Kale turned abruptly and walked to the control console. He powered down the system. Andi remained where she was.
“That’s it. It’s over. I’m not going any further with this thing. It’s too risky. Jordan can be pissed as hell at me if she wants to, but at least she’ll be alive to be angry.”
Kale threw a drop cloth over the console. “I’m going into the house. Are you coming?”
“Power the computers back up. I think I know why the rat died.”
“You know why the rat died? Okay, I’m game. Why?”
“Take a close look. What do you notice about the rat?”
Kale stared at the animal. “Help me out here. I don’t see anything unusual.”
“Touch it.”
Kale reached into the cage. He pulled his hand back almost immediately. “It’s hot,” he said. “Well, I’ll be. We forgot to ground it.”
Andi smiled. “That’s right. We grounded the cage, but didn’t ground the rat to the cage. I’m surprised it didn’t spontaneously combust.”
Kale kissed Andi full on the lips. “You’re a genius. Do you think we have time tonight for one more trial?”
“We’ll take the time. You power up the computers, and I’ll get the next test subject.”
* * *
An incessant pounding on her door roused Jordan from a deep sleep. “This had better be good,” she said. “Stop pounding, will you?”
The door to Jordan’s room swung open and Kale and Andi came in and climbed into the bed, one on each side of Jordan. She looked at them. “Do you mind telling me why you’re invading my room at such an ungodly hour?”
Kale reached under his shirt and pulled out a black rat. He thrust the rodent in Jordan’s face. “Meet Rupert the Rat, time traveler extraordinaire!”
“What?” Jordan maneuvered into a sitting position. “Are you telling me it worked? Kale, talk to me. Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?”
Kale was giddy with excitement. “I am definitely telling you what you think I’m telling you. We did it, Jord. We sent our little friend here through time without a scratch.”
Jordan looked at Andi and both women screamed spontaneously.
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.” Jordan began to cry.
Andi took Jordan into her arms. “Go ahead, sweetie, cry it out. You deserve it. We’re almost there. All we’ll need to do now is wait for the power pack. While we’re waiting, we do some repeat testing. We’re almost there, Jord. We’re almost there.”
* * *
Kale rose to his feet when Peter entered the room. “How is she?”
“She’s fine. Everything went like clockwork. They’re closing right now. She’ll spend a couple of hours in recovery, and she’ll be in her room after that.”
“How soon before she can come home?” Andi asked.
Peter slid the surgical cap off his head. “We don’t have to worry about pain at the surgery site since she won’t have any feeling for a while. We need to give it a couple of days for the wound to begin to heal. Then she can go home, but you’ll need to keep her stationary.”
Kale’s eyes flew open. “Yeah, right. Like we were successful doing that last time.”
Peter chuckled. “Well, this time, she’ll be allowed to move around, but she shouldn’t be doing any bending at the waist or she’ll risk reopening the incision. There shouldn’t be any problem with her walking around. I’d say about a week of taking it easy should allow the wound to heal enough to eliminate the risk.”
Kale grinned. “A week of confinement for Jordan will be a month of hell for Andi and me, but we’ve done it before. I guess we can do it again.”
* * *
“I want to go to physical therapy as soon as possible. I’ve been in that chair for too long. If I want to get back on my feet without a walker, I need to exercise these muscles.” Jordan sat on the edge of her hospital bed and massaged her thighs.
“I agree, but your surgery was only yesterday. Let’s wait until you’ve been home for about a week before we schedule PT, okay? Go ahead and walk around all you want, but I insist you use the walker for at least a week.”
“No time like the present,” she replied. She placed her hands on the support bars of the walker and pulled herself into a standing position. As she stood, she came face to face with Peter, who had been holding the walker steady. She grinned.
“This feels wonderful!” she said. “Do you know how tiring it is, always having to look up at people from that damn chair?”
Peter stood to the side. “If the implant works the way it’s supposed to, you’ll never have to do that again.” He waited as she regained her balance. “Okay, you know the routine. Lift the walker and move it forward, then step toward it.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Jordan took two tentative steps toward the walker. She repeated the routine several times until she had walked the distance between her bed and the door. Peter followed close by her side. As she stepped into the hallway, she noticed Kale and Andi getting off the elevator. “Hey, guys!” she called.
A wide grin split Kale’s face when he saw her. “Way to go, Jord!”
“Wow, I didn’t realize how tall you are,” Andi commented.
“The last time I was measured, I was five-foot nine.”
“And I’m only five foot three,” said Andi.
“Shrimp,” Jordan teased.
“How does it feel to be on your feet again?” Kale asked.
“It feels wonderful. Come, walk with me,” she encouraged her friends.
“As long as you have company, I’ll take my leave and head back to the lab,” Peter said. “Kale, be sure she doesn’t overdo it, okay? One trip to the end of the hall and back, Jordan, and then off your feet. No argument. You’ll have plenty of opportunity for long walks around the farm when you go home tomorrow.”
* * *
Kale pulled his vehicle close to the front door of the farmhouse and turned off the ignition. “Stay where you are. I’ll come around and help you out.” By the time Kale made it around to Jordan’s side of the vehicle, she had already swung the door open and planted her feet firmly on the ground. “Damn it, woman. You’re the most stubborn individual I’ve ever met.”
Jordan feigned a look of innocence. “What?”
“Don’t give me that look. Here—hold on to my shoulders while I help you stand. Peter said no bending at the waist if you can help it. The last thing you need is to pull out your stitches.”
“Nag, nag, nag,” Jordan said as she allowed Kale to assist her.
“Okay, hold onto my arm while we walk to the door.”
“I can do this by myself.”
“Maybe you can, but not on my shift. I know you too well, Jordan Lewis. The moment I turn my back and leave you alone, you’ll be skipping rope or something equally stupid.”
“Do I look like an idiot?” Jordan asked.
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
Kale ignored Jordan’s attempts to look insulted as he led her into the house and helped her into a reclining position on the couch. “You stay right here. I need to unload the vehicle.” He pointed directly at her. “No sitting up.”
Kale turned to leave and felt a sudden thud on the back of his head. He stopped short and bent down to pick up the pillow that had landed on the floor behind him. The moment he met her eyes, Jordan stuck her tongue out at him.
“You are so lucky you are recovering from surgery,” he said in mock anger. He threw the pillow back at her.
Kale retrieved the bag of Jordan’s personal items and her walker, which had been folded flat. He also removed her chair from the storage compartment and guided it into the house. When Jordan saw the chair, she narrowed her eyes. “I hope I never have to use that thing again.” Just then, the sound of a beeping horn came from the barnyard.
“That would be Andi,” Kale said. “She has the lab animals with her. I need to give her a hand transferri
ng them to the barn. I’ll be right back.”
“I’m coming with you,” Jordan said.
Kale stopped. “You really should be resting.”
“Peter said I could walk around all I wanted as long as I didn’t overdo it. I don’t think walking from here to the barn will be too strenuous.”
Kale reached for Jordan’s walker. He carried it over to her and planted it on the rug in front of her. “He also said you needed to use the walker for the next few days.”
Jordan looked distastefully at the walker. “I don’t really think I need it,” she said.
Kale folded his arms across his chest in a stubborn pose. “Then I guess you don’t really need to come out to the lab either.”
“You are a pain in my ass. You know that, don’t you?” she said.
“Looks who’s calling the kettle black,” he responded. “You’ve got the market cornered on pains in the ass. Your choice, walker or couch.”
“Grr!” Jordan replied. “Okay, have it your way. Give me the goddamned walker.”
“I knew you’d see it my way,” Kale snickered as he helped her to her feet.
* * *
“Hi there, Rupert. How’s my little time traveler today?”
Rupert sat back on his haunches, eating the treats Jordan fed him. Rupert’s survival during the time travel experiments had elevated him to the status of pet. Satisfied her little friend had eaten his fill, she turned her attention to the new specimen Andi had brought to the lab. “Hi there, little man,” Jordan cooed as the monkey grabbed the finger she offered him through his cage. She looked at Kale, who was busy at the control panel. “Our little friend here has been fitted with the implant, right?”
“Yes he has, at the L1 vertebra, just like you. We were fortunate enough to have access to the same lab animals used to perfect the implant. Because of that, we’ll be able to test the functionality of the implant during the time transfers.”
Kale glanced at Andi who was working at a table on the opposite side of the room. “How are you doing over there, Andi?”
Andi turned to face Kale and Jordan. In her hand was a small vest-like garment. “I’m ready to put this on the little guy. I might need some help,” she said, approaching the cage.
“What is it?” Jordan asked as she inspected the garment.
Andi turned it over in her hand. “See this right here?” She pointed to a small box attached to the front of the vest. “This is a micro-camera. We’re going to attempt to film the transfer process. If we’re successful, we’ll know what happens during the transfer, and we’ll be able to see everything.”
“Are you recording the process on a disk or is it more like a webcam?” Jordan asked.
“We’re attempting to do both. We really don’t expect the webcam approach to hold up, but with any luck, the recording will,” Andi said.
Jordan felt intense excitement rise in her chest. “I really hope this works. It would be great to know what I’ll be facing when its time for me to make the trip.”
“That’s the plan, sweetheart. That’s the plan.”
* * *
Kale placed the chimp’s cage on the platform. He secured the grounding hardware to both the cage and its occupant. Jordan and Andi waited behind the barrier near the control console.
“Is the webcam working?” Jordan asked.
Andi glanced at the small monitor next to the computer. It showed the chimp’s view of the lab as he moved around in his cage. “Yes, it is. Let’s hope it continues to work.”
“All right, then. I guess we should start,” Kale announced as he set the rings in motion. Within moments, both sets of rings were spinning and the cage containing the chimp hovered in the center of the spheres. The chimp chattered noisily.
“One minute to surge,” Jordan said. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, surge!”
The force of the surge was felt by all as they clung to the table, which was anchored to the floor. Finally, when it was obvious that the subject was no longer on the platform, Kale powered down the rings.
Jordan was breathing heavily, and her heart beat wildly. “Reverse the rings, Kale. Bring him back.”
“It looks like we’ve lost the signal. I suspected we would. I’m hoping it continues to record on the other side,” Andi said.
“Okay. We’re ready to retrieve. I’m going to start the rings,” Kale said. He initiated the program.
“Get ready. We’re almost there—now!”
Once again a surge of power washed over the lab as the cage containing the chimp reappeared in the center of the sphere. The chimp was screeching wildly as Kale powered down the rings and the cage gently floated down onto the platform.
“Look at the monitor,” Andi said. “The webcam is working again. Quick, Kale, I need the camera.”
The trio sat in front of the blank monitor. Jordan sat closest to the table, her hand inside the chimp’s cage, gently patting the animal’s back as he slept. It appeared the trip through time had taken more out of the chimp than they anticipated. They attributed his exhaustion to the hyper-excited state he was in when they retrieved him from the past.
“Are you ready?” Andi asked. She pressed “play” on the remote control.
The disk played scenes of the lab from the moment the cage was placed on the platform to the point of the first surge. Then, suddenly, the screen was covered with streaks of light, bright colors racing toward them. The speed and direction of the light streaks gave them the impression that they were moving down a thin tube at high speed—a tube filled with a million twinkling Christmas lights.
“It’s so beautiful,” Jordan whispered hoarsely.
Then, just as suddenly as the streaks appeared, they were gone. The barn came into view.
Andi frowned. “What’s happening? It looks like the barn, only newer.”
“That’s because it is the barn—eighty-seven years ago. Infucking-credible! I can’t believe it,” Kale said, excitement in his voice.
The image began to move. The chimp had regained his senses and was moving gingerly around his cage.
“It looks like the cage landed behind a stack of hay bales,” Jordan said.
“Maybe that’s a good thing. It wouldn’t have been good for someone to come into the barn and discover the cage sitting in the middle of the floor. That might have caused all kinds of paradoxes,” Andi said.
For the next hour, they sat glued to the TV monitor, observing different angles of the barn as the chimp rolled over, swung from the ceiling of the cage, and turned around in circles.
Kale finally sat back in his chair and rolled his shoulders. “This is starting to get boring,” he complained.
“I can fast forward through this part if you’d like,” Andi suggested.
Just as Andi pushed the fast forward button, Jordan cried out, “Wait! Stop! Give me the remote. Give it to me, quickly,” she said with such urgency that Andi handed it over immediately.
Jordan put the reader in reverse. Seconds later, she found what she was looking for. She stopped the recorder and pushed the option for frame-by-frame playback. The monitor came to life and very slowly displayed what Jordan had seen flash by quickly just moments before. Tears filled Jordan’s eyes as she paused on one particular frame.
“Maggie!” Jordan rasped.
Chapter 24
All three friends stared at the woman on the screen. Maggie appeared only briefly in the corner of the screen, well behind the hay bales as she entered the barn, but her image as captured by the high-tech camera was clear and crisp.
“She’s beautiful,” Andi choked out through her own tears.
Kale just stared at the screen, totally incapable of speaking, as he suddenly understood why Jordan was so intent on this journey. He watched Jordan run her fingertips across the frozen image of Maggie on the TV monitor in a gesture so intimate he could feel the depth of her love for this woman.
Jordan looked at Kale and an unspoken promise pass
ed between them. Kale nodded. He wiped the trail of tears from Jordan’s cheek, then took her hand in his.
“We need to watch the rest of the disk. I promise I’ll make a copy for you. Right now, we need to see what happens, okay?” Andi said.
Andi returned to the spot just prior to Maggie’s entrance and pushed play. Maggie’s only appearance on the disk was the brief moment it took for her to walk by the lens. Nearly a half-hour more of scenes within the barn ended when a “disk full” message appeared on the screen.
Jordan frowned. “What happened?”
Andi rose to her feet. “I guess that’s all we get to see for now.”
“But the camera was still working when we retrieved the chimp,” Jordan said.
“Yes it was, but apparently only in live webcam mode. The disk was already full by then, so it stopped recording,” Andi said.
Kale sat staring at the blank TV screen. “Hmm... so that means we have no idea how long the chimp was actually there. He was only gone from here for what, ten or fifteen minutes? But a two-hour disk is full of images, none of which include the trip back to the present. We don’t know how many hours, days, or weeks passed in that time zone for those minutes.”
“But the chimp came back healthy, so it couldn’t have been that long,” Andi said. “I mean, if he was gone for too long, he would be showing signs of dehydration or malnutrition. I’m guessing the time lapse on the other end wasn’t any more than a day.”
“I guess we’ll have to figure that out when we send me into the past,” Jordan said.
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that idea,” Kale said.
Jordan dropped her chin to her chest and reached up to rub her temples. She sighed deeply then looked up. “Kale, sometimes we need to take risks. I, for one, am ready to do this as soon as I’m healed. I don’t want to do anymore testing. Rupert came back okay, the chimp came back okay. He was obviously conscious when he got there. We have recorded proof of that. Enough is enough. I have faith in you. I have faith in both of you.” Jordan looked back and forth between her friends. “I can’t wait much longer. I need to be with her. It is physically painful for me not to be.”
Karen D. Badger - Yesterday Once More Page 21
