Chapter 11: There is More Than One of Everything
The Overseer had sent him the coordinates on his MultiCell, but September already knew very well where he was supposed to go.
For the past fifteen minutes, he had been standing outside the Kresge Building in the darkness of early morning. He reviewed the definitive past and foreseeable futures, transitioning between both modes of temporal perception, and he could see that Walter was the only one inside the Lab in the unfolding present. It was an optimal time to enter and retrieve Doctor Bishop without being noticed.
Why was it so difficult to move, then?
Almost twenty-four years have passed since the moment of his intrusion, the one that sent the Directive careening off its meticulously calculated rails. This wasn't the same place, he knew; he was thinking of another world. Even so, this building's facade was identical to its counterpart's, and so to be standing in its shadow once more was an odd experience, made more so by the realization that he was positioned at the same point he was twenty-fours ago, the night he contemplated watching Doctor Bishop creating the cure from a closer vantage point.
The Witness verified his pocket watch; the hands were ticking, always ticking.
He proceeded inside.
The corridors were familiar, as were the stairwells; even the echoes of his footsteps were playing a tune he knew. He came to a halt before the door, the one he had entered only once before. He crossed the threshold; this time, Walter was not regulating chemical reactions, but parsing through some documents.
"Astrid...I found it!"
September looked around. He had observed outside that Agent Farnsworth was not in the building. Could his perception have failed him?
"The original manuscript," continued Walter, "with the extra pages! I was right. Listen to this!"
It seemed Walter did not notice the suited man's presence. Doctor Bishop read aloud from the document he clutched.
"...Our children are our greatest resource. We must nurture them, and protect them; we must prepare them... so that they may one day protect us. You see, I was –"
Walter turned, but his words caught when he saw September standing before the steps. The Witness removed his fedora – always be polite when dealing with the humans, the Overseer had taught them.
"Hello, Walter," he greeted.
"...Hello," replied Walter meekly.
"It is time to go."
Confusion, worry, fear; Walter's face spoke of them all.
"Is it time?" he asked casually.
September tilted his head. How could the man have already deduced the reason for this visit? Walter fidgeted with the documents, nodding as he did, processing this sudden ultimatum. He turned; for a second, he hesitated, eyes flittering everywhere as his mind raced, but he then pressed on.
"I'll go get my coat," he said.
The man grabbed his coat and scarf lying on a nearby table. He stopped, giving a final backward glance at the disorderly space that was his laboratory. Then he approached September, who replaced his hat, and Walter followed the suited man with the briefcase out the door.
The pair made their way down the corridor, Walter shuffling into his coat. The Witness could sense the man's unrest, and as the first sparks of Passive Calibration took effect, September perceived glimpses of the swirling torrent of thoughts and memories that was Walter's incomplete brain.
"I always knew this day would come," said Walter.
"What do you mean?"
"The price. The price I have to pay for my sins. That night at Reiden Lake... I had committed an atrocity. I always knew you would one day come and take me to face my fate. To be judged."
The Witness halted, as did Walter a few paces ahead. He pivoted, his eyes falling to the floor.
"This does not concern the Boy," clarified September.
Walter's head rose as though recovering from a daze.
"It doesn't?" He seemed perplexed, then elated, though he quickly reeled it in so as to appear more composed. "Yes, well... That's good news. But if this isn't about my son, why did you come for me?"
"You will know soon enough. Come, the car is waiting."
"Car?"
They found the black Bentley parked on the edge of the parking lot. It was protocol to use vehicles when transporting humans; with their near total bond to the Equation, to phase them through the RLTB risked inflicting great physical and mental damage, perhaps even death to those of lesser constitutions.
Walter didn't seem to mind skipping spatial relocation, though.
"My, my," said Walter in the backseat once they were inside. "You sure know how to ride in style."
With an energetic discharge from this thumb, the vehicle rumbled to life, and they were off.
"We will be taking a train to reach our destination," announced September once they were en route. "Once there, the journey will take approximately three hours in total, by my estimate. You may sleep now, if you wish."
Walter nodded. He closed his eyes and tried to rest, but September saw in the rearview mirror that Doctor Bishop seemed agitated; it caused the Witness some discomfort to see him in this state, and he was eventually compelled to speak.
"You are troubled," he noted.
"Oh, it's nothing, I assure you," said Walter. "It's just..." He paused, but continued, albeit tentatively. "I-I-I know you're bringing me to someplace important; though, if you simply wanted to have a night on the town, hitting all the fancy establishments and what have you, that's fine too, although I wished you would have called beforehand if that is the case. B-but, what I'm trying to say is that –"
"– you want to see the Boy."
With the temporary telepathic bridge formed out of Passive Calibration strengthening every second, he could see in his mind the echoes of the contents of Walter's own, and caught pre-emptive glimpses of his intentions.
"Y-yes." Walter's face fell. "I make it a point to visit him every once in awhile. You know, ever since that night. I promised him I would. And it's that time of year, again. I..." He seemed ashamed, suddenly. "... I can't quite remember which day it happened, exactly, b-but I know it's that time again."
"I remember."
He chose not to interrupt Walter to tell him that the date in question was five days past.
"When I was incarcerated, I couldn't go to the outside, naturally," continued Walter, "but ever since I got out, I've been hailing taxi cabs to ferry me there, to make up for my long absence. I know we're doing important work – or so I assume – so I fully understand if we couldn't make a short detour. But it's simply that it's that time of year and I...I promised him..."
September paused as he ran a few calculations in his head.
"We are already close to the train station. If we made this detour now, we would be losing an hour at minimum, and we are short on time."
Walter eyes dropped, though he nodded dutifully.
"Yes, of course. I understand. We have more important things to deal with at the moment, after all. But for the record, Mister Watcher, I must say that this whole thing is rather inconvenient."
Doctor Bishop ceased speaking, crossing his arms and gazing into the night. September glanced at the rearview mirror. He was incapable of processing the emotional component of Walter's thought processes, but the logical, sequential aspect informed him that he had slighted Walter. He gripped the wheel tighter. The thought that he would be making Walter displeased was in itself unpleasant. And yet, he could not risk jeopardizing the mission by compromising their schedule. The Witness stared back repeatedly at Walter.
A few minutes passed when Walter stirred, alarmed; the vehicle was speeding up.
"But perhaps...if we hurry," said a voice devoid of tone, "we can go visit him and still make it to our final destination before it is too late."
After realizing what was going on, Walter reached up to clasp and pat September's shoulders over the seat.
"Thank you, my friend," he said. He then leaned back, looking out the window with a stare in equal parts eager and forlorn. "Thank you."
"...Yes."
My friend.
The Witness was relieved; balance had been restored between them. Yet even as he made a turn down a road to reorient the vehicle in the opposing direction, he wondered what the consequences of obliging Walter's request might be, especially when a minute later, the man addressed the Witness once more.
"Do you think we can stop for breakfast on the way there? I'm rather starved."
XxXxXxXxXxX
Day had broken by the time they reached the cemetery.
The skies were overcast as the Bentley rolled into Cedar Hill Cemetery, a quaint place hidden deep in Cambridge. After parking the car along the primary lane, September peered into the rearview mirror; Walter had fallen asleep shortly after breakfast, and his body still lay curled up and limp as his head rested against the window.
"Walter." The man did not stir, and the Witness called again. "Walter."
September exited the vehicle. The grassed expanses on either side of him were riddled with impeccably lined and rowed tombstones; trees stark and devoid of leaves lined the perimeter of the cemetery grounds, and pockets of thinner ones sprouted around the area where they pleased.
The air was cold, running fingers over September's exposed scalp, but he paid no mind to it.
At Walter's request, the pair had stopped at a breakfast place along the way, spending forty minutes there (a period that mostly consisted of Walter talking as he ate). It took an additional twenty minutes to reach Cedar Hill, during which Walter had drifted to sleep, exhausted after having stayed up all night at the Lab.
The Witness paced around the car and opened the back door to Walter's seat. September first prodded the man, then shook his shoulder; it was only after the application of a kinetic jolt from his fingertips did Walter awaken with a start.
"Good God!" he exclaimed. September perceived associations light up in Walter's brain, memories of times he had been shocked, mostly by others, but a few out of deliberate self-infliction.
"We have arrived, Walter."
Doctor Bishop got out of the car, throwing a dangling scarf end over his shoulder. He surveyed the area for a moment, and after gathering his bearings, the old man began to shuffle along, September close behind.
Noticing his companion, Walter stopped.
"I think it would be best if I go alone," he said.
"...Yes. I will remain here. But remember, we cannot linger here long."
Walter nodded. He waded into the sea of graves, weaving between the stones until he found the one he sought; September was well out of earshot, but he could see Walter move slightly as he spoke before the resting site of his long-dead son.
Once more, the Witness was struck by the familiarity of the place he found himself in. He had been present at the Boy's funeral all those years ago, standing some distance away in fedora and shades, watching as they lowered the casket into the earth. That was before his mistake, and before he had ever interacted with the Walter Bishop of Sector-2 directly.
Walter and Elizabeth Bishop had once stood close to where Walter was standing now. Curious, he employed his temporal perception, making it so that the echoes of the past ceremony overlapped the present vigil, watching the same man stand solemn before his son's gravesite at different points in time.
The Lab, the Cemetery; he was walking a path he trod once before, revisiting all the old places. Nature was replete with cycles, he knew, yet this one was more intriguing than most. Was there any significance to this pattern? He had once hoped that he would eventually be able to move on from his original mistake, but it seemed that the events of 1985 were not ready to let him go, pulling him down into their icy depths just when he thought he would surface.
Standing at Cedar Hill Cemetery on that brisk morning, he realized grimly that he would never break free from his burden.
He perked up his head at the sound of laughter. It seemed Walter was in the middle of relaying some humorous anecdote to the Boy, perhaps something that happened recently, perhaps a memory of their brief time together; so far away, the range of Passive Calibration was wearing thin, too thin to fully visualize the contents of his mind.
It occurred to September that he had affected Walter's life more profoundly than he realized. He knew the Guardians had had a hand in shaping history, but any causal chain presently in effect could be traced back to Reiden Lake one way or another. Walter's attempt to save the Peter from Sector-1, the death of his assistant Carla Warren, his institutionalization, the insanity brought on by the removal of brain tissue; it was a causal chain of September's own inadvertent engineering.
He remembered how Walter once was, a man of resolve and brilliance, of great ambition; but like the temporal echoes of a funeral past, that man was now but a silhouette, a ghost, forevermore lost to a history September had denied him. He wondered what Walter would think of the Witness if he understood the full extent to which September's interference had caused him to suffer. Would he still consider him a friend?
The suited man wasn't sure.
It took about seven minutes for Walter to finish his business. He returned to the path where September stood, hands thrust deep in his pockets, his shoulders curled forward to quell the cold.
"I'm ready to go, now," he said.
The two made their slow way back to the Bentley, Walter striking a conversation as he did.
"He was pleased to see me. And I sent him your regards as well. I appreciate you doing this for me, Mister Watcher. You're a good friend."
"Yes," said September. "And..." He hesitated greatly before continuing.
"What is it?"
They stopped.
"...You are my friend as well."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it," said Walter, patting the suited man on the shoulder before walking ahead.
Despite his reservations, he thought it best if Walter knew in the event he didn't already. It was strange, he thought, how seeking to remain in Doctor Bishop's good graces was so important to him. He didn't experience this with any other human; could it be tangible evidence that they were indeed friends, like in the films and the videos and the written accounts in the books?
Friends.
The Witness felt odd, a tingle taking root in his sternum. He understood apprehension and anxiety, which he experienced when balance was disturbed, and relief, when it was restored; he knew physical pleasure and pain, satisfaction when things unfold as intended and disquiet when they did not, and curiosity and fascination when he witnessed new things. But that was as far as his emotional palette extended, and his current state lied beyond that normalcy.
It was pleasant, and there was relief and satisfaction, but it was more than that; balance was disturbed, yet not in a way that engendered anxiety. By the time they reached their ride and rolled out of Cedar Hill, he decided that perhaps this indeed was balance, everything being in its right place.
XxXxXxXxXxX
They were on a train thirty minutes later.
"I spy with my little eye...something red–"
"– Is it the window curtain?"
Walter squinted.
"Now I know you're cheating, you sly devil," he said with a grin, pointing in mock accusation. "How do you do that? It's as though you know what I'm going to say before I even say it."
It was true that he could foresee Walter's actions and words, but the man's eyes would have given away the target even without the effects of Calibration. This game was an interesting diversion, thought the Witness; not very challenging, but Walter seemed very amused by it, and so he was pleased as well.
"You have a keen eye, Mister Watcher," he noted. "In fact, you remind me about someone I once knew. A very observant and brilliant young man, he was, qualities you also possess." Doctor Bishop burrowed his brows. "I can't quite remember his name... But I'm sure you and he would get along like peas in a pod." A pall of sadness cast itself over his eyes. "It's rather unfortunate what happened to him, though."
September couldn't conceptualize the individual in question either; the area of Walter's mind housing the memories was a cloud, a haze, blurred and indistinct. Yet Walter's mind was riddled with such areas, and so the Witness prodded no further, deciding it was of no consequence.
"When will we arrive, exactly?" asked Walter.
"By my calculations, we will be arriving at our destination in forty-two minutes."
Forty-two minutes later, the duo disembarked the train in Worcester. Another black Bentley awaited them, a Proxy chauffeur September had called in to ferry them just outside East Douglas, located a half hour to the south. The ride was uneventful, Walter keeping to himself as their final destination approached.
It was almost four hours since he first retrieved Walter, and two and a quarter hours past the original intended arrival time, that the two at last reach Doctor Bishop's old beach house. The clouds had long parted so late in the morning; the sun hung high in the skies, and the rippling waters of the large river beyond were sparkling.
After being dropped off, the vehicle sped off, no longer being needed; September would not be leaving by human means, and he did not expect Walter to leave anytime soon.
"Walter, you must listen," said September as they stood on the beach's edge. "Do you remember the time I visited you in the year of 1988? Do you remember what we discussed, and what I instructed you to do?"
Doctor Bishop squinted, gazing out to the river.
"I can't say that I do."
"Come. Perhaps your memory will resurface along the way."
They abandoned the road for the beach, one's steps a trailing saunter and the other's rhythmic and methodical. September rested his hand in his suit pocket, holding a silver dollar in his fist. In the years following the Reiden incident, the Overseer had tasked September to pay Doctor Bishop a few visits, each time instructing Walter to accomplish some task in the future or sharing key information with him, all of it to set up contingency plans in case certain events came to pass.
Once, he came to Walter to inform him to never allow the Boy to return to Sector-1; another, to tell him to disassemble and scatter the components of his teleportation device for safekeeping, the one he had built to retrieve a doctor through time for his ailing son, and the one Jones and his crew had assembled to escape Wissenschaft.
In 1988, he came to Walter, asking him to store his inter-reality breach-sealing device somewhere safe. Knowing of Walter's future incarceration, September had Walter place something significant on the box where he hid the device, something to jog his memory, should the contingency be enacted. Doctor Bishop decided to use the silver dollar the Boy was fond of, suspecting that September's interest in the sealing device was related to the Reiden incident. Together, they had travelled to the beach house, and September watched as Walter stuffed the case in the basement and placed the dollar on its surface.
And he was leading Walter there just as he did once before. The cycle continued.
As they surmounted the beach's gentle slope, the house came into view, as though rising from the sands themselves. The windows were all boarded up, the place having fallen into disarray from almost two decades of neglect. September halted, as did Walter.
The Witness turned his head, having already brought out his hand on their ascent.
"Do you recognize this?"
Walter looked down to see September's open palm, a silver dollar resting upon the smooth, pale skin. He took it between his fingers, slightly alarmed.
"How did you get this?" asked Walter.
He didn't remember; it was plain to see in the eyes of the Witness. Yet with the Non-Interference Protocol in effect, he could not divulge too much.
"It is similar to the one you are thinking of," tried September, "but it is from a different place."
Walter's brain tried to connect the dots, but couldn't quite form any clear picture. It was imperative that he remember the reason he was here through his own recollection. Another hint would be needed.
"There is more than one of everything."
Just as he finished the sentence, September could already see the repercussions they were having on Walter; the man's mind was racing, recalling distant memories and poised to start asking questions, questions that September could not answer, and questions Walter was not meant to ask. He had to suppress the desire for answers, redirect his thoughts to the task at hand.
"I have said too much," said September. "I am not supposed to get involved."
The bald man swivelled his head to the beach house; if such words worked for July, then perhaps the same would work for him. And indeed, Walter's mind quickly cast aside his intrigue in favour of whatever urgent task he was meant to carry out.
"I have taken you as far as I can," continued the suited man. "Does this house look familiar to you?"
"Yes," said Walter.
The Witness looked to his companion.
"Do you remember what you have to find?"
Walter looked back. He tried so desperately to unify the shards of his fractured memory, but could only offer an expression of confusion and shame, lips quivering and head shaking.
"You must try to remember," urged September. "There is not much time."
Nothing more could be done without violating the Non-Interference Protocol; Walter would have to figure things out on his own.
And so September departed, making his way down the beach. It was probable that Walter would eventually find the device. But when? Jones was currently on the prowl, jumping from Soft Spot to Soft Spot in an attempt to form a stable inter-reality gateway, August monitoring his movements at every turn. If they acted too late, the Veil would weaken even further, and the Collision would inch that much closer.
After watching Walter disappear into the beach house, September took to the RLTB, vanishing from the shores, thinking of his friend.