Observer

A flash, a byte-green tunnel, and I was back in the arcade again. My white-knuckled sweaty hands were still gripping the joystick. Dim flickering lights of lonely machines bleeping retro 8-bit game synths. Dead chill, windows fogged up, puddles outside lapping on spilled neon.

“Waka-waka-waka.” Pac-Man ran from his ghosts.

I saw her out of the corner of my eye but pretended not to. She wasn’t playing. Sleek body, nimble fingers, dressed in black leather, vertical chip slot on her forehead. Anachronist. I lit a cigarette. Closed my eyes. The beachfront was seared into my mind, waters so blue they were green. Children chasing each other, feet caked with dried sand as I talked to her for the first time for a second time. Paradise in the palm of my hand. But I knew how the story ended. Please god, please let-

“Observer effect,” she said.

I exhaled a dark cloud slowly, suddenly bitter. I had thought there was time enough at last. Fuck me right? “The act of observing alters the thing being observed. Catch-22 thought-loop total mindfuck. I get it.”

“No, actually. You don’t.” She smiled disarmingly, but her white teeth were too clean. A rat scuttled across the floor. “Hop on a Traveler’s slipstream, you piggyback them into their past as a projection.”

“Like,” I started, taking a long drag and blowing at her, “second-hand smoking.”

Her eyes lit up. “That’s exactly right! Full points!” She mimed a congratulatory clap.

“That’s still bad for you.”

“Exponentially worse for the smoker.”

“How is it different from two-player?”

“Two-player is genuine collaborative Travel. Mutualistic agreement to bring 2 to the time and place immortalized in the mind of 1. Piggybacking distorts the projection of the past. It’s very much like creeping into someone’s bed while they dream, oblivious. That’s the observer effect. By entering your past, I irrevocably change it.”

I closed my eyes again. I had looked up from the children. Skyscrapers rose from the ocean, an entire city breaking the surface, waves lapping at windows. The sky had turned leaf-green. In worry, I glanced at my girl, but her face was already gone. Tanned oval in its place, hilly contours that suggested something human but not quite, all lines erased from the face. I opened my eyes. She was grinning. That bitch!

“Sorry. She was really beautiful. I guess I got a little jealous.”

For a moment, we said nothing.

“You were lucky.”

“Yeah… guess I was.”

“You know why I’m here, don’t you Ken? You know who I am.”

Funny. “You know, you heat are funny,” I said, wagging the cig at her. “Traveling illegal and all but you do it yourselves.” I laughed. “Necessary evil eh?”

She pressed her lips together. “Someone has to impose order on chaos.”

“Fuck you.”

She arched her eyebrows. “I think you misunderstand what we do. We protect this reality from Traveling distortions. Everyone Travels.”

I blinked.

“I’m not here for you honey. Not yet. Just checking in on your first run. Now, if you cause ripples in someone else’s string, they will come after you.” She shrugged. “Different anachronism division.”

She turned to her machine. Pinball. She reached for the joystick, hesitated.

“Find another arcade Ken. Too many people know about this one.”

“And if I don’t?”

She glanced up at me. Not once had her plastered smile faltered. “One of many outcomes.”

“Tell me,” I managed. “Is it real? Is any of it real?”

“Oh sweetie… that’s for you to decide, or for them to when they come for you.”