Downtiming the Night Side

by Jack L. Chalker

  A very old Volkswagen came rattling down the road going in the opposite direction, and she paid it no heed. The driver, however, spotted her in his headlights and slowed, then made a U-turn and came back up to her. She grew suddenly frightened, aware of just how much in the middle of nowhere she was and just how alone and unprotected she was as well.

  The VW pulled in just ahead of her, and the right door opened. She approached it nervously, knowing there really was no place to run and just hoping this was someone who was just trying to be helpful—or on the make. She bent down and looked in at the driver.

  “Get in, Holly,” said Doc.

  “No! You’re not real! You’re part of the dream!” She backed away from the car gingerly.

  “I won’t hurt you, Holly, but I’m afraid I must insist. Don’t worry. If nothing else, I’ll take you as far as the bus station in Waldorf.”

  “I—I don’t trust you!”

  “You shouldn’t. But you don’t have any choice. Now— get in! I have other appointments before this is over, and, as funny as it sounds, I don’t have the time for foolishness.”

  Holly sighed. “What the hell,” she muttered, and pushed her case into the cramped back seat and slid into the front passenger side.

  As soon as she closed the door, Doc was off into the night.

  A QUESTION OF HUMANITY

  “It wasn’t a dream, you know,” Doc said at last. “It all really happened.”

  She sobered a moment. “I know. I just don’t want it to have.”

  “Understandable. I assume Eric got your belt?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s no catastrophe. He’s about to use it to go back to the old home setting, then attack the base. That’ll cause us to move and you to jump forward, and the loop will be complete.”

  “Is it true what he said? About him bein’ Joseph and all?”

  He was startled. “I hadn’t heard that.” He thought for a long while. “Well, it would make everything else have some sense out of human actions, although it raises a bunch of those wild cards in time I told you about. If it’s true, then we have a couple of laws to unlearn and a couple of new ones to discover, but that’s par for the course in something this complicated. You get used to it. Or he might have been lying, and our laws are correct. Only— pardon me—time will tell.”

  “I ain’t sure I want to know. I only understood a little of what he was sayin’ anyways.”

  Doc nodded but said nothing for a while. Finally, he asked, “Are you hungry? There’s a Howard Johnson’s up here that’s open all night.”

  “I thought you said you was in a hurry.”

  “No, I said I didn’t have the time to fool around back there. I’m on a schedule, and this is part of it.”

  They pulled into the parking lot, then went into the restaurant, which was mostly deserted. The few there obviously drew conclusions from the sight of the young sexpot and the older professional man there at this time of night, but they were pretty worldly and served this sort of duo quite often.

  Doc ate heartily, but Holly just sipped her coffee and picked at her eggs. Finally, she asked, “What now, Doc? What’s next?” It was said with weary resignation, not true curiosity.

  “I know what you’re thinking. You’ve tripped. O.K., you’ve tripped before. I must have tripped a thousand times. It’s no big deal anymore.”

  “Maybe not for you. You’ll still Doc, no matter what. You got brains and a real job. I guess I had brains once, but it’s all gone now. I can’t even remember what he looked like, you know that? Every time I do this, I know a little less and think a little slower. I think that’s what gets me most. It ain’t not knowin’ what I once knew so much as bein’ real slow about what I still know now.” She picked up a card on the table. “Clam… back… every… Friday,” she read, pronouncing each word carefully and individually as if separated. “All… you… can… eat… just… Oh, hell, you see? I can’t read no better or faster’n that, and them’s simple words. I can’t cook or sew or nothin’, ’cept some mendin’. How’s that for somebody who went through all that college?”

  “Nothing is permanent. Surely you understand that now if nothing else. What’s forgotten can be relearned.”

  “C’mon, Doc! Don’t kid me! Every single time I get a little dumber. I ain’t got much left, Doc. I’m near retarded now. I’m too damn scared to do it again.”

  “I think you underestimate yourself.” He finished his coffee and looked out the window. “It’s getting light out now. Looks like a nice day.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s go.”

  They drove several places in the area, with Doc stopping now and then to talk to various people and make some phone calls. She fell asleep for a while and paid no attention to the activities, nor did she feel any curiosity about what was going on.

  Doc shook her awake. She stirred uneasily, then opened her eyes and looked out the windshield. They were in some kind of public parking area, with another area slightly below them and fenced off. She looked to one side and saw the huge cooling towers of a nuclear power plant. She yawned, stretched as well as she could, and asked, “What’re we doin’ here?”

  “Waiting. Not much longer now, I hope. Ah! There!”

  A small blue car pulled into the lower lot and drove to a marked section. A woman dressed in whites got out, locked the door, and began to walk toward a lower entrance to the building. It was one of literally dozens of cars pulling in while others pulled out, but Doc drew Holly’s attention to that one in particular.

  “Recognize her?”

  “Nope. Not from this distance, anyways. I guess I should get glasses, but it don’t seem worth the bother.”

  “Dr. Karen Cline.”

  She sat up. “Huh? That her? You mean she’s still comin’ in to work and all?”

  Doc nodded. “It means success. Cline, or whoever she really is, is going in with full knowledge that there is going to be a terrorist raid today and that the facility is going to be taken over. We achieved complete surprise.”

  “You mean she don’t know her friends got knocked off last night?”

  “No. Eric couldn’t risk contacting her, and nobody else dared, not this close to the operation, anyway.”

  “So what’ll happen to her?”

  “Nothing. It’ll be a normal, uneventful day. She’ll know something went wrong but won’t dare try to contact her friends, for all the good it’d do her. She’ll finish her shift and go home and make a time jump—she thinks. Only it won’t be there.”

  “Her belt?”

  “Her apartment. In about ten minutes a blaze will start in the apartment under hers and it will be impossible to control. Every fire department within twenty miles will be needed to contain it. The place will burn to the ground, although hopefully with no loss of life. Cove’s a pretty isolated little village. The right help just won’t be able to get there in time.”

  “And you figure she has the belt in the apartment?”

  “We figure. It still might not get the belt, but she won’t dare go near it because she’ll know we’ll be watching and she’ll hear about the shootout with the radicals. She’ll have no choice but to keep doing what she’s doing and hope she’s picked up. She won’t be, because we’ll be on her every second. She’ll be assimilated. Why?”

  “Eric said she was Ginny.”

  “Indeed? Well, is that so bad a future? A career woman? A Ph.D.? An aide to valuable research? Isn’t that better than almost anything we might have expected for her otherwise?”

  “I—I guess so.” She paused. “Why’re we still here? Ain’t we gonna go to her place to make sure?”

  “In good time. Here—I’ll stick this lousy radio on and get some music.”

  They waited in silence for some time, and Holly began to drift off once more, but Doc suddenly switched off the music and she came awake as he started the car. They went down to the second parking area, which had a gate with a magnetic card pass required to raise it. Do
c reached into a pocket, pulled out a card, and stuck it in. The gate went up, and they rolled into the lower lot and parked as close as possible to the door.

  Almost immediately, a second car pulled in and after driving up and down the rows it parked very near them. A man got out and looked around at the setting, then locked his door.

  Holly stared at him, and her jaw dropped.

  “I see you still really do remember what he looks like,” Doc said gently.

  “But—that’s Ron!”

  “Indeed, it is. Ronald Moosic, on his way to discover the secret of this installation and be given the tour. He’s to be the new director of security. And because he will have a quiet and peaceful day, week, and month, he’ll take over smoothly and do a fine job, and he’ll never go downtime himself.”

  She sank back into the seat, feeling totally lost and confused. She watched the tall, handsome, confident man enjoy the new day before going into the hidden installation.

  Finally, she said, in a voice so small it could hardly be heard and a tone almost tragically plaintive, “But—I started out as him. I know I did. Then I got turned into Dawn and all the others and finally I come to be me. But if he don’t go back, he don’t become all them people. They never lived. It all never happened. But I’m still here!”

  “Yes.”

  She turned and looked squarely at Doc. “Then how am I here? Can you tell me that, Doc? How’s Eric and Ginny and all the rest here when he never went back to father ’em or bear ’em?”

  “It all happened. Every bit of it happened, and is recorded back in time in our master computer and in our own memories. The unmaking of it also happened, Holly. That’s why you’re here. As to who and what you are, though—you’re a nightsider, just like me and the others. We’re the leftovers from this mess. All those people that you were lived, and lived their lives out. Time has rippled them into existence, even as it has rippled all records, all signs, all memories of what happened out of the main time line. Ron was gone, swallowed in time, but now he lives again and will live out his life. That’s a plus, isn’t it?”

  “I—I guess so. But if he’s still here, and he’s him, then I’m just what I am. Holly, nothin’ more.”

  Doc started the car, put it in gear, and drove out of the parking lot and back up onto the road and accelerated north toward Cove.

  “You’re nothing less than Holly,” Doc said at last. “Right now you are the accumulated record of this whole thing. They’re all still there, inside you, somewhere. And you’re not as dumb as you think you are, either. You’ve followed my entire conversation this distance after the trip point.”

  They made the drive to Cove in a few minutes, but saw the location long before they hit the town limits sign. A huge column of thick, black smoke rose from the horizon, and more than once they pulled over so one or another volunteer fire department could pass.

  State police prevented them from driving into the town itself, but it was small enough that they could tell that the incendiary had done its work with the team’s usual precision.

  Doc backtracked to the junction and went over to the main highway, then headed north.

  “Where to now, Doc?”

  “Not far. There’s a turnoff up here with a van parked in it which has the time belts. This part of it is now finished.”

  There were several men and women already at the turnoff, and a number of cars were parked around. Holly knew that most of these were members of the team she might recognize in other circumstances.

  Doc got two of the small time belts from the back of the van and put one on, handing the other to Holly. She shook her head and didn’t take it.

  “No, Doc. You said it yourself. It’s done. Finished. Ron’s here and alive, and I ain’t nobody but Holly, the best damn fuck in the east. I ain’t got no place and no time else to go, Doc. I belong here.”

  “There’s still the kids.”

  Holly laughed sourly. “And what kind of Mama would I make now, huh? I don’t look or act like her—’cause I ain’t her. I’m a fucking ignorant whore. Doc!”

  Talking by the others had stopped at this scene, and all attention was on them. Doc looked around for support. A big man beckoned him, and he went over and they briefly conferred; then Doc returned, still holding the belt.

  “You know what happens to nightsiders, don’t you Holly?” he pressed, yet maintained a calm tone. “They make no mark and die young. You know what happens to young whores who don’t die young? They get old, and some new little chickie becomes the favorite. They get bought and sold by their pimps and wind up washed-up addicts wallowing in filth. You know that. You’ve seen it. You want that kind of life?”

  She sighed. “You know I don’t. But if I die young, all the better. I won’t go that route, believe me. I’ll kill myself first.”

  “So that’s your future, huh? A decade or two of whoring until one day you’re just so foul and so sick of yourself that you slit your wrists or jump off a roof or something? Unless one of the pimps or Johns kills you first.”

  “Stop it! Damn your fucking soul! Stop it! There ain’t no choice!”

  “Yes, there is. You got one chance, but you have to take it now. Every hour, every day, brings you closer to what you think you now are.” He held up the belt once again. “This is your way out. Take it. Use it now. Go where it sends you and listen to the other side of your life. I swear to you that, while I’ve preset it, it’s a free and clear belt and it won’t be taken from you without your permission. Just listen, for Christ’s sake! For your own sake!”

  She was more Holly than any or all of the others she had been, but even Holly wanted a way out, if she could only believe in it. She hesitated, then took the belt and strapped it around her slender waist. “Where will this take me?”

  “To your future,” Doc responded.

  Hesitantly, her thumb went down to trigger the belt. It was probably going to be more misery and more lies, she thought, but Doc was right, as usual. When the known was unbearable, choose the unknown.

  She pressed the stud and was suddenly falling into time.

  The place was familiar. The same rock-like plastic walls, the same furniture, pretty much the same as when Ron Moosic had first seen it so many lifetimes ago. The only difference was that there seemed no one about; the computer complex far back in time was deserted.

  Or was it? She stared, once again cursing her near-sightedness, and focused on a high-backed chair across the room. It was turned away from her, but there was the unmistakable smell of cigarette smoke in the air and it seemed to be coming from that direction.

  “Hey! Anybody here?” she called out, her voice echoing.

  A man got up from the chair and came over to her, smiling. He was middle-aged, with a deep tan, and had bushy contrasting white hair and a thick white moustache. He was rather handsome for one his age, and in obviously good physical condition. He wore casual clothing—a plaid work shirt, a pair of new-looking jeans, and boots. He towered over her.

  “Pardon me, but I hadn’t more than a rough estimate of when you would arrive,” he said in a deep, rich baritone. His accent was some British one, but it had a slight additional sound of some Latin intonation. “My name is Ramon Cruz.”

  She just stared at him, not knowing what to say or do next. “Are we… alone here?”

  He chuckled. “Oh, yes—quite alone, except for the omnipresent computer, I’m afraid. Come. Sit down over here and get comfortable. Remove the belt if you like—I will not try to take it from you, I swear.”

  There was something in his tone and manner that made her want to trust him. Against her better instincts, she removed the belt and put it on the floor, then sank tiredly into a chair.

  He looked suddenly concerned. “Please forgive me! You are very tired, I can see. Would you prefer to go back to one of the rooms and get a good sleep? I can wait.”

  She didn’t want to go to sleep in this place, at least not until she knew the score. “That’s O.K. I’l
l live.”

  He sat back in another chair, facing her, and took a cigarette from a pack. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “Naw. In fact, I’ll take one myself.” She wasn’t hooked on them, but she smoked occasionally. He offered her one, then lit it for her in courtly fashion. “Now—what’s this all about?”

  “Your welfare—and closing the last little bit of the noose on our targets.”

  “I figured it was more their game than any feelin’ for me. What’s left to do?”

  “Undo a terrible thing we have done to people who simply didn’t deserve it. That is the easiest way to put it. Think of the permanently nightsided. You are one such. When the cause of the condition is closed, the ones who are left, the leftover flotsam and jetsam from the shipwreck we prevented from happening, are thorns in the side of time. It wants to be rid of them. It often manages to do so gently, as in the case of your Dr. Cline, but if it’s up on the edge, there’s not as much leeway. You don’t assimilate on the edge any more than you do back here. Eliminate the cause of the nightsider on the edge and time will arrange to eliminate him from future consideration.”

  “You mean he dies?”

  “Usually. But consistently. I think, if indeed you are not too tired, that I might explain the last that you do not know.”

  “You might say who you are, for a start.”

  He looked apologetic. “Ah! I’m so sorry! I am generally called Father Ramon, although I am actually an archbishop—without portfolio from Rome, I fear.”

  “You’re a priest?”

  “Yes. Does that bother you?”

  “Yeah. It means I can’t even get a good fuck—and boy, do I need one now! Sorry, Father—but I am what I am and I ain’t Catholic anyway.”