Twenty-Six started to close the T-box door and then opened it again. “Twenty-Nine shows up in two days to help you cash the ticket and outline your investments. He’ll be here at noon. We like to travel at noon because of…” Twenty-Six prompted Diesel by holding out his open palm.
Diesel answered spontaneously and on cue. “Lunch!”
“So you’re the host, which means you need to arrange lunch for you, Twenty-Nine, Lilah, and Justus. Remind Justus about this meeting. He needs to be there since he’s implementing all the financials. Lilah, you don’t need to be there but you’ll invest sooner if you see how it works, and that will be to your benefit, so I hope you’ll attend.”
“What does it mean to arrange for lunch?” asked Diesel.
“This is a sit-down meeting, so I’d say order in. Have Justus call Every Deli. They’ll make whatever you want, deliver it, and I even let them set it all up. Order a variety of stuff you like, because if you like it, we all will.”
He closed the T-box door and opened it again. “I won’t see you two again until I return in about three weeks to escort you to the Big Meeting, so goodbye for a while. Let’s see, there was something else.” He stroked his chin as if he were thinking. “Don’t lose the lottery ticket. Oh, and Twenty-Five, kiss my ass.” He laughed as he shut the door.
Departure took five minutes and had many of the same sounds and effects as an arrival. When Twenty-Six was gone, Diesel felt awkward standing alone with Lilah. He’d met her only yesterday.
He motioned to the chairs in her cubicle. “Would you sit with me for a few minutes?”
Lilah sat, and Diesel pulled a chair over to face her.
He looked at her face and his heart melted, so he looked at his hands. “Lilah, Twenty-Six is acting like you and I are a thing. But I only met you yesterday, and I’m not comfortable with this presumed relationship. I think you’re really cool and all, but I’m a pretty traditional guy.”
“What do you mean by ‘traditional guy’?”
“Maybe go on a few dates before we get married?”
“What do you mean by me being really cool and all?”
“Let’s see. I enjoy your company?”
“You don’t think I’m pretty.”
He looked into her eyes. “No, Lilah. I think you’re beautiful. I really do.”
She scrunched her forehead. “Up your game, Bub. I threw two jabs and you stood there for the knockout.”
As Diesel stared at her in bewilderment, Justus came halfway down the stairs. “I’m going,” he called. “Either of you need anything before I take off?”
“I’m fine. Thanks, Justus,” said Lilah. “Have a good night.”
“Yeah, take it easy,” said Diesel. “Oh, Friday at noon we have an important finance lunch meeting you need to attend. Tomorrow we need to place a catering order with a company called Every Deli. How about lasagna and whatever sides they suggest for a really nice lunch.”
“Where is this happening?” asked Justus.
“Upstairs. In the common room, I guess.” Diesel pointed up.
“Who else?”
“There’s four of us. You, me, Lilah, and Twenty-Nine.”
“Lasagna lunch. Every Deli. Two days. I got it from here.” He waved goodbye over his shoulder as he climbed the steps.
With Justus gone, Lilah turned to Diesel. “I was just messing with you earlier with the jabs and punches.”
“Remember that you’ve known versions of me for two months, so your head is in a different place. Please go easy until I catch up.” He checked the time. “I need to go sign up for a gym membership. Can we meet down here tomorrow morning? I’d like to play with Ciopova and will need some instruction.”
“Sure, what time?”
“Seven or eight would be great for me.”
“You’ll see my morning face and house clothes, but I’ll split the difference with you and do seven thirty.”
“Deal.”
“I’ll bring down a pot of coffee.” Lilah rose and made for the door connecting the two basements. “Sorry again about the teasing,” she said, then passed over to her side.
After completing the application for a gym membership at Bob’s Barbells, Diesel went up to his apartment. He put on music, sat on the couch, and with the keyboard on his lap, dove into the web. He was a hacker, a good one, and he’d spent untold hours over the past decade navigating the web’s seamy underworlds and shadowy corners.
After an hour of puttering, he heated a whole box of frozen waffles, carried the heaping plate to the couch, put his feet up on the coffee table, and with the keyboard back on his lap, folded a waffle and stuffed it in his mouth. Flexing his fingers, he dove into what the media called the dark web, though he thought of it more as the place where the big boys played.
Given the weirdness of the past two days, he took comfort in the familiar, visiting his old “hacking, cracking, and slacking” haunts. He checked new postings on the sites he followed, weighed in on an argument about spoofing identities on an invite-only forum, and scrolled through the messages sent to his various aliases.
When he climbed into bed it was silly-early for him, but he’d learned from Twenty-Six that Lilah was a morning person. As he drifted off to sleep that night, it wasn’t the mystery of time travel that occupied his mind. It was the flaxen-haired beauty with green eyes and a generous smile he would see again at seven thirty in the morning.
15. Twenty-Five and two days
Carrying a plate of bagels in one hand and a carafe of coffee in the other, Lilah glanced at the clock as she made for her apartment door. Seven twenty. Enough time to set up downstairs before Diesel got there.
She walked down the two flights to her basement and passed through the connecting door over to the offices. Her forearms burned from the load, and she counted the steps to the worktable in her cubicle, sighing when she set everything down.
After shaking life back into her hands, she moved mugs next to the coffee. As she looked for napkins, she noticed the T-box displaying the word “Error” in red.
“That’s weird.” She walked over and looked at it, frowned, then walked to the T-box door and pulled the latch. Something pushed against the door, forcing it open. As it swung wide, a man fell on her, his arms reaching for her legs.
Swinging her elbows and screaming, Lilah ran for the stairs. “Help!” Her foot hit the first step, and she risked a glance over her shoulder as she climbed. Her attacker lay prone on the ground, his legs still inside the T-box. She looked back a second time, then slowed to a stop. The man hadn’t moved.
“Hey! Who are you?” she called, turning to face back toward the T-box from halfway up the stairs. The body type of the prone man was not that of a Diesel. She took a step down. “Hey!”
Thump. Thump. Thump. Above her, she heard what sounded like an elephant’s stomp. “Lilah. Are you okay?” Thump. Thump. Thump. Diesel appeared on the landing above. “What’s the matter?”
Lilah pointed to the T-box.
Diesel crouched at the top of the stairs, squinting as he looked, then descended to her level. “What the hell?” Staring at the figure, he stepped around Lilah and continued to the bottom. “I think it’s a street person. Hey, pal. You can’t sleep here.”
He edged closer and nudged the man with his toe. “Hey. Wake up.” The man didn’t move, so he nudged him again and then knelt next to him. “This guy is passed out. What happened?”
“I came down and he was inside the T-box. I didn’t do anything.” She descended but remained near the steps.
Diesel pulled him away from the door, and it swung shut as he laid the man flat. He put his fingers on the man’s neck and moved them around. “Do you know how to find a pulse?”
She was more concerned with her own safety. “Is he unconscious?”
“I’m worried that he’s dead.”
Lilah approached and leaned over Diesel to look. “Oh my God. That’s Duffy Bowden!” She dropped to one knee and touched his wris
t, only to pull her hand back. “He’s cool to the touch. Call an ambulance.”
“Who’s Duffy Bowden?” asked Diesel, reaching for his phone.
“He’s the electronics engineer I hired to assemble the T-box.”
The T-box buzzed and the display lit up with the message: “Forty Incoming in 4:59.”
Returning his phone to his pocket, Diesel stood and looked at the display. “I’ve met Forty. He seems pretty together.”
“I agree. Do you think he’s coming because of this?” The man’s pallid face and distant stare caused her stomach to clench. She’d been anxious about her future when Ciopova began stealing processing power, but that crime paled compared to this: a dead body!
“Forty has to be coming to help. This supposedly happens every year, at least according to temporal constancy.” He scrunched his forehead. “Did I use that term right?”
“I think so.” She held her hands against Duffy’s chest, then leaned down and put her ear against it. “I don’t hear a heartbeat. Do you know CPR?”
“If he was playing in the T-box, then he’s dead. Twenty-Six made that clear.”
“You think that’s what happened?”
“If he built it, he knows how to start it. But why would he break in and do that? It seems so random.”
Lilah started pacing in front of the display, trying to convince herself that Forty would fix everything as soon as he arrived. “He worked his ass off to assemble the machine using custom-ordered space-age technology and exotic materials. He was spitting nails when I kicked him out without letting him turn it on.”
She looked at Duffy with worry in her eyes. “What do you think Forty will do?”
“I hope it’s something good, because explaining this to the cops will be complicated.” He stroked her back between the shoulder blades. “Promise me you won’t ever use the T-box. I couldn’t bear finding you like this.”
She hesitated, unwilling to make a promise she knew to be a lie. She’d been daydreaming more and more about visiting the other Lilahs, hoping to gain emotional support from her older sisters and learn something of her own path ahead.
While she hadn’t a clue how to do that—how to time travel—Ciopova could help her figure it out. It would have to be a future version of the AI, but as Twenty-Six had said, she gets pretty real, pretty fast.
Her idea was to grow Ciopova until the AI could help her reverse-engineer the T-box. Once she understood how the device worked, she’d seek to modify its design to include Lilahs in its transport library. She guessed it would take four or five years, maybe six, but the project would be more fulfilling, more profitable, and a whole lot more fun than the solo AI effort she’d left behind.
She threaded the needle. “I promise I won’t kill myself in the T-box.”
He squeezed her shoulder and smiled.
The T-box whined and then hummed, they felt the static wash, then Forty arrived. “Good morning,” said the muscled man as he hurried back to dress. “Everything will be okay. Thirty-Nine is on his way. Hey, that rhymes!”
As if on cue, the T-box buzzed and the display lit up with the new message: “Thirty-Nine Incoming in 4:59.”
Forty emerged wearing pants and shoes. Pulling on his shirt, he stood and studied Duffy.
“You knew this was going to happen,” Diesel said with surprising fury. “You should have stopped it.”
“Well, new guy,” sneered Forty, “remember that you’ll get to try every one of our jobs before your ride is over. So keep a file of your criticisms and use them when your time comes.” Forty nodded a hello to Lilah and continued. “And I could turn this around and ask why you don’t have a security system installed that would have stopped him from entering. Twenty-Six tasked you with that.”
“I’m working on it,” said Diesel.
“I’m working on it,” mocked Forty.
“Okay,” said Lilah. “I’m going to insist on a minimum level of maturity here.” She gave Forty a forced smile. “So, what’s the plan?”
Reaching his hand out to Diesel, Forty waited until he shook it. “I’ve been you but you haven’t been me,” he told the younger man. “It’s a mindset that takes hold when you’re thirty and strengthens with age.”
Turning to face Lilah, he said, “Duffy is dead because he got inside the T-box and turned it on. If you do that, Lilah, you will die, too. Please don’t do it. Please don’t even think about it.”
Lilah moved close to Diesel and held his upper arm. “This is the second time today I’m being scolded for something I didn’t do.”
“We want you alive. It’s that and nothing more.” After a long pause, he continued. “Thirty-Nine and I will drive Duffy in his car and leave it and him close to the police station. It’s a little over three miles. We’ll walk back.”
“The station near the university?” asked Lilah. “There are cop cameras around there. The students were protesting about them when I first got here.”
They felt the static wash as Thirty-Nine arrived. “Hi, everyone,” he called as he hustled back for clothes. They waited for him to dress. When he emerged, he went to Lilah, gathered her in his arms, and gave her a big hug. When he let go, he looked into her eyes and said, “Hey Twenty-Five. Kiss my ass.”
He and Forty devolved into laughter. Lilah smiled but thought they were being mean.
After they settled down, Thirty-Nine stood over Duffy, studying him. “Learn from this, Lilah.”
“Jeez,” she snapped. “Would everyone just stop?”
Thirty-Nine didn’t react, instead calling toward her cubicle, “Ciopova, are you there?”
“Hello, everyone.” The big screen on the wall came alive, and the AI’s smiling face appeared.
Thirty-Nine stepped forward and faced the display. “What’s the best route today?”
“The police camera system crashed earlier in the week and won’t be recording until replacement parts arrive in a few days,” said the AI. “Follow this path and you’ll avoid any private cams.”
Thirty-Nine and Forty studied the map Ciopova projected for them.
“Good, nothing’s changed,” said Forty. He turned to look at Diesel. “We plan and rehearse these things, but you never know the exact situation until you get here. Today there are no curve balls, and that makes for a good day.”
He held up a finger. “Except one. Twenty-Six forgot to have Justus get a phone for us to use. We need to have a phone with us in case of trouble. The plan now is that we take yours.” He looked at Diesel. “And Lilah, you need to stay near Twenty-Five so we can reach him if there’s a problem.”
“My phone is passcode protected,” said Diesel.
Thirty-Nine held his hand out and wiggled his fingers. “I’ll bet I can guess it on the first try. Come on. And have Justus order phones for times like this.”
“Does this happen a lot?” Lilah put her hand to her throat.
“I’m talking about getting phones for times when the brothers visit and split up.”
Diesel grudgingly surrendered his phone. Thirty-Nine looked at it, tapped and touched, got the passcode entered, then studied the screen. Forty looked over his shoulder.
“Isn’t it working?” asked Diesel, moving around so he could see.
Thirty-Nine held it for him. “How do I use this stone tablet to call her phone?”
“It’s there at the bottom.” Diesel pointed. “Then there. Pick Lilah. Yup.”
Lilah’s phone started ringing. “Hello,” she answered.
“I’m calling to see if you might be interested in a free hug?”
She heard Thirty-Nine both through her phone and through the air. “Yes!” she said with such enthusiasm that Diesel scowled, and Thirty-Nine and Forty howled.
Thirty-Nine studied the phone again. “Do I need to disconnect?”
Diesel pointed. “Press that, then just stick it in your pocket. Don’t lose it and don’t damage it. In this timeline, that’s a modern and expensive tool, and my life is on it.�
��
“Oh,” said Forty, nudging Thirty-Nine. “He has those hot Fourth of July pics of Helena Costas somewhere on there. See if you can find them.”
Diesel turned bright red and, seeing that, Lilah came to his rescue by changing subjects. “How are you going to get Duffy out to the car without anyone seeing?”
“Put him in a box and load the box into the trunk,” said Forty. “We’ll park the car in the pine trees up from the ballfield. The walk back will take less than an hour.”
“They’ll classify it as a murder if you leave him that way,” said Lilah.
“They’ll classify it as a murder whatever we do. The murder investigation starts at his house, and it turns out Duffy has a library of kiddie porn on his computer and a cache of drugs in his desk drawer. The investigation takes a wrong turn at that point and never moves in our direction.”
“It’s bad police work,” said Thirty-Nine. “But it works in our favor.”
“I know the perfect box.” Forty disappeared through the connecting door and reappeared moments later holding a sturdy box that Lilah thought too small.
He set it on the floor next to Duffy and handed Thirty-Nine a pair of thin plastic gloves and a ball cap. With their hands and heads covered to avoid leaving forensic evidence, Forty fished the car keys from Duffy’s pocket, then they turned Duffy on his side, folded him into the fetal position, lifted him, and set him down in the box, angling his feet to make them fit.
With the lid closed, Forty said, “We’ll be back in two hours.” Then he pointed to the box and said to Thirty-Nine, “Show off for Lilah. I carried it last year so it’s your turn.”
Thirty-Nine squatted in front of the box and picked it up with ease. He smiled and acted nonchalant as he took his first steps, but his bulging muscles belied his casual demeanor.
Already in sensory overload, Lilah watched them leave, quiet until the door upstairs opened and closed. Moving to her office chair, she sat and stared, eyes unfocused, trying to stay calm while she digested the fact that Duffy, a pedophile druggy, had died here last night. She’d never seen a dead person before, and everything about the situation tested her emotional stability.
Bump Time Origin Page 12
