Chapter Five
The Last Double Eagle
The machine began with a sound like thunder heard from very far away.
Elias Venn stood beneath it, unable to move.
He had expected the past to look different.
He had expected something obvious.
Dust.
Horse-drawn carriages.
Men in hats.
A city trapped in black-and-white.
Instead, the room looked almost exactly like his laboratory.
That was the first thing that frightened him.
The second was the man standing across from him.
Himself.
Older by perhaps fifty years.
The older Venn held the Double Eagle between his thumb and forefinger.
Its surface reflected the pale blue light of the machine overhead.
"You're not supposed to be here yet," the older man said.
Venn stared at him.
"Who are you?"
The older man smiled.
"You know."
"No."
"You've spent your entire life looking for me."
"I've never seen you before."
"Not yet."
The machine thundered again.
Venn looked upward.
It occupied most of the ceiling.
There was no obvious machinery. No gears. No cables. No control panels.
It seemed to be made of light contained within a framework of black metal.
"What is this?"
"The first machine."
"The first time machine?"
The older Venn shook his head.
"Not exactly."
"What is it?"
"A door."
"To where?"
"Everywhere."
Venn looked at him.
The older man placed the Double Eagle on a metal table.
"You think time is a line."
"It isn't?"
"No."
"Then what is it?"
The older Venn considered the question.
"An argument."
Venn frowned.
"That doesn't make any sense."
"It will."
The machine began to hum.
Venn heard voices.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
They came from nowhere.
Some were familiar.
Some were not.
He heard himself as a child.
He heard himself as an old man.
He heard conversations he had never had.
Then the voices disappeared.
The older Venn looked at him.
"You have very little time."
"For what?"
"To decide."
"Decide what?"
"Whether history should continue."
Venn walked around the machine.
The room was larger than it had first appeared.
Beyond the central chamber were observation windows.
Through one of them he saw the Philadelphia Mint.
The real one.
August 15, 1933.
Men moved through the corridors.
Machinery operated.
The world continued exactly as it had eighty-six years earlier.
Venn turned.
"We're not in 1933."
"We are."
"Then why does the Mint look different?"
"Because you're seeing more than one version of it."
Venn approached the glass.
The image shifted.
For an instant, he saw the familiar 1933 Mint.
Then it became a ruined building.
Then a futuristic complex.
Then nothing.
Then the original image returned.
"What's happening?"
"History is unstable."
"Because of the machine?"
"Because of us."
Venn turned toward the older man.
"How many timelines?"
The older Venn laughed softly.
"How many can you imagine?"
"Thousands?"
"More."
"Millions?"
"More."
"How many survive?"
The older man stopped smiling.
"One."
Venn looked at him.
"Which one?"
"Whichever one we're standing in."
Mara appeared behind him.
Venn turned.
She looked exactly as she had in his laboratory.
Dark hair.
Gray coat.
Pale face.
But there was something different in her eyes.
She looked exhausted.
"You lied to me," Venn said.
"Yes."
"About the coin."
"Yes."
"About the future."
"Partly."
"About me."
Mara hesitated.
"Yes."
The older Venn stepped between them.
"Enough."
Mara looked at him.
"You promised."
"I promised nothing."
"You said you'd let him choose."
"I am."
"Then tell him the truth."
The older Venn looked at Elias.
"You want to know why the coin exists."
"Yes."
"It was never supposed to be sent to 1933."
Venn stared.
"Then why was it?"
"Because someone changed the plan."
"Who?"
"You."
Again the answer.
Always the same answer.
Venn shook his head.
"I didn't do this."
"Not yet."
"Then how can I have done it?"
The older Venn looked almost sympathetic.
"That's the problem."
He led Venn to another room.
It contained shelves.
Thousands of objects.
Coins.
Photographs.
Books.
Newspapers.
Keys.
Watches.
Letters.
A child's wooden toy.
A rusted railroad spike.
A military medal.
A pocket watch.
Every object had a label.
Venn walked slowly between the shelves.
"What is this?"
"Anchors."
"Anchors to what?"
"History."
Venn picked up a coin.
A 1793 Chain Cent.
He examined it.
The label beneath it read:
TIMELINE 14 — COLLAPSED
He put it back.
Another object.
A Civil War button.
TIMELINE 23 — COLLAPSED
Another.
A photograph of New York.
TIMELINE 61 — COLLAPSED
He turned.
"How many?"
"These are only the objects we recovered."
"Recovered from what?"
"Dead histories."
Venn stared at him.
"Dead histories?"
"Timelines that ceased to exist."
"How can you recover something from a timeline that no longer exists?"
"You can't."
The older Venn looked at the shelves.
"Not completely."
He picked up a small glass jar.
Inside was a green leaf.
"That leaf came from a world where the United States never formed."
Venn stared.
"How?"
"An accident."
"What happened to that world?"
"Someone changed a decision made in 1787."
Venn looked at him.
"And this?"
The older Venn held up the 1933 Double Eagle.
"This is different."
"Why?"
"Because every surviving history contains it."
Venn felt a chill.
"Every one?"
"Every one."
"Even the timelines that collapsed?"
"Especially those."
"Why?"
"Because the coin is the fixed point."
Mara entered the room.
"The coin is not the machine," she said.
Venn looked at her.
"The machine is not the machine."
She nodded.
"What, then?"
"You are."
Venn stared at her.
The older Venn said nothing.
Mara continued.
"The technology doesn't move matter through time."
"Then what does it move?"
"Possibility."
Venn frowned.
"That's meaningless."
"No."
Mara picked up the Double Eagle.
"It moves information between possible histories."
She placed it in Venn's hand.
"When a person travels through time, the machine doesn't send him backward."
Venn looked at the coin.
"It finds a version of him that already exists."
The words took a moment to register.
Venn looked at the older man.
"So I'm not traveling."
"No."
"I'm replacing someone."
"Not exactly."
"Then what?"
"You're becoming the version of yourself that already exists in that history."
Venn looked toward the observation window.
He saw the Philadelphia Mint.
Then his own laboratory.
Then a battlefield.
Then a city filled with towers.
Then an empty landscape.
Different worlds.
Different histories.
Different versions of himself.
"How many Elias Venns are there?"
The older man answered:
"All of them."
Venn remembered the photograph.
The man standing beside the 1933 coin.
Himself.
He suddenly understood.
"You were there."
The older Venn nodded.
"In 1933."
"You gave Mercer the coin."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I was told to."
"By whom?"
The older Venn looked at him.
"You."
Venn closed his eyes.
The paradox was complete.
He had sent the coin backward because his future self had told him to.
His future self had told him because the coin existed.
The coin existed because he had sent it backward.
There was no beginning.
No first cause.
No original event.
It was a circle.
And somewhere inside that circle was him.
Venn opened his eyes.
"Who built the first machine?"
The older man said nothing.
Mara answered.
"We don't know."
Venn stared at her.
"That's impossible."
She smiled sadly.
"No."
She pointed toward the Double Eagle.
"We know who built it."
Venn looked down.
"Who?"
"You did."
The room seemed to contract around him.
Venn shook his head.
"I didn't build this."
"Not yet."
"When?"
"Twenty years from now."
"Where?"
"Here."
Venn looked at the machine through the glass.
"And why?"
The older Venn answered.
"Because you believe you can fix history."
Venn looked at him.
"Can I?"
"No."
"Then why did I try?"
"Because you're human."
The older man walked toward the observation window.
"Everyone who discovers time travel believes the same thing."
"That they can fix the past."
"Yes."
"What happens?"
"They make it worse."
The older Venn touched the glass.
"You will try to prevent wars."
He pointed toward one image.
"You'll save people who were supposed to die."
Another image.
"You'll stop discoveries."
Another.
"You'll create them earlier."
Another.
"You'll prevent disasters."
Another.
"You'll cause disasters."
The images changed faster.
Cities.
Battles.
Elections.
Explosions.
Births.
Deaths.
Civilizations.
Extinctions.
"Every change creates another history."
Venn whispered:
"And every history creates another version of us."
"Yes."
"Until they collide."
"Yes."
Venn looked at Mara.
"That's what you meant when you said the future was breaking."
She nodded.
"How much time?"
"None."
"What?"
"The collapse has already begun."
The machine screamed.
Not mechanically.
Almost like a living thing.
The lights turned white.
The walls disappeared.
Venn saw thousands of histories simultaneously.
In one, the United States never existed.
In another, the Civil War had ended differently.
In another, the Moon was covered in cities.
In another, humanity had never left Africa.
In another, humanity had never evolved.
In another, Venn himself stood beside a different machine.
In another, Mara was dead.
In another, she was an old woman.
In another, she was never born.
The images became faster.
Then suddenly—
Silence.
Everything stopped.
The older Venn stood alone.
Mara was gone.
The machine was gone.
The shelves were gone.
Venn stood in his laboratory.
His laboratory.
He looked around.
The rain had stopped.
The clock read 8:03 a.m.
He remembered everything.
Or thought he did.
The Double Eagle was in his hand.
He walked toward the window.
The city looked normal.
Cars moved through the streets.
People walked along sidewalks.
A bus stopped at a traffic light.
Nothing was different.
He turned on the television.
A morning news program was playing.
The announcer was discussing markets.
Politics.
Weather.
Ordinary things.
Venn sat down.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
After twenty minutes, he began to believe it was over.
Then the announcer said:
"And in an extraordinary scientific development this morning, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have announced the successful transmission of information across a temporal interval."
Venn stopped breathing.
The screen showed a laboratory.
Scientists stood around a machine.
A reporter spoke over the footage.
"The experiment, conducted overnight, transmitted a single packet of information exactly one second into the past."
Venn looked at the Double Eagle.
The announcer continued.
"Researchers say the experiment could eventually allow communication across much larger temporal distances."
Venn whispered:
"No."
The television displayed a date.
August 15, 2179.
Venn stared.
He understood.
The future had not been destroyed.
It had been preserved.
He had not broken the loop.
He had completed it.
Three days later, Venn returned to the Weller archive.
Room 17 was gone.
Not locked.
Not sealed.
Gone.
The wall where the door had been was solid concrete.
He searched the building records.
There had never been a Room 17.
He searched the property plans.
Nothing.
He searched the archives.
Nothing.
Thomas Weller's name no longer appeared anywhere.
His collection had never existed.
The estate had never existed.
Margaret Bell had never been his attorney.
Venn searched for her.
She was alive.
She had become a professor of constitutional law.
She had never heard of Thomas Weller.
She had never met Elias Venn.
Venn sat alone in his laboratory.
The Double Eagle lay on the desk.
He looked at it for a long time.
Then he turned it over.
The microscopic inscription had changed.
A single line appeared.
THANK YOU.
Venn almost smiled.
Then another line appeared.
NOW BEGIN.
He stared at it.
The room seemed suddenly very quiet.
His telephone rang.
He answered.
No one spoke.
Then he heard a voice.
His own.
Older.
"Hello, Elias."
Venn closed his eyes.
"What do you want?"
"I need you to do something."
"What?"
"Go to the Mint."
"Why?"
"Because Samuel Mercer is waiting."
Venn looked at the coin.
"I thought we changed history."
"We did."
"Then why is he waiting?"
There was a pause.
"Because history changed us."
The line went dead.
August 15, 1933.
Samuel Mercer sat alone in a storage room beneath the Philadelphia Mint.
The wooden box was in front of him.
He had been waiting for three days.
He didn't know why.
He only knew that the man had told him to wait.
At exactly 4:17 p.m., someone knocked on the door.
Three times.
Mercer stood.
He opened it.
A man stood in the corridor.
Older.
Thin.
Gray-haired.
He wore an old-fashioned dark suit.
Mercer recognized him immediately.
"You're Elias."
The man smiled.
"Yes."
Mercer stepped aside.
"Come in."
Venn entered.
He carried a small wooden box.
Mercer looked at it.
"Is that the coin?"
Venn nodded.
"Why are you giving it to me?"
"Because you have to hide it."
"For how long?"
Venn looked at him.
"Eighty-six years."
Mercer laughed nervously.
"Why?"
"Because someone will find it."
"Who?"
Venn looked at the box.
"Me."
Mercer stared.
Venn placed the box on the table.
"One day, a man named Elias Venn will discover the coin."
"You?"
"Yes."
"And then?"
Venn hesitated.
"Then he will make a choice."
"What choice?"
"Whether humanity deserves to know what lies ahead."
Mercer looked at him.
"And what do you think?"
Venn looked toward the door.
"I don't know yet."
Mercer opened the box.
The Double Eagle lay inside.
He picked it up.
For an instant, the microscopic markings appeared.
Mercer saw words.
He read them aloud.
"WHEN THE MAN FROM THE FUTURE RETURNS, TRUST HIM."
He looked at Venn.
"You wrote this."
"Yes."
"But you said you don't know what choice you'll make."
"I don't."
Mercer frowned.
"Then why did you write it?"
Venn smiled sadly.
"Because I already did."
In 2026, Elias Venn sat alone at his desk.
The Double Eagle was gone.
For the first time since Margaret Bell had brought it to him, the laboratory felt empty.
He opened a new notebook.
On the first page, he wrote:
PROJECT EAGLE
Then beneath it:
August 15, 1933.
He stopped.
He looked at the empty space below.
He knew what he was supposed to write.
He knew where it would eventually lead.
He knew that one day, decades in the future, another version of himself would stand in this same room and read the words.
He also knew that he could stop.
He could burn the notebook.
He could destroy every record.
He could walk away.
For a moment, he considered doing exactly that.
Then he heard something beneath the desk.
A faint metallic sound.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
Venn looked down.
A small wooden box sat on the floor.
He hadn't put it there.
He opened it.
Inside was another coin.
Not a Double Eagle.
A quarter.
He turned it over.
On the reverse, beneath the eagle, were microscopic letters.
He held it beneath the microscope.
The message appeared.
THERE ARE SEVEN EAGLES.
Venn stared.
Then the final line appeared.
YOU HAVE FOUND ONLY ONE.
He leaned back.
For the first time, he understood that the Double Eagle had never been the mystery.
It had been the beginning.
And somewhere across the impossible distance between yesterday and tomorrow, six other coins were waiting.
