Untimed: A Time Travel Adventure

by Andy Gavin

  “Where is he? That prick-tock be the one killt me parents.”

  I put my hand on her arm, grateful for her anger or the coffee or time or whatever has sobered her up. Her skin still feels clammy, but my girl is back.

  I glance at my watch. Eight minutes left.

  “I found my aunt,” I say, “and she took the Tock into the future.”

  “It be possible t’carry them uptime?”

  “Apparently. See that cage?” I point behind me, my eyes on her face. “She’s going to be inside it in seven minutes.”

  “With the burly cat?” Yvaine says.

  I turn around. Holy crap. Joe’s men opened all the cages, but the tiger’s still in there, pacing back and forth at the far end.

  “We’re going to hit the Tock with…” I realize she doesn’t even know what electricity is. “Man-made lightning. I need to get it ready.” I look at her, standing there barefoot, her little ribs visible under the skimpy coffee-stained cami. “Do you think you can get the tiger out of there without getting hurt?”

  “Unless he dinna like meat.”

  She’s still got a shit-eating grin on her face. So while I don’t like it, and the plan was dangerous as hell before the tiger got lazy, what choice do we have?

  We decorated the pickle jars with silver foil in advance. The lids have the central conductors, and I already rigged them in parallel with wire disguised as ribbons. The contraption isn’t charged yet, since electrocuting random pickle-loving guests would be uncool. Before I hop on the unicycle part of the cart, I check the big knife-switch to make sure it’s open — as in disconnected — again, electrocution equals bad.

  Leyden jars will hold a charge and release it when grounded, but you have to get the electricity in there somehow. A couple days ago I had one of Joe’s engineers modify the cart’s pedal-powered mechanism. Now, I pull the lever that drops the unicycle’s drive chain onto a different wheel and start pedaling furiously. Instead of moving the cart I’m spinning a big disk of glass against a rabbit fur pad. The contraption looks innocuous, but I can hear the satisfying crackle of static as I pedal. I only hope there’s time to build a big enough charge.

  My test at the base took five minutes, but I’ve wasted some time with Yvaine and can only spare three, so I pedal like that guy from my history who’s held the biking record at 81 mph since 2002. And I’m not suggesting he’s a time traveler just because I can’t remember his name.

  I have a great show to watch while I’m pedaling. Yvaine heaves what looks like a haunch of mutton in front of the cage. She runs behind the door — thank God! — and tries to get the tiger’s attention.

  Gulp. Me, not the tiger.

  Reminding myself to breathe becomes harder and harder. Yvaine is tossing bits of meat at the cat’s head. I just got her back and here she is teasing a tiger.

  But the big cat slinks toward the cage entrance, striped tail swishing behind it — screaming crowds must make it nervous. It snatches up the chunk of meat and bolts away.

  Yvaine jogs back to me just as I finish with the bike. She’s wearing that oh-so-pleased-with-herself smile.

  “Stay away from the cart,” I say. “Touch a jar, and you could die.”

  “Toff rescue, timid tigers an’ killer pickles.”

  “This whole plan is crazy,” I say. “In two minutes, my aunt is going to reappear in that cage with the Tick-Tock. His hands are tied, but she has to get out. You slam the door shut the second she does, then get away from the cage.”

  “Won’t work,” she says. “He’ll chime his way t’freedom.”

  “I know, but if I can throw this switch, the power in these jars will stop him.”

  She shrugs. “I hopes you be right.”

  “I have to attach this cord first. The lightning moves along the wire, from the jars to the cage.”

  I scoop up the coiled cable and dodge across the twenty feet or so to the cage, then tie the end around one of the bars.

  “Less than a minute!” I kiss Yvaine. “Get in position behind the cage door — and be careful.”

  The deadline comes and goes.

  “Hold your place!” I yell to Yvaine from my position by the switch.

  I’m nervous, but not too much. Sophie said she often overshoots. I just hope it’s not too long.

  The fighting has died down. Most of the people have been herded to the far side of the room. I can see Joe up on a podium with the king and lots of overdressed folk. They’re setting up cameras. I really don’t want to think about what Joe’s going to do.

  Where the hell is my aunt?

  I don’t know, but she’s not the first returnee to the cage.

  The tiger lopes back inside, sits down, and starts licking his paws.

  “Yvaine! The cat—”

  Now, two minutes and seven seconds late, Sophie makes her entrance. She and the Tock pop into the cage and slam into the side wall. It’s like her arrival in Joe’s cell, except for one detail. My aunt falls backwards onto the embiggened house cat.

  He squirms out from underneath her, hissing and snarling. Sophie tries to regain her balance, gripping the bars, but the Tick-Tock is fast, even with his arms still tied to his sides. We watch in horror as he kicks her to the floor of the cage and stomps on one of her legs.

  Even twenty feet away I hear the bone snap.

  Yvaine’s standing by the cage door on her toes. The tiger’s at the far end, with Sophie and the Tick-Tock between. When the Tock raises a foot to kick Sophie again, the loose ends of silk flutter—

  And the tiger starts to bat at the scarf like a kitten bats at yarn. In the process, his claws rip into the Tock’s blue suit.

  It’s at this awkward juncture that Parvati returns.

  “No!” She screams at the door of the cage, ready to rush in.

  Yvaine shoves her sideways, toppling her to the floor.

  The tiger has the Tick-Tock off balance but isn’t doing us any favors because his claws have now shred the sash. In a heartbeat, the Tock’s hands are at his waist and back up again, this time with two wicked brass daggers. Ignoring the cat, he pivots toward Sophie.

  “Burn in hell!” Yvaine yells.

  She flops into the cage, scrabbles across the floor, and grabs the Tock’s ankles. A churning hole in the universe opens over her head—

  They both disappear into the sea of stars.

  The tiger hisses, arches his back, tail up, then bolts out of the cage and off into the crowd.

  Shit, shit, shit! Where’d they go?

  I leave my switch and start running. Electricity’s useless with Sophie in the cage anyway — the shock would kill her.

  “Frigging Tock!” Sophie says, dragging herself toward the mouth of the cage. Parvati, still on the floor where Yvaine knocked her, crawls over.

  I hear the clanging of metal on metal.

  “Charlie!”

  Turning, I see Yvaine hanging beneath a gigantic birdcage filled with parrots and one pathetic and squishy-looking Tick-Tock. The cage is barely bigger than he is — his arms are smooshed up inside with his legs dangling below. Somehow, she managed to exit the in-between with him inside and herself outside.

  She lets go of his ankles and drops to the ground.

  “Bonny trick, if I does say so meself.”

  It is, but the Tock twists around in his cage — which, while not so great for the parrots, allows him to get his hands closer to his torso.

  “The cable!” Sophie yells, her voice ragged with pain.

  She’s right. The Tick-Tock, his blue jacket open, is working the dials on his chest.

  CHIME! Very bad. Twenty-six seconds until an angry Tock’s loose in time. If we can’t shock him before he leaves, we’ll lose our chance to jump in his hole.

  “Yvaine!” I yell. “Get that wire from the old cage to the new one.”

  Sophie starts untying the cable. Sweat beads her face, and I know that leg has to be excruciating — I give her serious points for grace under pain.

/>   CHIME! Yvaine runs to the tie-off for the Tock’s suspended cage. Whoever hung it threaded the chain through a big loop in the ceiling and clipped it to the base of a column.

  CHIME! I take the cord from my aunt while Yvaine unhooks the chain.

  CHIME! The Tock and his cage crash to the ground but Yvaine, way lighter, rides her end up into the air, clinging to it with her fingers and toes.

  CHIME! She swings across the short space and leaps to the top of his cage.

  CHIME! “Throw me that wire,” she calls, “then fry up the bastard.”

  CHIME! I toss the half-coiled cable up to her and turn.

  CHIME! I’m halfway back to the pickle cart.

  CHIME! Reaching the switch, I see Yvaine tie the cable to the chain atop the cage.

  CHIME! “Get away from the metal!” I scream, my hand poised on the big switch.

  CHIME! She jumps into the air and hops sideways.

  CHIME! The second her feet are clear I throw the switch.

  CHIME! Just before the switch closes, the Tick-Tock’s hand shoots through the bars and grabs her.

  CRACK! Sparks fly from the switch, the jars, the cable, the cage.

  Chapter Twenty-Six:

  Clockwork

  Philadelphia, April, 2011

  WHEN MY EYES CLEAR, Yvaine and the Tick-Tock are practically side-by-side, him slumped in his cage, her prone on the ballroom floor next to it, his mechanical fingers around her wrist.

  I run to her, kick his hand away, and kneel.

  “Yvaine!” I shake her gently, relieved that she’s warm. But her open eyes are staring but not seeing. I put my ear to her mouth, then her chest.

  Nothing.

  No, no, no! We were so close—

  CPR. I took it in gym this year but don’t remember much. I clasp my fingers together, place my palms on her chest, and press a couple times.

  Hard. They said hard. Count to ten. Ten hard jabs.

  Nothing.

  I pinch her nose, put my lips to hers, and blow. Ten times.

  Was I only supposed to pump? — I can’t think — I pump again. I blow again.

  I’m barely aware when a shadow falls over me. It’s Sophie, leaning on Parvati for support. She gasps in agony as her lover lowers her to the floor.

  Parvati kneels across from me. She puts her brown hands on mine and pushes — not just hard, rib-breaking hard. Five times. Ten times. Fifteen—

  “Owwwwww!” Yvaine’s eyelids flutter and she sucks in a long, pained breath.

  “Did an elephant stomp on me chest?” Yvaine whispers.

  I hold her, stroke her hair. So close. So close. I feel like I’ve been shoved through a pasta machine.

  Sophie opens the cage with the Tick-Tock. Her face reveals new depths of pain.

  “Charlie, he won’t be out long. Let Parvati take your girl.”

  I know she’s right, but I take a folded handkerchief from my pocket and press the contents into Yvaine’s hands.

  “The police took the thistle,” I say, “but I made this instead.” It’s just a flower from outside the rebel base, dried.

  She kisses me and—

  “Charlie!” Sophie yanks me away.

  I turn to the Tock. With his porcelain eyelids shut, his face looks even blanker than usual. I’m close enough to see his horsehair-thick eyelashes and the white of his cheeks, painted with red. His legs are jammed under the heavy cage and when we try to shift him, we find that metal men are heavy. But I easily tear open his jacket to expose his guts.

  Whenever I’ve seen the Tock’s chest, the parts were all whirling and spinning. Now his innards are still.

  I start with the easy dials. The clock with its twenty-four roman numerals is set to noon. Fine. The next one is brass, with the letters J, I, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D.

  It has to be the months, despite the weird February. I turn the brass dial to the second J, June.

  The next dial has thirty-one roman numerals. Dad wanted to meet on the first of the month, so I roll it to thirty and give us a day to situate.

  There’s a brass cylinder with white and black enamel rotating numbers, like the counter on an ancient VCR. It has seven digits and reads 0002011 AD. Seven fricking digits?

  I spin the adjacent wheel and it advances to 2012. Wrong way. I reverse. It’s going to take me half a minute to get to 1948.

  Yvaine leans over and pulls the two nasty brass daggers from the Tock’s motionless waist.

  “He killed me da and mum with these,” she whispers. She takes the belt too and shoves the blades into the holsters.

  Sophie points to two of the three remaining dials. “These are longitude and latitude.”

  Both of us memorized the coordinates for Shanghai, picking a spot a hundred yards out into the harbor so we won’t pop up in the middle of a wall or a mountain. Sophie starts dialing.

  “What about the last gauge?” I ask. It reads eighty, but eighty what?

  She shrugs. “We’ll have to risk it.”

  I finish with the year about the same time Sophie has the location dialed in.

  “What do we do next?” I say. Not like there’s a big button labeled GO!

  “Is he wound?” Yvaine says. “I seen ’em wind theirselves.”

  There are two hexagonal brass sockets and a little T-shaped key dangling from his waist by a chain. It fits the sockets. I crank to the right.

  I only last a minute before my wrist cramps up and Sophie has to take over. I can see a big spring inside tightening. We finish one, then wind the other.

  Still nothing.

  “What now?” I say.

  “The swinger,” Yvaine says. “Dinna you start a clock with the swinger?”

  I stare at his guts.

  She must mean a pendulum. He has a big brass one in the middle of his stomach.

  “What if he wakes up?”

  Sophie gives the pendulum a flick. Always a thrill-seeker, my aunt.

  There’s a metallic ticking as thousands of gears and whirling bits spin to life.

  CHIME. His limbs don’t move.

  CHIME. Sophie gives Parvati a too-hot-for-TV smooch.

  CHIME. “I’m going to miss you,” she says.

  CHIME. “Where’re you headed?”

  CHIME. “Long ago and far, far away.”

  CHIME. “I don’t understand, but I know I’ll see you again,” Parvati says.

  CHIME. Sophie tousles her hair then turns to me. “Get close, Charlie, but not too close!”

  CHIME. I pull Yvaine to me. Her Tick-Tock blades look mighty peculiar belted over her silver thong.

  CHIME. The gears and moving bits inside the Tock are speeding up, some of them just blurs of motion.

  CHIME. The Tock’s porcelain eyelids pop open. His brass irises expand. His arms jerk, then move to his spinning chest.

  CHIME. “Bugger us!” Yvaine draws one of the Tock’s daggers from her belt and holds it ready.

  Sophie wrestles for control of the mechanical arms as the Tock’s fingers grope at his dials.

  CHIME. His innards are all a blur now. Where his heart should be, a lopsided red and gold thing whirls around, faster and faster. A shiver runs down my spine. It looks like a big cousin to Bréguet’s whirlwind.

  Within the non-space formed by its motion, the world opens to the in-between.

  CHIME. The lights in the room dim. Yvaine thrusts her blade toward the Tock, but I grab her from behind with both arms, nearly lifting her from the ground.

  The Tick-Tock drops into the hole that opens beneath him. The seething boiling hole. Sophie’s almost dragged in with him, but kneeling on the solid floor, she braces herself as he drops away.

  I feel Yvaine trembling. “If we goes in there,” she says, “he’ll be waitin’.”

  Sophie turns to us. “I’d go anywhere for your father.” She pivots on her good knee and lets herself fall into the void.

  “She’ll be back,” Parvati says. “Sooner or later she always comes back.”


  Yvaine watches Sophie’s form shrink inside the hole.

  “We might be jumpin’ into hell.”

  I glance at her. “We could go separate, my cooldown’s over.”

  “Save it. I trusts you.” She holsters her knife.

  We jump in together.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven:

  Sunk

  Shanghai, downtime

  OUR PASSAGE THROUGH THE IN-BETWEEN FEELS RUSHED, harsher. We tumble end over end. I grip Yvaine’s hand so hard the skin turns white. But I don’t dare let go.

  And I’m dizzy. The feeling of vertigo doesn’t end when we pop out into hazy daylight. I can see a low city below me, and as we plunge downward toward a sheet of water dotted with ships, I realize what the Tock’s extra dial was for: height.

  “Feet down!” I scream. A shred of good sense reminds me to bring my free hand up to pinch my nose.

  Then we hit.

  WHAM!

  Our velocity drives us under. The water feels like ice and tastes like salty sewage.

  Yvaine thrashes like a madwoman. Holding onto her is harder here than in-between.

  I open my eyes to see Sophie struggling with the Tick-Tock. He’s below me, one arm raised above his head, the other clutching her bad leg and dragging her down with him.

  I want to go to her, but they’re sinking too fast and I have my hands full. Bubbles pour out of Yvaine’s mouth as she twists against me. I try to kick my way upward, but God, she’s making it hard.

  We break the surface and I gasp for air.

  Time has changed Yvaine’s hair — wet black strands stick to her blueish lips as she spits and chokes. A rough swell smacks her back under and she grabs at me, threatening to haul us both down.

  I get my hands around her middle, under her arms, and kick like a madman. She pulls me under every other wave.

  “Don’t fight me!” I yell between breaths. “Scissor your legs and stay upright.”

  She coughs and coughs, but we manage to keep our heads above water.

  The image of the sinking Tock is burned into my brain. Poor Sophie.