“Oh, yes,” said Gretta. “I can start tracking the branches of possibility; you can go after biographies.”
They were in the room with him. Slowly, Rye guessed they were in his room. He could smell the astringents and alcohol wipes.
They would hate him, wouldn’t they? He scrunched his eyes tighter. Adolf Hitler couldn’t measure up to the crime I’ve committed, thought Rye. He didn’t kill everyone on Earth.
Dr. Martin laughed again.
“He’s awake, I think,” said Gretta. “Rye… Rye.”
Someone prodded his arm.
“Gretta!”
Offended sounding, she said, “He’s got to wake up sometime.”
Not able to put it off any longer, Rye opened his eyes and sat up. Everything swirled, and he lay back hurriedly. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Gretta snorted, “Isn’t that rich. He doesn’t know what he’s done.”
Confused, Rye eyed them warily. Gretta leaned toward him, her elbows resting on her knees, and her chin in the cup of her hands. Dr. Martin sat beside her, one hand draped on the back of her chair.
Rye took a deep breath. His lungs felt papery thin and his skin transparent, but he didn’t feel sick to his stomach, and his sight didn’t seem any worse. But a heaviness pressed him down into the bed. Three-and-a-half years less time for all of humanity. And for what? So Annie could die with them at the end? So Annie could look up the second before the flame hit and join the mass exodus?
Rye turned his head away.
Dr. Martin said, “You’ve done us all a great favor, Rye. I checked the computer records. I know about the message to your sister.”
The metal wall beside his bed had a long scratch in it. Rye stared at that. Underneath the sheets, he dug his fingernails into his palms.
“Rye, you have to understand. For months we’ve been looking for clues about the end, but there’s never been anything. No clues at all, Rye. Nothing. And the more we looked, the more I’ve feared that there was nothing we could do. That the end wasn’t caused by human actions.”
The words didn’t make sense, but the tone did. Dr. Martin wasn’t angry. Neither was Gretta. Rye looked at them.
Gretta said, “Come on, bruise-head. Don’t you see? Your sister didn’t die, and neither did anyone on her plane. Now the end has changed. Something someone does or doesn’t do because that plane didn’t go down causes the end of the world to happen sooner.”
“Human action caused it, Rye. And if it’s human, we can find it and prevent it. And not only that, but you’ve given us a place to start, your sister’s flight.”
Rye sat up again, this time much more slowly. The room tipped only slightly.
“We can stop it?”
Gretta said, “See, even a game boy can figure this stuff out if you give him time.”
Dr. Martin frowned at her, then rubbed her shoulder as he stood.
“We will, but not you. I’m sending you topside. You can get better medical treatment there I think.”
Bed sheets tangled around his feet, and it took a second to get them free and put them on the floor. “But what about the closed loop of information? I’ve seen the future. Going topside will affect it in unpredictable ways.” Rye’s voice rasped. Gretta offered him a glass of water and a handful of pills, his daily dosage.
“Oh, the loop’s busted now, and we haven’t done much investigating yet. So this is the only reasonable time to let you go. Once you’re out and can’t look at the future, you can’t change it. You won’t change your actions based on any new future you see. You’ll be out of the loop.”
Gretta said, “And you can be with your sister.”
Dr. Martin and Gretta loaded most of Rye’s baggage into the elevator for him.
“The guarantee for medical treatment is still good,” said Dr. Martin. “NSA has it arranged for you to check into a clinic in Sante Fe. They have new techniques.”
Rye shook his hand. “Thanks, but my condition is way advanced. It’ll be like painting the barn after it’s fallen. I’m going to get to go home though. I’m going to call Annie.”
Reaching past him, Dr. Martin pushed the elevator button. “You’ll need to bail her out first.”
“Excuse me?” said Rye. He braced his hand against the door to hold it open.
Dr. Martin grinned, his eyes looking less watery now and more like they glistened. “She stopped that flight by calling in a bomb threat. They’ve got her on a terrorism charge, but they don’t know what to do with her. The bomb squad didn’t find any explosives, of course, but they did find a fatal mechanical flaw. The press got the story, and no one’s sure if she’s a criminal or a saint.”
“I don’t suppose,” said Rye, “that you could get someone from the NSA to intervene.”
“Consider it done.” Dr. Martin put his arm around Gretta. “Now, you’d better get going. We have work to do here.”
Gretta solemnly shook his hand also, pressing a slip of paper into his palm. “Be sure you go to Sante Fe,” she said. Her eyes locked on his intensely, and she didn’t release his hand until he nodded.
The door slid closed, and the elevator began to rise. Rye struggled to read Gretta’s note through the floaters and the graying of his vision.
It read, YOUR DATE CHANGED TOO.
THE ROAD’S END
So close to the road’s end, the traveler couldn’t remember the beginning. The trail climbed the mountain, and all he could do was to lean into the slope, one hand resting on his sword’s grip, the other hooked behind the leather strap that held all his belongings on his back. His thighs burned, but he’d climbed so many mountains, walked so many miles, he knew how far he could go before rest. Every day presented more miles. Every day the horizon changed but remained as unreachable. Still, he walked.
The fingers of his sword hand stuck together. He raised them absently to his mouth and licked the wolf’s blood. Sweat flavored it, and dust. The wolf itself lay dead in the leaves at the trail’s foot. Of course, it was another legendary wolf he’d been warned about at the last inn. “Beware the Darkwood Killer,” said the innkeeper, a young man with stout arms and no hint of a beard. “A hundred men have tried their luck. Don’t go that path,” he’d said.
“Only a hundred?” said the traveler. He finished his meal, thanked the innkeeper for the courtesy, then continued on.
How many wolves had fallen in the past years? How many years had it been? The traveler didn’t know. When wolves didn’t guard the way, other barriers arose: Bridges hid trolls. Ghosts haunted castles. Beautiful princesses with hearts of black hemlock waited in court. Caves held dragons. Rivers flowed and gurgled and whispered seductively in the moonlight, waiting for him to bend for an instant to listen. Roads possessed plans of their own, changing their turns, and they led him down evil ways. Or magicians cast spells.
The traveler sighed. One more step planted in front of the other. One more climbing effort up the mountain. Would a corrupted king wait at its top? Or a giant? Or a minor god?
A biting wind dropped from the heights. He pulled his cloak closer about his shoulders, and on the distant peaks, gray snow merged with gray clouds. Already he’d passed beyond the grain fields and vegetable gardens below, all the mundane farmers and villagers who hardly waved at his passing.
If they knew his name, they would crowd the way before him because his stories traveled much faster than he did, sometimes so changed he hardly recognized himself in them. “Tell us about the witches at Coverst Crest,” one would say. “Did you really quell the beast of Fordham Falls?” another might ask. “Can I see your sword?” a child with quivering lip would say. The fathers pointed him out to their sons or hid their eager daughters behind them. Other men, valorous men, nodded or raised an open palm when he passed. Gates opened. Lanterns lit. Musicians played. They pushed close for the stories. If they knew his name.