Tangled in Time

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “There was a time when there was something in that particular spot. It was a ranch first, then an airfield—” before she could ask, he added, “For machines that fly like the chopper. I told you I’m a pilot. Planes and space craft. I was here when I was ten with my dad. It was a ruin, just rubble and the remnants of a runway for the planes to use for landings and takeoffs.” He rubbed his face. “The airfield was built in 1929. It was used until the 1940’s, maybe into the 50’s.”

  “So we could be sometime between those times?”

  “I can pin it down a little closer than that. That Sikorsky, the chopper you saw? It came into service sometime in 1944, so we’re not earlier than that.”

  Olivia felt a mix of feelings at the thought. Elation. Terror. Relief perhaps, that she wasn’t in the twenty-first century? As if jumping into one new century was somehow easier.

  “I would expect the airfield to be almost abandoned, though. Toward the end, it was mostly used by fishermen and hunters, not the military. If it weren’t for the Sikorsky, I’d say it was earlier.”

  “You believe the current inhabitants are military?”

  “I don’t believe it. I know it. Those trucks are military and so are the uniforms.”

  “Perhaps their presence is related to our arrival?”

  “How could they know about us?”

  “An impact, such as you suspect we had, one sufficient to propel us both into another time, might be visible, possibly across my time, your time and this time.”

  Brae looked almost shaken. “How visible?”

  “Without access to the scientific principles of your portal, it’s hard to be certain, but it is possible it would appear to be an explosion to an observer. Or a bright, bright light in the sky. There would have to be considerable kinetic force for a serious time displacement to occur.”

  “But wouldn’t that level of force have done more than bruised my ribs?”

  Olivia hesitated, trying to find words for something she sensed. “I can only postulate that the energy impact was unstable in some way. It should not be not possible for you to damage the transmogrification machine as you did and survive the impact with so slight an injury to yourself. I wonder if the energy that transported you here, changed you and my machine in some essential way when we collided. That might explain why the damage to the transmogrification machine is not consistent with the impact.”

  * * * *

  So they’d caused Roswell Part Two and times three in magnitude. Great. If he made it back to his time, the general was going to court marshal him and then have him shot. No excuses, not even the “I got whacked by a transmogrification machine” excuse would work with the general. Unless he didn’t make it back. What if the Charlie Foxtrot had messed that up, too? The retrieval device had been inserted under his skin in his lower back, close to the impact zone. It might be damaged, too.

  “When you fail to arrive at your destination, what will this doc do to ascertain your location?”

  “This was a two way trip. She’ll try to retrieve me.” Her mouth opened and to forestall a lot of questions he couldn’t answer, he decided to tell her what he could. “There’s a locater chip under the skin of my back that is supposed to help the portal locate me and bring me back, but I don’t know when, or if it still works. If I’m touching you, it will bring you back with me. That’s why I’ve been, you know, staying in contact. It’s your best chance at getting home.”

  He’d thought she’d be pleased at his thoughtfulness. She didn’t look pleased.

  “I see.” Her tone was almost deep freeze chilly.

  He had no idea why, was pretty sure he didn’t want to know. She wasn’t just from Venus. She was from 1890’s Venus. He hadn’t a hope of figuring her out.

  She rolled over and sat up, her knees bent just enough for her to maintain the position. “Where—”

  “It might be close to where your machine whacked me. I can’t see to tell.” He shucked off his vest and lifted his tee. “Maybe you can.”

  Color surged into her face, but her chin did the lift thing and she shifted closer. He decided to call her suck-it-up look. He turned to give her more access, felt his body reacting in an all too familiar way to female proximity—though there was some new element in what he felt around her, maybe because she was from the past? He expected her touch, when it came, to feel hot, because it was hot, he was hot and she’d looked flushed, but her fingertips were cool as creek water as they stroked across the bruised area like a balm. She shifted again and now he felt the puff of her breath against his skin, too. Her finger stopped on a spot.

  “There is a small spot here at the edge of the bruising.”

  “She used a needle, so there’d be a puncture mark.”

  “It could still be functioning, but it is also possible it was damaged.”

  She shifted back, her cool touch leaving too much heat behind. Carey lowered his shirt and turned to face her. She still looked flushed, but she also looked thoughtful.

  “You’re more than the professor’s assistant, aren’t you?”

  She gave a slight shrug. “In my world, all I can ever be is an assistant. Perhaps if my family had a higher social position or more money, I could have attended a university.” She hesitated. “You said she used a needle?”

  Should he tell her that much about the future? Course he’d already spilled some beans. “The doc is a woman. Hell—sorry, heck of a woman, too.” Now that Olivia had “come out” she looked different, a bit more like the doc, while retaining that air of innocence. “A lot of things have changed for women in my time. They vote, serve in the military, hold office.”

  Her smile was like the best sun rise he’d ever seen from his Dauntless. He wasn’t sure she realized she reached out her hand, or aware he took it.

  “We did it.”

  He had no clue who her “we” was, but he nodded. “Yes, you did.” He hesitated, not wanting to be a buzz killer, but he heard some sounds he didn’t like from the direction of the airfield. He took a quick look over the ridge. Yup, the army was moving into a search pattern out there. He didn’t have to be a genius to know that his interacting with this time was a bad idea. If this was the past, he couldn’t be caught by the local guys wearing 2010 tech and carrying 2010 ID. Which meant the encampment was off limits and they were on their own in what wasn’t the right time for either of them. “Any ideas how we can get out of this?”

  The smile modified, though didn’t completely fade. She took a look, too. That killed it. “Oh my. Do you think they are looking for us?”

  “Or what caused the explosion.” He hesitated. “The United States is at war right now, if this is ’44. It would make them a bit paranoid.” Maybe that was too much information. Her jaw dropped a bit, though she was still cute.

  She snapped it shut. “Well, now that I know what caused the failed function, I might be able to fix it, though it is…”

  “Not a sure thing?”

  She nodded.

  “And if you can’t get it moving?” And if she did, where would it go? Could she transport them both to 2010?

  “There is another way, though it is also full of risk.”

  “What?”

  “You seek capture. You appear in the time record. Your doc claims the portal traverses space and time. When she fails to find you in space, she will most likely look for you in time.”

  “But won’t my presence is this time be risky?”

  “Very. We must do what we can to minimize your impact.”

  “I was just thinking that.” He frowned. “Why isn’t your presence damaging to the time line?”

  “It is, but to a lesser degree, since I lack the power to alter the future. Everything I am and have is from the past. A transmogrification machine is nothing special now, I would imagine.”

  “You imagine wrong. It’s pretty unusual.”

  “Unusual? When you have traveled to another galaxy?”

  “If you managed to create a stable wor
mhole in 1894, then the news didn’t get out and it wasn’t out in 1944. I work with people who would know.” Carey rubbed his face, trying to think. This time travel crap was not his skill set. Needed something blown up, he was the go to guy for that. “We need to move, get back to the machine. A search will take time, but eventually they will stumble across your machine. I’d rather it wasn’t here.”

  Since they were using Olivia’s route, the hike down wasn’t as hard as it would have been. Still not easy. Should he stash his gear inside the machine in hopes she fixed it in time, or bury it nearby just in case? He’d decided on digging a hole about the time they reached the small valley he’d landed in.

  “The transmogrification machine should be just the other side of this small rise,” Olivia said, increasing her pace.

  They rounded the outcrop together and stopped together. All that was left of her machine was a dent in the ground where it had been. Wasn’t even an oil spot.

  THREE

  “That is most unexpected,” Olivia said, when she could manage to speak. If Brae had not been holding her arm so firmly it is possible she’d have sunk to her knees in shock.

  “I thought you said it was broken?”

  “I said it was not functioning properly.” She frowned, her thoughts seeking an answer that might not be there. In way she still did not understand ideas sometimes came together inside her head in strange ways. And sometimes they didn’t. “The water flow.”

  “What?”

  “The water in the faucets was stopping and starting. The gauges, too. If the machine was trying to respond to the Emergency Absquatulation Device, and the water flowed into the fractulator at the right moment, it might have initiated the return as it was originally designed to do.”

  “I thought you turned it all off?”

  “The Emergency Absquatulation Device doesn’t work that way. Once it is engaged, it remains active until it accomplishes its purpose. It was designed to work even if the occupant was incapacitated.”

  “We use a self destruct to clean up our messes—though that makes a different kind of mess.” He rubbed his face. “So it’s back in the professor’s workshop?”

  Was it? Olivia didn’t know. Would the Emergency Absquatulation Device work across time? Or had it returned to a geographic location? There was an additional possibility. If it had locked onto the professor’s location prior to the malfunction, after the Emergency Absquatulation Device shut down, it was possible the machine would complete that function, as well. It could be anywhere. It might be any when. Though she would be most surprised if it managed to traverse time. Her only hope of finding it was to travel to the future with Brae, as he suggested. Surely it would appear in the historical record, too?

  “Without the impact with your wormhole to send it through time,” she longed to know more about that, “it is likely that the machine has gone to where his laboratory used to be.”

  “Oh.” A pause. “Crap.”

  Olivia took the meaning from the context. “Yes.”

  “I need to dig a hole.” He slipped off his pack and opened it, digging through the contents.

  For a second Olivia was alarmed. Was he planning to “self destruct” them both?

  “I can’t be found or caught with this tech on me. Or my ID.”

  “Of course.” She considered this. “Should I bury my derringer, as well?”

  “I don’t think it’s a threat to the time line and it might come in handy.” She arched her brows, so he added, “There are a few critters out here we might need to discourage.” He gestured upwards with his chin.

  “Oh.” As a bluestocking, she’d declined cultivating a fainting disposition, but this situation was enough to cause her to reconsider. Of course, the vulture circling above them discouraged that.

  “We should come up with a story,” Brae said, shedding his vest and his weapons. He looked around, then picked an area behind a large boulder to commence digging with a small shovel. In short order he had a respectable hole. She could see his regret at losing his weapons. He went through each pocket of his vest, removing some items, everything else he added to the hole. He did the same with his pack. He handed her some small packets. “Do you have room in one of your pockets for these? You’re less likely to be searched than I am.”

  She recognized the ones that held water, but the others baffled her. She studied one packet. It claimed to be an energy bar. With some doubt she stowed all of it the pockets of her skirt. She removed the transmogrification key, and while Brae was distracted, pushed it down her bodice, inside her corset. It was large enough to be uncomfortable, but so was the corset.

  “What do women wear in your time?” Fashions changed, so her attire was liable to cause comment in this one.

  “Nothing like that. Dresses are shorter and some women wear pants.”

  It sounded wonderful, though she felt obliged to be shocked about it. She longed to ask about corsets, but couldn’t bring herself to open the subject with a man, even one as forward thinking as Brae.

  “The military ones wear stuff like mine.”

  When he’d smoothed the disturbed ground, they moved to a more comfortable spot, under the dubious shade of an odd looking tree, that Brae called a Texas Madrone, to confer.

  “The way I see it, we have two options. We can head toward the army. They are closer, but they are also bound to be jumpy.”

  “Will they think we are aliens?”

  “No, but they will be suspicious and we are an odd pair. Neither of us is dressed for this time.”

  “And the other option?”

  “We try to ditch them. There are a couple of places we could try to reach, not sure what size they are right now, but they were on the map before now.”

  Olivia stared at him, no longer embarrassed by the breach of etiquette.

  “If I weren’t with you, what would you do?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving you. Which brings me to these.” He held up a pair of hand cuffs, shackles, then snapped one of the circlets to his left wrist.

  Olivia eyed them with suspicion.

  “We need to stay in contact all the time, in case my chip wasn’t damaged and the retrieval is initiated. Getting to my time is your best chance of returning to yours without your machine.”

  Olivia was not as averse to being forced into close contact with Brae as she should be. She could almost hear Mama’s shock, but Mama was safe in heaven. With a show of reluctance, Olivia held out her right wrist. The metal felt cool and smooth as it closed around her wrist, Brae’s touch warmer and more abrasive. He held up a key.

  “Can you hide this in a place no one is likely to look?” He made a motion that told her where he wanted her to stow it.

  She flushed and turned around to fulfill his request, tucking it down inside her bodice.

  She felt his body heat along her back as he shifted closer.

  “Which way do you think we should go?”

  His breath brushed her neck, stirring her thoughts into a muddle. She fought a sudden longing to lean back, to absorb his strength to fortify her own. She knew how to indicate interest to a man, but she did not know what came after. Her Mama had promised to tell her before she married, but had died instead. And Olivia’s chances of marrying were mostly gone. Mr. Heplinger was her last proposal. She had dedicated herself to science and to the cause of suffrage instead. Science had helped her through her personal dark times. It would assist her now, would it not? She stiffened her spine and forced herself to consider both options. There was much risk in trying to avoid the military, since it would be almost impossible to go across lots in such terrain and they were short on supplies needed to sustain life. But beyond that, Brae’s best hope for alerting his people to his presence in this time was the army. They would make a record, perhaps even record their likenesses, because of their proximity to an anomalous event.

  “How much time did your doctor estimate the retrieval could take?”

  He hesitat
ed. “Days, maybe longer. Never if the chip is damaged.”

  It was not possible for them to be in constant contact for so long. There were things a lady had to do on her own. He tugged her around to face him.

  “I know it’s going to be hard, but I’m not leaving you here if I can help it. I don’t know if I can find you again.”

  “And if the chip is irreparably damaged?”

  “Then we’ll figure out something else.”

  We. Olivia found she could smile, though it felt strained. It was lovely that he thought she was able to figure “something” out with him, though this was perhaps not the best to time to realize she was not that eager to return to her own time.

  * * * *

  It took two hours of strenuous uphill hiking, followed by a longer stretch of challenging downhill hiking, for them to get within striking distance of the military search grid. After some more discussion, they’d decided to approach the military. They were closer and even paranoid, this was the Greatest Generation. The survival factor was better if they weren’t too trigger happy. The upside of Olivia’s get up, they’d probably think what the foxtrot before they shot anyone.

  The Sikorsky saw them first. It made a sharp right their direction, coming in low and as fast a Sikorsky could manage. As if it had made a deal to take over the watch from the buzzard, it circled, kicking up a dust cloud that had Olivia pressing close, though Carey wasn’t sure she was aware of it. It was part of the plan to appear to be a couple and pleasant, so Carey helped her out as best he could with their hands shackled together.

  Off the to the East, the horizon came to a boil and the Sikorsky backed off some, though it still made a wide loop around them, like it expected them to make a run for it. If he could have, he might have as a bunch of Army trucks pinged on them. The ground under foot rumbled from the weight and sound of them. Looked like at least ten of them, led by a Jeep. It was surreal to see WWII trucks and guys in WWII uniforms who would soon be pointing WWII rifles at them. That he’d been forced to think the word surreal, let alone feel it, was just one part of a ball of wrong.