TITLE: Nota Bene (1/7)
AUTHOR: Blue Fenix
AUTHOR'S EMAIL: the_blue_fenix@yahoo.com
PERMISSION TO ARCHIVE: AuroraVernealis, Aurora Journals, and Fanfiction.net only
CATEGORY: Het; adventure
SPOILERS: Cardinal's Design, Cardinal's Revenge
RATINGS/WARNINGS: G, for part one, up to R for later chapters.
MAIN CHARACTER(S): Phileas Fogg, Passepartout, Rebecca Fogg, visitor.
SUMMARY: The return of the Phoenix time machine leaves Fogg beside himself.
DISCLAIMERS: the usual. Borrowed characters, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I've got no money to sue for.
It was nearly midnight, and a heavy early winter mist curled around the outside of the London townhouse. Phileas Fogg was spending a rare few days in his nominal home. The house made a convenient base for the occasional necessity of meeting with lawyers to sign papers he'd long since stopped reading. A dishonest financial manager could bleed him dry at will, he supposed. But he'd inherited his father's man of business along with everything else; the family fortune, and the associated paperwork, showed no signs of disappearing.
Rebecca Fogg, who knew how dreary her cousin found the process, was staying at the house too for moral support. She'd gone upstairs for the night an hour or two ago. Fogg was sober by his own elastic standards, and nearly so by normal ones. He'd been nursing a single snifter of brandy for over an hour as he browsed idly through the books in the library. A stack of deeds and documents he'd promised to read by tomorrow waited on his father's desk. Neglecting them in favor of Sir Walter Scott gave Fogg a mildly pleasant feeling of getting away with something. He put one leather-bound volume back in its place on the shelf and reached for another.
Something struck him. It bypassed all the usual senses of sight, hearing, or touch. It wasn't pain, by any normal definition. But it was real all the same, a surge in his head and chest as if gravity had momentarily rebelled. The book fell from his hand. Fogg swayed, and caught his balance against the edge of the desk. What on earth? An apoplectic stroke seemed the most likely possibility. Of all the deaths he'd ever considered, natural causes while relaxing at home was at the very bottom of the list. He wondered vaguely when it was going to start to hurt. Phileas Fogg started toward the bell-pull more from a sense of fitting behavior than out of any fully realized fear.
The library door was flung open without warning. Passepartout burst into the room, his eyes wide and white-rimmed like those of a panicked horse. "Master! The strangest thing I never see ..."
Fogg's head was clearing. "I believe I'm fine now, Passepartout," he said reassuringly. "How did you know? I didn't ring."
"Master?" Passepartout stared at him, uncomprehending. "Coming to tell you, the door ..." The valet's polyglot vocabulary dried up on him completely. He waved frantically toward the hallway. Someone was behind him, moving smoothly around the stunned servant. Fogg caught a momentary impression of silver hair, and a lean predatory silhouette, before the visitor stepped into the better light of the library.
Richlieu,
was Fogg's first instinctive impression, flashing back to memories of their brief excursion through parallel time. But this was an older man than the infamous Cardinal. His thick hair was silver-gray and his clean-shaven face showed deep lines at the mouth and eyes. His bearing too was completely wrong, relaxed and almost cheerful. "If I mention that the Phoenix is parked in the back garden," the stranger said in a wholly English voice, "does that get you any further toward the right answer?"It was the cadence of the voice that did it, a rhythm that was completely familiar to Phileas Fogg even though the tone sounded subtly wrong. Outsider's viewpoint, he thought, a little wildly. "You."
His visitor beamed at him and bowed slightly from the waist. "As you say, you. Or me. It's good to see me again -- seems like it's been ages."
Passepartout looked wildly from one man to the other. "You are being same person? But ... he is older as your father."
"Possibly not quite the most tactful way of putting it," said the elder Phileas Fogg. "But correct in essence ... time travel will do that. If you'd summon Rebecca then, Passepartout? I'm afraid this isn't a social visit, and my time here is strictly limited."
Passepartout looked desperately at his own Fogg for guidance. Phileas nodded; the valet disappeared toward the main staircase. "I felt something very strange a few minutes ago," Phileas directed at his double. "Was that you?"
The older man nodded. "I felt it too. Some sort of Heisenberg effect -- I'm almost certain." From his tone of voice, the remark was a joke. Phileas waited patiently to be told what was funny about it. The older man sighed. "A bit beside ourselves, let's say. Even if we hadn't an operational deadline -- and we do -- there are sound existential reasons why you can't be told anything more about time travel than strictly necessary until you learn it for yourself. My visit here is incredibly dangerous to the stream of time, and it would not have been allowed without a good reason. Nota bene."
Listen well.
The Latin phrase had been an integral part of Phileas' childhood with Rebecca and his brother. First under the guise of a game, later as overt intelligence training, Boniface Fogg had drilled his sons and his ward daily until any of them could retain more than an hour of complex conversation word-for-word. Phileas felt the engrained mental disciplines coming to life. He gave his elder self a foul look. He never enjoyed nota bene; it made him feel like a recording machine in one of Verne's literary fantasies. The other Fogg shrugged, unrepentant.Phileas studied the older man as attentively as an enemy. At least I don't lose my hair. He had shed the close-trimmed, pointed side whiskers that were the younger Fogg's personal affectation. The elder Fogg noted probably remembered his younger self's focus of attention, and turned his head. A faint but extensive band of scarring stretched just in front of the left ear, an inch wide by two or three high. The man probably couldn't grow a beard there if he'd wanted to. "What happened?" Phileas asked.
"A burn. A petroleum-based chemical, used here and there in the future as a military weapon. It flows like burning water and clings to flesh. The medical care available where and when it happened was considerably better than the present day -- but it did hurt like hell." The elder Fogg's eyes glittered. "That should please you, anyway."
"I don't go out of my way to acquire injuries," Phileas snapped.
"Not non-fatal ones, certainly."
Phileas gritted his teeth. My future self is a sarcastic bastard. He tried again to estimate the man's age from his appearance -- the gap was nearer twenty years than ten, he thought. Possibly more. "How old are you?"
"It's 1861, born 1822 ... exactly as old as you are."
"You know damned well what I mean."
"I do. Which is why I won't answer any variation of that question." The elder Fogg pointed at him with an index finger. "If I told you that you had thirty years to live -- or ten, or five -- you'd probably shoot yourself in the head tomorrow to spite me. Don't bother. You have as much free will as anyone; my existence doesn't prove you won't be hit by a wagon in the street. In this part of the time stream, I'm a contingency. A possible Phileas Fogg, if you like."
On the whole, he didn't. "I don't see how you can be here in any case. We sent the Phoenix away through time."
"Yes, we did. Like a loose cannon -- not one of our brightest ideas ever. Or perhaps like a stray cat, since it turned up again. The outcome was the most extraordinarily complex ... ah. Rebecca." His voice warmed.
She was fully dressed, a feat even Rebecca couldn't accomplish in five minutes. She must have never gone to bed at all. She looked from her own Phileas to the older man, and back. "So it's true. I didn't think I could be understanding Passepartout properly." The valet stood a little behind her as if using her for shelter. He kept twisting his hands together nervously.
"Time travel," Phileas said laconically. "Some tremendous mission that only we can undertake. Nota bene."
Rebecca winced as her own trained reflexes took charge. "You know that gives me a headache."
"He started it." Phileas wanted a way to cross-check the accuracy of his own recollections afterward. He was also annoyed enough that he felt like sharing his own discomfiture.
The elder Fogg was still staring at Rebecca. "You are a vision," he said softly. "I'd almost ..." forgotten, the younger Phileas finished in his head. As if the man hadn't seen her in years. Phileas felt a sick emptiness in the pit of his stomach. And I've been grilling him for my own life expectancy, as if that mattered.
Rebecca hadn't made the same deductions her cousin had. She caught the older Fogg by both hands and looked him over with avid interest. "You don't look too bad yourself." She caught sight of the scar, and the color drained from her face. "God, Phileas ..." Her fingers flew up to it.
He caught her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "It healed. It's over. Compared to the other options that were available at the time, I wouldn't wish it undone. You worry too much."
"Someone has to," Rebecca retorted. And stopped in her tracks, because the older man had said it with her in perfect unison. He grinned wickedly at her. Phileas, an unregarded onlooker, seethed quietly. I don't care who he is, he should mind his manners.
The older Fogg let go of Rebecca's hands. He raised his own left hand, palm away from him, into his line of sight. The gesture made no sense until the younger Fogg spotted a gold watch, no larger than a coin, strapped to the back of the man's wrist. "I wasn't joking about our time being limited," he said. "As we're all here now, let's repair to the Phoenix. There are several things I need to show you if you're going to operate it without me."
The older Fogg headed out into the hallway as if he owned the place. Rebecca fell into step beside him. Passepartout looked ready to quietly disappear; Phileas caught his sleeve. "Wouldn't dream of doing this without you. Keep an eye on him, Passepartout. I don't trust him."
The valet stared. "But is you, master."
"Nevertheless." Rebecca and the older man were whispering to each other as they walked, fragmentary sentences. Try as he might, Phileas couldn't make out any words. He stared vindictively at the backs of their heads.
The townhouse had a walled back garden of something like thirty by fifty feet, which was luxurious excess for London. The Phoenix was nestled close to one wall, taking up just under half the available space. And squashing the housekeeper's prized vegetable beds, Phileas noted; there'd be hell to pay for that. The older man swung nimbly under the railing to the time ship's deck and offered Rebecca a hand up. Phileas interposed himself and assisted his cousin instead. Passepartout, who looked like he'd be happier anywhere rather than in the middle of the family conflict, trailed along behind as far back as he could get away with.
The inside of the Phoenix had changed considerably. The brass levers at the pilot's station were still there, but the console directly below the front windows had been completely rebuilt. The changes had been done in several stages over a lengthy period, Phileas judged, with radically different materials available to each refurbisher. Some sections were riveted and bolted brass; others were welded steel; still others were a dull gray substance. The most intriguing change was several strips of what looked like black glass fitted into the dull gray material. Angular red numbers, self-illuminated like glowing coals, shone through the black glass. The substance was cool and unbroken when Phileas touched it with one fingertip. There was also, fitted into the center of the console, a large round bright-red button rimmed in steel.
The older Fogg pointed at the first strip of glowing numbers. "Current location, latitude and longitude, down to a quarter second of arc," he said. The next strip. "Current time." The last number in the row was changing by itself at a steady pace; with that clue, Phileas was able to break that strip of numbers into days, hours, minutes, and seconds. "The other readouts are the same, exact time and place of the ship's next destination. The micro ... the controls to reset them have are unshipped at the moment. We didn't want to tempt you. So you get one time trip with the current configuration, to a preset time and place. When you're ready to start -- which will be quite clear from the circumstances, I promise -- get everyone aboard and press the big red button."
Rebecca nodded as if it were a normal mission briefing. "How do we get back to our own time?"
"By living through it in the ordinary way, I'm afraid -- but the difference is under a week. Don't worry about the ship. She knows how to get home on her own."
Phileas was looking at the destination longitude and latitude numbers on the console. Central France, certainly. Probably Paris, but he couldn't be certain without a map. "Why don't you just tell us where we're going and why?"
The other Fogg was beginning to look annoyed in turn. "Because our time is limited, and it's completely unnecessary. Jules is probably no more than ten minutes away right now."
"So this is about Verne? He's not in London, he's in Calais. We won't see him again until the end of the month."
The other Fogg said nothing. Phileas leaned a little closer. "You keep talking about us operating the time ship without you. Where will you be while we're on this little jaunt, enjoying a London vacation?"
"Not at all. My ride arrives in," the elder Fogg looked at his wrist again, "four minutes and thirty-seven seconds. After you send the Phoenix back, my associates will bring it here a second time and pick me up. Absurdly simple once you've grasped the principle."
The offhand, patronizing drawl wrecked the last of Phileas' self-control. He was annoyed past tolerance with this arrogant, enigmatic, cheerful bastard. His vision was red-tinged as he grabbed the man's lapels with both hands. The other Fogg's attempted block was too little too late. Passepartout almost squeaked in surprise, backing himself into a corner of the cabin; Rebecca swore out loud. Phileas ignored both of them, and got a solid arm bar around the other man's neck. "That will do." Even to himself his chill, even tone sounded like it was walking a tightrope over madness. Time he got some advantage from that. "I don't give a good goddamn about who wins the next ten Gold Cups or whatever else you're preening yourself on knowing ahead of time. But there are one or two questions you will answer. About Rebecca."
She moved cautiously closer. "He's on our side, Phileas. Whatever reasons he has for discretion, I'm sure they're good ones. He's you. You've never acted against me in our entire lives."
"Then let him answer..." Phileas' voice wavered dangerously; he tightened his control and began again. "Let him answer why he behaved just now as if he hadn't seen you in years." He shook his prisoner by the neck. Death, desertion, marriage to some stranger; there were no good answers to hope for. Anything but death. Let her hate me in the future -- let her hate me from this moment on, because of this -- so long as she's alive.
"She is quite alive," the older Fogg said hoarsely. "And the proof is that I am too. How long has it been since you made that dramatic resolution not to outlive her?"
Phileas was struck, nearly simultaneously, with three insights. The first was that his older self had answered his thought, not his spoken words. The second, as Rebecca's expression melted in shock, was that he'd been right to never tell her of that particular plan. The third was that his older self had deliberately allowed his supposed surprise attack to succeed. The last revelation was delivered, as Phileas was still distracted by points one and two, by a sudden explosion of motion. An elbow in the solar plexus knocked the breath from his body, a heel to the shin took one leg out from under him, a titanic heave tipped him into a heap on the floor. The other Fogg backed away, giving him room to decide whether the fight would continue.
On the whole, Phileas thought not. This didn't seem to be his day. He got back upright. "Nota bene," he remarked, to at least recover part of his dignity. "You knew -- I should say, you remembered -- everything I would do and think before it happened. I call that an unfair advantage."
"True enough." The other Fogg straightened up a little stiffly; his counterattack had perhaps not been as effortless as it appeared. "I'll still answer the question. In the sense you mean it, nothing happened to Rebecca. I'm in no way separate from her. It's been many years since I've seen her this young, that's all. The worst explanation isn't always the true one, you know."
"It is where Phileas is concerned." Rebecca's voice was shaky as he had rarely heard it. Sadness, but even stronger anger; her eyes were flashing and hard. The first moment she could arrange to speak to her cousin alone wouldn't be pretty, he judged. I didn't mean you to know, ever. It was my own choice, affecting no one else. It was the only way I could tolerate watching you take risk after risk. "Otherwise he'd run out of things to drink about."
She'd never struck so hard, certainly not in front of others. Passepartout, out of harm's way in the corner, flinched and made as if to speak. A sharp head shake from Phileas cut the remark off before it began.
The older Fogg, too, looked surprised by the venom of the argument he'd provoked. He reached out vaguely toward Rebecca; as he did, a musical tone came from the device on his wrist. He turned sharply toward his younger self. "One minute warning, and then it is time. Verne is the key. It's essential that all three of you watch over him. He'll be one of the great literary figures of this century, but that barely begins to describe his importance. If he's free to move safely in the world, he can be a catalyst for tremendous good. If the League succeeds in enslaving his talents to their own cause ... the effect on the future scarcely bears description."
As if Phileas needed specific instructions to stop him throwing the young writer to the wolves. The insult was appalling. "That's not an explanation," he said coldly.
The older man grinned at him. "I know it's maddening. Temporal paradox, can't be helped. And Phileas?"
"What."
"Catch Rebecca. Now would be a good time."
Phileas looked wildly back toward his cousin. A half-second later she went limp. She began to fall, open-eyed, folding at the hips and knees. Phileas had to move quickly to stop her hitting her head on the wall. He turned blazing eyes on his older self.
"Heisenberg effect," the other Fogg said. "She'll be good as new in a minute. Excuse me, but my ride's here." He flung open the door of the Phoenix.
The courtyard outside was alive with flickering light, and filled to capacity with a second Phoenix beside the first. Living blue-white tongues of electricity danced over the edges of the craft, arcing from point to point of the superstructure. The door of the second time ship stood open too, with a brighter light pouring out of it. The older Fogg waved casually back at them, and leaped from one doorway to the other. A hand on his arm steadied him as he landed; the door closed the instant he was inside the other ship. The second Phoenix seemed to shrink and rush away from them at the same time, like a mass of water flowing down a narrow drain. The ghastly light winked out, and darkness returned.
Rebecca stirred in Phileas' arms, recovering her balance. He wanted to keep holding on, but it would be supremely bad timing at the moment. He released his grasp before she had to push against him. Rebecca put a hand to her head. "What the devil happened to me?"
"On available evidence, I'd say that you -- an older version of you -- were aboard the other time ship. The same thing happened to me earlier." Phileas Fogg would have cheerfully taken a severe beating in exchange for that particular glimpse of the future. She lives. A long time, at least twenty years. I'm not going to lose her. He remembered his older self's denials of being the only possible future, and felt a little chilled. It was a chance, not a guarantee. But a good chance, a likely chance. Some version of me did a good enough job protecting her. More remarkably, some future Rebecca had been -- would be -- willing to tolerate enough protection to ensure her survival. He felt hope insinuating itself into his soul, driving him to take an interest in the future again in spite of his weariness. It was amazing how much that could hurt. Having something to hope for carried the inevitable counterpart of having something to lose.
The Rebecca of the present day, far from resting comfortably on her pedestal, was glaring at Phileas as she recovered her faculties. "We will talk about this."
Fogg nodded acknowledgement of his doom. "But not right now, I suggest. If your friend knew what he was talking about, then Verne will be on our doorstep in five or ten minutes with some urgent need for help." His eyes flickered momentarily to Passepartout, who still looked dazed by the whole chain of events. Rebecca caught the secondary meaning. While the two cousins had argued in front of their friends before, manners and the urge for privacy alike made them both prefer to avoid vulgar public scenes. Rebecca nodded curtly, her lips set in a tight pale line, and headed off toward the house.
Passepartout came up timidly to Fogg's side. "We already sending away the time ship and it comes back, two of them," he said. "Two of you, maybe two of Miss Rebecca ... I think I am not making any sense of this."
"I'd say that proves you're paying attention," Phileas said, and followed his cousin inside.