Summer of Love, a Time Travel (43 page)

He
whispers “Katie” to his magic ring. The field of lavender light pops up in the
palm of his hand. This time, instead of concealing the field, Chi turns his
hand so Ruby and the kid can see the light plainly.

A
drawing made of glowing red lines floats in the light:

“An
OTL,” Chi says, “works with the timeline because the t-porter keeps moving
forward, according to normal perception.”

“What
about memory?” Ruby asks.

“Memory
preserves information so you can move forward.”

“What
about a transcendental moment? Cosmic consciousness? What Aldous Huxley
describes in
Doors of Perception?”

“That’s
not normal consciousness. If you only perceived time with cosmic consciousness,
you’d see your whole life all at once, you couldn’t function, and reality
wouldn’t matter.”

“Reality
is nothing,” Starbright says, nodding.

Ruby
slaps her shoulder. “Since when?”

“That’s
what Professor Zoom says.”

Chi
whispers to the ring again. “Because we normally perceive time as a
forward-moving experience, the great danger, the terrible danger, for a
t-porter is death in the past.”

Now
the glowing red lines rearrange themselves:

“This,”
Chi whispers, “is a CTL. A Closed Time Loop. When a t-porter is caught in a
CTL, she is born in her personal Now, transmits to the past, dies, is born in
her personal Now, transmits to the past, dies.” Chi rubs his forehead. “And so
on and so on. Forever.”

The
LISA techs realized Betty had been caught in a CTL the moment she failed to
step through the t-shuttle. The Chief Archivist was horrified. She fired her
number one ferret, promoted number two, and sent him and a staff of fifty to
recheck the data.

They
discovered that the day of the accident had been violent. Several armed
robberies with aggravated assault were reported along Montgomery Street that
afternoon. The old woman who young Betty thought was a devolt could have been
anyone.

A
t-porter, for instance, roughed up and stripped of her identification.
Disoriented, maybe. Disfigured from a beating.

Her.

“She
was caught, you see, in the worst kind of CTL. A CTL
within her personal
past,
” Chi says. “This is what Betty went through.”

“Katie,
off,” he whispers and snaps his hand shut. The lavender field disappears.

“So
she killed herself,” Ruby whispers, “and she had to keep killing herself,
living out the guilt, and going back to die, over and over.”

Chi
nods. “The Save Betty Project won instant support. Everyone agreed—Betty
herself would have agreed—that they couldn’t change the fact of her death. What
they
could
change was
when.
They could save Betty from the CTL by
bringing her through the shuttle to die in her personal Now.”

“And
then it would be over?” Starbright says.

“It
would be over. Oh, the LISA techs were careful.” Chi stands and paces across
the living room. “They sent a t-porter to the day of the accident. He stole her
body from the ambulance, carried her back to Ghirardelli Square, and transmitted
her before she died. She looked like an old devolt by then. But she died in her
Now. She died in peace, never to return to that awful past. The Chief Archivist
cried for weeks.”

He
falls silent.

“Then
you did the righteous thing,” Ruby says gently. “How was that a mistake?”

Chi
takes a breath. “No one knows how a CTL forms. A CTL has no beginning and no
end and lasts forever. It pollutes the timeline. Theoretically, there
is
no escape. But we helped Betty escape. We broke the CTL. And the moment we
broke it, the Prime Probability of when Betty died collapsed out of the
timeline. The Archivists traced the Crisis to that Event—when Betty died. We tore
a hole in spacetime.”

“Tore
a hole,” Ruby says, appalled.

“We
brought the Crisis on ourselves,” Chi says miserably. “And we brought the
Crisis on you. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. We didn’t mean to.”

Ruby
ought to feel vindicated, but she doesn’t. She ought to say “I told you so,”
but she doesn’t. She stands and gives Chi a great big hug. Starbright throws
her arms around them both.

“I
forgive you, man from Mars,” Ruby says. “And I forgive you future people, but
on one condition.”

“What’s
that?” His look of relief clouds.

“You’ve
got to forgive us, too. It’s a two-way street, this reality game, isn’t that
what you’ve said? We perceive time as forward-moving, but that
is
an
illusion. Not the true nature of reality. Right, am I right?”

“Yes,”
he says warily. “Now is always Now. The One Day always Is.”

“The
One Day, uh-huh. Then when you transmit back to your Now, Chiron Cat’s Eye in
Draco, you tell everyone over there we need their forgiveness as much as you
need ours.”

He
nods gravely, and he and Starbright exchange a look. A longing look, filled
with uncertainty.

Ruby
doesn’t know what to make of that, but she laughs. “Well, don’t look so blue,
you two. This is beautiful. Today is Cosmic Mind Day! Let’s celebrate. Kid, go
get us our favorite sherry.”

Starbright
dashes to the kitchen, but pops in again much too soon, her eyes wide and
frightened.

Two
shadows follow her. Ruby sits up, Chi does, too, and she sees the gleam of the
switchblade before she sees their ugly mugs.

“Kitchen
door,” Starbright whispers. “Jimmied open.”

Stovepipe
flicks his gaze around Ruby’s living room. “Some pad. So this is how you blew
our seven grand.”

A quick
dart, and the Lizard wraps his arm around Starbright’s waist, dangling the
switchblade in front of her face. “You got lots of friends on the scene, Ruby
Maverick. They know where you live.”

“Maser’s
in my pocket,” Chi says casually to Ruby. His jacket lies crumpled across the
room by the stereo shelves where he left it.

“You
shut up,” the Lizard says to Chi.

“Starbright
is not a dealer,” Ruby says. “We are not dealers.”

“When
he says shut up, shut up,” Stovepipe snaps.

“She
was just a runner,” Chi says to Stovepipe. “She had nothing to do with the
deal.”

Ruby
stares at Chi, astonished, then at Starbright, horrified. “You
did
pass
dope to these morons?”

The
kid nods, terrified but resolute. “Stan used me,” she tells Stovepipe. “He
ripped me off for bread, too.”

“That’s
right,” Chi says. Sweat pops out of his brow. “Stan’s the one you want, man.
I’ve been after him for weeks. You think you’re ticked off.”

Stovepipe
trades looks with the Lizard. The Lizard jerks the edge of the switchblade
against the kid’s throat. She whimpers.

Pieces
of the puzzle fall into place.

“That’s
right, Stan the Man is the one you want,” Ruby says coolly. She slowly gets to
her feet, calculating how long it will take Chi to retrieve his jacket. “Don’t
you know who Stan is? He’s the manager of the Double Barrel Boogie Band. You
know their house? Stan’s always got plenty of dope and cash around there. You
want your money and your revenge, you go on over to the Double Barrel house.”

Stovepipe
nods, but the Lizard is having none of it. “I don’t dig this, man. They gotta
be taught a lesson. Them and their friends. Nobody screws with us.”

“Haw,”
Stovepipe chuckles.

The
Lizard presses the blade. Starbright closes her eyes.

Ruby
swings the Walther from one pocket, the magazine from the other pocket. In one
stroke, she clips in the magazine the way the gun dealer showed her, and aims
at the Lizard’s face.

“Let
her go, sonny, or I’ll blow your ugly head off.”

“Haw,
haw,” Stovepipe guffaws. “She’s a love shucker, man. She won’t shoot,” he says
to the Lizard. “Go ahead, teach the stupid chick a lesson.”

Ruby
fires.

The
bullet grazes the Lizard’s ear, which sprays blood all over his shoulder. He
makes no sound, but drops the switchblade and claps his hand to the side of his
head.

Ruby
suddenly understands the graffiti stenciled on the sidewalk. A bullet shot in
the air comes down somewhere. You better believe it.

Chi
scrambles across the living room for his jacket, the maser.

Stovepipe
scoops up the switchblade, seizes the Lizard by his elbow, and hustles them
both out the kitchen door.

Ruby
chases after them.

They
clatter down the back stairs, disappearing into the night. Police sirens wail, and
bongo drums beat.

A
woman is shouting, “It’s hard, it’s hard, it’s so damn hard!”

Chi
comes and helps her back inside and bolts the door shut.

The
damp night makes her throat sore. But will Ruby ever stop shouting?

August
28, 1967

Chocolate George’s
Wake

16

Penny Lane

Badger
and the Bear clink cans of Coors and chugalug beer in one great swallow. Foam
streams from their mouths, drenching their beards and dappling their denim
vests that say Hells Angels on the back. Badger tosses his can over his shoulder.
The Bear crushes his in his fist. They each reach for another from the tub of
ice at the back of the funeral parlor, pop the tops with a church key, and
guzzle.