The Future of Another Timeline

^TWENTY TESS

Chicago, Illinois… Raqmu, Ottoman-occupied territory (1893 C.E.)

Sol was right about getting an injunction. None of the theaters had to shut their doors. As soon as Comstock and the Lady Managers filed their complaint, Sol was at the courthouse getting an order to stop it. The Midway was making good money, drawing more tourists to Chicago than ever before in its history. After the newspaper coverage of our protest, there was no way that local judges were going to let some fusty New Yorker try to ruin the city’s new status as an international attraction. Our edit was propagating outward, turning Comstock’s campaign into fruitless foolishness rather than the moral crackdown and mass closures of the villages that I remembered from history books.

“It worked! We won!” Salina raised a glass of imported pomegranate juice in the dressing room, while Soph poured champagne for those of us who drank alcohol.

Morehshin sighed heavily. “We won this battle. But we’ve made Comstock angry. He’s not going to let this go.”

I took a swig of sour bubbles and looked at her uneasily. We’d made an edit, but that didn’t mean we’d made a difference yet.

Aseel poured a little champagne into her juice. “At least he’s back in New York.”

That was hardly reassuring. Comstock had ways of turning New York into a monster whose tentacles reached everywhere in the nation. After all, he was a special agent with the U.S. Postal Service. As our friends celebrated, paranoia needled me. I wondered who else was listening at the door, or opening our mail.

After appearing in the pages of New York World, Soph achieved a new level of notoriety. The danse du ventre was becoming a national obsession, and her article was one of the only decent descriptions of it written in English. A local Chicago press printed up two hundred more copies, selling them as pamphlets with crisp covers. Her parlors were full of new acolytes seeking enlightenment.

One evening in late August, Soph told us proudly that artists and writers from across the world were corresponding with her about the pamphlet. Aseel, Morehshin, and I were in her parlors, having a smoke before bedtime. Troubled, I touched Soph’s arm. “Aren’t you worried about sending it through the mail?”

Her face fell into seriousness. “Of course. But isn’t this what we wanted? Now people can decide for themselves whether the danse du ventre is obscene, instead of having Anthony decree it from his infernal throne.”

Aseel was anxious. “That’s true, but maybe you should stop using the mail to talk about it.”

“Don’t ever forget that Comstock wants you to die,” Morehshin added.

Soph laughed defiantly. “I’m not going to be quiet anymore.”

I shot a glance at her, thinking of how Comstock bragged that he’d driven abortionists to suicide. Soph’s friend was one of them. She was putting up a brave front, but clearly she knew the risks.

Morehshin grunted and stubbed out her cigarette. “If he kills you, then you’ll have no choice but to be quiet.”

“May the goddess protect us.”

“What do you really know about the goddess?” Morehshin sounded like she was asking a technical question, not a mystical one.

“I have devoted my life to study of the goddess in all her forms. I do not pretend to know her will, but I think I know her benevolence.” Her pale cheeks flushed. “Do people in your time still study the ancient Nabataean inscriptions devoted to her?”

“Yes. At Raqmu.” Morehshin nodded.

“I spent years there in the libraries and archives, learning ancient Nabataean, Greek, and Arabic. That’s where I began my career.”

I sat up, suddenly intrigued. “How did you come to do that?”

“My mother was a very devout woman, and she raised me by herself. We spent many nights with the Bible, and though I would not call her a compassionate woman—” Soph’s voice cracked and she took a quick drink. “Though perhaps she was not kind, she was progressive in her own way. She taught me that God came from a time in the universe before gender and sex. Our pronouns could not encompass God. And so when I came of age, I left our home in Massachusetts and went in search of a different kind of God.”

“You went all the way to Raqmu?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. “How could you afford that?”

Aseel shot me a nasty look and Morehshin wore an offended expression. I felt terrible as soon as I realized how my question sounded.

Soph held her head high. “I read fortunes. I told men what they wanted to hear. I did what I had to do.”

“I’m sorry, Soph. I didn’t mean it that way. I was curious because you took an unusual path.”

She touched my arm gently, and the tension was broken. “I accept your apology. I rarely met other women during my studies, so I know it is rare. I have been blessed.”

Morehshin rubbed her chin and turned to me. “Another woman who does not follow the rules of her time. We are a good cluster.”

“I’m glad you approve.” Soph said it gravely, but with the hint of a smile.

Later that night, I awoke to the sound of shouting. I stepped into the hallway to find two police officers banging on Soph’s doors. Morehshin shoved me out of the way and approached the men from behind, pinching her jumper closed with one hand. Her other hand was a glowing red fist.

“You’re under arrest for obscenity, Sophronia Collins! Come out now or we will use force!”

As Morehshin reached them, Soph flung open her door. She was fully dressed in the bridal gown she sometimes wore when invoking the goddess. Her hair spilled in blond tangles down her shoulders, making her look wild and dangerous. “There is no need for violence! I will come with you willingly because I have done nothing wrong.”

Glimpsing Morehshin behind the police, Soph gave a minute shake of her head. The multi-tool stopped glowing, but I noticed that Morehshin did not put it away.

Despite her promise of cooperation, the police grabbed Soph roughly and put her in heavy iron handcuffs. “What’s this getup, whore?”

“It pleases the goddess.”

“Tell that to the judge.” One of the men guffawed. “He’ll see the slut under your white lace.” They gripped her arms and practically lifted her aloft in their enthusiasm to drag her down the hallway. Then they noticed Morehshin. “Is this your pet monkey girl? Hey, monkey, monkey!” Morehshin ignored them and kept her eyes on Soph, who was mouthing something.

Frozen with rage and helplessness, I watched them march past. Soph smiled. “Tell Aseel. She knows what to do. Please don’t worry, Tess.”

“We’ll get you out of this, Soph.” I made my voice firm.

As soon as they were gone, anxiety fizzed in the pit of my stomach. Despite having warned Soph about this exact possibility, I hadn’t been prepared to watch her seized and harassed. This wasn’t part of our plan.

Morehshin padded back through our door, and hunkered down on the pile of rugs and pillows she used as a bed. “They are going to kill her.”

“No, they aren’t. No. No, that’s not how it’s done here. We’ll get a lawyer tomorrow. That’s what we’ll do. First thing.” My words came out in a quavering rush.

“A lawyer.” She echoed the word like she didn’t know what it meant; or maybe she did, and was exceptionally dubious.

At Aseel’s request, Sol found us a young First Amendment zealot to take the case pro bono. Sitting in the gloom of his office, the lawyer told us exactly what I’d feared.

Comstock had men tracking all pamphlets coming to New York from Chicago. His men had seized several of Soph’s newsletters, including one about how angels had given us rubbers because sex is more spiritually fulfilling when there is no fear of pregnancy. When information about birth control crossed state lines, it became a federal matter under Comstock’s jurisdiction at the post office. The lawyer was excited about defeating censorship, but he didn’t seem to care much about getting Soph out of jail. Meanwhile, Soph’s friends in the press obligingly turned her story into shocking headlines:

Then the lawyer gave a few interviews, and the evening papers were all about him:

We were back at his office the next morning, asking when Soph would be out on bail. He leaned back in his chair, slicked his hair down, and regarded us with an expression of extreme satisfaction. “Ladies, this case is going pretty well. Did you read the papers?” He gestured at one, with his name prominently featured. “But I won’t lie to you. It isn’t going to be easy for your friend. They’ve taken her to Cook County Asylum. Because she’s hysterical, you know. A nymphomaniac.”

I stared at Soph’s lawyer, wondering why he’d taken this case if he believed that Victorian garbage about how women with an interest in sex were deranged. Cook County Asylum was a bug-infested hell south of the city in Dunning, notorious for abuse.

“We have to get her out of there.”

“That would be ideal, but this diagnosis means she’s totally inaccessible during the first few days of her treatment.” The lawyer made a sweeping gesture. “I have other cases to attend to, so check back with me next week.”

He put us off another week, and then another. Finally, Morehshin camped out in front of the lawyer’s office until he got the idea that his client’s well-being might be as important as constitutional law.

It took us over a month to get her out of the asylum.

The day Morehshin brought Soph back to the village, there was a particularly rancid smell hanging over the city. Slaughterhouse runoff was rotting in the sewer system, and it wouldn’t wash out until the next big rain. Soph’s usually sunny face was chalky, and her hands trembled when she reached out to embrace us in the tea house beside the Algerian Theater.

“My darling!” Aseel was stricken. “What did they do to you?”

Morehshin gave us a grim look. “You know what they do at that place.”

“I believe I saw… true darkness.” Soph spoke in a gravelly whisper, as if her throat was raw from screaming or sickness or worse.

I ordered drinks. The chairs were uncomfortable metal monstrosities, and the table was a piece of rickety carnival trash, but the mint tea was superb. Our waiter made a big show of pouring it from a great height into tiny, curved glasses, the steam making a soothing puff around our faces. We all sipped quietly for a minute.

“I can’t go back there.” Soph’s voice was stronger now. “I know our fight goes beyond my puny life, and that there are women counting on us in the future.” She grabbed Morehshin’s hand. “But I would rather die than endure that… evil.” Her eyes filled with tears and she shook her head over and over, repeating the twitchy motion until Aseel touched her cheek and murmured reassuringly.

“You’re safe now. That lawyer says they can’t put you back there unless you’re convicted.”

“Now I know why Penny took her life.” Soph dipped a finger into her teacup and drew a pentagram on the table with the cooling liquid. “There are things worse than death. So… many… things.”

I had seen Soph ecstatic and spellbinding and drunk and enraged. But I had never seen her like this. Terror distorted her posture, as if her whole being were focused on some amorphous danger. The problem was that nothing in the coming months was going to unburden her. The threat of further imprisonment was very real. As I watched her stumble through a conversation with Aseel and Morehshin, it occurred to me that the asylum had eroded her entire sense of self. She couldn’t thrive on the cold ideological isolation that kept Emma Goldman sane in prison. Her strength came from rituals that exalted love and community. Soph was not going to survive this battle if we waged it here, on these terms.

I tasted bile in my mouth. This war—this long fucking arc of history—had destroyed too many good women and erased the evidence. Nobody would remember Penny or Berenice or Aseel or Soph, but Comstock’s laws would last over a century. That self-satisfied lawyer who called Soph a nympho would have a civil liberties hagiography on Wikipedia. A memory invaded me, of watching a woman’s body fall from a great height, crashing into death before she had a chance to live. It happened so fast I didn’t have time to scream her name. All my heartbroken recklessness emanated from that moment, that person, that suicide I tried every day to forget. There were some things I couldn’t set right, but there were some things I could.

“Soph, we need to get you away from here. You spent years at Raqmu studying the ancient Nabataean texts about women’s spirituality, right?”

Looking up from the table, her eyes still red, Soph allowed herself a tiny smile of pride. “Of course.”

“And exactly how many years were you there?”

“Almost six.”

Flooded with relief, I looked at Morehshin. She was nodding slowly. Without intending to, Soph had already served her Long Four Years.

Soph continued. “I can speak a little Nabataean too, though I guess it’s ridiculous to say that one speaks a dead tongue.”

“It’s not dead. Not where we’re going. There’s a safe harbor about two thousand years ago in the Nabataean Kingdom—it’s a place where the Comstockers can’t go.”

Soph’s eyes widened, and she burst into tears again. But this time, it wasn’t a jagged, hopeless noise. It sounded like she was wringing demons out of her body. She warded off their return with the salt that ran through her fingers and down the fresh burn scars on her arms.

Aseel used her considerable powers of organization to get us the hell off the continent as covertly as possible. Sol had friends in shipping, and he was willing to do us one more favor—especially since Aseel had agreed to manage his sheet music business after the Midway shut down in late October. We would take the train to New York, travel by steamer to Lisbon, and from there catch another ship to Tel Aviv. There was a newly constructed train route that took us east from Tel Aviv into the Ottoman-occupied territories surrounding Raqmu, known in my present as Jordan.

Raqmu was a thriving city of scientists, travelers, operatives, and spies. Home to the first Machine discovered in recorded history, its towering stone monuments dated back at least four thousand years. Shadowed by mountains and surrounded by high, rocky cliffs the color of rose gold, the city was shielded from attack but open to countless nourishing streams of fresh mountain water.

Centuries of human engineering guided that water from a wild rush down foothills into an elaborate system of canals, waterfalls, and pools that fed the city’s gardens and growing populace. Architecture here had evolved to suit the soft sandstone of valley walls, with buildings burrowed into the rock to form vast cave palaces. Building facades were grand edifices sculpted directly into the stone. Generations of workers had cut a second level of streets and sidewalks above the basin floor, reached by stairs that wound between jagged outcroppings. As a result, the city grid appeared to be filling the basin and sloshing up its sides.

There was only one way to enter this marvel of art and engineering, and that was through a narrow passage called al-Siq that wound between smooth, curving cliffs studded by sentry towers. No invading army had ever made it through.

We hired a porter at the train station to carry our tiny collection of bags into the city. As we passed through al-Siq, slices of sun illuminated the elaborately carved doorways, windows, and facades that marked the entrances to archive caves, old and new. Some were humble and neglected, while others were hung with flags and guarded by gunmen. These places were full of forbidden histories, official documents, state secrets, and untranslated assertions in languages no one remembered. Some held controversial memoirs from famous travelers, reporting highly divergent timelines whose dark arcs we’d narrowly escaped. Others were packed with ephemera like two-thousand-year-old receipts for grain and slaves, or board games from the seventeenth century.

Ancient manuscripts in Nabataean described how the city’s first settlers dug shelters into the natural rock walls surrounding their hidden village—and discovered that any symbols recorded inside remained intact, no matter how much history changed.

Wind whistled past us, eroding al-Siq one microlayer at a time. Born from sediment swirling at the bottom of the Earth’s oceans, these sandstone walls dated back to the Ordovician period. Raqmu’s pink rock had first seen sunlight on the coast of a barren supercontinent drifting slowly across the South Pole. Though it was the first Machine discovered by humans, it was the youngest by far. It was also the only one that spawned archive caves. The four other Machines were millions of years older, embedded in rocks formed half a billion years ago during the Cambrian, when multicellular life first evolved. Raqmu’s uniqueness raised unanswerable questions. Was it a more sophisticated version of the other Machines? Had we inherited the work of engineers whose technology could capture and program wormholes? Were the Machines built by one of those early life forms, long extinct? Extraterrestrials? Or were they completely natural phenomena that we’d need another two millennia of geoscience research to understand?

We found a pleasant room in the scholar’s quarter at an inn popular with English-speaking students. From our tiny window, we had a view of the ancient temple al-Khaznah, its elaborate columns emerging out of the rough rock like an architectural apparition. Beyond its facade was the Machine—and the civil servants who supported it. We were decades away from the founding of the Chronology Academy, so travelers at Raqmu dealt with an imperial bureaucracy full of ministers, military officers, and priests.

After settling in, we distracted ourselves with a walk around the neighborhood to find dinner. It was early evening, and Raqmu’s vertical streets teemed with people from all times and places. The high, embellished cliffs halved the sunset light, filling the canyon floor with purple dusk while minarets glowed orange over our heads. Students smoked and drank sweet, dark coffee at café tables dotting the sidewalks, while harried bureaucrats hopped on squealing cable cars that would take them to the suburbs. Temporal locals in their suits and robes moved through a crowd dressed in polychronological mashups of rayon, linen, hemp, and uncanny textiles that probably only a multi-tool could make. Without a doubt, Raqmu was the most chronopolitan place in the world, and it was one of the few cities where I felt at home. Here, no one ever pretended history was fixed. How could you, when the archive caves were everywhere, testifying to the existence of edits merged into and out of the timeline?

Over a meal of fragrant lamb and vegetables, Soph pressed me for more information about the archive caves. “Can we not simply figure out where this timeline went wrong by studying what other travelers have left there? We could discern the differences, and undo them.”

“Maybe everything left in the caves is a lie.” Morehshin grunted the words around a cigar. “Propaganda from another timeline.” She’d taken up smoking and meat, but still wouldn’t touch coffee.

I shot her a look. “I don’t think it’s as grim as that. Obviously what people say about their own timeline is biased. History is full of exaggeration and misrepresentation. But Soph, I never would have known to visit the Algerian Village without the caves. There is a lot of evidence that Comstock is at the center of heavy revision, especially after the Columbian Expo.”

Morehshin tapped ash into the cobblestone street. “The archive caves are also how I found Tess. Comstockers appear in many timelines. So does Harriet Tubman.”

“The Daughters of Harriet.” Soph breathed the name as if invoking a supernatural power. Then she turned to Morehshin. “Do the Daughters exist in your present time, too?”

“No. That is why I came back to find them.”

“But Harriet Tubman is part of your timeline?”

Morehshin was bemused. “We are all in the same timeline. There is only one.”

“But you two are always talking about many timelines. And that Comstocker, Elliot—he said he remembered a world where women didn’t get the vote. Where are all those other timelines?”

“They are… potentials. Discarded versions. Unseen by the narrative force.” Morehshin’s powers of translation were failing her.

I tried to explain. “In a way, there are many timelines. But only one exists in our universe. The others are possibilities. Every time we change history, it’s as if we pull a segment from one of those other timelines into our own. The more we edit, the more our timeline becomes a patchwork. That’s why travelers remember so many different timelines. Each of us recalls the timeline before we made our changes. Every traveler has a slightly different patchwork in our memories.”

“Sometimes very different,” Morehshin said.

“Rarely.” I was firm. “Some people still believe the timeline can’t be changed at all.”

Soph widened her eyes. “But there’s so much evidence… all your memories.”

I thought about conferences where senior faculty denied the existence of a timeline where abortion was legal. It was our word against theirs, and they had tenure. “Soph, it’s… very hard to prove scientifically that something happened in a previous edit of the timeline. Even if there’s evidence in the archive caves. Like Morehshin said, it could all be lies. Some people believe that travelers like us invent fake memories to undermine the current version of history. That’s why we have to believe each other.”

Morehshin nodded. “What I read by Anita in the subalterns’ cave was true.”

Soph stared into the distance, where birds scooped scraps out of a fountain with awkward grace. “Have you ever wondered whether there might be multiple timelines that are real? Maybe each time you change history, you’re diverging into a new timeline and leaving your sisters behind in the old one, where they have to… to fend for themselves. Alone.” Her eyes flashed with anguish. “After all, a universe and a multiverse look the same from where we’re standing.”

I put my arm around her reassuringly. “There is only one timeline. Geoscientists have ways of expressing it mathematically, but another way of putting it is that the Machines are like… threads. They sew swatches together into a single quilt.”

Morehshin said nothing. She was staring morosely at something in the cobblestones below her feet, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t figure out what it was.