Adventures of Elegy Flynn

by Chambers, V. J.

  “How does she know my name?” asked Gabriel.

  “I don't know,” I said.

  “Different timelines,” said Elegy as if we were the most idiotic people in the universe. “How many times do I have to go over this, Cathy?”

  She didn't have to be a bitch about it. I turned to Lizzy. “So how long ago was it for you that we saw Shakespeare?”

  Lizzy shrugged. “I don't know. A while. Did you guys just do that?”

  “Well, recently,” I said. “So, you've worked with Gabriel as a volur before?”

  “Only once,” said Lizzy. “You just met him?”

  “This is his first job,” I said.

  “Oh,” said Lizzy. She offered him her hand. “I'm Lizzy.”

  Gabriel reached in front of me to shake her hand. “Hi. Different timelines?”

  “Don't worry about it,” said Lizzy. “It's confusing. When it happens to you, it'll make more sense.” She turned to Elegy. “So if you already have a volur, why am I here?”

  “He tried, but we have a particularly persistent time traveler,” said Elegy. “She has terrible hair too. Could really use some product.”

  “So I'm take two?” asked Lizzy.

  “Absolutely,” said Elegy. She began to explain to Lizzy what was going on.

  Gabriel touched my arm. “Are you positive I'm not going crazy?”

  I smiled. “Definitely. It'll be okay. You'll see. Eventually, it all stops seeming so weird.”

  “Elegy really doesn't care about this Tesla fellow, does she?” Gabriel asked.

  I considered. “Well... not really. I don't know. Elegy's strange. She claims she's only concerned with making time run smoothly, but she does things sometimes that don't seem to support that. Like once, she completely wiped Shakespeare out of the timeline because he slapped Lizzy.” I jerked my thumb at Lizzy. “She fixed it eventually, and it was kind of weird, but it was a gesture, you know? She cares about people more than she lets on, I think. The only reason she's imprisoned in this bar, traveling through time instead of weaving fate threads, is because she fell in love with a human, my brother.”

  Gabriel looked surprised. “Is that why you're here? You're not a volur, are you? And you aren't a goddess either.”

  It was that obvious, was it? I drank some more rum runner. “Elegy saved my life. My boyfriend was supposed to kill me, but she snapped me up into the bar.”

  Gabriel leaned forward onto the bar. “So, she's changed time before. Why can't she change time for this Tesla man? I have to admit I don't understand exactly who he was. Apparently, he died when I was only ten years old. But from the way Dr. Rogenze was talking about him, he seems like an important and deserving man. So, why can't she help him too?”

  I shrugged. “I guess she can't help everyone, right? I mean, some people have to die, or else the world would get overcrowded. I mean, I guess death is bad, but it's necessary. Isn't it?”

  “She saved you,” he pointed out.

  “Well, I can't leave the bar, because I'm supposed to be dead. It's not exactly the same thing.”

  Gabriel smiled at me, and the effect on his face was dazzling. “I'm glad you're not dead.”

  My breath caught in my throat. Now, I thought at myself. Flirt. Say something interesting or witty. “Um, me too.” I cringed. That had been neither interesting nor witty.

  But Gabriel was gazing into my eyes, still smiling. “If I haven't gone crazy, and I am meant to travel through time, I would think that I could right some wrongs, not simply avert disaster.”

  Wait. What did he mean by that?

  But Elegy was talking as she poured herself another shot. “So, we're back to the time period now when Dr. Rogenze is going to try to save Tesla. Grab her at the portal, Lizzy, and don't say a thing about Tesla, just tell her she's in violation of the time traveler's code of 7181 or something. That should scare her.”

  “Okay,” said Lizzy, standing up. “And when I get back, I want some wine.”

  “Of course,” said Elegy.

  The door the bar closed. I looked at the bar stool next to me. It was empty. “Where's Gabriel?” I said.

  All three of us looked at each other.

  “What was he saying to you?” Elegy demanded.

  “Uh... I don't know,” I said. “Something about wanting to do good for the world instead of just averting disasters?”

  “Dammit,” said Elegy. “He's crossed his own timeline.”

  Lizzy was already on her way to the door. “I'll get him. I'll get him back. Don't worry.” She hurled herself through the bar door.

  Elegy's face had gone white. She rubbed her forehead with one hand. “Why weren't you watching him?”

  “I didn't know I was supposed to be his babysitter,” I said. I looked down into my half-empty rum runner. “This is bad, isn't it?”

  Elegy didn't even bother to pour her whiskey into a glass. She pulled the nozzle off with her teeth and chugged directly from the bottle. When she was finished, she slammed the whiskey down in front of me. “Have a shot.”

  I eyed it. “Um, maybe someone should stay a little sober?”

  “Lizzy's sober,” said Elegy.

  Good point. I tipped the whiskey bottle into my mouth. Ugh. Gross. I set it back down. And whiskey reminded me of my ex-boyfriend Richard, who'd beaten the crap out of me. I gagged.

  Elegy swept the bottle off the bar and drank a little more. “I've never let a volur cross his own timeline before. Usually, I'm so careful about that. I can't believe I let this happen.” She shook her head. “He was really hot too.”

  “He liked me,” I said. “He said he was glad I wasn't dead.” And I realized I was talking about him in past tense, like I wasn't going to see him again.

  Elegy didn't even respond to that. Which meant she was pretty upset.

  We sat in silence for some time, Elegy occasionally taking nips from the whiskey bottle. My rum runner was nearly gone, but I knew better than to ask Elegy to make me another one.

  Eventually, the door the bar opened, and Lizzy came in, leading Gabriel behind her. His eyes darted back and forth, but he didn't seem to be seeing anything. He opened his mouth and let out several garbled noises—things that sounded almost like speech, but made no sense. When Lizzy let go of his hand, he promptly sat down on the floor and wrapped his arms around his knees. He rocked himself there, looking scared.

  “Well,” said Lizzy. “I did the impossible. I fixed the paradox and got him back here, all at the same time. Gabriel helped a bit, I suppose. Dr. Rogenze was so scared of seeing two of him that she ran back into the portal and disappeared.”

  Elegy came out from behind the bar and strode to Gabriel. “The paradox is the least of our problems.”

  I stood up, taking a few tentative steps toward Gabriel. “What happened to him?”

  Elegy knelt next to him. “The minute he walked outside of the bar, he was aware of his alternate self. It was like being in two places at once, seeing and hearing two separate things at once, and not being able to keep them straight. He was drawn to his other self like a magnet, and once they were close enough, they began to merge. His brain tried to reconcile the two conflicting selves, and it overloaded it. So now he's... like this.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand. “Will he... get better?”

  Elegy didn't say anything.

  Lizzy looked at the floor.

  Elegy put her hands on either side of Gabriel's face, trying to get him to look at her, but his eyes weren't focusing on anything. “Gabriel, can you hear me?”

  Gabriel made a strange sound like a string of consonants.

  Elegy stood back up. She shook her head, looking miserable. “We'll have to take him back to the mental institution.”

  “I'm sorry,” said Lizzy. “Maybe if I'd been quicker—”

  “It's not your fault,” said Elegy. “I guess I didn't make it clear to him how dangerous it was to cross his own timeline. He was new. He didn't know what he was doing. I should
have kept a better eye on him.”

  “You can't take him to the mental institution,” I said. I went to Gabriel. I touched his arm, but he didn't register the fact that I'd touched him. “You're a goddess of Fate, Elegy. You can do stuff. You scrambled Shakespeare's brains. Can't you unscramble Gabriel's?”

  “It's not the same thing, Cathy,” said Elegy. She sounded sad and apologetic.

  “But you have to be able to do something,” I said.

  “No,” said Elegy.

  “We're in a time machine,” I said. “Can't you go back to when we picked up Gabriel and do it all over again? Can't we fix it?”

  Elegy thought about it for a second. “No. If I messed with that, Fate Central would see it immediately. Doing things like that is completely against the rules.”

  I stood up. “You don't care about the rules. You fell in love with my brother against the rules.”

  “Oh,” said Lizzy, “so you know about that now, huh?”

  “We do not mention him,” Elegy said.

  “If you send him back to the mental institution, they'll probably do horrible things to him. They'll strap him down and give him shock therapy or something. Or they'll lobotomize him or drug him. This is the early 1900s we're talking about, Elegy. You can't do that.”

  “What did you say?” Elegy asked.

  “I said you can't talk him back to the mental institution.”

  “No after that.”

  “They'll do horrible things to him?”

  “After that.”

  “I said something about shock therapy, I think—”

  “Electric shocks!” Elegy said.

  I gave Lizzy a funny look. She shrugged.

  “Electric shocks cause memory loss,” said Elegy. “It's one of the reasons that they don't use it very often anymore. It can wipe out all kinds of memories in a person. Retrograde amnesia, they call it.”

  “So?” I said.

  “So,” said Elegy, “if Gabriel's memory of crossing his timeline was wiped out, maybe he'd be fine. I've got to move the bar.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Move the bar to where?” asked Lizzy.

  But Elegy was already walking across the room to open the door the bar. She threw it wide and yelled out something in a foreign language.

  Lizzy and I crept up behind her. Outside the bar, there was a tall man standing on a dark street. He was gazing at Elegy in interest.

  Elegy spoke again in this rapid strange language. It sounded almost Russian. Or maybe German. I couldn't really tell.

  The man replied. He spoke for a long time, making gestures with his hands high over his head.

  Elegy nodded. She pointed at him. “Okay, then, two seconds. I can deal with that.” She slammed the bar door.

  “Elegy,” said Lizzy. “What are you doing?”

  Elegy dragged her hands over her face and the appearance of the bar shifted. Suddenly, we were inside a vast warehouse with huge ceilings and not much else. It was entirely empty.

  “Elegy,” said Lizzy. “Was that Tesla?”

  “So what if it was?” said Elegy.

  “Why do I get the feeling you're going to do something that's going to completely screw up the timeline?” said Lizzy.

  Elegy ignored Lizzy. She shut her eyes again and two tall black cylinders appeared in the warehouse, both attached to tripods that they sat on. Also a strange shiny ball on top of a cylindrical cage appeared, set up on a tripod as well. Then she ran back over to the door of the bar and opened it again.

  The tall man walked inside. He was wearing a black suit. He walked with a very upright posture, very stiff. His face similarly composed—almost arrogant. He surveyed the warehouse and the cylinders.

  “Elegy, he's supposed to die,” said Lizzy.

  “He does speak English, Lizzy,” said Elegy. “Besides, we’re the bar, and it translates everything.”

  The man turned to Elegy. “I still do not quite understand what it is you want me to do or why I should do it.” He spoke English quite well, but with a thick accent. He looked down at the floor. “This place is filthy.”

  It looked clean to me.

  “Never mind that,” said Elegy.

  “Never mind that?” said Tesla. “It is unacceptable to perform demonstrations in a place that is unfit for them. I have my own laboratory, of which I told you, and I do not see why we cannot go there instead.”

  “Because it's going to burn down,” said Elegy.

  “And you're supposed to be in it,” said Lizzy, folding her arms over her chest.

  “Ignore her.” Elegy waved a dismissive hand at Lizzy. “These, um, coil things you have, they make it possible to transmit electricity for long distances, right?”

  “Oh yes,” said Tesla. “It's really quite interesting and magnificent. You see—”

  “I'm sure it is,” said Elegy. “But, the thing is, that's not really what I need right now. I need enough electricity to cause a seizure. In that guy.” She pointed at Gabriel, who was still sitting with his hands wrapped around his legs, rocking back and forth.

  “A seizure?” said Tesla. “That sounds highly dangerous.”

  “Only for like fifteen seconds,” said Elegy. “Just a brief sort of pulsing... charge. Can you do that?”

  “I...” Tesla looked around at all of us in the warehouse, at the cylinders which had appeared out of nowhere, and then back at Elegy. “How did you get these?”

  “If you can do what I asked for Gabriel here,” said Elegy, gesturing at him, “I'll save your life.”

  Tesla's brow knitted itself together. “You are a crazy woman.”

  “You think I'm crazy.” Elegy sighed. “Well, you've been called crazy before, haven't you? People have mocked you a lot, haven't they? Were you crazy?”

  Tesla sucked in a deep breath. He turned away, clasping his hands together. “What you ask me to do here is...” He looked up. “I can easily pass harmless watts of electricity through the body or through the earth or through the air. We are natural conductors. But you want me to damage this man.”

  “No,” said Elegy. “I want you to erase his memory so that he can be okay again. I could have just gone to mid twentieth century and popped him into a facility where that kind of thing was common, but I... I thought maybe you deserved a chance. So help me, and I'll help you.”

  “You are threatening my life?” He didn't seem exactly concerned about this. Very little seemed to surprise him.

  “Fate is threatening your life,” said Elegy. “And I'm giving you the chance to change your fate. Can you do what I ask?”

  “I don't understand why,” said Tesla.

  “Because it's important,” said Elegy. “Because Gabriel doesn't deserve this. Because you don't deserve this. Because...”

  “Bring him to the center,” Tesla said, pointing between the two cylinders.

  “Thank you,” said Elegy. She went over to Gabriel and helped him to his feet. Gabriel seemed disoriented, stumbling and unable to keep his balance. I went to him too, helping Elegy keep him upright. We walked him to the spot that Tesla had indicated and sat him down.

  Tesla wandered around the cylinders, humming to himself.

  Elegy and I backed away from Gabriel, who immediately curled up into a ball again. Lizzy came up behind us.

  “He's supposed to die,” whispered Lizzy. “You're messing with the fabric of time.”

  “If he's in the bar, there's no paradox,” Elegy hissed back. “No harm, no foul.”

  Lizzy just shook her head.

  Tesla turned to Elegy. “Can you put out the light in here?”

  “Uh, sure,” said Elegy, and we were plunged into darkness.

  The first thing we could see was an eruption of brilliant purple sparks emanating out of the odd ball-and-cage thing that had been set up. The sparks jumped to the black cylinders, and there was a triangle of brilliant light in front of us.

  In the scant light of the flying sparks, we could only see the outline of Gabriel, b
ut Tesla stepped out from behind one of the cylinders, and he was glowing from head to toe. Surrounded by a halo of blue-white light, he held his hands up to us and tiny sparks of electricity danced between his fingers. He looked like some kind of sparkling god, a moving, brilliant light in the darkness, life and light flowing from him.

  He smirked at us. “You see, this is what I can do. This is harmless. Beautiful. Useful. I could send this electricity through the ground. I could power all the houses in one city. Easy. Free. Magnificent.”

  Elegy's voice was barely audible. “This is the man you want to kill, Lizzy?”

  Tesla pointed at Elegy, and bright streaks of electricity trailed after his fingers. “But you want me to shock him, do you?”

  “Please?” said Elegy.

  Tesla walked to Gabriel. He put his hand on Gabriel's head. Gabriel lit up just like Tesla.

  Tesla walked away, leaving the triangle of electricity. Gabriel stayed illuminated. He shuddered and electricity sparked off of him.

  Suddenly, the sparks grew blindingly bright, hissing and crackling in the air.

  Gabriel cried out. His eyes opened wide. His body began to shake. His glowing eyeballs rolled back in his head.

  “What are you doing to him?” I shrieked.

  And everything went black again.

  There was no sound. I held my breath, unsure of what I'd just witnessed.

  Then the lights of the warehouse came back on.

  Gabriel was rubbing his fingers over his temple. “I feel like I was just struck by lightning.”

  “Pretty close,” said Elegy, running to him.

  I was right behind her. “You're okay, Gabriel?”

  He looked around. “Where am I? The last thing I remember, I was dragging that weird Rogenze woman into the bar. Did something happen?”

  Tesla strode over to us, his fingers a tent under his nose. “This did seem to help your friend.”

  “It did.” Elegy stood up and offered Tesla her hand. “Thank you so much, Mr. Tesla.”

  He took her hand and shook it. “Who are you?”

  “I'm a Fate,” said Elegy. “I set time right.”

  Tesla drew back. “Surely you don't think I would believe in time travel. The idea is ludicrous.”