Time Agency (14 page)

Jerry dragged the drugged 07760 through a maze of hallways. He passed some other agents and a nurse or two. Luckily, no one knew quite what was happening. They didn’t discover the incapacitated nurse yet. He constructed a dummy program for those that would notice his bio-readings. It wouldn’t fool Nanette, but it would give him time. His recent adrenaline surge was enough to arouse suspicion. Pushing a barely conscience man through the front door in addition to off bio-readings would surely cause a stir. He made it to a set of lockers in the front. No personal belongings were allowed in the building.

He pulled the briefcase from the locker. Inside were all of 07760’s memories. He scooped 07760 from the stretcher and dragged him out the front door. Jerry planned to get 07760 to a safe location and restore the memory when he saw Nanette followed by a group of agents climbing the steps to the chamber building. She was quicker than he expected at disabling his bio-reading mask. She disabled the program in seconds, and he thought he’d at least have a minute or two.

The agents began to appear on the steps. First, it was one or two, and then groups. Finally, hundreds began to appear. They swarmed the steps. There was nowhere to run. He felt their nanomachines attempting to lock down his body. He had built a security network preventing anyone from accessing the functioning of his bots. However, his mentor was resourceful, and there were so many against one. It was only a matter of time before they would lock him out of his own machines. Even if they didn’t breach his security, the mob was almost on top of him.

“Stand down,” Nanette yelled out.

Jerry held the briefcase and 07760 tight. He visualized the “ancient bookseller” time coordinates etched into the body. He programmed the nanomachines and lifted 07760 to his feet. He could tell that his charge was regaining awareness. 07760 would regain motor control any moment now. Nanette charged with the swarm of agents that almost engulfed them. Jerry punched up the time travel protocols and blinked out of the future.

He had seen her eyes before he bounced to the past. There was emotion in her eyes. He couldn’t decide if it was love or betrayal. But it struck him to the core. He hesitated for a second and 07760 wobbled. He steadied 07760.

“Is everything all right?” Jerry inquired.

“Fine, I just changed medication. A little disorientation, that’s all,” 07760 smiled weakly. Jerry smiled at the comment. 07760 was a natural and would be able to blend in perfectly. Nanette would locate him fairly quickly. Jerry needed to create a diversion, so the time agents would focus on him while 07760 collected his wits. Whatever 07760 had planned better be worth it.

“You should sit down for a while and take care of yourself.” Jerry patted him on the back. Jerry saw Nanette across the street. She had tracked him down. It was time to go. He left the briefcase next to 07760 and took off running.

After hours of walking, we emerged into an underground city if one could call it that. There were dwellings made of plywood and spare parts. Filth cluttered the streets. People crowded in what looked to be a market. There were goods for sale: fruits, vegetables, meat, bread, games, purses, DVDs, trading cards, and even art. Most items looked like thrift store variety trash. The people browsing the market ranged from city dwellers like the two people we captured to homeless people. They all seemed to be well armed, but they made no move against us. We passed a row of portable toilets. The stink invaded our senses. It was like the filth from the city above cumulated in this one spot underground.

Our hostages led us through the crowd, and the people did nothing to hinder our movement. They simply stared at us with disbelief hanging from their faces. I realized after a short way that it wasn’t the gun they were looking at; everyone had a gun. It was me. They looked spooked like they had seen the undead. I didn’t quite understand the significance until we came to a trashcan fire surrounded by a group of people who looked like they were in the thick of an important discussion.

“Our leader is with those men and women,” the male hostage said. I squinted to see the group. We walked closer, and they began to take a more solid form as we stepped forward. I wished I had been watching the time agent. For all her emotional control, I bet she would have been just as surprised as me. Because their leader wasn’t my brother. It was me.

“Welcome, welcome!” he said. “I very rarely get to see my twin brother. You can put that away dear. I’m your friend. I was the one who sent you the message with the directions to find me, my brother.”

The time agent wanted to seize control of the situation, so she wasn’t taken in by his facade of friendliness. I could see her concentrating. My guess was that she would paralyze him and hold their leader hostage. But there was a problem. She looked like she reached out to a void. There must have been trouble establishing a link. I could see it on her face. Then she began acting strangely. She turned over the gun and handed it to one of the goons standing near the fire. I began to do the same thing, and I was powerless to resist. It was like somebody had control of my body. I moved like a puppet. I mentally screamed out at my body, but it was on autopilot.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Now that we are on more pleasant terms,” my future bearded self said and gave us a wink, “we must have a conversation, but not here. If you'll follow me.”

My legs thrust forward. I could not control my walk. I looked back to the time agent. She looked like a marionette on strings. The first step was awkward as we were forced to go forward, but the muscles learned to move more fluidly as we took more steps. It was like the force controlling us had to learn the nuances of our bodies.

We left the people at the trashcan fire behind. The minions didn't question their boss, and the three of us walked away together. We eventually wandered through the shantytown to a hut with sand bricks. It was round with a tin roof. Graffiti cluttered the walls and from the looks of the graffiti, the hut had been there a while. The bricks were out of place because they looked as if they should have been made for an ancient temple built by pre-modern humans, and the spray painted tin roof looked as if it was reclaimed from a warehouse.

“The brickwork is Adobe. It's a combination of straw and clay. It's much stronger than it looks. I had the bricks made for a very specific purpose,” the other me said.

I couldn't respond.

“I'm sorry. You'll have to wait. Your vocal chords have been disabled. Don’t want you to arouse suspicion among my friends.”

He opened a wooden door on hinges and shuffled us into the room. There was a large beehive-looking black chamber in the center of the room. It had a door with no clear way to open it. The black metal looked like many tiny cylinder circles stacked up to make the dome. There was a glass hole in the front. It was only big enough for one person sitting down. The inside was white and bright. The doors of the future pretty much had no handles because the machines controlled everything. Most of humanity would die trapped in tiny gray boxes if the nanomachines ever collectively failed.

“This technology is forbidden outside the reprogramming center. Only agents are authorized to use them and only at the proper locations. You have surprised me.” The time agent said in a dry tone.

“I like seeing agents show emotion,” the bearded me said. “A dilation of pupil shows so much. That's very unprofessional by the way. Maybe you need a reprogramming yourself.”

“What is it?” I said.

“It's a reprogramming chamber. We use them to rehabilitate criminals. It’s what wiped your memory to begin with. You wouldn’t remember because people need recovery time after a memory wipe,” she explained. “How did you get one of these?”

“I opened a credit line at Reprogramming Hut.”

It’s good that I didn’t lose my sense of sarcasm in the future because meeting myself was strange. Any detail we had in common was comforting. Seeing myself as the leader of some weird militarized underground was the discomforting part. In what version of reality did I raise an army? The chamber in front also seemed ominous. I wondered if there was part of my subconscious that remembered it. My future self shoved the briefcase into my hands.

“The briefcase you have in your possession has all the answers,” my doppelganger said bluntly.

I mulled over what he told me. My memories seemed to be naturally coming back. I remembered more of my past without the briefcase. Here was yet another person trying to force the memories on me. My intuition told me not to trust my doppelganger. It was the way he casually invaded my body with his machines and forced me to walk. The time agent at least only seemed to use my machines when necessary. There was something uncaring and almost sinister about my doppelganger. He seemed reckless. I was hesitant more so than ever now to open the briefcase, so I did what I did best—stalled for time.

“Why Adobe?” I asked. My history knowledge seemed to be an innate skill. It seemed I could bullshit about anything when I needed time to think. I should have been a politician.

“To prevent scans,” my doppelganger smiled. I don’t think that I smiled that much. It was like future me was trying to reassure myself. But conversely, maybe my future self was trying too hard because he knew what my past self was thinking. Didn’t I owe my other self the benefit of the doubt? The doppelganger continued. “The hut is made from a thick clay and straw turned into a brick. This chamber has an energy signature. Your nanomachines would pick up on it the instant you entered the camp, but the bricks block the scans. I find it amusing that ancient technology still has its uses.”

“But the chambers are tightly regulated!” the time agent exclaimed.

“Regulations can bend and break,” my doppelganger said. I saw her muscles tense up. It looked as if he might be controlling her again. There was something not quite right about my future self. He seemed like an asshole.

“She’s not harming you. Or me. So let her go,” I said.

“I can’t. How else would I force her into the chamber? She’s a liability.”

I appreciated a good sense of sarcasm, but he was a little too cold for me. I didn’t like what I had become. I couldn’t live as if everyone was untrustworthy and would screw me at any opportunity. She did risk a lot for me. What dark experiences were lurking in my memories that would make my future self lose trust in everyone? My future self seemed lonely, and I didn’t want to become that person. “If you don’t let her go, I won’t open the briefcase.”

“I could force you.”

“But you don’t want to because you would have done it,” I said.

“Forcing memory into an unwilling participant is very dangerous. It creates patches of memory that seem more like a dream than memory. It has a tendency to make people insane. So yes, I’d rather keep my sanity.”

“That part’s debatable,” I said.

I realized that sarcasm was not the best reaction to the situation. My future self’s brow furrowed while he considered.

“I’m not going to force your decision. But let me tell you this. Once you have your memory back, you’ll put her into the chamber yourself,” he said and as if on cue, the briefcase lock clicked open.

“What did she do?”

“It’s in the memory, and I will tell you what. Once you get your memories back, you can decide what to do with her. As a sign of trust, I will give you control of her.”

I felt her presence. It was like every part of her being was under my control. I could move her limbs, make her talk, and even stop her heart. I let her go, and she gasped.

“Don’t trust him,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because the brain scan before your wipe was disturbing. That’s why we wiped you. We found a bookshelf full of physics books. They were blank, so I had to ask what was a historian doing with physics books? So I had the brain scan focus on when you created the books. You encoded hidden messages into the books activated with nanomachines. That’s when we found plans.”

“Plans for what?”

“A terrorist act,” my doppelganger answered for her. “I wanted to create a nanomachine plague that would cause people to destabilize at the atomic level, and turn this whole city into a pile of gray goo.”

“But why here?”

“The man who invents nanomachines grew up here. You studied him in your youth,” the time agent said.

My doppelganger added, “And normally, killing the person who discovers a scientific discovery, would just mean another person would discover it. But what if I killed a city full of people?”

“You’re not making a good case for why I should get my memories back.”

“People learn from their mistakes,” my doppelganger said. “I’m not proud of my past. I’m now protecting this city. That’s why I’ve built this. That’s why we have to wipe her memory of this place. There are people in the time agency seeking to undo our society. I’m doing my job to protect it.”

I considered what he said. All I needed to do was lift the lid and touch the papers inside. I was curious, but something wasn't right. My alternate self seemed to have a flair for the dramatic. He enjoyed being in control. There was something wrong with the person. He didn't seem like me. I couldn’t deny that I also had a flair for the dramatic. Back at the clothing store, I slipped into an alternate identity. I talked my way out of more than one situation. But now that I was confronted with myself, I didn’t like it. Projecting a potential false image wasn’t fun when someone did it to me.

The curse of time travel is that I could be confronted with aspects of my personality I never wanted to deal with. Perhaps I did enjoy manipulating others for my own benefit. It seemed crafty when I was doing it and sadistic when I watched my future self do it. Maybe losing my memory was good for me.

“Everything you need to know is in the case,” he said reassuringly and smiled.

My future self was attempting to manipulate me. He presented the same false smile that I produced every time I talked myself out of a situation. The people at the clothing store, the cooks at the restaurant, and every person I attempted to bullshit. I gave them that smile. It was my trademark false sense of authenticity. I needed to test my future self. If my doppelganger lied to me, then he didn’t care at all about my free will, and if he was truthful, I should consider his words more carefully before dismissing them based on my trademark bullshit smile.  I said, “Before I do it, I have to verify a few things.”

“Don’t trust yourself?” My doppelganger eyed me. “My life is your life.”

“In college, I went to a party…”

“In the ’70s.”

“There was this girl.”

“Farrah Fawcett and she ended up with that Chisel-Jaw. Trust me. I wanted her too. I am you.”

He seemed to be me, but someone could have researched the incident and inferred the romantic longing. I didn’t have much else. He was offering me a chance to get it all back. And even if there were some implanted memories, it would still be memories. Every day since my awakening on the street corner, I’ve had to rediscover everything. If I encountered a book that I’ve read and even if it was my favorite book, I would have to read it again to see if I liked it. I didn’t want to discover myself. I wanted to know myself, and he was offering that. His offer was tempting. But something told me to ask one more question. “What was the message I left for myself?”

“The what?” my future self asked.

“In the book titles. What message did I leave for myself?” He was confused. He didn’t remember the book titles. It would be hard to forget a project like that. It must have taken me months to collect all the books and a lot of time to design the books for the message. It wasn’t a simple way of transferring information through memory wipes, so it must have been important. My future self must have remembered it. But he didn’t. He was confused.

I realized just how important the books were. The book titles were a very clever design. They were all physics. But I was a historian. And on my initial view of the books, I didn’t notice the detail, but thinking about it now, there were some non-physics related titles in the mix. In fact, several were coded with the familiar history tag. However, there was something about the titles. I racked my brain to remember the titles.