The Chronotope and Other Speculative Fictions Read online

  “Daddy, do you know what this means?” one of the girls said. “We’re going to be famous! We bagged us a time traveler.”

  “And rich,” the other girl said.

  “Thank you for the clothes,” Gabriel said again.

  “You need to meet my brother,” the man said, thinking and nodding his head. “Yes, my brother Harold—he’ll know what to do with you. He deals with these sorts of situations.”

  IV.

  Gabriel had appeared first; he didn’t know that his wife, Bethany, was six days behind him. When Bethany did show up in the middle of a street, she was taken to a police substation and her custody quickly switched over to government agent types in dark suits, who whisked her off to a Federal building downtown San Diego.

  She was placed in a cold, bare room with silver walls and monitor cameras in all four corners. She had been given blue jeans and a green t-shirt to wear. No one said anything to her. They provided her food and water (or milk/soda, if she liked). They told her to wait.

  Within an hour, a smartly dressed woman who was perhaps fifty years old walked in, holding a notepad and a file folder. She was shorter than Bethany.

  Bethany had been pacing back and forth in the room; she was not concerned with her situation, she was worried about her husband and where he was.

  “Please, sit down,” the woman said.

  The two sat at the metal table in the room.

  The woman looked at the uneaten food. “Not hungry?”

  “No.”

  “Have you been treated well?”

  “Yes.”

  “No abuse?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sometimes when female transmigrations appear naked in public, especially one as attractive and young as yourself…they are taken advantage of.”

  “No. That did not happen. I have not been molested.”

  The woman opened the file folder. “All right then. Almost got run over there, eh? Some travelers have appeared in the middle of the ocean or in the air, so yours is no great horror story. Can I have your name?”

  “Bethany Morton.”

  “What year are you from?”

  “You call it 2533.”

  “Your age?”

  “Twenty-eight cycles.”

  “Married?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you travel with your husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I do not know.”

  “His name?”

  “Gabriel Morton.”

  “I’ll check the database and see if we have him yet…or not.”

  “That is kind of you.”

  “No kindness involved. Do you think we like having people from the future pop up out of nowhere? The world is crowded enough.”

  “Not like mine.”

  “How many people are there in 2533?”

  “Thirty billion.”

  The woman shook her head. “That’s incredible.”

  “You have spoken to other transmigrators?” Bethany asked.

  “A few.”

  “Then you know why.”

  “The chance to get away from an overpopulated world, I know, I’ve heard it all, I know the sales talk you folks were given by the people who run the time machines.”

  “Not machine,” Bethany said. “Organics, metaphysics; desire is how.…”

  The woman held up her hand. “Spare me the quantum pataphysics. I’ve never understood future technology. But there are colleagues of mine who want to know all about it and they will ask you a million questions.”

  “I was told the authorities might detain me.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Am I a prisoner?”

  “Not at all.”

  “But I’m not free to go?”

  “Not right now.”

  V.

  Harold Morris was a Hollywood agent, a big Hollywood agent, and he thought his brother, Dan, was bullshitting him when he said a time traveler showed up in his living room.

  “Bullshit,” Harold said.

  “I have him here, come over and see,” his brother said on the phone.

  “If this is true.…”

  “I figured you’d know what to do.”

  “Oh,” Harold said, smiling, “I know exactly what to do.”

  He left his office on Wiltshire and Santa Monica Boulevards and drove to his brother’s house, fifteen minutes away. The man who called himself Gabriel sat on the couch, a cup of coffee in his hand.

  “This is amazing,” Gabriel said, drinking. “Wonderful.”

  “You don’t have coffee in the future?” Harold asked.

  “No.”

  He introduced himself to Gabriel, sitting across from him. His brother’s wife and kids stood nearby, watching and listening. His brother sat next to him, shotgun in hand.

  “You don’t need the weapon, Dan,” he said.

  “I feel better with it near, right now.”

  “You afraid he’ll run, along with your chance to cash in?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Mr. Morton,” Harold Morris said, “you’re about to have your fifteen minutes.”

  “I am?” said Gabriel.

  “I’m going to make you famous, my brother rich, and I’ll take 15% of everything—all merchandizing, any technological wonders you know about that could become of use, and your life story for a movie of the week. You will have status, wealth, and half the women in the world will want to take you to bed.”

  The teenage girls giggled.

  “Including my jailbait nieces,” Harold added.

  “Then I will shoot him,” Dan said.

  “I am married,” Gabriel said.

  “Don’t listen to my brother,” Harold said. “He won’t kill his lottery ticket. Now, the government offers one million dollars for turning in a traveler who has not appeared in public. There’s that route. A better route is to exploit all possible revenue outlets—TV, print, radio, Internet. Exclusives, one-on-one interviews; an intimate look at the future. How does this sound so far?”

  Gabriel sipped the coffee. “I don’t understand.”

  “No worries. You will.”

  VI.

  The woman’s name was Grace, “Agent Beryl Grace,” she said. Bethany started to feel comfortable in her presence when she realized that the woman was here to help her, not threaten. She had been told the authorities of this era were suspicious and paranoid, and were not exactly hospitable to travelers from the future.

  Agent Grace had a flat screen television monitor brought in.

  “This was on a talk show last night,” Agent Grace said. She turned on the TV with a remote device in her hand.

  On the screen: Gabriel. Her Gabriel.

  Bethany’s heart raced. She tried not to show a reaction.

  Gabriel was wearing a light gray suit with a white tie and white shoes. He was talking to a man behind an oak wood desk; this man had a deep tan and silver hair.

  “I love having peeps from the future come on,” the man said.

  “Thank you for having me.”

  “So how long have you been in the twenty-first century now?”

  “Six days,” said Gabriel.

  Audience applause.

  “Six days,” said the man, “same amount of time that it took God to make the world.”

  “So they say.”

  More applause.

  Agent Grace paused the image with the remote device: Gabriel smiling at the camera.

  “Is this your husband?” the agent asked.

  Bethany was quiet.

  “We need to know the truth.”

  “Yes,” Bethany said, “that is my husband.”

  “Gabriel.”

  “That’s him.”

  “He arrived six days before you.”

  “That seems to be the case.”

  “We didn’t get to him first,” Agent Grace said with some dismay in her voice. “He’s out there in publ
ic. He’s making trouble.”

  “Trouble?” Bethany said.

  “It’s—not good,” and Agent Grace pressed the remote and Gabriel’s interview continued. Gabriel talked about an over-crowded future, war, famine, disease, despair, and how much he loved his wife, Bethany, and how they dreamed of a better life in the past where they could be happy and free of stress.

  “Touching, touching,” said the interviewer. “So where is your wife?”

  “I’m not sure if she has arrived yet or not. If she has, I do not know where she is.”

  “The government could have her tucked away somewhere. They do that with you peeps. They like to keep a leash on you, all hushy-hush and on the Q.T.”

  “That is what I am afraid of,” Gabriel said.

  “Is that freedom?” To the audience: “I ask, is it freedom to travel back in time only to be a prisoner of the government?”

  From the audience: “NO!”

  Boos.

  “If your wife is being held,” the man said, “what would you like to say to her, Gabriel?”

  Gabriel looked at the camera. The camera closed in on him. Gabriel never sounded more sincere: “Bethany, I love you, and we will be together again, I promise, I will wait for you and never stop looking for you.”

  Applause.

  The TV went black.

  “Am I a prisoner?” Bethany asked.

  “Of course not,” Agent Grace said.

  “Can I walk out of here and leave?”

  Agent Grace did not respond.

  Bethany stood. She walked to the gray metal door. She placed her hand on the handle. “It’s locked.”

  “For your protection.”

  “I’d like to leave this place.”

  “I’m afraid you cannot right now.”

  “Why?”

  “For your protection.”

  “From who?”

  “There are people out there…who would like to use you, to get information. People like the ones using your husband for propaganda, smearing the government’s name and intentions.”

  “So I am a prisoner.”

  “You are a guest.”

  “I want to speak to my husband. I want to contact him. I want him to know that I am here and I am all right and safe. Can I do this?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Why?”

  “It is not feasible.”

  “He doesn’t know.…”

  “We have treated you kindly, fairly.”

  “You have no right.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “How do you justify holding me here against my will?”

  “You were naked in public—that’s an offense. Public indecency. You can be charged for that.”

  “Then ‘charge’ me, and let me go.”

  “That…is not feasible.”

  “You have no right!” Bethany slammed her palms on the door.

  Agent Grace said, “You are detained as an ‘enemy combatant.’”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “You present a threat.”

  “How can I threaten? How am I an ‘enemy’?”

  Agent Grace cleared her throat. “You represent the future.”

  “The future is an enemy?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “The future is a threat?”

  “Very much so.”

  VII.

  Harold Morris said, “According to my sources, which cost a pretty penny, the feds have her.”

  “Is this certain?” Gabriel asked.

  “Nothing in this world is certain except time travelers and taxes.” Morris laughed. The two were sitting on the deck of a Malibu house. The house belonged to an actor Morris represented, presently on location in Africa for a film, glad to let the new time traveler stay as a guest.

  Below, on the Malibu beach, a dozen paparazzi with cameras were taking photos of Gabriel and his agent lounging on the deck and drinking sodas from the can.

  Morris said, “A naked woman was reported to have appeared in San Diego a week and a half ago. The cops nabbed her. She has long blonde hair.”

  “Bethany.”

  “Most likely.”

  “How can they do this?”

  “Because they have guns and power. That doesn’t mean we have to sit back and take it quietly. We will work up a campaign for her release. We will get the country—the world—on your side. There will be protests, emails glutting the White House servers. Free commercials. Bumper stickers: ‘Free Bethany Now.’ There will be a documentary, a book deal, and who knows, the guy who owns this place will play you in the film.”

  “This will work?” Gabriel asked.

  “Kid,” Morris said with a smile, “that kind of media always works.”

  VIII.

  Agent Grace no longer visited her. Now it was a man, “you may call me Carl,” who wore soft color suits and always had a pleasant, but suspicious, smile. He told her they needed to know information; if she gave them information, she would be transferred to the Traveler Reorientation Center in Prescott, Arizona.

  “What is that?” Bethany asked.

  “It’s where many transmigrators go,” he said. “They adjust to the twenty-first century; we determine aptitude and skills, we find you jobs and relocate you, and you become contributing members of society.”

  She nodded; she’d been told to expect this. “What do you want to know?”

  “The biggest item on the list is transmigration technology.”

  “There is no technology; there is only the desire and the need.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If you want me to tell you how to make a time machine, I have no knowledge. If you want me to tell you how the physics work, I have no knowledge. I had a need, and I had a desire, to take the backwards step with my husband, and we did.”

  “How long did the people of your time have this—ability?”

  “As long as I remember.”

  “Since you were a child?”

  “I first heard of transmigrating when I had…nine or ten years.”

  “Do you know how many people have been sent back so far?”

  “How would I? Don’t you know?”

  “We assume many have gotten past us.”

  “The ones you ‘catch,’ if that’s the word.…”

  “Detain.”

  “Have any—died in custody?”

  “Have you been treated cruelly?” Carl asked.

  “Not physically.”

  “Please elaborate.”

  “You’re keeping me from my husband, the man I need and love,” she said. “That’s a form of mental torture and duress. You dangle freedom in front of me if I tell you information that I do not have or know. If I knew how transmigration worked, I would tell you; if I knew how the machines were put together, I would draw a diagram for you. I can tell you how many people died of disease and starvation before I left,” she said softly; “I can tell you how many committed suicide in my home city alone.”

  “That’s not very comforting.”

  “Maybe you can change the future.”

  “Can one?” Carl said. “Change the past, change the future—aren’t there laws?”

  “What laws?”

  “God’s laws.”

  “I have no idea. All I want is to see my husband.”

  “That will occur soon.”

  “Are you just saying that?”

  “Your husband,” Carl said, “and the people behind him are responsible for a lot of attention on your behalf. I expect the order for your release to come in the next forty-eight hours.”

  “You’re lying,” she said.

  “Or my superiors are lying to me. We live in a world of lies. You could be lying, about everything: the future, time travel, your true motives.”

  “So we don’t trust each other,” Bethany said.

  Carl smiled. “Who does?”

  IX.

  Gabriel was amazed how the entire
world sympathized with his cause and the plight of Bethany. The White House was bombarded with emails, faxes, and old-fashioned carrier letters demanding that Bethany Morton be released. The White House denied any knowledge of such a woman, who did not exist in any database. There were protests in front of the Federal Building in San Diego, where it was believed she was held, and other Federal structures across the country, demanding the release of not only Bethany but any other time traveler. The topic was the main focus on numerous radio, TV, and internet talk shows. Op-Ed pieces were published, letters to the editor; one young woman in Seattle poured gasoline on her body and set herself on fire “in solidarity with Bethany.” So many loved her, Gabriel mused, and no one knew what she looked like.

  Then the phone call came.

  It was Harold Morris: “We have her.”

  “Have…?”

  “They let your wife go.”

  X.

  It happened so fast. They came for her—men in green uniforms, one in a suit. “Time to go.” They placed a blindfold on her. She was escorted to a vehicle. She was told to get in. She sat and waited for anything. The vehicle drove for half an hour and stopped. She was told to get out. One of them placed something in her hand.

  The vehicle drove away. Bethany pulled off the blindfold. The light hurt her eyes—the sun was coming up, it was morning. She’d been left next to a telephone booth on a long, empty stretch of road. Mountains in the background.

  In her hand was currency: four five-dollar bills.

  She looked at the phone. She knew it was a communication device but she didn’t know how to use it.

  She was wearing what she wore in the government holding facility: jeans and t-shirt.

  She walked down the road.

  She was thirsty.

  A small yellow car approached her, like a bee. She waved at it.

  The car pulled over. Two young women in halter tops were inside.

  “You need help?” one of them asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why you out here in the middle of nothing, honey?” said the second one.

  “My name is Bethany Morton,” Bethany said.

  The two girls looked at each other and squealed and giggled. Their bodies jumped up and down in the car seats.

  “Are you kidding?!”

  “No way!”

  “You shittin’ us?”

  “Omigawd!”