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Authors: Tim Powers
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gray-haired Evian said, “Apologies, apologies! It was urgent, our people got carried away. And we do pay well.” “Help … with what?” asked Hollis.
“We simply want to find out what happened here on June 21, 1975.” “The night God vomited on Firehouse Pizza,” said Felise, nodding solemnly.
Hollis took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t remember anything about that night after about eight.” He looked at the four people across from him. “Why is it important? Now?”
“You’re finally starting to remember, I think,” said Evian. “You drove your motorcycle here today, and you recognized Felise, eventually. As to why it’s important –”
“They can’t,” interrupted Felise, “we can’t, that is, time-travel to that night. They can’t get closer than a half hour on either side of it, and if they get there early and then try to walk in, they find they’re walking out. Without changing direction. Even me, and I’m already
in
there.”
The bald man, Scarbee, spoke up: “Cameras we leave in there disappear on that evening.”
“It’s like an island in the time stream,” agreed Evian. “We’re confined to the metaphorical water, and so we find we’ve gone by the incident, or we’re short of it, but we can’t get
to
it. And something important happened then. Then by there, I mean.” Felise said, “He means ‘then and there.’”
“Time-travel,” said Hollis flatly. He took the bourbon bottle and drank a mouthful, then glanced around at the featureless room.
“Congress approved a new super-collider in Dallas in 2012,” said the bald-headed man, “and the National Security Agency got Fermilab in Chicago. Charged tachyons in a mile-wide magnetic ring. It can project power fifth-dimensionally for a range of about fifty years back and twenty forward – there’s some kind of Lorentzian ether headwind. We get shut down in 2019.”
Hollis frowned and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Felise said, “It’s true. Look at me.”
For several seconds none of them spoke.
“So,” said Hollis finally, with no expression, “you can change the past?”
“Apparently not,” said Evian. “But we can usually find out what it is. What happened that night?”
“Ask Felise,” said Hollis, “or Don. They were both there too, then. Thex.”
“I hid behind the bar,” said Felise, “after the devil’s hula-hoops and basketballs started spinning.”
Hollis’s forehead was suddenly cold with sweat.
That’s right,
he thought –
hoops and balls.
The deteriorating scar wall he had built up around the memory had been severely shaken by seeing Felise again, still as young as she had been on that night, and now, with this prompt from her, it gave way at last.
He had been on the phone by the front cash register when his vision had begun to flicker – he had been looking out past the counter at the tables, but suddenly without shifting his head he had seen curled segments of the pinball machines at the back end of the dining room, and even of the dumpster out back.
And then the spheres and rings had appeared in the air, rapidly expanding and sending tables flying in a clatter, or shrinking down to nothing. They were zebra-patterned in black and silver, and the stripes shifted as rapidly as the size of the impossible things.
Probably the intrusion had lasted no more than ten seconds. Five.
There had never been any police investigation later, but people had died there. Hollis could remember seeing a man explosively crushed against one of the walls as an expanding ring punched most of his body right through into the alley.
How could I have forgotten this? he thought now; how could I
not
have forgotten it?
And then he seemed to recall that he had met it –
Only after he choked on warm bourbon did he realize that he had snatched up the bottle. He coughed, and then drank what remained in three heroic gulps.
“It was a hallucination,” he said hoarsely, wondering if
“We simply want to find out what happened here on June 21, 1975.” “The night God vomited on Firehouse Pizza,” said Felise, nodding solemnly.
Hollis took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t remember anything about that night after about eight.” He looked at the four people across from him. “Why is it important? Now?”
“You’re finally starting to remember, I think,” said Evian. “You drove your motorcycle here today, and you recognized Felise, eventually. As to why it’s important –”
“They can’t,” interrupted Felise, “we can’t, that is, time-travel to that night. They can’t get closer than a half hour on either side of it, and if they get there early and then try to walk in, they find they’re walking out. Without changing direction. Even me, and I’m already
in
there.”
The bald man, Scarbee, spoke up: “Cameras we leave in there disappear on that evening.”
“It’s like an island in the time stream,” agreed Evian. “We’re confined to the metaphorical water, and so we find we’ve gone by the incident, or we’re short of it, but we can’t get
to
it. And something important happened then. Then by there, I mean.” Felise said, “He means ‘then and there.’”
“Time-travel,” said Hollis flatly. He took the bourbon bottle and drank a mouthful, then glanced around at the featureless room.
“Congress approved a new super-collider in Dallas in 2012,” said the bald-headed man, “and the National Security Agency got Fermilab in Chicago. Charged tachyons in a mile-wide magnetic ring. It can project power fifth-dimensionally for a range of about fifty years back and twenty forward – there’s some kind of Lorentzian ether headwind. We get shut down in 2019.”
Hollis frowned and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Felise said, “It’s true. Look at me.”
For several seconds none of them spoke.
“So,” said Hollis finally, with no expression, “you can change the past?”
“Apparently not,” said Evian. “But we can usually find out what it is. What happened that night?”
“Ask Felise,” said Hollis, “or Don. They were both there too, then. Thex.”
“I hid behind the bar,” said Felise, “after the devil’s hula-hoops and basketballs started spinning.”
Hollis’s forehead was suddenly cold with sweat.
That’s right,
he thought –
hoops and balls.
The deteriorating scar wall he had built up around the memory had been severely shaken by seeing Felise again, still as young as she had been on that night, and now, with this prompt from her, it gave way at last.
He had been on the phone by the front cash register when his vision had begun to flicker – he had been looking out past the counter at the tables, but suddenly without shifting his head he had seen curled segments of the pinball machines at the back end of the dining room, and even of the dumpster out back.
And then the spheres and rings had appeared in the air, rapidly expanding and sending tables flying in a clatter, or shrinking down to nothing. They were zebra-patterned in black and silver, and the stripes shifted as rapidly as the size of the impossible things.
Probably the intrusion had lasted no more than ten seconds. Five.
There had never been any police investigation later, but people had died there. Hollis could remember seeing a man explosively crushed against one of the walls as an expanding ring punched most of his body right through into the alley.
How could I have forgotten this? he thought now; how could I
not
have forgotten it?
And then he seemed to recall that he had met it –
Only after he choked on warm bourbon did he realize that he had snatched up the bottle. He coughed, and then drank what remained in three heroic gulps.
“It was a hallucination,” he said hoarsely, wondering if
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