Time Agency (13 page)

“But couldn't you just ask?”

“Would you go with two strange people in the sewer?” she retorted.

“I was already going with one. We could have made it a double date. “

“You talk too much,” the time agent said.

“You're as much fun as a singles club during a math conference.”

She didn't react. But I supposed when I thought about it, a singles club in a math conference would probably be pretty crazy. People who worked hard always partied the hardest. I got the feeling that partying wasn't quite the same in the future. This agent seemed to be steadfast and dedicated. And I couldn't imagine her doing any partying. A party… I almost stopped in my tracks. The time agent unceremoniously urged me forward.

“Take us to him,” Nanette said and motioned everyone forward. I began to zone out, but no one seemed to notice. It was a memory about a party. There was a blond woman. It was coming back in pieces. I had not opened the briefcase, so it was my real memory.”

“Could erased memory come back without the briefcase?” I asked while we walked.

“I suppose, but it would be fragmented. Why?” the time agent answered.

“No reason.” But I did have a good reason. I began to assemble fragments together in my head. I was beginning to remember.

Nanette scoured the crime scene at the bookstore. There had to be a trace of Jerry somewhere. The police gave her little resistance to entering the crime scene because she had the proper IDs. Even though they were fakes, they were fakes created by nanomachines, so people of the past couldn’t tell the difference even if they were trained to spot forgeries. From her scans, she could see DNA traces of both her protégé and fugitive 07760. It was pretty clear from the DNA that her protégé was the murderer. His DNA was on the body and all over the room. 07760 wasn’t there as long because he only left small amounts of skin cells. Forensic technology built into her nanomachines not only could scan for DNA, but could tell how many particles were in the room, where they were concentrated, and so forth. People who were there longer left more particles behind. It also helped her get a good idea of what happened.

Her scans brought her to a curious spot. In the back of the room, there was a desk, and it seemed fugitive 07760 stopped at the desk. A framed news article displayed a picture of 07760 at an event commemorating a train station restoration project. Her grayspace reconstruction of 07760 searched every photo in the archives for him. This particular photo did not show in her search results. It was also much earlier than 07760 arrived in the city. Since a photo like this should clearly be in the historical archives, someone must have removed it from the archives. Removing photos from the archives was difficult because they couldn’t just remove the photo, they would have to remove all the social network photos too. Each person who took a photograph at this event would also be in the archives.

After she had gleaned all she could from the crime scene, she jumped back to her office in the future. She had to look for other instances of 07760. The research was long and tedious. She didn’t dare task out the research to nanomachines outside her body. She didn’t know who to trust.

An alert pulled her out of the research. A simple request appeared in her messages. It was from an anonymous tip. It told her the exact date, time, and location to meet with 07760. It gave instructions to wait on a train and follow him into the sewers. There was no signature attached to the message. It was strange because messages always had the quantum signature of the sender. But the complete absence of one made her hope that somehow her lover found a way to communicate with her.

I was in graduate school. I was in the common room. Couches circled a table. The place was very clean. The walls were changing scenes, and I was watching one wall in particular. It was 1970s America: mustaches, giant-lapel jackets, big hair, and muscle cars. I forgot what topic I was studying, but I knew I was engaged in the act of studying. A beautiful woman sat beside me. She looked like Farrah Fawcett. I laughed and asked her why she was dressed like that. She told me that I studied too hard. She dropped a giant, fuzzy-lapelled jacket onto my lap and grinned.

We went to a fraternity party at some college back in the 70’s. Muscle cars were parked out in front. I ran my fingers down the hood. I could see why people were obsessed with them. I wanted to drive one. There was music booming from the house. A few partygoers lingered on the outside. Another screamed with joy and stumbled onto the front lawn puking. I was nervous. I’d never been to a party. In the future, people did not party. Not like in the past. Nanomachines took care of the negative effects of substances like alcohol, but people were innovative.

My companion turned to me before we made it to the house and kissed me. Was it my first? I didn’t know, but it was wonderful. I felt weak, and my body tingled. She told me that she partially disabled my nanomachines. I was scared. Disabled nanomachines meant a person could age, die, and all sorts of things. If I was nervous before, this was an entirely new level of it. I was terrified.

She told me to relax, which was always ridiculous advice for someone who is nervous. Relaxing requires being relaxed. So it was absurd to think that I could be otherwise. She assured me with a squeeze on the shoulder. I wanted her to kiss me again, but I knew that it was merely a clinical kiss to transfer bots to my system. The kiss didn’t mean to her what it meant to me. Her touch made me less nervous, but I wasn’t in a state anywhere close to relaxed.

She took me to the party and handed me a beverage. The party was a massive clump of humanity, gyrating and sweating. There were conversations, laughter, and many more of the beverages. She told me to take a sip. It was bitter, and I spit it out. A gentleman in a college sweater pointed and laughed at me. His overly-chiseled-jaw friend slapped him and moved to talk to my companion. She told me to drink up and was swept into the dancing.

I took another sip. The bitterness was bearable. I stood in the corner watching the party. The man with the sweater, who was red-faced and had a powerful odor, put his arm around my neck. He commented on the attractiveness of my sister. I told him that I didn’t have a sister. He laughed and told me to drink up. I finished it, and there was a calming effect on my body. The nervousness was gone. The red-faced man handed me another. The second one gave me the courage to flow with the chaos of the party.

I don’t remember what happened most of the night. I danced. I partied. There was a rolled paper with a green plant in the middle that made me cough. The night was amazing and somehow embarrassing at the same time. I did things I never thought I would, but somehow my thoughts kept going back to my companion and the kiss. I knew she was merely transferring nanomachines to reprogram mine, but I couldn’t help but replay the moment over and over in my head. The future did not have such transfers of bodily fluids. Most people spent their entire life without touching another human. Touching was weird. But if it was weird, why did it feel so good?

My mind wrestled with the dilemma while the party raged onward. My companion disappeared with Chisel-Jaw leaving me to fend for myself with Sweater. Sweater kept me well sated with drink. I later discovered that it was called beer, and it was fairly common among the people of this time. Those my age would usually have excessive quantities of it. My memory didn’t quite retain what constituted excessive quantities. I didn’t remember much. There was this weird, vague, almost dreamlike memory that at one point during the night, I tried to convince Sweater and friends that I was from the future. They, of course, laughed at me.

Other than the patches, the memory was a big void until I felt a nudge and Sweater told “Future Boy” to wake up. The light blinded my eyes. My head cried with pain. It was overwhelming. Sweater laughed at me. I went from virtually experiencing no pain in my life to feeling like my head would explode. I thought I would die. Sweater plopped a trashcan down next to me, and my stomach ejected vomit and bile into the can. I’d seen puking on projection and knew about how it worked, but I had never actually experienced it myself. It was strangely relieving and awful at the same time. I couldn’t decide which was worse, puking or my headache. Either way, they caused each other to get worse, and eventually my stomach emptied. I could only dry heave. My mind didn’t help but bask in paranoia and fear. I thought I was going to die.

I saw Chisel-Jaw and my companion come downstairs. They locked in an embrace and kissed.  I felt a pain worse than the headache, worse than my stomach. I only later found out the word for the pain. It was jealousy. Humanity was supposed to be beyond such petty emotions, but somehow I could not help but feel the pangs of jealousy. However, I was locked into the fiction she created for us last night. I was her brother.

Chisel-Jaw attempted to get something called a phone number from my companion. She told him that she would “call” him because our dad was a hardass. After Chisel-Jaw had written down his number on her arm, she collected my weak body. I asked her about “calling” on the way down from the house. It was a form of communication. She told me it was used to send voice over distances. I asked her if she intended to call. She told me of course not. This was a one-time event. I wondered if she did end up changing the past. Would Chisel-Jaw think of her? Would his life be different because every woman would be compared to her? Or was I making too big of a deal about nothing, like the kiss? It was nothing, just a transfer of nanotechnology to reprogram mine. I puked in the bushes down away from the house.

She touched the bare skin on my neck, and almost instantly my head cleared, and my stomach unknotted. My vision returned with crystal clarity, but there was still a memory gap from last night. The pain disappeared except the occasional ghost pain. She told me the nanomachines were now functioning again. We went back…and I never heard from her again. She disappeared from school. My classmates never heard from her, and they claimed she decided to drop out. Dropping out was a common occurrence. In the future, people only worked because they wanted too. Degrees and study were only for those who enjoyed it. So dropping out was common when they realized it involved work. My school was nothing like the past where people had to stick with school in hopes for a better future.

At first, I looked at the incident with disdain and hatred. I’d let myself act like the brutal savages of human history. But later I realized my brain was warped by the thought of wanting to be close to her. In hindsight, my entire body was consumed that night by the desire for another kiss. So I quelled the appetite through drinks that inhibit higher brain function. The drinks only seemed to increase my desire while inhibiting my function. The day after the party, my body was sick from more than just the beer. I wanted her.

But my ancestors turned off that drive long ago. I finally understood why. My entire night was wasted from one simple kiss. I could have been productive and expanded my knowledge of early human social interaction. Instead, I spent the entire time fuming over Chisel-Jaw. I knew such desire would leave me down a path of destruction. So I never turned off the machines again…

Jerry brought 07760 to reprogramming chamber number 42. It was located at the end of a long metal hallway. Hallways were rather antiquated pieces of architecture. People could use their nanomachines to teleport anywhere on the planet, so hallways, doors, and even windows became obsolete. There were just rooms built all over the planet. Security protocols allowed people to lock the rooms and only allow certain quantum signatures through. However, teleporting was completely disabled in the reprogramming building, so there were doors, hallways, and all styles of old architecture.

When the teleporting technology was first added to the nanomachines, people weren't ready to give up their doors. They feared becoming trapped or disconnected from their machines, but eventually the fear subsided. The lack of doors became popular. The old building styles still existed, and people still lived in them, but a vast majority lived in their private grayspace that could fashion any reality. Some had entire virtual forests. Others lived in virtual cities. Few lived in the real world. Those who did live in the real world kept the world going for the sake of the others. The real world people created new grayspace fiction and art, innovated technology, and in the case of Jerry, acted as a crime investigation force.

Robots performed the menial tasks such as waste removal, maintenance, repair, manufacturing, and other forms of repetitive labor with a relatively small amount of humans overseeing the work. Most of humanity was free to be as productive or unproductive as they wished. Though there were limits. Every twenty-five years, people were required to devote a year of their time in the real world to keep the system going. Some could stay full time in the real world if they wished. Agents were recruited from people who decided to stay beyond their one-year requirement. While agents still used grayspace to relax during their off hours, they didn’t feel the drive to disappear from the real world entirely. Those who relied too heavily on escapism and fantasy were considered mentally unfit for the time agency as history could be as powerful of a temptation as any grayspace fiction. Jerry was recruited from the space exploration department, and the agency didn’t know that he chose space exploration as a form of escapism.

The door to the reprogramming chamber slid open, interrupting his thoughts. The chambers functioned without the will of the agent. Agents didn’t control them with their nanomachines like every other device because the nanomachines were cut from the network in the building. Jerry assumed there was another tech operating the machine somewhere else in the building. The bright light from inside the door flooded into the hallway. Subject 07760 had to stoop to get into the chamber. He sat cross-legged in the center of the chamber. He glanced up towards Jerry and nodded. Jerry had programmed his nanomachines in 07760’s body to record. The door closed and Jerry stood outside the chamber.

07760 dematerialized, and the chamber was empty. According to all the information about the reprogramming chambers he could find, they worked on a simple premise. A person was placed inside. The person dematerialized at the atomic level, and the atoms were then rearranged to exactly the same person without the dysfunction to cause them to act like criminals and the memory of the criminal activity. It was like getting a new lease on life and a clean slate. All the atoms would be put back, and they could leave a free person. The concept was very humane.

The crazy people said the chambers didn't dematerialize but rather teleported the people to some place in the future where they were brainwashed as pawns for some hidden agenda and other wild theories. The brainwashed were sent back from the future without memory, so they would not tell anyone about the horrors that awaited the reprogrammed subjects. The theory seemed a little absurd to Jerry. Since everyone left the chambers without memory, there was no proof of the future conspiracy. Lack of proof doesn’t constitute as proof. It was like UFO conspirators of the past. An unidentified object in the sky means it wasn’t identified. Lack of identity doesn’t mean extraterrestrial. As far as humans knew, aliens were far away and hard to find. Since humanity never cracked the light barrier in Jerry’s time, aliens would struggle with interstellar travel problems too. Jerry tended to believe all the documentation and science around him over the conspiracy. Conspiracies always seemed too elaborate to hold up. There were too many parts that had to be executed flawlessly for a conspiracy to be true. The only reason he gave some credence to 07760 was because of his knowledge of Russia. Though 07760 was a historian. Maybe he was in Russia too and decided to use Jerry.

Jerry would know soon enough. If his nanomachines recorded any visuals, then 07760 was transported out of the chamber. If the nanomachines came back with nothing, they were dematerialized into atoms and reconstructed. People came back from reprogramming dazed. Jerry would carry him back to recovery. All Jerry needed was skin contact to recover his nanomachines. The wireless abilities of nanomachines were disabled in the building. It was part of the safety protocols. The chambers didn’t want any stray nanomachines fluttering about adding molecules to the mix of a person’s atoms.

07760 blinked back into the chamber. His body went limp and toppled to the chamber floor. Jerry lifted him up and took him down the hallway. He dragged 07760 over his shoulders through the network of metal halls until he came to a room with several beds. A few recently reprogrammed citizens were lying in bed. A nurse saw them enter and helped Jerry drop 07760 on the bed.

“Why didn’t you summon me? I would have brought a stretcher,” the nurse scolded Jerry.

“You know me. I like to do everything myself,” he retorted.

“We all have to rely on someone else once in a while. At least once every twenty-five years,” she joked.

The offhand comment stuck with him. 07760 had trusted everything to him. While they hoisted 07760 onto a recovery bed, the well-dressed man retrieved the nanomachines. The nanomachines recorded over 5 hours of footage.  Which means 07760 was transported and at the location for more than five hours. Jerry deduced time travel must be involved. 07760 was transported to the future and sent back to a second after he left. Jerry needed to view the footage. Jerry’s worldview wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss a conspiracy from the future. 07760 bet everything on Jerry’s compliance and turned out to have bet well.

If Jerry dismissed the claims, 07760 would awake without any of the knowledge he had about the future and would be blissfully unaware of reality.  Jerry considered deleting the recording. Is it better to be unaware and have the illusion of freedom or to be oppressed and free? Jerry could not willingly rewind his awareness. The chambers were supposed to be reconstructing people, not teleporting them. The agency was lying to him.

Jerry thanked the nurse with a handshake. She toppled over, and he dragged her over to a bed. The nanomachines would pump drugs into her system keeping her blissfully asleep for the next day or so. Another nurse could bring in one of the reprogrammed at any moment, so Jerry didn’t have a lot of time. He played the data record from the nanomachines.

At first, the point of view was disorientating. His entire vision went blank, and then he saw himself looking through the tiny window into the chamber. He was viewing the world from 07760’s perspective. He programmed the nanomachines to record every part of the sensory experience, not just the visuals. Jerry would see every sight, hear every sound, smell every scent, and feel every pain. The chamber fired up, and the view outside the chamber changed from his face to a mess of machinery. He could see a part of what was a massive machine. A mist filled the chamber. He felt sleepy, and his vision went black.

Jerry fast-forwarded until he saw visuals again. A half hour later, 07760 opened his eyes. Jerry saw a massive ceiling, and he was moving on what seemed to be a conveyor belt. 07760’s body must have been completely paralyzed because there didn’t seem to be any restraints. His heart began to beat because of the adrenaline glands. The nanomachines were completely disabled, so he was able to experience fear. A robotic arm descended from the ceiling with a large light. He was blinded.

A tool descended from the arm. He could barely make out a drill tip until it was too late. The drill burrowed into his eye. Jerry doubled over onto the floor and stopped the playback. One of the reprogrammed who half woke from his stupor vaguely saw Jerry on the floor clutching his eye and crying in pain. Even though Jerry’s nanomachines were fully functioning and ready to disburse drugs, they could not cancel out the psychological pain. Watching a recording with a full sensory experience created a phantom pain just as powerful as the real thing. Because there was no physical cause of the pain, the nanomachines couldn’t distribute the drugs. Whatever was happening to 07760 was excruciating. Jerry breathed deeply and continued playback.

07760 could not cry out because his vocal chords were shut down. He writhed and arched his back. Jerry climbed into one of the recovery beds. The pain was too much. He turned off the playback. His nanomachines attempted to calm him, but Jerry was overwhelmed. He had to devise a plan. Once he left the secure area, Nanette would be notified about his adrenaline surge because his wireless features on his nanomachines would turn back on. He was always led to believe that for safety concerns, certain features of the nanomachines were disabled in the reprogramming facility. He knew now about the secrets hidden behind the protocol. If the information leaked, the network could spread it fast.

People used to fear the spread of ideas. Socrates said reading would make people dumber. People would only learn through books rather than master a subject. The printing press was feared in the same way. Google was foretold to make people dumber. But in reality, they had access to more knowledge. The Internet let people verify a fact without a lifetime of study. It fueled the power of the collective. With the Internet, people began to think not with the power of one but the power of many. And then nanomachines came along, improving the concept of shared computing power by magnifying the computational power of the everyday person. The spread of ideas was good for humanity. The oppressor may seek to control the people, but they can’t quell ideas once they spread.

Jerry needed to finish the memory, no matter how much pain it caused. He steeled his nerves and dived back into the recording. He didn't modify the playback settings because he needed to understand truly what he was up against. His vision faded and the drill burrowed into 07760's eye. He felt a searing pain and a tug. Then there was a popping noise. From his good eye, he could see the other eye being pulled out of the socket and lifted into the machine. The conveyor belt moved him forward. The worst of the pain was over, but his body still ached. Without the assistance of nanomachines, he was flooded with fear.

07760 ended up under another machine. It was like a showerhead with tiny spouts. One of the spouts aimed at his right arm and a laser burned into his flesh. He could smell the burning. The skin boiled, and the bone melted. The pain was almost unbearable, and Jerry wanted to stop but persisted. Then the laser shut down. His body ached, and his right arm felt like it was attached by a thread. He could smell the burning flesh.

A face leaned over the conveyor belt. Jerry could not believe his eyes. It was another 07760. The new 07760 was wearing a suit and seemed to be a person of some importance. He said words to an unseen third person, but they sounded garbled like they were coming from the depths of the ocean. Jerry felt something warm on his ears. It was probably blood. Another person leaned forward. Jerry was shocked. It was himself. Their doppelgangers exchanged words and casually discussed something. The damaged 07760 somehow mustered the strength to lift his good arm. Whatever was restraining him must have been wearing off.

The doppelgangers looked at the raised arm in a state of mild disbelief. Jerry's double reached out and touched the damaged 07760’s forehead. The recording went blank. It was the void of unconsciousness. They probably weren't aware of Jerry's nanomachines because the machines continued recording the lack of sensory input. Jerry fast forwarded through the playback until the end to make sure there was nothing more. He deleted the stream. There was no reason to relive the moment, and the recordings could be fabricated with grayspace. The recordings weren’t evidence by themselves. And if Jerry was caught, the less his captors knew, the better. Jerry needed to make more people aware. He needed to start a revolution.

Jerry set into action. The first plan was getting 07760 his memories back. He stored them in a quantum locked briefcase. He needed to get 07760 out and get him the briefcase. Jerry would not be surprised if the conspirators added memory and tried to rewrite 07760’s personality with hidden subroutines. Any number of the reprogrammed could be sleeper agents.

Reprogramming was not an exact science. Some old memories would come back. People called them ghost memories. Some people went crazy searching down ghosts. Those usually ended up back in reprogramming over and over again. For a vast majority, reprogramming worked, and ghost memories would be chalked up as dreams. It was the best solution to crime that society had. Jerry knew that was the lie to cover the truth. Perhaps ghost memories were the body’s way of fighting the new memory. There was no telling how his future self reprogrammed 07760, and Jerry didn’t want to find out. A total memory wipe was the only solution. Jerry set his nanomachines to work and began to wipe everything from 07760’s mind.

Once Jerry was sure there was no trace of memory, he lifted 07760 from the bed. He switched 07760’s nanomachines back on, so they could start reviving him. The man would be out of it for a while, so Jerry put him on a hover stretcher. Once he got his patient situated, he noticed 07760's stomach was exposed. The nanomachines were busy repairing scar tissue. The words “ancient bookseller” followed by a year, date, and a location were burned into his body. It was quickly fading from the nanomachines repairing his body. Jerry had memorized it before it faded completely. He cursed himself for not noticing it before switching 07760's nanomachines on. Jerry pushed the stretcher out of the room with ease.