Joyce Oates - Hazards of Time Travel

Sleek-black-haired CHEN, MICHAEL opened his mouth and tried to speak, but no words came out.

There were tears, and agitation, in PADURA, LAUREN’S face—but no words issued from her mouth.

Then, I heard myself pleading, in a thin wavering voice, that we were not “collaborators”—we didn’t know one another, we’d never seen one another before, we didn’t know one another’s names …

Indifferently the off-screen voice was counting: eleven, sixteen, twenty-one … Twenty-seven, twenty-eight …

My heart was pounding so violently, I thought that it would burst. My eyes darted from one TV monitor to the others—as the Patriot Scholars trembled and cringed in their chairs, narrowing their eyes, yet unable to shut their eyes entirely.

On one of the screens there was a blinding flash. The boy with the mustache on his upper lip—ZOLL, JOSEPH JAY—was slammed sideways as if he’d been struck with a laser ray, that entered the side of his head like liquid fire, exploded and devoured his head, and then his torso and lower body, in less than three seconds.

What was left of ZOLL, JOSEPH JAY fell to the floor, slithering and phosphorescent, and by quick degrees this, too, vanished … I had a glimpse of the other Patriot Scholars staring in horror at their TV screens before all four screens went dark and a roaring in my ears became deafening.

When I woke from a sick, dead faint, I was being lifted from my chair. Yet so terrified still, I didn’t dare to open my eyes.

“Adriane. I am your Youth Disciplinary Counsel.”

She was a woman of about Mom’s age. Her face was shiny and glaring, so that I could barely look at her. Or maybe my vision had become oversensitive from the previous day’s interrogations in blazing light.

Her name was S. Platz. Her manner was almost jovial, as if she and I shared a joke.

“Try to lift your head and look at me, dear. As if you have nothing to hide. We are being ‘surveyed’ and videotaped—you must know.”

After the terror I’d been feeling, and the hopelessness, S. Platz was so astonishing to me, I couldn’t at first believe her; I was sure that she must be another torturer. Each time I closed my eyes I saw ZOLL, JOSEPH JAY struck down like an animal—or an “enemy” figure in a video game.

I would never forget that horrific sight, I thought.

I would never want to forget, for the executed boy’s sake.

S. Platz, unlike the other interrogators, did not continue to ask me the same questions, and she did not speak in a brisk impersonal voice.

She asked one of the uniformed officers to unshackle me—both my wrists and my ankles. She asked if my wrists and ankles hurt, and if I was “very tired” and would like to “sleep an uninterrupted sleep” in a real bed—to help with “healing.”

Almost inaudibly I said Yes.

(Wondering if “uninterrupted sleep” meant something terrible?)

But S. Platz seemed so kindly! Tears flooded my eyes, I was so grateful for her sympathy.

Yes thank you. Oh yes—I would like to sleep …

“I have good news for you, Adriane. Youth Disciplinary has ruled that the discipline for your violation of the federal statutes is—Exile.”

Exile! I had heard of Exile—of course. This form of discipline was often confused with Deletion because, so far as anyone knew, including the families of Exiled Individuals, the Exiled Individual simply—vanished.

It was said to be highly experimental, and dangerous. Exiled Individuals were teletransported —every molecule in their bodies dissolved, to be reconstituted elsewhere. (No one who was left behind knew where. A colony on another planet? This was a prevailing rumor, according to Roddy. But which planet? If any had been colonized by the Government, ordinary citizens knew nothing about it.) But often, the teletransportation failed, and individuals were injured, incapacitated, killed, or, in effect, “vaporized”—and no one ever saw them again.

Only if the Exiled Individual reappeared, years later, after having served out his sentence, could it be assumed that he had been alive all the while, but in a remote place. EIs were generally allowed to live but had to submit to a process of “Re-education” and “Reconstitution.”

Exile was considered to be the “humane”—“liberal”—disciplinary measure, appropriate for younger people who had not committed the most serious crimes—yet.

In our Patriot Social Studies class we were taught that the “Re-educated” and “Reconstituted” individual, successfully having completed his sentence of Exile and returned to the present time, designated EI1, was often an outstanding Citizen-Patriot; several notable EI1’s had been named to federal posts in Homeland Security Public Safety Oversight and Epidemic Control; and the most renowned of EI1’s had risen to a high-ranking executive post in the Capitol, as an assistant to the director of the Federal Bureau of Interrogation.

There were rumors that the president was himself an EI1—a former “traitor”-genius now totally converted to NAS and its democratic tradition.

S. Platz was saying: “Your case was carefully adjudicated, Adriane, after several of your teachers entered pleas for you. Their claim was that you are ‘naïve’—‘very young’—‘not subversive’—and ‘not radical’—and that, if you are separated from the influence of your MI-father and are allowed to Re-educate yourself, you would be of value to society. Therefore, we are transporting you to Zone Nine. There, you will attend an excellent four-year university to train yourself in a socially useful profession. Teaching is strongly suggested. Or, if your science grades are good, you would be allowed to apply to medical school. Zone Nine is not so ‘urban’ as our Eastern zones, nor is it so ‘rural’ as most of our North-Midwest zones. It is not on any NAS map—it is a place that ‘exists’ only by way of special access, for, in our present time, in the North-Midwest States that now encompass what was known as ‘Wisconsin’ in the era of Zone Nine, things are very different.” Seeing that I was looking confused and frightened, S. Platz said, “You need not concern yourself with any of this, Adriane—you will simply be transported to the university in Zone Nine, where you will be a ‘freshman.’ You will be given a new, abbreviated identity. You will be, as you are, seventeen years old. And your name will be ‘Mary Ellen Enright.’ If necessary, when you return to us your training can be brought up-to-date. Everything that you need to know is explained in The Instructions, which I will give you now.”

Though S. Platz spoke clearly I was having difficulty understanding. Badly wanting to ask But can I see my parents again? Just once before I am sent away …

S. Platz handed me a sheet of paper stiff as parchment. When I tried to read it, however, my eyes filled with moisture, and lost focus.

“So there is really no need to ask me questions—is there?”

S. Platz paused, smiling at me.

And now I saw that the counsel’s steel-colored eyes were not smiling, but only just staring, and assessing.

The realization came to me— If I don’t react properly, I will be vaporized on the spot. The woman has this power.

With a numb smile I managed to murmur Thank you!

And not a word about my parents. Or the life I would be leaving—the life to which I would be “lost.”

She was a strange girl. At first, we didn’t like her.