Time's End Tavern - A window into time
Originally published in Neo-Opsis, Feb 2012
By: Patrick MacPhee
Zack pulled out a crumpled piece of green paper.
“Hundred bucks.”
Jim laughed and nodded as the waitress brought the fourth round. He pulled out a few twenties, but didn’t bother putting them down. Zack always got reckless and philosophical when he got drunk. The money would be Jim’s soon enough.
“Okay. But you have to prove it. None of this philosophical crap.”
“Fine,” Zack said.
“Well fine, then. Let’s hear it.”
“First off, it would break scientific laws.”
Jim shook his head. “Scientists know nothing about science. Tomorrow, everything could be totally different. Try again.”
Zack sighed. “Okay, then. How about the fact that in the whole of human history, we’ve never met a time traveler?”
“That we know of. Maybe one of those people is,” he said, pointing through the glass wall at the busy lunch hour street.
Zack’s turn to shake his head. “We’d have met one by now.”
“Maybe we’re not worth visiting.”
“Come on. In the entire future? We’re talking billions of years. Trillions maybe. Countless billions of potential time travelers. There’s got to be at least one person with the ability and the will to come back and visit us. But there hasn’t been. That, my friend, is your proof.”
Jim took a large gulp of his beer, trying to wrap his alcohol-addled thoughts around it. He hadn’t ever thought about time travel beyond a silent patience for the day when he would travel back in time and teach himself how to invent it. Zack reached a hand for the hundred.
The air shimmered and crackled with sparks of electricity. Suddenly, it was as bright as lightning, but it stopped just as quickly. The world was as before, plus a pulsing purple afterimage dissolving slowly on their retinas – and a large egg-like structure embedded in the middle of the glass wall next to them. It was a smooth metallic grey, about as tall as a man. Car tires squealed and people screamed outside. More of the things had shown up out there. Maybe a hundred.
The one near them shook like a little bird was inside. Jim blinked and rubbed his eyes. He wrapped both hands around his beer and held it up at eye level. Looked normal enough.
“Jesus,” muttered Zack.
In seconds, tiny flakes fell off, dissolving into dust before they could hit the ground. In their place knelt a man.
Slowly, he stood up. He was dressed in grey, about mid-thirties, with features that could best be labeled plain in every way. The kind of guy who would never get picked out of a lineup even if he was covered in blood and holding the axe.
“Please don’t be afraid. Could you guys tell me the date and time?”
Jim had to tell him. Zack’s mouth had dropped open. Then it closed tight and his brow furrowed.
“Oh, screw that.”
Jim roared with laughter and thumped his fist on the table. He scooped up the hundred bucks.
“Is this a trick ... you, you ... you planned this,” stammered Zack.
“Come on, man. The time travel thing was your idea. Not my fault it’s actually possible.”
The visitor waited patiently for them to sip their beers and then motioned for the chalk-white waitress to bring him another. She nodded dumbly and wandered off. He grabbed an empty chair and sat at their table. He wore something between a regular business suit and a toga and some kinda Asian thing full of sashes and tassels, all a dark metallic grey fabric, which had a weave to it that made it look thick, though it was likely thin.
Around the tavern, and all along the street, other flashes of light brought other grey eggs into existence, hatching their own visitors. Each was clad in grey. A few were female, but they shared the almost smothering plainness of their new drinking buddy. Already, they could hear people screaming down the street.
“I hate it when that happens,” the visitor said, tilting his head toward the noise.
“Who are you?” Jim asked. He was afraid of course. Everyone was. Before the visitor could answer, their sports game got cut off by breaking news.
“All over the world we are witnessing thousands – no, tens of thousands ...”
Whatever the newscaster said next was drowned out by another materializing egg in the street, but it wasn’t like anyone cared about the news anyway what with it happening right in front of them.
The waitress brought a pint back to the table with shaking hands. The visitor accepted it, perfectly calm and seemingly oblivious to the crowd of twenty to thirty onlookers, both inside and out. His egg had formed right inside the window and there was a perfectly smooth oval hole where the glass used to be. The opening let in all the sounds from outside, the squealing tires, shouts and screams, and one tearful prayer.
“So, you figured out what I am?” the visitor asked after a long sip.
“You’re a time traveler,” Zack grumbled, now drunk enough to be calm in the presence of a time traveler, but not so drunk as to be calm about losing a hundred bucks.
“Actually, I’m a historian, but traveling through time is part of the job. Now, if you guys are willing, I would actually really like to interview you, while the window lasts.”
“Window? You put a hole right through it, buddy,” said a young pimply faced waiter.
The visitor smiled. “The window in the space-time continuum?”
The waiter nodded and everybody in the crowd nodded. Of course! The space-time continuum! And just what was he drinking? Could I get a picture?
Zack said, “I don’t believe it. This is all ... it could all be some ... well, some kind of elaborate hoax. A marketing ploy for some new movie or something.” Others chorused yeahs and asked other questions.
The visitor held up two gloved hands. “I do not have much time. I will answer some of your questions, but please answer some of mine.”
“How do you do it?” Jim asked.
“I don’t know all the details any more than you know everything about how a car works. I can say that travel through time is possible so long as the traveler changes nothing and influences nothing. Most of the time we just observe without any interaction. It works well that way. Otherwise, the changes you end up making create new strands of causality and generate too much flux in the local space-time nexus.” Zack was nodding and taking a sip with each bob of his head. Uh-huh. The space-time nexus. Right. “But, sometimes there are ’windows’ that allow us to show ourselves. Very rare.” He pursed his lips and nodded.
“That’s really weird,” said a tall thin guy who’d been tending bar a minute ago. “Yeah,” said a lot of people.
“Now, I’ve answered one of your questions. I was hoping you could answer some of mine – about your society, culture, that kind of thing?”
“Couldn’t you just get some records of it? Like on a computer?”
The visitor nodded. “Others are tasked with that, but many of us wish to meet you in person.”
“Why?”
The visitor stuffed both hands in his pockets and came out holding two small spheres. At once, they floated up and drifted above their heads.
“What do you think these devices are?”
“Some kind of recorder?” Jim guessed.
The visitor nodded. “Very good. But they don’t just record sights and sounds like your media devices. These are capable of recording thoughts and emotions. These two are with us. Dozens more are drifting through this city, getting as much as they can while the window lasts.”
“Cool,” Zack said. “Uh, hey, how long doesit last?”
“About thirteen more minutes.”
Jim whistled. “Damn. That’s awful short.”
The visitor shrugged. “We could stay a bit longer, but safety dictates a certain margin for error.”
“Well, when’s the next window?” Zack asked. “Maybe we could talk then.”
The visitor sucked in a breath and sighed. He took a sip and said, “On this planet ... about four hundred million years from now.”
Jim laughed. “So much for talking.”
The visitor nodded coolly. “The windows are very rare. The last on this planet was sixty-five point eight three million years ago.”
Zack said, “Well? Your questions? We better stop wasting time.”
“Yes, of course, but you should know that your own questions so far have revealed much about you and weren’t a waste. Moving on,” he spoke now in a louder voice so everyone in the pub could hear. “I wish to ask you a series of questions. To start with: which is more important; love or money?”
“Money,” Zack said right away and laughed.
“That was quick,” the visitor said.
“You haven’t met my ex-wife, buddy.”
A few patrons laughed, seemingly despite themselves.
Jim took longer. “I don’t know,” he said after a while.
“Come on, if you don’t have money, you won’t get any loving. Not in this town.”
The visitor raised an eyebrow. “You disagree, Jim?”
“I ... I dunno. I guess it depends. You need both, really. I guess ... I guess I don’t know.”
“A reasonable answer,” the visitor said. “I am not judging you. The orbs are recording all of you. The way you answer, the way you think about your answer, reveals as much to us as your answers, themselves. Now, for another: what are human rights and from where do they come?”
Zack laughed. “You ask the tough ones buddy, but I guess when you only got thirteen minutes. Let’s see. We got ...”
“Free speech,” Jim said.
“And religion?” asked a teenager.
Zack said, “Yeah, you can believe whatever you want. And you can own guns and they can’t search you ... there’s a lot of them. I’m not sure how to sum them up.”
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Jim said.
“Yeah,” Zack said. “Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Life, liberty ... you can do what you want as long as you don’t bother somebody else.”
Jim nodded.
“Fascinating,” the visitor said. “And where do you get these rights?”
“Well, we get them in the constitution of course,” Zack said.
“A document, then?” the visitor said.
Jim shook his head. “Zack, I think he wants to know ... like more than just the constitution. Where do our rights come from? Who gives them to us?”
“Nobody gives them to us. We just have them. We’re born with them.”
“But not every society has them,” Jim said. “And look at us. We used to have slavery.”
“Yes,” agreed the visitor with a solemn nod. “I hated that assignment. But, go on. Please. How do you get these rights?”
Zack said, “Look, either we all have all rights, or none of us have any rights and guys with guns just make stuff up. That’s pretty much it.”
The visitor smiled. “Such candor. Thank-you.” He tilted his head slightly as though listening to a call that only he could hear. Finally, he sighed. “Already. I wish we had more time.” He shook his head sadly. “Well, with that, ladies and gentlemen it would appear our window is almost closed.”
“Aww,” chorused the crowd.
The visitor rose and tilted his head again, perhaps giving silent commands to whatever technology he’d brought with him. He opened his hands. The orbs flew into them and disappeared into the folds of his strange suit.
“Wait!” Jim said. “That’s it?”
“I’m afraid so,” the visitor said, but his voice sounded strange; it echoed slightly as though he were not standing in front of them, but at the end of a long tunnel. “Farewell.”
With that, the visitor and thousands like him faded away and were gone.
They exited through the hole in the window and stood on the sidewalk.
“Did that just happen?” Zack asked, shocked and confused.
“I think so,” Jim said, equally shocked.
The pub’s owner finally made it to the window. “Man, it’s gonna cost me four grand to replace that. I got those windows custom.”
Zack nodded politely. At least he got away with dropping a hundred bucks. “Yeah, but you can be a landmark, now. Not many pubs can say they were visited by time travelers. Hell, you can leave the window like that maybe. Make it a door or something. Anyone coming in can see the evidence for themselves.”
The owner looked skeptical, but slowly he started nodding his head. “Time’s End Tavern,” he said slowly, trying the sound of it on his ears.
“Time’s End,” Zack repeated with a smile. “How do I invest?”
“You can start by paying your tab.”
Jim laughed, but his laughter faded. Something bothered him.
“You remember what he said – about not changing anything?”
“Yeah.”
He gestured to the window.
“So?”
“They’ve made changes. All over the world. This will change human civilization forever.”
“He said they had a ‘window’.”
“Yeah, but ...” Jim shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. Science doesn’t work that way. You don’t have laws that just ... take breaks every once in a while.”
“So?”
“So ...” His eyes widened. “The last window! Wh - when was it, again?”
Zack shrugged. “I dunno. Sixty-something million years ago, he said.” He closed his eyes. He was good at numbers. Even after four drinks, he had them back in a moment. “Sixty-five point eight three.”
Jim gasped. “Zack! What happened on this planet about sixty-five million years ago?”
It took Zack a moment. Then, he shook his head violently. “That ... oh no, no, no. He said they had a window. He said it!”
Jim said, “He said they can’t make any changes. That’s how time travel works. But their trip back here is going to change humanity. Profoundly. It should be impossible. Unless ...”
“Unless it doesn’t matter,” Zack finished for him, ashen-faced.
A brilliant light flashed in the sky. For a moment, they thought it might be more time travelers, perhaps in a giant ship of some kind.
Then the solar flare hit.