Asmus shrugs. “You’re quite right, Dr. Zhivov. Let’s save matters of the heart for another day.”
“Looks like a few things changed since we left,” I say.
“They’ve been here for a day,” Gallie says. “They rolled in and I’m guessing they made short work of Leatown.”
“The barn dwellers,” I say. “Are they okay?” We looks at Asmus.
“You’re very sweet to care,” he says and inspects his fingernails to prolong the moment. I start toward him. “They were in rude health yesterday. Who knows now?”
“Penrose already knew about the ‘swift guns’,” Gallie says. “I don’t know how many of them this imbecile put out there, but they traced them back to here. That army was put together to take no chances.”
“Well, que sera, sera.” Asmus shrugs. “I can’t get myself worked up over it. A customer is a customer. Right?”
“Of course.” Zhivov says. “Why pick a side?”
“Precisely,” Asmus says. “But I rather did like the idea of the British prevailing. What an ingenious touch. Still, spilled milk.”
“So it’s occurred to you that now the Americans are in control of this anachronistic arsenal that they’re the ones likely to be prevailing?” I say.
“And the American victory may be your doing,” Gallie says. “So you were trying the vandalize a timeline that itself only existed because of your vandalism.” The smile momentarily slips from Asmus’s face.
“You were an idiot then, and you’re an idiot now,” I say. “Do you see the reason TMA had no time for you? Why I had no time for you? It’s because you’re a deeply talentless prick.” This is hitting its target. “You’re not even an effective vandal.” Asmus glares at me momentarily but then regains his composure.
“I’m getting rather tired,” he says. “I’m sure it’s not your company. Just not as young as I was, you know.”
My enjoyment of the moment is spoiled as a thought bubbles up from my gut, through my throat, and to the top of my head. It’s a thought that should have arrived sooner, but I had been wasting my time taunting Asmus. The thought is this: An air-to-surface missile armed with a massive warhead is about to bring about yet another reversal. And evaporate us in the bargain. Is the American seizure of the winning arsenal to be unceremoniously terminated and replaced by a deep, smoldering crater? And it’ll be our doing. TMA’s doing. Are we turning the Revolutionary War into a tennis match, with an inevitability of outcome bouncing back and forth, one racket held by a lunatic, the other by hapless meddlers?
Soldiers lead us up the grand staircase. We walk the hallway until one of the guards opens a door and beckons Asmus and Gallie to enter. It’s a bedroom.
“No,” Gallie says in unison with me and Zhivov. “I’ll go with them.” She points at us. The two bluecoats seem bemused.
“I was going to suggest the same thing myself,” Asmus says. “Last night was such a disappointment.”
“Prick,” I whisper as the door is closed behind him. We walk on and a second door is opened. Before entering I turn to the guard. “There’s a barn out there. Are the people in it okay? Unharmed?” The guard looks nonplussed.
“Don’t know about that.”
“Tell the general we need to see the people in the barn. They’re innocent and have nothing to do with Asmus.” He seems to digest this and then nods impatiently for us to enter.
FIFTY
Zhivov makes for the window and draws back the heavy, velvet drapes. “That’s one hell of an army.” We join him. Camp fires cover the terrain, diminishing to points of light in the distance, and a bright, full moon gives an iridescent quality to the landscape of white tents.
“We targeted our arrival at three days before the strike,” I say to Gallie.
“You hit your mark,” she replies. “Assuming the missile accel hit its mark, which may be a big assumption given the last-minute screw up.” I sit on the corner of the bed and only then notice that it’s the only bed. Is this awkward? After all, I’ve had sex with Gallie more than once in the corner of a barn loft not ten feet from TMAers chewing on rancid apples. Okay, am I really thinking about this now? I can’t be. Maybe I can send Zhivov to check on Asmus. The guards seemed quite reasonable. Or–. “You look very pensive,” Gallie says.
“Do I?” I ask. “Did Asmus–”
“He was a charming host. Gave me full run of the house as long as I didn’t leave it. Then the Continental Army showed up.”
“Do you hate when that happens? Fucking Continental Army.”
Zhivov lets the drape fall and throws himself into a winged chair. “We should have beat the crap out of Asmus. Then if nothing else, we would have done that.”
“You know, time vandalism is easy,” I say. “And then clowns like us think we can fix it and what we’re really doing is joining in.”
“So just sit back?” Gallie says. “Give sick little creatures like Asmus free reign?”
“But here’s the thing,” I say. “How do we ever know what’s supposed to be? What we think of as the right and good timeline is maybe just the result of a thousand random acts of vandalism. If there’s one Asmus, there are hundreds. So we randomly pick a timeline we think is the true one and try to get back to it. And even if we‘re right, whatever right is, we don’t know how to repair anything because the theories are half-assed, and we wind up making the temporal quagmire worse.”
“You think it’s really that bad?” Zhivov asks.
“It’s bad to the degree we can’t even fathom. And then Prasad and his ilk have the gall to tell me and Bess we need to go back to where we came from otherwise the timeline will be damaged. I
