A Bullet in Time
Gotta be careful, peeking through temporal windows
Back on the air after a brief, surgical interlude. Here’s a short one, with a twist. I think it might be impossible to write a time travel story without a twist. What do you think?
A Bullet in Time first ran in the December, 2007 issue of SFCrowsnest SciFi Magazine (http://www.sfcrowsnest.com).
A Bullet in Time
by Ray Tabler
“Move me up a bit.” Collier peered through the ragged-edged temporal window.
Grimes adjusted a setting on his control panel. The scene visible through the meter-wide window seemed to sink slowly A gap in some tree branches afforded a better perspective.
“Hold it. That’s good.” Collier nodded. “Clear view of the road now. How much time do we have, Sir?”
Grimes glanced at his status screen. “Two minutes, fourteen seconds.”
“Plenty of time.” Collier turned away from the window floating in the middle of the white room and stepped around the table to his special chair. He shifted the padded supports on the table top this way or that, then settled into his chair.
Finally satisfied, Collier leaned forward to cradle his rifle and sighted through the sniper scope at the stretch of dusty road visible through the temporal window. “Ready.”
On his platform behind and raised slightly above, Grimes scanned the readouts and peered over Collier’s shoulder, through the window into the past. “Looks like the same type of country where I grew up.”
“Lots of places look the same through these windows, Sir.” Collier didn’t bother to look up.
“I wish it looked like the place where Miller grew up.”
Collier twisted around to glance at his superior before returning his attention to the task at hand.
“The pompous fool just won’t listen. I submitted three targeting requests last week, each one practically begging for some lead therapy! Miller rejected them all. Gave me some guff about them all being too far back, unpredictable consequences.”
“Target selection is a bit above my pay grade, Sir.”
Grimes snorted. “Above mine too, so it seems.”
A lone figure had come into view around a distant bend in the road. “Subject in sight.” Collier raised an eyebrow. “Could you query the computer, Sir? This one’s just a kid. He can’t be more than twelve.”
Reluctantly, Grimes interrupted his tirade to request a statistical analysis from the computer. “Subject identified, ninety-nine-point seven percent confidence level. I don’t have any other information on him. The paperwork just came down this morning, only enough time to enter the coordinates.”
“I’ll let him get closer.” Collier, watched the slowly-approaching subject, who kicked a rock along the road.
“Hitler was just twelve, once.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Looks like you’ll be stuck with me for a while, Collier.”
“Pardon me, Sir?”
“The promotion list came out this morning, and I’m not on it.”
“Sorry to hear that, sir.”
“Sure, you are.” Grimes gripped the railing at the edge of his platform, staring over Collier’s shoulder at the subject. “How many successful temporal adjustments you have, that’s all they look at come promotion time.” Grimes slapped the railing. “I’ll find a way to up that number, if it’s the last thing I do.”
The subject was much closer to the window now. Collier thumbed the rifle’s safety off with a soft snick.
Grimes gasped. “Hey, wait a minute! That kid, he’s—”
Collier’s finger caressed the trigger and the rifle cracked, loud in the white room. The bullet traveled less than a meter before traversing the plane of the temporal window and into the past. Automatically, Collier worked the bolt to chamber another round, but didn’t fire again.
After briefly studying his handiwork, Collier thumbed the safety back on and settled the rifle on the table. “Subject terminated.” He watched the window begin to collapse. “Now, what were you saying, Sir?”
“Hmm? I didn’t say anything.” Miller looked up from his control panel, and then finished shutting down the temporal window.
Collier blinked and stared at Miller. “Where’s Grimes?”
“Where’s who?”
Collier looked puzzled. “That’s weird. For a second there, I thought you were somebody else.”
“You thought I was...Grimes? Who’s that?”
Collier shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Strange.” Miller glanced at his watch. “Uh oh, I’m late. If I don’t attend this meeting they’ll shoot me.”
END
If you like A Bullet in Time, check out my novels at Novus Mundi Publishing, or just order them directly from Amazon:
A Grand Imperial Heir (sequel to A Grand Imperial War)
And visit my website, https://raytabler.com/, for Science Fiction You Can Enjoy!