Pinball

by Alan Seeger

  “United States of AmerAsia?” Steven interjected.

  Samuel gave him a look. “Yeah. How did you—?”

  “I told you there was a computer in the library. See, the Gates can move you through time as well as space. In this place where I was, it was 2769, and I spent a couple of hours reading about history 700 years into our future.”

  Samuel was silent. Steven wondered what he was thinking. After a moment, he started the car and pulled out of the drive. For about ten minutes all was quiet. Then Samuel broke the silence.

  “Dad…” he began. “I missed you.”

  Steven smiled at his now-grown son. “I missed you, too, Samwise.”

  Chapter 18

  Father and son rode together in silence for a while. They passed through the little town and Steven was both comforted and chagrined to see that not much had changed. Three Forks Market was still there. However, where Custer’s Last Root Beer Stand had been for years, there was now a McDonald’s, its drive-thru lane backed up with cars, the sign proclaiming “BILLIONS AND BILLIONS SERVED.” Some things never changed.

  “”When did that go in?” Steven asked.

  “Last year, I guess,” Samuel replied. “A franchisee from Bozeman bought the place, tore down Custer’s and built the Mickey D’s.”

  The Iron Horse Café was still there, but the sign now read “Lewis & Clark’s.” Little else had changed; new street signs had been installed, and the sign painted on the front window of the town hall appeared to have been repainted fairly recently. Seller’s Hardware and Three Forks Ready Mix were unchanged. They passed the Sacagawea Hotel, which looked the same as always, its majestic white pillars gleaming.

  There was a set of fuel pumps in front of the little convenience store in the center of town that hadn’t been there yesterday — well, Steven’s yesterday. “They put in new pumps,” he remarked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Samuel laughed. “That’s been a while. Probably ten years or more. I wasn’t even driving yet.”

  Steven turned his head and gazed at his son. The eleven-year-old he’d left behind was utterly gone, absorbed into this man that Samwise had become. “How did you come to work at the base, Sam?” he asked.

  “It’s a long story… Mom can tell you about how the base came to be built, but as far as me working there, Mom encouraged me to take accelerated classes when I got into high school,” he said, “and I graduated when I was sixteen. I went to MSU in Bozeman for a year, studying aviation, and then got interested in physics, specifically the nature of time and space. I bet you can’t guess where I got interested in that,” he laughed. “I ended up at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and finished my Bachelor’s in two years, my Master’s in two more, and got my Doctorate when I was 23.

  “That’s when I met Erica. We got married the summer I turned 24, the same year I got this job.” He gave a low laugh. “That was two years ago.”

  “So when did they build this base?” Steven asked.

  “They started not long after you disappeared. Like I said, Mom can tell you more about that than I can,” Samuel replied.

  They drove in silence for a few minutes. Then Steven broke the silence.

  “Where are your sisters?” he asked.

  “Nicolette’s married to a guy from Canada that she met in school at Boise State. They live in Ontario. He works for an accounting house, I think, and Nikki’s doing pretty well for herself as a fashion designer. You might have figured that Dakota became an artist. She works for a comic book publisher — oh, shit, she’d kill me if she heard me say that,” he grinned, “they’re graphic novels. She’s got a sweet gig. She has a condo in Florida and just e-mails her stuff to the office.”

  “What about Lianne?” Steven asked.

  “Oh, dear, sweet Annie,” Samuel said. “We always said she’d be the boss, whatever she decided to do, remember?” Steven nodded. At ten years old, her temper had been legendary. “She’s got her own business right here in town,” Samuel explained. “It’s a craft shop. She’s had it a couple of years, I guess. Does a lot of business. Yarn, fabric, all of that stuff that Mom was always into. She still is. I think Mom’s probably the biggest customer Annie’s got,” he grinned. “I’ll call her when we get to Mom’s house.”

  Chapter 19

  They pulled into a long dirt driveway and approached a small white clapboard house. Steven found his stomach was churning. He wondered how Lynne would react, recalling Samuel’s initial rage. They got out of the car and walked to the front door.

  Samuel opened the door and gave a light knock. “Mom? Are you here?” He stepped inside. “You’re not gonna believe just showed up at my office.” He gestured to Steven to follow.

  Steven walked in, uncertain what to expect. He followed Samuel into the small kitchen, where he saw a slight figure with a long silvery braid down her back standing at the sink. It was Lynne, of course, but the fifteen years had affected her more than he had expected. She turned her head, saw Steven standing in the archway, and dropped the skillet she was scrubbing into the sink with a splash.

  “Steve? Steve!” she cried, running to him. He enveloped her in his arms as she covered his face in kisses. Holding her, he realized that she was thinner, more fragile than he remembered. Her hair, which had been a lustrous chestnut brown, was now mostly silver. She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “It’s been so long! I thought you were dead…”

  “I’m sorry, Lynne, I’m so sorry. I went through the void and came out somewhere else, and just spent a few hours there, and when I got back…”

  “It’s been fifteen years,” she said. “But, Steve… oh, my God, look at you. You’re so young!”

  “It doesn’t matter, Lynne. It doesn’t make any difference.”

  She smiled at him. “You always were such a gentleman. That’s one of the things that made me fall for you. But look at me,” she said. “I look like your mother.”

  “I’m gonna go call Annie,” Samuel said with a smile, going into the living room to find the phone.

  Chapter 20

  They sat in silence at the kitchen table, looking at each other. She was still the same Lynne. Steven still felt the same way about her as he always had. They’d been married for eighteen years — well, they had before his trip to Centra, anyway. He didn’t know how to figure it now. Should they count it as 33 years? He shook his head, smiling. “What are you thinking?” she asked him.

  “I was just thinking that I used to say you’d still be just as hot when you were 60, and now I’ve been proven right,” he grinned.

  “I am not 60,” she retorted, smiling back at him. “I’m only 53, for your information.”

  “Well, you’re a sexy 53,” he growled in a bad imitation of Antonio Banderas.

  They were still laughing when the door burst open and a strikingly beautiful young woman with waist-length brown hair walked in, wearing a crocheted top, jeans and boots. She saw Steven and her brown eyes grew huge. “DADDY!” she screamed, running to him and jumping into his lap.

  “Oh, Annieleigh,” he said, “God, look at you.”

  “Nobody’s called me Annieleigh in… well, since you left. Fifteen y—” she stopped suddenly. “Daddy, look at you,” she said. “You’ve been gone, what, fifteen years? You’re still so young!”

  “It’s gonna sound weird, Lianne,” he said. “But while it was fifteen years for you guys, to me it was only about four hours.”

  She stared at him, uncomprehending.

  He spent the next four hours telling the tale in great detail while Lynne, Samuel and Lianne listened.

  They told their side as well; they’d waited for two weeks, knowing that he’d been gone that long on his earlier excursion, then two more. Lynne was reluctant to report him missing, knowing what he’d told her about the way that the timestream seemed to vary in the void.

  “But finally, after you’d been gone for three months, I felt I had no choice but to call the police. Of course, I didn’t mention the f
act that you’d gone through some kind of gateway in space,” she said, rolling her eyes, “but it wasn’t long before the police discovered the portal — the Gate, you called it, up on the hill. They questioned me and the kids about it and wound up calling in the Federal government.”

  “They immediately declared it top secret and began this black ops program to study the portal and also to keep its existence a secret,” said Samuel.

  Over the fifteen years since then, the base, once just a temporary outpost, had grown into a facility covering nearly a square mile. It was officially listed on the Army’s records as the South Central Montana Military Vehicle Depot, but in reality it had been established specifically to monitor and study the Gate. Initially, the base was staffed strictly by military personnel, and the Denver family was ordered to move out of the house. Lynne balked at this, however, and contacted both of Montana’s U.S. Senators and the Congressman for the district; since the Army couldn’t give a valid reason for trying to evict the family without revealing the secret of the Gate, they relented and let them stay in the house, though the base was built around it. After five years, the decision was made to bring civilian scientists in to study the Gate, which the Army labeled Project STAMINA, for Space-Time Anomaly/Montana Incident/North America.

  After Samuel earned his Doctorate in 2022, he applied for a job at the facility, and his dissertation on a topic remarkably relevant to the work being done there won him the position of Senior Research Assistant. Eighteen months later, the head researcher retired, and at the age of 25, Dr. Samuel Denver was promoted to the top job there.

  Chapter 21

  Steven woke up the next morning and looked over at Lynne’s sleeping form beneath the sheet. She was curled up on her side, facing away from him. Things seemed almost the same as they had been the previous morning, apart from the fact that the thick braid that trailed down her back was mostly silver, and the layout and décor of the room was different. He kissed her bare shoulder as she slept, got up, and went into the kitchen.

  He got a cup of coffee and wandered into the living room, staring out the window. Had he really lost fifteen years in just a few hours? It didn’t seem possible. But his wife was lying in bed in the other room, and clearly, for her as well as his children, time had moved on.

  Jesus. The word was half expletive and half prayer. He really didn’t know what his future held now.

  “Steve?”

  He turned and saw Lynne in a thick maroon terrycloth bathrobe, standing in the archway. “Good morning, baby,” he said, smiling. She smiled back, but it was a sad smile.

  “Seems a little ironic, to call me ‘baby’ now, doesn’t it? I really do look like I should be your mother. Or at least your great-aunt.” She crossed toward him. “Tell me more about this world you went to,” she said.

  He told the story of his four-hour visit once again, trying to fill in any details he might have left out the night before. She asked questions, her teaching mind intensely curious about the people in Centra. She asked about the sky, the plants, the food, the wine. He could see something in her eyes he’d never seen before. It was a new spirit of adventure.

  “I wish I could see that place,” she said.

  “Well,” he said, more than a little surprised, “The Gate’s still out there. Randolph told me that if they last longer than a few days, they’re very likely permanent. I managed to get out of the base without them locking me up — I bet I could get us back in,” he offered.

  She smiled and looked down. “Look at me, Steve,” she said. “I’m too old for adventuring.”

  “Bullshit,” he smiled. “Who was it that took me kayaking for the first time? Who got me to try bungee jumping on our third date? Who always said she wanted to climb Pike’s Peak?”

  “Well, yeah, but that was a long time ag—”

  “But, nothing. You’re not a septuagenarian, honey. You — we — still have years and years to spend together, and you’re not too old for a little adventure.”

  She was silent. He looked at her, seeing the gears turning in her mind. “What are you thinking?”

  “Steve,” she said, “I’ve been thinking about all of this since last night. I — it’s been a joy having you here, feeling your touch again, but there’s something you need to know. You’re still the same 40-year old that you were fifteen years ago, but I’m a 53-year-old former schoolteacher who was alone for years… until I met someone two years ago.”

  Steven stared at her.

  “His name is Christopher,” she said. “I met him one day when I had a flat tire at the supermarket. He changed my tire for me, and then we started seeing each other not long after that. We were married last September. He’s a sales representative for H&E Equipment.”

  Steven shook his head. “You — you’re married to another man? But I — last night —”

  She looked at the floor. “I know. Chris is on a business trip to Chicago this week, otherwise that never would have happened. I do love you, Steve, and I always will, but it’s too late for us. I can’t go back to the way things were.”

  “Sam’s wife — what was her name? Erica? She still called you Lynne Denver,” Steven gasped.

  “I still go by that. I was Mrs. Denver for so many years, teaching, it only seemed natural to keep it.”

  Steven couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and yet, deep down, he understood. He let out a moan, looking at her, shaking his head. “Don’t, please, Steve,” she said. “I have to at least work through this. You can’t possibly understand how it feels. It took me months to accept that you were gone, and years to get over the loss. And now here you are again, but you’re almost young enough to be my son, and I moved on with my life years ago.”

  He closed his eyes and turned his face away, feeling as though someone had run his heart through with a skewer.

  Chapter 22

  Four days had passed since Steven’s return from Centra. He was staying with Lianne while he tried to figure out what he should do. He was sitting alone in her living room watching CNN and trying to sort out the changes in the world when the phone rang. Annie’s machine picked up on the second ring.

  “Dad, it’s me,” he heard Samuel’s voice say. “Pick up.”

  “Hey,” said Steven, picking up the receiver, “what’s going on, son?”

  “I need to talk to you, Dad. Can I come over?”

  “Of course, Samwise. Come on over. I’m just sitting here watching the tube.”

  Fifteen minutes later they were sitting at Lianne’s retro-style kitchen table, coffee cups in hand.

  “Dad,” Samuel began, “The other night you told me all about that place you went on your last trip in to the — Gatespace, you called it?”

  “Centra.”

  “Right. Centra. And the time before that you were on some strange world, and before that, in the Arctic… and…” He hesitated.

  “What is it, Sam?”

  “I… I’ve never done anything really exciting like that. I’ve never had an adventure. I’ve never been down the rabbit hole, or traveled to Mordor, or swum the English Channel. I’ve never been to Japan — which Nikki has. Ever since you disappeared, I poured myself into school and then later into this job…” He paused, looking at the floor.

  “What are you saying, Sam?”

  Samuel looked up at his father, locking eyes with him. “Take me there, Dad. I want to go to Centra with you. I didn’t document the fact that you came back. No one would ever know.”

  Steven looked at his son with alarm. “What are you saying? Look what happened to me when I went! I lost fifteen years of my life!”

  “No, you didn’t, Dad. We lost fifteen years of your life, but you’re still young. You still have years ahead of you…” He grimaced. “Mom has a new husband; I know what she told you the other morning. I know why you’re staying with Annie instead of with her.”

  “So what are you saying? You figure since your mother kicked me to the curb, I don’t have anything to lose?
I did lose those years! I lost fifteen years of seeing you grow up, you and your sisters! I can never get that time back!”

  “I know,” Samuel said, “But… it’s just that I need to do this. We need to do this.”

  Steven was silent for a moment.

  “What does Erica think about this craziness?”

  “She doesn’t know yet, but… well, I didn’t intend to tell you, not yet, but we’ve been in the process of a divorce for about three months.”

  “A divorce? But… why, Sam?”

  “She’s not happy here. She’s not happy with me. She’s just not happy in general… and she doesn’t know that I know it, but she’s been seeing another man.”

  “Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Sam.”

  “It’s all right, Dad. She’ll be happier, and…”

  “And what about you? Will you be happy?” He remembered the little boy to whom every setback was a tragedy, every small disappointment an utter devastation.

  “I don’t want to lose her, Dad, but if the truth be told, I don’t have her now. In her heart, she’s already gone. You can’t lose something you don’t have.”

  Steven looked at the man who had been his little boy, and realized that somehow, in his twenty-six years, he had gained a measure of wisdom.

  “So we’ll just be two bachelors, huh?”

  “Two bachelors, on an adventure… in another world.”

  Chapter 23

  Steven stepped out onto the alien landscape with Samuel in tow. Sam fell to his knees, and Steven realized that the shock of Sam’s first excursion into the Gatespace had taken more of a toll than he expected. He helped Sam to his feet, steadying him, and was rewarded with a look of wonder that slowly spread across Sam’s face as the world came back into focus.

  “Oh, man! This is incredible!” Samuel exclaimed, looking around. Steven noted that it seemed to be a different season than on his previous visit, for the trees which had been the color of malachite were now golden, but the sky was the same pinkish color. He led Sam toward the little town.