[NSW-Fic] Penelope's Tapestry

[machievelli]

A bit of history;

 

The lady is autobiographical. I wrote this for her back in 2003 for her.

 

PENELOPE’S TAPESTRY

Strong hands pulled the threads tight, the weave showing the pentconter against the sea. The servant bowed, ‘They want an answer, my lady.’

 

‘I don’t care what they want, Melanthe.’ She hissed, wanting to slap the girl. It wasn’t her fault, the war was at fault, and ten long years of waiting was at fault. She looked at the tapestry. ‘Tell them when this is done, I will give my answer.’

 

\ The servant was gone. The hands began pulling the threads free. Undoing in minutes what took weeks.

 

July 2002

 

I’d been with the department for ten years before they let me take my first stroll. That’s what we call it. A stroll. You step through a door, and the next second, your not now, you’re then. Next you stroll over to where you’re supposed to be.

 

Temporal mechanics is a bitch, worse is trying to explain it. All of the words that are distorted by time have to match what’s subjective, not objective. The only one’s that understand are you’re coworkers, not the public beyond the temporally shielded walls.

 

That’s right. We can sit through every change a person can make in the time stream. The whack jobs that went back to make sure the civil war ended with the south in charge, the guy that tried to corner the price of copper by introducing artificial copper from the 23rd century, the-

 

Never mind, you get the picture.

 

I joined in 1990. Another thing you notice about us, we tend to give the entire date when we write it down. If I wrote 90, would I mean 1890, or 2590? We have agents I have met from both times. Not to mention 90 AD, 90BC, and back to the dawn of man.

 

I had been working in Northern California, pretty much drifting. I had gotten out of a bad marriage, and after detoxing, I had started again, only to fall into one as bad in a different way. I had literally run away to the circus. When they came to talk to me, I was bored out of my skull. I wanted their peace, I wanted to be outside of society, but I wanted to do something.

 

That was what they offered. Join the Temporal Agency. See foreign places both in time and space. Stop the ones that want to change the world because they don’t like the way the movie turns out. They always recruit the dreamers, the ones that have no life outside.

 

I spent six years in training. Learning how the strands of time interweave. If you pull it at the right place, everything goes on, subtly changed. No major repercussions, just this one thread moved from here to there.

 

But there are places where pulling the thread causes the entire thing to fall apart like a house of cards.

 

As an example, like I mentioned above. A White Supremacist discovered time travel in 2071. He used it to go to the battle of Antietam Creek. He picked up the copy of the orders found by General McClellan’s scouts that allowed the North to block the advance. McClellan never found them, the Union army was out of position. The Confederates captured Washington, but Lincoln had already run to Philadelphia. The war ended in 1870, the North won, but the cost was an extra 300,000 lives.

 

The United States was bankrupt, and didn’t enter WW I, which raged on in futile trench warfare until 1924. The great depression hit on schedule, and lasted until 1939. President Hoover in his second term tried, as did Landon during his term. America was still trying to get out of the hole when World War II started. As much as President Roosevelt, who had finally taken office 8 years later than we know from history wanted to help, but the budget had just begun an upswing. The US couldn’t afford to help. The Germans defeated England, and finally wasted their energy trying to destroy Russia.

 

The first atomic bomb, built by Edward Teller in Munich, was set off in Kiev by Field Marshall Von Paulus. But that was the last gasp of the 3rd Reich. The Russians marched across until they reached the English Channel, and invaded England. In 1950 when the war ended, all of Europe was Communist.

 

See what I mean?

 

We aren’t supposed to pull the threads. We’re supposed to put them right back where they belong. As much as some people hate their past, we can’t change it.

 

I believed that creed with all my heart.

 

Until I met her.

 

II

 

The hands began pulling the threads free. Undoing in minutes what took weeks. A new pattern formed.

 

A man had come back through time to kill a drunken driver in 1989. The driver, an eighteen year old kid was scheduled to die that day. He was going to lose control of his car on slick streets, and smash into a storefront, killing six. Our stroller figured that since he would die on December 15 1989, it didn’t matter when. As long as the woman he loved lived past that date.

 

We caught him as he raised the rifle, and took him down. Then we strolled back to the office. While I watched him, O’Malley, my partner checked what had really happened.

 

You didn’t think we just stick a pin in a map did you? We have files forwarded from the future that give us everything there is to know about what has or is going to happen. We know where Judge Crater, Glen Miller, Amelia Earhart, and Flight 19 went. We know who fired the first shot at Lexington. We know who shot JFK. We laughed about it. What good did it do for one guy to stroll back and Kill Oswald that morning on November 22 1963? What about the other three guys that did it, and let Oswald take the rap?

 

We took care of him the way we always do. We locked him in the one cell that is not temporally anchored. We sent a message up stream to 2020, where this guy had found the secret. They changed the schematics of the device he had created, and when he built it, it didn’t work. He went on to create several new electronics devices, and while not happy, did get married again.

 

I watched through the bull’s-eye window. O’Malley was feeding the fax into the time-fax. One minute, the man was there. The next he was gone. Since he had never gone back, we had never noticed the change, so we never went back to catch him, and hadn’t had to clean it up. That is what had really happened, not what we saw and corrected.

 

As I said, I hate Temporal Mechanics.

 

I left to go out, and decided to celebrate my first jump. Some guys like the idea of strolling back to see the sights. I have pictures given to me by other agents. The Temple of Diana before it became the Parthenon. The Tower of Babel. Babylon when it was really a fun place. Pompeii the day before. One guy had even stood on the Sinai Peninsula, and videotaped the crossing of the Red Sea. While I put the pictures in my office, I liked the normal time outside better. Something made me enjoy Washington D.C. more than watching Shakespeare perform Hamlet.

 

I walked down, and got in my car. It’s one of the ubiquitous little government cars that flood the streets of the capital. I was driving down Michigan, when some jackass swerved, and I plowed into a parked Corolla. I groaned, stepping out, and met her for the first time. She was staring at her car in shock. My car has a lot of extra features, including armor just in case. Ever since the attack on Temporal Headquarters (Located in 2010) by a radical group from 2160, we’ve been ready for anything.

 

What that means is the quarter panel of my car was dented, hers was ready for the scrap heap.

 

Numbly I took down her insurance information, and gave her mine. I was still captivated by the brown hair with auburn streaks, the brown eyes.

 

The hidden pain.

 

I bought her dinner, then drinks. She was newly down from Canada, but born in Texas. As I sat there, I was observing everything. She had the look of a kicked puppy sometimes, but she hid it well. Scars on her wrists, more scars on her soul.

 

I spent the next several months getting to know her better. She wasn’t easy to get to know. She held me at arms length for almost three months, even though we went out at least once a week. I had told her I worked for the State department. I knew her almost a year before we made love for the first time. That was traumatic. She enjoyed it, but deep inside, she cried. I don’t know how she was able to even let me this close. I was shocked by the depth of feeling I had for her. I’d never felt for a woman like this before. As I held her one night, a rogue thought entered my head.

 

What would she have been like if all of the pain had never happened?

 

III

 

The hands began pulling the threads free. Undoing in minutes what took weeks. A new pattern formed.

 

We have files on everyone that ever lived. It may be a mystery what happened to them, or when they were born, or how they died, but it isn’t a mystery to the future. We get updated files from 2790, when the first office was started. They started it backwards, finding qualified agents in the past, and starting a discreet office that doesn’t belong to any government. If it had started in 2240 instead, we would have had Vlad Knovoski in charge and-

 

Never mind, he hasn’t been born yet.

 

I signaled upstream, then checked our files. This is trick, check it out. I send a request for a file here in 2002. It gets processed in 2790, and is sent to 2001, when we upgraded the system. Then it sits there waiting for me to ask for it.

 

Slick.

 

Born 1950, systematic child abuse, culminating in a serious incident in 1958. I made a note. I would have to get a couple more files to check. Married 1968, husband went off to Vietnam. Died this date. Again I make a note. Really this looked easy. One guy in 1954 would save me a lot of problems.

 

I walked over to props and suited up. We call it that. How do you make sure that even if an agent is killed, there’s no proof of time travel? Simple. You dress him in period clothes. Not costumes made in 1999, not knock offs made in the 1970s. Real clothes from the time. We have purchasing agents that pick up everything we need.

 

I told O’Malley I was going to stroll, told him when, and stepped through. It was a quiet middle class neighborhood. I had stolen the Ford, and waited, watching the house. A little girl about four was playing outside. As I watched, the target walked out, and got into a pick-up truck. As he pulled away, I followed.

 

It took five hours of following before I found the perfect place. A stretch of winding road, no other traffic. I pushed down the gas, and the V8 roared. I wish they’d give us the cheap clean burning fuel technology developed in 2042. I’d love to drive these hogs all the time.

 

He had one startled instant before I was beside him, edging over to force him off the road. He lost control, and hit a tree. I leaped out, and ran over. He was groggy, and before he could ask what I was doing, I caught his chin and head, and snapped his neck. If this had been 1990, forensics would have shown the injury for what it was. But in 1954, hell, he hit a tree, and snapped his neck.

 

I dropped the car off where I had picked it up. The owner probably didn’t even know it was gone. I stepped back through.

 

I waited, in case someone had noticed the change upstream. Two hours after I got back, I called up her file from our outside line.

 

You see, while everything inside the shields is protected, the ripples of changes run through the outside all the time. The way to check to see if you did damage was to compare the temporally locked file with what was outside.

 

Um, uneventful child hood, wait. 1958? I checked the locked file. Yeah, even though the father was gone, the group that did this was still connected to the family. I called down for other files.

 

Everything was clear in 1958. But there was a problem. None of them did much of interest through the rest of their lives, but they had children, including one that later became a State Senator. I couldn’t follow my first instinct, which was to just check out a shotgun and blow the bastards away.

 

IV

 

The hands began pulling the threads free. Undoing in minutes what took weeks. A new pattern formed.

 

I waited until the next evening. This time, I went dressed in black clothes. While they weren’t fashionable yet, Levis was making black jeans with shirts.

 

I reported where and when, and strolled. I rented a car, and drove toward the house. It had gotten a bit run down in the last few years, the breadwinner was dead, and it hadn’t been as well taken care of. The same girl, just a few years older, was riding her bike. I drove up, and rolled down the window. “Can you help me?”

 

She looked at me, put down the kickstand, and walked over. This was 1958 after all. Even if there were child abductions, no one had really started cataloging them yet. When she reached the door, I gassed her. Tarin SB. A fast acting nerve agent that knocks the body out for about eight hours with no harm, and leaves them with no immediate short term memory. She went down like a puppet with cut strings, and I picked her up, and laid her on the back seat. She looked so beautiful then. Still a trusting girl that dreamed of the future, and looked at the world in wonder.

 

I drove around for about seven hours, long enough that the attackers had come and gone, then returned her home. I told her mother that I had found her crumpled on the street, and she had told me where she lived. I left before she could thank me. I stepped back.

 

Again I waited. I was feeling the strain. They tell you not to jump in your own personal time space too often. The changes don’t fade away as easily as say jumping to 1700. I wasn’t alive in 1700. But I was one in 1953, and five in 1958.

 

When they didn’t come in to arrest me, I again checked the unlocked files.

 

Uneventful childhood, went to school, met her first husband. He dies on schedule. She dies-

 

Dies? I looked again. Distraught after the report of his death, she walked in front of a bus. Labeled as accidental though the police report it as a possible suicide.

 

Again I pull up the files. This time, I have no intention to hurt anyone. Or let a crime go unpunished.

 

These are the hard ones. When someone goes on instead of dying. Whatever I have been able to get away with up to now, this is going to ring bells. I made preparations.

 

V

 

The hands began pulling the threads free. Undoing in minutes what took weeks. A new pattern formed.

 

The next morning I stopped by props. US Army uniform, 1969. I have the rank tabs of a Sergeant. Fits my age. I pick up an asp, sliding it into my sleeve. I also palmed a stunner. Nice things. Pity they wouldn’t be issued to the police before the riots of 2025.

 

Forget I mentioned that.

 

I reported that I was going to MACV, Southeast Asia. When I stepped through, I was at Fort Hood, Texas. A woman was hugging a man desperately. He was going to Vietnam in a couple of hours. She waved to him then turned, walking away. I could see her hair, visualize her face now, at 19. I looked around, but didn’t see anyone yet. The young man in a private’s uniform walked toward me, I nodded to him, then did a repeat of Nancy Kerrigan. The asp snapped out, and I shattered his kneecap.

 

As he fell screaming, I turn, and my first stroke took O’Malley across the neck. He went down, gasping, as I slapped the stunner on Roderiguez. He went down, and I left it attached. O’Malley would be on his feet in a minute, and he’d get the tough little guy back.

 

I stepped through, and stripped, throwing the clothes on the floor. Everything. Watch, rings, everything but the fillings in my teeth. I punched in a new destination, and strolled for the last time.

 

The wind was biting. To the north across the river I could see what would some day be Manhattan. The trees were thick, as if Central Park had captured the entire place.

 

I looked at the sun, then started walking west. The only way to keep from getting caught, was to fall into the mass of Humanity and never be seen again. If I’d strolled in Europe, I would have made some impact that might be noticed. But here? Lief Erricson won’t be born for fifty years. I would be just an odd man to the Native Indians.

 

I thought of her, now several generations away. Are the scars gone? Are you looking at the love of your life as he limps around because some crazy son of a bitch crippled him?

 

Somebody once sang a song about what you’re willing to give up for love. I’m living proof, in about 800 AD.

 

Farewell, my love.

 

The hands began pulling the final threads into place. Melpomene looked at the sad image, a figure on a bluff, looking at the distant shore in longing. She handed it to her father, Zeus.

 

“A pity.” The god said, handing it back.

 

“It is never a pity when a human does what he wishes to do, father.”

[JediMaster12]

I like this piece mach. One of your more better ones. I especially like the part where you have the main character go through time to "fix" the woman he met by changing the past. The only thing that really got me slightly out of phase was the time jumping. One minute he's in his own time and the next minute he is in something else. There never seems to be a respite in between jumps as he's making them. Still it does give some realism to the fact that too much of the time jumping really warps your own memories and can cause a mental breakdown. I would have slowed it down to include some pauses like O'Malley having a chat with him.

A bit of clarity as to who is who might help. For instance the name of the protagonist. Though I am sure that this is intentional, I have never heard of a nameless hero in stories though there have been allusions to unsung heroes and such. Overall I liked the idea and gives an interesting change in the idea of time travel, etc.

[Bee Hoon]

Ooh, nice! It does get quite confusing when he jumps so much, especially with the incident in 1958, but I love the premise of the story. The thing we do for love, indeed. Well done!

[Darth_Yuthura]

Very nice, but confusing to keep it in order. I'd prefer a game of galactic economics. Anyway, I agree with how you put a spin on time travel by making the psychology of an individual more important than the technical details. I, however, like being able to combine details of a story to why one thinks and acts. I'm not sure if it matters, but that's my two cents.