“We have centuries of data too.” C.L. tapped their ancient laptop with a finger, as if all of history lived on its sad little hard drive.
I piled on. “Your data can’t be that great, if you overshot your target by over a century.”
Shweta made a wiping gesture with her hands. “Let’s stop arguing about theory. Can you tell us why you want to kill Comstock? That might help us understand your mission.”
“We believe that he’s the reason for the divergence. He started the process…” She searched for words. “He started misogyny? Does that make sense?”
Now I was really confused. “There was misogyny before Comstock. Can you be more specific?”
“No. I cannot.” Then her face softened. “But I will say that in my time it is worse. Much worse. We are dying out.”
I watched panic and mistrust distort everyone’s faces. Maybe the Daughters weren’t going to fix the timeline after all.
“Humanity is dying out? Like a species extinction?” C.L. sounded intrigued.
“Not humanity. Women. Queen type women who are… on our side.”
“Queen type?” Anita twirled a pen between her fingers. “You mean women with power?”
Morehshin shook her head. “More than power, but also less. You know I am saying too much already. I hope you will help me. This is our only chance.”
I thought about my disastrous conversation with Beth at UCI, and wondered if I’d sounded as crazy to her as Morehshin sounded to me now. Recalling Beth’s rejection, I felt a rush of sympathy for this traveler with her strange curses and stranger story.
“I know how to find Comstock, if you’ll promise not to kill him. I have a better plan. Maybe you can help.”
Morehshin pocketed the thing on the table. “We are all sisters.” She said it like a formal invocation. “Let us act as one.”
“Does that mean you won’t kill him?”
“I won’t kill him. Unless your plan is bad.”
“So what is your plan, Tess?” Anita sounded dubious.
“I told you I’ve been organizing with women in 1893. It’s collective action. For Comstock, there are things worse than death. We’re going to destroy his reputation.”
Morehshin’s snarl became a grin. “His individual reputation?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“I’m harmonized.”
I wondered how Morehshin had studied twenty-first-century English. Probably from flawed historical documents, or incomplete media files left in the archive caves. Sometimes she spoke in perfect idioms, and sometimes she sounded like bad translation software.
I looked at Anita. “I’m going to take her back to 1893 with me. It can’t hurt.”
“What the fuck, Tess. Of course it can hurt. Plus, you can’t take anyone with you anyway.”
“Well, Morehshin says she can take more than one person back. If she’s wrong, then we know she’s a fraud. If she’s right, then we’ve got a valuable ally in this edit war.”
Shweta took a deep breath. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think Tess is right. Berenice was dead, and she’s probably not the only one. We need to do everything we can to stop the edit war and prevent these Comstockers from destroying the Machines.”
Morehshin nodded. “We need to follow this thread back to its beginning. It’s the only way to survive.”
Several other Daughters were nodding too.
We called a vote and it was unanimous. Morehshin would come with me to fight the Comstockers, without using violence. Whether we faced a strong divergence, a plot to destroy the Machines, or simply a melee in the edit war, we were on the same side. Unless Morehshin decided to go all Great Man assassin on me. I glanced at her, registering that her irises had no imperfections in them at all. It was as if she’d been engineered. I looked down at my hands, the knuckles slightly swollen, skin creased. Would I be able to stop her, if Morehshin decided murder was the only way? Then, guiltily, I wondered if I’d actually want to.
We arrived in Flin Flon two days later. I still had official permission to continue research on the Columbian Exposition, and I wrote Morehshin into the meager budget as a research assistant. After the usual flight delays, followed by scheduling difficulties at the Machine, we were in position. Rumor spread quickly that a traveler from the future would be demonstrating new functionality, and several off-duty techs showed up to watch. This was a lot more unusual than a traveler covered in cyanobacteria. Many people didn’t believe group travel would ever be possible. I braced myself for a disappointing plan B, where the wormhole didn’t open and I had to go through alone.
Around us, the tappers thrummed to life, four joining in to beat a light rhythm on the rock. Morehshin put her left arm around my waist and scratched the air overhead with her free hand. A black square materialized beneath her fingers, like she’d revealed a circuit breaker box hidden in the fabric of reality. Instead of switches and buttons, the square glowed with thin strands of rippling fluid. I could hear a few gasps in the room, and I realized that my own mouth was hanging open. Abruptly, Morehshin mashed her hand into the square, and her fingers took on a faint luminescence. I thought of all the rules I’d memorized in school about how the Machine worked. One of the best-known limits was that it never sent multiple contemporaries to the same place at the same time. Trying to send several people sequentially to the same time didn’t work either—it had been tried repeatedly, with occasionally disastrous results.
Morehshin’s arm tightened around me, the floor rushed with silty water, and the air exploded into wormhole nothingness. Then we stood, still touching, in a dark, smoky cabin. We’d made it back to 1893. Together.
FIFTEEN
BETH
Irvine, Alta California (1992 C.E.)
A week before school started, my father called a family meeting to discuss what he called “our agreement.” Ever since fourth grade, when teachers started giving letter grades instead of stars and sad faces, I’d been under contractual obligation to get straight As. If I failed to keep my end of the bargain, I would be placed on restriction until the next report card came. I can remember my mother’s earnest face as she explained it to me when I was eight, quoting from a book she was reading about how to maintain student discipline. I’m pretty sure my parents still had the paper I’d signed back then, consenting to their terms.
The contract had led to a lot of lonely months in my room during elementary school, imprisoned for a B-minus in penmanship and a C in language arts. Eventually I’d learned all the tricks to getting As, almost none of which had to do with being smart. Which was why my father had to detain me for new reasons all the time. But not today, apparently.
“You’ve stuck to our plan to get straight As in school, Beth, so we’re going to extend weekend curfew to 1 A.M. As long as you keep your grades up, and start working on your college applications when school starts.”
My mother looked up sharply from a pile of open binders on the table, made an indistinct noise of affirmation, then returned to color-coding her semester calendar.
My father was looking expectantly at me, and after years of dodging bullets I knew what he wanted to hear.
“Wow, thanks! I already started working on my college applications.” Then I gave him the nice daughter smile and he nodded.
Apparently, I was in their good graces. But I knew from years of experience that these promises of freedom were often quickly followed by new infractions of as-yet-unknown laws. Possibly it would turn out that we’d always worn shoes in the house, and I was supposed to be cleaning the windows every week. Or I’d get home at 1 A.M., only to discover that I should have known the rule only went into effect after I’d put those college applications in the mail. I watched my father eating, totally absorbed by the curried shrimp he’d made, his hands covered in scuffs and scars from decades of working on cars.