whack-job, looking to make your hair into a wig.”
I chuckled, “However would I do that? I don’t even have a decent razor.” I rubbed a hand over my unkempt stubble.
This elicited a chuckle from Cynthia, and she allowed her shoulders to relax in the chair a bit.
“Okay, but I’m warning you—you asked for it.”
“Indeed I did,” I replied with an arched eyebrow.
“My husband left me last week. Some bimbo secretary of his could do…things I wasn’t willing to do.” I found her modesty to be rather refreshing. “So he just up-and-left. Packed up his stuff and hopped the next flight to Aruba with Sucky McGee,” I nearly spat out my drink. “It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t the holidays, and I get so lonely now that the kids are out of the house…”
“I’m sure you’re not lacking for male attention,” I said without thinking. “Beautiful young woman like yourself—”
“You think I’m beautiful…and young?” she asked. She batted her eyelashes at me several times.
“I…uh, well yes, I do. I find runny mascara to be utterly intoxicating.”
She laughed and grinned. It was a wonderful, bright smile, though oddly familiar; a smile that bubbled to her face from deep inside, and washed over me like sunlight on a warm spring afternoon.
“You’re sweet,” she said. Her eyes lin
gered on mine for several moments as neither of us dared to break the other’s gaze. We were forced to as a waiter stopped by and placed a full champagne flute in front of each of us.
“Two minutes, folks. Two minutes,” he said.
Cynthia began to sob.
“My dear, I—”
She took out a handkerchief and waved it at me, “I’m so sorry—it’s just, I haven’t been alone for New Year’s Eve in…as long as I can remember. Maybe twenty years now. It’s usually such a great time for a fresh start, but—”
“But isn’t that exactly what you need right now?” I asked. I tried to appropriate Corcoran’s rakish grin as my own.
She laughed between choking sobs, “I guess so. But who would want—?”
“I’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “My friends abandoned me as well.” She leaned in, expecting more information, but I shook my head, “They’re not important. But what do you say that I agree to be your friend for the evening, and, in return, you can be mine?”
She brightened once more, “Okay,” she said, softly at first. “Okay, you’ve got a deal. I’m telling you, though, you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“Nor do you,” I said, as I raised both eyebrows. I offered my glass toward her for a toast. “To fresh starts,” I said.
“To fresh starts,” her eyes twinkled in the light of the wonderful, antique crystal chandeliers.
Just then, a faint chant began to build from the crowd.
“Eleven…ten…nine…”
“This is usually my favorite part. But however will they do it without Ryan Seacrest?” I asked.
Eight…seven…
“You mean Dick Clark?” she asked.
…Six…
“What?” I said.
…Five…
“Who?” she replied.
…Four…Three…
“It was a joke, you see—”
I didn’t hear two or one as Cynthia grabbed me by the lapel and pulled me in for a kiss. Now, as inexperienced as I may be with women, I’ll have you know that I was no thirty-six year old virgin, though it had been so long by now that I sometimes thought of myself as much.