AIRLOCK: DISENGAGING.
Deadbolts thunked back within the Promenade’s housing. Chronon levels were now at normal levels within. Hydraulics engaged. Atmosphere vented.
William forgot the diagnostics. He stepped away from the bench to stand before the airlock.
The hatch levered aside, and someone appeared inside the Promenade’s airlock, lurching into sight from the left. A visitor?
The translator! He fumbled on his utility belt. He may need the translator…
“Wel-welcome, traveler,” William said, stammering. “Damn it. I am-”
What the stranger had to say needed no translation. From the ramp of the airlock the figure raised one arm and shot William in the head.
Paul popped into existence the second Beth stepped out of the corridor, into the airlock. She caught him leaning heavily on the door, pointing the gun he had stolen from her at whatever was outside the machine.
She didn’t stop to think but barreled right into the little fucker, snapping one elbow into the side of his head. Paul’s skull rebounded off the heavy iron door frame. The bounceback pitched him slack-bodied down the exit ramp.
It’s the hits you don’t see coming that get you.
She swept up the sidearm as it hit the ground and came up level with Paul’s head.
Paul’s face was a mess of tears as he rose weakly up off his knees. “No.” He put his hands up. “Please.” Backed away, half-naked, stumbling. “No. No no…”
Oh fucking hell. She gritted her teeth. Steadied her arm. “Shut up.”
“Please. Please… please… no… no.”
It was freezing but Beth felt nothing but sick. “Stop saying that. Shut up.” Their frantic breaths misted in clouds before them. She advanced, he backed away-off the ramp, onto a dirt floor.
She recognized this place. They were in the Joyce barn; the same barn in which she’d have her altercation with Gibson seventeen years from now.
There was a body on the floor, dressed like a cut-price Ghostbuster. It was Jack’s brother, Will.
Paul chose that moment to turn and run.
“Stop!”
She fired. The round caught him above the hip, splashed right through him, impact turning him around. He was looking at her as he stumbled backward to one knee, tears streaking his quivering face. Staring down at himself in disbelief, seeing what had been done to him, he screamed in a ruined voice wet with despair. Even then he was still trying to get to his feet, still trying to get away.
Paul looked back up at her, as Beth shut her eyes and fired again.
It took him through the shoulder, wrenching him around and down again. He coughed, scrambled weakly, trying to buy a few inches closer to an escape from this nightmare.
“Don’t,” Beth said, trying to see clearly.
She shuddered, trading a little piece of herself to aim at the back of Paul’s head.
Then, just like that, he was gone-the barn door smashing wide open in his wake and all the cold in the world rushing in.
Shock.
He was gone. Paul Serene was out there, in the world. Loose.
“Fuck!”
She flew to the door, liking her chances of being able to find him quick in the snow. The tracks were there all right, stretching all the way to the woods. Paul had covered hundreds of feet in no time. In this weather, wearing nothing but jeans, she wanted to believe he wouldn’t make it.
She needed confirmation. She needed a body.
The one on the floor behind her groaned. Will was alive.
Paul was out there, but Will was in here-wounded.
She couldn’t give chase, so she just screamed at the trees. Her own rage echoed back twice. Seconds later she was at Will’s side, telling him to remain still. Will’s response was to shout something incomprehensible and utterly fail to follow instructions.
“Calm down!”
Will froze. She could see the livid tear across the left side of his skull, the flowered bruise, the free-flowing blood.
“I didn’t do this to you. That was-”
“Chut!” Will barked. “Nothing!”
“What?”
“Don’t! Just…!” He panted, eyes ranging back and forth across nothing in particular. “Have I been shot?”
“Yes.”
Will fainted.
If she was honest with herself she was tempted to leave him there. The adrenaline was draining and a freezing cold was working its way to her bones. He had a canteen clipped to an overloaded belt. She unscrewed it, poured ice water across her fingers, and flicked it at his face. Will snapped to, barking.
“Agh! Agh!”
“You were grazed, that’s all. But you need to get to a hospital.”
“Stop,” he snapped, totally confused. “Talking.” Then: “Don’t tell me any-”
“Don’t tell you anything about the future, got it, I saw the same movie. Can you stand?”
That took the wind out of his sails, and Beth felt a little bad about it. She imagined he might have been preparing that speech for years. He righted himself, got to his feet. “I should have expected this. Why didn’t I expect this?”
“Getting shot?”
Will looked pale, like he might throw up. “Please stop saying that. It’s very… just, please stop saying that.” He took a couple of steadying breaths. “Visitors. I should have expected it once I activated the core. It stands to reason that future users would want to go back as far as they could.”
Beth looked around. “Looks like it’s just us, though.”
“Yes,” Will said. “My thoughts on that are undecided.”
“Will,” she said, hugging herself. “I need to get out of this cold. And… there are some things you need to know. That’s just how it is.”
“Wait,” he said. “Just… wait. What do I call you? And, please, no real names. I don’t want to know anything about you.”
Beth remembered Will’s video message from the swimming pool. The vast universe felt suddenly like a small, tightly-arranged room with everything in its place. They had always been in their place.
“September,” she said, feeling very far from home. “Call me September.”
Sunday, 28 February 1999. 9:49 P.M. Riverport, Massachusetts. Forty-six minutes later.
The kitchen table was an oasis of light. Beth’s mug was empty; William had no interest in his tea. She was silent as he processed all that she had told him.
He hadn’t looked at her for twenty minutes, eyes scanning left and right, processing.
Eventually she broke the quiet by asking if he understood what had to be done.
“You will not find his body,” Will said. “The man you pursued here.”
“I know.”
The index and middle fingers of Will’s hands wiggled nervously. Processing. “All the events of the future world of which you are a citizen will come to pass. In a sense they have already happened, and cannot be avoided or undone. You must understand that, September.”
“Dr. Joyce, you know all you need to know: a machine based on your design damages the M-J field. We need to repair the field. Can you design something that we can use, in my time, to repair it?”
“It will take ten years.”
“2009. Perfect. I’ll jump ahead ten years, meet you and…”
Will was shaking his head. “It took five years for the Promenade to accumulate enough of a chronon charge for one journey, and your arrival depleted most of that.”
Beth put her mug down, carefully. “You haven’t perfected chronon aggregation.”
“I’ve barely begun. Most of my funds went into the creation of the machine’s core.”