Free Millennium by John Varley Page A

as the BC can devise. Under no circumstances has one ever been opened before its time. I don’t know precisely what would happen if we did, and I don’t want to find out. Time travel is so dangerous it makes H-bombs seem like perfectly safe gifts for children and imbeciles. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen with a nuclear weapon? A few million people die: trivial. With time travel we can destroy the whole universe, or so the theory goes. No one has been anxious to test it.
    When the time capsule is opened a message is discovered. It is often a very queer message. My first capsule bore today’s date, to the hour, minute, and second. The second. The second one was dated not too long after the first. The third…
    Having
three
messages waiting for me had made me something of a celebrity. Nobody had ever received three before. However, I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re the nervous type.My third time capsule had been alarming people for three centuries. It alarmed me, too. It was the only one ever discovered without a specific date.
    On the outside it said:
    FOR LOUISE BALTIMORE, DO NOT OPEN UNTIL THE LAST DAY.
    What the hell is the Last Day? It was both pretty definite and achingly cryptic.
    I had to assume I’d know it when I saw it.
    *    *    *
    “Listen up, motherfucker.”
    “Yeah, I hear you. Right on time. I’ll give it to you on the click, of course.”
    “Of course,” I said. “What time would that be, precisely?”
    “Two or three minutes.”
    I’m sure the BC gave me that “precise” answer just to annoy me. So with all the annoyances in my life, I need a machine thumbing its nose at me?
    Apparently so. I tried having it kowtow and hated it even worse.
    I’m just not a big fan of machinery.
    The brick was sitting there across the room, on a transparent table. It looked like I could just walk over and grab it, but I knew better. I’d have been immobilized three times before I got within twenty meters, and killed if I got within five. When the BC says on the click it means precisely that.
    There were a few other people in the Post Office with me. Some of them were people I knew. Keeping me company, I guess. And there was Hildy Johnstown, the “newsman,” with his felt hat and his worn press pass sticking out of the hat brim. He puts out a paper with a circulation of around a thousand—actually pastes it up and prints it with ink on paper. The last gasp of a once-proud profession. Today, who gives a shit? News is, by definition, bad news.
    I wondered if he’d get a story. Sometimes the messages say it’s okay to tell others. Sometimes it says keep this under your hat. Sometimes it doesn’t say anything, and you have to decide for yourself. Time would tell.
    On the click, the BC caused the brick to be opened. It made some noise. I confess to a slight case of nerves as I crossed the room and pulled up a chair. I picked up the tablet and looked at the message.
    It was in my handwriting. I had expected that; they almost always are.
    It said:
    There are good restaurants in Jack London Square. Go north on the freeway and follow the signs.
    The Council will give in if you do not push them too hard.
    Tell them the mission is vital. I don’t know if it is, but tell them anyway.
    Don’t fuck him unless you want to.
    Tell him about the kid. She’s only a wimp.
    It was written in 20th Amerenglish. I read it through four times to be sure I had it all, and my jaw got tighter with each second I had to look at it. Finally, I stood up and backed away.
    “Blow it to hell,” I said.
    “You got it,” said the BC. The metal glowed white, whiter, whitest, and began to evaporate. I turned before the process was complete and strode from the room. I felt eyetracks all over me, but nobody said anything, not even Hildy.
    I held on all the way back across town and right up until my apartment door slammed behind me. Then I fell down on the floor. I don’t know what happened then. Whatever it was, it