Jump City: Apprentice

by MK Alexander

  “Yeah, Jamal, that’s his name. So, you do know him? You were there.”

  “As I’ve said, a competent fellow, but I do not recall going to Colorado recently.”

  “I’m sorry, it just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense to me,” Fynn replied. “What else can you bring to mind? All this seems important, relevant perhaps.”

  “Relevant to what?”

  “To all and everything.”

  “Some answer,” I said but kept my frustration in check. “The only other thing that stays with me is some guy named Drummond… I’m pretty sure he knew Mortimer.”

  “Indeed. That seems very significant.”

  “Wait, I do remember now, there was more than one Drummond. He had clones of himself, I think.”

  “Most bewildering.”

  “You seemed troubled by him,” I said.

  “Did I?”

  “Concerned, like he was setting up a dynasty.” I thought a bit harder. “And the twins, the Texas Twins.”

  “Is that a baseball team?”

  “No.”

  “What can you say about them?”

  “Not much, that’s the problem… I was asking the little kid about them, and they were following us in Athens.”

  “Now I’m rather confused,” Fynn said with a smile. “Who was following you?”

  “Um, the twins from Colorado. I traveled to Athens, Greece, the nineteen sixties… I was talking to a little kid who was a lot like me.”

  “You spoke to your doppelgänger?”

  “That’s exactly what you told me.”

  “Did I?” Fynn asked. “I must say, I’m somewhat baffled by all this, Patrick.”

  It was hardly the answer I expected.

  “Where else have you been?”

  I laughed at this question. “Wow, I have to think about it for a second.” I gave Fynn a tired smile. “A lot has happened since this morning.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’m not sure where to begin.”

  “Would you like another drink?”

  “No thanks.” I fell into silence. “I’ve been here before, that’s for sure.”

  “Of course you have.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. I keep returning here,” I said. “Or at least, I think it’s here. But there’s something wrong. It feels like some kind of limbo… Maybe a place we shouldn’t be in… both of us.”

  “Here?”

  “I thought it was your living room, but now I’m not positive.”

  “I assure you it is.”

  I looked around again just to confirm. Fynn was correct of course. “The last time I was here we were talking about the curious crime, murder by falling tree… Mr and Mrs Dumont…”

  Fynn glanced at me and looked a bit startled. “We only now had this conversation, a few minutes ago.”

  “What?” It was my turn to be surprised.

  “Yes… You’ve agreed to visit the crime scene with me.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “I did?”

  “If it’s convenient…”

  I couldn’t be more confused and sat in silence.

  Fynn brought me another cup of coffee. “Quite a storm this evening,” he said, looking out the open window. He walked over and closed the sliders. “I’m glad you decided not to play your game this evening.”

  “My game?”

  “With your friends… this frisbee golf you enjoy so much… or is it football?”

  I peeked out the window. The evening was certainly falling. A long line of clouds raced in from the Atlantic and I could see raindrops battering the huge windows. “No, I’m sure it will be called off…” As soon as I said this, a different memory flooded to mind. “I did go to the game,” I said slowly as the feeling of deja vu hit hard.

  “What?” Fynn asked.

  “I skipped this night and I went to the game… I think that’s how I got to Colorado.”

  “Where else have you been?”

  “I’m not sure. I slipped or jumped at the game and ended up someplace in the future.”

  “The future, you say?”

  “Yes, far in the future.”

  “Interesting.”

  “That’s all you can say?”

  “It’s not something I recall. Was I there with you?”

  “No, but you saved me… you left me provisions and books, and a special watch… you—” I stammered but Fynn cut me off:

  “Likely I will remember when it happens, but for me this has not occurred yet.”

  “Still, I feel like I should say thank you.”

  “Think nothing of it.”

  “It was an abandoned Sand City…. Flood City really. I met some guy, Murray.”

  “Murray?” Fynn asked. “Your musician friend?”

  “No, a different Murray.”

  “And from there, where did you go?”

  “A dark place, a terrible place with pools of mud and dead bodies… then a tundra, and an earthquake…”

  “You were alone all this time?”

  “Not exactly alone.” I paused uncomfortably. “We were together too… on the Hindenburg… and we met some Mongols…”

  “How very extraordinary.”

  “Don’t you remember any of this?”

  “Me?” Fynn shrugged. “No.”

  “How can you not?”

  “None of these places are familiar to me except the one.”

  “Which one?”

  “The dark one… it is very far from here. I hoped no one else would ever experience this.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I’d rather not speak of it. You are lucky to have returned.”

  I let off a deep sigh and sat quietly for a time… “I do sort of remember our conversation from before, at least bits of it…”

  “Well, it seems to me you’ve returned to this present, and the only difference is the weather.”

  “That’s the only difference?”

  “Such a minor difference, yet such a dramatic change, a pivotal event.”

  “What are you saying exactly?”

  “Once you were here, and once you were not… and yet you have returned.”

  “Returned? Right… You guided me back to the present once before… from Mongolia, but now I’m thinking a couple of days late.”

  “Late? Late for what?”

  “I had already moved to Colorado.”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, Patrick.”

  “What were we talking about before all this?”

  “Before you abruptly changed the subject, I was telling you about Mortimer’s cane. How it was stolen.”

  “I do remember that.”

  “Good…” Fynn smiled with some satisfaction. “And I dare say this is our most pressing concern, despite all that you’ve gone through.”

  “Why, what’s happened?”

  “I’m quite sure it was the milkman, just as you warned me.”

  “Warned you?”

  “You thought something was amiss and you were correct, I fear.”

  “Marvin the milkman?”

  “I’m not so sure that was his name… Mortimer the milkman is far more likely, and I only caught a glimpse of him. He was quite old though, even older than me.”

  “Are you sure it was Mortimer?”

  “Broken glass by the door, the alarm at the crack of dawn, and a white wagon still idling in my driveway.”

  “So, your plan failed.”

  “On the contrary, I’ve kept this dreadful cane safely out of Mortimer’s hands for fifty years.”

  “How can you say that? It just disappeared.”

  “I retrieved it in nineteen sixty-four, if you remember.”

  “Right, at a party in London…” I thought about this for a second. “Are you saying Mortimer has no memories of killing your wife Lorraine, Anika… and all those others?”

  “Such is a
possibility.”

  “Wow—” I started, but Fynn interrupted.

  “So... you might imagine how Mortimer views me at present.” He paused to chuckle. “To him, I appear out of nowhere, I steal his cane and keep it from him for fifty years, leaving him stranded. You begin to see why he considers me a sworn enemy.”

  “Wait, did you erase those memories? I’m not getting this.”

  “No, not erase. He never experienced them. It all changed in nineteen sixty-four. His future was different from that moment on.”

  “But— but… I remember, and you remember…”

  “As you say.”

  I thought about this for a long moment. “You’re telling me that from his perspective, Mortimer never did anything bad in his whole life?”

  “I cannot be sure of this. I cannot know exactly what he remembers and when. It all gets rather muddled sometimes.”

  “Why do you feel responsible for him?”

  “Such a question. I have no good answer for you.”

  “Well, I completely understand why he doesn’t like you very much.”

  Fynn laughed. “On the other side, if I had no awareness, I might see the situation from an entirely different perspective.”

  “How so?”

  “To me, a crazed milkman broke into my home and stole a valuable family heirloom.”

  “The cane, you mean?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why is it a family heirloom?”

  “I seem to remember having it since nineteen sixty-four…”

  “But you stole it from Mortimer.”

  “Did I?”

  I thought about this for a moment. “Oh, I get it… if you only had a limited awareness…”

  “You begin to understand,” Fynn said with a smile. “Some memories are quite fragile.”

  “So to Mortimer, the timeline may be completely different.”

  “There is only one timeline, the one you experience.”

  “That still doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “It will eventually.”

  “But Mortimer has his cane back.”

  “Assuredly.”

  “And nothing has happened?”

  “For now. Last we know, he was a very old man.”

  “Are you saying he died?”

  “Doubtful…” Fynn gave me a grim expression. “Nor do I believe his awareness is quite so limited.”

  “You think he’ll cause trouble?”

  “Undoubtedly. I fear it will all begin again…”

  “When?”

  “Impossible to say.”

  I thought for a while and finally concluded, “All this seems to fly in the face of cause and effect.”

  “Ah, but you are neglecting to consider that cause and effect are relative.”

  “Relative?”

  “Yes, relative to your exact present. Things can not unhappen, Patrick. Once an event has occurred, it can not un-occur, no matter your perspective. It can only be that you travel to a place where this event has not happened, or is yet to happen.”

  “That’s confusing to me,” I admitted.

  “It’s the order of things, as the Inquisitor might say.”

  “Who?”

  “A colleague of mine… though this is only one of his titles. He is sometimes called the Collector or the Quantifier.”

  “That’s pretty weird.”

  “I will not disagree.” Fynn chuckled. “But it is the sequence of things that come before and after. Cause and effect only have meaning in your particular present. As soon as you travel again, it all resets. And though probability will still hold sway, any future outcome cannot be assured.”

  “So when you said I have an extraordinary memory, you really meant I’m good at skipping between timelines and recalling the experience.”

  “Exactly this. It makes you rather unique, Patrick.”

  “So you’ve told me.”

  “You also seem to have the capability to travel forward and backwards, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say you have a knack for it. No, your true talent lies elsewhere. You have a gift for recalling the differences between timelines. It’s very rare. Most people move from here to there completely oblivious, and often with disastrous result.”

  “So… what? I should spend the rest of my life hopping from one alternate dimension to another?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it. You’d lose your mind very quickly.”

  “I’m so damn confused. You keep telling me there is only one timeline, yet you readily admit that there are hundreds or thousands.”

  “Infinite variations, I would say. And yet, there is only one timeline: the one you experience. This is the only thing that will keep you sane.”

  “So, everything boils down to my memory of the future.”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way exactly. It’s more, you have the ability to remember things that never happened. Memories of the future you are able to carry back to your present.” Fynn paused to drain his glass. “Before and after still hold great meaning, though not in the way you are used to thinking of them.”

  I considered this briefly and it made my head hurt.

  “Well, it’s late and you’ve drunk rather a lot. Are you sure you don’t want to spend the night here?”

  “No, thanks, I mean, I’m fine. I have a date with Suzy tonight.”

  “Suzy?” Fynn asked.

  “Suzy Chandler. You must remember her? A pretty blonde girl... she worked at Partners, the bartender there… and maybe she worked at the Chronicle, or at the Governor’s Inn.”

  “She sounds quite busy.”

  “Okay, I’ll admit to being a little hazy about that.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Well, she should be at home, I guess.”

  “I think Anika would be quite jealous of her.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “None of my business…” Fynn replied with some embarrassment. “I’m sorry to even mention it.”

  “Maybe you’re right, maybe I will crash here if it’s okay.”

  “Of course, the guest room is always available to you.”

  I said goodnight to Inspector Fynn and shuffled off to the cozy bedroom. I found it difficult to sleep though. Too many thoughts and notions swirled through my mind. Fynn’s law number four: There is only one timeline was actually starting to make sense… Mostly it’s about causality, just like in regular life; only, past, present, and future were largely irrelevant, or at least relative. What happened before and what happened afterwards was as crucial as always; it’s just that before didn’t necessarily happen in the past, and after did not always take place in the future.

  In time the house grew quiet except for the rain battering the windows. I glanced over at the clock on the bedside table; it was nearing two in the morning. Finally, I started drifting off to sleep. Then I heard the door open quietly. I looked over to see a beautiful figure backlit against the hall light. I heard her whisper my name: “Patrick…” It was Anika. I watched as she shed her clothes. She stood before me perfectly naked for a moment and then slipped into bed with a warm embrace.

  * * *

  chapter eighteen

  crime scene

  It was a late September morning with a slight chill in the air and an almost dark blue sky. Pleasant enough, but I had the nagging feeling that something was terribly wrong. The intensity of my deja vu was the first clue, so strong as to be like a headache. And the ghosts were back… flickering in the corner of my eye, dozens, I’d have to say, though I tried not to count them.

  Fynn and I had breakfast at the Depot Cafe, scrambled eggs and a double portion of Tom’s delicious home fries. After coffee, we took my Saab up to Cedar Bluffs; and on the drive over, a big sedan, probably a Crown Vic, veered onto Dune Road from out of nowhere and fishtailed up the tarmac with screeching tires. It was all I could do to jam on the breaks and swerve to a sandy shoulder. We avoided a terrible collision by just a few fe
et. Fynn glanced over with relief. I eased back onto the road but was pulled over by a local squad car just a few moments later with a flash of blue lights and the double chirp of siren.

  “Oh hey, it’s you, Jardel.” Officer Allens peered into the car. “And… Inspector Fynn, good morning to you both.”

  “Officer, good morning.” I was surprised to see it was Allens, having a vague recollection that he had won the lottery or something.

  “Do you know why I pulled you over?” he asked.

  “Actually, no… not a clue.”

  “Well, I just wanted to compliment you. Pretty sure you prevented a nasty accident thanks to that fancy bit of driving.”

  “Wait, you pulled me over to compliment my driving. That’s a first.”

  “That’s how we do things around here.” Allens smiled briefly, too briefly.

  “Really? And what about the other guy?”

  “Oh, that was Chief Arantez, or should I say, ex-Chief. Probably had a few too many. Think I’ll let him slide today.”

  “It’s like eight thirty in the morning.”

  “Maybe the Chief had a long night.” Allens smiled again and sent us on our way.

  I pulled out onto Dune Road cautiously and made for Cedar Bluffs. A few minutes later I turned left into the neighborhood. “Tell me about the Dumont family again,” I said as we wound through the suburban streets.

  “Suspects all, sadly,” Fynn replied.

  “You talked to them?”

  “Yes, I have spoken to the family at some length… Four brothers— leaving the wives aside for the moment. One, the eldest: a devoted, upstanding family man, affluent… near retirement. The second, in middle management, works far too many hours, though he seems financially comfortable. The third, while considered successful, he is in fact deeply in debt. The youngest is the black sheep: a ne’er-do-well, the artistic type, I am told.”

  “Wow… and the wives?”

  “I will save the wives for later…”

  “Grandkids?”

  “Seven in all… I doubt any of them are involved. Again, I am concentrating on the brothers to start with.”

  “Means and opportunity.”

  “Indeed, Patrick. As for means, we can take our pick… there have been several bizarre attempts on the lives of Mr and Mrs Dumont, if you remember.”

  “Opportunity?”

  “Clan gatherings are quite a common occurrence. Not to mention frequent visits from individual members of the family. All had ample opportunity.”