Time and Again: A Collection of Crazy Chronology

  Oh, crap.

  I looked up at the ladder that led up to the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module, then down at the white powder under my environmental suit, and my flailing legs struggling to find purchase in the low lunar gravity and balance myself.

  Well, not my self. His.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen. Neil Armstrong stumbled over his prepared words, not his own feet.

  The presence of me – Scott Jones – in his mind was supposed to have absolutely no effect on him – they promised me this would be safe.

  “Houston, I’ve sustained no injury – Cancel 10-33 – I’m fine.”

  Whew.

  Well, as long as the Russians weren’t watching.

  As Neil Armstrong rose to his feet and delivered his famous line about steps and leaps – getting it exactly right this time – I started to worry.

  Something was obviously wrong. I was supposed to be observing “history in the making” – not “history in the changing.”

  Then it hit me – maybe NASA, at the government’s insistence – had edited out that blunder as Armstrong reached the bottom rung of the ladder. Maybe what the world knew as history was really “take two.”

  In that case, this excursion was well-worth the risk – and the money.

  I’d been saving up for this since I graduated high school – Class of 2216. The “ultimate adventure vacation experience,” they called it.

  “Extreme remote viewing,” my girlfriend called it. She’d been given a trip to spend a day in the life of Cleopatra as a graduation gift from her rich uncle.

  The idea of witnessing a historical event first-hand was tantalizing to me. Having my consciousness ripped from my own body, sent backward in time as a quantum-displaced data packet and inserted into the brain of a famous person was horrifically scary – but what a thrill.

  So, I scrimped and saved, eating nothing but Mackeez rehydrated mac-n-cheese for five years, and put away my 199,999.99 credits. I got my insurance, and booked my tour – only to learn of the one-year waiting list.

  No problem, I said. Gave me more time to figure out who and when I wanted to visit.

  After narrowing it down to four famous people from history, I finally settled on Neil Armstrong and that most amazing moment when humans first set foot on the moon.

  I had no idea it would be so awesome – and so surprisingly different from the history we’d all grown up with. As I split my attention between the events before my eyes and the odd stumble that had just occurred, something nagged at me.

  He’d said the line right.

  “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

  Even with conspiratorial government editing, it didn’t make sense that he got it right.

  As Mission Commander Armstrong bounced along the surface with Buzz Aldrin, I felt the diminished gravity as if I were really Mr. Armstrong. I could hear the hissing breathing, taste the stale recycled air in the helmet, and see the Earth on the horizon.

  Despite the astronaut’s extensive low-G training, I could feel the sensation of creeping nausea mixed with intense adrenaline. So this was what it was like for him. This was really history.

  At the edge of my perception, I could feel a thin buzzing that was not a part of Armstrong’s perception. It was the one part of this experience that did not belong here – a tiny sensation of being tethered to my own world – to the present day and my own location. Like a paper-thin, invisible life line back home.

  Suddenly, everything dissolved, and I felt my consciousness pulled from Neil Armstrong, from the moon, from 1969.

  What a rip off!

  This was supposed to last twenty-four hours – that’s why History Tours, Inc., called it “A Day in the Life.”

  Well, I call it a complete disaster. A catastrophic failure.

  When I got back, I was going to demand a refund. Not pro-rated, either – the whole amount.

  After a few dizzying moments of cold, silent blackness, I felt myself awakening. I kicked myself off the bed and stumbled to the mirror, rubbing my eyes.

  But it was not my own face that looked back at me.

  This was a face that everyone knew.

  The King.

  Elvis.

  How could this be? Yes, I had considered spending my vacation as Mr. Presley – the day he appeared on the Ed Sullivan show for the first time – but I’d decided against it. I clearly remember deleting the option from my application weeks ago.

  But here it was, September 1956, according to the calendar on the faded yellow wall of this cheap-looking hotel room.

  Maybe something went wrong with the programming, causing me to get pulled out of Neil Armstrong, and History Tours was giving me my second choice as a sort of refund.

  Fine. Elvis it is.

  I (or Elvis) looked around at the small room with its fraying brown carpet and dim lighting. I was surprised the TV network couldn’t afford a nicer place to put up the King – then realized he wasn’t quite the King, yet.

  Gaining fame, yes. Causing girls everywhere to scream and swoon, yes. But not yet at the zenith of popularity.

  That would all start tonight.

  So, why was he just standing here, looking around?

  After a few seconds of Elvis’ actions being synchronized with my thoughts, it hit me.

  I was in control.

  I stumbled back and fell on the bed in a sitting position.

  Whoa.

  This was definitely not how this was supposed to work.

  I raised a hand and looked at it. “What the,” I started, with the baritone drawl of Elvis issuing from my lips.

  From his lips.

  This was going to get confusing. Not to mention very, very embarrassing, come show time tonight.

  A knock at the door.

  “Go away!” Elvis droned. “I – uh, I gotta headache, man.”

  Think, think!

  A muffled voice through the door. “It’s me - Tom. Let me in, Elvis.”

  “Uh, I’m sorry, Mr. Parker, Sir,” I said, quickly recalling the name of Elvis’ long-time manager, Colonel Tom Parker. “I really can’t – I uh, I been throwin’ up, Sir. You really don’t wanna come in here right now.”

  “This is no time for a bout of nerves, son. Listen, you got an hour to get cleaned up. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I sighed heavily, relieved that I didn’t have to try to pretend to be Elvis face to face.

  But in an hour . . .

  The hour seemed to fly by as I frantically racked my brain to figure a way out of this. If I screwed up the act on stage, before millions of U.S. viewers, was that going to change history?

  If so, how?

  I spoke not a word between my hotel room and the Green Room at CBS Television City in Hollywood. When Tom asked me if I was okay, I just nodded.

  Some old actor – Charles Laughton – was hosting the show for Ed Sullivan that night. I waited backstage, starting to hyperventilate.

  I heard his introduction – Elvin Presley, he called me – and I stepped out onstage.

  “Uh, thank you, thank you very much,” I said, in classic Elvis style.

  I stared past the huge, boxy television studio cameras and into the faces of the massive crowd. Teenage girls bursting with anticipation, anxious young men, serious-faced adults.

  I cleared my throat.

  And collapsed.

  I stared up at the bright, blurry studio lights, all the voices around me becoming echoes.

  “. . . you all right-ight-ight, son?”

  “. . . get a medic-edic-edic!”

  “. . . right back after this important message from Lincoln automobiles-biles-biles”

  And everything went black.

  Silent.

  Dizzying.

  Thank goodness – History Tours was fixing this mess.

  As I floated through black silent weightlessness, I wondered whatever happened to that famed performance, now marred forever by a collapsing Elvis.

>   With no warning, I found myself riding a white horse across a marshy green field under a gray sky. Suddenly woozy, I bowed my head and closed my eyes for a moment.

  “General Washington, are you well, Sir?”

  I looked to my left, where a uniformed man rode alongside me. “Ah, yes,” I ad libbed, “well enough. Carry on.”

  I moved my hands on the reigns, noting my ability to control this latest body.

  I sighed.

  Great.

  Now I was in the body and mind of my third choice – George Washington at Yorktown, 1781 – the decisive winning battle in the American Revolutionary War.

  But, as with Elvis, I was in control.

  I barely knew anything about this time, this place. I had just thought, when arranging my tour, that it would be interesting to witness this pivotal part of history.

  I quickly recognized the potential for severe problems.

  I rode on, trying not to move the reigns too much – I didn’t even know how to ride a horse.

  Then I heard it – a voice in my mind.

  “Scott Jones, this is James Finch from History Tours, Inc. – can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” I said, perplexed. “What’s going on here?”

  “Excuse me, Sir?” asked the soldier to my right.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Mr. Jones, you do not need to vocalize your responses to me. Just think, and I will get the message.”

  “Oh,” I thought. “Okay. Um, can you get me out of here? It looks like they’re going to start fighting soon – I can see the front lines up ahead. I’m not prepared for this!”

  “Mr. Jones – can I call you Scott? Great. Scott, please remain calm. We’re working to restore you. We’ve experienced some technical difficulties, but we are getting them resolved.”

  “Technical difficulties? I thought these excursions were guaranteed safe! Who are you? I want to speak to your supervisor!”

  “As I said, my name is James Finch. I am the Senior Vice President of History and Technology. I report directly to Mr. Laurens, president of History Tours, Inc. He is currently abroad, but we are flying him back right now. You are correct, Scott, we do have a safety guarantee; however, it can be voided by clients who either violate behavioral guidelines or cause damage to our systems rendering the errors out of our control.”

  Flying the president of the company back?

  This must be serious.

  My horse lumbered along, drawing closer and closer to a line of Continental soldiers who appeared to be setting up a siege.

  “What,” I thought, “what damage have I caused to your systems?”

  “Our organic computer’s central processor has had an allergic reaction to something in your body’s biology. We’ve determined it is all the mac-n-cheese byproduct in your cells. Apparently, you’ve metabolized ten times the lethal quantity of a preservative called heliodextrin-P. It’s wreaked havoc on our quantum distribution systems.”

  “Sir,” said the soldier to my left. “We are awaiting your orders.”

  “What do I do?” my mind screamed to James Finch.

  “Tell your men to halt and stand by. Then gently tug the reigns of your horse and say, whoa.”

  I did as I was instructed, trying to keep my voice even. My officers stared at me expectantly. My horse shuddered, letting out a low whinny.

  “Okay, now what?”

  “Just stay calm. We’re trying to make corrections to the chrono algorithms, but certain strains of time are shifting slightly, making the retrieval process tricky.”

  “I don’t want technobabble, I just want out of here! How long until I can come home?”

  My horse bucked, throwing me backward. My arms shot out to try to maintain balance, but all I saw was the gray sky as I fell to the ground, my back crunching with the impact.

  The spooked mount sidestepped and crushed my chest with an ironclad hoof.

  I gasped in pain, but had no breath. I saw stars and felt searing heat throughout my upper body.

  “General!” cried out one the officers.

  “Is he alive-live-live?” asked another voice.

  Then the blackness came once more.

  For a split second, I thought I was dead, but then felt that familiar swirling sensation as my consciousness was once again shuttled through time and space.

  The elimination of that pain in my chest came as a great relief, though I wondered what peril I would face next.

  And I wondered what happened to the great George Washington – had I killed the man?

  “Mr, Jones,” the voice said, moving all around me in a spiral of sound, “Mr. Jones, can you hear meeeeeeeeeeee?”

  “Yes – yes, but you sound weird – what’s happening?”

  The blackness remained – I was still disembodied.

  “Our systems . . . time line . . . compromised . . . streams are shifting too fast . . . we –”

  The light blinded me.

  I shielded my eyes.

  With a woman’s hand.

  Now who was I?

  “Mrs. Thatcher, are you quite all right?”

  Thatcher? She wasn’t on my list.

  Sudden blackness again.

  Now more light, and heat.

  A hot summer sun beat down upon my back, coming through an open window. Before me, a canvas, a half-painted portrait.

  Beyond that, a woman who looked remarkably like –

  – the Mona Lisa.

  I stumbled forward, knocking over the easel and puncturing the canvas.

  “Signore da Vinci?”

  From my vantage point on the floor, I saw the woman step toward me.

  Blackness again.

  This was out of control.

  “Mr. Jones! This is Mr. Laurens, President of History . . . this may be our last . . . you must . . . the chrono-variants are losing cohesion . . . random results –”

  “What? What are you saying to me?”

  “. . . complete degradation of the time core. The changes effected are too drastic. Our technology cannot sustain these alterations to history. I’m sorry, Mr. Jones. We will endeavor to leave your consciousness intact, in a relatively insignificant personage.”

  “You’re going to abandon me? Why?”

  “. . . too far gone. Again, we are so sorry. Goodbye.”

  The blackness turned to dark gray, then to light gray, then to drab stone-colored walls.

  A prison cell.

  In my hands, a book.

  The words swam, shifting in my vision from what looked like German to what seemed comprehensible.

  Mein Kampf.

  What kind of weirdo sat around in jail reading Adolf Hitler?

  I flipped forward a few pages.

  Blank.

  I wasn’t reading it – I was writing it.

  I reached up and felt the narrow moustache on my upper lip.

  Trembling, I stood.

  “Guard!” I yelled in German.

  “Herr Hitler?” said a young guard, stepping toward the other side of the bars.

  My stomach lurched, my heart sank, and my head swam.

  “Nothing, nothing,” I said in German, waving my hand and shuffling back to sit on the cot.

  If I knew my history – and I did, since I’d had plenty of time to study during my six years of waiting for this disastrous trip – it was 1923. Soon, Hitler would be released, and not long after that, he’d begin his rise to power.

  The gentle buzzing in my head – the one associated with being tethered to my future – to my reality – was gone.

  I was cut off.

  Alone.

  Stuck inside Adolf Hitler.

  So much for History Tours ditching me in some insignificant peasant somewhere, sometime.

  I lay back on the cot, suddenly very tired.

  I started to feel weak.

  My arms were heavy.

  I was paralyzed.

  No! Not paralyzed – I was slipping back, losing control, r
eturning to the status of tag-along.

  My body sat up and resumed writing the book – but it was not me doing it now – it was him.

  He’d taken control again.

  This was a nightmare. Was I to spend the next twenty-odd years living the life of this monster? Condemned to watch, first-hand, as he wreaked havoc, death and destruction on the world?

  I couldn’t bear the thought of riding along in the subconscious mind of this brutal dictator, aware of everything he was doing – the sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the whole nine yards – but unable to affect him or anything he was doing or thinking.

  Watching helplessly as he murdered fourteen million people.

  I strained my thoughts, pushing outward with all my might.

  I focused all my life energy on one thing – moving his hand.

  I struggled hard, and it hurt me deep inside a place I didn’t know existed.

  Nothing was happening.

  I forced harder, reaching to the extremes of my mental strength.

  And I did it.

  His pen slipped, making a stray mark on the page.

  “Scheisse!” Hitler muttered under his breath.

  Yes!

  I tried again. The hand trembled slightly, then shook more violently. Finally, he slammed the pen down, rubbed at his face, and lay back on the bed, rubbing his eyes.

  I forced his eyes to scan the room.

  He shook his head roughly, sensing something was wrong.

  I made his eyes fall on the sheets. Then the exposed pipe overhead.

  Yes, that should work.

  I forced his body to sit up, straining with all my might against his will. I could sense the confusion in his mind as I stripped the bed and wound the sheets into a long rope and tied a noose.

  I compelled his legs to step up on the cot.

  Pressed him to place his head through the noose.

  And urged his resistant legs to jump off the perch.

  With a frenetic lurch, it was done.

  Goodbye, Fuhrer.

  As the last of life swiftly ebbed away, I thought I heard a distant voice in my head.

  “Mr. Jones . . . it’s a miracle. We’ve fixed it . . .”