Imperial Hotel, London
August 30, 1933 CE
Haakon tugged his fedora lower to screen the sunshine that—for once—drenched Russell Square. He skulked by the Librairie Internationale, but no Russian agents lurked to kidnap him this morning. He stepped over a marbled sign set into the sidewalk that announced a "Turkish Baths Arcade" with an arrow that pointed to the nearby Imperial Hotel. He made a mental note. If he needed a place for a private, surreptitious meeting, that might do.
When he reached the ornate, terra-cotta entrance to the Imperial, he paused to purchase a copy of the Times and the Herald Tribune from a vendor before pushing inside. Over-stuffed, dark furniture jammed the lobby, along with ferns and other potted plants. Typical Victorian kitsch masquerading as luxury. Given the rates, it probably really was luxury for this era.
He settled into a leather chair in a corner where he could monitor the entrance. His pocket watch read 11:08, so he had time to peruse the newspapers before his lunch meeting with Szilard. He'd just started skimming Lippman's column when a man settled in the chair next to his. Haakon glanced up and did a double take. "Gunnar? What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in Chicago."
Gunnar's features tightened in a grim visage. "I'm back," he murmured.
"Well, that was quick."
"Not so much, at least for me. I spent nearly a month there, and then they sent me back to this morning. To here."
"To here. Really?" That got Haakon's attention for sure. He folded his copy of the Herald and prepared to listen.
"The temporal engineers have taken more readings. They're now convinced this Austrian you're meeting today is the epicenter of the instability."
"You mean Szilard?" Haakon narrowed his eyes and reviewed what little he knew about the man. "He seemed harmless enough yesterday at breakfast."
"They researched some of his later writings." Gunnar scrunched closer. "You know what a chain reaction is, right?"
"Of course."
"Yeah. Well, in a couple of weeks he's going to be the first one to figure out nuclear fission. He's going to read about a lecture where some big shot scientist says the whole idea of fission is moonshine. That annoys him, and he gets the idea that neutrons can cause a chain reaction." He tapped the arm of his chair. "I think you get how important that idea is."
Haakon frowned. "Maybe. But surely other people will have the same idea. Like the telephone. It's inevitable, once people start thinking about the problem."
"You mean the guy who got to the patent office a few hours after Bell with the same device? That turns out to be not exactly what happened."
Haakon nodded. "I know. I was there. But still, two people had exactly the same new idea at the same time. Why isn't this chain reaction thing like that?"
"Because it's not. Context is everything. In point of fact, Szilard's idea won't work, and there's a French team that actually files a patent for an atomic bomb in 1939. What's important is that Szilard's idea keeps him working on the problem of transforming atoms via chain reactions. He's Einstein's student, and in 1942 he cons Einstein into writing a letter to Roosevelt on chain reactions and atomic bombs. If he has no insight next week, that means no letter to Roosevelt from Einstein. That means no Manhattan project, or at best a delayed atomic bomb project. You can imagine what that does."
That sucked the air out of Haakon's lungs. "I was posted in Berlin in 1948. No bomb means the US would be pre-occupied in the Pacific. That probably means no Marshall Plan. From that, communist governments could easily dominate Europe, even without Russian help." Suddenly a "Portuguese missile crisis" didn't sound so improbable. He rubbed his brow and shuddered as other implications followed. "God's nails. This decade is a critical time for the formation of Timekeepers, too."
"Exactly. Multiple possible futures turn on the next couple of weeks. Remember, Haversham is here, too, apparently along with a physicist from 2018."
Multiple possible futures. That physicist was from Nathan's 2018, though, at least according to Nathan. When Haakon visited his 2018, neither Nathan nor the entire physics group were there. That was evidence that the Deviation was still active, with chaos frothing about before the wave form collapsed. A communist instance of Haversham could also explain the Russian time travelers being here, in 1933, yet more chaos foaming about from the Deviation. "So, the choke point is when Szilard gets this inspiration? How the hell can we know when that is?"
"Because he wrote about it. That's the bit of information that really set off panic with the temporal engineers. It happens the morning of September 12, where Southamptom Row crosses Russell Square, in front of the British Museum, while he's crossing the street. Another physicist, Rutherford, had just given a lecture asserting nuclear fission was impossible, just a theoretical quirk of Einstein's famous equations."
Haakon chewed his lower lip. "So, what? We've got to get him through that cusp?"
"That's right. The simulations all say if he has the inspiration, the future is assured. It's the bifurcation point for our future—the real future—with all the others. If we get him through that, the wave form will collapse, and we'll have saved the world."
That framed the problem, all right. Still, he remembered Nathan's objections to the whole idea of Deviations. It had always bothered him, too. "You know, though, I never trusted that wave 'form collapsing' mumbo-jumbo."
"It's not mumbo jumbo. It's math. If we get him past that point, the other futures all disappear. They'll be irretrievably gone and unable to influence later events. I tell you, we've got to put our faith in what the engineers tell us. Have they ever been wrong?"
Haakon couldn't argue with Control's perfect record. They could sometimes screw up the logistics, but they always had the history right. "What's our mission, then? Stick with Szilard like glue until then?"
"Yes. We're to team together, you and I, shadowing him. Nothing can disrupt the walk he's going to take on September 12."
"I've had harder assignments." This could be a piece of cake.
"This time it could be different. If the other possible futures include false Timekeepers, then we'll be fighting with other temporal agents whose mission might be the opposite of ours."
Haakon remembered 1066 and Corbett. "You know, that's happened to me before. If they're honest, every field agent knows similar stories. I always thought it was just screw-ups in the bureaucracy at Control."
"I thought so too, but then it occurred to me that maybe the Founders created more than one Control, as backup. That would make sense, too."
This was getting snake-pit complicated. "More than one Control? You mean duplicate organizations, scattered in time?"
"Sure. Redundancy is a feature of any fail-safe system. I even asked one of the high-ranking engineers about it last week."
"What did he say?"
"She told me to focus on the crisis here and to not trouble my little head. Then she gave me a bunch of techno-garble, like that Nathan guy. Scientists! They speak a language no mortal understands and then expect us to take their word for everything. Like they're the ones handing the tablets to Moses."
Haakon chewed his lower lip. There was more truth to Gunnar's words than he knew. Big picture strategy wasn't his strength, and he knew it. Tactics, those were his game. "They're jerks, I agree." Even Nathan acted like he knew more than anyone else. "Our job is to figure out how to carry out our mission."
He rubbed his chin and started planning. Wait. There was one more thing that he had to consider. "After this immaculate inspiration on September 12, the other futures, the alternate futures, all disappear. Is that what they are saying?"
"Exactly."
"That means all the people from the other futures disappear, too." He already knew the answer. He knew it back at Stamford Bridge. He'd known it since he became a Timekeeper. Each assignment committed genocide to protect the future—his future. This time it was different. Billions vanished to a netherworld that never existed, all to save the billions in his personal future, the future Timekeepers existed to protect. But this time those alternative futures were personal in a way they'd never been before. Nathan would disappear.
Gunnar nodded. "Of course they disappear. You know that. All of them. The false Haversham, the false Timekeepers Nathan saw, the false resident, the Russians. They become less than quantum fog."
It couldn't be more clear. If Haakon and Gunnar succeeded in their mission, he would lose Nathan forever. He murmured, "Nathan will be less than quantum fog." Haakon sagged in his chair. This was Ralf all over again, except now he was supposed to betray Nathan. The man he'd come to love.
Gunnar's features softened. "I know how you must feel. But it's our destiny. The future depends on us. Our personal feelings can't interfere with our duty."
A familiar man entering the lobby caught Haakon's attention. It was the pudgy little scientist, Szilard. He waved his arms in animated conversation with another man. From his swagger to his cowboy hat, the man's companion could only be from the US. No doubt, this was Quilp, the Texan Clementine wanted them to check out. This was the American Szilard wanted them to help with.
The thing was, the Texan had one arm around a vacant-eyed, raven-haired beauty whose jaw worked what had to be chewing gum. Her ruby-red lipstick and rouged cheeks couldn't hide her remarkable, pale complexion. Her bimbo disguise didn't fool Haakon. The purse she clutched was just the right size to conceal a needle gun, and that flashy, turquoise and silver necklace hanging around her neck could readily disguise a Timepiece.
Corbett was back, and she'd somehow managed to inject herself into their meeting with Szilard and Quilp.