One Second Per Second Read online

  “Accelerators,” I yell at him. “Where?” He looks at me but seems more focused on coping with the pain. I tilt my head toward Bess. “Listen to me you little prick. Those accelerators are the only thing between your brains and that artwork. For art’s sake, get them.”

  “I hear yelling,” Gallie says, looking out of the door.

  “No one’s saving you, Mancini,” Bess says. “You’ll be my final pleasure.” He takes what looks like a painful breath then staggers over to a black, smooth wall unit about six feet high. He runs the palm of his good hand across it and a drawer opens smoothly.

  “Any second now,” Gallie shouts. “No time.” I lope to the drawer and see the accelerators inside–our accelerators.

  “Gallie, over here,” I shout taking out three accelerators and throwing them onto a highly polished baroque tabletop. “Program them. Bess, give me the gun.” I take it and stand by the door. Then the door at the far end of the corridor slams open and I fire a burst of shots at it. A guard falls backwards and his rifle clatters on the ground. I hear shouting but no one follows him. I look back at Gallie.

  “Just a few seconds,” she says, jabbing at an accelerator. The shouting continues as if they’re mustering the courage for a full assault. I hear Gallie say to Bess “Hold this. No need to wear it. Then press this. Go!” Then I hear Asmus’s voice.

  “Get in there you pathetic bastards,” I hear him shouting. “They’ve got one gun between them.” He can’t know that but he has nothing to lose except a few goons.

  “Hey, Kasper,” I shout.

  “Get in there,” he screams.

  “Here,” Gallie says from behind me. “It’s ready, give me the gun.”

  “No. Leave mine there,” I say. “You go.” I look back at her and she shakes her head. “Go!” I shout. A hail of fire comes through the door, ripping into furniture, equipment and artwork, and hitting Mancini’s crumpled body with enough force to propel him into the far wall. Gallie vanishes. I put my hand around the door and fire off a few shots which are feeble against the incoming bursts but enough to pause them. As I look back to locate my accelerator I hear Asmus screaming at his thugs. I run back and grab the accelerator, holding the wristband tight in my fist. The screen is blank. Oh, fuck. I hear the clatter of a multitude of feet coming up the corridor. This is it Joad. The way I die is in a hurricane of lead and steel. I think to touch the screen and it comes to life. But it’s got to be too late. I don’t look up and I press ‘Activate’ to the roar of a hundred detonations.

  THIRTY-NINE

  The ambient light is dimmer and deafening noise is replaced by silence as I fall to the ground. I’m at Gallie’s feet and she’s looking down at me. Two men are running toward us.

  “You okay?” Gallie asks. I pat myself down for pain, blood or holes and then I nod. One of the two men is Boris Zhivov and it takes a second for me to realize I’m lying on the concrete pad of the TMA accelerator facility.

  “What the hell happened?” Zhivov asks. “You’re caked in crap.” I run a finger over my mud-blackened face and inspect it. “And that sounded like a ricochet.” I realize a bullet must have gotten into the tachyon blast and finished its journey a couple of centuries after it set out. I check myself again for holes. Gallie pulls me to my feet. I notice the air smells different: cleaner, crisper, metallic.

  “Where’s–?” I begin and then Bess appears between us and the accelerator cylinder. She arrives standing but then falls backwards with a cry. Gallie and I run over and help her up. Zhivov peers at her.

  “One of your team?” he asks.

  “No. This is Bess ... Asmus,” I reply. Zhivov looks bemused. “She used to be my wife, depending on who you ask,” I say. “How long have we been gone?”

  “An hour maybe,” Zhivov replies. So of course there was no rescue mission. Temporal logic makes fools of us. “Where are Morales and Byrne?” Gallie and I exchange a glance and she shakes her head. No one is in the mood to explain and Zhivov doesn’t press it. We catch our breath in silence. “Nothing personal but why don’t you start by taking a shower?”

  “Do you have clothes?” Bess asks. “I just want to wear regular clothes.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll all be guests at The Tacky Hotel until we figure out what’s happening,” Zhivov says. “And don’t worry, I’ll feed your fucking cat,” he tells Gallie pre-emptively. “Toad, your old room is waiting for you.” That would have horrified me just a few week ago, but today I’m excited to sink into the plush luxury of its army cot and feel the hot, foul coffee on the back of my throat. “Gallie, you know the routine. Full written report. Take your time and give it to me by two. Got a feeling it might be one of the more interesting ones.”

  The shower washes away the filth but not the exhaustion. Gallie and I convene in her room to write the report. But first things first. I tell her we don’t need separate rooms. After our adventures in every dark corner of the barn loft and every glade of an eighteenth century forest, it’s too late to be coy. But like a girlfriend reluctant to get up to anything under her parents’ roof, she tells me no. I ask for a reminder of whether this is 1996 or 1956. She suggests we get on with the report. I’m going to be just next door, I remind her as I drain my third cup of coffee and she opens the report template with an air of I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.

  Zhivov pops his head around the corner to tell us we’re meeting with Prasad first thing tomorrow morning and he wants to have fully digested the report before then. So get the hell on with it, he leaves unsaid.

  How do we resolve this? What does a resolution even look like? My team needs to be rescued, intact, for sure. But the arms trafficking? How to deal with that? Maybe cut it off at the pass? Prevent it from happening in the first place? No. Prasad had said that following the timeline is always the way to go–the way that doesn’t pile on the harm. Mitigate what was done, but don’t try to prevent it. But my mind is in no state to try and comprehend that distinction. I got the sense that even the great Prasad himself doesn’t have all of this crystal clear in his mind. Gallie types, asks questions, then types more as I look over her shoulder.

  FORTY

  I’m exhausted but can tell there’s no sleep to be had. The red figures on the bedside clock count the passing minutes and it’s gone midnight. Truth is, I’ve gotten used to Gallie’s warmth and the sound of her breathing. I hear the rumble of distant thunder and try taking a few deep breaths to settle me.

  Then I hear the creak of a door. A silhouette appears briefly against the subdued light of the corridor before the door closes again. I look up through the roof to the heavens. He does exist. She sits on the side of my bed and I reach out to touch her leg.

  “Hi Joad,” Bess whispers.

  “What? No. What?” I pull myself up and bring up my knees.

  “Did I wake you?” she asks.

  “No. Yes. What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry. I startled you.”

  “No, it’s fine. Sorry. I’m exhausted.”

  “It’s just that ... we don’t get much chance to be alone. And I think we need to talk, don’t we?”

  “Do we? Yes. Tomorrow maybe?” I say. “I’m so tired right now. You must be, too.”

  There’s a silence and then she says, “This is weird for me. I know we’re closer to home than we just were but that makes it weirder. Do you know what I mean? It’s the same and different.”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “I don’t really know what’s out there, except that right now there’s a ten year-old Elizabeth Sato in Honolulu with her family. How strange is that?” I nod in the dark and there’s another silence. “Joad,” she says. “I don’t want to seem pushy but I’ve been thinking about something and I just need to say it.” No, no, I think. “Is that okay?”

  “Tomorrow will be better, Bess. I’m barely conscious.”

  “Should we give it another go? I mean, try to pick it up where we left off?”

  “One date is where we left
off, Bess.” My heart is thudding and I reminisce fondly about the relative comfort of being caught in a spray of automatic gunfire.

  “But not in your version, Joad. We were married for a long time. You and me. That’s what we can pick up again, can’t we?” More silence. “I’m sorry. I’m scaring you.” There’s a clap of thunder that seems close.

  “Bess, the truth is, it wasn’t working out that well for us.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well. You know, we’re both good people, but we just didn’t fit together well. We were going in our own directions. The Bess I knew would agree with that.”

  “Would she? That’s why I’m talking about a fresh start. Literally. How many couples get a chance like this?” She places her hand on my arm. I say nothing. I hear her sigh. “What’s wrong with me Joad?”

  “Nothing, Bess. Really”

  “I’m a disaster. Every decision I make about men is a disaster. I blow you off after a single date and then the men I do pick are bastards and deranged. My last husband wanted to use nuclear weapons against ancient Mongols, and he wasn’t even the craziest one. I just want to catch a plane to Honolulu and tell that ten year-old not to turn into such a stupid bitch.”

  “It’s not that–” I start to say, but then I hear the creak of my door and again a silhouette moves across the opening. I fumble to turn on my bedside lamp and squint.

  “I’m sorry,” Gallie says, pulling her dressing gown tight around herself. “I didn’t know you were busy.”

  “No, I’m not,” I say and Bess gives me a discomfited look. “We were just talking about–” I shake Bess’s hand off my arm and only then notice that she’s wearing nothing but an oversized tee-shirt.

  “No, I’m sorry. I don’t want to interrupt,” Gallie says smiling at Bess. With that she leaves.

  “Fuck,” I say.

  “You have more traffic than I-5,” Bess says. “What do you think she wanted?” I know exactly what she wanted, but not nearly as much as I did.

  “Tomorrow Bess. I’m exhausted,” I say, lying back down and turning over with finality.

  “Okay,” she whispers. “Maybe we both have a few things to think about.”

  FORTY-ONE

  In the detection facility meeting room with me is Gallie, Prasad, Zhivov and Abioye. I can’t catch Gallie’s eye. There’s a definite froideur. Prasad and Abioye are talking to each other about something that has no meaning to me. Boris is watching Gallie ignore me. It feels like I finally fell asleep last night just as my bedside alarm clock was gearing up to go off. It takes me a moment to notice that Prasad and Abioye have finished their discussion and are now both looking at me. Prasad throws a paper-clipped wad of sheets onto the table that I assume is our report. “Not quite the mission we’d planned on, eh?” he says.

  “No,” I say. “Although in fairness, I’m not sure we had much of a plan at all.” Gallie is finally looking at me, but only to say yes, embarrassing Prasad and Abioye is the best way to go. I don’t really care about that at this point, although trying to embarrass the great Prasad in this room would be like trying to embarrass someone in front of his dog.

  “So his armory is in the mansion?” Prasad asks.

  “Pretty sure. Nothing to indicate it’s elsewhere,” Gallie says.

  “Yeah,” I agree. “They were offloading crates from his accelerator and loading them onto an elevator that went straight down. We never saw anything being taken away from the mansion.” Prasad nods.

  “So,” he says, addressing Abioye, “dealing with Asmus and his arsenal, and getting the TMA staff home are the two principal objectives.”

  “Can we send in a force?” Abioye asks in her near-whisper.

  “His detection precision is impressive. They must have had our arrival venue pinpointed,” I say. “Our security detail didn’t stand a chance. To have that level of accuracy based just on the tachyon bow wave is phenomenal.”

  “It is mid-21st technology,” Prasad says. “Maybe not too surprising. Is it possible to posture our team for a reduced reaction time?”

  “It was almost instantaneous. I heard the gunfire the instant the ambient light changed,” Gallie says.

  “We could have our security initiate fire as they accelerate,” Zhivov says.

  “Arrive with guns ablaze?” Abioye says. “A little irresponsible don’t you think, Boris?”

  “Just a little,” Prasad agrees.

  “They’d have to be shooting up your accelerator cylinder on this end,” I add. There’s a silence.

  “And Mrs. Asmus is a complication,” Prasad says, turning to me. I look at Gallie whose face is stony. “We were not expecting you to bring back a guest.”

  “She’s the reason we could escape,” I say.

  “We understand that,” Abioye says, “but she needs to go back to her place on the timeline.” I look around the table.

  “What does that mean?”

  “How long have you been with TMA?” Zhivov asks. “You know she needs to be sent back.”

  “To where?”

  “Wherever Asmus plucked her from.”

  “Just how much more do you think the timeline could be screwed up if she wasn’t sent back?” I ask.

  “You know better than that Dr. Bevan,” whispers Abioye. “We need to minimize the damage.” I’m preparing to answer this stupid point when I turn to Gallie and see an almost imperceptible shake of the head. I lean back in my chair. Seconds pass with the clicks of the old electronic wall clock. A question comes to me.

  “Where do you focus the detection field for your array?”

  “What do you mean?” Zhivov asks. “It’s global.”

  “At ground altitudes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah, same where I’m from.”

  “So?” Zhivov says.

  “Well, that’s always made sense,” I say. “There’s not likely to be much acceleration going on at 30,000 feet. Best detection efficiency if you focus the array on where accelerations are likely to be happening, right?” I seem to be the center of attention, and for the first time it’s not in a bad way. “Do you think Asmus follows the same logic?”

  FORTY-TWO

  Gallie and I are by the barn, or at least where the barn had once stood. There are no remains of it although the ground has somehow retained a faint memory through the subtle shading of the pristine grass. The cloudless midday sky is an unrealistic shade of dark blue. We stand where we had stood over two centuries earlier. The forest is no longer there, although we can see trees in the distance, and has been replaced by well-kempt meadows. Prasad is talking to a man in military fatigues who had been here when we arrived. Behind them is a grand building that is, according to the ornate signage over the archway leading to its grounds, The Leatown Retreat and Spa. The building looks larger than the mansion that once stood there, and in the front grounds there are cafe tables under umbrellas where guests are being served by white-coated waiters. On a gazebo, a brass quartet is playing show tunes and a small audience is gathered around them.

  “My, Leatown has moved on,” I say. We had walked down earlier to where Leatown once stood; where we had narrowly escaped a beating or worse. There was no metropolis in its place, and not even the ruins of a colonial town. It seems Leatown had not been destined to be the seed of a great American city. Any residue of it now lies beneath the 5th and 6th holes of a golf course, and the town’s only monument is a spa for the wealthy.

  It was within a few hours of our debrief that we found ourselves back in Leatown. “The air’s different, isn’t it?” I say. “It just smells and feels different.”

  “No unwashed TMAers to stink it up,” Gallie replies.

  “Not that. Do you think each age has its own air? Two hundred and some years of history has to leave its mark, doesn’t it? Industries, technologies, wars, just generations of life. It can’t leave the air unchanged.” Gallie doesn’t reply. Maybe she has no opinion on the matter, or maybe she won’t break a streak of n
ot looking at me today. Zhivov returns from his circuit of the building and stops to talk to the woman who had accompanied him. They shake hands and she walks off toward the vehicles parked on the road that runs parallel to the once-was wagon path. Zhivov strides toward Prasad and we follow him.

  Gallie and I are introduced to a Colonel Ahmed, who seems to be a relaxed and amiable fellow with none of the hard edges you might expect of a soldier. He smiles and comments on the unseasonably warm weather.

  “Our local historian confirms this place is built on the same site as the old chateau,” Zhivov says. “It’s about twice the footprint of the original structure but the east boundaries of the old and new structures coincide.”

  “How far is the east wall from the barn site?” Prasad asks.

  “About a hundred yards,” Gallie answers.

  “That a problem?” Prasad asks the colonel.

  “No, shouldn’t be,” he answers. We watch the activity in the front grounds of the Leatown Retreat and Spa.

  “Is croquet your game?” I ask Prasad.

  “Cricket,” he replies. Of course. I look back toward where the barn had been. Our barn. Temporal logic is such a quagmire. I think of my friends (because that’s what they are) still suffering. Yet that suffering happened over two centuries ago. But that’s a bullshit theoretical detail. They’re suffering until we put a stop to it. Yet, in some way, we either did or didn’t put a stop to it–we succeeded or we didn’t and it’s a settled matter. And still, that’s not true; it’s not set in stone. A park just appeared in Risley in place of the shopping mall that thought it was set in stone. It just wasn’t. If anything about temporal logic was seeming to get more comprehensible to me after all of this, then it was slipping away from me again.

  I’d asked Gallie to walk with me as Prasad, Zhivov and the colonel plan their plans. We’re on the edge of where the woods had begun. I’m thinking of what we did in those woods. Is she thinking about that too?