One Second Per Second Page 10

  “I’m a farmer,” I say, because this is my first random thought. The general looks up at the other officer seated at the fire.

  “He’s a farmer,” the general says.

  “Indeed,” the other one says. “He looks to me to be veh’y well-dressed for a farmer.” It’s a French accent. The general smiles.

  “What do you farm?” the general asks. This may be where my entire story collapses because I’ve no idea what gets farmed here, now or two hundred years from now. All that enters the vacuum of my mind is what I knew to be farmed in twenty-first century eastern Washington state.

  “Alfalfa.” They look at each other bemused. “And wheat,” I add promptly. Surely that’s a safe choice. I should have said that first. The fire spits a cinder that lands by my foot. “Look, I’m just on my way home and don’t mean to inconvenience you.” They smile.

  “You’re no inconvenience Mr. Bevan,” the general says. “Not as long as we have you as our guest. But I must ask you, from where are you returning?”

  From where am I returning? Where is there to return from? I’ve no clue where I am. “My son,” I say. “He ran off and I’m trying to track him.” I learned from Bess–my version of Bess–that staying close to the truth is the best way to lie. This gets no response. They either bought it or they think it’s too ludicrous to take the bother of questioning.

  “Tell me about the Leatown garrison. How many British?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I have no business with them.” The French man chortles.

  “I see. So your home is in Leatown, you’re a farmer, but you have no dealings with the garrison?” the general says to the fire. He shakes his head. I sense my luck is taking a bad turn. Then a soldier walks up, stands stiffly to attention and hands a note to the pocked general. He unties and unfolds it, and leans in toward the fire to read it. He looks up at me. “We’ll have plenty of time to converse more Mr. Bevan. I’m afraid I have more pressing matters at this moment.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  I’m sitting tethered to the tree. The wind is picking up and the rustle of the forest is getting louder. On the microscopically small chance that I escape this, Prasad needs to be told that a little preparation for these trips would be a good idea. Dragging a hungover guy out of bed and then catapulting him across more than two centuries without educating him on where he’s going is, put politely, a fucking stupid strategy. Knowing crops would have been invaluable. Yet, not a minute on crops.

  From the fading chatter I can tell the soldiers are settling in for the night. Only one of them is close to me and he’s lying with his hand on his musket. He rolls over and it takes me a moment to notice that he’s watching me. He looks like a child, maybe fourteen years old at most. At first he seems to be shivering, but I soon realize that it’s a tremble. He’s terrified.

  “You okay bro?” I say to him expressing genuine empathy but in a vernacular that was only for my own benefit. He doesn’t move and just keeps staring at me, head on the ground. “Is this your first time?” I ask. “First time into battle?” I think I hear him say ‘yes’ above the rustling of the trees but his lips hadn’t moved. “I’ve never been in battle,” I say. “Must be scary.” The boys sits up and looks around to see if we’re being watched.

  “Are you a tory?” he asks, hesitantly.

  “Me? No, I’m no tory.”

  “Then why you tied up?”

  “Well, it’s just a misunderstanding between me and the general. I think he’ll let me go once we clear it up.”

  “So you a patriot?” he asks.

  “Yes, I’m an American patriot. Are you?” He looks at me, first with shock and then suspicion.

  “’Course I am. That’s why I’m here.” He has stopped shaking.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Philadelphia.”

  “What job do you do there?”

  “Work with my father. He’s a cobbler.”

  “He a good father?” I ask. The boy says nothing at first and just rocks back and forth.

  “He is.”

  “Good,” I say. He tells me about his three brothers, two of them killed in battle. About his mother who used to work with his father but is now too sick, and about his sister who died in childbirth. I tell him a few things about my brother and parents, taking some liberties with place and time. Then a sentry walks by, looking at us both threateningly and the boy lies down, turning his back to me. The wind continues to pick up and I shiver.

  I awake to frenetic activity all around me. I breathe mist into the cold morning air watching soldiers going through the labor of loading their rifles: pouring powder down the barrel, wrapping and ramming down a lead ball, cocking the gun, then pouring in more powder somewhere near the trigger. My young friend is doing the same, but struggling with it. “Hey, hey. What’s happening?” I ask him in a loud whisper. He looks around.

  “Redcoats comin’.” I pull at my ropes but without hope. “We’re going to ambush them.” After he’s satisfied with his task of loading his musket, my friend follows the other soldiers who are running down the slope and into the trees toward the road. Without warning, someone tugs my head back and then shoves something into my mouth. I’m being gagged.

  “You so much as squeak and I’ll blow lead right through you,” says a deep voice I recognize. “Understand that?” I nod vigorously and he runs off. Now there’s quiet. All I see are the trees and all I hear is my own heartbeat. I peer into the forest for what feels like an eternity. There’s nothing. No motion, no sounds. Then a single gunshot, followed by a volley. That sounded like enough shots to take out a good number of redcoats. There’s a moment’s silence and I hear more shots. But these ones sound different. They are uncountably fast, almost continuous, and sharper with less of a boom. They coalesce into a solid wall of noise that lasts maybe ten seconds. A few moments pass and then soldiers burst out from the trees running through the camp, shouting words at each other I can’t make out. These are the colonial troops beating a frenzied retreat. The general is among them yelling orders but I’m not sure anyone is listening. Some of the troops are stopping, beginning to load their rifles. Powder down the barrel, wrapping the lead ball, sliding the ramrod, charging the–. Then from the trees appear the redcoats. But these soldiers are walking with a demeanor approaching the casual, side by side, maintaining a line with a few feet between them. I count six, and each raises his gun, opening fire on the retreating troops. The guns produce not single shots, but bursts of fire and the retreating troops begin to fall in waves. One has managed to reload his musket and gets off a futile shot before his chest blossoms under a hail of bullets. My young friend emerges for the trees, staggering, one of his arms no more than red gristle. He looks at me with an expression not of fear or pain, but of confusion. Then with a burst of gunfire, his head ejects a splash of red.

  I turn ice cold and can barely catch my breath. For the next minute I hear intermittent, isolated bursts of fire, and finally quiet. The camp is strewn with bodies, some intact, others dismembered. The redcoats, now maybe ten of them at most, walk among the bodies, exchanging inaudible words, occasionally laughing. I hope to god I go unnoticed but I know that won’t happen. Eventually, one of them looks directly at me.

  He approaches me, stepping over bodies and body parts. “Well, what have we ‘ere?” he says. His uniform is disheveled, torn and blood-splattered. He’s carrying what looks to me like an assault rifle: twenty-first century for sure. I’m no gun enthusiast but I can look at the bullet magazine, the grip and the sleek, black design and know that that obscene machine has nothing to do with the eighteenth century. That bastard Asmus had lied and Prasad was right. The redcoat pulls my gag off roughly and I check my teeth with my tongue as if a loose tooth would be a problem right now. “ ’Oo ah yer, then?” I try to stop shaking and I tell him my name. He calls another soldier over, maybe an officer although no less tattered and scruffy. They talk in hushed tones and then, hands still tied, I’m shoved in
the direction of the road, navigating the corpses strewn in front of me.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I’m tethered to a cart for the march toward Leatown. The pace is rapid and I struggle not to fall and be dragged. After a few hours we exit the forest and eventually march past the barn and mansion, but there’s no one to be seen except the goons milling around the mansion portico. We continue on through the center of the town and then through the tall gate of the army camp which has been opened for us. I’m thrown into a cell lit only by sunlight leaking through wooden slats. Furnishings comprise of a pile of straw in the corner. I’m untied and I rub the blood back into my wrists as I hear the clunk of the door lock.

  What could Asmus’s plan possibly be? Only sheer vandalism makes sense. Shaking it up. Exerting power just because you have it. In trying to understand the temporal logistics of what Asmus has done, my reasoning forms circles that eventually spiral into a singularity of logic. There’s no sense, no predictability, no rationality to it.

  After what seems like several hours, a tray is slid through a slot at the bottom of the cell door. It’s water, dry bread and an apple, and I devour it all. Another hour passes and then the door bursts open. A guard steps in, stands to attention, and what looks like a British officer passes him without acknowledgment. He’s wearing a white wig, has a look that parodies self-importance, and is not concealing his contempt for the things his job calls for.

  “Name?”

  “Joad Bevan.”

  “Why were you with the rebel army?”

  “They captured me.” I would have thought that being bound to a tree was a clue, but he looked like he wasn’t about to fall for that.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Leatown,” I say.

  “Who can vouch for you?” he asks. I wasn’t expecting this question. I didn’t know what question I was expecting, but whatever it was, I knew it’d be my downfall. I hesitate. Am I really going to say this? What option do I have?

  “Kasper Asmus,” I say. This seems to give my interrogator pause. He scrutinizes me.

  “Kasper Asmus,” he echoes. I take it that this name carries weight. He seems fazed, so I run with it.

  “Yes, I work for Kasper Asmus. Please tell him you’ve found me. I think he’ll be grateful.” I think no such thing. The bastard will probably disown me or worse. The officer says nothing, turns, and exits the cell followed by the guard. There’s the heavy clunk of the lock and I rest back on the straw to wait, gnawing on a bare apple core.

  He looks twenty five years old at most and is well turned out. The shirt is clean, the boots shine and his white, lace cravat is neatly-tied. I stand, which alerts the guard who takes a step forward. The young toff waves the guard away.

  “United States president in 2020?” he says. I answer him correctly. “Only record in the 1990s to stay at number one in the country music charts for ten weeks?” He looks at me expectantly, then laughs. “Kiddin’ ya.” I manage a grin. He pats my arm. “Ya red pat?” I don’t understand him. “C’mon old man. You don’t speak mid-21st verno?”

  I shake my head. “That where you’re from?” I ask. Without replying he beckons me to follow him.

  We exit the brig as guards look on deferentially. He has me sit next to him in the box seat of a wagon, and with a flick if the reins we’re on our way. I look at him side-on and I’m in no doubt that he was, or maybe still is, TMA. I know because TMA arrogance radiates from him. Maybe it’s his posture, or maybe his obvious comfort in ignoring me, but I have an immediate sense of him. It makes me remember my surprise at the collegial atmosphere of TMA-1996 compared to the egregious smartassedness of TMA-2021. Extrapolating that trend, mid twenty-first century TMA must be staffed by egos of planetary scale. It makes sense. On the other hand, this guy could just be a self-made prick. Whichever way, he’s not answering questions.

  It’s a bumpy ride and I need to hold tight onto the box seat. You don’t get a sense of the unevenness of the road until you travel it on wooden wheels with every shock, every jog shooting directly up through your ass. I try to figure out the timelines. Asmus was a toad of a man even at the peak of his appearance, so it’s tough to figure his age. No younger than his 50s. So that’d put him around 2050 if he’d kept to his timeline. That’s consistent with this arrogant little shit using mid-21st vernacular if he brought him back with him. But Bess started out a decade older than Asmus and there’s no way that the Bess in the house up the hill is sixty something. Sure, older than the Bess that had vanished on me, but not by that much. So that means Asmus picked her up while time hopping. How uproariously funny it must have seemed in his barking madness to grab the once and would-be wife of the one guy who got away. What a nice setup for my comeuppance.

  I want to see Gallie. She’s been the only point of quiet for me in a tornado of lunacy. I need to see Gallie. Maybe we’re en route to the TMA barn. But maybe not. No point asking this schmuck. I look him over and I’m pretty sure I could take him. But then what? The worst kind of prison is one without boundaries.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  We pull up at the service entrance to the house where we’re met by two guards. They’re carrying semi-automatic assault weapons. It seems the charade–the denial–is over. I yearn to be back at the barn, but instead, here I am at Chateau Crazy. With a sharp flick of the head I’m ordered to follow the guards. I know these could be my last moments alive yet I seem to be deadened to the worry. It could be terror fatigue.

  I’m pushed into the drawing room and followed by my escort. The guards wait outside. Asmus is seated in plush comfort and Bess is standing by his side. Her left eye is black and there’s a cut on her cheek. I look at Asmus with contempt, jaws clenched. Bess shakes her head almost imperceptibly to say don’t.

  “What an aggravating tackychemist you’re turning out to be,” Asmus says. “And stupid, too. I mean, imagine just setting off for a stroll in the woods when you’re centuries from home. That is stupid isn’t it?”

  “You are selling arms, you mad fuck,” I say.

  Asmus exaggerates the taking of offense. “You speak like that to a man who just sprung you from the brig?” He looks at Bess as if seeking concurrence. “Add ingratitude to the list. Oh, by the way, did Mancini introduce himself?”

  I turn to see a man affecting stony professionalism. “Meet Phil Mancini.”

  “Today I saw fewer than a dozen men slaughter a platoon in seconds,” I say.

  “It really shouldn’t have taken that many men; not with the weapons I’ve given them. You see, it’s about training. I can equip them with the best arms to be had, but at the end of the day, they need to know what they’re doing with them. They need to perform like professionals.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Why do this?” Asmus sits back in his chair and I notice Bess wince as he takes her hand.

  “Do what? Help kill soldiers? Isn’t that what they’re trying to do to each other anyway? Don’t try to make out that that’s my doing. And when you’re dead, do you really care if it’s a lead ball or a steel bullet that got the job done?”

  “Killing a dozen humans in one burst of fire isn’t the same as a 50/50 chance of killing one with a musket shot.”

  “You always were a second-rate mathematician, Joad. Don’t you see that these weapons will accelerate the war to an outcome? And I’m pretty sure that that’d reduce the total death count in the end. Besides, where’s your sense of humor? Isn’t it a delicious irony that 2nd Amendment rights are what allowed me to get my hands on these weapons, and now they’re being used by British troops to massacre a well-armed militia? Joyous, no? Come on, give me a smile at least.”

  “Yeah, joyous, Kasper.”

  “And I have other jokes to try out. All this is no more than a test run. Imagine the possibilities–the scenarios. Savage Vikings arriving on the shores of England all ready to slaughter the monks or whoever the hell they slaughtered, and what happens instead is that they walk into a mist of steel, blossoming into geysers of
red and gore. Or the mighty Mongols descending on some defenseless village ready to serve up their brutal reign of terror and instead they find themselves up against the blast wave of a 50,000 kiloton nuclear device.” There’s glee in his face. “I mean, just how humorless would you have to be not to see the funny side of that?” He waves his hands. “Run away! Run away! Ha.” I look behind me and see that his creature Mancini was unable to suppress a smile. “See what real power is?”

  “And that’s your plan?”

  “Plan is a strong word. It’ll be more of a whim if I get around to doing it.” He looks up at Bess. “I’m prone to whims, am I not, Elizabeth?” She glances up at me. I sense that assaulting my TMA values is as much a part of his intent as massacring Vikings. This line of conversation will go nowhere.

  “When will you set the TMAers free?” I ask.

  “As I told you before, they’re already free to leave any time.”

  “Give us back the accelerators.”

  “Well, that’s quite an ask, Joad.”

  “You’re feeding them mush, you bastard. Some of them are getting sick. They need medical attention. It’s only a matter of time before someone dies.”

  “So dramatic.”

  “What have they really done to you, Kasper? Abducting the entire TMA team seems like an overreaction to the innocent consensus among them that you’re a worthless little prick. Deep down, you can’t argue with that,” I say. Asmus’s eyes open wide with rage, but he quickly regains his composure and smiles. Why the hell did I say that, just for a moment’s gratification? I’m just pleased that Gallie didn’t see it.

  “Is there a reason I shouldn’t kill you?” he asks.

  “That’d be murder, Kasper.”

  “No, that’s a legal reason. I mean a moral reason.” I hear Mancini chortle behind me. “What am I to do with you?”