Death in its Season

By Kaki Olsen

From: DSchiller

To:  All

Subject: TitraCorp Holiday Policy

No good day started with a company-wide message from DSchiller.  The director meant well, but he had a habit of making sweeping statements without providing specifics to the employees or, for that matter, forewarning the management.

In this case, the exciting news hidden behind the TitraCorp Holiday Policy was that they were shutting down for the holidays.  Every employee was to receive compensation for two weeks of work and a generous gift code to the local grocer of their choice.  There would be no Outgoings and any delayed Incomings would be handled by a rotating emergency response crew who would receive double their hourly wages for the trouble.

David Collins had worked three holiday seasons in a row so far and anticipated a fourth Christmas Eve waiting by the emergency receiver.  Schiller would stop by with a ham that could feed a small village and make a glowing speech to the people who had nowhere else to go.  At least the double wages came in handy and only twice in three years had they been jostled out of their torpor by an emergency Incoming.

There was nothing unexpected in the message for him, so he took a bio break and listened with disinterest to the hundreds of pings that signaled incoming messages.  There would be dozens asking if this affected the year-end bonuses or already-approved vacation requests.  Every tenth ping would be an automated instruction from HR to take these matters up on a case-by-case basis.

He could imagine the gist of most questions based on what Schiller had failed to mention.

Which Holidays?

Effective when?

Except for whom?

By the time he’d attended to his personal needs and brewed something strong enough to get him through the case-by-case complaints, the pings were less frequent.  He still slugged down the coffee and got the four-letter expressions of annoyance out of his system before coming off of break.

His notifications numbered in the two hundreds, his confidential messages in the dozens, and his e-mails in the single digits.  Thank God sixty-two of the notifications were reactions to Oliver Katz’s public complaint that he’d been training for his first Outgoing for six months only to be grounded until at least the new year. The kid was fresh out of his program and couldn’t possibly stop being a rising star in TitraCorp for something as stupid as stupid as a holiday policy from on high.

Thank you for your hard work, Ol.  Ground-breaking social science can wait for a fortnight.

He couldn’t send that, but he typed out a polite reassurance that the residency grant would not be invalidated or altered by the hiatus.  Half of the questions were addressed by his adjusting the timecards from December 17-31 and he said so before attending to the other half.

He had just approved an Outgoing that was forecast to return on the 15th of December when DSchiller’s location marker went on the move.  Officially, it was meant to make him easy to track down in case of an emergency, but it was widely known that Portia used it as an early warning system.

And it was headed in his direction.  He silently called to mind another four-letter word so it wouldn’t slip out when the boss arrived in 10…9…8…

The computer pinged three times in the remaining seven seconds, but his last act of management for the moment was to mute his notifications.

“Good morning, Director,” Dave said, standing up to accept the overly formal handshake that Schiller was known for.

“Good morning, Collins.”  Releasing his hand, Schiller took the seat usually reserved for fidgeting subordinates and sighed contentedly.  “I presume all hell has broken loose for you since my announcement?”

“No more hell than usual, sir.”

He wasn’t lying.  A policy had been handed down and Dave had accurately foreseen the storm clouds on the managerial horizon.  Hence the fortifying cup of coffee.  Years of experience were good for establishing routines and knowing dietary needs on a stressful day.

Dave immediately triggered the door’s closing mechanism and used the sound dampeners before he could question why the current head of operations had stopped by for an unannounced chat.  Schiller glanced over his shoulder and his smile almost reached his eyes.

“You’re not in trouble, Collins.  People can eavesdrop if they like.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.  If anyone notices I’m not the highest-ranking person they can complain to, they’ll jump at the chance to bother more senior management.”

Schiller had the mannerisms of someone twice his age, probably thinking it would give him gravitas, but it merely made him seem detached.  Consequently, it was the first time Dave had heard him laugh and took years off the man’s usual personality.  That didn’t erase the sense of foreboding that had clamped its hand on Dave’s shoulder the moment that the location marker had started to flash its in-transit signal.

“I’m kicking everyone out of the office for the holidays,” Schiller reminded him, “and I’m sorry to say that includes you.”

This was another bold statement that hadn’t been properly thought through.  “I’m sure someone will need me,” he responded.  “I’ve cleared my schedule…”

“And made yourself available should there be an emergency,” Schiller finished.  “Yes, I’ve been eavesdropping on your chat logs and am, as always, grateful for your dedication.  But the fact is that you haven’t taken an Outgoing for yourself in years and that seems an awful waste of a TempD.”

Rather than sounding benevolent, Schiller was coming dangerously close to quoting both his father and his ex-wife.  “I don’t see it as a waste,” Dave said with as much patience as he could muster.  “I didn’t get a doctorate in temporal studies to galavant.”

“And I didn’t hire you to be a travel agent for the likes of Ollie Katz.”  Schiller checked his wrist chrono and nodded to himself to approve some decision.  “You’ll find the details in your inbox and I will personally revoke your security access if I see you in this office on Monday.”

He showed himself out without allowing time for more interaction and Dave turned back to see a red-coded message from the OffDir account that sent out assignments.  Portia had thoughtfully set the subject to “Set your affairs in order.”

At least she had a sense of humor.

—

According to the time that blurred as the sedative took effective, Dave left the Current at 17:27. He fell asleep comfortably in a time-appropriate nightshirt—Sarah in Equipment had balked at the short notice—and woke up 330 years in the past.

Or so he assumed from the planned itinerary. It would take little effort for him to pin down a decade and probably a reference to a newspaper to determine if he had arrived in 1892 at all.

For now, he awoke in a heap on floorboards, his time-appropriate nightshirt tangled around his legs. In accordance with common sense, he attended to the business of breathing first.  The ache that caused didn’t imply he’d done himself an injury. Breathing winter air after a sudden shock always smarted a bit and as for the other aches, he was too old to bounce back from a crash without some muscular twinge getting in the way.

Five minutes later, he declared himself in no worse health than he had been at 17:27 and found his way into the apartment’s wardrobe.

Getting his affairs in order always meant finding a dog sitter, cleaning out the refrigerator,  and arranging for bills to be auto-paid.  When he knew an extended mission was in store, he left a spare keycard with a neighbor and arranged for regular check-ins.

This time, the itinerary had been so imprecise that he wondered if Andreas in 12B would still be living there when Dave booked his Incoming.

He had set his affairs in order, but in this tenement of the Queen Anne’s Mansion property, things were always in order. Resupply was grunt work assigned to people newly-qualified or recently-disciplined and it meant they could get credit for a mission without risking too much.  Both types of employees tended to overprepare to err on the safe side.

Nevertheless, the “petty cash” was intact and the clothing might be outmoded, but well-kept. He found something much more tailored while squinting through window to estimate the time of day.

By the time he checked the logbook, buttoned his coat against the chill, and extinguished the lamp, it was past nightfall and that meant that he could safely direct himself to mutton at the Albion.

He returned in better spirits to find someone familiar bouncing nervously on her half-frozen toes outside the apartment block and looking peeved.  Though he had never met her, the mousy young woman had the distinctive look of someone both hoping to be overlooked and wondering if they’d be recognized.  Apart from that contradictory set of mannerisms, she was wearing a coat from the 1910s and Reeboks under her dress hem.

“Miss Cross, I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

“I’m not supposed to be here until tomorrow,” Christina responded with an impatient nod of greeting that marked her as too cold for etiquette. “But Schiller said we had until the end of business to be on site and I didn’t know which clock he was using for end of business…”

“So you thought you’d experiment with hypothermia instead.”

“Thought you’d be more annoyed if I broke into your place and put a dent in the food storage while you had your usual mutton.”

And it would do some damage if his neighbors’ first impression was that he was an easy target for burglars. Even if the burglar was twenty-five and excelled at looking harmless.

“It’s good to see you, uncle,” Christine prompted. “I brought bread from home.”

Early or not, he had a procedure to follow and it could be followed indoors.

“I look forward to sharing it with you.”

Neither of them had yet settled into the local dialect, so he kept his mouth shut until they were alone again.

“My usual mutton?”

“Your memoir was on the TempD recommended reading.”  A pause as he unlocked the door. “My mom let me have her old 10th edition.”

He wasn’t sure how outdated that was now, but his oldest protege took pride in owning an antique copy of his first publication and he turned away to fumble with the lamp so she wouldn’t see a pained expression in response to what was meant to be flattery.

“‘I made a meager income for the time, but saved my shillings for a visit to the Albion.  This London establishment entertained such distinguished figures as—‘“

“Don’t quote me.”

“Charles Dickens,” she said before clamping a hand over her offending mouth.

“Don’t worry,” Dave said wearily. “You’re not the first to be overly awed.”

A smile peeked out from behind the fingers and she nodded again.  Someday, if she was unfortunate, she’d have avid readers of her own and he wished her future self a few embarrassing moments of her own.

“What else did you learn from the 10th edition?”

“That any well-funded fool…” Christina broke off mid-quote and he found himself appreciating the speed with which she caught her own mistakes. “Tourists can time travel for a lot of reasons, but academics should study how to live the life of that time and what death should mean to the people who make any given year their own.”

The last part came dangerously close to a comment in Chapter 4, but he let it slide.

“How many others are there?”

“Four.” 

All of them very recently arrived in graduate work and hopefully not as earnest.  Or perhaps they would all grow to find him deeply unimpressive.  He was much more comfortable with being considered a relic of a bygone era.

Everything in this apartment was meticulously arranged to blend in, but its tenant was not. Frock coat or not, well-versed in customs or not, Dave retrieved the one truly anachronistic object from a drawer of the oak-paneled desk and let the sensor accept his thumbprint.  A quick series of beeps signaled the bioprint acceptance and the valise sprang open.

She couldn’t have a personal computer or even access to a communications console, so Dave let her eagerly watch the transformation of her assignment into practical objects. Cross’ ‘uncle’ set the Skelekey to finding her assigned boardinghouse and it began rendering a working copy of a typical key.

“Should there be an emergency notification, I will receive it here. Should you or any of the others feel imperiled, I will address the matter here.”

He would give a more prepared lesson on technetiquette when he’d gotten some sleep and been contacted by the others.  Cross didn’t seem to mind the dry delivery, but pointed over his shoulder.

“Emergency notification.”

He immediately turned away and disabled the red-edged projection for privacy’s sake.

“Not an emergency, just a priority,” he said. “Schiller thinks I’ll pay more attention if he marks them as the end of the world.”

With decades of experience, he could use something as unexpected as the end of the world.  Or at least a thrilling mystery.  Being an academic who was wildly overqualified to babysit research trips, he was not likely to find either here.

“I’ll walk you home,” he offered.

He returned to the lonely home with a promise to call on Cross no later than noon.  A blue-red pulse of light from the bottom drawer reminded him that Schiller had found some unfinished business.

It wasn’t a script file, but thankfully, the Director hadn’t resorted to a video. Instead, the audio played and Dave could hear the slight wheeze that meant Schiller had recorded this in late October, when he was still fighting off bronchitis.  The man who got his affairs in order with a day’s notice snorted in mild irritation at Schiller’s need for the dramatic.

“Welcome home, David,” Schiller began solemnly. “Rather than see you spend another Christmas Day waiting for something to go wrong, I thought I’d stick you where you claimed to enjoy life. This is the time when you said that ‘the worthy study of history must examine the effect of life at its fullest and the meaning of death in its season.’”

Having been quoted again, Dave saluted the absent boss with a roll of his eyes and a sudden headache.  The recording continued under the impression that he had appreciated the recognition.

“Your life is to be commended, but I think it’s beginning to kill you. I can’t stand that.  Take this time to relearn the ways of life instead of the strategies for survival.  Come back having taught yourself the lessons and tell me how it changes your memoir.

“Or let it kill you,” Schiller suggested. “You loved your time then and I won’t ask questions if you’re as permanent a part of 1892 London as that flat near Petty France.  This is the time of year when we expect changes of hearts or changes of fortune, but you have five years then to decide if you’re in for such a change.  I hope they do you good.”

The abrupt ending was followed by a sudden darkness as the tech judged itself to be unnecessary. Its audience sat motionless, his body still in 1892 London while his mind struggled to find a resting place for its thoughts.  Five minutes later, light again blinked into existence as Schiller’s message was replayed by the recipient’s request. By morning, the record at TitraCorp showed it had been reviewed twenty times in one long period of darkness.

Whatever Dave’s resolution, it was not to be overheard.  The apartment was left in a pristine state, logbook still displaying the notes of a 1889 residency director. A valise was found in the bottom drawer, empty and unremarkable. The punctual travelers wondered what Cross had been drinking to hallucinate the arrival of the man who literally wrote the book on 1890s temporal tourism.

The only sign of life at its fullest was that the phantom absconded with all the shillings last recorded.