Untimed: A Time Travel Adventure

by Andy Gavin

  “Not bad but tastes like rice.”

  “Three-flower liquor is very strong,” Master Li says.

  Yvaine takes a gulp. “So how do we fight the Tick-Tocks?”

  My father picks at a dish with his chopsticks. He’s actually more interested in her question than his food.

  “Temporal-metallics are virtually indestructible. I suspect the harbor water immobilized this Backstabber when he sank, but someday he’ll be hauled up, probably not much worse for wear. Rumor has one entombed beneath the sphinx.”

  He’s willing to face a Tock for a few metal pages but not to save Mom?

  He glances at Yvaine, who looks to be making good progress on her three-flower liquor, and continues.

  “The laws of nature, whether established by God or whatever, do not favor change. We’re out of phase with the normal flow of time, which creates resistance to our efforts, our very presence. Causal-dampening.”

  “Like the way people don’t notice our weird behavior,” I say, “or the way we can’t kill people?”

  “Indeed,” he says. “But time is not all-knowing — a strike against the God theory — and is unable to predict complex cascading consequences. It can be fooled by indirect manipulations.”

  “We can make a wee change,” Yvaine says, “if it not kill anyone.”

  She pushes herself back in her chair and draws her bare feet up to her lap.

  I roll my eyes. On our way to dinner, I tried to get her to wear the shoes the servants put out. Fail.

  Master Li looks away.

  “Yvaine, dear,” says my father, who apparently does know her name, “you’re embarrassing our host. Women’s feet are a culturally charged issue in China.”

  Yvaine drops hers back to the floor.

  Dad snorts. “The universe deals with minor time traveler alterations by allowing the change but reducing repercussions. Such causal-dampening prevents Master Li from understanding this conversation.”

  “There will be repercussions if we alter the seasoning in the shark-fin soup,” our host says.

  I get it. “No wonder it’s hard for normals to photograph us.”

  “Enough blarney,” Yvaine says. “The Tocks got Ben killt. Stands t’reason we can change it back.”

  “It never would have happened if you’d stayed out of the way.” Dad sighs. “Because the Tick-Tocks are further out of phase than we are, they’re able to affect time even less. But they’re more clever, more aware of history. They draw travelers to pivots, weak points where small changes beget big. Once we’re in position, they give us a shove and let the pins fall.”

  I think of how Rapier was waiting at the door to Independence Hall when I jogged past. How he dropped me on the same street as Yvaine. How she led me to Ben Franklin.

  “I get it,” I say, “but it’s not fair to blame us. It’s your fault or the Tocks’, take your pick.”

  He shrugs. “Tick-Tocks are not all-seeing, just patient and good at working with what they have. Yvaine, how did you first meet Ben Franklin?”

  Yvaine takes another swig of booze.

  “Donnie sended me to him to brace up some swag.”

  “Stolen property?” my dad says. “Why would Donnie return it?”

  “We was just the agent. Ben’s place was burgled, so he went to the Thief-taker General t’get it back.”

  “Jonathan Wild?” Dad asks.

  Yvaine takes another sip. “You know him?”

  “Hasn’t everyone read Fielding’s novel?”

  “Rapier goes by the name Mr. Fusée, Dad!” I don’t even try to keep my voice down this time. “And he worked for the Thief-taker General!”

  Yvaine’s mouth forms into a pretty little O.

  “Was him who brought Donnie the loot. I forgot on account o’never seein’ him, but Donnie sayed Fusée asked for me in particular.”

  “There you go — indirection,” Dad says. “The Tick-Tock lined up one of you, then the other, carefully orchestrating baby steps leading to Ben Franklin’s death.”

  “But why does the Tocks hate us?” Yvaine asks.

  Dad laughs. “I doubt emotion plays into it. We simply have to stay beneath their notice, or escape them if we can’t.”

  “We make of it what we will,” she says softly.

  Dad looks like he’s at the limits of his patience. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Sometimes it be best t’run, sometimes t’fight.”

  There’s an awkward pause. I grab Yvaine’s liquor bottle and take a sip. It’s better than gin, sweeter, and it does taste like rice. Dad gives us both his you’re-about-to-be-grounded look.

  “Yvaine,” he says. “Is it possible your father might have used the Bréguet pivot page to help the Tick-Tocks manipulate the timeline?”

  “Lobycock indorser!” Yvaine says. “Tocks killt him in front of me.”

  “Your family seems to make a habit out of changing history! If you’d stayed away from the fulcrum—”

  “Hey!” I say. “How would she even know who Ben Franklin was? She’s from the past!”

  “Ben still liked me for me,” Yvaine says. “Billy’s still me son. Mine.”

  “We can’t change things,” Dad says, “only observe. We have no right altering the lives of normals, for better or for worse!”

  “If you can’t mess with normals,” I say, “why’d you marry one?”

  I can’t believe my dad is speechless.

  Yvaine giggles. “Mayhap she was a good cook.”

  Dad points at the door. “Young lady, get yourself to bed. We’ll talk when you sober up.”

  Yvaine knocks her empty bottle over on the table. “I was learned that if you breaks somethin’, you makes it right.”

  She sets the bottle upright and struts out of the room.

  I want to go after her but I don’t — yet.

  “Dad,” I say, “we have to go back to save Ben Franklin. Think about it. Billy! Mom! Slaves in twenty-first-century Philadelphia—”

  “You’ve done enough damage. Playing with the timeline brought the Tick-Tocks in the first place. This is what you get when you take up with a girl who can’t control herself!”

  “With dirty feet.” Master Li shakes his head. “And no manners.”

  “Well, you didn’t have to be such a jerk!” I say. “Who cares about what happened in a history no one remembers? Yvaine’s right, we make of it what we will. And your precious Regulator can regulate my ass!”

  On that brilliant note, I turn and go after my girl.

  Chapter Thirty-One:

  Date

  Shanghai, Summer, 1955

  WHAT A COLD ASSHOLE MY DAD IS. Or can be, anyway. He’s always had that side to him, but the years alone haven’t done him any favors. As I make my way to Yvaine’s room, my neck and shoulders knot just thinking about it. Looking back, not only wasn’t Dad around much the year before this little adventure, but he’s never been one for social gatherings — or tact. And the food obsession is nothing new either, it’s just out of control now.

  I’m relieved to find my girl sitting on her bed with her knees drawn to her chest. She changed out of the robe-like dinner dress and is back in red silk pajamas.

  I sit on the edge of the mattress.

  “My dad doesn’t mean to be mean, you know.”

  Yvaine elbows me in the ribs.

  “Ouch! What did I do?”

  “The Fink meant it,” she says. “You was right t’call him hen-hearted. Look how Sophie fought for him, an’ he be too lily-livered t’fight for his own wife.”

  She folds her arms around her knees again. A full moon shines through the latticework and makes the tears on her face glitter. I brush her hair away from her eyes. It’s so weird how different she looks with a dark mop — not that I don’t like both versions.

  “I makes me own choices,” she whispers. “Good or bad, they be mine. And Da didna help no Tocks.”

  “I know,” I say. “I don’t care about that. I’ve m
ade more than my share of mistakes, but they’re still our choices. If that makes us manipulators, who the hell cares? If my dad wants to blame anyone, he should blame himself. He could’ve warned me.”

  She takes my hand and rubs her fingers against mine. Which, for such a simple thing, is pretty darn cool.

  “You’re not like him,” she says. “You never be mean to me. You and me da be the only men who weren’t — well, besides the terrier.”

  I smile at her. “I’m not your dad — or the dog.”

  “Good thing, too, or I couldna do this.” She kisses me. Thoroughly.

  I kiss her back, all the while squeezing her hand. I want to squeeze as hard as I can — it’s just this urge, this need. I’m pledging that I’d do anything, I mean anything for her, and hoping she would for me, too.

  “Rank cull,” she whispers. “Your da dinna deserve Sophie. Her I like.”

  “He’s just scared.” And stubborn.

  “I be too, but we needs fix things for your mum and Ben and Billy. Even if I never see him again…”

  She looks down and blinks. I stroke her arm.

  “We’ll make things right.” Or die trying. That’s part of anything.

  She pulls away and puts both hands to her head.

  “I thought the drink would help, but me head be packed with turds, an’ ants be crawlin’ all over me skin.”

  She lets her torso flop back onto the bed. I use my free hand to knead her calf where the silk has pulled up to the knee.

  “This help?”

  “Dinna stop,” she says, her voice soft and an octave lower.

  I work my way around her limbs, massaging. My own skin tightens, and my heart races, but I feel like the blood has been drawn away somewhere else. Ever since that night in France — hell, long before that — I’ve been dreaming about touching her. Really touching her.

  She pulls her sleeves and pant legs as high as they’ll go to give me more to work with.

  I lean over and kiss her again.

  “I be itching all over,” she whispers into my mouth.

  I go back to it, growing bolder, trailing my nails over her skin.

  “Anyway,” I say, “I’d make all the same choices again. Even knowing about the Tocks. You might think this is selfish, but the only part I’d change is Ben Franklin dying and that week and a half in Philly without you.”

  She puts her hand on the back of my neck and pulls me close.

  “Charlie, I be some mighty hypocrite if I calls you selfish.”

  “What about stealing Billy and your dad’s page?”

  She unbuttons her top, pulls it off, and rolls over so I can rub her back — which I assume means I’ve been forgiven.

  I lean down to kiss her neck. She tastes good, soft and a little like garlic lo mein.

  “If we stay together,” I say, “always stay together, always trust each other even if we argue, even if the other one does something stupid…”

  “We can always move on and start anew,” she says, “until one of us ends up dead.”

  She unbuttons my shirt. We go back to kissing. The rubbing becomes, well, a different kind of rubbing. It’s less hurried and way more indoors than the first time.

  Part of me knows I’ll have to be damn careful. But I don’t want to be. More clothes come off. I try to unbuckle Yvaine’s belt, the one with the daggers.

  “Not those,” she whispers.

  She pushes me down to the mattress and straddles my waist. The way she flips her hair back makes me think of the first time I touched her, grabbing her arm in Ben Franklin’s church courtyard.

  It’s a whole lot better the second time.

  Afterward we just lie there, all sticky and twisted together.

  “We should stay here until we’ve learned all we can,” I say, “and if Dad still won’t help, just go fix things ourselves.”

  I feel her nod. “We needs a plan. For Billy, I can choke on me pride.”

  “What if we go back to that night when we all got drunk,” I say. “Our time-ghosts and Donnie will be at The Rose. We can go to the hideout, take Billy, then force Ben to leave the city with us. If he isn’t there a week later, he can’t die.”

  “T’is not a bad idea. But we needs work out them details.”

  I hear yelling outside.

  “What be that?” she says.

  I wrap the sheet around myself, get up, and stumble over to the lattice window. I look back at my girl in the moonlight — stark naked on the bed except for those daggers — and take a mental photo I’ll never forget, then slide the window open.

  A man-sized blur tucked into a ball somersaults through and lands in the center of the room. No mistaking Backstabber’s tubby figure. He’s not wearing any clothes either, and his carapace is covered in barnacles. As soon as he sees Yvaine, he slaps his hands against the empty spots on his hips where his daggers used to rest.

  She screams.

  And I attack him with the only thing I’ve got.

  I whip the sheet off me and over his half-crouched form. He twists and turns underneath, but the falling sheet forces him all the way to the floor.

  “Turn-down service, sir,” I say as I grab Yvaine’s hand and we sprint from the pavilion.

  We burst buck-naked into Sophie’s bedroom. My aunt’s already awake and struggling to get her splinted leg out of the bed.

  “Tocks!” I’m so winded that’s all I can get out.

  She looks me up and down in my birthday suit.

  “Where’s your father?”

  “He can feast in hell!” Yvaine says.

  “We came here first,” I say, “but after the way Dad was at dinner, I’m not sure I care where he is.”

  The sinking feeling in my gut doesn’t agree.

  “He told me what happened,” Sophie says. “Fink can be an inflexible pig, but he means well.”

  “Sophie!” It’s my dad’s voice from the garden outside. Through the open sliding door, I see him lumbering our way.

  BANG! Fragments of wood dust fly as a hole explodes in the doorframe.

  Perched on a roof across the way, silhouetted by the moon, Longshot reloads his rifle.

  “Dad!” I scream. “Sniper on the roof!”

  Sophie grimaces as we help her up.

  “Bloated ass or no, I’d do anything for Fink. He gave up his whole life to partner with his dyke kid sister.”

  I crawl to the window and peer through the lattice. BANG! The frame above me shatters, sending me back to the floor.

  “I couldn’t leave the pages!” Dad calls out. “If the Tick-Tocks get hold of them—”

  “Fink, I’ll hop to you,” Sophie yells. “Be ready to grab me and head downtime.” She turns to me. “Meet at Rendezvous D—”

  I know, the sphinx. “We have a mess to clean up first,” I say.

  She nods. “Just be there.” Then she vanishes in a flash of in-between.

  BANG! Feathers kick up from the bed where she sat. I turn to see Longshot snaking across the roof for a better shot.

  Before he can reload, I dive into the corner and grab Yvaine. Given our state of undress, skin-to-skin isn’t a problem. Outside I hear the grunt and thump that signals Sophie joining my dad.

  The Tick-Tock levels his gun at us.

  I flip the switch inside myself and let us fall.

  Chapter Thirty-Two:

  Back Again

  London, downtime

  WE TUMBLE OUT OF CONTROL THROUGH THE IN-BETWEEN. The part of Yvaine I happened to grab was her ankle, and being joined hand-to-foot doesn’t make for a comfortable fall.

  I have to focus on where I’m going. I picture that night in The Rose, but not wanting to land in the back room, I think about the alley, imagining ourselves peering inside through the window.

  Which makes me angry. Even though I won, I can’t help but resent Donnie. Hell, there’d be something wrong with me if I didn’t. I keep seeing his long face gloating over me as Stump has me by the throat. The details stic
k out in my mind. The way his tongue juts out, just a bit, when he rammed his sword through that journeyman in the church.

  I don’t even keep count as the years spin round and round us—

  Until the cold night embraces us as we tumble into a hedge. Leaves and branches scrape my bare skin when we roll into the dirty space between some bushes and a ten-foot brick wall.

  “I don’t remember any bushes behind The Rose,” I whisper.

  But there’s something familiar about the place, even if I can’t see much through the shrubbery. I doubt we’re in the countryside, judging by the sounds and smells.

  If Yvaine is any indicator, we look quite the pair — hair every which way, dirty and scratched, not a scrap of clothing between us other than her knife-belt. The air is colder than a witch’s tit. My skin ripples with goosebumps.

  Yvaine presses herself against my naked back. “Smells like London,” she says.

  Part of me leaps to agree. “Do you think Sophie and my dad got away?”

  “That tub o’lard? He didna travel for years, so his cooldown be all sorts of ready.”

  “Stubborn or not, he’s family—”

  A creaking noise, metal on metal, sounds in front of us. I push aside some branches for a better look.

  It’s a girl, closing the gate in the wall behind her — the source of the creaking. She’s wearing the wide-hipped dress and bonnet of the eighteenth century. Alerted by our rustling, she turns to face us.

  It’s fake Yvaine! Her eyes betray no recognition.

  “You two catchin’ a tumble in the green?” she says.

  Real Yvaine, the in-focus and naked one, has squeezed herself under my arm.

  “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!” she whispers. “Charlie, you bringed us back to the bloody churchyard.”

  Now that I can see past the branches, I know she’s right.

  “Yvaine?” real Yvaine calls out.

  The fake version of my lover looks puzzled. “What d’you want?”

  “Dinna go inside,” real Yvaine says. “Run away from this accursed night. Find Billy. Ben dies in there!”

  Fake Yvaine makes the sign of the cross, then jogs to the door of the church and raps on it.