by Walker, Rysa
He gives me a hesitant look. “We’ve only got about two hours before we’re supposed to meet Rich and Katherine back at the apartment.”
Before we left my house in Bethesda, we agreed that we needed to keep to a schedule and check in at regular intervals to the extent possible. Richard and Katherine are about a week prior to this time in Detroit, finding out what they can about Coughlin’s decision to join the Cyrists. They’re going to spend five hours there and then, and we’re spending five hours here and now, although I’m going to use a bit of that time to update Jack and also the folks in Bethesda 2136. At the end of the five hours, we’re supposed to meet back at the apartment with Clio, compare notes, and figure out what to do next.
“I know, Tyson. But I really do think this is important.”
He nods and we head over to the diner. We find a small table near the back, and Tyson flips over the two coffee cups that are facedown on saucers. It’s apparently a signal, because the waitress brings the pot with her when she comes to take our orders. There’s no question about regular or decaf, even though it’s evening. Did they even have decaf in 1939?
I just stick with the coffee, but Tyson nods toward the pastry case and tells her he’ll have a slice of lemon pie.
“To be honest,” I tell him once his pie is in front of him, “I was hoping to put this discussion off, mostly because I’m still not sure how this may complicate an already hopelessly tangled situation. But as team leader . . .” I give him an apologetic look, because I can tell from his expression he really would rather not have that title. “As team leader, this is something you need to be aware of. How much do you trust Katherine?”
A long time passes before he responds. On the one hand, I like the fact that he’s giving the question serious consideration. On the other hand, it bothers me that he has to give it any consideration at all. And I get the feeling he’s worried by the fact that I felt compelled to ask the question.
“Katherine is a good historian,” he says finally. “She’s smart, she knows her time periods, and she does an excellent job of blending into most environments. I haven’t worked with her much in the field, because she’s usually focused on mid-to-late nineteenth century, and my focus is more mid twentieth. But we’re both considered modernists, with a focus on US history, so we’re almost always in the same team scrums. She is always prepared, always presents a well-ordered argument for the projects she wants to pursue, and seems to come back with interesting information most of the time. And she is a huge stickler for avoiding even minor timeline glitches. Richard knows her a lot better than I do. They’ve been friends since they entered training, but . . .”
He trails off, so I finish the sentence. “But he’s in love with her.”
“Yup. Anyway, he said she came back from one of her earliest jumps terrified that something she’d done had caused an aberration.”
“Of what sort?” I ask.
Tyson shrugs. “Either she didn’t go into detail with him or else she swore him to secrecy. Whatever it was, she found out the situation resolved without any ripples to the timeline. So she’s pretty conscientious. But . . . and this is a huge but . . . she has a major weakness—”
“Saul.”
“Exactly. With the exception of the comments on intelligence, my assessment of Saul Rand is pretty much the opposite. He likes to bend rules, and because his family is well connected, he tends to get away with bending them. The day I jumped back after we fixed the rift at the Beatles concert, he just marched out of the jump room, without even going through Temporal Monitoring, which is a major infraction.”
“Do you think he would do anything to alter the timeline? I mean, intentionally?”
“I was thinking more carelessness, but he does play The Game pretty obsessively.” Tyson’s brows have been slowly knitting deeper and deeper into a worried frown as we talk. “Where is all of this going? Rich and Katherine looked for Saul before they left 2136. They didn’t find him. He was at the Objectivist Club when the time shift hit, and he wouldn’t have been under a key, so it was really more to humor Katherine than anything else.”
For the time being, I ignore his question of where this is going and focus on the real issue. “You said that Saul is Katherine’s weak spot, but . . . do you think she would cover for him if he was breaking CHRONOS rules?”
“Depends on what you mean by breaking the rules,” he says around a bite of the pie.
“I mean altering the timeline.”
His mouth opens, and then he shakes his head. “That’s not possible. I know you’re not entirely familiar with our process, so let me explain. Like I said, we’re supposed to go through Temporal Monitoring at the end of any jump—”
“I know. To see if there’s anything major enough that it shifts the timeline. Katherine mentioned the process in her diary, and there’s a section in A Brief History of CHRONOS. But you noted that tiny aberrations happen. What if someone was making small, incremental changes that he planned to take advantage of later?”
Another long pause. “No. I mean, not to the question of whether it’s possible. I don’t think it’s at all likely, but I can’t entirely dismiss it. But no to the main question of whether Katherine would cover for him on something major. Unless . . .” He stops and rubs his face.
“Unless what?”
“Just a stupid theory one of the other historians mentioned. I’m guessing you’ve heard of him, actually, since I’d lay bets he’s the source of Clio Dunne’s bright-green eyes.”
I sigh. “Timothy Winslow. Is the resemblance that obvious?”
He shrugs. “Overall, no. Katherine might not notice it, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just spent a bit of time in the tank with him during our last little adventure, so the resemblance stood out. It’s mostly just the eyes, really. They’re pretty distinctive. Anyway, we were at lunch one day, talking about how Katherine kind of lets Saul walk all over her. She’s as smart and capable as any of the other historians, but he treats her like a doormat. Timo has this theory, and I really shouldn’t have called it stupid, because I know the genetic-design teams have done similar stuff in the opposite direction. Tate Poulsen, for example, is our Viking historian. He looks a lot like—”
“Thor,” I say. “From the comics.”
Tyson gives me a look that’s equal parts annoyed and amused. “Should I just assume you already have full background details on everyone at CHRONOS?”
“Not everyone. But between Katherine’s diaries and Kate’s . . .” I stop, my breath catching in my throat. I’d been about to say that I know most of the historians who will be stranded in the field when CHRONOS is destroyed, and a few facts about some of the others. That’s more than I really should tell him, but that’s not what has me unable to breathe. This is the first time it has occurred to me that Tyson Reyes was not one of the names mentioned among the historians in the field that day. The odds, therefore, are very good that he is one of the people in the building the day that Saul blows it sky high, leaving nothing but a crater of ash and rubble. If, by some miracle, we manage to restore CHRONOS, and they return to HQ to cobble together the chain of events that leads to my eventual birth, Tyson only has about six months to live.
“Madi?” he asks. “Are you okay?”
I force myself to nod. “Yes. The brain is just misfiring, I guess.” I take a long sip of coffee, now eager to get this over with. “Given that time is short, how about I just let you know if I’m unclear on who someone is?”
“Sure,” he says, still looking at me a bit oddly. “As I was saying, they clearly boosted Poulsen’s testosterone and probably some growth hormones, too. Although I’m sure there were plenty of men in the Viking community he lived in who were average size and build, the design team seemed to have a tendency toward stereotypes. And in the case of my team, which also designed Tate, a fondness for ancient comic books. Anyway, if they tweaked hormones for the male historians in situations where they felt the guy might need to be
hypermasculine, what would prevent them from doing the opposite in the case of Katherine, who spent the vast majority of her time in the field in situations where the woman was expected to be demure and even somewhat subservient? I don’t know that they actually did this. Evelyn—that’s Timo’s wife, which you already knew, right? She was kind of pissed about the whole theory. But the only time I’ve ever seen Katherine really lose it was when she was confronting one of the many women Saul slept with . . . well, I was going to say behind her back, but if he was trying to be stealthy, he failed miserably. And Timothy said that’s another sign of some increased hormone—oxytocin, maybe? Anyway . . . long story short, I don’t think she’d cover for Saul if it was a major breach of protocol. But if she discovered something tiny, something she could reason away? Maybe. She doesn’t like to cross him. I seriously doubt that he’s actually abusive, but . . .”
I struggle to keep my face neutral, but I can’t help thinking of the vid from Katherine’s diary. The bruise on her cheek. The red mark around her neck where he ripped off her necklace. I remind myself that those things haven’t actually happened yet, and maybe they never will. But I know the potential is there, and that must show in my expression.
“Aw, fuck,” Tyson says softly. “And to think I was feeling guilty for wishing we could restore CHRONOS, except for Saul. So . . . what brings this up? What changes do you think he made to the timeline?”
“Saul Rand created the Cyrists,” I say. “It’s complicated at this point, because I think we’re in something of a . . . well, not a time loop, because it isn’t closed. So a time spiral, I guess? I don’t even know if that makes sense. What I do know is that Saul used a preexisting cult, the Koreshan Unity in Florida, as the basis for the Cyrists, but he’s the one who wrote The Book of Cyrus itself. And he was dropping in on churches in the guise of Brother Cyrus, curing someone’s cancer, giving a few bits of prophecy, and so forth. I’ll bring you back Kate’s diary, and you can read it once all of this is over, but the condensed version is that he was planning a rather nasty bit of genocide. He even did a dry run of it in 1911 in a small village in Georgia.”
Tyson’s face goes pale. “You’ve got to be kidding. How could he do something like that and not have it show up in Temporal Monitoring?”
“It was a very isolated village. No one even realized they were dead for several weeks. Anyway, Katherine wasn’t aware of that part. And in the version of events that I know, she doesn’t figure out what Saul is doing in terms of the Cyrists for a few more months. In that version of events, however, I didn’t find a CHRONOS key to jump-start our research and put us decades ahead of schedule. So, I really don’t have a clue what Katherine knows. But The Book of Cyrus was an ongoing project of Saul’s. He joked about it with Tate and maybe Morgen. That’s why I’m suspicious that Katherine may know more about some of this than she’s letting on. I think she’s covering for him. And since the other team seems to be using the Cyrists as part of their strategy, that means she’s holding back information we need.”
FROM THE DAILY INTREPID-HERALD REVIEW OF BOOKS
THE COMING AMERICAN FASCISM: TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
(January 8, 1956) Twenty years ago this week, one of our correspondents provided us with a lengthy review of Professor Lawrence Dennis’s seminal work The Coming American Fascism. At the time, the review reflected the common wisdom of many educated elites, that Dr. Dennis was a blowhard with little understanding of economics, politics, or human nature. The review noted that Dennis’s book, while well written, was overly long and tedious and that his arguments for the benefits of a fascist government might also be applied to a government of cannibals, since the latter would quickly solve the problem of unemployment. In the end, our reviewer concluded that the book effectively guaranteed that fascism would not take root in our nation because he managed to make the topic utterly boring.
We have been reliably informed that Professor Dennis has long kept a framed copy of the review in his office to keep him humble. Our initial idea for this anniversary piece was to contact the original author, R. L. Duffus, and ask whether hindsight had inclined him to deal more favorably with The Coming American Fascism. As we were unable to locate him, the editorial staff has chosen instead to look at all the ways in which Mr. Duffus was wrong about this prophetic work.
Two decades ago, our nation found itself at a crossroads. Our government clearly failed to avert economic disaster, and economic thinkers understood that the nation could not recover and achieve its true potential under a system of unfettered capitalism. Change was on the horizon, with the only question what the nature of that change would be. Would the United States take the path of international communism or the nationalist path of fascism?
For Dennis, there was never really any question. He understood that the communist path would simply not work in the United States, given the nation’s level of development. Not only would the economy be seriously damaged in a communist revolution, but there would likely be significant loss of life, since the bourgeoisie would not step aside willingly. Thus, he argued, fascism was the only viable alternative to achieve a planned, well-regulated economy. Effective planning would only be possible with a strong, permanent government, unencumbered by constitutional guarantees and state boundaries and administered by a competent elite.
Dennis acknowledged that the country was too diverse to organize around race or religion. The glue would have to be the one thing that unites all members of the country—our view of ourselves as Americans.
Had this retrospective been written a decade ago, many would have argued that the success of these policies was far from guaranteed, especially after the defection of the western states. Professor Dennis himself was somewhat dismayed when disaffected racial and religious minorities had to be relocated in order to ensure economic stability. But today, we are a powerful, prosperous nation far more united than at any time in the past. And contrary to all expectations, many elements of our original Constitution were retained under the new Contract of State.
In his original review, Mr. Duffus held that Professor Dennis’s theories were farcical, flawed by twisted logic, and yet essentially harmless given their philosophical nature. He concluded by saying that Dennis “wastes a lot of breath on a small sneeze.” Today, with twenty years of hindsight, however, we can argue with assurance that, on the contrary, Dennis’s theories breathed new life into our moribund nation.
∞17∞
TYSON
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
FEBRUARY 20, 1939
Historians tend to divide into two opposing camps on the issue of night jumps. Some argue that darkness gives you a bit more cover, and that’s true. The problem is it also gives that same cover to others. In the bright light of day, you simply pan around the area before jumping. If you see no one, the odds are damn good that there’s no one to see you. With a night jump, however, that’s far less certain.
Case in point, the couple making out in the bushes here in Washington Square Park, less than a meter from my stable point. Luckily, they seem to have been too preoccupied with each other to realize that I popped in out of thin air. They do, however, both realize that they’re no longer alone.
“Sorry.” I back out toward the walkway. “Just looking for a spot to take a leak.”
It’s the standard excuse, the one we’re taught in training, and by far the most logical reason that a guy would wander into the bushes alone in the dark. It’s definitely the excuse least likely to get you into trouble with anyone other than the police, and even then, the odds are good that the cop will take pity on you.
That said, I’m sure this guy is wishing I’d used pretty much any other excuse, because his girl is now thinking about her dress, and the grass, and how many guys may have done the same thing in that exact same spot.
It feels like an odd choice for a make-out spot to me anyway, but then the location is seared into my memory. Maybe if you live here, maybe if you use the sidewalk across th
e street every day, maybe then you become immune to it. Maybe it’s like any other sidewalk. I mean, people die everywhere. Usually not 146 of them in a single building, though.
Nearly twenty-eight years ago, the area just outside the park along Washington Place was littered with the bodies of young women who jumped to their deaths when the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory caught fire. The greed of the owners led them to block the doors against the prospect that the women, most of whom were mere girls, might slip out for a breath of fresh air. It also made it easier to check every worker’s handbag for stolen goods at the end of her shift. Safety laws were changed as a result of that fire, but it took the visceral shock of watching dozens of girls jump to their deaths and seeing even more carted out of the building as charred corpses to spur people into action. It took 146 deaths to buy a tiny bit of progress.
The location doesn’t tie in with my research agenda, but it was part of the standard training curriculum for all historians in my cohort who studied 20th-century America. Thankfully, it’s not the first jump you take during training. The first two or three show you the lighter side of history. My very first jump, at age fourteen, was to Disneyland in 1959, along with three other students in my year and two chaperones. It was partly for fun, but also to see how comfortable we were with the language of the era, the use of money, and other things we’d need to master before formally beginning the field-training phase of our studies.
This jump was where things got serious, though. I’ve compared notes with others from different cohorts, and all of them had something similar in their third or fourth training jump. Something with bodies, and usually quite a few of them. I think the reason is twofold. First, they want to show us that our jobs are serious. We will be studying issues of life and death. It’s not all Disneyland.
But second, and I think this might even be considered the primary goal, was to remind us that the people we encounter on these jumps are dead. All of them. Our chaperone on that trip, a soon-to-be-retiring historian named Rose, who specialized in this era, mentioned this several times. They’re all dead. Not just the bodies I saw lined up on the sidewalk in neat rows but also the police officers who stood by guarding them, unashamed of the tears running down their cheeks. The reporters snapping photographs of the disaster for the newspapers. The people who began gathering here in this very park, trying to find out whether their friend or family member had made it out of the fire alive. All of them, Rose had insisted, were long, long dead in our time.