The Decameron 2.0

Day 9.3 Coincidence - THE LOST LUGGAGE OF TIME jespah

"Some rain, eh?" A short woman of indeterminate age scrambled onto a barstool in a decidedly unladylike fashion.The other patrons grunted."I heard you were interested in a story. Well, here's one." She ordered whatever the barkeep had on tap and then launched right in.

*****

The last time Kieran Shapiro traveled in time, he went to the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Ostensibly, it was to observe the rioting, but the truth was that Kieran was a bit of a thug and he wanted to participate.

Hence he would, like any oddly focused time shepherd, travel from war to war, riot to riot, and nasty incident to nasty incident.

His boss, Elsbeth Mayville, found him distracting but competent. His job was to assure that time stayed the way it was supposed to. That was the thing with the time shepherds; they were there to keep it all orderly. Time was disorderly but the real mess was in changing it.

No one else had wanted the chaotic parts of time, but Kieran had jumped at the chance.

"El," he asked her, one day in 6743, "what do you think about the firing on Fort Sumter?"

"Oh?" Elsbeth was rather young to be in charge of time shepherding, but she was a replacement for the last guy in that role, Dan McAllister, who had been forced out due to changing too many things for the better, thereby causing overpopulation until the time shepherds could repair his well-intentioned damage. That simply would not do. Elsbeth, though, she knew enough to keep everyone's paws off time and stop trying to play God and alter it.

"See, I was thinking," Kieran ran a hand through a Mohawk that had been dyed forest green, "I could go, check on the shots, you know, that sort of thing. Make sure McAllister didn't screw anything up." He'd never been one for detailed explanations.

"But we already know there was an American Civil War," she said, after checking a file projected onto a small screen implanted in front of her left eye. "And that was a good, what four hundred years ago?"

"Four fifty, I think. Something like that."

"Either way, Shapiro, it's old and dead and it still went off. The details may have changed but we just don't give a damn. It makes no sense to hark back to it. I mean, do you honestly care if the plague of 2216 had four million victims, or five?"

"I imagine the victims care."

"You going soft on me, Shapiro?"

He laughed a little. "Of course not. What about My Lai?"

She made a face. "Maybe Mogadishu? Kent State?" She knew he'd never go for a Buckingham Palace tea party.

"No, no. I want something bigger. More insane."

"You mean more chances of being killed if we don't yank you out of there on time." She returned her attention to the tiny screen and blinked or shook her head a few times in order to paginate. "Ah, there. It's perfect." She slapped him upside his head, thereby neatly – albeit roughly – transferring the data to his own screen.

"The Battle of Hastings? You said Fort Sumter was too old. This is even older."

"Doesn't matter. This one's big. And you're bound to get an axe in your arse if you don't watch it."

"Ah. I take it this has to go?" He briefly patted his Mohawk.

"Of course. And get changed. Take a freeze gun with you."

"Really?"

"Just in case."

"You're the boss."