In Times Like These Boxed Set

by Nathan Van Coops

  Many of the cubbies that Quickly has labeled don’t have objects in them at all. They hold photos of items that were too big to collect. The backs of the photos include addresses where one can find them. I note flagpoles and old cars, and a few statues and landmarks I recognize, but most are unassuming objects: fence poles, parking meters, stop signs, and a myriad of other everyday items. While many are in Florida or in St. Petersburg specifically, I run across plenty of other cities and countries also. One of the cubbies that catches my eye holds a bronze spearhead. The photo lists its location as a museum in Calcutta in 1945.

  I wonder how far he’s been back?

  I learn to recognize Quickly’s handwriting easily, his long lettered cursive flows across the backs of the photos in fluid strokes. As I keep searching, I also recognize more and more in the loopy feminine hand that I now know to be Mym’s. Her object selection is distinct from Quickly’s as well. Where his objects and photos are primarily simple functional items, Mym has taken a more artistic approach to both the photos and the items she’s selected.

  I pick up a tarnished, silver knight chess piece. The accompanying photo shows it on the edge of a small stone table. A lone pawn sits next to it, but a few feet away, the remaining pieces still occupy a chessboard. I can see neither of the players, but in the background of the table is an immense stained glass window streaming multicolored light onto the game. The window is set in a stone wall that reminds me of a castle. The knight piece in the photo is polished and shining in contrast to the one in my hand, but the photo paper still looks new.

  Did she bring the film back and develop it later? How old is this?

  The back of the photo doesn’t hold any clues to the location. It only states, “A great game in the making.” There is no date listed.

  I guess I’m not using that one.

  I poke around a few more cubbies before rounding the corner of the shelf toward the early nineties. Some of the holes here are larger. I stoop to peer into some of the lower ones and my eye catches on an odd dome shape. I squat down and reach my hand into the hole and remove an empty tortoise shell. It’s about eight inches in diameter and bumpy all over. The most unique thing about it is that there are two lines of faded red paint running from front to back on the shell. What kind of tortoise has racing stripes?

  Curious, I look for the photo. When I pull it out, it’s a shot of a wide expanse of desert populated by a few Joshua trees and some sparse vegetation. The tortoise shell in the photo is still occupied by a benevolent looking creature, munching on a weed in the shade of a large rock. There is nothing beyond it except rolling desert hills stretching to the horizon. I flip to the back of the photo to read the description and immediately shoot to my feet.

  That’s my handwriting!

  I back up into the light to read the two lines of text more clearly.

  “May 20th 1990, 2310:32 Z Ten minute window. For use when all hope is lost.”

  Holy shitballs. What am I supposed to do about this?

  I take the shell and walk back to the main study. I hear voices above me and see Blake and Francesca chatting over items on the highest balcony. Carson is on the balcony above me browsing through a book. I consider calling to him but stop myself. I need Quickly.

  I trot down the steps to the main floor and turning away from the windows, head down the hallway that leads to the rear lab rooms. The first couple rooms I pass are empty, so I poke my head into the kitchen and dining area. Nobody. I continue down the hall to some of the practice chambers but they are likewise empty. I consider turning back to the study when I hear voices from behind one of the doors in the corner of the hallway. I’m about to knock, when Mym shouts, “You have to!”

  I put my ear to the door and listen.

  “Dad, we haven’t come all this way to risk our lives now. I know you like them. I do too, but you also know what happens here. You know why we need to leave.”

  “They’re not ready,” Quickly responds.

  “They’re not supposed to be ready. They never were before, but that’s how it works out. They have to be unprepared. He said it had to be that way.” Mym’s voice sounds closer than Quickly’s through the door.

  “I have worked so hard to find their original timestream.” Quickly sounds more agitated than I have ever heard him before. “All the signs seem to verify that it begins there. The tests I’ve done are holding. The frequencies are right, all of it. I don’t want to leave something undone and have it all unravel. This one will be too complicated to try to redo.”

  “I don’t want to screw your tests up either, but some things are more important than experiments, Dad. You’re the one who taught me the rules. Keep together. Avoid unnecessary risks. Never choose the unknown when the known is available. THIS is unknown AND an unnecessary risk.”

  “It’s not unnecessary for them. It might be that the most necessary information is yet to come.”

  “We at least need to get you out. You gave them the basics. They know more than I did the first time I blinked. They definitely know more than you did. We survived,” Mym says.

  “We were incredibly fortunate. They have been, too. I don’t want to push the limits of that good fortune,” Quickly replies.

  “I don’t want you to die! That’s my motivation. You always told me to avoid witnessing natural disasters because they were too unpredictable. This guy is a natural disaster. He’s the most unpredictable thing we’ve ever dealt with. That’s why we should do what we always do and get the fuck out of here!”

  “You know I don’t like that language.”

  “Sorry, Dad, but you know I’m right. You told me to be back in time to get you. Here I am.”

  “Okay, I’ll get them as ready as I can by—”

  The rest of his words are drowned out by the ringing of the telephone in the room behind me. There are still snippets of talking behind the door, but I can’t make it out over the persistent ringing. I do hear the footsteps however, and I back away from the door, uncertain of what to do with myself. The door swings open and Mym emerges with quick strides in my direction. She slows a moment at the sight of me, but then continues past.

  “Your turtle fell out.”

  I’m too caught off guard to come up with a response. “Yeah,” I stammer.

  Brilliant comeback.

  She disappears into the room with the phone and picks it up. I peek my head into the room she came out of. Dr. Quickly is standing with his back to me, facing a window that looks into an office space bustling with workers. Professionally dressed men and women are typing at bulky word processors and typewriters and milling about the office space, seemingly oblivious to Quickly’s observation. I’m so captivated by the situation that it takes a moment to see that Quickly is actually observing me in the reflection in the glass.

  “For them it’s a mirror.” His voice is calm now.

  “Oh. Hey. That’s pretty cool. So they have no idea your lab is over here?”

  “I believe the night janitor might be on to me actually. He seems more observant than most. I saw him counting out steps along one of the hallways one night on the video monitor. I believe he was trying to figure out why the interior spaces don’t match up. But he’s the exception. These folks are too concerned with their own doings to notice mine.”

  I walk up beside Quickly and share his observation of the office.

  “I almost envy them some days,” he continues. “Ignorance has its perks. I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to have an uncomplicated existence.” Quickly’s eyes stray to the tortoise shell in my hands but he doesn’t comment on it.

  “Yeah,” I begin. “About that. I was wondering . . .”

  Mym reappearing in the doorway stops me. “Hey, sorry to interrupt, but it seems important. The phone was someone named Robbie. He said he’s at the hospital and you should come right away. He said you would know what it was about.”

  Quickly hands me his car keys. “Take the Galaxie.”

  I tak
e his keys in my free hand and head for the door. He calls to me as I’m about to walk out.

  “And Benjamin!”

  “Yes?”

  “Do me a favor and check the air in the spare tire for me, would you?”

  “Um. Okay.”

  “I’d hate for you to get left flat somewhere.”

  I think we have bigger worries than flat tires right now.

  “Okay, I’ll check it out,” I say.

  Mym steps aside for me. I catch her eye and for a moment she looks as if she’s going to say something serious to me. The moment passes. She looks down at my hands. “I hope you find your turtle.”

  “Thanks.”

  I sprint for the study to find my friends.

  13

  “I like to believe that my discovery of time travel was for the betterment of mankind, but I must be honest with myself. It has spawned its share of weirdos”

  -Excerpt from the journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2088

  The plastic chairs in the hospital waiting area are torture. The circulation keeps getting cut off in my legs after a few minutes in any one of them. No matter how I shift myself, there is no way to get comfortable. I give up and go sit on the floor, leaning my back against the wall opposite the chairs.

  Francesca has found a way to nod off leaning on Blake’s shoulder. Blake is awake but lost in his own thoughts. Carson had sat with us for a while but has wandered off somewhere. A muted television in the corner shows a pair of couples competing for a car in front of a bank vault. Without the sound, the game show makes very little sense to me.

  Robbie checks the clock on the wall for the hundredth time, then walks over and slumps against the wall next to me. “The not knowing is killing me.”

  “Yeah. I’m glad you were able to get him here, though.”

  “He just collapsed right in the middle of the yard,” Robbie says. “I was lucky to be able to get him into the car. I drove like a madman getting here. Surprised I didn’t run somebody over.”

  “You’re a good grandson.”

  I don’t really know what else to say.

  “I hope it worked.”

  I pat him on the knee and we lapse back to silence. I wonder if I could just jump ahead a few hours to see how things turn out, and then come back and tell him. I ponder the possibility for a few minutes but realize that if Mr. Cameron doesn’t make it, I’m not really interested in knowing it yet. Quickly was right, sometimes ignorance can be better.

  My head is beginning to nod when Carson reappears from the elevator. “Guys, you need to see this.” He heads for the television. Not finding a remote anywhere, he reaches for the dial and twists it until he lands on a station showing a news report. As he hunts for the volume control, the shot of the news anchor changes to a scene of firefighters and trucks battling a building fire. I get up from the floor and walk closer to the screen to get a better look.

  “What is it?” Francesca fights a yawn.

  “Whoa, is that what I think it is?” Blake asks.

  The shot widens to show the reporter in front of a large, glass-fronted building with a massive hole in the side of it. The building is engulfed in smoke as firefighters discharge multiple hoses into the flaming breach.

  “That looks like the lab!” Francesca exclaims.

  “It is the lab,” Carson says, as he dials up the sound.

  We stand incredulous as the reporter describes the catastrophic damage to the building.

  “Quickly,” Francesca whispers.

  Mym.

  I check the clock on the wall. “How long have we been here?”

  “Three, four hours now?” Robbie replies.

  “One of us should get over there,” Blake says. “See what’s going on.”

  “We should make sure Dr. Quickly and his daughter are okay,” Francesca adds.

  “I’ll go.” Carson seems eager to have a reason to get out of the hospital.

  “I’ll go too,” I say. “We can come back soon, Robbie, and let you know what happened.”

  “I’ll stay here with you.” Francesca grabs Robbie’s arm.

  “Blake?” I ask.

  Blake is hesitant. He looks from the screen to Robbie and Francesca, and then says, “I’ll stay. You don’t need me there.”

  I pull the car keys from my pocket and Carson and I head for the hallway. “Be careful,” Francesca calls after us.

  “We will,” I say. “We’ll be back soon.”

  Ninth Street is completely shut down with emergency vehicles as we get close, and traffic is being detoured through the residential neighborhoods to either side. I park the Galaxie a couple blocks west of the lab and we work our way toward it on foot. Other curious pedestrians from the neighborhood have also gathered to check out the spectacle.

  By the time we get close enough to see the building, the fire is out. A single ladder truck is still spraying a stream of water into the hole that stretches from the second floor to the fifth.

  “All of our planning has been destroyed,” Carson says. “Whatever wasn’t burned is sure to be water damaged.”

  “Do you have your logbook?” I ask.

  “No. I left it in the study when we left. You have yours?”

  “No. Mine is in there, too.”

  Ash from the building is floating out of the sky around us and settling on cars and observers alike. I brush some of it out of my hair as I walk toward the nearest firefighter. A police officer steps into my path with his hands raised. “Please keep back.”

  “Do you know what caused the fire?” I ask.

  “Please just keep the area clear and let the fire department work.”

  He doesn’t know.

  “We have some friends who were in that building,” Carson says. “How do we find out if they’ve gotten out?”

  The police officer studies Carson for a moment. “You can try phoning the department. Information will be made available to family members as necessary.”

  “Do you know what time the fire started?” I ask.

  The officer seems to consider whether giving that information would do any harm and apparently decides it won’t. “I got the call around seven.”

  “Thanks. Come on, Carson,” I say, tapping him on the arm. We turn and walk back toward the car. “I have an idea. Do you remember what time we left the lab to get to the hospital?”

  “I don’t know. Sun was still up. Five, five-thirty maybe?”

  “Right. We were definitely already at the hospital by the time the sun went down. So how about this? We find somewhere safe to make a jump. We go back to just after we left for the hospital, get ahold of Quickly or Mym and get back into the lab, and we can get our stuff. We might even be able to figure out what causes the fire in the first place, and stop it.”

  “Would we want to stop it?” Carson asks. “How would we have ever gotten to this point if the place never burns down?”

  “Oh. True. That might make one of those paradoxes Quickly has talked about.” No way I want to end up lost somewhere. “We can at least check it out. Wouldn’t hurt to know why the place burned down.”

  “I’m game,” Carson says. “I‘ve been wanting to try some more outdoor time jumps. Way more exciting than the lab. Do you think we should tell the others first?”

  “As long as we don’t screw it up, we should be back before they ever realize we’re gone. I guess we could leave a note or something just in case.”

  We walk back to the car and I rummage through the glove box for a slip of paper to use. Finding nothing, I try the pocket in the door and find a receipt for gas that will work. I think for a second, then scribble out our message.

  “Gone back a couple of hours to get our stuff. Left at . . . “I check the clock on the car dashboard, “10:25. Should be back by 11—Ben and Carson.”

  I shove the slip of paper under the windshield wiper and shut the door. My tortoise shell rocks back and forth on the floor on the passenger side where I left it. Shouldn’t need that. Not losing
hope yet.

  “So now what?” Carson asks.

  “I guess we need a place to blink from.” I look at the neighborhood around us. “Maybe we could try that mailbox?” I point to a nondescript house across from us.

  “Couldn’t we just use the car?” Carson asks. “We know where it was a few hours ago.”

  “I don’t see why not,” I say. “As long as we don’t get hit by traffic or something.” I assess the car and try to visualize the clearest place to be around it. “I think we should get on top of it.”

  “Better not scratch Quickly’s paint job,” Carson says. “He loves this car.”

  “Considering his lab just exploded, I don’t imagine a few scratches will fluster him,” I reply.

  I’m careful anyway as I climb onto the back of the trunk. I dangle my feet off the back of the car as Carson positions himself next to me.

  “So what are you thinking? Five hours maybe?” Carson asks.

  “Yeah, sun has been setting around six these days. Gets dark maybe an hour after? Sun was definitely up when we left so we need to land on the car at least before five-thirty, otherwise we risk ending up on the car at the hospital, or worse, we land on the back of it while we’re driving to the hospital. That would suck.”

  “Ha. I hadn’t even thought of that. We should probably shoot for earlier. We can always watch ourselves leave. That would be cool,” Carson says.

  “That’s a weird experience,” I say. “All right. Let’s aim for five o’clock.” We both dial in our chronometer settings. Switch the slider to back. Not going to screw this one up. I triple check my settings before I’m confident.

  “Ready?” Carson asks.

  “Ready.”