petermaize

The Jubilee Machine Part IX

 

It took Ellen awhile to track Badri down. She’d rung him from the airport, but got no response. Finally, as she was nearing the university, he answered.

“Badri. I believe you. Or I believe Benton, at least. I want to come see you. Where are you?”

Badri’s voice was infinitely tired and epically sad.

“On the run, I guess.” There was a short pause. Ellen turned off the freeway, headed for the campus. Badri spoke softly. It was difficult to hear him.

“Tomorrow they’re officially locking us out of the decelerator. I suspect that Mellon will call us all together and ‘try to get to the bottom of this’” he mimicked Mellon’s genteel inflections.

“Is there anything we should do before then?” Ellen asked.

Badri stopped walking. He’d been pacing around the football practice field on the north side of the campus. Now he spoke intently.

“Well, if you’re willing, I could use your help to make one last jump.”

“Where do you want to go, Badri?”

“I don’t know yet. You can help me figure it out. The main thing is, we have to stop James.”

“How quickly do we need to act?”

“We’ve got until Monday morning, Ellen. One day. Mellon has issued an edict that our team won’t be allowed access to the decelerator beginning on Monday. Simultaneously, several departments and agencies will begin examining our team’s recent activities. I think once they start paying attention, they will very quickly realize that some of our members are missing, and that we’ve been using the decelerator in unauthorized ways.

It will take them weeks to figure out that we’ve actually been traveling back and forth in time, because it’s not in their frame of reference that human time travel is even possible today. But eventually it will become apparent to them what we’ve been up to. But that doesn’t matter, because if we can’t fix this in two days, it won’t matter even if we had two years. So plan to get a lot done as soon as you get here.”

Ten minutes later Ellen was standing beside Badri in the large, empty parking lot on the north side of the stadium. Ellen still felt uneasy around him. There had been so many lies, and so many professions of sincerity and concern, that the good and bad were mixed together in her mind, and no one was clean.

“You made a jump right after Benton, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, drawing out the syllable.

“But you wouldn’t tell me where you went, or why.  What’s the truth, Badri?”

Badri plunged his hands in his coat pockets and looked up at the night sky. The few available stars winked through the haze.

“There was an epistle. Jeremy told me about it two days after Benton jumped.”

Ellen nodded. So it was true.

“As you know, we’ve been looking for epistles for months. It wasn’t unexpected that it might take awhile to find one, because they were buried hundreds of years ago, and got covered with all kinds of debris, layers of soil and layers of humanity. But when Jeremy came into my office with news of an epistle, I did find it quite coincidental that it had been found right after Benton jumped.”

“Who was it from?”

“Me. Of course, at that moment, I had yet to make a jump of my own, and I still believed that only Benton had jumped. My conversation with Benton at the mental hospital raised a host of questions, and he was adamant that James himself had been using the decelerator. So within the space of a few hours I was presented with proof that Benton had returned, that he had been sent to coordinates that were way off the original plan, and that an epistle with my name on it had been discovered. I was shell-shocked!

“The Tel Aviv team had contacted James to tell them of the epistle discovery, as they had been instructed to do. Obviously, we didn’t want Mellon and his people to get a call out of the blue telling them that one of their staff had apparently left a message in another century. But I couldn’t be certain of any specifics about the epistle,” Badri said, pacing in the dark parking lot. “James had shared the information with Jeremy, his confidant, because it served his interests.”

Ellen could see Badri’s breath as he spoke.

“I went back to the decelerator and checked the coordinates for Benton’s jump. I already knew that he had been sent to a completely different time and place than we had agreed on. And of course, James had been at the controls. I then ran a review of the decelerator’s activity in the days prior to Benton’s jump. And it became clear that it had been used by others to travel to the past, on more than one occasion.”

He glanced up at Ellen, to see how she would react. Her face was a mask.

“I now believe that James needed me to make a jump. I think it’s been his overall plan to set me up ever since he recognized how accurate the jumps could be. James found a reason for me not to be in the decelerator when Benton jumped, which of course allowed him to alter the coordinates. But he knew Benton was coming back, right? Benton confirmed that he had harassed James when he was a boy—that’s initially what got Benton thrown into custody.

“When he joined Cassandra, James probably didn’t know why Benton had sought him out as a child, but it was a moot point: James would still have done the same thing once he discovered that the calculations I put Benton on would lead to amazing turnaround times with the loops. James had to keep that a secret, so the best way to do so was to send Benton to the wrong coordinates, and James knew that he’d eventually end up back here in a mental institution. Which was useful for him. Then James needed me to be suspicious enough to make a jump on my own.”

Ellen had no trouble following what Badri was saying, but she was struggling not to succumb to a sense of doom and helplessness. Badri continued.

“Of course James was the first person to go back. Partly it was ego—to be the VERY first person to travel through time. But there was also another purpose: to test the alternate set theory. James believed that he could go back in time, create a new universe, and then jump forward to a point prior to the time space that he originally left. In that case he would still essentially be in the same universe—things wouldn’t have changed too much. Then he could interact with himself. I don’t have to go over this point, I assume.”

Ellen’s face relaxed into a wry grin. “I’m well-versed in the theories, doctor. Even if alternate set theory is correct, the universe that James created by entering it would be identical for all intents and purposes, until James set about changing it. So returning to 2009 in an alternate universe would be essentially identical to returning to 2009 in this one.”

“Right. With the added twist that there would be multiple James who could interact with each other. That’s the development we didn’t predict. We thought the outcome would be either alternate set or a singular universe. It’s both. Once James satisfied himself that he could pull this off, he had to take the steps to ensure no one got in his way. Not an easy task, considering the secrecy around what we were doing, the small team we have…had.”

Badri shook his head and for a moment Ellen thought he might break down.

“James made sure that I knew about Benton, and that I knew that James had made a jump. I never saw the epistle from myself: it was supposed to be shipped from Jerusalem, but between delays from their Antiquities department and other factors, it hadn’t arrived when I made my jump. Of course, James was counting on this. He made sure that all the events happened almost simultaneously. That way I was so focused on the urgency of what was happening, I would just react without thinking it through. Which is what I did.”

Badri shook his head, and laughed without humor.

“How wrong I was. I walked right into his trap. I was unravelling the puzzle without realizing that I was becoming enmeshed in it. Because, finally, the pieces started falling into place. I realized that of course James made the first jump. And it was easy to figure out that Jeremy helped him. James planned to make as many jumps as possible, then get the Cassandra project shut down, so that no one could follow him. By that time he would be bouncing around different universes. I guess he was worried about some sort of time traveling policeman who would arrest him and bring him back to this epoch if the decelerator was still online. A reasonable concern.”

“But why would he go to all this effort, and risk?” Ellen asked. “Why not just secretly make jumps and keep it hidden, instead of creating all this intrigue with epistles showing up, and leading people to Benton?”

“Because the odds were that he might be exposed and stopped early on, if he just tried to sneak in some jumps on his own. And his worst nightmare would be to be caught in this epoch. So James very quickly created chaos, where no one was sure what to believe. Right? For several days you weren’t sure whether you could trust me, and wondered who the bad guy was. That gave James enough time to maneuver, make his jumps, and set me up. Then he even planned to have this all happen over a weekend, so he would have a couple more days to wrap up his work before everything descended on me on Monday. As it will. He’s pinning all the mayhem on me.”

Ellen didn’t seem to understand. “How…how could he?”

Perhaps he shouldn’t continue. Ellen wasn’t registering. But Badri wanted to say the words.

“Ellen, officially, no one on the team has ever made a jump, right? So where have Jeremy and Benton gone? Where is Ken right now?”

“Do you think he killed Ken?”

“Hell yes, I do.”  Badri’s face was anguished, perspiration forming above his eyebrows, his eyes bloodshot.

“James anticipated that Benton might make it to an epistle site, in whatever century he was in, and leave an epistle implicating him. Even if Benton placed the epistle in the third century, that was fine. All James had to do was send one of his confederates, or go himself, retrieve Benton’s incriminating epistle, and the evidence would disappear.”

“What exactly was the trap?” Ellen asked.

“The trap was that I would feel compelled to go back to Jerusalem to interdict any false epistles that James or his confederates left. Which is exactly what I did. Like a fool, I took the bait. By going back and leaving an epistle of my own, I didn’t succeed in implicating James—I looked like a guilty man trying to cover his tracks. Next week, when Mellon’s team looks at the anecdotal accounts, the only things that will be certain will be that I wasn’t present at the time of Benton’s jump, but made a jump myself shortly thereafter, and that I left an epistle.

“No one will ever be certain that James made a jump—hell, he weighs about the same as Jeremy, so no one can be sure who was jumping when. But it won’t matter. James won’t be found tomorrow, or ever. I guarantee he’s taken the last loop out of Dodge and will never be seen in this century again. Then Benton, Jeremy, James and maybe Ken will have all disappeared. And I’ll be the only one they can question about these suspicious disappearances. And I’ll be the only one who left an epistle. Hell, Ellen, I don’t even know yet if the epistle they found is the one I left! James has had several days to determine the precise coordinates of my jump. He could easily have made a jump to Jerusalem after I left the epistle, and replaced it with a forgery. The epistle they found is still in Israel at this moment, I believe. Doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter, Ellen.”

He was pacing back and forth now, talking primarily to himself.

“Let’s review the facts. There’s a crazy old man in Illinois who says you’re dead, but of course you are here. I never saw a corpse at the epistle site, and I have only Benton’s word to go on. The authorities could soon have a phony epistle with my name on it. What do I tell them? ’Oh no, I left a different epistle when I made an illegal foray into the past!’  My story seems unbelievable, even to me.”

Badri stared up into the night sky. The lights of the stadium obscured most of the stars.

“James needed me to make that jump. I thought I was being so clever dressing up as a traveling merchant, in a turban and cloak.”

“A turban?”

“At the time, I needed to make sure I could get ahold of an epistle that was real, not a forged one left behind by James or one of his confederates. Up to that moment, I still held the belief that James hadn’t made a jump himself. We all thought he was a coward—which in hindsight, is what he wanted—needed—us to believe. I ran off to find an epistle, to get some independent proof of what he was up to.

“Although I fell into his trap, I was able to procure a piece of solid evidence, for whatever it’s worth. It won’t be enough to save me, but it might be of importance at some time…” he paused and grimaced, “in the future. Benton, of course, also anticipated that James or one of his helpers would want to eliminate all the evidence. So Benton hid another message at the epistle site, inside a bit of glazed clay with a simple clue on it, so that someone looking for an epistle might overlook it—but someone looking for a hidden clue might find it. I found it.”

Badri reached inside his coat, and withdrew a crumpled and faded piece of parchment.

Without comment he handed it to Ellen. She opened it and immediately recognized Benton’s sprawling, round script, written on soft, thin leather. She read out loud.

 

To Badri and the team,

If you read this then there is still a chance that much disaster and suffering can be averted. I hope that James McPherson has not retrieved my epistle before you do, but if he has, he will no doubt replace it with a forgery intended to lead you away from the truth. I expect that this has already happened.

James sent me to the wrong coordinates. In a message to me, buried along with Ellen’s body, he made an attempt to explain his actions. He wanted to ensure I could never contact the rest of the team.

I realize now that he had to get rid of me in order to pursue his plans. James was aware that my earlier calculations would reveal that the decelerator was amazingly precise—far more precise than anyone had dared hope. Then once he had made sure I was the first jumper, James deliberately sent me to a place where he thought I could never return. He may be proved right. I will continue to attempt to create a loop. You can figure out from your end how you might help.

   I am now sure that James used the decelerator prior to my jump. He has been back several times, I imagine, including once to kill Ellen.  He could have buried her anywhere. But James deliberately chose to leave her body at an epistle site. Unfathomable cruelty.

Perhaps I will never return to the same time and dimension as you. But I hope with all my heart that you will see this note and be able to stop James.

Ellen could no longer cry. Her tears had all been used up during the initial stages of this tragedy. Now she moved, shell-shocked, from moment to moment, doing what she had to. She turned to Badri.

“I hope alternate set is correct, because then I might get the change to kill James twice. Let’s get to the decelerator before they lock us out forever.”

 

********************************************

,

It was cold in the decelerator room. James and Antoine had sneaked in through the fire exit, to avoid any contact with the night watchman. James didn’t want to cause any unnecessary questions this close to the finish line.

James was punching coordinates into the decelerator, as Antoine leaned against the wall.

“You know what gets me? Antoine blurted out. “That all the universes seem so identical. In some cases we’ve inserted serious anomalies into a version, so that should have shown up in later centuries. But everything ends up the same.”

James was barely listening.

“Look at the phone book,” Antoine said.

“Huh?”

“I mean look at the damn phone book. We’ve altered the universe by our actions, by definition, right? And all those anomalies would pile up, people not marrying the same people, etc. Look at the phone book, James. Its identical. Nothing has changed. Nothing.”

Antoine hurled an empty pack of cigarettes toward the trash can.

“So much for multiverses.”

“How do you know? You can’t remember every name in a phone book! I…”

Antoine stood up. “I don’t have to. I took some pages with me. Funny, huh? Taking pages of a phone book back in time? But I’ve done it twice now, James. You’d figure I’d be in a different universe, right?  Or even if it is the same universe, we’ve made some serious ripples that over time would have caused noticeable differences, even if they are small. Well, I’ve got twenty pages from the Pasadena White Pages, 1989 edition, back when they still made those things.”

He picked up a sheaf of crumpled papers from the desk. James hadn’t noticed them before.

“Absolutely identical, James. So identical that there is not even one discrepancy. Let’s see. End of page 47. “Lipton, Ida. 1402 Mission St.”

He looked at the pages in his other hand. “Page 47. Lipton, Ida. 1402 Mission St.”

Antoine looked up at James menacingly.

“Whaddya think that’s all about, bright boy?”

James was still dismissive. “You are focusing on minutiae, my friend. You are wasting your time.”

“On the contrary, my friend, you are wasting yours. It seems that for some reason, no matter what we do, the future is always the same. Ever think about that when you went to the future? Or, did you really visit the future, James?”

Antoine had never considered the fact that James might be lying, until now.

“Tell me all the futures are different, James. And if they are, explain why the versions we’ve been in end up identical. Tell me why, James, that when we come back here it’s always exactly the same as the way we left it. You’ve noticed that, haven’t you? We come back and everything’s exactly the same, from the football team to U.S. politics to where Jeremy’s aunt lives in Michigan. Each universe is identical.”

He was up in James’ face now, which annoyed James. He hated it when someone invaded his personal space. Antoine continued.

“I’m guessing James doesn’t like to go to the future, because he can’t control it. Too many intangibles and uncertainties. That’s one thing. But there’s another reason, isn’t there James? It frightens you that there is no evidence of our project—it appears that Project Cassandra never existed. There is no mention of time travel. If you want to play God, you have to do it where you are omniscient. James can do that in the past. But in the future, he’s at a disadvantage.”

James smiled calmly.

“Gee, I’d love to have an intellectual debate with you Antoine, about things you’ve never experienced. But I’ve got places to go and people to meet. And I’ve saved my best trick for last, Antoine. You raise an interesting question.  It just so happens that, at this very moment, I’m on my way to answer it. You can send me back to Jerusalem, 33 AD, just outside of town, late March. Get as close as you can, won’t you Antoine?”

“No.”

James smiled. “Why are you getting so worked up, Antoine? There’s nothing to lose. All you have to do is send me to the past, one last time.”

He moved a step closer to Antoine.

“Look, I’m not coming back after this jump. Think what you will about the alternate set and what the future has to say about the Cassandra Project. For me the evidence is already in. I’m going now, Ken, and I’m never coming back here.”

“Because Badri’s on your trail?”

James decided to play his ace.

“Yes, in a manner of speaking, Antoine. All of us have been using this project for our own purposes. We all joined up knowing we might die in pursuit of our goal, so our goals had to be pretty dear to us. You have yours, I have mine. Yes, I broke some rules. And I got you to break some, too. Now your choice is whether to have an attack of conscience, and refuse to help me, or to let me go and avoid the nasty consequences that will inevitably occur. Believe me, if I am confronted I will name names in order to protect myself. Yours will be among them. Save yourself the trouble, Antoine. Help me this one last time. Then I’m gone and won’t trouble you anymore.”

Antoine just stared at James.

“You know that our whole little game is over, don’t you, Antoine? There will be no more Cassandra project to get on with after tomorrow.”

James smiled, casually and confidently.

“Antoine, Badri will take all the blame, and you know it. You want me gone. You need me gone. If I’m not here, Badri is the sole focus of every investigation. And he’s got a lot of explaining to do, since I and two of my colleagues will have disappeared without a trace. Badri won’t have me to pin anything on. It will remain an eternally perplexing brain teaser as to what happened to three scientists. Eventually they’ll just stop looking, and you can get on with your life. So send me on my last jump, Antoine. I’ve created enough loops that I no longer need to come back to this year, or this place, ever. While you brood about how the alternate set theory and single universe theory can co-exist, I’ll be living it. And by the way. I’ve got one more proof for you that the theory does indeed work. I killed Jeremy twice. Once in the 14^th century, and once a few days ago. So believe, me, alternate set is in full force.”

He walked away from the control panel toward the decelerator.

“I’ve been a busy boy. There is more than one of me now, Antoine. That’s something special, isn’t it? So just send me to those coordinates. If you don’t then I’ll make sure one version of me comes back and kills you. We got a deal, mate?.”

He locked his eyes on Antoine’s. Antoine returned the gaze without blinking, then nodded slowly.

“You’ve got a deal.”