Lock & Key Read online

  “So,” he said, during a lull in the tour, while they were walking down a seemingly endless hallway, “you really think I’ll be able to fix this?”

  “Fischer has faith in you. I know it seems like he’s angry at you, but that’s his way. He would never propose such a course of action if he didn’t think you were capable of doing it.”

  “I don’t even know what I’m being expected to do.”

  “I suspect that he doesn’t either, or not precisely. I think when the software has finished running we’ll have a better idea of the specifics.”

  He glanced over at her. “How did you become a Monitor?”

  “Become?” She sounded surprised. “You don’t become, you simply are.”

  “But you said you and Fischer were both human.”

  “We are.”

  “So, how…” he started, and then stopped.

  “In each generation, some humans are born to be Monitors. We grow up knowing it, knowing we’re different. When we’re old enough, we take the training, and there you are.”

  “When did you realize it?”

  Her eyes became distant, her face relaxed a little, and for a moment he could see the girl that she had once been, before time and responsibility had lined her face. “I was five, I think. I grew up in a little village in Aberdeenshire. My parents were farmers on a smallholding, my brothers and sisters just ordinary children. I knew I was different from as early as I can remember. But when I was about five years old, I realized that I could see into the past, and could, for myself, see into the future. I suddenly found that I could predict the outcome of my own actions ahead of time.” She gave a little gesture with one hand. “Take this path through the moors, you’ll stumble and bruise your shins. This one,” she gestured with the other, “and you’ll come home safe. I ignored those inner messages, at first, thinking they were mere fancies, till I found that they were always right. When Doctor Rounsaville became my teacher, when I was eighteen years old, and asked me to come work for the Library, it was hardly a surprise. It was as if I’d been waiting for eighteen years to find out what I’d always known.”

  “But why you? Why not one of your brothers or sisters, or some other little kid?”

  She smiled a little. “Why anyone for anything?” she said. “Why are you a bookstore owner? Why do you have brown eyes? Why is your last name Ault?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t have a clue.”

  “It’s the same way,” she said. “Some of us are Monitors, others are bookstore owners or physicists or bakers or chimney sweeps. Asking why would take unraveling all of the choices for the past thousand years that led to your being born and ending up where you are. It’s a question that would take another thousand years to answer. So perhaps the true answer is, it happened that way simply because it did. And maybe that’s answer enough.” They passed a lit window that looked into an office of some sort, and she peered in. “This is our Research and Development office. But look at the time. We should get back to Fischer’s office. The software is probably finished running by now, and he’ll be pacing the room like a caged lion, waiting for us.”

  • • •

  In fact, when they got back, Fischer was once again draped in his chair in front of the computer, with Ivan the ginger tomcat curled in his lap purring wheezily. Fischer looked up as they entered, and gestured for them to join him.

  “Good timing,” he said. “The reverse bifurcation finished up five minutes ago. We have an answer. Or answers. Or pieces of them.”

  Darren followed Maggie around the back of the desk, and peered at the screen.

  The cartoon man stood with his arms folded across his chest, a satisfied grin on his face. “Here are your results!” was all his speech bubble said. Below the speech bubble were about fifteen lines of text, more prosaically laid out.

  CLEVENGER, KATHERINE JANE, Oskaloosa, IA, USA b. 7 June 1921

  Results of Reverse Bifurcation to locate actual track interlock

  Points of intersection with existing actual tracks:

  1) South Uist, Hebrides, Scotland, Maíre Gillacomgain, b. 3 March 882; actual end track code = GGY837789-0098; spouse unknown; divergence occurred 16 August 903

  2) Trondheim, Sor-Trondelag, Norway, Per Olafsson, b. 19 December 1323; actual end track code = JNB615530-2822; spouse unknown; divergence occurred 12 April 1350

  3) Concord, Kentucky, USA, Jane Bell, b. 30 July 1820; actual end track code PSD900654-3487; spouse unknown; divergence occurred 2 November 1844

  “Curious,” Maggie said.

  “It is that,” Fischer said, his voice animated. “Looks like there are three points where something happened that interfered with Darren’s timeline. Look how far back the first one was. Early tenth century. I wonder if Lee somehow went back and killed one of Darren’s ancestors in medieval Scotland, and that’s what generated the paradox.”

  “Or stopped one from being born,” she said.

  Fischer nodded. “Yes.”

  “But why three points?” she asked. “You’d think one would be sufficient to render the rest of the family line nonexistent.”

  “Perhaps Lee fucked about with three different places in the timeline.” Fischer sounded uncertain.

  “That would presuppose that Lee had a great deal of knowledge about Mister Ault’s family history,” Maggie said. “Given the dearth of genealogical records available before the eighteenth century, that is hard to imagine.”

  Fischer frowned. “I don’t know.”

  She pointed at the screen. “And note that in each of the three divergences pinpointed, the software only could find one of the parents. The other is unknown, in each case. I’ve never known this software to do that.”

  “Me either,” Fischer said. “It doesn’t say, ‘never married.’ It says ‘spouse unknown,’ as if the computer knew they’d hooked up with someone, but ran into a snag when it tried to figure out who. But that supports my hypothesis that something went back and interfered with the birth of Darren’s ancestors. Three of them, apparently, were left spouseless, or perhaps married other people. In any case, those three divergences made it impossible for Darren’s grandmother to be born, and thus Darren went pfft. Along with the rest of humanity.” He gave a wry little smile. “God dislikes paradoxes, apparently.”

  “But,” Darren said, “how do we know what it was that caused it? If I’m supposed to go back and fix this, how can I do that if I don’t know what went wrong?”

  “Well, it has to have had something to do with Lee McCaskill. We’re working on the assumption that he has somehow learned how to time travel. So I’d say we should start with the earliest one, and have you go back there and snoop around and see if Lee shows up. When he does, get him to… to not do whatever it was that he was going to do.”

  “Well, that sounds simple.” He shook his head, eyes wide.

  “Good,” Fischer said, ignoring his attempt at sarcasm.

  “What if he has a gun?” he said, embarrassed at how weak his voice sounded.

  “He tried that once, and you survived,” Fischer said. “So far, I think it’s Darren Ault one, Lee McCaskill’s gun zero.”

  “I don’t know about this.” He was rapidly running out of things to say to stall.

  “Well, I do. That’s why I’m the Librarian, and you’re not.” Fischer rubbed his hands together. “So, there we are. We’ll land you a little before the date the divergence occurred,” Fischer consulted the computer again, “August sixteenth, nine hundred and three. Look around, see what you can see. Try to find this…” Fischer looked at the computer screen again, “…Maíre Gillacomgain. She must be important. So that’s that. Off you go to Scotland.”

  He swallowed. “Now?”

  “We should wait why?”

  “Um. I don’t know. And besides,” he said, desperation rising in him, “how can you send me to the tenth century? I mean, you can’t just make me… go there.” His eyes widened. “Can you?”

  “Easiest thing in
the world,” Fischer said. “Remember, you really don’t exist in any case. You have no actual track, ergo, you’re nothing. Nada. Bubkis. And I can send nothing wherever I want.”

  He gave a desperate glance at Maggie, who was regarding him with some degree of sympathy. “Missus Carmichael, he can’t… he can’t…”

  “Well, yes,” she said. “Actually, he can.”

  Fischer made a little shooing gesture with his hand, and the Librarian, Maggie, and the Administrative Office of the Library of Timelines… all winked out of existence.

  • • •

  An icy gust slapped Darren in the face, and he closed his eyes involuntarily. He opened them a moment later, however, when a wave of frigid water crested over his feet, soaking his jeans to mid-calf.

  He yelped and scrambled uphill, as another, and larger, wave foamed toward him. He avoided most of that one, and stood looking around, his eyes at first refusing to believe what he saw.

  He was facing out over a rough, gray ocean, rippled with shifting, wind-driven whitecaps. A shelving slope of rough gravel and sand curved away from him in both directions. The sky was a pale, washed-out blue, with a few streaks of high cloud, and gulls kited and soared in the gusty air, calling forlornly. The sun shone, but its light seemed feeble, and provided no warmth whatsoever. Behind him was a ragged slope, with nothing but a few tufts of grass hanging on, blown nearly flat, hissing in the constant wind.

  He wrapped his arms around himself. The wind sliced easily through his thin t-shirt, and salt spray spattered his glasses.

  He looked up into the empty sky.

  “Fischer!” he shouted. “Get me out of here!”

  There was no response except from the gulls.

  “Fischer!” he bellowed as loudly as he could. “I demand that you bring me back!”

  Either Fischer couldn’t hear him or else wasn’t listening. The waves continued to strike the shore, the wind continued to blow, and the gulls continued to cry. Nothing else happened for several minutes.

  “Oh, well, this is just great.” He rubbed the backs of his arms. “He sends me to medieval Scotland without a jacket. I don’t even speak Gaelic, or whatever they spoke in medieval Scotland. And I’m somehow supposed to fix this stupid mess.” He looked up into the sky again—the thought, why do I think the Library is up there? passed through his head, followed by, probably because when I was a kid, that’s where they told me dead people go, and I’m sort of dead, I guess. And he raised both arms to the sky and shouted, “Some Librarian you are! You send me somewhere where I don’t speak the language, I don’t know what I’m looking for, I don’t know how to fix it even if I find it, and I don’t have a goddamn jacket!”

  Again, there came no response.

  “Just great,” he said again, and for no very good reason, he made his way up the slope of the beach.

  When he got to the top of the low hill, he saw the first sign of human habitation, a rough wooden rack, its base weighted with rocks to keep it from blowing away. It looked a little like the portable laundry rack he’d had in his apartment when he was just out of college, only rough-hewn and heavier-built. He went up to it, and was struck with a strong fishy smell.

  They dry fish here. Of course. You live on a small island, fishing would be the only game in town.

  He looked past the rack, and out over the barren landscape of sand, rock, and grass. There was no other sign of inhabitants.

  “Dammit, Fischer!” Darren shouted again. “There’s no one here! You sent me to the wrong place!”

  Something pointed jabbed him in the back. He jumped a little, and turned.

  Facing him was a young man of perhaps eighteen years, who appeared to have risen up from the hillside by magic. He had long, reddish-brown hair, tied back, and narrow, aquiline features. He was clad in a plain brown garment a little like a kilt, a pair of leather sandals, and nothing else. In his hand he had a straight wooden spear tipped with a barbed metal head.

  “Move,” the young man said, in perfect English, “and I will spit you like a fish.”

  Darren made an inarticulate noise, his eyes wide.

  “Are you a Viking?” the young man demanded.

  “What?” he finally managed. “A Viking? Me? Lord no.”

  “Then why were you calling out to your Fisher God?”

  “What?” he said again.

  “You called out to your God of Fishermen. You said, ‘Fisher, you sent me to the wrong place.’ The Vikings worship a God of the Deep Places, so they say.”

  “Him? Fischer?” He gulped. “No, no! He’s not a god, he’s just a guy. His name is Fischer. I don’t worship him. In fact, right now, I’d like to punch him in the nose.”

  The man dropped his spear a little.

  “Then you’re not a Viking?”

  “No!”

  “How did you get here?”

  His mind ran through various lies he could tell. None of them sounded very convincing. He settled on the truth.

  “Fischer sent me here. To this island. To do something.” And that does sound convincing?

  “Where is your boat, then?”

  “Boat? I didn’t come on a boat.”

  The spear point rose again. “This Fischer, he sent you here? With no boat to carry you? Then he is a god. No man could do such a thing.”

  “Believe me, he’s no god,” Darren said. “He can do stuff. But that doesn’t make him a god. He seems to think he’s one, though.” The words felt bitter in his mouth. He looked at the young man in some incredulity. “You speak English?”

  The young man’s expression was one of incomprehension. “I speak only as all here do,” he said. “I do not know of English. Is it how they call the speech in your land?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I thought… well, I didn’t think they spoke that language here.”

  “The only other speech is that of the Vikings, which sounds to my ears like the snarling of wolves. You and I, we simply speak as our people do. Why does this surprise you?”

  “I really don’t feel like explaining. And I don’t know if I even could, anyway. But yeah, I’m surprised, I guess.”

  The young man gestured with his spear. Darren flinched a little, but he was simply using the weapon as a pointer. “Do all men dress like that, where you come from?”

  He looked down at his t-shirt—a souvenir of a Dave Matthews Band concert he’d attended the previous year—and his sopping wet jeans and sneakers.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Pretty much.”

  “And the…” the young man gestured toward his face. “The thing. On your face.” He reached out, and tapped one of the lenses of his glasses with a fingernail, and his expression showed surprise. “The crystal covering you put over your eyes.”

  “They’re called glasses. They help me see better.”

  The young man took them from the bridge of his nose. The entire scene dissolved into a diffuse blur. He saw the vague motion of the young man placing them on his own nose, and heard an exclamation of dismay.

  “They blind me!” the young man said, sounding angry, or frightened, or both.

  “Don’t throw them away! I need them! I can’t see without them!”

  The glasses were shoved back onto his face. He reached up and straightened them. The world’s clarity returned.

  “Your land must be an odd place, that men there would need such a thing.”

  “There are no people here who don’t see well?”

  The young man nodded. “Certainly. Every place has its blind men. Some can see a little, others not at all. But I do not understand how those—what did you call them? glasses?—would help a blind man see.”

  “They just do,” he said. “I don’t know that I can explain it.”

  The young man did not seem to be interested in discussing the point—he simply appeared to accept that it was a mystery, and that was enough. He looked Darren over, his shrewd blue eyes evaluating him. Finally he appeared to make a decision. He dropped the spear p
oint, and jabbed it into the sand next to him.

  “Very well. I believe you. You are no Viking.” One eyebrow rose a little. “For one thing, you are too thin around the chest and arms to be a Viking. Whatever else you may say about them, the Vikings are truly men.”

  He considered defending his masculinity, but decided against it. He’d made some headway, in that the spear was no longer pointed at his breastbone, and arguing over whether he or the Vikings had the most testosterone probably wouldn’t help.

  He shivered a little, and gave the young man a plaintive look. “Aren’t you cold?”

  The young man’s expression became incredulous. “It is a beautiful summer afternoon. Why should I be cold?”

  “Because it’s freezing. You’re hardly wearing any clothes.”

  “You must come from a land of great warmth, if you find it cold here,” the young man said.

  That was the first time he had ever heard Seattle described as “a land of great warmth,” but he didn’t argue. “Warmer than here, anyway.”

  The young man nodded. “What is your name?”

  “Darren Ault.”

  “It is a strange name. Darinauld. You have come from far away, I’d wager.”

  “You have no idea.” He tried unsuccessfully to keep the defeated tone from his voice.

  “I am called Malcolm,” the young man said. “I live yonder. It is not far. My father will want to meet you and speak with you.” He turned, and strode farther up the slope, away from the wooden rack and the view of the ocean.

  “Wait a moment,” Darren said, jogging to keep up with the kid. “Have you seen any other strangers in the last few days? Someone dressed like me?”

  Malcolm halted, and turned, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

  “There is another from your land here?”

  “There might be. He doesn’t really look like me, though. He’s taller, and bigger built.”

  Malcolm grinned. “That would describe many, I fear.”

  Darren tried to keep the exasperated look off his face. “Now, look…” he began.