by IGMS
"Hey. Stop! You don't know what any of that does."
Bent over, her hands on her knees, she shrugged. "Looks like a toy car, more than anything. Like the ones they push down hills, only made out of metal instead of apple boxes."
By the time I'd wrestled Naked Dirt Boy out of the driver's seat, she had the front cover off. "It's a very sophisticated machine."
"So what's wrong with it?" She poked along every jointure and tube. "I don't see anything loose."
"Because it's not a go-cart. You aren't going to be able to fix it. Nothing needs to be tightened or oiled or duct-taped."
She gave me a half-smile over her shoulder. "Why don't you tell me how it works, and we'll see if we can find something to fix it together."
My buzz was long gone, reduced to a throbbing headache. "Look, you're being very kind, but the fact is, it would be like . . . like you explaining your Model A to a cave man."
"Well, if the cave man had leather and a knife, he could replace a gasket long enough to get my engine started, couldn't he?"
I wasn't sure that science worked out, but she looked so confident I wondered if she hadn't had her Model A repaired in the Neolithic. "It won't turn on," I said.
She gave me a look worthy of that helpful description of the problem. "Are you out of whatever you use for fuel?"
"No.
To my great horror, she fished a wrench out of her back pocket and started tapping things. "Where's the starter?"
"Don't touch that! That's the spin glass. You're not supposed to touch it."
"This ain't glass," she said.
"It's . . . there's a thing. It acts like a glass. It has to do with magnets."
"So how's it work?"
"The power comes on, the magnetic field surrounds the machine, makes everything inside it appear to have a negative mass, and we drop through time like a pebble in a box of shaking sand." Or it might have been negative energy. I got those mixed up. Anyway, I'd remembered the sand analogy right.
"You don't have any idea what that all means, do you? Where's your manual?" She tapped her wrench against her cheek three times before answering for me. "Of course you ain't got it." She squatted down again, her dirty nose perilously close to the coolant screen. "Is this all supposed to be dry?"
"Uh . . ."
She straightened, tucking her wrench in her back pocket. "Dip 'er in grease. That's always the first step."
My panic turned to hope when she explained that she was going to siphon some of my "future science goo" from a reservoir she found under the chassis and dribble that "only over what looks like movin' parts." My job was to keep the kids out of it.
Twenty minutes and a lot of child-wrestling later, I had a greasy, still non-functional time machine. I lost it. "What did we do? What if it's destroyed now? Do you have any idea how much this cost? Why did I trust a hillbilly grease-monkey to fix my time machine?"
The gingham rag hit the ground. Her nostrils flared in her little turned-up nose, and she stomped away, branches snapping and cracking all the way down the mountain.
The light was fading fast under the trees and a naked dirt-baby was trying to climb my leg. I had no plan. I was alone. I was sober.
Mr. Wallace poked his head into the clearing. "C'mnawgaldernkidsissupper."
I realized why he was a man of few words. He didn't much like separating his teeth from each other and everything came out as one long grumble. Still, the older children caught the syllables of "supper" and dashed off. I had to help him disentangle his youngest offspring from my leg.
Then I sat, forlorn, alone, in the dark. I hadn't packed a flashlight. It was getting cold, and damp.
Mr. Wallace came back with a lantern. "Y'noplacetago?"
"My car won't start," I said.
"C'monbackmaplaceen."
Honestly? It sounded like a good idea.
Ten never-recoverable hours later, I found Holly with her head down inside a big black car that dwarfed her Model A. The car's owner stood over her, his hands in pants pockets, rucking up his tweed jacket, looking fascinated and irate.
"There," Holly said, straightening. "That'll do her. Give it a crank."
I slammed my hands down on the side of the car. "You have to get me out of here."
She scowled at me.
"The Wallace children never sleep. They never. Sleep."
"That'll be a dollar twenty, with the fuel," she said to tweed-guy.
He bristled. "I'd pay a man-mechanic that much."
She put her balled-up rag on her hip, but I was the first to shout, "Pay the lady! You're getting a deal and you know it."
Mechanic and customer both glared at me. I had to pace to stay quiet while they finished the transaction.
I followed her back into her shop. "You've got to help me. You're right; I don't know the first thing about how my machine works. I just bought it. I never had a problem before."
Her back to me, she sorted her tools into their places on the bench. "You called me a hillbilly."
"Because I'm an ass. Please. God. Please. They have no toilet. The kids are filthy. I don't know if what I ate for dinner last night was animal or vegetable."
She scowled down at me. "Anthony Wallace does the best he can for his five children all on his own so don't you be judging."
"I'm an ass," I repeated, hoping it would soften her heart.
"You got that right," she said, and turned back to her work.
No amount of humiliating pleas turned her head. I was increasingly aware of the clock ticking on my machine's self-destruct, and it wasn't helping me be charismatic and winning.
I gave up and went to the store. I fished around my pockets, hoping for another penny. I was starving. A chubby woman in calico was frying dough in an iron skillet on a pot-bellied stove. The heavenly smell filled the store. I tried to capture the expression my dog gets when I'm eating meat. It had no impact. I wandered to the magazine rack looking for something to distract myself. The very top slot of the rack, facing me, held Amazing Stories, its cheery red cover announcing "A Journey to the Future!"
I angrily turned its cover backward in the rack.
The next morning, I went to Holly's shop while the sun was still having its second cup of coffee before deciding if it felt like rising. I dropped right down on my knees by her anvil and waited. She came in a few minutes later, and looked at me with alarm. I held my clasped hands up to her. "Please. You're the smartest person I've ever met. If I can't get out of here today the machine self-destructs."
She got that excited gleam in her eyes again. "It does what?"
"I don't know. Some kind of acid dissolving thing. To prevent past scientists from figuring it out. Please. Please help me."
She considered. I tried to look as pathetic as possible, which didn't require much on my part considering the state of my clothes and hair. "So," she said. "The spin glass is what really does the trick?"
"Yes."
"And what powers that?"
I hung my head. If only I had the knowledge to match her wisdom. "Electricity starts it."
"All cars start with electricity," she said. I offered to carry her toolbox. In minutes she was back inside my machine. I sat in the dirt, too relieved to stay standing.
"Well, these lights are coming on, so the electric is working. I don't see any loose wires." She twisted around on one knee and pointed her wrench at me. "Think carefully. This spin-glass stuff. It's magnetic, I got that. What is it magnetizing?"
"Everything I guess. It's a magnet with, like, all the thingies pointing every which way instead of all the thingies in one way."
"The magnetism is random instead of in one direction," she translated. "There's got to be something it's affecting to cause the field. What is in that goo in the tin at the bottom?"
"I don't know, but you tried that already."
She tapped her lip with her wrench. "I'm thinking maybe the problem is it needs a little dirt in it."
I raised my eyebrows.
<
br /> "The purple goo is clear and pretty - maybe it doesn't have what the magnetic field needs - something to push around. Now, look at this screen, here. Do you see these strings? They're bristly."
She held up a magnifying glass with a chipped edge and a wire-wrapped handle. I peered through it. "It's just string."
"Your machine is smooth all over. Whoever made it could make things as smooth or rough as they wanted, and this screen has bristles like twine. Like it's meant to hold something - like paint in a brush."
Holly looked thoughtfully at the machine. I stared stupidly at it.
"Moonshine," she said. She jumped up.
I ran after her as she went to the still. "How is that going to help?"
"You need material - something to interact with the magnets. Wallace's moonshine is rife with impurities on account of his copper pipes and steel tub - different metals react with each other."
I stopped a moment and had to jog to catch up. "You let me drink that?"
Wallace and his progeny watched as we ran paint brushes soaked in moonshine over the coolant screen. "You're being a lot more sanguine this time," Holly said.
"I'm pouring moonshine into a time machine; what could possibly go wrong?"
She shrugged. "I'm wrong and your machine melts in about an hour."
I nearly dropped my paintbrush. She slugged me, rather hard, in the arm. "Or I ruined it all when I tried the purple stuff. We'll know in a second. Crank it," she said.
I poked the console.
The confirm button lit green and the countdown started. I quickly halted it, heart beating fast.
"Was that good?" Holly peered over my shoulder.
"Yes." We stared at each other for a beat before I remembered what was customarily said at times like these. "What . . . what do I owe you?"
She folded her arms and shook her head. "Hell, I'm just tickled pink I fixed a time machine."
Wallace roared with laughter, proving for the first time that he could, in fact, open his mouth all the way.
I bit my lip hard and tugged her close. "Uh, you can't tell anyone about that. Pretty much ever."
"You obviously over-estimate our chances for intelligent conversation around here. Ain't nobody to tell. None that'd believe us."
Wallace said, "Trunufffgaldarnit." I took that to be vaguely affirmative.
I nodded and stuck out my hand. "Well, thanks. I'll be going then."
"Though you know," she said, pulling back from the handshake, "every good mechanic does a test-drive before she turns over the repaired vehicle."
"I can't take you with me. There's . . . you know, paradox and stuff."
"Huh," she said. "Well, I suppose if we find that removing me from the timeline creates a paradox, you can just drop me back here the moment you took me."
"Lady, I can't take you with me. It's against the law."
She got up in my face. "I bet it's against the law to have some local yokel fix your time machine, too."
What could I say?
Holly dealt with the authorities as well as she cleaned a time machine engine. I lost my time travel license, but got off with no fine or jail time. In gratitude I fronted the cash to get her started, and the rest (forgive the phrase) is history.
Any time you're in Cleveland, you can stop in Holly's Time Mechanics on East 60th and Chester and see the sign - "Since 1928." True, but both more and less impressive than it sounds.
The Temptation of Father Francis
by Nick T. Chan and Jennifer Campbell-Hicks
Artwork by Nick Greenwood
* * *
Annie Oakley poked Francis in the shoulder. She kept poking him. He ignored her until she finally yelled into his earworm. "Wake up, you bone-lazy priest!" The image of a tiny woman, barely more than a girl, blinked into existence next to Francis' cot, the metal struts and handholds of the dirigible's plain cabin visible through her corseted dress. She held a rifle and wore a wide-brimmed cowboy hat over her wavy brown hair.
Annie set her hands on her hips. "I ought to shoot you just to get you out of bed. Need you up. Wireless is playing up with the bees again."
"Your projector isn't working too well either. I don't like my women transparent."
His head throbbed from the cheap Korean sleep app he'd downloaded last night. The constant rumble and occasional bump of the dirigible in flight didn't help. At least the storm had cleared overnight and the sky outside the ship's portals was clear blue.
He looked over to the glass hive on the cabin's far side, tucked next to the control panel. The little black bots were quiescent in the refrigerated chamber. Good. At least Annie had them under control for the moment. He had grown sick of bees landing on his nose at three in the morning. Not that he slept anyway.
"We could take the hive back to Gwair-Sematech," he said groggily. "Have them take a look."
"Lawdy, have you gone soft-headed you God-botherer?"
"I don't even know what that means. Talk like a normal AI for once."
Annie scowled. "Apart from the fact they'd like to kill you, Gwair-Sematech is in San Francisco, and we're about a thousand miles from there. What did you take last night?"
So she had heard him sub-vocalize his way through the drug applications. He swung his legs over the edge of the cot. "Same dream again."
Every night, the war AI unfolding from the shadows like a cross between a flying python and a chainsaw. Blood and screams from his men. Reeva crouched by a long tray filled with cabbages that glowed with trademarks under the ultraviolet light. The AI snaking around her, blades flashing.
"Thought I'd try something to help me sleep," he said. "Figured I'd confess it later. Still had the nightmare anyway."
"Oh, Padre." Even with her faux Western accent, Annie sounded unbearably sad.
He rubbed his palms into his eyes. "I'll add another sin to my confession. Stimulant applications, please." He stood, the sheets sliding away, and Annie averted her gaze, as if she couldn't see everything he did with her internal cameras.
"No can do. No idea how that cheap Korean junk would interact, and we ain't got time to run proxy simulations. Thirty seconds and I can give you visuals on the little ol' town of Temptation."
Francis pulled on his underpants and then shrugged into his cassock. "You do the praying this time, Annie. Pray that we find a farmer or two with some viable crops left. Or good stores of pre-patent grain. Anything except a town full of dead people, please."
"Have faith, Padre," Annie said.
"My faith isn't the strongest nowadays."
"Then maybe this'll bring it back."
A virtual menu unfolded on his retinal display. The town beneath them was full of people. The wooden houses were freshly painted. A flatbed truck drove down the main street, several children and a dog in the back. Banners fluttered between light poles. Couples strolled down the sidewalks, while a plump girl skipped along, licking a sticky toffee apple.
There were apple orchards, fruits hanging heavy on the branches. There was almost every single other insect-pollinated crop he could think of. Almonds, strawberries, watermelons. Most were out of season, but he recognized the plants.
Francis couldn't look away. "You said no one had been this way for five years."
"Might be my data was wrong."
"You're never wrong. I don't like this."
"Should I activate my guns?"
The corrugated iron floor shuddered as heavy rail guns locked into place beneath the dirigible.
Francis put his hand up. "No, they'll think we're corporate."
Annie pointed out one of the portals. The town was now visible through unaugmented sight. "Look, they've got a bakery." A floating window appeared at the corner of his vision, magnifying the distant bakery.
Behind the glass windows were croissants, a glazed Danish and a cheesecake topped with cream. His stomach rumbled.
"Where they get the wheat?" Annie said.
"Has to be Mexico. The corporates have difficulty enf
orcing their patents down there. The townsfolk must be trading pollinated food over the border for grain."
"How do you reckon they get away with that? The corporates would send in soldiers if they suspected counterfeit grain was being sold." She hesitated. "Maybe even a war AI if they're desperate."
Francis pinched the brow of his nose and closed his eyes, fighting the quivering ball of nausea that settled about his stomach whenever a war AI was mentioned. Once calm, he pulled on his steel-capped boots and tied them. "There's no reason to go down there with guns cocked. It's 2135, not 1880. Guns away, keep the engine primed and ready for takeoff."
"We're deuterium-powered. I'm always primed for you, Padre." She winked at him and vanished.
People looked up as the dirigible descended, and gradually they gathered in the town square, which was dominated by a huge brass statue of a bee. The bee statue stood upright on two human-length legs and had four human-proportioned arms. In one hand it held a scepter tipped with a globe of honey. Its insect head had a touch of human in it, maybe something in the way that the mandibles were shaped.
"Annie, put us down next to that statue, whatever the hell it is." Silence. "Annie!"
Annie whispered into his earworm, but her voice was full of static. "There's some kind of interference. I'm going to switch to a different encryption." The dirigible shuddered as it hit a pocket of turbulence.
"Don't know what happened there, but I'm sort of clear now," Annie said. "How's your system going?"
Francis ran a diagnostic. "Fine."
"That statue is Ah Muzen Cab."
"What is that?"
"A Mayan bee god."
The dirigible shuddered again. Normally Annie foresaw turbulence and compensated, especially on a clear day like today, but she seemed to be losing control.
Francis grabbed the railing beneath the control panel. They'd crashed before and survived. "A Mayan bee god?"
"Hang on," Annie said. "I'm having trouble accessing the web securely."
The dirigible leveled out, floating twenty-five feet above the town square, and Francis released his grip. This close, he could see that the bee god statue had wickedly long teeth, more like a tiger than an insect.