Time Agency (21 page)

Nanette coughed and hacked. It was especially bad today, and there was probably blood. The nanomachines would have taken care of her condition long ago if they still had been in her body. She wheezed and thought of Russia. She smiled at the memory and cleared phlegm from her throat. The cough sent shutters throughout her body. The iron taste of blood filled her mouth. It wouldn't be long now. She would be dead soon.

She coughed a third time, and there was a rustle. The curtains were drawn on her four-post bed. The room was ornate and fashionable for the early nineteenth-century England. A maid befit of a wealthy lady entered the room. The room had all the panache of a Jane Austen novel aside from the drawn curtains hiding the dying lady inside. The maid stood next to the bed and asked, “My lady. Are you well?”

“I'm fine,” Nanette croaked from the bed.

“I'll fetch you a tonic,” the maid insisted.

“No... but you can fetch me something important,” Nanette said again from behind the curtain.

“Anything, miss,” the maid said in earnest.

She was a good servant and would be missed. But everything needed to come to an end eventually. It was time. The servant had kept her secret well. “Do you remember the box?” she said and coughed some more.

“I think I should get you a tonic...” The servant was obviously nervous about the box, as she should be. It had technology from well beyond this point in human history. In fact, the box had the only items, which could identify the lady of the house as a traveler from out of this time.

“No,” Nanette said. “Please, do as I ask.” She coughed again. This time, it was long and hard. The footsteps of the servant disappeared from her room. She probably wouldn't last the night. Death was coming for her. Her life seemed liked ages. In comparison to the people of this era in human history, she was practically immortal. Everyone died at some point. At least she had the luxury to choose her death.

She picked this house because she loved reading Jane Austen books when she was younger. There was something intriguing about the time period despite the oppression of women, the poor healthcare, and unclean living conditions. The manor she acquired was going to the government anyway. There were no living heirs, so it was easy to cook up some paperwork about a distant relative so that she could inherit the estate. If she was going to die, she at least wanted to die in lavish style. The government could always inherit the estate when she was done with it. History wouldn't notice. And considering her maid would have been in a less than honorable trade, she was doing the staff a favor by taking over the estate. It's a shame she came here to die. She would miss her life here. Did near immortals have an afterlife? Her chest heaved in a fit of coughing, and she spat up blood.

My mind began to awaken slowly. I was standing. There were shapes around me. The world began to come into focus. The pressure in my arm was two goons holding me up. My bearded future self was staring at me. Jerry was being held by another goon. He weaved in and out of consciousness. The Heinlein books were scattered on the floor.

“Why didn’t you tell me my name was Roman?”

“I guess it’s something you just don’t think about. It’s kind of weird to introduce yourself to yourself.”

“Hi Roman, you’re Roman too… I see your point. What’s wrong with him?” I indicated the woozy Jerry.

“Don’t worry about your friend. He experienced the same memory from your perspective. It’s very hard on the mind when the memory is not yours. He’ll take a while to recover,” my future self said and handed Jerry the gun.

“If the clerk has to die, why don’t you do it?” I asked.

“Trust me. It has to be this way,” my doppelganger said and found the black hole book on the shelf I had seen from the memory. “People can't travel into the future beyond a certain point.”

“To hide your experiments,” I spat.

“But what about the future beyond that?” my doppelganger said. “There are points in the future where I can't go. Someone is accelerating technology. Everywhere in history where there is a leap forward in technology or science, there are these cloned booksellers. Humanity is innovating and discovering technology earlier and earlier with each timeline. The experimentation and the “reprogramming” chambers were used to collect these men. We've experimented with them, but they are perfectly human. They are identical in every way. In fact, the only difference seems to be the person they are targeting. The books themselves are designed to inspire the geniuses of every time. If Stephen Hawking reads this book, he will advance science much more than he did. They are manipulating us all.”

“Why did you scale up to regular people? They have nothing to do with it,” I said.

“We've turned off our emotional centers. It wasn't an easy decision, but it was necessary. In order to find out how the technology acceleration is affecting the population, we needed samples. The ability to advance nanotech was just a benefit. There is something shaping humanity from the future. We can't travel to the future just as you can't travel to ours. But what we can do is share our research with our younger selves.”

“How do you know all this?” I said.

“Because my future self told me this too. The tech you grew up with is much more advanced than when I was young. And my tech was more advanced over my future self’s. In every loop, the technology gets better and better. People make discoveries earlier and earlier in history. And it's by design.”

“So you are aiding them by providing the research!” I snapped.

“We believe if we advance our technology enough, we’ll be able to travel to the future too. If we can out tech our future, we can travel to what is beyond our reach. I need to make sure you know what’s at stake. There is very little time left.”

“For what?”

“For me. My future self went back to share research with me because he knew he was going to die. Just like I know I am going to die. I tried to avoid it, but it’s impossible. The only assurance I have now is that you may do what I cannot. I built you an army in the shantytown. They should follow you now. But the clerk must die, so I know you both will do whatever it must take to change the future.”

I felt a nanomachine presence drift into the room. It was from the female time agent. Jerry must have received it too because he snapped to attention.

“What did you do with her?” Jerry demanded.

“The woman is an anomaly. Please take the gun and shoot the clerk,” my doppelganger said.

“Where’s Nanette?”

“Dead by now.”

The goons holding us down flew into some bookshelves. They probably died on impact. My future self cried out in pain and blood gushed from his eyes, ears, and nose. Jerry looked as if he could strike down an army. There was a raw and terrible emotion deep within him.  Jerry dug deeper, and my doppelganger cried out in pain. His body convulsed. It was gruesome and violent. My doppelganger’s body sputtered and shook. Foam formed around his mouth. Jerry tore his victim apart from the inside. My future self looked at me before he died. Despite Jerry shredding his brain, my future self displayed relief. There was a burden my future self was carrying. He could finally find peace. And his eyes went blank. Jerry dropped the body and returned control to me.

Jerry was out for blood. He felt no sympathy for the future version of Roman he tore apart. He knew there needed to be change. The future Roman was the symbol of a future Jerry didn’t want to exist. Jerry knew that love kept him going. Every part of the agency existed to crush emotions. A love like his was forbidden to make way for a passionless future where cruelty was excused in the name of science. Love was the only way to see a better future. People who can experience love will strive to make the world a better place for the people whom they love. Love was not a hindrance to objective reasoning. It was an asset to avoid faulty reasoning. When a person realizes how they can hurt the people they love, they can make better choices for themselves and others.

The living Roman climbed to his feet. Jerry narrowed in on the coordinates he had retrieved. The future Roman’s brain had a visual image of the building where Nanette was being held. It was the best he could retrieve before killing the brain cells holding the data. The building had to be located in this time period because the nanomachine alert she sent wouldn’t go through time. So she was close.

Jerry grabbed the living Roman by the shoulder, and they blinked out of existence before the sirens could get close to the bookstore. There would be a very strange unsolved murder in history. However, it won’t be the clerk. Jerry was determined to take a different path and killing their future was the first step.

We reappeared seconds later in front of an abandoned warehouse. It was creepy, and just the sort of place spies would meet to exchange a prisoner. I guess if time travelers needed to meet somewhere, an abandoned warehouse would be better than a crowded bookstore. I’m sure the police back at the bookstore were sorting through stories of mass hysteria and baffled by what happened. The events would be explained away. The presence of a gun created a mass delusion or other such nonsense. I wonder how many unexplained phenomenon were time travelers and could be explained through future technology.

Jerry tore the metal warehouse door from its hinges. It crumpled like tinfoil from his machines. He restored power to the lights, and the warehouse revealed its shadowy interior. It was an empty warehouse with large towering pillars at regular intervals. The place looked as if the years had worn the building. Broken glass and junk were scattered on the floor. Nanette was sprawled on the ground. She was still mutilated from the experiments with only some surface level healing. Jerry's other self was barely waking up when they entered the room. I sent my nanomachines to scan him. My Jerry looked as if he was concentrating.

The future Jerry saw the intruders and threw up a defensive barrier. I felt my nanomachines hit the barrier and incinerate. The doppelganger smiled and pushed the barrier forward until it engulfed us. I rose off the ground against my will and was slammed back down.

I fought back. Instead of directing a swarm of nanomachines, I directed a small and very direct pulse. The machines raced forward and swept Jerry’s double off of his feet. The double clearly wasn't expecting it. My Jerry must have anticipated a retaliatory strike and sent glass shards flying for a second strike. However, the doppelganger had heightened reflexes and speed. He was halfway across the warehouse as the glass shredded an empty wall. I dashed after him, and a wave of nanomachines pushed me back. I crashed through three pillars of pure concrete. It hurt. My body was damaged badly, and the nanomachines could barely keep up the repairs.

My Jerry dashed forward with super speed and agility, but he fell limp when the doppelganger simply sent a wave of nanomachines to hack his operating system. He stood up like a puppet and his muscles moved him forward. I anticipated a hack after seeing what happened to my partner and adjusted my security with endless firewalls and loops. I felt our nanomachines tangle and fight as the doppelganger attempted to breach my security. It was only a matter of time before I would be hacked too. In addition to the firewall assault, the future Jerry sent a physical assault. The puppet Jerry dashed to me and landed a kick. His arms and legs flailed, and I blocked the onslaught of punches, kicks, and jabs. I sent my nanomachines out during the fight to take control of my Jerry. He must have known what I was trying to do because a backdoor into his systems presented itself fairly quickly. Jerry’s double was surprised when he lost control of his subject. I spun my Jerry around and sent him charging towards his future self.

I used the distraction and my super speed to circle the future Jerry. I amped up my nanomachines in my hand that were responsible for disassembling atoms and rearranging them into other elements. While my assailant was distracted, I snuck behind him. I couldn't out tech my opponent, but I could cause physical damage—a lot of physical damage. I thrust my hand into the back of his skull. The smell of burning flesh filled the room as the machines stopped right before the brain.

I wrapped my hand around the brain of the double and was about to squeeze when I decided to give the man a chance. My future self never showed mercy. I needed to prove to myself why I would be a better person than him. Even though this man was responsible for gruesome experiments, I needed to give him a chance.

“Let us go, and you can live.”

“I can’t. She needs to die.”

I let the pressure up and said, “So why didn’t you just snatch her up and take her long ago?”

“We needed to see how she would affect our younger selves. We know now, it made us weak, unable to make the decisions necessary. There is no room for love. We’ve come too far. The mystery is much deeper than you imagine. The chambers were here before we started using them. We didn't build the chambers. They were always there throughout history, and they are always linked to what we call the factory.”

“So you aren’t the one responsible for the experiments?”

“It runs itself. We can pull people off the line, but it will collect more. We don’t know who is collecting the data. Your little show of destroying the equipment was futile. We’ve tried to destroy it many times, but it’s always rebuilt.”

I let him go and sent my machines to repair his skull.  I gave him mercy. I was in control of my destiny. The future Jerry seemed to reflect a moment. Then he became very rigid and said. “Love is a powerful force. Perhaps I have made a mistake. I think it’s time to give emotional decision-making a try. The time loop has been the same every time, but this one is different. You are not making the same decisions. Perhaps they will lead to a different outcome.”

The future Jerry’s eyes went blank. He calmed and swayed like he had injected euphoric drugs into his system. The life drained from his body. I attempted to prevent his suicide. We needed him. The task ahead of us was daunting. He blocked me. His nanomachines ate away at his body. He began to dissolve. The nanomachines converted all his matter into dust. What was left of the future Jerry floated away.