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18. THE TWELFTH HOUR
"So," Cuphandle said breezily as they tooled along on a great freeway, "have you decided what you want to do?"
"I'm still thinking about it," Arthur said.
"You'd better think quickly, because in about 55 minutes you'll be locked into your original decision, to get a new life, forever."
"So tell me," Arthur said, "what is the upshot for Gretchen if I decide to try my luck as a new man with a whole new life full of fresh time?"
"There is a lot of paperwork for us," Cuphandle said huffily. "That's the first thing. Of course there is also a lot of paperwork the other way, if you decide not to go through with the deal."
"Aside from your discomfort level," Arthur said drily.
"Well," said Cuphandle, "it would get passed along to Special Plans and Operations. It would be a complicated matter. It would mean that the person you are, and the persons you have been, would cease to exist. They would never have existed as such, and that would mean undoing a lot of things. For example, Daniela and Anne-Marie would vanish. Maybe a slightly different pair of girls would take their place, or a boy and girl, or two boys, or whatever, with Gretchen 's DNA and the DNA of whoever she'd have married if you had not come along. That little boy with the lantern would vanish."
"Ouch."
"Yes. As my client, however, you require that I inform you that your happiness as such is our paramount concern and should be yours, and therefore you should think of yourself in all of this, and let the chips fall for others as they may." He gave Arthur a look askance. "Isn't that how you've played most of your life out anyway?"
"I have an idea," Arthur said. "Just mulling some thoughts around. Some what ifs." Sunlight played on the rooftops of the city that had seemed to drab and rainy just an hour ago. Of course it had also been deep night an hour ago. "Just want to run something by you."
"Oh?"
As Arthur began relaying his idea to Cuphandle, they entered that long sandy tunnel of time again.
Cuphandle nodded attentively. Once or twice he even pulled out his cell phone and called his Agency for detailed instructions.
Meanwhile, Arthur sat back and let the miles roll by. This section of tunnel had at least two lanes open and free of sand at all times. There were still objects buried everywhere, from grand pianos and tubas to playground rockets and even a sailboat under full sail.
Arthur looked at his watch while the tunnel lights fleeted past in their tile settings. There was only a half hour left to go now.
Cuphandle finished his second phone call, put the cell in his pocket, and looked intrigued. "They gave it the go-ahead. You may be in luck. Is that the way you want to go?"
"I'll think it over just one more time."
Cuphandle seemed to be getting upset. "Mr. Latchloose, how many times do you need to think it all over? We have less than half an hour left before you are locked into giving up your present time and getting a whole new set of blank time."
"You forget that I am a successful if curmudgeonly old banker, my young fellow. We always think things through a dozen times before making a decision. The old Russian saying is Cut once but first measure seven times."
"No wonder you drive people around you crazy."
"That too will change, Cuphandle. Have no fear."
After a 15 minute drive they came to an off-ramp in one of those portals that led from inside the tunnel into a parallel world or Nebenwelt.
Racing to beat the clock, Cuphandle kept the tiny car's gas pedal floored and they zoomed around in a tight arc, down into another snowy landscape. It was a city in winter, but Arthur couldn't read the street signs and directions, and supposed people here spoke a different language. Finally, he realized that the street signs were mirror images plus they were flipped end over end, so that sixes were nines and Ls were sevens, and so forth. They raced down snowy u1eW Street (Main Street) and then on pv1YL Street (Third Street) until they came to a bridge, and there they stopped.
Arthur said: "This place reminds me somewhat of the Houses of Parliament in London, with their great tower and 13-ton Big Ben bell, if we were looking from the Westminster Bridge, catty-corner across the river."
"Indeed," Cuphandle allowed with a little shrug, "though of course it isn't. Be assured, though, that Time reuses its basic templates often, with little twists and variations, in many places and times."
Speaking of rivers, a river flowed under the bridge-a river not of time, but of choppy, frigid water filled with floating ice blocks. The stone quays and wharves were thickly coated with lines and blobs of snow. Frost and ice rimed ornately winding wrought-iron fences that seemed to abound in this city whose name Arthur did not bother asking because he was intent on his decision.
"Hurry," Cuphandle said, tapping the steering wheel with leather-gloved hands. He looked exasperated.
Arthur mulled it over a bit longer. Meanwhile, it began to snow lightly, and then more thickly. The clocktower opposite became obscured with snowflakes. A pall of white clouds descended, lowering visibility to a matter of yards.
Cuphandle tapped him on the shoulder and gestured with his thumb. "Out."
"What."
"I said, out. Let's walk to the edge and you can take a look at your new life. Maybe that will help speed your tortoise-like thinking along."
"Very well." Arthur got out. Cuphandle had an umbrella, and together they huddled under it while pedestrians hurried back and forth. None of them knew, of course, that a parallel world opened on the other side of the bridge just for Arthur, if he decided to follow through on his wish for a new life. Arthur held his lapels together and pulled his chin in, and even at that the chill wind got into his shirt and made him have goose bumps. Large snowflakes slammed against his skin and melted with icy pinprick pain.
Then, abruptly, they were on the other side. Cuphandle gestured for him to step on a certain spot and then walk straight forward. "You don't need to come back. Just keep walking and it will all take care of itself. You'll be twenty years old in a fresh new body, and you'll be sprinting the mile in four minutes. You can have all that and sixty more years of new life, all in about ten minutes if you decide to move along."
Cuphandle stayed behind while Arthur walked into a summer meadow filled with flowers. The air was warm and balmy. It smelled of newly mown hay, because farmers in a nearby dell were busy cutting the dry, late-summer grass. Somewhere nearby, cows mooed and sheep leaped about. Birds flew overhead in a clear blue sky. Arthur had to shield his eyes with his hand, and sweat formed on his forehead and got into his eyes as he looked up at the birds.
"Well, what do you think?" Cuphandle's voice sounded from in the blizzard.
"Peachy," Arthur said. "I like it."
"Two minutes," Cuphandle announced gleefully, sounding glad to have it all over with.
"You'll deserve a promotion when we are done, you and I," Arthur called out.
"I look forward to a long vacation first."
"And a well deserved one," Arthur said, touching the warm, heavy vest pocket watch in his trousers.
From the other side, he heard the rumbling in the clocktower as the great bells began to wind up for their twelve o'clock ring. First there was a good thirty seconds of carillon song. Then the first hour tolled. Then the second. In another ten seconds, his old life would be irrevocably lost in favor of a new one.
The third bell tolled, and then the fourth.
Nearby in a field, Arthur noticed a dramatic scene.
He saw a man and woman having a picnic in the shade of a linden tree.
The fifth bell rang, and then the sixth.
Their car was parked nearby. A fishing pole tilted over a stream, with its line in the water. The woman's book lay open, face down, nearby.
The seventh bell rang, and then the eighth. Four more seconds to go.
The man and woman lay beside each other, fully dressed and kissing passionately. The man's face pressed down on hers in a most romantic manner. A car approached and fell silent.
The ninth bell rang. Three seconds to go.
The hypnotic quiet of a summer's day lulled Arthur. He inhaled deeply the scents of new-mown grass and blooming flowers. He listened to birds twittering and crickets chirping. Sheep lowed on a hillside, and their herd dog barked for them to stay in line.
Suddenly, another man burst out of a cluster of bushes and started yelling: "You scoundrel!" He threw himself on the other man.
The tenth bell rang. Two seconds to go.
Both men rolled about throwing punches while the woman shied away in horror. Nothing different here, Arthur thought. Nothing really special.
The eleventh bell rang. One second to go.
"Stop," Arthur yelled. "I don't want to go through with this." He strode back toward the blizzard.
The twelfth bell rang. The matter was finished.
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