Winston Chase and the Theta Factor

by Bodhi St John

  Winston felt the first stirrings of hope. Maybe he was on to something here.

  “What kind of stuff do they have in the exhibit?” he asked.

  Kelly and Kirsten admitted they hadn’t been to the exhibit either, so there was no point in pursuing his questioning.

  Winston spent less time savoring his lunch than he wanted, but at least he was plenty full by the end. It was time to get going, and he had things to do. There was a shipwreck to check out and a bridge not to kill himself jumping from.

  He thanked the girls for all their help. Sally waved absently and asked if the three of them should go see Sean Connery in the new Thunderball movie.

  Kirsten stood and shook his hand. “Good luck,” she said quietly.

  Winston swallowed. “What’s your last name?” he forced himself to ask.

  “Dean. Kirsten Dean.”

  “I — I never forget a name,” he stumbled as he made the barest of attempts at being suave.

  She gave him a playful once-over and smiled. Winston wished she hadn’t been wearing dark glasses.

  “Good,” she said in a low, playful tone that was almost a purr.

  Kelly gave Kirsten a playful shove, and they sauntered away to the Imperial, leaving Winston with both a warm glow at having worked up the courage to talk to some strikingly beautiful girls and with cold fear at once again being adrift on his own.

  6

  From Beeswax to Bombs

  Winston made one stop on his way to the Maritime Museum. He couldn’t wander the streets of Astoria toting the chronoviewer and Little e under his arm without getting noticed. He searched for a department store in vain, hoping to find anywhere that might sell him a cheap backpack. He did find one leather goods store that offered everything from hats to halters, but when he asked about a backpack the aged proprietor only looked at him with incomprehension.

  “You know, a bag with straps and pockets,” Winston explained. “You wear it on your back to carry school books and stuff.”

  The shopkeeper did not know and directed Winston to satchels. The proprietor noted that these were mainly used by businessmen, although a few of the better-to-do students were also starting to carry them. To Winston, they looked like briefcases with a big top flap, two front buckles, and a small handle. He left the store, shaking his head. How did kids carry their twenty pounds of stuff around school in 1966?

  He caught a lucky break at the nearby Army surplus store, where he found a faded green canvas bag stamped with the letters U.S. on the front and The Byer Mfg. Co. Inc. 1941 on the back. Like a satchel, it had a big top flap and front buckles, but it also had two shoulder straps. Better yet, it only cost $1.25.

  After three rounds of asking for directions, Winston finally found the museum on Sixteenth Street a couple of blocks back from the water. He expected the museum to be another little hole in the wall, like seemingly everything else in 1966 Astoria. Strangely, though, the Columbia River Maritime Museum was in one of the town’s most impressive structures, a three-story, tan-brick Colonial with white pillars and a flat roof that reminded Winston of the supermarket he’d jumped from only — what? Only a couple of days ago?

  Unfortunately, the windows were shuttered, and a CLOSED sign hung on the front door. Winston knocked several times and listened, but he heard nothing.

  A police car cruised down 16th Street, slowing as it approached Winston. The massive black and white Plymouth sported two circular red lights and a bullhorn atop its roof. The officer pulled over and stopped right before the Museum’s entryway steps.

  Winston’s heart crowded into his throat. He hadn’t formulated an excuse for being here better than “I fell off a boat with my dad’s mechanical stuff.” That explanation might satisfy a few high school girls, but he doubted it would fly with authorities. If the police arrested him and started making phone calls, would he eventually get passed off to the Project Majestic people of 1966?

  Yes, he thought. It was more than possible. Even without Bledsoe here, the results of any thorough medical analysis would land him in a government lab, and his life would be over.

  The patrol car only had one officer in it. He parked the vehicle, turned off the engine, and came around the car toward Winston. With his navy uniform, gold-star officer’s badge, black sunglasses, and thumbs hooked behind the buckle under his bulging belly, the policeman looked formidable. Winston was glad the officer didn’t have a hand on his gun. Yet.

  Why would he? Winston corrected himself. I’m just a kid standing outside a museum. Don’t be paranoid.

  “Hi there,” the officer called as he approached. His tone was flat and practiced, not unpleasant, but almost probing, perhaps waiting to see if Winston would flinch or start running. Thank goodness he hadn’t followed his first impulse to break in through a window.

  “Hey,” said Winston, reflexively waving his hand and feeling foolish as he did so.

  Stay calm. You haven’t done anything wrong. Except travel back in time forty-seven years, but that’s not illegal.

  The officer set one foot on the bottom stair and looked up at Winston. He didn’t seem in much of a hurry to talk.

  “I guess the museum is closed,” Winston said.

  The officer — Neuman, according to the name embroidered above his pocket — nodded slowly. “Same as every other Sunday,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Winston.”

  “Huh.” Officer Neuman looked down the street to the river. Clearly, he had plenty of time to burn before his next appointment. “Winston. You from around here, Winston?”

  If he had been a little less nervous, Winston might have laughed at the question’s irony.

  “I’m visiting from Portland, sir. Just thought I’d try to see the museum.”

  “Huh. Well, that’s surely a good thing. Where’s your folks?”

  Winston felt his throat tighten, and it took all of his willpower not to swallow, knowing that would betray his anxiety.

  As soon as he thought he could speak casually, Winston said, “My mom is back at her friend’s house along Highway 30, down with a migraine.”

  Did they have migraine headaches in 1966? They must have.

  “Sorry to hear that,” said the policeman. “My wife gets those pretty regular, too.”

  Winston wanted to put his hands in his pockets, but he didn’t know if that would make him look like a slacker. Should he lean against the wall to look relaxed? He caught himself licking his lips. That had to be a dead giveaway.

  “I’m pretty bummed,” he said quickly. “I heard they had some really cool shipwreck stuff in this collection, but…just my luck.”

  Officer Neuman rubbed at his mustache with the back of his hand. “You like shipwrecks, huh? My boy’s a nut about them. Well…” The policeman lapsed into attentive silence as Winston held his breath, then the man made up his mind. “Follow me.”

  The policeman led Winston around the building. Unlike in the front, where steps led up to an entrance, the rear of the building revealed a gray concrete stairway leading down to a wooden basement door. Officer Neuman descended the steps and rapped loudly on the door.

  “Hey, Vince! It’s Scotty! Open up, will ya?”

  Winston heard a couple of bumps from beyond the door, then a chain drew back and the door opened to reveal a thin man with dark, gray-speckled hair, thick glasses, and drooping shoulders. His black-and-white plaid shirt boasted two pockets brimming with pencils and black markers. He looked from the officer to Winston and back, one eyebrow raised.

  “Hello, Scotty. Who’s your friend?”

  “This youngster is visiting from Portland. His mom’s not feeling well, and he seems to have a case of the Sunday fidgets. Says he was hoping to learn a thing or two about shipwrecks. Has that boat already sailed?”

  Officer Neuman deadpanned through his own pun, which made Winston like him a little more.

  The museum worker glanced at his watch and ran a palm over his cheek. “Nah. Come on in and have a lo
ok around if you like.”

  Winston thanked them both. The officer disappeared around the building.

  “Don’t mind the mess,” said the man, closing the door behind them.

  Boxes covered most of the basement’s brown linoleum floor. Wadded-up newspaper lay strewn everywhere. Bare yellow bulbs in ceiling fixtures added a little light to what came in through the drawn window blinds, but the spacious basement seemed dim after the bright outdoors. The air was dry and cool, though, and Winston felt immediately at home. It might not be computers and robots, but the place had an aura of science about it. Ship models stood in boxes, awaiting their packaging. A large poster showing nature’s water cycle sat amongst several framed maps showing various aspects of the Pacific Ocean’s geography. One of them illustrated the idea of seafloor spreading through plate tectonics and labeled it “A Bold New Theory!” in red lettering.

  Winston introduced himself, and the man reciprocated with a well-practiced, “I’m Vincent Lane, the museum’s curator, manager, volunteer force, and janitor.”

  He led Winston through the maze of boxes, up a narrow flight of stairs, and into the main gallery.

  “Ever been here before?” asked Lane. Winston said he hadn’t. “Well, the building has gone through a lot of changes. It was Astoria’s city hall for a long time. Used to be a bank, too. The two vaults are still out by the lobby.”

  He guided Winston into a spacious chamber with dark hardwood floors and a white ceiling ornately arrayed in crown molding and gold-accented dome lights. The place felt cavernous with no other visitors and all the lamps off. Wood-paneled walls and square, concrete columns helped to break up the emptiness, but it all made Winston feel tiny as he scanned over the countless exhibit displays.

  There were rare coins recovered from ancient shipwrecks, several racks of porcelain and pottery, barrels of shipping supplies, masts and sails, iron cannonballs, tillers and whipstaffs, a captain’s log, and a gigantic boiler from one of the first steamships to reach Astoria. Winston even found a Renaissance-era mariner’s astrolabe, a wheel-shaped device for using the sun’s position at noon to determine a ship’s latitude. It was overwhelmingly diverse and fascinating, but Winston remained all too aware that most of this had nothing to do with why he should be here.

  With his back turned to the man, Winston carefully extracted his photo of the galleon — or was it a galley? — from its baggie. He approached Lane and held out the picture.

  “My dad found this photo and thought I should research it,” he said. “Do you know what it might be?”

  Lane took the photo, set his glasses atop his head, and stared at it intently.

  “It’s not a carrack,” said the curator. “The forecastle’s too low and the hull is longer. Square sails, three masts. And look at all those guns. I’d say she’s a Spanish galleon — oh! I think I know this picture. Is this the Santo Cristo de Burgos?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “Come here,” Lane said as he set off across the gallery, still head-down in the photograph. “I have a few pieces… See, every so often, someone will find a bit of treasure washed up in the surf, especially after a big storm. All around Nehalem Bay, just south of here, people have been finding chunks of beeswax for decades, even back into the 1800s.”

  “Beeswax?”

  “This.” Lane pointed to a shelf on the wall containing seven chunks of what looked like water-polished brown rock. The smallest was the size of a fist, the largest about six inches thick and as big around as a pizza. All were broken and cracked, but a couple bore odd markings engraved deeply into their surfaces.

  “This is beeswax,” said Lane. “Most of our samples here originate from the Santo Cristo de Burgos shipreck. If you look at them under a really good microscope, you’ll see that the pollen in them comes from the Philippines. It was highly coveted in its time, used for cosmetics, church candles, waterproofing…”

  Winston instantly latched on to the mention of church candles, recalling the second photo from his father’s coffee can. The galleon and church candles. He was definitely in the right place.

  “Can I touch it?” Winston asked.

  Lane nodded. Winston ran his fingers over the pocked, smooth surfaces. Yes, it had that almost slippery yet firm feel of wax, and it was slightly gritty. He touched the largest piece, expecting to feel that slight tingle he got from the other Alpha Machine pieces.

  Nothing.

  Winston put both hands on the wax block, feeling all over it, trying to will the next piece into being there.

  Lane frowned at the probing and asked, “Everything OK?”

  “Yeah.” Winston quickly recovered. He turned to his left, trying to hide his expression of disappointment from the curator. “Just never felt beeswax before. It’s—”

  A flash of crimson several feet away caught his eye. As he looked more closely, Winston noticed that the splash of red was part of a circle painted on a waist-high metal object half-hidden behind a box filled with framed photos, crouching amid shadows in the corner. Winston took two steps to get a clearer view and felt himself go cold with anticipation. The barrel-shaped object was squat and solid, tapered to a broad point at its apex and standing on a base of four metal fins. Save for the red circle, now flaking with age, the entire device was painted black.

  That had to be it. All he needed was a forest to complete his father’s clue.

  7

  Inside Claude's Cranium

  Bledsoe strode into the operating room, his manner quick and determined, his arms spread wide.

  “Would you look at all this space?” he called to the frail figure on the table. “Isn’t this an improvement from that drab shoebox you were in?”

  An overabundance of lighting swept away any shadows, and stainless steel gleamed everywhere. Monitors, IV stands, and sensor equipment formed an arc around the bed. In the midst of these stood an imposing rack of server systems — five humming, blank-faced computers stacked one atop the other along with several other components Bledsoe couldn’t identify. He used technology well enough, but he still found twenty-first-century technology more or less mind-boggling.

  The air smelled sharply of disinfectant, and Bledsoe noticed a drain on the blue-tiled floor still dark with water from the room’s most recent cleaning. The chamber was large enough for three or four operating tables but currently held only one. Claude lay on it, motionless and staring at the ceiling, covered only in a thin, powder-blue sheet. Bledsoe approached the bed and couldn’t help but stare.

  The top of Claude’s skull now rested somewhere in Claude’s belly cavity, where it would stay healthy and preserved in case Bledsoe ever decided to have it reattached. Countless white wires, almost invisibly thin like gossamer, snaked from the back of the server rack up to the operating table. They appeared to Bledsoe like a thick cobweb digging into the folds of his old friend’s brain.

  A nurse specialist sat in a chair near the foot of the bed, a paperback book open on her lap. Most of her face hid behind a blue surgical mask, which she tapped lightly as she cleared her throat.

  “Sir, would you like me to get you a mask?” she pointedly asked Bledsoe.

  He looked from her to the neat oval hole in Claude’s head. It required all of his restraint not to glance at the one-way mirror on the far wall and give a little nod to where Amanda sat, chained to the table, gagged, and unable to do anything but look on helplessly. The more she understood her husband’s position, the more likely she would be to cooperate.

  “No thanks,” he said. “How is he?”

  “Vitals are stable. Imaging diagnostics show positive stimulus-output response.”

  “So, it works?”

  The nurse nodded.

  “A meal would be nice,” croaked Claude.

  Bledsoe grinned and set a hand on the old man’s shoulder — a futile gesture, he realized, since Claude was temporarily paralyzed and without sensation from the neck down. “Absolutely. Nurse, please make sure our guest gets a secon
d round of…” He scanned the numerous IV sacks dangling from their stands. “…of whatever he’s currently enjoying. The good stuff.”

  The nurse made no reply, but the way her gaze rolled away toward the technical equipment plainly told Bledsoe that she didn’t approve of his humor. He didn’t care.

  Bledsoe tapped Claude’s chest. Getting no response, he tapped one fingertip on the man’s forehead, making him blink several times. The tiniest trickle of blood leaked from the laser-cut edge of skin above Bledsoe’s finger and crept down across the moist, gray ridges of Claude’s brain. A large flap of scalp lay draped on the sheet near the brain, wet and crinkled, still attached near the back of the head. It reminded Bledsoe of a jam-covered crepe.

  “Any questions before we get started?” asked Bledsoe.

  Nurse Hendrix moved to the server rack, hands reaching for the keyboard.

  “I don’t remember anything,” Claude muttered. There was no anger or despair in his voice, only a great tiredness.

  “I’m sure,” said Bledsoe. “But your memory is like an iceberg, Claude. What you see is not what I can get. Not anymore.”

  Bledsoe found that, deep down, the world today was really quite similar to 1948. It had taken some wrong turns, of course, but the technology! So many wonderful toys, some of them actually quite useful.

  He hoped that most of the innovations in this timeline would also appear in whatever future world he created. There wouldn’t be the widespread, chronic obsession with movies and video games. Those were clearly the hallmarks of a society with too much comfort, security, and idleness on its hands. Imagine if all those billions of dollars and uncountable hours had been poured into scientific learning and research. At the very least, the world would have boundless renewable energy, perhaps even clean fusion. And space travel? If America could reach to the moon in only a decade during the 1960s, why not harness the solar system and beyond? That was America’s real destiny, the one it would have achieved by now if it hadn’t gone astray.