Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells' the Time Machine

by Jw Schnarr

  Halfway down the first block his right shoe cracked. Looks like I will be shoe shopping tomorrow after all, he thought, as he crouched down, opened his briefcase and took out some briefing papers. Separating out a single page, he folded it and then stuffed it into his shoe, hoping it would keep out the slush until he had reached his destination.

  As he straightened up, Dave noticed someone behind him, half-hidden behind the high stairway leading to the Justice building. It was a tall man in a dark coat, looking nonchalant but coincidentally stopped at the same time as he was. Careful not to look too long Dave set out again, starting on a zigzag path once he was out of the government district and into downtown. Here the streets were more crowded with pedestrians, most dressed in bright colors that fought against the creeping gray mist. The new history weighed relatively lightly on its subjects: they were still free to shop, to enrich themselves as best they could, to wear or consume what they liked—and for most people that was enough.

  After a dozen twists and turns he risked a glance back behind him. Confident that he had lost his shadower—if indeed the man had been following him at all—he returned to his original route and made his way to the meeting-place. This week they were gathering at Paul Beatty’s house; Paul, an electrician, was one of the few members of the group who could be sure they weren’t being watched. Paul was already there, of course—he had the freedom to make his own hours, and always quit work early when the meeting was to be at his place—and as Dave rounded the corner he saw two figures silhouetted in the light of Paul’s open door. Dave knew Gilberto Lorca by his slouch hat and ever-present umbrella, but he did not recognize the young woman with him. He waved but they didn’t see him, and he was forced to knock on the door when he got there. Dave stood still, careful to be in full view of the spy hole until the door opened.

  “C’mon in,” Paul said. He was wearing jeans and a heavy sweater, as usual, and a pair of thick-framed black glasses around whose arms were twisted wires of various colors. “We’re just about to start.”

  Dave followed Paul into the hallway and took off his shoes, careful not to worsen the crack in the right one, then hung his coat on the crowded hook. “Am I the last?” he asked.

  “Maybe,” Paul said, not turning back as he spoke. “We may not get anyone else. Give it five more minutes.”

  Nodding, Dave followed him into the living room. Gil and the woman Dave didn’t know were already seated on the couch, another man next to them and a half-dozen others in chairs around the room. Dave knew most of them by face but not by name. They each knew as few names as possible: this was dangerous work they were engaged in, committing a crime so grave the law could not even name it. They were studying history.

  “Why don’t we get started,” Gil said, his tone making it a statement rather than a question. Gil had recruited the earliest members—it was he who had brought Dave in, back when Dave had been an undergraduate studying the new history—and he had a tendency to hold court at meetings, even when they were at other people’s homes.

  “Fine,” Paul said, taking a seat in the chair nearest to the front door.

  Dave sat down as well, his briefcase in his lap; his fingers played on the catches, waiting for his chance to tell the others about his find.

  “My young friend here has made a very exciting discovery,” Gil said. He turned to the young woman sitting squeezed between him and the arm of the black leather couch. “My dear, why don’t you tell everyone about it?”

  Dave’s fingers gripped his briefcase as the woman stood. She was not tall, just an inch or two over five feet, and a bit heavy: she wore a blue mock-neck sweater and a denim skirt that stopped just above the knee, her brown hair cut in a bob that had been allowed to grow shaggy. “Hello,” she said, glancing around the room. “I’m —”

  “No names,” Paul said.

  The girl nodded quickly. “Right,” she said, then twisted around and leaned down to pick up an artist’s portfolio that was leaned against the arm of the couch. “I’m, I’m a student in Professor—I mean —”

  “It’s all right,” Gil said. “We all know my name.”

  Dave frowned. He had been looking forward to this all day, and had little patience for Gil’s flirting with his latest protégé. “What do you have to show us?” he asked, trying to sound supportive of the girl while he hurried her along.

  “Well—I—I found this at a yard sale.” The girl unzipped the portfolio carefully, drew out a flat, square object about a foot long on each side. It took Dave a moment to recognize it as an LP; the side facing him had only white text on a black background, too small to be read. The girl flipped the record over so that the front cover could be seen. It bore a picture of a blond woman with a guitar, dressed in black leather, and some nonsense words in large, jagged letters. After a second Dave remembered to read them left to right: TOP HITS OF THE EIGHTIES.

  “The number one hit for each year,” Gil said. “The whole decade.”

  Dave leaned forward. Despite his jealousy he could not help feeling excited about this, a physical survival of the old history. It wasn’t just that such things were illegal; they were terribly fragile, even if they were plastic or metal. Accidents had a way of happening to them, as though the new timeline itself wanted them destroyed.

  And now—the girl drew the record itself carefully out of the sleeve, eliciting a gasp from her attentive audience. Ten songs the new history had erased; ten songs that did not exist anywhere but on that flimsy piece of vinyl…

  After a few moments the excitement began to wear off. There was something different about this artifact, something dangerous. The other things they had collected were oddities, pieces that did not fit into the new history, but this directly challenged that history in a way its masters could not allow. If you were found with it they would not bother with self-criticism or re-education: you, it, and everyone who knew of it would simply disappear.

  If any of the other group members shared Dave’s worry, though, he did not see it. They passed the record carefully around the room, reading song titles aloud and humming as the memory rushed back—four of them singing “Every Breath You Take,” piecing the words together. When it had gone all the way around the group, back to Gil and the beaming girl, the other finds were presented; a postcard from Washington, a Mutt and Jeff cartoon, a newspaper article about a baseball game between two teams that had never existed. When Dave’s turn finally came the excitement had been drained out of him and he presented it with little fanfare, responding with just a nod to Gil’s praise.

  When the last artifact had been presented and logged—it was Gil who took the risk of recording everything, keeping the information in one place so that one day he would be able to reconstruct the old history—Paul brought out a bottle of Glenfiddich that would have been thirty years old if it had ever existed and poured out glasses for everyone in the room. Now the conversation turned back to Gil’s student and her find. Gil’s pride in both was clear, and while he still felt a gnawing worry in his stomach it was hard for Dave to remain jealous. Before long the meeting broke up and they started to head out, singly or in pairs, careful to space out their exits and take different routes away from the house.

  Dave slept poorly that night, and awoke feeling little rested; he brewed an extra cup of coffee, breaking his own rule, and paid for it as he was forced to find a restaurant halfway to work that would let him use their washroom. Finally, he stopped at a doughnut shop, bought another cup of coffee in exchange for the privilege and made it to the Broadcast and Media building fifteen minutes late. Hoping his tardiness would go unnoticed, he made his way to his workstation and sat down.

  “Lawson,” a voice came from behind him. It was Chadwick, his supervisor.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Dave said, trying to remember the excuse he had concocted on his way there.

  “Never mind that. I’ve got someone here who wants to meet you.”

  Dave nodded and stood up, followed Chadwick out of th
e work area and into the conference room. It was designed to house two dozen people but now held only one.

  “This is Mr. Geraci,” Chadwick said, stepping aside to let Dave pass into the room. “He’s from upstairs. Does performance reviews.”

  Geraci stood. He was a heavy man but all muscle; he wore a black plastic overcoat, a red plaid scarf crossed loosely over his chest. Two beige folders sat open on the table in front of him. “Mister Lawson,” he said, reaching a hand out. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Thank you,” Dave said. Geraci’s hand was extended straight out across the long oval table, and Dave had to bend awkwardly to take it. “What do you…what can I do for you?”

  “We have received good words about your performance,” Geraci said, not releasing Dave’s hand. “Your logs, your records are very good, without blots.”

  “Thank you,” Dave said, struggling to unwind Geraci’s syntax. He glanced behind him, saw that Chadwick had left. “I do the best that I can.”

  “Yes,” Geraci said. At last he let go of Dave’s hand, waved his own casually to let the sweat that had collected on Dave’s palm evaporate. “Your record shows that you are very diligent, very thorough.”

  “Well—thank you.” This was no performance review, Dave knew that. A message was being sent, but what? If Geraci was with the Agency then everything he said was some kind of code; words that sounded positive, like diligent and thorough, instead were criticisms. Was he being told they knew about the clips he hadn’t reported? Or—his stomach clenched tight, bitter coffee rising up his throat—did they know about the record?

  No, he thought. If that were the case this conversation wouldn’t be happening: he’d just be gone.

  “You have nothing more to say?” Geraci asked.

  “No. I mean, well—it’s a pleasure, of course, to know that Mr. Chadwick has had such positive things to say about me.” He had learned that survival tactic in high school, perfected it in university: when under scrutiny, bring in someone else in hopes the investigators will turn their attention off you.

  Geraci nodded and turned his eyes down to the folders in front of him, but he did not appear to read them. “Very good. And do you have any questions for me?”

  “Yes. Of course. I—” If you did not ask questions, if it seemed like you wanted the conversation to end, it was assumed you were hiding something. “I wondered if there might have been any criticisms of my work that I might improve on?”

  “Your records are without blots,” Geraci said. He looked up at Dave, his eyes narrowing. “This was said.”

  “Of course.” Dave drew a breath and released it quickly, careful not to hold it too long. “Does Personnel have any suggestions on how I can go beyond my current performance level?”

  Geraci smiled, looked down at one of the folders and made a note in small, illegible handwriting. “It will be taken under advisement,” he said. “That is all the time I have at present, Mister Lawson. Please inform Mister Chadwick that he may send in the next.”

  “Yes, of course,” Dave said. He held out his hand, waited a few seconds for Geraci to acknowledge it before turning it into a wave goodbye. He turned and headed for the door, suddenly aware of his cracked right shoe wrapped in silver duct tape.

  “How did it go?” Chadwick asked.

  Dave shrugged. “He says send in the next.”

  Chadwick nodded quickly, headed off towards his office. Dave walked over to the kitchen, waited there a few minutes and then went to the window that opened on the parking lot. As usual it was nearly empty; almost nobody in Broadcast was senior enough to be allowed to park in the government district. There was a car there, though, that Dave had never seen before: a black sedan, its metal shell shiny despite the sleet. A few moments later Dave saw Geraci walk into his field of vision, accompanied by a tall man in a dark leather coat. It took a moment before Dave recognized this last as the man he had seen the night before, the one he had thought had been following him—the one he had thought he had lost.

  Dave forced himself to breathe. He had survived six years of university, three of them in Gil’s secret double-history program, and five more here at Broadcast. He knew the Agency did not play around: if they had anything concrete on him they would have acted. It was probably because he had lost that man last night that Geraci had tried to scare him. They couldn’t know where he had gone, what he had seen, what he knew. They couldn’t.

  For the rest of the day Dave sat glued to his workstation, forgetting even to go to the kitchen when he knew Maura would be there. Gradually he began to calm down, and by quitting time he had managed to convince himself it might be nothing. Just play it safe, he thought: skip a few meetings, keep a low profile for awhile and it would blow over.

  He was getting ready for bed when somebody knocked on his apartment door. He had been dozing on the couch, half-watching TV; he remembered the meeting with Geraci as he got up and he paused halfway to the door, unsure whether to acknowledge being there or not. Finally he padded to the door and looked through the spyhole, saw the girl Gil had brought to the meeting the night before. She reached up and knocked on the door again.

  “Hang on,” Dave said, releasing the latch. He opened the door and stepped back quickly to let her in. “Come on in, before somebody sees you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Her cheeks were red, from the cold or from nervousness. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  Dave leaned out into the hallway, looked around quickly and then closed the door behind him. “How did you know to come here?”

  “Gil told me about you,” she said. “When I told him—he told me where you lived—”

  For a moment Dave wondered how Gil knew his address, remembered the time he had tried to host a meeting at his apartment. “All right, all right,” he said. “What’s this all about?”

  “Well, it’s—” The girl looked nervously around the small space, moved to sit on the couch. Dave sat on the chair facing it, noticed she was carrying her artist’s portfolio. “I don’t know how much to say,” the girl said.

  “You seem to know who I am and where I live, you might as well tell me everything,” Dave said. “Why don’t you start with your name?”

  “Amy,” she said. I’m studying art at the university—in my class this morning I forgot I had the record in my portfolio, and when I opened it up some people saw it. I don’t think any of them knew what it was, but…”

  “You must have already gone to see Professor Lorca,” Dave said. “Why not give it to him?”

  Amy shook her head. “Oh, no. I couldn’t put him in danger like that.”

  Dave sighed, closed his eyes. “So he suggested you give it to me?”

  “Well—you work at Broadcast and Media, don’t you? Gil thought you could, you know, hide it in plain sight.”

  “He said that, did he?” Dave asked. Like most academics, Gil clearly had little understanding of how things worked in the government: Dave did not have the clearance to get anything into or out of the Archive rooms. He reached up to rub at his eyes “Fine,” he said after a moment. “Leave it with me ‘til you’re sure the heat is off—and tell Gil he owes me one.”

  “Thank you,” Amy said.

  “It’s all right,” Dave said, waving away her thanks. He yawned. “Well…”

  Amy glanced around, gave a nervous smile and stood up. She unzipped her portfolio, took out the album and handed it to him. “Well. Thanks again.”

  “Forget about it.” He stood, walked her to the door. “Be quick getting out. Make sure nobody sees you.”

  She nodded. “I will.”

  He shut the door as soon as she was outside, listened to her footsteps receding for a few moments before he started cursing himself. Why had he taken the record? He should have refused, sent her to Paul’s or else back to Gil. He even still had it under his arm—had anybody been in the hall when he opened the door? Could anyone have seen it? There was no use trying to sleep now: he poured himself a s
cotch, sat down to watch TV until exhaustion took him.

  The next morning he was awakened by the distant sound of the alarm in his bedroom, unfolded himself from the couch and stumbled into the shower. When he returned the record was waiting for him: it sat on the coffee table, the blond singer on the cover looking as though she was mocking him. He had an irrational thought that if he left it there it would be gone when he got back, faded away like the timeline it belonged to; with a sigh he slipped it into his briefcase, went into the kitchen for breakfast. Of all things, why had the girl had to come on Thursday night? If he had the weekend to calm down he could think of a place to hide it, but as it was he felt, walking to work, as though his briefcase had a bullseye painted on it. He briefly thought about hailing a cab before realizing how much more attention that would draw.

  The feeling of being watched grew as he got to the office: eyes seemed to be following him, whispers trailing in his wake. He sat down at his workstation and cued up the day’s tapes, focused tightly on the screen in front of him. Every few minutes he reached down to move his briefcase, trying to make it less conspicuous.

  After an hour or so he began to wonder whether he would be better off going to the kitchen for his break or staying at his desk. Obviously getting up would attract attention, but since he always went for coffee wouldn’t it be more unusual if he didn’t? He went back and forth over the question for a few minutes before deciding there was no way he would get through this day without more coffee, and got up out of his chair.

  Then he remembered the briefcase. What was he going to do with that? He couldn’t leave it at his desk, where anyone could open it, but it would look strange for him to bring it to the kitchen. He wished he had decided to stay at his desk—but now that he had stood up he couldn’t just sit down again, not without attracting more attention. Before too much more time could pass he leaned down, scooped up the briefcase and set off for the kitchen.