Written in Time Read online

“Dad? What’s going on?” John Naile quickened his pace to come even with his father. They left the main hallway, passed the base of the circular staircase and under it toward his father’s office. They passed a small bathroom, a closet, came out from beneath the stairwell and through an open space—sunlight filtered through a floor-to-ceiling bank of windows and washed the checkerboard-pattern black-and-white tiles in a pale yellow light.

  James Naile quickened his pace, opened the double doors to his office and passed through. “Close them behind you, John.” In some ways, parents never looked at their children as getting past the age of ten or so, John Naile had often thought, and his father’s remark had just confirmed it. “And skip the ‘Gee, I thought I’d leave ‘em open’ riposte, alright?”

  “Sure.”

  His father’s office was as he always had seen it since his childhood: big, expensive wooden desk; big, expensive leather desk chair; big, expensive leather couch and easy chairs; a coffee table that matched the desk; the side walls of the fifteen-by-fifteen room obscured floor-to- ceiling with built-in bookshelves; the library steps and a ladder on casters (he could never remember the proper name for one of the things, but thought there was one). The far wall was consumed at its center with double French doors leading out onto a small patio; on either side of the doors stood glass-fronted cabinets. The one on the right was a beautifully executed piece showcasing about a dozen long guns, rifles and shotguns evenly mixed, all premier grades from FN/Browning, Beretta, Winchester, Remington and some of the English gun makers. His father never touched them except to clean them; they were investments only.

  “Should have offered you a coat, John, or had you get your overcoat from the Cadillac. Long walk to the bomb shelter, and it’s a little cold out.”

  “The bomb shelter? Why are we—?”

  “You’ll know. Trust me, son.”

  The cabinet on the left, as they walked through the double doorway and onto the flagstones beyond—”I know! Close the doors.”—held a solitary bolt-action Remington, a lever-action Winchester, a lever-action Marlin, a Remington pump shotgun, various knives and an assortment of handguns, some of them cowboy-style single actions, all except the four long guns heavily engraved and, like the guns in the flanking cabinet, investment quality.

  “You ever shoot any of those things, Dad?”

  “Why? I keep that ‘97 Winchester pump of your grandfather’s in our bedroom, and I’ve got 1911s stashed all over the house, as you’ll recall, I believe.”

  Once, as a child, John Naile had committed the allbut-unpardonable sin of attempting to show a couple of his buddies one of his dad’s .45 automatics. No Roy Rogers matinees for a very long time after that, and a serious feeling of being considered untrustworthy. His father was not a hobby shooter, John Naile had learned, but a dead shot when he needed to be.

  That was proven once and forever when they walked into a bank together and the bank was being robbed. John Naile hadn’t even known his father ever carried a gun on his person, but suddenly a little pistol just appeared in his father’s right hand and the bank robber went down with a single shot in the throat.

  That was the first time—John Naile was twelve—that he had realized that there was more to his father than met the eye.

  “Why are we going to the bomb shelter?” John Naile plopped his gray fedora on his head, snapped up the collar of his suit and hunched his shoulders as they started into the gardens.

  “To watch a soap opera on television.”

  “What?”

  “Remember what they say about asking silly questions, son?”

  “I remember, Dad.”

  “Walk faster. We’ll miss the commercial.”

  “Are we advertising on television? Hey! You can’t get television reception underground.”

  “No shit, Sherlock! Come on.”

  John Naile reached into his coat and pulled out a Lucky Strike, then lit it with his Zippo. “Television? I haven’t liked anything on television since Have Gun—Will Travel went off in September.”

  “Try Richard Boone’s new show. An anthology kind of thing. It’s pretty darn good.” Still trying to keep pace with his father, John Naile heeled out his cigarette.

  They passed the tennis courts and the pool and pool house and the garden shed and turned at the end of the line of privet hedge and started toward the small structure that looked like a pump house but was really a disguised entrance to the family bomb shelter.

  “Why can’t we watch television up at the house? Is this some kind of dirty program Mom and Audrey can’t see?”

  “Your mother already has the TV on. I bought one of those portable ones and put it in the kitchen. They’ll see what we see.”

  “I don’t understand, Dad!”

  “Good! You’re not supposed to. Yet! You ever wondered why I built the bomb shelter in the first place, John?”

  “Oh, gee whiz, I don’t know, Dad! Maybe to protect the family and the servants from blast, fallout and radiation in the event of an attack by the Soviet Union?”

  His father was opening the pump house door; a flashlight appeared in James Naile’s hand just as suddenly as that pistol had seventeen years earlier.

  “There won’t be a nuclear war, at least not until sometime after the mid-1990s, John.” The light switch inside the pump house went on, and James Naile pocketed the flashlight. “And it certainly won’t be the Soviet Union we’ll be fighting.” James Naile actuated the entrance mechanism into the bomb shelter and the fake rear wall of the pump house slipped left; visible beyond it in the lights James Naile turned on was a wide metal stairwell winding downward.

  “I know you were a confidant of President Eisenhower, Dad, and that you get along okay with Jack Kennedy and most of the Kennedy clan, but I didn’t realize you knew Khrushchev and those guys, too.”

  Unbidden, John closed the shelter door, sealing them inside. He could hear the subtle hum of the ventilation system. During normal times, when the structure was occupied, all electrical systems ran off ordinary household current. There were diesel generators standing by that would take over if the shelter was ever to be used for real. As a kid, John had considered the bomb shelter a kind of tree house, only underground. And, like an elaborate tree house, it consisted of several levels.

  James Naile took the steps downward, and John Naile followed him. “I built the bomb shelter in order to mask what’s on the fourth level, John.”

  “Fourth level?”

  “I do have special knowledge of the future, John. On days like today, I wish to God that I didn’t.”

  They reached the first level of the shelter, some eighteen feet below the surface.

  Half of this level was given over to things such as the diesel generators and their backups, with a separate fuel- storage area, sealed off from the rest of the level for safety reasons, on the far end.

  James Naile opened another doorway, flipped another set of switches, and John Naile followed him into the next stairwell.

  The second level housed, on one side, living and working quarters for the family and, on the other end, similar but more modest accommodations for the staff, as well as sleeping quarters. At the center were common rooms and storage areas. Within the storage areas were food, water, toilet paper and everything else one might need for a stay of three months, with certain items regularly rotated out of stock and replaced so that everything would be fresh. There was also a vault. James Naile didn’t open it, but John Naile glanced at it while his father opened the next doorway. Within the vault were a dozen each M1 Garand rifles, Colt 1911A1 pistols and Remington 870 pump shotguns. Ammunition and all other necessities for the guns were housed within the vault as well.

  John Naile closed the door behind them, and they descended to the third level.

  The third level was the smallest. There was an office, smaller but otherwise somewhat similar to his father’s office in the house, minus windows, of course. On this floor as well there were three bedrooms—the slee
ping accommodations for the family. There was a gymnasium, small but efficient, with free weights, a heavy bag and a treadmill.

  “Okay, son. Where do you think the entrance to the fourth level is?”

  “What?”

  “Where do you think I put it?”

  “Why would we have a fourth level to begin with, Dad?”

  James Naile didn’t smile. “You’ll know all of that.

  Where’s the entrance, son?”

  John stood in the smallish hall, the office in front of him, the gymnasium to his left, the sleeping accommodations to his right and behind him. “Secret stuff there, right?”

  “Right. Come on, son. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “I know—we’ll miss the commercial.”

  “At the very least.”

  John turned around. “Your office would be too obvious a spot. Yours and mom’s bedroom. Right?”

  “Right.” James smiled, evidently pleased. He led the way into the bedroom. It was a pretty standard room; a chest of drawers, a dresser with a vanity mirror, a large double bed. John started toward the dresser, but stopped, looking intently at the large headboard of the bed. “Bingo, John! That a boy! Help me move this sucker.”

  Actually, moving the bed was relatively easy, a matter of merely pulling on the footboard, and the bed’s headboard pivoting away from the wall. Behind it was a vault door. James spun the dial through its combination and unlocked it. “Your mother and I are the only ones who know the combination. I’ll give it to you to memorize.” James reached into the darkness beyond and flicked light switches. The staircase beyond was like the ones connecting the other levels.

  “This place must have set you back a small fortune, Dad.”

  “Not too bad, really; it helps owning your own construction companies and concrete plants.” At the bottom of the stairwell, John Naile found himself standing beside his father in what looked like a library or study, book-shelves lining paneled walls. There was a television set—a big one—and there were pieces of unfamiliar electronic equipment. “Here we are, son.”

  “The Russians will never get you here, Dad.”

  “Russians, maybe; Soviets, no way, unless future history is to be radically altered. That’s why only your mother and I knew about the fourth level until today.” As James Naile went over to the television set, almost as an aside he said, “And, by the way, the Soviet Union will officially cease to exist twenty-eight years from now, in December of 1991.”

  “You mean there’ll be a war, then?” John Naile was starting to question either his own sanity or that of his parents. “But you just said there wasn’t—”

  “Not a war; just evolution, son. The leadership of the Soviet Union will finally realize what folks like us have been saying all along: Communism flat out doesn’t work. Economics, son, not philosophy will win out. But that’s a long story. Just thank God for Ronald Reagan.”

  “The ACTOR?”

  “That’s a long story, too. Anyway, when you feel it’s appropriate, John, the secrets I’m revealing to you can be shared with your wife. Someday, that baby Audrey’s carrying will need to be told, but not until he or she is an adult and you can be absolutely certain the knowledge won’t be abused. That child will someday be the head of Horizon Industries. Unlike you or me, though, during the greater part of his or her tenure, the future will be a mystery.”

  “The future’s a mystery for everybody, Dad.” John Naile leaned against the wall, blinked his eyes.

  “Not for us, John, thanks to your great-grandparents moving west to Nevada. It’s from them that I—and now you—have inherited the records of future history. I don’t know if they realized what a moral burden it would be, despite all the care that they took. On the other hand, that knowledge of the future has made Horizon Industries what it is today. I’ve often considered—but subsequently dismissed—the idea of going to have a chat with your great-grandparents, of trying to tell them that bringing data from the future into the past is more dangerous than they suspect, despite the potential for positive change.

  “In the records you’ll be reading, John, mention is several times made of eight million Jews being killed in the death camps, for example, but six million were killed according to our perception of recent history. So, maybe the effort Horizon made during the war wasn’t for naught. Who can say?”

  “Are you alright, dad? You’re talking like—well, I don’t know what you’re talking like. Jack and Ellen, and your Dad and your aunt Elizabeth—they moved to Nevada seventy years ago. So how could you go and talk with Jack and Ellen Naile now? It’s my fault. I should be taking on more responsibilities in the company so you and Mom could—”

  “Actually, it was sixty-seven years ago that Jack and Ellen Naile moved west, or a little over three decades from now, depending on your perspective.”

  John Naile stared at his father, then glanced about at the strange trappings in the underground room. Without looking at his father, he said, “What?”

  “Ever wonder why I had you learn building and carpentry skills even though you’re a rich man’s son?”

  “Well, I guess you thought it was good for me. Right? Okay, why?”

  “Someday you might have to fit out a secret room like this, John, so you’ll need to know how. There’s a box on the bookshelf there beside you. Take it down carefully, open it and tell me what you see there sealed under the glass inside.”

  John Naile took the box from the shelf, opened it and looked at the object beneath the glass. Two pages from a magazine article, including a photo of a streetscape from turn-of-the-century Nevada. There were several storefronts visible, one of them reading “Jack Naile—General Merchandise.” John Naile looked up from the photo and at his father. “Great-Grandpa’s store.” He looked more closely at the picture, his eyes drifting down to the bottom of the page. There was a date: 1991. “This date must be screwed up, Dad. You ever notice it?”

  “That magazine article is what made your great-grandparents realize that they were moving west, John, going to wind up in Nevada. A friend sent it to them shortly after the article was published, kind of as a gag. Jack took it more seriously than Ellen—at least at first, anyway. And my father, David, refused to even consider that there was something strange going on. You remember what a hardhead my father always was about almost everything except business,” James Naile said. John Naile glimpsed a faint smile crossing his father’s lips with the memory. “A fine and generous man of great intelligence and foresight, David Naile. He totally refused to believe, up until the very last minute, that some sort of time anomaly was going to take place and that he and his sister and parents would be caught up in it. But, to be on the safe side, he planned for it, even though he didn’t believe in it. The business knowledge he entered the past with enabled him to become the richest man in the state of Nevada. Hell of a guy.”

  “What the hell is going on, Dad?”

  “Take down the copy of Atlas Shrugged. Right there on the shelf next to Jack and Ellen’s family Bible. The bible was printed next year, by the way, if you care to check the date.”

  “How can you say ‘was printed next year?’ What’s—”

  “Look at the Ayn Rand novel there, in the flyleaf.” John Naile took the book and opened it. His father went on. “The book is a 1957 first edition of Atlas Shrugged. But there is something stamped into the endpapers.”

  “‘From The Library of Jack and Ellen Naile,’” John Naile read aloud. He stared at his father.

  “Now, that volume that you’re holding in your hands, John, is one of the few actual books—most of their reference materials were on microfiche, which is like microfilm—but that book and their family Bible and only a few other works were in actual book form when Jack and Ellen Naile packed up the family and moved to Nevada.”

  John Naile pushed himself away from the bookcase against which he’d leaned. “That’s impossible, Dad; you know that. Jack and Ellen Naile moved to Nevada before the turn of th
e century, and Ayn Rand’s book here wasn’t published until six years ago.”

  “If I’d brought you down here six years ago or ten years ago or as soon as you were old enough to read numbers, John, you could have read that same publication date from that same book. You’ll have to believe something.

  And I’ve got all the proof you or anyone could require confirming that belief.

  “Your great-grandparents and my father and his sister, Elizabeth, did indeed move to Nevada just before the turn of the century, but the century I’m talking about was this one, this century—not the last one. When they arrived at their destination, they were not only more than half a continent away from their home in Georgia, but almost an even century back in the past.”

  Before John Naile could think of anything to say, James Naile looked at his wristwatch and announced, “It’s nearly time for Walter Cronkite to come on.”

  “It’s only a little after one-thirty, Dad. All that’s on television this time of the day is soap operas. Remember?”

  “As the World Turns, to be precise, John. See?”

  For the first time, John Naile looked at the television screen. There was a picture, all right. “How’d you get—”

  “A picture down here? I’ve got sheathed cable running up to the roof of the pump house up above and to an antenna array. I was down here earlier checking reception. It’s perfect. It’s a color television, but CBS won’t go to color broadcasting for a while yet. Pour yourself a drink, John. You’re going to need it. Trust me. What you’re about to see is no soap opera.”

  James Naile placed some sort of black plastic cartridge into one of the unfamiliar-looking electronic gadgets, this particular one right beside the television set. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a VHS videocassette, which will be invented by the JVC Corporation sometime in the future. I don’t know exactly when. I have a supply of the cassettes, handmade for me at considerable expense by the boys in our research labs. Both the machine and the cassettes themselves were copied from equipment owned by Jack and Ellen Naile. Your great-grandparents had planned to bring several of these machines to Nevada with them, but the circumstances of their actual trip came up suddenly. So they only had one, which doubled as a handheld television camera. The thing was made by the Japanese, or will be, depending on point of view. Rest easy; we have stock in several companies which will be big players in this. And the Nailes had about a dozen cassettes with them when the time transfer took place. The original cassettes couldn’t be duplicated or even played until recently, because of the printed circuitry required for the machine. Getting images off those old cassettes was almost impossible. Seems the magnetic surface can start flaking off, kind of like a photograph fading in sunlight.”