Emperors of Time (10 page)

The four teens
nodded.  Tim spoke up, saying, “I suppose some of the other people around do
more than just envy them, though.”

Now Hopkins
nodded.  Then, he took several pairs of binoculars out of his duffel
bag. 

After handing
them around, he said, “I want you all to take a look at that group of people on
the shore opposite us.” 

Tim had to scan
the shore a little bit, but he soon found a group of about forty people sitting
across the lake.  “What are we looking at here?” asked Billy.

“This tribe of
exiles have lived here for about a decade.  They have become a little too
comfortable, never feeling hunger in all that time,” said Hopkins.

“But that’s not
the event you brought us here to see, is it?” asked Tim hesitantly.  The
binoculars were very good.  They could see faces even at the distance of a
mile.  Tim could tell that the group was a mixture of men, women, and
children.  The children were playing, the men and women were laughing and
cooking fish on a fire in the middle of the group.  The people who lived
by this lake seemed to have found a small bit of happiness in a very hard
world.

“No,
unfortunately not,” said Hopkins.  “We should not have to wait long now,
but we must wait.”

So they did,
mostly in silence.  Tim was not sure what he expected when Hopkins told
him he was going to take them to see the future, but it was certainly not this. 
Perhaps hanging out in the indoor beaches that Hopkins had described would have
been more fun, but spying on small tribes of exiles in the year 2346 was
certainly not what Tim had had in mind.

Hopkins was
right that they wouldn’t have to wait long.  Only five minutes later, they
were privy to a gruesome scene in their binoculars.  Twenty men with
spears ran up to the people at the lakefront.  Tim wasn’t sure whether the
lakefront tribe had any weapons of their own, but if they did, there was no
time to draw them.  The massacre was quick and absolute.  The screams
took a second or two after the first killing to make it across the lake, but
they were horrible when they arrived.  After it was over, Tim looked
around at the others. Rose was crying, while Billy and Julie looked as
horrified as he felt. 

After the last
of the lake dwellers was killed, Hopkins turned toward them and the teens
lowered their binoculars to look at him.  “You have now seen everything I
wanted to show you.  I am pressed for time, but if you need to know
anything else before making your final decision, now would be the time to
ask.  Have you seen enough to make a decision?  Are you ready to do
your part in fighting the Emperors of Time?”

Rose was the
first to speak, and answered immediately.  “Yes,” she said, her eyes still
watery, but her voice firm.

There was a
pause then, but shortly after, Julie spoke up as well.  “I’m in,” her
voice was a bit husky, as if she maybe still had a lump in her throat.

“Me too,” said
Tim. 

There was
another pause.  Finally, Billy spoke up.  “I think I still need
another day and a half before I believe this isn’t some elaborate
hallucination.  But once I’ve convinced myself of that, I’ll be ready to
fight them however I can.  Is that good enough?”

“As much as I
could hope for,” said Hopkins with what seemed like genuine appreciation. 
“But I have two more warnings about time travel for you before I send you
back.  Firstly, whenever you go back to your own time, you will arrive
back a certain amount of time after you originally left.  This time is
determined by how long you spent in other times.  What time did you leave
in your time?”

“About noon,”
answered Rose after a moment of thought.

Hopkins
nodded.  “Since you have been gone several hours so far, if I sent you
directly back now, you would wind up arriving back somewhere around 4:00
pm.  Since the area around Wright’s Ferry Mansion would likely still be
busy with people at that time, this would require way too much
explaining.  So, I am going to send you to a different time first, then
have you hop back to Wright’s Ferry Mansion after a few more hours have passed,
making it closer to 10:00 pm.”

 “Makes
sense,” Julie said.  The others agreed as well.

“Good.  My
other caution is that when you go back in time, bring everything you could
possibly need to fix things the first time.  For instance, if you want to
bring a bit of money-- this would probably have to be gold or silver instead of
actual currency, because of course anything dated from your own time would be
useless. Remember, each person can go to any year only once,” warned Hopkins.

The four teens
nodded or murmured their understanding of Hopkins’ cautions. 

“Right.
 Well, I must leave the task of changing the world back to the proper
timeline with you.  I have no doubt that after it is corrected, the
Emperors of Time will find a way to change it again, so as soon as you right
the ship, it will probably be knocked astray again.” said Hopkins.

“Why are you so
confident that we can even do this?” asked Julie.

“Because I know
you will grow up to do great things with your friends.  I can think of no
one better to leave this problem with,” said Hopkins.  “In the meantime, I
am going to give you this final rock.  It is from Australia.  I want you
to think back to a time when there were no people in Australia, just a barren
wilderness with kangaroos, wallabies, and few natural predators.  I want
you to think of night time on this great island continent.  Imagine it is
just after midnight in a time like that, and then return to your own time as
the sun rises.  The view of the stars, in a time and place with no human
light pollution, will be spectacular.  I think you deserve a wonderful
sight after all you have seen today.  If you need me you can leave messages
for me and find any messages that I send by the oak tree.”

Finally, after
Hopkins said his final goodbyes to the teens and allowed them to change back
into their own clothes, they took the rock he offered and linked hands. 
He also gave them a second Dominus Temporis, the one he had recently captured,
explaining that the Emperors of Time would be more likely to expect that
Hopkins himself still had it, rather than suspecting some teenagers from the
21st century.  Since Julie was the most experienced with going back in
time out of the four of them, they let her hold the rock and envision the scene
Hopkins had described. 

The four of them
had a pleasant night, watching the stars in the Southern Hemisphere travel
across the pitch black sky.  Because they didn’t know what the southern
constellations were, they picked out their own patterns and named them, aside
from the times when they were discussing what a crazy day they had just had.

After a
well-deserved night sleeping at their respective houses, Billy, Rose, and Julie
gathered at Tim’s house on Sunday afternoon.  Julie had brought Hopkins’
book with her, and Tim’s parents were so excited about Tim having guests over
that they provided snacks and drinks.  It was lucky, though, that they
stayed mostly out of Tim’s room that afternoon, as the conversation
concentrated on things that would sound absurd to anyone who was not currently
planning a trip back in time to save the world.

“Okay, so we’re
good down to Lincoln,” said Tim, after a cursory glance at Hopkins’ list of
presidents.  Their first plan was to try to see where the presidents
strayed from the true timeline, and go from there.  This part would be
pretty easy, since Tim knew the American Presidents, or at least the ones who
had served in his timeline, off the top of his head.

“Okay, good,”
said Julie.

“Sorry, but is
any of this blowing anyone else’s mind?” asked Rose.  “I mean, we’re
trying to figure out where our universe basically became an alternate
universe.  That’s weird, right?”

“Of course it’s
weird,” said Billy, with a voice that mixed sympathy and annoyance.  “But
we’ve got a job to do, so we have to deal with it.”

“After Lincoln
comes Andrew Johnson, that’s normal,” said Tim, basically ignoring what his
friends were saying.  Then Grant, Hayes, Garfield…  check, check,
check.  Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, and then Cleveland again… 
that’s weird, but it’s in both our timeline and the original one…  Okay,
then McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft…  Oh, wait, here it is!”

“What?” asked
Julie.  The simple recitation of the list of presidents seemed to be
monotonous enough to her math-loving, social-studies hating mind that she had
almost fell asleep, but Tim’s excitement roused her.

“Well, here
Wilson serves from 1913 to 1921!  Oh, this is so weird…  Harding,
Coolidge, Hoover…  I’ve never even heard of them, but according to
Hopkins, they were presidents in the true timeline.  Anyway, this is
clearly where the paths diverge,” said Tim.

“You’re sure?”
asked Billy.  In contrast to Tim’s excitement and amazement, Billy was all
business. 

“Yeah, no… 
that’s not right,” said Rose.  “I know Wilson only served for one term in
our timeline--”  Billy looked at her with raised eyebrows. 
“What?  They teach advanced history at Catholic school, too, you
know.   Here, Tim, do you have a history textbook?”

“Yeah, but we
don’t need it.  I know a lot about the 1910s and 1920s,” he got his
history book out of his bookbag and handed it to her anyway.  “In our
timeline, Wilson’s single term was followed by Charles E. Hughes.  Hughes
led us through the Great War and was responsible for the start of the American
Empire.  Remember how I told you about that the other day, Julie?”

“Of course,”
Julie answered. 

Tim was flipping
through the other pages Hopkins had written.  “Apparently, Wilson fought
the Great War in the original timeline…  Except for some reason Hopkins
calls it World War I,” Tim said.  But after he kept flipping, he said,
“Yeah, okay…  because there was another big war about 25 years
later.  Hmmm…  In our timeline at that point France was fighting
Germany for control of central Europe, but not many other countries got
involved.  Something must have happened during Wilson’s term to make the
timeline get weird.”

“Or during his
election,” suggested Rose.

Tim and the
others looked at her.  She was holding up his history textbook, open to
what appeared to be an electoral map, with the different states in the U.S.
colored blue and red.

“Why do you say
that?” asked Tim.

“Well, just
look,” said Rose.  “The electoral vote in 1916 was 267 to 264.  Plus,
Wilson still won the popular vote by hundreds of thousands.  I bet the
Emperors of Time did something to change the election.  They wouldn’t have
had to do much.”

“It makes about
as much sense as anything else I’ve heard since yesterday,” said Billy, a hint
of bitterness in his voice.

“Worth
exploring, anyway.  So what state should have gone for Wilson that went
for Hughes instead?” asked Julie.

Rose shook her
head.  “It came down to three votes, so it’s hard to narrow down.  If
any state at all, even one with three electoral votes, changed columns, that
would have been enough to switch the winner.  Tim, does Hopkins tell us
the electoral-vote totals for this election?”

Tim was still
flipping through the book.  “I don’t see anything, no,” he shook his
head.  “Hopkins did say he was pressed for time.  He didn’t know this
was the year we would need, either, right?”

“Right,” said
Rose, her voice carrying an edge of frustration.  “Well…  Okay, to
the internet then, shall we?  Maybe we can find something that looks
suspicious within our own timeline.  They probably wouldn’t have wanted to
change any more votes than they had to, right?  Maybe there’s a state
where it’s still close.”

Tim sat down at
it his computer and had them to a page about the 1916 election with just a few
keystrokes. 

“That was fast,”
commented Julie with a laugh.

“Maybe it’s not
the first time I’ve looked up the outcomes of old elections, okay?” confessed
Tim with mock annoyance.

“Hmm…” said
Rose, as Tim scrolled to a chart of the popular vote totals from the different
states.  “Wow, look at that…  Hughes only won Minnesota by 400
votes.  He only lost New Hampshire by…  geez…  46 votes…”

“We’re not
looking for states that Hughes just barely lost,” said Julie.  “The
Emperors must have changed it so he won.  Minnesota might be a decent
option.”

“But it’s hard
to believe they would have made it so he won by only 400 votes…  Seems
awfully close…  What if there was a corrupt election official somewhere,
it could ruin the whole plan, right?” asked Tim. 

“But, how do you
get that many people to switch their votes?  Pay off the voters?  Pay
off the official?  Or what?” asked Billy.

Rose turfed Tim
out of his own desk chair and scrolled through the results herself while Tim
looked on.

“Well…  In
other news, California went to Hughes by about two thousand votes, Indiana by
seven thousandish , Oregon by…. not quite seven thousand , West Virginia by….
three thousand or so, Delaware by... thirteen hundred give or take, South
Dakota by five thousand , and Rhode Island by four thousand,” announced Rose.

“How are we
going to decide which was the Emperors’ doing?” asked Julie.

“I don’t know, but
if they were trying to find an election that was hard to track, they did a good
job.  This looks like it was a crazy election with or without the
Emperors’ help,” said Rose.

“Well, here’s an
idea,” said Tim, kicking Rose back out of his computer chair.  “I’ll be
the first to admit that I don’t know much about the ins and outs of the 1916
election off the top of my head, but I bet the internet could give us
something.”  He typed the words, ‘1916 presidential election day’ into the
search engine.  “Okay, well, naturally the first few are just talking
about the election itself, but…”  He scrolled a bit.  “Ah-ha. 
Here’s one.  What about the 1916 San Francisco Election Day bombing?”
               
“Oh, wow…  Yeah…  maybe…” said Julie. 

Tim clicked on
the link and skimmed the page before announcing, “Oh, yeah, this kind of makes
sense.  One of Wilson’s biggest campaign points was that he kept us out of
the Great War.  America didn’t want to be involved, but we kept inching
closer and closer because American businesses had a huge interest in the war.
 They needed a win for the Allies.”

“And what does
this have to do with the bombing?” asked Billy.

“This was the
second bombing in the same year in San Francisco.  We’re talking suitcase
bombs here, by the way, not missiles or anything.  The first one was on
Preparedness Day, June 22nd, just months before the election.  Both were
supposed to have been organized by people who were against the war,” said Tim.

“So, they… 
set off a bomb in the name of peace?” asked Julie incredulously. 

Tim shrugged.

“Could the
Emperors of Time have coordinated both bombings?” asked Billy.

“I doubt it,”
posited Julie.  “That’s changing events twice in one year, right?  So
unless they stuck around for several months, it would have been hard to be
responsible for both.”

“Right,” agreed
Tim.  “But look at this.  The bombing took place right before polls
opened in San Francisco.  Although no comprehensible story made it onto
the newsstands around the country before the polls closed, it dramatically
affected the turnout in San Francisco and other parts of California.  The
turnout was especially lower among San Francisco women, whose husbands or
fathers asked them to stay inside because of the chaos the bombing
caused…  San Francisco women had been big supporters for Wilson.  A
lot of people who did vote in San Francisco, according to stories they told
reporters later anyway, voted for Hughes.  They wanted to show they
couldn’t be intimidated to stay out of the war.  Suddenly, Wilson keeping
us out of war was a liability, not a selling point.”

“Well… 
this could be it then, right?” asked Rose, clearly excited at the idea that
they had figured out the answer. 

“Well, sure,
maybe…” agreed Julie.  “But…  I mean, how do we proceed?  Do
they know who set the bomb off at least?  Maybe if we can stop them from
doing it…  Well, that would change things back, right?  Do you think
the Emperors stuck around to do it?  They’d have been hard to find, since
they could just jump back into their own time right after they did it.”

“There’s nothing
on this page about who set it off…  It might have been safer to convince
someone else to do it.  The police must have been at least somewhat on the
lookout for suitcase bombs at the time, given that there had been an attack so
close before.  Besides, didn’t you say that Hopkins freed Booth from some
corrupt cops?  That wouldn’t be the Emperors of Time.   Maybe
their style is just getting other people to do the dirty work for them,” Tim
contemplated.

The four of them
sat in silence for a moment or two before Rose spoke up.  “Well, I think
we made a lot of progress for today, actually.  We’ll have to dig a little
deeper on the bomb thing, but we can’t just go back there looking like this
anyway.  We’re going to need period clothing, and something that can help
us get back to San Francisco in 1916, right?”

“Shoot… 
yeah.  Whoever thought time travel would be so complicated?” Julie asked
with a laugh.  “But, no, seriously…  we need to think about those
things, yeah.”

“Cool,” said
Rose.  “Well, what if tomorrow we took a little trip to my aunt and
uncle’s antique shop, then?”

The four teens
agreed that this was a fair idea, and Billy, who had driven everyone over,
offered the girls a ride home.

“Rose, why don’t
you go on ahead?” asked Julie.  “Tim, we haven’t taken a walk together
since Friday, and I’m starting to miss it.  Would you walk me home? 
I want to talk to you for a bit.”

Tim was not
opposed to spending some time alone with Julie, but the logistics didn’t seem
to work out.  “And then I just walk right back home?  That’s quite a
hike.”

Julie
shrugged.  “You could stay for dinner, if you wanted.  Sunday’s
lasagna night, so there’s that.  Unless you’ve gotta have dinner with your
family.  That’s okay, of course.”

“No, it’s fine,”
said Tim.  “Sure, let’s go.”

A few minutes
later, Julie and Tim were waving goodbye to Billy and Rose as they drove off in
Billy’s car.

At the first
stop sign after Tim’s driveway, Julie turned to him.  “So…  what do
you think about all this?  You know…  the time travel thing?”

“Good you
clarified, because if you hadn’t mentioned that you were talking about time
travel, I might have thought you were talking about paved roads,” said
Tim.  He paused for a second.  “So, what about it?”

“Do you think we’re
in too deep?” asked Julie flatly.

Tim thought for
a second.  “Hopkins thinks we can do it,” he said.  Then, he paused
again and amended, “Well, he thinks
you
can do it.”

“Exactly!” said
Julie, clearly exasperated.  “And don’t you think that’s weird?  I
mean, sure, I get good grades in math, but that’s probably the only way I’m
above average.  Plus, I tripped twice on the steps in school Friday. 
That’s right…  twice…  So it’s not like I’m particularly
coordinated.  I’m just saying, if you had to pick a group of four people
to help you overthrow a futuristic world government, I’m just not sure why I
make the list.”

Tim raised his
hands in a gesture of innocence.  “I mean…  Hopkins didn’t consult
me.  But he must have his reasons.  He told us some of them
already.  You’re a direct ancestor of Russell-- and yes, that is crazy
weird,” admitted Tim, responding to Julie’s facial expression when he mentioned
her distant blood relationship with the conniving scientist. “And he said when
you grow up you do some impressive things.  Which means that you’re pretty
impressive now.  I mean, I’ve kind of always thought so, too, you
know?  Besides, you were told to recruit people to go back in time with
you, and you actually did!  Two of us you didn’t even have to lie to. 
That’s got to count for something, right?”

Julie smiled
slightly.  “I guess so…  Maybe.  Anyway, I guess we’ve got the
job and now we just have to try to do it, right?”

Tim
nodded.  “Sounds reasonable.  But hey, speaking of unanswered
questions, I have one that you can actually help with, if that makes you feel
any better.”

“Oh yeah?” asked
Julie.

“You still
haven’t told me why you trusted me enough to have me be the first one you told
about all this time travel stuff.  I mean, sure, we sit together at lunch
and when we have a class together we might chat sometimes.  But that’s
really all in this timeline.  I always kind of assumed you just thought I
was entertaining because I’m a little funny and socially awkward,” he stopped
looking where he was walking to glance at Julie’s face and see her smile at his
joke.  “I mean, I know I’m good at history, and that came in handy, but
Rose is good with that kind of thing, too…  She showed that today, and I
doubt it was any different in your own timeline.  So I don’t understand
why you picked me.  I don’t mean I’m not flattered, it’s just weird.”