Time Meddlers

by Deborah Jackson

  Chapter 6

  The Lab

  Sarah followed Matt as he zigzagged through the streets, hunching down in her plump winter coat. The wind whistled between the buildings as he plowed through several small drifts on the sidewalk, heading towards cobbled Sparks Street with its array of elegant boutiques. But he turned into a trash-cluttered back alley before reaching it. After walking a few steps, he opened a rickety wooden door with chipped paint and a network of spidery scratches in its surface. It looked like the neglected back door of a restaurant. He tramped through a narrow hall, climbed two flights of stairs, and stopped at a locked door with a security keycard slot to the side.

  “This is it,” he said, looking back at Sarah.

  She smiled and took a deep breath. “Let’s try the card.” She inserted it into the slot. The lock immediately disengaged with a distinct click. She jumped back, though, as a loud slurp resounded in the stairwell and the door retracted.

  “Oooh. Star Trek,” she said.

  They entered a narrow hallway that was tubular like the conduit ramp to an airplane. “I think Nadine’s office is at the end, but the main lab is just up the hall,” said Matt, advancing as if there were nothing unusual about the tunnel.

  They passed a room labelled “Mailroom,” another labelled “Finances.” After several cautious steps, they came to a plate with the word “Lab” etched on it. The door was larger than the others, a dull grey metal rimmed with what appeared to be airtight sealant. It made Sarah think of the blast door of a bomb shelter, something she’d seen in old movies. The lock was different from the keycard slot at the entrance. It had a sheer glass front with no visible number pads, slits for a card, or inserts for a traditional key. Sarah paused. This was a problem.

  Matt stared at the door, his forehead furrowed. “Any bright ideas? It’s a fortress, you know.”

  “What kind of lock is that?” she asked.

  “Looks like a retinal scan.” He pointed to his eye. “I saw one once on a computer game.”

  “Figures.”

  “Was that an insult?” he asked.

  Sarah didn’t answer.

  “Because if it was, I’ll have you know that computer games can increase intelligence—”

  “Can we stick to the problem? This was probably programmed for Nadine, right?”

  Matt nodded.

  “And who else?”

  “No one.”

  Sarah turned to Matt and examined his face, so similar to the one in the videos of his father. “Had to be for your dad, too.”

  “So? That doesn’t help us any.”

  “Here. Stand in front of it. I’ll give you a boost.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “You look like your dad, Matt. And you have his genes. Just maybe, your eyes are similar, too.”

  Matt shook his head. “They’d have to be identical.”

  “Humour me.”

  “Fine. Here goes nothing.”

  Sarah boosted him with a grunt. As he placed his eye to the scan, a strobe light pulsed behind the glass. “Whoa,” he said. She set him down as the lock clicked and a gentle gust of air escaped the seal. The door creaked open.

  Matt and Sarah stepped into the laboratory.

  “Welcome, Mr. Barnes. It’s been a long time,” said a monotone female voice within the room. Sarah and Matt froze, but not because of the digital voice. They looked up and up, their heads tilted back, their mouths hanging open. What they saw before them was a computer—the size of a church. It rose three floors in height and must have covered a city block in area. There were microchips by the millions, but only one console, with one chair.

  “This is it? One gigantic computer?” Matt asked, looking bewildered.

  “Hmm,” said Sarah, equally confused. She scanned the room, but the only other unusual thing she saw was a curved metal door. “Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. Maybe the key to finding your father is in his work.” She tapped the briefcase Matt still clutched in his hand. “What if you copied the discs? Then we could look them over on your computer at home.”

  Matt nodded, opened the case again, and removed a disc. He inserted it into the slot beneath the console of the immense computer. A tremendous whirr, followed by clicks and snaps, echoed throughout the lab as the entire driving engine of the machine awoke. It shuddered, sending vibrations through the floor. Then the strange metal door in the corner of the room parted in the middle. The halves slid apart like a pair of warped elevator doors. Inside they saw a hollow glass tube with two large metal plates on either side that were connected to a fringe of wires.

  “What in the world . . .”

  Sarah walked slowly towards the contraption.

  “Don’t go any closer,” said Matt. “My dad was a genius, but he might be dead, too.”

  Sarah stopped halfway across the room as lights within the tube began to pulsate. The plates emitted a hydraulic hum and flew together until they clashed in the middle. Suddenly froth formed all around the interior of the tube. It grew and grew until it became one gigantic bubble and the tube seemed to disappear altogether. The light within it was searing; Sarah had to shade her eyes. When she glanced sideways at it, she saw a vision. It was distorted, but there was movement. A slim man with unkempt sandy hair seemed to shift in and out of view.

  Sarah backed away. She clutched the desk for support as the room felt like it was oscillating. Small showers of dust floated down from the very top of the computer console. She saw an image clearly now, like on a movie screen.

  An island expanded in front of her, growing larger and larger, as if she were being thrust into the scene, and on the island stood a city, with Roman pillars and marble-work houses. Except . . . they were falling. Everything was falling.

  The ground rippled like a choppy sea and there were thousands of people, running, screaming, stampeding over one another. The earth cracked apart, widening into huge gashes that crumpled buildings. A wave as tall as the CN Tower cast its enormous shadow over the city.

  Nathan Barnes watched helplessly as the tsunami rushed towards him. He flickered and winked out just before the wave crashed down. But the other people didn’t. Sarah watched in horror as they were swept away.

  The bubble popped. The vibrations ceased. Matt looked at her with bulging eyes. Was it real, or had they just witnessed another formulated video?

  “Wh-what just happened?” asked Matt.

  “That was your father,” said Sarah, her chest heaving.

  “But was this now, or some other time? Is he still alive?”

  “I don’t know. It looked like a movie I saw about Atlantis.”

  “But it wasn’t like a movie,” said Matt. “It seemed so real.”

  Sarah tried to sift through this strange event in her head. All Dr. Barnes’s videos took place at ancient sites, but they didn’t look ancient. How could that be? And then there was this strange machine in the corner of his lab. Maybe Dr. Barnes had discovered something extraordinary and maybe it had to do with the past. She wondered what Matt would say. “What if your father is trapped in some other time?”

  Matt shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs. “That’s not possible.”

  Sarah grasped his shoulders. “Neither is a car going through a person. But I saw it. So don’t deny it.”

  Matt didn’t flinch. “It was a near miss. I get them all the time. People think I was born under a lucky star, or something.”

  “It was no miss, Matt. It was supernatural. So maybe this is, too. What was your dad working on before he disappeared? Did Nadine ever mention it?”

  “No. It was top secret. James Bond stuff.”

  Sarah sighed.

  “If what you say is true, then we just watched him die,” said Matt. “He really is dead.” He hunched over like he was in pain.

  “No,” said Sarah, taking his hand. “He winked out, disappeared—whatever you call it—just before the wave hit. I don’t think he was there.”

  Matt
met her gaze and straightened up, a glimmer of hope flickering in his eyes. “Then how do we find him?”

  “Well, maybe the answer is in these discs. Try to copy them.”

  Matt nodded and turned back to the computer. The cursor was blinking as if asking for direction. He issued the copy command.

  The computer said, “Are you sure you want this copied, Mr. Barnes?”

  Matt said, “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” said the computer. “Please insert discs for copying.”

  Matt slipped a disc out from under his shirt and placed it into the disc-writer. A dull grinding sound followed, and continued, as he inserted all the discs in the briefcase one by one. In seconds the computer had duplicated twenty. After it spat out the last one, Matt ejected his copy and stashed it beneath his sweatshirt again, tucked in at the waistband of his jeans. He jammed the originals into the briefcase and latched it shut.

  “Okay, we’re out of here.” He headed for the door.

  “Um, Matt. What about that?” Sarah pointed at the strange bubble-making machine in the corner. “Shouldn’t we close the doors again?”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But you were the one who opened it. And if Nadine finds it like this . . .”

  “I get your point.” Matt strode back to the computer. “Maybe if I just tell it to close.” He leaned into the microphone and cleared his throat. “Computer, close doors.”

  “Closing portal doors,” said the synthesized voice. The curved doors slid silently together.

  Sarah met Matt’s wide eyes, her own blinking in confusion. “Portal?” he mouthed. There was no time to think about what it meant, though. They had to scram before her father came looking for them.

  “Now, open the laboratory door,” said Matt.

  The blast door clicked open. Sarah poked her head out and scanned the corridor. It was still deserted, so they slipped out, closed the lab door and raced down the hall.

  “How much time did that take?” gasped Matt once they reached the alley.

  Sarah glanced at her watch. 6:38 p.m. She winced. “Looks like it’s been longer than half an hour.”

  They didn’t waste time chatting about it, but sped down the street clocking new records in the 100-metre dash. When they reached the restaurant, they stopped outside, trying to calm their breathing and smooth their disheveled hair and clothes. Matt slipped the briefcase behind his back.

  They walked into the restaurant as casually as if they’d just been gone a few minutes. Both adults were seated at the table. Sarah’s father had a cell phone pressed against his ear. He lowered it as they entered, his lips taut. Sarah’s stomach clenched as she slid into her seat.

  Matt sat beside her and made the case disappear beneath the folds of the tablecloth.

  “Well,” said Nadine. “We were about to send out the hounds. Of all the times not to carry your cell phone.” She looked at Matt severely.

  “I left it in my backpack,” said Matt, glaring back at her. “As if you’d ever call me,” he muttered.

  “Why were you gone so long?” asked Sarah’s dad.

  “We took a walk along the locks by the river,” said Sarah. “Then I felt queasy and had to sit down for a while. I’m sorry if we made you worry.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked, the frown leaving his face.

  “Yes, I think so. But I’m not very hungry anymore. Can we go home?”

  “Of course,” said her father, rising from his chair. “I’m sorry, Nadine.”

  She gripped his hand, much to Sarah’s dismay. “No need to be, Donald. We must do it again sometime.”

  He smiled and squeezed her hand in return. Sarah was about to toss her cookies for real this time.

  “Great. Let’s go,” she said. She grabbed her father’s hand, practically dragging him out the door.

  “What about you, Matt?” asked her dad. “Are you riding home with your cousin?”

  Nadine smiled, but her face appeared tight. “Would you mind dropping him off, Donald? I still have some work to finish.”

  “Not a problem,” he said. “Come along, Matt. Thanks again, Nadine.”

  They hustled off to the car, Sarah and Matt climbing into the back seat. Sarah’s dad watched her closely, so she did her best to moan and clutch her tummy. While they were speeding down the expressway to the outskirts of Ottawa, Sarah met Matt’s eyes. He patted his shirt as if it concealed treasure. She grinned. Mission accomplished, but they were a long way from answers.