The Six-Gun Solution (TimeWars 12)

“I’m not sure. Neither is Jenny. Part of the time, he’s basing himself in Hop Town, in a room above an opium den. He’s also got a chronoplate stashed there, which leads to London in some future time period. Jenny’s not sure which. She isn’t told any more than she needs to know. He is protected there. As far as any other bases of operations he might have back here, she doesn’t know. We’re in it up to our necks, Finn. It’s not only Drakov back here. It’s the Network and the S.O.G.”

“Good God! Stone?”

“He’s S.O.G. But he’s the only one that Jenny knows about. The Network and the S.O.G. apparently don’t know about each other. And there’s a hell of a good reason for that. Are Lucas and Andre here with you?”

“Yeah. They’re over in the Grand Hotel. But wait a minute. You saw Lucas!”

“I did?”

Delaney frowned. “He went out on that posse with you. He said he saw you. And he said you acted as if you didn’t know him. He figured you were under surveillance from someone in the posse and knew about it. What kind of game are you playing here. Scott?”

Scott had stopped dead in his drinks. “He saw me?”

Delaney looked at him with a frown. “What is this? Are you telling me you don’t remember?”

Scott gave a low whistle, “Finn. Lucas wasn’t with that posse. At least, not the posse I was on.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Of course, he was there! I saw him ride out! He saw you, for God’s sake!”

“No. He didn’t. He didn’t see me. I’m beginning to understand what’s going on here. And it’s even worse than I thought. Finn, everything that we suspected about this temporal scenario is true. Not just one of the possibilities we considered, all of them together. The S.O.G. is here. At least one of them that I know about, but there’s probably more. There’s got to be. The Network is here. They’re running an operation out of the Clanton ranch.”

“You mean Ike Clanton is a Network agent?”

“Not Clanton. And not Curly Bill, either. The other one, Johnny Ringo. Only he’s not really Johnny Ringo. His real name is Tim O’Fallon.”

“O’Fallon!”

“You know him?”

“Hell, yes. He was one of Jack Carnehan’s field agents. You remember the Mongoose?”

“No. Carnelian was before my time. But I’ve heard about him.”

“So that means he recognized me,” said Delaney. “I thought he was looking at me funny. He’s got himself a new face.”

“Yeah, Johnny Ringo’s.” Scott said. “They must have killed the real Ringo. “

“But I still don’t understand about you and Lucas. How could you be on the same posse together and not see each other?”

“Because we weren’t on the same posse.” Scott said. “We were on different posses. In different timelines. Only I didn’t realize until now that there’s another Scott Neilson in that other timeline. That puts an entirely new twist on things. Finn, this whole damn town is one big confluence point.”

Delaney stared at him, stunned. “The whole town?”

“I was able to piece it together from what Jenny told me.”

Scott replied. “And she doesn’t quite understand it all. As near as I can figure, the location of this town is also the location for a massive area of temporal instability. It’s a confluence, but more than that, it’s that one-in-a-million shot, a confluence where both timelines intersect at the same, exact corresponding space and time. You’re the one who went to R.C.S., so you probably understand the Zen physics a lot better than I do, but as a result, the temporal instability here is incredible. It’s like… like the town sort of flickers, like a strobe light, not so anyone here would actually notice, of course, but at different times, first you’re in one Tombstone, then you’re in the other.”

“Holy shit.” whispered Delaney.

“The thing I’ve been batting my brains out about is what the effect of temporal inertia is here. It doesn’t seem as if the people from this Tombstone can cross over into the other one, and I don’t even know if the Network and the S. 0. G. are in the same timeline together, but apparently, we can cross over. Or at least you can. You have, obviously, if you’ve talked to Lucas, because he and Andre are in the other timeline. Or at least they were. Maybe they’re here now. Hell, I don’t know. It’s a fucking mindblower. But it looks as if I may not be able to cross over, because there’s another Scott Neilson in the other timeline and temporal inertia is keeping us apart. Either that, Or I’ve become too deeply involved in this scenario and I’m part of whatever’s going to happen here.”

“So that’s what Darkness was talking about.” said Finn “That’s what he didn’t tell us. And that’s why he wasn’t able to tach back here, or at least he won’t be able to until a certain point in time.”

“I don’t understand.” said Scott.

“Darkness isn’t sure what effect crossing over would have on his subatomic structure.” Delaney explained. “It’s unstable and gradually disintegrating. He seems to have periods of remission, for lack of a better way of putting it, but he thinks that one of these days, he’s going to pass the point of

no return and he’ll simply discorporate, depart at multiples of light speed in all directions of the universe. Being in the vicinity of temporal confluence could accelerate that.”