In Times Like These Boxed Set

by Nathan Van Coops

  “I remember that,” Robbie replies. “I think I hated crabs for a while.” He smiles at the memory and listens to Mr. Cameron continue on about his family’s vacation experiences, but he grows more somber as the conversation continues. I’m not surprised when after we’ve finished the dishes and are up in Blake and Carson’s room, Robbie tells us he’s not going to attend Quickly’s lessons tomorrow.

  “I just need to be here for my own peace of mind.”

  “Do you want me to stay with you?” Francesca asks.

  “No. It’ll be fine. Go ahead. I’m just going to spend some time with Grandpa. I’ll let you know if anything happens.”

  Mr. Cameron’s voice carries up from the stairwell as we’re talking.

  “Benjamin? There is someone at the door for you!”

  I get up and tromp down the stairs. Carson and Francesca follow. When I get to the living room, the shadowy figure of Malcolm is framed in the doorway. Mr. Cameron stands aside so I can talk to him.

  “Hey, man. What’s up?”

  “I require your assistance again,” Malcolm says.

  “More beeps on the beepy box?”

  “Just more . . . questions,” Malcolm replies.

  “Do you need me again, or do you want more of us to go along this time?”

  “I only have transport—”

  “For one,” I finish for him. “Yeah, I know. One of you guys want to take this one?” I ask Carson and Francesca.

  “No. It’s all you, dude,” Carson says.

  “Yeah, it’s freezing out there,” Francesca says.

  “Okay. Let me grab a jacket.”

  Malcolm’s scooter is parked on the curb in front of the porch. He hands me a pair of goggles to wear this time. We don’t have far to go to reach our destination. Malcolm pulls us into a rental storage facility and revs his scooter over the track after the gate opens. The rows of doors in the metal buildings are painted orange.

  Malcolm steers us to the far back of the facility to a building marked Q. We dismount the scooter and he walks up to the door of unit 112. He pulls a flashlight from his bag and dangles it from his mouth by its lanyard as he fiddles with the lock. He’s not using a key, but rather a set of lock-picking tools.

  “Whose unit is this?” I ask.

  “Someone who isn’t going to be very happy,” Malcolm mumbles through his teeth as he bites the lanyard. He pops off the lock and tosses it on the ground. The beam of light from the flashlight bounces around as Malcolm pulls up on the door. I step forward to help him lift it. A powerful stench assaults my nose as the door rolls up. I take a few steps backward.

  “Oh God. What is that?” I say.

  Malcolm pulls a handkerchief out of his bag and holds it over his nose and mouth as he shines the light into the unit. I pull the front of my T-shirt up to my face as I walk closer. Malcolm’s flashlight illuminates a crowded space full of furniture and boxes. A wooden china cabinet is inserted into the center, along with a mattress set and some portable fans. Battered cardboard boxes bear labels like “Kitchen utensils” and “Dining room.” A deer head with a large rack of antlers stares at the ceiling from atop the china cabinet

  “There.”

  I step next to him and follow the beam of light to where he’s pointing. “I don’t see . . . oh. Oh man, what is that?” A flesh-colored protrusion juts from the mattress set and joins the back of the cabinet. “Is that an . . . elbow?”

  Malcolm shines the light to the left of the mattress and I follow it to see a human hand jutting out the top, with a few of its fingers imbedded in the cardboard box next to it. The box is labeled “Kitchen appliances.”

  I back away. “That’s disgusting.”

  Malcolm is watching my face. He shuffles more objects around and slides himself in front of the china cabinet. I take a few steps to the right to see what he’s doing. Moving a painting of a sad clown, he reveals a human torso in a peach bathrobe. There are used facial tissues protruding from one of the pockets.

  He pries open the set of cabinet doors closest to us and shines the light inside. The head of a woman is staring blankly out at me. One of the glass shelves of the china cabinet is passing through the side of her head. There is no blood. Her face looks almost serene.

  “You ever see her before?” Malcolm says.

  The smell gets to me and I turn around and vomit into the runoff drain between the buildings.

  Damn it. Those were really good ribs.

  Malcolm clicks off his flashlight. I hear him kicking a few of the boxes back inside the unit so he can shut the door. I keep leaning over, holding my knees and spitting the taste of puke and barbeque sauce out of my mouth.

  “What the hell was that, Malcolm?”

  “A fusion event.” He pulls the temporal spectrometer out of his bag and takes a reading. He shows me the screen. The lines and squiggles on the graph mean nothing to me. “She has the same temporal frequency as you do. Just like the van.”

  “You can’t possibly think I caused that,” I say, pointing to the closed door. “I don’t even know what that was in there.”

  “No. That was caused by temporal matter fusion, two objects trying to occupy the same space at the same time. Looks like she was using some kind of kitchen appliance when she got zapped. I just thought you might know her. She’s from your time.”

  “I’ve never seen her before.”

  Malcolm puts the spectrometer back in his bag and pulls out his note pad. “This is the sixth fusion event I’ve recorded this week. All of them have your same time signature. They’re likely all victims of the same incident. So far, you and your friends are the only ones I’ve found alive.”

  “This is some job Quickly has you doing,” I spit again into the drain. “Time travel crime scene investigator. Do you put that on your resume? You could make yourself quite a reputation. Time travel around, solve homicides.” I straighten up.

  Malcolm pauses before he responds. He looks away to his scooter as he speaks. “Dr. Quickly requires that I stay here. I don’t time travel.”

  “Why’s that?” I ask. “You don’t get a chronometer to go with your temporal beepometer?”

  Malcolm eyes the chronometer on my wrist. “Dr. Quickly requires that I stay ‘constant.’ He says that there are already too many variables. He needs someone he can rely on to stay steady for his calculations.”

  “Is that what my friends and I are to you?” I say. “Variables?”

  “Yes. You come and go. Time travelers are always variables.”

  I check my jacket to make sure I didn’t get any vomit on it, then zip it up the rest of the way. “Okay. Where to next, Constant Malcolm? I could use a drink, or at least something to wash my mouth out. Unless you want me breathing vomit breath at you the whole ride home.”

  Malcolm stays quiet but nods. We climb onto the scooter and get back on the road. A mile or two down the street I spot a dive bar with an open sign. We park the scooter near a group of Harleys and I smile at the bikers standing by them as we walk in. One of them consents to giving me a nod. Malcolm keeps his eyes ahead as we go inside.

  We grab a booth, and a petite, dark-haired server glides over to take our order. One of her giant hoop earrings is slightly tangled in her permed, black hair. Malcolm gets momentarily distracted by her low cut T-shirt and mumbles something about needing a moment. I order a beer and a dozen wings.

  “You owe me my dinner back,” I say. Malcolm gives me a cool stare but then nods. He orders an iced tea.

  “So what kind of other investigations have you been doing? Tell me about what else you’ve found,” I say.

  Malcolm lays his messenger bag on the table, pulls a manila envelope out, and slides it toward me. “Mostly they’ve been fusion events. One was more interesting though. Last night a coed at the law college got murdered in her dorm. She wasn’t a time traveler, but I found evidence of a temporal anomaly around her building. I couldn’t get in the dorm because they had it cordoned off by police, but e
ventually I’ll get in. I’ll see what kind of signature I can pick up.”

  I pull some photos and a couple of reports out of the envelope. “Are these police reports?”

  “Yes. I have contacts in the police department.”

  “Did you tell them about Stenger?”

  “No. I haven’t had any evidence of this person yet.”

  “You have a van with murdered people in it, and no one knows where it came from. That’s pretty substantial don’t you think?”

  “Not conclusive enough to point to a specific suspect,” he says. “If I go to my police contacts, I want to have something conclusive to offer them. I want them to take me seriously.”

  I enjoy the beer when it arrives. Malcolm eats most of my wings when they show up, but I don’t mind. Looks like he needs them more than me anyway. Plus he’s buying.

  When Malcolm drops me back off in front of the house I hand him his goggles. “Let me know if you find anything else conclusive about that law student murder. I still think you might be looking for my guy. I don’t know why he would be murdering college girls, but the guy is crazy, who knows what he’s up to. You should be careful.”

  “I’ll see if I can find him,” he says.

  “I’d bring a big-ass gun,” I say.

  Malcolm nods and rides away.

  Or a grenade launcher.

  <><><>

  Dr. Quickly seems unaffected by Robbie’s absence in the morning and plunges us into lessons as soon as we arrive. I’m given the same tape measure I used for the previous day’s lesson but today we’re each given new chronometers.

  “These are fully functional chronometers with timing pins installed,” Quickly explains. “I want you to get used to dealing with the real thing. Exercise extreme caution with them. You know what they are capable of.”

  Quickly also gives us each a box with four anchors in them. Each one is unique in its coloring and design, though the internal symbols are identical.

  “I had these anchors made specially for each of you. None of them have ever been used. It will be your responsibility to take care of them and take detailed notice of their existences. You’ll be using these anchors to make real jumps through time. Their security is vital to your safety.”

  Quickly leads us into a part of the lab on the second level that we’ve never been to before. It’s a long hallway with doors on each side. The rooms appear to be empty with the exception of an occasional table or anchor stand. I notice that each room has more than one door. On each of the rooms we pass the doors are green. We enter one of the rooms and I notice that the interior side of the door we pass through is painted blue and there is again a green door on the far wall. I’m curious about the reasoning, but assume it will be explained.

  “I would like you all to note the time we entered the room,” Quickly says. We do as he instructs, hastily scribbling the time into the “Location in” column in our logbooks.

  Quickly has us stand along one wall of the room and he himself goes over to the anchor stand in the center. The stand itself is unremarkable. It’s a steel pole mounted in the concrete floor that rises up about four feet and terminates with three short metal prongs. Quickly takes one of his own glass anchors from his pocket and sets it on the metal prongs of the stand.

  “Today we’re going to work on what I consider the easiest and safest manner of jump that we can attempt. In front of you we have a stationary stand. The height of your anchor from the ground will remain fixed and should not change, as we are only going to be jumping small increments in a future direction with friends here to keep your jump destination clear.”

  We all perk up at this news.

  “Before we can get you hurtling through time and space however, we have deal with the matter of your clothes.”

  “Our clothes?” Francesca asks.

  “Unless you would like to spend the next few hours in your birthday suit, we’re going to need some clothing for you that will be able to go along for the ride. Are any of you wearing any of the clothes you had on during your original jump from 2009?”

  I do a mental inventory of what I have on. I pull back the waistband of my pants and check my boxer shorts. I discover that even those are new acquisitions from the last few days. It turns out that with the exception of Francesca’s underwear, none of us are wearing clothes from 2009.

  “We’re going to have to work on treating your new clothes with the gravitites over the next few days, but for the time being, you’ll have to use some of my lab jumpsuits. There is a selection in the lockers in the hall. Use the bathrooms down the hall to change and meet me back here.”

  We pile into the hall and find the lockers Quickly is talking about. There are at least a dozen brown and white jumpsuits of different sizes. There are also a couple of stacks of white T-shirts and undershorts. We scrounge until we find some that match up with our sizes. When we’ve changed, we’re back in the anchor stand room, barefoot and holding our little piles of clothes. Francesca is swimming in her oversized jumpsuit and mine is too short in the sleeves, but they are comfortable.

  “Just throw your things in the corner for now. Pay attention to what you’ve learned so far. You will set your chronometers for a thirty-second jump. You will place your chronometer hand firmly on top of your anchor like this, being sure to have firm contact, but not touching anything else, then using your free hand, you will activate your chronometer.”

  Quickly demonstrates the motions at the stand for us and I pay rapt attention.

  “The chronometer will automatically record the time of your jump if you are setting a specific date and time to arrive, allowing you the opportunity to log the precise moment for your records. If you are using an amount of time to jump, such as a half hour, or thirty seconds, you’ll need to keep track of the time you arrive yourself. It helps to have a watch or clock handy for that.” He gestures to the wall clock over the exit door. “Once you’ve logged it, you’ll be ready for another jump.”

  The factual manner that Quickly is using to describe the process does not prevent my heart from pounding in my chest. It has time to calm a little as we all take turns practicing how to stand and simulating the jump. When Quickly asks us who would like to make the first jump, it’s Carson who volunteers. The rest of us line up against the wall as Quickly checks Carson’s positioning and double checks his chronometer settings.

  “Looks like a go. Anytime you’re ready,” Quickly says, and steps back. Carson keeps his hand on his anchor and double checks that he’s not touching the stand. He breathes out heavily a couple of times and then looks at us. I give him a thumbs up. He smiles and reaches for his chronometer. For a fraction of a second his red hair raises up and then he’s gone. I realize I’ve been holding my breath and breathe out. Dr. Quickly is observing a pocket watch. I exchange looks with Blake and Francesca.

  “Oh that is scary,” Francesca blurts out, hopping up and down involuntarily. We wait in silence for the seconds to tick by. I begin starting to count in my head just to calm my mind. I watch the stand and Carson’s anchor sitting there undisturbed. I feel like minutes have ticked by, but know it’s just my apprehension. The next moment Carson is back exactly as we last saw him.

  “Did it work?” he asks.

  My tension dissipates. Blake laughs out loud. Carson smiles with elation at having succeeded.

  “That was the longest thirty seconds of my life!” Francesca exclaims and gives Carson a hug.

  “What did it feel like?” Blake asks.

  “Not bad really,” Carson responds. “It feels like a shock you get in the winter from static, a little tingly but not painful.”

  Francesca smiles at him, and Blake and I pat him on the back.

  “What do you need to do next, Carson?” Dr. Quickly asks from the side of the room.

  “Ahh . . . Oh, I need to log in my time!” Carson takes to writing down his arrival time in his log. Quickly takes Carson’s anchor from the stand and puts it back in Carson’s box f
or him.

  “Who is next?”

  I raise my hand. “I’ll do it.”

  Carson smiles and makes his way to the wall. He’s chatting with Francesca but I tune them out. I select one of my anchors that has a dark blue swirl through it, and place it on the stand. My heart is pounding in my chest but I ignore it and concentrate on my chronometer. Set to time skip. Interval set to thirty seconds. Jump pin unlocked. Hand on top of the anchor, pressing firmly. Free hand to press the pin.

  Quickly checks my settings and then gives me a nod. My friends along the wall are watching me eagerly. I look up to the clock, watching its second hand ticking past the forty second mark. I take a deep breath and push the jump pin.

  I get a tingling all through my skin. It feels like I blinked but I can’t be sure. Nothing happens. Quickly’s face is impassive. I look over to my friends. Carson is grinning.

  “That was so cool!” he exclaims.

  “It worked?”

  “Yeah, dude. That was awesome.”

  “It’s still just as crazy the second time,” Francesca says.

  Incredulous, I look up at the clock. Sure enough, the second hand is ticking its way past the twenty mark. “That was way less dramatic than I expected.”

  “I want to go.” Blake grabs one of the anchors out of his box.

  I pick up my anchor and pull my logbook out of my pocket. “So these books can just make the jump right along with us?”

  “You can bring anything that has been previously impregnated with the gravitites. I had previously treated the books. That brings up an interesting safety concern that you should be mindful of. If you’re going to be jumping to and from the same location, you have to be careful that all of your possessions are treated, because if they aren’t, they’ll fall to the ground where you left them, and could present a hazard to your return. If no one clears that area for you, you could end up with a pen or a necklace imbedded in your foot when you jump back. Food for thought.”

  Throughout the rest of the lesson, Quickly continues to casually toss out these little tidbits. “Mind that you don’t sever your fingers off by picking a time when your anchor is in the box.” Or, “Remember to keep firm contact so you don’t end up a floater in orbit.” Initially I’m shocked into wide-eyed attention, but after a while, I find I’m tuning out the fear. Quickly seems confident that we are going to be okay, so I try to be trusting.