by Brandt Legg
It was snowing outside. We were in pre-revolutionary Moscow, January 1917. Yes. I realized there was full-forward-memory but not beyond memory. That is to say I could recall all my lifetimes up to and including Nate’s but not lifetimes beyond Nate’s.
I nodded. “You don’t belong here.”
He shrugged. Dunaway was a “walkin,” meaning this was not his incarnation; his soul had simply occupied another body. This was an impressive feat and something I was unable to do. I was not even sure if the soul that normally occupied the body I was staring at was aware of what Dunaway had done or needed to give permission, or was even still active in this life. I’d ask Yangchen when I got back, if I got back . . . there was always a doubt about where I would land next as the Outviews had become massive and complex compared to my earlier episodes.
“Are you going to kill me?” I asked calmly, while surveying the room. Dunaway had caused my death in at least five earlier lifetimes and I believed there was a strong possibility that he was either the person who ran Omnia or someone who worked for them.
“Perhaps.”
“Why?”
“You are a great problem,” he whined.
“Will ending my life in this incarnation make me less of a problem?”
“I do not know.”
“Then maybe I should kill you,” I said, glaring.
Dunaway smiled at my suggestion, his teeth stained from tobacco and tea. “I thought you had pledged to use only peace for your cause.”
“I won’t make that pledge for a hundred years.”
“Yes, but your forward-memory –”
“Shut up, tell me who you are!” Two old men looked up from their plates and stared.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, old friend.”
“You are no friend of mine.”
“Victor, or should I call you Nate? You must know by now that there is no difference between friends and enemies. They each teach different things but in the end you learn the same.”
The front door burst open, a bullet hit Dunaway, his face covered in blood as he collapsed onto the table, dead. The man who fired the shot grabbed me. “We must go, Victor, now!”
I recognized Dustin, his soul.
“He would have killed you.” Dustin had saved my life. His grim expression transformed into a smile. “It works both ways, brother.”
“What difference would it make if he’d succeeded? I’d still come back as Nate. Dunaway has done this before.”
“Yes, you’d come back as Nate but it would be an entirely different world you’d come back to, had you died here today.” His breath hung in the icy air.
This was my first physical encounter with Dustin since I found out he shared a soul with Luther Storch, the head of Lightyear. Of course the husky Russian who’d just saved me wasn’t really Dustin, but it was his soul. We darted down back alleys and narrow streets, fighting against the blowing snow. Dustin pointed to a door across the street. “That one. Four quick raps.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“I’m late for a meeting. You know the Bolshevik revolution comes soon?”
“Yes . . . always revolutions.”
“Omnia is involved in this one, too.” He embraced me quickly, firmly. “Hurry, go now.” He pushed me and jogged into the frigid wind.
“Which side is Omnia on?” I yelled.
He laughed. “What do you think? Both!”
The door opened. An old woman, her bright white hair pulled back severely, stared at me. I feared she might turn me back out into the storm.
“Come, Dosen, come,” she said in a voice stronger than her frail frame.
“I am not Dosen,” I said, as the warmth of the house made me shiver.
“Not yet.” She winked. “But you will be . . . many lifetimes from now.”
“Good. Then I can stay? I like your fireplace.”
“Oh, Dosen, I could not make you go. I’ve been waiting a very long time.” She stood on her toes and pulled off my hat while brushing the snow from my shoulders. “Do you have news of Clastier?”
“Yes.” The question should have surprised me but it didn’t. “I do. But who are you? What am I doing here?”
She smiled. “Come, sit. Nicholas will bring tea.” Her wrinkled hand absently traced my face. “You know me, but, of course, this is before all of that. I am Tesa.”
“It’s strange being in an Outview and not recognizing someone.”
“We have met many times but they are all in lives beyond your time as Nate.”
“Then the world survives my lifetime.” I exhaled. “Maybe I didn’t mess things up too badly.”
She laughed but quickly turned serious. “It depends, Dosen; that is why I am meeting you here this day. In your life as Nate there is the greatest crisis. You know this.” Nicholas, a man almost as old as Tesa, set down a tray of tea between us. “Dosen, a crisis brings danger but also opportunity. Yet opportunity can be quite treacherous.” Her thumbs were rubbing the inside of her fingers. “Now tell me of Clastier.”
“He is in my time.”
“Yes, I know this, but has he been freed.”
“From whom?” A wave of panic went through me.
“Dosen, would you be a gentleman and pour the tea?”
“Oh, yes, of course.” It wasn’t until much later that I realized she had changed the subject.
“There is much we can do. There is some we cannot.” She moved her hands in the air six inches from my face. “Do you see?” A scene opened, as if a frameless, twenty-inch television had been turned on.
“You’re a mystic.”
“Quite so,” she squinted. “ Now back to the view.”
“It’s Hibbs,” I said.
“It’s you.”
“I know, I mean me as Hibbs.”
“We’re looking at 1912. There were ten people alive who could stop Omnia. Hibbs was one of them.”
“With the roll of documents from his safe?”
She nodded.
“Who were the others?” I asked.
“I’ll give you a list. Hibbs knows them all. But Omnia will murder seven of them along with 1500 others.”
“The Titanic?” I asked, remembering my history. “You’re not saying Omnia sank the Titanic in order to silence its critics?”
“Yes. Nine of the ten were on board. Two narrowly escaped but were killed three years later.”
“But the Titanic hit an iceberg. So they . . .” I stuttered.
“Do you know how simple it is to move ice in water?”
I stared in disbelief.
“As with all things of this nature, when there is a need, a convenient event is found. There were reasons the Titanic needed to sink which had nothing to do with its passengers. But what a neat and tidy package for J.P. Morgan. He owned the ship, and was able to get nearly all of his opponents on board.”
“They were opposing the creation of the Federal Reserve?”
“Yes.” She smiled, impressed, as I put the pieces together. “Omnia’s most powerful tool. And the creation of the federal income tax, and the coming war in Europe. All these things made Morgan and the other members of Omnia astonishingly wealthy, and more than that, they insured Omnia’s absolute power for the next hundred years.”
“And we can stop it?”
“You can try, Dosen . . . but they will attempt to thwart you with their enormous resources. Like you, Omnia has people who understand the flexibility of time and they have learned to communicate across lifetimes.”
“Let me see the list of Omnia’s opponents.”
“Hibbs knows them all. Can you recall them?”
I thought hard, as if remembering playmates from kindergarten. Then, all at once, my lifetime as Hibbs came through. “William Thomas Stead, John Jacob Astor, Alfred Vanderbilt, Benjamin Guggenheim, Archibald Butt, Francis Millet, Oliver Smith, Harry Widener, and my/Hibbs’ business partner, Clarence Moore.”
“These were extremely prominent p
eople they needed out of the way. Only something catastrophic with many deaths would cover up their deed.” She picked up her cup of tea. “This is how they have always done things.”
“But how did they get everyone to sail on the ship?”
“Chance and a variety of methods were used to make certain all would be on board. It was the maiden voyage of the most magnificent ship ever built. You as Hibbs, with your knowledge of the scheme, could not be swayed, so they planned to deal with you later.”
“It’s unbelievable.”
“It shouldn’t be. Morgan’s associate, Henry Clay Frick, as well as dozens of other ‘connected parties’ cancelled their passages at the last moment.”
“They’d been warned?” My mouth went dry.
“Yes, Morgan himself failed to board even though he had reserved the finest stateroom and had assured many he’d be along. Are you all right, Dosen?”
“I’m just stunned that one of history’s great disasters was pre-planned.”
“Are you? Dear Dosen, you should have learned by now that things are seldom as they appear. History is always a fictionalized version of the truth. How can it be otherwise unless you are there?”
“But how many other world events were staged to manipulate people?”
“Whenever the result of a major incident is war, you can be sure it was manufactured. This is always the case. It’s the events like the Titanic that are more difficult to trace but it’s about the money. War is always about money . . . issues cited as the causes are only excuses used by the profiteers. This is why only peace can lead to the truth. It’s impossible for people to return to their souls through war.”
5
Tesa could not give me much instruction, only that I must make every effort to convince these men not to travel on the Titanic. Obviously, I couldn’t just telegraph these important people and tell them I had knowledge from the future that the ‘unsinkable’ ship was going to sink. The only one who was more than a business associate was Clarence and that was a complicated relationship. Clarence was going to England to purchase fifty pairs of foxhounds for the Loudon Hunt not far from my/Hibbs’ estate. I didn’t approve of fox hunting and we’d had several arguments over it. We were also in disagreement over the use of some property we owned together for the same reason. But the real difficulty between us came because his wife, who was a close confidant of my wife, had recently discovered I had a mistress. She had pressured him to persuade me to end the affair. I would not. Still, my plan was to be somewhat straight with him.
My power to enter a lifetime through Outviews didn’t always work but this time it was perfect. As Hibbs, I became aware of Nate and my forward-memory when waking from an Outview dream. The initial confusion Hibbs felt quickly turned to a satisfied smile. “I knew it,” Hibbs whispered.
His personality was fascinated with the experiences and knowledge of our soul and he cancelled his meetings for the day to think about them. Those hours were also used to devise a plan for stopping the Omnia opponents from sailing on the Titanic. There wasn’t much time; although I had arrived seven weeks before the Titanic would depart Southampton, all the opponents were readying to leave for Europe on the trips that would allow them to return on the ill-fated liner. Once they were abroad the opportunity for easy conversation would be gone. I started with my partner.
“Clarence, this may be difficult for you to believe but I have it on good authority that there’s a plot afoot to sink the Titanic. I beg you to return on another ship.”
“Good God, man, is this one of your jokes? I hardly -”
“No, Clarence, I am certain of this information and that the conspirators will succeed.”
“Where is your proof? You must take it to the authorities.”
“I have no concrete evidence to present. Only my word. You know me to be an honorable man.”
He raised his eyebrows and regarded me with fresh skepticism. “Billy, I’m sure I would have to ask your wife about that.”
“You’ll not survive the journey. You must listen to me.”
“I don’t know what this is about. How could such a thing be planned and undertaken in secret and to what end? Billy, who in the world would want to sink such a magnificent ship?”
“It’s Morgan and his cronies. Nine of the ten most influential opponents to the creation of the central bank and the federal income tax will be on board.”
“This is preposterous. Morgan is certainly an egomaniacal ass but a mass murderer? No one would kill so many people over profits.”
“Don’t be naïve, Clarence. Death for profits is a daily occurrence for companies. And this is not just about the central bank or taxes. They mean to entangle us in the coming war in Europe. Death for profits, that’s all war is.”
“There may never be a war in Europe and even if it comes, America wouldn’t join in. Damn it, Billy, your politics have clouded your good sense.”
“What harm would it be to take another ship?”
“The Titanic is the best.”
“You’re wrong.”
“It is you who are wrong. Excuse me, I’ll take my leave from you now.”
Clarence avoided me until the day he left for England, when he dropped by my office. “No hard feelings, Billy, we’ll have drinks when I return and talk more about stopping these disastrous fiscal policies. Oh, and by the way, J.P. Morgan, himself will be sailing on the Titanic.”
“He’ll never board that ship, it’ll never make it to New York, and Clarence, if you get on the Titanic, you’ll die in the icy waters of the North Atlantic.”
“Damn you, Billy, and your curses. That’s an awful way to send a friend off.” He slammed my door and I never saw him again.
I tried less direct approaches with the others, going so far as to invent business deals, land speculations and schemes that would have cost me substantial sums. Changing history is possible but very difficult and I was not experienced enough for the task. Vanderbilt and Milton Hershey, a personal friend, listened.
There was a chance a few others might not be on the Titanic but mostly my efforts were in vain.
On the evening after the last opponent left for Europe, I poured myself a drink and reflected upon what had been lost. My mistress joined me.
“Nate, you did all you could.”
“You have forward-memory?”
“Yes.” She was speaking to me as Spencer.
“Why would the Movement risk so much on my abilities?”
“We aren’t relying solely on your abilities. There have been hundreds of attempts to change 1912. We’ll continue to attack these events and maybe something you did will help. But you have to remember that Omnia has people in 1912 too.”
“It’s a damn complicated mess,” I said, setting my drink down hard causing an ice cube to escape my glass and slide across the table. “The horrendous death and terror that ice will soon inflict, and I have failed to stop it.”
Spencer/Hibbs’ mistress nodded.
6
I returned from the Outview into a far stranger world than I’d left. Linh was lying next to me trying to keep me warm as I shook uncontrollably.
“Where’s Amber?” I sensed something was wrong.
“She left . . . with Yangchen.”
“Why? Where?”
Spencer entered. “You’ve been busy.”
“Why would she leave while I was out?”
“She had an Outview at the same time but came through much sooner than you –”
Spencer interrupted Linh. “Yangchen and I were arguing. She is convinced I know who the members of IF are.”
“Do you?”
“Do you need to ask?”
I studied him for a moment. “No.”
“Amber wouldn’t say what she saw in the Outview but when Yangchen decided to leave, Amber went with her,” Linh said.
“Did she say anything?”
“She said to tell you she’d see you on the astral and . . . maybe around campus,” Li
nh said, “whatever that means.”
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know. Just like us, they aren’t traceable.”
“You were out for two days,” Linh said. “Where were you?”
“Trying to change history.” I looked at Spencer. He shook his head. “Did I do any good at all?”
“It was a long shot to begin with.”
“I’ll try again.”
“Maybe later. Right now we have to play the hand we’ve been dealt.”
“You went back into other incarnations, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Both sides have used every available method to work that period from 1912 to 1915. It was the turning point; it created the modern world. Yes, I’ve cycled through many incarnations of that time.”
“Nate, could you include me?” Linh asked.
“The Titanic sank.”
“I know.”
“I tried to stop people from getting on it. I did save Vanderbilt and Smith.”
“They got Vanderbilt a few years later. He died when Omnia had the Lusitania sunk.”
“That’s why the United States got into World War I, and you’re saying Omnia was responsible?” Linh asked.
“One way or another, Omnia has started every war for more than a hundred years.”
“What about Smith?”
“He was dead within weeks . . . killed at his home when he allegedly walked in on burglars. The assailants were never found.”
“Damn. So only Hibbs survived?”
Spencer nodded.
“How?” Linh asked.
“The documents,” I said. “The ones I found in his safe.”
Spencer nodded again.
“But why didn’t he go public with them?” Linh asked.
“Because his mistress stopped him,” I said, staring at Spencer who had been Hibbs’ mistress in that incarnation. “Why?”
“It would not have altered the overall history. Only yours.”
“Meaning?”
“You would not have been one of this generation’s seven. If Hibbs had died prior to 1937 your incarnation patterns would have shifted enough to eliminate Nate’s entire existence.”
Linh gasped.