The silence in the room was unbearable. War Council members looked to one another in agonized expectation. The enemy had launched its missile. No one knew when it would hit, where it would land. Whom it would affect.
When it happened, there was hardly any time to acknowledge it before the consequences took effect. General Steffler’s expression turned to one of shock. He glanced down at his body, felt his insides begin to disintegrate, and let out an agonized scream that was cut short as he was erased from existence.
The rest of the room’s occupants exchanged glances for a few more seconds before letting out a collectively held breath. Casualties seemed to be minimal, and they all thanked whatever deity they believed in that they had not been affected. At least in a way that was evident. It wouldn’t be until they left the aegis of the War Room’s perception filter that they would have their memories reformatted to accommodate their current surroundings. Until then they could only check the readings on their computers to determine what changes were instituted as a result of the strike.
“What was the target area of that missile?” The question was barked out by the new general who suddenly stepped forward from out of thin air to take place of Steffler. Everyone else in the room was too used to this occurrence to bother with such trivial details as having a light-skinned male with a full beard of white hair that matched what remained on his mostly bald scalp replaced by a middle-aged woman with dark skin. That was par for the course in this type of warfare.
“Twenty-five years, Ma’am,” a young technician replied from his console.
The resulting murmurs that this news was met with was punctuated by the general’s own remark of surprise. “Twenty-five … Well, it looks like they’ve just upped the stakes in this game.” Turning to the lieutenant at the communications console, she ordered her to contact their enemy’s spokesperson.
The young officer hesitated only long enough to check her computer for the name of this general that had popped into existence, as far as she and the rest of the people in the War Room were concerned. “Yes, General T’Laecky.”
The general paced, peering at the faces of the other high officers at the command center and the council members at the back as she did so. She didn’t need to wonder why these comrades of hers whom she worked alongside for years gave her such blank expressions, as if they had never seen her before or knew what kind of person or officer she was. She could guess the reason for it. These familiar faces, a few of whom she even considered trusted friends and had over for dinner many times over the years, were meeting her for the very first time, from their point of view.
“Signal incoming,” the young lieutenant reported after a moment or two.
General T’Laecky stepped over to the hologram projectors and accompanying cameras, so that when her opponent’s image appeared as a life-size image shimmering transparently in the front of the room, she would be facing it directly as if they were right in front of each other.
The image that formed was of another middle-aged woman, extremely fair-skinned and with a shock of wild, bluish-white hair. Her uniform was non-military, in stark contrast to T’Laecky’s own attire, and she looked more like the head of a corporation than an officer. T’Laecky wondered if her opponent’s government had been altered somehow, in the wake of one of their strikes, to have brought this about.
She didn’t give her enemy’s representative a chance to speak. “Twenty-five years; are you crazy?” she bellowed.
The woman’s image flickered from some technical bug but otherwise did not flinch or react to being yelled at right up front. Instead, she smiled. “Afraid, testaki?” Testaki was the name of a critter that used to be in abundance in the woman’s homeland. Declared a public nuisance, they were exterminated to the point of extinction years ago. Many in her land had never even seen one, but the expression was still used to bait those they were trying to belittle.
“You have some chelpas on you,” T’Laecky shot back—a chelpa being a fruit that resembles reproductive organs found only on males.
“And you don’t have any!” The wild-haired woman dropped her composure to match the general’s arrogance. “Cowards, the lot of you! Fire on us again, and we’ll go back one hundred years!”
T’Laecky sputtered, perplexed by the apparent reckless stupidity of her enemy. “A hundred … You people are so ignorant, you don’t even know what happened a hundred years ago! You don’t even know what you would be messing with!”
The image snapped off in response, effectively irritating her more than any return taunt would have done. She spun around and looked at her companions, who were visibly uneasy, and made more so by her sudden command: “Give me a number!”
It wasn’t the older council members but one of its youngest who spoke up, cautioning against striking back so soon without proper research and debate. But then perhaps that only made sense, since it was the younger members that had the greater risk in these matters, and statistically ended up being affected more often and more extensively than those born further back from the strike points.
“So are we to give up?” T’Laecky countered. “Let them win and walk away with no reprisals?”
The War Council agreed that they were not going to admit defeat, but they needed time to decide when best to attack. Since the enemy had already set twenty-five years ago as the current maximum target date, the council approved matching this and setting a missile for the same number of years.
T’Laecky argued that any strike in the same year or sooner would not have the effect needed to cow their enemy; she asked for at least one more year to be added to that. The council did not answer but set their heads down to their personal monitors to study the events of twenty-six years prior, trying to ensure that nothing too catastrophic could affect their own people from among the possible outcomes.
Finally, after lengthy discussions about the potential temporal fallout that could result, the oldest council member turned to T’Laecky and gravely nodded, speaking the words “twenty-six years” in a voice that was too low for the general to hear. But she understood what was being allowed her, and she stepped over to the missile technician to relay her orders to him.
Together, they selected an exact date in the past and the spot where they hoped it would do the most damage—to the enemy only, with a little luck—and the technician primed the missile with the stroke of a few buttons on his keyboard. Everyone, the general included, looked anxiously at each other, praying that they had made the right decision.
Allowing for sufficient preparation, the technician finally fingered the key that initiated the launch procedure. Targeting systems activated, seeking out the intended target point, and the tachyon drive warmed up to propel it where it needed to go. After the missile travelled for a few seconds in the present time, the drive engaged and the missile winked out of existence and literally became part of history.
Then came the expectant period of fretful worry that what they had committed would backfire against them. In a war like this, not only the enemy was affected. “Friendly fire” was an almost definite certainty, the only question being how bad it would be. The further back the missile was sent, the longer it would take before the temporal blast cloud would reach them. When it detonated, it didn’t send out shrapnel or radiation or anything so mundane. It emitted waves of a reality-altering substance that messed with things at random within the blast radius, with unpreventable ripple effects extending out beyond the perimeter to cause additional, unfortunate results for those not intentionally targeted.
The perception filter allowed those within its area of influence to recognize and acknowledge the changes that trickled down through the timeline, but it could do nothing to prevent the changes from happening. Nothing could. If some change in the past prevented the birth or conception of someone who would have otherwise continued to exist, he or she would be erased from reality as soon as the “blast cloud” soared forward through time to finalize the effects.
Tense seconds passed. They only had to wait two seconds more. The general gave out a cry of pain that lasted only a moment, and then it, along with the pain itself that elicited the cry, immediately ended. She turned to the council members, whose reactions mirrored the surprise on her face, or what was left of it, as she reached up to paw at her now-cybernetically enhanced features with a prosthetic metal hand.
The entire left half of her body seemed to have been replaced by robotic parts, substituting for flesh and organs that were lost in some yet-to-be-remembered incident of long ago. Upon leaving the War Room, the memories would be available to her, and the shock she presently felt would be gone, as the fate that brought about such conditions would become part of her past—understood, acknowledged, accepted.
The faces that stared at her were not all familiar; some officers and council members had been replaced by ones she no longer knew—or rather wouldn’t remember yet—and she lamented the absence of those whom she had considered to be confidants.
The video wall-screen at the front of the room (there was no hologram projector in evidence anymore, leaving this as the means to communicate with their opponent) came to life, bringing back to them the image of the woman who was spokesperson for their enemy. Her bluish-white hair was neatly coiffed.
“This is Director Hanley, responding to your attack,” she said in a calm, unhurried tone. “As you persist in continuing this game between our nations, rather than seek out a more peaceful solution, we have no alternative but to respond in kind. If you come to your senses and realize that a truce may be more beneficial to both our peoples, contact us rather than pursuing a more drastic course of action.”
Speechless, everyone sat with eyes glued to the screen as it snapped off. And the room was as still as the grave. One technician, a tall, olive-complexioned young man with a tribal hairstyle who had most definitely not been seated at that terminal earlier, announced in an overly proper accent that was the usual result of learning a language not your own at a prestigious institution: “Missile being launched, sirs and madams. Its buildup signature confirms that its destination is at least as far as its predecessor’s.”
The general paused, still adjusting to the presence of this newcomer in the chair previously occupied by the technician she had plotted with. That young man had been very attractive, she recalled, taking another moment to wonder whether he still existed, and perhaps just followed a different lifestyle, or had not been promoted to the position he had held.
That he had not dissolved before her eyes was a good indication that he was in fact alive somewhere. If he had never been born in this new reality, his erasure could be instantaneous, whereas meeting with a violent end at some point in one’s new past usually resulted in that devastation being forced on the unfortunate person all at once. Occasionally, however, unexplained glitches would result in rough transitions, the resolution process straying from these rules.
His replacement spoke up again. “Alterations in history showing changes being enacted as of thirty-five years ago.”
“Thirty-five,” T’Laecky repeated in a soft breath. “At least they didn’t go through with their original threat of a hundred years.”
Deflated, and feeling like the weight of the world rested upon her and its fate dependent upon what she would say or do next, she turned to the council and deferred to their will. But by then the blast wave had reached their year, and she found herself staring at a row of empty seats at the back of the War Room.
Turning back to the command center portion of the room, she took in the faces of the officers and technicians, some familiar, some new, and wondered what could have happened to bring about this new change. Had the War Council never been formed? Was it disbanded, with control put firmly in the hands of the military? Glancing about, she could see other generals at their stations, their faces looking almost lascivious in the way they ogled their monitors.
A quick check of their insignia confirmed what she feared: she was the highest ranking among them. Wishing she could pass off decision making to somebody—anybody—else, she slowly acknowledged that the choice of retaliation would be hers and hers alone.
She weighed the actions that were taken so far, by both them and their enemy, and wondered how it could have escalated to the point at which it was now. When had days become weeks? Weeks become months? Months become years? And now the attacks were being targeted at points in time that were decades in the past!
“Prime the next missile.” The sentence left her mouth and hung in the air, leaving her to wonder if it was even she who spoke it. The technician—she didn’t even bother to see who was sitting in the chair now, but the voice wasn’t familiar—acknowledged the order and began the procedure.
“Incoming transmission from the enemy, Ma’am,” a new voice told her.
“Put it—” T’Laecky began, looking up to find that there was no longer any wall-screen to look at. Audio only then? “Let me hear it,” she sighed.
With a crackle from the speakers and a brief burst of static, a voice filled the room. It wasn’t female anymore; the representative was male and his voice was stern and decisive. “As we expected, you plan to retaliate in kind with another counter-attack. Anticipating this, we had primed another missile in advance and shall send it back now before yours is fully ready.”
The shock on her face was reflected by everyone else in the room. She turned to a balding male technician and asked how they could not know about the second missile.
“They must have held off initiating the tachyon drive while engaging everything else,” came the reply.
Was that always the thing that alerted their systems, she wondered, thinking furiously and cursing her lack of knowledge regarding the technical side of this weaponry. Had their technology been affected? Made less advanced?
Sparks burst from consoles all over the War Room.
“It’s happening,” the technician warned, his voice betraying his anxiety. “Fifty years ago,” he added.
The sparking of the instrumentation intensified. “What the hell is wrong with the equipment?” T’Laecky shouted in irritation.
More furious sparking caused the technician to rise and stand away from his console. “We’re losing the perception filter,” he replied, his nervousness turning to full-on fear. Many in the room gasped at that.
“But then we won’t know about the changes that happen. Our memories will accept whatever new conditions exist in this reality. Will we even know that we are in a war? How to fight it?” Absently, she glanced back at the area where the War Council used to be, the wise ones, the deciders. There was no one now to answer her questions.
“The missiles—” she began, not even knowing what to ask about them.
“They’re gone,” a different voice—another technician from across the room—answered. “The blast wave is rough this time. Apparently there is a lot to restructure.”
“We still have the one that’s being primed,” a third technician amended. “Somehow it’s keeping its hold to this reality.”
“Fire it,” T’Laecky commanded.
“Target point?”
“A hundred years.”
There was no time for anyone to react to this or question it. With maybe no more than seconds remaining before the new reality became firmly established—and they perhaps lost their ability to oversee or discover the changes—a date was entered and the missile sent on its way.
T’Laecky collapsed into the nearest chair, metallic parts creaking as if badly in need of oil. She closed her eyes, no longer caring what changes would come about. It was over. She wouldn’t be able to monitor what transpired even if she wanted to, and she no longer did. Nor was retaliation an option any longer.
Somehow the invention of the perception filter had been negated, and her supply of missiles seemed to have gone with it. What could that mean?
The lights flickered in the War Room, then went out, leaving just a few working computer consoles to provide some dim illumination. T’Laecky opened her eyes. The somber darkness matched her mood.
It took longer this time, of course. Sending it back one hundred years would do that. The blast wave would be headed their way soon enough, however, and change their lives irrevocably—and for the last time?
She trudged to the door of the War Room. No point in staying here in its gloomy environs. It no longer offered protection of any kind. The perception filter was failing, disappearing, and she could sense her mind becoming clouded and confused. Inside, outside; it really wouldn’t make a difference now. She reached for the knob on the door leading outside, but it vanished before she could grasp it.
The bright sunshine outside made T’Laecky squint. (Was she recently in a dimly lit room?) She peered up and looked directly at the bright orb in the sky, making her eyes tear. (Two eyes, both with teardrops welling up in them. Should that be right?) Blinking against the light and looking away, she wiped at her eyes with her left hand. (Why did this seem strange? Was she always left-handed? Was there a reason she was staring at her left hand like it was not there a minute ago?)
Her daughter was off somewhere playing with the other children. The annual International Amity Day proceedings allowed ambassadors to bring their children, playgrounds set up with daylong events to entertain them. There was a young girl with bluish-white hair visiting from a distant country whom her daughter liked to play with and had looked forward to seeing again since last year’s event, and T’Laecky promised she would bring her again to play with the girl this year if her parents brought her.
She could spot the two girls chattering by the swing sets, waiting their turn. She was glad that the children of foreign nations could get along with each other in an air of peace and community. Her smile felt strained, as if there were some reason for her not to smile. But for the life of her she couldn’t recall what that reason could be.
A Finalist in 2020’s J. F. Powers Prize for Short Fiction and the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, Anthony Regolino has had his fiction and poetry included in various anthologies devoted to fantasy, horror, science fiction, crime, and comedy.
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