(Ishmael)
I should have known better than to get my hopes up. The splintering whine reverberating through our makeshift cell wall petered out long before any noticeable hole appeared. On the up side, Cooper had stopped his feral whine and was now quietly panting, or some such.
It was still dark. I couldn’t tell what he was doing. He was just quiet, and that was a welcome change.
“It seems our rescuers have given up,” said Lizzabits.
“I wouldn’t abandon all hope yet,” I said.
“So you have confidence in your apprentice?” she asked.
I had to think. I really hadn’t been able to think for the half hour or so that the sawing sound, and Cooper’s keening accompaniment, dominated everything but the smell in our dungeon. But now I could think and, hopefully, puzzle some pieces together. There had to be something more to Larry if he could figure out how to start up a power tool in this post-technological era beyond the total collapse of the North American power grid. Or it could just be dumb luck. Even if it was just dumb luck, the kid had a disproportionate allotment of it. It didn’t seem absolutely outside the realm of possibility that he could work something out.
But I also had to be honest.
“I’m really not sure about Larry at all,” I said. “He’s pretty much a total fuck-up. But he’s so unpredictable about it that I can’t write us off just yet.”
Lizzabits was quiet.
I was quiet.
Cooper panted softly in the corner.
“How many days till Christmas?” I asked.
“I’ve lost count of the days,” said Lizzabits. “I haven’t seen the sun since the usurper asshole threw me in here. All I know is that I was alone for quite a while. Then Cooper came. And then you, not long after.”
“Any ideas, Coop?”
“The dogs are not happy,” he said. “Their hunt’s been spoiled.”
“Okeydoke, captain non sequitur,” I said.
I just don’t know how to follow that crap up sometimes. But, if Cooper knew anything about anything, it would be the dogs. I just couldn’t see how that would help the situation. In any case, he was still panting from the fit he threw over the whining, grinding sound from the other side of the wall.
We all sulked in silence for longer than is comfortable to relate.
Then, with no warning or preamble, the door banged open.
“Hurry up, please,” said a burly man in the doorway. “It’s time.”
“Time!” shouted Cooper. “You don’t know anything about time.” This was followed closely by Cooper emitting a banshee wail and performing a savage feat of self-projection.
Cooper had the big man’s face planted in the filth that lined the floor before anyone knew what was happening. It could hardly have been a planned attack, more like the sudden release of an over-tensed, twisted strip of metal. The guy needed out, and anyone between him and the direction of out was going to get hurt.
Myself, never having been one to shirk at an opportunity, I grabbed it.
“You coming, Liz?” I called as I peered out at the three stunned heavies lying on the floor in the corridor. Cooper was already long gone.
Lizzabits and I ran off down the hallway like poor imitations of the madman who had preceded us. The path was clear all the way to the stairs and up a flight. Things were looking very good. And the air was a lot clearer.
Alas, things just can’t stay good for me for long, sometimes.
At the top of the stairs reinforcements had arrived.
They were four more wads of muscle that were unfamiliar to me. I knew by sight pretty much everybody who had ever lived in Wal, so these were obviously outsiders Stokes had brought in.
“All right, you three,” began one of them.
“There’s only two,” said another.
“Two?” said the first. “That’s not right. We’ve got three Christmas trees set up.” He gestured out too three trimmed evergreens set above tarped off mounds of what must be the kindling for the horrid affair they were planning. “Who ever heard of a Christmas Burning with only two?”
“Methinks,” interjected one of the other guards, “that’s the third one scaling the wall over there.”
Indeed, Cooper had made it all the way across the courtyard and three quarters of the way up the rough, cyclopean masonry of the chunks of reclaimed concrete that formed the outer wall. In another breath he was gone.
“Well, that’s befuggered it all,” said the first. “We’ll have to find another volunteer.”
“Maybe,” I said, “you could just call the whole thing off. Christmas Burning’s not really a tradition in Wal, anyway.”
“Not a tradition?” said the second tough. “How can you have a proper Christmas tree if you don’t have someone tied to it when the kindling’s lit.”
“We just don’t do that here,” I said.
“And who are you that knows what ‘we’ do anyways?” said the first.
“He’s Ishmael Fugit,” said Lizzabits. “His family have been frequent advisors to all the Storemasters since the Crash. If anyone knows our traditions, it’s him.”
“Seems like he could have given the previous Storemaster some better advice,” said the lead heavy. Then he started laughing. The others joined the laugh, including the ones coming up behind us, the downed heavies who were now recovering from Cooper’s berserker escape rampage.
My hand instinctively reached for the watch that wasn’t there. Where the hell was that thing? Not that I’d bail on young Lizzabits, but it would just be a bit more comforting if I knew I had the option of an emergency default handy.
“Right,” said the leader of the heavies. “Gord, Lew. Help me get these two tied up. The rest of yis go find another volunteer. Maybe that wormy kid at the hostel.”
What I wouldn’t have given for a scary, pointy, truck-stop display case weapon of questionable efficacy right then. Or even an off-brand pry-bar. Anything solid and menacing to counteract the solid and menacing barbarian futuroids that wanted to tie me to a tree and set me on fire.
Alas, my pockets had been turned out and emptied before I’d been thrown into that dungeon hole. They must have gotten the watch then, even though I couldn’t believe a thug could snatch the miracle device off of me so easily. And now that I was without it, I had an eerie recollection of something great-great grandpa said. As he gave it to me, he said the watch treated us to a ‘privileged timeline.’
He wouldn’t go into specifics other than that there were a couple fixed points in the entire span of the history of the universe that depended on that watch being there. One was happening as he was giving me the watch. Another would come when I gave him the watch. Everything else, no matter how hairy or hellacious, would turn out all right because the watch knew where it needed to get, and we were along for the ride.
I kind of took it as bullshit at the time, but that watch had saved me from countless scrapes since then. I had come to believe in this ‘privileged timeline’ idea. But did that privilege hold up if I was separated from the watch?
Gord (I assume) was busy measuring out some length of a plastic rope woven from centuries old shopping bags, while Lew held me in place.
The captain of this crew of outside muscle had Lizzabits all to himself.
“Now you look sufficiently filthy that no one will suspect who you really are,” he said. “Even so, let me fit ya with this hood.”
“I’d recommend you not come near me,” she said.
“Is that a threat, now?” said the captain.
“No,” she said. “I just strongly recommend you don’t take just another step closer to me.”
“And what if I did?” He slowly slid his bulk forward as a blur of cerulean came from above and knocked him on his teeth.
Gord and Lew slackened their grip as they turned to see Cross-Time Coordination Agent Lovejoy landing her fists in their faces.
I worked myself free of the cords tying me to the Christmas tree.
“Lovejoy,” I said, “It’s always a pleasure, but this time even more so.”
“Ishmael,” she replied, “what the devil are you doing here? You can’t be here right now.”
“Now you tell me,” I said. “I intended to be here three months ago, but taco boy burped and everything went to hell. What are you doing here?”
“Something you can’t know about as it would violate the Law of Trans-Temporal Consanguinuity, which, for some reason, only applies to you. Needless to say, get yourself to another time point now.”
“I’d love to,” I said, “but I have a couple of problems with that. One, some usurper asshole has taken control of my little town, and I’d like to see that control go into other hands.”
“Mine, perhaps,” said Lizzabits.
“Perhaps,” I said. “Or anyone from Wal who isn’t going to stoop to murder and Christmas Burnings to consolidate their power.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lovejoy, “but bigger things are afoot. Things that you’re really not supposed to be around for.”
“I’d love to leave,” I said, “but we come to my second big problem with all of this: I have no idea where my method went.”
“Your watch?” said Lovejoy.
“It’s gone,” I said. “I can’t explain it.”
“Then I’ll just have to take you to HQ myself.”
Lovejoy is what those in the time travel community call a Natural. Her ability to flash between time points is inborn. And she’s had a lot of practice. She’s one of the few time travelers I’ve met who can take a passenger with her.
She put her hand on my shoulder, a move of hers that is hard to resist in both the best and the worst of times. I figured I might as well prepare myself for another creeped out meeting with the Orb at CTCAHQ. The flash began, and the world was filled with a fuzzy kind of purple light. But, somehow, it didn’t take.
Instead of a non-stop flight back to the time of chimpanzees, all that happened to us was a moment of temporary paralysis.
That moment was all that was needed for the, now recovering, heavy thugs to grab us and tie us to our trees. It’s one of the most difficult, embarrassing, and vulnerable feelings in the world to be lashed to a try while you’re physically unable to move. I know worse things have happened to people, and I don’t want to make light of any of that. On the other hand, we were in very real danger of being lit on fire. In fact, it was beginning to seem pretty inevitable.
Lovejoy was the first to speak as our faculties came back to us.
“What the devil’s going on here?”
“If I didn’t know any better,” I groaned, “I’d say it was some fiendishly devised trap for time travelers. But who the hell would set it in Wal? I’m the only one who comes to Wal.”
“Not so, Ishmael Fugit,” said Lizzabits. “There is another. There has always been another. From your family. He just asks us not to tell you about him.”
“Gramps?” I said.
“Well,” said Lovejoy, “it looks like we may get a chance to see what happens when the Law of Trans-Time Consanguinuity is violated after all.”
“Too much talking, my little Christmas tree angels,” said the captain of the heavies. “Gord! Lew! Gag these three quiet till it’s show time.”