Today's Yesterday

Yesterday

It may sound strange but I have a special talent that is also a special curse. I can travel in time but I cannot always remember who I am when I do this and I must always return to where I started. I did not at first think this was a blessing, seeing as I am in prison right now but I did after I realized the reason why I am here. A damn fine reason it is too.

On one of my travels I went back in time just a little bit and until I shifted back I could not remember who I was. Of course if I could remember then I would not have been robbed.

The first thing that I recalled when I came to was the autocop standing over and prodding me gently. I was not at the time doing anything terribly wrong except sleeping in a mall. I was moderately well dressed though I was not wearing the most modern of synthesuits that were favored by the youth of this day. I could never stand the glowing programmed designs that changed over time. Many of the suits looked vaguely obscene at times, although that was the fashion. The fashion being to express one's "inner being" in the most garish pastel colors. It was also the fashion to have at least one thing to express the bit of ugliness that we all have inside ourselves, while the vast majority of the display was vivid and artfully beautiful.

These thoughts were the first ones in my head as I groggily assessed my situation. The autocop was giving some rote but friendly speech about how the mall appreciated my business but "this was not a good place for a nap- perhaps you would like to try The Blue Veranda – a perfect spot for a spot of refreshment or a relaxing view of the promenade, all for a very reasonable price". Somehow I remembered being there in the past and spending lazy hours watching people walk by and occasionally taking a sip of a random flavor drink. Once I was awake I mumbled something vaguely appreciative to the steely blue face of the autocop and I started walking, I was not sure where I wanted to go but I did not feel tired anymore.

As I was walking down the mall walkway with the sheen of the storefronts to my right, the earthy tones of an indoor park to my left, the gleaming marbled stone beneath my feat, and the white radiance of the light overhead I felt as if I wanted something new but I could not for the life of me figure out what it was. Although the artificial part of the mall was balanced against a bit of imported nature, it just made me feel like a tiger in a cage. I was tiger that wanted some real challenges and an open plain to run upon. Perhaps that is what drew me to the new game.

I heard a couple of people talking about it and I paused behind a bush to overhear. It was not exactly a legal game. It relied on a device which was illegal, although not terribly dangerous. Human beings like it or not, are herd animals. At least they were with this device for a short time. The device itself created a type of group consciousness that the hippies of a couple centuries ago would have envied. The game as it were was to control the herd. One person's thoughts could spread like ripples across a pond. The only question was whose thoughts would control the group? Most people under the device simply felt desires that they thought were their own and acted on them. If you could get a bunch of people acting on seemingly reasonable desires you could eventually get people to do things which would seem less reasonable, if everyone else where not also doing it. That is the trouble with the thing, is that if everyone where doing something it felt normal, even if nobody would do such things without a suggestion such as this.

The most common goal in the game was doing things like having massive group orgies or staging a protest over something. There were however also people who used it for art or expression. All of this was of course illegal and the more "innocent" uses of the device had a penalty known as time theft. If you took 1 hour from the lives of 10 people then you spent 10 hours in prison. That however was also part of the game, not getting caught. The device itself was not very big and it could be worn like a piece of clothing or jewelry.

The game that this group of people was planning, a group composed mainly of youth and gene jobbed pseudo youth involved gathering a large group of people any way possible and emptying out the mall for a time. Apparently the goal was to empty the entire mall of people and gather them in a nearby stadium. The organizer was apparently going to give a prize for every person that was gathered and apparently there more than one device that would be active and available. Considering the considerable expense in attaining them this in and of itself was quite an achievement.

It was my civic duty to report this to the nearest autocop. I am a good person and I was strongly tempted but fortunately there was an even bigger temptation. Her name was Evangeliane. She was not dressed in a synthesuit. She was dressed in some shorts, a heavy blue T-shirt without design or embellishment, and a rather practical brown pleather jacket. She was short and thinly built. She took a look in my eyes and said a few words "come with me". The look in her eyes was one of friendship, and when she took my hand it felt natural and this not the working of the device. Normally I would not go with a stranger so no, it could not be the working of the device.

I realized when she led me to the organizer of the event just who she was, Evangeliane. I realized that because I came face to face with myself. I then faded out of the existence of a traveler and into the existence of the organizer of this event which is who I am. I have theorized that this must happen to prevent paradox and some grand cataclysm in the universe but I could be wrong. Maybe it is some weird quantum effect. I suppose it is hard to say. I had the immediate and funny notion that I was guilty of time robbing myself.

Today

As the organizer of the event I knew a lot more about what was happening. Time traveling in the manner I do it is a bit like taking a layer off of an onion: there is still an onion underneath but it is less of an onion then it was when it had an extra layer. I knew that I was the organizer but I still had no idea why I was doing it so some part of me was still traveling although I was a good deal more whole then I was just a few moments before.

To organize this event, me and my lovely assistant Evangeline, had shelled out a lot of money, much of it gained through duplicity in the first place. I ruminated on this as I held her hand and felt glad of her presence while at the same time wondering why I would ever consent to be such a charlatan. There were five devices given to five different groups of people and each of them were told different and conflicting stories about why the mall was being emptied and why everyone was being assembled at the stadium.

One group, the one that Evangeline had organized, thought it was one of the grand games. They thought it was being organized by a prankster and was one of those jokes being played on people they thought were their elders. This group of youth and those who played at being youth, which was a game for older circles of fellows, wanted to see a grand joke played on their fellow youths and on their elders who they sneered at for being buffoons because they were old. Such was their belief that they could not see that they were wasting their own time and some would think them buffoons to fall for their own joke. Some of them came with handcuffs to bring along those who would not fall to the device because of the strength of their own will. They were pink handcuffs but strong as any other. The rumors spread in this group were that there was a prize for every person brought to the stadium. Whether the prize was money or fame, or infamy was left rumor process itself.

Another group that I myself organized using one of the devices was the merchants. I got one of them to wear a device for the sake of profit. He convinced his fellows that the stadium was going to hold a grand attraction that would bring more business to the mall, and that there would be more profit to be had by attending the event then by staying in an empty mall. The person chosen for this was well compensated and very competent at what he did. He tailored his explanation for each and every merchant.

To each group was given a rumor to spread and the devices made these rumors sprout like mushrooms. To a child it was the promise of candy and to a parent it was the promise of a wholesome treat of experience that would make the difficulty of raising children pale for a moment while giving their children something to remember. It was a concert, a religious revival, a game, and so much more. Beyond anything else however it was a lie. There was nothing planned at the stadium. There was no grand exhibition, merely a lot of people standing around with grand expectations. There was not even a joke unless it was on me. The police showed up shortly. I was a bit nervous but Evangeline pressed close and told me not to worry. We were both arrested and everyone was told to disperse. There was no grand satisfaction for anyone there, not even for me, the man who had organized the event. Evangeline looked at me with knowing and trusting eyes and I could not help feel a great love in my heart for her.

Prisons of my age are different then they have ever been in the past. Everyone wears a collar and both men and women are in the same prison. The collars prevent violence and in fact they prevent people even touching each other. People do not have to wear a sterile uniform but everything is scanned for weapons and other contraband, there are of course ways to keep people in prison without the course outline of bars. Though the bars are invisible they are still there. Trials are conducted not by a jury of one's peers but by a computer, the most impartial yet soulless jury one could ever hope for or fear. The two of us got 20 years.

I was in a daze that day and it nothing to do with the shock of being here. It had to do with the fact that part of me was still traveling, I supposed at the time that I would be traveling quite a bit to get a respite from this place. While waiting in a long and slow line to be scanned into the walls of the compound I traveled a day into the past. While I was awaiting entrance into that grand prison a great wave despair had hit me, and not knowing even why I had organized such a thing led me to flee into the past for a bit of respite. I traveled with most of myself but not into what I expected.

Today's Yesterday

I always kept a secret stash with some spending money that I never tapped when I was whole. One of the first things I did was appear at my stash and withdraw some hard currency. Most people always looked at me funny when I paid with it and I would always explain that I was one of those people who did not have much confidence in the banking system, after all hard currency was still around since it seemed to suffer a meltdown every once in a great a while. I went looking for some amusement. I was not sure what I wanted to do, perhaps watch a movie or participate in a holodrama. What I was sure was that I wanted some escape to the present that I must inevitably return to.

It was but a few moments after I had gotten some hard currency from my stash that I noticed the blowing ash in the streets and the people with a crust of gray skin shambling along the road. It was but a moment later when I noticed the bodies in the street and a moment later that I could see the university in the distance. The university where even though I was incomplete I knew that Evangeline worked and where vast holes had been dug in the ground for some grand project whose purpose I did not know. The university was even now glowing with a black fire that inspired a great terror in my heart.

I needed no device to urge me in joining the crowds in the streets that were fleeing this strange event. Though there was no device every one in the street was motivated more by panic and a great urge to flee whatever strange apocalypse had been unleashed here. I did not know how to get back to the present but at some point I did.

It was at that point that the onion was truly whole. I remembered the rest of what I had forgotten. I remembered that Evangeline and some fellow academics had been opposing a project of vast significance and a project that should never have been embarked upon. The security systems of my day are impressive, but any device can be overcome given time. It is the human element that is of a far higher caliber. It was the human element that I had conquered that day in the stadium. A stadium full of people needs supervision and security, security that was summoned away from its regular duties. Security summoned to arrest the people who had started it and who were brazenly still there at the scene of the crime. The trick in using the device is get away with it and in a way we did by not getting away with it.

While the police were sorting us out as well as a stadium full of people others were breaking into the university. These others knew just how to throw a monkey wrench into the gears of machinery and stop this project indefinitely. At least those others who were my friends and who I trusted thought they did.

I was later to learn that the yesterday I had traveled into was a quantum past that due to my actions never happened. Before I was whole I had no idea that what I was doing was right but at the moment I was whole I was filled with a profound sense of satisfaction. I looked a bit forward in the line and I caught Evangeline's gaze and I shared my satisfaction with her. I felt I could endure 20 years of prison and then enjoy consummating my relationship with her. I knew I would never feel compelled to take a slice of myself and leave this prison even for a moment.

I was sure I was never going to travel through time and reality again. I was wrong but that is another story to tell…

By Clayton Niehaus

Special Thanks to my good friends Derick and Conrad Seeto who shared their experiences as security guards