Lost Friday Page 17

  Vishal weighed his answer carefully. “That depends on whether you stop the invention before, or after, the abductions. If it happens before, they’ll never get here. If it happens afterwards, we won’t have the ability to return them.”

  “Because you will no longer have the technology.”

  “Correct. We have the same risk at this end. Anyone who has traveled into the past could get caught there.”

  By comparison, that would be like me getting caught in revolutionary era America and wiping my ass with corncobs. Ugh. That meant that any intervention had to happen pre-September 24th if David was to stay in twenty-first century Sea Beach, and even before that in order to avoid the scientists from being trapped in the future. Thing was, we had no idea how far back the abductions went, unless Remington had zeroed in on it, which, hello, she had! She’d told me that. I also remembered, now, that she was supposed to have met with Corvissi yesterday—I mean, yesterday minus 190 years—but, knowing what I knew now, I needed to move her off that assignment, just as I’d anticipated. The story had always been the president, just like my instincts told me from the very beginning when he tried to soft-sell Roy and me into cooperating with the kidnappers. But how was I going to prove he was dirty? And what about David Robelle? Clearly, the easiest way to stop David from making his discovery was to prevent him from ever being born, but, ethically, I saw Vishal’s point. There was a certain morality that went along with the ability to travel through time, and going back and preventing an existing life from happening could easily be construed as a form of murder. God, how complicated things could become; I mean, had become; I mean, would become. Shit!

  “I need to get back to my own time,” I said. “I’ve got a lot to do.”

  “I assume you’re going to help us.”

  “What choice do I have, if I want to stay alive?”

  “You could not break the story about President Richardson.”

  Right. “The only way I’d not break that story is if I forgot about it,” I said. “Speaking of which, is the same thing going to happen this time as did the first two times I came here, forgetting everything when I return, I mean?”

  Vishal speared me with a stare. “What do you mean, the first two times? The only previous time you were here was the day you’re calling Lost Friday.”

  Uh-oh. That didn’t sound right. “So much for your intelligence,” I said to Vishal. I described the event of my second visit, my coded notes, my recollection of the swastika on a field of blood, and how Anne Behari and Roy Mulroney had regurgitated similar recollections through their doodles. Vishal took a seat and seemed to deflate, running his hands through his long, jet-black hair. “What’s the problem,” I asked, being the astute analyzer of body language that I am.

  “All of you have been exposed to the Red Diamond, and all of you are in great peril. The deletion of particular items from your memories is done for protection.”

  “How does erasing our memory protect us?”

  “It doesn’t protect you. It protects us, and the Red Diamond, unfortunately, from any temptation on your part to interfere with historical events. If you don’t remember what happened in the future, you would have no reason to tamper with events once you returned to your own time. At least that’s the idea, and it works most of the time.”

  I thought: this just gets more better at every turn. “Most of the time,” I repeated for effect.

  “Sometimes the memory erases aren’t completely effective.”

  “How not completely?” I suddenly felt like the accountants who audited Enron’s books. “How do they work?”

  “The memory cleanses came out of the Alzheimer’s research of the last century. Treatments were developed that helped people pinpoint and remember certain things. Reversing the process, you can help people forget certain things as well.” Vishal stood now. “The memory is a strange entity,” he went on. “About one-in-a-thousand adults are eidetikers in some form.”

  I was already spooked, and Vishal’s nervous energy was giving me a case of the yips. “What the hell is an eidetiker?”

  “Such people are able to recall certain things in unusual or advanced ways. Sometimes it’s visual, sometimes it’s sensory, but they are able to see them in their mind as if they were looking at an image.”

  “So you’re talking about a photographic memory?”

  “Correct. There are degrees of recall, but, in general, it is a very bad trait for you to have in conjunction with having visited the Red Diamond. I am certain they would not want anyone in your time to have knowledge of their existence. History can be manipulated to harm them as well, you see.”

  “So now, not only do I have to worry about my own president sending someone to kill me, I have to worry about the Red Diamond finding out that that their memory erase didn’t take.”

  “For you, knowing about the Red Diamond probably makes little difference. You were slated to die within three months anyway.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “For your friends, however, it could certainly hasten their departure from the planet.”

  Just great. “You never answered my question. Are you going to do one of those memory erase things on me, or not?”

  “If we do a memory erase, you can’t help us,” Vishal said.

  I thought: man, could I get a story out of this, or what? “Maybe you could send your Mossad friend back to protect us,” I said, suddenly wondering where old Aryeh was at.

  “Unfortunately communication is not possible through the time dimension. You must find him when you return.”

  “He’s already there?”

  “He is,” Vishal confirmed. “Trying to find the Red Diamond operative.”

  “I might be able to help you with that,” I said. “I think I know who she is.”

  Chapter 22… Backfire

  “What day is it?”

  “It is Sunday afternoon, October 3rd, 2194.”

  “Just checking.” Forty-seven billion people on the planet, and the only one I’d talked to for the last two days was Vishal. I was getting tired of looking at him. “What time is it?”

  Vishal said, “Time please,” and a set of hanging numbers appeared: 3:27 p.m. “Thank you,” and they were gone. “Do you need nourishment?”

  I’d been given something to help me sleep, which was probably a good idea, but I’d slept away most of the day. I recalled yesterday’s eggs and toast, which was the only thing I’d eaten since I’d arrived. Nervous stomach or not, I needed something.

  Vishal walked over to a control panel, said, “Breakfast please,” and poked at some pictures that appeared on the automatic screen. He turned. “Are you prepared?”

  I noticed that Vishal was wearing different clothes, a uniform perhaps, consisting of a light tunic over a body-hugging t-shirt thing, all in black, shimmering fabric. I hadn’t thought of him as muscular before. “As prepared as I’m going to be,” I said. “I need to ask you some questions before I go.” The control panel dinged from across the room, and Vishal came back with something that looked like pancakes, and something else that looked more like a picture of bacon than bacon itself. I sniffed and ate, not wanting to know anything further about what I was putting into my body. The juice, however, was delicious. “Do you remember yesterday when we talked about the twelve jurors?”

  “I do.”

  “I think there were two other people taken besides them.”

  “You’re referring to the teachers.”

  “You know about them?”

  “Our intelligence indicates they’ve been brought here to provide testimony about David Robelle’s intellectual capability, specifically whether he was capable of devising the mathematical concepts that led to the invention of time travel.”

  “They’re testifying for the prosecution? They’d never do that.”

  “If they don’t, they’ll never be returned to their own time. Similarly,
the jurors will never be returned if they do not find David guilty. The only way to help any of them is to prevent them from being brought here in the first place.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “There’s something I still don’t understand. You said the charges against David have been fabricated. What exactly is he being charged with?”

  “Murder.”

  “That’s impossible. How could the David Robelle of 190 years ago commit murder now?”

  “This isn’t the first time David and the scientists have been contacted from the future, Mister Pappas. They were fully aware of the possible detrimental uses of time travel well before the actual invention of the ITD device, one of those uses being the prevention of certain people from even being born.”

  “Which has been classified as a form of murder by the Red Diamond,” I concluded.

  “If it’s one of their own, and depending on the morality of the moment, yes,” Vishal concurred. “While flimsy, they’re using it as leverage. If David gives them ITD capability, they go back and expunge the law from the books. If he doesn’t, he’s convicted and executed. His lawyer and the jury are strictly for appearances.”

  “I assume the people targeted to be unborn are members of the Red Diamond, and I assume further that is some of your handiwork.”

  Vishal didn’t respond, and I think he was getting tired of explaining things. It was what it was in the year 2194, and if I didn’t help him and the ICTO, I’d be just one more casualty in their struggle and he’d move on without so much as a blink.

  “Can’t you find out where David and the scientists are being held?” I asked.

  “We know where they are, but we could never physically penetrate that deeply into the Red Diamond’s facilities. You’re their only hope, Mister Pappas.”

  “What if I told you the teachers could cause us some problems, as well?”

  Vishal drew down on me with a stare. “How do you mean?”

  “What if I told you they’ve been instructed to tell their captors that the last memory cleanse on me didn’t take—and that I know who their leader is.”

  The stare deepened into a scowl. “Why would they say such a thing, even if it were true?”

  “Well, ahem, you see, I have this friend, Roy Mulroney—”

  “The policeman.”

  “Right. Well, you see, he gets kind of gung-ho sometimes, and well, ahem, he figured that if he could get the teachers to tell this little white lie, it would force the abductors to come back for me.”

  “For what purpose?”

  A shiver ran up my spine as I said, “To kill me, I think.”

  “And why would they want to kill you now, Mister Pappas? They’ve already had the opportunity.”

  “Well, ahem, you see, part of the little white lie is that by my knowing who their leader is, we’d track down the proper ancestor on the old family tree and cut off that branch, if you get my drift. You see, Roy is using me as bait. He figures he’ll be there waiting when they come back for me.”

  Vishal just said, “I see.”

  “This is all Roy’s doing. He set this up with the teachers without my knowing about it.” It dawned on me as soon as I said it that Roy and Vishal weren’t too far apart in the use-and-abuse-Johnny Pappas category.

  “And the teachers were prepared to go through with this?”

  “Uh-huh. By the way, is it were prepared, or are prepared?”

  Vishal didn’t answer, and he didn’t look happy. “There are some problems with the logic,” he said. “The first problem is that if the Red Diamond has your DNA pattern—and I assume they do—they don’t need to send anyone back to abduct you. They can simply scan, lock-on, and take you. Mister Mulroney probably isn’t aware of that.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  “Another problem is that the Red Diamond has many leaders now, so many that it might be impossible to trace back to the one ancestor responsible for its creation. That might be the only thing that would save your life.” Vishal stood, indicating breakfast was over. “Let’s discuss your return.”

  “Wait a minute. How am I going to stop David Robelle from making his discovery?”

  “You should probably discuss that with your friend Mister Mulroney. He seems to have everything else figured out.”

  I think Vishal was a little pissed.

  Chapter 23… Death On The Boardwalk

  “So, I’m going back to Wednesday, September 22nd, two days before Lost Friday. Right?”

  “That is correct.”

  Okay, this was much worse than waiting for the first dip on some big roller coaster. “Are you sure Aryeh can’t meet me?”

  “As I’ve already explained, we can’t communicate through time, but he knows the general plan. I assume you’ll be able to recognize him.”

  “Not a problem.” His image was tattooed on my brain. “And you’re positive that’s the best day to go back?”

  “We’ve gone over this twice.”

  “Just make sure I don’t reappear on the Garden State Parkway, or something.”

  “We have a secure location that we’ve used before. If you have no other questions, we need to go there now. Please note the time. There could be some variance when you return, but it’s usually within two hours.”

  I looked at my watch. It was just after eight o’clock on Sunday evening, October 3rd, 2194, and I was getting ready to go back 190 years, and eleven days.

  “It’s usually safer for new travelers to do this under cover of darkness,” Vishal said, which sounded like an oxymoron to me, but I didn’t question it, seeing as I didn’t know what the heck he was talking about anyway. “It’s imperative that you find Aryeh as soon as possible. History marches on, Mister Pappas.”

  I didn’t quite know what he meant by that either, but I said, “Okay, let’s roll.” To my surprise, Vishal took me to the beach, a stretch that wasn’t covered with a food processing plant or a residence dwelling. I recognized it immediately despite the looming darkness. It was at the edge of Sea Beach proper, where the boardwalk ended and the beach curved around to where Island Beach State Park began—or used to begin. I’d walked on that sand many times over the years, usually after having lured some tanned goddess off the boardwalk for some Johnny-ecstasy under the stars. With the sun going down, people were streaming onto the sand—what there was of it—enjoying themselves without having to wear SPF-2 billion, or something. Anyway, a small structure had been set up, and the sides came away so that it looked like a portable, hard-sided tent, of sorts, that could be loaded onto a vehicle and carted from one place to another. It was large enough to accommodate something about the size of a car, and beneath it sat a contraption about half that size. Stone-faced guards in uniforms like the one Vishal was wearing surrounded the tent. “An ITD, I assume.”

  “Correct, Mister Pappas. You only get one lesson, so please pay attention.”

  I panicked slightly. “Wait a minute. You mean I’m doing this by myself? What if I screw up?”

  Vishal looked at me really seriously, and said, “Don’t.”

  Thank you Paul Romano, I almost said. I looked at the ITD, which, to me, looked distinctly like an MRI machine, which I remember because I hurt my shoulder playing football once and I had to go to one of those places that zap you with MRIs. “Okay, how’s it work?” I asked, figuring I could get one hell of a follow-up story out of it—if I lived to write about it.

  “The device works by teleportation.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a process by which matter is dematerialized at one point, and recreated at another.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “What exactly do you mean by dematerialized?”

  “The general idea is that the atoms in your body are scanned, and the information is transmitted through frozen wormholes in the time continuum at speeds beyond the speed of light. The information accumulates at the other end of the wormhole
, and your body is reconstructed so as to form an exact replica of the original, made up of exactly the same kinds of atoms, and arranged in exactly the same pattern.”

  “Whoa, Nellie. Let’s just wait one cotton-pickin’ minute here. Do you mean to tell me that I’m about to be sent back in time by a big, freaking fax machine? And what do you mean replica? I ain’t no fucking replica.” Vishal’s expression indicated that maybe I was overreacting.

  “There’s no need to worry, Mister Pappas. The device—”

  “Don’t tell me what’s worth worrying or not worrying about. I mean, what if I come out the other end, like, missing a testicle or something?”

  “The technology has been perfected.”

  “Right. And that’s why you don’t know why people fall asleep sometimes. It can’t get perfect enough for me, Vishal baby. I mean, accidents do happen, right? Even in the year 2194.” I stepped back, and my next thought slapped me upside the head. “Wait a minute,” I said. “I’ve traveled back and forth….” I ticked off the number of one-way trips I’d made to-and-from the year 2194 on my fingers. “… five times now.”

  Vishal smiled, and said, “If you say so.”

  I looked down at myself. I was a fucking replica? “Where’s the original Johnny Pappas?” I asked lamely.

  Vishal came up and put a hand on my shoulder, which I shoved away. “The original gets dismantled in the process of being scanned,” he said, pointing to the ITD. “The original atoms get disseminated into the atmosphere.”

  I suddenly felt the picture of bacon I’d eaten bubble up inside my stomach. It was always the stomach with me, but I had reason to be upset. I mean, I was no longer Johnny Pappas. I was a copy of Johnny Pappas, and the more copies you made of the original, the worse the quality became. I had visions of myself looking like Rodney Dangerfield, and I touched my hair.