The Gatespace Trilogy, Omnibus Edition

by Alan Seeger

  Months before, Stephanie had asked one of her co-workers about Artie. She was curious about his situation, and his brown eyes, on the rare occasions when he actually made eye contact, seemed to haunt her.

  CHAPTER 76

  Rick made the trip to the Berkeley campus and headed in the direction of the dormitory that Stefanie had indicated had been hers. He had no idea what room or even what floor she had lived on; his only hope was that he would see the young Stefanie or one of her roommates entering or exiting the building.

  He was walking down the sidewalk approaching the dorms when a sudden bout of dizziness struck him. He felt light-headed, and a sudden chill swept up his spine; fingers of cold seemed to crush him in a huge, icy fist.

  He closed his eyes, willing the sensations to pass. Well, Rick thought, a few chills and being a little tired is far from the worst thing I could be going through.

  After ten or fifteen minutes, the symptoms did begin to fade slightly. Rick made his way on down the walkway to a vantage point where he could watch the entrance without being too obvious.

  He got lucky. He hadn’t been there an hour when Caroline walked out of the door carrying a backpack. He followed her down the sidewalk for about ten yards and then called to her.

  “Caroline?”

  She turned and saw him. She stiffened and hesitated.

  “Do you remember me? From the Bear’s Lair, almost a year ago?”

  “Yeah, I do,” she said hesitantly.

  “It’s very important that I talk to Stephanie. Can you help me?”

  Her face blanched. “No,” she said. “No, I can’t help you. You need to leave.” She began to walk away.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the note I gave you.” She stopped, listening.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Can you tell Stephanie I need to talk to her?”

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  Rick froze. What didn’t he know?

  “She’s not here. The morning after you were here the last time, she got scared. She thought you were a stalker and she was going to take off, to go home to Oregon for a few days. She was pulling out of the parking lot and she hit a woman with her car. Put her in the hospital. She spent thirty days in County for it, and when she got out she did go home to Cor—” she stopped short.

  “Corvallis, Oregon,” Rick said. “I know. You’re not giving away any secrets. I already know where she’s from.” He thought for a moment, then his eyes widened. “Who was the woman that she hit?”

  “I don’t know. They said she didn’t have any ID on her.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Long brown hair, jeans… I think she was wearing a grey hoodie…”

  Rick took a deep breath. That was a perfect description of what Stef had been wearing the last time he had seen her.

  “What happened to her?”

  “I really don’t know,” Caroline said. “An ambulance came, and I know they took her to the ER, but that’s all I heard about her.”

  Without thinking, Rick grabbed her and hugged her tightly. “Thank you!” he said, and started down the sidewalk toward the nearest taxi stand. His head was spinning and he felt like he might pass out, but he kept moving.

  Caroline stared after him, a look of confusion on her face.

  ~~~~~

  Stephanie was elbow deep in the kitchen sink, scrubbing dishes from the midday meal and getting them ready to be reused in the evening. Rose stood next to her, rinsing the pans, utensils and serving trays and putting them away.

  “Can I ask you something?” Stephanie asked.

  “Sure, hon. What is it?”

  “I’m curious about Artie. He’s in here almost every day; he seems like such a nice old guy. Do you know anything about him?”

  Rose gave her a bittersweet smile. “The only thing I know is that he was in some sort of accident years ago. He’s been on the street ever since. They’ve tried to get him help over and over again, but he always winds up out there again.”

  ~~~~~

  According to the records at Alta Bates Medical Center, which the medical records department was only willing to open after Rick convinced them that he was on a search for his missing wife (and he felt that this was not too far from the truth), an unidentified woman had been brought in by ambulance on the morning of December 16th of last year.

  “This says that she came in with a number of fractures and contusions, as well as a possible concussion. The emergency room staff stabilized her condition and she was transferred to San Francisco General,” said the records clerk, a large, serious woman named Carmen. “You’d need to check with them for any further information.”

  He thanked her and went out to hail a cab.

  CHAPTER 77

  At 11 A.M. on Tuesday, August 24, 1982, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 shook the south Bay Area. Its epicenter was approximately 4 kilometers west of the Calaveras Reservoir, between Milpitas and Fremont. The initial quake was followed within two minutes by two aftershocks measuring 5.2 and 4.2.

  Damage included a loss of power affecting about 10,000 residents for more than two hours. Plate glass windows were shattered and masonry damage was widespread; buildings swayed and cracked in numerous places, and gas lines snapped.

  The overpass along I-680 at Mission Blvd. was closed when paving on the east side of the structure fell nearly 20 centimeters. There were several minor injuries and one death, possibly from a heart attack, was reported as a result of the quake.

  ~~~~~

  What this news story failed to report was that a medical supplies salesman named Arthur Harper who was traveling through the area on his way back from an appointment in San Jose was forced to take an alternate route because of road construction. While driving through the outskirts of Milpitas, he stopped to get some lunch at a convenience store. While he was coming out of the store, the earthquake hit.

  The building shook, but largely maintained its integrity; however, a piece of trim from the lighted sign above the door came loose and fell, striking Arthur in the left temple.

  He suffered head injuries, but in the confusion, he wandered away. Emergency medical personnel were not summoned.

  Arthur’s car sat unattended at the store until it was tagged and towed 30 days later.

  CHAPTER 78

  Rick walked out of San Francisco General with his heart sinking. They had been able to tell him that “Stephanie Doe” had been released on December 26, and so far as the hospital records reflected, she had indicated she planned to apply for a spot at one of the city’s 12-week homeless shelters, though there was no indication which one might have accepted her, if any.

  Much to Rick’s surprise, however, it took only a couple of hours and several phone calls from pay phones (How the hell did we ever get along without cell phones? Rick wondered) for him to track down the shelter where Stephanie had stayed.

  He nearly dropped the phone when the receptionist on the other end said, “Yes, Stephanie Doe was here for the full twelve weeks the shelter permitted… and she’s still here, as a full-time employee now. She’s probably dealing with the noon meal at the moment; would you like me to take a message?”

  Tell her I love her and I’ve missed her, Rick thought.

  “Uh… no, that’s all right. I’m a relative, and I’m just in town for the day,” Rick said. “I’m very glad to know that she’s doing well. I’ll call her back later.”

  He hung up the phone and stood there for a moment. Stef was alive, and apparently well; why, then, had she remained here for a full nine months, and never come home to him… to 2016?

  He hailed a cab, glad that he still possessed a sizable amount of late 90s currency.

  CHAPTER 79

  Artie had walked from the site of the accident down a side street, not really thinking about where he was going or what he was going to do. There was blood running down the left side of his face; he reached up a
nd touched his face, wincing from the pain, and noticed the red stain on his fingers. He turned the next corner and saw a fast food place down the street.

  He walked in, and the place was busy with their lunchtime rush; he went, mostly unnoticed, to the rest room and washed the blood from his face. He held a wet, folded paper towel on the gash in his temple until it stopped bleeding. He used the toilet, washed his hands and left.

  When he got outside, he realized that he had no idea where he should go. He should go home, he knew, but a bolt of fear struck him when he realized that he had no idea where home was.

  CHAPTER 80

  It was early afternoon when Rick arrived at the shelter where Stephanie Doe was now employed. He paid the cabbie, then stood outside staring up at the sign for several minutes, wondering what he should say to her when he saw her.

  Suddenly, the door opened and Stephanie walked out. Rick froze, wondering how she would react when she saw him, but she simply greeted him casually, with a “Hello,” as one greets any stranger on the street, and walked past him to a nearby trolley stop.

  He turned, staring after her for a moment. All he could think of was that she was just as beautiful as that first night that he had met her at the bookstore.

  He walked toward her, unsure of what he should say. He was standing just a few feet behind her when the word slipped out of his mouth: “Stefanie?”

  She turned and looked at him, a polite smile on her lips. “Yes?”

  He waited for a spark of recognition, but there was none. “Don’t you know me?”

  She tilted her head slightly as if trying to see him better. It was a habit she had always had.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t…”

  His face fell. She didn’t even know who he was. What had hap—

  “Wait,” she said suddenly.

  His heart began to pound. Was she going to remember him after all?

  “You do seem familiar… your eyes…”

  He smiled broadly. Surely it was coming back to her now. Any moment, his name would be on her lips.

  “You’re a relative of Artie’s, aren’t you?”

  CHAPTER 81

  After spending the night in a city park, Arthur had wandered until he came back to the Interstate. Not knowing what else to do, he had begun walking along the westbound roadside, not realizing that he was getting farther from home with every step.

  He had walked for twenty minutes or so when a car pulled up next to him and a black man in his 60s leaned toward the open passenger side window and called to him.

  “Can I give you a ride somewhere, man? It ain’t safe to be walking on the shoulder of the road like this in no early morning traffic.”

  Arthur nodded and got into the car.

  “Where you headed to, young man?”

  Arthur looked over at him and suddenly realized that he had no idea what to say.

  “Bay area,” he blurted out, not knowing why. In fact, the entire Bay Area had been his sales territory, but he didn’t remember that.

  “That’s kinda broad,” the older man smiled. “You goin’ to San Francisco?”

  Not knowing what else to do, Arthur nodded his head yes.

  Less than an hour later, Arthur was standing on a street corner in the heart of San Francisco, silently waving goodbye to his benefactor. The man had asked him if he had any money, and Arthur had thought he was asking him to pay for gas; he automatically reached for the wallet in his left hip pocket and discovered it was gone.

  Unbeknownst to Arthur, it had fallen out of his pocket onto the floor of the bathroom at the fast food place back in Livermore, where it was later found by a fifteen-year-old boy named Keith Garcia who pocketed the $217 he found inside and threw the wallet, ID’s and all, into the bathroom’s trash bin.

  “No, no,” said the man, whose name was Clarence. “I don’t want nothin’ from you, man. I wanna make sure you get something to eat.” He handed Arthur a $20 bill. “Go get your stomach full, boy, you just skin and bones.”

  People had told Arthur all his life that he needed to put on weight, but of course he didn’t remember that.

  He stood watching Clarence drive away, unsure of where he should go next. He saw a newspaper rack on a nearby street corner and walked over to read the headline:

  Aftershocks continue to rattle Bay Area following 5.5 quake

  He shook his head as if trying to clear the cobwebs out of it and looked up and across the street.

  There was a man standing in front of a yellow and white block building, and he called across to Arthur: “Hey, buddy. Are you looking for the shelter?”

  Arthur supposed that he was, and walked across the street.

  CHAPTER 82

  “Artie?” said Rick. “I don’t think I know anyone by that name…” He shook his head, but frowned; something struck a familiar chord.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Stefanie said. “You just remind me so much of someone.”

  “That’s all right,” Rick replied.

  “How did you know my name?” Stefanie asked him. “Have we met?”

  Rick felt his heart splintering into a hundred, a thousand pieces. She really didn’t remember him. Was it a result of having been here in the past for so many months, he wondered, or did it have to do with her accident?

  He was determined to find out.

  “It’s a very long story,” he told her. “Would you let me buy you a coffee and tell it to you?”

  “Mmhmm,” she said with a smile. Just as it had been fourteen months ago — or would be, fourteen years later — the murmur was a song.

  That was how, for the second time, Rick and Stefanie had their first date.

  ~~~~~

  They sat at a table at a coffee shop a couple of blocks from the shelter. They talked. They smiled. The more they smiled, the more she talked. They talked about Stefanie’s job and how she’d come to work at the shelter. “There I was, on the street, and they took me in. After I’d been here for three months, I guess they decided they’d just keep me,” she laughed. Rick waited for his opportunity to turn the conversation to the topic of how she’d arrived in San Francisco in the first place.

  Nearly an hour later, Stefanie interrupted a story she was telling by saying, “Listen to me, running my mouth. You said you had a story you wanted to tell me.”

  Rick smiled and took a deep breath. Would she think he was a lunatic and run out of the café? He hoped not, but he really had very little choice but to jump in.

  “There’s a reason I seem familiar to you,” said Rick. “We’ve known each other for a while.”

  Stefanie looked doubtful. “We have?”

  “Stefanie,” he said, “you said you had an accident, and that’s what brought you to the shelter, right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I was hit by a car.”

  “What do you remember about your life before that happened?”

  Her face went blank for a moment; she appeared to be straining to remember.

  “I honestly don’t know,” she said.

  “I can fill in the blanks for you,” he told her. “I should warn you, though — it’s gonna sound like a science fiction story.”

  CHAPTER 83

  Arthur couldn’t provide very much information when he arrived at the shelter. He managed to remember that his name was Artie (which was what his wife had always called him, although he didn’t remember that; nor, for that matter, did he remember that he even had a wife).

  The shelter staff got him registered into their system as Artie Doe, and he ate most of his meals at the center, week in and week out, moving from one colony of homeless people to another, occasionally taking a bunk for the night at one of the city’s several shelters.

  Despite the fact that the city of San Francisco continued to spend an increasing amount of money to assist street people in stepping up out of homelessness, Artie Doe seemed to continually slip through the cracks — or perhaps some part of him subconsciously avoided help for fear of the unknown.<
br />
  He managed to remain on the streets, moving through the darkness and the shadows, only surfacing when necessary, for more than eighteen years.

  CHAPTER 84

  Stefanie stared at Rick, her brows knitted together in thought.

  I knew she wouldn’t believe me, thought Rick.

  “I —” he started to say.

  “I —” she burst out simultaneously.

  They both stopped for a moment, then burst into nervous laughter.

  “Please, go ahead,” he said.

  She dropped her eyes for a moment, and then looked up at him.

  “You’re right, your story sounds utterly ridiculous,” she paused. “And I know you don’t think I remember you,” she said, “and I don’t, exactly — but I remember your eyes… your brown eyes. I’ve seen your eyes in my dreams.”

  He stared at her for a moment and smiled. Dreams are the seeds of reality, he thought.

  “Do you remember anything else from your dreams?”

  “Everything you told me, as bizarre as it sounds, rings true. I dreamed of a pair of brown eyes, a green swirling light, and the number 16… No, 2016. The year 2016. And those eyes… they were your eyes, but…”

  He looked at her intently. “But what?”

  “They were someone else’s eyes as well.”

  Rick looked puzzled. “Whose?”

  “Rick… there’s someone that I want you to meet.”

  CHAPTER 85

  When Arthur didn’t come home that night, his wife Marie was concerned; they’d been fighting for a couple of days over their finances, but she didn’t think it was so serious as to make him leave. He’d never failed to come home or call if he was going to be late.