Allen Steele: ...Where Angels Fear to Tread

Illustration by Darryl Elliott

Thursday, January 15, 1998:11:12 P.M.

When the Center Hill Lake affair was over, after reports were filed with the appropriate agencies and various subcommittees had held closed-door hearings, when everyone with proper clearance had been reassured that the situation, although not completely resolved, at least was no longer critical… only then, looking back on the course of events, did Murphy come to realize that it really started the night before, in the Bullfinch on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Bullfinch was a venerable Capitol Hill watering hole, located about three blocks from the Rayburn Building in one direction and within walking distance of one of Washington’s more crime-ridden neighborhoods in the other. It was a favorite lunch spot for Congressional aides and journalists invaded it during happy hour, but by evening it became the after-hours hangout of federal employees from a dozen different departments and agencies. Coming off twelve-hour workdays, their shirts stained with sweat, their guts full of junk food, they emerged from Commerce and Agriculture and Justice and made their way to the Bullfinch for a few rounds with the boys before stumbling to Capitol South station to catch the next Metro out to the Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

Thursday was beer night for the Office of Paranormal Sciences. Murphy skipped these bull sessions more often than not, preferring to spend his evenings at home in Arlington with his wife and son. Donna was still mourning her mother’s death just before Christmas, though, and Steve seemed to be more interested these days in Magic cards than his father, so when Harry Cumisky tapped on his door shortly after eight and asked if he wanted to grab a couple of brewskis with the boys, Murphy decided to go along. It had been a long time since he had given himself a break; if he came home an hour late with Budweiser on his breath, then so be it. Donna would burrow into her side of the bed anyway, and Steven wouldn’t care so long as Dad took him to the comics shop on Saturday.

So he shut down the computer, locked up his office, and joined Harry and Kent Morris on a five-block trudge through sleet and slush to the Bullfinch. They were the last of the OPS regulars to arrive; several tables had already been pushed together in the back room, and an overworked waitress had already set the group up with pitchers of beer and bowls of popcorn. Although everyone was mildly surprised to see him, they quickly made room at the table. Murphy was aware of his button-down rep; he loosened his tie, admonished a wide-eyed Yale intern to stop addressing him as Sir and call him Zack instead, and poured the first of what he initially promised himself would be only two beers. A couple of drinks with the gang, a few laughs, then he would head home.

But that was not to be. It was a cold, damp night, and he was in a warm, dry bar. Gas flames hissed beneath fake logs in the nearby hearth, and firelight reflected off the panes of framed sports photos on the wood-paneled walls. Conversation was light, ranging from next week’s Super Bowl to current movies to the latest Hill gossip. The waitress’s name was Cindy, and although she wore an engagement ring, she seemed to enjoy flirting with the OPS guys. Every time his mug was half-empty, Kent or Harry or someone else would quickly top it off. After his second trip to the john, Zack stepped into a phone booth and called home to tell Donna not to wait up for him. No, he wasn’t drunk; just a little tired, that’s all. No, he wouldn’t drive; he’d leave his car in the garage and take a cab. Yes, dear. No, dear. I love you, too. Sweet dreams, goodnight. And then he sailed back to the table, where Orson was regaling Cindy with the joke about the Texas senator, the prostitute, and the longhorn steer.

Before he realized it, the hour was late and the barroom was half-empty. One by one, the chairs had been vacated as the boys polished off their drinks, shrugged into their parkas and overcoats, and moseyed back out into the clammy night. Where there had once been nearly a dozen, now there were only three—Kent, Harry, and himself—teetering on that uncertain precipice between insobriety and inarticulate stupor. Cindy had long since ceased being amused and was now merely disgusted; she cleared away the empty mugs, delivered a pitcher that she firmly told them would be their last, and asked who needed a cab. Murphy managed to tell her that, yes ma’am, a cab would be a mighty fine idea, thank you very much, before he returned to the discussion at hand. Which, coincidentally enough, happened to be time travel.

Perhaps it wasn’t so odd. Although time travel was a subject usually addressed in the more obscure books on theoretical physics, OPS people were acutely interested in the bizarre; they had to be, for that was the nature of their business. So it didn’t seem strange that Murphy would find himself discussing something like this with Kent and Harry; it was late, they were drunk, and that was all there was to it.

“So imagine…” Harry belched into his fist. “ ’S’cuse me, sorry… well, imagine if time travel was possible. I mean, le’s say it’s possible to go past to th’ past, y’know…”

“You can’t do it,” Kent said flatly.

“Sure, sure, I know.” Harry waved his hand back and forth. “I know it can’t be done, I know that, okay? But le’s jus’ pretend…”

“You can’t do it, I’m tellin’ ya. It can’t be done. I’ve read th’ same books, too, y’know, and I’m tellin’ ya it’s impossible. Nobody can do it. Nobody has the technology…”

“I’m not talkin’ ’bout now, dammit. I’m talkin’ ’bout sometime in th’ future. Couple’a hundred, thousand years from now, thass what I’m… that’s what I’m tryin’ to get at, y’know.”

“Somebody from the future, coming back here for a visit. That it?” Murphy had read a lot of science fiction when he was a kid, and time travel was a big subject in those stories. He even had a few beat-up old Ace Doubles stashed away in his attic, although he’d never admit that to these guys. Science fiction wasn’t well-respected at OPS, unless it was The X-Files.

“Thass it.” Harry nodded vigorously. “Thass what I’m talkin’ ’bout. Somebody from the future comin’ back here for a visit.”

“Can’t be done,” Kent insisted. “Not in a hundred million years.”

“Yeah, well, maybe not,” Murphy said, “but just for the sake of argument, okay. Le’s pretend someone from the future…”

“Not just someone.” Harry reached for the half-empty pitcher, sloshed some more beer into his mug. “A lotta someones… a lot of people, comin’ back from the… y’know, the future.”

“Yeah, right, okay.” Kent eyed the pitcher with avarice; as soon as Harry put it down, he picked it up and poured much of the rest into his own mug, leaving a half-inch at the bottom of the pitcher. “Simon sez le’s pretend. So where are they?”

“Tha’s it. Tha’s th’ point. Tha’s what summa the phizachists… phizzakists…”

“Physicists,” Murphy said. “What I am. I yam what I yam, and that’s all that I…”

Harry ignored him. “If you can go back in time in th’ future, come back to here…” He jabbed a finger against the table… then where are they? That’s what one of the Brits… the guy in the wheelchair, whassisname..

“Hawking.”

“Right, Hawking. Anyway, that’s what he says… if time travel is possible, then where’re the time travelers?”