Chronica (22 page)

"Thank you," Heron said, sincerely, to Porter. "Stick with your moving pictures. Your
Great Train Robbery
will be remembered as one of the great pioneering works in the history of cinema, as I believe the Lumière brothers in France are now calling what you do."

And Heron pushed back his seat, stood, and left the seafood restaurant near Grand Central Terminal.

Porter looked after him, immensely moved by the compliment, despite everything that had happened, because it had been made by someone Porter had read about when he was 12 years old, someone whose work with ancient zoetrope devices made Heron the ultimate pioneer in the craft Porter was devoting his life to. The incomprehensibility of admiring a pioneer who likely became a pioneer because he had traveled back in time with knowledge from the future did not bother Porter. Nor did he realize for a moment that Heron had played upon his role as an ancient filmmaker to assemble around him his chosen filmmakers to do his bidding at the end of the 19
^th
century.

***

Heron preferred his own company, at least at first, when faced with impending crisis. He walked slowly up Fifth Avenue, and hoped no one said hello to him as J. P. Morgan.

His work here in the 1890s had mostly failed. His assistants had proved unreliable and worse, as they often had in history. Dickson, Flannery, Edison either had been unable to accomplish what he'd needed, or had turned outright against him. Only Edwin Porter, probably the dimmest of the bunch, at least of the inventors, had shown some loyalty – though that, too, was belated.

Time to make some drastic changes, especially in his alliances. Sierra Waters had every right to kill him on sight, as Flannery might say, but she and Heron did now have a coincidence of interest. Heron believed she would not want time travel in common use in the world any more than would Heron.

What would be the best way to approach her, with the equivalent of a white flag or palms open to the sky? Heron needed to think about how he could convince Sierra Waters to help him extricate this perilous knowledge of time travel that she had brought to the doorstep of the 20
^th
century via Appleton.

Conversely, if she refused to help him, but was within striking distance when she rebuffed his offer, that would not be a bad place her to be for his purposes, either.

Chapter 14

[New York City, May, 1899 AD]

Sierra, Max, Astor, and Mary Anderson were seated around a table in one of the offices in Astor's hotel. He had hastily called the meeting, at Mary Anderson's request.

"I believe Thomas Edison is in some way connected to the
Chronica
," Mary repeated what she had earlier told Astor. "Edwin Porter wears his heart on his sleeve, the dear man. He would never tell me outright what his boss Edison was doing, but when I asked him about the
Chronica
, his face turned beet red. And when I asked him about his work with Edison a little later, he chirped like a bird about a new photo-play he was producing, a Western based on a play, but when I mentioned the
Chronica
again, he looked like the cat that swallowed the canary, and the bird was still flying around inside him."

Sierra nodded. "We have had Edison on our short list of people who may have somehow obtained the
Chronica
from William Appleton for several months. You understand 'short list'"? she asked Mary and Astor.

They both nodded.

"Heron is likely involved in this," Max said.

"You believe he was the one who drugged me, on the day we were supposed to meet last month," Mary said to Max. "I still feel guilty about being dead to the world when you came up to see me that day." And now her own face turned red, because her doctor had helpfully told her, with a slight leer that he couldn't disguise, that she had been partially nude when discovered, unconscious, on her bed.

"Heron is the only one with a motive," Max said, "if he had any reason to believe you were helping us."

"But I saw no one strange on that day, in the morning or at lunch before I returned to my hotel," Mary mused. "There was nothing untoward at Luchow's. Just J. P. Morgan entertaining some friends in his usual grand way."

Astor furrowed his brow. "What?" he asked Mary.

"What about what?" she asked, good naturedly. "Luchow's?"

"You said you saw J. P. Morgan there, in the early afternoon, having lunch?"

"Yes," Mary said.

"Is that significant?" Max asked.

"You said
you
were meeting J. P. Morgan that day," Sierra said to Astor, "before Max went off to see Mary, when you were with us in the lobby – you said that's why you couldn't see Mary, and you would set up the appointment for Max and Mary."

"That's right – and I indeed saw J. P. Morgan, it was in a saloon uptown, at the same time Mary saw him in Luchow's, on 14
^th
Street," Astor said, emphatically.

"He couldn't be in two places at the same time," Mary said, "unless . . . ." She then realized what the other three were thinking. "Unless one of them was Heron!"

***

Astor bundled Mary into a motorized carriage that returned her to her hotel. He then proceeded "with all due haste" with Sierra and Max in their own motorized carriage to the Millennium Club. Mary had objected – she wanted to go with them to the club – but Astor kindly insisted that she not. "It could be dangerous – you have already been laid low by that man!"

"What are the chances that he's there now?" Max asked, as their vehicle approached the club.

Astor shrugged. "J. P. Morgan has long been in frequent attendance at the club. If Heron has a face that looks like J. P.'s – if there are two men with J. P. Morgan's face out and about now – then I guess that makes it twice as likely that we'll encounter some version of J. P. Morgan, real or impersonated, if I have my mathematics right."

"Possibly more likely than that," Sierra said, "since Heron as J. P. Morgan might well be using the club more often than the real J. P. – to get to the Chairs."

Astor grunted. "Of course."

Their carriage arrived at the club. "Please wait here," Astor told the driver, and thanked him.
 

"Good man – he's on retainer," Astor said to Sierra and Max, as the three walked right up to the front door of the club.

Mr. Bertram opened it.

"Mr. Bertram," Astor and Sierra said at the same time. "You look a little peaked," Astor said to Bertram, with a little concern. "Are you well?"

Bertram nodded. "Just a little matter in another time," he said. "I'm sure you understand. All's well that ends well," he added, with a slight smile.

"Right," Astor said. "No need to explain."

Bertram nodded.

"We came here to see J. P. Morgan," Sierra said. "Is he here today?"

"Yes, he is indeed!" Bertram said, pleased to be no longer on the subject of what had made him peaked. "In the first-floor lounge, I believe, under the Raphael nude. I saw him there conversing with several men about 20 minutes ago."

"Thank you!" Astor said.

The three walked to the top of the wide staircase. The lounge was off to the left. They stopped to talk.

"We're unarmed – we have no weapons," Max said to Astor. "You didn't give us much notice before the meeting with Mary – we barely had time to dress."

"We should have thought of that before we rushed up here," Sierra said. "What do you suggest we do? If we leave now, to get help or weapons, J. P. Morgan could be gone when we return."

"Here is what we'll do," Astor said. "I know J. P. Morgan well enough to have conversations with him about events we both attended, which Heron could not possibly know about, unless he copied J. P.'s brain as well as his face. Let me talk to him, and the two of you stay back."

"What will you do if he's Heron and he attacks you?" Max asked.

"He wouldn't dare – not here, in front of everyone in the lounge," Astor replied.

Sierra and Max reluctantly agreed to let Astor go ahead with his plan. They couldn't risk entering the lounge – if J. P. Morgan in there was really Heron, he would recognize them instantly. They agreed to stand where they were until Astor returned.

***

Astor returned an excruciating nine minutes later, with a big smile.

"It's not Heron, it's the real J. P. Morgan!" he said triumphantly.

"What are you so happy about?" Max asked him. "Our purpose in coming here was to find Heron not J. P. Morgan."

"I'm happy he wasn't Heron and didn't kill me!" Astor said, still jovial.

"How can you be sure he's not Heron?" Sierra asked.

"I told you, I know J. P. fairly well," Astor replied. "How about we test this another way: I introduce the two of you to J. P. Morgan, and see if anything about him strikes you as Heron."

Sierra and Max nodded slowly.

"By the way, J. P recalled his meeting with me on the day Mary was drugged – so he could not be the J. P. Morgan she saw in Luchow's," Astor told them, as the three walked to J. P. Morgan's table.

Introductions were made, conversations were had, and Sierra and Max were satisfied that this man was definitely not Heron. Astor pleaded that he and his friends had other engagements, thanked J. P. for his time and the libations he had bought them, and left with Sierra and Max.

"In a future time, we could contact the police and they could put out an all-points bulletin to apprehend someone who looked like J. P. Morgan, now anywhere other than in the Millennium Club, and we would have a chance of locating him," Max said.

"I would love to see such a time," Astor said, with that look in his eyes that he always had whenever Max or Sierra talked about the future.

***

Astor left for a business appointment. Sierra and Max went back to the hotel, where she made her weekly telephone call to Geoffreys to inquire about Appleton's heath and speak to Appleton if possible.
 

"He's worse than ever," Sierra later told Max, who had taken a walk around the block to do some thinking.

"Were you able to talk to him?" Max asked.

"Barely," Sierra said, her voice constricted with emotion. "He was barely responsive. All I could say to him was 'I love you'. I think he understood that." Her eyes smarted with unshed tears, as they often did when she thought about Appleton.

Max put his arms around her and kissed her gently on the temple. "Why is he in such bad shape? His death date is still a few months away, in October. Is Heron poisoning him? Maybe he got in to see William as J. P. Morgan."

"I don't know," Sierra said and shook her head. "I think it's just that the months that he lived in other times – trying to help me, saving my life in ways I probably don't even know about – are part of the total time he has for life. So he's actually older at this date right now than he was originally in 1899, before he got involved in all of this. It's easy to lose track of that." And now there were tears on her face.

Max held her tightly. "Why can't we extend his life, get him into the future to get some medical attention that can save him?" They had been over this before, many times, and Max had never been satisfied with the answer.

"I asked about that, more than once, when he was healthy," Sierra said, "and he always refused. He said he wanted to die when he was due to die – he didn't want the time travel to change that. A part of him wants to be with his wife again. A part of him feels that he has already disrupted the natural order of events enough, with everything he has done for me. We don't even know what he's dying of – the obituaries don't list a cause, and give the impression he just died of old age."

"I know," Max said, softly, "but he's only slightly over middle aged by our mid-21
^st
-century standards, which makes it especially hard for us to just go along with him on this." Looking into the cause of Appleton's death had long been one of the things he and Sierra had wanted to do, and it had remained that way, as the two had been caught up with one more urgent threat after another.

"He's too weak to travel anywhere now anyway," Sierra said. "He hasn't been to the Millennium Club in almost a year."

[New York City, 2087 AD]

Heron entered the reconstruction facility at the New York University Medical Center on First Avenue and 30
^th
Street. This had taken a lot of doing. Unlike face stylings and remakes, which once had been difficult but now could be done in a beauty salon from just a good photograph, a full body reconstruction required a hospital and DNA from the body to be emulated. That was the only way to really get everything from the physique to the voice. And the voice was rarely a perfect match, since speech patterns depended upon upbringing, regional accents, and other factors that had nothing to do with genes.

The procedure was safe enough – otherwise, Heron would have traveled further into the future to get it – but it was not particularly pleasant or easy on the psyche. Finding yourself with a new face was traumatic enough. Finding yourself in a new body could take months of adjustment, and no new procedures in the future made that any better. Heron didn't care. He knew he'd adjust more quickly than most. And his needs demanded this.

Getting the DNA hadn't been easy. A doctor had to be carefully approached and copiously bribed. But Heron had no choice. There were only so many times he could go in and out of the club without being seen by Charles or Bertram or their treacherous ilk. Fortunately, he long ago developed a way to disguise his use of the Chairs. But he had no way to disguise his presence in the club.

A very attractive doctor beckoned him to follow down the hall. It had been a long time, too long, since he had sampled the sweet pleasures of the flesh, of any kind. He would have to see to that, and the many pursuits he had neglected, when his
Chronica
was back in the place it belonged: nonexistence, except in Heron's head.

[New York City, May, 1899 AD]

Sierra received a telephone call at the hotel from Mr. Bertram, two days after her encounter with the real J. P. Morgan.

"Mr. Bertram!" she said. "Is everything ok? I don't believe you have ever contacted me on the phone before."