by Jaxon Reed
Nancy gave him a knowing smile. She pulled out her own envelope and pushed open the door to the building.
Inside, two women unloaded uniforms from a large basket and hung each one on a metal rail hanging from the ceiling. A man watching them turned at the sound of the door opening, waved at Rick and Nancy then walked over to greet them.
“You must be the new arrivals. I just got word this morning we’d have some more people joining the team. Welcome. I’m Adam Thursk.”
Rick shook his hand and said, “Rick Strickland.”
“I’m Nancy Strickland.”
Rick turned and shot a questioning eyebrow at her. She smiled sweetly at him and said, “We’re newlyweds!”
Adam chuckled and said, “Well, I know you didn’t drive in at the front gate several miles back without going through inspection and all that, but I better take a look at your papers anyway.”
They handed over their envelopes. Adam took the sheets and quickly glanced them over, noting the names lined up with what they had said.
“Alrighty, let’s get to work. Nancy you can join the ladies over there and they’ll show you what to do with the uniforms. Rick, let’s go outside and I’ll introduce you to our exciting task for Uncle Sam’s war effort.”
The men walked out the door and Nancy headed toward the two women, a blonde and a brunette.
She said to herself, “How come he gets to go outside and have fun? I’m not going to see anything here.”
Cait said, “Societal norms in the 1940s were such that women were expected to maintain more domesticated roles. The war changed that to some extent, but—”
“I don’t need a history lesson, Cait. I lived during this era. I’m just grumbling, that’s all.”
The two ladies looked up from their work as she approached and flashed smiles. They stopped what they were doing and came over to talk. Both looked middle-aged, and wore light blue overalls just like Nancy.
The blonde one pointed to the brunette and said, “That’s Nora. I’m Lena.”
“I’m Nancy. So, what are we doing?”
“We don’t know!” Nora said. She and Lena laughed.
Lena said, “We do know the system, and we can teach you that easily enough. First, we unload all the uniforms as they come in off the trucks. We hang them up on the rail here, then we run this thing over each uniform.”
Lena pointed to a Geiger counter on the floor nearby.
Nora said, “You turn it on with the switch there, and wave the wand over each jumpsuit. Like this.”
She reached down to click the unit on and demonstrated. The machine made a couple of clicks as she waved the wand around.
Nancy said, “So, then what?”
Nora said, “If the machine makes a lot of noise, we pull the uniform off the line and put it in a lead sack. Then the truck picks it up on the next round and they take it back to the cleaners.”
“Okay. That seems easy enough. I’ll help unload.”
Nora and Lena looked at each other, then back at Nancy. Lena said, “Don’t you want to know why we’re doing this, sweetie?”
Nancy said, “Not particularly. They said not to ask questions.”
“Yeah, sure,” Nora said, “But we’d still like to know why we’re doing this. Why wave the wand over every uniform? Why do some uniforms make the machine click more than others? And what’s the clicking mean, anyway?”
Nancy shrugged. “If it was important for us to know, I’m sure they’d tell us.”
Both women laughed again. Lena said, “They don’t tell us anything. Curiosity is about to eat us up.”
“Well,” Nancy said, “curiosity killed the cat.”
Nora said, “You’ll fit in well here!”
Lena agreed. “But eventually, you’ll go nuts trying to figure out why we’re doing the things we do.”
Adam and Rick walked down the road side by side. Adam carried a rucksack strapped to his back and a Geiger counter, the sensor mounted on the end of a rod. He waved the rod over the road as they walked.
Adam said, “Basically, all you have to do is make the rounds around town and listen for clicking.”
“It’s clicking now, every once in a while,” Rick said, pointing at the machine.
“Yeah, but you’ll know when you get a hit. The clicking will pick up considerably. It sounds like rocks raining down on a tin roof.”
“So, what do we do when that happens?”
“You mark the spot with flags,” Adam said, and he opened his rucksack so Rick could see the collection of little metal rods with square red cloths attached. “Then you find the nearest phone and call it in.”
“What happens after that?”
“Your part is done. The clean up crew will come out and scrub down the area. Then you’ll go over it again to make sure the clicks are back in normal range, and everybody goes home.”
“Does it happen often? Do you need to call in a lot?”
“Nah. Only rarely. Usually it’s when something falls out of a truck.”
“So what is that thing doing? What it makes it click?”
“Heck if I know. Just do the job. The fewer questions you ask, the better. They don’t like people asking questions around here.”
Adam punctuated the statement with a meaningful frown at Rick. Rick nodded and stopped talking.
That evening at 5:00 o’clock, Adam and Rick returned from their rounds. Lena and Nora said their goodbyes while Adam went into the back office to file some reports. With nothing left to do, Rick and Nancy wandered off toward the houses in the middle of town.
“How long are we staying here?” Rick said. “And where are we staying?”
Nancy said, “Cait is telling me there’s a house we can borrow. She’ll guide us there. Come on.”
They walked into a quiet neighborhood filled with modest two bedroom homes and white picket fences. A couple of the yards had victory gardens out front.
“Looks like a typical small town,” Rick said. “Except everything is newly built. And nobody really knows anybody or what they’re doing here.”
Nancy pointed at a house near the end of the street and said, “Cait tells me this one is vacant at the moment. We’ll stay there for a while.”
They went through the gate and up a brick sidewalk to the front porch, which had a wooden bench swing hanging from chains attached to its arms. Rick opened the screen door and tried the handle on the door. It opened into a dark living room. He fumbled along the wall and found a switch.
The room flooded with light. He said, “Thank the Lord for the Tennessee River Valley Authority!”
They made their way to the kitchen and Rick opened the cupboards. He said, “There’s no food here.”
Nancy opened the Westinghouse refrigerator in one corner and found it empty, too. She said, “I’ll ask Cait to bring us something to eat.”
Moments later, a vertical line of blue light appeared in the kitchen, quickly growing wider. Cait handed over several brown paper bags full of canned food, fresh fruits and vegetables, a loaf of bread, sandwich meat, and other cuts of beef and pork. Nancy and Rick quickly filled the cupboards and the refrigerator.
Rick said, “I gotta admit, Cait’s pretty handy. Glad she’s on our side.”
Nancy smiled and said, “Technically, we’re cheating. On a typical mission, we’d figure out how to make it without this much help. But, we’re in something of a bind to save this alternate from disaster. And fae always cheat. So, I don’t have any problems with bending the rules a bit.”
Rick nodded and said, “If you’re just using the tools available to you, it’s not really cheating.”
After supper, Nancy offered to take the couch, putting the embarrassing question of where they’d sleep to rest. Rick didn’t protest. He brought her a pillow and a quilt he found in the closet, then retreated to the bedroom.
Nancy said, “Wake me up if anything out of the ordinary happens, Cait. Or if you detect Felix anywhere.”
Cait assured Nancy she would sound the alarm if either occurred. Nancy quickly dozed off to a dreamless sleep.
Chapter 7
The following day began much as the previous one. After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, washed down with an alternate world’s coffee, Nancy and Rick made their way back to the Uniform Depot. While they walked down the street, passing and waving at other people also starting their day, Nancy gave Rick a short metal stick about six inches long.
“Here, put this in your pocket.”
He looked it over and said, “What’s it for? Doesn’t seem like much, whatever it is.”
“It’s a rod of pure iron. Deadly to fae. If you get attacked, pull it out and throw it. The inner core is packed with modern technology. Modern by my standards, not yours. Throw it, and it’ll take care of the rest. Its AI is programmed to seek and destroy fae.”
He raised his eyebrows dubiously, ignoring the parts of her statement that made no sense. He said, “Is it better than a gun?”
“Yes, Rick. It’s far better than a gun against these creatures.”
He shrugged and pocketed the weapon, still not convinced of its value.
“One thing I don’t get,” he said as they continued walking. “How can that thing even function in our world? I mean, if iron is as deadly to him as you say, how can he do much of anything? You say he shot you in the head. How could he hold the gun? Guns have iron in them.”
“That’s a good point. They can handle other metals, it’s just pure iron that is most effective at killing them. I’m not sure how they can sit on benches, ride in cars, and shoot guns without responding to the iron used in the alloys of those things. I bet it has something to do with a spell they cast on themselves. Or maybe those artificial human bodies they use to walk among us are immune to steel and alloys. But, poke him with the sharp end of that pure iron rod and he’ll go down, I promise you.”
Soon they reached the Uniform Depot and went inside. Nancy joined Lena and Nora to help them unload a truck filled with lab coats and overalls while Rick and Adam left on their rounds to search for radioactive hotspots.
Adam gave Rick his own Geiger counter and a rucksack filled with flags on the way out. He said, “Now that you know what to do, we’ll split up. You take that half of town, and I’ll take the other. Meet back here at lunch. Between the two of us, we should be able to cover everything twice each day. That’ll look good in the reports.”
The men parted ways and headed in opposite directions.
Everybody broke for lunch, then came back and continued working through the afternoon. At 5:00, Rick and Nancy returned once more to their little house. They listened to the radio while cooking supper together. Later, Nancy found a deck of cards in a drawer, and challenged Rick to gin rummy. She beat him three times in a row before he finally won a round. They played into the night, and at bedtime retired to separate rooms as before.
The next two days proceeded much the same way. After coming home on the third day, as they headed into the kitchen together, Rick said, “This is ridiculous.”
Nancy said, “What? That you can’t play cards worth a flip?”
“No. I mean the waiting. He’s out there somewhere and we’re just sitting here doing nothing.”
“What do you propose to do, Rick? Cait says here is our best bet.”
“Can’t we encourage him to hurry up and get on with it? Bait a trap or something?”
Nancy did not say anything right away, engaging in silent conversation with the computer.
After a minute she looked up and said, “Cait thinks ‘baiting a trap’ is an excellent idea. It seems Oppenheimer is due for a visit. She’s making sure the trip is widely known, despite the top secret security blanket over this area.”
“Oppenheimer? Who’s that?”
“Before the war he was a professor at Berkeley. Now he’s in charge of Los Alamos. He’ll become known as the father of the atom bomb, if Felix doesn’t kill him first.”
“So you think Felix would come out of the woodworks for a chance to get him? Why doesn’t he just go and take him now?”
“That’s just it. Everything is top secret at the moment. He could use magic to find Oppenheimer, maybe. But if he does that then Cait’s sensors would pick up on it and I’d be on him. No, he’s skulking around doing things by hand, the hard way. But Cait thinks if we leak that Oppenheimer is coming here, along with some other irresistible targets, Felix will show up.”
“Irresistible targets? Like who?”
“She’s suggesting Albert Einstein.”
“Oh. Well, at least I’ve heard of him. So he’s involved in the atom bomb, too?”
“No, not really. His part in the Manhattan Project is complete. He endorsed a letter to the President a few years ago encouraging research into city buster munitions. He said it was a feasible project, and his endorsement got the ball rolling. But, he’s not actively involved in the development.”
“So what’s the point of bringing him here, then, if he’s not involved?”
“That’s just it. Einstein is important on every alternate. At least, on every alternate where there is an Einstein. Cait thinks having Oppenheimer and him in the same room will prove too much for Felix to pass up. She can also use his pending arrival as an excuse for letting slip the travel arrangements. It should work out fairly neat, and Felix will never know he’s being set up.”
“Okay, fine. I don’t care how you do it. When can Cait arrange it?”
“She says give her two days.”
Time passed quickly as Rick and Nancy continued settling into their routines. Lena and Nora invited Nancy into their bridge group, but she politely declined. Nancy explained that she and Rick were newlyweds and still enjoyed playing gin rummy every night.
The two older ladies laughed at this. Lena said, “What a delightful euphemism!”
Nancy played dumb and confessed she did not know what Lena was talking about. But the ladies let her off the hook and she was able to stay home another night.
The following morning started as before. After breakfast, Nancy and Rick made their way to the Uniform Depot. Nancy joined Lena and Nora while Rick accompanied Adam outside, where they split up and headed in opposite directions, as usual.
An hour later, while walking along a residential street, Rick heard a truck coming around the corner before he saw it. He decided it must be approaching fast. The engine was revving hard and growing louder. He hurried over to the curb to get out of the way.
It rounded the corner with squealing tires. Something flew out the back, hitting the pavement with a sickening thud!
Rick registered three things at once. First, he realized a body had flown out the back of the truck. Second, he noted a battle for the vehicle’s steering wheel. Finally, he realized it must be Felix fighting the driver at the wheel.
“Cait, tell Nancy that Felix is here!”
He had no idea if Cait could hear him, but he felt shouting wouldn’t hurt.
Rick ran over the to the dead man lying on the road, blood spattered on his blue overalls. His face was swollen. A cut on the side of his head seemed to be the source of all the blood. And probably his death as well, Rick thought.
The closer he came to the body, the more the Geiger counter ticked.
He heard another thud further down the street and realized Felix had thrown out the driver. He quickly tossed a handful of red flags in a circle around the dead man on the street, his Geiger counter chattering incessantly.
Rick looked up as someone opened a front door to one of the nearby houses. A woman stuck her head out. He shouted to her, “Call this in! Someone killed this guy and they’ve stolen a truck!”
Her eyes grew big. She nodded and shut the door. Rick turned and ran down the street toward the driver.
Nancy froze in her tracks as Cait updated her through the neural interface. Nora and Lena looked at her, noticing her sudden stop. She glanced at them and said, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to use the lady�
��s room.”
Nora pointed the way, then shared a knowing smile with Lena as Nancy ran from the room. Nora said, “Ten to one she’s pregnant.”
Once out of sight from the others, Cait said, “I have calculated the probabilities based on Felix’s current route. He is bringing a load of radioactive waste back to the main isotope separation facility.”
“So, that’s his play. A dirty bomb, delivered by truck. Is everything ready?”
“The targets are in place. Oppenheimer, Einstein, and the resident scientists.”
“Good. Get me over there, now!”
A thin sliver of blue-green light appeared, quickly growing wider. Nancy raced through it.
Rick ran up to the driver, writhing in pain on the roadway. His Geiger counter started clicking again, but not as much as before.
He knelt down beside the man.
“Are you okay?”
“I think I broke some ribs. But I’m okay.”
“Just stay put. A lady down the street is calling this in. Any idea where that guy is heading?”
“He’s going back to the main science lab. It’s on the edge of town.”
Rick nodded, and raced after the truck.
Nancy stepped out in front of a large two story brick building. Several cars were parked out front. In the distance, she heard a truck engine approaching.
“If he continues on his current course, he will most likely attempt ramming the front door,” Cait said in her head.
“Got it. I’ll throw some of these cars in his way.”
Nancy moved her arms and hands. Beams of invisible energy emanated from her body, drawing the vehicles together like a magnet. The cars slid closer to one another, bunching up in a metallic jumble, leaving fresh skid marks all over the pavement.
“There he is!”
Nancy nodded at Cait’s warning, and jumped in the air, sailing over the cars. She landed in front of them, her boots thumping to the ground. She felt grateful for the blue overalls, wondering for a split second how awkward the move might have looked in a dress.