One Second Per Second

by S. D. Unwin

  Gallie is there, seated. I exhale. I look at Zhivov who glances back at me before returning his attention to Gallie. A smile flicks across her face. In front of us is a soldier, clearly of high rank. He’s wearing a coat of blue with gold epaulettes and trim, and his hand is resting on the grip of his sword. On each side of him but a step back are two other senior-looking officers. I scan the room to see half a dozen soldiers standing to attention, eyes forward. And there’s one more figure. It’s Kasper Asmus. He’s grinning as someone approaches us from behind and rips our accelerators from us.

  The general looks us over without expression. “And who are you?” he asks. The accent is unusual and I can’t place it. Not American. Not French. Maybe some form of British. We tell him our names. “And where are you from?” Zhivov and I exchange a glance. What answer will keep us alive? It’s time to resort to the truth, I decide.

  “Washington state,” I reply. The general’s expression is unperturbed.

  “What did you say about Washington?”

  “It’s ... it’s the place I’m from. Originally. Traveled around a bit. Needed to get away from home for a while. But I landed back in Washington.” It wasn’t a well thought-out tactic but perhaps babbling will make me seem open, safe and responsive. Or just too unbalanced to press. “A lot of people wind up where they grew up. Maybe it’s just lack of imagination but I think a person is attracted back to their roots. I have friends from Ohio who–” The general raises a finger to stop me. I’m grateful. Gallie is looking at me incredulously. I shrug.

  “General Penrose, may I?” It’s Asmus. I brace myself. The general nods.

  “This fellow is a close friend of mine. I’m pleased you found him. I’ve been quite worried about his welfare. And Mr. Zhivov is also an acquaintance.” He grins. “You’re looking well Boris. You seem more youthful and healthy than when I last saw you. Good for you, good for you.” One of the officers behind the general steps forward to whisper something in his ear. Penrose raises his finger again.

  “You were in possession of the swift guns. May I enquire what you intended to do with them?”

  “We surrendered them to your troops General,” Zhivov says. “They were for our self defense.” Penrose calmly assesses this response.

  “You may be aware that Mr. Asmus has made some rather outlandish claims about his origin,” Penrose says. Asmus begins to pipe up but Penrose raises the shut up finger. “You will be quiet Mr. Asmus.” Asmus looks like he might be about to protest, but then thinks better of it. “Mr. Bevan, Mr. Zhivov, I’ll ask you again. Where are you from?” His calm belies the possibility of him ordering something dire.

  Zhivov and I look at each other, and then at Gallie. She gives an almost imperceptible shrug. “It may seem an unlikely story,” Zhivov says, “but we’ll be truthful with you, sir. My colleague–”

  “The future,” I say. “Well, your future. That’s where we’re from. Twenty-first century to be specific. I am anyway. We traveled back in time to be here. The guns we were carrying we brought with us.”

  Penrose raises his eyebrows. It’s the first human response I’ve seen from him. Asmus is grinning. I take this to mean my story is consistent with his.

  “If I may General,” Asmus says. There’s no finger raised to stop him. “It does seem implausible, I know. But could there be a plausible explanation of the swift guns? These weapons incorporate inventions unknown in the here and now, I’m sure you’ll agree, sir.” Penrose neither agrees nor disagrees.

  “And what is your purpose?” Penrose asks. A bloody good question. Asmus grins. Penrose holds out his hand and one of his officers places a semi-automatic pistol in it. He weighs it and then looks at me. The weapon appears to be racked and the pit of my stomach tingles. This guy has no clue what he’s doing. He has the pistol lying on the palm of his hand. He’s tracing his silencing forefinger over the surface of the weapon: the sight, the barrel, the grip, the trigger guard, the ... The gun fires and I wince. There’s a collective gasp and one of his soldiers is thrown backward against the wall as blood splatters over the cleavage of the woman’s portrait behind him. The soldier slides to the floor looking more bewildered than hurt. His neck pumps blood over his coat, forming a pool on the floorboards. Gallie lopes toward the general’s victim and puts the palm of her hand flat on his neck, attempting to staunch the flow. The general has thrown the gun to the ground and the facade of calm has evaporated.

  “Get the physician,” he barks at the officer who had handed him the pistol. After a few seconds, Gallie stands up and shakes her head.

  “Not your fault,” Asmus says, wearing a sympathetic expression. “Very sensitive trigger. You’re not used to it, General. You and your men need training.” Penrose seems to be in shock and Asmus takes advantage of it. “That pistol can fire a hundred shots a minute. Can you imagine the military advantage of having weapons like those? What’s the firing rate for a flintlock musket? Three or four shots a minute? And we have guns far more–”

  “Shut up,” one of the officer roars and points around the room. “Take zeez these people away.”

  FORTY-NINE

  I fear we’re being taken to the barn, but it’s in the library that we end up–the one with bookshelves to the ceiling and no books. Gallie, Zhivov, Asmus and I are left looking at the door as it shuts behind us. I grab Gallie and hold her tight against me.

  “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you both.” Zhivov shrugs. “But coming here now was a little crazed.”

  I turn to Asmus. “Can you think of one reason I shouldn’t pummel your saggy face into pulp?” He smirks.

  “Oh Joad, you know you wouldn’t do that to a frail codger like myself. What would Ms. Galois think of you?” He sinks into a plush Queen Anne chair. “And by the way, I really do want to thank you for ridding me of that monstrous whore. I can’t believe you stuck with her for ... how long was it? Ten years? What an appalling timeline that must have been for you. In ten years she could have courted most of Risley. And you never noticed?”

  Gallie is looking at me and shakes her head. “One. You’re a sad, delusional asswipe,” Zhivov says. “And two, is this really what you want to talk about now?”

  Asmus shrugs. “You’re quite right, Dr. Zhivov. Let’s save matters of the heart for another day.”

  “Looks like a few things changed since we left,” I say.

  “They’ve been here for a day,” Gallie says. “They rolled in and I’m guessing they made short work of Leatown.”

  “The barn dwellers,” I say. “Are they okay?” We looks at Asmus.

  “You’re very sweet to care,” he says and inspects his fingernails to prolong the moment. I start toward him. “They were in rude health yesterday. Who knows now?”

  “Penrose already knew about the ‘swift guns’,” Gallie says. “I don’t know how many of them this imbecile put out there, but they traced them back to here. That army was put together to take no chances.”

  “Well, que sera, sera.” Asmus shrugs. “I can’t get myself worked up over it. A customer is a customer. Right?”

  “Of course.” Zhivov says. “Why pick a side?”

  “Precisely,” Asmus says. “But I rather did like the idea of the British prevailing. What an ingenious touch. Still, spilled milk.”

  “So it’s occurred to you that now the Americans are in control of this anachronistic arsenal that they’re the ones likely to be prevailing?” I say.

  “And the American victory may be your doing,” Gallie says. “So you were trying the vandalize a timeline that itself only existed because of your vandalism.” The smile momentarily slips from Asmus’s face.

  “You were an idiot then, and you’re an idiot now,” I say. “Do you see the reason TMA had no time for you? Why I had no time for you? It’s because you’re a deeply talentless prick.” This is hitting its target. “You’re not even an effective vandal.” Asmus glares at me momentarily but then regains his composure.

  “I’m getting rather
tired,” he says. “I’m sure it’s not your company. Just not as young as I was, you know.”

  My enjoyment of the moment is spoiled as a thought bubbles up from my gut, through my throat, and to the top of my head. It’s a thought that should have arrived sooner, but I had been wasting my time taunting Asmus. The thought is this: An air-to-surface missile armed with a massive warhead is about to bring about yet another reversal. And evaporate us in the bargain. Is the American seizure of the winning arsenal to be unceremoniously terminated and replaced by a deep, smoldering crater? And it’ll be our doing. TMA’s doing. Are we turning the Revolutionary War into a tennis match, with an inevitability of outcome bouncing back and forth, one racket held by a lunatic, the other by hapless meddlers?

  Soldiers lead us up the grand staircase. We walk the hallway until one of the guards opens a door and beckons Asmus and Gallie to enter. It’s a bedroom.

  “No,” Gallie says in unison with me and Zhivov. “I’ll go with them.” She points at us. The two bluecoats seem bemused.

  “I was going to suggest the same thing myself,” Asmus says. “Last night was such a disappointment.”

  “Prick,” I whisper as the door is closed behind him. We walk on and a second door is opened. Before entering I turn to the guard. “There’s a barn out there. Are the people in it okay? Unharmed?” The guard looks nonplussed.

  “Don’t know about that.”

  “Tell the general we need to see the people in the barn. They’re innocent and have nothing to do with Asmus.” He seems to digest this and then nods impatiently for us to enter.

  FIFTY

  Zhivov makes for the window and draws back the heavy, velvet drapes. “That’s one hell of an army.” We join him. Camp fires cover the terrain, diminishing to points of light in the distance, and a bright, full moon gives an iridescent quality to the landscape of white tents.

  “We targeted our arrival at three days before the strike,” I say to Gallie.

  “You hit your mark,” she replies. “Assuming the missile accel hit its mark, which may be a big assumption given the last-minute screw up.” I sit on the corner of the bed and only then notice that it’s the only bed. Is this awkward? After all, I’ve had sex with Gallie more than once in the corner of a barn loft not ten feet from TMAers chewing on rancid apples. Okay, am I really thinking about this now? I can’t be. Maybe I can send Zhivov to check on Asmus. The guards seemed quite reasonable. Or–. “You look very pensive,” Gallie says.

  “Do I?” I ask. “Did Asmus–”

  “He was a charming host. Gave me full run of the house as long as I didn’t leave it. Then the Continental Army showed up.”

  “Do you hate when that happens? Fucking Continental Army.”

  Zhivov lets the drape fall and throws himself into a winged chair. “We should have beat the crap out of Asmus. Then if nothing else, we would have done that.”

  “You know, time vandalism is easy,” I say. “And then clowns like us think we can fix it and what we’re really doing is joining in.”

  “So just sit back?” Gallie says. “Give sick little creatures like Asmus free reign?”

  “But here’s the thing,” I say. “How do we ever know what’s supposed to be? What we think of as the right and good timeline is maybe just the result of a thousand random acts of vandalism. If there’s one Asmus, there are hundreds. So we randomly pick a timeline we think is the true one and try to get back to it. And even if we‘re right, whatever right is, we don’t know how to repair anything because the theories are half-assed, and we wind up making the temporal quagmire worse.”

  “You think it’s really that bad?” Zhivov asks.

  “It’s bad to the degree we can’t even fathom. And then Prasad and his ilk have the gall to tell me and Bess we need to go back to where we came from otherwise the timeline will be damaged. I mean, seriously? It’s like worrying about a mild earache when a nuclear blast is coming at you. There is no true timeline–no canonical history sanctioned by God and his hoards of seraphims and cherubims. It’s just a big, a big–”

  “Okay, Joad,” Gallie says. “I know.” But I don’t know what she knows: whether she’s agreeing with me or just saying there, there.

  “The more I think about it, the more I think you’re right, Toad” Zhivov says. Gallie and I look at him with surprise. This is a different Boris. It makes me wonder if this timeline, whichever one it is, still takes him to the directorship of TMA. His heresies of the past few days have astonished me. “Asmus, and us too, we’ve lived a timeline in which the colonists won the Revolutionary War. So Asmus’s version of vandalism is to change that. Yet, now it’s looking like he’s the reason they won. And now our smoldering crater may reverse all of that. Maybe.”

  “That’s all speculation,” Gallie says.

  “Sure it is,” I say. “But so is any other explanation of a timeline. At least it hangs together ... sort of.” I slide down the wall and sit up against it. “And what does it matter in the end?”

  “Why does what matter?” Gallie asks.

  “Whether there’s an American flag or British flag flying over us.”

  “But it’s not that simple, is it?” Gallie says. “Do you think we might accel home and the only thing that’s changed is that there’s a different flag flying over TMA? A change in the timeline that big is going to have an exponentially increasing domino effect on events over two centuries. It could create a history that doesn’t even produce us–you, me, anyone we know.”

  “Then wouldn’t that mean we’d already have seen the effect of ...” Pursuit of temporal logic is futile.

  “But there’s the theory that timelines like to heal themselves,” Zhivov says. This one has already been tried on me. “That they repair the temporal perturbations and reconverge–wind up in the same or a similar place when everything sorts itself out. It’s like biological evolution. You know, like placental mammals and marsupial mammals. They split apart a couple of hundred million years ago, yet when they evolved, they converged into modern animals that are pretty close to each other. Marsupial mice, moles, wolves, you know.”

  “You think timelines are like marsupials?” Gallie says with a faint smile.

  “It’s a theory.”

  “So if we get home alive and they ask why we fucked the timeline, let’s be sure to bring up kangaroos.”

  It’s a long night. The question of sleeping arrangements turns out to be moot as there’s no sleeping going on. Zhivov stands by the window, Gallie is sitting on the bed knees pulled up to her chin and I’m sitting up against the wall, legs splayed. I revolve through our worries and it’s the turn of the warhead that’s about to replace us with a crater.

  “The screw up on the aircraft tachyon beam. The miss. How do you feel about that?” I ask.

  “She got it second time,” Gallie says. “And she seemed pretty confident.”

  “Yeah, but she didn’t know that missing her target by just two days over a range of more than two centuries would mean the difference between–”

  “No, she didn’t,” Zhivov says. “There’s no argument for us not trying to get out of here as fast as we can.” Gallie and I agree.

  “And the barn-full of TMAers?” Gallie asks.

  “It was never our plan to rescue them on this little outing,” Zhivov says. “Prasad has that in hand. We stick to that part of his plan. For now, we just need to get ourselves out of here.”

  “I’m curious,” Gallie says. “What was the plan for your little outing?”

  “To bring you back,” I say.

  “Ah,” Gallie replies. “Good plan. Meticulously thought through.” Our conversation tapers off and I drift in and out of sleep. The only sounds are the heavy tick of a wall clock and the occasional call of a soldier from the camps.

  I’m startled awake by a thud followed by a clatter on the other side of the door. I stand and back away. The door opens and in steps the guard. “Good morning,” says Gerard Bruce. He steps out and reappears dr
agging the unconscious sentry by the feet.

  “We wondered where you got to,” I say.

  “Now you know.”

  “How did you find us?” Zhivov asks.

  “You’re the talk of the town,” Bruce says as he ties and gags the soldier. “The mystery men with the swift guns is all they’re talking about out there. And with just two rooms in this place guarded by sentries–doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes.”

  “The barn,” Gallie says. ”They put you in the barn?”

  “Yeah. Everyone’s the worse for wear, but surviving.” Bruce says, anticipating Gallie’s next question. “The army’s feeding us.”

  “Looks like you stepped out and borrowed some clothes,” I say. Bruce opens the door and scans the corridor before beckoning us to follow. He leads us into the room containing Asmus. We step over the body of a second sentry to be greeted by the wide, partially-toothed grin of Mack McEwan who’s in full bluecoat regalia. He’s holding Asmus by the scruff of the neck.

  “My deputy,” Bruce says.

  “What a splendid asshole you are, Mack,” I say.

  “Back at ya.”

  Asmus looks bemused. “This is very touching, but–” he says before Mack’s forehead crunches fast and hard into his nose. Asmus’s legs give way and he’s kept upright only by Mack’s grip. Gallie gives an unconvincing look of disapproval.

  “You captured the sentiment of the moment, Mack,” I say. That had been a glorious sound.

  “I’m guessing the house is littered with guards,” Zhivov says.

  “It is,” Bruce confirms. “I’m thinking we escort you out.”

  “Risky,” Gallie says. “Two guards no one recognizes escorting out their prize prisoners.”

  “Well, whatever we decide on, let’s decide soon,” Mack says. “Someone is going to show up here any second.”