Chronica (28 page)

"It would not," the older Tesla replied, "none at all, that is, unless something happened to you in the future and you did not return."

"You could get back to the future even then, as soon as another Chair arrived," Max said.

"True, but as we all know, there's no guarantee of when that will happen," the older Tesla replied, "and every second that I spend here with my younger self is a danger not only to his and my mental health, but to the world at large. Even the slightest disturbance in anyone's timeline can have unforeseen ripple effects."

Sierra thought again about Joe Biden. "How about I accompany the older Mr. Tesla to the future. That way, everyone is satisfied – the two Teslas part ways here right now, and I get to see William—"

"I'm not satisfied with that," Max began—

Mr. Bertram appeared, flustered for Bertram, and whispered hurriedly to Charles.

Charles turned to the seated five. "Heron is at the front door, with Edwin Porter."
 

***

"If we try to stop him, or prevent him from using the Chairs, that could provoke all-out warfare," Bertram said, not shouting, but above the din of voices under the nude.

Charles agreed. "We have had a very tenuous relationship with Heron, here and in London, throughout the centuries. It is more or less predicated on our looking the other way when he uses the Chairs – it's the price we pay, in effect, for the Chairs being available to us."

"What would he do?" Max said, touching the hilt of his knife with his fingers again. "Destroy the Chairs? That would only make the Chairs useless to him."

"He could lock us out," the younger Tesla said.

"No," Sierra said. "If he could do that without locking himself out, he would have done that, long ago."

"Can I at least see him?" Astor spoke up.

"We can show you a picture," Max replied.
 

"He changes his appearance often anyway," Charles said. "Knowing what he really looks like – whatever that may truly mean – would provide scant advantage."

Bertram nodded. "My strong advice is that we should do nothing. But if we want to do something, we would need to act now. He is likely past the vestibule, and walking up the wide flight of stairs to this very floor right now."

Max pulled out his knife and turned towards the wide staircase.

"No!" Sierra said. "I want to rid this world of him as much as you do – but Bertram and Charles are right. If we go at him, and we fail, there's no telling what he might do to the club and our access to the Chairs."

Astor was on his feet, too. "Photographs can be deceptive -- I at least need to get a look at him in the flesh."

Chapter 19

[New York City, June, 1899 AD]

"We have an observation room from which you can watch everyone who walks up the spiral stairs to the room with the Chairs," Charles said, and pointed upward.

Bertram and the five rapidly followed Charles up the stairs to the classics library. Charles pointed to what looked like a door to a broom closet.

"You learn something new every millennium in this club," Max quipped quietly to Sierra.

The room with the view was large enough to comfortably accommodate the party of seven. Charles opened shutters to what looked like a large window. "We have a complex arrangement of mirrors," he said. "If you just look through the window, you'll see anyone on the bottom of the spiral staircase."

They waited for a few minutes.
 

"That's Heron with Porter and another man," the younger Tesla was first to comment on what they saw. "I thought you said Heron was accompanied by just the photographer."

"The other gentleman must have either already been in the club," Bertram replied, "or he entered shortly after Heron and Porter."

"Who is he?" the younger Tesla asked.

"Woodruff, a police detective," Max replied. "And a stone-cold killer."

"He is Heron's protection," the younger Tesla said.

Sierra put her hand on Max's shoulder. "Isn't this better than rushing that fucker with our knives?" she asked, softly.

Max touched her hand and nodded. But he kept his knife in his other hand, anyway.

***

Heron stood at the foot of the stairs with Woodruff and Porter. For the first time in a long time, he felt he stood at the verge of concluding this wretched, tangled business with the
Chronica
, in his favor.

Woodruff had retrieved it from Appleton's Wave Hill home in the dark hours of the morning, bright for Heron in its outcome. Heron had held it in his hand, dared to unscroll it, and the handwriting was his, committed to this parchment nearly two thousand years ago. He had felt his heart flutter, it was beating fast now, something that didn't happen too often for Heron. He resisted the urge to take another look at it, one more look, one last time. The
Chronica
was now in Porter's ample vest pocket, as per Heron's carefully considered plan.

There remained one loose end. Heron hoped with all of his being that it would be the last. It was Appleton. Heron had instructed Woodruff not to kill the doddering publisher – not because he would be dying of his own deteriorating condition soon enough anyway, but because Heron had wanted to question him, to see if Appleton had made any other copies of the
Chronica
. He had intended to do that today. He hadn't counted on Appleton, in his condition, running off to the future.

Fortunately, Heron had long ago hacked into all surveillance on the Millennium Club, the Parthenon Club, and the bar in Athens, well into the future, since cameras had first been pointed at those places as part of city-wide security in the 21
^st
century. He had already put Cyril Charles' face on the list. One of his agents caught the alert that Charles was leaving the Millennium Club in 2096. She saw he was with another man, and quickly identified him as Appleton. She traced their movements and saw that the two had gone to Brewster, Massachusetts via neo-rail.

She went to the Millennium, seeking to take a Chair back here and tell Heron. All the people in his network above a certain level were able to ascertain at all times where Heron was. She was above that level. He would have to promote her to an even higher level, as soon as this work was finished.

She found there were no Chairs at the Millennium in 2096, so she flew to London on the Hypersonic Transport plane, and took a Chair in the Parthenon Club back to London in June 1899, from where she promptly sent Heron a telegram:

"Charles and Appleton in 2096 Brewster, MA"

That's where Heron was going now. He looked at Porter. Woodruff and Porter both knew better than to interrupt Heron when he was thinking.
 

Heron glanced again at Porter's vest. The safest thing to do, Heron knew, in almost all regards, was to destroy this scroll right now. But he hadn't done that. It was not that he could not bring himself to burn his own wondrous creation. It was that Heron couldn't be sure what would happen to the Chairs when the
Chronica
was destroyed. Presumably they would all still be intact, since Heron had perfected time travel before he recorded his knowledge of how to do that in the
Chronica
. No, all the destruction of the last copy of the
Chronica
should do – if this original was indeed the last – is prevent Sierra Waters from getting some control of these Chairs, and using them for her own purposes, as she had been doing. But Heron couldn't be 100% sure.

So the truly safest course would be for Heron to use a Chair right now to get to Appleton, prior to Heron's destroying the
Chronica
, and avoid any disruptions that the destruction of the
Chronica
might cause. He had entrusted Porter with the job of burning the
Chronica
as soon as Heron left, and told Woodruff to ensure that Porter did as instructed.

Heron smiled at the two, in what passed for him as a genuine smile, then turned and walked up the spiral stairs. He was close to concluding this.

***

"It looks as if the séance is over," Astor said. He had been watching Heron, Porter, and Woodruff with a small magnification lens that he had brought back from the future. "Electronics can't travel through time on the Chairs, but this is just ground glass," he had said proudly to Sierra, Max, the two Teslas, Bertram, and Charles, standing beside him in the observation room. They all could see Heron, now halfway up the stairs to the room with the Chairs, and Porter and Woodruff standing at the bottom.

"And we're just going to let him go up there and take a Chair?" Max said, close to bolting through the door and running through the classics library and up the stairs to stop Heron himself.

Sierra again put a soft, restraining hand on his shoulder and stroked it. She knew he hadn't thought this through, least of all how he would get through Woodruff, who no doubt was armed and would hear Max as soon as he started running towards him on the library floor.

"We just discussed this and concluded that would not be a good idea," Bertram said, also softly but with no affection.

"Look at this," Astor said and handed his device to Sierra. "Heron was looking at Porter's vest right before he started walking up the stairs. I put this on maximum magnification. Does that look to you like what I think it is, or is my mind playing tricks on me?"

Sierra put the lens to her eye and scrutinized the bulge in Porter's vest pocket, which was slightly open at the top. "I think you're right," she said slowly to Astor. "I can't say that's the
Chronica
, but it certainly could be a scroll."

"It could be a scroll of anything," Max growled, still focused on Heron, who was now at the door of the room with the Chairs.

"Does the club have a rule which would prohibit us from reclaiming a scroll which was stolen from a member in good standing, Mr. Appleton, last night?" the younger Tesla inquired, with an edge of sarcasm.

The older Tesla enjoyed and laughed at his younger self's question.

"Not only do we not have such a rule, we'll be happy to help you reclaim it," Bertram said, not at all insulted by the sarcasm.

"Woodruff certainly has a gun," Max said, turning away from the view. "How do you propose we do this?" He looked one more time at the top of the stairs. "There's nothing more to see here."

Woodruff and Porter had turned to walk down the wide set of stairs, and were no longer in sight.

"You have your knife," Bertram replied. "And we also have surprise on our side."

"There is another set of stairs that even the members do not know about," Charles added. "We can split forces and approach Woodruff and Porter from two or more sides at the same time."

"We also have a firearm under lock and key," Bertram said, reluctantly.

"You know how to use it?" Max asked.

Bertram gave him a look that said, of course.

***

Bertram and Charles emerged close to the vestibule at the entrance to the club. Bertram had a gun in his hand.

Porter and Woodruff were walking out of the door.

"Please don't leave," Bertram said, and pointed his gun at Woodruff.

Woodruff almost laughed. "I'm an officer of the law – put that gun down right now, before I haul your backside off to jail."

"You're not upholding the law when you aid and abet a robbery," Bertram said, and kept his gun pointed at Woodruff.

"I see," Woodruff said coldly. He looked at Porter. "I believe there is a fireplace just inside that room," Woodruff gestured to a waiting room, just outside the vestibule, with books, newspapers, and comfortable seating. "Do what you have to do there."

Porter hesitated.

"Please do not move," Bertram said, and moved his gun slightly in Porter's direction.

Woodruff took the opportunity to pull two guns from his holsters, one in each hand. He managed to fire one at Bertram, before Max and Sierra, having run down the wide flight of stairs, tackled him.

Bertram, wounded in the arm, dropped his gun.

"I'm not badly hurt," he told Charles, who leaned over him.

Charles picked up the gun, but he had never fired one in his life.

Porter was still a statue.

Max and Sierra struggled on the floor with Woodruff, who dazed Sierra with a sharp elbow to her face. Max lunged at him with his knife, but Woodruff managed to pull away and land a hard boot on the side of Max's head. Max blacked out.

Porter was suddenly moving towards the room with the fireplace.

Charles ran after him. He couldn't just shoot this man, even if he knew how.

Both guns had been knocked out of Woodruff's hands in the scuffle on the floor. Fully alert, he picked up one, and took in the situation. Porter was going out the door. Charles was a few steps behind Porter. Max was unconscious on the floor, and Sierra looked woozy. Woodruff thought quickly. Even if Charles stopped Porter from burning the
Chronica
, Woodruff could recover it later and destroy it then. The real threats to what Heron wanted done were laying right here in front of him, half or less conscious, on the floor.
 

He pointed his gun at Sierra, now fully awake. "I take no pleasure in hurting women," he said, truly, "but—"

Max, now also awake and knife in hand, screamed and charged Woodruff.

Woodruff turned to face his attacker. Now Sierra was upon him, too, slashing with her knife. Woodruff, bleeding from multiple knife wounds and flailing, soon lost possession of his gun. He reached out, growled from the depth of his being, and sought to get to control of Sierra and Max with just his bare hands. For a moment he almost succeeded. But all he was able to hold on to were the sharp points and edges of knife blades, which cut through his hands to his body in a frenzy. He soon was dead on the floor.

"Quick!! He's going to the fireplace to burn the scroll!" Bertram, now standing and holding his wounded arm, pointed at Porter.

Sierra and Max ran into the next room. Charles and Porter were fighting right in front of the fireplace – Charles attempting, not yet successfully, to wrest the scroll from Porter.

"Stop," Sierra shouted. "Please."