petermaize

The Jubilee Machine Pt. VI

Ellen looked out the plane window at the patchwork of fields below. Occasionally a tiny vehicle could be seen plodding along a country road. Rectangular fields of green corn spread out beneath the plane.

Ellen told herself that she wasn’t running way. She was seeking knowledge. It was impossible to discern who was telling the truth when both sides claimed that the other was perpetrating diabolical plots on a monumental scale. There was little doubt that everyone was lying—at least some of the time. And it was possible that both Badri and James had sinister plans for the decelerator. It wasn’t necessary to believe that one was bad and the other was completely good. These were brilliant, driven men who had been given the keys to the universe. There were plenty of shades of gray to go around in this cosmic play.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve begun our descent into Peoria Regional Airport. At this time, would you please make sure all tray tables…”

The routine announcement prompted robotic activity in the passenger cabin. Ellen buckled up. The cornfields were coming closer. In a few hours she hoped to have some of the answers she sought.

The Reverend Wyatt Wilfong was waiting in the arrival hall as Ellen emerged. They hugged affectionately, and were still touching as they drew apart for verbal greetings.

“It’s great to see you, Wyatt. Thank you so much for coming to meet me.”

“It’s my pleasure, really. Any chance to see you is worth the trip.”

Wyatt worked in Minnesota with Native Americans. He had been an undergraduate anthropology student with Ellen. They dated and at one time were serious. But Wyatt increasingly felt drawn to spiritual pursuits, while Ellen became increasingly absorbed by the esoteric enticements of academia. She remained a Christian, but the focus of her life was not on the Lord, and Wyatt knew he couldn’t share his life with a woman who put career and personal ambition ahead of Christ. For awhile they stayed in touch, but Wyatt eventually stopped hearing from Ellen. He pursued his calling, and had graduated from seminary a year ago.

Prematurely balding, he was still quite handsome. Ellen had forgotten how handsome, or how much he had meant to her. When the pleasantries were over, she spoke quickly.

“I’m going to take you to meet someone. He’s in a state mental institution.”

“Okay.” Wyatt was used to taking situations at face value. “What’s my role?”

Ellen didn’t reply for a moment as they walked toward the parking lot. Oh, what the heck.

“He’s a time traveler.” Ellen looked at Wyatt, who nodded noncommittally.

“I mean real time travel. That’s the top secret project I’ve been working on. It seems everyone on the team except me has jumped back into the past. Benton was sent to 3rd century Persia, which wasn’t supposed to happen. So it took him years to get back to the future, and now he’s in a nuthouse, because when he got back he was a little…damaged. Anyhow, he might know some things that are valuable for us to know. Because it looks like one of the team members is…behaving irresponsibly.”

Wyatt said nothing, just kept walking.

“Sounds unbelievable, I know,” Ellen offered.

Wyatt still didn’t respond for a moment, then he stopped, drawing Ellen to a halt next to him.

“You’re messing around with time?”

He appeared to believe her.

“Yes,” Ellen responded.

Wyatt nodded and turned to walk the remaining 50 yards to his pickup truck. As they got in, he said, “I’ll believe you if you say you have found a mechanical or physical means of traveling to different times. But when you say one of your colleagues is acting irresponsibly, I hope you understand the eternal implications of the situation. You cannot change God’s plan.”

God’s plan. Ellen hadn’t given much thought to God’s plan recently, or her Christian faith. There was a time, when she first joined the Cassandra team, that she spent long hours thinking and praying about the correctness of time travel, its implications and her own motivation for getting involved in it. She hadn’t had those thoughts for a long time.

Unlike the rest of the team, Ellen wasn’t a physicist or mathematician. And unlike the others, her Christian faith featured prominently in her life. Ellen had chosen to become an anthropologist so she could understand cultures, learn why they functioned the way they did and why they differed on crucial issues like faith, human rights and social roles. She saw no conflict between her own religious views and her profession.

Most anthropologists, Ellen knew, were atheists, or uncommitted on the issues of a supreme being and innate human values. They felt this allowed them to assess varied cultures impartially. For Ellen, being a Christian gave her a focal point, a base from which to view the world.

But she was most interested in the societies and religions of the Middle East. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all sprang from a single tiny region. Ellen wanted to examine the forces and factors that shaped these religions in their primordial forms.

Ellen was not a romantic. She hated science fiction, had never seen a Star Wars movie and thought time travel was an impossible dream—until she read a paper published by Badri Singh in Scientific American. This was a few months before the Cassandra team was officially formed, and Badri was trying to drum up support and money for the project. In his article, Badri not only proposed that there really was a way to travel back in time, but also discussed the moral and sociological implications of doing so: he even suggested that a primary use of this nascent technology might be to visit 1^st century Jerusalem, because “we have to know the answer to the most important question ever posed. Faith is vital, but faith can be based on fact as well as belief. If you see a shooting star, you have faith it can happen again, because you’ve seen it happen once. And religious people increase their faith when they see the positive results of interacting with their God. They would call it being blessed.”

Badri’s article presented an intriguing concept: slowing the speed of light to almost zero. In their experiments, his team had succeeded in slowing a beam of light to 60 kilometers and hour. Ellen was amused by the concept of being able to drive her Toyota faster than the speed of light. Apparently, this was the key to time travel.

Ellen was familiar with the general theory of relativity. In one of her science classes she learned that if a person left the Earth moving at nearly the speed of light and returned one year later, they would find that much more time had elapsed on Earth while they’d been gone. But according to what little she knew, the faster an object traveled, the heavier it got. An object traveling at nearly the speed of light would be immensely heavy, and immensely difficult to propel. To travel back in time by going faster than light was impossible according to special relativity, and physically impossible according to basic physics.

But Badri’s research was based on a concept of time being looped, which was not contrary to the principles of general relativity. Just as space could be curved, in theory time could also be curved. In a curved time environment, time could become a loop, so that it would be possible not only to travel to another time, but to return to the initial starting point. Slowing the speed of light was the answer.

Ellen was intrigued enough by Badri Singh’s article to take one of his classes. When she learned that the Cassandra project would be based at the university, she felt compelled to drop by and have a look. At that point, the team was indeed slowing the speed of light in order to create anomalies in time, and having enough success to secure many millions of dollars in government research funding. As the CTC was being built down the street from Badri’s office, Ellen made the decision that this was where she was meant to be. The idea of including an anthropologist among the techies appealed to Badri. Over time, he came to see her as uniquely qualified to become a member of his special, secret team.

 

Wyatt and Ellen passed through the sliding glass doors into the stark and sterile reception area. A nurse checked their identities and smiled.

“He’s in Ward B. Just check in at the nurse’s station and an orderly will accompany you to the correct room.”

“Ward B?” Ellen said. “He was in Ward A last time.”

“He’s in the medical ward now,” the nurse replied, “with respiratory problems.”

Ellen and Wyatt were directed down two long hallways. A sullen orderly led them to a heavy door with a small window. Wyatt motioned for Ellen to go in first. She walked up next to the bed. Lying still, covered up to his chin by a clean white sheet, was the tormented body of Benton Scott. Because he was now in his 50’s, and his face was badly mutilated, Ellen found it easier to treat him as a different person—not the intense young genius who tried to coax her into bed, who was eager to give his heart to her.

His breathing was shallow and labored. Benton’s eyes flickered open, but he didn’t seem to recognize Ellen. He stared at her, without expressing any emotion.

Ellen tried to smile. Between her immense sadness about Benton’s fate and her dread of what the Cassandra project was wreaking in the world, she couldn’t manage one.

“Hello, Benton. It’s Ellen.”

The dry mouth croaked the words, “you came back.”

“Yes, I did. I need your help, Benton. Things are going crazy over at Cassandra. I think a lot of people are making jumps, but I’m not sure who. Definitely Badri, and probably Jeremy.”

“And James.”

Ellen bit her lip. She knew that Benton was obsessed with James, and blamed him for everything. It might be impossible after all these years to get him to think objectively about James.

“I’ve brought a friend, Benton. He didn’t know anything about the Cassandra project before today. But he knows about the ancient Near East, and about Christianity.”

Ellen needed more information from Benton—some clue as to which man was sabotaging Cassandra: Badri or James. Although Benton clearly blamed James, it might be possible to see behind his curtain of resentment and malice and spot a singular truth. Having another, impartial observer could help.

Benton looked at Wyatt and said nothing.

“Benton, it seems that the team members are taking up sides, either with Badri or James. I haven’t taken a side yet.”

He just stared at her. Ellen’s throat caught, because she suddenly wondered how much longer Benton would live.

“If I could know what went on before you made your jump, maybe I could piece together the chain of events.”

Benton began coughing, and didn’t stop for more than a minute, ultimately producing a wad of mucus, slippery, clear and thick. Ellen looked away. She wondered why she had come here, but forged ahead.

“Before you went on the jump and were sent to the wrong time, did you have any reason to suspect James?”

Benton’s milky eyes peered at her. He shook his head no.

“What about Badri?”

Again no.

“So how can you be sure that James deliberately changed the coordinates and sent you to the wrong time?”

Benton sighed, and closed his eyes. He didn’t speak for awhile. Then he opened his eyes and softly said, “I told you I found your body, didn’t I? I can’t remember.”

Ellen shivered.

“Yes, Benton. The last time I was here you said that. I…I didn’t really understand what that was all about.”

“Well let me tell you, young lady.”

It sounded so odd. This man, who was now decades older than her, just a few weeks ago was acting like a love-struck teenager. Now, when he called her young lady, it was like an elder addressing a child.

“I made it to Jerusalem eventually. I got a job in Damascus first, made enough money to get to Jerusalem, and eventually found the epistle site.”

He took a deep breath.

“At that time—ahem—at that time I wasn’t sure what had happened. I assumed that the decelerator didn’t work as planned—that this new contraption had flaws.”

He coughed again for half a minute. It seemed to sap his strength.

“Ohhhh. Ah. Okay. So anyhow, I wanted to get to the epistle site. I could leave a message and suggest a location for a loop intersection, then go there. If the decelerator was working properly, then there might already be something available for me, since you guys would have picked up my epistle from the third century, and maybe someone could get to Jerusalem in the first century, where we already had established coordinates, and maybe leave me a hint about where I could go to find a loop. But if Alternate Set were true, then I’d be toast.”

Wyatt was taking all this in, leaning silently against the door. Ellen remained motionless.

“I found your body, Ellen. It was at the epistle site. It was placed there deliberately.”

She didn’t respond.

“So, that confirmed that the decelerator worked. It looked like you’d been dead awhile. I’m no expert, but it looked like decades.

He glanced up at her. In his one good eye Ellen saw a trace of the young man she’d loved. He smiled slightly.

“I always liked to believe that you’d come back to rescue me. That kept me going for years when I was trying to manage a loop out of there. I at least wanted to avenge your death.”

This was getting too strange. Ellen straightened up.

“Benton, why would someone leave a body at the epistle site? It’s like leaving evidence at the scene of a crime. And why didn’t we find the body when we started looking at all the epistle sites?”

“Because someone went back and moved it.”

She shook her head. This angered Benton.

“Never mind. The bottom line is,” he hacked again, phlegm spilling onto his pillow, “that James did it. The first time he visited me here, he just seemed curious about me. That was a few years ago—I have no idea when. He was young, probably a post-grad student. But of course, he knew that he would eventually work on a time travel project that successfully sent me back in time, et cetera et cetera. But this was long before he knew you or any of the team. He had probably heard about Badri. Who knows.”

Benton was astonishingly lucid. Ellen marveled at his ability to clearly express the complex circumstances of years past. She expected that this was only a temporary window, and she wanted to make the most of it. But even though it was her death that Benton was recounting, Ellen was more eager to learn details about how James was able to manipulate the jumps.

“Benton,” she began.

But he was not through with his soliloquy. Benton coughed loudly, then continued, although he was obviously short of breath.

“So at that time he didn’t know you or that he killed you. I tried to attack him, and probably shouted something like ‘You killed Ellen!’

“I remember they pulled me off him. I wasn’t very mobile back then. Not much different than the pitiful hulk you see before you know. So I wasn’t really a threat to James.”

He cleared his throat.

“And my words wouldn’t have had any meaning to him. James was probably checking me out to determine whether I really needed to be part of the program. It was feasible that even though a deranged old man could show that he had been sent back in time, that didn’t mean they had to include me in the project. There is nothing inevitable about any of our circumstances; history does not have to repeat itself, ever.”

Benton paused, shifted and groaned.

“My guess is that James still doesn’t know he’s killed you. He comes back to this time space after each jump, and doesn’t know about the note he left by your body.”

“What!?”

“You know, I can’t do math anymore. Can’t even add. Like, what’s 7 times 7?”

Ellen just stared. Wyatt looked away.

“Fifty-four?” Benton guessed. “That part—the part that once made me special and valuable, is gone. And so is the rest of me.”

Benton sighed deeply, followed by a coughing fit.

Ellen felt like reaching out to touch him, to reassure Benton, but she didn’t move.

“Funny, huh?” he said after he had caught his breath. “That ability got me stuck here. James recognized that the math I was doing in the months before my jump was the missing link. But only he knew. Badri had directed me to pursue those calculations and give my findings to James. Badri never knew about the accuracy of the calculations, because James pretended that they actually weren’t worthwhile. Only when Badri came here—was it last month?—did he learn that I was sent to Persia by James. I guess that’s when James’s plans started unravelling and that’s why you’re here now. Oh, how pleased James must have been that only he knew how accurate the decelerator could be. He had to get rid of me, so he could use the decelerator as he wished, bouncing around time and coming back right where he started, or pretty close to it. I don’t know how long he was able to keep that a secret, or what he’s been doing with the knowledge I gave him. But I know he killed you and tried to kill me. And how many more, Ellen?”

“Benton, even if a body was left at an epistle site, you said it had been there for decades. How could you prove that James was responsible?”

Benton fixed her with a stare. One eye gazed opaquely and sightlessly across the room. The other zeroed in on her.

“I told you. He left a note, Ellen.”

Benton had grown tired from the exertion of talking. He turned away and refused to speak. Ellen tried various methods of engaging him: brief updates on who was siding with whom. Benton did not respond.

Wyatt began asking Benton simple questions about the time period he had been stuck in—how he was able to survive and exist in a strange and harsh world. Benton provided a few short sentences, then he eventually stopped answering those questions, too, and began getting combative. Ellen tried one more time, gently asking Benton how he was able to find a loop back to the 20th century.

“I’m a mathematician, all right? It took me 7 years to do it. I spent 7 years living as a stranger in a world I hated, doing calculations in the dirt, on old sheep hides and in my head. Then I come back, and within a few weeks I’m in prison, and then in the loony bin.

And James is still loose. I wish I’d died, Ellen. Died that very first night.”

He turned away and refused to speak. Eventually they left him, curled up on his bed, coughing quietly.

 

“So what do you think?”

It took more than a minute for Wyatt to respond.

“I can tell you one thing. He’s definitely not crazy.”

Wyatt looked up to see Ellen’s mouth tighten. He wasn’t sure why this information would make her tense, but he continued.

“I’ve only spent an hour with Benton, but I do have lots of experience with the mentally ill, and people who exist on the fringes of society. For a man who has been institutionalized for many years, he is coherent, his thought patterns are logical, and he shows no underlying symptoms of psychosis.”

Ellen leaned back in her chair, bumping the small table and sending the coffee in their cups into a mild swirl.

“Certainly he has experienced trauma, both physical and mental. His symptoms are similar to anyone who has experienced post-traumatic stress disorder. But to get to the point, Ellen, it seems possible that this is the same man who existed as a twenty-something mathematician just a few weeks ago. I am willing to believe that. I mean, how else could a 50-year old man who’s been locked up for 20 years be able to describe with such accuracy events that took place a few weeks ago in your university?”

Wyatt was speaking for his own benefit, talking it out.

“So I am willing to accept this whole time travel scenario. And his descriptions of that time and the people are so vivid, so compelling. Of course,” he said, pacing, “he could be making it up, or have done lots of research on the subject. But how? He’s a crazy middle-aged man, locked inside a nut house. Some of the information he has shared has just now come to light. In the last few months, I mean. There is no way a man in his position could know that. And other than you and Dr. Singh, the asylum’s records indicate his last visitor came by more than four years ago.”

Ellen put her hand on Wyatt’s arm.

“I really want to thank you for taking the time to see Benton with me, Wyatt. I’m, I’m in way over my head. When I got into this project it seemed like it was a daring new frontier of science, like the first test pilots who tried to break the sound barrier. But those were controlled experiments, carried out with planning and supervision. Now,” she shook her head, “now I’m involved in a situation where no one is sure what is happening, or who is in control. And people are getting harmed. Like Benton.”

Wyatt watched her grapple with the weight of her dilemma.

“I suspect more people might get harmed. I’m not sure how this will unfold. I know someone has to stop it. The big question is: who do I believe?”

Ellen thought about calling Badri before she got on the plane, but decided against it. Although she now felt that Badri was not a traitor to the program, there were still too many unanswered questions. Was James really up to something sinister? Had the tight bond of the team broken down so completely that individuals were making jumps as they pleased, and for personal gain? Was there a murderer among them?

The best thing to do was to get back to the university, assess the situation, then talk to Badri.

 

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

 

When campus security arrived at Badri Singh’s office, they found a note tacked to the door.

GONE TO 1^ST CENTURY. BACK AFTER LUNCH

 

The three men gathered outside the door read the hand-lettered sign with folded arms.

“Very funny,” the sergeant said. “Okay, open it up.”

One of the officers had a fistful of keys. He extracted one and inserted it in the lock. The door didn’t budge. He tried another. Then his colleagues took several turns trying the keys, emitting various epithets as they labored to open the door. Finally, the sergeant took his walkie-talkie and spoke into it. From their hiding place on the floor above, Badri and Ken could not hear what he said. They peered out from behind a granite column next to the stairwell. Eventually the team of officers walked over to the elevator and got in.

“They won’t be gone long,” Badri said. “The chancellor will give permission to break down the door. This just buys us a little time.”

They walked down the stairs to Badri’s office. The physicist took out a key and quickly unlocked the door.

The office was quiet and dark. The curtains were drawn and only the computer monitor emitted light.

“Sit down.”

Badri motioned to the couch, and Ken plopped into the middle of it.  Ken recognized that his initial dreams of fame and glory had been shattered in the confusing struggle and combat of competing wills. Ken had chosen to follow Badri, and he would see this thing through. He did not expect it to end well, but Ken was willing to accept the consequences.

Badri settled into an over-stuffed chair opposite Ken.

“Okay. We know there have been a total of how many jumps?”

Seventeen,” Ken replied.

Badri shook his head. “I cannot believe it. Ten would have been astonishing.”

Badri was playing catch-up, trying to assess what had already taken place, and what might happen next.

“Based on mass, who’s done the jumping?”

Ken checked his notes.

“Benton once. Jeremy five times. I’m guessing Antoine once, based on the date and mass. You, once.”

“And James, nine times.”

They looked at each other.

“The man they said was too chicken to step inside a decelerator.”

Badri exhaled in a long gust.

“Thanks for helping me check the data. I know it was a lot of work. But hopefully in the process you have come to believe what I’ve been telling you.”

“Well, a lot of people have been jumping for quite a long time, that’s for sure,” Ken said. “And it looks like James was the first one. He probably figured that no one was going to check on how often the decelerator was used, since this was all supposed to be so controlled and regimented.”

“Yes,” Badri said. “Only when his colleagues began to suspect that things weren’t right would they begin to look for evidence of previous jumps. And by that time, James anticipated that it wouldn’t matter. I think he was right.”

“So James made the first jump,” Ken said, looking at his notes. “Jeremy must have helped him.” He looked up at Badri. “Then Benton took the first ‘official’ jump. I don’t understand why James would have gotten rid of Benton so early. Benton’s work would have been valuable to James as we started compiling results from the jumps.”

“Indeed. But James needed to get rid of Benton as a first step. James realized from Benton’s calculations over the past few months that the accuracy of the decelerator could be made very precise. He quickly moved Benton on to other calculations to hide this fact. If Benton had been allowed to return to the calculations, he would have made this fact known to others. When only James knew the truth, he could use it to his benefit.”

Badri looked carefully at the young scientist who sat sprawled on the sofa. He looked like an average nerd, perhaps cooler than most and with a better dress sense.

“Are you still talking to Antoine?”

“No”, Ken said. “He’s bought into the theory of opposing camps, and James has convinced him that you are the bad guy. So right now it’s you and me against James, Jeremy and Antoine. I don’t think Ellen has joined them, but she sure ain’t on our side yet. I talked with her yesterday, and she’s not ready to believe anyone.”

Badri’s head ached. He needed sleep, but there would be none tonight. He checked the computer. The calculations were finished. He printed them out, just to be sure he had a copy if the campus police (or real police) came by in the next few minutes. He would make no attempt to take or erase the hard drive. Maybe one day other scientists could use it to learn what caused the destruction of the Cassandra project.

“Let’s get out of here.”

 

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

James and Jeremy sat quietly for awhile, watching the pedestrians move slowly down the Champs d‘ Elyesses. The clip clop of hooves reverberated on the pavement.  At length James spoke.

“How’s the Beaujolais?”

“Excellent.” Jeremy held his crystal glass gently between thumb and forefinger. He winked at a pretty young woman wearing a large sunhat. She blushed and turned away. “When does the Moulin Rouge open?”

“Not for another ten years, I’m afraid,” James responded, annoyed that his young colleague was unable to raise himself above carnal desires even when confronted with the majesty and profundity of time travel.

“Bummer,” Jeremy responded. His knee began jittering under the table. He turned to look at James, who was resplendent in a light gray morning coat, complete with waistcoat, pocket watch and fob, top hat and stick pin. “How long have you been here?”

“You mean in real time?”

Jeremy nodded, simultaneously taking the last gulp of wine.

James brushed a speck of lint from his sleeve. “Only a few days. I had to buy the flat on St. Germain, fix it up a bit, and get some clothes for you. I must admit, you looked like a refugee from a Shakespearean play when you turned up.”

James couldn’t help smiling at the memory of Jeremy appearing in a field in Orleans   dressed as a medieval lord.

Jeremy frowned. “Sorry, boss. You know carry-on baggage in the decelerator is a little limited.”

“Yes, I know, my friend. Don’t take it personally. You’ll need those garments when you return to the 13^th century to become master of all you survey. Although how you can abide those uncouth provincials is beyond me.”

James sipped his wine, then looked at Jeremy.

“You know what I noticed the most?” he mused, a quizzical smile flickering on his lips. “The ancient world is so boring. Seriously.”

James leaned forward. “There is nothing to do. At least by the 15^th century there were books available, and a certain amount of music. But 1,000 years ago? Nothing. No books.  And nothing I’d call music. Just storytelling.”

He shrugged. “Some of which I have to admit was pretty good. But for God’s sake, you can’t listen to storytellers every night.”

He shook his head. “Every night! There was nothing whatsoever to do. Talk to some peasants, who think the world is flat and angels live on those shiny lights in the sky?”

James turned to Jeremy, leaning in. “No thank you, m’boy. I learned a valuable lesson. Anything prior to the 1600’s is out of bounds for me. I can’t spend time among superstitious morons.”

Jeremy smiled drowsily. He’d had plenty of wine.

“Yeah, I’d have to agree. But I think you’d have to agree that it’s more fun visiting cultures that haven’t…how shall we say it…been encumbered by the sticky issues of human rights, democracy—things like that.”

Jeremy hefted himself to a slightly more upright position.

“It is so much easier dealing with institutions that have absolute power, and the ability to determine the fate of every individual without constraint. You know what I mean. Power speaks to power. If one has money and prestige, one can accomplish many things.”

“Oh yes, oh yes,” James replied. “I can see you’re adapting to the climate. But first you’ll need to help me make another jump back at Cassandra.”

“No problem, boss. You give me the numbers and I’ll make sure you get where you’re going.”   “That’s my boy.”    James planned to set more loops so he would be able to travel between epochs without having to return to 2009 each time. Jeremy’s loop from 13^th century Hungary to 19^th century Paris had confirmed the practicality of the endeavor. James would need to spend some time on the calculations—a pity Benton wasn’t still available; he would have been so helpful in this area, but sacrifices had to be made—but then James should soon be able to bounce between pre-selected epochs at will. At that point, when Dr. Mellon learned that Badri’s team had been making unauthorized jumps, it would have no impact on James’s plans.

He smiled, as Jeremy chattered about something inconsequential. Before them lay the City of Light in its prime. Although James had far greater purposes than mere time tourism, he was still moved by the scenes he was able to witness.

“…and they never even questioned my credentials. How could they? It would have taken 3 months to travel to Milan to confirm what I told them. So…”

James hid his contempt as Jeremy rattled on. That someone so intelligent could have such a mundane worldview was a source of aggravation to James. Fortunately, he would not have to put up with Jeremy much longer. He had a new assistant now, one with much more decorum and sensibility. Jeremy was now disposable.