Untimed: A Time Travel Adventure

by Andy Gavin

  She menaces me with a butter knife. “You be takin’ me back to Billy, then?”

  “I said I’d tell you everything. Not do everything.”

  She snarls at me. But it’s a cute snarl.

  “When can you travel?” I ask.

  She pats her belly. “In a few hours, methinks.”

  I offer her the shiny brass page. “I can’t fully translate it but I can tell it’s all about your grandfather.”

  She takes the metallic rectangle. “Humility be a start.”

  “Will you take a walk with me?”

  I’m surprised when she agrees. We wander down the beautiful slope toward her old home.

  This morning I retrieved the now dried thistle I shoved inside a book. I offer it to her, pressing it into her hand.

  “I made this for you.”

  I half expect a wisecrack, but she looks pensive.

  “Don’t all ladies like flowers, Yvaine?”

  Boy, did I miss having her smile at me.

  “We do.” She adds the flower to her private stash.

  I put a hand on her cheek and use the other to brush a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “I wish I knew more about Monsieur Bréguet’s real role in history,” I say.

  “He’s quite famous,” she says “He’s been to balls at Versailles.”

  “History’s changing around your grandfather, Yvaine. There’s talk that Lord Wellington might break through Napoleon’s lines, and Parisians have been rioting over food. And that page of your dad’s might explain why or how.”

  “But you sayed you dinna understand it.”

  “No, but my dad will. He comes to my house in the future twice a year. We can go there and find him. Then I swear on my life we’ll take care of Billy.”

  Yvaine eyes me warily. “I’m not sayin’ I’ll do it. But I needs details, so I can pictures the place.”

  I describe Independence Hall. It’s near where I left, walking distance from my house, distinctive, and, since it was built before 1800 not unlike buildings she’s seen before.

  “Your da,” she says. “We can trust him? He’ll help us fix things for Billy?”

  “I think so. And if he doesn’t, I will.”

  “I still say we goes downtime.”

  We reach the old cottage. The floor is covered with footprints: Yvaine’s little barefoot ones and my not-much-bigger booted ones.

  “It rained yesterday,” I say, “but those footprints are new. Did you come here before breakfast? I didn’t.”

  “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.” She pokes my shoulder with her chin. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Forgive me?” I say.

  She sighs. “It be hard to hate someone so earnest.”

  “I make mistakes.”

  “I abandoned me own son.” Her lips are pressed thin.

  “As long as we’re alive, we can fix it.”

  “We make of it what we will.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “This place an’ time isn’t important,” she says. “Livin’ be important. Billy be important. Even you be important.”

  It’s true that the nineteenth century doesn’t feel any more or less real than the eighteenth or twenty-first. I guess life is more about who you’re with than where — or when — you are.

  Yvaine leads us down to the river. The artillery’s distant pounding is louder the closer we get to the water.

  “When we came here the first time,” I say, “you’re sure it was late June or July?”

  “Cotton thistle ain’t never in bloom before then,” she says. “At least in Scotland — quiet, now, someone’s up ahead.”

  I hear a girl’s voice: “One of these years you’ll get the knack for it.”

  “You always give me a hard time,” a young man says. Also familiar, but weird-sounding. Really weird.

  I pull Yvaine behind a tree and peer around.

  A girl and a boy sit next to each other by the stream. She’s wearing a puffy white blouse beneath her dress and her blond hair is tucked up under lace.

  It’s Yvaine, but not.

  I mean, it looks exactly like her but it doesn’t. She has none of Yvaine’s shiny in-focus quality. And behind her is some other me, eying her like a dork and looking ridiculous in a too-short jacket.

  Yvaine was wrong — we only traveled back a few weeks! Those footprints were ours. Sort of. On the bright side, Doc Brown was wrong too — the fabric of the space-time continuum seems intact.

  “You fool,” the real Yvaine says in my ear. “We shouldn’t never have comed down here.”

  “Hey, I followed you!”

  By the stream, fake Yvaine snickers. “Me mum warned me that us travelin’ couples be bound tighter than regular folk, that no matter how we argue we gots t’stick together.”

  Fake Charlie elbows her. “That’s a good reason not to argue.”

  “Piss and vinegar,” I whisper to real Yvaine, who crinkles her nose at me.

  Fake Yvaine comes in on cue. “She also sayed I be a most disobedient child, full of piss and vinegar.”

  Real Yvaine has her hands over her mouth and is snorting, the way people do when they’re trying not to laugh. Somehow this makes her sneeze.

  “Who goes there?” fake Charlie says. He sounds like videotape me, the me from Mom’s home movies. If they were in French without subtitles.

  Yvaine and I freeze. Fake Charlie and fake Yvaine leap to their feet, and the four of us face off.

  Our previous selves look puzzled, not a glimmer of recognition on their faces. But again, glass being half-full, the universe doesn’t implode.

  “Did you come from London?” I ask.

  “I’m no foreign spy,” fake Charlie says, looking confused.

  Trust me, real Charlie is just as baffled.

  “You didn’t just come from the church?” I say.

  “I took Mass last Sunday, what of it?”

  Weirder and weirder.

  “What’re your names?” real Yvaine asks.

  Fake Charlie really looks stumped this time.

  “Everyone calls me Garçon,” he says finally.

  “And I’m Chérie,” fake Yvaine says. “Nice t’meet you.”

  Real Yvaine looks from her to me and shakes my arm.

  “The war’s comin’. We gots t’get back to the house and warn the Monsieur.”

  “Let’s stay a minute,” I whisper. “We can learn something.” To the fakes I say, “And you work here?”

  “Up at the chateau,” fake Charlie says, “doing… work.”

  They have this vague way of talking, as if they aren’t entirely here.

  “They be like ghosts,” real Yvaine whispers.

  Like her father said: time travelers have ghosts. But they look solid enough — neither time-traveler sharp nor translucent — just ordinary.

  “Last night be our honeymoon.” Fake Yvaine slips her arm through fake Charlie’s and they kiss passionately.

  I elbow real Yvaine. “See, we were good together.”

  Explosions rock the tree line, much closer.

  “Me grandfather!” she says.

  “Take cover!” fake Charlie yells. “The English are coming.”

  How does he know? We didn’t, at least not then. Two weeks ago. I mean now. I mean the first time it was now.

  Real Yvaine and I pound full tilt up the hill toward the chateau.

  The full-on attack hasn’t started yet but dozens of troops in red, white, and blue uniforms gallop across the field. Fortunately, they’re French and don’t seem to care about us.

  “Hide this in your jacket.” Yvaine passes me her father’s shiny page as we run. “You be right. We dinna ken what we’re dealing with. Ghosts for sure.” She crosses herself again.

  “They belonged to this time,” I say. “Maybe the universe covers up for us when we’re gone, puts the ghosts in to fill our places in history. You heard them at the beginning — they repeated our exact conversati
on but probably had no idea what they were saying!”

  “Time’s the lazy cull. Doin’ whatever be easiest.”

  “This is really important,” I say. “When we go back and fix things with Ben Franklin and Billy, ghost Yvaine and ghost Charlie will be there too. And if I were a gambler, I’d say they’ll think they’re members of Donnie’s gang. Regular citizens of the London underworld.”

  “I needs say goodbye to me grandpapa before we go.”

  Artillery continues to pound the field. As we run to the chateau we pass some of the war’s handiwork, like Monsieur Torso, a soldier who’s missing just about everything from the waist down. The poor guy waves his arms at us while his guts pool on the ground like sausages.

  “And I used t’think,” Yvaine says, gasping for breath, “that I did too much runnin’ away before we meeted.”

  Two uniformed French soldiers are waiting on the gravel driveway with three horses and a cart. We blow right by them and plunge inside the house. Half a dozen crates are stacked in the foyer. Bréguet is usually in the workshop, so we head there.

  But we find only the youngest servant girl and Brigitte, the housekeeper. Both are shoving watches and tools into crates.

  “What’s going on?” I say.

  “The Monsieur’s patron arrived to relocate us!” Brigitte says.

  “Where’s Monsieur Bréguet?” Yvaine asks.

  “Packing the library with his lordship.”

  Yvaine runs and I follow.

  More shells explode. The chandeliers rattle.

  The library isn’t far and the huge double doors are open already. We tear into the two-story room. Bréguet is facing us, packing watches and clocks from the display cases into a crate.

  “Chérie!” he says.

  The Marquis de Messidor has his back to us. He stands tall and thin in his blue and red jacket, white pants, and high black boots. A long rifle hangs from a pale leather case across his back, and his hat is one of those sideways Napoleon-type jobs.

  He pivots as if standing on a turntable. He’s super in focus, and I know what he is before I see his face.

  Chapter Seventeen:

  Longshot

  France, 1807

  THE NEW TICK-TOCK — and he is different, at least a foot taller — gives us the evil eye. Literally. He’s got goggles built into his ivory mask, ringed cylinders like brass telescopes. One of them extends to focus on us. Colored glass in the other lens flicks from green to red.

  He crouches and springs high into the air, back-flipping like a circus performer to land fifteen feet above us on the upstairs balcony. Silently, he whips the big rifle from its holster and brings it to his shoulder. A freaking clockwork sniper!

  He aims at Yvaine.

  I force us both to the ground.

  BANG! Something whizzes past to strike the parquet floor and throw up a puff of sawdust.

  What are the odds Mr. Longshot keeps missing? I scramble to my feet. I know we should run, but we watch in horrid fascination as NRA Tick-Tock reloads his gun. He winds and cranks. I’ve never seen a weapon like this, long and brass and covered in gears and levers.

  My hand grabs Yvaine’s. “Time to go. Uptime!”

  “Not till we help the Monsieur!” she says. “Try to distract the Tock.”

  Oh, God, what is she getting me into? I snatch up a heavy bronze bookend and shot put it at Longshot, who lays off his winding to hop out of the way. Next, chucking all caution, I make a running jump onto the balcony ladder underneath him. It slides sideways on its little track and I climb.

  The rifleman — or is that riflemachine — circles the balcony to get a bead on me. He resumes his reloading efforts.

  I reach the top and grab another pair of bookends.

  “Marquis de Machine!” Yvaine hollers up.

  She’s standing below with Bréguet, holding two of his mécanisme spécial. She dashes them to the floor, where they explode into a billion pieces.

  Machine and inventor both howl. Bréguet’s is a pathetic gasp of human loss, Longshot’s a high metallic whine. He was aiming to shoot me in the head, but now he turns toward Yvaine. He pulls back the bolt on his rifle.

  I hurl one bookend then the other. The first misses but the second is mega-lucky and knocks his gun askew just as he fires.

  BANG! The bullet blasts into a bookshelf.

  He swivels back to me, causing those gold ropey things on his uniform to flap. Telescoping lenses whirl and contract. He rotates back to Yvaine and gets to reloading.

  I get to collecting bookends. Yvaine gets to smashing.

  Bréguet gets to howling. “Non! Non! Chérie—”

  The chateau shudders like a dollhouse under assault by a jealous younger brother. The chandelier sways to the accompaniment of titanic booms.

  “Timequake?” I yell.

  Yvaine shakes her head.

  I realize she’s right. Timequakes — and I’ve only experienced one — feel different, like the universe is shaking. Plus they don’t really make any sound. This does. Booms, thuds, cracks, groans.

  Duh. There’s a war outside. The army is shelling the house!

  More explosions rock the ceiling. The balcony pitches and tilts while I cling for dear life. Plaster and wood and who knows what tumble toward the floor.

  The world clicks into odd slow motion. Yvaine and Bréguet are standing not far from each other, separated by a crate. Both look up, both faces terrified.

  Across from me, Longshot sheathes his gun and leaps. At first, I think he’s coming for me, but he sails out into space and comes down right on top of Bréguet, straddling him like an enormous spider.

  Yvaine hops away — into the middle of the room!

  “Take cover!” I scream.

  I’m drowned out by the wrenching sounds from above.

  Track and field star or not, jumping down to Yvaine won’t work — unless I want to break both legs.

  As the chandelier, the gold-painted wooden ceiling, and pretty much everything else breaks loose, I take a deep breath and pull down.

  I let go the instant I’m in-between.

  And grab the doorpost to the library to get my bearings. Part one of my desperate plan came together perfectly. I just pray the whole time-ghost thing works like I think it does.

  I shrink back and peer into the room.

  “Chérie!” Bréguet says.

  The ceiling’s perfectly intact and he looks perfectly normal. Fake Yvaine and fake me are walking into the room. And the faux Marquis that turns to greet them seems human enough. He’s still tall and thin, and his face is long and fleshy with a honking Gallic nose and bushy sideburns.

  One inventor, three ghosts, and a time traveler.

  The Marquis’s eyes widen on seeing the fakes. He bolts across the room, leaps to grab the balcony, and flips himself up. It’s impressive, if not equal to Longshot’s unnatural gymnastics.

  Fake Charlie grabs at fake Yvaine. “Time to go. Outside.”

  “Not till we help the Monsieur,” she says.

  I watch my fake climb the ladder and get into a weird object-throwing match with the faux Marquis. He never draws his gun. I have to assume this ghost-theater is what normal humans see — a sanitized version of our time traveler reality.

  My cooldown’s burned so I only have one shot at this. I suppose I could jump in there now and grab fake Yvaine, but since I don’t know if that will work, I bide my time.

  And it isn’t long before the house is shaking and the ceiling threatening to fall. I’m running for Yvaine when the faux Marquis does a suicidal swan dive toward Bréguet. Just as I reach her, she shimmers, blurs, and sharpens into hyper-focus. We collide, and my momentum drags her across the room until I drop to the slick wood floor and pull us underneath the Monsieur’s enormous desk.

  The last thing I see before ten tons of debris cover the room is the Tick-Tock. He’s caged Bréguet with his own body, and his emotion-free mask of a face is back. The head swivels toward me. The weird gogg
les pulse and his mouth cracks open in what I take for a snarl.

  Yvaine and I clutch each other as chunks of building pound the desk above. Dust pours into our little cubby until we can hardly breathe.

  But the French build furniture to last.

  “You traveled t’save me?” she says when the rumble subsides. There’s dust in her eyes and she rubs at them, turning herself into a gray raccoon.

  “Just a short hop. Worked like a charm.” Actually more like a bizarre undo button.

  “You just wanted t’burn your cooldown so I has t’take us uptime.”

  But she gives me a deep kiss. Dusty but so worth it.

  “Is yours ready?” I say.

  She nods and we struggle to push aside enough debris to reach the surface. Amazingly, most of the balcony is still intact. But four stories above I see sky!

  “Where’s Grandpapa?” Yvaine says

  “Under there somewhere.” I nod toward the rubble.

  “We needs get him—”

  More explosions rock the house, but there’s not much left to cave in on us.

  I sigh and help Yvaine over to where I last saw Bréguet, keeping a firm grip on her hand.

  “If things get nasty,” I say, “it’s up to you to lift us out of here.”

  “Monsieur!” Yvaine calls.

  There’s a feeble reply. He’s trapped under the chandelier and a big beam, but at least he’s alive.

  CHIME. The nearby rubble shudders and settles.

  CHIME. “The Tock,” I say. “He’s under there somewhere. We need to leave!”

  CHIME. “Grandpapa first,” Yvaine says.

  CHIME. “I hate to say it…” But I’m going to. “The Tick-Tock wanted him alive. His research, it’s wrong somehow.”

  CHIME. She starts tossing debris to the side. “I dinna care.”

  CHIME. I try to see what the Tock is up to. One of his booted feet twitches under the wreckage. He must be trapped, but not for long. Who knows where or when he’s about to go, but I can’t imagine it’s good.

  CHIME. Yvaine’s making some progress. With a sigh I start helping her.