Coronation: A Kid Sensation Novel (Kid Sensation #5) (24 page)

The Castellum Cardinal went on lockdown for the next few hours while a top-to-bottom sweep was conducted to determine just how compromised our security was. In addition, all robots, AIs, and such were subjected to a thorough diagnostic in an effort to determine if any of them also represented a hazard.

As for me, I got to spend that time in yet another panic room. It didn’t seem to matter to Indigo that, with my phasing ability, I was unlikely to get hurt; I still needed to be protected, in her opinion.

“It’s not just you,
Sxibbo
,” she’d said. “I’ll be going into a fortified room as well.”

And so she had. However, protocol demanded that we be separated (in case a panic room was breached), so we weren’t locked in together. That said, I was still able to speak with her, both telepathically and via the comm systems in our respective rooms. However, I got the impression that she was fairly busy – she seemed to be intimately involved in overseeing the security checks, despite being locked in somewhere – so I decided to leave her alone.

As had been the case since leaving Earth, the “room” they had put me in was more like a suite and outfitted with all the comforts of home. After learning that I was going to be here for a while, I had initially settled in and found something to eat. Afterwards, however, with nothing to do and no one to talk to, I soon found myself yawning heavily. It really had been an exhausting day.

Still, I briefly contemplated tweaking my internal biological systems in order to temporarily remove the need for sleep, but in the end decided not to fight the drowsiness I felt coming on. It took only a cursory search of the place to locate a bed, and I was asleep within minutes of stretching out on it.

*****

I woke to the sound of my grandmother calling to me. I bolted upright, looking around in confusion at the unfamiliar surroundings, and then remembered where I was: the panic room. I also realized that I wasn’t hearing Indigo’s voice verbally, but telepathically.

<
Sxibbo
!
Sxibbo
! Wake up!>

I replied.

My grandmother didn’t answer but gave me a mental nudge to get me moving faster. I rolled out of bed, then spent a few minutes locating the bathroom and getting washed up. Feeling refreshed, I went to where the panic room’s controls were located and unlocked the door. A moment later, Berran and Indigo entered.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Early morning, Prince,” Berran answered.

That meant I’d slept most of the night. “I take it you finished the security sweep?”

“Yes, a few hours ago – at least here in the castellum,” my grandmother said. “But when I reached out telepathically I could tell you were asleep, so I just decided to wait.”

“But you’re waking me up now,” I said. “So what’s happened?”

“We got the report from the queen on the explosion at her castle, and also learned what happened to Sloe.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

“Starting with the bomb,” Berran began, “its fragments have been analyzed and specialists have reverse-engineered the detonation. They’re hoping further examination of the evidence will give them an idea of who planted it, but all they know right now is that it was a shaped charge and it was inserted into the foundation of the stairwell about eighty years ago.”

I blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry, but did you say
eighty
years ago?”

“Yes,” Indigo said. “There was some masonry work done on the stairwell and landing then, so it was the perfect opportunity. Plus the aging of the explosive’s casing, the materials in the bomb itself, the way unique polymers in some of the explosive compounds break down over time – they all confirm the length of time it was interred in the stairs.”

I was about to remark that the time frame seemed pretty lengthy, but then I remembered that Caelesians lived a lot longer than people from Earth. Maybe eighty years wasn’t that long to them (although I had trouble believing that). Still, there was so much that didn’t jibe.

“So what? This guy waited eight decades in order to set off a bomb?” I asked. “That makes no sense. Why wait so long? What was so special about last night that he’d want to detonate it? How would he know that long ago that he’d even want to set a bomb off eighty years down the road?”

“We think the diagnostic on Sloe may answer that,” Berran said.

“Okay,” I said. “Please tell me why my robot bodyguard tried to kill me.”

“It appears that someone planted some malware in his system,” Indigo said. “An algorithm was inserted into his main processor, but lay dormant until a certain trigger phrase was uttered by a specific person.”

“The phrase was ‘Kid Sensation,’” Berran added. “The person was you.”

“So, how did this happen?” I asked. “Was his mainframe hacked or something? How did whoever did this manage to turn him into an attack dog?”

“From what we’ve been able to determine, there wasn’t any hacking,” Berran answered. “The attack algorithm was embedded in Sloe’s matrix at the time of manufacture. After the assault, it was supposed to delete itself, but one of the items you yanked out of Sloe was his core processor. When that was removed, everything reset. Otherwise we never would have found it.”

I stared at them incredulously. “But that code’s been there since Sloe was made? When was that?”

Berran and my grandmother exchanged glances, so I knew that I wouldn’t like the answer.

“About a hundred years ago,” my grandmother answered.

I stared at their somber faces for a moment, and then let out a short bark of laughter. They had to be joking. A moment later, I realized that neither of them was smiling.

“You can’t be serious,” I said. When neither of them responded, I went on. “A hundred years ago I wasn’t even born! My mother wasn’t even born then. How could someone have known that a century later I’d even be here to utter the trigger phrase? Does he have a time machine or something?”

Once again there was a wordless exchange between Berran and Indigo.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I muttered in disbelief. “Caelesians engage in time travel?”

“Not per se,” my grandmother said. “The technology exists, but it is heavily monitored and use of it is forbidden.”

“But you think someone’s using it,” I stated flatly.

“All evidence points in that direction,” Berran said. “The bomb was indicative, but the situation with Sloe leaves little doubt. There’s a temporal rogue on the loose.”

I was somewhat jolted by what I was hearing. I mean, I knew time travel was possible, of course, but it’s just so dangerous that few people actually participate in it. Moreover, I was shocked that Caelesians employed it to the extent that its use had to be tracked.

I looked at Indigo. “You said time travel was monitored.”

She nodded. “Yes. When the technology was first discovered, people were attempting to use it for personal gain, and the result – as you might guess – was utter chaos. We almost destroyed ourselves several times before we determined that we had to oversee, track, and control this branch of knowledge, and its application, in all forms. This gave rise to the Temporal Monitors.”

“The Temporal Monitors?” I repeated.

“They’re a specialized unit that monitors the time lines,” Berran said. “They investigate temporal deviations and infractions.”

“What are those?” I asked.

“Basically, time moves inexorably forward along certain paths or lines,” my grandmother said. “If you do something to interfere with those paths – say, go back in time and kill someone’s grandfather when he’s an infant – a deviation from the true timeline is created. The Temporal Monitors are able to track such deviations, which they then investigate and try to rectify, before punishing those who created the problem.”

“So, if this guy – this temporal rogue – is flitting about through time and making all kinds of changes, why haven’t they caught him yet?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Indigo said.

“Well, how do we stop him?” was my next question.

“I don’t know,” my grandmother said again.

“Then what can we do?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” my grandmother said a third time.

“Then who does know?” I asked, exasperated by the answers I was getting.

“There may be someone you can talk to,” Berran said.

The person they sent me to see was a former Temporal Monitor named Yelere; in fact, he had been Chief Monitor until his unexpected resignation several years earlier.

“He’ll be able to answer your questions about this temporal rogue,” Berran had said as he’d loaded me into one of the multi-directional elevators in the castellum.

“But why aren’t you and Indigo coming with me?” I’d asked.

“Your grandmother is coordinating with the queen’s representatives, the Temporal Monitors, and other groups in an effort to ferret out this menace. I, on the other hand, am still overseeing the security checks on all of your family’s holdings, which are vast.”

“In other words, you and my grandmother are busy.”

“More to the point, we’re already familiar with how temporal issues are addressed on Caeles, and therefore probably know the answers to most questions you’re likely to ask Yelere. If he tells you anything that seems particularly noteworthy, you can simply brief us when you return.”

The courier had then shown me how to sync the coordinates of my GPS (into which he had loaded directions for Yelere’s home) with the elevator so that it could take me where I needed to go – or get me as close as possible. It had actually taken three tries to get the two devices to harmonize, with Berran noting that the GPS, which apparently kept a record of each place I visited, seemed to have a glitch.

“It may have gotten damaged during one of your escapades,” the courier had said, subtly reminding me that I had been in the blast radius of several explosions within the past day. “You may have to work with it a little to make sure it synchronizes properly with the elevator on your return trip.”

I had simply planned on teleporting back initially, but Berran’s comment reminded me that I couldn’t simply leave the elevator wherever I liked. It would be the equivalent of being invited to someone’s house for a party, and then leaving your car parked in their driveway for the next week. (Not to mention the fact that the elevator, having cleared the recent security check, was a mode of transportation that we could actually trust.)

And so I had ended up going to see Yelere on my own. It turned out that the former Monitor lived in what appeared to be a residential high-rise. I was fortunate in that the elevator actually brought me to the floor that he lived on, after which I merely had to use the GPS to get to his apartment.

He was clearly expecting me, because he opened the door before I even reached it.

“Come in, come in,” he said insistently, motioning me inside.

Yelere turned out to be white-haired and elderly, but still spry. His face was lined with wrinkles, marking him as the oldest Caelesian I had yet seen. Based on what I’d heard about his abrupt resignation from his post as Chief Monitor, I feared that he would be curmudgeonly or a grouch. However, nothing could have been further from the truth; he was affable and good-natured from the very start.

“This way,” he said, leading me through a simple but tastefully furnished living area and into what appeared to be a modest study. He took a seat on a couch near a window and motioned me into a chair across from him.

“So, you’ve got trouble with a temporal rogue,” he said, getting straight down to business.

“Yes,” I replied, and then gave him a brief rundown of the facts – primarily in relation to the stairwell bomb and Sloe’s reprogramming – although it turned out that he’d already been briefed on what had happened.

“Well,” he said when I’d finished, “the explosive under the stairs could have been just coincidental, but the issue with the robot makes it undeniable: someone is definitely manipulating time around you for some reason.”

“The reason, to be blunt, seems pretty clear,” I said. “To kill me.”

“Not necessarily. Your death might merely be the means towards some other ultimate end. For instance, if you are interfering with someone’s business interests, your death would remove you as an obstacle.”

“So you’re saying that for whoever is trying to kill me, this might just be business – not personal.”

“Perhaps.”

I shook my head. “That’s unlikely, in my opinion. I’ve only been on the planet a few days. Until very recently, I don’t think many of the royals even knew I existed. In short, I just don’t see how this could be business-related.”

“You’re looking at the situation in the wrong way. Remember, we’re dealing with a temporal rogue here – someone using time travel to gain some advantage – and time itself is subjective. You’ve only been here a few days from
your
point of view.”

“Are you saying that for this chrono criminal, in his subjective view, I could have been here longer?”

“I’m saying that this unknown adversary has a broader view of time – including outcomes and eventualities – than you do.”

I frowned, thinking about that statement. “You’re implying that it’s not necessarily something I’ve done since I arrived, but something I’ll do in the future. That’s what this person is trying to prevent.”

“It seems likely.”

“Is there a way to figure out what it is I’m allegedly supposed to do?”

“Not without traveling to the future yourself, and that is strictly forbidden.”

“But if I can find out what I’m allegedly going to do, it can probably help identify the person committing these time crimes.”

“True, but we can’t justify time travel for that purpose – even if this person has already tried to kill you twice already. There are murders and violent deaths all the time; relaxing the temporal rules to deal with them all would result in absolute chaos and all kinds of temporal distortions. That’s why the Time Monitors are a separate, distinct unit without ties to politics, economic interests, what have you.”

I was only half-paying attention to the last part of what Yelere said, as something he’d mentioned at the start seemed to turn on a switch in my brain.

“Four times,” I said.

Yelere appeared confused. “Excuse me?”

“Four times,” I repeated. “I think this guy has tried to kill me at least four times.”

I then told Yelere about how my ship had been damaged when I first arrived, and about the Yolathan poisoning. He nodded sagaciously as I finished.

“The poisoning is almost certainly the work of this antagonist,” Yelere said. “While fermenting, Yolathan wine is usually stored somewhere and not touched until it’s ready for drinking. If this person knew which bottle was being served to you, they could simply go back in time to, say, just after the wine was bottled and placed into storage. They could then take the bottle that you would eventually drink from, bring it forward in time – I don’t know, fifty or sixty years – then put it back in place. Ultimately, the time stamp would show that it had been bottled an appropriate number of years…”

“But it actually wouldn’t have had enough time to properly ferment,” I said, finishing his thought. “It’s deviously brilliant.”

“Indeed.”

“What about the ship?”

Yelere made a vague gesture. “Who knows? Being able to control time, there are a million ways this enemy of yours could have caused things to go haywire.”

“Fair enough, but what should we do to try to stop him?”

Yelere leaned back and stared at me for a moment. “I can tell you what I’d do, but you won’t like it, and aren’t likely to follow my advice.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Yelere let out a deep sigh, and then said, “Nothing. I’d do nothing.”

I stared at him in shock for a moment. “You’re kidding, right? If a temporal rogue was trying to kill you, you’d do nothing?”

“Let me explain,” he said. “I was a Time Monitor for most of my life, and a good bit of my experience was in the role of chief. One thing I came to learn over the years is that Time doesn’t need us to look after it. Time will look after itself.”

“Can you explain that?”

“The Time Monitors were established to protect timelines, to make sure that people didn’t alter the past – or the future – in absurd or insane ways. So they’re constantly watching, always on guard for the slightest deviation. However, all of the excessive monitoring, obsessing over every little blip, is completely unnecessary. Variations in timelines are like scratches on your arm; eventually, they’ll heal themselves. Time will fix any temporal issues without our help.”

“How?”

Yelere seemed to contemplate for a moment, then said, “Maybe it’s better if I give you an example. Let’s say that today, you give that crown you’re wearing to me.”

“Okay,” I mumbled. As had become common, I had practically forgotten I had the thing on.

“Then tomorrow,” he continued, “I give the crown back to you. You immediately go back in time to today and give the crown to me. The next day, I give the crown to you again. You go back in time again to give it to me, and so on.”

“Alright, so we’re just constantly passing the crown back and forth. Got it.”

“Now go forward in time a week. Who has the crown?”

I frowned, trying to work this problem out.

If I give the crown to him, but he gives it back to me, then I give it
back
to him…

“I give up,” I finally said. “Who has the crown?”

“I don’t know,” Yelere answered. “It’s probably one of us – and most likely you because the crown is a possession more strongly tied to your person. But my point is that it’s a temporal problem, and Time itself will fix it.”

“Why wouldn’t the crown just be stuck in an infinite time loop?”

A disagreeable look took hold of Yelere’s face, as if he’d just come across something loathsome. “Time loops are unnatural and abnormal aberrations. They’re artificial constructs, perverse and unstable even at the best of times. They don’t last. Time will ultimately find a means to reassert itself.”

“So, in your opinion, Time will somehow find a way to fix its own problems, including something as convoluted as a time loop?”

“Yes.”

“Even with temporal rogues out there doing whatever they want?”

“That’s just it – they can’t do whatever they want. They can only do what Time allows, and if Time allows it then it’s supposed to happen.”

“So you’re saying that things that are meant to happen eventually will, regardless of anything else.”

He nodded. “There’s an old saying among Time Monitors: You can’t stop yourself from being born.”

“The grandfather paradox,” I said in understanding. He didn’t get the reference, however, so I had to explain.

“The grandfather paradox,” I began, “is a time paradox. Say that, for some reason, you decide to go back in time and kill your paternal grandfather before your father is born. If you succeed, then you’ll never be born. However, if you’re never born, you can’t go back in time and kill him.”

“That is indeed a paradox.”

“Yes, although in my own opinion, the person attempting to kill their own grandfather will be unsuccessful in the end, because otherwise they’ll never exist.”

“Unless the intended victim isn’t their biological grandfather,” Yelere said. His observation made the paradox distasteful in a way I hadn’t contemplated, until he added, “The time traveler might be adopted, for instance – or perhaps his father was.”

“That brings up another issue,” I said. “With all of the stuff that this person has been doing, why haven’t the Time Monitors taken any action?”

“Because they haven’t seen anything to act on.”

I was stunned. “What do you mean? With everything this temporal rogue has been up to, there should be plenty.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not the case. After I was given the facts and asked to meet with you, I checked with some of my old colleagues among the Monitors, and they haven’t seen any temporal distortions.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “How’s that possible?”

“I have a theory,” Yelere said, leaning forward almost conspiratorially. “Most temporal crimes are discovered because the malefactor did something to change the past or the future. I think your miscreant is only doing things that affect his present.”

I frowned, befuddled by what I’d heard. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Suppose I pull a pulse pistol on you right now,” Yelere said. “I could shoot you dead. I could do nothing. I could turn the weapon on myself. Regardless of what I choose to do, the timelines don’t show any temporal malfeasance, because each act I contemplated occurs in my
present
– what is ‘right now’ for me – such that the future is not set. But if I go back in time and shoot you as a baby – or even a day ago – that’s a detectable alteration because in the main timeline you were never injured on those occasions. In short, as long as the actions I take are in my subjective present, there’s no temporal violation to speak of. In that same way, I suspect your time-traveling enemy is only taking action in his present.”

“So going back in time to plant a bomb or corrupt a robot’s programming isn’t a past action?”

“You’re confusing when the act occurred with the time of its effect. Sure, this miscreant may have planted a bomb eighty years ago, but there was no effect until he set it off. It didn’t detonate prematurely, perhaps making an orphan of someone who should have grown up with their parents, or crippling someone who should have been able-bodied their entire life. It essentially had no effect on anything until it exploded. Likewise with your robot’s programming. Until that particular algorithm was triggered, the robot acted in all ways as it should have.”

“Alright, assuming your theory is correct about him only doing things that affect his present, he can’t actually
know
that his actions won’t impact the past or the future. I mean, after inserting the bomb in the stairwell, how could he know that there would never be any additional maintenance on it? How could he know that Sloe would never undergo a diagnostic that might have uncovered that algorithm?”

“My assumption is that he has some kind of warning system. Just like the Time Monitors have equipment that tells them when the timelines are being altered, your rogue must have something that lets him know when a contemplated action is going to have a detectable temporal effect.”

“Based on everything I’ve heard thus far, it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.”