Black Tuesday (Area 51: Time Patrol)

by Mayer, Bob

  She felt pretty good that she was learning to control this.

  She smiled as she saw the inscription above the entrance: LIBRARY.

  Wow. Deep. Above that, engraved in the stone, were two people reading facing an owl in the center. So, like wisdom or something? Scout thought, shutting off the info that wanted to tell her the history of the engraving, the library, the owl, and stone working.

  She entered a cool, large foyer. There was that hush, sort of like being in a church. The reverence for the book—or more likely bitchy librarians who shushed anyone who was too loud.

  Scout walked up to a large desk. It was manned by half a dozen people, all female (duh), and ranging in age from some obvious students to the professional matriarchs with their permanent scowls who’d probably get along fabulously with Edith Frobish.

  She went to one of the students.

  “May I help you?”

  The girl had black-framed glasses, hair that made Scout’s look absolutely cutting edge, and a complete lack of makeup. Scout didn’t see much excitement in this girl’s future.

  “I’m looking for Luke.”

  The girl’s pale face flushed red as if Scout had just asked to see the secret porn stash. The spectacled student glanced nervously left and then right. “Are you a pig?”

  A moment of offense, until she understood the context. Then Scout almost laughed, but kept it in. “Nope. Friend.” She slid the belt around and turned it so the girl could see the name. “He sent me this and I wanted to thank him.”

  “So he’s around your pants,” the girl said, “but did he get in them?”

  It was almost a challenge, as if the girl had some proprietary interest in Luke. Hmm, give her a few more points than initial assessment.

  “I just want to talk to him.”

  “He’s got a study room. One four two.”

  “Right,” Scout said. “I think I’ll go study.”

  She felt the girl’s eyes on her back until she got out of view. It didn’t take long to find the study room. The door was open and Scout walked in and hit the brakes. She was staring into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, beneath a mop of blond hair that urged her to run her fingers through it. Luke stood, revealing a tall, lean, totally ripped surfer dude. He smiled at her, showing his pearly whites.

  “Welcome to California. I’m Luke.”

  Scout could only nod in return as she tried to collect her thoughts, her pulse, and her mission.

  Luke reached out and ran a finger along the top of the belt, which meant the top of her pants, which meant below her peasant top, which meant his finger so lightly grazed the thin line of exposed skin. A tingle ran from the skin into Scout’s stomach.

  Scout couldn’t stop staring at him. He was really beautiful in a way guys weren’t any more in her time. His long unkempt hair had natural blond highlights that could only come from a lot of time in the sun. One of his teeth wasn’t quite straight and that tiny flaw made everything else just perfect. The body underneath the T-shirt with the big-footed guy who’s gonna “Keep on Truckin’” and the jeans that flared with a little bit of a bell at the bottom wasn’t the result of a gym, but rather a very active lifestyle. She’d never thought of that before, but working specific muscle groups in a specific workout routine wasn’t the same as just overall using the entire body. He was fit from the core outward and now she realized that she was staring.

  But he was staring right back, his eyes roaming her body without a shred of discretion or modesty.

  This might be a fine assignment after all.

  “You’re a surfer?” she asked, for lack of jumping right in and asking how the Shadow was going to try and destroy the startup of the Internet this evening. It was obvious he was: the hair, the mark on the ankle from the board’s leash, and the tanned feet inside the worn leather sandals, which indicated he was on the board longer than he was in the water.

  Scout was liking this way too much.

  Which brought a little tingling sensation deep in some primordial part of her brain.

  Which she scrunched down right away.

  He even had a small smiley face tattooed on the arch of his foot. When did the smiley face become a thing? And the answer was there: 1963.

  “Hey. I’m up here.”

  He probably thinks I have a foot fetish, Scout thought. “I like your ink,” she said, lifting her gaze to meet those adorable eyes once more.

  He looked puzzled.

  Oops, not slang yet. “The tattoo.”

  He smiled. “You seem to like a lot more than that.”

  Whoa, Scout thought. Was everyone so forward in this summer of love? Well, fall actually since it was October. It was the time of the pill and the only possible negative of casual sex was pregnancy and thus the pill.

  My, oh my, Scout thought, this must have been a wonderful time.

  Except Scout wasn’t on the pill, she suddenly realized.

  And why was she realizing that? And why should she care? And why didn’t anyone think of that and prepare her? Who knows what sacrifices she might have to make for the mission?

  “Hey,” Luke said. “I got something you might really like. Let’s go out back.”

  “Sure,” Scout said before even thinking about it.

  Nada would have been very unhappy.

  But, hey, one has to perform sacrifices in the name of duty. Take risks.

  He led the way through a labyrinth of corridors in the library with a surety that indicated this wasn’t his first time going out back. He pushed open a fire escape door that had no alarms on it and they stepped into an alley. Apparently the whole “garbage is a bad thing” hadn’t quite made it here and now. Scout’s nostrils were assaulted by smells that didn’t seem to bother Luke, or which he easily ignored. Scout made a mental note that if she ever went back to the Middle Ages, she’d better be prepared for the smell. She knew Roland was in a pretty smelly time, but she doubted the big guy even noticed.

  Luke looked, if it were possible, even better in the sun. He sat down on a crate and tapped it, inviting her to join him. From inside a pocket he pulled out a joint.

  “I guess it’s nine o’clock somewhere,” Scout said, earning her another quizzical look.

  “That from your time?” Luke asked, the first blatant indication he was Time Patrol. He fired up the roach, took a long hit, and extended it to her.

  “I can’t tell you,” Scout said, feeling proud she was sticking with Dane’s rules.

  She almost passed on the weed because she could hear the stems burning and it was the worst-smelling pot ever. But he seemed to like it.

  “It’s good stuff,” he insisted, still holding the roach toward her.

  You have no idea what good stuff is, Scout thought. Her time had gotten some things better, but what was science for if not to improve the quality of the marijuana?

  She took a hit and forced herself not to sputter and cough and prove herself an amateur. But the word “harsh” must have been invented for this crap. Her eyes watered and she exhaled much too quickly because it felt like she’d inhaled a smoking piece of newspaper rolled into another piece of newspaper.

  She handed it back and she could tell by the look on his face he thought she was a novice, and that was okay. But he was nice enough not to pass it back, sucking at it until all that was left was a tiny nub. Then he brought out a pair of clips to hold until there literally was just about nothing left.

  Efficient at least. Waste not, want not.

  It was done, with just the lingering odor of the roach mixed with the lingering odor of all the other obnoxious stuff in the alley. Scout thought she smelled some benzene and that would make sense; not outlawed in California yet. Luke didn’t seem to be too high and she wasn’t surprised since the amount of THC in whatever it was he’d just smoked probably wasn’t much. Which explained John and his handmade bongs.

  “I like you,” Luke said in the manner of extremely good-looking people who think their compliments are a fav
or they’re doing you.

  “I like you too,” Scout said, even though she hardly knew him, other than he was a drug dealer and a member of the Time Patrol. She wondered about the recruitment arm of the Patrol, but then realized she was here, so she’d passed whatever low bar one had to crawl under to get in. There was something about Luke, an aura that was very, very attractive.

  The things she did for a mission. Sometimes you have to sacrifice in the line of duty. But it occurred to her she was a bit more baked from just that one puff than she’d thought. Some slow-acting stuff.

  “All right then,” Luke said. “There’s a talk early this evening at the computer lab. The geeks will be there. I don’t know what you’re here for, but I was told it had something to do with the computers? This ARPANET thing they’re working on in conjunction with Stanford?”

  “Uh, right.”

  “Yeah. Figured. They’re doing stuff for the military. I heard it’s to build a way to maintain communications after a nuclear war. But what would be the point of that? We’d all be dead. And you’re here from the future so I figure we’ve dodged that fate so far.”

  He hopped off the crate. “So. Nothing going on for a while. Meet me at Boelter Hall at five. See what’s happening. There’s a lecture being presented by one of the geeks in the project. Figure if the bad guys are going to try something, it will be then or later. We take care of business. Then we can go have some real fun.”

  Scout felt a little quiver at the thought of real fun. “Okay, let’s do that.”

  “Wear something cute,” he added with a wink.

  And the quiver froze. Don’t do that, she thought, and for a moment his hair just looked messy and the alley really did smell bad. And she already thought she was wearing something that could at least be defined as cute.

  “All right then,” Luke said. “See you then. Have a nice day!”

  And then he was gone into the building, leaving Scout in the garbage-strewn alley. She waited for a few moments, and then followed him into the library. Not to follow him, but because she had to look some things up, because the almighty download hadn’t downloaded everything. Edith wasn’t on target as much as she probably thought she was.

  And since Scout didn’t have her iPhone, her iPad, her laptop (and even if she did there was no Internet—yet), and thus no Wikipedia, she was going to have to do this the old-fashioned way: books.

  London, England, 1618. 29 October

  Mac followed Beeston through the streets around Westminster. The 29th of October, the feast of Saints Simon and Jude, was also to be the annual Sir Mayor’s Show. So despite being very early in the day, there were a number of people out and about.

  Everyone smelled either awful or they were drenched with perfume, with the majority leaning toward the former. Mac couldn’t tell which was worse. He’d have to remember this for his next mission; the wrong smell could give one away. Seems to have been an oversight in Dane’s planning, although Roland had smelled a bit rank during the pre-op briefing. But Mac knew that was sort of standard for Roland even when he wasn’t time traveling or dressed like a Viking.

  This mission was odd for Mac, and not just the smell, and the time travel, which he supposed would make it odd for anyone, but because the goal wasn’t clearly stated, and neither were the parameters. He was used to Nightstalker missions where they went in fast and hard with things often uncertain, but they’d always had their three Cs: Containment, Concealment, and Control. Which usually meant Roland leading the way, guns blazing, and they pretty much destroyed whatever possible threat there was.

  First, Mac didn’t have a gun to blaze, just this thin-ass rapier on his belt, which he wasn’t exactly trained on. Second, he didn’t know who the enemy was. Third, the only thing he really knew was that history said Raleigh was to get his head chopped off later this morning.

  But he had no clue what he was supposed to do or even who the enemy was other than some group called the Shadow.

  That train of thought gave Mac a moment of pause as he followed Beeston into a pub. Did Raleigh have to be beheaded or simply be dead by the end of the day? Could method of death affect history?

  The smell was worse inside, which Mac didn’t think was possible. The noise inside the pub was also overwhelming, so one had to shout to be heard. Beeston elbowed his way through wall-to-wall people, all here, Mac supposed, to see the big event later in the morning. The endless human fascination with death, especially when it wasn’t your own, ruled once again. Rarely do people get a chance to see death occur on schedule. And a beheading—Mac remembered that tons of people had scoured the Internet to try to find the videos of hostages beheaded in the Middle East, unwittingly lending power and motivation to the terrorists who posted them.

  “Here,” Beeston said, indicating a heavy wooden door in a corner of the room. He swung it open and came to an abrupt halt as the point of a rapier came to rest underneath his chin. “Easy!”

  The rapier was withdrawn from Beeston, who entered the room, but then it snapped back up, stopping underneath Mac’s chin.

  “Who be this?” the man holding the sword demanded, throwing the question toward Beeston, not Mac.

  “A friend of the prophecy,” Beeston said. The point was reluctantly withdrawn from Mac’s neck and he slid inside, the heavy door swinging shut behind him with a solid thud, dropping the noise level appreciably. The room was narrow and smoke filled, which reminded Mac of another of Raleigh’s claims to fame: introducing tobacco to England. From his download, Mac knew tobacco was already in other parts of Europe, so it wasn’t that great a claim to infamy, but certainly Raleigh had played a role.

  The room was narrow, barely big enough to contain the long wood table with benches on either side. The table had seen many knives scar its surface. It was also disgustingly dirty with what Mac swore were vomit stains mixed in with spilled ale, food remnants, and other nasty bits. There was a window at the far end of the room where one could barely see outside through the streaked panes of glass.

  These people were literally breathing in disease, but Mac supposed when you lived in an age where disease killed often and swiftly, you just learned to make it part of your life. He was sure Doc would be appalled to see this. He was glad his shots were up to date, since he had to be ready to deploy anywhere in the world as a Nightstalker.

  “Take a seat,” Beeston said, indicating a spot at his side.

  As he squeezed in, Beeston slid a mug of ale over in front of Mac. There were eight other men at the table, four on benches on each side.

  “Our friends,” Beeston said, indicating the other men. They all stared at Mac and one, a lean fellow with only one hand, spoke up.

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s here to help,” Beeston said. He leaned close to Mac and whispered in his ear. “They’re not to know you’re from the Patrol. But they’re with us in the prophecy. All came to London in the past few days. This is the first time we’ve been all together. Some I know from past service, but others are new.” As if that explained everything.

  “He got a name?” One-Hand asked.

  “I’ve got one,” Mac replied. “But maybe sharing names is not the most prudent course of action?”

  “Good point,” another one of the men acknowledged. “It’s likely to be bloody work today. And if we fail, it’s not just the head chopped, it’s drawn and quartered for high treason. There’s not much I fear, but I won’t be going that way. I’d rather take my own blade.”

  Mac’s download filled in the details. The sentence for high treason: being tied to a ladder or panel, pulled to the place of execution, and hanged. To a point just short of death. Unhanged. Then emasculated, disemboweled, and finally beheaded. Dying somewhere in that process, the sooner the better for the victim, the later for the executioner. Then the body was quartered—cut into four pieces, which were sent out to four corners of England to be disposed of.

  Gotta love humanity, Mac thought.

  At least they did
n’t do it to women. They just got burned at the stake.

  Really gotta love humanity.

  “Do you have a plan?” Mac asked since they all seemed more clued in than he was.

  The conspirators exchanged glances, and then Beeston spoke. “It’s simple. Since we know not how exactly the prophecy will be fulfilled, we must get as close to Sir Raleigh as possible and then be prepared to help him get away. The prophecy will keep him from the axe, but then we must get him from England.”

  Someone needed to fill him in on the prophecy.

  “So we just wait?” Mac asked.

  Beeston nodded. “We have time before they bring Sir Raleigh out for the trip to the block. Since we know he will not end up as they desire, we must help him.”

  “Let’s drink then,” One-Hand advised, the most sensible thing Mac had heard since arriving. Of course, it was obvious they’d all already been drinking, to judge by the number of mugs scattered around the table and the slurring of the words. If Raleigh was counting on this group of conspirators to free him, he’d better be preparing to meet his maker.

  One-Hand dipped his mug into a wooden bucket at his end of the trestle and Mac realized that was the source of the ale sitting in front of him. He looked at the motley crew gathered at the table and was pretty sure there was some bad stuff to be transmitted via mug, via bucket, via ale. They were sharing more than high treason.

  Mac sighed as he lifted his mug. It was true: The less you knew, the easier life was. And, he supposed, the more fun you could have as he quaffed a good portion of the ale, quite aware it wasn’t even dawn yet. Well, five o’clock somewhere, but he had a feeling these people had no qualms about what time of day they drank.

  He finished off the mug and passed it down the table. It was strange to realize how limited he was by fear when it came to his own life. Looking around he saw a bunch of people who’d probably never heard the phrase “live hard, play hard,” but they embodied it. He supposed when you lived in an age where the plague could sweep through and wipe out a goodly percentage of folk, you didn’t worry too much about the future.