D. MacHale - The Never War

“Does this machine ever make mistakes?” asked Gunny.

Patrick answered, “Well, no. Someone named Esther Amaden never existed or the computer would have a record of her.”

“What if she changed her name?” Gunny asked.

“The computer would know that. Guaranteed. Who was she?”

Uh-oh. A bad thought hit me and I started getting a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Computer,” I said weakly. “Van Dyke, Vincent. Nickname, Gunny. Manhattan Tower Hotel. New York. 1937.”

There was a pause, and then the computer answered, “No data.”

Now I started to sweat. Things were happening fast. “Computer. Tilton, Press. Stony Brook, Connecticut. Early twenty-first century. Uncle to Pendragon, Robert. Sister to Pendragon, Kathleen.”

A pause, and then, “No data.”

Patrick said, “We’re Travelers, Pendragon. There wouldn’t be any records.”

This was getting more horrifying by the second. I was learning something new about being a Traveler. As far as the world was concerned, we didn’t exist. That’s why my house on Second Earth was gone. That’s why my family disappeared.

“Computer! Pendragon, Robert. Nickname, Bobby. Stony Brook, Connecticut.” There was another pause, and then, “No data.”

“Don’t do this to yourself, Bobby,” Gunny said softly.

I was freaking out, but not for the reason Gunny thought. In some ways, I think I knew something like this had to be true. Yeah, it was horrifying to know we had no history. But as frightening as that was, it wasn’t what was making my brain explode.

I couldn’t sit down anymore. My heart raced. I jumped up, hit the button again and shouted, “Computer! Amaden, Esther. Nickname, Harlow. Girlfriend to Rose, Maximilian. New York. 1937.”

The computer paused for several seconds and then said calmly, “No data.”

“Uh-oh,” Gunny said. He now realized where I was going with this.

“Yeah, uh-oh,” I shot back. “Travelers don’t have records because Travelers don’t have histories. AllTravelers, not just the good ones.”

“Do you think-“

“Yeah, I do. Esther Amaden is Saint Dane. He’s been playing the game from both sides from the very beginning.”

“He’s been playing with us,” I said. “He’s got Max Rose listening on one side, Winn Farrow listening on the other, and we’re the monkeys in the middle.”

“You mean to tell me that pretty lady singer is Saint Dane in disguise? That’s hard to believe,” Gunny said.

“But it’s true,” I shot back. “He can change himself into anyone. Trust me, I’ve seen it.”

I paced the library room, trying to rethink everything that had happened since I arrived on First Earth. It was a whole different ballgame now that I knew Saint Dane was pulling all the strings. What was he up to?

Patrick said, “Tell me what’s going on, maybe I can help.”

“We’ve been thinking the turning point on First Earth is theHindenburg,”I explained. “But Saint Dane’s plans have to be bigger than the crash of a single ship. World War Two is coming on fast and we thought that if we could prevent theHindenburgfrom going down, it might somehow stop the war from happening. But we can’t know for sure. The tough part is that since Saint Dane is playing both sides of the game, we don’t really know what he wants to happen. Does he want theHindenburgto crash or not?”

Gunny added, “We know what happens after the ship goes down. What we don’t know is what will happen if that big airshipdoesn’tgo down.”

We all fell silent for a second. That was the problem, exactly. Would saving theHindenburgbe a good thing or a bad thing? There was no way to find that answer.

At least, that’s what we thought.

“Well, I could help you figure that out,” Patrick said casually, like it was no big deal.

“You can? How?” I asked in disbelief.

“I know it’s hard for you guys to understand,” he began. “But the capacity of our data systems is incredible. What we’ve been doing here with Abe Lincoln and theHindenburgdoesn’t even scratch the surface.”

“Yeah, it’s all pretty cool,” I said. “But you can’t predict the future.”

Patrick smiled and said, “Well, in a way, we can.”

Gunny and I looked at each other in surprise. Who was this guy kidding? No computer, I don’t care how great it is, can do that.

“Look at it this way,” Patrick said. “It’s like math. Two plus two equals four. But if you change a two to a three, it doesn’t equal four anymore. It equals five.”

“And that’s how you can predict the future?” I asked. I was losing faith in Patrick, fast.

“Stay with me,” he said. “Now imagine a really complex mathematical equation with thousands or even millions of numbers. Same thing. If you change even one number, the whole equation changes, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said. “But what’s that got to do with predicting the future?”

“Okay,” Patrick continued. “Think of all the events that ever happened in the past as numbers in an equation. If you changed even one of those events, it would change all the events that followed. The whole equation would have to be recalculated.”

“But numbers are real,” I said.

“So is the past,” Patrick countered. “As real as any number. I can’t predict what will happen tomorrow, but I can definitely predict how changes in the past would play out in the past.”

“That’s impossible!” I shouted. “That computer would have to know everything about everybody and everything they ever did to make that kind of prediction.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you!” Patrick said with excitement. “That’s exactly the kind of data we’ve got. We can take events from the past and change one of the factors. The computer will cross-reference billions of other factors and calculate the likely new scenario, just like a math equation. It’s called variable technology.”

He was losing me. And if he was losing me, I knew Gunny was long gone.

“Okay, here’s an example of a simple one I did. 1969. Super Bowl Three. The New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts, sixteen to seven. I brought up all the information I had about that game, the players, the weather conditions, the coaches, everything. I even knew what each of the players had for breakfast. Then I changed one thing. I input that Joe Namath, the Jets’ star quarterback, went down with an injury in the first quarter. The final score the computer predicted was very different from sixteen-seven Jets.”

“What happened?” I asked. “The Colts kicked butt, right?”

“Well, no,” Patrick said. “The Jets actually won the game twenty-four-zip. Weird, no?”

“Predicting a football game is one thing,” I said. “Figuring out the course of history is a slightly bigger deal.”

“Trust me, Pendragon,” Patrick said. “Think of all the things you’ve seen on Third Earth. If I told you about all this three thousand years ago, would you believe it could happen?”

“Well, yeah, maybe,” I said.

“Then believe this too,” he said with total confidence. “A big event like the crash of theHindenburgis bound to change things. I can’t guarantee that I can predict exactly what will happen if it doesn’t crash, but I know I can come up with the big picture.”

I looked to Gunny. He was a guy who couldn’t even imagine Nintendo, let alone the kinds of things Patrick was talking about. Still, I needed another opinion.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Gunny gave a very wise answer. “As far as I’m concerned, most everything here is impossible. Yet here it is, real as can be. I’m inclined to give Patrick the benefit of the doubt. If he says he can do this, who are we to say he can’t?”