“Not exactly.”
I wait for him to climb down, and when he emerges from the backyard, he’s holding a slightly battered flip-flop.
“You lose something?”
“Ha. Yes. Can I see that?” The flip-flop has some teeth marks on the heel but otherwise is not too chewed up.
“That shows what I know,” I say. Blake follows me as I walk around the corner to the alley trashcan where I deposited the other one. I lift open the lid and it’s still sitting atop a black plastic trash bag. Blake watches me pull the flip-flop out of the bin with curiosity.
“Ben, I sense you have a story to tell me.”
I smile. “It’s a good one.”
12
“I lost track of my age some years ago. Now when people want to know, I simply ask them how old they think I am, and then congratulate them on their accuracy.”
-Excerpt from the journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2105
The light from the star chandelier is gleaming off the table between my friends and me as I tell my story in the main study of the lab. Mr. Cameron has come with us and is browsing around the upstairs shelves. Dr. Quickly is seated a few feet back from the table in a brown leather armchair, dividing his time between staring out the window at the darkening clouds and listening as I fill my friends in on my adventure.
“So this whole time we were right about it being Stenger who killed those men in the van,” Francesca says. She’s settled herself into an armchair while the rest of us mount stools around the table.
“We don’t have any specific evidence that it was him, but it sure fits,” I reply. “He’s definitely here.”
“So if we’re not the only ones who got sent back in time, does that mean there could be more of us? How many other people might have been made into time travelers?” Robbie asks from across the table.
I look to Dr. Quickly. He exhales slowly, then crosses his fingers in his lap. “I’ve been working on that issue myself. Malcolm is still watching the Temporal Studies Society for me. It’s the most likely point of contact. You five and Mr. Stenger were very fortunate to survive this jump at all. There may have been others who were less fortunate and were shot into space, or worse. I imagine that when you finally make it back to 2009, you’ll find a number of people in the area have gone missing.” He scratches under his chin briefly.
“Checking it there would most likely be the only way to find out for sure. It’s not necessary that they all arrived this far back either. If people were affected by various amounts of gravitites or voltage, they may have ended up traveling different amounts of time. They could be scattered across the next couple of decades if they were lucky enough to survive.”
“There might be more like the lady in the storage unit?” I ask.
He stares through us briefly, his eyes locked on a non-existent horizon. “Yes. Unfortunately. Also, the effects of the gravitites are relatively permanent as far as I can tell. They come with their fair share of hazards. I would imagine that even if more victims survived, the lifespan of an uninitiated, involuntary time traveler is not likely to be long. The woman in the storage unit may only be one of many fusion events. I don’t know that we’ll ever know the whole toll of that accident.”
“How much more training do you think we’re going to need to make it back to 2009?” Blake asks. “We’ve made some successful jumps now. Couldn’t we just ratchet up the intervals and do our training as we go? I mean, we could be doing this training later on just as easily right?”
Quickly’s eyes slowly focus back to us. “I have a few reasons of my own for being in 1986 right now, but I could see about relocating soon. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to lengthen your jump intervals. You may want to see how that works for your host however.”
I watch Mr. Cameron on the second level balcony, holding a leather bound book at arms length so he can read the title.
“We wouldn’t necessarily all have to go, right?” Robbie asks. “I mean, we would all end up at the same place anyway.”
“Yes, you could certainly take the normal timestream and end up in the same place. Usually.” The last word trails off quietly, but Francesca still asks the follow up.
“What do you mean by, ‘usually?’”
But Dr. Quickly gets out of his chair and heads for the stairs to the second balcony, seemingly unaware of the question. He joins Mr. Cameron in his appraisal of the various items stashed in the array of cubbyholes.
“Did I just get dissed?” Francesca laughs as she watches him go.
“Maybe he just didn’t hear you,” Robbie responds.
“He is a little old,” Carson suggests. “Maybe he’s hard of hearing.”
“Or has selective hearing,” Blake adds.
“Would you not want to jump ahead yet?” I ask Robbie.
“I’m not in a hurry right this moment. I feel a little responsible for getting my grandpa into all of this. I’d hate to ditch out on him, especially now, when he could go any second.”
“I didn’t necessarily mean right away,” Blake says. “It would be good to see that we’d gotten him through till your family makes it back, but we’re going to have to leave eventually. I don’t know that it necessarily does a lot of good to delay it.”
Carson wanders around the table and leans his forearms on the back of Francesca’s armchair. Francesca continues Blake’s thought. “Also, I don’t know if I’m the only one worried about this or not, but we’re not getting any younger in the past. I know this may not be a big deal to you guys, because you are guys, but I don’t really want to use up too much of my prime years in 1986. This girl has some things to get done in the present day, and I may need all my good-looking days at my disposal. Just sayin’.”
“You don’t want to date an eighties rocker?” Carson asks.
“Hey, I’m not saying I don’t love a man who can rock a perm.” Francesca laughs. “But I’m not sure I could date a guy who has more beautiful hair than me. We might have problems. Plus, we have lives and careers there. I know we’ll be making it back around the time we left, but there are a lot of things we left hanging when this happened to us. My cat will have no problem tearing a hole through the food bag if I don’t make it home right away, but we have other people depending on us too. I don’t really want to get fired from my job. I like it there.”
Rain begins to pour outside and cascades down the glass wall of windows stretching up above us. My clouds from last night have finally decided to open up. I slide off my stool and wander over to the windows looking down on the street. I watch the cars splashing through a puddle growing from the runoff from a side street. A pair of umbrellas and a couple sets of feet pass below me on the sidewalk.
“Um, Carson?” Blake says.
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay, man? I think your arms are bleeding.”
Francesca pivots in her chair. I turn and see that Carson’s arms are indeed red near his elbows. “Oh God, what is that!” Francesca springs from the chair and spins around.
Carson looks closer at his elbows. “It does look like blood, but it’s almost like it’s congealed.”
“That’s really gross,” Francesca says.
“It’s not me,” Carson says. “It’s on this chair.”
Mr. Cameron and Dr. Quickly are descending the stairs together and Quickly points Mr. Cameron in the direction of the bathroom down the hall before walking our direction.
“Um, Doctor?” I say. “Your chair seems to be bleeding.”
Dr. Quickly surveys the chair briefly. “Ah, yes. I was wondering if that might happen.”
“You were wondering if your armchairs would start bleeding?” Francesca says.
“It’s not the chair really,” he says, walking closer and leaning in to have a look. “It’s part of an experiment I have going on at the moment. I’m starting to get results back. Don’t be worried, the chair will be fine.” He grabs the back of the chair and drags it away to the corner. “I’ll just move this and we
can avoid sitting in that one for a bit.”
“Does this sort of thing happen . . . often?” Robbie asks.
“No. Thankfully not,” Quickly replies. “The upholstery bills would get outrageous. I just happen to have a rather complex test going on at the moment. It’s getting quite exciting.”
“Can you tell us what it is?” I say.
“No. I’m afraid I don’t want to share it yet. I’d hate for it to skew the results.” He turns his eyes from the chair back to us. “I can however share that I’ve had pizza delivered. It’s in the kitchen for you. Though you will probably want to wash those arms off first, Carson.”
“Yeah, I don’t need some kind of chair disease,” Carson says. He wanders toward the back.
Francesca continues to eye the chair in the corner suspiciously but finally pulls her gaze away. “You wouldn’t think I’d have an appetite after seeing that, but it shows what I know. Pizza actually sounds amazing right now.”
She and Robbie head for the kitchen. I turn back to the view of the rain. After a moment, Quickly’s reflection appears next to mine. “No lunch for you today?” he asks.
“Maybe in a bit. I had breakfast twice today.”
“Time travel can take a toll on your grocery budget,” he replies.
“Doctor, can I ask you something personal?”
“I’ve always dressed this badly out of fashion, if you must know.”
“Ha. I think tweed will never go out of style if you ask me.”
He looks at me attentively.
“It’s really a couple of questions. One thing I was wondering was why you never went big with this technology.” I hold up the chronometer on my wrist. “This is amazing. The work you’ve put into this and the discovery of the gravitites must have been a guaranteed Nobel Prize. Haven’t you been tempted to be rewarded for all of it? You would be world famous.”
Quickly looks out the window before responding. “I would say you’ve answered that question in part already. Fame is not for everyone. I had a partner working on this with me early on whom I know would have been thrilled to be on the cover of Time magazine. I think he had his interview already planned out in his head. We had very different motivations for getting into this research.
“I did it partly for the achievement itself but also because I had strong motivation to succeed. There are things much more important and rewarding than fame.”
“I know what you mean,” I reply. “I don’t know how willing I would be to share this either.
“Today, when I messed up my jump, it was a scary moment. Realizing how much harm I could have done was . . . sobering is the best word I can think of. But then later on, when I had to make that jump from the bathroom, and it worked, it was an amazing feeling. I mean, I was running and it was hectic, and the adrenaline had my heart going a mile a minute, but when I made it back and things worked out, I felt elated and excited about it all. I can see how it changes all of your perspectives on things.
“What you’ve done here, and how you’ve designed these chronometers, just blows my mind. I know we’re headed home and back to our normal lives, but I’ve got to tell you, after an experience like this, I don’t know how going back to fixing boats is going to stack up.”
“You are at the tip of the iceberg, Benjamin. I’m not going to tell you that it is worth all of the risks, because I know I haven’t told you all of the dangers. I’m afraid I’ve only just begun to tell you and your friends all the potential threats you face in doing this, but my years in the education system have taught me enough to know that scaring you all witless isn’t going to help you learn, or help you get home.” He slides his hands into his pockets and leans against the glass, facing me.
“That being said, I can say that despite the innumerable dangers I have encountered to date, it has been incredible. I may not have seen my face on Time magazine, but I have been amply rewarded.”
The glass in front of me has fogged from my breath. I trace my finger through it in little swirls. “Do you regret leaving it all behind? Did you ever try to go back to your life?”
“I visited a few times. There were people I cared about that I wanted to see. I haven’t abandoned them. My disappearance was not total, like the media believed. Professionally I disappeared. Oddly enough it wasn’t as hard as I had expected to leave that behind. My colleagues were a competitive bunch, and there were only a few that I really missed working with.”
“I know what that’s like.” I turn my swirls into a sun and some planets.
“I’d known for a while that I was going to succeed with the gravitites. I wasn’t rushing to get my results publicized because I always had other more practical intentions for this work. I rushed things a little obviously or I would never have involuntarily displaced myself, but I don’t regret the result. On the contrary, getting lost in time was the best thing that ever happened to me, for more than a few reasons.”
“So you don’t plan on ever going back?”
“Not currently.”
I finish drawing a comet on the glass and take a step back to look at my little cosmos. It’s small, but it’s growing.
“How did you figure out these chronometers?” I fiddle with the dials on my wrist.
“Ah, well there I can’t take all the credit. After my first serious time traveling experience, I had the great fortune of meeting a marvelously talented watchmaker named Abraham Manembo, who worked with me on designing them. He was able to take my bulky equipment and streamline it into what you have on your wrist. His innovations are what have made time travel so much more efficient than anything I had previously dreamed up. ”
A lightning bolt crosses the sky and it’s only a few seconds till the boom of thunder.
“During my experience last night, I realized what a fragile position I was in. Without the chronometer, I would’ve been in much worse trouble, especially if I ended up somewhere more dangerous. It made me wonder if you had any more specific survival type skills you could teach us.”
“Survival skills are all I have been teaching you so far. It has all been about surviving.”
“Well, yeah. I see what you’re saying, and that’s true, but what I was thinking was more worst-case-scenario type stuff. I mean, I spent most of last night either running away from people, or wandering around lost, or trying to get around barefoot in the city with no money. It was great exercise, I can say that, but I don’t think I was very efficient.”
“I certainly do have plans to get to some of those types of scenarios with you. I had not expected you to need them quite so soon, but I should have factored human error in better. That was my fault, and I hope you will forgive me. As a teacher of anything it is often difficult to remember that just because you have covered something does not mean it has sunk in properly, or really been processed to the point of understanding. Perhaps I shall have to devise some more quizzes or checks.”
“My other question was . . . would you teach me how to build a chronometer?”
Dr. Quickly’s eyebrows rise a little. “That’s a big thing to ask, Benjamin. Having chronometers floating around unaccounted for has really never been a part of my plans for helping get you home. Time traveling is a serious business. All manner of chaos can ensue from careless use. What is your motivation for wanting to learn to build one?”
“Well, I had first thought that it would be good to know how to repair these in case one gets damaged. I wouldn’t want to get stuck halfway back and not be able to contact you. The idea of being stuck somewhere in a time I don’t want to be in really worried me, and it made me think it would be a good way to feel safer doing this if I knew how to get myself un-stranded. Plus, some of it is sheer curiosity. I think they’re amazing. Working on one of these would be way more interesting than fixing boats.”
“It’s a fair thing to ask. There are a million possible scenarios where you might need to know. Yours could be damaged as you said, or lost, or stolen. It is a valuable item. The knowledge is a
n even more valuable commodity however. I have not really addressed this issue with your friends yet, but we’re going to have to broach the subject soon. We’re going to have to discuss your plans for what you will be doing once you make it back to your own time.”
Quickly places his hands against the glass, to feel the impact of the rain beating against the other side. “I had intended that these chronometers would be a loan, and that you would return them to me once you succeeded. If you are starting to think you want to continue time traveling, then we are having a different conversation, and there are more concerns to bring up. One major one is the fact that there are a great deal of people who would go to possibly unpleasant lengths to get their hands on this technology.
“I have been around long enough to know that the number of people who can posses this knowledge and not want to use it for illegitimate gains is smaller than one would hope. The more you know about this subject, the larger the target you may become for people who would like to gain this ability. I would say that you and your friends would already be quite valuable to a lot of people. A drop of your blood alone would now hold enough gravitites to keep innumerable scientists happy in research for decades. That is something you’re going to have to live with now anyway, but the more you learn here, the more dangerous things may become for you.”
“That sounds like more of a reason to have an escape plan to me. Couldn’t having this ability be a great defense against those types of people?”
Dr. Quickly smiles. “If you keep coming up with all these valid arguments, I’m going to have no choice but to train you.”
I grin back.
“We don’t have to figure it all out right now,” he adds. “Let’s go get lunch. You may have had two breakfasts, but I missed mine this morning. I don’t think my stomach will stand for much more of it.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and we head back to the others.
In Times Like These Boxed Set Page 22
