She handed Gil an electronic journal. “Please write daily entries concerning your contact with Danny. We’ll use this notebook as part of the evaluation procedure, so make your entries exam quality. GAP will gauge your progress, and your progress with Danny will be the main criteria in determining if you earn your license.”
Dr. Nelson tapped her computer pad with a polished nail. “When you cross over, remember to take Extreme Exam out of Danny’s gaming console and put it someplace safe. The cartridge is your ticket home. You must know where it is at all times, and it’s vital that you avoid leaving it in a running gaming system. After eight hours in a console, a cartridge could be damaged. If that happens, you’ll be stranded in the past. The game’s waterproof, but keep it dry to avoid mishaps.”
“I’ll be extra careful,” Gil promised.
“Good,” Dr. Nelson replied. “Every night at 10:00 p.m., put the cartridge in Danny’s PlayFest console for a conference. After we confer, remember to take it out again.” A smile tugged Dr. Nelson’s lips. “Be aware that after you stop the game, the connection may take several minutes to fade if you neglect to turn off power to the gaming console. I’ve heard a surprising number of embarrassing things when students failed to completely sever the connection.”
Dr. Nelson looked up at Gil. “The final thing to keep in mind is that Danny’s an extremely troubled youth. If his feet can be set on the right path during this crucial window, he may be able to avoid his violent future. We don’t expect miracles—just a few solid results. If anything in this boy’s tragic future can be averted, it’ll be a gain for society.” She turned off her computer pad. “Now, if you’re ready, we’ll begin.”
Taking a deep breath, Gil gave a nervous smile. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
* * *
Munching on a cracker, Danny watched as the blonde and the bearded man drew near. He could almost smell the woman’s perfume and feel a breeze coming out of the TV. As the music blared, the bearded man smiled at the blonde. Danny could see the words “good luck” forming on his lips. Suddenly, the lab was a bevy of activity. The blonde looked nervously over her shoulder as technicians rushed around the room. As the bearded man spoke again, Danny lip-read the words, Let me know if you need me.
Danny watched the woman nod and step closer to the TV. Her image began to blur around the edges. The screen filled with whirling blue light as the game’s voice announced in ringing tones, “Extreme Exam begins in five, four, three, two, one…”
Suddenly, blue light oozed out of the TV and encompassed Danny—spiraling around him and forming clouds above his head. There was a blinding flash and then a bedroll landed on his lap. Danny yelped and jumped to his feet. Pressing up against the wall, he stared down at the bedroll in disbelief. More blinding flashes took place and a large suitcase, a duffle bag, and a backpack landed on the floor. Danny’s muscles froze. With his breath catching in his throat, he watched as a hand engulfed with light reached out from the TV. Danny stared in horrified disbelief as a woman with blonde hair slid through the screen.
“I’m through, Doc,” she said cheerfully, turning back to the TV. “Everything’s fine.”
“Do you feel all right?”
“Terrific. No dizziness. No paralysis. It was just as easy as you said it’d be.”
“Good! I knew you could do it. We’ll talk to you tonight. Be careful.”
The woman turned toward Danny. Seeing that she was focused on him, Danny let out a strangled scream and tried to run away. He tripped over the suitcase and landed on the beanbag. One of his flailing legs sent his soda can flying through the television. His scrabbling hands squashed the crackers flat. Packing peanuts squealed frantically as he tried to push his way through the curtains.
Moving her luggage aside, the woman put her hand on his shoulder. “Hey, it’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Get away!” he gasped, breaking through to his room.
He watched in fear as the woman put Extreme Exam into her backpack and slowly walked toward him. Seeing her approach, Danny ran to the door and fumbled with the lock.
“Hey, it’s all right,” the woman said in a soothing voice. “It’s me. Gil. You agreed to help me pass my exam.”
“I never agreed to nothing!”
“You pressed the right buttons.”
“That was a game,” he shouted, twisting the knob frantically. “I didn’t agree to this!”
Seeing Gil reaching her hand toward his shoulder, Danny backed toward the window.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said gently. “I’m here to help.”
“Stay away,” he yelled, opening the window.
Gil leaned against the wall. “Hey, I’m just a girl. What can I do to you?”
Danny slung his leg over the windowsill. “Lady, you just jumped out of a TV. Who knows what you can do!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“This is totally unacceptable,” Dr. Moosly growled as he wiped soda from his face. “That pesky child threw that can on purpose!”
Ignoring him, William watched with amusement as Gil vaulted out the window in pursuit of Danny. As the GAP beam faded away, he whispered, “God speed, Gil, go get ’em.”
At that moment, Kyle approached William, holding Danny’s soda can in his hand. “May I keep this, Dr. Ableman? It’s a limited edition that’s worth quite a bit of money online.”
William’s eyes narrowed. “We do not surf through time to collect souvenirs. If you want to sell that soda can, sell it for charity. I’ll expect the receipt for the sale and the receipt for your charity donation on my desk by the end of the day.”
* * *
With his heart pounding, Danny sprinted across the yard. Kneeling beside his bicycle, he began yanking on the padlock. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Gil climbing out the window and landing in a clump of prickly evergreen bushes.
“Hey, where are you going?” she yelled. “Wait a second, will you?”
Seeing her pelting across the lawn, he jumped over his bicycle and raced down the sidewalk.
“I’m in good shape,” Gil yelled. “I can run just as long as you can. Give me a break! I just wanna talk!”
Ignoring her, Danny sprinted to the house next door where his neighbor, Mr. Jacobson, was sitting on his porch drowsing in the late-afternoon sunshine. As Danny ran up to him, the old man rose from his chair and sputtered, “For goodness sake, what’s the matter?”
“Help me, please!” Danny gasped. “Someone’s after me.”
“Is it that Rick fellow? Is he bothering you?”
“No, sir. It’s…” His voice trailed off as he tried to explain something beyond explanation.
Stumbling up the porch steps, he landed in a heap beside the old man. Mr. Jacobson brandished a flyswatter and stepped protectively in front of him. Danny saw Gil’s headlong pursuit come to a stop. He sighed and closed his eyes.
“Whoever was chasing you has given up,” Mr. Jacobson said. “There’s no one on the sidewalk.”
“What…?” Danny looked up—straight into Gil’s face.
“Please don’t yell,” she said, crouching on the top step. “Don’t upset this nice old man. Just hear me out. Remember the game? The blue light? That light makes me visible to you—”
“Mr. Jacobson,” Danny said in an agonized voice, “are you sure no one’s around?”
The old man shoved his glasses further up on his nose and looked in every direction. Danny watched in amazement as he looked through Gil as if she weren’t even there.
“I don’t see anyone at all,” Mr. Jacobson replied.
“Do you mind if I stay here for a while?” he asked, scooting closer to the old man.
“Don’t mind a bit. Take your time and catch your breath.”
Chewing his lip, Danny turned his shoulder on Gil and watched as Mr. Jacobson sat down. A cat jumped onto the old man’s knee. Mr. Jacobson chuckled and scratched the cat behind the ears. “This here’s Sheba. She
thinks she’s queen of all the land.”
“I’ve seen her running through our backyard,” Danny said absently, glancing cautiously at Gil out of the corner of his eye. “She’s a pretty cat.”
“That she is.” As the cat began to purr, Mr. Jacobson said gently, “Danny, are you in some kinda trouble? Is there something I can do to help?”
Danny studied Gil who was wiping sweat off her neck with a messy looking tissue. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Can I just sit here for a while?”
“Sure thing. But if you do decide to tell me what’s wrong, I’ll listen. I have a grandson on the Westfield Police Force and another grandson who’s a black belt. If you decide you need help, I’ll see that you get it.”
As Danny nodded, Gil moved closer to him. When he cringed back, she said softly, “I’m sorry you’re so frightened. You don’t need to be.”
Danny shifted his weight and pressed closer to Mr. Jacobson. The old man gave his shoulder a pat and began to hum.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Gil said. “Just listen to me for a minute, okay? When you played Extreme Exam, it asked if you’d be willing to help me take my field exam. I know you thought it was just a game, but the blue light was from my university. It scanned your brain—”
Danny gave her a horrified glare.
“Don’t worry,” she said quickly. “The light didn’t hurt you. It just let you see me. I’m no one to fear. I’m just a college kid. All I wanna do is pass my exam and graduate.”
Danny glanced up at Mr. Jacobson. The old man seemed completely unaware of Gil’s presence. Nervously clenching his hands, Danny gave Gil a slight nod.
With an encouraging smile, she said, “I know you’re in a pinch right now. My job, the way I can pass my test and get out of your hair, is to give you a hand over the next few days.”
Danny raised an eyebrow and looked skeptical.
“I may not look tough,” she said indignantly, “but I promise I can help. Think of me as a secret warrior.”
He looked at her with a speculative gleam in his eyes.
She laughed. “It’s kinda sinking in now, isn’t it? Having the invisible woman on your side could be pretty cool, huh?”
Gil shifted positions, and Danny saw Sheba whipping her head around. With a tail puffed like a bottlebrush, Sheba gave a feral hiss and ran through the cat door into the house.
Mr. Jacobson chuckled. “Silly cat, probably saw a bee. Sheba’s been terrible afraid of bees ever since she ate one by accident when she was a kitten.”
Gil said to Danny, “I can’t be seen by anyone but you—and maybe that silly cat—but I’m chock-full of good ideas that I’m super anxious to put into practice. Will you let me help you?”
Danny stared at her for a long moment and then stood to his feet. “Mr. Jacobson, thanks a lot. I think I’ll be going now.”
Rising from his chair, the old man put arthritic hands on Danny’s narrow shoulders. “Just remember I’m here and my grandsons are only a phone call away. I’ll vouch for you if you want to talk to them.”
“Thanks, sir. I might take you up on that.”
CHAPTER NINE
Gil swung in beside Danny as he jumped off Mr. Jacobson’s porch and went into the shadowy forest behind the subdivision. The fading afternoon sunshine was playing peek-a-boo with the ground as they weaved through a grove of wind-stirred aspens and came to a tiny brook. As Gil walked, she silently prayed for wisdom. She’d been warned that if first contact went awry, it was hard to salvage a time surf.
Danny sat down on a moss-covered log and drew his knees beneath his chin. “Okay, I’m listening. I’m willing to believe you’re not here to hurt me. So talk.”
“What do you wanna know?” she asked, putting her hands in her pockets.
“Who are you? First and last name.”
“You just had to ask,” she groaned. “Can’t we start with a different question?”
Seeing his critical stare, she wrinkled up her nose and said in a voice full of dignity, “It’s against TEMCO rules to reveal my last name, but my first name is Gillyflower Meadowlark Deleena Rosemarie.”
Danny choked and laughed. “You gotta be kidding. Gillyflower? Meadowlark?”
“Hey, no cracks about my name. It’s a sore spot.”
As Danny grinned and peeked up from beneath unkempt bangs, Gil felt a tug on her heart. “What else?” she asked, squatting beside him.
“What college are you from?”
“National Science University in Washington D.C.”
“Never heard of it.”
“That’s because it doesn’t exist yet. In about fifteen years, the government’s going to establish NSU and staff it with our country’s finest minds.”
Danny rolled his eyes and threw a stick in the water. “Stop pulling my leg.”
“I’m not. Think a little. You’ve never seen anything like Extreme Exam, right? That’s because the technology doesn’t exist yet. It won’t exist for another nineteen years.”
“You’re from nineteen years into the future? You gotta be kidding.”
“Twenty-four years actually,” she replied. As silence fell between them, she began doodling on the muddy bank with a stick. After a few moments, she gazed over at him. “I know what it sounds like, but I’m telling you the truth.”
“So what’s going on here?” he asked, studying the swirling eddies in the water. “Am I some future world leader, and you’re here to keep me safe from killer robots?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you watch movies in the future?”
“Of course we do, but old classics aren’t really my thing.”
Danny shuffled his feet in the leaves. “So why are you here to help me?”
“Because the GAP computer indicated that you could be time counseled and saved.”
“Saved from what?” he asked, wiping his nose with his sleeve.
Gil looked down at her doodles. She had drawn a house that was broken in half and on fire. Scratching it out with the stick, she stood up. “I don’t think we should discuss that right now. It isn’t the right time, and there are other things that—”
“Look, lady, if you wanna hang out with me, you gotta be straight. Tell me what’s gonna happen, or I’m walking away and you’re flunking your precious test. Am I gonna be hit by a bus or something?”
“No. You’re safe from buses.”
Squatting down, Gil looked Danny straight in the eye. She looked for so long that he began to squirm. Swallowing hard, she plunged in, making a quick decision. “Don’t freak out, okay? But in less than two days you’ll kill Rick Olsen with a butcher knife in your kitchen.” As Danny blinked, she hurried on, “You’ll be sent to Juvenile Hall, and you’ll become involved with a bad bunch of boys. A few years into your sentence, the prison will catch fire and you’ll be badly burned.”
She paused, but when Danny remained silent, she continued, “When you get out of prison, you’ll have trouble finding work. Eventually, your old juvie hall buddies will talk you into robbing convenience stores. This will escalate into home invasions and bank robberies. You’ll become meaner, and tougher, and more violent, until ultimately you’ll kill a man and his wife during a robbery. You’ll be found four weeks later, and during a standoff with police, you’ll fatally shoot five police officers and one innocent bystander—a woman who was eight-months pregnant. You’ll be sentenced to death by lethal injection.” She shuddered. “You just died. Three days ago. I attended your execution in—”
Standing up abruptly, Danny stumbled toward the stream. Gil jumped to her feet and walked beside him. As he looked at the water, tears began flowing down his face. “Am I really gonna do all those b-bad things?”
“Yes,” she said quietly—the catch in his voice breaking her heart.
“I don’t wanna hurt nobody. Maybe you should just kill me.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” she said soothingly. “I’ve seen you die once. I’m not gonna let
it happen again. I’ll help you make all the bad things go away.”
“How?”
“By showing you other choices you can make. You’re not an evil person—at least not yet—you’re just in a bad situation that’s too big for you to handle. We’ve looked at your case carefully, and you don’t have to go down a corrupt path. You have a good heart and are highly intelligent.”
He roughly brushed away his tears. “You gotta be joking. I’m flunking out.”
“We have your IQ on file, and believe me, it’s very high. Some extremely smart professors believe you can become a tremendous asset to society.”
“Really?” he asked, scuffing his feet in the dirt.
“Do you think I’d travel twenty-four years into the past if I didn’t think so? By the time I’m through with you, you’re gonna become something wonderful in the future—something to be proud of.”
“Are you sure?”
“Very sure. Last semester, my friend June counseled a boy who was gonna be responsible for a plane hijacking. After her work with him, he turned out to be the future governor of Maine.”
“Are you joking?”
“Of course not. The GAP computer looks for people with good hearts and high intelligence who have basically had a bad break—a tipping point it’s called. The computer calculates who can be transformed into assets for society providing the tables are turned in their favor. You’re a pretty special kid. Only a few people out of millions are selected for time counseling. That’s a good indication of how much faith we have in you.”
Danny’s smile wobbled and turned into a frown. “But isn’t messing around with time dangerous? In Star Trek you aren’t allowed to change the past because it alters the timeline. Even talking with me would be in violation of the Temporal Prime Directive.”
Time Tsunami Page 5
