“Your beard looks like shit.” he said.
“So does your head.” the traveler said. “Let me look at it. Don’t stab me.”
He probed gently at Jessies scalp and grimaced at what he found.
“Jeez. Your skull’s busted. That didn’t happen to me. Ricketts get in a lucky shot?” he asked as he sat back down.
“Yeah.” Jessie said. “Got distracted by a noise in the hall, thought more were coming in. He was fast.”
The traveler thought for a second then shook his head.
“Weird.” he said “I think I did that. I heard you two fighting and stumbled over a body, knocked a plinth over. I think I killed you.”
“Thanks, but I’m not dead.” Jessie said. “Just feel like it.”
“You will be soon.” he said. “Your brain is about ready to leak out. You’d never make it back to the car, let alone a few hundred miles to the nearest doctor.”
“Why are you here?” Jessie asked, ignoring the grim diagnosis. “What the hell is going on? Doesn’t meeting yourself cause a rift in the space-time continuum or something? Where’s Scarlet? Did you save her?”
“Yes, but shut up and let me think.” the traveler said and rubbed at his eyes. “We’ve only got a few minutes. If you haven’t noticed, the building is on fire.”
“I grew up to be an asshole.” Jessie said and wavered, swayed a little where he sat and tried to make the room stop tilting.
He tried to keep the contents of his stomach inside of him as his head swam in throbbing waves of pain. Part of him didn’t care who this guy was, the part that was shutting down from concussive trauma. The other part wanted answers. Mostly about Scarlet.
Smoke was curling in under the door and the clock was ticking. Jessie sat on the bed and steadied himself. He knew he was done for. He’d been hurt in the past but never like this. When he touched his head, it was soft and mushy.
“Quit touching it.” the older man said. “You’ll stick a finger in your brain.”
Jessie glared and sat back against the headboard but he stopped poking his skull. He pulled her pillow close and leaned his head against the wall. He had to sleep. Everything was going to be fine. Asshole Jessie said he’d saved her, maybe he’d gone back before any of this happened. Maybe she wasn’t burnt up downstairs.
The man watched his lidded eyes, one of them was already going black, the pupil dilating fully open. He considered for a moment longer before he made up his mind.
“Stay with me.” the man said “And I’ll try to tell you what you need to know. Which isn’t much.”
“I hope you can tell me how not to be a dick when I get older.” Jessie said, his words starting to slur.
The man laughed then swore and started unbuckling a large silver bracelet that looked intricate, simple and complicated at the same time.
“Listen.” he said. “And remember. Don’t come back, do you understand? You can’t come back no matter what you think you can fix. It doesn’t work like that, you’ll only make things worse. God knows I have.”
Jessie’s head pounded but his mind was clear. He heard and understood although he didn’t understand the meaning.
“Every time you cross timelines, you can create a duplicate of yourself. If I went back to where I’m from and came back here a minute ago, there would be three of us. If I did it again, there would be four. You can’t keep doing that, it really screws things up. Time is linear but it isn’t and there is only one timeline but there’s not. There isn’t multiple universes and every time you jump, you mess things up for everyone else. Do you understand?”
“No.” Jessie said. “Why are you telling me this? Didn’t you say I’m going to die?”
“You’ve already died. You’ve lived and had kids. You got fat, went bald and cheated on your wife. You’ve been killed by raiders. You were never born. You’ve died of old age and you died under the bleachers when you were pushing Gary. I remember it all and none of it is true. What is true is what is happening right now. This is the only truth that is real and I’m stopping the cycles. This isn’t perfect but it’s the closest I’ve ever come and I’ve got to end it, I can’t do it anymore. I can’t fix it, I can only make it different.”
Jessie listened and realized he’d gone crazy. It was the only explanation. Time travel had scrambled his brain.
“You’ll be in a coma in a few minutes. Or dead.” the man continued. “Only one of us can go and it’s going to be you this time. I’m sending you back. She’ll be waiting.”
“Who? Scarlet?”
“No, the queen of the Outer Reaches.” he spat. “Of course, Scarlet. She didn’t turn, not fully. I got to her in time.”
He moved in quick, angry jerks as he buckled the strange bracelet around Jessies wrist.
“But she’s infected. It’s spreading…” Jessie started but was cut off sharply.
“You don’t think I know that?” he said, his face contorted in barely controlled anger. “You don’t think I’ve known that for a hundred lifetimes? You don’t think I know what I did?”
He glared at Jessie, holding the rage for a moment before relaxing.
“I’m trying to undo it. There is a doctor waiting where I sent her.” he added, his tone softening. “She is always on standby when I leave because I never know what kind of condition I’ll be in when I go back. She can fix her.”
The room was filling with smoke and they could hear the crackling of flames farther down the hall. He closed his eyes, ran a hand over his face, through his scruffy beard and willfully calmed himself.
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“Jessie,” he said, and leaned forward in his chair. “Only a few years in real
