Chronica Read online

  Chronica

  Also by Paul Levinson

  FICTION

  Borrowed Tides (2001)

  The Plot to Save Socrates (2006, eBook 2012)

  Unburning Alexandria (2013, paper and eBook)

  Dr. Phil D'Amato series

  The Silk Code (1999, eBook 2012)

  The Consciousness Plague (2002, eBook 2013)

  The Pixel Eye (2003, eBook 2014)

  NON-FICTION

  Mind at Large: Knowing in the Technological Age (1988)

  Electronic Chronicles (1992)

  Learning Cyberspace (1995)

  The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution (1997)

  Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium (1999)

  Realspace: The Fate of Physical Presence in the Digital Age, On and Off Planet (2003)

  Cellphone: The Story of the World's Most Mobile Medium, and How It Has Transformed Everything (2004)

  New New Media (2009, 2012)

  Chronica

  Paul Levinson

  JoSara MeDia

  Chronica

  Copyright © 2014 by Paul Levinson

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  1st ebook edition published December 2014 by JoSara MeDia

  An earlier, very different version of Chapter 2 was published as "Advantage, Bellarmine" in Analog Magazine, January 1998.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-56178-031-0

  Cover illustration by Joel Iskowitz

  To the original four.

  CONTENTS

  Also by Paul Levinson

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Appendix

  Also published by JoSara MeDia

  Previously in The Plot to Save Socrates

  Sierra Waters, a graduate student in 2042 New York City, is given an unusual manuscript by her mentor Thomas O'Leary, who soon after disappears. The manuscript is a previously unknown dialogue in which Socrates receives a visitor after Crito on the eve of Socrates's death - a man who claims to be from the future and offers Socrates a chance to escape the hemlock that won't change history: a clone of Socrates will be given the hemlock, so Socrates can escape to the future.

  Sierra is not sure what to think of this manuscript, but she and her boyfriend Max go off to London in search of Thomas. There they discover a room with chairs which can travel through time, as explained to them by William Henry Appleton, the great 19th-century American publisher, who has used such a chair to travel to the future. Sierra and Max travel to Londinium 150 AD, where Sierra to her horror sees Max attacked and killed by Roman legionaries.

  She goes to Alexandria, where she meets Heron, the enigmatic ancient inventor, and his student Jonah. Sierra is now attempting to save Socrates - in the way indicated in the manuscript - as much as she is looking for Thomas, and her travels take her to Phrygia (later Asia Minor) in 404 BC, and the bed of Alcibiades, Socrates's beloved student. Alcibiades, who in our history is killed by Spartan mercenaries when in bed with a concubine, is saved from this fate when Heron arrives with legionaries minutes before the mercenaries arrive, and awakens Alcibiades and Sierra. In the ensuing escape and aftermath, Sierra and Alcibiades fall in love, and Heron enlists them in the plot to save Socrates which he is now traveling through time to set in motion. But Sierra and Alcibiades gradually come to realize that Heron - or some future version of himself - is trying to kill them.

  In the end, Sierra not Heron rescues Socrates and takes him to 2042, where Socrates meets with Thomas, who has reappeared and is thrilled to see the philosopher. But Alcibiades is injured in the rescue and he and Sierra are separated. Desperate to find him, Sierra goes to Alexandria, 410 AD, where she has reason to think Alcibiades may have gone, and where she takes on the identity of Hypatia, who in our history was killed by fanatics in 415 AD.

  Previously in Unburning Alexandria

  Sierra Waters is in the ancient city of Alexandria, hoping that Alcibiades her lover will know to look for her there. But as the months go by, Sierra's personal motive is replaced by a reason much grander and more profound: do what she can to save the ancient Library of Alexandria from burning. History discloses that the Library was burned at least three times, with the flames taking as many as 750,000 scrolls, many of them one-of-a-kind works.

  To implement her plans in Alexandria, Sierra has traveled to the far future, and had her face remade to look like Hypatia, who died from a mysterious illness. Sierra as Hypatia increases her power in the ancient Library, and attracts a variety of fictional and historical characters to her cause. But there's danger in having that world think Sierra is Hypatia: in our history, Hypatia will soon die a horrible death, ripped apart by a mob of early Christian fanatics.

  Sierra soon realizes that, even with all of her friends and her prowess, stopping the burnings of the Library will be beyond her power. She decides, instead, to save whatever few scrolls she and her friends can rescue from the Library. Her intent is to bring them to the future, where they could be digitally copied and put beyond the reach of any flames.

  Heron, indeed, is desirous of seeing the Library burn, first because he is concerned about how the saving of any texts could alter history, but also for a deeper, more personal reason. In his youth, Heron wrote Chronica, a detailed explanation of how to construct a time travel device, and how to use it to manipulate history. He does not want Chronica to fall into anyone's hands – least of all, Sierra's – and he deploys all of his power to making sure the Library burns, and with it, his Chronica.

  Sierra and her colleagues begin to get help from an unexpected source: androids from the future, who were likely constructed by an older version of Sierra herself, but who also seem to be doing Heron's bidding at times. These androids have a way of instituting "re-sets," in which pinpoint events in history, such as deaths, can be reversed. One of Sierra's friends benefits from a re-set, and it seems that Max, whom Sierra saw killed on the shore of the Thames in The Plot to Save Socrates, may have had his death re-set to life, too.

  Indeed, Max proves to be Sierra's most reliable ally, and she needs all the help she can get, since Heron also has a spy deep in Sierra's cadre of supporters. Sierra and her group are almost completely foiled in their attempt to rescue scrolls from the Library, but she and Max manage to save a few books – including Chronica. They deliver the scrolls to William Henry Appleton, who promises to do what he can to get them published.

  But Sierra, still looking like Hypatia, yearns to return to Alexandria, still hoping that Alcibiades might somehow still show up, after all. On the day in history that Hypatia is to be murdered, she is attacked by the Christian mob, who hack her to pieces.

  Heron, who directed the mob to Hypatia, thinks he has at last disposed of his enemy, Sierra. But all he has killed is an android, who has take
n on Sierra's appearance as Hypatia. In New York City in the 1890s, Sierra – now looking like herself – walks down Fifth Avenue with Max, and they consider their next move.

  Chapter 1

  [New York City, 2062 AD]

  Sierra and Max didn't have to wait too long to learn the change in the future their time in the past had wrought. They arrived in New York City on November 20, 2062 – the 120th anniversary of Joe Biden's birth. It was not yet quite a national holiday, but it was noted in the press on every screen, where it was predicted that Joe Biden's birthday would indeed soon be a national holiday. He had been the 44th President of the United States, serving two consecutive terms, from 2008 through 2016. The nation loved him for many reasons, most importantly because he had revolutionized life in the U.S. with the 200 mile-per-hour fast-rail system he had begun to install across America in his second term.

  Sierra and Max were stunned. "What happened to Obama?" they asked each other at the same time.

  The Web gave them their answer a moment later. Obama was the 46th President of the United States, serving just one term from 2020-2024.

  How this might have happened – how what they had done in the past might have caused this astonishing change – took a little time to discover. Max hit upon it late in the evening of their return to 2062 AD. "Ah, here it is." Max highlighted a few lines in the text on his screen and passed the phone to Sierra. The two thought of it as a phone, even though it had little resemblance to the phones they grew up with and had last seen and used in 2042. "It says here in Biden's autobiography that he was very taken by a book he read in parochial school as a kid – a treatise by Aristotle on good government and the dispensing of justice."

  Sierra looked at the screen and nodded. "That was one of the texts we rescued from Alexandria and left with Mr. Appleton." The screen was on a stud Max had been wearing on his jeans. It was the size of an archaic postage stamp, which expanded to the size of his hand as he held it in his palm. They had picked one up for each of them, likely greatly overpriced, at a shop that catered to tourists on Fifth Avenue. They paid with their retina scans, still attached to their still active bank accounts from 2042.

  "Biden said it taught him something about connecting to the people, which served him in good stead in the Democratic primaries in 2008, which he won." Max clucked his tongue. "Amazing. What else has changed?"

  "No way to find out except by living here a little," Sierra said, profoundly shaken.

  "And the reason why the two of us still remember our original reality?" Max asked, though he already knew the answer. But he found it reassuring to hear it, anyway, from Sierra, his partner in this something other than sanity.

  "Because we came from Reality 1, in which Biden was Obama's Vice President from 2008-2016," Sierra replied. "Our actions in the past created Reality 2, but since we're still from Reality 1, we remember it."

  "That makes sense," Max said, and breathed out slowly. "I guess the other big question now is what should we do about it?"

  ***

  They awoke the next morning, legs and arms entwined, neither at first aware of where they were, except together in bed.

  But reality came quickly upon them. "We knew something like this would happen," Max said, stroking Sierra's hair, kissing her, and arising from the bed. He reached for his clothes, crumpled on the chair.

  "No," Sierra said, about the clothes. "We need something 21st century."

  "Right, of course," Max said, and went for a suitcase with the new clothing they had quickly purchased at the tourist-trap store on Fifth Avenue yesterday. They had arrived there from the Millennium Club a few blocks up the street, about 10 minutes before the store closed. "But there was no point in rescuing the Aristotle scrolls from the Library," Max said, returning to his initial thought, "if we didn't want them to change our world in some way, with any luck for the better."

  "I know," Sierra said, not particularly happy, but not unhappy either, just still in some kind of shock, Max thought. He enjoyed looking at her, enjoyed watching her pull undergarments and jeans and shirt out of the suitcase, enjoyed watching her put them on almost as much as he enjoyed her taking them off.

  "You think Biden as President is a change for the worse?" Max asked her.

  "No, it's not that," Sierra said. "At least, not from what I know of our original history, in which Biden was a good enough Vice President under Obama. It's . . . I don't know, it's the magnitude of the change. Biden rather than Obama as President is world-changing, or could have been. We'll have to see . . . . I guess I was just expecting, hoping, that the changes would be more subtle, more, I don't know."

  "More under our control?" Max asked.

  "Yeah."

  "All right," Max said. "There's still a lot that's under our control. Our bank accounts from 2042 are live, we confirmed that yesterday. Let's get breakfast, get out of this hotel, and go to your apartment."

  "Expenses are bound to be higher than in 2042," Sierra said.

  "True, but our bank accounts have been collecting interest," Max said. "Look, there was an argument in favor of our going to 2042 not 2062, but I took your point about not wanting to run into Socrates or Thomas – Alcibiades – just yet."

  "I'm not sure if I ever do," Sierra said.

  ***

  They continued their analysis over breakfast. "It feels good to eat again in our own time, or close to it," Sierra said, sipping a gengineered sour-cherry orange juice.

  "Yeah, it does," Max said, digging with zest into the scrambled mini-ostrich egg that he and Sierra were sharing. "You know," he said, savoring the taste but thinking about something else, "it's interesting that you brought a man into the future – Socrates – and he apparently had no effect on our world. But bringing a book into the future did."

  "That's for two reasons, probably," Sierra said. "One, I brought Socrates to 2042, which kept him clear of almost all of our past. But the scrolls we rescued from Alexandria percolated through the entire 20th century – giving Joe Biden a chance to read at least one of them."

  Max nodded. "And the second reason?"

  "Mr. Charles told me that Thomas kept Socrates strictly under wraps," Sierra said, "likely to avoid triggering any changes in future history."

  "And likely to keep Socrates to himself," Max added.

  "True," Sierra said, and sipped more of her juice.

  Max regarded her. The last thing he wanted to do was to start her thinking about Thomas aka Alcibiades. "If you think this new world in which Joe Biden was President is not in humanity's best interests, you could do a re-set, couldn't you?" he asked gently.

  "No. I mean, yes, I assume my future self could still make that happen, but I don't think we want to go jumping around time changing history and then changing it back again if we're not comfortable with the results," Sierra said.

  "I guess you need to be in closer touch with why you saved the scrolls in the first place," Max said. "If it was to make the world a better place, or the world as it should be, as it would have been, if the scrolls had not been burned, well, this is a beginning, isn't it? Better this than if we found no changes at all, right?"

  Sierra wasn't sure she knew. Or, if she did know, and what she knew was that Max was right that surely a change like this was better than no change at all, she still didn't feel good about it, certainly not comfortable. Hadn't someone once told her that comfort was beyond the reach of the time traveler? Maybe she had said that herself. "Maybe this is what Heron was warning us about," was all she said to Max.

  "Warning? Last time I checked, he and his legionaries were trying to kill us," Max replied, with some heat.

  "To prevent disruptions in time," Sierra said.

  "Because he wanted to protect the history and future that he had likely helped to create," Max said. "How do we know that that's the best timeline for humanity?"

  "We don't," Sierra said. "And you're right, of course." She touched Max's hand. "I'll be ok, don't worry. This change in our reality just hit me
harder than I expected. I just need a little time to adjust, I guess." But she also knew she needed to think a lot more about this.