Borrowed Time (11 page)

“Wait.” I checked to make sure psycho-blond’s weapon had vanished along with her. Sometimes the strangest things get left behind even after the reason for their existing had looped out. But that’s another story. “Where’s your gun?”

Pam smiled. “Already on me. But thanks for thinking of that.
Now
let’s go.”

Pam and I ran again, this time out of the observatory. Once at the door, we slackened our pace to a walk, moving nonchalantly away from the growing crowd around the remains of His Majesty’s brave military men. I felt sick again, even though I knew that because of historical circumstances their deaths Here and Now wouldn’t even be a drop in the tides of history. Odds were that all of those soldiers would have died anyway within a few years, between 1914 and 1918.

Or during the influenza epidemic that started in 1918. But that’s also another story and not one I like remembering. Then my shoeless foot hit a stone and another pain occupied my attention.

We soon entered a built-up area where the streets meandered past still-closed shops and pubs. I wondered what the local time was, thinking it must be getting close to dawn. Pam finally paused and set down the trunk. “It’s high time we jumped out of here. The local cops are going to be looking for anyone who might know anything about those dead men. And as long as this homing device is still Here and Now there’s a chance someone might try to retrieve it. Do you want it?”

I had Jeannie calculate the cost of jumping that extra mass uptime and winced. “Not unless you don’t want it.”

“Okay. I think I know some people who’ll give me a few bucks for it.” She smiled and offered her hand. “Nice working with you.”

“Likewise.” We shook hands, then I gathered my courage. “Pam, what would you think about getting together on a non-business basis?”

“I’d like that.” She named a date about a century uptime from me, then saw my expression. “Are you up or down from that?”

“Down.” I named my own date and Pam had the grace to look disappointed. There’s expensive get-togethers, and then there’s going on jumps for get-togethers, which only the incredibly rich and idle can afford. I didn’t fit either category.

“Well, maybe something will work out,” Pam offered. “Come up and see me sometime.”

“If I can, I will.”

“Too bad we can’t see the sites of London together. Thanks again for the help. And the company. See you around.” Pam smiled, blew me a kiss, and then jumped uptime, leaving me gazing at the empty place on the sidewalk where she’d been.

I checked in my pockets, confirming that my stash of ill-gotten cash had dwindled to a few small coins I suspected even beggars would turn up their noses at. Both of my feet hurt from running on cobblestones and the occasional tree trunk or rock.

There I stood in Edwardian London, with no money, no girl, and no shoes, doubtless being sought at this moment by numerous Sherlock Holmes-wannabes from Scotland Yard. Hail the conquering hero.

“Jeannie, prepare the jump back home.” Maybe I’d be able to hit up my friends for contributions to pay for my trip here and back. Bill sure as heck owed me some, but professors didn’t tend to have large bank accounts and he might not even remember the entire incident. “And look up any organizations that might give me some sort of reward for saving London and ensuring Hitler’s defeat. That ought to be worth something.”

“You will have to convince them that the history they know is the result of your Intervention,” Jeannie reminded me.

“I know. Hopefully they’ll accept your files on this trip.” When you’re a Temporal Interventionist, history is what you make of it, but you usually don’t make enough from making history. I faced east, where a gradual lightening of the night sky foretold the sun still rising on the British Empire. “Let’s go home, Jeannie.”

Author's Note on
These Are the Times

Our favorite Temporal Interventionists, Tom and Pam, are back. Literally. They’re back in 1775. There was a shot fired that year in Massachusetts that started the American war of Independence. We still don’t know who fired it, but we may be about to find out. And Tom has to decide whether he is willing to move “up” or lose his chance at changing his own history. This story was inspired by helping my youngest son with his homework on the American Revolution. Those old weapons put out a lot of smoke when they fired. Why didn’t anyone see where the shot came from that day on the field at Lexington?

These Are the Times

Like different people, some places and times in the past attract a lot more attention than others. Sometimes a particular there and then only needs a few Temporal Interventionists dropping by before every question is pretty much answered. Lady Godiva, for example, who really did do her bare-back ride, but no one who saw her picture in action once wanted to see it again. They probably forgave the taxes just so she’d put her clothes back on.

Other places get a fairly constant stream of TIs either trying to change things for their clients or trying to collect information from the past. It’s hard to visit Washington, DC anytime during the first three centuries of the United States, for example, without tripping over fellow TIs.

Then there’s very specific there and thens, places and times where something special happened, a turning point, and everyone wants to be there.

Like Boston, Massachusetts, in April, 1775 CE.

I’d landed what should have been a nice, simple job. No Interventions this time by someone wanting to ensure Great-Great-Great-etc.-Uncle Ned made it to Lexington Green so they’d have a hero in the family instead of an ancestor who’d stayed in bed with a hangover that morning, or someone wanting to murder Paul Revere or poison his horse. That stuff could get hazardous, especially with so many TIs from different centuries clustered in this here and now all trying to either carry out their own Interventions or stop someone else from achieving their Intervention.

There wasn’t anything dangerous in my job description. I was supposed to jump back uptime before sunset on the 18
^th
, well before serious shooting started, and any travel by me near decision points or critical individuals would be finished well before then. No, all I had to worry about was being caught in the crossfire between TIs fighting before that time to either create or block Interventions. Unfortunately, this here and now had a lot of crossfire, and as a TI myself I looked entirely too much like one of the combatants, so I stayed as alert as anyone else who knew a secret war was underway around them. That’s aside from the fact that I was trying to blend in with the locals, who were also ready and willing to commit potentially homicidal actions against each other.

I’d been sent back by the Virtual City project, whose latest plan was to record everything said and done in Boston and the nearby surrounding area on 18 and 19 April 1775. Important places, like where the Sons of Liberty had met, had long since been bugged so you could get detailed transcripts of everything said by anyone of any importance in the city on those days. But the Virtual City project aimed to create a visual and auditory record of the entire place and time. Once all of the data from the thousands of bugs was integrated, individuals several centuries from 1775 would be able to “walk” down the streets of this here and now, go into just about any building, and hear and see what had actually happened to anyone, not just the famous people.

Historians loved it, people who enjoyed soap operas loved it, privacy advocates screamed bloody murder and pointed out that people farther uptime could be doing the same thing to us. But the law said no such project could include any living person, so not enough people who were alive objected to it. And like every other TI, my implanted personal assistant made sure I was invisible to the bugs so no future voyeurs would be eyeing me. Historians insisted on that so we wouldn’t mess up the record, which is sort of ridiculous since TIs spend a good part of their time messing up history. It’s what we do. Historians love us for the facts we can tell them and hate us for changing the facts we tell them.

But I wasn’t out to change anything this time. My job consisted of walking down a preplanned grid of streets while the bug deployment gear built into the heavy coat I wore spat out bugs according to its own programming. To the casual observer here and now who got close enough to one, the bugs looked like gnats as they flitted into position on buildings or inside windows and doors to observe activity inside. Each had a nice array of visual and audio recording gear which would send their data to collection arrays which I and other TIs had dropped off in various places where they looked like rocks. If any local picked one up, they’d feel like rocks, too.

All I had to do was keep one internal eye focused on the map my implanted Assistant named Jeannie displayed my route on, and one external eye on the assorted denizens of Boston, other obstacles to be avoided, and anything suspicious or dangerous.

Not exactly safe, but not the most hazardous job I’d ever had, either. Everything went fine until I realized somebody was following me.

He was aristocratic-looking, fair-haired, wearing very nice clothes, and seemed the sort of guy who robbed people by embezzling from the bank he owned rather than the sort who followed someone down an alley and hit them on the head. But he kept showing up in my peripheral vision and that got me worried.

I finally turned quickly and focused on him for a moment before turning away again.
Jeannie, lock on. Can you ID this guy?
Internal communications come in very useful at such times.

Negative
, Jeannie responded.
You’ve never encountered him before, but he’s not a local. He does have an implanted time jump mechanism. I can’t be certain from this distance, but it seems a couple of generations more primitive than yours, placing the man’s origin a little more than a century before our home now
.

Any weapons?

None detected.

Which didn’t mean none were there. But I had to know what this guy wanted with me, and accosting him in public was less risky than letting him chose the moment. I turned the next corner as my preplanned route directed, but then pivoted and took several quick steps back to the corner just in time to meet my tail as he came around. “Hi, citizen,” I greeted him in a low voice as the crowds of locals walked past us, using the anachronistic term on purpose to get his reaction.

He glowered at me. “You’ve got your nerve.” High-class British accent, and very well done. I wondered if it was authentic. “Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

“Since you’ve got an implanted Assistant and jump mechanism I’m sure you know what I’m doing. So what? It’s not about you.”

His glower changed into a snarl. “I suppose it’s just a coincidence that you’re planting sensors in the same area where I was waylaid tomorrow.”

“As far as I know, yes.” Wait a minute. If he was here tomorrow and knew what had happened that meant he was also probably here today. “You doubled-back? You’ve got dual-presence in this here and now, and both within this city?” Instead of answering directly, he smiled unpleasantly. “Don’t you know what that can do to someone’s mind?” No one knows why, but being consciously present in the same here and now more than once can create a lot of problems that mimic old ailments like schizophrenia and paranoia. The closer you physically are the worse the effects are.

“That’s only a problem for weak-minded mongrels,” he replied with that supercilious sneer that only a many-generational member of the upper class can really carry off. “You think yourself very superior. But you’ve met your match.”

“Look, I’m not –”

“You won’t stop me!” He must one of the guys trying an Intervention. I took a moment to wonder what, but it didn’t matter much. Everyone who made any difference in the events of the next few days had TI bodyguards secretly following them everywhere. Every building that mattered had other TIs guarding them and sweeping them for bombs and such. The people who wanted to keep history the way it more or less was in general had a lot more money than the ones who wanted to change things, and could hire more TIs to protect turning points in history. Some of them must have taken out this Brit tomorrow.

His sneer turned contemptuous. “I know your kind. Sit back safely, give the orders, send out your hooligans to do your dirty work while you pull the strings within your lair. It’s a regular Moriarty you consider yourself, isn’t it?”

“Actually, no.”

He leaned close, his face reddening with anger. “You stopped me tomorrow but you won’t stop me tomorrow this time. Try to sic your hounds on me again and I’ll be ready.”

I leaned a little closer, too, emphasizing my words. “I don’t know you, I don’t care what you’re trying to do, I’m not here on Intervention or Counter-Intervention or Counter-Counter-Intervention. I’m just working for a data collection project. Go away and I promise you any further interactions between us will be purely by chance.”

“You lie. I have my eye on you Moriarty. Neither you nor your ruffians will be safe if you try to cross me again.”

I started losing my temper, too. “Listen, you moron. I’m not Moriarty, but if you mess with
me
I’ll do a Wellington on you. Understand?”

His eyes narrowed, he shifted his weight and I braced for him to jump me. I’ve got a tranquilizer crystal shooter embedded in one finger that can knock out someone for a long time, and if necessary I’d use it on this loon. But he just glanced around, taking in the crowds passing by, then stepped back slightly. “Right, Yank. Think you can rule the world, eh? And all time as well. Not bloody likely. Keep yourself and your brutes away from me and my plans.” Then he spun about and vanished rapidly around the corner.

I blew out a long breath, relaxed, then started walking my route again.
Jeannie, any idea what that last little speech of his was about?

He seems to believe that you’re a citizen of the United States, which supplanted the United Kingdom as the world’s most powerful political entity
.