Downtiming the Night Side

DOWNTIMING THE MAIN LINE

Ron Moosic had a brief time to eat and relax before they were ready. The cuisine wasn’t the greatest, being mostly hot dogs and microwaved soup, which made him wonder about whether those old movies showing condemned prisoners eating lavish feasts were just fantasy.

Somebody had brought down copies of the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post, and the lead stories in both were, at the very least, amusing. It seemed some Cuban-financed radicals shot their way into and briefly took over the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Generating Station with the avowed purpose of causing a nuclear meltdown as a protest against U.S. policy—there was even a “manifesto” from the radicals, allegedly given to authorities after the bloody takeover—and that all of them were subsequently killed by federal and state security forces. All of them were named, and named correctly. Only Dr. Karen Cline was not listed as among them; instead, her name appeared among the plant workers who died in the onslaught.

They had allowed some reporters and photographers in to photograph the upstairs carnage, and it shocked, as it was intended to, while giving away nothing. Interviews with hostage survivors, however, were carefully controlled, and while he couldn’t tell, he suspected that none of the people interviewed were actually people held down there. It was, nonetheless, a compelling and convincing story. There was even mention of a “low-level secret Defense Department project” at the site, which served to allow security to be clamped where it was needed and which explained the large number of federal officers and military personnel involved.

He almost believed it himself, although he knew that at least two of those radicals were not dead, but simply away somewhere, or some when. To him, there was still an air of unreality about it all that he couldn’t shake. Not the invasion and its aftermath, that was something he could at least accept, if not understand. To travel back in time, to actually change the past—that was the problem, and quite possibly the root cause of his accepting the assignment. To be convinced, he would have to see for himself, and were he to say no to this, he’d never really believe it.

Dr. Aaron Silverberg looked tired, but he was going to see it through, at least until Moosic was back. Then, perhaps, he would allow himself the luxury of sleep. He’d tried on the couch in his office earlier and hadn’t been able to, and his body screamed at him.

“The suit will be a bit snug, but it will fit,” the scientist assured him. “We’ve had someone doing adjustments on it. The batteries transferred nicely and took a good quick charge to boot, so you will be going with over ninety percent of full power, which is more than they’ve got. The instruments show that they are now still in 1875, in London, and by this time they must know that the date is off. They have chosen to wait, it appears, and that is to our advantage. However, they are now in phase with the time frame, and that puts time at risk.”

“You’d better tell me what that all means,” the agent suggested. “What’s this ‘phase’ business?”

“Let’s start from the beginning. First of all, everything is in motion—Earth, solar system, galaxy, whatever. Remember our paint sliding down the glass? Each moment that the paint has passed over the glass is a real place, a physical point. What we do is put the brakes on you, so to speak. You remain motionless relative to here and now, and we slide past. Now you are, so to speak, out of phase with time. A gentle nudge, and you move from this frozen spot in time back along the temporal paint smear. A slight lateral nudge, and we wait for the point where you and the universe are both where we want you to be. Presto! You are in London, because the spinning Earth, the rotation, and solar movement have been calculated. When you are where and when we want you, we keep sufficient power to maintain you in that spot. Your motion and the motion of the time stream become identical. However, as long as you are in the suit and in the direct energy field, you will remain out of phase. You are not moving relative to point X, so time is standing still relative to you.”

“Clear as mud, but I think I have the general idea. I’m stuck in the moment, with everything frozen. Can I move around?”

“Not in the suit. So, the first thing you do is check your gauges here and make certain you are, indeed, where and when you are supposed to be. Our people have already gone over how to read and reset them?”

He nodded. “That’s simple arithmetic.”

“Good. Then you remove the suit, and you will find that you have some mobility. You will begin to accelerate relative to the Earth’s normal time speed. This can be disorienting, so prepare for it. You will have more than four hours to find some place to hide the suit. That is a tricky part, and we can only make vague suggestions on it. Remember, though, that the suit’s power pack is quite heavy; the suit’s systems will not be bothered by water or other routine elements, and sinking it tied to a small rope such as the one in the utility pouch works well.”

He nodded. “We’ve been through all that.”

“All right. Eventually, you will become somewhat ill. You will pass out—and awaken in phase. This is the easy part. You will, quite literally, be someone else. That someone can be very old or very young, male or female, but it will be someone rather insignificant and ordinary, and with a past. However, you will be in control. At the start it will be easy and fun. As the days pass, however, you will find it slightly but progressively more difficult to retain control. The other you, the new you, will become more real to you, while your own self will erode in little bits. That is where you will have an advantage. At your age, you will be able to remain in control longer than they. In nine more days, they will be hard-pressed to remain themselves, while you should have all your wits about you.”

“Wait a minute! Are you telling me that I might come out a woman?”

“It’s quite common, really, although there seems to be no rule on it. It’s actually quite logical. In most of the past, women had less power and position and, therefore, were the least likely to make a major change.”

Moosic had another worry, almost as pressing as who he’d become. “This is going to make things nearly impossible for me,” he pointed out. “I don’t know who I’m looking for, or what. They may not even know each other. Both of ’em could be kids, or they might be fifty years old. If we’re wrong about Marx being their objective, there’s no real way I can find them.”

“That’s true. But I don’t think we have to worry about that so much. The passwords used for their program were related to Marx’s work of the time frame. Four German communists of the period, I think someone said. No, it’s Marx all right. You’ve memorized the pertinent details?”

“As much as we can guess is pertinent. I still think it’s impossible, though.”

“If it is, you’ve gained an experience I would love to have and it will have cost you nothing. At fifteen days, simply go back and put on the suit, and it will automatically bring you back. You will be your normal self once more, and the richer for the adventure. But I am convinced that anything important enough to cause even a minor ripple in time will be obvious. If you can see it, you can stop it. The odds there favor you. Time is always on the side of the least change.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said worriedly. “Well—let’s get on with it.”

They stripped him naked so he’d fit in the suit better. It didn’t matter, he was told—the only artifacts he would need would be carried in a pouch in the suit. Time, adjusting to his unnatural presence, would provide whatever else was necessary.

Even so, he had to be helped just to walk in the thing. The airlock looked even more imposing and final as it opened for him. The room itself was as cold and barren as it had looked from the command center, and the nature of the lighting made even the super-insulated glass panel before him seem dark and featureless, although he knew Silverberg and several technicians off-duty at the time of the invasion were there, checking on everything.

Silverberg had feared that Cline had somehow fouled up the computer programs. They all checked out O.K., but, taking no chances, he bypassed them and tied into computers with backup programming at the NSA’s headquarters at Ft. Meade.

Two white-clad technicians fastened on the space helmet, turned on the internal systems and checked them, then closed the seals. He had done it three times without them, of course, since he’d have to do it on his own to get back, but this was the first time out and they could check all the mechanical and electrical systems better than he.

Now he could hear nothing but his own breathing, which seemed nervous and labored to his ears. The suits contained no communications gear, since that would add to the anachronism of the suit itself and, of course, because there was no one really to communicate with to any purpose.

He was perspiring profusely, despite the small air conditioning unit in the suit. He turned his head and could barely make out that the airlock had been closed and the signal light on the door was now red. With the suit pressurized, the chamber became a near-perfect vacuum. There was no sense in expending already precious energy by also transporting back a lot of surrounding air.

Come on, come on, you bastards! he thought nervously. Let’s get this over with! He suddenly had the urge to back out, to hold up his hands and make for the airlock controls. This is insane! his mind shouted at him. How the hell did I get myself into this mess, anyway?

The room filled with a blinding light. The photosensors in the faceplate snapped on, but he could see nothing. Suddenly he felt a mild vertigo, as if he were falling— falling, but in slow motion—like Alice down the rabbit hole. He tried to move, but the suit was locked into position. All he could see, and that tempered by the tremendous faceplate filters, was the blinding nothingness, the awful sun that seemed all around him. Still, beyond that, there was only the sound of his breathing and that feeling of falling, ever so slowly…

It seemed an interminable journey. The relative time clock in his helmet clicked off the seconds and the minutes, but no matter how fast it went, it seemed agonizingly slow. Faces, their voices from his past, seemed to form in his mind like ghosts and whisper to him.

“Your father would be so proud of you!” his mother whispered to him. “One of his sons an officer, for Jesus’ sake! The only one who’ll not kill himself in the mines…” “So there you go again,’’ Barbara chided him, sounding thoroughly disgusted. “Always volunteering, always sticking your neck out! And for what? Nobody’ll ever know, and your bosses will take all the credit, even if it works. Why are you always everybody’s sucker?”

“All I wanted was some love and some understanding!’’ he heard himself shouting. “Just somebody to care about me as much as I cared about them!’’

“Nobody gives a damn about you,” Barbara snarled back. “Nobody in this whole fucking, stinking world ever gives a damn about anybody but themselves in the end! Well, maybe it’s time I started joining the garbage!”

Why me? he wondered. Why did they stick me in this job? But he knew the answer. He was the most expendable dependable they had. Living alone in a tiny apartment, drowning himself in his work, no social life to speak of. As the admiral had pointed out, he hadn’t even talked with his family in almost a year, except to send up some gifts around Christmas and beg off the family gathering. Work, you know… Important work…

Pop another frozen dinner in the microwave and take a couple of drinks while it cooks…

“Who’s cooking now, Moo-sic? Who’s floatin’ in the middle of nowheres with the sun all around? Who’s got to pee and can’t never get to the potty?…”

They never told him it would be like this…

Expendable, dependable; expendable, dependable…

Suddenly the photosensors flipped off with a dramatic click, and the blinding light was gone, replaced with a ghostly gray. He checked his instruments and they said, as near as he could remember, that he’d arrived. The relative time clock kept going, and the system gauges continued to supply air and some cooling, but all else had stopped. The destination LEDs were flashing now, telling him to get on with it.

For a moment, he couldn’t. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to reach up and throw the proper switches, only that he was suddenly overcome with a massive fear that it hadn’t worked, that he would release it all in a vacuum, that to take off that helmet was to die. He hoped that the two bastards that had brought him here had undergone a similar fear, but he suspected not. Sandoval was too much the fanatic and Austin-Venneman too much the airhead.

He steeled himself, reached up, and punched the release buttons. There was a mild hissing sound, and he felt the suit deflate and seem to cling to him. He reached up and removed the helmet. All was still, and surprisingly chilly, but there was air he could breathe.

He decided that freezing was better than remaining in the suit, and removed it. There was no wind, no air movement of any kind except his own breath. He had been warned about this period, and moved with purpose. He was caught right now in a moment, a single slice of time. His body could breathe the air in that slice, but he had to keep moving, for other air would not rush in to replace it.

He bundled up the suit and looked around. What he had taken for a gray nothingness seemed instead to be a dense, sooty fog. He was near water, that was for sure, and walked down a rocky path to where it seemed to be.

There was no sound at all that he didn’t make, no movement, nothing. The water looked choppy, what he could see of it, but the scene was frozen. Only he could make waves in such a still life.

He made his way along the bank to a massive stone outcrop and realized, with some surprise, that what he was seeing was the main support of a bridge. He looked under it, and saw that there was no real foothold there under the arch itself. Quickly he removed the rope and small hammer from the suit, then attached the rope to the suit itself, which had a small hook for that purpose. Slowly he eased the suit into the water and then pushed it a bit under the bridge. It continued under his momentum until the rope became taut, and he took the end, which had a small piton attached, and hammered the thing into the rock just below the water line. He knew the suit would not sink until time caught up, but it made him nervous to look at it all the same. The pouch it had, like its power pack, was watertight, which was important. He would have need to return to this spot when things returned to “normal,” if there now was any such thing.

Satisfied he had done what he could do, he got up and walked back up the bank to the top of the river wall. The fog was so thick it cut visibly to the bone, but it certainly was not night. Early morning, he guessed. Early morning on Saturday, September 11, 1875…

He had wondered why he couldn’t just travel back to a point in time just before the two would have appeared, still fresh and vulnerable in their silver suits, but it had to do with the limitation of the equipment. If they had had a second time chamber, it might have been possible—but to the same period, with people already downtime, the computers simply could not handle it all. He had to live within their relative time frame, and that was that.

He had to keep moving, both for warmth and because any time he stood still he grew quickly short of breath. The streets were gaslit, but shed little light on the gloom, which was not only wet but also incredibly dirty.

He came suddenly upon a frozen tableau—two men: one dressed in the uniform of a Victorian policeman, complete with rounded hat and billy club; the other, a middle-aged man in shabby-looking tweeds: both of them frozen stiff in some sort of argument. Just behind the fellow in tweed, a nasty-looking bulldog was frozen, its left hind leg raised.

He resisted the temptation to play games with the two, to pick their pockets or push the policeman’s hat down over his eyes. He’d been told that no matter what he did, the next time frame and all subsequent ones would not be changed, so whatever he did would be unnoticed and undone. That was something of a relief now, since he knew that if he could barely resist it, the two he was after certainly could not. Time was not easily trifled with, although it could be done. Certainly, two people were here, someplace, dreaming of doing just that. How nice it would be if he could find them while still in this phase. That, however, was impossible. The variations in the motions of the bodies of the universe were such that it was miraculous that the project could even get him to London; landing someone in the same spot a day later was simply impossible.

Still, he walked quickly, partly to keep warm and partly to get to know a little of this area. Normal time agents— how quickly this had become “normal” in his mind! —received weeks of briefing on the time and place they would visit, often months. He had been sent in cold, the only justification being that anyone else sent would have to go cold, too. The small amount of time he’d had had been spent in learning the operation of the suit and the specifics of this time-travel medium.

That brought him back towards the river in something of a panic, and he spent some time walking along it, trying to find that certain area of the bridge again. How long had he been walking? How far had he gone? Was this the Thames, or some other body of water? How many bridges crossed the Thames, anyway? And did they all have cobblestone sea walls and stone arches?

As he ran along the path beside the river, he was barely aware of a whistling sound, faint at first, but growing steadily louder. Finally it became so pervasive that it shocked him out of his panic and redirected his mind to the unknown, new danger. He stopped, and it seemed all around him. Vaguely he was aware that he was breathing normally, despite the fact that he was standing still, and that a breeze was chilling his sweat-soaked body.

Abruptly he was hit by a trememdous dizzy spell that brought him crashing to the ground. He tried to rise, but the nausea wracked him while the terrible whistling sound became unbearable. He was abruptly in the worst agony of his life, and it became too much to bear. He passed out.

Alfie Jenkins awoke coughing. He often did, particularly during times of heavy fog. He got up from his makeshift bed of straw and crudely fashioned wood framing. After a bit the coughing stopped, at least for a while, and he was able to take in some deep breaths and get awake. From far off, the bells tolled six, and he knew at least that his personal clock hadn’t failed him. Somehow, he always woke up at six, no matter what the previous day and night had been like.

He struggled to put on his well-worn shoes and tattered jacket that he’d found discarded in somebody’s rubbish, then pushed a bit against the board held only by one nail and peered out into the street. All clear, it looked like. He squeezed out and made certain the board fell naturally back in place. The old stable hadn’t been used in months, but it was still owned by somebody and he’d rather they not find out they had a boarder.

The neighborhood, down by the old docks, could be called a slum only by someone with extreme charity, but he knew it as an old friend and liked the fact that he felt so free and comfortable in an area where the coppers went around in pairs and most adults would avoid unless there was a bright sun on a clear day.

He ducked into an old warehouse through a broken ground-level window and heard the rats scuttling away, wary of the unknown intruder. He treated them with respect, but they didn’t particularly bother him unless one crept into his “home” and bit him in the night, as had happened.

The warehouse was as abandoned as his stable, but it had something most of the other buildings accessible to him lacked—a working pump. The thing screeched an awful racket when used, the sound reverberating through the large, empty building, but it was the one chance he took each time. In the two years he’d lived this existence he’d never been found out, and he knew more exits than any investigator could. He was good, he was, and smart, too. He hadn’t stayed long in that hole of an orphan asylum where they’d put him after his mum had died of consumption. His father, she’d said, had been a seafaring man, but he’d never known that man and never would. Mum hadn’t even been sure which of the dozen or so seamen it had been, anyway.

His life now was luxury compared to that asylum. Up at six, some cruddy mess they called porridge for breakfast, then off to the woolen factory promptly at seven. Twelve hours a day, and if you made your quota, the asylum got the two quid a week the company paid. If you didn’t, you got beaten real bad. All by stern men who seemed to really think they were doing their best for the “poor, unfortunate children.”

Well, he’d foxed them. Lit out one Sunday in the middle of church, when they couldn’t do very much. Back up to where things never changed much from when he played here as a kid. He wasn’t no kid anymore. He was past thirteen.

Finished with his drink and wash-up, he relieved himself in a corner and then scrambled back out again. Breakfast was first on his mind, thanks to old Mrs. Carter paying him a few shillings to clean up the pub from the previous night’s rowdiness. He wasn’t sure if Mrs. Carter suspected his existence or just filled in the blanks to suit herself, but he didn’t mind. They didn’t ask no questions in this area.

It was a very routine morning for Alfie Jenkins in every respect but one. Instead of the usual hustling over by the market, he had to go down to the river.

Ron Moosic could waste no time in finding that time suit. It had a lot of period money—and a pistol.