Bobbi looked at Lockhart. He pulled a bit closer before he locked the wheels on his wheelchair and began. “Glen is a person, a human being just like us, only he lived a number of lives in the past, and some in the future, and he can remember them, or some of them anyway, more absolutely than anyone else I ever heard of. If you already met Diogenes, you know what I mean. He calls it trading places through time.”

“But I saw him actually become another person.” Alice protested. “He just vanished and this other person stood right where he stood, or squatted, actually. Do you know what I mean? How can he do that?”

“It was not another person, exactly.” Lockhart began again, but Bobbi interrupted.

“Still him, just another one of his lifetimes. Diogenes was a first cousin of Alexander the Great way back when.” Bobbi noticed the slight reddening of Alice’s face. “He claims he was married to Aphrodite, the love goddess, toward the end of his life. I cannot verify that, but I think some of her may have rubbed off on him. What do you think?” Bobbi teased. It required no great insight to tell what Alice thought.

Alice could not seem to prevent the smile that came to her face. “Wait! You don’t mean a real goddess.”

“Later.” This time Lockhart interrupted. “For now, you will just have to accept that he has access to other lives like no one else does. He says since the genetic pattern is nearly exact, and since time has some small flexibility, or relativity if you prefer, he doesn’t disturb the timeline when he borrows a past or future life.”

“Wait.” Alice had another question, or several. “What do you mean disturb the timeline? Isn’t this like reincarnation or something?”

“Absolutely not.” Lockhart answered her. “He says his lives are because some mysterious friends, as he calls them, keep forcing him to be reborn every time he tries to die.”

“Sometimes he talks about himself as an experiment in time and genetics, like he is no more than a hamster on a treadmill with no way to get off.” Bobbi added with a touch of sadness in her voice. They all paused for a minute to look at Glen.

One of the men from the table took that moment to bring over a tray of coffee, tea, and snacks. They were at cruising altitude, not that any of them ever buckled a seatbelt.

“Wait.” Alice regained the floor even as she accepted a cup of tea. “You said future lives.”

Bobbi and Lockhart looked at each other again before Bobbi took up the explanation. “Yes. You must be a lawyer. And yes, he remembers the future, too.” She said that much, and then she paused to sip her coffee while she considered something. The others waited patiently, including the three at the table who were neglecting their work to listen in. “Let me just say this, his memory, I mean Glen.” She pointed. “It got toyed with at some point in his early years. Most of the time, he has no idea that he is the Traveler and he just lives a normal, everyday life.”

“Like a grocery clerk?”

“He is a minister if you must know. Mostly, though, he is the Storyteller. That is what his other lives call him, but he claims it is not an honorific, just a job description.”

“Anyway, he mostly lives as normal a life as such a person can live.” Lockhart interjected. “He says that even with his memory blocked, the past and future have a tendency to leak into his mind at the most inopportune times, but without the context to understand what is happening, he says it is very strange and makes him feel like he is living as a stranger in a strange land.”

Bobbi put her hand up to stop Lockhart from speaking further. She continued with the explanation. “Anyway, at times of crisis, the block on his memory is designed to come down and he remembers at least some of his past lives and usually one or more future lives as well. It is like actual memory, too; triggered by events and little things just like real memory. It is a lot to process, though, all at once like that.” Bobbi paused again to sip and reach for a cookie, bad as it was for her waist, but in this way, she gave Alice time to process her own thoughts.

“I’ve seen him like this before, some years ago.” Lockhart said to reassure Alice that Glen would be fine after a while. “He just needs time to straighten it all out.” Lockhart tapped his own head and stayed away from the cookies.

“So, he remembers the future?” Alice shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It is the only way to understand it.” Bobbi responded. “And another strong reason why his case is not like some kind of reincarnation.”

“I can see that.” Alice understood that much. “But now, Traveler?”

“Kairos, technically. Event time. An ancient Greek word.” Lockhart did the translation. “We might call him the god of history, though he prefers the term Watcher over history. The Traveler is just shorthand for the Traveler in time.”

“Time traveler? Oh, of course, Diogenes.”

Lockhart and Bobbi both nodded and a moment of silence followed before Alice spoke again.

“So now, who is this Princess?”

Lockhart and Bobbi passed another glance, but they were smiling. “She is a lawyer.” Bobbi said again. “She doesn’t miss much.”

Lockhart nodded and pointed at Glen. “He is the Princess.” Before Alice could respond, Glen lifted his head. He spoke, though it did not seem like he was speaking to any of them.

“What? Sure, that might help,” he said. He stood and vanished from the airplane and got replaced by an absolutely stunning young woman who looked twenty-something, around five-seven, with long golden brown hair that appeared so light it looked nearly blond, and eyes as blue as Glen’s; but her eyes flashed with life, youth, and health. Indeed, Alice could not see an ounce of fat on that perfect body. The Princess stood with a smile for Lockhart, and she turned once all the way around, slowly. She arrived in a dress that fell halfway to her knees but hid none of her figure. Alice wondered where the armor and weapons went, but she held her tongue as the Princess spoke.

“How do I look?”

“Beautiful, as always.” Bobbi spoke first.

“Gorgeous.” Lockhart confirmed as he matched the Princess’ smile, and then some.

Alice thought the word gorgeous was an understatement, but her mouth said something else as she watched the woman sit in Glen’s chair. The Princess kept her knees locked together as only a real woman would do. “So, you are the Princess? Wait a minute.” Alice’s thoughts caught up with what her eyes took in. “Do you mean he has lived as a woman?”

The Princess nodded. “Half of my lifetimes,” she confirmed before she turned to Bobbi. “There was so much memory coming all at once I was afraid my Storyteller might burn his little brain out. What? Oh, he says his brain is not so little.” The Princess laughed softly, and the laugh sounded as beautiful as the rest of her.

“But isn’t he still remembering?” Bobbi asked.

“Yes, but this way I get some of the pressure and he doesn’t have the distractions so he can focus better on integrating it all. At least I think that is what is happening.” She shrugged.

“All right.” Alice spoke and threw up her hands for emphasis. “I’m getting it, but not really. I think you better start at the beginning.” She looked straight at the Princess. “And I mean you, whoever or whatever you are.”

“Me? I was born in 228 BC.” The Princess said. She sounded a bit confused, like maybe she had trouble translating into English from her native Greek.

“Do you mean the Traveler?” Lockhart asked. “That would be around 4500 BC, near as we know.”

“I think she means just Glen’s life.” Bobbi tried, and Alice nodded and pointed at Bobbi.

“Like when did he first realize he lived all of these other lifetimes, and when did he first, what did you call it, trade places in time?”

“Oh yes.” The Princess liked the idea. “Talking it out might be the best thing to do.”

“Well…” Bobbi drew out the word as they watched the Princess vanish and Glen return. He came dressed in the jeans and shirt he wore in the market and, Alice noticed, he did not keep his knees together at all.

“That would be before my time,” Bobbi said. “Lockhart, you met him at that college in Michigan. What was he, seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Actually.” Glen got their attention. “I remember a time when I was four, or actually not quite four. Things do not usually happen that early in my lifetimes. Normally, I get the chance to develop my own personality and learn some things before time starts to open-up; generally, sometime during puberty; but this was a special case if I remember it rightly. Let me see…”

************************

Monday

Glen remembers a time when he went to the Happy Hill Nursery School. Something is happening over the fence at Bell Labs. People are getting sick and Glen feels the need to do something about it, but what can a four-year-old do? Next time. Happy Reading

*

Glen looked down from his perch. He stood on an upside-down milk crate to adjust the butter, which would not fit correctly on the top shelf. The girl was blonde, very pretty, and about half of Glen’s age, which would put her under thirty, but not by much. Glen ran his fingers through his gray and mostly missing hair and felt very old.

“Excuse me.” The woman repeated herself and attempted a smile, though it seemed a very poor attempt. “I would like one of those,” she pointed. Glen tried not to sigh as he stepped off the crate so she could reach around him. She still tried to smile when Glen grabbed her. The butter landed on the old tile floor, the woman landed on the butter, and Glen landed on top of the woman.

She screamed. “What is wrong with you? I am a lawyer—” she growled but did not finish the sentence as the margarine above their heads exploded in a flash of blue-green light.

Glen grabbed the woman by the hand and dragged her around the corner, into the bread aisle. She still screamed but sat and watched as the old man in her face vanished and a well-built young man with a terrific smile appeared in front of her. He came dressed in chain armor that looked ancient, like something medieval, if not Roman, and he had the sword to go with it, slanted across his back, with the handle up above his left shoulder.

“N-no. Ex…” The young man tried to say, “Excuse me” in echo of her words, but his stutter got in the way, and he had other concerns. Keeping low was a big one. The young man peeked around the corner of the aisle and whipped out the long knife that rested across the small of his back. He sent it flying with his left hand. It entered—whatever it was—and the thing shrieked a thoroughly alien sound and collapsed.

“You missed.” The woman leaned over his shoulder, more curiosity than fear in her face. “My fiancé is a doctor. Heart is on the left.”

The man in armor shook his head as he stood. The—whatever it was—sprawled on the ground, its weapon having clattered across the dirty tiles. The young man pointed at the thing and then at the right side of his chest and smiled a smile that pierced the poor woman’s heart. Her heart on the left skipped a beat; but then the young man vanished and the old man came back. Curiously, he kept the armor, and in fact, the armor adjusted in size to fit the shorter man, belly and all. He took her hand to bring them close. The woman gave her hand without hesitation.

“Vordan have their heart on the right side,” Glen said. “But what on earth is it doing here… on Earth?” Glen cleaned and returned the knife to its place and picked up the alien weapon. He held it in a way that suggested he knew how to use it.

“Vordan?” The woman looked at the green colored creature on the floor. It looked like it might double for a swamp monster. “Vordan.” She repeated the name and looked at the old man. “I would guess it is not from around here.” She smiled a genuine smile for the first time.

“Come on.” Glen pulled on her hand to move them to the front of the store, but the woman balked and yanked her hand free. One side of her lip turned up as she spoke: not a flattering expression.

“Who the hell are you? You’re just a grocery clerk.”

“Actually, I work for a national merchandising company,” Glen said. He started to walk.

“But wait! What is with that chain mail get-up? Who was that other man?”

“Later.” Glen turned to walk backwards. “Are you coming or not?”

The woman did not hesitate for long. She had on a soft summer dress, and though Glen imagined jeans would have been a better choice, she had on running shoes instead of flip-flops so it took nothing for her to catch up. “Where are we going?” she asked above the screams that echoed around the supermarket.

 “To find the rest of them.” Glen thrust his arm out to hold her back while he let loose with a shot from that alien weapon. One was coming in the door, but it got distracted for a moment when the door automatically opened. The Vordan collapsed in the doorway and Glen rushed outside, right over the body. He kept low the whole way to stay below the front windows. He scooted up against one of the big columns in the shopping center and the woman stayed right on his heels. He pointed.

An alien ship about the size of a tractor-trailer sat in the parking lot, and three more Vordan hovered around the perimeter. One spotted him and fired. Glen turned and held up his cape between the woman and the blue-green energy beam—a cape that he had not been wearing a moment earlier. The shot hit the column, and while the façade melted, the steel beam at the center remained solid enough.

As soon as the enemy fire paused, Glen spun and returned fire. He did not appear to do any better than the Vordan. He missed all three and hit the alien ship instead. “Bad aim,” she said. Glen paused and looked at his gun as if something might be wrong with it.

“Communications array,” Glen responded, absentmindedly. “I don’t want them calling in reinforcements.”

“Too late.” The woman tapped Glen’s shoulder and pointed to the sky. An odd airplane-like vehicle looked to be closing in, fast.

“Cavalry,” Glen said, as he clicked something on the Vordan weapon and turned to fire again. The Vordan that had been creeping up close turned on sight of the oncoming ship. They ran back to their ship. Glen shot the mechanism that would delay their ability to open the door, and in a few seconds, the saucer vehicle came overhead. It emitted a greenish light that encompassed the Vordan ship and everyone around it for twenty yards. Both humans and Vordan in that section of the parking lot collapsed, and Glen grabbed the woman’s hand once more. “Come on,” he said, and this time she came without question.

After a few moments, the plane landed, but it had to crush one car to do it. The only thing the woman could do was gasp. The plane looked much bigger than it appeared in the sky. A door opened in the side and a ramp shot to the ground. A dozen armed people poured out and most headed for the Vordan and their ship. Three headed toward Glen and his woman follower.

“At least these look human,” the woman quipped, but Glen let go of her hand without responding. He reached out and hugged a big, African-American woman and she hugged him right back.

Glen smiled at the greeting but turned his head. “There’s another one by the butter,” he shouted toward the man who was examining the Vordan in the automatic door. The door kept trying to close but opened every time it bumped the body. Glen kissed the black woman on the cheek before he let go and turned to the blond. “You’re a lawyer?”

The woman nodded to the word but her eyes darted around. She gave the impression that all of this suddenly caught up to her and she might be feeling a bit overwhelmed. “Corporate contracts and such.” She managed to say that much.

“Good. My name’s Glen.”

The African-American woman pulled out a thin billfold. “Roberta Brooks, FBI.” She showed her I. D. but the woman lawyer shook her head.

“The FBI doesn’t have flying saucers.”

“Sanchez is with the State Department.” Ms. Brooks pointed at the man who still worked in the doorway. “Carlson here is with the ATF.”

Glen handed Carlson his car keys. “Glad you didn’t crush my car. It’s that silver Ford. Tell my wife I’ll be late for supper, will you?” Carlson looked briefly at the black woman. She nodded her head and Carlson smiled.

“I’m only sorry I’ll miss it,” Carlson said, as he headed toward Glen’s car.

Glen returned the smile as he once again took the pretty blond by the hand. He began to pull her forward as he and Ms. Brooks started toward the ramp and the saucer. “So, Bobbi, what are the Vordan doing here?” Glen asked.

“Vordan?” Ms. Brooks said the word as if tasting it for the first time. “We did not even know who they were. You tell me.”

“Mister Smith not around?”

“No, and that concerns us as well. There are three battleships on the dark side of the moon, and we only found out that much by accident. Normally, Mister Smith shows up with that kind of information, but no one has seen him.”

“Can’t be time for…” Glen stopped walking. Clearly, he did not finish his sentence. “Still, this is a Kargill planet by treaty. The Vordan have no business being here.”