“I’m not really sure yet. Ben ran into Gioachino Amadeus. There was an incident in New York.”
I notice an immediate change in expression in Abraham’s face at this comment, but he stays silent. Dr. Quickly’s expression also grows somber. “That’s rarely a good event. How did he locate you?”
Mym nods in my direction. “Ben got displaced. He says he just picked him up and brought him back, but Ben’s chronometer never changed settings. Something odd happened.”
Dr. Quickly looks at my arm and scrunches up his eyebrows. “You mind if I see?” I slip the chronometer off my wrist and hand it to him. He turns it over in his palm and inspects it carefully. After a few moments he hands it to Abraham. “What do you make of it?”
“Abraham is the one who designed these models,” Mym explains. “If anyone can find a defect in it, he will.”
Abraham studies the chronometer carefully but doesn’t move any of the dials. “I would need to open it up to inspect it properly. Do you mind, Benjamin?”
“No. Of course not. I’d like to know what happened.”
“How did this event occur?” Dr. Quickly asks. “How did you get displaced?”
I tell him about the homeless man and our fall to the concrete. “Is it possible I broke something?”
“That’s not likely.” Abraham has gotten up and extracted a fabric wrapped tool kit from one of the backpacks, and is laying out tools on top of a crate. “A simple fall shouldn’t have been capable of damaging any of the workings.”
“And you’re sure you didn’t involuntarily trigger the device yourself?” Dr. Quickly is paying close attention to my face as I respond.
“I didn’t have a hand on it at the time. The guy had grabbed that arm when we tipped over. I suppose he might have pushed the pin. My settings never moved though, so wouldn’t I have gone back to the time I arrived there?”
“Was the directional slider on the side selected to forward or backward?” Abraham asks.
“It was still on forward. We had just jumped from 1969.”
“Then it couldn’t have taken you back to the time you arrived.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. So how could I end up a day ahead?”
“What did this homeless person look like?” Dr. Quickly leans forward with his elbows on his knees.
“I guess he was middle-aged maybe. It was hard to tell. Scruffy, kind of hawkish face, dirty clothes. He had a straw hat.”
“Anything unique, like tattoos?”
“No, not that I could see. The only thing that stuck out to me was that he had these creepy gray eyes. Kind of an unnerving stare. It happened fast, but I remember noticing that about him. That and he stunk quite a lot.”
“Well, it’s not much to go on, but it could be something.” Dr. Quickly scratches his chin.
“You think he was involved somehow?”
Mym chimes in. “If he was a time traveler, that would explain why Ben’s chronometer settings never moved. He could have caused the jump himself.”
“Tell me this, Benjamin, when you fell, what happened to the homeless man? Did he stay in the time you left, or go forward with you?”
“Oh. He came with me. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that before. So that means he had to be a time traveler or he wouldn’t have gone anywhere.”
“Why go through all that trouble just to bring Benjamin right back?” Abraham says. “Unless they planted something on him. Perhaps to track him.”
“You think they would want to follow me?” I try to remember anyone putting anything on me.
“Did they give you anything?” Dr. Quickly asks. “Anything at all?”
“No. They fed me lunch.” I glance at Mym. “I told him I was headed to eat with Mym, but he wanted me to try his mother’s Meatball Parmesan.”
“It would be pretty unlikely to smuggle a tracking device into food.” Abraham sets the back of my chronometer aside and begins examining the interior parts with a magnifying glass. “Not if you intended to track him more than a couple days.”
“Is there any chance he really was just being nice and taking me home?” The suggestion seems feeble coming out of my mouth.
“I suppose there’s good in everyone,” Dr. Quickly says. “But it would certainly be a bit out of character. And it wouldn’t explain why they went through the effort of picking you up in the first place.”
“What’s so bad about him?”
“I don’t know if ‘bad’ is the exact word I would use, but he’s certainly disreputable.” Dr. Quickly stands up and walks behind Abraham to view over his shoulder.
“Amadeus is known for being all about money,” Mym explains. “He has an army of loan sharks and bookies. He’s made his fortune as a time traveler by winning bets, but now he’s moved on.”
“Moved on to what?”
“Organizing.” Dr. Quickly says. He puts his hands in his pockets and looks at me. “He’s a promoter for all kinds of high profile events that are attractive to time travelers. Successful time travelers usually have more money than they know what to do with after a while. At least the greedy ones do. But once they acquire their wealth, many of them get bored and want more diverting activities.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, the things wealthy elite like to pride themselves on, safaris, visiting exotic time streams, hunting now extinct animals, that sort of thing. That and competitions.”
I get a sudden sinking feeling in my stomach. “What sort of competitions?”
“Barbaric ones usually,” Mym says.
“Like what?”
“Like things that would be far too illegal for anyone other than a time traveler to dream of getting away with. He sets up these events and then his bookies bring in his revenue. I’m sure he’s worth billions by now, but I don’t think it’s the money that motivates him. I think he enjoys the reputation.” She pauses when she sees my face. “What’s wrong, Ben?”
“Are you all right?” Dr. Quickly steps toward me. “You look like you’ve gone ill.”
I hold my hand to my head, remembering the device in Ariella’s pocket. “I think I know why they grabbed me.”
“Sure, all parenting is tough, but you think you’ve got it bad? Try enforcing a curfew on a teenage daughter who can time travel.”–Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 1997
Chapter 4
“You entered a chronothon? What’s wrong with you?” Mym’s voice has reached a level of intensity that I’ve never encountered.
“I didn’t know it was a big deal . . .”
“You’re going to get yourself killed!” Her accusing glare makes me want to flee for the jungle, but I stay fixed to my crate. “Don’t you have any idea what these people are like?”
“Mym, let’s give the boy some slack. It may not be that bad.” Dr. Quickly rises from his chair.
“Dad! You’re gonna defend this?” Mym gestures to what I assume to be all the most disappointing aspects of me, simultaneously.
“Ben obviously made a mistake, but let’s not get out the tar and feathers just yet.” Dr. Quickly puts a hand on my shoulder. “Benjamin, what inspired this sudden interest in racing a chronothon?”
I think about Ariella’s lips a few inches from mine, and Horacio’s derisive smirk as he mocked the idea of me competing, but think better of sharing those moments. “They made it out to be a charity event. They didn’t say when it was or anything. I’m sure I can get out of it.”
“Hm. It seems unusual that they would go to all this effort just to sign you up for a charity event,” Quickly muses.
“So I take it that it’s something else?” I glance at Mym. Her forehead is crinkled in aggravation. “I’m a little vague on what the big deal is.”
Abraham has stopped investigating my chronometer for the moment and has leaned back in his chair. “Chronothons themselves aren’t necessarily a terrible thing, but I don’t know that I would ever call them a ‘charity event.’ I believe a lot of people make a great deal of
money from them. But the race is not likely the problem. I imagine young Mym here is merely looking out for your safety.”
“Gioachino Amadeus being involved does worry me,” Dr. Quickly adds. “He’s not typically the most generous of souls from what I’ve gathered. I haven’t had too many personal dealings with him, but I also know that I don’t plan to.” He glances at Mym, as if fact-checking himself, to see if a future version of him might have other ideas. Mym stays silent. Her arms are crossed and she’s not looking at me.
“So what do I do? Do I need to go back and tell him I don’t want to join the race?” I glance from face to face.
“I would certainly suggest you try,” Dr. Quickly says. “Did he say when you are supposed to compete in this race?”
“She just said someone would be in touch.”
“She?” Dr. Quickly asks. Mym turns to look at me now, her eyes probing my face.
“Uh, yeah. This woman who was there at dinner.”
“What was her name?” Mym’s voice is emotionless.
“They said her name was Ariella.” The name has no effect on Dr. Quickly or Abraham, but I think I see a flicker of recognition on Mym’s.
“Do you know her?” Dr. Quickly questions his daughter. Mym doesn’t answer. Instead she drops her arms and turns away from me.
“I need a minute.” She backs up a step and spins around, pushes her way into the tall grass and disappears. I stand up and debate going after her, but pause under Dr. Quickly’s gaze.
“Is there anything I should know about?” he asks.
“No. Not that I know of.” I have no idea what’s going on right now, so why should anyone else?
Abraham’s attention is back to my chronometer. He studies it with a magnifying glass, then sets it back on the crate in front of him. “I certainly don’t see anything wrong with this, Benjamin. Nothing that could explain your involuntary displacement.” He checks the latch on the band and strokes his chin. “I can give you a tamper-proof latch for this. I have a new design that will keep anyone but you from getting it off your wrist.”
“That might be good.” I walk behind him and look over his shoulder at the inner workings of my chronometer, the intricate pieces are a shining puzzle of gears and diodes. “How do you know what you’re looking at?”
“It’s not so complex when you take it piece by piece.”
“How did you learn to make these?”
Abraham hands me the magnifying glass so I can inspect it more closely. “I used to be a watch maker before I met Harry. He made time machines. It sounded much more exciting.”
“Don’t let Abraham sell himself short. He made exquisite watches,” Dr. Quickly says. “That’s how I found him.”
I examine the workings of the chronometer with curiosity, then set it back down. “Any chance you could teach me a little about it? I’ve never taken apart a watch before, but I was a boat mechanic back home. I like knowing how things work when I use them, and how to fix them when they break.”
Abraham looks at Dr. Quickly and the scientist shrugs. “The older me already gave the boy a chronometer to keep. I suppose I must have known what I was doing. May as well teach him how to fix it.”
Abraham nods and looks me over. “If you have some technical skill, you might do all right. But you won’t be starting with this.” He holds up the chronometer. He sets it back down and rises from his chair. He pulls the flap of the nearest tent open and disappears inside. When he reemerges, he places a brass, mechanical alarm clock on the crate in front of me. “Here. You can use my tools. Disassemble this completely. If you can get it back together and working, we’ll consider letting you touch a chronometer.”
Dr. Quickly rises from his chair and collects the sifting pans. Abraham joins him. “We’ll be back in a bit. You can find us in the creek if you need us.” As they vanish back into the grasses, I hear Dr. Quickly’s voice again. “Why’d you have to give him my alarm clock?”
I can’t hear Abraham’s response, but I can hear their laughter slowly fading into the distance. I smile, but my smile slowly wanes as I turn toward the side of camp where Mym disappeared. That’s what you need to be fixing. I unroll the tools on the crate and set to work on the alarm clock.
The casing comes apart easily enough, and I set the small screws carefully on a rag to keep track of them. The inside of the clock looks surprisingly complex, with at least a dozen gears on a frame and a large coiled spring. I examine it from all sides. Now what?
I work a steel keeper off the front of the frame, and suddenly the spring comes uncoiled. Something flies off and strikes the grass ahead of me, and I try unsuccessfully to dodge a gear that ricochets off my forehead. Shit. I twist on my crate. The gear is lying in the dirt behind me, so I snatch it up. I glance over to the grass where the other object disappeared, then consider the clock innards in my hand, trying to recognize what’s missing. Damn it.
I set the clock down and walk over to the grass where I think the object could have landed. Squatting down, I begin parting the stems to inspect between them. After a minute or two of fruitless searching, I’m interrupted by a sudden sneeze to my right. Tracing the source of the noise through the grasses, I spy a pair of blue eyes peering at me from under a mess of dirty blonde hair. The little girl’s knee length pants are muddied and grass-stained, but she is holding her camera securely in both hands, as if nothing in the world will be allowed to harm it.
“Hey there.”
The little girl considers me quietly for a moment, then steps closer. “What are you looking for?”
I scratch my head. “You know, I’m not really sure.”
The girl advances a little farther and looks at the ground where I’ve been searching. “Then how are you going to know when you find it?”
I study the little Mym before me. Her forearms are tan and there are sun freckles on her nose. Her dirty nails and scratched hands match the roughed-up appearance of her clothes. Her pockets are stretched full of something lumpy.
“You a jungle adventurer?” I smile at her.
“I’m a photo journalist. What are you?”
“Right now I’m a doodad locator.”
“A doodad?”
“Could’ve been a thingamajiggy, or possibly a whosie-whatsit. I’m still not quite sure.”
The girl grins. “Can I help?”
“Definitely.”
The little Mym gets closer and squats next to me. I go back to parting the grass stems, and she follows my example. After a few minutes, I spot the steel pin with a tiny knob on the end, resting close to Mym’s foot.
“I feel like we’re sooo close.” I put my hand to my forehead and close my eyes. “It’s almost like I can feel it nearby. It’s here somewhere, I just can’t put my foot on it.”
“Don’t you mean finger? Isn’t it supposed to be ‘put my finger on it?’” Mym says.
I sneak a peek through my nearly closed eyelids at Mym’s questioning face. “Nope. Definitely feeling a foot.”
Mym scours the ground some more. “I found it!”
“Nice!” I open my eyes and take the steel pin she offers to me. “Yep, that’s my doodad.”
“You knew it was there, didn’t you?”
“You don’t believe in my psychic powers?” I stand up and try to look offended.
Mym tilts her head as she considers me. “Do you have any other powers?”
“Doodad locating is pretty much it. Though I do know how to make a really good Key lime pie.”
“That’s not a psychic power.”
“No? I guess not then.”
Mym follows me back to the crate where my clock is lying, partially disassembled. She watches me sit down and start fiddling with the gears.
“What are you doing to it?”
“Abraham wants me to take it all apart, and then put it back together again.”
“Oh.” She watches me unscrew another knob. “You should take a picture of it. That way you know what it’s supposed to
look like.”
“Hmm. That’s actually a really good idea. You don’t happen to know anybody with a camera do you?”
Mym grins and steps to my side of the crate. She holds her camera to her eye and takes her time adjusting the lens. Her hands are steady. Finally she clicks the shutter and holds the camera away from her face to see the image on the back of the digital display. The camera looks very similar to the ASP time traveling camera Dr. Quickly taught me to use in 1986.
“Did you get a good one?”
“Yeah.”
“Here, I’ll let you shoot the other sides.” I hold the clock at different angles while she takes more photos. When we’re done, she checks the images.
“Do you want me to print them out for you?”
“Can you do that here?”
“Yes.” Mym smiles.
That smile hasn’t changed. Still enchanting, even at eight.
She disappears into one of the camp tents. About fifteen minutes later, she reemerges with six small photos of the different angles of the clock. By now I’ve got most of the clock in pieces.
“These turned out great,” I say as I examine her shots.
“That one is fuzzy on the edge.” She points to a corner.
“Wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t pointed it out. You’re a pretty great photo journalist.”
Mym nods slowly, acknowledging this to be true, then plants herself in the camp chair opposite me. “How did you get here? Did I bring you?”
“Were you wishing real hard for a whosie-whatsit locator?”
Mym shakes her head. “No. I saw me. Down by the river.”
“Oh.” I consider what that might mean. Is Mym going to be upset that her younger self saw her? “Did you talk to . . . you?”
“No. I just looked.” Mym fiddles with a leaf. “I’ve met me before, from when I’m older, but Dad says it’s not good to interact with yourself very much. He says ‘creating temporal paradoxes is universally irresponsible.’”
“Well, he probably knows best.”
She drops the leaf. “I looked sad. Why was I sad?”
In Times Like These: eBook Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 47
