A long life.
Your Father.
Two words formed silently on Winston’s lips: Mister A.
What had the old man said when they’d last parted?
I cherish every minute.
Winston had to stand for a moment at the bench, clenched fists on the safe deposit box, and wait as the emotions roiled through him and spilled over. The tightness in his chest ached, and he fought to keep from breathing. If he relaxed at all, even to draw breath, the thin wall holding back his sobs would surely shatter.
Minutes later, when Winston finally had himself under control, he crammed everything into his backpack except the cash, which remained in his pocket. He slid the box back into its wall slot, wiped the tears from his face one last time, and called through the iron bars. The manager let him out and silently ushered him back through the glass door and into the bank lobby. Winston guessed he wasn’t the first person to come out of that vault looking different than how he went in.
He started toward the front doors, then remembered. He detoured back to Janet’s teller window and placed the stack of bills on the counter.
“Can I swap this old money for current money?” Winston asked. “I’m worried that it might seem weird to people and they won’t take it.”
Janet lifted the bills and started flipping through them. “I think so,” she said. “Would you mind waiting while I clear this with my manager?”
A minute ticked by as she conferred with Sue, the two of them speaking low with their heads bowed. Winston was starting to have serious doubts about trying to get the money exchanged, and he wondered if the bank was taking its time in order to give him newer bills that were marked with special, easily tracked serial numbers.
At last, the teller returned with fresh bills and a smile.
“Here we go,” she said. “Sorry for the delay.”
She counted out the money for him: twenty-five hundred dollars exactly. Winston guessed this would have been worth quite a bit more when originally locked in the vault.
Stuffing the new cash back into his pocket, Winston thanked her and left. When he got back to the car, his mom did her best not to look like a nervous wreck.
“How’d it go?”
“Fine,” he said. “Turns out I’m the heir to a small European country.”
“Ha ha,” said his mom, not amused in the slightest.
“It’s some money, some marbles, a couple metal thingies, and a note. Oh, and some pictures.”
She nodded slowly.
“From Mr. Allen,” he added.
She started, then glanced at him warily and rested a hand on his knee. “I’ve never told you in case…in case things went wrong. It was to protect you. And him.”
“Things kind of seem to be going wrong, Mom.”
She took a long, shaky breath. “Yes. They do. I’m so sorry, honey.”
“I know. Can we go back for him?”
He knew the answer without even seeing her face. Of course not. Mr. A would be too sick to travel with them, and, assuming that Bill was some sort of planted surveillance, he would have called for help immediately after Winston left Progress Oaks.
My mouth, thought Winston. Always my stupid mouth getting me in trouble.
Winston felt the day’s weight press upon him, and he slumped into his seat. He needed time to think. And food. All of this turmoil had done nothing to lessen his appetite.
His mother took another deep breath and nodded, seeming to accept something. “OK,” she said.
For an instant, he thought she’d answered his earlier question. “OK?”
“I think we’ll be fine in Portland for one night. Let’s get a motel room and plan our next steps. We’ll start in the morning.”
“Start what?” Winston asked.
His mom put the car in gear and pulled into traffic. “Looking for pieces of the time machine your father hid forty years ago.”
“Ah,” said Winston. “Of course.”
9
Gas in the Past
The motel lobby featured posters of Portland-area natural landmarks set in cheap gold-tone frames: Multnomah Falls, sunset on Mt. Hood, Haystack Rock out at the coast. Half of the pictures hung at odd angles. The place smelled of lemon furniture cleaner mixed with dust and cigarettes. Oregon hadn’t allowed indoor public smoking in years, so that didn’t say much about the management’s feelings on deep cleaning. Recessed overhead lighting gave the place a brownish hue, complementing the worn and occasionally splotched diamond-pattern carpeting.
Winston followed his mother to the reception counter, behind which sat an old man, leaning way back in a reclining office chair. He wore a red baseball cap and a red vest over a plaid flannel shirt. A copy of Guns & Ammo magazine consumed the man’s attention.
“Hello?” she called, peering over the chipped laminate counter top.
The attendant squinted up at her, apparently liked what he saw, and smiled. A tongue swirled behind the gaps between his mossy teeth.
“Well, hello there,” he said.
“We need a room for the night,” she said. “Two beds. Nothing fancy.”
She made the remark with a straight face, and it took Winston a second to get the barb.
The attendant eyed her for a moment. “I guess we’ll skip the President’s Suite, then.”
A Denny’s dinner of burgers and fries still sat heavy in Winston’s stomach, and he was content to let his mom take care of business. The two adults chatted for a bit, and when his mom pulled several ten- and twenty-dollar bills from her purse and traded them for a room key, Winston wondered about how the attendant was studying him, his hair in particular. He probably should have left his hat on.
They took room 218, located up the flight of stairs at the corner of the building. The sun hung low over southeast Portland. Outside their room, Winston paused at the walkway railing, shielded his eyes, and watched traffic go by. Hundreds of people flitted along, going about their regular evenings, probably bored by their routines like he had been only twenty-four hours ago.
What a difference a day can make, he thought.
Only four cars dotted the parking lot below, which lay separated from the main road by a row of skinny arborvitae trees. From above, their Toyota Van looked like a small tank pulled straight from the 1980s.
Inside, Winston found his mom closing the blinds.
“Just like home,” he said, tossing his backpack onto the available bed.
His mom had already claimed the bed closest to the tiny bathroom. She had several neatly folded clothing items set out along the foot of the bed, ready to wear for tomorrow. The room couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet square, and only white sheets and tan blankets covered the beds. No artwork. No color. Only four white walls with cobwebs in the corners and a square table near the bathroom door no bigger than a pizza box. Apparently, anyone wanting to sit at the table could use the edge of the bed as a chair. The only lighting was a two-bulb wall lamp mounted between the beds.
Once his mom double-checked the door lock and the blinds, she rubbed her hands together nervously. “Let’s see what you got from the bank.”
Winston sat beside his backpack and had just started extracting his new acquisitions when his phone vibrated. The opening bars of the Mythbusters theme song rang from his pocket.
“Shade,” he said.
She raised a hand in warning. “Winston…”
“I know, I know.”
He swiped to take the call.
“What’s up?”
Shade’s normally high voice rose further with concern. “Where are you? I’m standing outside your house and nobody’s here.”
“We, uh, went out for dinner.” That much was true.
“Wait. You get suspended, and your mom, who hardly ever takes you anywhere, rewards you with dinner out?”
In the small room’s quiet, his mother could make out every word. Her nostrils flared and some of the color drained from her cheeks as she glared at the
phone in Winston’s hand.
“It’s one of those things,” said Winston. “Big lecture. Life lesson. Parents think a good meal will make it all better.”
“So, where’d you go?”
“Denny’s.”
Shade burst out laughing. “I thought you said a good meal!”
The rest of the color vanished from his mom’s face. Winston watched it fade with growing concern and said nothing.
“She can hear me, can’t she?” Shade asked, much quieter now.
“Yup.”
Winston’s mom pointed at the phone. “I’m going to have a little talk with your mother about gratitude and manners, Shade!” she called.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Chase!” Shade’s panic was plainly audible over the tiny speaker.
“Anyway,” Winston cut in. “What’s up?”
“Homework — duh! When are you getting home?”
His mom shook her head in warning.
“I don’t know. We were thinking about staying out for a while.”
“On a weeknight? Don’t you have a ton to do?”
“It can wait.”
“And what about your blue butt?” he added in a hushed tone. “Dude, we need to talk!”
“It can wait,” Winston said again, more firmly this time.
“Oh, really?” Shade sounded defensive if not a little offended. “Well, how about your Skype date with Alyssa? Can that wait, too?”
Winston face-palmed himself and fell back onto the bed. Somehow, he’d completely forgotten about the biggest breakthrough moment of his life in the face of so many other even bigger moments.
“Crap!” he said.
His mother, normally ready to pounce on anything remotely resembling profanity, let this one go. She hadn’t known about Winston’s date, but he’d told her enough about Alyssa over the years for her to appreciate what the opportunity must mean.
“You cannot be serious,” Shade said. “Get. Home. Now.”
Winston grimaced. “I can’t.”
“You can’t? You can’t?”
Winston separated palm from face and smacked his bed several times. “No. I can’t.”
He looked at his mom and found her anger evaporated. I’m sorry, she mouthed.
“Can you get me her number?" Winston asked. "I’ll text her and apologize.”
“That’s your plan?” Shade’s voice had grown more distant from switching to speaker mode, and the buzz-buzz-buzz Winston heard told him that his friend was already texting people to get Alyssa’s info.
“That’s all I’ve got.”
“This must be some heavy-duty talk. Is it because of the Alyssa date? It’s not the birds and bees thing, is it?”
“Shade!” Winston and his mom said in unison.
“OK, OK! Just tell me when you’re getting home!”
Winston glanced at his mom questioningly. She shrugged and raised her hands.
“I don’t know,” Winston said. “We have a lot to cover. I’ll fill you in when I can.”
Shade must have heard something in Winston’s voice, because he let the silence hang a few seconds too long.
“Winston,” he said. “Are you—?”
“Yeah,” Winston replied, and the word sounded fake even to himself. “I’m fine.”
“You know that’s what females say when they’re totally not fine, right? Trust me on this.”
“I gotta go, man.”
Winston’s phone vibrated twice in his hand.
“There’s Alyssa’s number and email,” said Shade. “Don’t mess up your chance here.”
“I’ll try. Thanks.”
Shade hung up. Winston let the phone slip from his hand. It bounced on the sheets and tumbled back against his ear.
“Aaagghhhh…” Winston groaned, covering his face with his hands. He forced himself through several deep breaths, then asked, “That picture in my locker. You know how often I’ve looked at that?”
She blinked several times as she stared at Winston. Her lips parted, but she remained silent.
“I’ve spent all these years wondering why everybody but me had a dad,” he said. “Why did mine have to walk out and leave when I was little?”
“I’m sorry, Winston,” she whispered.
“I thought having some answers might help someday. Turns out it doesn’t.”
He could hear how bitter his words sounded, and he knew they must cut her. Even in his anger, Winston felt badly about adding to the pain she must already feel. But this one time, he felt that his pain should come first.
“So, how much are you going to tell me?”
His mom paused, considering. Then she bowed her head slowly. “You know who he is. I’ve already told you a lot. When this is over, if you still want to know, I promise to tell you whatever you want. Right now, though, we need to concentrate on the Alpha Machine.”
Winston said nothing.
His mom nodded and looked away. “He left me, too, honey.”
She rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck, trying to relieve some of the tension. When her gaze returned to Winston’s backpack, his mom rummaged through the contents and dug out the metal ring. She held it almost at arm’s length, a faraway expression on her face.
“Alpha Machine?” he asked, intentionally changing the subject.
“There are five pieces,” she said. “Two look like stainless steel tori.”
“What’s a tori?”
“Tori. The plural of torus.”
Winston cocked his head in confusion. “Like the car?”
“Like bagels. Two are rings — this one, and one that’s a bit bigger. The last is a crescent, like a big letter C. With all five together, they create a single mechanism, although I think each also has its own function. I’m not sure. I never handled them. But they use some kind of nuclear power that, as far as I know, has never been created here on Earth. And they give off a unique kind of radiation, a sort of long-range alpha particle, so we called it the Alpha Machine.”
Winston sat up and took the ring from her. Instantly, he felt that faint electric tingle in his hands. His vision wavered, then restabilized.
“There…” he said. “Did you feel something?”
She watched him with curiosity and concern. “Only a slight tingle.”
“Yeah. A buzz, like a shock. And something in my head…” He turned the ring around in his hands, running his fingertips over its smooth surface. “You don’t know what it does?”
“I don’t. We didn’t have much time to investigate, and I haven’t seen this since 1948.”
They heard and felt heavy footsteps outside on the walkway. Both of them stood. His mother's eyes flashed desperately around the room, probably searching for something they could use as a weapon. Their few knives and a small can of pepper spray waited on the nightstand.
“Jeremy!” bellowed a woman’s voice from outside.
Smaller footsteps pattered past their door, and they heard a small child’s laughter. The heavier steps came barreling on in pursuit, rattling their door in its frame. The heavy steps passed by, and seconds later they heard Jeremy squeal a long “Nooooo!” in protest.
They relaxed.
“Coming out of the time travel thing…can be imprecise,” Winston’s mom said in a near-whisper. “You aim for one thing, but you might get another, I guess. I wasn’t the one doing it. We only wanted to skip forward a few decades, figuring that was safer than risking changing history.”
Winston’s eyebrows arched. “Only a few decades.”
“We landed in 1989 and spent a long time thinking about what to do with the Alpha Machine. Your father—”
“You mean 1998,” Winston interrupted. “I’m fourteen.”
A flicker of remembered pain crossed over his mom’s features. “Well, no. It was November of 1989. Claude picked that path for us while I…I fought with Devlin. He attacked us just as we were leaving. Your father didn’t have time to concentrate, and he was anxious to help me. When we em
erged in 1989, we overpowered Devlin, but we didn’t want to kill him.”
“He attacked you? And this is the guy who’s after us now? Maybe you should have killed him.”
Only after the words were out did their meaning jar him.
She shook her head, and her voice was low and tight. “We didn’t want to meet the future with blood on our hands. Besides, it sounds easy, years later. Just…kill him. But it’s not easy when you’re standing over the person with a weapon in your hand.” A small shiver passed through her. She took a deep breath and straightened. “We always worried that he would find us. And he did eventually. That’s why your father decided to leave. It’s also why you’re afraid of water.”
“What’s water got to do with this?”
His mom bowed her head and pinched off a stray thread that she found on the hem of her pants. “Devlin waited for us to come home, and he shot your father in the leg when we walked through the door. I think he only wanted to wound him, at least at that moment. I screamed, which made you start crying, of course, because you were barely one. I remember I tossed you onto the couch, grabbed the ash tray on the coffee table, and rushed him. Your father still had his keys in his hand, and he threw them at Devlin’s face. It gave me that one second of distraction, and I smashed the ash tray on the side of his head. Gave myself a deep gash in the process, but he went down in a pile.”
“Geeze, Mom. World class biologist and a cage fighter. Anything else I don’t know about you?”
“Loads.” She smiled faintly. “Everyone was bleeding. You were still howling, but we knew we had to get out of there. I ripped out the fake wall we’d installed in the bedroom closet and grabbed the Alpha Machine. Claude couldn’t stand, and he was losing a lot of blood. Devlin regained consciousness. When he started crawling toward us, I just grabbed you and Claude, and we…went. But your father passed out right in the middle of it. I suppose it could have been worse. We could have dropped into the middle of the ocean, and we all would have drowned. As it was, we landed about four hundred yards off the shore near this little place in California named Patrick’s Point in the middle of a late autumn storm. The cold water was enough to revive your father, and thank God there was a driftwood log near us. We obviously made it to shore, but you were understandably terrified, and we were all feeling the effects of time jumping. It feels like your insides have been removed and put back in backwards, although the ten-year jump wasn’t as bad as the forty-year. We made it, but ever since you’ve been terrified of the water.”
Winston Chase and the Alpha Machine Page 9