by John Kessel
“I have to ask this again,” Collins said. “My bosses insist.”
“As I told you, I can offer only guesses about what kind of equipment was included. My cell was small, and it was not responsible for any of it. I saw some anonymous packing crates. Nothing more.”
“A reasonable step,” Collins allowed.
Both men sat quietly.
“Again,” the interrogator said. “What can you tell me about Abraham?”
The biography was brief and chilling. Abraham was the only known name for a young gentleman who according to rumors was born into one of the world’s wealthiest families. He had invested ten years and his personal fortune preparing for an invasion of the past. What Ramiro knew was minimal, and he openly admitted that he might have been fed lies. But the heart of the plan was for the invaders to come with little but make friends with a useful government, and then they would fabricate the kinds of weapons that would bring this primitive world to their leader’s feet.
Ramiro patiently told the story again, and then his interrogator suddenly interrupted.
“Wait, I know,” Collins blurted. “It’s the future.”
“Pardon me?”
“That’s how they tested their time machine.” He shook the papers in the air. “If they threw a probe into the past, it would only create a new reality. A separate earth diverging from us. But if they had a marked, one-of-a-kind object . . . and then let’s say they sent it a minute or a day into the future . . . then according to this quantum craziness, that probe would appear in every reality leading out from this scruffy little moment of ours.”
“Exactly,” said Ramiro, smiling like a long-suffering but proud teacher.
“That’s how your physicists proved it?”
“Grains of marked sand were sent two moments into the future,” said Ramiro.
“Huh,” said Collins.
The prisoner sat back in his chair.
“Which makes me wonder,” Collins continued.
Silence.
Then Collins sat back.
“What are you wondering, my friend?”
“What would happen?” The interrogator lifted his hand, holding an imaginary ball before his gaze. “If you had a time machine, and you happened to throw, I don’t know, a couple hundred lumps of U-235 ahead in time? If you sent one of them every minute or so, but you aimed them to appear in exactly the same place, at the same exact moment . . . all of that nuclear material pumped into the same tiny volume . . . what kind of boom would that make . . . ?”
I watched those ripe moments at least half a dozen times before I was sure of what I had seen. For an instant, the prisoner flinched. His heart kicked slightly, and the sweat came a little faster than before. But what held my interest was Ramiro’s face, and in particular, how guarded he acted for the next little while.
“I will have to be careful,” he was thinking.
“This man is sharp,” I could imagine him warning himself. “Sharp and quick, and I need to watch my steps.”
6
“A good day’s work?”
“Reasonably exceptional.”
Jefferson nodded, and then he smiled. Then after careful consideration, he decided not to mention what was foremost on his mind. “How’s the lamb?” he asked instead.
“Delicious.”
“And the rest?”
“Everything’s wonderful,” I told him. “Thanks again for the invitation.”
Jefferson’s efficiency apartment was the same as everyone else’s, except for every flourish and individual oddity that he had impressed on its walls and floor and the serviceable, government-issue furnishings. Either his housekeeping was thorough, or he had changed his nature for me. He had a fondness for Impressionist painters and political thrillers. The worn carpet implied a man who liked to pace, possibly while talking on the phone. Only two people were allowed to communicate directly with the outside world, and even then, we had to accept some inflexible restrictions. Every image that entered or left the prison, and even the most ordinary sound, had to be examined by several layers of elaborate software. Hidden messages were the main justification. Ramiro might have secret talents; who knew what any of his microscopic implants really did? Those security measures gave voices a half-second delay, and the news broadcasts were delayed for nearly thirty minutes before they dripped their way down to us.
Jefferson’s small television was perched on the kitchen counter, muted and presently turned to CNN. Not sure what to say, he glanced at the images coming out of China. I preferred to invest my next few moments staring at his Monet—a good quality reproduction, matted and framed above the sofa bed. Then I set down my fork and knife, and after wiping the juice from the corner of my mouth, I quietly announced, “You know, I don’t like him.”
Jefferson turned back to me, trying to guess my intentions.
“Lemonade-7,” I said.
“I know who you mean.”
Picking up my fork again, I showed him a serious, sober expression. “There’s something about that man . . . I don’t exactly know what . . . but it’s just wrong . . . ”
Jefferson risked a neutral nod.
“Control,” I said.
“Pardon me?”
“He demands it,” I said.
“Of course he wants control.”
“And he does an amazing job holding on to it.”
Jefferson shrugged. “In small ways, he does.”
I said nothing.
“But he’s still our prisoner. That never changes. Beyond our assurances to keep him secret and safe from harm, what can he count on?”
“Not much,” I agreed. But then I asked, “But what has he given us in these last five or six years? What do we have that’s genuinely new?”
With the tips of two fingers, Jefferson scratched his short white beard.
“Does he offer any fresh insights now? Is he able to make any one of our wars a little less terrible?”
“You know how it is, Carmen.”
“Remind me.”
“The well always runs dry.”
“With our sources, you mean.”
“Of course.”
“So why did Collins remain here?”
A good poker face reveals nothing, except that it is a poker face. Which is a useful clue in itself.
“Collins was better than anybody,” I said. “Nobody else understood the minds and makeup of these time travelers. So why didn’t he step out into the world, take a new post, and use his hard-earned skills to interrogate fresh suspects?”
“Ramiro was his boy.”
“I understand that.”
“And honestly, I didn’t want to lose Collins,” he said.
“Thanks for being honest.”
Jefferson shifted in his chair. “Maybe you’re right,” he allowed. “Looking back, I suppose we might have gotten more good out of Collins.”
“I was scouring the world for Abraham,” I pointed out.
Hearing the name, Jefferson blinked.
“It’s just that nobody bothered to tell me who Abraham was or how many people he had with him, much less what these temporal jihadists were trying to do. There were so many layers of security that responsible, effective work was impossible.”
“Why should I defend policies I didn’t make?”
“I did piece a few things together for myself,” I mentioned. “At least to the point where I knew there was something deadlier than al-Qaeda, a powerful and hateful and almost invisible organization, and it could be anywhere in the world, and I shouldn’t trust anybody completely.”
The bureaucrat fell back on his instincts. “Knowing what you know now, Carmen . . . do you really believe that you should have been told?”
I didn’t react.
“And everybody else with high clearances too? Should hundreds and thousands have been brought into the club?”
I gave the Monet another glance.
Jefferson bristled. “This operation has had its share of
leaks over the years. Sure, most came from higher up. But I know of three incidents tied to this facility. And we could be on the far side of the moon, as isolated as we are. So what happens if we brief everybody who might like to know about Ramiro? In thirty seconds, nothing will be secret, and in ten minutes, we’ll have forfeited what might be our only advantage.”
The fork had grown warm in my hand. “If it’s an advantage,” I replied, “why aren’t we enjoying some real success?”
“You don’t think we are?”
I shook my head.
“We’ve done a marvelous job of undercutting Abraham,” he told me. “And since he’s our main enemy, I think I should feel proud of my work here.”
I stifled a bleak little laugh.
He noticed. Outrage blossomed, and a tight voice said, “I shouldn’t have to defend myself or my people.” Which was the kind of noise you make when defending everybody. “Before you take that tone with me, perhaps we should both remember what our prisoner—this man who you do not like—has given us.”
Then I smiled and nodded. “My parents live in Seattle,” I mentioned.
“Exactly. Yes!”
Two years ago, government geologists announced that low rumblings beneath the Pacific were precursors to a substantial earthquake. It was a bogus operation, but well staged. As a precaution, everyone in the Pacific Northwest was told to step outside before 10:30 in the morning, and the highways were closed down, and the airlines stopped landing and taking off. Sixteen minutes later, an 8.0 trembler hit western Washington, and it might have killed thousands. But instead of a mauling, only a few dozen perished and a few billion dollars in infrastructure fell down—almost a nonevent, considering these recent years.
“Seattle is the perfect example,” Jefferson said.
Ramiro had given us the dates and epicenters for dozens of future eruptions and earthquakes. But I wasn’t the first voice to ask, “What kind of person carries those kinds of tidbits inside his head?”
Jefferson gave his beard another good scratch.
“An amateur astronomer might remember exploding stars,” I agreed. “But tectonic events too?”
“The man is brilliant,” Jefferson declared. “You’ve seen his test scores. Those extra genes and his buried machinery give him nearly perfect recall—a skill, I’ll add, that he has kept secret from us.”
“Seattle didn’t hurt his reputation, either,” I pointed out.
Jefferson needed to look elsewhere. So he glanced at the television, but whatever he saw there didn’t seem to comfort him.
“I wish he’d given us more,” I mentioned.
“He can’t do the weather,” Jefferson replied. “Hurricanes are chaotic, and the Butterfly Effects—”
“I don’t mean weather.” Shaking my head, I asked, “What about the tsunami off Sumatra?”
“Which one?”
“The worst one,” I said. “The day after Christmas, in ’04.”
His shoulders squared. “That wasn’t my call.”
“But you recommended caution,” I pointed out. “I read Collins’ full report. He asked for some kind of warning to be released. But you didn’t want us to ‘give away the store.’ Did I get the cliché right?”
Beneath the white whiskers, sun-starved flesh grew red.
Again, Jefferson said, “It wasn’t my decision.”
“I realize that.”
“In those days, we couldn’t fake this kind of knowledge. Any intervention on our part could have exposed our source.”
“A quarter of a million dead,” I said. “And mostly Muslim, too.”
He wouldn’t let me drag him down this path. With a snort, he said, “You have no idea how difficult this has been.”
“Tell me.”
He wanted to do just that.
“Please,” I said.
But caution took hold, and Jefferson’s mouth disappeared inside the coarse whiskers.
“Is Ramiro real?”
Jefferson didn’t seem to hear me. He bent forward, staring at his own half-eaten dinner. Then quietly and fiercely, he said, “A lot of brilliant people have spent years wondering just that.”
“He’s a lowly soldier,” I mentioned. “The lowliest of all, he claims.”
Silence.
“So what was Ramiro doing in Montana? Is it the story that he tells? That he was a delivery boy bringing one little piece of an ultramodern bomb into our helpless nation?”
Jefferson gave the television another try.
“Maybe he is a genius, and maybe he came from the future. But the poor bastard didn’t know how to drive on ice, did he?”
“Few Brazilians do,” Jefferson snapped.
I showed him a narrow, might-mean-anything smile.
“Do you think that the crash was staged?” he finally asked me.
“It has to cross my mind,” I allowed.
“Which means Ramiro was sent here, and he’s supposed to feed us all the wrong information. Is that what you’re thinking?”
I sat back, and I sighed.
“Okay, I’ll tell you why Collins stayed right here.” Jefferson straightened his back, and he took a deep breath. “Out in the world, what are the odds of finding a second Ramiro? They’re minimal at best. Collins would have bounced from one hotspot to another, wasting his skills. But he remained here instead, playing the patience game, waiting for one of you to stumble across a genuine candidate. We had a good plan in place, Carmen. The new prisoner would be brought here and thoroughly interrogated by Collins, and when the time was right, Ramiro would be allowed to meet with him, or her.”
“I once found a suspect,” I mentioned.
Jefferson remained silent.
“A young woman in Baghdad.”
He allowed that statement to simmer. Then with keen pleasure, he said, “You know the old story about Stalin, don’t you? One evening, the dictator can’t find his favorite pipe, and his first assumption is that it has been stolen. So he demands a full investigation. But the next morning, Stalin realizes that he simply set the pipe in a different drawer, and he admits as much to the head of his secret police. To Beria. Which leads to a very uncomfortable silence. Then Beria clears his throat, admitting that three men have already confessed to stealing the missing item.”
I showed surprise. “What? Are you claiming that my girl wasn’t real?”
“I’ve seen all of the files on her. And everybody else who looked good, at one time or another.” Jefferson couldn’t help but lean across the tiny table, saying, “When your prisoner broke, she confessed to every suggestion that was thrown her way. Give her enough time, and I think we could have convicted her for a thousand crimes, including stealing Stalin’s pipe.”
I said nothing. Pretending that this was unwelcome news, I chewed on my bottom lip and refused to look him in the eyes.
“We’ve had dozens of candidates in the pipeline,” Jefferson claimed. “But none ever reached a point of real interest to us.”
“Too bad,” I whispered.
“Your girl was unique because she managed to kill herself. That’s what kept her apparent value high. At least back in Washington, it did.”
I was silent.
“By the way, did you ever see the autopsy results? They took her apart cell by cell, basically, and not one tiny, futuristic machine was found. Just some oddities in the blood and gut, that’s all.”
“I tortured an innocent woman? Is that that what you’re saying?”
Jefferson gave me a moment to dwell on that sorry prospect. I think that if I’d asked for a tissue, he would have leaped up to help this naïve and disappointing creature.
“We have hard jobs,” he finally said.
I got up from the dinner table.
“For what it’s worth,” he began. Then he hesitated before adding, “Carmen,” with a warm tone.
“What?” I asked.
“Collins had a lot of sleepless nights, dealing with all the possibilities.”
; I walked past him, standing close enough to the Monet that the water lilies turned into unrecognizable blobs of pink and white.
After a minute, I asked quietly, “How many times?”
Jefferson was chewing the lamb. He had to swallow before responding. “How many times what?”
“These unrecorded conversations,” I said, my eyes still focused on the gorgeous, senseless painting.
I heard him turn in his chair.
I asked, “When did the secret interrogations begin?”
He decided to stand. “What interrogations?”
“Sometimes Collins disabled the microphones and cameras before entering the prisoner’s quarters.” I turned, showing Jefferson my best stony face. “I know it because I’ve checked the logs and other forms. Nine times in the last six years, some odd software error has caused the complete dumping of everything that happened between Collins and Ramiro.”
Jefferson considered his options.
I said, “These are very convenient blunders, or they are intentional acts of treason.”
“No,” said Jefferson.
“No?”
“Those interviews were Collins’ idea. But I okayed them.”
“Why?”
Too late, the man began to wonder if I was playing a game. “I don’t think I need to remind you, miss. I have the authority.”
“You do,” I agreed.
“And I’ll tell you this: Despite what you might believe, Ramiro continued to offer us help. Valuable, even critical insights. And we were justifiably scared of using the normal pipeline for that kind of news.”
“Name one insight,” I said.
He refused to respond.
“I do have the authority to demand an answer, sir.”
“What if another nation has captured one of Abraham’s people?” Jefferson posed the question and then shuddered. “It’s sobering to consider. Another power, possibly one of our enemies, is keeping somebody like Ramiro in their own deep, secret hole—”
“What else?”
He winced.
“Give me your worst nightmare,” I demanded.
“I’m sure you can guess that.”
“All right,” I said. “After many years in prison, Ramiro happens to mention, ‘Oh, by the way, my basic assumptions might have been wrong from the beginning. Maybe Abraham isn’t looking for a cooperative Middle Eastern country. Maybe his sights are focused on a wealthier, much more advanced nation.’ ” I laughed sadly. “That isn’t the sort of news you’d cherish sending up the pipeline, is it?”