Pinball (21 page)

“My name is Callie. You’re here because I had no other choice but to Gate you out of your house, which is now pretty much a wreck, by the way. The Guardian is gone, though. Once you disappeared, it slated its assignment as done and moved on to the next one, wherever and whenever that is. Er… was.” She shrugged slightly. “Whatever.”

“You said ‘Third time’s a charm.’ What did you mean by that?” Steven asked.

“Like I said, you don’t remember it, but this is the third time you have had the pleasure of my sparkling personality. The first time, I sent the Bird your way to spark a story idea. You beat it to scrap metal, but then you decided to play intrepid explorer in the Gatespace and wound up screwing up your own timeline.

“We eventually get that fixed, but then the thing happened with Lynne and the… yeah. That. So I gave you the hint to leave your past self a note that would ensure Lynne didn’t drive to work that day, but somehow the timestream looped around and brought the Bird back, evidently at a moment when you were feeling less than combative, and it almost chomped your little head off. That’s when I Gated you here.”

“
I
wrote that note? It doesn’t even look like my handwriting,” Steven said with a puzzled look.

“I told you to try to make the handwriting unrecognizable. I guess you did a pretty good job. It’s generally a good idea to avoid giving people too much information about their future… guess I’ve royally screwed
that
up.”

“I guess
so,
” said Steven. He was silent for a minute. “So where are we?” he said finally, looking around at the pristine white room.

“Oh, this is just a room in my home — it’s a condominium, actually. We’re in what would have been southern Illinois in your time. In my time it’s part of what’s called the Northeast Corridor. Anyhow, I normally use this room for meditation.”

“So you’re from the future.” His voice was flat.

“Well, yeah. Oh, jeez. I’m sorry. Every time I meet you, I forget that you haven’t heard this spiel before.” She took a few minutes to explain how an entire branch of the Denver family tree sprang from the as-yet-unconceived fifth child that Steven and Lynne would have in 2014.

“See, the baby you are going to have grows up to be my great-great-great, I don’t know exactly how many times great, grandmother,” Callie said, “and if either you or Lynne dies before you have her, she’s never born, and if that’s the case… that whole branch of the family tree gets lopped off.”

“You’re my
granddaughter?
” Steven said. 

“Well, about eighteen times great or thereabouts,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “This is getting repetitive.”

Steven’s knees suddenly felt rubbery. “I think I need to sit down.”

Callie got up and let him sit down. She continued, “So the first time I came to see you, I pretended to be the writing muse. When I come through to your timepoint, I have to wear a device called a kronostabilizer that keeps me from permanently becoming part of your timestream, and as a side effect, it makes me glow with a big golden halo.” She laughed, a low, smoky laugh that somehow seemed familiar to Steven. “Last time we met you asked me if I was an angel.” She seemed to find this terribly amusing.

“Okay, let me see if I have this all straight. You’re from the future — and your great-something-grandmother is our kid, mine and Lynne’s.”

“You got it.”

“And this is the third time you’ve been to see me.”

“Exactly. The first time, you fought that bird machine and won, and then went through the Gate that it had made. Long story short, you were gone for
fifteen years,
so no fifth kid, no
me
. We managed to get you back home —”

“We?”

“You might say my family has a vested interest in how this turns out.”

“Yeah, I can see how they would,” Steven said.

“So anyhow, we got things back to normal, but then there was an accident — a car wreck — and Lynne was killed.”

Steven flinched. She’d referred to Lynne’s death several times since he’d arrived, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear. “But that’s why you left the note?”

“
I
didn’t leave the note. I had
you
leave the note.”

He sighed heavily. “Okay, I get it. But the note led me to drive her to work, and that avoided the accident, right?”

“Right. But then the Guardian — the bird-machine that almost chomped you — that you destroyed in the first timeline tore up your house in the third one. I guess that’s fixable, but it kinda complicates things. For one thing, you’ll remember it unless we do another intervention, not to mention the fact that you’ll have to come up with a story to explain it to Lynne and the kids.”

“So… why is it a problem if I remember all this?” asked Steven.

“It’s complicated. We just don’t know what kind of effects it might have on down the line, affecting other, more distant future events. It’s like ripples in a pond.”

“So this all began because you wanted to help me finish this book?”

“Well,” she said, flushing slightly, “yeah.”

“And what you’re telling me is that after three tries, you want to try it again and risk
another
fuckup?”

“I’m really sorry, but yeah, that’s exactly it. We can’t take the risk of it causing problems.”

Steven started at her. Finally he breathed a sigh and said, “What do you think we should do?”

Chapter 77

Callie took him through her condo to the garage. Steven was surprised; the house didn’t resemble something from The Jetsons, but was similar to modern architecture he’d seen in his own time.

They got into Callie’s vehicle, a silver, three-wheeled wedge-shaped thing that she steered with a sort of joystick. From the high pitched whirr of the engine, Steven guessed that it was an electric vehicle. They drove west from Callie’s place until they were near the Mississippi River.

Steven noticed that the sky was a steel grey color, even though no clouds were apparent. The sun had an unnatural crimson tinge. He looked west across the river and saw that even the great Mississippi seemed to be choked with a putrid sludge of what he guessed was some sort of industrial waste.

Entering the grounds of a large industrial complex of some sort, they passed a sign that said “North Central Positronics,” and he looked over at Callie and said, “What is this place?”

“It’s the company that makes the Guardians,” she replied. “We’re gonna try to get this fixed.”

Chapter 78

Lynne Denver sat at her desk, trying without much luck to restrain the pent-up energy of her twenty-three wound-up third graders as the minute hand of the clock crept slowly toward the 12. Nearly three o’clock, and the children knew it. Finally the bell rang and the kids flooded out of the classroom, roaring toward the school bus loading area like water streaming through a raging rapids.

She leaned back and stretched, her back dully aching, and was grateful that it was Friday. She graded an assignment from earlier that day, did some paperwork on one of her students who had been out of class for a week with the flu, and began to gather her things to get ready to go home.

Lynne walked down the hall to the classroom where her friend Nancy Leonard taught second grade. Nancy’s car had broken down the day before, so Lynne had given her a ride to work and now would take her home. “Hey, Nance,” she said as she walked into the classroom, “You about ready? Steve should be here soon.”

Nancy smiled at Lynne and said, “Sure, let me finish grading these last two papers and we’re outta here.” She was a tall woman with short brown hair and a cheerful disposition. She skimmed through the answers on the last test paper, stacked them neatly and gathered her things. Putting on her coat, she said, “What are you making for dinner?”

Lynne’s brows knit together, thinking. “I’m not sure. It’s a week before payday and the cupboard is pretty much bare. If I had my druthers, I’d make Steve take us all to the Iron Horse, but that’s not gonna happen for a week or two.”

Lynne and Nancy walked out to the parking lot, greeting other faculty members who were also on their way home. They stood by the curb, chatting, and after a few minutes Lynne said, “Huh… I wonder where Steve is. He’s
never
late.”

Chapter 79

Callie and Steven entered the glass complex which was North Central Positronics and went to the front desk, where a secretary with matching violet hair, eyes and dress asked how she could help them today.

Callie said, “We need to speak to Michael. There’s been an issue with a Mini-Guardian.”

The secretary’s eyebrows knit slightly together and she said, “Just one moment and I’ll buzz him.” She picked up her telephone receiver and pressed a button. “What’s your name?”

“Callie Sullivan.”

“Michael? Yes, Callie Sullivan is here to see you. She says there’s a problem with an MG. Sure.” She hung up the receiver. “He’ll be out in just a minute. Would you like to have a seat?”

Steven thought to himself that while they were spending time here, Lynne was waiting at the school for him to pick her up. Then he realized that if he understood what Callie was trying to do, everything would change yet again, as it apparently had three previous times.

They sat on a bench in the lobby and waited. A few minutes later, a skinny young man with a blonde ponytail, round wire-framed glasses and a stubbly goatee came out into the lobby area.

“Ms. Sullivan?”

“Hi, Michael. We need your help with something,” said Callie.

Michael led them to his office, a glass-walled corner suite with a view of the surrounding countryside. In the distance, jutting up from the horizon, Steven noted the familiar form of the Gateway Arch.

They sat and Callie began to explain the events of the past day — beginning with its most recent iterations and working backwards. Michael’s expression grew dark when she explained that the Mini-Guardian had torn Steven’s house apart. He shook his head sadly when she told the tale of how Lynne had met her death, and raised his eyebrow when she told him that Steven had destroyed the Mini-Guardian with nothing more than a couple of branches from an apple tree.

“There’s no record of an MG as having gone missing,” said Michael, “but of course there wouldn’t be, if you used Rollback to erase all those events. Let me look at our records and see which MG unit it was that you had leased…”

He punched the touchscreen on his computer and said, “Ah, yes. This shows that you had a 24-hour lease period on an MG-1 unit, number Q 12. It was to be set for Intimidation Level 2, which is basically a mildly threatening presence, but non-destructive. If it ripped up the landscape and your house the way you describe, something was seriously wrong. On behalf of NCP, my apologies.”

“So I had some ideas on how this situation could be remedied,” Callie said.

Chapter 80

Lynne and Nancy had been standing on the sidewalk by the teacher’s parking lot for half an hour, and Steve hadn’t shown up. Lynne was beginning to feel a little worried. He had mentioned needing to go to Bozeman that day. It was a thirty mile drive one way, and the weather hadn’t been the greatest. She hoped he hadn’t had a flat tire or something. Their Cherokee was in reasonably good shape, but those things happened, and she knew that Steven’s cell phone had run out of minutes recently.

“I hope he didn’t break down,” Lynne said.

They decided to ask a co-worker for a ride home. In the teacher’s lounge they found the school principal, Irene Collins, who readily agreed to give them a lift. 

They climbed into Irene’s Dodge Durango and headed north on US 287. Nancy mentioned that she needed a loaf of bread and a few other things and asked if Irene would mind stopping at the Town Pump truck stop. “No problem at all,” said Irene, a large and jovial woman who was the antithesis of the stereotypical school principal.

Irene and Lynne sat in the truck discussing plans for the school’s Thanksgiving events that would be coming up in a few weeks while Nancy went in to the store.

The radio was playing softly and Lynne caught the words
major weather system
as the DJ announced the weather. “Would you mind turning that up?” Lynne said.

“…and so it looks like we’re in for kind of a one-two punch,” the announcer continued. “Some heavy rain followed by a wintry blast that’s pretty much gonna ice everything over. If you don’t have to go out, they’re saying don’t. If you gotta, well, then… you better bundle up. Now back to your favorite classic rock on KBZM, the Eagle…” 

The radio segued into the long instrumental that was the introduction to Carry On My Wayward Son, and Lynne turned the radio back down. “God, I hope Steve didn’t get caught in the storm. He had to go to Bozeman today for something,” she said.

“Can you call him?” Irene asked.

“No, he let his cell run out of minutes,” Lynne explained. She was reluctant to explain that the reason was because they were out of money until next week’s payday.

“I bet he’s all right,” Irene said. Lynne was still not very encouraged.

Presently Nancy came out of the store, and Irene pulled the SUV out of the parking space and headed for the road. 

Chapter 81

They ended up with a solution that wasn’t terribly elegant, but it was simple enough. Michael saw the advantage of Callie’s plan and called his supervisor, a British gent named Nigel, who came in to Michael’s office and looked over the records.

“Oh, Christ,” he sighed, “Oi am
so
sorry for all the problems that this ‘as spawned. Let’s go over to Staging Area C and see if we can’t get this all resolved for you.”

He led them to a large work area which contained a massive piece of equipment which, to Steven, resembled an electric company’s power plant.

“This is one of our Type 4 Gatekeepers. These can generate a Gate and maintain its integrity pretty much indefinitely. Older equipment, but I’d not trade it for some of the shite other companies are marketing these days. Excuse my language, ma’am.”