“Six thirtyish. I'll make breakfast. Learn anything?”
I told her that I had thumbed through and read a few parts. The author had hypothesized a minimum of twelve connecting dimensions, complete with calculations, scientific discussion, and social proofs. He had included déjà vu, the Bermuda Triangle, and pyramids built around the world. “It sounds like nonsense, except for the reality. Some of what I read has to do with energy displacement. I need to read from the beginning.”
“You want eggs and bacon, pancakes or waffles. Thanks for setting up the coffee.”
“Right now, I want to wake up. Make what you like. I'll eat anything.”
“That's one more strange thing. Other you would have said exactly what he wanted. Never asked me.”
“The author said that the beings in different dimensions absorb energy from everywhere. Energy can't be destroyed and, when displaced, floats in the universe until it's reabsorbed. He explains virus mutations as just one example.”
“Are you going to shower? Do you want a cup of coffee now?”
From my couch, I could hear the unsubtle sounds of pots and pans clanging, as she began her quest. From my doorway view, she had a waffle iron out on the counter.
“I didn't know I had that.”
“Bottom shelf, right hand cabinet, next to the stove.”
“It looks new.”
“I've used it a few times. I bought it for him last Christmas. Coffee?”
“No. Shower.”
I took longer than I needed to clean up and with a towel wrapped around me, I was shaving when Natalie opened the door. She grinned and said, “Too late. Oh, well. Breakfast in two minutes.” I ran the blade across the last soapy spaces, rinsed, and dressed in time to see the first waffles hit the plates.
“I'll make more if you want them, but let's eat these first.” My stomach thanked me. Last night's burger was all I'd eaten the entire day. When she asked, I told her another, to go with the finally-cooked bacon, sounded like a winner.
“So how did you sleep?” I asked.
“I didn't, much. You're an enigma. I've never been so forward, or cared about it less. At the same time, our search guarantees that if you succeed, you'll be gone, and some other you will be here. From what you read, do you even know which one?”
The edge in her voice and the redness in her early morning eyes told me she hadn't slept, and that she had cried while considering what was happening between us. I pondered the mystery a bit, not having absorbed the ramifications as yet. “If I can undo everything, then the other guy should be back, I think. But if I undo everything, I could set off another collection of earth-changing, no, universe-changing events. Then who knows?”
“You're a wealth of no knowledge.”
“A fortune teller probably could guess better than I can right now.”
We cleared the table and left the mess for later. Returning to her notes, she began asking about Fritz's books. I explained the order I had found and that I'd checked out all but the last two. I still couldn't decide if Fritz stopped at a specific spot.
“What's out of place?”
“More than one possibility, based on where he put the paperclips. But one of them puts him in the tiger's cage, which makes no sense to me.” I pulled Koppler's book from the pile. “This one. I can't fathom his going there.”
“Do you think he would know that's what you would think?”
I stood up and after a short walk around the living room, came back and opened the book to the paperclip. I had scanned the picture of a party numerous times, the Koppler brothers standing on a wide lawn.
“I'm getting my computer. I want to check something.” James Koppler had been an important political advisor, so plenty of stories should be available. When I had the list of sites to choose, I checked for a date for the picture. On the second page, the date in the book and the headline matched. “Take a look at this.”
She stood behind me and leaned over to read, none too subtly. I didn't move as she leaned in, and I didn't ask her if she wanted to sit down. She pressed on my shoulder even harder reaching for the mouse, and opened the Washington Post story.
“He's here, Ash. Says an unknown assailant killed two and shot the third, who remained in a coma. The dates match.”
“He's picked one that's going to be hard to undo. If he's the shooter.”
“Well, we can start planning. Now you know your next stop.”
The sun through the windows had the slant of approaching evening by the time we took a break. We looked at every detail about the brothers we could think of, the house, the back gardens, the family. For eight years, James Koppler had been in a coma with only a sister to care for him. But how to find Fritz now, how to stop him, and how to get him home, these questions remained.
Chapter 22
Ashley
I TURNED ON a football game for a little background noise and a change of pace. From the kitchen, Natalie asked me to make a salad and set the table, while she pulled the sweet potatoes from the oven. I stood by as she added almost a whole bag of marshmallows to cover the top.
“That's a lot,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. I like it that way, and the marshmallows will be nice and brown.” She looked over her shoulder. “Get to work.” She took out plates and glasses for the table, carved the white meat off the bird, enough for both of us. And a few strangers.
“Expecting company?”
“This will keep for a while. I'll clean the rest off later. Is this enough for you?”
“Yup. Plenty.” The salad built itself as I cut and chopped, enough for us, for a week, while she prepared all the rest.
When she'd finished prepping, she said she would shower while the marshmallows melted, and asked me to keep an eye on them. Never having cooked sweet potatoes, I wore a path between the TV and the stove. Her shower lasted for only a couple of minutes, and she sashayed into the kitchen wrapped in a towel, grinned at me, and bent over to look at her concoction.
“Nice,” I said. She wasn't trying to hide much under the towel. “I mean the sweet potatoes.” She knew what I meant. She placed the pan on a trivet, smiled, and pecked my cheek when she walked back to put on some clothes.
The football game continued while we ate, but neither of us paid attention, even to the touchdown replays. Rather, we continued discussing a plan to get Fritz back.
“First, you have to find him. Then you need to figure out how to get him here.”
“Then, we need to find a way to change history back. And then find the portal that gets us home.”
“We should map a plan. If he's in this universe, or if he's in a different one, you have to know exactly what to do, so you don't get lost.” I studied her face, wondering if she'd thought of that just then.
“I wonder if I should stop him first, in 2008, or try to find him in our present.”
“Ash, what if Fritz didn't cause the change? Only he knows what he did. If you can find him before he changed history, do you think he'll know what to do?”
“I'll have to find him first and ask. And if I've changed things too, I have to figure out if I should try to change them back, and how. Right now, I'd like to punch him.”
“He's not here. It's just you and me.” Then, with an alluring grin, she added, “I bet we could find better things to do than punching.”
We discussed where to go to find Fritz, and I avoided the complications of where she and I might be headed. A couple of times I caught her gaze, knowing that we approached an uncomfortable time of the evening. When we ran out of ideas, I got up, and broke her magnetic hold for the moment. One thing I believed to be certain—spring thunderstorms might not come soon enough.
Nat stayed Christmas night. She had agreed that my guest bedroom could substitute for her apartment, but in the middle of the night, I woke as she climbed in next to me. When the alarm rang early, she ran from the bedroom, a small bundle left behind. My morning fog lifted, and by the time I put my feet on the f
loor, she bounced in and said she'd see me later. To make the bed, I uncovered the bundle and removed her pajamas, still warm, her scent clinging. I had another addition to my list of things to think about.
The week off until after the New Year gave me time to plan the next semester's classes, which I found completed in other me's filing cabinet. I couldn't avoid teaching for a full term, so I spent part of the days reading his notes, the text, and some of the references he listed for assignments.
I devoted at least one hour each morning to reading time travel books to fashion my plan. Would there be discussion on crossing dimensions, my main obstacle for returning home? More than once during that week, I asked if Fritz had considered the complications. And having to wait for spring to find him only increased the pressing urgency to be ready. After all, I didn't have Tony Almeida or the president to help.
“Tony.” I said it out loud. There had to be another Tony. I didn't remember telling Nat about Tony, just that she existed there, as I did here. I made a note to discuss him with her. As I planned the week, my urgent tasks were identified, the ones that took up the days. The nights presented a very different challenge.
As I worked my way through Monday, the television provided company. A winter-stormy five-day forecast looped most of the time until the sun winked good-bye. The more I had considered Tony, the more urgent a search for him became. Just before five o'clock, the tell-tale putter outside trumpeted Natalie's return.
“I'm glad you're home,” I said. She cocked her head to my greeting like she gathered it from the surrounding walls.
“I like the sound of that. Home.” I didn't try to change the word, or clarify my meaning. I liked the way it came out, and her reaction. “How was your day?”
With my notebook in hand, I told her not to take her coat off. We were going out for dinner. “There's a storm coming and we may be here for a while, so let's eat and stock up before the store is empty.”
“Airport? Where?”
“About twenty minutes from here. If it's here. It's well-hidden, but not secret in my world. Easy enough to find out.”
I planned to take her to a nice place at a later time, maybe, but a quick diner dinner served the comfort food we both needed, and offered enough quiet to talk in privacy. She told me she had spent the day researching previous inaugurations, and that her contacts had informed her that heightened attention permeated all of official Washington. I told her that in my world, both inaugurals for the first black president had been cold and completely non-violent.
“That's your world. This one is different, as you've already seen. Knife fights in school, you're a drug dealer. I hope you're right.”
I told her I wanted to look for the airport, looking up at low, rolling clouds reflecting the light from the ground. The whipping winds carried the cold air across our noses, as we breathed the distinct smell of snow.
“Nat, I've been working on a strategy. I think I should find Fritz before I go anywhere else. I need to be able to get back here, with or without him, to start. If I can discover what he knows, then we can decide what to do next.”
“What the next step is, in my opinion, will be to ask every question now, based on what his possible answers might be.”
“You mean before I find him?”
“Yes. So we need to ask ourselves the questions and respond with any possible answers. That way, when you find him, you'll be able to act immediately. You said you never know how long the portal will be open.”
“Once the portal was open, we never lost the exit while we were inside. But the connection can be disrupted or closed when we come back. Even then, the generator kept it connected. We took so much for granted. I can't believe we never really talked about all the consequences.”
I found the airport road, more concealed than I recalled. Not more than a dirt track, weeds and shrubs grew right to the edge, and trees hadn't been removed for large vehicles. It looked more like a place kids would go to make out than a hidden government facility.
“Should we walk in?” Nat asked, with the quiet tone of 'let's not do this.'
“I have a flashlight in the trunk.”
Both doors opened to waist-high grasses, opportunist saplings, and piles of leaves blowing across our path, as the larger trees were lashed by the approaching storm. I reflected on the previous winter when Mel Zack made the trip out of here in a Suburban, but deep snow here would be impenetrable. That road had been wider, and fairly straight, but this one faded to the left in the flashlight's beam. Fifty yards down and we could no longer see my car.
“Are there any animals back here, Ash?”
“I imagine, but nothing native should be a problem. Look at all the signs.” I flashed the light on the 'No Trespassing' signs warning that we were on a private road. “Violators will be shot” caught our attention, as did the snowflakes that had arrived.
“We should go back, Ash. There's nothing here.”
“I want to go further. If there's nothing, fine. But we're still close to the car.”
Reluctantly she agreed, and side by side we pressed further into the woods. We'd walked almost a mile. The track widened, but with no indication of regular use. Surrounding us, the trees gathered closer and shook leftover leaves on our heads as we invaded.
“Do you feel like we're being watched?” I asked.
“Yes. Like the Ents in Lord of the Rings or the apple trees in the Wizard of Oz.”
I pointed the flashlight into the shadows, scanning the trees for signs of surveillance. If the owner was serious and shot trespassers, then talking trees weren't our problem. We didn't dare to leave the road, but we kept going.
“Ash, turn off the light.” As quickly as I did, a light far ahead froze our steps. “We should leave.”
“Not yet. Let's see where he goes.”
The light continued toward us moving side to side, looking for someone or something. I couldn't help but feel we were the target. If we left now, the sound of crunching leaves would give us away. So I took her hand and we waited.
Chapter 23
Jane
My phone rang. I closed the busy-work file. I'm not cut out for meaningless paperwork, and that's all they're giving me. My work with the transition promised a serious review of all the connections we had made, where the successes needed future commitment. I've been asked to clean out files of historical data that didn't fit with the new president's worldview. Which meant pretty much everything.
“Hi Jane. I want to talk to you. Not here. I'll be in Riverboro for the end of the year. I want to consider how to handle the portal when we leave.”
“You already know, Mr. President. Without Fritz and Ashley, we're stalemated. If they get back, then you'll have to ask them.”
I was right, he said, as far as I went, but for a little while more, he exerted the full power of the presidency, to bring to bear on … on what exactly? Without the portal, the full power flexed a lot less muscle. “Jane, the portal exists, time travel is real. We need to find it.”
“Mr. President, I've been studying the quantum physics materials. Fritz found the portal by accident. Ash can open it because of another accident. We already know the ingredients. I've talked to Tony. We agree that we need a catalyst, something from the natural world.”
“That's why I want to talk to you. I'm responsible for this, and I need to fix it.”
“You didn't make Fritz choose as he did. Don't carry that load. We don't know why he went or what he went after. We may never know, but if anyone can find him, it's Ashley. I'll be happy to talk to you more. But I think this is out of our hands. Call me when you're in town. Oh, and Happy New Year.”
* * *
Ms. Crispen announced that an insistent stranger wanted to speak to him. “He knows your private number, but won't tell me his name. Only initials, IM.”
“I'll talk to him.” He stared at the phone and another interruption.
“I assume you have a report for me.”
“I f
ollowed him as you know, but he was gone. I've checked all previous addresses, in case of activity at any of them.”
“Keep looking, and keep an eye on where he left from. I have a feeling that he'll show up again.”
The president walked around his rebuilt office, alone. Surrounding him, all the closed doors stifled the noise of the handoff to the next occupant. With less than a month remaining, the pressure of his office had not lessened. He remained the leader of the free world. Only a few days before, the changes that would soon take place stormed to the forefront, when the new guy threatened to defund his development plan. The outrage registered by the leaders came to his desk. The temptation to use the portal to show what he could do, would do, was useless with both Fritz and Ashley gone. Finding a way to convince his successor of the wisdom to continue had become part of his daily plan. But a public disagreement would only generate animosity, so he considered strategies that might work.
His trusted advisors and friends were almost all gone. His wife had told him just the day before to call Jane Barclay and to get General Beech back from his vacation. Most of the cabinet had departed for the holidays, and those remaining were, like him, preparing to leave.
“Ms. Crispen, contact General Beech for me, please.”
“Mr. President, may I ask a question? 'IM?' Wasn't he the one who fell from the building in Abu Dhabi? A Caballero?”
“Let's not use that name here. Not as long as Koppler is still loose. We already know he had ears in here. We don't know if we found them all.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Now that you know, when he makes contact, just let him through.”
“Is he the same guy?”
“Need to know, Carolyn. Sorry.” He hung up, knowing she would continue to search for an answer. What she gave away in nice, she more than made up for in smart. She hadn't yet become her predecessor, Lily Evans, but he wished he had convinced her to join his staff, post-presidency.
The Portal At The End Of The Storm (Quantum Touch Book 6) Page 16