Free Chronica by Paul Levinson

was.

    Heron lowered the go lever and the bubble ascended. He stroked his upper lip with the second knuckle of his right hand. He would need to grow a moustache.

    [New York City, March, 1899 AD]

    The new face and the flight to New York City in 2087 were easy. The trip back to 1899 – or what Heron hoped to do there – would be more difficult. Fortunately, speaking English in a way that did not attract attention would be no problem. Heron was a polymath when it came to language, and the melting pot par excellence that New York City was in the 1890s would provide suitable cover for anything he said that might have differed from the usual dialects heard around town.

    Heron walked down the winding flight of stairs with his new face in the Millennium Club, nearly a year before the 20 th century, depending upon how you counted it. Whichever way it was categorized, Heron knew the century ahead would be pivotal for humanity.

    Cyril Charles, the unctuous dope, was in the vestibule of the club. These doormen – Heron thought of them as doormats - traveled through time more frequently than Heron, and apparently owed allegiance to no one but themselves. Heron had long been intending to do something about them, but was always caught up in matters more pressing.

    Charles greeted Heron in his disguise with a smile and a bow. Heron had a small band of people back here who know who he was, and upon whom he could rely. He was glad Mr. Charles was not among them.

    Heron walked out onto Fifth Avenue. The remnants of the huge snowstorm that had hit the entire East Coast last month, including New York City, were still on the street. He supposed he could have come back a month or two later. But Appleton was due to die in October, and with Heron not wanting to interfere with that, he didn't want to cut this too close. He had a firm policy of interfering as little as possible with the natural course of events.

    Of course, that begged the question of what was the natural course? Heron often considered that the history as he had encountered it was not the natural course of events, but as some other manipulator in time had made them happen. That manipulator could have been Sierra Waters, or a later version of himself, or someone he had no knowledge of at all.

    Heron shivered. It was colder here in March 1899 New York than he had expected. Or maybe he was more vulnerable to the cold than usual, having spent so much recent time in more temperate climates. Fortunately, he spotted a men's apparel shop across the street. And he had come prepared with plenty of 1890s American coin. He quickly purchased a woolen overcoat, which fit well over the woolen waistcoat he was wearing, and walked back out onto Fifth Avenue.

    He headed south, to Grand Central Terminal, where he would place a call on a public telephone to one of his minions. Several men on the street nodded at him as he proceeded. Possibly they recognized his new face. That didn't matter. In this day and age, communication had not yet progressed to the point at which everyone knew where famous people were, by virtue of their ubiquitous little messages on tiny telephones. Likely no one on the street personally knew the true possessor of Heron's current face, so the chances were slim that someone who attempted to converse with him would realize that he wasn't who he appeared to be.

    He reached Grand Central Terminal and made his call. "Let's meet at the seafood restaurant in 20 minutes," Heron told his associate, who said he would be there shortly. Heron had developed a taste for seafood in Alexandria. He knew the Oyster Bar would be opening in Grand Central Terminal in a little more than a decade. In the meantime, the current establishment would have to do.

    Heron left his new coat on the back of the chair he was shown to, in a quiet corner of the restaurant. Coat checks were a good few decades away.  

    He ordered an unflavored seltzer water, to start. He needed a clear head. "Very good,