by Rachel Ford
“Babe?” Justin repeated. “Ew.”
Freddo shook his head, his features scrunched up in disgust. “That is so nasty.”
“You know,” she decided, “I think these two are inferior knock-offs.”
“So how did you come up with this dimension-hopping gadget, anyway?”
“Nance? How’s it going?” Alfred prodded. He really didn’t want to explain the sequence of events that led to this moment, much less to some other universe’s Justin. The last thing they needed was an alternate-reality’s Lyon rooting around until he discovered his own space time manipulator. Who knew what chaos unleashing Justin Lyon on an unsuspecting multiverse might cause?
“It’s not working, Alfred. I can’t get it to respond.”
“Let me try,” he said. He didn’t know how to operate it, exactly – she’d been the one to figure it out in the first place. But he was getting desperate. The other men were inching forward, getting closer and closer.
“I put the coordinates in,” she said, handing over the generator. “But it’s not taking them.”
He nodded. First things first, he pressed the same button she’d been pressing. When nothing happened, he pressed a few others.
“So what happens if you can’t get it to work?” Justin wondered. He was about three feet away now, with Freddo. And both men were watching the device with curious eyes. “Are you stuck here? Like, in our universe?”
That was impetus enough for Alfred to act rashly. “There must be water in it,” he decided, flipping the generator over and delivering a few quick smacks to the back of it. Sure enough, water droplets flew out.
But, at the same time, a searing blast of light consumed him. “Fudge muffins,” he screamed aloud, but no sound reached his ears. His mind was full of the throb of nothing in particular. His eyes burned, his skin seemed consumed with fire.
He’d jumped dimensions and hopped times before. The sensations were mild, strange – but never painful.
This time, though, they were agonizing. He reached out a hand for Nancy. Whatever was happening, he didn’t want to lose her. If these were their last few moments, if their atoms were about to be sprinkled across time and space, he wanted to go with her at least.
He found her hand and was vaguely aware of her fingers squeezing his. But pain, like a white-hot poker searing through his brain, flooded his senses, growing hotter and more consuming by the moment.
Then, his world went black, and he lost consciousness.
Alfred woke feeling like he’d just come out of a heavy-duty wash cycle. He was battered, sore, and discombobulated. His head reeled, his body ached, and his senses waxed and waned. “Nance?” he asked, his voice sounding faint and faraway to his own ears. “Nance, love, are you there?”
When he didn’t hear a response, he forced his eyes open. Then, he blinked at the new assault of light on his corneas. As his vision cleared, he saw a bright blue sky overhead, clear but for a few fluffy clouds. Slowly, for his head swam with every motion, he glanced around. They were in a forest – perhaps the same forest as their campsite – but there were no roads here, no campsites or vehicles: just trees and sky and sunshine.
Lots and lots of sunshine. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, and, with the other arm, pushed himself to a sitting position. Then, he glanced around again, this time in search of Nancy.
She was a few feet away, unmoving. She wasn’t the only one – Freddo and Justin must have hitched a ride with them, for they were lying unconscious on the ground beside her. But she was the one who drew his attention.
“Nance! Oh my God, Nance, are you alright?” He scrambled over to her, fighting the lightheadedness that threatened to consume him with every motion. Scooping her into his arms, he asked, “Babe? Hell, Nance, please, answer me.”
She was lying limp in his arms, her head lolling backward against him, her arms dangling on the ground. Panic surged in his chest, and it took every ounce of strength to keep his head. Check for life signs. Make sure she’s alive.
He did, and she was. She had a pulse, she was breathing. He, now, breathed too. She’s alive. Still, she was unconscious, and he had no idea what had happened to them. Travel had never been that rough. The machine was obviously malfunctioning. What could it have done? He had no idea, and, rocking her back and forth in his arms, he tried not to think about it. “Nance? Can you hear me? Babe?”
About five minutes later, she stirred. They were the longest five minutes of Alfred’s life, and he almost wept in relief as she ebbed back into consciousness.
She winced as she opened her eyes, shielding her face from the glare of the sun. Then, she asked, “Babe?”
“I’m here, Nance. I’m here.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. That stupid generator, it sent us…somewhere.”
She groaned, pushing up, and he lent her a hand. “Oh hell.”
“What?”
“Those two,” she said, pointing at Freddo and Justin.
He’d forgotten about them, so consumed as he was with her wellbeing. “Oh. That’s right.”
“It brought them with us.”
“I guess it did.”
“Hell,” she repeated. “Are they…alive?”
“I think so,” he said. “I mean, we both are. I’m guessing they are too.”
“We should check.”
“I’ll do it. You rest.”
She murmured her acquiescence, resting her head in her hands.
He, meanwhile, crawled over to the unmoving men. He didn’t dare trust his legs enough to attempt standing yet. “Hey,” he said, shaking Justin a bit more brusquely than was probably necessary. “You alive?”
The other man moaned, and he called over his shoulder, “Looks like he made it.”
Now, he moved onto his tasteless counterpart. “What about you?” He was, he had to acknowledge if only to himself, a bit gentler this time. He might have a low opinion of Freddo, but he also was staring into the same features he’d seen a million times, glancing back at him from every reflection. The man might be a moron, but on some level, that moron was him.
Freddo stirred too, sitting up before Justin rose. “What in the hummus?” he demanded.
Alfred blinked at the expression: the same one he’d use, in lieu of more vulgar alternatives. “What?”
“What just happened?” Freddo threw a wild gaze around the forest and yelped when he saw Justin. “Darling? Oh my God. Justin?”
The concern in his tone made Alfred recoil. This was Justin. Justin. How anyone could be that concerned – much less, someone who looked and sounded and talked like himself – about Justin boggled his mind. He watched with grave disapproval as Freddo fawned over the downed man.
“He’s alive,” Alfred sighed. “For heaven’s sakes, keep your voice down. We have no idea where we are.”
Freddo, though, ignored him, making all manner of ruckus until Justin stirred again.
Nancy, meanwhile, glanced up. “Alfred, what do you think happened? I mean, where did it send us? It’s not our time. My cell isn’t working. It’s finding no signal, nothing. So, wherever we are, we’re in a world without cell technology.”
He retrieved his own phone and waited with bated breath as it searched for a signal. It found nothing, and eventually he conceded, “Fudge muffins. Same here.”
“And why did it hurt so badly? It never hurts like that.”
He crawled back to her side and wrapped an arm around her. “I don’t know, babe. I have no idea.”
“Can I see it? The generator?”
He nodded, extending the gadget to her. “Be careful. I don’t know if I can stand another round of that just yet.”
“Me either,” she agreed. She scrutinized it for a moment. “The dial is dead. Like, it doesn’t light up no matter what I press.”
He frowned. “That’s not good. Right?”
“It can’t be.” She flipped it over, prying the two halves apart. The device consisted of
a base unit and an authenticating module, called the key. “Look at this.” She indicated dark streaks running down the surfaces. “Charring. Dammit, Alfred: I think this thing might have short-circuited.”
“Short-circuited? You mean, like fried itself?”
She nodded. “Water must have got inside it.” She pressed two fingers and a thumb against the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. “Which means…if we can’t fix it? We’re stuck here. Wherever the hell ‘here’ is.”
“Wait,” Freddo’s voice, high and alarmed, reached them. “What did you just say?”
It was a tone that Alfred used himself now and again, when the occasion called – like that time they’d been chased by a T-Rex in the Futureprise compound in the Mojave. But now? Now it was certainly not called for, and he cringed at the sound. He shuddered at all its grating qualities, and he flinched at the thought of who – or what – might be in earshot to hear it. “Shh,” he hushed. “We have no idea where we are. There could be predators nearby.”
This, as it happened, was the wrong thing to say, because Freddo clutched Justin to him, repeating, “Predators? Oh my God, where did you take us? Who are you people?”
Chapter Six
It took about five minutes of Nancy’s and Alfred’s concerted efforts. But, at last, they were able to convince Freddo to stop screaming and put away the pocket knife he’d drawn, about a minute into their attempts.
“So you’re saying,” he said, folding the blade, “that you didn’t mean to transport us here?”
“Of course we didn’t mean to,” Alfred hissed. He’d only said that about a hundred times in the last five minutes. Alternative me is something of a thicky, I guess.
“Believe me,” Nancy added, “none of this was supposed to happen. Our generator is malfunctioning.”
“Because you let it get rained on.” Freddo glared at them, moving his angry expression from one to the other. “What kind of imbeciles take a device like that camping? And who lets it sit in puddles? You’re lucky we didn’t get killed. Our atoms might have been spread across time and space.”
Alfred cringed at the other man’s words, and how similar they were to his own thoughts not so long ago. “Yes, well, fortunately that did not happen,” he said in pinched tones.
“No. Instead, we’re only stranded in an unknown world in an unknown time. How fortunate.”
“It’s better than having your atoms strewn,” Nancy pointed out.
“Is it? Is it really, Miss Stevenson?” he demanded hotly.
Alfred was forming a reply, but he froze mid-sentence. “Wait, what?”
Freddo threw an exasperated glance his way. “What?”
“Did you call Nancy…Miss Stevenson?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Alfred felt his heart sink. “Why would you call her that? Her name’s Abbot?”
“Oh.” Freddo seemed nonplussed for a moment. “Really? Our Nancy is…Oh.” Clarity crossed his features. “Our Nancy’s married, to some jarhead.” He shrugged. “Good looking guy, but you know the type. What’s his name?”
“Josh,” Alfred said, and his heart sank a little lower as he supplied the answer.
“That’s right. That’s got to be her married name.”
The taxman felt as if the air had been knocked out of his lungs. The idea of so many alternative universes in which Nancy and Josh ended up a couple hurt in a way he couldn’t define much less explain. But it hurt all the same.
Now, Freddo glanced Nancy over. “I would say you upgraded in your universe, but this version of me doesn’t seem to have gotten the brains or charm.” He shook his head. “In fact, I’d say he’s got nothing of the real Freddo Favero but the good looks.”
Further commentary on the topic was cut short by Justin’s return to consciousness. He sat up abruptly, and then promptly hurled.
Alfred recoiled in disgust. “Good God!” Nancy shot him a look, but he pretended not to see it.
Freddo, meanwhile, wrinkled his nose, but managed, “Oh, darling, are you okay?”
Justin choked and gagged for a few seconds, then wheezed out, “What the hell happened? It felt like the flesh was being torn off my bones.”
The lengthy process of explanation ensued, and it went only marginally better than the first time – and that, only because Justin was too weak to pull a knife. He asked all the same questions, got all the same answers, and offered all the same recriminations that Freddo had.
“Look,” Alfred said at last, “this was not my or Nance’s first choice either. But we’re stuck here, together, until we get this time machine working. So you can either sit there mewling in your own vomit, or you can get off your derrieres and help.” He crossed his arms as he finished speaking, with a finality that, he hoped, would put the matter to rest.
To his surprise, it did. Freddo considered for a moment and then nodded, and even Justin sighed resignedly. “You’re right. What can we do to help?”
Alfred blinked at the question. “What?”
“I said you were right. We need to focus on getting home. Tell us what to do. Tell us how to help.”
“Oh. Uh…” This was further than the taxman’s mind had gone, though. He’d more or less stopped at righteous anger. He hadn’t expected it to work so well, and he’d been working on a few more rejoinders instead of solutions. “Well…uh…that’s a good question.” He turned to Nancy. “Nance? What can we do to help?”
She frowned. “Me? What makes you think I know?”
“Because…you’re the smart one?”
Freddo, Nancy and Justin all scoffed at the same time. “Nice try,” she said.
“She probably is, but the competition isn’t much to write home about,” Freddo sniffed.
And Justin just laughed.
Alfred felt his cheeks color. “What I mean is, you work with tech stuff. Gadgets. Junk like this.”
“Alfred, I work with computers and phones sometimes. Printers and – on a bad day – fax machines. But space time manipulators?” She shook her head. “This is a little outside my field of expertise.”
“Yeah, but Nance, at least you have an idea of where to start. Once ‘press a button’ fails, I have no clue. Neither do these turkeys.”
“Hey,” Freddo said. “We’re not the ones who left a time travel device out to get rained on.”
“That’s not what happened,” the taxman snapped. Then, turning back to her, he said, “Please, babe. If you can’t figure it out, we’re stuck here. With them.”
It had taken a little more coaxing, but Nancy gave in. With Freddo’s multitool and a trepidatious frown, she unscrewed the device’s case. They all held their breath as she separated it.
No flashes of light, no world-rending or atom-splitting energy, hit them. In fact, absolutely nothing happened. The birds kept singing, the insects chattering, and the breeze blowing. Freddo exhaled exasperatedly, and Justin breathed a sigh of relief.
But, other than that, all was still. “Well,” Nancy said dryly, “at least it didn’t kill us.”
“Was that a possibility?”
“I feel like you should have told us if it was.”
She ignored both of them, though, and focused on her work. The minutes ticked by. Now and again Freddo or Justin would ask, “How’s it going?” or “Well? Any progress?” or “How long is this going to take? I’d like to get home some time this century.”
Her annoyance at their interruptions was the cue Alfred needed to keep his own follow-ups in check. So, despite the urge to press her for a progress report, he’d snap, “She’s obviously working as fast as she can. Leave her alone,” or “You are literally watching her, Justin. You can see how it’s going,” or, “You think that helps?”
She’d pause from time to time to lay pieces out carefully. “Can I borrow your knapsack, Alfred?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks.” Then, she resumed her work in silence, spreading the delicate electronics out on the canvass. After a sp
ace, she sighed, “What I wouldn’t give for a set of jewelers’ screwdrivers right now.”
Still, she kept at it, and eventually both the key and the primary unit had been dismantled. “Well,” she said, “I can tell you what the problem is.”
Three eager bodies pressed around her, and she pointed to a green board, covered in silver and black etching, with odd squares and tubes rising from it. It looked to Alfred like a tiny, futuristic city, with a thousand roads all connecting nondescript buildings. It was nothing quite so exciting as a model, though. It was a circuit board. He knew this because Nancy had converted one of his spare bedrooms into her workshop, and it was littered with circuit boards, and all the rest of the flotsam and jetsam of her hobbies.
“You see here? And here?” She indicated a series of scorch marks on the delicate board. “It looks like water got on these tracks. It caused a short circuit, blew out the capacitors here and here. Without my tools, I can’t tell you for sure what’s busted, but I’d be willing to bet this entire section is gone.” She gestured at about a third of the board. “Maybe more.”
“When you say ‘gone,’” Alfred said, “You mean…?”
“I mean, busted. It didn’t melt, so I can still figure out what it was supposed to do. I can probably even fix it. And, if not, with the right software, I can reverse engineer a board like this, and we can get it printed. But…” She shook her head. “I would need tools that none of us packed. Hell, I don’t even have my multimeter.”
Alfred had no idea what that was, but he nodded anyway. “Okay. So…how do we get you what you need?”
She shook her head. “Well, I mean, we don’t know where we are, babe. We don’t even know if this world is populated. We don’t know if we’re on Earth, or in some other galaxy. We don’t know if we’re somewhere in the past or future.”
He glanced around. “It looks Earth-like.”
“Even if it is Earth, that doesn’t mean it’s our time. It doesn’t even mean it’s our Earth.”
“Alright, but it could be. So if it is…how do we get what you need?”
She shrugged. “Well, if it’s like our time, we can scope out an electronics repair store. Or a university lab. Or a workshop. Start with getting the tools I’ll need, and then work from there.”