Sam's World

by Ann Williams

  “I would like to see them.”

  “No,” Sammell said quickly. “We must go out at night to prevent that happening, not only because of your hair, but because of the color of your eyes.”

  “My eyes?”

  “Only the high born—those who are descendants of the group who formed the original government coalition with Wyndom—have blue eyes.”

  “But…how is that possible?”

  “Through genetics. They wanted a symbol of their royalty and they chose blue eyes and dark hair. Everyone else has eyes and hair the color of mine.”

  “You mean everyone has brown eyes and blond hair?” Marina asked in disbelief.

  Sammell allowed his gaze to linger on her red curls as he nodded.

  “I guess I’d stand out like a sore thumb among your people,” she said with a half laugh. “In my time, I’m pretty ordinary. We have many different hair and eye colors. Some natural and quite a few artificial.”

  Sammell glanced down at both his thumbs, raising an eyebrow, then shrugged. “Artificial?”

  “Yes. In my time, if you don’t like the color of your hair, you can change it by dying it another color. And you can get colored contacts to change the color of your eyes.”

  All this surprised and interested Sammell, but there was more that he needed to tell her for her own safety. “There is another thing I must tell you. There is a curfew. It starts at seven in the evening and lasts until seven the next morning.

  “Anyone caught outside their cell during that time is arrested. We must be very careful tomorrow night.”

  “But why? Is there crime? Somehow, I thought things like that didn’t exist in your world.”

  “There is no crime. It is the law.”

  “What happens when you get arrested?”

  “Termination.”

  “Termination? As in killed? What about prison?”

  Sammell shrugged. “There are no prisons.”

  “None?”

  “None.”

  Marina shuddered. She’d never thought the time would come when she’d be upset because someone told her prisons no longer existed and neither did crime.

  She didn’t like the picture he painted of his world. She would be glad to get back to her own—if any of this were true, and if he wasn’t planning to kill her and dispose of her body somewhere in the dark tomorrow night.

  “We must rest.”

  Marina nodded, suddenly exhausted.

  “I would let you sleep in my chamber, but it would not be safe. I have a security device installed to warn me about visits by the police, but it would not give me enough time to ensure your safety before they arrived. In here I can shield you from discovery. Out there I cannot.”

  Marina nodded. She wouldn’t mind sleeping on the floor tonight. She had a lot to think about.

  Sammell left quickly. A few moments later, he returned carrying a pile of blankets and two pillows.

  “These will make the floor a little less hard.”

  Marina took them from him and their fingers touched. Sammell drew back hastily from the contact, but she didn’t notice. She was thinking how glad she was to have something to cover her, because suddenly she was feeling very cold.

  Sammell left her to make her bed. He hadn’t jerked away because he feared her touch; on the contrary, there was something very pleasant about the feel of her skin next to his. And that was why he couldn’t sustain the contact.

  Outside the lab he watched as she moved from the necessary to the Recep. When she sat down on the blankets and put two hands to the edge of her tank top, he turned on the energy shield and turned away. Now that she was becoming less an end product of an experiment that had gone awry, and more of a person to him, watching her without her knowledge seemed somehow wrong.

  Chapter 5

  The next day at work, Sammell spent a long time thinking about the woman and their conversation the night before. He didn’t understand some of the things she said, but he liked talking to her. He was even beginning to look forward to spending more time with her.

  Since he was planning a trip to the twentieth century, he needed to know how to interact with the people of her era. By spending time with her, he could learn many things he would need to know about the past and its people. And, too, there were many good things about his world that he would like to teach her.

  Their planned trip to the public gardens that night would give him opportunity to study her closer. It would also give him a chance to prove that all he’d told her about his world was true. He suspected she wasn’t convinced that she’d traveled nearly four hundred years into the future, and for her own safety she needed to believe it.

  The trip to the gardens would be dangerous—it was always dangerous trying to evade the state police—but he’d done it many times alone. Tonight he would have to be extra careful, because it wasn’t only his life he’d be risking.

  He was surprised to realize that he was looking forward to it—to the time they’d spend together away from his lab in surroundings that she would undoubtedly find more to her liking. And he couldn’t help wondering if she was looking forward to it—to spending more time with him, too.

  As the day progressed, Sammell realized that Larkin was trying to get his attention without being obvious about it. But he avoided eye contact with the man. Since their conversation two days ago, he’d made no attempt to speak privately with him. Sammell knew he couldn’t put Larkin off indefinitely, but at the moment he had more important matters on his mind.

  He’d read through Larkin’s notes from the day before, and there had been nothing in them about the plasma jet. That meant Sammell’s secret was safe a little while longer. But he was worried. Last night after retiring, questions about Larkin’s sudden desire for a private conversation about their work had plagued him. Had Larkin stumbled onto the fact that Sammell was deliberately delaying progress on project Deliverance? If so, why hadn’t he gone to Bartell with his knowledge? What did he hope to gain from Sammell by his silence?

  Until now there had been no indication that Larkin wasn’t under the influence of the Wyndom drug. And though Sammell would have welcomed the man’s input on his project at home, with these new developments both at home and at work, he couldn’t take the chance. Not now, not with the woman’s safety at stake.

  The day passed slowly, and Sammell found himself inspecting the faces of everyone in the lab, wondering who—if any—had taken MDAT’s mother board from his desk. He found himself delving past the slightly glazed look in their eyes caused by the drug and trying to ferret out what lay beneath. But he soon realized how impossible it was for him to know with any amount of certainty whether their submissive air was a result of the drug, or only a skillfully drawn mask, like his own.

  He had to consider the possibility that the board had been taken by someone other than a member of his own team. Bartell could be the culprit. Not he himself—he wouldn’t do such a menial task, but he might have sent one of his minions to do it.

  It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done such a thing. But there was a problem with that theory, too. To an untrained eye, the mother board looked like all the others in Sammell’s drawer. There was only one difference—one very important difference. And the thief had recognized it.

  Sammell glanced up to see Gissel and Darryn with their heads close together near the model of the plasma jet. His eyes narrowed on the pair. It was not unusual to see a male and female working closely on a project, despite government restrictions on their contact outside of work, but there was something about these two…. Was their closeness only in the lab?

  Since the day it had appeared as though the pair was trying to listen to the private conversation he and Larkin had been having, Sammell had been studying them keenly. He noticed the manner in which they now stood close together without touching, and he sensed something more between them than a shared interest in their work.

  A vision of the woman in his lab rose before his mind’s e
ye, and Sammell felt a tightening in his lower abdomen. The feeling was becoming all too familiar. And though he tried his best to disregard it, the feeling persisted.

  The accidental brush of hands between Gissel and Darryn registered somewhere at the back of his mind, but Sammell’s thoughts were on Marina. His lips mouthed the name. He’d never spoken it aloud, but he’d wanted to.

  Marina awoke with a feeling of unease. She no longer awoke feeling disoriented. This place and the man who held her captive now followed her into her dreams. But this sensation was different. Something in the lab was different. Had her jailer returned?

  She cocked an ear to listen. Someone was definitely in the lab—but it wasn’t Sammell! There was more than one pair of footsteps!

  Her first instinct was to shout for help. She even got to her knees with that thought in mind. But as her lips parted, Sammell’s voice rang inside her head. “I keep you here for your own safety….”

  Marina hesitated. What if he was telling the truth? What if her safety depended on no one else’s knowing about her presence in his lab?

  Footsteps crossed the floor and came close to where she sat huddled in the Recep. Goose flesh pebbled her arms and legs. She felt so vulnerable. Where was Sammell?

  He’d told her that he protected her with some kind of energy shield, but she didn’t understand any of that. It was all part of the fantastic story he wanted her to swallow about having been transported to the future.

  She stared apprehensively at the wall around her. It was like no other wall she’d ever seen. It appeared to have no substance, unlike brick or wood, yet it was opaque and resistant to outside pressure. Somehow it made her feel as though she was trapped inside a living thing.

  Should she make her presence known?

  What if everything he’d told her was true? No, that was impossible! But why would he lie? Maybe he was crazy.

  It was just all so incredible. How could an ordinary woman get caught up in something so implausible by simply going for an afternoon stroll in the park to feed the squirrels? Things like this just didn’t happen!

  Wrapping her arms around herself, Marina shivered. Surely whoever was in the lab could see this curtain—or energy field, or whatever it was around her.

  What would happen if they found her? Would she be arrested as Sammell had said? She blocked the rest of what he’d said from her mind. She was learning things about herself in this place that she had never known, like the fact that she had a very graphic imagination.

  As the footsteps grew closer and seemed to be right outside the wall shielding her from view, Marina clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. A part of her wanted to shout at the top of her lungs for them to let her out of this prison, but another part of her wanted to shout for Sammell to come and save her from this new threat.

  “It appears that Lord Bartell is mistaken,” someone said behind the wall opposite Marina’s head. She jerked around to stare at the spot where she thought they had to be standing. “I see nothing out of the ordinary here.”

  Marina heard a click as though something had been switched on, but no sound followed.

  “I agree,” a second, deeper voice responded. The click came again. “Lord Bartell imagines subversion in everything he sees or hears. I think his desire to leave Government House and reside in Summit House has unbalanced his thinking.”

  “Maybe it is caused by something in his food,” another voice suggested wryly. A short brittle silence followed, and then the room erupted in laughter.

  “Yes,” the first voice commented dryly, “perhaps that is it. Come, let us go, we have more legitimate duties to perform.”

  Crouched in her hiding place, Marina listened to the footsteps cross the floor. When she could no longer hear them, she removed her hands from her mouth and threw herself facedown on the pillows.

  What had she done? The opportunity to make a bid for freedom had been within her grasp, and she’d let it slip away without so much as a peep.

  Maybe she was the one who was crazy.

  “Who is Lord Bartell?”

  Sammell’s movements became arrested. “Where did you hear that name?” he finally asked, looking up from trying to coax Monday into his arms.

  “Who is he?”

  “The director of project Deliverance.”

  “That’s the time travel thing you’re working on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why is it called Deliverance?”

  “King Wyndom intends delivering the people of the past from their bondage.”

  “Bondage?” Marina frowned. “What kind of bondage?”

  “The bondage caused by having to make decisions.”

  “That’s called freedom where I come from. Do you believe in this project?”

  Still on his knees, Sammell turned to face her. “No.”

  “Then why are you working on it?”

  “I told you last night, I have no choice.”

  “Someone was here today,” she said abruptly. “I think it was three men. They mentioned a Lord Bartell.”

  “One of Bartell’s inspection squads,” Sammell said flatly.

  “Is that who it was?” She scrutinized his face closely. “It wasn’t a few friends you sent over to try to convince me this whole crazy story you’ve told me is true?”

  “Is that what you believe?”

  “Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”

  “I have no friends.”

  “Then maybe you promised some acquaintances money to do a little play-acting.”

  Sammell smiled. “We have no money.”

  Marina noted his smile with a little shock of surprise. He was a handsome man; he should smile more often. “What are you saying—you don’t use money? How do you pay for things?”

  “What things? Everything we need is provided by the state.”

  “Everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you know what money is.” Her glance narrowed. “How is that?”

  “Money is a rate of exchange used in your world.” He crossed the floor to one of the shelves along the wall, opened a door and removed a small box. Opening it, he removed a pile of papers. “That information is here—you can read it for yourself.” He held the box out to her. When she didn’t move, he closed the box and returned it to the cabinet.

  “It is getting late,” Sammell said. “The security patrol is making its rounds on the other side of the city at this moment. If we hurry, we can get into the woods before they reach this sector.”

  Marina hesitated. “I am not moving until you tell me who Lord Bartell is.”

  “He is the king’s representative. He governs the Western Hemisphere of the World State. And he is the director of project Deliverance.”

  “You mean he’s your boss?”

  Sammell looked affronted. “He is a man I do not trust.”

  Scooping Monday up in her arms—the animal had refused to go to Sammell—she followed him across the room to the door.

  In the viewing room, she stood back and watched as Sammell placed his hand against a panel high in the center of the door. It began to glow with an amber light. A moment later, it changed to a pale green and the door slid soundlessly open.

  “Hurry,” Sammell said in hushed tones. “We must get into the woods without being seen. And from here on, do not speak unless you must.”

  Marina peered into the darkness. She didn’t know what she had expected in light of all that Sammell had told her, but she certainly wasn’t expecting the normality of a moonlit sky filled with radiant stars. Nor was she prepared for the sight of lights shining in the windows of cottagelike houses scattered among the trees.

  Where was this world of the future Sammell had prepared her for with his talk of wonder drugs and time travel?

  Sammell moved swiftly over the ground, darting from shadow to shadow with Marina on his heels, keeping pace. But after a while she began to have difficulty keeping up with him. In no time at all she was ou
t of breath and lagging behind.

  “W-where are w-we going?” she panted, galloping to catch up with him.

  Sammell paused to wait for her. “To the public gardens.”

  “Where are th-they, in the next county?”

  “County?”

  “N-never mind. How m-much farther to the g-gardens?”

  “To the center of town.”

  “C-center of town?” Frowning, Marina stopped short. “If you’re trying to s-stay away from the p-police, why are we going to the center of t-town?”

  Sammell slowed, turned toward her stationary figure and backpedaled. “That is where we will find food for you and your little friend. Come—hurry, we have a long way to go.”

  A few minutes later they were deep in a thick woods. Marina stumbled over a vine and would have fallen if she hadn’t grabbed at Sammell’s back.

  “What is wrong?”

  “You’re g-going too fast. I can’t keep up with you. And besides—” she put a hand to her forehead “—I feel a little dizzy.”

  “Perhaps it is the air. I believe you had a pollution problem in your century. Our air is clean and pure,” he said proudly.

  “Nonsense,” Marina muttered. She’d seen the mountains in the distance. “It’s the altitude. Where are we, anyway?”

  “You would know this place as Colorado.”

  “Colorado?” Marina stopped short. “I’ve never been to Colorado.”

  “You are there now. Come,” he said, motioning for her to follow, “we have not reached our destination.”

  On the move again, they hugged the trees, stopping every few minutes so Sammell could pull a pair of strange-looking glasses down over his eyes and examine the woods around them. It was taking longer than he’d planned for them to reach the gardens. He should have realized the woman at his side would not be in the same physical condition as one of his own people.

  “Why couldn’t we have taken a car?” Marina asked petulantly.

  Pushing the infrared goggles onto his forehead with one hand, he frowned at her. “Car?”