Second Paradigm (25 page)

Across the time stream, from as far back as the eleventh century to as far forward as the twenty-ninth century, agents responded to the call. People excused themselves from conversations, left important high profile paradoxes hanging, and in a few cases simply vanished, all moving immediately in their subjective time to respond to the distress signal.

Several such cases were not only observed, but also recorded. Local urban legends were born about spontaneous combustion and U.F.O. abductions, living through the years in their infamy.

All told, twenty-three people responded to that signal. Those twenty-three represented not only the best and brightest of the elite Corps which policed the time stream, but in fact all of them. All twenty-three of them, the entire agency’s living set of agents, within a minute and a half of answering that call, would be dead.

4016 A.D.: No man’s land, between the great western
city-states

Alex reached forward, lightning fast, and grabbed the other man by the throat. With a quick twist of his hips, he slammed him into the wall and held him pinned there by his neck.

“So, mystery man. Who the hell are you? Really. All of this traveling around for you, acting on bad information to try to fix history, what the hell is your game?”

The man struggled, trying to hop out of the hold by jumping through time. He realized quickly that Alex had him blocked from his ability to travel. The lack of oxygen in his system made his vision go blurry. He slumped in defeat and managed to whisper to Alex, “Air … please. I’ll … explain.”

The iron grip around his throat loosened enough to allow air through his windpipe, and no more. Struggling would be useless. Alex obviously overmatched him. Pinned to a wall, and fighting against the dizziness the impact of his head on said wall had created, he struggled to be straightforward and concise with his assailant.

“I am a man, much like you, and Stefan Arbu. I received instructions from the god when I visited the holy temple seven thousand years ago.”

Alex scanned the man’s eyes for the truth, if it could be found there, and decided that he was satisfied with what he saw. “Your instructions were not complete then. I have had to undo some of your mistakes. You left a long trail of fuck-ups behind you, friend. A long trail.”

The man tried to shake his head, to deny the harsh accusations, but the hand gripped around his throat didn't allow the movement. “No. That’s not it. I am not you, or Stefan Arbu. Not … chosen like you two were.”

He seemed almost bitter. “I failed in my own right. My skill was not equal to the tasks that I was given. I went back, but the god would not speak to me again. I had to find a way to repair my mistakes. To fix what the god had laid as my tasks. And I am not a priest. I’m a man who was looking for redemption.”

Alex thought about this for a moment, still meeting the other man’s eyes with his own steely gaze. He watched the other man’s soul through his eyes, learning from what he saw there. “I believe you. But you did it the wrong way. You came to me, hoping by trickery to convince me to undo your mistakes. All the while knowing who and what I was. In a way, that’s worse for you by my accounting, friend. Much worse.”

The man got a look of pleading in his eyes. “Not trickery. Just doing what I must to unfold my portion of events.”

Alex nodded, dismissing the other man’s words and snarled, “You lied to me. You attempted deception and you manipulated me. That is trickery. That is fucked up and not a way to deal with me. Did you ever even consider simple honesty?”

The man broke eye contact with Alex, looking down. Alex’s words had hit home. Finally, he looked back up and met Alex’s eyes.

“No. I did not. I did not think you would help with my failings.”

At that moment, a fit of coughing seized Alex. He felt his lungs seize up, as warmth and a sticky wetness welled up through his throat. His hand unclenched as the coughing fit hit and he dropped the man from his choke hold on the wall, falling to his hands and knees, the blood from his lungs flowing up through his mouth and splattering on the ground below him.

The man crouched beside him, holding his shoulder and trying to help keep him in a position from which he could keep his throat clear of the blood. Finally, Alex’s body settled back down, he regained some measure of control over his tattered muscles, and his vision swam back into focus.

“Are you recovered, Lord Zarth?” the man asked, genuine concern in his voice. He helped the unsteady Alex rise back to his feet, providing support below his arm to help him stand.

“Well enough,” Alex grunted, eyeing the man again. This moment of help could not be allowed to outweigh the transgressions of the past. “You understand what has happened to me?”

The man shook his head, “I do not understand it. I know that you were hale when I last approached you. And I know that you should not be here in this time. I would assume you are here as a gift from the god. But I do not know. Other than those two things which I know, and the one I suspect, I do not understand the sickness that you are suffering from.”

Alex fought internally for a moment and then he reached his decision with a sigh. “I implanted my DNA in you back in the bar. That’s how I am here. No gift from the god. You should know, the god does not contain power beyond the scope of knowledge. Stefan and I are able to do what we do because of hard work. As to the sickness, the problem I’ve encountered is that when I left this era the first time I came here, my body started rapidly aging, trying to catch up to the lost frame of subjective time which I skipped with this little trick.”

The man blanched. “You broke the laws as we know them and now you are dying. I think I begin to understand. It was a consequence of what you did in breaking the laws. My deception caused this to unfold. If I had been honest with you, you would not have sought me out here in my era.”

Alex nodded, “Got it in one. And the gold star goes to you. You said I would die on this mission. You were right. You failed to grasp that your course of actions ultimately signed my death warrant. But no hard feelings. I’m not regretting having come forward to this time. And I’m definitely not regretting that you came to me. Your screw ups unlocked a few important things for me.”

The man watched Alex, seemingly surprised by the lack of punishment. “Then there must be another price. Something, which I did, in my failures, for which I must pay.”

Alex scratched his bruised chin, “Half right this time.”

The two men stood and watched each other. It was obvious that Alex was waiting for the other to piece together the puzzle on his own. It was a trait that he shared with Stefan Arbu. The chill, morgue-like air of the underground complex blew past them and sterile lights shone off of the burnished steel walls.

Alex raised an eyebrow as he waited for the other man to come to his realization. In all honesty, he also rebuilt his energy for the fight he knew must be coming. The latest coughing fit had left him weakened and his breath rattled in his chest.

Finally, the other man sucked in a breath from between clenched teeth. “My death. You require my death, back then. Don’t you?”

Alex nodded, “Yes. Though it is not me, per se. It is history that requires it. By involving yourself in the precise paradox point you have effectively killed yourself. Had you followed the orders you were given, and not gone to the point of the paradox’s origin to observe, you would not be here now.”

The man’s shoulders slumped. “How was I to know? The god did not tell me that. I was told to make sure certain events in two thousand and one, as well as others in the twenty forties, occurred. When I messed them up I had to travel back to the paradox to better understand what I had done wrong.”

“NO!” Alex’s voice came out as thunder. “You did not have to. You chose to and you have killed a lot of people with your incompetence. By pushing that sergeant forward to intercept the shard of glass that would have killed Lucille Frost, you wreaked major damage to the time stream. Trying to fix the mistake you made by saving her damn near destroyed history.”

The man blinked and looked up again to Alex’s eyes. His brow wrinkled in confusion. “How did you know that I did that?”

Alex grinned. “Think it through. I stole your computer. While we have been talking, I had my internal friend hack your systems and upload all of your information to me, Josh. Joshua of the no man’s land. Born in thirty-nine eighty-eight and survivor of the wars which destroyed most of humanity at the turn of your millennium. Currently aged almost fifteen hundred years through a trick even I might not have thought of. You are a clever man, but clever only takes you so far against cunning, Josh. I know what you have done and now it is time to pay the price for the mistakes you have made. The consequences of your actions await.”

A look of fear came over the man and he turned to sprint away. Alex reached forward, grabbing the back of the man’s shirt collar. With a quick jerk of his wrist, Alex pulled Joshua back.

Joshua’s feet slipped out from under him and he slammed into the ground, knocking all the breath from him. Simultaneously, Alex focused his will and pulled both of them back in time to redress the mistakes the man had made. The last words he uttered, as the other flew through the air, about to impact the ground, were: “Let’s go pay the piper, friend.”

***

Relativity Synchronization:
Lucky Thirteen,
Everything Goes Wrong

Time Sphere: The Paradox Within

Chris tried practice runs first, jumping through time twice before he tried to tackle going back to his trial. Once a few days into the future, and once a few days into the past.

He could barely control his thoughts enough while in the Time Sphere to get anywhere at all. He had begun to think of the present as the center, with pasts and futures looping in.

The further he needed to loop from the center, the more confused and disjointed his thoughts. He knew he wasn’t supposed to think about time in those terms, but it became almost impossible not to as one of the few things he had to cling to, in order to find his way to the right moment in time. Concentrating on the Self, he had found, would only get him back to the same moment he started at.

His willpower clicked into place and worked for him. Think of the now he wished to be in and will it to be now. He needed no anchor.

Chris found Charlie clearing out debris from the back of the Rangely. Charlie waved at him from the mound of beams and rubble he stood on. “We’re going to need to get a Haul-Cruiser to get some of this shit out of here. Then I figure I can rebuild the back wall here—” he gestured toward the gaping hole where the building had collapsed “—and have me a half-sized hotel. No half rates though!” He grinned crookedly.

“I’m checking out, Charlie,” Chris called from the top floor at the edge of the drop-off.

“Whoa! Hold on, buddy, I’m coming over!” Charlie clambered his bulk down from the rubble heap and onto the ground floor. Chris trotted down the stairs and met him in the lobby.

“So you’re leaving?” Charlie seemed disappointed.

“Yeah. I figure it’s time to move on.”

“You got somewhere to go?”

“Something like that, yeah. Here,” Chris handed Charlie the wad of money he still had left from what Jameson had given him. “I know it won’t be nearly enough to rebuild the hotel, but there should be about $200,000 there. It’s enough to get started.”

Charlie took the money, mouth agape, and then handed it back to Chris. “I can’t take this man. This is all you got, ain’t it?”

Chris smiled, “You’re a good man, Charlie. Yeah, it is all I’ve got, but trust me; I don’t need it where I’m going. I think that where I’m going I’ll have plenty of other resources for what I need. Please, take it. Thanks for the hospitality. And thank you for the friendship.”

Charlie took the money again and reluctantly put it in his pocket, though he smiled from ear to ear. “Hey, Nost, thanks. Come back anytime.”

Chris laughed. “I might just do that.”

He walked toward the D.A.B. until Charlie went back inside, then he turned, walking down an alley and entered Time.

Chris reached for the edges of reality and
folded …

A man stands before him, turned towards a battle in the street, about to die. There is no escape route. Chris reaches forward to grab him and is surprised to see another beat him to the rescue. So, his suspicions were correct and there another helped him.

Fold …

Chris drops onto a rooftop, above the battle in the street below. His life is saved by the other’s actions. The man turns and sees him standing in shadow; he files the scene in his mind and moves to his next task.

Fold …

Windows shatter and buildings start to crack. Chris pushes a man to the ground as a shard of glass flies through where his neck would have been. Improbably, the man is now curled into a ball on the ground, lying in the one safe place for him to be during the earthquake.

Fold …

Music, all instrumental, is playing on muted speakers. A woman is speaking to a man. She is holding a hand outstretched to him. He hands over a set of files.

Freeze …

Chris pulls his gun out to shoot her. His hand is shaking, but he knows she must die. As he pulls the trigger, there is a brief ripple on the edges of reality and he sees another man standing in a parking lot that is somehow superimposed over the reality he is in. Simultaneously, Chris and this other pull their triggers. She falls to the ground, dead, as time skips back into motion and the scene in the parking lot fades.

Fold …

A crowd. Bright sun gleaming on polished marble stairs.
Here … here … here … Forgetting. I’m forgetting something … Who am I … No, something else. Shoot myself as I leave. Complete the cycle.

Chris stepped out of the Time Sphere into an alcove at the courthouse. He felt the bulk of the old gun under his coat.
Trust instinct. I … must … I must not miss. If I die here, the cycle completes. The tragedies of the future were
my
instabilities. I can stop this, now.

“Here he comes!” Someone shouted from the crowd and the mob pushed closer to the line of police that blocked their way from the bottom stair.

Police, not PolCorp,
Chris thought. He pushed his way to the middle of the mob to get a better view.
Oh my God,
Chris thought as the realization that he was about to shoot at a past incarnation of himself filtered through his confused thoughts. It happened when the first bailiff came through the door. He gripped his gun tighter, but he almost dropped it when he saw Jameson walk out. He wore a suit and had a different haircut, but Chris could recognize that hard face even from where he stood as the frigid eyes scanned the crowd.

What is he doing here?
Chris thought as he ducked down and pushed his way closer, behind a news woman wearing a bright red pantsuit, craning her microphone to catch the words of a sad-looking older man, standing now at the top of the stairs, saying something about condolences. There was no sign of Jameson, but Chris wasn’t looking for him anymore. He stared at himself, looking frightened, standing on the edge of the stairs, surrounded by guards.

Now!
Chris pulled the gun from his coat and leveled it at his old self. Someone behind him yelled something. The line of cops unholstered their guns. Chris pulled the trigger, as his old self buckled, and tumbled down the stairs. Chris couldn’t help but wince as his old self’s face split apart where the slug hit it.

“Murderer! Murderer!” A familiar woman’s voice shouted from the throng.

Wait …
Chris thought suddenly.
Mary??

The Police had their guns trained on him and he prepared to flex time to a standstill when he remembered something.
I missed
, he thought.
Somehow I dodged that bullet. How could I have done that? Why didn’t I this time?

Chris never heard the snap of the solitary gunshot coming from the building across the street; the folds disoriented him. Something hit him hard between the shoulders, slamming him forward. Reality seemed to superimpose itself again, but he couldn’t focus.

Too much pain, sound, and confusion overwhelmed him. He fell to his knees. The world spun around him and everything went black by the time he hit the ground.

Officer John Berkowitz had only ever wanted to write some speeding tickets and maybe escort a few prisoners to cells. Today was not what he had signed up to the force for. Looking back at his sergeant he said “Sergeant Connelly, the gunman is dead, but I think you’d better take a look at this …”

Freeze …

1997: Garret’s Last Stand

Garret sprinted across the parking lot to reach his fallen wife’s body. Her neck was twisted at a very wrong angle. He reached her body and fell to his knees, weeping. “Oh god … Wanda. How could this have happened to you?

“Why was I given you for one night, only to have you taken away from me again?” His head slumped forward as his body racked with sobs. He picked up her limp body, cradling her in his arms like a child. Her head lolled in the crook of his arm, resting there almost like her neck was still intact.

Somewhere behind the sorrow, steel formed. Like the anger, it burned white hot for these last ten years, quenched in the tears of his sorrow—tears he had never allowed himself before. And a blade emerged, though Garret did not yet understand this about himself.

Nearby, he felt two presences shift into local time. He heard a loud thump, like a body hitting the ground, then a painful exhalation of breath. Without looking back, he said, “Hello, Zarth. Was this what you had in mind for tonight?”

Alex grunted and Garret heard two people tussling behind him. “Be with you in a second, Doctor Garret. I have to keep this joker immobilized.”

James Garret nodded to himself and placed his wife back on the ground. As he did so, he was careful to support her broken neck, keeping her in a semblance of dignity. He draped her arms across her chest and then closed her eyes. With a feeling of true finality, he leaned over her and kissed her brow, tasting the salt of his own tears on her skin as he did so. Closing his eyes, Garret stood to face Alex.

Alex held a man down. He twisted the prone man’s arm up behind his back and leaned on the center of the man’s back using his weight to keep him pinned. Garret took all this in and he felt something emerge within himself.

It felt like a sword had been sheathed in his soul, and it came out, ready for him to use as a weapon. Anger left him, replaced now by something much colder. His eyes narrowed and focused on the man pinned to the ground.

Looking at Alex, it was obvious that he had been through a tough fight of his own. Bruises blossomed across his skin, even worse than before and bloodstains covered the front of his shirt.

“I see,” he said.

Rather than springing forward to attack the man he assumed had killed his wife, Garret paused. Having looked at what was before him, he thought and opened his mind's eye. For the first time in his life, Garret understood the truths his eyes could not see.

He took a deep breath, looked Alex in the eyes, and said, “I understand.” And the blade in his soul came free, ready for him to use. Accelerating into stretched time, he moved forward, everything around him frozen.

In one motion, he backhanded Alex off the prone man, then picked up the man’s head and slammed it forward into the ground. When Garret released the man, blood pooled below his forehead. He stood and turned towards Alex.

Zarth moved in accelerated time, but Garret had an edge he’d never before had, and to him it looked as though Alex moved at about one third of Garret’s own speed. He walked up to Alex, grabbed the back of his hair, and punched him in the stomach. Then he leaned close to Alex’s ear and slowed his own speed to match Alex’s.

“Why, you son of a bitch? Why did you make this happen? I understand what happened, but not the why of it. And I’ll have you tell me that before I end your life.” He knotted his fingers in Alex’s hair, yanking his head back, controlling his body with that fist.

Blood dripped from Alex’s mouth and against all probability he laughed. “You’re asking the wrong question, Garret. Surely you can understand what is happening if you’ve figured out so much. Think it through, man.”

Garret accelerated his time to hit Alex in the stomach again. On impact, Alex coughed up more blood. “Alex, I am being patient. I can make this painful for you, but I’d rather not. You said you don’t kill unless you have to and I believe you. Still, answer me now. Why did you arrange for her death?”

Alex’s body shuddered as he fought to bring it back into control. “It’s about Nost. It had to happen to unlock Nost’s paradox. I chose to save her for a day though, against my own code. A gift for the both of you. One day of stolen time. What I undid had to be redone and that was not my choice. I am sorry.”

Garret released Alex and phased into accelerated time as the man started to fall forward. He stared at the figure suspended before him in the air and then kicked him in the stomach as hard as he could.

Phasing back into standard time, he watched with grim satisfaction as Alex went flying, sailing an easy twenty feet across the parking lot, and landing with a loud cracking sound, rolled to a stop. Garret walked towards him, watching the other man as a coughing fit racked him, ending with blood spattered on the ground in front of him.

Alex looked up and smiled. Speaking between his heavy gasps for air he said, “You … have to tell … me who your personal trainer is. Their strength building … techniques … are phenomenal.”

Garret saw red and reaccelerated his time stream, charging forward to plant another kick in Alex’s ribs. Alex’s time travel abilities caught up with Garret’s own and he managed to partially block the kick, this time only landing about ten feet away. Garret realized he was being goaded and resynchronized their time streams to talk to Alex again.

“Why are you taunting me? You are only making this more painful for yourself.”

Alex spat a gob of red to the ground and managed to get to his knees. “Because I’m selfish. I know I’m about to die, but I want more life. So I taunt you to give me pain and resolve and a few more precious seconds of life.”

Garret’s eyes thinned to reptilian slits. “You should not have told me that.” Again he pushed forward, fast, and charged Alex. This time however the other man was ready, deflecting the powerhouse of a punch that Garret aimed at his face and scything out to kick his feet out from under him.

Garret had never been trained for combat, but some self-preservation instinct saved him in that moment, and he danced back instead of following through with his punch.

He watched Alex stand. The other man was in a lot of pain, but he would still not be an easy opponent to defeat.

Garret pushed to the absolute maximum energy expenditure he could, moving far faster than Alex was capable of in his damaged state and started running in blurred circles around Alex. Picking up rocks and other parking lot debris, he threw them at random intervals at his enemy, resorting to his old tactics.

Garret couldn’t believe how fast Alex moved, with how badly injured he was. But somehow he kept up, barely avoiding the hurled missiles. If even one had scored a hit, it would have marked the end of the fight. Each missile moved through Zarth’s subjective time at around three hundred miles an hour. But somehow the man was never where the missiles would have struck him.