Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine

by Anthony Francis

  alias check negative

  She scowled. That . . . that couldn’t possibly mean what she thought it meant. Then she saw two smaller words beneath the message: OPTIONS and HISTORY, words clearly aligned over two thin buttons she hadn’t seen over the keypad.

  Jeremiah remembered watching Marcus instruct Georgiana.

  Then she hit the button under HISTORY.

  A whole sequence of messages appeared, a back and forth, in a shorthand she could not read. Some of Marcus’s were baffling exercises in dialect, like “pad burnt, hustlin’ out.” Others were vaguely salacious, like “female james bond;” she wondered if that was the move he’d done to pin her hands. But the rest of Marcus’s messages were vaguely suspicious, like “contact made” or “stay back,” culminating in the last one, which had no vagueness at all:

  run alias “jeremiah willstone, cmdr”

  Jeremiah’s jaw dropped. She knew what “running an alias” meant, though she was willing to wager these people did that particular police procedure in a completely different way. But it was a police term; which meant . . .

  ———

  The “boy” she’d just bedded . . . was a matahari.

  30.

  Reverse Matahari

  “THIS IS AN ELECTRIC pistol,” Jeremiah said, aiming the Kathodenstrahl straight at Marcus’s heart. “So don’t think I won’t be free with the trigger.”

  Marcus stood frozen, well, actually, hot and dripping wet, one towel about his waist, a smaller one tousling his curly hair. “What did I do?”

  Jeremiah cocked her head at him. “Come now, matahari,” she said.

  “It’s Marcus,” he said, raising his hands, dropping the small towel, which bounced off his hip and caused the large towel to slip ever so slightly.

  “Stop. I know that trick,” Jeremiah said, scowling, even as her eyes tried to dart aside. “And don’t think I’ll look, no matter how tempted I am. Turn about.”

  “What are you talking about—”

  Jeremiah held up the cell phone. “I may be a century off,” she said, “but even I can press a button. ‘Run alias Jeremiah Willstone, Commander,’ indeed. You should have developed a more cryptic set of code phrases—”

  “Aww, hell,” he said, raising his hands further.

  “Stop,” she repeated. “Turn about—hang on, I’ve got it.”

  And she stepped forwards, slowly, reaching out with her free hand behind his ear. After just a moment, she pulled out a small steel spike, like a weight for a fishing line, or perhaps an earring or pendant. Even with its small size, she was surprised she hadn’t noticed its presence when she was fondling his hair. As she stepped back and felt it in her fingers, she found it had a good throwing weight. Without ever taking her eyes off him, she flicked the bob out, and it embedded itself into the border of the standing mirror with a solid thunk.

  “Awww,” Marcus said. “Damn it to hell. I wasn’t going to use that—”

  “And like I believe that,” she said.

  “On you, I meant,” he said. “On the gun—”

  “That I believe,” she said. “It’s difficult to off someone you’ve just bedded. Makes you feel less like a matahari . . . and more like an assassin.”

  His face grew dark. “Have you ever offed someone you’ve bedded?”

  Patrick opened the door. “Is everything all right—my word.”

  “Hoist by my own petard,” she said. “Boy’s a matahari. A good one.” At that Marcus’s lip quirked, and she smirked as well. “Lest the screaming left any doubt. This one’s innocent act had me thinking I was playing him, and he still showed me such a good time I was thinking of retiring.”

  “Very impressive,” Georgiana said, following Patrick through the door and drawing her deranger raygun with a sly smile. “But are you quite sure he’s a matahari? You could give him a go at me, see if I let loose any secrets—”

  “Gentlewomen, please,” Patrick said.

  “Matahari—you mean, Mata Hari,” Marcus said—and laughed. “But I’m a guy. Wouldn’t that make me a Casanova?”

  “Not Liberated,” Georgiana said.

  “That can be a charm all its own,” Jeremiah said, handing Patrick the phone and fetching her pants, “if all you’re after is a quick tumble—”

  “First off, I’d like to clear the air,” Marcus said, his voice deepening, his demeanor taking on a new level of maturity. “Yes, I am a bit of a player, and the innocent act does work well for me. But I’m not a ‘matahari.’ No one asked me to have sex with you, Jeri. We don’t do that—”

  “A likely story,” Jeremiah said, slipping her pants on, all the time keeping her gun on Marcus. “I prefer my interpretation. It explains a few things. How the police chase ended so abruptly, how help arrived so quickly, how Lord Christopherson knew where we were—”

  “No, it doesn’t. That phone’s old—no GPS,” Marcus said curtly. At their baffled looks, he clarified, “You see that motel’s address in that text history? Any address?”

  Jeremiah scowled. Patrick held the phone out to her; she stared at it, then nodded, and Patrick handed it to Georgiana.

  “You look,” Marcus said, nodding at the phone. “Not once did I give away your location—and I moved you for your protection. You won’t even see any calls in the past several hours. Your ‘Lord Christopherson’ knew that address before I did. He’s definitely got a time machine.”

  Georgiana cleared her throat. “There’s no,” she began, then shook her head. “No, you could have . . . yes, you could have deleted it.”

  “And leave the rest of that damning call history? Not likely,” he said, though his face was struggling with something. Finally, his expression softened, even as his posture straightened. He said, “Look . . . I’ll level with you. But first . . . could I please sit down?”

  “Hold still,” Jeremiah said, keeping the gun trained on him. Obligingly, Marcus kept his hands up, but he shifted, oh so slightly, and slowly, the towel began to unravel. Finally she said, “Not a matahari, my pert arse. Oh, go on.”

  Marcus tightened the towel, stepped up to the bed, then sat down, hands resting gently on his knees. “All right?” he said, setting his jaw, eyes glinting a little—seeming to age him five years in an instant. “Think I have something hidden under the bed, or under the towel?”

  “Under the towel, definitely,” Jeremiah smirked.

  “Commander,” Patrick repeated. “Please.”

  Marcus leaned on his hands, considering; then he leaned back and spoke.

  “A magician in a top hat appears and does an amazing magic trick,” Marcus said. “He pulls a zeppelin the size of the QE2 out of it—that’s a cruise liner, by the way, a very large seagoing ship. Only there’s no hat. This zeppelin is invisible.”

  “Interesting that zeppelin is a generic in this world,” Jeremiah murmured.

  “Interesting that he apparently never married,” Georgiana murmured back.

  “Must you prey on all the inventors in history?” Patrick said.

  “Only the dashing, brilliant, unmarried ones,” Georgiana said.

  Marcus smirked at her. “Well, this dashing, brilliant, and enigmatic inventor promises to sell his magic invisibility technology to you . . . if only you’ll do him a series of favors,” Marcus said. “Some of them, quite hefty quid pro quos. So, if in our shoes . . . would you trust this man?”

  “Not as far as I could throw him,” Jeremiah said.

  “Not your uncle,” Marcus said. “A hypothetical, unknown magician with odd ideas, strange speech, and even stranger technology, technology you want, technology he’s willing to trade—and you’ve never met him, yet he knows all about you and has some very demanding requests.”

  “Still no, of course not,” Jeremiah said; then she pursed her lips, trying
to take her uncle out of the equation. “No. No matter what he had to sell. On my world, I’d think . . . I’d think he was possessed by a Foreigner, perhaps planning an Incursion.”

  Marcus looked at her curiously, then nodded. “No matter what he had to sell? Even an invisible airship, to a world that doesn’t have them? Anything invisible, in a world where invisible technology doesn’t exist—is a crippling advantage. Like the sighted fighting the blind—”

  “I agree it would be a powerful temptation,” Jeremiah said. “I’ll wager that’s it. He didn’t come here because of something this world has. Well, I’m sure that he did, but more particularly, because of something it didn’t. Something he had that he could trade for.”

  “And invisibility would do it. The big brass don’t trust Lord Christopherson any more than they can throw him . . . but they want that invisible airship,” Marcus said. “They want it so badly I can’t tell you. So much that they’re willing to accommodate all of his crazy requests. So much that they’re still going ahead even though they brought me on board to check him out—”

  “They brought you on board to check out Lord Christopherson?” Jeremiah said. “You must be more versatile as a matahari than I thought.”

  “Hey,” he said, offended. “I’m not gay!”

  Jeremiah looked at Georgiana, baffled.

  “Homosexual,” Marcus said. “I’m not homosexual, and while he may be a sharp dresser, neither is this Lord Christopherson, at least as far as I can see—”

  “Definitely not Liberated,” Jeremiah said.

  “How disappointing,” Patrick said.

  “Lieutenant, please,” Georgiana mocked. “Must you prey on—”

  “—not that I’d pass up a shot at that chiquita inteligente on his crew—” Marcus was saying—and then his eyes flicked to Jeremiah nervously. “I mean, there’s at least one woman on his crew, some brainy scientist, and I suppose I could have worked her, if I was a ‘matahari’—”

  “And what are you then?” Georgiana said.

  “A physicist,” he said, a little bit of his younger persona returning to his voice. “NSA. My cover is a computer expert brought in to ‘help’ Lord Christopherson, but my real mission is to . . . well, in part, to try to analyze and reverse engineer that amazing technology of his—”

  “A physicist and a computer?” Georgiana said, smiling. “Much more appealing than a matahari. Careful, Jeremiah, or I’ll steal this one too—”

  But she stopped when Jeremiah reached out to the mirror . . . and her hand came back with the spike.

  “And this?” Jeremiah said.

  Marcus stiffened. “I have some field experience,” he said. “And they gave that to me to protect myself—”

  “Marcus,” Jeremiah said, “this is a bedroom bob. You secret it upon your person to defend yourself when naked. Since you could probably shatter my jaw with one punch, it isn’t for self-defense. And, hang on—you mentioned using it on my gun. You’d have to know how to throw it. They didn’t just give it to you.”

  His jaw tightened now. “I didn’t say what kind of field experience—”

  “The kind we would call matahari,” she said.

  “Look,” he said. “You have to believe me. No one sent me after you. I just went for a burrito. I didn’t know you would be there. No one did. How could—”

  And then he broke off.

  “My uncle knew we’d be here,” Jeremiah said. Marcus had realized that the moment she had. “Maybe he knew where to send you—”

  “Look—” Marcus said hotly, starting to get off the bed. Jeremiah raised her gun and glared, and he sat back down. “Look, the package you received was an anomaly. Before that, we had no hint that Christopherson had that kind of fine-grained time travel technology—”

  “Then where did you think he came from?” Georgiana said.

  “We guessed he’d made some big jaunt, a hundred-year stretch or so,” Marcus said. “But traveling between one or two days, with precision? Look, I only have a bachelor’s in physics, and I don’t really understand time travel, but that sounds like someone with mad skills.”

  “I . . . I concur,” Georgiana said, “and that’s having seen some of his equipment.”

  “Which means,” Marcus said, “he could be playing all of us on a level we’ll find difficult to fight. Whatever you think of me, whatever you think’s going on—you have to believe this.”

  “All right,” Jeremiah said. “I’ll take you at your word, at least that much. But how would you have us think of you? Be direct. You’ve ducked my question about your real mission more than once, and my patience is running—”

  “I’m in antiproliferation,” Marcus said. “Stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. I have a bachelor’s in physics, but my real job is to use that knowledge to help ferret out people trying to assemble the materials for a bomb—”

  “Sounds very familiar,” Patrick said. “I’ve done that job.”

  “And we understand why you’d hesitate to share that secret with us,” Jeremiah said. “But let’s clear the air. You’re in no wise a student.”

  “Yes, I am, but . . . well, it’s complicated,” Marcus said.

  “Get to why you’re here,” Jeremiah said. “Has to be somewhat simple.”

  “First off, I’m here, in Atlanta that is, literally as a student,” Marcus said. “I didn’t lie about that. The NSA had me here picking up some French and brushing up on reactor designs for, well, an, um, an unrelated mission—”

  “Capital,” Jeremiah said. “Don’t betray it. What brought you into this one?”

  “Your Lord Christopherson showed an alarming interest in nuclear science,” Marcus said, exchanging glances with all of them. “Not just materials, but reactors, accelerators, and so on. I see this worries you as much as it did my superiors.”

  “No doubt. And you were already here, already expert,” Jeremiah said. “You’re right, Harbinger. Sounds very familiar. I’ve done that job too.”

  “So I get called in by the NSA and injected into a meeting where a seven foot tall man in nineteenth-century garb is offering an invisible airship to a half-dozen generals,” Marcus said. “My role was computer tech—giving him the support he needs while trying to find out his real game.”

  “And finding out how his technology works would be a bonus.”

  “Yes. I have enough physics to know what I’m looking at, though I’d gotten permission to recruit Colin—he’s going for his PhD and knows how to play it cool,” Marcus said. “But we never got that far. Halfway into the meeting, another invisible airship appears, to everyone’s surprise—including Lord Christopherson. If he knew you were coming, he’s an extraordinary actor.”

  “The boy in the window,” Jeremiah said.

  “Yes,” Marcus said.

  “What?” Georgiana said.

  “He was the boy in the window,” Jeremiah said. “I saw a boy in the window of the building standing right next to Lord Christopherson—Marcus! And also staring me in the face, you called me airship girl—but I never mentioned the Prince Edward!”

  “I thought you had me then,” Marcus said. “A bit of fast talk changed the subject, and, come on. It wasn’t much of a slip; an airship appeared over downtown for a few seconds, and you said ‘prow.’ Airship girl is a reasonable surmise, especially given that gears-and-goggles outfit.”

  “Blast it,” Jeremiah said, sitting down on the dresser opposite Marcus, fingering the bob in one hand while keeping the gun trained on him with the other. “Either I’m losing my touch, or you are damn good. Continue.”

  “The airship disappears. The meeting breaks. At debriefing, I’m the only one who saw a cute girl in the bow of the airship,” Marcus said. Jeremiah smirked, and he continued, “Given my, ah, reputation as a player . . . well, the skills tha
t made me a good choice for my other mission worked against me here. No one believes my story, I’m dismissed for the day, so I head down for a burrito . . . and find my airship girl, in a corset and earth tones and boots of brown leather.”

  “Very poetic. You left out the tweed,” she said.

  “At first I dismiss seeing you, thinking I’m nuts . . . then the fight breaks out. I follow and see that you’re about to be arrested. We need to know more about what you’re up to than we need to recover the contents of a bank machine . . . so I stop the police.”

  “How?”

  “I have a badge,” he said. “NSA. National Security Agency—”

  “I heard that,” Patrick said. “Thought it was some kind of police code—”

  “I stop them, I follow . . .” Marcus said . . . and sighed. “And I marked you, chiquita. Yes. I’m what you would call a matahari—a player, in the professional sense. Your eyes sparkled when you saw me, Jeri. I knew I could get you to do anything I wanted.”

  “Thank you for being honest,” she said, raising the gun to vertical. “In hindsight, I recognize you struggling to stay in character when you realized time travel was afoot—”

  “It threw me,” Marcus admitted. “But I was able to dial ‘skater boy’ in pretty quick—”

  “You play it well,” Jeremiah said. “Professional to professional, that innocent act is a risk with two women present. I’m surprised you didn’t try the horse’s arse gambit—”

  “The horse’s arse gambit?” Patrick asked.

  Marcus sighed. “Jeremiah is . . . very pretty. Girls like her are used to getting what they want, to guys falling all over them . . . so a guy that treats her a bit rough, shows that he could get any number of girls like that . . . she’ll fall for him.”

  “It’s a different world,” Georgiana said, glancing at Jeremiah.

  “Not as different as you think,” Jeremiah said. “It works—”

  “Not all women,” Patrick said, “like rough treatment—”

  “Not physically rough,” Marcus said. “If I wanted to hit on Jeremiah, I might introduce myself to the three of you, give her the eye—but then talk only to you, Georgiana, or even you, Patrick. Drives the real beauties nuts.”