35

Cleanup

For a moment they watched the lingering afterimage of the ball of light that used to be their friend fade away, while from overhead they could hear the official convoy rumble its way across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Claire was the first to break the silence. “Sue. Did she . . . ?”

“She activated Greber’s beacon,” Ben quietly replied, “and was taken away with him by the German time machine.”

“Then she’s back in the future?”

“Along with that explosion,” Agent Hessman stated. “It would have detonated right in the middle of the German time chamber. No telling how much damage it did to the facility, but as for the major and Sue . . .”

He let his statement linger, nothing more needing to be said. Claire stared at the empty spot in space that was the last place she had seen Sue, while Ben reached an arm around her to hold her close. After a silent moment to give their respects, Agent Hessman made his way across the girders to where Major Greber had abandoned his rifle. It still lay on the wide beam waiting for him to retrieve it. He rejoined Ben and Claire a couple of minutes later with rifle in hand.

“Come on,” he said quietly. “We have some bodies down below to send back. We must not leave behind any sign that we were ever here.”

The team walked solemnly back along the catwalk, then down the steps and out into the night to retrieve the fallen. Ernst’s body had landed on the other side of the fence enclosing the bridge’s foundation, and the two Japanese somewhere over by the riverbank. They left through the open gate and reached the German first.

Ben finally spoke as they neared the body. “We never had a chance to get to know him all that well, but he seemed like a fairly honest and upstanding guy.”

“A man of character,” Agent Hessman agreed. “That’s why he didn’t hesitate to draw Greber’s fire when a distraction was needed.”

The three stood around Ernst’s body, heads bowed, for a moment. Then Agent Hessman laid the rifle he had retrieved down the length of Ernst’s body, bent down, and proceeded to search him for his beacon.

“When he died, do you think his mind snapped back to his original body, or . . . ?” Ben asked.

“Not for me to say, save for this,” Agent Hessman replied. “He would have appeared in the same facility as the explosion that Greber took back with him. Same facility, in a pod right next to his. No matter if his mind made the trip back after this body died, there is no chance that he survived in the end.”

Agent Hessman pulled what had been made to look like a large pendant out from the dead man’s jacket, laid it on Ernst’s chest, pressed the button, and stood back. In silence they watched as the body dissolved in upon itself, until nothing was left but a vague imprint in the dirt where he had landed.

Next they reached the river’s bank and the first of the two Japanese bodies. As Agent Hessman bent down to retrieve and activate the first one’s beacon, Ben said a few words. “They were trying to save the world from suffering through a very ugly piece of history. I have nothing but respect for the attempt and the courage it took such a man to stand behind his honor to the very end.”

Once again they watched in silence as the flare of speeding photons lit up the night, too quickly gone from sight.

“I’m getting kind of worried,” Claire remarked once it was done. “I’m starting to get used to seeing that.”

Then last they repeated the procedure with the second Japanese body. They located the beacon, lowered their eyes as it was activated, and watched as the body proceeded to sizzle away.

“Do you think they might try this again?” Claire asked as they left the empty riverbank. “I mean, how many time travelers do we have to worry about?”

“I don’t think they will,” Ben assured her, “at least not back to this same time and place. I am sure that Sam, were he here, would say something about risking too many causation loops or some such. History will go about the way it was meant to go‍—for good and bad.”

They returned to the park and for a moment simply looked out across the river. The Brooklyn Bridge sparkled with light while a smattering of wheeled and foot traffic crossed its length, and beyond that the view of the nascent New York skyline completed the perfect evening. Claire even dared to lean her head against Ben’s shoulder, his arm finding its way around her waist.

“Will it still be here in a hundred years?” she finally asked.

“The bridge?” Ben asked.

“All of it. The bridge, the city.”

“All of it and far more,” Ben assured her with a smile. “It suffers through some losses, but there remains no finer bridge on the entire East Coast.”

“Just the East Coast?”

“There’s a little something that gets built over in San Francisco a few odd years from now. But let’s not worry about that right now. In the years to come, the New York skyline will evolve to something that no other city on this planet can boast of.”

“I’m glad . . . It’s just a pity I won’t be here to see it.”

Agent Hessman let them stand together for a few minutes undisturbed while he silently reviewed all the team’s movements and anything they might have left behind. He briefly combed the area beneath the bridge for any pistols that had fallen out of the grips of the dead and pocketed what he found. Beyond that, however, he found nothing.

He finally went back over and gently tapped Ben on the shoulder. “It’s time to go. Our mission is at an end, and the future awaits us.”

“Yeah . . . I know.” Ben sighed. “But Lou, there’s one little detail that I’ve been thinking over.”

“Something we missed?” Agent Hessman asked. “We’ve stopped both other teams, and the secret meeting will go off as it once did.”

“No, nothing about that, it’s just that . . . when Sue activated Greber’s beacon, the German time machine looked like it took the both of them away at once.”

“Agreed.”

“Then . . . once she was back in her proper time, did Sue really end up in the German time machine or back in her body in our own?”

“Hmm . . . well, reasoning logically,” Agent Hessman began, “her projection would have appeared in the German facility along with Greber; then, once the bomb destroyed that and her beacon, she would have been snapped back into her original body in our facility. But if you’re looking for a chance that she might have somehow survived‍—‍”

“No, that’s not it.” Ben remained motionless, his gaze distant as he held on to Claire. “The point is that Greber was able to being someone back with him.”

It took Agent Hessman only a moment to realize what the professor was getting to. “Ben, no. We can’t alter history in the slightest.”

As Ben turned to face Agent Hessman, a puzzled Claire looked at them both briefly, wondering what they were talking about.

“We won’t be altering a thing,” Ben said. “Claire has all the signs of influenza and will not survive through 1920. I’ve checked, and there is nothing that a Claire Hill contributes to history.”

“Well, I like that,” Claire pouted. “I know I haven’t made it yet. But . . . wait, what?”

“Ben—”

“What she has will kill her in her century, but in ours she can be saved. Quite easily, in fact.”

“Ben, we don’t even know if that would work.”

“It did for Sue; we saw the two of them whisked away.”

“You could end up a pile of tangled limbs bleeding together for all we know.”

“It’d be just like anything else on us. The clothes we wear, the tools we have on us. Lou, I could bring Claire back with my beacon; then we get a med team to fix her up. History would not be altered in the least. The machine will dump my consciousness back into my original body and create a projection for Claire from the energy of her body, which will then become her new permanent body once the machine shuts down.”

Claire followed about half of that, shook her head, and gave up.

“She’ll be out of her time,” Agent Hessman countered.

“I already am,” Claire snapped, and then more gently to Ben, “You would do this just to save me?”

“It would be a one-way trip,” he told her. “We could get you fixed up, but there would be no coming back for you because history‍—‍”

“History records me as dead and gone in a year. Yeah, I get that. I get to live, but forever in another time.”

“That’s about the size of it. That is, if Lou here says it’s okay.”

“Give me one good reason why I should allow this,” Agent Hessman said.

Ben said nothing but reached out his hand for Claire to slip hers into.

“Yeah, it always comes down to that.” Agent Hessman sighed. “Very well; I leave it up to Miss Hill.”

“Claire,” Ben said, “you’ll be encountering all sorts of new things and strange sights, but if you’re willing, you can join me in my time.”

“It sounds a little scary,” she said after a moment’s pause. “Heck, it sounds a lot scary . . . Do they have women reporters in your century?”

“Are you kidding?” Ben grinned. “Your hero Nellie Bly was just the first in a small army of them marching through history.”

“And you’re going to be there?”

“Well, of course. And I’ll always . . . that is, I’ll . . . be there for you.”

She saw the sudden shy look, grinned, and spun around to face Agent Hessman. “Then let’s do this.”

“Very well, but not here,” Agent Hessman said. “Someplace less out in the open. Quickly.”

He led them in a swift march back beneath the bridge, where the three of them stood near the shore of the river. First Agent Hessman took out his beacon, then Ben his while Claire clung close to him. They stood for a moment looking out across the water as Claire held close and nuzzled into Ben’s shoulder and chest.

“You two first,” Agent Hessman told them. “That way I can confirm the disposition of the last of my team.”

“Okay then,” Ben said. “Hold on tight, Claire.”

She wrapped both arms around his waist, her chest pressing up against his and head tilted up to regard him with a look of longing. Ben held up uncertainly, his beacon ready in his left hand while the woman in his arms looked . . . expectant. When he failed to do anything but stammer and look uncertain, Claire rolled her eyes.

“Oh, for the love of God, are all men in your century this afraid of kissing a woman?”

Because the year 1919 was during a comparatively conservative time period regarding relationships, Ben was caught by surprise when Claire reached up and planted a kiss right on his lips. His eyes bugged out wide as they held the pose. Then, with lips still locked, Claire reached down and pressed her hand into Ben’s, specifically the one holding the beacon.

Lights exploded from within them both, that look of shock frozen on Ben’s face as he and Claire melted away into the night. A new star grew beneath the bridge and was gone in a wink.

“Well,” said Agent Hessman once they had both fully vanished, “about time one of them did that. I thought they’d never kiss.”

With that, he pressed the button on his own beacon, and soon he, too, was lost to a flare of twisting lights, no longer to be seen in this place and time.