Borrowed Time (14 page)

Pam seemed to have thought of everything. As I stood in the shadows and watched her mount up and ride out of Cambridge toward Lexington, I hoped she really had thought of everything.

Eventually I moved, knowing I should go ahead and jump back uptime. But some instinct made me fade into more shadows and watch the road which Pam had vanished down. I was still there when another figure led a horse out of a nearby stable, distinctly looked toward the place where Pam had left me and then down the road she’d taken, then mounted up and galloped after her.

I knew that man. Jeannie never forgets a detailed silhouette and she sees really well at night anyway. It was the aristocratic Brit who’d confronted me in Boston. And every indication was that he’d somehow followed me without my spotting him or Jeannie picking up his proximity, that he’d decided Pam was one of my ‘hooligans,’ and he was now after Pam.

I wouldn’t be jumping uptime. I headed for a stable, hoping a horse would be available without too much delay and realizing I was about to charge down a road populated by edgy British military patrols and who-knew-how-many trigger-happy TIs.

#

I made it over Alewife Brook, then through the crossroads at the place that would someday be Arlington but was now Menotomy at about twenty-two-thirty, narrowly avoiding a patrol of British regulars. Paul Revere and William Dawes would be leaving Boston now to warn everyone that the main body of the British regulars was coming out. I was about even with Pierce’s Hill at twenty-three hundred, when I knew the British expedition was departing Boston.

Jeannie’s warning came a fraction of a second too late. Something clipped my left side, paralyzing it. My horse screamed with fight and bolted to the right while I failed to keep my saddle with half my body not working and kept going left. I hit the road with the half of me that could feel it, naturally, then lay there trying to breath.

A pair of boots came within my field of vision. “Game over, mate.”

“I’m not playing,” I managed to gasp, wondering who this TI was working for.

“Not anymore.” Everything went dark.

#

I woke up with a raging post-stun headache.
Time?

Twenty-three thirty
, Jeannie answered promptly.

I’d only been out for half an hour?

It was an older model stun system,
Jeannie continued.
I managed to nullify some of the effect. The TI responsible was himself ambushed as he lurked near us and was taken off by three other TIs
.

It had started then, but I was stuck on the road without a horse and still a long ways from Lexington. I managed to get to my feet, staggering from the lingering effects of the stun weapon, and wavered back toward the road. As I did, I heard a horse galloping my way. If I could stop that guy and get his horse –

I would advise against leaving cover at this time
, Jeannie insisted.
If my estimates are correct, all hell is about to break loose
.

When Jeannie’s right, she’s right. Given the time of night, I realized that the man I was hearing might well be William Dawes, Paul Revere’s southern route counterpart. If he was . . . I hit the ground and tried to be invisible.

Judging from what happened next, it was Dawes.

Jeannie alerted me to energy discharges and jumpers arriving down the road where the hoof beats sounded, everything coming closer fast. I spotted a man on a horse thundering down the road, just about the time a figure in a stealth suit rose up less than a hundred meters away from me in the direction of the rider. The TI would be invisible to any local, but Jeannie could pinpoint him or her for me.

The stealth-suited TI leveled a weapon, then dropped as a stun charge hit. Moments later the other TI who’d fired the stun charge fell, then two more TIs appeared and took out whoever had nailed the second TI. But then the stealth-suited TI reappeared, having recovered somewhen in the future and jumped back to try to finish the job. One of the last set of TIs fell, then the remaining one grappled with the first TI and knocked them both down.

Dawes rode past the battle scene, and as he drew even with me two more TIs appeared on the opposite of the road from me, weapons drawn. What looked like half-a-dozen more TIs materialized around them as the air filled with energy discharges. Another TI jumped into view just beyond the ring of six TIs, but instead of firing at Dawes aimed across the road and sent a blast into the bushes entirely too close to me. A body flopped to the ground near me, then another figure appeared, took a weapon from it, then was itself grappled by another person.

And so it went. Interventions. Counter-Interventions. Counter-Counter-Interventions. Etc. I kept my head down, watching as William Dawes rode up the road toward Lexington oblivious to the silent, stealthy running battle raging alongside him every step of the way as some TIs tried to stop him and others tried to ensure he made it. I found myself wondering if Dawes had made it originally, or if Paul Revere had, or if those defending them were actually the ones doing the Interventions to change history. The original truth, if such a thing had ever existed, had long since been lost in the web of interferences by time travelers.

People used to think, and many people still do think, that causality is linear through time. Cause has to precede effect. But the truth is that causality forms a circle through time, where cause may be hard to identify but may occur apparently after effect. Sometimes what you think is the cause turns out to be the effect. The old time travel paradoxes weren’t real because they didn’t recognize that, but we couldn’t learn it until we were able to travel through time and start identifying all of the deliberate and accidental Interventions going on. The more we learn about that, the more we see how tangled and interwoven the circles of cause and effect and cause are, the more people wonder if there ever was a base reality, because history as we know it already reflects countless changes from what might have been.

But for tonight, I just needed to get to Lexington and ensure whatever changes took place didn’t include anything bad happening to Pam. I started walking. Midnight. Revere should be in Lexington now, if he hadn’t been stopped. Dawes would get there about zero zero thirty, then they’d leave for Concord with some other guy. Well behind me, the British regulars had disembarked at Lechmere Point and were marching toward me. I had a good lead on them, but I’d need every extra moment since I couldn’t just walk into Lexington along the main road the British soldiers would use. There’d be way too many locals and TIs posted along that route.

When the road bent up toward Lexington I followed it until another road cut off to the left. It would take me south of the town, where another road would lead me straight up into Lexington along a route which shouldn’t be nearly as hazardous. I was pretty sure it would be the same route Pam had taken. And the Brit following her. They were likely both still on horseback, with substantial leads on me. I walked faster.

#

There seemed to be locals everywhere as I approached Lexington from the south, but they weren’t hard to avoid. The Colonials wanted to force a confrontation with the British troops, so they were standing out in the open or walking into town. I merged with them when I could, blending in. Most had muskets of varying age, but I wasn’t the only one not carrying a weapon, so I didn’t stand out on that account. The older men were serious and grim, the younger ones hopped up with excitement and joking with each other. Funny how it’s always that way. I remembered the Roman teenage conscripts laughing and fooling around before Cannae.

Being a TI can be damned depressing sometimes.

When I got close to the town it was still long enough before dawn that the gloom made it easy for me to fade off to the side so I could approach cautiously from overland. As it got light enough to see faces well suspicious locals might detain me as a spy for the British authorities since no one here would know me. Unfortunately, I had no idea where Pam was planning on deploying her gear. Jeannie could tell me where bugs had been placed in Lexington before my particular job, though, so I could guess what spots had been judged in need of better coverage.

There were so many TIs around that Jeannie kept calling warnings and I stopped paying close enough attention. Mistake.

“Hold it.” The voice was very soft but very clear. I froze obediently, then turned my head enough to see someone step slightly out of cover, a weapon in one hand pointed straight at me. “Tom? What the hell are you doing here?”

It was the same TI who I’d met in Cambridge yesterday afternoon. “I’ve got to help somebody.”

His weapon didn’t move. “You told me you were done working here and now.”

“I am. This is personal. She needs my help.”

He shook his head. “Tom, you can’t get that involved with locals. You know that. Whoever she is was dead and dust before your ancestors were born.”

“She’s not a local!”

“Another TI? You dog. I never would have guessed. But I can’t let you stage an Intervention or help some other TI do it.”

I unfroze enough to make a pleading gesture. “She’s not here and now for an Intervention. Just data collection. I swear it. The guy who’s after her is planning an Intervention.”

“Who is this guy?”

“I don’t know. Some Brit. Looks like his family has been interbreeding with horses for generations. You know the type.”

My acquaintance grinned. “Old line nobility? Yeah. I didn’t see anybody like him on this route, but I didn’t get here until after I’d helped make sure William Dawes made it through.”

“This Brit left Cambridge on horseback early in the evening, so he probably got through here before you got in place.”

“Probably,” the other TI agreed. “And you want to stop him?” I nodded. “You’re sure he’s planning an Intervention?” I nodded again. He raised his weapon and stepped back slightly. “Then right here and now we’re working for the same side. Go ahead.”

“Thanks,” I gasped in relief, but he stopped me from running on ahead with a gesture.

“It’s dangerous going into that town right now, Tom. Is this babe worth it?”

“Yeah.”

“I wish I’d met her before you did. Good luck.” He faded back into cover and I headed the rest of the way into Lexington as cautiously as I could. It felt like I was in one of those training simulations where enemies are on all sides waiting to pop out. Once among the buildings of the small town of Lexington, I couldn’t sneak from place to place, so I walked, trying to look non-threatening.

I came around a corner and even though the sun wasn’t up yet I recognized Pam. She was maybe fifteen meters away, her back to me, walking very slowly down one side of the street next to the houses there. I recognized her movements as being those of someone listening to her Assistant on where to go to deploy sensors.

But she was, clearly, fine. I’d run a lot of risks and made a fool of myself for nothing. The best thing to do now was to jump out of here before Pam saw me.

Pam suddenly staggered, then went down limp. The door to the home she’d been passing opened and a man stepped partly out to grab her arms and pull her inside. He was wearing a different outfit, the uniform of a British regular officer I thought from the brief glimpse I’d caught, but I didn’t need Jeannie’s confirmation to tell me that he was the Brit I’d seen before. How he’d manage to surprise Pam when her Assistant should have warned her that he was nearby I didn’t know, but that didn’t matter. I was already running across those fifteen meters toward the small house into which the Brit had pulled Pam.

I reached the door without anyone else shooting me and paused just outside. The house was small and old, built of roughly-hewn planks sealed with plaster, not much more than a box maybe four meters by three meters in length and width, the edge of the roof just above my head.
How close is he?
I asked Jeannie, knowing she could detect the Brit’s implanted equipment if he was near enough.

I can’t sense any trace of him,
Jeannie assured me.
At our last encounter I spotted his presence at a range of six meters
.

That house was smaller than that. He must have pulled Pam inside and run. Relieved, I barreled through the door.

And found myself looking at the Brit standing over Pam, a Dazer stun pistol in one hand pointed directly at me. “Don’t move,” he ordered. “Close the door.”

I considered pointing out that I couldn’t follow both orders, but decided that it wasn’t worth playing games with a guy pointing a weapon at me and with Pam helpless. Nothing in the house seemed like it would be of much help. A single chair and a narrow bed against the side walls, and a Franklin stove, its open side facing me from where the black iron box sat within the old stone fireplace against the back wall, a tin pipe running straight up from it and through the roof.
Why didn’t you detect that he was here?
I mentally yelled at Jeannie.

It’s strange to hear an Assistant sounding shocked.
He’s shut down his systems. His Assistant and his jump mech
.

You should’ve been able to spot them in standby!

They’re not in standby. They’re completely shut down. I don’t know of any way he could restart them in this now
.

All of this had taken perhaps two seconds. I stared at the Brit, wondering why anyone would permanently disable their ability to get back to their home now, then at his weapon. But at least that explained how he’d surprised Pam. Her Assistant wouldn’t have spotted him either.
Can that pistol deliver a lethal charge?
I asked Jeannie as I closed the door, moving slowly and carefully.

Insufficient data. Models sold were set to prohibit lethal charges, but were easily modified to allow a lethal nerve overload. That’s why Dazers were outlawed sixty years prior to our home now.

The Brit looked way too much like someone who’d make that kind of modification, so I spoke in what I hoped was a calming voice. “I’m just here to help her. Neither of us wants anything to do with you.”