Timeshares

Evan frowned. "But everything moves. The Earth rotates on its axis. It revolves around the sun."

Colby smiled. "Orbital mechanics are fixed and predictable. Everything else is a bit problematic, although we have had some success with trains. Of course, the timing is a bit tricky."

The furrow disappeared on its own. "That makes sense. And the portal needs to be inconspicuous because you don"t want people just popping into existence where there are witnesses, right?"

"Quite right, Mr. Pogue," replied Eckerton. "This isn"t like a movie or a virtual world. It"s not remote viewing. This is reality. The vacationers are actually at that time and place they visit. They can be seen and heard and can interact, although there are stringent rules about the interactions. You know, the obvious things: no out of time objects, No anachronistic references or incongruent references to technology, Leave nothing behind. The rules are strict, but everyone understands the need.

"The inconspicuous imperative does limit destinational choices, however, even if the rules are followed. You can"t just walk into the Oval Office during the Cuban Missile Crisis-the Secret Service would be all over you. Although I am pleased to report that we have filled in all of the empty seats in Ford"s Theatre the night of Lincoln"s a.s.sa.s.sination."

"Even with those limitations, there"s still a lot of world and a lot of time available," Evan said with a nod. "What"s the problem exactly? I can"t help you until I understand it completely."

"Precisely why we are here," Eckerton responded. He motioned toward his companion. "Let me have Flynn here explain. He"s on the front lines of customer satisfaction from the intake and destination selection phase to the post-return customer comment cards."

Flynn Colby opened a folder, scanned some notes, and then looked back up at Evan. "Despite the relatively few technical limitations on Timeshare"s time travel encounter adventures, there are a number of practical impediments that limit the menu of desirable sites. In some cases, the inconspicuousness factor comes tangentially into play. Since the Timeshare visitors are actually there at that time, since in fact all Timeshare visitors that shall ever visit that time and place are actually there at that time, certain visits have inherent caps on the number of slots available. Warner"s reference earlier to Ford"s Theatre is a simple example. We can"t put people in the Presidential box or in the aisles or on the stage, but we can put them in otherwise empty seats. Open areas with large crowds are the easiest for our kind of travel. The reason more and more aging baby-boomers claim to have been at Woodstock as time goes on isn"t because they are all lying, it is because Timeshare injects vacationers into the mix on a regular basis."

Evan laughed. One of the great mysteries of the modern age explained. Could they possibly solve another? "You mean, if I wanted to be in Dallas . . ."

"Yes," sighed Colby, "we could put you into an available spot on the gra.s.sy knoll."

"And . . ." prompted Evan. "What would I see?"

Colby shook his head. "Sorry, our lips are sealed on that score. You"ll just have to go see for yourself if you want to know."

"Don"t put it off, though. Numbers are limited there," Eckerton interjected. "So we"ve jacked up the price on that one to what the market will bear."

"Like many of our customers," said Colby, "you"ve focused right in on near history in your home country. And there"s good reason for that. Reality imposes its own limits, language chief among them. Going back to a place where people speak a foreign language you don"t understand can be a big disappointment according to the customer comments I"ve reviewed. Even middle English is incomprehensible to most modern Americans. The discomfort of the required period costume, the smells, the air quality, and the lack of decent sanitation facilities are also often cited by customers as detracting from the quality of the vacation experience."

Eckerton leaned forward again. "That"s why we want to run a campaign to get out of our battles and brothels rut."

"Battles and brothels?"

Colby winced. "We don"t use that term in the customer satisfaction department. But what Warner is saying is that given the language barriers and the limits on how conspicuous we can be, a lot of our business has gravitated to two types of activities-both of which are somewhat distasteful to the powers that be in our company. The first is-to put it bluntly-s.e.x tours. Certain customers wish to go to a time before AIDS, before current mores and laws, and simply cat about."

Evan grimaced. "There were diseases back then, too, weren"t there?"

"Most can be handled with a simple prescription these days," explained Colby.

"But wouldn"t those visitors be breaking the rules of Timeshares not to, er, leave anything behind?"

Eckerton gave a broad smile. "The time travel process has a radioactive component. By arranging the shielding appropriately, we are able to induce temporary sterility in our travelers with no long-term effects. Our waiver warns travelers that those attempting to start a family should not travel."

Yikes! Evan found himself crossing his legs without having consciously thought about it.

Eckerton gave a knowing laugh at the movement. "It"s just like irradiating fruit at the supermarket to kill pathogens."

Colby laughed, too. "Except here we"re irradiating nuts."

Uh-huh. "Let"s move along," said Evan. "You said something about battles?"

"Sure," said Colby, his eyes flicking down to his notes. "Seven of our top ten destinations are violence-oriented. Civil War reenactors, history buffs, and fans of slasher films are among the hobbies of that market demographic."

No surprise there. "What"s your top travel site? Gettysburg? Little Big Horn?"

Eckerton gave the answer. "Those are popular, but both relatively limited by conspicuousness and danger factors. Our top destination by far is the pa.s.s at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.

It took Evan a few seconds to figure it out.

"The Three Hundred."

Eckerton nodded. "Where three hundred Spartan soldiers held off an army of a million Persians."

"That sounds a bit conspicuous and dangerous itself."

"Not really," sniffed Colby. "Though some historical accounts put the count into the millions, there were actually only seventy-four thousand three hundred and twenty-eight Persians in the fight, so we can fill the hills behind the brutally violent skirmish lines with thousands and thousands of spectators, all while still fitting well within the parameters of the available historical record. We"ve actually set the site capacity limit at close to two hundred fifty thousand, not counting the actual Persians who get slaughtered or the Spartans who defend to the last man. Crowd-size estimation techniques sucked in ancient times."

Evan was appalled. "Wouldn"t somebody notice the difference between the size of the crowd and the number of bodies eventually?"

Eckerton reddened. "We"ve contracted for body disposal activities with . . . a number of organizations. We take the bodies in when we pull the vacationers out. All in period costume, with injuries appropriate to the situation. We weed out anyone with metal plates, pins, and prosthetics. We pull any crowns or teeth with fillings." He cast his eyes down at the table. "We don"t talk about it much. Strictly confidential, you understand."

Evan understood the distaste the creators of Timeshare must have felt about how their device was being used. "History buffs. Let me guess. Watching snuff films is not among the categories of hobbies listed on the customer comment card."

Colby bristled at the reference to snuff films. "History is all about dead people. If you go far enough back, everyone you encounter is dead by now. We don"t kill anyone."

"You just let people watch."

Eckerton jumped into the exchange. "This is precisely the product mix issue we have. Our current mix is . . . embarra.s.sing. Our founders didn"t invent time travel so that we could pimp out history to man"s baser instincts. Instead, we would like to emphasize other aspects of our travel opportunities. That"s why we came up with our Sects and Violins tours."

Evan ground his teeth together at the sound of the punny product name. This guy was vice president of marketing? But Evan kept his mouth shut and let the client blather on.

"You see, given the language barriers, we thought that we might get increased travel to Europe and to premodern centuries by packaging a set of tours around great musical performances-a Woodstock thing for the more discriminating musical palate. You can hear Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, each performing or conducting his own works. You can listen to the first performance ever of the 1812 Overture 1812 Overture and marvel at the coordination required to make the sound of the cannons arrive at the precise moment needed, though they were situated miles away. You can listen to the glory of every church bell in Moscow joining in for the closing crescendo." and marvel at the coordination required to make the sound of the cannons arrive at the precise moment needed, though they were situated miles away. You can listen to the glory of every church bell in Moscow joining in for the closing crescendo."

Evan could see the appeal to the symphony set, but that was a limited crowd. "Just cla.s.sical?"

"Rock and roll is big, as we mentioned before. And blues has some hardcore fanatics, but is pretty severely volume limited. So, we"ve upped the price on those, although you do get a quality bootleg recording with every blues vacation."

Made sense. "What about the Sects part?"

"Great moments in religion," Eckerton gushed. "Hide in the shadows as Martin Luther tacks his theses onto the door at the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Join the ma.s.ses at the Sermon on the Mount, lunch included!"

Evan understood the marketing play in being able to partake in an actual miracle of loaves and fishes as you listened to the Beat.i.tudes, but he wondered if sitting in a crowd in the sun for hours while people spoke in incomprehensible languages about you was really that great of a vacation experience.

What the h.e.l.l. People went to the beach all the time. At least no one would be playing a radio too loud next to you.

His mind began to piece together the components of a campaign to promote musical and religious destinations for Timeshares. It would take a lot of work. A lot. First thing, get rid of the awful Sects and Violins moniker for the package deals. But enough of those details for now. Time to compliment the client and close the deal.

"I think that we can help move more culturally rewarding religious and musical destinations into your top spots. What sort of budget did you have in mind?"

"I don"t think you understand," said Eckerton with obvious concern.

"Several of our ten top sites are religious destinations or at least related to religion in some way," interjected Colby.

"But you said seven of the ten were violence oriented."

"There"s some overlap. Let"s see, there"s the sacking of Jerusalem and the razing of Solomon"s temple, burning Joan of Arc at the stake, the ma.s.s suicide at Masada, and, of course the n.a.z.i death camps in operation. Religious persecution is popular in some quarters." Colby looked down at his notes. "I think there"s one more religious destination in the top ten. Let me see . . ."

Of course. "Jesus," blurted Evan. "The resurrection. The top religious destination"s got to be the resurrection of Jesus, right?"

His would-be clients looked at him as if he were a crazed child.

"Not even in the top one hundred," intoned Eckerton.

"Not really dramatic," added Colby. "Just a guy you don"t recognize walking around with his friends chatting in a language you don"t understand. Nothing to see, really." He tapped his notebook with his finger. "Here it is. I should have remembered. It is one of the reasons we came." He looked up at Evan.

Evan couldn"t stand the tension. "The Ten Commandments? The parting of the Red Sea? Mohammed moving a freaking mountain? What?"

"The Crucifixion. Big crowds, so not s.p.a.ce limited, and plenty of cruelty, violence, and death. We"ve been packing them into the Hills of Galilee since we first opened for business. Popular stuff. Ask Mel Gibson. Second only to the Three Hundred in attracting the death and torture fetishists."

"Very distasteful," droned Eckerton.

Evan"s mind was awhirl. Distasteful was too mild a word for peddling the Crucifixion like a no- holds-barred cage match. His lip twitched as his blood pressure rose, but he maintained a rigid hold on his outward demeanor. "What exactly do you want WR&B to do about it?"

"Isn"t it obvious?" replied Eckerton, a look of surprise on his face. "We want a campaign that will make our customers seek enriching, enn.o.bling, and educational cultural experiences filled with music and art instead of seeking violent, gory, and s.a.d.i.s.tic experiences filled with s.e.x and death."

"Instead of?" Evan threw up his hands. "Instead of? That goes against everything in television, movies, literature, games, sports, and advertising since time began." Clients expected the impossible. With a hefty budget and a good campaign, he could increase customer demand for time trips featuring music and religiously uplifting themes, but decreasing the demand for l.u.s.t and mayhem was impossible-crazy impossible. "You want an ad campaign that will make people stop wanting s.e.x and violence?"

"We have money," Eckerton replied.

"And time," interjected Colby. "We have all the time in the world."

"Not enough," shouted Evan, his friendly facade shattering. "Not enough to change human nature, not for the better." He couldn"t work miracles, and the public was apparently only interested in seeing someone who could if they were being brutally murdered.

The anger flooded over Evan, his heart rate increasing, his fists clenching, adrenaline racing through his body. He hated clients who were unreasonable. He wanted to punch Eckerton with animalistic fury. His hands longed to strangle Colby until his eyes bulged out.

That was the problem, the problem no amount of mild-mannered marketing could ever fix.

Evan crushed his half-full bottle of overpriced, over-marketed Tahitian water and flung it across the room, storming out past his buxom a.s.sistant, sending advertising tear sheets for the latest torture p.o.r.n flick and upcoming World Championship Cage Match fluttering in disarray in his wake.

Evan had a pa.s.sion for advertising, sure, but mankind had a pa.s.sion for the Pa.s.sion. Neither was likely to find any peace.

Not anywhere.

Not anywhen.

No Man"s Land Allister Timms

Allister Timms is a Welshman who lives in Maine with his wife and daughter and works as the copy editor for Down East Down East, the magazine of Maine. His work has appeared in Down East Down East and and Miami Living Miami Living , and he is currently working on his first cowritten YA fantasy novel , and he is currently working on his first cowritten YA fantasy novel The Golden Grip The Golden Grip.

I crouch, hands clasped over my head. A whizbang explodes behind our stretch of trench fittingly named by the soldiers the Bish o" p.r.i.c.k. The sh.e.l.l showers earth and shrapnel high into the air. This one looks to me like a dark etching Durer might have engraved of an enormous tree uprooted by a twister. crouch, hands clasped over my head. A whizbang explodes behind our stretch of trench fittingly named by the soldiers the Bish o" p.r.i.c.k. The sh.e.l.l showers earth and shrapnel high into the air. This one looks to me like a dark etching Durer might have engraved of an enormous tree uprooted by a twister.

But I"m blessed with such flights of fancy. Lieutenant Pritchard says that if I daydream anymore I might presage my own death. But he"s an Oxford man and tends to talk like that.

My feet are cold. There is about a foot of water and mud covering the duckboards. Rain is falling in steady streams. Even the elements, it seems, can"t help but imitate the war. If there is a sun, I don"t know it. And when I do catch a glimpse, it"s murky. Like it"s been doused in coal tar.

I"m getting a little rest and time to think. Part of my company was out all night in No-Man"s-Land, gathering information on the strength and number of machine guns Fritz has in place. The appearance of a sagging moon made our task harder and cost the life of Private Richards. I had joked with Corporal Jennings that the moon sagged on account of all the heat from the mortars both sides had flung at each another. He had laughed. And then he wept when Richards got it in the head. Richards was only eighteen. A buckshee private from Llandudno. Jennings closed his eyes. Another flare went up, burst, and cascaded down in a drizzle of dying lights. We scrambled out of the crater, leaving Richards behind in the waterlogged hole.

I try to sleep in my billet until the stand to order comes down the line. I listen to our artillery pound away at the fortified German positions and they in turn pound us. It"s like a game of tennis that t.i.tans might play.

I look at my watch. It"s July 30. Time"s against me and I know it. Another day and the Battle of Pa.s.schendaele will be in full offensive and 300,000 men will die. It"s recorded in all the history books. And now I could be one of them. The battalion has been given its orders. As an officer, I"m privy to what the other men only sense and fear. Who would have known that the uniform I purchased over the Internet would have turned out to be an officer"s uniform. And a lieutenant"s at that.

No wonder I can"t sleep. Not after what"s happened. Like the comforting words a madman repeats to himself to prove that he"s sane, I remove the flat, iPhone-like Speed of Light device that Timeshares provided for this journey and type in the numbers. Over and over I punch them in. Turning numbers into a prayer.

Nothing. Like it"s been for a month. Nothing but the image of an hourgla.s.s and sifting sand. I want to toss the device over the trench and watch as a German sniper blasts to smithereens my only connection to my existence in the twenty-first century. But I can"t bring myself to do it.

It was something the boy said. "Sir, Private Hawkes is dead."

Five little words. That"s all it took.

They"d screwed up. Timeshares had blundered. I gave the tech the exact year of 1917 and the exact location of Pa.s.schendaele. And, most importantly, the precise date: July 28. That was the last diary entry of Toby Hawkes, my great-grandfather.

I should have guessed from the layers of white-gold bling-bling the young tech wore around his neck and the lazy chew of his slack jaw that I should have rescheduled.

"You"ve got that time figured precisely, right?" I"d asked. I know it sounds paranoid, but time traveling, even for recreational purposes, isn"t anything to treat lightly. One wrong digit, and I could have ended up in 1717 in a field of grazing cows.

"I could do this with my eyes closed," the tech replied, stabbing the keypad of the slim electronic device with Pa.s.schendaele"s degrees of longitude and lat.i.tude.

"It"s just I scheduled my appointment with Dr. Arundel, that"s all," I remarked.

"No worries. The doc is out with the flu. He just gives the briefing. It"s me who flicks the switch."

Flicks the switch. This secular description of a complex and highly specialized field of molecular transference and time travel should have clued me in. But I shrugged and stepped inside the tubular contraption that looked like a frosted shower stall.

Thank G.o.d I"d been shrewd enough to ask about the briefing.

"Okay, the briefing," grinned the tech. "You"ll need this." He shoved the small electronic device he"d been holding into my hand. "That gizmo is your ticket home, so don"t lose it. What you do is . . ." and he perfunctorily explained about the numbers to dial that would connect me to Timeshares and scramble my atoms to bring me back to the current time. "Any questions?"

I looked at the Speed of Light device in my hand and watched the emblem of Timeshares, an ancient hourgla.s.s with sifting gold sand, blink across the screen. I secured the device in my trench coat.

The tech fastened the door on the Time Sequencing Modulator. I clutched my army haversack stuffed with gear: my great-grandfather"s diary, gas mask, helmet, shovel, dried rations, candles, water canister, extra pair of puttees, eating tin, packs of Woodbines, laces, three pairs of extra socks (I wasn"t taking any chances here), ammunition pouch, and an officer- issued revolver. It had taken me a good two weeks to locate all this paraphernalia, except for the diary, on eBay. I hadn"t realized Timeshares would have provided a costume for me, included with the price of my "vacation."

I clenched my fists as the Time Sequencing Modulator screened my genetic makeup with a soothing blue pattern of lights. The small s.p.a.ce began to heat up. Comfortable at first, like a hot tub, but then it got hotter. I pulled at my stiff collar. Fidgeted as the temperature rose.

I grabbed at my great-grandfather"s diary to calm myself. I recited over and over his last entry: "Hobbs and I have come to blows over the money again. I knew he"d turn out to be a power- hungry b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I had me bleedin doubts about him right off. Should have followed me gut and never taken him under me wings. I swear to b.l.o.o.d.y G.o.d, he"s going to kill me. So I"m writing this down in case I don"t make it home to dear Old Blighty."