A Girl in Time

by John Birmingham

  The gymnasium was a strange place, frequented by even stranger people. There were some who had muscled themselves up into the form of human bison, all grotesquely oversized shoulders and chests and enormous gorilla arms, and that was just the womenfolk. The men were even more fantastical and mutated.

  Titanic Smith's name was not to be taken ironically, however. He was a large man by anyone's reckoning, and he found himself having to endure the attentions of an obnoxiously fruity fellow at the counter who fussed about him like a giddy idiot. Miss Cady seemed to find a good deal of amusement in his discomfort at this, but she did eventually intervene to assure the dandy that he was wasting his time.

  “Dude, forget it, he's straight. And he sleeps in his socks. His unwashed socks.”

  “Eww! Alrighty then. Showers down the hall to the left.”

  Smith was not the bashful sort, but he took his towel into the shower stall and closed the door behind him, locking it securely. There were people here, men and women and some sorts in between, who could have been mistook for buck naked, so poorly did their apparel hide their natural shame. The hot water was nevertheless a joy, and he wore down a bar of soap cleaning the trail scum and the years off of his hide, but he kept his clothes on a hook inside the stall and dried off and dressed in there, where none of the enormous fruits or muscle women could see him.

  He met up with Cady in the entry foyer. She had changed into a fresh set of clothes, but looked almost exactly as she had before. The same color and style of form fitting blue denim trousers, the same undershirt worn on the outside, except with some very peculiar words stenciled on this one. Code Monkey Like Fritos. Her leather jacket and boots.

  Practical clothes, but not feminine in any way that Smith could credit, even though the outfit did show off her curves to good effect.

  He admonished himself not to stare.

  She was not his woman to be staring at. His woman was long gone and the daughter she had borne him was lost beyond oceans of time. Smith could have but one desire now, to cross those oceans back to his little one.

  “You smell better, but your clothes are still rank,” Cady adjudged without preemption. “We'll get your duds sorted later. Right now, we're taking an Uber to go see my friend, Georgia. She's cool. She's my bestie. She totally won't believe me when I tell her what happened, but she won't kick me to the curb, either. She puts up with a lot.”

  This last was delivered with an apologetic shrug and smile that was notable for its manifest lack of remorse. Miss Georgia, Smith surmised, would be putting up with more than her usual lot from Cady in the next little while.

  The Uber was just another form of carriage for hire. The driver was another man with a gun who was appreciably chattier than the previous night's chauffeur. He wore a cap emblazoned with the words “We're Making America Great Again,” and was in a fever to discuss some game of ball that had just occurred and was the occasion of a grave injustice done to a hapless company calling themselves the Hawks.

  “Goddamn refs must've left their seeing eye dogs in the locker room. Could've at least bought us dinner before fucking us.”

  Smith ground his jaws together with the effort of not upbraiding this hooligan to watch his language around a lady, but while Cady would not engage with him, she seemed less vexed by his cussing than she was by his sidearm, which he wore in a holster strapped to his upper thigh. She stared openly at it, as though she had never seen such thing, even though she had just recently seen Smith firing his Colt at Chumley, and Smith had espied more than a few fellers and even some womenfolk getting about the town with their shooting irons on open display. The marshal did frown at the odd holster arrangement, adjudging the man's thigh to be a poor place to seat a weapon. He would struggle to unship the gun in the confines of the Uber, and the firing line into the passenger seats was all wrong. Presumably he had armed himself against his passengers, less'n his intention was to pop off the occasional shot through the window at passersby who did not share his affection for these luckless Hawks.

  Of course, the weapon may have been worn simply to dissuade his poor customers from lodging complaints, because this feller thought nothing of them and only of his running ball game, on which he offered ceaseless narration and review. It did not matter to him that neither of his customers were in the least bit interested.

  “Their secondary couldn't have been tired,” the man continued. “They rode the Hawks receivers’ backs the whole game. Just look at the replay. That back's knee was down a yard before the goal. That wasn't a touchdown. Not even fucking close! That was a bullshit interference call at the end. I wonder how much money the ref had on the game. Probably needed to cover the over under.”

  Cady ignored him after a few minutes, attempting some trick on her phone, but without success. Her expression grew darker, her brow more furrowed as they rolled through the city streets. It was early, and the traffic was much lighter than London's, but comparisons were pointless, thought Smith. This city was an entirely different creature to the one they had left behind. Larger, or at least taller, the way the buildings climbed into the heavens, and immeasurably more orderly. It was a clean place. They rode behind sealed windows but he fancied that if he could somehow open the aperture and put his head into the wind it would smell as fresh as any meadow, save for the persistent metallic tang that he could taste in the air of all of the cities he had visited after his own time.

  “Her service got suspended,” Cady said quietly, after a few minutes. “That's what it says. Not cut off. Suspended. By Homeland Security. For irresponsible intent. What the hell does that even mean?”

  It took him, or the watch, a moment to intuit that this homeland thing was an instrument of the federals in Washington. Like Cady, he had no idea what “irresponsible intent” might mean. He had never tracked a man for any such offense.

  “Hey, buddy,” she said, riding in over the driver's extended monologue, “what's irresponsible intent?”

  It brought him up speechless for the first time since they had entered his conveyance.

  “What? You serious, lady?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I got a message my friend’s cell has been suspended because of irresponsible intent. What's that …”

  Smith was thrown forward in his seat as the car screeched and stopped. It was like the driver had pulled the reins on a horse, but hellaciously more effective.

  “You need to get out. Now,” he said.

  “But we're not even half way there,” Cady protested.

  He was not interesting in dickering.

  “No charge. No problem. I won't report you. Just get out.”

  “I'm not doing anything until you tell me what's going on.”

  “Okay. Fine. I'm calling the cops,” he said. “They can tell you what's going on.”

  “You what?”

  Cady's voice was angry and confused. Smith suspected she was about to unleash one of her long streaks of foul language. He laid a hand on her arm and squeezed ever so gentle.

  “We can walk. Or catch the omnibus. Let's go. Now.”

  They did not need to tangle with the local law. That sort of thing was almost certain to bring the apprentices. To the driver, he spoke in a louder voice.

  “I'm sorry for your inconvenience, sir. We've been away on travel for some time. Please excuse our ignorance of your local customs and bylaws. I am sorry for the poor showing of your Hawks. They were undoubtedly robbed.”

  The man was sweating now. Smith had seen that look on any number of felons over the years. The driver was scared. Of being caught at something. Of the hard consequences that would follow.

  “Come on, Ms. Cady,” he said.

  Smith struggled to open his door. The mechanism was unfamiliar to him. Cady did swear then, angrily wrenching her door open and barking at the driver to let her into the trunk. They had bags there; the bright pink valise she had taken to the gymnasium with all of her clothes, and a smaller pack she called a “go bag.” It was essentially the
possibles bag they had put together in London, reduced to the most essential items. The marshal slid over and followed Cady out of her door. The driver did not get out. He sped away as soon as Smith closed the back door.

  The metal trunk in which they'd stored their luggage was still open.

  “Well, that's a hell of a thing,” Smith said.

  “Something's wrong,” said Cady.

  “I don't imagine they'll be handing out any prizes for that observation.”

  “No, Smith. I mean it. Something is really seriously wrong. It's not just that guy, or Georgia. I don't know what's going on, but I'm starting to think we shouldn't be here.”

  They were standing by the side of the road in a quiet part of the city. A few cars drove past in each direction, but there were greater numbers of commercial vehicles carrying merchandise and stock. The city waking up, getting ready for the day. The buildings were tall here, at least to his eye, but they were not the soaring towers that reached up to the heavens from the center of the metropolis.

  “Do you know where we are?” he asked.

  “Yeah, we're good. Even if he'd dropped us somewhere I didn't know, I got the phone.”

  She turned a half circle, taking in their surroundings.

  “We're miles away from Georgia's office, but her old apartment is only about a twenty-minute walk from here. Since I can't raise her on the phone, and there's definitely something going on, I think we should head over there. Check it out. She owned her place. Well, she had a mortgage on it. So there's a good chance she hasn't moved, you know, unless this irresponsible intent crap is …” She trailed off. “I don't know what it is.”

  “Nice enough morning for a stroll,” Smith offered hoping to lighten her mood.

  And it was. They had blue sky for a change, and although the air was brisk, it was dry with no promise of rain on the slight breeze. Felt that way to him, anyhow. He wasn't familiar with the local weather. It might change, but for now it was just fine.

  “I guess so,” Cady conceded. She tossed the small leather go-bag over one shoulder. “Could you carry this?”

  She tapped the toe of her boot against the other bag, the bright pink one.

  “Certainly,” Smith said, wondering why she seemed reluctant to ask. Some of the heavier equipment was in that bag, along with her dirty clothes. Maybe that was it. She thought he'd be squeamish about carrying her unmentionables around.

  “Lead on, McCall,” he said, “and you can tell me why you've suddenly gone all squirrelly on this place.”

  They walked for a quarter of an hour, never leaving the outskirts of the city behind, but passing from a quarter which had been given over almost entirely to commercial enterprise into a neighborhood where many more people than businesses were domiciled. He smelt coffee everywhere, and sowbelly and frying eggs, all wafting out of the open doors of cafeteria and hash houses. The footpath soon filled up with men and women hurrying off to work, or strolling to their breakfast. They did not look so different from people of his own time, save for their unusual dress. The beards on the younger fellers would not have been out of place on the California diggings.

  “I guess you didn't notice,” she said, “because you're used to it.”

  It was a strange thing for her to say about her own time and place, and Smith wondered where she could be going with her thoughts.

  “But both the cab driver and the Uber guy were, like, open carry Nimrods. Like you, you know, walking around with a gun strapped to the hip, except you're a cowboy and a marshal and that's cool. Those guys going around with all that artillery? Not cool, Smith. Not cool at all. And not even legal, I don't think. Or at least it wasn't when I was here two years ago.”

  “You're right,” he said. “I didn't really cotton to it. In my day, and most other days, it seems to me, it's natural for men to get around armed. Truth to tell, it's kind of dangerous not to. So that ain't the case here?”

  “Not in Seattle, it isn't no. But, I don't know. Maybe there was another shooting or something. Maybe the law changed.”

  She seemed more unsettled than would be justified by having seen a man with a gun. She hadn't blinked at his Colt, nor had she protested when he bought the rifle back in London. It was hidden away in her big pink valise, wrapped in a towel. They'd had to use the biggest locker at the gymnasium just to fit it in and the stock protruded from the handy zipper fastening even now. But there was no denying that Miss Cady was upset, maybe even on a deeper level than she had been by Chumley's attack. She had suffered a shock and understandable distress over the fate of her new friends. This current malady of hers seemed rooted much deeper. He supposed he did understand it. She had thought she was home. But maybe she wasn't.

  He found the idea pretty damned unsettling himself.

  “Anything else?” Smith asked, letting his eyes track over the street, scanning the faces for any sign of someone paying them undue attention. As unfamiliar as early 21st century Seattle was to him, it did not seem to offer any immediate threats.

  “Well, the thing with Georgia,” said Cady, as if that explained it, “and my apartment building. I don't know what's going on there, but it should have been knocked over or completely renovated by now. But there's something else too, something … I just … I don't know. Something's … missing.”

  They had reached an intersection, busy with pedestrians and motorized vehicles. Every second shopfront seemed to offer food and beverages. Other storekeepers were opening up for the day, readying their wares for the shoppers who would come in the next hour or so. Some of the businesses, he understood. A dealer in plumbing fixtures. A frock shop for the ladies. A bookstore inexplicably named “Amazon.” Others, as with so many places, were utterly unfathomable to him. What in tarnation was a Sapphic Memes Dispensary?

  Cady paid no heed to their surroundings. She attempted to contact her friend on the pocket phone again, but again, she shut down the device and jammed it away in her dungarees when it did not give her satisfaction.

  “Still not getting through. Just the same stupid message.”

  “You want to go somewhere, sit down, try to figure it out? Perhaps there's a lending library in this town. Somewhere with a newspaper. You could study them. Surely if something has gone awry, there will have been reports.”

  She smiled at him, but it was a sad expression, almost pitying, and Smith found he did not care for it.

  “I doubt there's any newspapers left, Marshal. Not real ones. You know, on paper.”

  What other sort would there be?

  “But you're right. We'll have to do some research. First we find Georgia, though. Figure out what's up with her and maybe see if I can help. I got all this money to spend after all. It sounds like she might need a lawyer.”

  “Hope not,” said Smith. “In my experience, needing a lawyer is one step removed from needing the undertaker to measure you up for a pine box.”

  He saw the pained expression on her face.

  “My apologies,” he said. “I did not mean for that to come out the way that it sounded.”

  “It's okay.” She squeezed his upper arm. It felt like she was doing so more for her own reassurance. “I know you didn't. You're just being you, Smith. Come on. That Uber douche dropped us in the ass end of nowhere, but we're almost at her place now. We might get lucky and find her home. She didn't used to start work until mid-morning most days, anyhow.”

  He could tell that Cady was talking herself into believing everything would be okay. He let her have at it. Better that she convinced herself than that he fail in trying.

  “And if she's not home,” she went on, “we'll find a library or an Internet café, if they still have them, and do some research. I could do some on the phone, but the bigger screen would be better.”

  He let all of that sail past him, wondering how much of it he would have understood were he not in possession of the watch. Just the words, he concluded, not their meaning. He was learning that the meaning of words changed with the seaso
ns.

  Smith picked up Cady's bag and tugged at the brim of his hat to indicate that she should lead the way.

  19

  Miss Georgia Eliadis lived in a much smaller, more agreeable tenement block than Cady. This was a real street, full of people's homes, not the industrial wasteland and waterfront construction site favored by his traveling companion. Although, to be fair, maybe the state of her neighborhood was one of the things that had unsettled Miss Cady. The longer they were in Seattle, the more anxious she became. She would not talk about it with him, preferring to remain alone with her thoughts, but her agitation was plain to see.

  Her friend lived in a three-story brick building. It looked somehow new. That is, it looked new to him. To the people of this time, it was probably something of a relic, but a relic which had been lovingly maintained or restored. Moving up and down the years was powerfully confusing like that. The place had the air of a residence about it, with small pots of flowers and greenery hanging from window boxes, and a number of impressive velocipedes chained to a wrought iron fence at ground level. To Smith's eye they looked as though they might be faster than a horse at the gallop, and he could not be sure, indeed, that they were not. He had borne witness to stranger things. Peeking in through the windows behind the balustrade afforded him a glimpse into the domestic lives of the building's occupants.

  A man was leaving as they arrived, and Cady hurried up the front steps to reach the main entrance before it closed behind him.

  “Just going up to see Georgia in 4A,” she said, when the man stared at her. He seemed to be searching his memory for her face. His surprise when he found it was obvious, and he opened his mouth to say something, but she had already brushed past him into the hallway.

  “I'm with her,” Smith said as he followed her into the building, leaving the man out on the stoop, gulping fresh air.

  He could hear Cady knocking on a door just one floor up.

  “Georgia it's me. Are you home?”

  Smith arrived just as the door opened.