The New Voyeurism

by Tony Forbes

The four of them sat in the van, waiting for the target to come into view. Outside, it was winter, and the cold brilliance of the sun reflecting off the snow had managed to seep inside through the windows, even though they were darkly tinted, and kept fogging up, besides. Every few seconds, they would wipe the condensation away from the windows past which the target was set to walk, talking care not to rouse the suspicions of the few pedestrians whose breath contrailed behind them in the bitter aftermath of another lake effect storm. Daryl, sitting in the driver’s seat, as always, accepted the stealth as part of the theatrics of it all, but he’d been through it before, many times. The pedestrians never noticed. Even if they had—so what? They, like the target, were oblivious.

Still, Daryl put on the show, whispering whenever speech was called for, supplying prompts for whenever the windows could be safely defogged. Mainly, though, he kept his eyes on the instruments. Beside him, Tom had shifted around, slumping way down in his seat so as to rest his feet on the dash. Tom was projecting the image of someone who didn’t care all that much, idly picking at loose skin on his lip, but Daryl knew that as soon as the target appeared, Tom would sit up, crane his neck, and all the rest. He did it every time.

In the back seat sat Randy and Phillip, the happy couple whose money had made the trip possible. The two were husbands, though upon first meeting them, Daryl had almost mistaken them for twins. They were matched that way—stubbly round heads, small glasses, shaky protruding jowls. Now, they were both fixated on the read window of the wan, though which, history told them, they would first be able to spot the target. They were both agitated, though on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Randy seemed entirely giddy, whereas Phillip was clearly more nervous. This, Daryl appreciated. Most of the customers tended to treat the exercise with all the solemnity of a trip to the movies—great fun to be had, but otherwise routine. Daryl held that it was not routine at all to be sitting in a van twenty years prior to one’s own birth.

Daryl checked the instruments again.

“The bubble’s holding,” he reported.

“Hmmm,” Tom responded, before turning back to Phillip and Randy.

“Shouldn’t be much longer.”

They nodded, and Randy hastily gave the window one last swipe.

Just a few seconds later, he appeared. The future Jimmy Crater, known in this time only by his birth name, James Kratozki, appeared around the corner down the block. Randy and Phillip tensed immediately, as though they had been stuck by pins. Tom sat up in his seat and swiveled around to get a glimpse.

“Oh!” Randy cried. “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! It’s him!”

James Kratozki looked pale, no doubt a function of the winter through which he trudged. His body was wedged in the transition between end-of-puberty awkwardness and beginning-of-college torpor, and even though much of his face was obscured by greasy black hair, it was still recognizable as he shuffled towards the van, which he did not appear to notice.

“He looks like he’s thinking, doesn’t he?” Randy whispered, awed.

“Yeah,” Phillip answered, intensely.

Daryl thought the future music legend looked a bit blank, but he kept his opinion to himself.

What James Kartozki didn’t know was that within a few years, he would proceed to drop out of college, change his name to Jimmy Crater, and form a band called Stagnation A. Stagnation A would then torch what was left of the music industry, leading a so-called Rock Revival, and becoming one of history’s most influential acts. Jimmy Crater would ride that fame up to the very top, becoming one of the Most Important People to have graced the Earth.

Now, though, he only crossed the street a few feet in front of the van, and disappeared into a building, all the while unaware of the stares fixed in his direction.

Randy and Phillip let out twin sighs.

“That…” Randy attempted, “was…”

“I… just…” Phillip stammered, his articulacy similarly stunted.

Eventually, the two of them settled on a mere “Wow.”

“Five seconds ‘til we head back,” Daryl reported. Beside him, Tom got to work, prepping for the return.

“That building,” Randy asked, indicating where James Kratozki had just entered, “that’s the dining hall he worked at, right?”

“That’s right,” Tom smiled, turning his head briefly from the controls.

“Can you imagine being served by him?” Randy sighed.

“I think he was a dishwasher,” Daryl said.

“Oh.”

The temporal flux generator started to beep, signaling the beginning of the ride home.

“Everyone say goodbye to 2016,” Tom said, as the van, vanished from the street.

 

They knew they had returned from the heat alone. The transition sent a number of panels popping all over the van, as parts expanded. The fog burnt away from the windows, revealing the sun to the west, bleeding crimson up against the horizon. For Daryl, it was tremendously reassuring, not only because of the temporal correction, but because he had reached a place where he could stand outside without longing for the sweet embrace of death. The summer he was returning to was by no means mild, but he was glad for it, nonetheless.

Daryl navigated the van into the garage, where Mr. Carreg was waiting to receive Randy and Phillip.

“That trip,” Randy crowed, as he clamored out of the van, “was incredible.”

“Worth every last dollar,” echoed Phillip. “We’ll be telling all our friends.”

“Wonderful,” Mr. Carreg smiled. “Now, I’m sure you’ll want to get out of those anachronisms, so why don’t we hit the dressing room?”

Once the passengers were out of range, Mr. Carreg found Daryl.

“Any problems?” he asked.

“None,” Daryl responded.

Mr. Carreg was, in Daryl’s opinion, the perfect man to oversee the day-to-day operations of the company. He was someone who understood the underlying foolishness of what they were doing, who knew that, if something went wrong out there, the repercussions could be unpleasant.

Carreg was one of Temporal Tourism’s founders. He and his cohorts shared a singular vision: to use a Nobel Prize-winning loophole in General Relativity to slip paying customers back in time, to observe their favorite celebrities before they became famous. It had not been an easy start-up. The venture had required large amounts of capital, plus regulatory approval from hastily formed legislative bodies, before it could even dream of getting off the ground. Intellectually curious though practically cautious, Carreg’s major contribution had been securing the endorsement of Yokohama Ishii, the physicist whose work had started the ball rolling in the first place. Once Ishii was on board, the concept became popular with the moneyed set. Temporal Tourism became the next Big Thing. Within a year of going live, the initial investment had paid off. The company had landed on the cover of Time; the caption blazed “The New Voyeurism.”

Now, Carreg patted his blond hair reflexively, despite the fact that a hurricane couldn’t put one of the strands out of place. Being the lead face for Temporal Tourism had taught him to make his personal appearance immaculate. It suited him.

“Gutierrez told me the stagecoach carriage was starting to show a bit of slippage,” he said to Daryl.

“Oh, God,” Daryl moaned. “What happened?”

“Two seconds happened— between the departure schedule, and when they actually departed.”

“Does he want me to look at it?”

“No. I, on the other hand…”

“Right. I’ll try and be delicate.”

“Good.”

Carreg smiled and clapped Daryl on the shoulder, pulling his phone out of its pocket with his other hand.

“Got to meet with a customer. Keep me informed.”

And with that, he strode back to the offices.

Daryl took a few minutes to run the post-op diagnostic on the van, then set off across the garage. He wove his way past the many sleds, each a relic from a bygone era, retrofitted for time travel. The assortment of sleds was, in and of itself, a fantastic sight, but there was an added sensual bonus involved in picking one’s way though them—the smells. Most of the sleds were designed to deal with one or two pockets of time, and the repeated trips they had taken had steeped each sled in the scents of their particular pasts. To walk through the garage was to immerse oneself in ozone, dirt, smoke, grass, sulfur, perfume… all at once.

Daryl’s target was the stagecoach, whose particular odor tended towards dust and manure. On his approach, Daryl could see the diagnostic computer resting on the stagecoach’s roof, and a grubby pair of legs exuding underneath.

“Two seconds?” Daryl asked the legs.

“Hmph,” their owner grumped. “It’s fine. It’s the damn sand. It gets everywhere.”

“But, two seconds!”

With that, the body attached to the legs emerged, revealing Gutierrez.

Tall and stocky, Gutierrez seemed ill-fitted to be clamoring under a stagecoach repeatedly, especially when one considered that both his knees had been obliterated in the pursuit of a career as a football player. However, the work ethic he had shown in that life made him unaccustomed to excuses, which made him a favorite co-worker to Daryl.

“Carreg sent you, didn’t he?” Gutierrez asked, as he consulted the diagnostic computer.

“You know how he gets,” Daryl shrugged.

“Hmph,” Gutierrez grunted again, as he bent down to return under the coach. “I’ve just got to clean it all out, then it’ll be fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Good!” Daryl said. “Good. Then, you don’t need a hand?”

“No,” Gutierrez said flatly. “You’re worse than he is.”

“No one’s worse than he is.”

“True, but you encourage him. Tell you what: when I’m done, you can check my work, and when you find nothing wrong, you buy me some beer tonight.”

“It’s a bet!”

“Yes, good. A bet. It’s on.”

“Sweet! Have fun!”

And with that, Daryl headed to the lockers.