John Schettler - Meridian

“What?” Maeve closed the Anthology abruptly, ready to do battle with this unexpected column reinforcing Nordhausen’s position.

“Hear me out. Suppose everything Nordhausen says is true. Suppose we establish a link between the Bermuda Pamphlets and the origin of The Tempest . Like you said at the beginning, Robert: Shakespeare always got his plots from somewhere, and this is one of two plays that seem unusual. No one has found a source for the plot.”

“Get to the point,” Maeve was ready to squash the objection the instant she heard it.

“Well, if we do start looking around, and we go back to Plymouth before the fleet sets sail…” He laid out his line of thought for them. “Don’t you see? A Pushpoint is the triggering event that leads to something really significant in the time line—like the writing of this play. Yet, even though it is so powerful in its influence, it can be disturbed very easily—even prevented from happening altogether. If we were to go to Plymouth we could do something to interfere with the fleet’s departure date without even knowing it, no matter how careful we are to avoid contamination.”

“That’s why we can’t allow it,” said Maeve.

“No,” Dorland corrected her. “That’s why Time won’t allow it. We’d create a Paradox!”

“Oh, here we go again,” said Nordhausen. He had hoped Paul was coming around to his side on the issue, but now he saw that he was spinning off into Time Theory again.

“Think about it,” said Dorland. “If that fleet doesn’t leave Plymouth on June 2 nd, and Nordhausen is correct in his idea about the Bermuda Pamphlets, then maybe Shakespeare never writes the damn play!”

Maeve was starting to get angry again, but her head began to filter through the possibilities and she settled into thought. After all, Outcomes and Consequences were her department. She should have seen the Paradox immediately. She was a little perturbed that Paul would happen on it first, but granted him a moment’s respect.

“Paradox.” Paul let the word hang for a moment, and a timely roll of thunder seemed to accent the moment and add just the right dramatic effect. A dog started barking in the rain outside, disturbed by the flash of lightning. “The continuum is very uncomfortable with Paradox, you see, and so I’m afraid we can’t pull on this string, Robert. If we prevent the play from being written then where the hell would we be going tomorrow? Certainly not to the Globe in 1611 to watch a play that was never written!”

“We don’t know that, Paul,” said Nordhausen. “Something else could become the source of the play.”

“Too much haze,” said Dorland. It was a term he used when events became obscured in the time line, and probability algorithms became particularly convoluted. “I was worried about that .0027% discrepancy on the preliminaries, but now I think the possibility of Paradox is very real here. We may have to work this through a bit. Sorry, Robert, but I’ll have to weigh in with Maeve on this one. We watch the play, but nothing else.” He was starting to think that the prospect of Paradox had cropped up all too easily in this scenario, where he least expected it. They had chosen the play as a way of avoiding any potential complications on this first mission. Now, the slightest variation in their planned activities presented problems. Perhaps, he thought, any time travel would eventually lead to some kind of Paradox. Perhaps Nordhausen was right again, and nothing was going to happen tomorrow—nothing at all.

“What’s wrong, Paul? Don’t let that man get you all depressed about this.” Maeve could see that something was clearly bothering him. He was biting at his lower lip as he considered the situation, very agitated. The weather outside rattled the windows, and they caught the sound of voices carried on the wind and rain. The voices seemed to be in Paul’s head as well, a tempest of doubt and uncertainty. Kelly was supposed to bring in the last crucial numbers for their launch, and he was late. Could the annihilating effects of Paradox already be at work?

“I don’t think we’re going to the play tomorrow,” the words just slipped out, and Paul seemed to slump a bit in his chair, clearly upset. They would have to think this through a bit more. They had to be certain nothing would go wrong. Before he could say anything more, however, there was a noise on the stair well outside the study door. Someone was running up the steps with almost frantic footfalls marking his progress. They all turned to look at the door.

“Well, it’s about time Kelly showed up,” Nordhausen put in. The door handle rattled and then the door flew open. Kelly was standing in the entrance, wet, bedraggled and clearly out of breath. His laptop computer was encased in its satchel under his right arm. The gray hood of his rain coat was thrown back and his short brown hair was thoroughly soaked. There was a cut on his forehead, and his normally amiable features were drawn with concern.

“Good Lord,” he panted, “I made it. Never thought I’d get here alive!”

“Kelly, what’s happened?” Maeve had noticed the gash in Kelly’s forehead, and the dribble of blood down one side of his cheek. Nordhausen snapped his pocket watch shut.

“Well I suppose you brought your numbers, yes?” The professor was oblivious to Kelly’s state. “Close the damn door, man!” He turned to look at Kelly when he felt the cold draft, and his eyes widened with surprise.

“Haven’t you heard?” Kelly was still panting.

“What do you mean?” Dorland was up from his chair. Maeve was rushing to get a wet towel from the coffee station.

“You haven’t heard?” Kelly staggered in and reached for the back of a chair. “Well,” he said, swallowing hard. “We aren’t going to see the play tomorrow, that’s for damn sure.”

Everyone just looked at him.

There was a brief moment of paralysis and then the room animated again as Dorland spoke. “What haven’t we heard? Was there a fire at Sidney Hall?”

“Fire?” Kelly had a confused look on his face. Maeve rushed to his side with a towel soaked in hot water. She waved at Paul to help get Kelly’s raincoat off, but Dorland’s mind immediately shifted back to the project when he caught sight of Kelly’s laptop computer.

“Did you manage to finish your comp cycle?” He was already easing the satchel strap off of Kelly’s shoulder.

“Put that down,” said Maeve. “Can’t you see he’s hurt?”

Paul noticed the cut on Kelly’s forehead for the first time, and winced. Kelly Ramer was one of his oldest and dearest friends. The two men had met in high school and had grown up together, sharing the rich mythology of their adolescence together, a history that often re-emerged in secret shared phrases that carried a wealth of meaning between them, but sounded like childish nonsense to anyone who had not lived out the experience they referred to.

They clowned together, and made silly tapes that they stored away over the years in the ‘Eternal Tape Archives,’ a record of priceless moments they had lived together. They shared the same music and appreciation for literature, and an almost mystical fascination for computers that had become so prevalent in the culture these days. It was Paul who had first caught the computer bug, and he quickly persuaded his friend to acquire one of the very first ‘personal computers’ that could be bought in the mid 1980s, a Commodore 64. From there they both graduated to an Amiga 1000 and then jumped on the first 286 series computers that began to circulate as ‘IBM clones’ when the PC age began to gather steam. Kelly went on to specialize in computer networks and the arcane science of Information Technology. They were in their early twenties then, and now, over 25 years later, Kelly was ready to celebrate his 48 thbirthday, though no one would guess he was that age to look at him. While he carried a little extra weight through the mid-section, he had a full head of dark brown hair, and a sharp, animated intelligence that found him interested in virtually everything. He gave his friend a look of wild eyed surprise, and Paul stopped what he was doing, immediately sensing that there was something very wrong.