Chapter 15
Ming Na Liu
19XX
Ming watched Bobby tie up the man so he couldn't move. "You've done this before?" Ming admired the knots Bobby was using. They were beyond anything she could have done. She needed to focus on the small things. One step at a time.
Bobby just nodded and picked him up by the shoulders. She directed Ming to grab his ankles.
"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Ming asked Bobby as they lowered him into the bathtub and turned off the lights.
"Don't forget, he's probably the cock who killed us," Bobby said. "In a tub that high, there is no way he'll crawl out easily. If he does, I've got the frypan ready for him."
Sitting at the table, Ming watched Bobby turn off the gas, pick up the retro-looking metal kettle and pour some hot water into a mug of instant coffee. The smell embraced the two women. She needed something normal to take the edge off the freaky.
"I love the first smell of coffee. It makes everything seem easy," Bobby said, leaning back.
"You're taking all of this quite well, Bobby. I think I'm still in shock." Ming sipped her coffee, letting the aroma replace the metallic tang in the air and ignoring the blood stain on the checkered black and white tile. It would have to come out soon, or it would seep into the linoleum. She had found some clothes in one of the bedrooms and replaced the ripped blouse. "Were they really dead? I can't believe it."
"Barbie told you before, but yeah." Bobby stared at her hand and the pinky finger, flexing them. "This is the only way time travel works for most people. The spirit can only inhabit dead bodies. The recently dead are the easiest. The longer the person has been dead, though, the greater the causality fuck-up. It's how all those stories of ghosts and zombies spread throughout the centuries."
"I don't like the idea of using someone like this," Ming said, hugging herself. "It feels like I'm violating her."
"If it makes you feel better, the longer you stay in the body, the greater the chance that Jessica will come back into it, once you leave."
Ming raised her brows, surprised at this new revelation. "Really?" Hope filled her voice. "Then she can live? How about you?"
Bobby took a sip and grimaced. "I don't think so. Your wounds healed quickly, but mine took too long. My body's spirit was most likely gone. As long as the soul stays near the body, you can get a quicker effect from the nanites. It feeds them."
"Soul? Nanites?" Ming asked, touching her chest. "Small robots are floating around my blood? Barbie said something similar, but do you expect me to believe that?" Panic welled up again, and she took a sip of coffee. The familiar action stabilized her, but it wasn't enough. She needed a piece of paper and a pencil.
"Maybe. The idea is as good as any. I'm not quite sure what was in the code I programmed, what with that piece of garbage in the window and the thing Barbie sent; everything got all mixed up. The last time I used this was to erase my memory of how to code, so I wasn't at my best at the police station. The piece of shit was probably buggy as hell. The block is gone, but that's not a good thing. I didn't want to ever do anything like this again."
Bobby crossed her arms. "I thought I could put everything back the way it was, but using the code is addictive, and it tends to write itself." She spat on the floor. "I'd forgotten why I'd locked it away, but coming here freed all of those memories." She slammed her fist against the table, almost knocking over the coffee. Grabbing a towel, she wiped up the spill and the spit.
Ming put some sugar in her coffee. "Why'd you block your memory? I think it'd be cool to travel in time." She stirred the drink and put the spoon on the saucer. "As long as I didn't have to share a dead body." She gave a nervous laugh and glanced around the kitchen for a pencil.
"That's because you don't know the cost." Bobby sipped her coffee. "Every time you change something with the code, there is a price to pay. The code mitigates costs but doesn't eliminate them. The first few times I used it, the cost was so small, I had no idea. It wasn't until Vlad started using it to sneak around in history that I caught on."
"Please, tell me." Ming's fingers twitched. She was jonesing for a pencil to write everything down.
Bobby looked out the window and took a deep breath. "Well, this all started about five years ago when my name was Petor..."
Bobby
5 years ago (201X)
"What do you think you're doing, Petor?" Vlad said, wiping his revolver down with a rag. "After you finish the job, you can't keep the gun. You have to toss it."
Petor looked up from the computer at his twin. "I will, brother, but this guy had some great videos." He flipped the laptop around and showed Vlad. "Look! This must be an underground concert. I've never seen Crue looking so good." He turned the computer back and patted his pants. "Fuck!"
"What is it?" Vlad dropped the rag he was using and picked up the gun again. "Somebody here?"
"No. I forgot to bring my memory stick. I can't download this video. There's some sort of computer code with it, too." Petor frowned. "I wanted to look at the whole thing. The quality is excellent."
Vlad scowled and picked up the rag again. "Forget the computer. We have to destroy it anyway. You know what Gregory said. 'No evidence.' You don't want Ivan involved, do you?"
"Don't worry. He'll never know." Petor closed the computer. He pulled out a plastic bag and a pair of branch clippers for a bonsai tree. Going to the body, he cut off the index finger and stuck it in the bag.
Vlad scrunched his nose. "Gregory just needed a picture. What are you doing?"
"This is for the password lock. I can't use his eyes. Somebody shot him in the right one," he said, grimacing at Vlad.
His brother just shook his head and continued wiping his gun. Petor put the plastic bag and the computer in his backpack and picked up his gun. He borrowed Vlad's rag and wiped his piece off. He was going to have a good time tonight.
✦
19XX
"What does a Motley Crue video have to do with time travel and me being stuck here?" Ming asked. "I know you like the music." She was cleaning the blood smear on the floor while wearing large yellow rubber gloves. The paper towel was already soaked through, but Ming didn't want to use a cloth that could be traced back to her. It felt wrong to manipulate evidence like this.
"I'm getting there. However, we should find out when we are," Bobby said, flipping through some newspaper in the pile by the door. "As I was saying..."
✦
201X
"If you could take your eyes away from the computer and help me survey the target, I'm sure Gregory would be happy," Vlad's sarcasm pierced Petor's fog.
"Huh? What? Oh yeah. The target." Petor rubbed his eyes to get the sleep out of them. "Give it up. He's in the middle of the American embassy. There's no way we can get in there." He turned back to the computer. Something about this code was calling to him the more he stared at it.
"Gregory won't accept that excuse, and you know how Ivan deals with failure. Why the hell did you bring that thing with you anyway?" Vlad asked, pointing to the computer. "It's not like you'll kill him with it, is it?" He scoffed.
"Har. It's like you and jelly beans. I know about the secret bag in your socks. Keep the surveillance. Let me know when you want to switch off." Petor turned back to the computer and ignored Vlad's sigh. He was onto something here. Putting on a pair of headphones, he started his new favourite Crue single, a recording from an underground concert Sixx had given a few years ago. He'd heard about it on the web, but there was no official copy anywhere. After he found the first bootleg, he looked everywhere for the others, but it was useless. It wasn't until he tried entering what he wanted in the final prompt line of the code that everything changed. At the time, it was just a lark. He didn't expect anything of it. When he'd hit enter, a bright light flashed through his screen. He'd thought the machine was broken, but when it faded, nothing had changed.
The next day, the target he was trailing wandered into a used CD and book store, Petor followed him and started browsing to blend in, and there the recording was. He couldn't believe it had worked. It was a gift from the gods. He'd bought it and rushed home, forgetting all about his job. It was probably a bust anyway. Nobody bought CDs anymore.
Luckily, Vlad had been following from a different direction, but it was close. They almost lost the target. Vlad was pissed and threatened to snap the disk in two. Usually, he didn't care what Petor did on stakeouts, but if they had lost the man, Gregory would have taken their balls. Petor promised never to do it again and to give Vlad all the bonuses they'd receive this time and the next to get the single back.
Ever since Petor had found the computer with that first special single on it, he had become obsessed. He couldn't remember who the target was, but that wasn't important. He'd started working on the new code, taking apart each section and testing how it worked. Scouring over the comments to find any secrets behind it. Each time he examined a line, the writer stared back at him. It was so familiar. Part of the time, it was as if he were the writer, but then something would jump out at him, and he was blown away. He could never create anything like this. It seemed to do the impossible. It could rewrite space and time, pulling things from the past into the future and reshaping reality, as long as the parameters were clearly defined. Whoever designed it was a genius and crazy. There was no mention of the cost either, but there had to be something.
He'd tested it with the CD. Now it was time to try something bigger. With Niki Sixx's drum solo echoing in his head, Petor typed in the name of the American diplomat, added an accidental trip down the stairs and finished it off with a gunshot by the bodyguard assigned to protect him. He hit enter.
Three hours later, Vlad was snoring, and the American embassy was silent. It had failed. Something was missing. Petor scratched his head and stared at the computer. The code was displaying an invalid message. Petor searched through the code but couldn't find what was wrong. Vlad snorted and turned over. "Must be nice to sleep when I'm dying here," he mumbled. "Why did the CD work and not this?" Petor looked out at the American embassy and sighed. The building wasn't going to suddenly open up and let him in.
"Stupid American. Why'd you have to cheat Gregory?" He drummed his fingers on the windowsill. "He doesn't like to lose." Petor watched the guards pass notes to each other, and it clicked.
"Of course. The programming notes," he gasped. "Not everyone does it, but there might be something here to explain what I did wrong." He went back through the comments in the previous notes and put in Sixx's drum solo again.
"Shut up over there," Vlad said, throwing a pillow. "I'm trying to sleep."
✦
19XX
"I set it up so that at the next dawn, a car would backfire outside. The noise would cause the security to check it out. This left the target exposed as he headed down to breakfast and vulnerable to a sniper, which Vlad took care of," Bobby said to Ming as he sat at the table. "After the success with the CD and the hit, I realized I could shape reality somewhat, but I couldn't force it to do things reality didn't want to do."
Ming stared at him, pulling back. "Are you telling me a computer code helped you assassinate Jym Blyant four years ago? I heard about his death. There was no way anybody could have breached the security in London."
"Yes. Gregory was happy too. He gave us a month off and a bonus, which I gave to Vlad." Bobby took a sip of the coffee and opened the newspaper. "It's February 16th, 1947. Looks like Bugsy Siegel will be reopening The Flamingo soon."
Ming grabbed the paper. "Bugsy Siegel? But he dies next month. We're in 1947? How?" She stuck her finger in Bobby's face. "You said you'd tell me how we travelled through time and space. Finish the story."
Ming's eyes were starting to bug out. She'd found some paper, but it wasn't enough. She couldn't accept that this was happening.
"Take it easy. I'm getting there. But first, we have to deal with him?" Bobby pointed his finger at the bedroom. The young man he'd knocked out had come to and was inching his way into the kitchen. Ming slapped her hand to her head, hyperventilating.
"Why didn't we hear anything?" she asked.
Bobby shrugged, "How should I know?" She picked up a frypan and stepped over to the young man.
✦
201X
"Why won't you use it again, Petor? Gregory is waiting for results," Vlad said, hands on his hips. He was standing over Petor's bed.
Petor blinked his eyes and shoved the pillow over his head. He waved Vlad away. "I thought you had enough of screwing up when we spent a week as kids in the Soviet era," he said through the muffled material. "If you had just left it alone," he trailed off. "You're lucky I found that LP recording, or we'd still be stuck there running from the baba yaga."
"Too many 'ifs', brother. I admit, getting stuck in 1960 Poland was not my idea, but I believe in you." Vlad leaned forward and shook Petor. "What you did with the diplomat was inspired. Gregory wants more, and we can't disappoint him."
"I'll think about it. Now leave me alone. I have to get ready for my date with Sasha tonight." Petor burrowed himself into the covers of his bed. He heard Vlad leave the room and uncovered his head. He stared at the door and reached under the bed to pull out his computer, setting it on the bed.
"Vlad doesn't get it. He doesn't see the danger behind this thing," he mumbled as he scrawled through the code. The beauty of the design in the code had seduced him. How the numbers worked in each section and how they all flowed together into a beautiful whole was poetry. Reality caressed him with one hand and grabbed his nut sack with the other. One wrong move and it would twist.
Things were perfect before he found the note hidden in a line of text. On the very last line, there was a prompt for a name. When he entered his name, a video message came up. He'd already watched it several times but had to see it again.
"If you're watching this, Petor, your life has gone to hell. Vlad is dead, and it's the code's fault. It finally extracted the cost." He stared at his older face. There was grey in his hair, and he was missing his pinky finger. Petor looked at his hand and flexed. It was still there. "This is not the first time I've used this code. Each time I've found it, I erased my memory of how to use it. It's too dangerous, and the cost is too high. I wish you'd believe me, but you have to experience the pain for yourself. Too bad others keep trying to unlock it for you. I want to tell you, but this isn't the time. Enter 'Motley Crue Bobby Warning' to find out. After that, please enter the command 'Code Forget' in the final prompt field. It's already set up and will protect you for a little while." Older him scoffed. "Although I know you won't do it until it's too late."
With a final wave, the video shut off. From what Petor could see, he was in America. "I can feel the danger, but what do you mean by the cost?" Petor scratched his head. Other than electricity, what did it cost to use this code?
✦
Ming Na Liu
February 16, 1947
"Cost? You said that before. You mean us coming here costs something?" Ming asked. "What was it?"
Bobby looked away. He reached for the kettle, ignoring the question. "Do you want more coffee?"
"Bobby?" Ming spoke in the same tone her mother used to use when she was a child. Bobby winced and slunk down in his chair, just like Ming did when her mother was on a tear.
"Aren't I supposed to be the mother? Shouldn't you speak to me with more respect?" She turned back to Ming and frowned.
"When you deserve it. What was the cost?" She stared at Bobby her eyes narrowing. This feeling she could get behind. This was who she was. One problem at a time. She tapped her foot.
"We died."
"What?!" Ming shot up, knocking her chair over. "You're lying. You have to be!"
"Back in the present, our bodies are dead. Time flows differently for us here. If we can return within the week, I can find a computer to recreate the code, or Barbie can activate the return program; we should be fine. There, only about twenty-four hours will have passed."
Ming started pacing back and forth in the kitchen. "You're only now telling me this?" She thrust her hands to her sides and started punching the sides of her leg. "What happens if we are later than that?"
"Then say hello to your new life as Jessica Something, or you'll vanish." He pointed to the bathroom. The water was running in the bathtub. "Maybe he can tell us our family names."
Ming rubbed her eyes with her fingers and let out a deep breath. This was not how she wanted to spend her week. Pushing her skepticism and doubt to the side, she focused on Bobby's tale. It was her lifeline. "Finish your story, please." Picking up the pencil she found in the drawer, she continued to write everything Bobby was saying.
"I'm almost done. Anyway, I decided to ignore the warning I'd sent myself, as the me who recorded it knew I would, and used the code one last time..."
✦
201X
"Come on, Petor, finish up your work. I have some important news to tell you."
Sasha said. They were video chatting while Petor was searching for a way to get to the target. Gregory was already upset at how long it was taking and was sending Ivan to join them in South Korea to 'encourage a better result'. As if the pungent smell of kimchi wasn't incentive enough.
"I'll be done soon. I just have to get through coding this program," Petor said. "It's proving tricky. I think I've included an extra space somewhere and got to crawl through it line by line."
Snort! "Sorry. I wasn't listening," Sasha said. "Whenever you talk about code, I tend to fall asleep."
Petor smiled. "I can always count on you to set me straight."
"That's what I'm here for." He heard a bell through the phone. "Hold on. I'll be back soon." She left to get the door.
"No rush." Petor scratched his head, and it came to him. Someone had paid Gregory a shit-ton of money to eliminate the head of a South Korean conglomerate. The problem was the security. There had already been three attempts on the man's life in the last two years. So, the target was surrounded by a layer of armed guards at all times. He went to and from work in armoured cars and never took the same route two days in a row. Petor had been in Seoul for the last two weeks, but still couldn't figure out how to get to him. Vlad had scouted the office, but nothing was getting in.
In the present.
There was a funeral that the Korean CEO was scheduled to go to next week. It had been in the papers, and when Petor had hacked into the target's calendar before the firewall kicked him out. It was perfect. He could jump there, kill him and jump back. He just needed to create a loop. He'd never been to the future, but how difficult could it be?
"I'll talk to you later, Sasha," he said to his girlfriend and hung up. She'd call back after she finished cursing his name, but he needed to concentrate on this. Sweat dripped off his forehead as he planned out the movement. "This is going to take time."
Three days later, Petor looked up. Vlad was sleeping across the room, clutching a bag of jelly beans. He was leaning against the wall, snoring.
"Vlad! Wake up!" he shouted.
"What?" his brother snorted and rubbed his eyes.
"I'm ready to execute the plan." He handed his brother a timer. "I'm going to set it for four hours. When I hit start, you do the same with the timer. When it hits zero, push the Enter button. You miss it, and I'll probably be dead. Got it?"
"Perfect. Good luck, brother." Vlad gave Petor the thumbs up.
Petor took a deep breath and hit Enter.
✦
February 16, 1947
"Is that it?" Ming asked.
The young man was thrashing in the bathroom, splashing water all over the floor. It was time to get out of this place. She shivered. When Bobby said Jessica's spirit was here, Ming couldn't stop imagining it was looking over her shoulder, demanding her body back. The guilt was going to kill her. She had to do something.
"No. I was able to go through time and take over the dead body at the funeral, but it had already been embalmed and was difficult to control." Bobby shrugged. "Anyway, after the panic subsided, I was able to kill the target, and Vlad pushed the button in time before they chopped off my head. When I woke up, I was slumped over my computer. Vlad was pounding my back and smiling. Two days later, the man's death was all over the news." Bobby grimaced. "The zombie wasn't."
Bobby stood up and went to the stove. He grabbed the kettle and poured himself a new cup of coffee.
"That's your fourth cup." Ming took it away from her and led her back to the table. "Please, what happened?"
✦
201X
'Motley Crue Bobby Warning.' Petor entered it into the same place he'd entered his name. He wanted to know what it was.
Nikki Sixx came on screen and plucked his guitar string. He faced the camera and tipped his hand to his forehead. "You sure you want me to read this?"
There was a muffled yes off-screen.
Nikki sighed and faced the camera again. "Hey, Petor. You had to fucking use the code to travel in time again, didn't you? The future, right?"
Petor's eyes bugged out, and he grabbed the screen. "How?"
"Listen, you piece of shit. You tried to warn yourself, and it failed like you knew it would. Here's the thing. Every time you change reality, it doesn't like to change and fights back. Nature goes by many names, Gaia. Ishtar. Others lost to the mists. You can mess with the past a bit if you're careful not to make too many waves; the cost is usually borne by time. However, the future is a dangerous animal. It's like snorting chaos. You may have noticed things missing around you or other strange things you can't explain happening. Check on Vlad's favourite snack. That's reality resetting itself, and she doesn't play nice." He played a quick riff on his guitar. "Also, check on your girlfriend when you get back to Russia." With a final riff, the video was gone.
"Sasha." Petor hadn't spoken to her since hanging up. He rang her from the apartment, but there was no answer.
"It's just a coincidence," he said and tried again.
✦
February 16, 1947
"That's what I kept telling myself, but I never saw her again. At first, I thought she was ghosting me, but her roommate said she'd just disappeared. One minute they were talking and the next... Poof!" Bobby flung his fingers up in the air.
"I'm sorry, Bobby," Ming said, placing her hand on Bobby's shoulder.
"That wasn't the worst part." Bobby looked up, and tears glistened in her eyes. "She was pregnant and had been trying to tell me that. After, I tracked down the Americans and gave myself to them. I used the code to find some of the things I caused, and it wasn't pretty. Maybe the U-2 incident. A few others, but I can't be sure. I didn't mind killing people," he shrugged. "It was my job, and I was good at it. But I didn't want to hurt innocents. The cost was too much. I didn't want anything to do with the code, but as long as I stayed in Russia, Gregory would find some way to use me, especially if he found out about what I could do. He already had Ivan, but his abilities were too destructive."
"What do you mean?" Ming asked. "What can Ivan do?"
"You saw it at my trailer and the station," Bobby said, shrugging. "The Americans put me in the witness protection program, and I set the code to make me forget. I destroyed all my notes and computer and came to San Francisco."
He raised his hands out and gestured to the 1940s kitchen. "Now I'm here, in the body of a woman and have to find a way back home before the week is out or we'll be stuck here for the rest of our lives."
"You mentioned Vlad's snack. Why?" Ming asked.
Bobby went sheepish. "A small thing, easy to miss. Vlad used to love jelly beans. He'd sneak them on every mission. One day, he started snorting caramels. When I called him on it, he said I was delusional. That was the final kicker."
Ming stared into her coffee and listened to the young man struggling in the bathroom, knocking against the tub. On the radio was Prisoner of Love by Perry Como. This was not how she expected to spend her life.
A crashing noise from the bathroom drew their attention. It sounded like the young murderer was breaking the shower. Bobby picked up the frying pan and went back into the bathroom. Ming sat at the table and gripped the sides to keep the room from spinning away. She stared at the paper, hoping for Al to suddenly appear.