The Time Surgeons

Ron looked out the window of his temporary country mansion, lost in thought. He had done well over the years, the lies and deceptions not weighing too heavily on his soul.

And now it was 1983, and Ron was afraid. I do not know whether to fear that I have done it all for naught, or that I have not done enough.

Yet his fear felt particularly sharp and in focus today. Perhaps his visit entangled me with the timelines, and I can sense the coming apocalypse.

He frowned. Or my mind is going. The ramblings of an old man.

He rang a bell, and one of the servants came to him, bearing the drink the servant knew he would request at this time of day. “Stay,” ordered Ron, tapping the ash from his cigar into the silver ashtray on the low marble table beside him.

Ron looked to the far horizon, the blue Californian sky temporary home to a flock of clouds. Today, it is today, I am sure of it, he felt.

But nothing happened. The sky remained blue. The world continued turning. Ron looked at the peace of the sky, frowning. Yes, that’s all it is. The ramblings of an old man.

The next day Ron looked out his window at a sky still peacefully and almost smugly blue.

But today Ron didn’t feel disturbed. He felt more lighthearted than he had in years, as if some great weight, so long felt it became forgotten, had been lifted from him. It is as if a cusp has been reached, and passed. And the future is free. Or am I rambling again?

Then Autumn became Winter, then 1983 became 1984, and the world did not end.

Ron felt happy. Sometimes the happiness burst out into slightly hysterical laughter, as he wondered again whether he were the greatest fool in the history of the world.

Ron sat in his study, the smoke from his cigar curling around his head like a fragrant mist. The dark wood of the desk felt sensual under his fingers, its polished grain both rough and smooth under his fingers.

He looked with distaste at the sheaf of reports resting provocatively on that wood. The distaste came because of what the reports reminded him of.

He used to think of them as his Legacy, a term now even he found rather pompous. Now he just called them Ron’s Follies. They were a few small gold tablets hidden safely around the continent. Each told a story, the background to the great war of 1983: the War that Never Was. There they waited. Waited for the details of the war to come, details he wished to bequeath to the ages to come. But the war never came and the tablets remained unfinished, shining in mockery at his hubris. The reports on his desk were the latest distillation of the network of spies he had set up to help gather the information to complete them, and which still mindlessly churned out its data long after it had ceased to matter.

If there was a God looking down on the world he figured it must be Loki, ever ready to torment men with his pranks and the irony of their own arrogance.

Why do I still bother? he wondered, eyeing the reports balefully.

Ah well, I guess old habits die hard. Screw you, Loki, a man needs his hobbies.

So he reached for the reports and began to read.

He had read through the two paragraphs without really paying attention, but when his brain finally noticed, his eyes stopped with a jerk and darted back to read them again.

Holy Frigga, you must be joking!

For all that he had lost over the decades, his great imagination was still intact, and churned away while he stared at the page in blank surprise. Then he burst out laughing.

When at last he looked up from his desk, tears still streaming down his cheeks, he saw that Jensen had appeared in his doorway. He is like a personal sprite, materializing when I need him then vanishing again from the world.

He burst out laughing again. He seemed to be finding everything funny today.

If this hilarity at his appearance offended Jensen it did not show. His only reaction was a discreet, “Is there anything I can do for you, sir?”

Ron wiped his eyes. “Oh Jensen. Dear, dear Jensen. How would I survive without you? There most certainly is. Bring me a glass of that two thousand dollar Scotch, will you?”

“Sir.”

“On second thoughts, bring the whole goddamn bottle.

“Then come join me.”

Then he laughed again, and it echoed through the house for a long time.

Stanislaw stopped. It was nearly two years since he had held the future of the world in his palm, and he had settled comfortably back into his routine.

After all, if he was anything, he was phlegmatic.

The stranger sitting at his table noted the way he stopped, noticed the stunned look that briefly blanked his features, and waved him over with a cryptic smile.

Stanislaw walked slowly over to the man but then just stood there, uncertain.

“Sit down, sit down,” the interloper said. “I won’t bite.”

This man was old and spoke passable Russian with an American accent. Maybe this time it is a spy.

Stanislaw appeared to relax. “Ah. An American.” He sat and added, “Who the hell are you?”

The man studied him. “Here I sit at your personal table, a stranger acting like I own it. Yet I saw no annoyance or irritation. Instead you looked like a guy who suddenly wonders whether he’s really awake or is having a bad dream. Now I wonder why that is?”

“You are an American. What are you doing here? How did you get here?”

“Guilty. Let’s just say that I have an organization with tentacles in all kinds of strange places. Let’s say that I’ve had a personal interest in you Russkies for a long time, so I made sure that some of my tentacles reached even here and that I could speak the language. Let’s also say that something happened, or more accurately didn’t happen, when it should have.”

“Surely it is dangerous for you to come here, American.”

“Eh. What’s a bit of danger? My days are numbered anyway. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“Miss what?”

“Have a drink, Colonel.”

“You came all the way from America to have a drink with me?”

“Sure did.”

“Why?”

“Because I believe, sir, that you and I are members of what must be the most exclusive club in the world.”

“Club? I have never seen you before today.”

“I hear you did something very good in 1983. Strangely enough, on exactly the day when I was expecting something very bad.”

Stanislaw paused. “How could you know that?”

“As I said, I have ears. Low level ears, but they pick some things up. Like a bit of chatter that you reported something as a false alarm, something most military folks would have gone the other way on. Or like finding out you had a peculiar visitor right here on the night before.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s fine, I can do the talking. Do you know why I care?”

“Too much vodka?”

“Oh, I don’t think there can be too much vodka for this. Tell me, Colonel. Do you believe in time travel?”

Stanislaw sat very still, shocked, trying not to show it. “Surely impossible,” he managed.

“Let me tell you a story, Colonel. Many years ago I was sitting in a bar. Some stranger came up to me, spinning me a tale. Total crap, obviously. Then he showed me stuff. And do you know what he showed me?”

The old man looked at Stanislaw, who offered no guesses.

“He showed me that in 1983 the world would be destroyed in a nuclear war! That nobody could stop that war! That the only hope for the human race was that I would spend the rest of my goddamned life hiding away knowledge to survive the war, to give the future a hand, so they would be ready for an even bigger disaster coming from the heavens!

“That’s what he showed me!

“And do you know what happened?!”

Stanislaw just stared at him.

“NOTHING!”

The man tossed back a shot of vodka and chased it with some pickled tomato. “You Russians know how to drink, you know,” he muttered.

“And then what do I discover?” the man continued more calmly, almost silkily. “I discover that some Lieutenant Colonel in Russia was manning a nuclear early warning system, his system detects multiple missile launches, and what does he do? Calm as the coolest cucumber, he declares it a false alarm and goes on picking his nose.”

He glared at Stanislaw. “The very year it was supposed to happen. The very day I felt it was going to happen. Now what do you think of that, Colonel?”

Stanislaw just stared, and shook his head slowly.

“Well, let me tell you what I think. My guy, my guy from the future, said they didn’t have the technology to prevent the war. So all they could do was help the future along. My job. Maybe it wasn’t enough, but maybe it helped. Maybe the next version of the future still couldn’t save themselves, but they were more advanced. They were able to penetrate the quantum mess surrounding the war.

“They found the guy who pushed the button or whatever it is you guys do here to end the world.

“They found you.”

Stanislaw’s face had gone white.

“So they got the same idea my guy had. Someone came back to show you your future, and stop you making one godawful decision. And you went from being the guy who ended the world, to the guy who saved it.”

His eyes bored into Stanislaw’s.

“Didn’t you?”

Slowly, Stanislaw reached for his own shot glass and downed it.

“You don’t expect me to answer this nonsense, do you?”

“No.”

“You realize that you are mad, and I don’t believe a word of it?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” said Stanislaw, filling first the stranger’s glass and then his own, then raising his, “Za Vstrechu!”

They downed their shots and Stanislaw added, “And to the most exclusive club in the world.”