Time Streams - Fiction River Smashwords Edition Page 3

  You see us assist an old woman across the street, helping her move just two seconds more quickly, preventing the bus from swerving into the railroad tracks to avoid her, preventing the bus from hitting the commuter train, preventing the deaths of so many, including a young girl named Emily Wu who, as every child is taught in school, grows up to cure diabetes.

  Ours is a noble profession, Eric, an essential one. Dangerous, too, with the criminals, politicians, corporations, and foolhardy amateur explorers vying to harness the flows for their generally nefarious ends.

  But we are not our profession. The time comes (oh, how that phrase charms and confounds) when we step out of the flows.

  All of this goes through your mind as my sister Susan stares at you. Without warning, your face flushes red, but not because you realize you’re ready to leave the flows, that you’re ready to be with her.

  Your face flushes because you realize something else. You see that this time, something is different. You look closely at the letter, the yellowed paper, the faint handwriting, now fading. This time, at the edge of your vision, you see the words materializing on the parchment as you read them. You realize I have found the flow. Yes, old friend, the flow. The single flow I left everything behind to chase, including you.

  You take a step back, staggered. Even as your mind races, it refuses to accept the evidence. No one has ever done what I, apparently, have managed to do. But if I have, then others can as well. Fear surges forward, fresh and urgent, the terrible possibilities playing out.

  But with the fear, too, comes hope. Yes, my friend, hope. Hope that I have not, in my zealotry, enabled the organized rape of time. Hope that you and Susan have a chance. Hope, even, that I, your friend who abandoned you, can rejoin the lives of his best friend, his sister, his son, and, yes, even his long-lost wife.

  Yes, even Jane. I can almost hear the gasp escape your lips.

  I know you have hope because you tell me. You tell me in two days.

  This time, my friend, all flows as it should. This time, I return for good.

  This is what you do. You flow to the Directorate and complete a task so inconceivable that, of all the agents of any and every time, only you ever pull it off: You steal all traces of you and me and our grand history and bury that history in the molten core of Krakatoa as it explodes. Simultaneously, you inform the Directorate that I am back but mad as a hatter and believe, apparently, that I can raise the dead.

  At noon tomorrow, when you are summoned to meet with the Director, you place this letter in his hands.

  With great love and respect,

  Your friend and once-wayward partner,

  Benjamin

  ***

  Director,

  You are surprised when Eric hands you this letter. You turn to your staff and order them out of the flow.

  You ask Eric what he makes of this. You are furious, and fearful, when he says you have to read it and decide for yourself.

  You prefer not to decide for yourself. Deciding for yourself is dangerous for a man in your position.

  In moments like this, you fear you are not in charge. You fear control is merely an illusion. You fear this letter, which is tracking your fears with uncomfortable accuracy, will take you even deeper into your subconscious.

  Your anger erupts. You ask Eric what kind of fool nonsense this is. Eric tells you the letter is from Benjamin, and to keep reading.

  You frown, but you keep reading. You are taken aback when you read that I am asking you to choose between two flows.

  You scoff. You say no man can isolate, let alone control, an individual flow. No man can identify, let alone control, the infinite intersections linking an individual flow with others.

  Eric tells you to look at the words you are reading, as you read them, and to read them slowly. You are shocked to see, at the edge of your vision, the words being written on the page.

  The same shock, the same horror felt by Eric, now courses through you. You tell Eric this must be a trick. He shakes his head.

  You examine the yellowed pages, crinkled with age, and the black, faded ink, written two centuries ago, yet as new and fresh as the morning snow.

  You know there is only one explanation: You know I have control of the flow.

  In a panic, you rush to the window and look out upon the great city below. But you see nothing different. You rush to a mirror and see the same worn, aging face. You call your wife and ask if your daughter is coming home for Christmas. Your wife says she doubts it, given how rude you were to her new boyfriend at Thanksgiving.

  You turn to Eric. Is everything the same, you ask. He nods and says yes. He tells you he’s analyzed fourteen billion trillion flows and found no new anomalies.

  You say to him, you’re telling me the bastard did it.

  You hear Eric say, I’m telling you the bastard did it.

  You wonder what I want. You begin to think like a Director. You begin to consider how my discovery might be harnessed. The various ways it might be used.

  You see me cut off that line of thinking. You see the letter explain that my discovery lives and dies with me. You read that only I know how to control, isolate, and edit an individual flow. You know, deep in your bones, that I will never reveal that secret, that I have safeguards in place to ensure that.

  You know I am five steps ahead of you, as I always am. You resent and hate me for that, never more so than at this moment.

  You suspect the choice I am about to force on you will be painful for you. You know I loathe you. You know, if I had the option, I would smash you like the worthless bug you are. Drop you in the Amazon into a school of piranhas. Roast you alive, slowly, over an open fire. Strip away your position, your family, your reputation—anything and everything you hold dear. I have imagined countless punishments, all of them just, all of them richly deserved.

  But understand, as you read this sentence, that I cannot exact my vengeance. Understand that my exquisite, and fragile, control of this flow requires you to be able to make a decision, of your own free will.

  It is ironic that my fate, my eternal happiness, lies with you, the man who ruined the happiness I once found and lost. Perhaps it is because the universe decrees balance—requires that in exchange for my happiness, your weakness and cowardice and greed and craven indifference go unpunished. If so, lucky you.

  Your decision is between two flows, nearly identical, buffed and shined and polished to perfection. One flow survives, the other dies.

  The first flow is the one you experience now. In this flow, I am a renegade, a criminal, an unhinged terrorist, threatening the safety of the universe in pursuit of a mad dream. The traps you have set for me, in London and elsewhere, are cunning and may very well succeed in capturing me, someday, sometime.

  In this flow, you are the Director, head of the most powerful secret organization ever to exist. You rose to the top through merit—I grant you that willingly, given your ambition, work ethic and political savvy—but also through treachery. You feel an urge to deny the treachery, but you don’t. Neither of us is a fool. We both know the terrible things you do.

  In this flow, when you identified me as a rival, you set in motion a plan to remove me.

  You didn’t anticipate Jane. You didn’t know about her, of course. I did all I could to keep her invisible from you.

  You didn’t know I would soon stop flowing. You didn’t know your rival was exiting the arena.

  You could argue—have argued—that what happened was my fault. Had I been less skillful at keeping her a secret, you contend, Jane might still be alive. In my darkest moments, I have made that argument myself.

  You wonder, occasionally, what might be if Jane hadn’t taken the cup of coffee intended for me, or if the poison had been, not a standard-issue cancer inducer, but rather a poison genetically tuned for me. Do you regret what happened? Do you wish the trap you set for me had been more carefully calibrated?

  I expect the answer is no. To you, innocents are immate
rial. An individual doesn’t matter if he doesn’t impact the flow.

  Let us look again at that last sentence: An individual doesn’t matter if he doesn’t impact the flow. As the first, and only, man in all of human history to gain broad control of a flow, I have the benefit of seeing what happens within this flow. Including, Director, what happens to you.

  I can tell you two things: The first is that you, Director, by your own definition, are immaterial. You do not matter because you do not impact the flow.

  You want to protest. Your ego demands it. But you know, deep down, I am right.

  The second thing I can tell you is this: There is a cancer in your colon. It has spread. In four months, you will be dead.

  I wish I did not have to tell you. I wish I could do nothing. I wish I could let you die.

  But as I have already noted, my happiness depends on your choice.

  Let me tell you about the second flow. In the second flow, except in your memories, I do not exist. Eric does not exist. Our feats, our exploits, never happened. We were never rivals. You never attempted to poison me. You never murdered Jane.

  You are still the Director, still the same man, except in one tiny, crucial, respect: When you were a child, your mother took a cooking class and learned to make healthier meals for her family. You grew up eating more fruits, more vegetables. This habit continued into your adulthood.

  As a consequence, the polyp in your colon has not yet turned cancerous. It will, in several years, but in this flow, you have time to treat it, to literally nip it in the bud. In this flow, you continue as Director for many more years.

  You understand the choice before you. Do nothing, and die in four months.

  Or, do this: You remove any and all traps set for me or Eric. You never attempt or take, or allow or enable or suggest or in any way precipitate, any action against anyone Eric or I ever know. You lift the embargo on flows in and out of London on the third day of the sixth month in the year 1923. And you slip this letter into the mail delivered on this day to Miss Jane Seeton, 14 Marylebone Way, London.

  If you choose the second choice, I enable the second flow.

  This is what you do. You decide now.

  I remain,

  Now and always,

  Benjamin

  ***

  June 3, 1923

  Dear Miss Seeton,

  Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Benjamin Burden. I am, today, a trader of spices and coffees. But five years ago, in the last months of the war, I was a captain in the U.S. Army in France and had the great pleasure of knowing your brother Charles. We became very close before his death. His warmth and irrepressible cheer were a great boon to us in those dark times, and even now the memory of his laugh brings a smile to my face.

  He spoke very highly of you—his devilishly brilliant little sister, he called you—and he urged me, if ever I was in London, to pay my respects.

  I am in London at present, staying at the Edgeway Hotel in Leicester Square, and I would be honored if you would allow me to meet you. This will seem presumptuous, coming as it does from a complete stranger, but I feel I already know you. I have a suspicion we will become the greatest of friends.

  I look forward to your reply.

  With kindest regards,

  Forever in your service,

  Benjamin Burden

  Introduction to “The Elevator in the Cornfield”

  Publishers Weekly called Scott William Carter’s very first novel, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, “a touching and impressive debut.” The judges of the prestigious Oregon Book Award agreed, granting him that prestigious award in 2011. Since then, he’s published ten novels and over fifty short stories in a wide variety of genres and styles. His latest novel, Ghost Detective, has hit print.

  He writes that “The Elevator in the Cornfield” started with the title. He begins a lot of stories that way. “I like to juxtapose images that don’t belong together and start asking myself questions. Why is that elevator in a cornfield? Who finds it? What do they do?”

  He answers all of those questions and oh so much more in the touching story that follows.

  The Elevator in the Cornfield

  Scott William Carter

  They found the elevator just before harvest. Hank was out with his son in the fields, inspecting the tall stalks of corn in the gray light of dawn, tearing open a few ears, muttering in approval as was his way, when they came upon a gray slab of concrete a good mile from the house. After glimpsing it through his army of slender green soldiers, he grabbed Timmy’s shoulder.

  “Wait, wait,” he said.

  “What, Pop?” Timmy said. Then he saw it himself. “Did it fall from the sky?”

  And that was what Hank thought, too, part of an airplane, maybe, or something from space, because he knew these fields like no one had known them before. Not even his father, or his father before him had known every clod of dirt, every well-worn rut, every weed and root that infested this place the way Hank did. This wasn’t something that had been there before, part of an old house or barn, the burnt-out remains of something from the past. This was new.

  Cautiously, they crept toward it, the silence broken by their boots brushing the dirt and the chirping of the crickets. Timmy, only thirteen, was already almost as tall as Hank, though he was so rail thin that his shadow on the ground looked like one from a broom.

  The thing was the size of an outhouse, big enough for a person or two, the concrete sleek and new like nothing on the farm was. In his eagerness, Timmy touched the concrete—and yelped.

  “C-c-cold,” he stuttered.

  “Stupid!” Hank said, jerking him away from it.

  It wasn’t until they reached the far side of it that Hank saw the doors, two of them, shiny and metallic blue. Elevator doors. That’s what they looked like, though he didn’t see how that could be true. Yet there were even two buttons, black ovals slightly oblong in shape, the narrower end of the one on top pointing up, the narrower end of the one on the bottom pointing down. Why not just buttons that said up and down? It was just the sort of fancy, big city nonsense he hated.

  “I don’t understand,” Timmy said.

  “It’s a prank,” Hank said.

  “A prank.”

  “Somebody’s pulling our leg. Gotta be.” He slapped at his neck, killing a mosquito. Already, he could feel the heat of the day rising around them. “Maybe one of them boys over the hill.”

  “Or maybe . . .” Timmy began, and fell silent.

  Hank knew what the boy was going to say. He was going to say maybe it was one of Timmy’s brothers. Maybe they’d come back. Timmy hadn’t wanted to finish the thought aloud because Hank had forbidden him from speaking of his brothers. But what if it were true? The two of them wouldn’t come back, not now, not after so many years, would they? Couldn’t be. They’d gone when the boy next to him was still in diapers and here he was, look at him now, still a boy but growing fast. Soon he’d be as tall as his brothers, much taller than their father ever was. His eyes were already just as blue.

  This darkened Hank’s mood. He spat in the dirt and rubbed it out with his boot. “Let’s go,” he said, “don’t have time for this nonsense.”

  “Wonder if it works,” Timmy said.

  “Don’t be daft.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt to push the button.”

  “No,” Hank said.

  “Why not? I won’t touch it with my finger. I’ll use my boot—or this!” Timmy grabbed an ear of corn from a stalk that had fallen, ripping it free.

  “No,” Hank insisted.

  “But—”

  “No, no! That’s what they want us to do! And I ain’t fallin’ for it, boy! Now let’s go! Lots of work to do!”

  Hank marched away. Until recently, he never would have had to look back, he would have known his son would have dutifully followed, but this time he couldn’t help himself. Timmy was almost the age of his brothers when they started to show signs of disrespect. It c
ould happen any day.

  So Hank looked. To his relief, Timmy was following. The shoulders were slumped and the head bowed, but at least he was following.

  ***

  They worked all morning without speaking a word of it. They milked the cows, cleaned the stalls, collected the eggs, and washed the combine under the rising sun. It was so hot the sweat on his face dried instantly and turned to dust. They drank lots of water and were still exhausted by noon.

  Back in the kitchen, which still felt like her kitchen even though she’d been gone as long as Timmy had been alive, with its many portraits of cherub-faced angels in oak frames on the daisy wallpaper and its pretty little magnets with pretty little sayings coating every square inch of the refrigerator, they took momentary refuge by the air conditioner in the window. Then he poured them two glasses of milk and made them ham sandwiches. Fresh milk and fresh ham—nothing could be better.

  The problem was, even though Timmy hadn’t said anything, Hank could tell he was sulking. It was the not saying anything, none of the happy chatter, none of the silly jokes. It was just like when she was gone, how Hank noted there was no nagging or needling or any of that nonsense, and how he realized so quickly in its absence that it had never been nagging or needling at all, but something else altogether. It had been a way of saying she loved him.

  “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt none,” Hank said.

  The boy, hopeful, looked up from his sandwich, his dirty hands seeming all the dirtier next to that bleached white bread. That would have been a needling she wouldn’t have forgotten—wash your hands, cleanliness is next to godliness, don’t be bringing your grubbiness into my kitchen.

  “Just one time,” Hank said.

  Timmy nodded.