Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1)

by Matthew Storm

  “You’re coming downstairs now,” Sally said. “This can be easy or it can be hard.” She shrugged and cracked her knuckles. “I like hard, myself, but I’ll let you pick.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Tyler told her. “Let’s all take a breath and…”

  “Sally?” a new voice called from farther away. “Now.”

  Oliver was startled. That new voice had belonged to a child. A girl, or a small boy whose voice hadn’t started to change. What the hell was going on here? Who did these people take orders from?

  Tyler looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Artemis doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” he said.

  Sally took a silver pistol out of her jacket pocket and held it up for Oliver to see. “Last chance,” she said.

  “You’re not going to shoot me,” Oliver said.

  Sally’s expression changed to one of amusement. “I’m not?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Oliver replied. He saw Tyler’s mouth drop open in surprise. Oliver wasn’t sure where his newfound confidence was coming from, but he’d been backed into a corner and he wasn’t willing to be a victim anymore. “You people may be nuts, but you didn’t go to all this trouble so you could shoot me now.” It was a logical conclusion, but while Oliver was secretly pleased with his own bravado, he did wonder if provoking a crazy woman with a gun was especially wise.

  “He’s got you there,” Tyler agreed. He had a small smile on his face. “You can’t shoot him.”

  “I could shoot him in the arm,” Sally pointed out, as if where to shoot someone was the kind of decision she had to make regularly.

  “And he could bleed out,” Tyler said. “Besides, if you get blood on the floor of this house, Artemis is going to have you up here with a mop and a bucket.”

  “Screw that,” Sally said. “Fine.” She put the gun away and stepped up to Oliver, close enough that he could smell that she’d been chewing breath mints recently. “You coming?”

  “No.”

  Sally punched him hard in the gut, her fist moving so fast Oliver hadn’t even seen the blow coming. He fell to his knees in pain, the wind knocked out of him for the second time that day. “Jesus,” he wheezed. The woman was strong.

  “Bang!” Sally said, throwing her arms in the air as if she’d just scored a touchdown.

  “Damn it, Sally,” Tyler protested. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “No, but I wanted to,” Sally told him. “You see the difference?” She looked down at Oliver, clearly amused with herself. “You had enough?”

  Oliver had never been punched in his life. Even as a child he hadn’t been in so much as a playground scuffle. Now he had been hurt, but more than that, he was angry. Oliver wasn’t sure that he had ever felt rage before, but now his chest felt like it was on fire. These people had abducted him, and now they thought they could beat him? He had no intention of trying to fight with them, but if he was going to escape, he was clearly going to have to go through them to do it. Once upon a time that thought might have bothered him. He found it didn’t anymore.

  He looked up at the sneering woman. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  Sally cocked her head at him. “You’ve got some balls,” she said. “I can respect…” but she was cut off as Oliver suddenly launched his body at her midsection. “Hey!” she yelled as he wrapped his arms around her, forcing her backwards. “Get off me!”

  Oliver had only intended to knock Sally off balance so he could get past her and to the door, but his momentum had carried him too far and they fell to the floor together in a tangle of arms and legs. Sally managed to free one of her arms and fired an elbow into the side of Oliver’s head. His vision filled with stars.

  “Hey! Hey!” Tyler shouted. He put his arms around Oliver’s torso and tried to separate the two of them. “Stop it! Break it up!” He pulled Oliver backwards away from the furious woman.

  Sally scrambled to her knees and aimed a punch at Oliver’s crotch. She missed, catching him instead on the inside of his thigh. Oliver felt a dull pain at the impact and his leg went numb.

  Tyler managed to get between them and held them apart at arm’s length. “Stop it now!” he said. “This is over!”

  Oliver wanted nothing more than for it to be over, but Sally had retrieved her pistol and leveled it at Oliver’s head. “Ssh,” she said, her eyes fiery. He knew she was going to shoot him this time.

  “Enough,” a new voice commanded. The three of them looked to the door. A girl of about ten years old stood there. She had long blond hair reaching down to her waist with bangs that nearly covered her icy blue eyes. Oliver noted with some surprise that she was wearing a brown Girl Scout uniform, which seemed bizarrely out of place given the setting.

  Sally didn’t lower her gun. “He hit me,” she told the girl. “This bastard hit me.”

  “You hit him first,” the little girl observed.

  “But…”

  “Put the gun down now, Sally.” The child’s face was expressionless, but her eyes were hard. There was something profoundly disturbing about her, Oliver thought. She was like one of those creepy kids in a horror movie that turns out to be the real monster at the end.

  Sally lowered the weapon. Oliver stared at her in surprise. So the child was their boss? Who the hell were these people? Some kind of cult? Did they think the kid was their messiah? Oh, that would just be perfect. God only knew what they wanted him for. Some bizarre ritual, maybe?

  “Good,” the little girl said primly. “Sally, go outside and take a walk. Don’t come back until you’ve calmed down.”

  Sally glared at her, then at Oliver, and then turned on her heel and left the room. Oliver could hear her footsteps going down a flight of wooden stairs. A moment later a door opened and then slammed shut.

  The little girl glanced at Tyler. “I believe I said something about keeping her under control?”

  “I’m sorry,” Tyler said glumly. “I’ve been trying, but it’s…”

  “No, it’s my fault,” she interrupted. “I should have sent her to the island, but I thought keeping busy might help her work through her grief.” She shook her head. “Clearly I was wrong.”

  “She needs time,” Tyler said. “That’s all.”

  “Time is a luxury we rarely have in this business,” the girl noted.

  Oliver was eyeing the door speculatively when the girl turned to him. “Mr. Jones, I apologize for my employee’s indiscretion. Please come downstairs now. You will not be harmed again. At least, not by anyone here. I give you my word on that.”

  Oliver wasn’t sure what the word of a ten-year-old was worth, but it was better than nothing. And he’d have had to admit he was a little curious about these people now. At least he’d have more information to give to the police later. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Artemis,” the girl said. “And please believe me when I say that without our help, you will be dead by this time tomorrow. Will you please come downstairs and listen to me?”

  Oliver decided he didn’t have anything to lose by agreeing, and getting downstairs would put him one step closer to the front door. “I’ll come,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Artemis said. “Tyler made a batch of muffins earlier. Perhaps you will have one.”

  Oliver blinked. “A muffin?”

  “Indeed. Blueberry.”

  “They’re good,” Tyler said. “My mother’s recipe.”

  They were definitely a cult, Oliver thought.

  Chapter 5

  Artemis led Oliver downstairs and showed him to a chair in the house’s living room. The rest of the house seemed to be sparsely furnished with only the most basic necessities. Oliver didn’t see a single photograph or family memento. There were no children’s toys on the floor or paintings of long-gone relatives hanging over the mantle. There didn’t seem to be a single thing in the house that could be used to identify the people that lived there.

  Oliver wondered if anyone actually lived here at all. It looked more like a m
odel home that would be shown to prospective homebuyers, except that much of the furniture seemed to belong to another time period. Like the elegant Edwardian chairs he and Artemis were sitting in now. Oliver had seen chairs like this before, but that had been on a PBS antiques show. They certainly hadn’t come from one of the local furniture stores. Given their pristine condition, they must have cost a small fortune.

  Tyler went into the kitchen and returned a minute later with half a dozen blueberry muffins arranged on a silver tray. He sat them on a nearby table along with a stack of small plates for serving and a dish of butter. He’d also brewed a pot of tea. Oliver didn’t intend to touch any of it. The strange little girl that had been giving the orders had promised that he would be safe, but he didn’t see the need to take any chances.

  Oliver had taken note of the front door’s location as soon as they’d reached the living room. He couldn’t see whether the deadbolt was engaged, but he was encouraged to see the path to the door was both unguarded and unobstructed. He expected that he could get past the child easily enough, and Tyler had never seemed inclined to hurt him. Sally would be another matter, and she still had that gun in her jacket. If he was going to make a move, he would need to do it before she came back.

  Artemis munched thoughtfully on a muffin, holding a small plate delicately beneath it to catch any crumbs that might fall. A steaming cup of tea sat on a small table next to her. She hadn’t said a word to Oliver since they had come downstairs. She’d just stared at him, the way one might look at a curious work of art in a museum, or maybe a goat with two heads. Finally she sighed and put her muffin down. “Well, Mr. Jones, I give up.”

  “I’m sorry?” he asked. “You give up?” What was she talking about now?

  “I’ve been thinking about this for some small while now and I can’t come up with anything, so I will simply ask you outright. What exactly are you?”

  Oliver frowned. There was a question nobody had ever asked him before. “Pardon me?”

  “What are you?” she repeated.

  Oliver thought about it. “I’m a stock analyst?” he offered, unsure as to what she wanted.

  “No,” she sighed, as if she were trying to explain algebra to a puppy. “That is what you do. The question is what you are. You do see the difference, I hope?”

  “I’m a man?”

  She thought about it. “I’m not entirely sure that is true.”

  Oliver suppressed a tired chuckle. That cinched it. There was no point in trying to reason with these people. They were nuts. How long would it take him to get to the door? Ten seconds? He should wait until Tyler went back into the kitchen to be on the safe side. Maybe if he asked for a soda he could get the man out of the room.

  “Something very odd is going on here,” Artemis continued. “You have managed to make a very powerful enemy, but I have no idea how. I was hoping you could enlighten me.”

  “I have no idea what is going on,” Oliver said. “This day has been one crazy thing after another. First I kept running into him,” he nodded at Tyler, who was standing quietly just behind Artemis with his hands clasped together in front of him.

  “Tyler.”

  “Yes. I saw him twice this morning, first on the train and then at lunch.”

  “I sent him to keep an eye on you.”

  “Okay, fine. Then the other guy shows up at my office…”

  “Mr. Teasdale.”

  “Yeah. He hit me with a Taser or something, and was going to inject me with…poison…I guess.” Oliver paused, suddenly curious about something. “Is his name really Hilary Teasdale?”

  Tyler smirked but Artemis’s face remained impassive. “It is what he calls himself. It is certainly not his real name, but to be honest I’m not sure he ever had a name in the first place.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you have any idea why he was after you?”

  “No. He told me he was with the SEC, but that obviously wasn’t true.”

  “It was not. Had you ever seen him before?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Take a moment to think about it. Perhaps you saw him at the grocery? Or outside your house?”

  Oliver thought it over, but he was sure he’d remember someone like Mr. Teasdale. He’d found the man unsettling even before the assassin had tried to kill him, and then somehow recovered from a bullet wound in the head. “No, I’m sure I never saw him before.”

  “Hmm,” Artemis mused. “That is odd.”

  Oliver glanced at the door. It had only been a longshot that one of them might have some insight, but this didn’t seem to be going anywhere. He had no idea how long Sally’s “walk” would last, and as much as he had questions he wanted answers to, he’d probably wasted enough time here. “So, thank you,” he said, “but I’m going to go now.” Oliver stood up, watching Tyler carefully for any reaction. The other man didn’t move. “I don’t want to hurt either of you, so please don’t try to stop me.”

  “Very well,” Artemis said. “Goodbye, Mr. Jones.”

  Oliver stared at her. That was it? “You’re letting me go?”

  “Yes.” She took a sip of her tea. “Oh, that is quite good,” she said. “Thank you, Tyler,” she nodded at him. Oliver saw the other man beaming.

  “You’re serious? I can go? Just like that?” This had to be some kind of trick, Oliver thought.

  “Just like that.”

  Oliver looked at Tyler again, but the man only nodded toward the door. “Tyler will not stand in your way,” Artemis assured him.

  Oliver took a step toward the door, then stopped. Nobody moved. He took another, but neither of them seemed to care if he left. If this had been a kidnapping, it was the worst one in history. They hadn’t made any ransom demands. Instead they’d offered him muffins and tea. And now they were letting him go.

  Nobody at work was ever going to believe this. The police would never believe this. How on earth was he going to keep from getting fired?

  “Well, goodbye,” Oliver said when he reached the door. He tried the doorknob and was surprised to find it unlocked.

  “Goodbye,” Artemis said.

  Still wondering if someone new was about to appear and tackle him to the ground, Oliver hesitantly stepped through the door.

  Chapter 6

  Oliver closed the door gently behind him. He listened at the door for a moment, but could hear no sounds coming from inside. There were no raised voices. No commotion as someone raced for the door. Nobody seemed to be coming after him at all.

  He stepped away from the door and headed down the stone walkway toward the street. At first he didn’t notice anything amiss. This was definitely Russian Hill, he thought; he recognized the neighborhood. There was a little hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant he liked not far from here. Not far from there was Van Ness, a major thoroughfare that ran through San Francisco. It would be easy enough to hail a cab once he got there. He could be at a police station fifteen minutes from now. He’d be safe there while this mess got sorted out.

  It was then that he noticed the cars. There were several of them in the street, just as he would have expected there to be on any day of the week, but at the moment none of them were moving. That was definitely odd for this time of day. He looked to the left and the right, but couldn’t see a reason why the cars would have stopped. There were no obstacles in the street, no detours or construction that he could see, and there weren’t nearly enough cars for there to be any kind of congestion.

  Oliver hesitated for a moment, then carefully stepped into the street. He approached the nearest car and bent down to peek inside. He could see the driver inside talking on his cell phone, his mouth open wide in laughter. But the man’s mouth wasn’t moving. No part of him was moving, for that matter. The man was frozen in place.

  A short distance up the street Oliver could see another man on the sidewalk. He must have been walking, but had stopped in midstride, one foot stuck barely an inch above the ground. Just behind him Oliver co
uld see a letter carrier stooping down to open a mailbox, his key inserted halfway into the lock but not going any further. Everyone he could see was as still as a mannequin, frozen in a bizarre approximation of everyday life.

  It wasn’t just the people, Oliver realized. Nothing was moving. A man to his left had been out walking his dog, but the dog was just as still now as the man. Just in front of him Oliver could see a leaf which had been in the process of falling from a tree. It had stopped in mid-air. Oliver took a step forward, so close that he could have kissed it if he’d wanted to, then he cautiously reached up and tried to pluck it out of the air. He felt it resist for a moment, as if the leaf were stuck in molasses, and then it came free. He stared at it in his hand. It was just an ordinary leaf. What was going on here?

  “What on earth?” he asked aloud. His voice sounded oddly resonant. He quickly realized it was because nothing else in the neighborhood was making a sound. The entire world around him was deathly silent.

  “It’s like walking into a painting,” Tyler said from behind him. Oliver nearly jumped in surprise. The other man was standing a few feet away, looking up at a bird frozen in mid-flight above them. “It’s wild, isn’t it?”

  “What is this?” Oliver asked in wonderment.

  “Oh, I can’t tell you exactly,” Tyler admitted. “I asked Artemis once and she tried to explain it to me, but theoretical physics is way outside my area.”

  “But you’re doing this? Controlling it?”

  “Oh, no. That’s way beyond our abilities, believe me. You see that house?” he pointed at the building they had just left. “It exists at a single fixed point in time. From its perspective the outside world never moves and never changes. So we use it as a safe house. It’s a great place to hide for a while.”

  “A fixed point in time?” Oliver asked. “So…is this the past? Or the future?” Oliver was beginning to think he’d need a physics textbook to understand all of this. Or possibly some LSD.