A selection from "Written by the Winners" by Matthew Johnson

Written by the Winners

by Matthew Johnson

D

ave glanced over his shoulder, leaned in close so that his body blocked the screen. He had been sifting through old TV comedies for weeks now, screening every episode frame by frame for inconsistencies, but today he had made a real find—a few lines of dialogue on Family Ties that referred to Richard Nixon.

There was no predicting where remnants like this would appear. The device that had changed time was more like a shotgun than a scalpel: it had established the present its makers wanted through hundreds of different changes to the timeline, some contradicting others. The result was a porous, makeshift new history that made little sense, but the old one had been thoroughly smashed to bits. It was those bits that remained that he and his whole department were tasked by the new history’s makers with finding and erasing.

Most of what he found was much more innocuous, references to things that had little ideological power but simply had not existed in the new history. This one, though, had meaning, a direct reference to a political event in the old history. He looked around again, drew a tape from the bottom drawer of his desk, slipped it into the second recorder and hit COPY. He could feel his heart beating more quickly as the seconds ticked by, felt the pressure of seen and unseen eyes on his back. Finally the inconsistency was over, ending as abruptly as it began, and he was able to breathe.

The danger past, he felt a rush of exhilaration. It had been more than a month since he had had anything to present to the group, but this would more than make up for the dry spell. Barely able to sit still, he decided it was no use trying to work for a while. He logged and erased the original clip, got up out of his chair and went to the kitchen.

Maura was there, biting open a bulb of milk and squeezing it into her coffee, a few strands of her long red hair loose and stuck to her mug. She looked up as he came in and smiled, and for a second he thought about reaching out and brushing her hair off the cup. Instead he simply gestured to it. She smiled again, her cheeks coloring a bit, and freed it with a toss of her head.

“Working hard?” she asked.

He shrugged. “No harder than directed,” he said.

She laughed, threw him what he thought was a conspiratorial look. Maura was one of the few people in the office he could talk to at all: most of the others were either Party members striving to be noticed or else had been ground down to gray dullness by the endless frame-by-frame searches that filled their days. “Big plans for the weekend?” she asked.

“Nothing too exciting. I might have to buy new shoes.”

“There’s a sale at Ogilvy’s, I think,” Maura said. “You should try there.” She blew on her coffee, took a sip. “I might go there this weekend myself.”

Dave nodded. Could he bring himself to suggest that they go together, maybe out for lunch or a drink afterward? Was she fishing for that? When he opened his mouth, though, his earlier confidence had left him, and he felt the moment pass in silence. “Maybe I’ll see you there,” he said at last.

“Sure,” she said, moved to step past him. “I’d better get back to work, before Chadwick sees I’m away from my station.”

“Me too.”

Maura frowned. “Shouldn’t you get your coffee first?”

“Oh—right,” Dave said, laughed. “Well, see you later.”

“Bye.”

He watched her go, trying not to be too obvious about it, then turned to the coffee machine. Stupid, he thought—but had he been wrong in seeing something there, hearing an invitation? If only he hadn’t lost his nerve...after tonight’s meeting, he thought, and the reception his find would get, he would have confidence to spare. Tomorrow he would try again, and this time he would push the conversation as far as it would go.

The rest of the day passed slowly, but finally it was over. After checking again to make sure no one was looking, Dave ejected the tape from the second recorder, slipped it into his briefcase and went to clock out. He put on his coat and his outdoor shoes, stepped outside. The snow had finally been cleared, three days after the storm, and already the banks were grey with dirt. A half-dozen cars, their ancient chassis recovered with plastic shells in jolly hues moved slowly down the street. Like the road, the sidewalk was slick with ice, the cold seeping right through his thin plastic shoes as he turned left, headed for downtown.

Halfway down the first block his right shoe cracked. Looks like I will be shoe shopping tomorrow after all, he thought, as he crouched down, opened his briefcase and took out some briefing papers. Separating out a single page, he folded it and then stuffed it into his shoe, hoping it would keep out the slush until he had reached his destination.

As he straightened up, Dave noticed someone behind him, half-hidden behind the high stairway leading to the Justice building. It was a tall man in a dark coat, looking nonchalant but coincidentally stopped at the same time as he was. Careful not to look too long Dave set out again, starting on a zigzag path once he was out of the government district and into downtown. Here the streets were more crowded with pedestrians, most dressed in bright colors that fought against the creeping gray mist. The new history weighed relatively lightly on its subjects: they were still free to shop, to enrich themselves as best they could, to wear or consume what they liked—and for most people that was enough.

  After a dozen twists and turns he risked a glance back behind him. Confident that he had lost his shadower—if indeed the man had been following him at all—he returned to his original route and made his way to the meeting-place. This week they were gathering at Paul Beatty’s house; Paul, an electrician, was one of the few members of the group who could be sure they weren’t being watched. Paul was already there, of course—he had the freedom to make his own hours, and always quit work early when the meeting was to be at his place—and as Dave rounded the corner he saw two figures silhouetted in the light of Paul’s open door. Dave knew Gilberto Lorca by his slouch hat and ever-present umbrella, but he did not recognize the young woman with him. He waved but they didn’t see him, and he was forced to knock on the door when he got there. Dave stood still, careful to be in full view of the spy hole until the door opened.

“C’mon in,” Paul said. He was wearing jeans and a heavy sweater, as usual, and a pair of thick-framed black glasses around whose arms were twisted wires of various colors. “We’re just about to start.”

Dave followed Paul into the hallway and took off his shoes, careful not to worsen the crack in the right one, then hung his coat on the crowded hook. “Am I the last?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Paul said, not turning back as he spoke. “We may not get anyone else. Give it five more minutes.”

Nodding, Dave followed him into the living room. Gil and the woman Dave didn’t know were already seated on the couch, another man next to them and a half-dozen others in chairs around the room. Dave knew most of them by face but not by name. They each knew as few names as possible: this was dangerous work they were engaged in, committing a crime so grave the law could not even name it. They were studying history.

 “Why don’t we get started,” Gil said, his tone making it a statement rather than a question. Gil had recruited the earliest members—it was he who had brought Dave in, back when Dave had been an undergraduate studying the new history—and he had a tendency to hold court at meetings, even when they were at other people’s homes.

“Fine,” Paul said, taking a seat in the chair nearest to the front door.

Dave sat down as well, his briefcase in his lap; his fingers played on the catches, waiting for his chance to tell the others about his find.

“My young friend here has made a very exciting discovery,” Gil said. He turned to the young woman sitting squeezed between him and the arm of the black leather couch. “My dear, why don’t you tell everyone about it?”

Dave’s fingers gripped his briefcase as the woman stood. She was not tall, just an inch or two over five feet, and a bit heavy: she wore a blue mock-neck sweater and a denim skirt that stopped just above the knee, her brown hair cut in a bob that had been allowed to grow shaggy. “Hello,” she said, glancing around the room. “I’m —”

“No names,” Paul said.

The girl nodded quickly. “Right,” she said, then twisted around and leaned down to pick up an artist’s portfolio that was leaned against the arm of the couch. “I’m, I’m a student in Professor—I mean —”

“It’s all right,” Gil said. “We all know my name.”

Dave frowned. He had been looking forward to this all day, and had little patience for Gil’s flirting with his latest protégé. “What do you have to show us?” he asked, trying to sound supportive of the girl while he hurried her along.

“Well—I—I found this at a yard sale.” The girl unzipped the portfolio carefully, drew out a flat, square object about a foot long on each side. It took Dave a moment to recognize it as an LP; the side facing him had only white text on a black background, too small to be read. The girl flipped the record over so that the front cover could be seen. It bore a picture of a blond woman with a guitar, dressed in black leather, and some nonsense words in large, jagged letters. After a second Dave remembered to read them left to right: TOP HITS OF THE EIGHTIES.

“The number one hit for each year,” Gil said. “The whole decade.”

Dave leaned forward. Despite his jealousy he could not help feeling excited about this, a physical survival of the old history. It wasn’t just that such things were illegal; they were terribly fragile, even if they were plastic or metal. Accidents had a way of happening to them, as though the new timeline itself wanted them destroyed.

And now—the girl drew the record itself carefully out of the sleeve, eliciting a gasp from her attentive audience. Ten songs the new history had erased; ten songs that did not exist anywhere but on that flimsy piece of vinyl...

After a few moments the excitement began to wear off. There was something different about this artifact, something dangerous. The other things they had collected were oddities, pieces that did not fit into the new history, but this directly challenged that history in a way its masters could not allow. If you were found with it they would not bother with self-criticism or re-education: you, it, and everyone who knew of it would simply disappear.

If any of the other group members shared Dave’s worry, though, he did not see it. They passed the record carefully around the room, reading song titles aloud and humming as the memory rushed back—four of them singing “Every Breath You Take,” piecing the words together. When it had gone all the way around the group, back to Gil and the beaming girl, the other finds were presented; a postcard from Washington, a Mutt and Jeff cartoon, a newspaper article about a baseball game between two teams that had never existed. When Dave’s turn finally came the excitement had been drained out of him and he presented it with little fanfare, responding with just a nod to Gil’s praise.

When the last artifact had been presented and logged—it was Gil who took the risk of recording everything, keeping the information in one place so that one day he would be able to reconstruct the old history—Paul brought out a bottle of Glenfiddich that would have been thirty years old if it had ever existed and poured out glasses for everyone in the room. Now the conversation turned back to Gil’s student and her find. Gil’s pride in both was clear, and while he still felt a gnawing worry in his stomach it was hard for Dave to remain jealous. Before long the meeting broke up and they started to head out, singly or in pairs, careful to space out their exits and take different routes away from the house.

Dave slept poorly that night, and awoke feeling little rested; he brewed an extra cup of coffee, breaking his own rule, and paid for it as he was forced to find a restaurant halfway to work that would let him use their washroom. Finally, he stopped at a doughnut shop, bought another cup of coffee in exchange for the privilege and made it to the Broadcast and Media building fifteen minutes late. Hoping his tardiness would go unnoticed, he made his way to his workstation and sat down.

“Lawson,” a voice came from behind him. It was Chadwick, his supervisor.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Dave said, trying to remember the excuse he had concocted on his way there.

“Never mind that. I’ve got someone here who wants to meet you.”

Dave nodded and stood up, followed Chadwick out of the work area and into the conference room. It was designed to house two dozen people but now held only one.

“This is Mr. Geraci,” Chadwick said, stepping aside to let Dave pass into the room. “He’s from upstairs. Does performance reviews.”

Geraci stood. He was a heavy man but all muscle; he wore a black plastic overcoat, a red plaid scarf crossed loosely over his chest. Two beige folders sat open on the table in front of him. “Mister Lawson,” he said, reaching a hand out. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you,” Dave said. Geraci’s hand was extended straight out across the long oval table, and Dave had to bend awkwardly to take it. “What do you...what can I do for you?”

“We have received good words about your performance,” Geraci said, not releasing Dave’s hand. “Your logs, your records are very good, without blots.”

“Thank you,” Dave said, struggling to unwind Geraci’s syntax. He glanced behind him, saw that Chadwick had left. “I do the best that I can.”

“Yes,” Geraci said. At last he let go of Dave’s hand, waved his own casually to let the sweat that had collected on Dave’s palm evaporate. “Your record shows that you are very diligent, very thorough.”

“Well—thank you.” This was no performance review, Dave knew that. A message was being sent, but what? If Geraci was with the Agency then everything he said was some kind of code; words that sounded positive, like diligent and thorough, instead were criticisms. Was he being told they knew about the clips he hadn’t reported? Or—his stomach clenched tight, bitter coffee rising up his throat—did they know about the record?

No, he thought. If that were the case this conversation wouldn’t be happening: he’d just be gone.

“You have nothing more to say?” Geraci asked.