In Times Like These Boxed Set

by Nathan Van Coops

  Blake stands up and looks at his line of jump objects. “I’m just not sure how much longer I can wait. Things are getting pretty crazy around here. I really don’t want to get stuck.”

  “Yeah, you know I love Mr. Cameron too, Robbie,” Francesca says. “But the fact that there is a fire starting serial killer that has run into you guys twice now . . . that’s starting to freak me out. I want to make sure your grandpa’s okay of course, but I would really like to get back to my normal life, too.”

  We are quiet for a few moments.

  “I can stick around with you for a bit, Robbie,” Carson says. “I’m not that worried about Stenger, and I can teach you some of this stuff.” He shakes his arm and the chronometer wiggles around on his wrist. “It doesn’t really matter what time we all leave, right? We could all still get there at the same time.”

  That’s true.

  “Yeah that makes sense,” I say. “As long as we plan to meet up at the same point we’ll all be getting back to our lives around the same time. Some of us will be a little older than the others, relatively speaking, but that won’t matter too much. A couple of weeks aren’t going to be noticeable.”

  “So we go first, and they meet up?” Francesca asks. “You’re coming with us, right, Ben?”

  I look from her questioning eyes to Robbie’s. I turn to Carson. “You think you would be okay showing Robbie the ropes?”

  “Definitely,” Carson says. “It’ll be fun. Carson’s backyard school of time travel. I may have to charge for my superior expertise though.” He winks at Robbie.

  Robbie looks relieved.

  “So we’ll need to divide this stuff up into two trips worth then,” Blake says.

  I look at our lines of anchors. “Yeah. We can try to divvy it up so it’s fair.”

  “Can we divvy tomorrow?” Francesca yawns. “It’s late.”

  “Yeah. I’m bushed,” Carson says. “Saving all of your asses took it out of me today.”

  Francesca lobs a pillow at him. “You’re so humble about it, too.”

  I say goodnight, and after brushing my teeth, make my way downstairs. Spartacus follows, and climbs on top of me when I lie down on the couch. I try to avoid his awkwardly placed paws until he finally settles down, wedged between me and the couch cushions.

  “Don’t worry, buddy. Your master will be okay.” He lays his head on my chest and I scratch him behind the ears for a bit before drifting off to the slow rhythm of his breathing.

  Spartacus is gone when I wake up. I find him in the kitchen intently following Robbie’s hand as he moves it from his cereal bowl to his mouth. Robbie gently nudges the dog out of his way and makes his way to the table and sits down. “You already had breakfast, you mooch.”

  “I guess he knows we’re suckers and thinks he might get more out of us without Mr. Cameron around,” I say as I open the refrigerator door.

  “I think he has Grandpa wrapped around his finger, too. Or paw. Whatever you would say there.”

  “Anybody else up?” I ask.

  “I heard someone moving around up there recently. I’ve been up for a bit. Didn’t sleep very well. I think I’m going to head back over to the hospital pretty soon to see how things are going.”

  “You want the keys to the Galaxie?”

  “No. I still have Grandpa’s car.”

  “We’ll probably join you in a bit. I might try to do some more organizing. You sure you’re okay with staying here without us? I don’t want you to feel like we’re ditching you.”

  “No. It’s okay. Carson will be a big help. He seems like he’s pretty confident he can teach me what we need to know to get back. Plus, you never know. Quickly may show back up and I might be able to get some more lessons from him.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Do you know if Malcolm went with them?”

  “No, I haven’t heard anything from him lately. I don’t think he would have gone with them.” Constant Malcolm. “I might give him a call at the Temporal Society and see if he knows what’s going on with Quickly and Mym. They may have filled him in on more details. He’ll probably want to know what we saw with Stenger too. That should finally convince him I was telling the truth about that guy.”

  By the time I’ve finished my breakfast, the others have made it downstairs. I feed the parrots and let them fly around the house for a bit. I take a seat in the library and browse through Dr. Quickly’s journal. Mercutio lands on the back of my chair and starts chirping at me.

  The journal entries are not in chronological order. It occurs to me after a few minutes that it might be Quickly’s life that is out of order, and the journal might be chronological according to him. I skim through a few drawings of chronometer parts and then find an illustration of what appears to be a black hole. The next page shows a sketch of some sort of vessel on the front of a wave. The drawing is labeled “The Alcubierre Drive.” I flip through a few more pages and find a section describing jump methods.

  That’s interesting.

  “Hey guys,” I say, poking my head into the dining room. “We can jump simultaneously using the same object. He says it’s even possible to jump more than one person with only one chronometer.” I walk in and set the open journal down between Blake and Francesca as I read it. “As long as both people are infused with gravitites and the chronometer has enough power to compensate for the additional mass, it can still conduct the jump.”

  “Speaking of power, I haven’t charged mine in a couple of days,” Blake says. “Did you guys grab the chargers?”

  “Yeah, I grabbed 'em,” Carson says.

  “Cool,” Blake says. “I’m gonna go plug mine in.”

  Robbie stands up also. “I’m heading over to the hospital.”

  Francesca gives Robbie a hug before he leaves. “Tell him good morning for us too.”

  Carson, Francesca and I clean up our dishes and join Blake in his bedroom. “How soon do you guys want to leave?” Carson asks.

  I look to Blake. “I don’t know. As soon as practical I guess.”

  “I was kind of hoping we could go tomorrow,” Blake says.

  “That soon?” Francesca frowns.

  “Well, if we’re going to go, I don’t really see the sense in putting it off. Plus Stenger found the lab. How long till he finds this place?”

  “That’s not really cool of us to leave Carson and Robbie here alone to deal with him then. And Mr. Cameron is sick. They’re not going to be very safe,” Francesca says.

  “I don’t think he’s going to show up here,” Carson says. “He would have no reason to.”

  “We’re leaving you the gun in any case,” I say. “I’ll hope you won’t need it, but it can’t hurt your odds.”

  We organize a bit more of the jump anchors and I put in a call to the Temporal Studies Society, but the secretary claims to have not seen Malcolm in a couple of days, and says she doesn’t know when he’ll be returning. A little before lunchtime, we’re walking out to the Galaxie to go visit the hospital, when Robbie pulls into the driveway. Mr. Cameron is in the right seat. I walk up to his window to say hi.

  “I’ve escaped!” Mr. Cameron smiles. He looks pale but seems in good spirits.

  “Wow, that was fast,” Francesca says.

  I open Mr. Cameron’s door and Robbie holds his cane out for him. I grip Mr. Cameron’s forearm and help him get out of the car. Once he’s on his feet, Francesca gives him a gentle hug.

  “They said he could go home, but he needs to rest,” Robbie says. “He couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

  “My nurse last night smelled like an ashtray. And she was a little too interested in my business,” Mr. Cameron says. He mutters behind his hand to Francesca. “My man business.”

  Francesca laughs and blushes slightly. “Well you can’t fault her taste in men.”

  I take his left arm and help him along the walk to the house. When Robbie opens the door, Spartacus rushes out to lick Mr. Cameron’s hand and squirm around his legs. I
help him to the library to his armchair.

  “I hear I’m not the only one who had an exciting night last night,” Mr. Cameron says as he settles into his chair.

  “Yeah, we had a couple of thrilling moments, too,” I say.

  He pats me on the arm. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay, too.”

  We hang around the kitchen and library most of the afternoon, making lunch and spending time with Mr. Cameron. As the sun is beginning to sink, I decide it’s time to fill him in on our plans to depart.

  “I can’t say I won’t be sad to see you go,” he replies. “You have all brought a much needed ray of light into my life. It’s been a most enjoyable experience.”

  “Carson and Robbie are going to keep you company a while longer, assuming you can still put up with them.”

  “I’ve gotten pretty used to Carson’s guitar strumming in the evening. I’m glad I get to keep that a little longer,” Mr. Cameron says. “And Robbie is family. I can’t very well kick out my own family.”

  “Tell that to Mom when I turn eighteen,” Robbie says.

  “Will you be okay getting back without your scientist friend?” Mr. Cameron asks.

  “We hope so,” Blake says. “We had some pretty solid practice in the lab, and around town.”

  We chat for a while longer, but before long, Mr. Cameron’s head starts to nod. We leave him alone so he can rest, and go upstairs to finish our planning. Robbie opts to take the dog out.

  “So, Carson, we’re leaving you most of your anchors you had from planning,” I say. “We divided out the anchors as evenly as possible, but I traded you my doorknocker for your bike handle. We needed something we could jump to in one shot. I figured you might be able to find another decent first jump point to replace it, since you’ll have a bit more time here to work on it.”

  “That’s fine,” Carson says.

  “I gave you a bunch of my nineties stuff,” Blake says.

  Carson surveys the two groups. “What about that one?” He points to my tortoise shell, sitting by itself against the wall.

  “I’m keeping that one. It technically goes in the early nineties I guess, but I’m keeping it as a last resort kind of thing,” I say.

  “It looks okay to me. Robbie and I can probably scrounge some more if we need to. Are we aiming to get back to the same day we left, or after?”

  “We don’t have any anchors from that same day, but we can get close. I’m hoping to be able to do a couple of short blinks once we’re in the vicinity,” I say. “Let’s plan on meeting on the same day we left in any case. After the game obviously.”

  “Works for me,” Carson says.

  “Do you guys need some money?” Francesca says.

  “Oh yeah, I guess we can divide that up too,” I say. We divvy out the stacks of hundreds. Francesca and I each take a backpack and begin loading it with our items. I save my tortoise shell for last and stuff it in the top. I take another glance at the photo wedged inside the shell. “When all hope is lost.” Maybe I won’t ever need that.

  We round up the items of clothing Quickly treated with gravitites for us and stuff those in as best we can. I wiggle my logbook into the front pocket of my pack and have trouble getting the flap closed. “I don’t think we can fit anything else in here.”

  With nothing else to pack, we wander downstairs to socialize. When dinner is ready, we eat it out on the veranda on the second floor. We watch Spartacus chase lizards from under potted plants as we share some wine and a dish of enchiladas Francesca made. When the stars come out, it makes me wonder where I’ll be the next time I’ll see them. I watch Mr. Cameron chatting with Blake about the state of the garden in the yard and get a sudden pang of sadness. I’m going to miss him.

  The melancholy makes me feel like being quiet the rest of the night, but I make a point to chat cheerfully with Mr. Cameron whenever the opportunity presents itself. The evening ends too soon. After I’ve showered, I say my goodnights to everyone upstairs and make my way down to the couch. Spartacus hangs out with me briefly but doesn’t climb onto the couch this time. “You have your buddy back now, huh?” I say to the dog. He cocks his head at me as he listens and his tail begins to wag. “I wish you were a time traveling dog.”

  He pads over and nuzzles me on the couch and lets me scratch behind his ears for a bit. I give him a hug and tussle his fur, but after a while, he wanders toward the stairs and makes his way up them. I follow him with my eyes as he goes. “Okay, bud. I guess we all have our priorities.” I lie on the couch staring at the ceiling for a bit. I half hope that I will hear Malcolm climbing the front porch to drag me out on another investigation.

  No one shows.

  Last night in 1986. I wonder how far we’ll have made it by tomorrow night.

  15

  “If you post your used concert tickets on Craigslist and someone actually buys them, you know you’ve found yourself a time traveler.”

  -Excerpt from the journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 2013

  “Where are we going to do this?” Blake is standing in the kitchen, holding Carson’s bike handle and the corresponding photograph. The photograph shows a child’s bicycle propped on its kickstand on the sidewalk in front of a blue house. The description on the photo lists the bike handle as being 38 1/2 inches off the ground. Mr. Cameron has loaned us his tape measure since we didn’t bring any of Dr. Quickly’s.

  “I guess we could do it anywhere really,” I say.

  “Let’s use the backyard,” Francesca says. “It’s nice out.”

  I pick up my pack and carry it out the back steps. The mid-morning sun feels good on my skin. Mr. Cameron and Robbie are already out there watching the dog foraging through the garden. Francesca is carrying the other pack.

  “You want me to carry that for you?” Blake asks.

  “No. I got it,” she says.

  We congregate in the middle of the walkway to the garage and find a cement paver that looks level.

  “I guess we can measure from here. As long as we have the handle lower than thirty-eight inches, our feet will show up higher than ground level.”

  “You know which way is up on that handle?” Francesca asks.

  “Yeah, it’s got these little finger grip things on it,” Blake says, pointing to the picture. “This way is down.” He twists the bike grip so the finger bumps point at an angle toward the ground.

  “Okay. Just checking,” Francesca says.

  “That’s good,” I say. “We should check each other’s work a lot, just to be sure.”

  Once we’ve figured out the details of our jump, Blake sets the bike handle down and we turn to our host. Robbie helps Mr. Cameron out of the lawn chair, but once up, Mr. Cameron seems to be doing okay on his own. We meet them in the middle of the grass.

  “I guess this is it,” I say.

  “You have everything all set?” Mr. Cameron asks.

  “As ready as we’re going to be.”

  “It’s going to be exciting to see it. I’ve never had any time travel in my backyard before. I should have sold tickets to the neighbors.”

  “Maybe you can set that up for Robbie and Carson.” I smile.

  “It has been a pleasure having you here, Ben.” Mr. Cameron steps forward to embrace me. When he steps back, he pats my shoulder. “You’re a good man.”

  “Thank you, sir. Thank you for . . . everything.”

  Francesca is next. She wraps her arms around his neck and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “It was great having a lovely young woman in the house again,” Mr. Cameron says. “I wish Abby could have met you. I think she would have loved getting to know you.”

  “It was really great being here,” Francesca says. “Thank you so much for being so kind to us. I’m really going to miss this place.” Francesca steps back and brushes a tear away with her finger.

  “Blake.” Mr. Cameron gives him a hug as well. “I wish you all the best in getting back to your futu
re fiancé. She’s lucky to have a man like you fighting for her.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Blake says. “Thank you for all your generosity. I don’t know where we would be without you.”

  Robbie gives my hand a shake. “See you in a bit, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I smile. “Take good care of them.”

  Francesca hugs Robbie as Carson extends me his hand. “Be careful, dude.”

  “We will. You too,” I reply. “Don’t linger too long. We’ll need you back throwing batting practice. Big game next week.”

  Carson smiles. “Yeah, no worries. Those guys are chumps. We’re gonna crush ’em.” I pull him in for a hug.

  Francesca and Carson stand apart for a moment.

  “Later gator,” Carson says.

  Francesca hugs him and lingers a moment before stepping back. “After a while crocodi—” She turns her head and wipes away more tears.

  “Don’t worry, kid. We’ll see you there,” Carson says.

  Francesca nods, still holding her hand under her nose. Mr. Cameron offers her his handkerchief.

  “Now get outta here,” Carson says. “We’ve got shit to do today.”

  I smile and we make our way back to our bike handle. Spartacus comes by and sniffs it before Mr. Cameron calls him. “Leave that alone, you menace. They need that.”

  Blake picks up the bike handle and Francesca and I huddle around him. “Let’s see that picture again,” I say. Blake pulls it out of his back pocket with his free hand and I take it. I extend Mr. Cameron’s tape measure back to the ground. “So thirty-eight inches is here.” I hold my hand out and Blake lowers the handle a few inches below it. “We’re going to have a little bit of a drop when we get there.”

  “That’s great. I love immediately falling on my ass whenever I show up somewhere,” Francesca says.

  “Shouldn’t be that bad,” Blake says. Francesca and I crouch and put out our chronometer hands to touch the bike handle, making sure to stay clear of where the rest of the bike will be.

  “You guys all look ridiculous by the way,” Carson says from behind us.

  “You’re not helping, Carson,” Francesca replies.