Prologue

by Greg Ahlgren

  “What do we do now?” Paul asked. He gestured to the ground. “With the body, I mean.”

  Ginter considered. “The quarry. It’s deep enough. Weigh the body down with rocks.”

  Amanda looked at her watch. “The wormhole, it’s opening now.”

  Ginter reached over and picked up Pamela’s shoulder bag. He pried it open, snickered, and reached in. He pulled out the loaded cartridge.

  “Why’d she keep it?” Amanda asked.

  “In case she needed a quick explosive,” Natasha answered.

  “The wormhole will be open for about two hours and thirteen minutes,” Paul said. “Anyone who passed through can pass back. Anyone who didn’t pass through won’t even notice any physical disturbance. Is everyone ready?”

  Ginter turned to Natasha. “The police who were here in the park when we arrived,” he asked simply. “You called them?”

  The Russian nodded.

  “The wormhole departure ratio was 55 to one,” Ginter continued. “If you jumped in even two minutes before we did you would have gotten here almost two hours before us. Plenty of time to find that store with the pay phone. But why?”

  “To make you think a neo-Soviet might be back here,” Natasha answered. “To get you thinking about your Ms. Rhodes, just in case.”

  “Why not just tell me?” Amanda asked. “I could have warned them.”

  “How?” Natasha demanded. “What could you have told them without letting the cat out of your pocketbook about you and me? No, I had to make them suspicious on their own.”

  “And at the hotel?” Ginter asked. “You sent them again?”

  Natasha laughed. “Dr. Hutch told me the story. No, I did not send them again. I do not know why the police were at your hotel but apparently you made a right turn on red, which is not legal in 1963. Like you said, Comrade,” she added with a smirk, “you were never in Intelligence.”

  “The wormhole’s open now, “ Paul said, rising to his feet.

  Ginter stepped back. “You three go. I’m staying.”

  Hutch physically reacted. “There’s plenty of time to, to, take care of this,” she said pointing at Pamela’s body. “We can all carry it to the quarry. We’ll have to dump in her body, weigh it down. The gun too,” she said pointing at Natasha’s red backpack with the hole in it. “And, and that bullet.”

  “No, I mean I’m staying here and not going,” Ginter said.

  “What? Lewis, you can’t,” Amanda said vigorously. “We’ve discussed all this. You know too much. It would be too dangerous for history.”

  Ginter tilted his head back and chuckled. “Know too much? Know what?” he demanded. “Everything is changed now.”

  He pointed to Natasha. “Thanks to our Russian friend here. Or, hopefully will be changed. There’s no history now except what we make and I want to be here to help make it. If she didn’t change it in Dallas, maybe I can still do something here.”

  DeVere and Hutch looked unconvinced.

  “Look,” Lewis Ginter said slowly. “There’s nothing back there for me. What use is a former Special Ops guy who was injured in a war that now might never get fought?”

  He looked at Hutch directly. “I’ve been here three months. I’ve seen prejudice. You think there is racism in 2026? Try segregation. America’s going to change. In eleven years Martin Luther King will give his ‘Freedom Reigns’ speech. Everything will be different now. I want to be here. This is my new battleground.”

  It was Natasha who broke the silence. “I’m staying too.”

  “There is no other wormhole for the two of you. And you’ll never build another Accelechron with the technology that exists today,” deVere said quietly.

  “I never got to know my parents,” Natasha said. “And I have no country. At least, I hope that I won’t have the Soviet one,” she added, smiling at Amanda.

  “Who knows,” she smirked at deVere. “Perhaps Lewis and I will revisit your Harrison Salisbury at the Times and tell him all about it. He may not have believed you two, but maybe, just maybe”-she looked at Ginter-“he will believe us and another tragedy can be averted.”

  Ginter shrugged. “I can always use another sniper.”

  “Not with this rifle, though,” Natasha said. “Dr. Hutch is right. It’s going in the quarry with that,” she said, pointing at Pamela’s body.

  “It’s safe to go back,” Ginter said. “Assuming that our Russian friend here is right and Igor will be out cold for over an hour you should have plenty of time to revive and get rid of his body. That’s if he is even there, in your new future.”

  “And,” Natasha added with a smile, “the bullets in his gun are all blanks anyhow. I made sure of that.”

  “It’s time,” Hutch said, glancing up from her watch and standing up.

  Amanda and Paul stared at the innocuous pile of leaves in the middle of the clearing that now stood within the open circle of time.

  “Heck, it worked one way,” deVere said. He forced a smile. “Don’t bet too much on those ‘69 Mets of yours. People will get suspicious.”

  “I just want tickets to Super Bowl III.”

  Natasha moved to Dr. Hutch and the two women embraced tightly. Paul deVere shifted uncomfortably.

  “I hope things work out back there,” Natasha said when they separated. “For all of us.”

  Amanda nodded wordlessly.

  Natasha moved over to Paul. “I always tried to get you to call me Natasha.”

  Paul smiled. “Of course, Miss Nikitin. Perhaps I should have.”

  She laughed and stood back from him, but held his eyes. “Godspeed,” she said softly.

  Paul swallowed and nodded awkwardly. “My grandfather knew there was a God,” he said.

  DeVere broke his gaze away from his intern’s and turned to Lewis. He considered extending his hand to his friend but decided that doing so would be maudlin. Instead, he extended his hand to the side and without a word Amanda took it. They looked at each other and together walked across the clearing and out onto the pile of soggy leaves.

  Chapter 30

  Amanda Hutch sat up first. As the cobwebs began to clear from her brain she raised her head off the floor and looked around. Paul deVere lay next to her. She thought she hadn’t lost consciousness. But as with their departure three months earlier, travel through the onrushing wormhole had left her exhausted and weak and she found herself unable to move.

  DeVere opened his eyes and rolled onto his side before sitting up. He rubbed his temples and pulled at his shirt.

  “We have to deal with Igor,” he said groggily.

  “What?” Amanda was still foggy.

  “Igor should still be lying where Pamela dropped him. If we’ve done it right it should be August 8, 2026, just a few minutes after we left. We didn’t have time to tie him up, remember?”

  Amanda stood and stumbled around the counter to where they had left a bloodied Igor. The tile floor gleamed in all directions. It was, in fact, shinier and cleaner than she remembered it.

  “Where is he?” deVere asked, standing behind her now. “Don’t tell me we screwed up and came back on another day.”

  Amanda turned toward the back of the lab.

  “Ah shit,” she said.

  “You find him?” deVere asked from the sink area.

  “Where the hell is the Accelechron?” Amanda asked.

  DeVere spun around. Together they stared at the back of the lab. The far wall was bare except for a poster commemorating the tall ships visit in the summer of ‘25. Filing cabinets stood against the walls. The back wall was intact, and the room was deeper than when they had left. There was no walled off area.

  “Where the hell is the Accelechron?” deVere demanded.

  “This is different,” Hutch stammered. “I’ve got to . . . got to go to my office. Get on the computer. Maybe get a newspaper.”

  Hutch took a step toward the door but reached out with her hand and grabbed the counter.

  “Easy does it,” deVere
said. “Remember how we were in the park. It will take time.”

  “The fire alarm,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “It’s not ringing.”

  Paul hesitated. She was right, the building was silent.

  “Someone must have turned it off,” he said.

  Amanda stumbled back to the counter and slumped on a stool opposite Paul. She reached for the computer mouse in front of her and started when she touched it.

  “It’s already on,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “The computer,” she answered. “I have to get on the Gor....whoops! Here it is.” She squinted at the screen that faced away from Paul and moved her right hand quickly back and forth.

  “According to the Icon it’s called the...the Internet.”

  Paul turned back to the front of the lab and studied the walls. They were painted white as before but to him the tint seemed brighter and, as with the floor, shinier.

  “I wonder what else is different,” he mused.

  “Paul, there’s something I have to tell you,” she said from behind him. “Something I couldn’t tell you before.”

  He turned back to her. In doing so he momentarily became dizzy and reached out with his hand to steady himself on the counter.

  “I know,” he said. “It’s about your child.”

  “What?” she exclaimed.

  “I know all about it,” he said. “You weren’t honest with me. Lewis told me. He didn’t trust you so he looked into it.”

  “Lewis?” she asked. She glanced back at the screen and manipulated the mouse some more.

  “Lewis knew?” she asked incredulously. “And Lewis told you?”

  “He had someone check your divorce decree from North Carolina. The court papers said you two had no children. There was no Jeffrey in Braintree. That whole story was bullshit.”

  He waved his hand. “It’s O.K. It doesn’t matter now. You told us why you really came to Cambridge.”

  She looked back at the screen and kept searching. “There’s something else,” she said, and began typing on the keyboard.

  “Here I am,” she announced simply. She leaned forward and studied the screen. After a few moments she turned to where Paul stood, still gripping the counter.

  “Amanda Hutch,” she said softly. “Full professor, MIT, History, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Personal: Married to Dr. Paul deVere, full professor, MIT, Astrophysics.”

  Paul stared at her, not comprehending. His cobwebs still hadn’t fully cleared.

  “Paul,” she said. “We have to talk. There’s something I need to tell you.”

  To deVere’s left a telephone jangled. He stared at it.

  “Go ahead, answer it,” she urged.

  To deVere the ring sounded slightly different. He stuck his finger in his right ear to clear it. He picked up the receiver and punched the lit button.

  “Hello?”

  “Daddy!” the voice implored. “Tell me you’re not going to be late are you?”

  “Late? For what?”

  “Aw, c’mon, Dad. Don’t give me a hard time. The game starts at seven.”

  “Game?” Even through his haze his heart leapt at the voice.

  “We finished at the mall and Nance wanted to know if I could show her your lab before we go over to Fenway so I figured we’d come up before you and Mom left. I knew you’d be late. I’ve been calling your cell all the way across town but you’ve got it turned off again. You’ve got to learn to just keep it on. And don’t give me that generation crap. Even Uncle Pete and Elaine say it bugs them too. You gotta’ get with it, Dad.”

  DeVere paused. “Fenway? The game is at Fenway?” His mind began to clear. “Uncle Pete and Elaine?”

  Grace clucked sarcastically. “Duh. No, it’s in the middle of the bay. Hey, we’re in the lobby now. We’ll be right up. Love ya.’ Bye.”

  Grace hung up. DeVere stood holding the receiver.

  “Who was that?” Amanda asked, clutching at her forehead.

  He replaced the receiver and turned to face Amanda, a huge smile across his face.

  “It was Grace.”

  “Grace?”

  “My daughter, Grace. We have tickets for the Sox tonight. Against the Mets.”

  “Tonight? That’s impossible,” Amanda scolded. “We’ve got far too much to do.”

  DeVere began to laugh. It started with a chuckle and then erupted into a full-blown roar. He moved to the counter and slumped on the stool opposite Amanda.

  “Are you okay?” she asked with concern.

  “Don’t you get it?” he asked. “We’ve got tickets to see the Sox. Grace is on the way up here with a friend of hers and we’re going to the game.” DeVere continued to roar. Seeing Hutch’s blank look only made him laugh harder.

  “At 7:00. At Fenway Park, where the Sox are playing.”

  “What do I care whether the Red Sox are playing a baseball game? Are you mad?” Hutch asked incredulously.

  “You really don’t get it,” he said, and then laughed even louder. “The Sox are playing at Fenway Park. Not at Petrovyards. Fenway was torn down in 1996 to make way for a more proletariat friendly Petrovyards where all sports were welcome. But now this is Fenway Park. It never got torn down. Petrovyards was never built!”

  DeVere gestured around the lab. “The Russian is not lying here in a bloody mess with a broken nose because he was never here!” He pointed at the back wall. “The Accelechron is not here because it was never built. It was never built because there was no need for it!”

  DeVere paused and watched Hutch’s face slowly transform as the significance of what he was saying registered. He could tell that her brain was also clearing. She remained inert on her stool, a stunned expression across her features.

  “My God,” she said slowly when she finally spoke. “We did it. We didn’t just change us, we changed history.”

  “We did do it.” DeVere continued to chuckle. “I don’t know what to do. I am as light as a feather. I am as happy as an angel. I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man! We did it, Amanda. We changed history. The spirits have done it all in one night. Past, present and future!”

  “Not the spirits,” Hutch corrected, becoming more professorial. “Us. You, me, and Lewis. And Natasha,” she added with a look of sadness. “We all did it. So don’t give me the dickens on this one.”

  DeVere nodded. He brushed off his clothes with his hands.

  “That’s why Lewis didn’t come back with us,” Hutch said in a monotone. “He couldn’t come back and he knew it. Because he was never here. Without the Soviet victory everything is different with him. If he had come back through the wormhole he would have been a non-person. No personal history, no nothing. He would have been here physically alright, but out of place. And he knew it. God, we were so dumb.”

  DeVere shrugged. “What did you mean we were married?” he asked softly. “Were you joking?”

  “Paul, there’s something else I have to tell you. The staff bios are here on line at the MIT website. You and Lewis were right; I wasn’t totally honest with you. This whole thing was personal for me too. Very personal.

  “Paul, you had a great career ahead of you. Being married to me, some two bit radical, wasn’t going to help you. You never would have gotten where you did. And God knows you never would have invented the Accelechron and set everything right. I just didn’t know what else to do. I loved you so much. I was scared, so scared. I didn’t want to make trouble for you. And I knew I couldn’t do it by myself, I knew that.”

  “What are you talking about?” Paul asked.

  Amanda reached across the counter and took his hand. “You have to understand. Vlad was a wonderful man. He was a good friend when I needed a good friend. It was his idea and he was right.”

  “I know that, you explained all this in the park,” Paul protested impatiently. “You don’t have to tell me about Vlad. Whatever you did with him is your business. You don’t have to explain anything to
me. But what’s this about being married?”