Spider, concerned at how James looked, and a little surprised — but then, he thought, this development was not exactly routine — ducked into the office and grabbed a chair for James, who sank into it gratefully.
Spider went back to scrutinizing the screens, checking readings inside the Cave. Everything was returning to normal, he was amazed to see.
“So it’s safe in there now?” Charlie asked. “What about the radiation?”
James consulted with the technicians, who nodded in agreement and then politely asked Spider and Charlie to move away from the screen, so they could start shutting down the Bat Cave.
Charlie said to Spider, “How is that even possible?”
Spider just looked at him. “You’re asking me?”
“You’re the expert!”
“I’m just a guy who fixes busted time machines,” he said. “You want an expert’s opinion, ask James. Though I’m guessing, looking at him there, he’s as baffled as we are, and he’s a bloody engineer!” James was ashen, his face drawn. It worried Spider, and made him wonder if what was happening here was even more freaky than he had previously thought. But then, did he really want to know just how incredibly freaky this was? Curiosity and fear warred within him for a moment, and then decided it was somebody else’s problem. That felt better.
“So you’re saying we’ve got nothing to go on here.”
“We’ve got bugger-all to go on, Charlie.”
“James,” said Charlie, “Where — or when — did it come from?”
James got up and came over to join them. Spider could see he was sweating. James said, “If I knew I’d tell you, that’s for bloody sure. Right now, all I can say is the universe inside the Bat Cave had a zero point — when we powered up the Cave — and an end point, just now, when we powered it down. Total existence time of maybe a few hours. No other time machine could be in there, or we’d know about it, simply because it would have been there, or at least have been detectable, from when we powered up. And it couldn’t have bopped in from out here, the cave is a hole in our reality. The universe as we know it has a temporary Bat Cave-shaped boundary right there. It’s a discontinuity. It’s—”
Spider said, “Look, I don’t mean to interrupt, but are you quite all right there, James? You look like shit.”
James flashed an unconvincing smile. “Thanks for the concern, but I’m okay. Really. Just busy lately. Not much sleep.”
“Right,” Spider said, thinking about James’ home life these days: it was just him and his daughter Electra. Even after all this time, things had to be difficult between them, and he could believe James was putting in long hours at work.
“Yeah.” A sad smile. “So,” he said. “About all this…”
Spider said, suddenly inspired, “You know what it might be?”
James watched the techs working their controls. Slowly the Bat Cave-shaped hole in reality was turning back into a big black balloon. He said, “I’ve had one or two ideas. You go first.” Spider noted that James was avoiding looking at the screens if he could help it.
Spider said, “What if it’s a sandwich?”
Charlie stared at him. “Um, what?”
James mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “No,” he said, breathing hard. “Not so much a sandwich,” he illustrated with his hands, “as a superpositioning. Two time machines—”
Spider saw where he was going. “Occupying the same space-time.” His mind lit up as he started to see how it might work, and how it might lead to the Tempo’s odd symptoms. “You’d have to have a way of folding space-time to do it, or something, anyway. But that’d be why we were getting all those crazy readings. It’d be why Charlie and I both felt sick inside the thing, and why it behaved so erratically for the owner.”
One of the techs came over. “Okay, the Cave’s been safed. You can go inside if you want.”
Spider and Charlie exchanged apprehensive looks. “You want to go first?” Spider said.
Charlie said, “This is one of those invitations which superficially look like the kind of thing I could say, ‘Oh, no, I’m good. Why don’t you go first?’ — only it’s really more like the Army asking recruits who’d like to volunteer, right?”
Spider clapped him on the shoulder. “The kid’s quick, I’ll give him that.”
James said, “It should be perfectly safe. Now, anyway. Look, I’ll go first.” He went over to the gaping opening. Very hot, thick black smoke billowed out of the Cave. James stood there, coughing, waiting for them. “Might be wise to put out the tires first, though.”
Later, the fires extinguished and the smoke cleared, Spider, Charlie and James ventured inside the structure. The stink of fire, smoke and something nasty and unexpected was almost disabling. Coughing, careful where they stepped in the small space, they went up to the “new” time machine. It was a Dolphin, nearly as old as the Tempo had been, and, like the Tempo, it was in poor condition. It rested on the floor, its small rubber wheels deployed.
Spider, who was pretty sure what he was going to find, went up to the Dolphin’s passenger door and opened it, being careful to avoid contaminating what he was pretty sure was a crime scene. The thing in the blue plastic wrapping folded over, slumped out of the unit and fell in a big disgusting lump onto the floor. Even with all the duct tape to keep it sealed, a surprising amount of blood started to pool at Spider’s feet.
Charlie had to step outside suddenly, and could be heard retching. James was just staring, pale and speechless. Spider covered the lower part of his face, and bent down, his knees shaking with adrenaline — and carefully tried to open the plastic near what he thought must be the head. With the opening, a new wave of malignant odor wafted out, warm and sickening. He felt his guts protesting, but he saw some hair, dark blonde, longish, and part of an ear. It was so pale it was almost bluish.
“You never get used to the smell,” he said to nobody.
CHAPTER 5
They had to give customary statements and biometric samples to the uniformed police who responded to the emergency call. Easy enough, thought Spider, noting how young and fresh-faced they were and how that made him feel old and useless. Had it really been that long since he’d left the service? At least the two uniforms wouldn’t recognize him, so that was something.
Later, when the unmarked car from the Major Crime Squad turned up, and he saw Inspector Iris Street get out, he swore out loud.
“Boss?” Charlie said, looking at the detective. She was middle-aged, looked like she’d had a long day already and didn’t appreciate getting called out in lousy weather over some damn thing to do with a time machine. “You know her?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” Spider said, watching her. It had been many years. In fact, not nearly enough years, he thought. “Guys, we are probably screwed.”
James, who was hanging around because DOTAS would want to be involved in the unfolding investigation and would require detailed first-hand reports of what had happened this afternoon, said, “She’s bent?”
“Let’s just say you hear things, over time,” Spider said, not wanting to go into it. He could feel the old anger building, deep in the back of his brain. His blood pressure, if that steady hammering at his temples was anything to go by, was already getting out of hand.
Inspector Street was talking to her partner, a detective constable most probably. Very tall, very thin and black like a silhouette, the guy listened to Street and took notes as she told him what to do. Spider didn’t recognize the kid, which wasn’t that surprising. He really had been out of the Service for a long time. Spider watched the pair of them as they went over to the Bat Cave, where they spoke to the two DOTAS technicians, and then went inside the inert device to inspect the body and talk to the crime-scene guys. That done, he watched Street working her handheld to review their initial statements. It looked as if she was
doing a thorough job, reading and re-reading, making a lot of annotations. Then she left the detective constable to supervise the crime scene work, while she came over to the workshop to talk to Charlie, James and himself. Malaria had also stayed behind, claiming they would need her moral support if not copious quantities of her coffee.
Inspector Street ducked through the workshop door, made some disarming comments about the rain, smiled, and came over. She engaged in some light banter with Charlie and James, and then she came to Spider. He found he was seething with suppressed anger, far more than he had ever suspected he might feel in such a circumstance. He’d been extremely careful, all these years, deliberately trying to stay the hell out of police trouble. Street looked at him, smiled a little goofily, even self-consciously, and shook his hand. “Hello, Spider, long time.”
His mouth was dry; his tongue stuck to his palate. It was difficult to speak, there were so many conflicting emotions boiling away in his head right now. “Iris,” he said at last; not sure whether to fake a smile for the sake of politeness, or just to keep it simple, he wound up looking nervous and self-conscious. It occurred to him that she might feel much the same way about meeting him as he felt about meeting her, but knowing that didn’t help.
“Congratulations,” he said, not meaning it, “you’ve done well for yourself.” Getting that out was harder work than he’d expected. He watched her carefully to see if she could tell what was really going through his mind.
She shrugged, thanked him, and flashed a quick self-deprecating smile. “You know, work hard, keep your head down…”
He managed to say, “Anyway, good on you.” The words nearly choked him.
“Time machines, huh?” she said, looking around the workshop.
He felt embarrassed, watching her taking everything in. “Someone’s gotta fix ’em.”
“Good line of work?”
“Not bad, not bad. Always some idiot doing something stupid.”
“You have to go to university to qualify?”
“Nah. Did three years at TAFE, then an apprenticeship.”
“So you’re the owner?” she asked.
“Oh no. Just the senior tech. You’ll probably want to talk to the company owner, Mr. McMahon.”
Street looked at her handheld. “Ah yes. McMahon. We’ve got an appointment with him first thing tomorrow.”
“Right,” Spider said, nodding, sweating, seething.
Street was looking at Spider now, noting the way he looked, the way he was vibrating with suppressed anger. He remembered her from the old days, when they were both lowly detective constables. At the time, during a bad time with Molly, he and Iris Street had had a bit of an affair — before they discovered they had nothing in common, other than their line of work. That and the fact that she had been ambitious, far more so than he had been. His ambition had been to be a good copper. He saw it as a public-service kind of thing. Helping the community. She didn’t want to be a good copper; she’d wanted to be the top copper. She’d wanted Superintendent Sharp’s job, and she made sure he knew it. There had always been rumors that she was sleeping with him, but Spider had never believed it.
Inspector Street said, softly so Charlie and James wouldn’t hear, “I’m sorry how things turned out for you, Spider.”
He nearly spat. Instead he said, “Gee, thanks.”
She bristled a moment, staring up at him, thinking about how to handle him. “What happened to you should never have happened.”
He entirely agreed, but said nothing. After a moment he said, “So you’ll be wanting me to go over my account, right?”
It looked to him very much as if she was going to say something at that point that she might come to regret, but instead she said, “Yes. Yes, if you would.”
He nodded, but took a few moments to breathe, to try to get his screaming mind back under control. Street produced her handheld and he spoke into it, taking his time, describing as best he could the events surrounding what had happened today, from getting the initial call yesterday morning from Mr. Vincent to the discovery of the second time machine and the body inside the Bat Cave today. Keeping his mind focused on this account helped him regain his composure. It also helped to know the kind of detail that policework required, which with any luck would keep him from having to repeat the story too many more times. He was careful to think about any possible ambiguities, contradictions or other problems that might somehow get him into trouble. He was worried about finding himself on the hook for this murder. He knew that even though Superintendent Sharp was gone, many of his minions had risen to great heights in the Police Service, and they would remember Spider. Indeed, one of the things he had learned in those days, often the hard way, was the amazing, dismaying, habit that these people had of never forgetting a slight, never forgetting any kind of attack. Spider had spent a lot of the last ten years waiting for the hammer to fall on him — and right now, with that body in the time machine outside, he believed he could feel the blow coming at last.
Inspector Street read back his statement on her handheld, nodding here and there, then showed it to him, and asked him to read it through carefully. He noticed that she was going out of her way to show him she was being professional. Once he finished reading his statement, and shaking his head at the way he “sounded” in print being so different from how he sounded to himself, Street gave him her plastic stylus and he signed in the verification panel. The handheld chirped to indicate it had successfully authenticated his statement and signature, and that it was on file there in the handheld and in a database back at CIB headquarters. For better or worse, he thought, his stomach aching with tension. For better or worse.
That done, Street should have moved on to talk to Charlie, James and Malaria. Instead, and to Spider’s great discomfort, she stood looking at him for a moment, clearly wanting to say something to him, but in the end decided against it. “Thank you, Spider,” she said at last, and moved on to Charlie.
Spider went to get a coffee from the tiny break room behind his office. When he tried working the controls on the machine, he found his hands were shaking too much. “Fuck!” he said. “Fuck!” He sat down on a chair, worried he would start crying.
Malaria came in a while later. “You okay there, Spider?”
He should go home, but the prospect of cycling in the rain twice in one day was less than appealing. “Never better, Malaria. Never better.”
She nodded, uncomfortable. She had to be aware of the hot-anger radiation pouring off him. “You and the Inspector. You and she go back a bit.”
“Your point?” he said, and immediately regretted the harshness in his voice, and the startled look on her face. “Sorry, Malaria.” It felt as if it had cost him a year of his life to make such an apology, the way he was feeling just then.
Malaria nodded, looked away. She went to the fridge, and stood there a while, staring into its interior, apparently trying to decide what she wanted. There was a modest collection of fizzy beverages, some cheap imported mineral waters, a few chocolate bars, and a collection of instant-noodle cups.
Spider felt like shit, wanting to keep apologizing to Malaria. He said to her, “The inspector and I knew each other years ago, we were junior coppers together.”
Malaria was still staring into the fridge, as if it would provide the answer to the mystery of existence. Without turning to look at him, she said, “The way you guys were looking at each other, I figured you must have slept together and regretted it.”
Spider actually laughed, but not the happy kind of laughing. “I wish it was that simple.” All the same, he was thinking, now that he had time to think, one of the things that made that bit with Iris Street just now so horribly difficult was this: he thought she still looked all right. He clapped his forehead. “No bloody way,” he muttered under his breath.
Malaria grabbed one of the tiny bo
ttles of mineral water, and spent a few moments trying to pronounce the words on the Italian side of the label. She came and sat down next to Spider, and quietly sipped at the water.
“I really am sorry, Malaria. I had no business taking it out on you. I—”
She looked him in the eye, and he knew that she saw that he was in danger of breaking down in tears at any moment. “It’s okay, sir. We all have bad shit in our histories. It’s part of life. You go along, you do dumb shit, dumb shit happens to you because of other people, it all piles up, and makes a big shitty mess everywhere.”
“Maybe I should borrow a time machine,” Spider said, voicing a thought he’d often entertained, “go back to back then, and have a quiet word with my former self about getting along with people.”
“You haven’t got a time machine?” Malaria said, surprised.
“I wouldn’t have one if you bloody-well paid me a squillion dollars and draped it with supermodels covered in whipped cream and chocolate toppings. No way.”
“But—”
“Time machines don’t solve anything, they never do.”
Malaria finished her bottle. “It was nice the times I’ve gone back to see my parents.”
He would like to have been left alone to brood about the past and his crappy present, but Malaria’s last remark distracted him. “Sorry, what?”
“My mum and dad? They were killed in this stupid car accident when I was a kid.”
“Oh,” he said, surprised and uncomfortable in a different way, “I didn’t know. I’m—”
“Yeah, you’re sorry. I know. It’s okay. They didn’t suffer. I’ve gone back to see them all these times. First it was to warn them about the accident, right? But to start with they never believed me, didn’t believe it was me, their daughter, even when I took my birth certificate to show them. Then one time I tried to get my earlier self to stop them going out that night, and that kinda worked — but they ended up getting killed later from something else.”
Spider nodded. Yup, it was always like that. It was like some things wanted to happen.
Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait Page 5
