by Mark J Rose
When Matt was done for the day, he said goodbye to Jacob and Ward and walked to the McCallas’ gym. The first week had been a struggle, but he was learning to read his opponents and hide his own intentions. The twisting motion he’d used to cock his hands and broadcast his punches was gone.
Seamus nodded to him when he came in. He was working with a new man in the ring. They were practicing some sort of grappling that looked like Greco-Roman wrestling.
“Get your leather on,” Seamus called. “We’re going hard today.”
I thought we were going hard already. Matt nodded and moved over to the shelf to put on the leather armor. Seamus waved him impatiently up to the ring. Matt moved a set of block steps against the elevated platform and climbed up.
“You’re going to be fighting with Jamison,” Seamus said. He motioned to the man he had just been teaching. Jamison was almost as tall as Matt and had a head of closely cropped red hair. He wore loose grey pants that went nearly to his ankles and a tight white tunic. Jamison’s clothing could not hide a physique composed of large, well-defined muscles. He put his gloved hand out to tap Matt’s gloves and smiled with a wide toothless grin. “Good day, mate,” he said. “I heard you’re a kicker.”
“I am,” Matt replied, wondering what Seamus had in mind by pairing him with Jamison.
“Need to learn to fight against kickers,” Jamison said.
“Hopefully you’re a brawler, then,” Matt replied, smiling back.
Jamison looked at him strangely.
“Good at fighting with your hands, close in.”
“That’s me, mate.”
Seamus looked at Matt. “You can go full out against Jamison, kicks and all.”
“He doesn’t have any equipment,” Matt said. Jamison looked naked standing there with just padded gloves.
“Don’t need it,” Jamison replied.
“I could kill him with the right kick.”
A look of insult filled Jamison’s face.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Matt said. “It’s hard to go easy on the kicks.”
“Don’t expect you to go easy.”
Matt looked over at Seamus and got his confirmation. “Okay,” Matt said. He was still uncomfortable. Having a black belt meant something, despite the way these men discounted his skills.
“Your best effort,” Seamus said to Matt. “I’ll stop it before anyone gets hurt.” Seamus stepped to the side and both men were left circling each other in the center of the ring. “Begin!” Seamus called.
Matt took a defensive stance. Jamison went after him with a flurry of punches, landing two on Matt’s face and body. Matt countered, hitting Jamison hard in the face and then moving away like he had been taught. “Good,” he heard Seamus say.
Matt took his stance again. This time, Jamison waited rather than moving close. He was standing at the right distance for a kick to the head. Matt’s kick was well executed, and Jamison reeled back to recover for a moment.
“He’ll hit you with that leg every time if you stand there,” Seamus instructed.
Jamison closed in to hit Matt with a barrage of punches hard enough to shift the leather mouth guard Matt had between his teeth. Matt blocked, countered, pushed Jamison away, and then hit him in the chest with a sidekick. Jamison stumbled violently back into the ropes.
“We haven’t seen that one,” Seamus said. “The power comes from the back leg. Keep him from setting it.”
Jamison nodded again, returned to the center of the ring to face Matt and stood at exactly the right distance for Matt to land another kick. Matt spun into a sidekick aimed at Jamison’s head, but this time Jamison ducked to let Matt’s foot pass over his head, then closed on Matt with a barrage of fists. Matt had to retreat but still managed to land a few solid punches. He faked a backward motion, then stepped forward into a spinning roundhouse kick that hit Jamison squarely in the face. Jamison shook it off and regained his stance.
“Watch the feet rather than the body,” Seamus instructed. “Mr. Miller can fight.”
A compliment from Seamus?
“Respected him from the beginning, I did,” Jamison replied. “I only ever fought that one kicker.”
“And lost,” Seamus reminded.
“No accident I’m here,” Jamison replied.
Matt was curious to see if the man had learned anything, so he went into another spinning roundhouse kick, this time leading with his left leg. Jamison ducked and punched Matt firmly in the face.
Uh-oh!
Sparks flashed in Matt’s brain, and grey flashes began to take pieces of his sight. It was like someone was flicking silver paint on the window to his world and this paint was piling up. Jamison hit him in the face again and Matt panicked. On instinct, he dropped into an attack pattern he’d practiced with his Korean master. Jamison could only back away and managed to hit Matt in the face only once during the attack.
“Ease up, Mr. Miller!” Seamus yelled. “He’s not supposed to be fighting for his life.”
Matt turned to Seamus’s voice, nodded, and murmured, “Sorry.” He turned back to where he thought Jamison was, straining to see him through the grey cloud. Then Jamison flashed in front of him as if the paint had completely disappeared. “Sorry,” Matt repeated to the man he saw standing in front of him. The grey suddenly returned and then was gone.
What’s happening?
In vivid colors, Matt saw Jamison raise his hands and give an “ease up” motion, then watched as he swung in slow motion at his face. Matt waited for the impact, but there was none. He saw Jamison swing a second time. Matt put his glove up and felt the blow impact his hand and then again as he blocked in succession, his face, his body, his face, and his face again. The vivid colors faded again to grey, but Matt still knew in his mind when to expect a swing. Trying to sort out what was real and what was imagined confused him, and he lost track of the punches. In the confusion, a hard punch hit Matt in the face and he went crashing to the platform.
“Step out,” Seamus said to Jamison, who was now standing over Matt, confused. Seamus pushed the steps to the side and motioned at them. He waited for Jamison to clear the ring before climbing up and stooping under the rope.
Seamus stared down at Matt. “Why did you stop defending yourself?”
Matt looked up into the grey. “I’m blind.”
“Get out of the ring,” Seamus said.
Matt picked himself up, walked to the steps, and stooped down to slide between the ropes. He stepped carefully onto the block steps that led down to the floor.
“You can see,” Seamus insisted.
“I can’t,” Matt replied to the flashing grey mist.
“Then how’d you know where I put the steps?” Seamus asked.
I could see them in my mind! “I remembered them from before,” Matt lied.
“They’re in a different place,” Seamus said.
“I must have heard you slide them.” Matt motioned around in front of his eyes with his gloved hand. “I’m starting to see shadows again.”
Seamus removed Matt’s gloves, led him to a back office, and sat him down. “Has this happened before?”
“Mostly from the cold,” Matt explained. “It was that punch Jamison threw right before I went crazy and started kicking. I was blind after that.”
“You knew where he was going to move before he did.”
“It’s a series of kicks I’ve practiced,” Matt explained.
“Jamison’s lost one fight his whole life.”
Matt rubbed his eyes. He could see the outline of Seamus’s face beginning to clear. “My sight’s already coming back.”
Matt did his best to describe what brought on the blindness. At the end of Matt’s story, Seamus said, “You better be such a fighter that no one can strike your head.”
“What’s the chance of that?”
Seamus shrugged.
37
Red Dot
It was late afternoon and Franklin had stopped by Matt’s room
at the Bakers’ to see if he was interested in a trip to the tavern. Matt had grown used to the man visiting at random times to discuss whatever topic was bouncing around in his head. Today, they began a passionate discussion of the pros and cons of government checks and balances, which had somehow morphed into a discussion of upcoming cultural events in Philadelphia. They were talking about the Philadelphia symphony when Franklin asked, “Can I hear that machine that plays music?”
“It’s a smartphone,” Matt replied.
“Why would you call a machine smart?”
“It started out being called a telephone. They turned into smartphones when they could do things like play music. Telephones were once used only to talk. You would pick one up, speak into it, and hear the other person.”
“Like I can hear you now?”
“Except they could be in another state or country.”
“Across the sea?”
“One tap on this screen with your finger and you could reach anyone in the world.”
“The world must seem like a small place in your time.”
“For better or worse.”
Franklin looked back at Matt, confused.
Matt went on to explain. “Just because we have smartphones doesn’t mean we all like each other. I told you there are still wars. There’s also something called terrorism, where people blow up buildings using airplanes.”
“Such trouble can always be explained by people’s want of a useful enterprise,” Franklin lectured.
“The devil will find work for idle hands to do,” Matt said, smiling. He had always liked the Puritan simplicity of that expression.
“Bah! Men use the devil to excuse their want of initiative! They say things like, ‘I didn’t get up early today because that damnable devil is controlling my life again. It has naught to do with the fact that I was in the pub last night until it closed.’ What’s an airplane?”
“A machine that carries men in the sky,” Matt said. He imitated a flying plane by moving his hand in the air. “You can travel to England from here in about three hours on the fastest airplanes.”
“Ah! It’s a future that I’ll never see,” Franklin exclaimed, distraught. “To be able to fly to London for breakfast on the Thames and then be back in time to have dinner on the Schuylkill.”
“Even in my time, it’s expensive to fly all over the world. And it’s still a lot of work.”
“You mean like spending weeks being tossed in the rat-infested hold of a frigate, unable to keep the rotting victuals down?”
“I guess when you put it that way,” Matt admitted. “Understand, though, that now that it’s possible to fly, people are expected to go to Europe, complete their business, and then return to work in the United States the next day.”
Franklin frowned. “Are you going to let me hear that smart machine again, or must I wait until I meet someone else from another century?”
Rolling his eyes, Matt walked into the bedroom and pulled up the plank in the floor where he now kept the phone. He returned to Franklin with it and pressed the power button. The phone started with its signature beeps.
“An electric bird,” Franklin observed with a smile.
“An expensive bird,” Matt said. “This was the newest model.”
“Not many people had these?”
“Most at least had the basic version. This one was very expensive because it does more. I was able to put thirty movies on here, all my music, and a bunch of pictures.”
“Movies?”
“Talking pictures…like a play.”
Matt took Franklin on a tour of his movie collection for most of an hour. He resisted the temptation to show him anything with zombies, vampires, or space creatures, so as not to shock the man. Matt commented whenever he thought he should to help Franklin interpret American life based on the images that moved across the screen.
“Can I control it myself?” Franklin asked. He reached his hand out. “I’ve seen how you touch the symbols.”
Matt handed Franklin the phone. “Touch lightly.”
“It moves,” Franklin exclaimed when all the symbols followed his finger as he dragged it across the screen. He pressed the camera icon, so Matt took the opportunity to show him how to take a selfie.
“Ha!” Franklin exclaimed, looking at his photo. “I’m immortalized in this machine. What’s this?” Franklin pressed a button before Matt could answer.
“The walkie-talkie function,” Matt said, glancing over briefly to check the screen. “If there’s another person within range, you can talk to them directly.”
Franklin tilted the phone while he looked at the screen. “What’s this dot?”
“That shows the position of your phone, and then it will cast a signal around to pinpoint phones that are within talking range.”
“It says ‘YOU’ here under the blue. What’s this red one?”
“There’s no red one,” Matt said, laughing. “That would mean there’s another phone somewhere.”
Franklin stood up and turned in a circle while holding the phone out at arm’s length. “It moves with me.”
“Probably a glitch,” Matt replied, reaching to take the device and inspect it. Franklin hadn’t been mistaken—there was a red dot.
“Glitch?” Franklin asked.
“Electric noise.”
“So you’re sure there isn’t another one of these smart machines nearby?”
“Smartphone,” Matt corrected.
Franklin gave him a frustrated stare.
“When the scientists from my own time were trying to rescue me, they asked if I had any contact with three others who were in the same accident.” It was as much as Matt knew. The scientists hadn’t been able to find these others over the month that Matt had been texting them through a small wormhole they formed with their reactor. Matt had not seen or heard anything since he had arrived in the colonies to make him believe that the three other time travelers had joined him. In truth, he hadn’t really given them much consideration, thinking that it was highly improbable that he would stumble on them. Even if they had arrived at exactly the same time and place, they would likely also be trying to keep their true identities secret and melt into society.
Franklin interrupted his thoughts. “Do you know these men?”
“It’s one man and two women. I never met them.”
“I want to know what their business is in my city.”
“It’s a glitch,” Matt repeated.
Franklin stared back hard.
Matt selected the red dot on the screen and spoke into the phone. “Anyone out there?”
They waited, but there was nothing.
Matt pressed the red dot again. “Hello, anyone out there.”
He set the phone on the table between them. “Glitch,” Matt repeated knowingly.
“Mother! Shut it off!” said a voice from the phone.
Both men looked down in surprise.
“Are these glitches often the fairer sex?” Franklin said with a satisfied smile.
“Funny man,” Matt replied. In unison, they returned their attention to the phone. Matt grabbed it from the table and touched the red dot again. “Who is this? Can we talk?” By the time he finished his sentence, the red dot had disappeared.
Franklin was rubbing the stubble on his chin. He leaned back with a smug grin. “My fine city is being overrun by people from the future,” he quipped. “Have you some scheme?” Franklin looked at him expectantly.
“What exactly do you want me to say?”
“How about, ‘Praise God, another of my kind has been sent to join me’?” The colonial man smiled.
“I had forgotten the possibility that someone else is here from my time,” Matt replied. “What are the chances?”
“I’m no longer surprised that there are time travelers in my city, but it makes me no less curious when new ones are discovered.”
“Should we try to find them?”
“The daughter doesn’t want to be found
. I wonder, though, what the mother’s ambitions are. She may be seeking a Philadelphia gentleman to comfort her in her new century.” Franklin winked.
“You scoundrel. I’m serious.”
“Well, so am I. I turned this walkie thing on by accident, but she may have already been searching.” He addressed the concerned look on Matt’s face. “I’m hardly a scoundrel, in any case.”
“You think I should find them?”
“Do it on the sly. Nothing of your story.”
“It’ll take forever to search the city.”
“You said that this red dot showed where they are.”
“I only know they’re to the northeast. The distance doesn’t work without the satellites.”
“Satellites?”
“Some other time,” Matt replied. “That red dot could be ten or twenty miles away.”
“It’s two miles to the river,” Franklin said. “Most live on this side. I believe the dog needs a good walk tomorrow afternoon.”
38
Sarah Morris
Matt left work early the next day. He picked up Scout and met Franklin at his home, and they set out to look for the “ladies from the future,” as Franklin now called them. The older man had brought a compass to guide them on a straight path northeast until they reached the river. They were searching for some hint of the future that would give these women away, although Matt had no idea what it might be. He assumed he’d know when he saw it—maybe an odd window decoration, a strangely painted house, or even a novel business. He would scan every storefront for a modern-looking sign. Matt smiled in anticipation of doing a little undercover detective work with his companions.
Matt regretted taking the other “detectives” on his journey after about the first half mile. This was a new area of town for Scout, so he was interested in smelling every bush, hole, or potential animal hiding place. Matt was constantly coaxing the dog forward or begging him to catch up. Franklin, on the other hand, walked too slowly in between those times the dog wasn’t smelling things. The combined effect was that they moved at a snail’s pace. To complicate the journey, they had to work their way across the city blocks in a diagonal fashion, which made it impossible to follow a straight northeastern path.