John Schettler - Meridian

“But if he’s on the final one…” Paul latched a tender onto her train of thought for a moment. “Then Masaui needs to die . The way history reads now, that train might be delayed by the destruction of train two, but it is otherwise unharmed. We have to reverse that outcome as well to be certain.”

“Right,” Maeve agreed. “Train two needs to be saved, and train three needs to blow up. It’s the only way to cover both bets. That’s why we can’t touch the first train. If we meddle with that, both of the other two trains will be spared.”

Jen came running up the steps from the generator room, breathless with excitement. “Tom says the power can go to 100 percent any time. You can toggle it from the main panel up here. I’ll see that the feeds are all tapped in.” She went off behind the main console.

“Great!” Paul clapped his hands together, rubbing them with anticipation. He looked at his watch, and Maeve pointed at it, almost aghast.

“Take that off or you aren’t going anywhere.”

“What?”

“Nothing from our time can go through, Paul.” She looked over her shoulder at Jen, moderating her tone a bit. “At least nothing that would look obviously out of place. You know that!” She gave him a bemused look. “Suppose we leave a nice twenty-first century Timex glistening in the sand for some poor shepherd to find? Get rid of it.”

“Right,” Paul fussed with the watch band as Nordhausen came huffing up in full costume.

“Behold the Caliph!” He smiled broadly, extending his arms to display his long flowing robes. Maeve caught sight of his shoes and saw that he was still wearing a pair of Bass hiking boots.

“Wonderful,” she said with an edge. “Those cleated, Vibram soles were all the rage in 1917. I found a pair of old boots for you, Robert. Go put them on.”

“The damn things are too tight,” Nordhausen complained.

“Too bad!” Maeve’s cheeks flushed red as she pointed to the ante-room. “Look, do I have to take you both in there and do a strip search on you before we go? Nothing from our time goes down to the Arch! Got that? Lose the shoes, and leave that book and your classic Parker ink pen behind as well, Robert.”

The professor gave Paul a wry wink as he shuffled away. “Come on, Paul. I’ll frisk you if you’ll return the compliment.” He laughed, lightening the mood. “We can spare Maeve the trouble.”

“I’m clean.” Paul looked at Maeve. “You have my word on it, but if you ladies would care to explore the issue further…” He raised his eyebrows jokingly, looking from Maeve to Jen.

“We’ll take your word on it,” Maeve grinned.

Kelly slid away from the data portal and hurried over. “Numbers are in the system. I shaded a variable to try and give us a little more time, like Nordhausen wanted. No good trying to change the date at this point,” he explained, “but if we miss our mark it will push things in the right direction, behind the event and not in front of it.”

“Glad to hear that much at least,” said Paul. He could put aside the worry of landing in 1957.

“I better get dressed.” Kelly looked around. “Where’s my costume?”

Paul looked at Maeve, and she read volumes in his eyes as he considered what to say next. “I’ve been thinking, Kelly,” he began uncomfortably.

“Paul and I have been discussing things.” Maeve saw where he was going immediately and deftly came to his rescue, a co-conspirator on the effort to leave Kelly behind. She had other reasons, which she would keep to herself for a time, but now she decided to weigh in with Paul. “One of us has to stay here to watch the data flow, and you’re the numbers man.”

“What? Hell, I’ve got everything programmed. It’s all automated. All we have to do is toggle the Arch to full power and go through.”

“It’s not that simple,” Maeve forged ahead. “Nordhausen hit us with these three trains at the last minute. We’ve had to consider Outcomes and Consequences, and we’ll need someone here to make a possible adjustment on the retraction.”

“Adjustment?” Kelly gave her a bemused look. “What are you talking about?”

Nordhausen came tromping up, clomping his new army boots audibly and lifting his gown to display the battered old leather for Maeve. “They’re too tight,” he complained again.

Maeve saw that he still had his copy of the Seven Pillars in hand and she stepped over and snatched it away from him. “Give me that.” She shot him a fiery glance and then handed the book to Kelly.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Nothing,” said Maeve. “Until four o’clock, that is. Just take the book and put it in a drawer somewhere out of sight while you help Jen with the system monitors.”

“I wasn’t going to bring the damn thing.” The professor was slightly miffed, still thinking Maeve was riding the warpath on him for his suggestion about the Bermuda Pamphlets. “I wish you’d get over this.”

“No. This has nothing to do with you, Robert,” Maeve made a real effort to calm herself. “It’s for Kelly.”

“What are you talking about? I’m coming too, Maeve. Where’s my costume?”

“Kelly…” The tone in Maeve’s voice pulled at him. “Put the book in a drawer. Monitor the system panels with Jen here.” She glanced at the young technician, noting that she was fully focused on some task behind the console. “If we aren’t back by four AM I want you to open the drawer and read the passage in Lawrence’s narrative where this attack was made at Kilometer 172. Read it very carefully, but be quick about it. Paul, when is the tsunami sequence scheduled to make first landfall on the east coast?”

“Around dawn; a little after four in the morning, our time.”

“The visitor gave us the exact time,” Nordhausen said quietly. “He said eleven past the hour.”

“Then you’ll have eleven minutes to do your reading, Kelly,” Maeve continued.

Paul finally understood what she was getting at. “Yes!” He pointed at the book. “If we’ve done our job… If we’ve found the Pushpoint and changed things, then you can read the result in the book!” He looked at Maeve, just a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

“Exactly.” Maeve supported him at once. “There were three trains, Kelly. As the history reads now, number two blows up. Remember that. You’re a Free Variable now.”

“What?” Kelly was struggling to understand the time theory again. He was a programmer and a networking genius, but the logic of Dorland’s theory had always escaped him.

“Yes, a Free Variable.” Paul took up the charge. “You said it yourself, Kelly. You aren’t supposed to even be here. We’re supposed to be over at the morgue identifying your body by now. Like I said earlier, this is an alternate time line for you,” he whispered, “for all of us in one sense, but particularly you, Kelly. Right now we’re in a Nexus Point. This is very rare, you see. Even though the tsunami is moving hundreds of kilometers per hour, it is still taking this precious time to make its way across the Atlantic. That interval is creating a Deep Nexus! The Palma Event has occurred already, but its primary effect is in the ripple of this tsunami wave. While we’re in the Nexus, in eye of the storm, if you will, we can all act as Free Variables! This means that even if we do go back and alter the time line you should still remember this conversation. The record of these events will be preserved in your mind, even if physical alterations in the matrix of reality occur here.” He tried to say it another way. “If we change history the passage in the book will change, Kelly. You’ll be able to read about it, possibly even discover what we ended up doing. Look, the visitor vanished, but we all still remember him, right? Then you should remember this conversation as well! If we don’t get back before four AM, you’ll have those eleven minutes to decide what to do with the retraction module. I’ve told Jen to monitor it very closely, but we may need programming. We may need your magic, Kelly. You’re the only one who could re-program the algorithm on this end if something goes wrong.”