*
Riding the elevator down from his apartment, Zachary kept looking at Walt. He looked disturbed by something more than killers from the future coming to murder him, and the expectation that he should act like Future Jesus and have a conversation with God predicted in some cheap Bible knock-off.
"Who was that on the phone?" he asked him.
"I'll tell you later," was the answer.
The woman, Margrit, was the first to go out, looking both ways to make sure the coast was clear. It was.
"Which way?" she asked.
Zachary started walking and they followed him. The old cemetery was five blocks away. They could reach it easily on foot.
"What if more of these face-borrowers come after us?" he asked Margrit. "Did you bring your...?"
She reached inside her jacket and showed him her pen, before putting it back again.
"What is that, anyway? It looks very much like a pen," he said.
"It is a pen," she replied.
"Pens don't usually kill people," he reminded her.
"Everything can kill people," she said. "If you use it right."
They were passing in front of an alley and there was a scream. Walt's. An old man in a dirty suit was standing in front of him, blocking his passage. Walt moved back, while the old man watched him, without moving or saying a word.
"Albert?" Margrit said.
"You know him?" asked Walt. "He's one of them! They've been following me around!"
"No," Margrit said. "He's one of ours."
Walt looked confused.
"Then why do they keep following me?"
"To help find you," said the old man, with a surprisingly clear voice for someone who looked like him. "That has always been our goal. It is an honor, Divine Mentor. My mission is accomplished, at last." He looked at Margrit. "I will come with you."
"It's better if you don't," Margrit said.
"I want to be there for the Consecration," the old man insisted. He didn't look like he would be easily persuaded, so Margrit nodded and they kept walking, occasionally looking around to see if someone suspicious was approaching. The strange group they formed looked quite suspicious as well. Even more so with Walt doing his best to put as much distance as possible between him and the old man, who kept trying to get closer. Zachary wondered if Walt kept moving away because he was still afraid, despite Margrit's reassurance, or because the old man smelled ripe. It could be a combination of both factors.
They arrived at the old cemetery without any trouble. The place could barely be considered a hill, but it was true that there was a slight inclination of the grass-covered ground. It was known as 'old cemetery' because there used to be a cemetery there, but it had long been transferred to some other location and all that was left were the remains of an iron bar fence, broken headstone fragments spread all over, and a vague suggestion of the old walking paths.
Since no one knew what to do once they arrived, Zachary started walking to the top of the hill without any effort, followed by the others. Walt Jenkins sat on a larger rock and looked at the city. He was the only one panting after an almost non-existing climb. Was Future Jesus allowed to be in such bad shape? Zachary thought his own resistance to everything resembling physical effort was terrible, but that was just ridiculous.
"Are cities very different in the future?" Zachary asked, looking at Margrit and Brother Maxwell. He had decided not to include Albert, the old hobo, in the question.
"We can't say," said Brother Maxwell.
"We're getting that a lot," said Walt. "What can you say, after all?"
"Only what you are supposed to know, according to the Narrative," Brother Maxwell replied. "We have to think about the integrity of the time continuum. Can't risk causing any disturbances."
"What kind of problems could be caused by a disturbance in the time continuum?" asked Zachary, genuinely curious.
The two time travelers looked at each other for a moment.
"We can't tell you that either," said Margrit.
"What do we do now?" asked Walt. "I'm hungry. We should have brought food. Nice spot for a picnic."
"What's a picnic?" asked Brother Maxwell.
"We can't tell you that," said Zachary, determined to have his petty revenge. "Because of the time continuum."
"It's true that it does work both ways," said Brother Maxwell. "Things you told us could also alter the continuum. Although I don't think it will apply to things we could learn back in our time by consulting the records of old-timer knowledge."
"Something like an encyclopedia, you mean?" said Walt.
The two younger time travelers and the old man all turned their heads to stare at him.
"What did you say?" asked Margrit.
"I said I was hungry, but that was a while ago," answered Walt. "That was the last relevant thing I said."
"What do you know about the encyclopedia?" asked Brother Maxwell, forgetting his deference to the Divine Mentor for a moment.
"Which encyclopedia?" asked Zachary. "There are several."
"There are?!" Brother Maxwell looked alarmed. Next to him, Margrit was furrowing her brow intensely.
"I'm starting to think we're talking about different things here," Zachary concluded. "An encyclopedia for us is a book or set of books containing small articles about different matters in alphabetical order. Without risking the continuum, too much, what is an encyclopedia for you?"
"The heretic holy book," said Brother Maxwell, lowering his voice as if he feared being sucked into a timeless void after having said those words. "They call it encyclopedia."
"They claim it contains a sum of all of mankind's accumulated knowledge from before the Calamity," explained Margrit, who looked more capable of speaking about it without constantly expecting the worst. "They believe God doesn't exist and only knowledge is divine. It all started when they found an almost intact copy of the encyclopedia in an archaeological dig. Almost the entire set of—"
"Stop!" Brother Maxwell again, looking terrified. "You have said too much. Please, Agent Lorne. No more. Think of the time continuum. The consequences could be—"
"Funny," said Walt.
Brother Maxwell turned to him, all reverent again.
"What is funny, oh Divine Mentor?"
"All this talk about encyclopedias. Because we've just sold one the other day. To a group of wackos," he explained.
Zachary felt a sudden urge to justify himself.
"I had a box full of disks containing this encyclopedia compiled by a crazy person," he said, looking at Margrit, finding her to be the most willing listener in the whole group. "Full of inaccuracies and blatant lies. Completely useless. Walt... the Divine Mentor here managed to trick a local religious group into buying all the copies. They wanted to send them to Africa."
There was an audible whimper from Brother Maxwell.
"Africa," he squealed, widening his eyes.
"The heretic encyclopedia was found in Africa," said Margrit. "What was this encyclopedia of yours called?"
"No!" cried Brother Maxwell, putting himself between them with arms raised like he was trying to break a fight. "We've heard enough. Please think about the—"
"Atkinson Encyclopedia of Revised Human Knowledge," said Walt. "It may be useless, but the name has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"
Brother Maxwell fell to his knees, covering his ears with his hands and moving his head from side to side while saying "nonononono" over and over.
"What's wrong with him?" Walt asked.
Margrit looked somewhat surprised, but it didn't seem likely that she would also fall on her knees and throw a strange denial tantrum.
"It's too late now," she said to Brother Maxwell. "They already said it. We can't unhear it."
"You can't unhear what?" asked Zachary, while Brother Maxwell slowly got back on his feet.
"The heretics," he started. "They are named after their holy book. They call themselves Atkinsonians. We are all doomed."
> "What is he talking about?" asked Walt, turning to Margrit.
"Those people trying to kill you," she said. "You two caused it."
"I didn't want to do it," said Zachary, thinking, once again, that an excuse was in order. "It all came from the head of your Future Jesus here."
"How did we cause it?" asked Walt, insisting on keeping Zachary involved.
"This encyclopedia you sold was the basis for the heresy that caused us to travel back in time," Margrit explained. "And you telling us about it caused a disruption in the time continuum responsible for a parallel reality in which heretics are dominant and send their own agents to kill you. It's ironic, really. Things related with time travel often are."
"And now we are all doomed!" screeched Brother Maxwell, pulling his hair.
"How was I supposed to know my actions would have consequences in the future?" asked Walt.
"That's exactly what's wrong with you," said Zachary.
"What do you mean by that? You were in this as well."
"Yeah, but only for the money."
Hearing that made Walt look apprehensive, but it only lasted an instant. Enough for Zachary to notice it.
"We're probably not doomed," said Margrit.
"What?" asked Brother Maxwell, pausing his whaling for a second, but keeping his hands securely attached to whatever hair he had left under his ridiculous bucket hat. "What are you saying?"
"Well, think about it," Margrit went on. "The disruption in the continuum was caused by our knowledge of this information. But it can't change much now. It had already happened. We only know what the cause was."
"You really think so?" asked Brother Maxwell, hopefully.
"I do. Knowing who was responsible might even be useful," she said.
"What do you mean?" He had lowered his hands.
"Should we continue worshipping someone who was secretly responsible for a problem we are desperate to solve?" she asked.
"That's heresy, Agent Lorne."
"The truth usually is, isn't it?" She hesitated, like she had something on the tip of her tongue, but was trying desperately to hold it in. The effort was unsuccessful. "It's unbelievable how you are faced with the fact that the Divine Mentor is a fictional entity built upon a very flawed human" and she looked briefly at Walt, who didn't seem to get she was talking about him, "and insist on denying you have been worshipping a terrible person. No offense."
She said the last words looking at Walt once more and, this time, he got it.
"Hey!" he said. "I only came here because you wanted a sermon!"
Brother Maxwell's face turned red and he screamed, taking a step back from Margrit and pointing at her.
"Anathema! Vile abomination!"
While Zachary was watching the two time travelers arguing, he heard a thud behind him. Three heads turned, leaving the argument suspended, and saw the old man standing over Walt, who was lying on his side with a red stain on his dark hair. The hobo was holding a large lump of broken headstone on his right hand.
"Agent Ford, what have you done?" yelled Brother Maxwell.
"He's one of them!" said Margrit, pulling her strange pen-like weapon from her pocket and pointing it at him. It looked as non-threatening as ever.
"I'm not, Agent Lorne," the old man said. It really is me."
"What?" Said Brother Maxwell, trying hard to understand what had happened. "You killed the Divine Mentor!"
The old man looked down at Walt's still body.
"I think he's not dead," he said, almost looking disappointed. "But that's easily settled."
"Why, Albert?" Margrit asked, without lowering her pen. "You spent most of your life looking. And you finally found him.
"Most of my life?" he repeated. "All of it, you should say. All the years that mattered I spent looking for him. I came as a young man, moved by faith and by a sense of duty. I left my family, my friends, never to see them again. I even had a girl who loved me and whose heart I broke. And now look at me. I don't even remember her name."
"You sacrificed too much to ruin it like this," Margrit pleaded. "Put that stone down and move away. You'll be free to go if you do that. I swear I won't shoot you."
"Why should you shoot me?" he asked. "To save this bastard?" He pointed at Walt with his free hand. Walt moaned and moved his torso an inch, but his eyes remained closed. "You heard what I said, chaplain. I did call him a bastard." He turned a look of defiance towards Brother Maxwell, who had spent the last minutes hiding behind Margrit. "And that's what he is. A bastard who is responsible for putting our time on the verge of an unavoidable religious war. And to think I hesitated when they asked me to do it."
"Who, Albert?" asked Margrit. "Who asked you to do it?"
The old man acquired the look of someone who had said too much, but he seemed to accept it was too late to turn back. The words had been spoken.
"They did," he said. "The heretics."
"The heretics came to you?" asked Brother Maxwell. "And you're not dead?"
"I'm not," replied the old man. "They are not as evil as the Church has told us. One of many lies. They only defend their faith. We can't criticize them for it, can we? We do the same."
"It's not the same thing," Brother Maxwell said. We both defend our beliefs, but we are right and they're not. We defend the true faith while they propagate lies of the foulest kind."
"Spare me, chaplain," said the hobo. "They treated me with more consideration than anyone in the Church. To you, we're only disposable old meat. They said I would be treated fair if I helped them out."
"What did they promise you, Albert?" asked Margrit.
"They came to me, two of them, and asked me at gunpoint to surrender my marker's location data. I resisted, of course, but they took it anyway. I couldn't stop them. Then, their tone changed. They looked kinder and understanding, somehow. They explained things to me about..." He looked at Walt again. "About him. Things I didn't know. They made clear to me that the Divine Mentor is nothing but a big hoax. They said I should work with them. And help them eliminate their target."
"So their tracking technology isn't more advanced than ours," Brother Maxwell said. "They merely gained access to the pioneer timenauts' locations and cheated." He seemed relieved. Zachary thought it was a strange time to feel relieved about technicalities, with a bleeding man on the ground and with a crazed old man ready to bash his brains in.
"And you decided to help them," Margrit said.
The old man nodded.
"I did."
"Even if you started seeing the Divine Mentor as a fraud," Margrit said, while Walt moaned some more, "that wasn't enough to turn you into a murderer."
"It wasn't," the old man agreed. "And I didn't think I could do it. I hoped there would be some way around it. But what they promised me was impossible to refuse."
"What was it?" asked Brother Maxwell.
"To take me back with them."
"That's impossible," said Margrit. "They were lying."
"Maybe they were," said the old man. "But I was willing to risk it. It was much better than the alternative.
"Either way," said Margrit, "your new friends are gone."
The old man seemed taken aback.
"Dead?"
"Possibly. But definitely gone." Zachary noticed Margrit was skirting around the matter. They didn't know for a fact that the two face-borrowers were dead. They only saw them turn to smoke and disappear. "Drop the stone, Albert. They can't help you."
The old man thought for a moment.
"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe not. Someone might still know about it. Someone might still uphold their end of the bargain. It's worth taking a chance."
"If you do it, I'll kill you," said Margrit. It didn't look like an empty threat.
The old man shrugged.
"Do what you must," he said. "If I must spend the rest of my days in this time, putting an end to them will be a great favor you'll be doing me."
He raised the hand holding the
headstone fragment above his head and bent over Walt's squirming body. He started to lower it, there was a sudden 'woosh' and the old man fell to the ground, letting the stone roll from his dead fingers, down the grassy hill. Brother Maxwell approached Walt, followed by the others. He examined his head, lifting it and making him groan in protest.
"The bleeding looks like it has stopped," he said. "It's very swollen, but it doesn't seem life-threatening.
Walt said something that sounded like 'grrhmorm' without opening his eyes.
"Can you hear me?" asked Zachary. His left eyelid tried to open, but failed. "Can you hear me, Walt?"
Another effort and it was the opposite eyelid that managed to open halfway. He blinked and started to shake his head, stopping almost immediately. Zachary helped him up and he sat on the grass.
"Shit!" Walt said. He lifted one hand to the injured part of his head and touched it gingerly with his fingertips, examining them and seeing some blood. "It hurts like hell. What happened?"
"The old man hit you in the head with a rock," Zachary explained.
"What?" He managed to turn his head slowly and saw him lying behind him, one arm outstretched and the headstone fragment three feet away. "Is he...?"
"He is," Margrit said.
"I thought he was on your side," Walt said.
"So did I," said Margrit. "I was wrong."
"Can you stand up, oh Divine Mentor?" asked Brother Maxwell, not daring to touch him.
"I don't know. Help me up."
Zachary and Margrit helped him up and let go, leaving him to stand on his own. He wobbled.
"The world doesn't stop spinning," Walt said.
"Maybe you should sit down again," said Brother Maxwell.
"No," said Margrit. "We should leave as soon as possible." She pointed at the corpse. "He won't turn to smoke. We'll have a hard time explaining him if someone comes and sees us here."
"She's right," Walt said. "But we can't—"
He said nothing more. One step was all he could manage before he collapsed again.
7.1
When Walter Jenkins came around, he was back in Zachary's house. They had dragged him away from the hill without any sermon, to Brother Maxwell's slight confusion. A taxi was hailed and they got him into the back seat in an intermittent state of consciousness, which forced Zachary to exchange some words with the driver in order to convince him that his friend drank too much, even at such an early hour. Luckily, he didn't notice the bloody and swollen head.
Lying on the sofa, Walt opened his eyes again and stared at the ceiling.
"Oh, no," he said, sitting upright with a painful grimace. He saw them looking at him and repeated: "No."
"Calm down," said Zachary. "You're safe. We're in my place."
"No!" he said. "You shouldn't have."
"We shouldn't have what?" Zachary asked.
"You shouldn't have brought me back here. That was a terrible mistake."
"Don't worry," said Brother Maxwell."Agent Ford... the old man who tried to kill you, said only two heretics had been sent."
"We don't know if there were only two," said Margrit, ruining the 'the worst is behind us' mood. "But saying there were more would be guessing."
She saw Walter Jenkins giving Zachary a look she didn't like. It was a look that made it abundantly clear that she was a long way from having all the information about what was going on.
"What?" she said.
Zachary kept looking at the Divine Mentor. He also didn't get what was wrong. Not being the only one not knowing was far from reassuring, Margrit thought.
There were steps walking down the hallway outside. Clearly audible steps of more than one person. Of more than one heavyset person. A heavy hand banged three times on the door. Walter Jenkins' expression became pained. And it wasn't entirely because of his injured head.
"Crap," said Zachary, with understanding finally dawning on his face. That made two.
"What is happening?" asked the chaplain. "Who is that? Is there a third heretic, after all?"
Margrit looked from one of the local-timers to the other, without answering. They were both looking increasingly terrified and seemed unwilling to provide her with an explanation. She removed the stylus from her pouch and stuck it in an outside jacket pocket, before walking to the door and looking through the peephole. She saw a face she recognized. Judging by the way the heretic agents worked, that wasn't good.
"Who is it?" she asked, while she kept looking.
The man looked surprised to hear her voice.
"Open up," he ordered.
"Just a moment," she said, making him raise an eyebrow.
Margrit came back to the others and said:
"It's that man from the bar."
"Ron," said Walter Jenkins.
"Who?" asked Brother Maxwell.
"Didn't you pay him?" asked Zachary.
"I didn't," said Walter Jenkins.
"Can't you pay him now?" asked Zachary.
"No."
"Why?" asked an alarmed Zachary.
"Because my accountant lost the money."
"What?" said Zachary. "How?"
"Never get an accountant with a gambling problem," explained Walter Jenkins.
"You knew he had a gambling problem and you gave him our money?!" asked Zachary, raising his voice.
"Technically, it wasn't our money. It belonged to those church people."
"Who gave it to us in exchange for the encyclopedias," Zachary pointed out. "Making it our money."
"Technically, yes."
"So there is nothing left?"
"Nothing."
"I can't believe it."
Ron knocked on the door again, even harder.
"If it makes you feel better," said Walter Jenkins, "he lost all of it and still has a load of debts to pay."
"I couldn't care less about your accountant!" said Zachary, looking very cross.
Ron knocked again.
"Open up or we'll break the door down," he said, sounding like someone who meant just that.
"Don't open," said Walter Jenkins to Margrit, who was the one standing closer to the door. Brother Maxwell looked around, probably in search of a place to hide.
"But you heard him," she said.
The next knock sounded more like a kick. Margrit returned to the door and opened it just as a burly man was raising his foot to kick again. It was one of the armed men she had seen on the night she went to the bar. She also recognized the one standing next to him. The third one was nowhere to be seen.
"You again," said Ron, looking mildly annoyed.
"Me again," said Margrit, stepping aside and letting them in. One of the two henchmen closed the door and stood in front of it with his arms crossed. Ron and the other henchman followed her to the room where the others were waiting. Walter Jenkins looked livid, Zachary wasn't much better and Brother Maxwell had an expression of complete incomprehension that made him look very stupid.
"So you didn't kill him after all," Ron said, nodding towards Walter Jenkins, who was still sitting on the sofa, not daring to move.
"I told you I wouldn't," she said, seeing one of the henchmen move around the apartment to make sure there was nobody else.
"I'm starting to think that's a shame," said Ron. He was looking around, trying to understand the reason for the strange decoration of random piled objects. "What the hell is all this, Walt?"
Walter Jenkins didn't say anything. Instead, he looked at Zachary, hoping he would explain.
"I do reviews. For the internet. People send me their things and I..."
The henchman came back, holding a bright pink cylinder made from a rubbery material. He was smirking when he offered it to Ron.
"I'm not touching that," he said. The henchmen put it on a table and rubbed the hand that had touched the object against the front of his coat. Ron looked at Zachary. "I'm not judging. Please don't give me any details."
Zachary kept his mouth shut.
"Who is that?" Ron asked, looking at Brother Maxwell.
"That's..." Walter Jenkins started, thinking of something to say. "Max."
"And what's Max doing here?" Ron asked. "And her?" He pointed at Margrit. "Are you having a party?" His eyes moved to the pink rubber cylinder.
"I am a chaplain of the Church," Brother Maxwell sputtered, without bothering to remember his own recommendations about sharing too many details with local-timers. "I'm here to accompany the Consecration of the Divine Mentor."
"Huh?" said Ron. He turned to his henchman, who shrugged. Then, he turned to Walter Jenkins. "What's that all about?"
"Look, Ron," Walter Jenkins started, ignoring the question, "I know you deserve an explanation."
Ron rubbed his eyes with the tips of his thumb and index finger.
"We're off to a bad start, I see," he said.
"Why do you say that?" asked Walter Jenkins, doing his best to look deferential and calm. It wasn't easy, given the circumstances.
"It's the words you picked," said Ron. "I didn't like them one bit. You said I deserve an explanation. I think I don't. I don't give a fuck about explanations. What I need is my money. The money you borrowed from me and didn't paid back in due time."
Margrit saw the henchman put one hand in his pocket. She feared the pocket wouldn't be empty. Just like hers wasn't.
"Since you didn't go to me, I came to you," Ron went on. "And here we are."
"Ron..." Walter Jenkins began, getting up from the sofa with considerable effort and an unpleasant succession of grimaces.
"I'd pick my words very carefully if I were you, Walt," Ron said.
"I lost all the money I had," Walter Jenkins said. One quick look at Ron's face was more than enough to let everyone know that those were not the right words to pick.
"You what?" asked Ron. He looked almost amused, in the murderous sense of the word.
"I lost it," Walter Jenkins repeated. "Not me. It was my accountant. I wanted to pay you. I had no reason to go to Harry's if I didn't, right?" He was starting to speak faster and, as he did, he sounded less and less sincere.
"Right," said Ron. His smirk was gone and he remained still. It would be less threatening if he yelled and waved his hands around. If he kicked and called names. That stillness was almost impossible to bear and it made Walter Jenkins feel more nervous.
"But I'll work something out," he said, speaking even faster than before. "I swear. Give me a couple of months, tops. No, one month. One month and you'll have your money. I swear to God."
The Divine Mentor using the Creator's name to make a promise he knew he couldn't keep. What would Brother Maxwell think of that? Margrit didn't dare move her eyes away from Ron and the henchman to look at the chaplain.
"Don't worry, Walt," Ron said. He signaled the henchman without looking over his shoulder. "It's all good."
The henchman standing guard turned around, opened the door, looked outside and came back inside, locking the door again. He gave a nod to his colleague, who took a small black pistol from his pocket and quickly screwed in a tube of the same color to the nozzle. Margrit's hand got closer to her pocket, feeling the stylus inside, over the navy blue velvet of her pea coat.
"Ron, wait a minute," Walter Jenkins pleaded, staring in horror as the henchman took one step forward and pointed the gun at him.
"I've waited long enough," Ron said.
Margrit's fingers went inside the pocket and, when they came out, the stylus was in her hand. She pointed it right at the henchman, who didn't even notice. His employer did. At first, he seemed worried, but that expression was soon replaced by one of mere puzzlement.
"What the hell...?" he said, looking at the object Margrit was pointing at the gunman, who only then turned to Margrit. His head turned first and the pistol immediately after.
"Put it down," Margrit said, trying to sound authoritative. Hesitation crossed the henchman's eyes, but he didn't obey. Ron calmly placed one hand on his outstretched arm.
"Point that at him," he said, stretching his chin towards Walter Jenkins.
"But..." the man said. "Okay."
He turned the gun back to Walter Jenkins and Margrit was deciding what she'd do next when Ron moved, too quick for someone who, until then, had remained so still. Margrit pressed a button on her stylus. There was a click, followed by nothing at all. Ron's right hand formed a fist and hit Margrit straight in the jaw while, at the same time, his left grabbed the stylus and pulled it out of her grasp. Margrit stumbled back and tried to keep her balance. Swift points of light danced in front of her eyes.
"Now," said Ron. "Do it."
And the henchman pulled the trigger.
8
Suddenly, Walt was alone, cringing with his arms over his face, turning sideways and lifting one leg, expecting an impact that never came.
His first reaction was to look at himself, checking if he was in one piece. He was. No holes. No red stains spreading anywhere. No pain.
Then, he looked around. Zachary's living room was empty. Well, to be honest, it couldn't be further from emptyness with all the piles of things cluttering most of the space and leaving only narrow paths between them. But it was empty of people, apart from himself. He was glad it was so, because some of the people that had been present just a moment before had come to put an end to his life. But it was also a very perplexing state of affairs. It couldn't be helped.
His eyes fell upon the window. Had it been raining? The sky was clear when they went out, but weather could change from one moment to the other. He approached the window and looked out. The sun was still shining, like it did, sometimes, when it rained. There could be a rainbow somewhere and he looked for it. Nothing. No rainbow. At least, not on that side of the building, the side facing the sea.
That was also very strange.
The weather could change rapidly, but the scenery normally didn't. He was pretty sure of that, even in his current state of increasing confusion. Zachary's building couldn't be near the sea. The city itself was miles away from the shore. And he had looked out that window thousands of times. It would be impossible not having noticed the beach before. And where had the street gone?
An alarming possibility occurred to him.
"Shit," he said, still looking out the window, watching the rain pelting the gentle waves on the other end of the short sandy beach. "I'm dead."
"No, you're not," said a voice.
He turned around, expecting to see Ron and everyone else. Including the guy pointing a gun at him and pressing the trigger.
Instead, he saw someone he wasn't expecting to see there or ever again.
"Officer Thompson?" he asked.
The policeman shook his head.
"Wrong again," he said.
"Then who—" But he wasn't allowed to finish posing his question.
"You've been a terrible person all your life, Walt Jenkins," said, the man, who still looked and sounded exactly like Thompson, the policeman he had talked to when he was taken to the police station following the great Crime Tour debacle.
He understood the words perfectly, but, somehow, he didn't get their meaning immediately.
"What?" he asked.
"Haven't you?" Thompson asked.
"Haven't I what?" He still thought being dead would provide a good explanation for what was happening to him. He sure looked like he was about to die only short minutes before. The most troubling thing, in a wide ocean of troubling things that surrounded him, as wide as the ocean he could see from the window, was that he had spent his whole adult life, which now seemed to come to an end, not believing in an afterlife. People were born, lived, died, and that was it. That was what he had always thought. And now he was standing in some kind of purgatory shaped just like Zachary's apartment but by the seaside, hearing a man he had seen once in very specific circumstances asking him questions he was having trouble to answer. That was very disturbing indeed.
He noticed the curling iron with the long power ca
ble, the one Zachary had used to strangle the Sarah lookalike sent from a future parallel reality to prevent him from becoming a kind of Future Jesus, like Zachary had put it. Somehow, what has happening to him now wasn't much stranger than what happened to him in the previous day, he thought.
Officer Thompson was still waiting for an answer.
"I'm sorry," Walt said. "Could you please repeat the question?"
"There's no need. It was a rhetorical question, so to speak. You have been a terrible person."
"Well, that's debatable," Walt argued. He thought if arguing was his best choice.
"Is it?" Officer Thompson didn't look convinced.
"Who are you?" Walt asked, deciding to direct the conversation towards a matter he found more pressing than his moral standing.
"Not Officer James Thompson," the man said. "Who, by the way, even if he's not the brightest of the bunch, is a very decent man. Hardworking, in his own way. A loving husband and father."
Walt heard a wave crash against the sand and turned his head to look through the window once more. The beach was gone, replaced by a snowy landscape, where the only element breaking the continuous white cover was a scrawny black tree.
"Did you...?" he started to ask, turning around and stopping mid-sentence while pointing outside. The policeman was gone. He looked around, trying to understand if he was alone again, and soon discovered he wasn't.
Sitting on the sofa, he saw the teenager from his last Crime Tour, fiddling with his phone. It looked very much like the one he had thrown against a brick wall, breaking it.
"I did," he said, without lifting his eyes from the screen. "Don't worry. You don't have to put a coat on. It's like a screen saver."
"Hmm?" said Walt.
"Computer talk," said the kid. "I thought everyone understood computer talk these days."
Walt let that go without discussion and tried to steer the conversation into relevant terrain once more.
"Where am I?" he asked.
The kid looked up.
"In your friend Zachary's living room," he said. "It doubles as his office. Where he does his product reviews. He's also a much better person than you, by the way."
"And why am I here?"
The kid looked back at the phone.
"You should know," he said. "You came here after your wife caught you with another woman and Zachary let you stay with him, even though you take advantage of him so frequently and seldom give something back in your mostly one-sided friendship. Did you know Rosie Blackstone was adopted and is a very gifted singer?"
"No. I didn't."
"And you never cared."
Walt looked at the kid sitting on the sofa and saw him put the phone down, reach the curling iron on the table and throw it at him. It took him by surprise, but he managed to catch it after fumbling at first. When he looked at the sofa again, the kid was gone.
"She's not dead either," said a different voice, coming from behind him.
He turned around and dropped the curling iron, in shock. Jade Parker was standing near the window, looking outside.
"Who?" he asked.
"Sarah," she replied, turning to him. The scenery outside the window had changed again. It looked like a vineyard going up a gentle hill.
"She isn't?" Walt said. "Good." He felt some relief, but it was hard going beyond that when he wasn't sure if he was living or not.
"She still cares about you, strangely enough," Jade Parker said. "Someone with your friend Zachary's face visited her, asking about you. She said she didn't know where you were, but thought something was not right. And she almost felt like she should try to find you, but ended up deciding against it."
"Why am I here?" Walt asked again. "Not in Zachary's apartment. Here." And he pointed at the vineyard outside.
"Your friends from the future explained everything to you," Jade Parker said. "You should have paid attention."
He swallowed hard. And he finally got it.
"You're... Really?"
Jade Parker nodded.
"Why me?" he asked. It was the first time that Divine Mentor business really upset him. Perhaps because, in all truth, despite the time travelling stories, the crazy old men, the murder attempts and the people stealing faces and turning to smoke after being zapped by pens, he had never really believed before that.
"Excellent question." Jade Parker walked past him. When Walt turned to follow her with his eyes, she had been replaced by Zachary. He walked around the sofa and stopped next to the computer, moving his fingers over the keyboard and pressing random keys. "I don't have an answer."
"I don't understand," Walt said, unable to think of something better to stay. He added: "Didn't you choose me?"
Zachary smiled.
"Far from it," he answered. "It was taken out of my hands, I'm afraid."
"Is that even possible?"
Another smile.
"It surprised me as well," Zachary said. "Choosing someone and having him deliver a message didn't work so well in the past. And I tried it much more often than you realized. Sometimes, the messenger was completely ignored. I had too many of these total failures." He looked out the window, admiring a sweet mountain landscape with a wooden cabin and smoke rising from the chimney. "But then you decided to start meddling with time and spreading this Divine Mentor story. No idea where it came from. I guess it 's understandable that their minds became a little muddled after almost causing the destruction of their own world. Their contraptions started pointing at you and I decided to follow the lead and give it another go. One last time." He looked at Walt again. "By the way," he said, "in case you're wondering, those markers picking you... Entirely arbitrary. Don't feel too special."
Walt felt he needed to sit down and did so, settling on the sofa.
"What happens now?" he asked, placing his head on the palms of his hands.
"Now... you get on with your life. And try to be less of a bastard," a new voice said. Walt looked up and saw Sarah. "If you can do that, it will be a huge triumph."
"I'm not sure I can," Walt admitted.
"Try. Maybe you'll get the hang of it."
"What about those people in the future who started worshipping me?"
"They don't worship you," Sarah said. "They worship a version of you that only exists in their imagination. It's up to them. Don't concern yourself with it."
"Okay," said Walt, getting up again. "I will try. No promises, though."
"That's good enough," said Sarah. "Close your eyes."
"Why?" Walt was afraid of what he would see when he opened them again.
"There used to be a time when you'd be struck by lightning simply for not obeying me quickly enough," Sarah said, with a deep sigh. "How things change. Just do it."
Walt closed his eyes.
"What now?"
His answer came as a sob. He opened his eyes and his worst fear materialized. He was standing in front of Ron and his henchman again. Zachary and the time travelers were staring at him in amazement. But things were very different from what he remembered. None of them seemed to have moved from the positions they occupied previously, but similarities stopped there.
For starters, Ron was crying like a child, his whole body shaking with pitiful spasms. Next to him, the henchman kept the pistol lowered and looked ahead, straight at Walt, with wide, moist eyes. The other henchman, the one guarding the door, now seemed to press his back against the wood in an effort to prevent him from losing his balance and tumbling down. Zachary, Margrit and Brother Maxwell didn't look like they understood what was happening more than he did.
"What did you do?" asked Ron, surprised and trying to control his sobbing. There was almost nothing left of the hardened ruffian he knew. And it was somewhat troubling to see that Ron didn't seem too bothered about it, as tears kept rolling down his cheeks in front of several witnesses.
"I didn't..." Walt started, but he decided to return the question. "What did I do?"
"You were right there," said
Ron, somewhat calmer. "Then the gun went off, there was a bright light and you were gone. In your place, there was..." That next bit looked hard to put in words. He managed to do it with some effort. "My grandmother. I haven't seen her in over forty years. She raised me when my father took off and my mother started drinking. She... she asked me why I was ruining my life..."
"No," said the henchman.
They all looked at him.
"No what?" asked Ron.
"That was my brother Tommy," he said. "I pulled the trigger and there was a bright light. Just like you said. But, when I could see again, it was my brother Tommy standing there in his place" he nodded at Walt. "Just like he was before he got sick when I was nine. Asked why I was pointing a gun at him."
Ron turned his head and looked at the second henchman, standing in front of the door.
"My mother," he said.
His boss looked at Walt. There was incomprehension on his face, but also some fear.
"What the hell is going on?" he said, not directing the question at anyone in particular. "Who did you see?" he asked, turning to Zachary, Margrit and Brother Maxwell, who, until then, had observed the scene without speaking.
"I didn't see anyone," replied Zachary.
Margrit shook her head. Brother Maxwell was too worried to react in any way.
Ron looked at Walt for a long moment, without saying a word. He had stopped sobbing, but the tears were still visible on his cheeks. They looked terribly out of place on his face.
Finally, he spoke.
"Don't ever show your face in Harry's again," he said. "You're barred for life."
"What?" said Walt.
"You heard me. I don't want to see you ever again," he clarified. "If I ever see your face again, I'll..." He seemed to think it over and a pained look transformed his expression. "Stay away from me. Got it?"
Walt nodded.
"Got it," he said.
"Excellent," said Ron. "We're going," he added, for Walt's benefit, but also as an order to his henchmen.
"What about the—?" Walt started.
On his way to the door, Ron raised one hand and shut him up. They left.
Walt walked to the sofa and crashed on it. All of a sudden, he felt so tired.
"Was this it?" asked Brother Maxwell, very anxious. "Was this the Consecration?" He sounded disappointed. "Did you see the Lord?"
Walt rubbed his eyes with both index fingers.
"I'm not sure what I saw," he said. He thought about it for a second. "Yes, I guess I did see... someone, at least."
Brother Maxwell was too avid to say something coherent. So he didn't say anything.
"What did he look like?" Zachary asked. "Or was it a she?"
"If you really want to know," Walt said, "there was a moment when he looked like you."
"What?" his friend asked. Judging by his face, he was busy deciding if that was a terrible joke or a very alarming truth.
"Well, we're done here," Margrit said, turning to a very impressed Brother Maxwell. "Let's get going."
"Not so fast," said Walt. Brother Maxwell looked like he expected bolts of lightning to come out of Walt's eyes, reducing him to ash where he stood. Nothing of the sort happened. "The situation with Ron may be solved, but you can't go anywhere while there's still people coming from the future to kill me."
"They won't try to kill you anymore," said Margrit. "It's too late. What had to happen, happened. In a way, at least..."
"Can't they go further into the past and try to kill him before it happened?" asked Zachary, looking very much like he was paying attention.
"Yes," said Margrit. "But the well-being of your past selves shouldn't concern you. They may try coming after us, though. And prevent us from going back with the confirmation we were sent to obtain."
Walt thought for no longer than half a second.
"You're right," he said. "You should probably go. Get far away from me. Nice meeting you and all that." He hiked a thumb over his shoulder to point at the door.
Margrit seemed more than happy to do as Walt said, but Brother Maxwell had something else to add before he went.
"Divine Mentor," he started, with his head slightly bowed, "am I allowed to pose a question?"
Walt looked almost godly when he replied, but only for an instant, until he started enjoying the pose too much and lost all grandeur.
"You may," he said.
Brother Maxwell walked a couple of steps away and stood in a corner of the room without too many boxes cluttering it. Walt saw his expectant face and approached. He lowered his head slightly while the shorter man whispered something to him.
He straightened his back and looked at his face, looking mildly surprised and possibly also somewhat confused.
Then, he lowered his head again and whispered back.
Brother Maxwell stared at him for a long while, thinking hard. Eventually, he nodded and moved towards the door, waiting there for Margrit to follow.
"Give my regards to the future," Walt said to her.
Margrit came closer and, for a brief, preposterous moment, Walt thought she would kiss him. Instead, she raised both her hands to her neck and removed a necklace, a golden star hanging from a golden chain, which she placed on his palm. Afterwards, she turned her back and walked to the door.
"Good-bye, Divine Mentor."
The words weren't reverential coming from her mouth like they had been when it was Brother Maxwell uttering them. They sounded more like an insult. Walt looked at the necklace, not understanding why she had given it to him, and pocketed it. A parting gift. Nothing more than that. No reason to think about it.
The door opened, the two time travelers left and Walt and Zachary were left in something resembling the normality they had been craving.
"What did he ask?" said Zachary.
"He asked if I really was chosen by God," Walt replied.
Zachary stared at him, trying to read in his face something that his voice didn't say.
"Were you?"
"Of course," he said, walking to the phone, lifting the receiver and taking a piece of paper from his pocket. He dialed the number on the paper.
"Are you calling Sarah?" Zachary asked.
"No," he answered. "I'm calling that Reverend Parker. I'm sure he'll love to hear how God came to me in a vision. I think I found my new career."
He waited for someone to pick up and started to talk while Zachary walked to the window and looked out. He saw no face-borrowers, no deranged old men, no strange people from the future.
Walt asked to speak with Reverend Parker, waited for the call to be transferred and started engaging in friendly religious banter. Zachary sat in front of his computer. An idea had just come to him. It wasn't an idea he thought he should be proud of, but that wouldn't stop him from seeing what could come out of it. He didn't consider himself a dishonest man, like a certain friend who happened to be using his phone at that precise moment, but he wasn't free from occasionally doing things he wasn't proud of for personal gain. He opened a desk drawer, looked under a pile of papers and extracted a book he hadn't opened in years. He didn't even remember if he had ever opened it. It had been left in the apartment by the previous occupant. He placed the book on the desk and rubbed the fake green leather of the cover with his hand, feeling gold paint peeling off from the embossed golden cross. It would come in very handy for what he intended.
Afterwards, he opened his word processor and typed two short lines of text while Walt congratulated Reverend Parked on some success related to his African endeavor. When he finished, he read it over and lifted one corner of his lips in something resembling a smile.
The Narrative
Book I
Chapter 1, Verse 1
It was better than reviewing curling irons, at least.
8.1
Margrit Lorne poured the last drops of concentrated benzine from the black bottle and dropped it over the pile containing the rest of her disposable gear. The fumes touched her ey
es and made her take a couple of steps back. One more step, to be sure, and she scratched her flint lighter. The spark started a small flame. She locked it in place and threw the lighter at the pile. Flames engulfed the thermal tent, the uncomfortable sleeping pad, what had been left of her field rations. It would take only a few minutes to reduce everything to unrecognizable black ash.
When the flames seemed high enough, she turned around, took out her stylus and approached the pile of rubble where her slate was hidden, exposing it and clearing the text of her previous drop.
"You didn't give them the whole truth," said Brother Maxwell. Margrit looked at him, awaiting clarification. "When you said the well-being of their past selves shouldn't concern them. If their past selves are killed, the reality in which they exist will be gone."
"I didn't say there wasn't any danger," Margrit said, while she scribbled on the slate. "I said they shouldn't concern themselves with it. And they shouldn't. What good would it do? There's nothing they can do to prevent it."
She placed the slate on the ground again. It read:
Mission complete. Success. Request immediate extract. Agent+chaplain. Drop 5. Final.
She covered it again, taking special care that the small pile of rubble looked inconspicuous enough. After all, it was supposed to remain undisturbed for centuries.
"The Church will have to do something to prevent it," Brother Maxwell said.
"Yes, the Church," said Margrit. "Not me, though. I'm done. I think I deserved my bonus."
Brother Maxwell said nothing.
Shortly after, an unnatural wind started blowing inside the abandoned warehouse, making the flames dance. It was time.
They both stood still, crossing their arms in front of their chest, with each hand reaching for the shoulder on the opposing side.
"Do you believe, Agent Lorne?" the chaplain asked.
"I tried," she answered. "I can't. Do you?"
He hesitated.
"I don't have a choice," he said.
The wind picked up and there were popping sounds all around them.
"What did you ask him?" said Margrit, raising her voice to be heard.
Brother Maxwell looked anxious by the upcoming extraction, but he answered, all the same.
"I asked him if you were right. If he was just a man. Flawed like all men are." After a pause, the chaplain added: "I didn't use the word 'bastard'."
"What did he say?" Margrit asked, genuinely curious.
Brother Maxwell raised his voice to reply: "He said—"
There was one final pop, louder than all the others, and the warehouse was empty, with an inexplicable wind calming down as suddenly as it had started, leaving the rubble untouched, while a lonely fire nourished a pillar of smoke that passed by a hole on the roof to reach the cloudy sky.
About the Author
Renato Carreira was born. He writes. Often with a computer. Rarely with a pen or pencil. It used to be the other way around, but things change, sometimes with astounding results. This is not the case. He wrote several things in Portuguese. Things made of bits and bytes and also things made of paper. He would like to live in a mansion somewhere and do this for a living, but he can't, so he doesn't.
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