The Curious Case of the Cursed Spectacles

by Constance Barker

  He looked puzzled. "If a woman had it, yes, but I have it, not you."

  "Still, you stated a general proposition. That means it needs to be grammatically correct even if and when current circumstances change."

  Walter scowled. "I'm starting to think when you jilted me the way you did you were doing me a big favor."

  "In retrospect, I think it was a smart move on my part."

  "Perhaps, under the current circumstances, with me having possession of the device and not you, I should correct your existence completely out of the future."

  "Using that might not be the best idea you've had lately," Clarence said.

  Walter scowled. "How's that?"

  "Okay, see if you can stay with me on this, Walt... We all know that all of the cursed objects are... well, cursed. And, the way it was explained to us, the objects stored here, such as your fancy new ancient clock, are the most dangerous of the lot. Mason needed them really hidden. So let's call them seriously cursed. And, to be clear, when we say they are dangerous, that means they have big deal powers, but it also means that they can be difficult to control as well."

  "I'm getting a little bored with the big windup," Walter said. "Is this going somewhere or are you stalling for time? If you are stalling, you might want to keep in mind that I own the future now."

  "There is a point. I'm suggesting that, while if you have your facts right concerning the machine, something you might not want to take for granted, then you probably can change the future with it. But if you've been paying attention to some of the other stuff that's happened recently, you'd have to admit that you might pay a price too. Probably a pretty big one, given what you are trying to do. You have to know that. You saw what happened to the guy who put on the glasses and that was peanuts in the relative wow factor of your anti-whatever clock. I mean, assuming the changing the future thing isn't just a load of manure."

  "It isn't."

  "Then, you could do more than pop your cork if you use it. You might not even have a chance to calibrate it before you are toast."

  "Nice try," Walter said.

  I thought Clarence had made a good case. "Did it work? Will you reconsider?"

  "No. The fact is that I did actually figure out that bit all by myself. I worked through all of those thoughts long ago, as a matter of a fact. I made my choice before you even knew there was an Antithykeran mechanism."

  "And with all that time to think. Boy, are you being totally stupid," I said.

  "Stupid?"

  "If you don't know what the cost is... I mean, would you go into a store and see something and say I'll take that, without knowing the price? Of course not. It's all about tradeoffs... the price versus the benefits. And you have no idea what benefits are going to look like. You can't because we are talking about the future, which is potentials, maybes. I'm thinking that the point of say, obtaining world domination would be reduced a whole bunch if the price was that you only got to live for another thirty seconds. What fun would that be? You wouldn't even have enough time to chuckle with evil glee, much less relish the prize. No, Clarence is right. You should take the time to find out what you stand to lose."

  "If I could lose this nagging from you two, that would be good. And I can do that with the gun, without changing the future."

  "Killing us would change the future too, Walt," Clarence said. "And that could screw up whatever you are going to use your anti-thingie to do. You might not survive using it."

  "That doesn't matter." Walter shook his head. "You don't understand anything, do you? None of you do. Survival isn't the goal."

  "Well, since you are going to change the future for all of us, how about a quick summary of the present—what's in it for you if you don't survive?"

  "There's a good question," Clarence agreed.

  Walter stared at me. "I'm working for the greater good."

  "Greater than what? Whose good?"

  That set him back a bit. "Why, the good of the Cabal. As long as they take the reins of this doomed world, whatever price I pay will be worth it."

  "I think I saw this movie," Clarence said.

  I felt a shudder. "The one with the mad minion of the crazed Lord? As I recall it didn't end well."

  The clock mechanism began making a loud, steady clicking, actually starting to sound like the giant clock it appeared to be. The sound excited Walter. He grinned and turned to face it. "It's working!"

  I wasn't sure what 'working' meant, but I was certain that wasn't good news. As we watched Walter reached out for a set of arcane-looking controls.

  "We need to stop him," Clarence said.

  "How?" I asked. "I'm open to suggestions."

  "I can hit him from behind."

  "And maybe get shot again?"

  "Do you have a better idea?"

  "I have a different idea." I slipped the spectacles out of my pocket and Clarence saw them. "If I can preview what happens we might have a shot," I said.

  "No!" Clarence shouted. "Don't...."

  But I'd already put them on. I marveled that it was just like Timothy said—I'd never seen the world more clearly as I could right then.

  "Damn," Clarence said. "You put them on."

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Putting on the glasses was an impulse. Even bringing them had been an impulse. My record with doing that is spotty. Some of my impulsive actions have turned out well, and others not so much.

  As I looked around me I had the impression that the jury was still out on this one. My initial thought was that I'd been transported to another world. Now, when you consider that I started out in a world that was a cursed object, that's saying something.

  I was moving around but didn't seem to be in control of my actions. I'd read about out-of-body experiences, and thought they might be cool. This was as close as I'd gotten to one and I wasn't at all sure I even liked it. Being a passenger in your own body is... let's call it disorienting.

  I watched stuff happening. I reminded myself that I was wearing the spectacles that showed the future, or at least a possible future. Clarence and I (and Edgar) had managed to prevent one future the glasses showed. So it wasn't a sure thing, just a possible outcome of future events. My plan, to the extent that you can call my impulse a plan, was to note what happens and use it as a guide for what not to do. I wanted to do the opposite of what Timothy did. If there were any logic at all in these cursed objects, and there was no guarantee of that, then that would put me on the right track.

  In this world, this possible future, Walter grabbed the controls and began twisting large dials. The control panel reminded me of the ones in the movies about mad scientists. He was Boris Karloff experimenting with the power of electricity.

  One handy thing about the way the spectacles worked was that even without moving I could see everything Walter was doing with crystal clarity. Every little gesture, every position of a switch or dial was right there. And I didn't have to pay attention to remember the sequence of his actions. Somehow I knew that the vision was being burned into my memory. The positions of the arcane symbols on the dials, the adjustments he made to the gear ratios (don't ask how I knew that's what the adjustments were. I just did) were as clear and as obvious as if I'd been making them myself.

  And then the fun began.

  I saw, could almost feel, myself lunging for Walter. He sensed my movement and turned to fight me off. We collided as he brought the gun up, intending to shoot me. The gun twisted in his hand and then it was in mine. I had wrestled the gun away from him and, as I pointed it at him for a change he stepped back. I let him go and took his place at the console. I began twisting the dials. I was trying to reverse the adjustments that Walter had made. I watched myself undoing things, and then... I wanted to shout, "No!" I saw myself reach for the wrong dial. As I turned it, the new symbol, the one I was surprised by in the vision, began to glow.

  I had no idea what I had done, but I had changed things. Without knowing how I knew, I was aware that what my other self h
ad done had started a cataclysm in motion—what I had done would mean the end of things. I could hear it... the world starting to come apart at the seams. I could feel that the strong, fibrous threads (I have no idea what threads I meant either) that make up reality were beginning to fray—a distant lightless void of non-existence began hurtling toward us, or growing around us, or some unpleasant thing... whatever it was, that intense darkness was growing and growing... and then—

  Abruptly I was back in the present, seemingly more or less exactly where and when I'd been when I put the glasses on. I yanked the glasses off my face and tossed them aside. As they clattered to the floor I tried to calm my panicky breathing. I kept telling myself that what I'd seen didn't have to happen. I knew that the glasses inevitably showed the worst possible future. Sure the one I'd seen was really, really bad, but I knew the mistake that caused it. If I didn't change the sequence...

  The thought brought me up short. This was deja vu all over again and that mistake might not be a mistake at all. The glasses were playing me. That's what the glasses did, show you something that it wanted you to change, a change that would make that terrible (really, really awful) prediction come true. Their modus operandi, as the detectives always said in books, was to manipulate the wearer into making the wrong choice. They'd made Timothy think he had to shut off the gas valve and now they wanted me not to twist that dial. Unless, of course, the glasses counted on me making that assumption. But I didn't have time to play second guessing games. I had to act or we, our future was toast.

  "We need to stop him," Clarence said.

  Apparently, when I'd returned I'd reset a few seconds into the past and needed to ride it out to get the story in sync with my own present. "How?" I asked, remembering that was what I'd said the first time. "I'm open to suggestions."

  "I can hit him from behind."

  "Bad idea." I held out the key. "I've got a plan. You take this."

  He held out his hand and I put the key in his palm. "Take it and get out of here. I need you to get away right now."

  "Go? Leave you here with him?"

  "You weren't in the vision. And it has to be this way."

  A few feet away, Walter hummed something and twiddled knobs. "Right now," I said. "In a moment it will be too late."

  Chapter Thirty

  The look on Clarence's face was almost funny. He stood there staring at the key in his hand and letting my words register. Finally, he looked at me, then at Edgar, who had been unnaturally quiet the whole time, and said, "I don't think so. I'm not going anywhere."

  "You have to," I said.

  "We have to."

  He needed a reason he could relate to logically so I improvised one. "Someone needs to make it out of here with a key... in case things go wrong. We need to ensure that other Antique Dealers can get in here. They need to be able to store things like this antikythera mechanism. With what objects like that can do they can't be left in the outside world."

  I saw Walter fiddling with the controls. The humming had stopped and now he was muttering darkly. I wondered if he knew what he was doing or making an educated guess. Both scenarios were dangerous but in different ways. Not that it mattered. He was doing what he had done in the vision, I hoped, and I would have to do what I'd decided to regardless.

  "Let's just take him down, get it from him," Clarence said.

  "Trust me, Clarence. Please. It isn't that simple. I've seen what can happen. You need to go and you need to do it now."

  "But..."

  "That's the help I need."

  "I'll bring help back."

  I knew there was no way that would happen fast enough to make a difference, but it made him feel better. "Fine," I said. "Thank you and good luck."

  "You're the one that needs luck. I'm running away with the key. Stall him until I get back."

  "Okay." That was safe to say. By the time he got out of here the crisis should be over... either I'd get the result I wanted or things would be very dark and nothing would matter any more. Nothing at all. That was something we said often. How strange to say it and mean it literally.

  As Clarence disappeared down the hallway I turned toward Walter. It was showtime. I pulled myself together and lunged at him.

  He turned more quickly than I expected and his body deflected mine. I landed on the ground while Walter stood over me with the barrel of his gun pointed right at my midsection. "Come anywhere near me and I'll shoot you. That would be a shame. I think it might be unpleasant to die in a place like this."

  I hoped that this little deviation from the vision didn't change anything else much. I had no idea how this really worked. "It would be unpleasant to die anywhere," I said.

  "But here... in a place where things are all messed up, who knows what would happen to your spirit? Although in a few minutes it will be a moot point."

  I glanced around and didn't see Edgar. I took out the pen and held it up. "A need a little help, please, Edgar. Could you come up behind Walter and grab him, please? Before he shoots me would be good."

  Walter laughed. "That old trick doesn't even make sense here. Your friends seem to have left and there are only two keys to this place. There's no one else here."

  "Edgar didn't leave, Walter. He's right behind you." And he was, standing in place behind him, looking very solid. "I'm not letting you fool me, Cecelia," Walter said.

  "Okay... suit yourself."

  As I shrugged, Edgar came up behind Walter and wrapped his arms around him, lifting his feet off the ground. The shock and surprise on Walter's face were rather nice to see. Edgar was smiling. "I haven't been able to give anyone a bear hug in a long time," he said happily. "Shame to waste it on you, but this is rather important, so I'll settle for this."

  "I owe you a real hug," I told him as I dashed to the controls.

  "While I'm still solid would be good."

  I stared at the now-familiar console and the sequence I'd seen rushed through my head, still vivid. Unsure how long Edgar would be able to hold onto a thrashing Walter, I knew I had no time to waste. I reached for the first dial on the console. The vision was clear... the question was... I took a deep breath. My fingers touched the knurled edge of a very real dial and I began turning it. I'd cast the die and taken the biggest gamble of my life.

  Chapter Thirty One

  When you are dealing with obscure and arcane technology, especially stuff that came from a civilization you know little about, you are at a slight disadvantage. You don't know the cultural biases, or what any of the symbols mean. Guessing, assuming that an arrow suggests the correct direction to move something, and isn't a warning pointing to a danger, can be reckless. When it's all you can do, figuring the thing out can be harder than the first time you try to grapple with a television remote.

  I had two advantages. As a history major I knew how you are supposed to approach that kind of challenge, even if, like me, you aren't remotely conversant with antikythera mechanisms. The second advantage was that I didn't need to know how or what it did. In this case, all I had to do, the only thing I could do was follow the sequence in the vision—to the letter—and hope that was the right thing. I intended to stick to the program and not deviate.

  Despite being able to see each step, with each adjustment, each tweak I was sweating. The screams from Walter, still wrapped up tightly in Edgar's rather solid, yet ghostly arms was something of a distraction, but in an enjoyable way. From my somewhat biased point of view, it was high time that things didn't work out according to his plans.

  I got to the point where I departed from reversing Walter's sequence and hesitated. I took a moment to make sure I was still breathing, then turned the dial. With this turn, the dial clicked into place, and then just as in the vision, the odd symbol began to glow. this was the ultimate test—the place where, in the vision, the universe came apart.

  I was pretty sure it wouldn't this time, but I gritted my teeth and gripped the console tightly anyway. You tend to brace yourself just in case the collisi
on happens. Not that holding my breath or gritting my teeth would be of much use if the entire fabric of the universe unraveled, but you do what you can.

  Instead of unraveling things, the system groaned, then slowed, winding down to a clunky, noisy halt.

  "Damn," Edgar said approvingly. "I think you did it."

  I looked closely at the machine. I located the smaller mechanism that Walter had inserted and yanked it out.

  I stood there admiring it. Edgar was looking too. Walter took advantage of the lapse and pulled free, charging me headlong, and knocking me down and falling on me. He grabbed at the mechanism and wrestled for it. I managed to scratch his face but he tore the mechanism from my hands and hit me in the jaw.

  I saw stars. While I was reeling from the blow. Walter got up and returned the mechanism to its place.

  At the side I saw that Edgar was starting to fade, becoming ghostly again. "Help me stop him," I called as I struggled to my feet.

  Edgar ran to Walter. When Walter turned away from the controls to face him I saw Edgar swing at him. His hand swiped Walter's face but there was no blow. The hand seemed to pass right through Walter's head. Although there was no impact I saw a thick, whitish condensation smear across Walter's forehead.

  Walter looked around. I could tell that he couldn't see Edgar anymore. Our ghost had lost his strong physical presence. So, as I got to my feet, Walter turned back to the controls. The goo on his head ran down into his eyes and he wiped his face, trying to get it out of them.

  Suddenly the mechanism made a pinging sound. That unnerved me. It hadn't pinged in my vision, and clearly Walter had done something different this time.

  Walter turned to me and said something. It sounded like, "taht pots."

  "He said 'stop that,' " Edgar said.

  "Didn't sound like it."

  "Say it backward."

  "Right." I didn't want to get into how or why Walter was talking backward, but I liked it. I watched him as he tried to get back to playing with the controls but his movements were jerky. It was almost as if he was moving backward too. I moved closer and saw that his eyes were dilated. It seemed like the perfect moment to return the favor and charge him.