The Third Ten

by Jacqueline Druga

  Robbie approached and cleared his throat to get attention. “Hi, Hal.”

  Hal turned to face Robbie and Roy. “Hi, Robbie.”

  Frank looked at Dean, then to Hal.

  “Say, Hal, Roy and I are headed to Bowman. Would like to come?” Robbie asked.

  “Oh, gee, Robbie, that sounds like fun.”

  Again, Frank shifted his eyes from Dean to Hal to Robbie.

  “It will be swell.”

  “I cannot. But thank you for the invitation. Please feel free should you consume too much alcohol to stay at my place.”

  “Wow, Hal, thanks. You’re awesome,” Robbie grinned. “See Roy. He’s swell. Let’s go to Bowman.”

  “Hal, you’re so nice,” Roy said. “You will be missed.”

  Robbie waved to Frank and Dean, then walked out.

  Hal turned back around to his drink and noticed the stares from Frank and Dean. “What?”

  “No one talks like that,” Frank said. “Even you with your fucking pompous way of speaking don’t talk like that. Fuck, I haven’t seen acting that bad since Ben from Fabrics tried to play Dad in the musical, Beginnings.”

  “It was no act.” Hal finished his drink, looked at his watch and stood. “And I must go. Thank you for the enlightened conversation big brother.”

  “Wait. Whoa. Just like that?” Frank asked. “Robbie leaves and you go? What’s going on?”

  Hal shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean. I am going to go for a walk, then visit Elliott. Good night, gentlemen.”

  The second Hal walked out, Frank turned to Dean. “He’s up to something.”

  The entire time that Hal walked over to Roy’s house, he looked over his shoulder. He even took the around about way just to make sure no one saw where he was going.

  Richie was on night shift at Containment, Robbie made sure when he picked up Roy for their boys night out the door wasn’t locked.

  Once inside, in the dark, guided only by a small flashlight, Hal made his way up the stairs. He didn’t want to turn on the lights to alert anyone.

  The first bedroom surely wasn’t Roy’s. It was a mess, it had to be Richie’s. Hal hit the second bedroom.

  It was clinically neat and smelled that way, as well. Hal took a moment to think. If he were Roy, where would he hide something?

  As he started his search, Hal’s thoughts went from Roy having the book to Roy having an elaborate scheme to keep the book hidden and out of Beginnings.

  He checked each drawer … nothing.

  Under the bed, between the mattresses ... Not there.

  The night stand… empty. Except for that bottle of Old Spice and Hal had to wonder where he got that from.

  Then it hit him, Roy wouldn’t. Roy was one of the most trusting and naive people Hal knew. Roy wouldn’t have the book hidden, it would be put away.

  Hal turned and walked to the closet. He opened it and shone the light in. There was a small bag on the shelf, and Hal reached for it, taking it to the bed.

  ‘Remember how the bag was,’ Hal thought.

  Pen light in his mouth, Hal unzipped the bag. He made a mental note to be careful to pay attention to how things were in there, but Hal didn’t have to look very far. No sooner did he widened the flap on the small duffle bag, he saw the book. It sat right on top.

  Hal lifted it and looked at the name, Daniel Hoi, as author on front. “It exists,” he whispered out loud.

  The light to the room flicked on and Hal jumped and spun around.

  “Hey, Hal,” Frank smiled. “What are you up to?”

  “Yeah,” Dean added. “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “Sneaking into poor Roy’s room. Having Robbie get him out of town,” Frank said. “What are you doing?”

  “What am I doing?” Hal lifted the book. “I’m cheating.”

  THIRTEEN

  The moment Frank said, “We’re gonna need more paper,” Hal knew he should have listened to Dean.

  “I told you so,” Dean said. “Military stuff … genius. Copy Machines … short bus.”

  “Well, I would have thought he knew how to handle his own copy machine.”

  “Fuck you, Hal,” Frank said. “I do. The book is broke.”

  “The book is broke,” Hal growled. “You’re an idiot.”

  Frank had wasted not only an hour of their time, he made multiple copies of the same pages and started with the book upside down, so he began with the back. Not only that, he skipped pages when there were too many words to copy because those pages would take too long.

  Hal wanted to scream. It wasn’t even a big book.

  So Hal took over copy duty, while Frank stayed in contact with Robbie, and Dean tried to organize the copied pages so as to figure out where Hal could stop.

  “Tell, Robbie, I promise it won’t be much longer,” Hal said.

  “He’s fine.” Frank played on his phone.

  “Does anyone else feel a little guilty?” Dean asked. “I mean, we stole this from him. Was this right.”

  “Yes,” Hal said.

  “Yes, you feel guilty?” Frank asked.

  “No!” Hal blasted. “It’s the right thing to do. Roy is wrong. We believe him that you should make the big decision, holding back the book is withholding valuable information.” He flipped the page in the book, put it on the machine.

  “We should make more copies,” Frank suggested. “One for each of us.”

  “First, we make one copy and get this book back,” Hal said.

  “Some of these dates are wrong,” Dean said. “I mean, a lot of these dates are wrong. The years are really off. Like decades off.”

  “Dean.” Frank snapped. “Why are you reading? You said you wouldn’t read them.”

  “The dates are jumping out at me.”

  “Danny was old,” Hal said. “We should take the dates with a grain of salt. He wrote it from memory.”

  “Maybe take the whole thing with a grain of salt,” Dean suggested, shuffling slowly through the pages. “I mean, it could be mostly fiction. Right?”

  Hal nodded. “We won’t take it as gospel, only as possible intel. Shouldn’t stop you though from reading it together, breaking it down and making a chart.”

  “Wow, time travel was actually illegal,” Dean said.

  “Know that.” Frank’s thumbs moved on his phone.

  “Jason invented the time tracer and initiated the Time Police.”

  “Dean!” Frank yelled. “Spoilers. Let us know before you spoil anything.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Please, quit reading. We’ll all read it together,” Hal said.

  “I can’t help it. Sorry, oh wow …” Dean said. “Spoiler. It doesn’t really say how far into the future Danny …”

  “Dean!” Both Hal and Frank yelled.

  “Okay. I’ll stop. But we’re nowhere near the destination where Danny went. He went into the future of …”

  “Dean!”

  Dean mumbled. “New York. I’ll stop.”

  “New York?” Hal asked. “The LEP are all the way there?”

  “We talked about this,” Frank said. “Remember? We couldn’t figure out how they got so far east.” Suddenly Frank laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Hal asked.

  “Robbie.” Frank held up the phone. “He sent a video. Seems Misha still has a thing for Dean. She’s all over Roy.”

  “What?” Dean laughed, stood and looked at the phone. “Oh my God.”

  “Oh my God is right,” Hal said, “Marma will beat Roy’s ass.”

  “This is so great.” Frank sent a text and read it out loud as he typed. “Ha. Dean … is … so jealous.”

  “I am not, don’t ...” Dean looked down. “You spelled jealous wrong.”

  “No, I didn’t. My autocorrect fixed it. See?”

  “What did you do, Frank, change your autocorrect.”

  “Yeah, it was fucking up. I like this spelling better,”

  “You have a point.” Dea
n returned to his seat.

  “Don’t encourage his illiteracy,” Hal said.

  “You know what we should do,” Frank spoke as he played with his phone. “We should read only the future trip stuff, then when we go, use that time to read the rest.”

  “We have to make sure we wrap it in plastic,” Dean said. “We don’t want it to get wet.”

  “What is this ‘we’ shit?” Frank asked. “You aren’t going.”

  “Frank, get used to it. I am.”

  “You’re not.”

  “Dean, I’m not fucking saving you.”

  “Gentlemen,” Hal called out, turning a page to copy. “Can we …?” He paused.

  Frank lowered his phone. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh my God. Now I know what Dean meant by the words just jump at you.” Hal turned around. “They do. Just this sentence alone lets me know we need to make sure this doesn’t happen.”

  “What’s it say?” Frank asked.

  Hal glanced down to the page and read the words with sadness. “Robbie Slagel was the first casualty of the Great War.”

  <><><><>

  What the hell, Johnny thought. He was getting cold and bored. Frank’s trailer office was located behind the utility building, about twenty feet from the new section that was erected after Joe’s office exploded.

  Johnny had a great hiding spot, tucked between the last office and small storage shack. It gave him a great view of the trailer office and he was unseen.

  But he had to wonder what the hell his father, uncle and Dean were up to. They had been in the office for nearly three hours. The only time the door opened was when Hal left early on and returned with paper. They had to be working on some sort of project.

  The blinds were drawn, the lights were on and only occasionally could Johnny see any movement.

  He hoped they would finish soon. Had he known he’d be sitting outside in the cold, he would have dressed better. His fingers were numb and his head started to hurt from shivering.

  Finally, Johnny came up with the idea to go up to the trailer and knock on the door. Tell his father he was passing by, saw the light and was checking to make sure everything was alright. At the very least, if they were doing something secretive it would break it up and send them on their way. Frank would go home and Johnny would take his post on Joe’s porch, wrapped in a blanket and sipping hot cocoa Andrea left in a thermos.

  Just as he stood up from his crouched position, he heard the crunch of footsteps and Johnny withdrew back into his spot. He thought maybe it was Robbie until he heard voices.

  “No he’s not alone, I’m telling you.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “You know it does.”

  Who was it? Johnny didn’t recognize the whispering voices. He pulled down his night vision goggles. It could have been one of Frank’s men, it couldn’t have been innocent. If it was though, why were they sneaking?

  The spotlight outside his dad’s trailer kept causing a blind spot. He caught a shadow moving behind the office and Johnny couldn’t make out who they were.

  “Just do it anyhow.”

  Fuck. Johnny thought. Fuck it. Cover blown or not, he not only had to see who it was, he had to stop them if they were up to something.

  Just as he emerged, the one voice said. “Someone’s coming.” And Johnny saw the figures race toward the path that led down to the warehouse division.

  Before following he did a quick look around the trailer and picked up the phone, calling Joe.

  “Johnny, what’s wrong, it’s nearly two in the morning.”

  “Pap, listen,” Johnny whispered. “There were a couple men by the trailer, it was suspicious. I didn’t see them, didn’t know their voices. But when they heard me they ran. I’m following.”

  “Where are they headed?”

  “Warehouse.”

  “Want me to meet you?”

  “No, I’m good. They’re probably long gone by now.”

  “Be careful. Call me back if you find out anything.”

  “Will do.” Johnny shut off his phone and picked up the pace.

  He could hear the running footsteps as he followed them. They had to know someone was on their trail.

  The pathway was nearly a mile long and Johnny emerged at the edge of the warehouses.

  Being night, not all the lights were on.

  He could hear the voices, most of what they said were indistinctive, but enough sound for him to find a direction.

  They were in the back.

  Those warehouses were the armory.

  “Hurry up, get it.”

  Back against Warehouse Six, John inched his way to the rear row, he peeked around the corner. The lack of light, prohibited from seeing who it was, but he knew they were breaking into Robbie’s warehouse. Robbie’s space meant… explosives.

  Johnny reached up for the goggles when he felt a tap on his back.

  “What are you doing here, Johnny?”

  Johnny turned around. “Henry?”

  That was it.

  Everything went black.

  FOURTEEN

  Had it been anyone else, Robbie would have been annoyed. But it was Roy, there was just something so innocent about him and naïve, allowing Robbie the chance to mislead him.

  Roy couldn’t stop talking, in fact, he couldn’t stop singing. Some song from the 1950’s or 1940’s. He sang it all night, hummed it in the morning and Roy wasn’t even drunk.

  That wasn’t for lack of trying on Robbie’s part. The plan was to take him out, keep him out and get him drunk so he wouldn’t notice anything was touched or moved in his room. Roy never noticed, he was inebriated in another way.

  When Robbie got the text that the book was copied, all he wanted to do was get back. He knew his brothers and Dean would be all over the manuscript. However, Roy didn’t want to leave Bowman. Robbie could have passed him off to someone else, but he didn’t.

  He hated to admit it, but he was having fun. And it was a lot easier getting the book by distracting Roy, than going back in time like George suggested. Although that way would have been faster.

  Soon enough Robbie was able to leave and Hal kept Frank and Dean away from the book until Robbie arrived. They were awake at the crack of dawn, going over the details of the future time trip, even packing for it, including finding a huge plastic bag for Frank because he was convinced they were falling into a lake.

  Before turning in for what remained of the night, they went to speak to Chaka and read him a segment of the book. How New York City was overgrown, and humans were kept underground.

  Chaka shook his head. “No, that sounds nothing like the future I come from. Then again, my future was destroyed by war. Maybe your time traveler went beyond our war.”

  It wasn’t possible, the machine only went a thousand years into the future. Chaka described a different world, one similar to the way they lived now, except without the Danny Hoi technology.

  They called it a night and Robbie decided to catch a couple hours sleep at Containment. Little did he know, Roy was making early rounds there and asked if Robbie if he would take him to see Jason.

  “Sure, I’ll drive you out,” Robbie said. “Jeep is out front.”

  “Oh, thank you. I want to share my news,” Roy said, following Robbie. “I tried calling him, he did not answer.”

  “You’ll have that.”

  “Would you like to see it?”

  “Um, I saw it last night.”

  “It’s better today.”

  “I’ll see it later.”

  “Wonderful.” Then Roy began to sing. “Would you like to swing on a star…. Sing with me Robbie.”

  “Not today, my throat is froggy.” Robbie reached for the door.

  “Carry moonbeams home in a jar. You’d be better off than you are …”

  Robbie opened the containment door, just as he did, Andre’s voice joined.

  “Or would you rather be a mule,” she sang. “I just love tha
t song.”

  “Oh, me too,” Roy said.

  “You’re in a good mood,” Andrea told him.

  “I am. Have a great day.” Roy walked out and joined Robbie in the jeep.

  “How come you didn’t show, Andrea?” Robbie asked.

  Roy gasped. “She would not approve.”

  “You’re right.” Robbie grinned. “And that’s what makes it all so much better.” He drove off for the quantum lab.

  Roy wanted Robbie to stay, but he was already late checking in with Joe. In fact, he left Roy a good walking distance from Jason’s lab. Roy didn’t mind, it gave him a chance to sing and think about the night before. Jason was his friend and Roy was certain Jason would be excited for him when he showed Jason the mark of affection.

  Roy felt like Ralph in the first episode of Happy Days when he proudly showed his affection mark to everyone at Arnold’s. Roy’s was bigger, darker and more purple. It had grown since he received it and it now hurt. Unlike when Misha delivered it to his neck at Hoi Hoi on the Range. It felt wonderful, made his eyes widened and he kicked his feet with excitement.

  When Robbie told him it was called a ‘Love Bite’, it all made sense to Roy. Misha had bitten him with love.

  That had to be what he felt.

  Love.

  He wondered if they would marry, have many children, hold hands and kiss on the lips. He had so much to ask Jason and talk about that he didn’t even knock on the lab door. He just burst right in.

  “Jason! I have news. I found …” But his enthusiasm was cut short when he found Jason the floor of the lab.

  He rushed over, a small pool of blood was by his head, and Roy crouched down immediately checking to see if his friend were alive.

  He was.

  “Jason.” He shook him. “Jason wake up.”

  Jason’s eyes fluttered then he opened them, it took a second and then he jumped up.

  “Easy. My friend, you’re bleeding.” Roy stood and rushed to the sink. “That needs to be tended to.”

  “Oh my God.” Jason ran over to the work table. “Oh my God.”