Any Given Day

The digital readout implanted on the back of my right hand tells me that the time to go is coming up momentarily. The kids' sad expressions almost break my heart as I say my goodbyes and prepare myself to leave. This is ever how I go -- I pop in and out of their timeline for brief periods that seem hardly worth it, leaving only memories and loss behind me. Hypnotic blocks keep me from telling the kids that this is the last time they'll see their father and the words catch unspoken in my throat. I won't lie to them and tell them that I'll be back soon, so I say nothing at all.

I'd like to be a normal father to them, I think. Only a month ago, subjectively, I had been single and childless. And now, now I had twins that were almost six years old. I wasn't sure if I loved them -- it had all happened so fast for me -- but I was certainly attached to them in an strong way. Towards me they had only love and affection, which surprises me; in their perception I'm here for them only five days out of every year like clockwork. This is what suffices for InClock's version of planned parenthood.

My wife watches grimly as I sit down on the floor in preparation of the Daze. She doesn't say goodbye to me, and I've never said it to her. We've never really loved each other; we just make do with our agency-arranged marriage in as business-like a manner as possible. I think she resents me; she's a retired agent and I'm still an active. I nod at her, she nods back, and that suffices for our farewells.

When the readout on my hand begins flashing red I cross my legs indian-style and grip my knees hard with my hands. My children run up and tug at me, begging and pleading with their words. I reach into my shirt pocket and pull out two one-dollar bills, handing a bill to each of them, pushing them away gently as I do so. They stand back, staring at their prizes as the Daze comes over me at last and I begin the trip back upstream, to the future. To their eyes I simply blink out of existence, their father gone forever.

I screw up my face, close my eyes, grit my teeth. The Daze -- it picks me up, whirls me around inside it for a while. Somehow, as always, my eyes open and I see the colors and bodies and shapes and the twisted half-human things that inhabit other dimensions within the Daze. The colored mists run through my body as if I weren't completely solid, altering my mind and meddling in my thoughts with their touch. I can feel my identity changing, feel myself changing and being altered in subtle, random ways I can't put my finger on.

The doctors tell me I'm one of the few people sensitive enough to feel the changes, and the only one still alive who hasn't gone stark raving mad or rogue yet. I always leave the daze screaming, though. I suppose the day I stop screaming at the corruption of my personality is the day I'll need a sanity pension.

The Daze rushes out of my head, out of my vision in one split-second. I can hear a loud noise from somewhere that takes a second to register as being my own voice, yelling hoarsely. The accoustics of the Daze Transference Chamber are such that I continue to hear the echoes of my screams for a few seconds after I stop. The feeling of dislocation fades from me, and I know where and who I am again.

I'm sitting on the red metal pad in the Daze Chamber, my legs and knees tightly drawn up against me. Carefully I unwind myself and stand, shaking out the kinks in my muscles and trying to ignore the new ones in my head. I practice focusing my eyes on the emitter arrays pointing at the pad, from the closest dish to the farthest and then back again. Physically, I seem to have made the trip in one piece.

"Welcome back, Lincoln," says a voice coming from speakers mounted on either side of the Chamber's observation window. I flip off the speakers, the window, and the people in the control room behind the window in one grandiose gesture and stalk off to the main exit.

"Dazing often has unpredictable mental effects after transference," the voice explains to someone I can't see. I curse at the unseen people colorfully as I come to the security doors, and I'm rewarded by the faint popping noise of a microphone being turned off. The fool had forgotten he was still broadcasting, no doubt.

"Let me out!" I shout, pounding on the doors ineffectually with my fists. The doors open with a clank and swish, and I purposefully stomp down the corridor, pointedly ignoring the men waiting for me in the adjoining debriefing room. They watch me stalk past with bemused expressions, but they've become used to my quirks and don't attempt to stop me.

After a few minutes of walking, I enter the barracks and collapse on my bunk without even greeting the other agents. I bury my face in the pillow and try not to envision the young twin faces of my sons, Patrick and Dwayne, as they had begged me not to go again. It simply wasn't enough. They needed a father but they would never have a real one who would be there for them. I've seen the pain in their faces during the rare times they talk about their parents and their upbringing.

Patrick showed me his prized possession once when we were young agents boozing up in the barracks. In a frame he pulled from his footlocker, laminated against the wear and tear of the intervening years, was a single dollar bill. His brother was on a mission then I think, and Patrick and I had a sad and morose drinking session as he reminisced about their long-lost father and the last time they had ever seen them. I comforted him as a friend the best I could, not knowing yet that I would be called on to be their father in a later "loose-end" mission. Now that I knew I can't tell, due to the hypnotic implants.

They might even have their own hypnotic blocks specifically designed to keep them from recognizing me. Their knowing I was their father would only screw up our friendship and make it impossible to live or work together at all. As long as I was the only one who knew, we could still function together somewhat smoothly. It wouldn't be perfect, though -- I felt as if this situation was heralding the end of my career in the InClock Institute. InClock probably wouldn't keep me around for too much longer with this kind of weight on my mind.

Or maybe they knew I was going to go insane or even die soon. It was fairly evident that the heads of the institute didn't play by the same rules we agents were required to; they played around in the timestreams like children sometimes. They probably knew exactly when and where I would crack up, but thinking that way leads to paranoia, another job-related threat. I hate this job.

Lately, I've been hating everything about being an InClock agent. My fellow agents have nicknamed me "Sicko" behind my back, no doubt to the large amounts of time I spend in psychiatric evaluations. Everyone seems to expect me to be crazy and they're surprised when I'm pronounced 'mostly stable'. 'Mostly' will do for an InClock agent.

Tomorrow I have a banking mission on my schedule. Cakewalk -- I'll enjoy it for a change of pace.

"I once saw a guy who had been gone for a month before he was pulled back through the Daze," Patrick mused out loud as he glanced at the display implanted on the back of his right hand. The gesture had become something of a nervous tick for him over the last few days. "There wasn't even enough left of him to fill a cardboard box."

Patrick's brother, Dwayne, shivered. "It's only been twelve days since we came upstream." He stretched out on the floor and relaxed, pillowing his head on his hands as he stared up at the fluorescent lights in the ceiling.

"Five's the cut-off date, you know that. And you heard what Lincoln said." Patrick shook his head and reached inside his jumpsuit to pull out a cigar -- his last. Slowly, ritualistically, he sheared off the end with a pair of stainless-steel clippers and put the cigar in his mouth, rolling it around for a moment to get the taste. Then he sighed and leaned back against the wall, considering the small storeroom they sat in again.

A mass of crates blocked the door's entrance firmly -- protection against being discovered before they were brought back through the Daze. They had stacked the crates there over a week ago. The food had run out yesterday, but one of the crates had held bottled water that kept them alive, if uncomfortably, as well as providing them with containers for their waste.

"They tell you five," Dwayne said slowly, "but who knows how long you can really stay? Five days is probably shorter than the real cut-off date, to give agents a safety margin. Want a light for your cigar?"

Patrick shook his head. "Going to make this one last; no sense in smoking..." his voice abruptly stopped as he felt the familiar, long-awaited sensation come over him.

"See you on the other side," Dwayne said, fear tinging his voice.

Patrick balled his hands up into tight little fists and waited for the transfer downstream to take him. He tried hard not to wonder if he'd make it in one piece.

"Hey Lincoln!"

I turn to see Michael Parsels running across the street in my direction, hampered by his stiff and ruffled native dress. A horse-drawn cart swerves to narrowly avoid him, making the driver curse in such a thick English accent that I can barely make out the more colorful words. Parsels ignores the man and approaches me, studying my face closely.

I peel back the flesh-colored strip on my hand enough so he can see the active digital readout there. He performs the same manuever and then he's pushing the envelope at me. "I'm late, bye," he says in a rush, and runs off again.

I stand on the street nonchalantly, waiting for my contact. The people on the street begin give me a wide berth as they walk by, eyeing me and my gentlemen's clothes with varying reactions. Even the cleanest of the people look dirty to me. I hate the Victorian Age.

A man waves to me across the street and I draw my pistol, leveling at him. To all appearances, the gun is authentically in-period, but it's absolutely anything but. The man raises his hands and approaches me warily until I recognize him and lower my aim. It's Parsels again, but a younger, more innocent version of the man -- he's obviously downstream from me. "Are you Lincoln, sir?" he asks.

"Yeah," I say. He begins to show me his readout, but I stop him. "It's okay, kid." He takes the envelope from my hands and smiles as he waves goodbye, adding another 'sir' that makes me wince. Had Parsels ever really been that much of a suck-up?

My mission was accomplished, although the bank was shaved a little close for my comfort. What if Parsels had met himself -- even just seeing an upstream version of yourself can change things. A downstream Parsels would merely have to notice the upstream version no longer wore a wedding ring and Blam! Suddenly things aren't the way they used to be anymore, not that we'd even know the difference after the changes were made.

I holster my pistol now that I no longer have important information to protect and walk back to my hotel. About halfway there I notice I'm being tailed with some surprise.

Three choices: a native who thinks I'm his prey for some reason, an InClock agent keeping tabs on me, or a rogue agent doing the same. As I come to a busy thoroughfare I turn the corner and wait there for my pursuer to catch up, in case it's a rogue. Rogue agents have some interesting techniques that keep them out of InClock scrutiny and enable them to surprise us frequently. We have standing orders to capture them whenever possible so they can be pumped for information.

He rounds the corner and smiles, completely unsurprised. Like me, he's dressed in a gentleman's finery, but I'm not fooled; his face and hands are cleaner than any of the natives. "Let me see your display," I say.

"Hello," he replies. "I merely wished to speak to you for a moment. My name's..."

I interrupt. "Your display."

"A display? What are you going on about?"

I slit my eyes. "I'm not amused," I say. With a slight self-deprecating smirk he lifts his right hand and pulls back a piece of flesh-colored tape that matches his skin-color exactly.

Underneath it his display was dead and black.

"Rogue!" I exclaim softly.

"Yes, I'm rogue. 19A86."

I blink in surprise; he's considerably upstream from myself. "16E41," I reply, giving him a frame of reference.

His eyes widen. "Not 16E47?" he asks.

"No, why?"

"Calibration error," he explains with a frown. "I shouldn't be talking to you yet."

"You were going to attempt to recruit me? You shouldn't be talking to me at all then."

"Here," he says, changing the subject. He pulls out a small piece of in-period paper and with a modern inkpen he scrawls something on the back. "You'll know when to look at that. Keep it safe. Sorry for the confusion." He puts the inkpen away and gives me a friendly smile as he hands me the paper before he begins to walk away.

I almost stop him, words of arrest on my lips. I should apprehend him; it's my job. For some reason it feels wrong, though. He seemed to want to help me with something, but couldn't because our frames of references were out-of-sync. I decide to wait and see what happens. Logically the paper he gave me probably has another meeting time and place on it. I could apprehend him then, surely, if I wanted to.

I walked the rest of the way back to my hotel to wait for the Daze to bring me back upstream.

Patrick shook himself as the Daze left him, and he gave a quick look around to orient himself. They had appeared in a small alley in Tychoville, right outside the boulevard proper -- good, tight placement from the InClock Controllers. Briefing had told them they were only going about a year upstream, and it seemed the city hadn't changed much since Patrick had last vacationed here. It was nice to wear normal clothing for a mission instead of some uncomfortable in-period native dress for the locus.

His partner on his mission, his own brother, holstered his pistol. "He's got an office in the main complex. This shouldn't be hard," Dwayne commented.

"He might be expecting us," Patrick said, shaking his head in disagreement. "Let's be careful, he's dangerous and imbalanced. Follow me."

They walked out onto the street and merged with the pedestrians seamlessly as they headed towards their quarry.

"How about dinner?" I ask her.

Barbara eyes me for a moment, looks me up and down. She shrugs and says, "No." I sigh and awkwardly stare around the room for a remaining shred of my pride.

"Pick-up Delta 77-9 coming up, Barbara," the intercom says. She quickly brings up the information about the agent pick-up on her screen and keys all the information in to the Daze Machine's console.

Barbara suddenly looks at me again appraisingly and says, "Maybe." I grin at the pretty blonde, her returning smile turns into a scowl as she double checks her information. I watch over her shoulder as her hands flit quick and sure against the dials and buttons of the console. The pickup is Patrick and Dwayne coming back from an A-priority from upstream. They must have left while I was on the banking mission.

She triple checks her data and then begins the Daze sequence. There's no machinery whirr or hum, but there's always build-up of tension before a Daze transference. When the timer counts down to the zero, they're suddenly out there on the pad. Patrick is sitting and Dwayne is lying down. For a moment, all is calm and seems normal.

Patrick begins to scream as pieces of his arms and face fall off in feathery strings, landing in a bloody gossamer pile in his lap. Dwayne just settles into a heap of unconnected flesh. They're both completely dead in a matter of moments.

The fright paralysis leaves me, and I turn away. They were somehow in the stream for too long and became too much a part of the locus they were visiting. The Daze doesn't bring back what's supposed to be at a particular locus. Half of every cell in their bodies must still be back at wherever the Daze took them from.

Barbara begins to throw up in a trashcan while making terrible retching noises. I stand stock still as my mind winds itself up in circles. I remember fathering the twins and going back to visit five days at a time, seeing them put on years like new clothing. I remember playing poker and getting drunk with them in the agent barracks, before I even knew they were my sons. My twin sons, unraveled and dead on the receiving pad like piles of bloody trash. Tears spring unbidden to my eyes.

With some foresight I check the numbers on Barbara's console while she's busy being sick. They match up exactly with the readout but I check them again before deciding it wasn't her error. The readout is obviously wrong, and for a single paranoid moment I wonder if InClock killed the two purposefully. InClock has a way of disappearing agents -- could they have done so with my sons just now?

I punch the plexiglas observation window and bruise my hand fairly badly. Someone was going to pay for my sons' deaths. Someone's head was going to roll. They were good agents, and good friends, and my sons.

Two hours later I was in Dr. Clark's office. It had taken a lot of bluster and pulling of seniority to get me here, and I knew my career was basically over for all the fighting it had taken. I was here though, and I was talking to the head of InClock affairs. I am actually yelling at him. "I SAW the readouts. They were CORRECT!"

He seemed to be molded from foam-rubber; Dr. Howard Clark is a fat and padded man with thick glasses and a bad toupee. His mind is sharp and quick, though. "Obviously not, Lincoln. You saw what happened to them." He shakes his head in a mock sadness that I didn't buy for a second.

"Barbara's console settings matched the readouts perfectly! If there was an error, it was in the readouts, not Barbara. I saw it!" My hands are white-knucked on my chair. I wonder if he knows the two were my sons.

"Sorry, Lincoln. We had proof otherwise, plus it's too late already." The look in his eyes gives me a sinking feeling. He's about to play his trump card.

"Too late? What do you mean?"

"We thought she was a rogue spy. We had her killed."

"ALREADY? It happened two hours ago! You call that an investigation?" I cry.

He smiles and makes an odd sliding motion in his chair. One of his hands is out of sight, and I guess that he had triggered the security button. "You of all people," he says with calm words, "should know that time -- two hours -- doesn't mean a whole lot."

The guards he signaled burst into the office and take my arms. "This isn't over," I growl. He shrugs, says, "I think it is." He smiles again as I'm pulled out of the room.

As soon as I'm clear of the doorways the room is filled with fire and shrieks. A force-shield pops over the doorway, normally there to keep such violence out but this time containing the napalm bomb in the office. Clark is dead without a doubt, and I wonder how he hadn't been forewarned of this with future information. Rogue treachery, no doubt; they have ways of keeping such things hidden.

InClock Security men ran around crazily. Some apprehend me and later question me under truth serums only to find I'm completely innocent. The next day I'm released back to the barracks, where I dig around in my footlocker for a certain piece of paper.

It did have another meeting scheduled on it, in this locus, along with instructions on how to keep my movements secret.

For a second I think about the bomb and Clark's death. If I had to kill him, it was a great way to do it. The paper in my hands feels weighty as I muse this over.

I make the decision and take a furlough day from InClock a week later and I don't come back when the day's up. Or ever.

I looked at the back of my right hand in an automatic gesture, then cursed and looked at the watch on my wrist instead. My readout had died shortly after I had gone rogue, and although the people I work for now have the Daze and a few other interesting gadgets, they haven't been able to reactivate our timepieces yet. The dark readouts gave the InClockers a good way to identify us as rogues, unfortunately.

I've never regretted the decision to go rogue, though. The work I do now feels clean and honest to me, a welcome new feeling compared to the cover-ups and intrigue that's standard fare over at InClock. Not to mention the fact that my life expectancy has dramatically increased; InClock has a terrible habit of killing agents who have become a "security risk."

I'm also allowed some side projects inbetween real jobs. In my desk I had a firebomb I hoped to get the chance to use soon, depending on the outcome of my appointment today.

Patrick and Dwayne stepped into my office in Tychoville right on schedule. I smiled and held up my hands. "Don't shoot, boys."

"Lincoln, game's up!" Dwayne shouted at me.

"It was never was a game to me," I told him soothingly. "But I played along anyway. I played along when they had me do things that nearly drove me out of my skull, and I even enjoyed it when they told me to have some children. I have twin boys, by the way."

Patrick shook his head, not listening. He always was stubborn.

I continued, "I couldn't stand by when they killed my sons to cover up for my own doings, though. They don't want anyone to be corrupted by the rogues. Did you know they routinely mindwipe people who arrest rogues in case they've been 'poisoned'?"

Dwayne's brow was furrowed and his eyes bored into me. "What are you insinuating? That you're our father?"

"Doesn't matter now," I said. "You're going to shoot me, and then you'll die. Maximum safe transfer time is 5 days, and you'll be here a lot longer than that to make sure you can't repeat anything I'm telling you."

"Shut up," Patrick growled. His gun was beginning to waver in his hands. I felt utterly calm, even though I wasn't sure if I'd live through this. Someone had to have planted a bomb in Clark's office though, right? I hoped it had been me.

"Do what you need to, son," I tell him, making my voice sound controlled, fatherly.

There's only a split second of pain as the gun tears my chest apart.