Steamrolled

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “What can you tell me about this council?” Doc asked the question with care, following the girl’s short lecture on paradox tremors.

  Her mouth opened, followed by an impressive color drain. Doc thought she might pass out, but she steadied after a moment. “Not much.” A wry, almost charming grin followed this. She released, “There are five members now,” like they were explosive, braced for a few seconds then relaxed.

  “Now?”

  “There used to be three. I don’t know why they added two more, just that they come from different times, the future and the past. They operate in slow time when they are on the base. They guard their identities, or try to.” She made a face. “They are bureaucrats, or so they appear. One of them must not be what he seems. They all appear stupid enough to be played by someone else, so that is possible, too.”

  If she weren’t a time creep, Doc might be impressed. The side of Hel’s mouth twitched. Doc almost asked about the bureaucrat choices, but didn’t. It made a sort of sense to put ordinary in there. Someone too smart or too dumb…

  “Lurch is assessing the data you provided on the—”

  “We call it the IDV. It’s easier,” Doc offered, a bit surprised she had.

  A nod, possibly respectful, certainly relieved, before she continued, “IDV. If I understand it correctly, anyone can don the apparatus, activate the machine and concentrate on a memory of a person? And, in theory, the machine will go to that person by following the brain wave trail?”

  Doc nodded. Whether it worked or didn’t, Smith—or his evil overlord—believed it would. If Robert was in the bug, that put him in Smith’s sights. The plan had been to find and secure the bug, and then attempt to trap Smith with it. Not a surprise the plan was already off track, and none of this helped her find her brother. If they could find the bug, could she use it to find Robert? Olivia claimed that the stronger the emotional connection to the person, the easier it was for the IDV to track.

  “Just a person, not a place?”

  The girl’s words pulled Doc back to the present, and reality. “Our source says no. Personally, I don’t believe it’s possible to do any of it, but she says she had successfully tested it twice, right before she misplaced it.”

  “The collision you spoke of.” The girl looked thoughtful—and as if she had a separate conversation going on with her peep. “That sent it through time.”

  Doc nodded, wishing the peeps would tell her what the girl wasn’t saying. And that it didn’t take so long to get a message from Earth. According to the girl, Ric, Fyn and Carey had remained in the museum when the bug flashed out. They had Intel she needed to know and she had Intel they needed to know. All she could do was hope that Carey didn’t activate his recall device before her Intel reached him. She did not need him to go missing, too. Carey belonged to General Halliwell. Doc was quite fond of the General—but didn’t want him stomping around in her op. His boots were so big. And he was never reasonable when Hel was involved.

  “For it to traverse space and time, it would require more power than could be supplied by a primitive steam engine, even before the impact.”

  “Our source says the professor didn’t tell her what his power source was.” Her brain followed logically to the next question. “You said you were tracking an energy trail when you happened onto Smith and the machine.”

  A half nod. “It is not a substance available now, or when you say the machine was built.”

  Doc frowned. “If someone is messing with time, when it should be available is moot, don’t you think?”

  A conversational hesitation, then a nod. “It is called Constilinium, though the particular trail I followed had been altered from the type more familiar to me.”

  “Altered?” This time Hel asked the question.

  “Our data on the mineral is limited, but we wondered if it was a commercial adjustment, to make it more stable, but none of the other trails showed this alteration. Now we wonder if it was caused by the collision with the transport trail, though Lurch fears—”

  “—that alternation might make it less stable again,” Doc finished.

  The girl’s nod was patently reluctant. “From what we know of the substance, considerable kinetic force would be required for such a substantial change as we observed. Based on your information, travel through time and space becomes statistically possible for the machine, according to the limited theoretical data on hand. Though if I had not seen it flash out, I too would find it difficult to believe that any of it worked. It looked like something out of an old Earth vid.”

  Now she sounds like a politician. Hel’s chuckle could only be heard in her head.

  She takes after me a little. And in the wake of this came a wave of assurance. Robert is stronger than either you or he realizes.

  Doc responded by giving his hand a squeeze, while her thoughts moved on to more questions.

  “You were interested, you followed the trail, because this stuff isn’t native to Earth, right?”

  The girl nodded again, her mien that of someone moving through a minefield, which she kind of was. It softened Doc’s annoyance some to realize this.

  “From in this galaxy?” Hel stiffened at her question. If Smith was from around here, it made a kind of sense. Heaven knew he had made a few enemies who’d happily try to mess him over in any time. This time she shook her head. Doc had the tightening sensation of instincts kicking on the after burners, but she wanted to hear it said. Out loud. She fixed the girl with her basilisk stare. No one held out against it.

  The kid was tough, but not that tough. “Keltinar. It is only found on Keltinar.”

  Doc leaned back. “I knew it. Conan.”

  Hel frowned now. “How does his presence here have anything to do with that? He has not mentioned power sources, only women.”

  The girl straightened, leaned toward Doc. “Your intersection problem is someone from Keltinar?”

  Doc nodded, but her brain was already running scenarios, asking questions and maybe finding answers. Her brain exploded with possibilities. Thank goodness she had the peeps to help her manage the flow. “What if he is in the right place, but the wrong time?”

  The girl’s gaze slammed into Doc’s and for the first time she saw herself in her.

  “I think I need to meet this intersection.”

  Doc knew her smile was pure evil. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  What struck Emily first was the wrongness of it—not because the interior of the warehouse wasn’t warehouse-like, because it was. The dampness, the rotting timbers, the sagging crates were all right on the money. It was the half-hidden huddle of what might be called people who were all wrong. Though she had to admit that wrong in this place might be right. Only Robert felt right in a right way.

  It is difficult to assign a value to any feature in a place such as this, Nod chipped in with palpable concern. But I trust Robert-oh-my-darling.

  In Emily’s experience, her dreams were often embarrassing, but color stung her cheeks, nevertheless. Nod felt so real. Let’s just call him Robert.

  I will try, but he is a darling. Nod sounded less oppressed and he’d uncurled a bit from the almost fetal bundle she’d sensed when he started talking to her. Perhaps the information exchange had helped. Now it felt more like a puppy gazing around with cautious interest, though Emily sensed he kept a wary distance from her surface. It was an odd series of thoughts, but they also seemed to go with the wrongness around her. She never tried to find meaning in her dreams, but this storyline was fairly freaky, even by dream standards.

  Their not-Colonial guide shifted like the ground beneath him was hot. “They want to see your necks, too.”

  Now that she’d seen two examples of the neck scars—Robert had checked the man decked by not-Colonial guy—she got their paranoia. She presented neck and heard a shuffle of footsteps approaching. Robert tensed next to her. He looked kind of sweet and almost innocent, but there was this lethal core th
at was very reassuring, even if he was a dream guy. Like Nod, she trusted him, and was relieved to have him on her side and at her side. She could not have picked a better companion for this unreal adventure.

  When the footsteps shuffled back enough to indicate the neck looking was over, Emily turned in synch with Robert.

  “We want to see your necks now.” Robert’s tone was neutral, reasonable, but somehow not either of those things. Tough guy trumping geek by necessity, or merging with geek, because smart was as important as tough.

  With a flurry of exchanged looks, the odd huddle presented their necks. Emily would have let Robert do the honors, but he had her hand and took her with him. Their necks looked fine, if a bit grubby, though Emily wasn’t sure what that meant in dream world, which tended toward random changes. Robert drew them back a few paces and the group reformed into a messy, still wary circle.

  To her right was their guide, not-Colonial, with the wrong accent. Okay, so she didn’t know what a colonial guy should sound like, other than how they sounded in movies. Not her era, but she did know what her era—in general—sounded like. He fit better there, despite the clothes, though even that was a bit off, too.

  To his right was Miss seriously-draggled Southern belle. No assessment on accent or lack of until she spoke, but her manner, the way she stood, conveyed something less than belle-like.

  To her right was fifties-gang-guy, complete with tight jeans and leather jacket, but without the tough guy stance. In fact, he huddled like a total wimp against a support beam. Robert exuded more everything than this guy and if asked to choose, Emily would back Robert in any physical, or mental, contest. Nod indicated agreement with another oh my darling.

  The last two looked like they’d wandered off the set of a SyFy movie. It reassured her that her imagination had produced two alien looking aliens for her freaky dream. Both were dressed in intergalactic buccaneer garb that could have worked in Earth’s pirate past, if one hadn’t been purple skin toned and the other green—green like the Giant on a can of peas only smaller and minus the leaf clothes. The purple skin guy was way outside her ability to draw comparisons, though he did trend more toward lavender than she liked to see on a guy. Maybe one of the Fruit of the Loom guys in a lighter shade of purple? Her brain must be messing with her, because he should have been a she—or a more manly shade of purple, in her opinion.

  About a hundred questions zipped through her brain, but once again she couldn’t imagine any answers she’d like to hear to any of those questions. Nothing that was not a question presented itself to her tongue, so she kept her mouth shut. Better to be safe than sorry, even in a dream.

  The door they’d entered through didn’t close, but despite the gaps, it didn’t let in a lot of light or moving air, which made it both dim and close. The air outside hadn’t been wonderful, but this was back in the nasty range of that hallway they’d dashed through getting away from the automaton.

  Automaton. Whatever the overall deficiencies of this dream, it had some seriously swell high spots. Not a surprise to find the automaton working for the bad guys, since they tilted that way in fiction, but she’d seen one. And the airship. Nod was in the plus column, too. It was kind of nice to have a friendly voice in her head while having a dream that kept inching over into a nightmare.

  I like you, too.

  Emily might have pursued the mutual admiration society thing with Nod, but something else caught her attention. Now that they were closer to the “horizon” cutting into the rear of the warehouse, she could see it better, which wasn’t a good thing when it shifted a few feet toward them, eating some crates in the process.

  “It’s shrinking.”

  “Shrinking?” Robert looked at her, so she directed his attention to the back of the warehouse.

  “The horizon thingy just ate some ground and other stuff.”

  He studied the structure with geek popping to the fore. He looked at her. “You’re very observant.”

  “It’s not a blessing.” Emily felt the need for a closer look—and didn’t mind getting a little distance from the motley crew—inadvertently bringing Robert with her since he appeared unwilling to let go of her hand—not something she minded, by the way. With her free hand, she pulled out the flashlight again, shining it around and then at the “back” of the warehouse, which wasn’t what anyone would label “back-like.” Whatever was behind it was dark, like the sky only without stars. Sparks of light like fireflies did beat against it in random patterns, as if trying to get in. If they knew what it was like, they wouldn’t try so hard. It flickered and kind of sizzled and she thought she saw a more normal—though old-fashioned—warehouse for several seconds. Since she knew squat about anomalies, particularly dream anomalies, she didn’t know how to assess this one, though in some weird way, she felt she should know, kind of like she sort of knew the weight ratio of the airship was off and how to ninja knockout that zombie.

  Outside the dream storm kicked it up a notch, with a little more earthquake action. Okay, so maybe their kissing wasn’t causing it. Without Robert’s steady grip, she might have stumbled into the anomaly, but instead she stumbled into his gaze and got caught. And if that weren’t compelling enough, the stumble brought Robert’s lips into her sight line—they were great lips, something she’d never had cause to think before—bending up at the edges and making her toes curl. Before Emily could do more than start to reciprocate the lip bending, not-Colonial guy joined them.

  “That is the wall of our prison.”

  Robert bent, grabbed a piece of crate, and shoved it into the “wall.” When he pulled it out, it was half its original length, much like the screwdriver she’d used to probe the anomaly in the bug. The moment almost called for a question, but she couldn’t think of one, which made a change from her usual not-wanting-an-answer-to-a-question problem.

  “Prison?” Robert murmured the question a bit absently, as if it was just one of many things on his mind. “Unusual walls.”

  “It’s very like the traps, though I don’t understand the science in either. Not my specialty.”

  “Traps?” Robert shook his head. The movement was slight, but not hesitant slight, more like thoughtful slight. He blinked once, then directed his yummy gaze at not-Colonial guy.

  The attention grabber.

  Not-Colonial’s gaze narrowed a bit. “Don’t you remember hitting it?” Robert blinked. “Which of you is the tracker?”

  “I’m the curator.” Emily put this in, because she was sure it wouldn’t be apparent by looking at her and because she needed to say something or she might pop out a lame question. If she were going to break a near lifetime ban on questions, it wasn’t going to be for a lame one.

  “So you’re the pin.”

  Was that an insult or just cryptic?

  He looked at Robert. “And you’re the tracker?”

  “I’d like to hear more about this trap.” He offered the words with an air of caution, as if he were feeling his way through a maze.

  And she noticed he didn’t answer the question. Emily felt an odd sense of reluctance to say too much, too. That wasn’t at all like her. Usually she said too much, though not much that was useful.

  Purple-not-people-eater joined them. “I don’t remember a lot about it. I was in the stream and then I wasn’t.”

  Green-not-giant piped up. “It felt like I hit a wall. Don’t remember being in it or anything until I arrived here with no nanites.”

  Nod flinched. She rubbed her chest, saw Robert do the same, a frown pulling his brows together. Emily might have said something that wasn’t a question, but felt a caution from Nod.

  It is better to get information than give it.

  Something her family could have stood to hear. Like the others, she looked at Robert, wondering how he’d respond.

  “This appears to be a low tech environment, except for the automatons and airships and they aren’t what you’d call high tech.”

  Not-Colonial frowned, glanced betwe
en them. “Without nanites, there is no way to know how tech based they are.” He paused, then added, “It’s unusual for two pins to travel together.”

  It sounded like a saying gone wrong, which it kind of was, not to mention a bit on the probing question side. She bit back an inappropriate urge to giggle, even though the issue of what was and wasn’t appropriate in a dream was a bit sketchy and changed from dream to dream.

  Inside the silence, suspicion filtered into the fetid air.

  “We aren’t pins and I don’t know how we got here,” Robert offered this statement—keeping it devoid of actual information, though it rang with truth because they didn’t know how they got there and as far as Emily knew they weren’t pins.

  Clever. And cautious. Nod offered voiceless agreement.

  The ground shook enough to make all but Robert stagger. He pushed Emily back toward the doorway as the horizon ate more of the warehouse.

  “It’s shrinking again!” The not-that-Southern belle lacked the accent, but she had shrill down pat.

  “How long—” Robert stopped, as if not sure what or how to ask.

  “Around the time you arrived,” not-Colonial said, eyes and tone grim. He didn’t radiate suspicion, but he also didn’t radiate trust.

  They don’t know Robert-oh-my-darling like we do.

  Emily didn’t know Robert that well, but it felt like she did, so gave a mental nod to Nod—a thought that made her eye twitch a bit.

  “So something changed around the time we arrived.”

  Robert-oh-my-darling never assumes.

  We agreed to call him Robert, she reminded Nod. Tracker. That’s an odd word choice. Granted it was an odd word choice among a lot of them.

  I’m accessing data—possible match to freaking lying time creeps.

  Robert had said that back in the bug, so no surprise it was back, but could her mind come up with elements in a dream that she’d never seen or thought or read? Science fiction and steampunk books were not all sweetness and light, but even mixing things up, like dreams were wont to do, this seemed a bit extreme. Usually she could follow little dream clues and figure out where things came from, even in her nightmares. She didn’t even know what to call this dream.