Doug Larsen - Big John

Illustration by Todd Lockwood

Mr. Degeneres looked at me appraisingly, his richly appointed office looking jarringly inconsistent with the desperation on his face. “Do you think you’re up to this, John?”

“I think so, sir. I really do.” The sour feel of fear was sloshing around in my stomach.

“You’re our last hope, you know.”

I nodded. I knew.

He produced The Belt. “Here’s your video gear. Remember, try to keep this part clean. It looks like a decorative stone, but it’s actually the video lens. You trigger the camera by running your finger down the length of the metal buckle. It’s calibrated to your fingerprint.”

I nodded. “What kind of memory have you managed to get for me?”

Sara spoke up, the strain sounding in her voice. “We’ve managed to pack in twice as many flash memory chips as before. Basically, there’s a row of them between the two leather strips that comprise your belt, and a row of them on the inside. It ought to afford you over sixty hours of recording time.”

“Sixty?” I repeated. “You were aiming for eighty or more.”

“I know.” She shrugged. “But you’re going to be down in the mines. The light sucks down there. We had to use a lot of space for image enhancement circuitry and automatic iris control. We don’t want to make you look like you’re diddling yourself when you’re actually trying to set light adjustments.”

Mr. Degeneres spoke up. “Those flash chips are somewhat flexible, but not indestructible. Be careful with the belt. And one other thing: it looks innocuous, but it won’t stand up to close inspection.”

I was looking it over. “What’s this?” I asked, indicating a fingertip switch connected to a thick bulge in the belt.

“That’s to make up for only having sixty hours of memory,” Sara said. “We’re not sure of its reliability, so only use it if you have to. Basically, it dumps all of the memory in your chips, and transmits all of the information through the space-time continuum to our receiver here. So in theory, we’ll have all of your data, and you’ll have another sixty hours of memory space.”

My sour mood matched my sour stomach. “ ‘In theory,’ you said. What about in fact?”

She shrugged again. She was doing that more and more these days. Not that I blamed her, what with the political tide moving relentlessly against us. “In fact,” she said, “it’s never been tested in actual time travel. But it works in the labs, and there’s no reason to think it won’t work in actual applications.”

“But there’s no proof, either,” I finished for her.

“Exactly.”

Mr. Degeneres spoke up. “Judicious use of your memory will make it unnecessary,” he said. “Remember, we’re only after an hour-long documentary, and we could make do with a half hour if necessary.”

“And not all of that time has to be filled with actual footage,” Sara reminded. “We’re planning to use charts and graphs, and some archival interview footage, too. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to lay our hands on anything that will advance the cause of organized labor in the public mind.”

“We’ve got some good stuff, too,” Mr. Degeneres said. “But none of it will carry any weight if we don’t get actual footage of the conditions of the mining workers in the late 1800s.”

I nodded absently, looking at my reflection in a mirror as I strapped on my Belt. Average-looking guy, dark hair, dressed in late-1800s average workingman’s clothes, a little above average height. Nothing special. Designed to blend in. “Remind me again why we don’t just use digital imaging and produce all of this footage in a studio,” I requested.

Mr. Degeneres sighed. “This is a volatile political issue,” he said with weary patience. “I’m the leader of the last labor union in the country, and our last few existing chapters are proposing a vote to disband us. Business interests are also trying to get legislation introduced to outlaw unions altogether.”

I nodded, irritated. Sara and I, his two primary aides, knew this all too well, and it wasn’t much fun hearing about it again. We had fought side by side, suffering defeat after defeat in the legislative battle for labor representation. “But why—”

“Because if it’s phony footage, the other side will massacre us. Nobody will believe that we didn’t enhance something, or misrepresent something. Management will know that its best tactic would be to attack the accuracy and credibility of the video, and we’d spend all of our time trying to convince people that we were being historically accurate. That’s why we need actual, honest-to-God footage. That’s why I’m spending the last of my money on sending you back to the 1880s to get it. When people hear about unions, they either think of corruption or inefficient policies. If this video doesn’t convince Congress— and the American people—that there was a legitimate reason and an urgent need for the foundation of labor unions, then we’re finished.”

“Labor unions would come back eventually,” Sara demurred.

"With them being illegal?” Mr. Degeneres retorted. “Having to run the gauntlet of strikebreakers and police and army violence? No! Working men and women did it once. We’re not going to do it again.”

Sara and I exchanged glances. When Mr. Degeneres got into what we called his History of the Oppressed Worker mood, we were usually in for a long day. He saw us look at each other, and sat back, forcing a chuckle. “OK, kids, no lectures today. We’ve got other things to do.”

Sara came up to me and ran a scanner down my torso. “OK, now remember, the nanotechs we gave you will protect you against black lung disease, but won’t keep you from coughing when you run into dust. Try to keep to yourself when you enter the mines, or else the coughing may expose you as a greenhorn. That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but is inconsistent with the identity we’ve prepared for you.” She reached up and felt my shoulders, biceps and arms, and I tried hard not to show how pleasant it was.

“Your physical training has paid off,” she said, nodding.

“Eight months of me, the weights, and the pain,” I agreed.

“You’ll be fit enough to be able to stand the rigors of mine life,” she said. She turned my hands over and looked at the palms. “I’m not as pleased with your hands. They should be more callused. But the skin conditioning we used on you ought to protect you from most of the blistering.”

“It won’t hurt to cultivate the persona of a loner,” Mr. Degeneres added. “We’ve briefed you as well as possible, but we’re still not sure how thoroughly you’ll be able to pass yourself off as one of them.”

I nodded, feeling more and more fear in the pit of my stomach. “Let’s get this over with,” I gritted suddenly.

“OK,” they said in unison. Mr. Degeneres came up and shook my hand. “Good luck, John. We re all counting on you, and I know you’ll do well. And just remember: it’s only two weeks. At the end of that time, the time machine will find you and bring you back here, no matter where you are. Even if they decide you’re some suspicious character, we’ll zip you right out of a jail cell and bring you home.”

I nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Degeneres. I’ll do my best.”

He clapped me on the back and stepped aside. Sara came up and clasped my hand. “Two weeks. I’ll see you in two weeks. Right?”

“Right.” I looked to my right and saw the time machine less than an arm’s length away. Suddenly I was terrified, and Sara seemed very close. I took her face in my hands and gave her a hard kiss on the mouth.