Time Kill

It’s a few minutes after 3 a.m. I am sitting in my car. Waiting.

That’s a lie.

I am not waiting. I am procrastinating. I tell myself that perhaps someone will come by, or perhaps someone has spotted me in my rusted-out Honda and is phoning the police even now. I vainly listen for the sounds of approaching sirens, watch for the lights in the tenement to start flickering on like some huge concrete machine.

It’s bull, and I know it. It’s fear that keeps me in place. Fear of detection. Fear of action. Fear that my nerve will fail me when I need it most. My hand shakes as I open the door.

***

I am sitting in the visitation room at Allenwood Federal Penitentiary. It’s my first time here during my twenty-plus year stay. My family is dead, and none of my few friends have bothered to visit. Or call. Or write. I don’t blame them. Life goes on, at least it does for those outside of these walls.

I was sent here nearly a quarter century ago. Life without parole for the kidnapping and murder of Jason Brown. The sentence was just, though I can’t say I think it was fair. I was guilty of the crime. I’ve never denied that, but I thought the circumstances might have warranted a bit of mercy. Silly me. The judge made it clear that, absent a pardon or commutation, I would spend the rest of my life here.

Now, there is a man sitting across the table from me who says that might not be the case.

My visitor introduced himself as Mr. Black. I doubt that’s his real name. He’s wearing a mid-priced gray suit and light blue tie. His dark hair is lifted into a brush cut, and despite the dim lighting he wears sunglasses that keep me from seeing his eyes. He shows a smile every bit as believable as the name he’s given.

I’m skeptical, but I won’t dismiss him out of hand. We’re in the visitation room instead of an interrogation cell. The guards removed my shackles for the meeting. The officers were reluctant, but complied, even when he told them to wait outside. Mr. Black either has a heck of a lot of pull or works for someone who does.

“Why me?” I ask. “After all this time, what makes me worth this deal?”

“Lots of reasons, Mr. Hartwood,” he replies, his fake smile firmly in place. “We’ve had our eye on you for a long time. You have no family or friends. No one who is mildly interested in whether you live or die.”

I think he’s trying to remain behave professionally, to keep any trace of smugness from his face, to avoid a haughty or superior tone of voice. It doesn’t work. He garners a certain pleasure in dealing with the unfortunate, watching them squirm like some animal caught in trap.

“You’re intelligent,” he continues. “You had two years of college, and were doing quite well before you withdrew for lack of funds. And despite your conviction, you don’t have the mentality of a criminal. We can work with you.”

I raise an eyebrow. It’s a vain gesture, a challenge that rings hollow, even to me. “And if I can’t work with you?”

Black’s smile goes lopsided at this point. He’s certain that he’s got me, that my question is nothing more than a weak attempt to assert some control. We’re playing a game, and he knows he’s already one. “You aren’t the only one on our list, Mr. Hartwood. Say the word, and I’m gone. I leave and you stay. It’s as simple as that.”

I’m ninety-nine percent sure that I’m going to accept. There is a final question though that I have to ask. “What do I have to do?”

“There is a single task you will be required to perform.” He holds his hands out, palms up and open. He is trying to convey innocence, but I sense there is very little innocent about him. “Nothing illegal or immoral, I assure you. You will be provided with a new passport, birth certificate, and driver’s license. We’ll even kick in a bit of seed money. After you complete your task, you’ll be free to build whatever life you choose. And that’s all I’m authorized to say at this point. It’s your choice, but you have to make it now.”

My fingers drum on the table in front of me. I’m usually a fair hand at reading people, but he isn’t giving me anything to work with. He might be telling the truth. He’s definitely not telling me the whole truth. But it’s a chance at freedom.

“I agree.”

***

I walk toward the apartment building. There’s a single window on the third floor, light shining a pale blue through cheap curtains. A shadow moves back and forth inside, never stopping. Never staying in place. Jason Brown is restless. I enter the building and see a dingy and poorly-lit stairwell to right. I pass what was once an elevator but now serves only as a conduit for drafts and vermin. My heart begins to speed up, a symptom that has nothing to do with the effort required to mount the stairs leading to his door. My hand slips on the railing as sweat drips down my arm and pools on my wrist and palm. I pause at the third-floor land and consciously steady my breathing. The time for doubt has passed. I am resolved. There will be no turning back.

***

I’ve been here three weeks. So far, I’ve been given a psych evaluation, the longest and most painful physical I’ve ever had and an impenetrable wall of silence each time I open my mouth to ask a question. I’ve also had an operation, something inserted at the base of my skull. There was no consultation or warning. I went to sleep in my quarters one night and woke up in a hospital bed a day later with a mild headache. And, predictably, no one would tell me the reason for the surgery or what fiendish little device was now rattling around in my skull. At least recovery wasn’t bad. I was up and about the next day and the bandages came off five days later. Aside from the tiny bump I poke and rub constantly, there are no ill effects. Yet.

I was informed earlier today that my questions would finally be answered. Sitting across from me is Professor Lucius Beaumont, the chief scientist on “The Project.” He’s the embodiment of the stereotypical scientist, with tufts of white hair, and square rim glasses sitting perpetually too low on a nose that doesn’t seem to match the rest of his face. The only thing missing is the Viennese accent. But is he a mad scientist? He’s been briefing me on the project for the last fifteen minutes and the jury is still out.

“This creates a “temporal graft…”

“Graft?” Like a skin graft?”

He jerks back slightly, eyes blinking five times. Six. His breathing pattern changes. He’s not used to being interrupted. He might be neurodivergent to some extent.

I lower my eyes and place my hands in my lap, hoping that helps him to relax.

After a minute or so, he begins drumming the fingers of his right hand on the briefing table and continues. “More like arboreal grafting.” His voice starts out high but lowers as he talks and his breathing returns to normal. “Think of a timeline as a tree with many branches. When we send a person back in time, it doesn’t match the original timeline. The mass and energy are different. A new timeline is created that ‘branches’ from the original. From your perspective in the past, the branch begins to grow. From our perspective in our present, the branch is fully formed.”

My mind is spinning. My past knowledge of time travel was based on the movies I saw growing up. I never imagined that it would be possible, much less a working project in the government. Then it occurs to me that I can’t be really sure who is bankrolling this operation. For the first time I begin to wonder if I have the right to agree to participate. “Then, if I understand you, we can’t change our present…”

“Not yet,” the professor says, removing a handkerchief from his jacket pocket with a flourish. I expect him to begin cleaning his glasses, but he surprises me and begins to slowly rub the cloth over his left hand. “Time travel is still in its infancy as a science. But before we reach that point, we need to understand how changes affect things. That’s the main purpose of your implant. It relays data and allows us to compare outcomes, to understand how changes in our past would have affected our present.”

“But what about the people in that new timeline?” It’s my breath that begins to accelerate now, my hands shaking in my lap. “What if something we do leads to a disaster? How can we justify that?”

The professor pauses his efforts at personal hygiene and looks into my eyes. It’s a look of pity and sadness. “Mr. Hartwood, the nature of these grafts is that they are temporary. Left to themselves, they collapse as soon as they reach the same present date that they were created. We are able to maintain them long enough to collect our data, and only by expending enough energy to power a small city.”

“That means that when you send me back, my world will end in—”

“The time period between your murder of Jason Brown and today,” he confirms. He turns his attention downward and begins folding the handkerchief with obsessive precision. He is still performing the ritual when the guard enters to return me to my quarters. I remain there until I am escorted to a transport module three days later. As I walk to my assigned cell, I notice that there are dozens of other modules, each with a person inside. Some look angry. Some look remorseful. All of them look afraid. I realize that I must look much the same to them.

***

I take the last few steps and stand at the door to apartment 3B, occupied by one Jason Brown. He is the man I saw just for an instant after he murdered my wife and four-year-old daughter. He is the man who was acquitted for the crime. Reasonable doubt. He is the man I tortured and killed. He is also the man who was later to have discovered to have killed at least five other women. I did not know this when I killed him. Neither did the jury that sentenced me to life in prison without parole.

He is the man that The Project has sent me back to save. The cost of my freedom is to prevent my younger self from killing Jason Brown by any means necessary. The cost of failure, I’ve been told, is death by brain embolism, delivered courtesy of the implant still resting near my skull. I’ve considered the matter carefully since I was deposited in the past twelve hours ago, even more so since taking up vigil in Jason’s apartment this afternoon. I know what I must do as my younger self knocks at the apartment door.

My younger self wears a set of brass knuckles on his right hand and a stun gun duct-taped to his left. He, I, am primed to quickly subdue Brown when he opens the door. In his determination, he might well attack me by mistake given the chance. I can’t allow that. I take up a position next to the door on the hinged side, and place my left hand on the knob. When he knocks again, louder with growing impatience, I pull the door open, concealing myself behind it.

My younger self charges into the room. He swings hard with his right, anticipating that Brown will be standing directly in front of him. The move throws him slightly off balance, and he requires a couple of steps to regain his footing. His face is like an angry beast, red and hot, and eager to devour. As he takes stock of his surroundings that begins to change.

The apartment shows signs of a struggle, with furniture knocked to its side, and rugs folded up along the edge. A lamp rests on the floor, flickering and buzzing, drops of red spattered on the shade. His attention finally turns to the large sofa in the center of the room. The once bright upholstery is mired in burgundy and brown. A body is lying there, eyes open and vacant, his shirt tattered and hanging like streamers from a ghostly parade.

My younger self is stunned by what he sees, his heart filled with both horror and a sense of gratitude. He starts to grasp that he is relieved of the terrible justice that he was prepared to bring though he cannot help but wonder what dark agent has relieved him of that purpose. His mind is so focused on these questions that he fails to hear me as I move from the door and take my place behind him. The hunting knife I carry is stained from what came earlier, but heavy and still sharp.

I make a single hard thrust catching him between the spine and collar bone. I pull and twist on the way out, slicing his carotid artery and vocal cords as I go. As he drops, I make one final thrust, severing his spine just below the skull. Brown was a monster, fully deserving the pain I inflicted. Young Hartwood’s flaw was stupidity, so I send him quickly to whatever awaits. There are a few mild quivers, and then he is still.

I wipe my hands and prepare to leave the apartment. Was the warning about my implant a bluff? Will I be walking down a street or eating in a diner only to drop suddenly, a marionette bereft of strings? Perhaps the powers that be realized that there might still be value in keeping me alive, a path they had not chosen, but serving their purpose at least as well as my death. Or maybe the entire story of a kill switch in the implant was a bluff, a means to apply pressure to those sent back to accomplish their will. Perhaps there were many others among those sent back who, once confronted with the opportunity, decided it was an action that they could not take. Others like me.

My conscience could not allow me to save Brown. I now dwell in the echo of an uncaring world, and all that surrounds me will someday vanish like mist on a quiet lake. The politicians and scientists may regard them as nothing more than points on a graph or lines on a report. I cannot. They still cry and wail and mourn as deeply as those I left behind. In my life Brown inflicted this suffering on many. I have no doubt he would continue his work given the chance. I made the decision to end him once before. I gladly did so again.

I regret having to dispose of my younger self. The vengeance he, I, dealt was well deserved. I assumed that eventually I would be caught. I thought I could bear the consequences and retain my dignity. I was wrong. Looking back on my experience, on the taunting and fear and abuse, knowing how many times I cursed my life but lacked the courage to end it, I understood that this way was better. A quick and painless end.

I check my clothing and shoes for blood or hair or anything else tied to this apartment. The police will have a fine mystery on their hands. Two men dead, apparently by the same man, one of the victims. As they investigate, they will discover the reason for my hatred of Brown, and therefore the motive. They will also discover several corpses, whole and otherwise, that Brown had hidden in various storage units in the area. They will realize that any number of people could have wished Brown dead. Eventually they might charge someone, they might even convict them. If so, I hope they find someone worthy of the sentence. As for me, I have other things to do.

My one distraction while I was in prison was gathering news clippings. Not all news, of course. I was fascinated by the killings that occurred during my incarceration. Where and when did they happen? Who was killed? Did the police ever catch the villain? I began to memorize the details of these crimes. There was never a shortage of stories to keep my interest. I gave the greatest attention to the perpetrators when they were finally caught. I raged at the suffering they so casually inflicted on others. I would have given my soul to be able to do something about it. Now I can.

I leave the apartment, a calendar flipping through my mind. Another person will be murdered in two days. The killer is named Michael Webber. He will be cornered months later and killed in a police shootout, an encounter that will kill two others and wound five more. He will be my first project. It’s not like I have anything better to do with my time. I have over twenty years to kill.