Fugitives of Time: Sequel to Emperors of Time

by Penn, James Wilson

  Tim just about jumped out of his soggy skin, but he wasn’t shocked enough to miss the next bit of bad news.

  “And I have one on the girl,” said another voice.

  The person who one of the voices belonged to also struck a match and lit a lantern, so that the room was lit with dim light. Thomas Fuller and Henry Hibbard were standing near the door to the room, pointing pistols at them.

  “Now kick your weapons across the floor,” instructed Fuller. Rose’s was out, but not pointed at anyone, so she had no choice but to put it on the floor and kick it. Tim considered trying to bluff and convince the men he didn’t have one, but he noticed that it was sticking slightly out of the pocket he had carelessly shoved it into before trying his hatchet trick. Tim surrendered the weapon, and Hibbard came over and closed the window again.

  Rose swore, and Tim hung his head. The thought that they should have waited for Billy and Julie flashed through his head, but he figured if they’d done that, then all four of them would be caught instead of just two of them.

  “No doubt you’ve already worked out the broad outlines of what happened here,” Hibbard said.

  “When I woke up, I found the smashed machine, so I knew what had happened immediately, although I didn’t know how many people were involved. I immediately came here to tell Hibbard to be expecting company tonight,” Fuller explained.

  “Now the other occupants of this boarding house and Fuller’s are in one of the rooms upstairs being persuaded to our point of view,” said Hibbard.

  “We hadn’t intended to involve more people than the original four,” Fuller admitted. “But we could not leave them to their own devices now that they have been inadvertently drawn into the action. The machines are intended to work with just one person at a time, of course, but they should understand enough at least not to try to resist what we’re trying to do, even if they might not receive the specific instructions that myself and Hibbard have been chosen to receive.”

  There was a pause at this point. Tim was able to understand enough of what Fuller was saying to realize that while the machines didn’t work well with more than one person, they could still be used for crowd control in a pinch. Of course, Tim had more immediate concerns on his mind.

  “What, so you’re just going to shoot us now?” asked Rose. Her voice sounded strong and defiant. Tim had to admire her for not becoming a terrified mess. Tim personally was feeling awfully cowardly, but decided he wasn’t going to show it if Rose wouldn’t.

  “Not at all,” said Hibbard easily. “I have other instructions. You see, we have been instructed to let you do the right thing.”

  “Destroy the mind-control machine?” Rose asked, seemingly surprised by their good fortune.

  Fuller laughed at this. “Is that what you think they are? Mind-control machines? Not at all… They simply expand our perspective. We don’t do anything we wouldn’t otherwise do, or think anything we wouldn’t already think. For instance, take our brilliant plan for compromise on this Kansas-Nebraska business. Why wouldn’t we want to supply this country that we love with a plan that will keep us strong and united instead of continuing to bicker over slavery until, what… A civil war, perhaps? Or a Northern-imposed abolition that would lead to economic bankruptcy for the South? What good would that do for anyone? But with the perspective we gained from the machines you disparage, we have found a solution.”

  “It’s not a solution, it’s part of an intricate plan hatched by evil scientists from the future,” Tim contradicted.

  Fuller and Hibbard chuckled again. Hibbard fielded this point. “Why must the scientists be evil? They want what’s best for our country, just like us. They must succeed. We must succeed. And together, we will. Yes, you have managed to destroy two of our machines tonight, and it is perhaps true that we might forget some of our revelations if we didn’t have regular access to our machines. But I daresay we could carry on the rest of the plan without outside help. And we still have two machines that are active.”

  “Why would you be telling us this?” asked Rose. She was clearly thinking, like Tim, that they might be lying about how many more machines there were, especially about the implication that the machine Julie and Billy had been sent out to destroy was still intact.

  “To scare you,” explained Hibbard, matter-of-factly. “You see, you need to know that we are still strong and that you cannot defeat us. This way, you will make the proper decision when we make our offer.”

  “You need to travel back to your own time--we know you are not actually the people who you look like now-- and leave the past to unfold how we want it to. If you do that, you will each live out a full, good life. In fact, we are authorized to tell you that those scientists who you so brashly call evil, they will pull some strings within the timeline to make sure that all four of you who were once their enemies will be especially prosperous. Of course, they will give you instructions on how you can meet them, so that they can reverse the surgery that your misguided leader forced you to undergo. Then, you will be able to go back to your own life, better than before. They will not only leave you unmolested, but enriched. Would someone evil make an offer like that?”

  Tim had to admit that part of him was almost tempted.

  “And the last piece of information you should know before you make your decision is that your friends have already accepted our offer. They have left and gone back home. Don’t you want to join them?”

  “You’re lying!” Rose shouted immediately. “How would you even know? They’re at Disney’s house, he isn’t here!”

  “No, he is not. But the machines also act as communication devices, and we can tell when they are broken if we try to communicate with it, which is how we know you successfully destroyed Westbrook’s device. When Fuller got here, we told Disney to be on the lookout. He was, and succeeded in heading them off. He explained to your friends that we would no doubt spoil your attempt at breaking our machine, and they no doubt trusted that you, like they, would make the right decision and move back to your own time and stop interfering here,” Hibbard explained.

  “Well, you probably need some time to think,” Fuller said, almost kindly. “We will leave you in here. You may feel free to take off any time you like. Don’t bother saying goodbye, just leave and enjoy your lives. But if you do decide to resist, your graves will be here in 1854.”

  The congressmen didn’t wait for a response, but allowed the conversation to end on that ominous note. They closed the door behind them, leaving Rose and Tim alone in the room.

  “Well, now what?” asked Tim, who was more or less stumped.

  “First things first,” Rose said, with a bit of a sniffle, “I’m going to need a hug.”

  That was something Tim could do, if perhaps a bit awkwardly. There was a squelching noise as their wet clothes clung together for a moment. It was weird, but it actually did make Tim feel a little better to hug Rose. Tim would have to remember that about Rose… It was good to have a friend who gave good hugs.

  Rose was tearing up a little bit, but she gave a loud sniff and wiped her eyes. “Okay, now it’s time for us to buck up and talk about this like adults. Or, you know… time-traveling teenagers.”

  Tim smiled faintly. “Okay. So they’re lying right?”

  “I don’t know,” Rose admitted, putting a hand against her head. “What do you think?”

  “Nope… let’s try this again,” Tim said, deciding it was time to pay Rose back for the hug with a little bit of confidence of his own. “They’re definitely lying. Billy and Julie wouldn’t abandon us.”

  “But what difference does it make if they’re captured anyway?” asked Rose forlornly.

  “You’re not doing a great job of bucking up, are you?” asked Tim, with an attempt at a smile. “Hibbard and Fuller would lie to us and tell us whatever would make us most scared, right?”

  “I guess,” said Rose, hesitating. She thought for a moment. “You know, there’s no reason we couldn’t just sneak out the wind
ow, right?”

  Tim thought for a second. “Well, except that they’d shoot us, right?”

  “Yes, well, I suppose that’s the downside,” said Rose with a small laugh. “They probably are watching the outside as well, I guess. So what are you suggesting?”

  “Well, let’s assume they’re lying for the moment. What are they trying to do, then?” asked Tim.

  “Divide and conquer,” answered Rose without much hesitation.

  “So maybe we just stick around for a bit,” said Tim.

  But it turned out that Hibbard and Fuller had other plans. Three minutes in, they opened the door again, guns still drawn, to check on them.

  “Why are you two still here?” asked Fuller, now clearly a bit irritated.

  Before they had a chance to answer, Tim and Rose heard a light tap at the window. Further from the window, Hibbard and Fuller didn’t hear it, but they definitely noticed as Tim and Rose looked in that direction.

  Misinterpreting their body language, Hibbard said, “Don’t think about trying to leave.”

  But Tim and Rose saw the shape of a hatchet in a window. With his head quickly spinning, Tim realized that Billy must be trying to signal them to get away from the window. But he didn’t want to tip off the congressmen, so he hoped Rose would follow his lead as he backed slowly away from the window as nonchalantly as he could, so as not to enlighten Hibbard and Fuller as to what was going on.

  “No, of course not. In fact, we were just about to go back to our own time, like you suggested,” lied Rose, as she backed away from the window, mirroring Tim. Hibbard and Fuller seemed to believe that they were just backing away from the window to prove that they weren’t about to flee.

  Fuller seemed legitimately relieved, as he sighed and said, “You’ve certainly made the right decision, because--”

  But they never learned why it was the right decision, because Fuller was interrupted by a great crash of glass pouring into the room as the hatchet broke through the window.

  Chapter 21

  The Last Machine

  Things stayed noisy on the first floor of the boarding house as Hibbard shot wildly toward the window. Without weapons, Rose and Tim were only in the way as they tried their best to stay out of the path of a clear shot, so that Julie and Billy could hit the two men with the revolvers.

  Fuller took a shot as well, although his bullet lodged into the wall beside the window. As Hibbard cocked his revolver to take another shot, he was hit by a bolt of electricity and fell to the floor. Fuller, though, managed to get off another shot before he was taken down. His shot was accompanied by a loud scream from the window, though, so as Fuller fell to the floor, Rose and Tim ran to Julie and Billy.

  “What happened?” Rose asked urgently.

  “Um… I’ve been hit,” Billy replied, in an eerily calm voice.

  “I think he’s in shock,” Julie said.

  “Where’s he been shot?” Tim asked.

  “By the window,” Billy explained dreamily.

  “In the arm, I think?” Julie hedged.

  “Do you think he can come inside?” Tim asked.

  “Won’t he bleed on the carpet?” Julie asked.

  “Forget about the carpet, the window’s broken and there’s at least one bullet hole in the wall. I just don’t want anyone outside the house thinking it’s their civic duty to come over and investigate,” insisted Tim.

  “Right,” Julie agreed. “Okay… well, I’m not bringing him in through the window!”

  “Good point,” Rose said. “Where are our manners? I can let you in through the door.”

  Tim and Rose sprinted out the room and to the front door. When they opened it, they found that Billy had apparently hopped up from his crouched position by the window and walked over on his own power.

  There was a sitting room off the entrance way, and once Billy and Julie had stumbled into the house, all four of them went there and sat down.

  After glancing down at his arm and seeing the widening bloodstain he was leaving on the sofa, Billy swore loudly. “Well this hurts like a--” he swore again.

  “I would think so,” said Rose, crouching down in front of him so she could see the wound. “So is it…?”

  “Oh yeah, the bullet’s still in there,” said Billy. “But I don’t think it’s stopping me losing a truly worrying amount of blood.”

  “We’ve got to get you to a hospital right now,” said Rose.

  In spite of the fact that his face was contorted in pain, he nearly snorted at that last comment. “I heard about what medicine was like during the Civil War… I’m not going to an antebellum hospital!”

  “I didn’t mean you should go to a hospital here!” Rose yelled, gesturing vaguely around the living room but clearly meaning ‘here’ to be, pretty broadly, the year 1854. “I mean we’ve got to send you back! I’ll come with you.”

  “What? No way! I’ve made it this far, I’m making sure we’re finished,” Billy said.

  “They just told us that there’s only one machine left, and unless you plan on breaking it by bleeding on it, you’re not going to be much help,” Tim reasoned.

  “Yeah, now’s really the time to argue with me!” Billy argued sarcastically.

  “All right, so we go deal with the last machine--” Tim said.

  “I’m staying here with Billy,” said Rose. “Someone’s got to stay here and make sure this stubborn idiot doesn’t die in a 19th century living room.”

  Billy grinned a pained smile and said. “Well, if someone’s got to do it, I’m glad it’s you. What happened to your tasers, by the way? I’ve got one, but I’ve only got a couple charges left, and I want you guys to have more than just Julie’s…”

  “Right,” agreed Tim. “Let Rose have yours, and I’ll pick up Rose and mine’s before we go up there… I think my congressmen buddies still have them.”

  “Just be quick as you can, okay? I don’t really have any idea how much blood he’s got to lose before we’re in serious trouble here, and I’ll try to bind it up somehow, but I can’t make any guarantees,” Rose said.

  Julie and Tim hurried back to the doorway of the room Rose and Tim had originally entered. They found the two congressmen still slumped in the doorway, and Tim didn’t even have to be too aggressive searching the pockets on Fuller and Hibbard to find the tasers.

  He pocketed one and kept the other out. He didn’t bother taking the guns, since they now knew from experience that the tazed men would be out cold for a long time.

  “All right, you ready to go smash a mind-control machine?” Julie asked, with a slight but noticeably mischievous grin.

  “Yeah. You saw the light upstairs when you came up, I assume?” Tim said.

  “Yep,” Julie answered as they bounded up the stairs. There was little need to be quiet anymore.

  There were three rooms upstairs, and two of the doors were open. Since no green light was emanating from these doorways, they didn’t have to do much figuring to know that the door they were looking for was the closed one.

  “Ready?” asked Tim, but his hand was already on the door.

  Julie nodded, pointing her taser at the door, past Tim, just in case. The door wasn’t locked, but what Tim saw when he opened the door was strange enough to make him hesitate.

  In the dim green light, they saw a different mode for communicating with the mind-control machine than they’d seen so far. There were four men, all congressmen, tied up together. Apparently, they had originally put up some resistance to the perspective-opening perspective of the mind-control machine that Hibbard and Fuller had been advocating. But now the four men were sleeping in a weird back-to-back sitting position, heads fallen forward or off to one side.

  “They haven’t been up here for long, according to Hibbard and Fuller, but of course they’re liars. Still, even if they’re telling the truth, I don’t know how long it’s going to take before they turn hostile toward us when we break the machine,” Tim said.

  “Right,”
said Julie. “But given that they’re tied up, it shouldn’t matter too much if they’re hostile or not, should it?”

  “Guess not…” conceded Tim. “Did you bring a hatchet?”

  “I think that might be the first time I’ve ever been asked that question in my life,” Julie pointed out. “But no… no I didn’t.”

  “Hmmm… There’s a chair…” observed Tim, who found he wasn’t much in the mood for subtlety, especially considering that Billy was still bleeding downstairs.

  “Go for it,” Julie suggested.

  So he went over to the wooden desk chair in the corner of the room, picked it up, and carried it near the spot on the floor where the mind-control machine was sitting. Tim lifted it high and then smashed the chair down onto the machine.

  The crash was satisfying and caused the machine to shatter into three pieces on the first go. There were sparks and crackles, but Tim decided to give it one more whack with the chair to make sure there was no way the mind-controlled congressmen could put it back together if they wanted to.

  Tim and Julie ignored the stirring of the tied up congressmen as they bounded back toward the stairs. They ran down into the living room to fetch Billy and Rose.

  Tim saw that Rose had bound Billy’s arm with what looked to be a dish-towel. He thought he could see a bit of the original blue color around the edges of the fabric, but most of it was stained dark red. Billy’s face was pale and he didn’t look great.

  “Okay, you guys ready to go?” Rose asked.

  “Yeah… I think so,” Julie said. “Should we all go now? They told us there were a total of four, but do you think they were lying to us? They lied about you two leaving.”

  “No… I think they were telling the truth about that,” Rose said. “They were trying to scare us and get us to leave. If anything, they should have told us there were more machines than there actually were, but they didn’t do that, right? Plus, we’ve got no more leads now, and I don’t think we can stick around here at this point. If there are more machines, we’ve got a lot of people now who know that we’re not who we say we are.”