John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

“Be careful,” she whispered. “I went to pick it up and things didn’t feel right.”

Paul looked at her, then waved his hand cautiously over the object, as though testing the air. There was a residual feeling of cold there, but this was normal for the Arch just after a shift.

“Can we touch it?” asked Maeve.

“I don’t see why not,” said Paul, reaching. A second later he had hold of it, and they both stood up.

Maeve looked at him, eyes wide, arms crossed, and obviously curious. “Well?” she said.

“Let’s take it upstairs,” he said. “The others won’t believe this!”

Back inthe main operations room Robert was still fiddling with the Golem module. “Getting up information on the battle now,” he said. “The system seems sluggish. Can you put more Golems on this Kelly?”

“No problem,” said Kelly as he grabbed a mouse and clicked on an icon to activate his primary Golem interface. The expression on his face changed immediately. “I take that back,” he said.

That got Robert’s attention immediately.

“Problem,” said Kelly. “Big problem…”

“Trouble getting data from the Golems?”

“Trouble finding the Golems,” said Kelly.

“What are you talking about?”

“Well I put the bulk of the installed user base to work as a remote supercomputer so I could process calculations we needed for the shift. But I can’t find the little buggers now. They don’t answer my command calls.”

“Maybe it’s the Internet,” said Robert.

“No, the network is wounded, but it’s still functional. I can ping lots of primary hub servers and the latency is still tolerable. Packets are moving on the net as normal, but I’ve lost contact with a huge chunk of my flock. All I seem to have control over now are those lost sheep that came on line after I gave the initial command for the Golems to begin processing shift algorithms. I banked then into one group but that’s no more than ten percent of the installed user base, now.”

“What about the worms and viruses Rantgar was talking about?” said Robert, wagging his finger excitedly.

“Good point,” said Kelly. “That pissed me off, frankly, though I’m glad we got the data that enabled Paul to shift in. But a virus is a virus, and it can do unexpected things if it tangles with security software. It’s designed to penetrate supposedly secure systems, and that means it has to be able to defend itself. The damn thing could have caused mutations in my Golem code, and that would be a real problem.”

“Could our friends in the future be using the Golems somehow?” Robert was considering every option. “Is there a way they could get control of them?”

“God only knows,” said Kelly. “All I know is that I can’t get control of them. All we’ve got now are those lost sheep.”

“Well, well, well…” The Professor was tapping his monitor now. “It’s not the little lost sheep I’m worried about, it’s the big bad wolves. It’s Tours. I’ve got an account of the battle here from the altered Meridian, and apparently Paul’s poison dart wasn’t sufficiently lethal. Abdul Rahman still prevails and the Franks flee north. Nothing has changed! We need to verify this. What’s wrong with the bloody Golem module, Kelly?”

Kelly gave him a blank look, clearly upset. “I tell you I just don’t know what happened!” Kelly had had enough with the speculation. He was tired and his temper always got the best of him when he was frustrated like this. Losing his hold on the Golems was a hard blow, coming at a critical time, and he felt like someone had severed his right arm. Now this! “Maybe the damn Assassins did something. They know how crucial the Golems are for us.”

Paul and Maeve had come up, padding quietly into the lab to find Robert and Kelly still squabbling about the missing Golems and the slow data rate and whether or not the green line on the variance monitor was going to eventually migrate to the right, through the end of the year 732.

“Can we rely on this data now with that virus is at large in the system?”

“How the hell do I know?” Kelly said with obvious annoyance.

“I mean the Internet is full of crap. Remember the big scare about Nibiru that had all the doomers up in a fit in 2011 when Comet Elenin paid us a visit? Well how do we know this is reliable information? I mean the file says it’s from the Chronicles of Fredegar , but how can we be sure it isn’t something someone just threw up in a blog somewhere?”

The professor turned, seeing Paul and Maeve, and waved them over, intent on enlisting some support for his argument. He didn’t even notice what Paul was holding.

“Welcome home, Paul. You got rid of Grimwald, alright. Good Man, but you can tell us the tale later. The job is still not done. We need to be certain we have good information here,” he went on. “There’s been entirely too much speculation pushing this mission, and look at the results!” He had pointed at the screen. “It’s still not green…”

Paul gave him a sharp wave of his hand. “Time Out, gentlemen!” he yelled. “Look what I found—well Maeve found it I suppose, but what do you make of this?” He thrust his arm out, boldly, showing them the object with a wry smile. “It apparently manifested just after I shifted back successfully.” He looked at Kelly. “And brother, I was never more grateful to feel that retraction shift kick in. Let’s hope my integrity is good and I don’t suffer Rantgar’s fate.”

“No problem there,” said Kelly. “Your numbers were rock solid. “Remember, I took a double sweep on your pattern.”

Robert gave Paul a puzzled look. “That came in through the Arch with you?”

“It appears so,” said Paul, holding up the apple. It was a plump, round Pippin, nicely ripened, and there was a thin slice on one side with a piece of paper tucked into the crevasse, an obvious note. Paul could make out handwriting on the paper as he peered at it, smiling.

“Well open the damn thing!” said Kelly. “Someone obviously has a wry sense of humor, but it’s clear they want to get our attention.”

Paul slipped out the note and they all drew closer. It felt vaguely like that moment, so long ago now it seemed, when Maeve had come upon a paper in Mr. Graves overcoat. It had contained numbers that led them to decipher the exact physical coordinates of their initial shift in time, to Minifir, where Lawrence of Arabia would lie in wait for an oncoming Turkish train. The note in the apple was an obvious message from Rantgar’s unseen. associates. Perhaps he didn’t simply vanish after all, though he was clearly not at the scene of Grimwald’s death. Yet, he must have told them the story of how Paul shifted in on a brief Spook Job and tossed the apple to Maeve, hoping against hope that she would decipher its meaning and find a way to take some decisive action. As he slipped the note paper out, Paul was struck by the thought that this was an equally urgent appeal.

He opened the page and read the few words that had been written there: “Congratulations! And now the pleasure of your company is requested. Send R.N.”

“Send RN?” said Robert. A Registered Nurse? It must be shorthand for help.” They were all looking at him, eyebrows raised with some astonishment.

“You’re thinking that means me?” he said.

“R period, N period, and it’s underlined,” said Paul. “Aren’t those your initials, Robert?”

“Me? What would they want me to join them for? Join who? Where?”

“Good questions,” said Paul. “Perhaps they’ve found a way to shift you forward in Time to a safe Nexus Point. This could be exciting, Robert! It’s just what you’ve been wanting, a nice close look at a future no man of our era would ever have the opportunity to see.”