Time Control

by Rex Bolt

  Anyhow, Audrey was down one of the aisles pulling a book off a shelf. Pike gave her a tentative little wave, and she didn’t respond and went back to her business. It was tough to gauge, but Pike was pretty sure she was mad at him. Or disappointed in him, or both.

  The sectional quarterfinal was Saturday. Hamilton was hosting the game, but if they won, the semis and finals would be on the road. They had a good record, 7 and 2, and they did run the table in league, but their CCF conference wasn’t considered that strong, so teams with worse records got seeded higher, something Coach got hot about and tried to email an official about, but really you couldn’t do anything about it.

  Pike was turning the key in his car door after practice on Thursday, and there was Audrey. She looked a little messed up, now that he had a good look at her in the late afternoon light, and Pike wondered if she’d been sleeping okay … There could be nightmares as well, he hadn’t even thought about that.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey back,” she said. “Pike … I’ve been wanting to speak to you.” Uh oh.

  “Before we get into that,” he said, “let me make a preemptive strike.”

  “You don’t have to … I ended it with Jack … if that affects anything at all.”

  Wow. It took Pike a moment to process this one. “Huh … So you’re not going to ream me out, about Mr. Foxe? … Or that comes next.”

  “Why would I?” she said.

  Man, he read the room wrong. What a relief.

  “No reason,” he said. “Does that mean … you may want to do something again?”

  “Yes … This time I promise, you can tell me all your secrets. I won’t run away.”

  Pike said, “That’s good then, because I don’t have any.”

  Audrey said, “I bet you do.” There was a little gleam in her eye, and Pike’s earlier impression of her not looking her best went out the window.

  Pike went home but he asked Audrey if she wanted to study after dinner at Starbucks and she said she’d look forward to it.

  The last thing he felt like doing tonight was studying, but he knew this was the only way he’d get her to go somewhere on a school night. She was very conscientious. He wondered if she still had her heart set on going back east to college, but it wasn’t something he was going to bring up.

  He wolfed down a quick dinner and picked Aubrey up at 7. Mr. Milburn waved hello from the living room. He was sitting there in his recliner watching a sitcom that had a lot of processed laughter. He was drinking something that looked like bourbon or whiskey out of a thick glass with ice. Pike couldn’t blame him.

  When they got in the car Aubrey said, “You noticed my dad … He never used to drink. Just once in a while a lite beer.

  Pike felt awful for the guy, couldn’t imagine the range of anger and emotion running through his veins. “It were me,” he said, “I’d try to stay blitzed as much as possible, honestly … Except when old man Foxe showed his face.”

  Aubrey let out a sigh. “I appreciate what you did the other night, I really do. I just can’t allow myself to think that way.”

  Pike said, “What … you don’t agree with your dad and me, that the man shouldn’t be walking around?”

  “I … I just don’t know,” she said. “In a perfect world …” She started tearing up. Pike thought about stopping the car, but maybe letting her go wasn’t the worst thing. She had to put on the good face at school all day and around town, so her real emotion probably needed to come out more than she was letting it.

  “Oh believe me,” he said, “if I could somehow create a perfect world, Mr. Foxe wouldn’t be in it.”

  Audrey was crying full on, was holding his arm now, when his phone buzzed and it was Mitch. This was irritating, but now it seemed a good idea for a couple of reasons to pull over.

  They were on Cypress Street a few blocks from Starbucks and Pike shut off the engine. Audrey took her seat belt off and slid next to him, and Pike put his arm around her and took Mitch’s call.

  “Slow down,” Pike said, after Mitch started in.

  “Are you sure?” Pike said. “When?”

  “You said you trusted the place,” he said.

  “Okay take it easy, we’ll figure it out, it’s not the end of the world,” Pike said, and hung up with Mitch.

  Audrey lifted her head off Pike’s chest and took a good look at him.

  She said, “See this is the thing.”

  “Huh?” he said.

  “I mean you received a similar phone call that other time too … At least your reaction seemed just as strange.”

  “And your question is … Are you a secret agent or something,” Pike said.

  “Well, you must admit, that wouldn’t be entirely off base … Would it?”

  Pike pulled her close so she would hopefully relax again.

  “Fine,” he said. “I can see how it sounds a little off, and it is … Nothing to worry about, nothing illegal or anything like that … I’m helping this old guy in L.A. take care of something … And you have to believe me, that we’re better off all around leaving it at that.”

  They sat there in silence for a while and Pike stroked her hair and Audrey’s spirits seemed to improve. He wasn’t much of a comedian but he tried joking around a bit, and she laughed, though he was pretty sure it was out of politeness.

  So he said, “Are you tickle-ish?”

  “Don’t be silly,”she said. “Why would you ask that?’

  “Because I’m going to find out.” He started working her under the armpits and she didn’t react at first. “See? I’m not,” she said.

  But he kept going, found the sweet spot apparently because she couldn’t control herself, couldn’t stop laughing and was thrashing around trying to get away from his fingers.

  “That’s more like it,” he said.

  “You’re a piece of work, you know that?” she said. But she was smiling comfortably now, and it was great to see, even temporarily.

  “So then,” he said, “all set to go do homework?”

  Audrey was back in his arms, and it was tight quarters, the two of them kind of wedged together against the driver’s door and the steering wheel.

  “That’s certainly one option,” she said. “Or we could just hang out here … that would work too.”

  “Nah, let’s go study.”

  “Oh … all right then.”

  “Jeez, I’m kidding,” Pike said. “What do you think I am?”

  Audrey nestled in tight and the car wasn’t a bad place at all tonight, and for a couple hours life was very good … such as it was.

  Chapter 34 Lab Person

  Before he went to bed he called Mitch.

  “Give me that again, in case I missed something?” Pike said. “I couldn’t concentrate that well before.”

  “What part of it is so hard to understand?” Mitch said. “This a-hole says he lost it.”

  “The filling.”

  “What the hell else are we talking about here!” Mitch sounded like he was slurring his words slightly. He and Mr. Milburn both now.

  “The guy you knew … at the lab?’

  “I didn’t know anybody at the lab. I trusted this place, is all I can tell you.”

  Pike was trying to visualize the whole thing. “So … you go to pick up the test results … and the … item … And you get zip all around?”

  Mitch said, “I call, they act weird. Even though today’s when they told me they’d have it. Thursday … So I go in. The manager, the chief tech, whatever the frig his is, he makes a point of greeting me right away.”

  “So something’s up.”

  “It’s like he’s rehearsed it … his deepest apologies but there’s apparently been a mix-up, and we’ve been ‘unable to re-locate your sample’ … You believe this worm?”

  “First losing it, or pretending to,” Pike said. “Then having to talk like that.”

  “Son,” Mitch sa
id, “pretending to is where we’re at. We both know what they found.”

  Pike had no idea, but it was tough seeing Mitch this upset, especially after all he’d been trying to do to help him get to the bottom of whatever this was.

  “Okay I’m going to come down,” Pike said. “We’ll speak to the man, and we’ll straighten it out.”

  There was a measured determination in the way Pike said it that startled Mitch for a second.

  “No. I’ll figure out something,” he said. “You got high school and everything. You didn’t sign up for this.”

  Pike was thinking you got that right, I didn’t sign up for turning into alt-Superman either.

  “We have a playoff game Saturday,” Pike said. “I’m free after that … this lab, when’s it open?”

  Mitch wasn’t going to fight him. If the kid wanted to come down, so be it. He looked it up. “It says they’re open straight, Monday through Friday.”

  “Or …” Pike was saying. “We could speak to this manager person … outside the lab … Any idea where he might live?”

  Holy Mackerel, Mitch thought. Where’s this kid going with this?

  “Okay let’s not go off the deep end here,” Mitch said. But he was fingering the guy’s card. He’d picked one up, out of the plastic tray they had on the counter, after the guy told him to his face that he was out of luck.

  Mitch’s thought was to report the guy and the lab, but then what would you say? And who would you report it to? That would probably cause more trouble than you already had. And then for sure you’d never see that filling again.

  But yeah, he had the guy’s name. Wayne Lukaris.

  He said, “And if we somehow did find him … as you say, ‘outside of the lab’ … then what?”

  “I’m not sure,” Pike said, but with that same matter-of-fact and almost eerily confident tone.

  Pike said he had to go, and Mitch poured himself another scotch and soda, sat back down at the computer, and started looking around.

  Chapter 35 Proven Otherwise

  It was Saturday, November now, the 5th, and it was nippy as Hamilton took the field to warm up for the sectional opener against Highland High School from Coddington.

  It felt more or less like a regular home game, except there were advertising banners around the perimeter of the field that announced the ‘Official Corporate Partners of the 2016 WCALF Sectional Playoffs’.

  There was also a more professional PA announcer tonight. Mr. Gerund, the auto shop teacher, had been doing it all season, but the truth was he was pretty shaky, getting names mixed up and even getting the score mixed up a bunch of times. So they had someone else take over.

  Pike focused enough to get the job done. He didn’t have to do much. Highland was maybe the worst team they played all year, and in the locker room celebration after, Coach got asked about that by a media person, and he said they were tougher than they looked but it was deceptive because we put it all together and controlled the game.

  That was ridiculous of course. Highland was 4 and 5 on the season coming in, should never have been in any playoffs, but you couldn’t control who you played, you just went with the hand you were dealt.

  Pike got to thinking: In fact it would nice if that applied to stuff outside of football too, you go with the hand you’re dealt. But of course it wasn’t that simple.

  Even though it was an easy game there was a festive mood around town afterwards, since Hamilton over the years hadn’t won a lot of playoff football games.

  There were parties lining up and Pike asked Audrey what she wanted to to, and she said honestly, she love to go to the movies. Pike thought that sounded good too, for other reasons, namely less chance of him getting into some kind of trouble, which was following him around lately.

  So they went to the Multiplex 6, in Orlande. Big place, you could roam around and they didn’t check tickets once you were in, so Audrey and Pike started with one called Night Moving Jerry, about a guy in New York City who starts a moving business that only works at night, because the traffic’s too bad the rest of the time.

  Pike decided that wasn’t a bad idea. Go against the grain. Stuff builds up though, and Jerry has to start reacting, and he gets in over his head … Some of it was a little unreal, but it kept your interest, and Audrey said so too.

  Then they sneaked into one that was supposed to be a comedy, but it had a serious undertone, and plenty of sex and violence. Pike was concerned how Audrey might feel about all that these days, especially the violence, whether it might hit home, but she seemed okay and said she enjoyed it.

  This would have been a typical night you go somewhere else now, things just getting started, but Pike took her home. He told her he had to drive to Manhattan Beach in the morning, to help that older friend.

  Which was the truth, though he left out the specifics. Audrey politely wished him a safe trip, and kissed him goodnight. She didn’t ask any more questions. Pike hoped he could level with her at some point and tell her, but there was a good chance that would never happen.

  Sunday morning he left at 5, got down there at 8:30. Mitch was in the same spot on the pier, that same bench, the volleyball to the left, the surfers to the right, the Hermosa Beach pier in the distance.

  “Traffic this time, or you beat it?” Mitch said.

  “Beat it … so what do we got?” Pike said.

  Mitch had found the guy, this Wayne Lukaris. Luckily his name wasn’t that common, plus he was listed the old-fashioned way, according to Mitch.

  “Online white pages,” he said. “Getting rarer these days. Landline phone number and address right there on the screen … The mope lives in Santa Monica.”

  “So we ring the bell,” Pike said, “or what?’

  “That’d be one way.” Pike could see Mitch was into this now. He’d cooled down a notch from the other night, but he was still plenty mad.

  “And the other,” Pike said, “follow him someplace?”

  “Then talk to him, yeah … If that proved to be a better fit.”

  Pike said, “You’re starting to crack me up.”

  Mitch waved his hand, like let’s not get carried away.

  “First things first,” he said. “My prediction is you’re hungry … how did I know that?”

  “Well I liked that place from last time,” Pike said. “I’ll pay.” Which he could do, if neither of them ordered too much.

  “Not the way it works,” Mitch said. “You’re on my turf, you don’t open your wallet.”

  Mitch was a good man. Pike felt a twinge of guilt for getting irritated at him. They went back to The Kettle, three blocks up Manhattan Beach Boulevard on the corner.

  Mitch asked how football was going.

  “We’re in the semis of our little sectionals,” Pike said. “I realize I’d be more effective playing linebacker.”

  “You got that right,” Mitch said. “But quarterback’s more fun.”

  “It can be … Thing is, it doesn’t translate 100 percent to my … new skillset. I mean I can gun the ball all over the field, but it’s not always easy to catch.”

  Mitch said, “If you ran it more, it would be interesting watching guys try to bring you down though … Of course that would attract plenty of attention.”

  “Yeah, the wrong kind,” Pike said. “On defense I could do more that looked normal.”

  “And still do damage, you mean.”

  “I guess, yeah, if I was careful.”

  “Well pro ball used to be different than it is now,” Mitch said. “There was an unwritten merit system for knock-outs. Now the concussion rules have changed all that.”

  “Speaking of that,” Pike said, “That one dude? Who I tackled and had to go to the hospital? The game where I first noticed my thing? I heard he quit football.”

  “So you’re correct, it’s just as well you aren’t playing linebacker.”

  “Okay, forget football right now,” Pike said. “How wo
uld someone time travel?”

  “Gee,” Mitch said, “you’re are actually interested in this.”

  “Travel at the speed of light is what I read. Would that really be one way?”

  “Ahh, well not to get too technical, but that theory extends back to Einstein … Let’s say you were in a spaceship moving at the speed of light. And you had an identical twin who stayed on earth. You would age significantly more slowly than he would.”

  “So?”

  “That’s the foundation anyhow. It gets a lot more complicated … Wormholes, cosmic strings, closed curves such as Godel spacetime.”

  “Ah,” Pike said.

  “Don’t stress out trying to comprehend it all … Plus there may be another way. Not in the vocabulary of typical mainstream science, but right here in the noggin!” Mitch’s eyes were wide for emphasis, and he was pointing to the side of his head.

  Pike said, “Oh no. Give me a break.”

  “You say that,” Mitch said, “but the Russians in particular, in the 60’s, made some astounding discoveries about the power of the mind … Our government won’t admit it, but the army and the CIA use remote viewers. You know what those are?”

  “Nope.”

  “People who can tap into the part of the brain that can see what’s going on in other parts of the world … You combine that ability with a parallel universe, and you may very well be dealing with time travel.”

  Pike cringed as he finished his blueberry muffin.

  “I know,” Mitch said, “a lot to consume.”

  “I’m quite sure I don’t believe Reggie Riley,” Pike said. “But … just supposing I gave him the benefit of the doubt … he said his brother went out back of the mess hall or something … how would that work?”

  “Hard to know. He may have either tapped into some portal, or created one on his own.”