“Great,” Corrigan said. “I told you to stay away, dammit.”
The Alpha Kilroy had picked up his bat again, but he looked so shaky it was obvious he wasn’t going to be a threat for a few more seconds. The problem was the second Kilroy.
I need the gun, he thought again and then wondered why Maggie had to go and grab his gun at all when she had one of her own.
The Kilroy was walking up to Maggie and brandishing his nightstick while she was still quite oblivious.
Getting back up off the ground, Corrigan’s hand fell on the only weapon left—the sword.
“Hey!” he shouted, swinging the sword around wildly and trying to look like he knew how to use it. “Stay away from her!”
But the Kilroy was too interested in Maggie to be distracted and Corrigan had no chance of getting to him in time. The creature swung his nightstick right at her face.
“Duck!” Corrigan shouted.
* * *
Now
Corrigan had picked up, of all things, a sword. She was afraid to even guess where it had come from. Perhaps now he was fighting a medieval knight?
He was looking right at her. She saw him shout, Stay away from her! and all at once realized she’d made a mistake. You guys are a lot stronger than you look, he’d said earlier.
Plural.
There’s more than one. She thought she had a good idea where one Kilroy was, but hadn’t factored in the possibility of multiples. Now, one of the extra combatants was about to take a free shot at her.
Duck! Corrigan shouted. So she did. Something whooshed in the air above her head.
* * *
Now +
Even prior to ducking, the physical presence of Maggie Trent in the future-verse occupied by Corrigan and both his sparring partners was oddly indistinct. The Kilroys and Corrigan were solid and clear and as evidently real as anybody in the commonly agreed-upon present would appear to anybody else in the commonly agreed-upon present. Maggie—even when standing still—was fuzzy, as if a poorly focused camera had captured her. Had Archie Calvin and Erica Smalls been standing next to Corrigan, they might have been able to explain to him that this was because no matter how close to accurate this future path was, there were always going to be minor uncertainties. As they were not there, the best Corrigan could muster by way of explanation was, how odd.
And then Maggie ducked, which was an explicit alteration of her future. The timing was correct because while Corrigan said it to the future Maggie, the blow she was ducking was being inflicted upon the future Maggie, so that when she caught up to this future and it became her present, the warning and the attack happened more or less in the same order in which they should have. Corrigan didn’t think of this either; he was just hoping it would work. In one version of events, Maggie stayed where she was and took a nasty blow to the face, caving in her nose and right cheekbone. But now there was a second Maggie, one that lowered her head at just the right moment. She split from the injured version, and when her future changed, the entire world—the ground, the trees, the air—wiggled, spun sideways, and was temporarily rent in two. There was a sound that came from this rending that was somewhat like a tremendous steel door being fed through a gigantic wood chipper. This sound had a physical impact on Corrigan and equally so on the Kilroys. It rattled his teeth and shrank his genitals and punched him in the stomach. He screamed—silently for lack of air—then fell to his knees and seriously considered running himself through with the sword. It was worse than the shriek of the Kilroy he’d heard earlier—worse than anything he’d ever heard or felt in his life.
And it lasted barely half a second. When it was over he understood a little bit about the motives of the Kilroys. Someone who saw them could also do this to the future. He could do this to the future . . . and already had. Although it didn’t appear to be the case when he altered his own future. It only happened when he—or Harvey, or someone like them—changed the future of someone else whose destiny was otherwise set. And it was so painful that if Corrigan was destined to remain stuck in the future—and who was to say he wasn’t at this point—he might consider acting the same way the Kilroys did, if only to prevent that horrible sound from ever happening again.
The beneficial result of Maggie having ducked was that she did not end up with her face smashed in, and her attacker was temporarily incapacitated. Corrigan, as shaky as he was, saw this as an opportunity to close the distance between him and the Kilroy. He staggered toward the Kilroy as best he could, holding the sword over his head like an axe. It must have looked comical—he moved the way a person who had been spinning in place for several minutes might—but with the Kilroy still focused on Maggie, he didn’t notice that he had a sword coming at his head until too late.
With a loud clang, the blade bounced off the Kilroy’s skull, and the weapon nearly vibrated right out of Corrigan’s hand. He actually fell over backward with the ricochet. The Kilroy, although decidedly wounded after being struck by a long piece of metal, did not suffer death by cleaved cranium, as one would expect. He did fall down, however.
Getting up again, Corrigan ran his hand along the blade’s edge. It was dull. Decorative, he thought. Naturally. He examined the point and found that it was slightly rounded, which was also a major disappointment. But it was still a heavy, flat piece of metal that tapered at the end. He figured he could drive it through someone if he had to.
But the gun made a lot more sense. He tossed aside the sword and grabbed the gun from Maggie’s hand. Her future self jumped back in surprise.
The Kilroy got to his feet and emitted a whiny screech. It was nothing like the one the Alpha Kilroy had let out earlier in the street. More like something a miffed parakeet might utter. He charged.
Corrigan shot him twice in the chest and then, when he fell over, a third time in the face, just to be sure. A headshot had worked on the first one, and he couldn’t be sure these things had a heart in which to put a bullet. Then, rather than dallying any longer, he spun around to take care of the Alpha Kilroy. Unfortunately, the Alpha happened to be right behind him at that time, such that when Corrigan turned, he brought the gun right into the creature’s swing.
The bat knocked the gun at least thirty feet and also, not incidentally, broke two of Corrigan’s fingers. Without thinking of much beyond how very painful that was, Corrigan grabbed his broken fingers with his good hand, which, of course, left his head unprotected for the next swing of the bat. At the last second he turned his shoulder enough to absorb most of that blow, but it still hurt like hell and nearly knocked him to the ground.
“Corrigandie,” the last remaining Kilroy declared once again. He swatted at Corrigan with the bat, but this time Corrigan was prepared. He grabbed it with his uninjured hand, planted a boot into Kilroy’s chest, and jerked the bat free. It was a maneuver that would have worked a lot better if, after completing it, he’d managed to hang onto the bat, but it ended up flying over his head and far enough away that it may as well have landed in the river for all the good it did him. The Kilroy continued to press the advantage, lunging forward and wrapping his tremendously huge hands around Corrigan’s windpipe. In a second, the Alpha had Corrigan pressed up against the trunk of a tree, their faces inches apart. Corrigan couldn’t breathe or move.
Kilroy opened his mouth, his gigantic yellow teeth glistening. His jaw seemed to have no hinge to it. Like a snake, it looked as though he could have eaten Corrigan’s head whole. And as the creature leaned closer it occurred to Corrigan that might just be what he was planning to do.
* * *
Now
The nonstop entertainment that was the Corrigan Bain Pantomime Theater had Maggie so entranced she’d almost completely forgotten she was in mortal danger. There was the Mystery of the Sword, in which Corrigan swung hard at something that was not there, hit it, and then almost recoiled his way across Memorial Drive. This was preceded by the Dance of Agony, which seemed to involve the lead actor grasping his head tightly in an apparent
effort to get his eyeballs to pop out. And then there was the Grabbing of the Gun. She didn’t like that piece. Corrigan had gone from standing beside her to ripping the gun from her hand without his hand actually traversing the necessary distance in between first. It was spooky. The performance got much more serious after the Firing of the Gun with the climactic Breaking of the Fingers and The Choking. Maggie realized then that she was watching Corrigan die but didn’t know what she could possibly do about it.
“How do I help?” she shouted. “Tell me what to do!”
He was mouthing something. He was looking right at her and mouthing something. She edged closer—expecting any second to get attacked by another invisible Kilroy—to figure out what it was. What are you saying?
It was harder to read his lips because he was busy being strangled and seemed to be losing some motor control. But eventually she got it.
Shoot me.
Hoping quite fervently that she’d gotten that right, she pulled her gun from her coat pocket, said a quick prayer, and aimed at his chest.
“Hope you know what you’re doing,” she muttered.
* * *
Now +
“Hope you know what you’re doing,” the Echo said.
Caught up in his bloodlust, Kilroy Prime of the River Tribe Kilroys had almost forgotten there was another Echo in the area. He’d forgotten because Kilroys only rarely thought of Echoes at all. The sounds they made were just a part of the cacophony of background noise/buzz that each Kilroy as far back as when they were child-things just learned to ignore. But this Echo had said something that Kora-gan thought was important. The Prime could tell, because Kora-Gan had stopped struggling.
The Prime looked over his shoulder and saw. The Echo was holding a gun machine/device.
“No,” he muttered.
“Yes,” Kora-gan said.
* * *
The Alpha Kilroy realized he’d fallen into a trap and was trying to pull free, which would not do—not with Maggie aiming for Corrigan like he’d told her to.
To keep him still, Corrigan slapped his hands on either side of the Kilroy’s head, pulled him as close as he could, and held on for dear life. They were easily close enough now for the creature to try taking a bite out of Corrigan, but Kilroy wasn’t thinking about that any more. His motions got increasingly frantic, and as Corrigan was fighting to hold him still with the help of two broken fingers, it hurt like hell.
“You’re not . . . going anywhere,” he whispered.
“Seemust . . . mercy,” Kilroy said, his eyes widening. He knew he’d run out of time.
“Not a chance,” Corrigan said.
In her own present, Maggie Trent fired the gun, and then something strange and a little awful happened.
Corrigan felt the bullet hit him in the chest. It happened to the version of him that occupied her present, but he had little understanding of that distinction given he’d just been shot. The bullet impacted his breastbone and fragmented, hitting various internal organs, including at least one lung. He gasped and fell backward against the tree, but perhaps quixotically at this point, still held onto Kilroy’s head.
Maybe she’ll try again, he thought, before I die.
But then her future self caught up with the present he and the Kilroy shared, and the gun was fired a second time.
Two things happened at once. First, Kilroy shrieked, his back arching as if he’d touched a live wire. Second, the blackness came, and for just a second Corrigan thought this is me dying. But it wasn’t that. It was the same world-shattering, reality-tearing agony he’d gone through earlier when Maggie had ducked. Added to the pain from the gunshot, Corrigan fervently hoped it would all be over soon, because death would hurt less.
And then the darkness receded, and the pain went away. All of the pain. He patted his chest where the round had struck him and found no damage. A deep breath confirmed that all was well, internally.
What the hell just happened?
“Seebringvoid,” Kilroy said. Corrigan realized he was lying on the ground next to the tree, so he sat up and looked around until he found the Kilroy on the ground nearby. Corrigan crawled over to him, not altogether certain what he would do if the creature hadn’t been mortally wounded.
He needn’t have worried. The bullet that had hit Corrigan’s past self dead center had instead struck the Kilroy around where his heart should have been.
“Void,” the Kilroy repeated. “Hailbringer . . .” His head sagged over.
Corrigan sat still, holding his breath and waiting for the creature to spring back to life. He didn’t.
“Well,” he said. “Thank goodness for that.”
“Corrigan, are you okay?” Maggie asked. She was kneeling next to him.
“Yeah,” he said, looking at her. “Nice shot.”
Then, not knowing what else to do, he lay back down. Aside from the two broken fingers, broken nose, broken ribs, and the gigantic bruise his body had become overall, he had no idea how to get back to Maggie’s time. But that could wait. What he really wanted was to get some sleep.
“Well done, my little fixer,” he heard Harvey say.
“Thanks, Harvey.”
He closed his eyes.
Epilogue
Now ++
The street itself seemed solid enough, but everything that moved around on it was fuzzy. No, that wasn’t quite the right word for it. Foggy, he thought. People who were only partly there walked along the sidewalk, some well-focused, but most only lightly represented misty ghost-figures. The whole effect was jarring, like slipping on a pair of 3-D glasses halfway through the movie. Probability had been introduced as a dimension.
Corrigan looked around for street signs and other identifiers and found he was standing on an island in the middle of Commonwealth Avenue, having just stepped off a subway train that was blurred to slight indistinctness by several possible arrival and departure times in its future. It was pulling away from the aboveground landing beneath his feet. Various phantom representations that had meandered off the train stood waiting for a walk signal.
Okay, now I know where I am. Why am I here?
Not seeing anything obvious, he joined the crowd and crossed the street to the waiting sidewalk. Everybody there was too ghostly—or in Calvin’s words, temporally uncertain—to be the subject of his appointment. But he was close.
He started walking uphill, alongside a block of tall red brick buildings that tended, more often than not, to house students, as they were within walking distance of Boston College. In the summer, the apartments were largely unoccupied, and it was still a couple of weeks too early for the caravan of moving trucks that heralded the commencement of the fall semester. So it seemed unlikely that Corrigan was looking in the right place.
But it felt right. And this was one of those times when feel was all he had to work with.
He’d come to a stop at building 317. An indistinct woman walked an indistinct dog on an indistinct leash past him, and a honking imbroglio had broken out on the street, where someone who had nearly run a red light almost ran into someone who had jumped the green light. Both cars came to a blurry stop inches from their faint bumpers. Corrigan studied their interaction, could see no layers of future-fog wherein the two cars collided, and decided to ignore them. It would be, at worst, a minor fender-bender.
Corrigan looked at his own hand. When he’d gotten off the train he had been nearly solid, but now he was much fainter. This told him he was very likely to come this far, but less likely to stand on the street like this. Somewhere, he had diverged.
There was a loud clang. It was louder than the honking or anything else going on around him. This was not because it was actually a louder noise. It was a more certain noise, and so took place in almost all of the time-possibles Corrigan was standing in the midst of. He turned to locate the source and spotted a window screen falling to the street, closely followed by the animated body of a young man.
The young man screamed. He looked almos
t perfectly solid, and his cry of shock was piercingly loud. The scream was prematurely appended by his violent impact with the ground. Corrigan looked at his watch. It was 4:02 in the afternoon.
Various foggy people ran up to his partly smeared body lying dead on the sidewalk. Corrigan ignored all of them—and the semi-noises they made—even when a few brushed past him. This was an odd sensation, like running the back of your hand over a bowl of cold oatmeal. He looked up instead.
Okay, where’d he come from? There was only one window in the path of descent that was open and had no screen. It was on the fourth floor.
Running up the steps inside, he soon reached apartment seven, which looked to be the right floor on the correct side of the building. The door was ajar—a big time-saver—so he just pushed his way in.
The window through which the kid had gone was in the living room. A young woman was standing at it and screaming.
“What happened?” he asked her.
“FellGodjustfellheleanedwhoarewhatcallhelp?” she said.
Fuzzy people, he’d learned, almost never spoke in logical sentences. What he was getting was pieces of an untold number of possible sentences she might speak. But he’d gotten pretty good at piecing these together. He leaned on the screen, he thought.
Stepping up to the window, he examined the groove where the screen had rested. It didn’t look damaged or bent, so he checked the window next to it.
Screens are the wrong size, he thought. That’s the problem.
Leaving the confused and still shouting fuzzy woman in the living room, he went to the victim’s bedroom and rifled through some of his things until he came across a pile of opened mail.
Tom Harrison, he read. Tom Harrison in building three seventeen, opposite the T-stop on Comm Ave. 4:02.
Mark it down.
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