by Neil Gaiman
“Send him in.” The Old Man didn’t take his eyes off me. I swallowed what I’d wanted to say, stepping out of his office. I passed Jayarre—who gave me a tip of his top hat on his way in—and Josetta, who was still listening to the Old Man through the com. “—Joryn, Jirathe, Jyelda, Jeric, and J’emi,” he was saying, while Josetta took notes. All officers. “And get me Jaroux,” I heard as I stepped into the hallway, which gave me pause. He was gathering up a bunch of officers—but why the librarian?
There was one whole sector of the ship devoted to nondigital information—books in all shapes and sizes, dictionaries, encyclopedias, magazines, newspapers, printed and bound pages from Wikipedia-esque websites on various worlds—the list went on. The library sector was where we got our study books for various classes, though Jaroux was the strictest librarian I’d ever met. He had a quirky sense of humor and would happily chat for hours on any subject, but no excuse on any ten worlds would help you if you returned a book late—or worse, damaged.
A plan was forming in my head. I had the next few hours off, and had been encouraged to take some leisure time. The library sector was a great place to do just that—and I was perfectly aware that in addition to an extensive cross-referencing system, the library had a full set of census reports from nearly every world we had access to for the past hundred years, some of them organized by person.
It was a start.
Soon after Jaroux had whistled his cheerful way down the hall toward the Old Man’s office, I slipped around and through the doors. I didn’t have to sneak, really; we had access to the library at all times, even if Jaroux was out. “Knowledge is free,” he’d said more than once, “and should always be available even if I’m not.” He was also quick to remind us that he knew every single item in there personally, and would know if something went missing. Most of us suspected it was just because each book had a tracer in it.
I didn’t plan on checking out a book, but I didn’t have to worry about explaining why I was suddenly interested in a century’s worth of census reports.
Truth to tell, I wasn’t all that sure why. I just knew I wasn’t being told the whole story, or anything close to it, about the mysterious Ms. Jones. After all, trying to get a straight answer from her was like pulling shark’s teeth. Which I didn’t mind, really; in fact, I kind of respected it. Despite her “grandma’s steamer trunk” fashion sense, it seemed obvious to me that she was in some form of military or paramilitary organization. The swift and smooth way that she’d extracted us from our initial fracas on FΔ986 would be proof enough of that; plus there was the grudging but unmistakable respect that the Old Man accorded her. Add to that the mysterious lack of concern he’d shown when I told him she’d vanished during the punch, and there was more than met the sensory organs here.
And even aside from all that, I’d seen her expression pretty clearly right before she’d vanished. She’d been more than disoriented, she’d been afraid.
“Search people, name: Acacia Jones,” I told the catalog, which immediately brightened and made a faint whirring noise.
“Search complete. Four trillion, seven billion, thirty-six million, nine thousand, seven hundred, and fifty-eight matches.”
I stared at it, dumbfounded. Was that normal? I’d never done a name search before.
“Search people, name: Joseph Harker,” I said, just to be sure.
“Search complete. Three thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-three matches.”
That was a slightly more manageable number, considering that “Joseph Harker” was a fairly common name, I knew there were several different versions of me with the same name spread throughout the Altiverse, and I was searching census records for the last hundred years.
I stared at the machine for a moment longer. “Search people, name: Acacia Jones. Parameters: age fourteen to sixteen, hair color black, eye color violet.”
The whirring noise again, then: “Search complete. Four trillion, seven billion, thirty-six million, six thousand, seven hundred, and three matches.”
It wasn’t possible. Narrowing the search had only eliminated three thousand, fifty-five people? Every single other mention of Acacia Jones in the Altiverse was between fourteen and sixteen with black hair and violet eyes? More than four trillion of them?
I didn’t even know what to do next. Finally, at a loss, I asked which section contained the first thousand records.
Not all of them were Acacia, as roughly half of the stat sheets contained both a DOB and DOD. I wasn’t sure if I was comforted by this or not, although it did make things go a little faster once I narrowed the search to include only living organisms. Finally, after almost two hours of numbly flipping pages, one of the sheets included something new: an affiliation category, which listed the letters TW.
All the other stats on the sheet seemed to match up. Just to be sure, I flipped through a few more. The ones that seemed likely to be the Acacia I knew all also had the TW affiliation.
“Search organizations, initials: TW,” I told the catalog, after putting the census files away.
“Search complete. Number incalculable.” I should have seen that coming.
I tried several different searches, most of them based on the specific worlds which had mentioned Acacia Jones. I tried searching brane by brane, world by world. Some yielded actual numbers but nothing helpful. Half an hour later, I’d gotten nowhere but frustrated.
Too many landscapes, by far…even weeding out only the relatively few parallel worlds that contained consciousness—the ones without tended to self-destruct in big rips or cosmological inversions or, worst of all, time loops that consisted of a few seconds to a few millennia after each big bang, only to reset and start all over again. Even, as I said, not counting all the other worlds, which was a number guaranteed to give me and my descendants unto the umpteenth generation myopia and migraines, I still couldn’t make a dent in the pile in my lifetime.
Resisting the urge to pound my forehead against the screen and apply several of the juicier phrases and words I’d picked up from Jai’s unabridged, I instead closed my eyes and counted to ten. I only got to four before I found myself infuriated by the numbers. I was tired of numbers. There were too many freaking numbers.
I took a deep breath. How did you search for one thing that existed everywhere?
“Search organizations, initials: IW.”
“Search complete. Number incalculable.”
Wait a minute. InterWorld existed everywhere, didn’t it?
“Search organizations, name: InterWorld.”
“Search complete. One match.” The information came up on the screen, listing Joseph Harker as captain and some of the higher-level officers.
I felt myself on the verge of some sort of breakthrough, but I wasn’t sure what. Maybe I was just grasping at straws, but this train of thought seemed to be going somewhere. If I was searching for something that might exist everywhere—
Bingo.
“Search organizations, initials: TW. Location: Altiverse.”
“Search complete. One match.”
The information sheet came up on the screen—and then, like one of those infuriating game demos that made you pay money before you saw the whole thing, the screen dimmed and a message popped up: OFFICER CLEARANCE REQUIRED.
I obviously didn’t have officer clearance, nor was it likely I could get it. I’d spent the last several hours going through records, and for all my searching, I’d gotten one word.
One word, barely visible, nearly hidden behind that smug OFFICER CLEARANCE notice.
TimeWatch.
It wasn’t that I was snooping, I told myself for the hundredth time, so much as pursuing knowledge. That was a worthy cause, right? The Old Man always said to learn everything you could, because you never knew when one little piece of information could be important.
I doubted he would take that as a valid excuse if he found me going through his desk like this, but I was driven by a deep, gut-wrenching sense that this w
as important. I had to know.
After standing there with my nose pressed to the monitor for a few minutes, trying in vain to glean any more information on TimeWatch through the dimmed screen and large letters demanding clearance, I’d made my way back to the Old Man’s office, intent on asking him about it. Or asking for clearance. Or asking for temporary clearance for something completely unrelated and then using it to get information about TimeWatch. The latter had seemed to be my best option, but all plans had been foiled when Josetta informed me that Captain Harker wasn’t in his office.
I’d agreed to wait, sinking into one of the surprisingly plush chairs opposite her desk, and had proceeded to work myself into a frenzy of speculation while she sat there calmly, filing papers.
Four trillion, seven billion, thirty-six million, nine thousand, seven hundred, and fifty-eight matches. The familiar voice of the computer kept running through my head: the same female voice that asked for identification in some doorways, informed us of routine schedule changes or to get ready for a warp, answered questions in the viewing room, and gave instructions in the port room. Being used to it didn’t make it any less maddening, especially when it was telling me I didn’t have clearance. This information could help me find out where Acacia had gone, if she was okay. I had to know.
After a while, Josetta had gotten up to use the lavatory. Before I even knew what I was doing I was in the Old Man’s office, opening one of his drawers. He had temporary clearance cards in there; I’d seen him give one to J/O before, which had rankled something awful at the time. They were one-shots, but it just might give me the boost I needed to find out what TimeWatch was.
Index cards, pens, staples, several pocket references on every subject imaginable, a calculator that looked like it could decipher string theory and give it to you in simple terms, two portable intercoms, a gun that probably shot something nastier than bullets—no clearance cards. I was already inventing all the different ways he could kill me if he found me in here. Maybe they were further in the back.
I pulled the drawer out more, finding a few more reference books, personal notebooks, and something that stopped me dead the moment I saw it.
It was a photo, old, scratched, and worn; it looked like it might have survived a fire at one point and possibly a flood. Despite the poor quality, the people were unmistakable. After all, you always recognize yourself in photos, even if that self is a few decades older.
The Old Man wasn’t so old in it, and he still had both eyes. He was wearing blue jeans and a loose white tank top that looked like it had seen better days, an army jacket of some kind tucked under his arm. Tucked under his other arm was a girl who was older than I was used to seeing, her wicked grin as unmistakable as the green circuitry nail that was visible as she gave the photographer a thumbs-up.
Acacia Jones, plus about ten years. With the Old Man.
CHAPTER NINE
I DON’T KNOW HOW long I would have stood there, dumbfounded, if the loudspeaker hadn’t pinged. I just about jumped out of my skin at the Old Man’s voice, but logic kicked in a second later to assure me that if he was over the loudspeaker, it meant he was stationary—not on his way back to the office, where he would catch and inevitably kill me.
“All junior Walkers, report to the assembly hall. As some of you know, classes are suspended today in lieu of a little exercise. Team assignments are already posted.” Since he was still on the loudspeaker, I had a few more precious seconds while he spoke.
Trying to calm my racing heart, I looked back down at the photograph. It was definitely the Old Man and definitely Acacia. I turned it over in my hand—and almost jumped out of my skin again, dropping it back into the drawer. The back of the photograph didn’t have a date, or any kind of label, just scrawled words: Put it back.
“Excuse me.” Josetta’s sharp, firm voice came right on the tail end of the Old Man’s announcement. I was profoundly grateful at my own jumpiness; I’d slammed the drawer shut the second I heard the door, so it’s not like I’d just been caught red-handed or anything. I wasn’t even standing behind the Old Man’s desk, I was standing next to it. I might be able to play this off.
“Sorry,” I apologized, trying to call up the same tone I’d mastered when Mom would catch me hovering near the cookie jar. “I figured if he was by a telecom, I could just ping him real fast and ask my question.”
Josetta looked at me calculatingly, but she could see my empty hands were nowhere near the desk and my clothing wasn’t baggy enough to conceal anything. She relaxed a hair as I adopted a chagrined expression, as though I’d only just realized how incriminating this looked. “Sorry,” I said again.
“You’d better get down there,” she said with a smile, and then, in the exact same tone, “and don’t take this personally.” She stepped forward and searched me. I was momentarily glad I hadn’t found the clearance cards.
“Nothing personal,” she repeated, after failing to find anything incriminating on me. I nodded, still adopting what I hoped was an embarrassed smile. “Go on, now.”
I left, my nerves rattling around in my stomach. That had been stupid; if she’d caught me stealing a clearance card, I would have been in serious trouble. I’d already been kicked out once; I was willing to bet that if I made trouble again, it would be bye-bye, Joey, no questions asked.
And it wasn’t like I’d come away empty-handed, figuratively speaking, at least. The Old Man knew Acacia. Or an older version of her. But with four trillion para-incarnations of her in the Altiverse, that likely didn’t mean much. So he knew an older version of her, or would, in the future. Was TimeWatch like InterWorld—an organization made up of Acacias instead of Joeys? That seemed the most likely explanation, but why were there so many more of her than there were of me? And why weren’t we already working with them?
Despite the fact that I now knew the Old Man had some kind of connection with Acacia, I wasn’t sure how much that would help me. Could I actually ask him about it? There was no way I could admit to snooping around in his desk. I could lie and say I’d found some relevant information in the census files, but he likely knew exactly what kind of clearance could get you what information.
I was still musing when I entered the assembly hall a few minutes later, and the sudden onslaught of noise disoriented me for a moment. I’d spent the last few hours sitting in the library wing with only the computer for company, and now I was abruptly in a room with a few hundred other Walkers, all still talking about the punch this morning and the mysterious new Walker Joeb’s team had brought back. I also heard the name “Joaquim” at least a dozen times as I went through the room. I was headed specifically for Jo’s white wings, which were easily visible among my mostly redheaded para-incarnations.
“Hey,” I said as I got closer, also discovering Jai and J/O. “You feeling better?”
“All systems operational,” said J/O.
“Well, that’s good. But how are you feeling?”
He just looked at me, for long enough that the silence got a little awkward. What was that all about? J/O wasn’t all computer—he’d answered questions like that before with no issue. “Fine,” he said, and then I was distracted by another voice to my side.
“J/O’s recovery was much swifter than initially anticipated,” Jai said, giving his signature peaceful smile. “And the doctors pronounced him fit enough to participate in our assignment.”
“Glad to see you awake,” I told him. Honestly, the sudden reunion with my team made me feel a little guilty. I’d been so caught up with Acacia and the archives and my attempted theft that I hadn’t really thought about the fact that I’d last seen two of them unconscious in the infirmary.
Jai smiled again, and looked like he was about to say something regarding our mutual idiocy in leaving the link open while expending a large amount of power (except he would have used more syllables), but a hush fell over the room just then, and we knew what that meant.
The Old Man walked out into the front of the roo
m, commanding silence just by his presence, as usual. The noise dulled to a low murmur before he’d even stopped walking, and by the time he’d turned to face us, you could have heard a pin drop on the next planet over.
“This evening’s mission is, much like the others you’ve experienced, a search-and-retrieve scenario.” I tried to quench the feeling of dread in my gut. Sure, I’d been on other missions since the disastrous HEX incident where my entire team had been captured and I’d been kicked out of InterWorld without so much as a memory, but I could never quite control the fear the words “search and retrieve” stirred in me.
“You’re not going far. This exercise will be taking place just beneath us, on our home planet. Your officers have all been equipped with what I like to call hot-cold devices; they will direct you to your goal.” That made me feel slightly better. “This mission is a capture-the-flag run, and you will be competing against other teams to retrieve your objective. You may attempt to sabotage one another, and friendly rivalry is encouraged—but do remember we are all ultimately on the same side and any actual injuries will be investigated thoroughly.” He paused a moment to let that sink in, his bionic eye roaming over each and every one of us. “The matchups will follow on the screen, in the order of departure; we’ll be sending you down to your designated areas one team at a time. Once you see your name, proceed to the port room. You have an hour from the time you land to return with your flag. Good luck.”
He turned to leave, and I realized I hadn’t really been listening. Running over the conversation in my mind, I found I’d retained the information—but I’d been trying to see through his stern demeanor to the expression he’d worn in the picture with Acacia. I’d been trying to find that man beneath the brusque, soldier-like attitude of Captain Harker. It hadn’t been easy, but I thought there’d been a hint of it when he’d said “good luck,” in the way his eyebrows had relaxed a moment and the corners of his mouth had almost turned up. It was something.