Emperors of Time

by Penn, James Wilson

  Where on God’s Green Earth can you get a taser in 1916??

  Bill took the pen back and wrote quickly.

  Not 1916. My uncle works mall security back home. They let the idiot carry a taser. And maybe he’ll definitely let me borrow it from him.

  At the same time as he wrote this, he verbally responded to Tim’s last spoken sentence. “Tim, I’m as competitive as the next guy, but when you’re beat you’re beat. You take your starters off the floor and put the benchwarmers in. No shame in admitting defeat.”

  Tim figured they were doing a somewhat passable job at keeping up the charade of having a verbal conversation, as long as anyone who was listening bought that they had to take an absurdly long time to think of what to say next.

  Julie again:

  We can’t go home and come back again. Hopkins told us that from day one.

  Billy:

  Not us… us!

  He motioned between himself and Rose.

  We go home, get some stuff… come back here a year ago to hide the stuff somewhere. You and Tim find it and use it.

  Tim read what Billy had written. He said, “I guess you’re right Billy,” and pointed at the sheet to indicate that what he was saying could apply to both the written as well as the verbal conversation they were having.

  Rose scratched her head, and tapped her foot on the wooden floorboard below them. Then, she put up a finger, grabbed the pen, and wrote Floorboards!

  Billy took the pen, wrote, This one, and tapped a floorboard, one that was under the bed and out of the way, twice with his foot. We’ll loosen it when we go back, so when it’s loose, that should mean we’ve delivered our package. Into the past. This still freaks me out.

  “At least we get to eat this good breakfast,” said Rose. “You have to admit, if the Emperors of Time were all bad, they’d make us eat gruel, not bagels, fruit, and coffee.”

  Rose took the pen.

  Best idea we’ve had, and time is running out. I’m a little surprised the Emperors didn’t consider this, but maybe they didn’t think dumb kids could think under pressure… or didn’t know we had more than one Dominus. Let’s vote. Tie goes to… coin flip? Hope for no tie. You first, Miss logical mind.

  She handed the pen to Julie.

  Julie thought for a moment.

  Bombing in our time has probably stopped, if they were aiming for us. I figure it should… maybe… hopefully… work. Better than nothing, right? I vote YES.

  She handed the pen to Tim.

  Tim shrugged. Action is good. Trying to taze those thugs in the hallway… also good. YES.

  Rose snatched the pen as Tim was handing it to Billy.

  Come on, he came up with the idea. He’ll vote yes, I want to cast the deciding vote: YES!

  Julie took the pen from Rose.

  How will you get back in the room? wrote Julie with a questioning facial expression to match.

  We’re taking the shower head. Something we can carry with us and has always been in the room, plus I bet the bathroom isn’t under surveillance. So, forgive me for being uncouth, but Rose and I need a plausible reason to pretend to be in the bathroom for a… longish time…

  “Well, Rose,” said Billy. “I see no reason why we can’t enjoy ourselves as long as we’re here… Did you want to go make out with me in the bathroom?”

  Rose laughed and spit out a little bit of her bagel. Then she blushed a little bit and responded, “Yeah, sure, why not? But can I finish this delicious breakfast first?”

  Billy shrugged. “I guess so,” he said. “But make it quick, I’m in a hurry.”

  Chapter 19

  In the Divergent Timeline

  Tim investigated the floorboard again. It was still firmly in place. Of course, this wasn’t surprising. Billy and Rose had only been gone for a few hours. In this time, Julie and he had talked about a lot of things, including the breakfast, the view from the window, and how awkward it was that Billy and Rose had been in the bathroom for over three hours together. This got even more awkward when Julie decided that she had to actually use the bathroom for… bathroom things, and she had the following fake one-sided conversation for the benefit of any recording devices that might be listening in.

  “Oh my gosh that’s gross! No, don’t go into the room, Tim doesn’t want to see you that way either… just get behind the shower-curtain and don’t pay attention!’

  Tim tried to think about what they could talk about that would both keep them from dying of boredom and be mundane enough for the Emperors of Time not to care about it if they heard.

  “So, ah-- what’d you see in there? Anything worth discussing?” asked Tim offhandedly.

  Julie giggled slightly. “I won’t put you through that, young Timothy. You’ve been through quite a lot today, anyway,” she said.

  “Great…” said Tim. “Well, you’ve totally just killed half an hour of potential conversation.”

  Julie smiled. “Do you still want to know why I picked you to come on this little expedition? I know I kind of blew you off before when you asked me, so…”

  Tim perked up. “Yeah! I’m still curious.”

  “Well… if there’s anybody listening, this might come as a bit of a shock, ‘cause I’m not sure that anybody knew that I’m from a different timeline except for me, you, and… the two kids making out in the bathroom,” she said.

  “Either way, you’ve said it now. So now they know that you’re from a timeline where Lincoln wasn’t assassinated because Hopkins brought you back in time to see him change it,” said Tim. He figured it didn’t matter anyway, and if it confused anyone who was listening, that was fine. It could actually be a good thing if it kept them from questioning the teens’ made up story about how Billy and Rose were hiding out in the bathroom, rather than in the 21st century looking for weapons to smuggle into this hotel room one year in the past.

  “Right. Well, in my timeline, things were mostly okay, aside from the fact that we were at war, just like in your timeline. But in mine, more people got drafted into the army. Don’t worry, this comes around to involving you, but this is necessary background,” said Julie.

  “Yeah, and we’ve got so much else to talk about right now,” said Tim sarcastically. “Keep going. I like listening to you talk.”

  Julie rewarded him with a smile and continued. “So, in my timeline, the draft mostly took people who weren’t functioning well in normal life. Because of the technology we would use in the wars, the foot soldiers in my timeline usually didn’t need to be smart or particularly obedient, because they were mostly just cannon fodder, used to distract the enemy from the heavier technologies. People who aren’t obedient usually died pretty quick, but not before serving their purpose. So a big source of soldiers was to take people who dropped out, failed out, or got kicked out of high school. That and criminals ranging from shoplifting, DUI, and drug possession on up usually kept enlistment up, and crimes down,” said Julie.

  Tim nodded. “It’s not nice, but it has a cold logic to it.”

  Julie shrugged. “I guess, but no matter what Russell’s letter says, logic only goes so far with me. Especially when my family’s involved. Did you know I have a cousin?”

  Tim thought for a moment. “I think you’ve mentioned him once or twice… Lives in Iowa? You told me how you visited him once and went to a football game with him this year.”

  “Ah, yeah… He’s a college freshman in this timeline. I had to actually search old e-mails from this timeline to find that out. I was terrified that maybe something would happen that he wouldn’t exist here at all… Him or someone else I cared about… And now we’re changing the timeline again, so he could disappear this time…”

  “Well, Hopkins said the Emperors would probably preserve your family tree, since it’s also Russell’s. So your grandparents almost definitely met… Your cousin is probably always going to exist,” said Tim, trying to be comforting.

  “Yeah, it’s the ‘probably’ that gets me. But we can’t wo
rry about that now, anyway. My point is, he wasn’t a college freshman in my timeline, he was a nineteen year old high school senior who was held back in 9th grade and spent more time goofing off than was good for him. November 1st of this year, he got drafted. They put them through basic training pretty fast… They were mostly just looking for warm bodies, and you don’t need much training for that. Anyway, by the first week of December, he was dead,” she said.

  “Whoa… I’m sorry,” said Tim sincerely.

  Julie raised her eyebrows. “Don’t be. He’s alive again now, right? In college in Iowa. I mean, it’s super weird that he’s alive again, but I think it’s good news. In my previous timeline, obviously, I was really upset about it. His family had lived in town before they moved out to the Midwest, and even though he was two years older than me, he was like my first real friend. He moved when he was eight, but over the summers, either his family would drive out to us or we’d drive out to see him, and we’d always hang out together during that week, catching up. He was a good guy. Maybe not super ambitious, but he certainly didn’t deserve to die for that, ya know?”

  “Of course,” said Tim. “That’s horrible.”

  “Right. Well. I was angry. Like irrationally, ridiculously, destructively angry. So, I stole a can of spray-paint from the art room and decided to vent a little bit. In retrospect, it wasn’t a good idea, obviously… But it was after school hours, and the hallway I was in was completely deserted, so I figured I’d be okay, you know? But apparently, you had debate practice that night. And apparently-- you told me this later-- apparently you like to walk the hallways sometimes when you get stuck on a problem in debate?”

  “Sounds like me,” said Tim with a bit of a laugh.

  “Right, so… I was literally just finishing up the artwork… I won’t quote it directly, because it was maybe a bit vulgar, but it had something to do with the American Military Machine and on what part of my body it could kiss me. I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t my face.”

  “I get your drift,” Tim replied. “And I saw?”

  “I didn’t even hear you coming. I mean… maybe I’m not exactly a criminal mastermind, you know? But when I did see you, I knew I was in real trouble. I dropped the can and actually started to wonder if there was any chance you hadn’t recognized me… You know-- even though we’d gone to the same school for about a dozen years and had talked several times... But your first question was to ask whether I needed a lookout. I said I didn’t, I was done. Then I walked away. Not that I didn’t want to talk to you, but I was embarrassed you caught me,” Julie said. She seemed a little embarrassed even now, recounting the story.

  “I sound way classier than you in that timeline,” Tim said.

  “That’s not all,” Julie said. “I’d found a place in the building that wasn’t under surveillance. But the principal was furious. I guess it doesn’t look good for him either if stuff like that is written in his hallways. The school offered a five thousand dollar reward for anyone who could testify and pass a lie detector test as to who had done it.”

  “Hmmm… Five thousand dollars could certainly get you a lot of nights at the 1916 YMCA… But a lie detector test? In a school?” asked Tim.

  “Not so uncommon in my timeline,” said Julie. “But if you’d told… I’d’ve been in huge trouble… Probably expelled, maybe even drafted myself. But you never told. And that’s how we became friends.”

  “That’s awfully intense,” said Tim. “In our timeline, we just worked together on a class project once and you started sitting with me at lunch. Thought I was funny or something, maybe.”

  Julie touched his arm. “See, maybe we’re meant to be close to each other, no matter what timeline we were in. Good thing, too, because I would have seemed super crazy to you had you hardly known me at all before I started saying I could travel through time.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Tim pensively.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Julie.

  “It’s just a weird thing to think about… It was a different version of me in your timeline. And a different version of you in mine. Does that mean… I mean, what happened to the other Julie?” Tim asked. After all, it was the other Julie who he had first had a crush on, who he had tried so hard to make laugh at lunch for weeks.

  “Yeah…” said Julie, after a pause. “I’ve thought about this, obviously. It’s hard not to, walking around in a world of doppelgangers who were never exactly like the people I left behind. Now, of course, some people literally only exist in one timeline and not the other. But the ones who still exist in the new timeline-- I feel like they’re still basically the same. I mean, you can chalk up the differences to different things that happened to them. Like I never spray-painted obscenities in the hallway because the draft wasn’t so prevalent and discipline in public schools was a little more lax so my cousin was able to thrive. But I’m still the same person who I was your timeline… You know, deep down. Does that make sense? I mean… I can tell that you’re the same person I can trust with any secret I have.”

  Tim nodded. “I guess that makes sense. I can tell you’re the same person I knew before,” Tim agreed. She made his stomach feel similarly fluttery, anyway, and he figured that must count for something.

  There was a knock at the door and a turning of the lock. Tim nearly wet himself. They had been tense about getting discovered in their plan ever since Billy and Rose had left, and now it seemed that their fears had come true.

  “Lunch,” said Julie, her eyes wide.

  For just a moment, Tim thought about the possibility of simply not taking the food. But that would probably look suspicious and there was no need to risk it… They had only ever cracked open the door so far. If their luck held, the thugs would still not look at the full room.

  As it turned out, not only did the person in the hallway only open the door a little bit without investigating the room, the fact that they thought there were twice as many of them there as there actually were meant that they had more food, which included delicious sandwiches, probably made in the hotel’s own restaurant. Again, Tim had to admit that if he was going to be captured, the Emperors of Time were not bad folks to get captured by. Still, he hoped he and Julie would have made their way out of the room before dinner was served. They ate in silence for a bit, and then went back to filling the silence with chitchat.

  It was weird having to have a fake conversation with Julie, because there was so much he actually wanted to say to her. Not even about the mission, necessarily, he wanted to say plenty of other stuff to her as well. But it occurred to him that telling Julie how amazing he thought she was would be a bit out of context when they were being held captive, no matter how nice a hotel room they were in. Besides, at any moment, the thugs might come storming in, alerted by the Emperors of Time that there was no way that Rose and Billy were still in the bathroom. It would be quite a mood-killer if the Emperors of Time interrupted some intense moment.

  So they didn’t have any deep conversation, just kept talking about small things like the food, the weather, books they had each read (this was actually interesting because the authors from their timelines were sometimes different). And they kept hoping for their luck to hold.

  And it did, until finally, at three-thirty, Tim felt the floor-board again with his foot… And it moved.

  Chapter 20

  The Bomb

  Julie and Tim looked at each other. It now seemed like a fairly good bet that there was no surveillance in the room, but they seemingly decided silently to play it safe anyway. They eased the floorboard up without speaking about it. There was a small cardboard box inside. It included two cans of mace, some matches, and yes… a taser.

  Earlier that day they had only used one of the sheets from the letter.

  Tim grabbed the sheet with the blank back side now, along with the hotel pen.

  Matches? He wrote.

  Could come in handy. Julie responded. A small fire on this floor might keep them from building another bomb. C
learly they’ve got the whole floor reserved, or the armed guards in the hallway would raise a bit of a red flag, no?

  When do we do this? Now? Tim raised his eyebrows at Julie, too, as he pushed the paper back to her after underlining his last word.

  Well… the door’s locked, from the outside. They must have added a lock. You can hear it click when they bring food in. So we could maybe scream a lot and hope they come see what’s up… Or just wait for dinner. Plus, the longer we wait, the less likely it is they can recover and build another bomb before it’s time for it to blow up. I say we wait. Julie took awhile to write this, during which time Tim looked over her shoulder.

  Okay, we wait, then, agreed Tim. But this was easier said than done. It was still before 4 o’clock, and they had no idea when dinner would be. They had to be ready at a moment’s notice to hear the key click and start spraying mace at people.

  This was a stressful situation to be in, especially if you had plenty of time… seemingly infinite time, even… to contemplate the odds. This was anything but a sure thing. They were outmanned. Who knew how many thugs there were available to go against the two of them? They were certainly outgunned. They didn’t even have a coherent plan for how they were going to use the matches, or at least if they did, Tim didn’t know what it was. Julie had kept them in her hand and started fidgeting with them, but Tim wasn’t sure whether that was the sign of a plan or of nerves. Either way, until he had an idea, he wasn’t going to waste paper writing about it.

  Luckily, Julie saved him the effort when she took the paper after a few moments of silence. She wrote as he looked on.

  Game Plan:

  When they knock, give me 30 seconds, open the door and try to disable anyone trying to come in. Use a can of mace and the taser… I’ll take the matches. Sound like a plan?

  When Julie offered the pen to Tim he took it and shrugged.

  Best we’ve got, anyway.

  So he took a can of mace and the taser, handed Julie the other can of mace, and sat down on the edge of the bed to wait, once again, for someone to knock at the door.