by Orton, D. L.
Chapter 22
Diego: The Peeping Tom
The small movie theatre reeks of rancid oil and old smoke, but it’s filled to capacity. I follow the gang in and sit down next to Cassie. The lead Peeking Tom scientist walks out on the stage wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a grin so big he can barely speak. “Ladies and gentlemen, we, the esteemed members of the Trans-Temporal Viewer Team—“
Someone yells out, “Peeping Toms!” and everyone but me laughs.
“—would like to show you seventeen seconds of images taken from another universe. One small peek for man, one giant photobomb for mankind.”
The audience breaks into raucous cheers and applause, but pent-up anger and frustration fills my chest. I want to get back to Isabel. I don’t care what they’re doing, and I don’t care if they make any progress. Isabel is trying to survive a harsh Colorado winter with nothing but a squeaky cat to keep her company, and here I sit inside an underground amusement park watching goddamn movies.
The lights in the theatre dim and a hush falls over the crowd. A black and white image appears on the movie screen. I distractedly watch a group of guys playing futbol on a beach. The video quality is poor, and the viewing angle is bizarre, as if we’re watching from an unleveled tripod. I tip my head to the side, and a weird déjà vu feeling comes over me. Ten seconds in, the players race out of the picture, leaving one guy standing with his hands on his hips.
That could be me from twenty-odd years ago.
I blink a couple of times and take another look, the ball bounds back into view, and the frame fills up with the other players, all of whom I recognize from high school. A cold dread pours into my chest.
What are the chances of that?
The screen goes blank.
Someone asks, “How do you know it’s from another universe?”
“Because the photons we’re collecting don’t exist in our universe.”
“What universe do they exist in? And are we in it?”
“It’s a timeline somewhat close to ours, although we don’t know exactly when this happened. Once we figure that out, I’ll be able to answer your second question with more certainty. But I would say, yes, we’re all in that world, and we’re all likely sitting in a smelly 1950’s movie theatre, located a kilometer underground, asking self-centered questions.”
People chuckle, but it gives me the creeps.
If we’re peeking into their universe, who’s peeking into ours?
“Our next goal is to find a universe farther away, one where we can verify that something is different from our own world: a street name that is changed or a landmark that is altered.”
Agent Dick jumps up onto the stage before the guy can say anything more. “Okay, folks. Show’s over. As you can see, we’ve made some progress, but we’re not there yet. We have two other teams with objectives to meet, and one of them has made almost no headway.” He glances at the leader of the Hot Button Team. “And another group seems to think that playing pool is the best way to meet their goals.” He scowls at Picasso.
Cassie stands up and starts marching up the aisle, her sneakers squeaking loudly on the sticky floor. Everyone turns to look at her.
“Glad to see you’ve decided to take your work more seriously, Miss Smith,” Dick calls out after her.
Cassie lets out a snort of disgust and whirls around to face him. “It was ping-pong, you brainless prick.”
Picasso grins from ear to ear.
Chapter 23
Isabel: Lost in the Blizzard
Twice I lose the dog’s tracks, and twice he comes back for me, barking and wagging his tail. I know we should be hunkering down someplace out of the wind to wait for the storm to pass, but he refuses to let me rest for more than a few seconds before bounding off again.
I keep catching glimpses of Lucky scrambling along behind the dog, struggling to keep up in the deep snow. And so I continue to lift one foot, drag it through the mounting drifts, and drop it ahead of the other, over and over, blindly following a half-wild creature through a raging snowstorm.
Eventually, the wind becomes so strong that I can’t see my own feet. My eyelashes are nearly frozen shut—whether from the flying snow or my own tears, I can’t say. I stop moving and cry out, hopelessly lost in the near-total whiteout.
We’re not going to make it.
Lucky meows and scratches her claws against my frozen jeans. I reach down and pick her up, stuffing her unceremoniously back inside my coat. I can feel her heart pounding against my own. She complains at the rough treatment, but doesn’t attempt to escape.
“Tolstoy! Where are you? Don’t leave us!”
A moment later, something covered in shaggy ice brushes against my leg. I manage to slip my glove under the dog’s heavy collar and hold on. He leads me, half-blind and exhausted, through the frozen maelstrom, our destination known to him alone.
Sometime later, my disembodied boot catches against a snow-covered rock, and I fall sideways into the deep powder, completely spent. Lucky shifts inside my down jacket, trying to figure out what’s happened. I push my body up with numb fingers, and a warm tongue licks the snow off my cheek.
“I can’t do it, big guy. It’s too far. You take Lucky and go on without me.”
He barks, his tail sweeping snow up into the air around us.
The wind has stopped, but the temperature has fallen precipitously. My jeans are frozen solid against my numb legs and my mittens are oval bricks.
Tolstoy barks again.
“Okay, okay. Give me a minute.”
I focus on getting my hands to work and then push them down into the snow, trying to find purchase on the frozen earth. But it’s no use. The ground is too slippery.
Lucky meows inside my coat and starts scratching to get out.
“Hold on, kitty girl. I’m trying.”
I sweep my hands in the snow, looking for something to grab on to, and discover a flat surface, which turns out to be a step. Above it is another step, and then another. I crane my neck up, peering into the darkness, and let out a startled cry. I’ve fallen next to the front porch of the cabin. Somehow, Tolstoy has led us home.
I reach up, wrap my exhausted arm around the railing, and pull myself up, breathing hard. My throat is burning from the cold air as I unzip the top of my down jacket and let Lucky out. She scrambles up the steps to where the snow is only a few inches deep and meows.
“Yes, ma’am. Let me find the key.”
The frigid night is pitch black, no moon visible behind the wispy clouds, only the distant stars twinkling faintly in the velvet sky.
My elation fades a bit as I picture myself taking the key from its hiding place, only to drop it in the deep snow. Without a flashlight, I’d have no hope of finding it, and my mistake would kill us all. I imagine Seamus finding our frozen bodies, aghast that we made it all the way home, only to freeze to death on the front porch.
I brush the snow off the third step and collapse back down on it. I’ve done this a hundred times, but never in the freezing dark. I pull one glove off with my teeth and use my bare fingers to locate the metal hook under the third step. Even though my fingers are numb, the air feels biting cold.
That’s a good sign: no frostbite yet.
I wrench my left mitten underneath the key in case it falls and then close my bare hand around the small treasure. I ease it carefully off the hook and then squeeze it as tightly as I can.
“I got it!”
The metal is so cold it burns my skin.
I stand up, gripping the railing with my free arm, and step carefully toward the door. Shivering now, I pull the other mitten off with my teeth and drop it in the snow. Then keeping my hand horizontal, I try to open my fingers.
Lucky meows again, more emphatically this time.
“Almost there, kitty girl.”
My palm must have been sweaty from being in the glove, and in the sub-zero temperature, the moment the metal touched my skin, the moisture froze solid. I cannot open my hand without tearing off the skin.
“Damn, it’s too cold!”
I stand there in the frozen dark, trying to think.
“I have to warm it up somehow.”
I bring my hand up to my mouth and blow into it. The cold air burns my lungs, but eventually I feel the key dislodge. I fit the small treasure into the snow-encrusted lock and force the frozen bolt to move. Using the sleeve of my coat, I push the brass handle down and lean against the door. The heavy, wooden portal creaks open.
“Yes!”
Lucky rushes in, meowing up a storm.
I grab the flashlight I keep on a small table next to the door and slide it on. It flickers for a moment and then burns dimly, pushing back the night. I peer out into the still darkness, hoping the dog will come in, but he’s already trotting off into the forest.
“Tolstoy! It’s too cold to be outside tonight. Come back! You can stay with us.”
He stops and turns, his tail wagging and his eyes glowing in the flashlight, and then he disappears into the frozen night.
Chapter 24
Diego: Did You See the Blood?
“Come on, people. Pipe down.” Agent Dick strides across the small room like a Roman emperor. The time portal has taken over the Y, and a barbecue-shaped device dubbed the GrillMaster dominates the center, with various machines and power supplies stationed around it. Cassie’s ping-pong table now straddles one of the lanes in the bowling alley next door, but the two vintage video games have been pushed back into a corner. Despite the fact that Matt told me this would be just a simple first test, it seems everyone in the Magic Kingdom is here.
Dick pauses with his hands on his hips, glaring at the crowd. “Can someone shut off those goddamn video games?”
No one moves.
He marches toward the ancient game consoles, a scowl on his face.
“Wait!” Junior scurries over. “I’ll do it. If you power them off, I’ll never get them to reboot.” He pushes past people toward the games, and then reaches behind each machine and turns down the volume. The bings and pew-pews are barely audible above the hum of the huge exhaust fans that keep fresh air circulating in the Magic Kingdom.
Matt and I met with Picasso last night, and Cassie ended up joining us. We managed to convince Picasso that Isabel should be brought into the project, and he agreed to discuss it with the brass—if the time machine tests go smoothly. Afterwards, I offered to help Cassie run the final system software tests—beats sitting on my hands worrying about Isabel—and it turned into a long night.
I suppress a yawn and watch Cassie start up the time machine software. A minute later, she glances up at Matt. “We’re good to go.”
He steps up to the GrillMaster and clears his throat. The room goes silent. “This prototype is one-fifth the eventual size, but the time portal is otherwise exactly to spec.”
I do the math in my head. The real time machine will have a two-meter long capsule.
What idiot are they going to convince to crawl into that coffin?
“What you see here today is mankind’s first attempt at moving an object an instant backwards in time.” Matt holds up a paperclip and then positions it inside the metal capsule. “If the time portal does what we expect, the moment Cassie starts the software, the paperclip will disappear from here,” he shuts the pod lid, “and reappear here.” He taps the shelf attached to the GrillMaster. “Ready?”
She nods.
He steps away from the time portal, and the crowd backs up a bit too.
“Execute the code.”
Cassie types in a command and hits return with a flourish. The lights in the room dim, but nothing else happens.
The audience groans.
Matt walks over to the computer. “Did you start the program?”
“Yep,” she says. “It ran without any errors.”
Matt goes back to the GrillMaster, releases the lid, and opens it up. The paperclip is right where he left it. He reaches in and gingerly picks it up. “Not even hot.” He doesn’t try to hide his disappointment.
Phil, the head of the Peeping Tom team, is studying one of his instruments. “Well, it did something. It drew five-thousand megawatts in less than fifty milliseconds.”
Matt whistles. “That’s enough to light London for a week.”
Picasso peers over Phil’s shoulder. “Where did all that energy go? It can’t just disappear.”
“I don’t know. I followed the time portal instructions, but I can’t say I understand them. For all I know, the GrillMaster transferred electricity into a black hole.”
Agent Dick crosses his arms. “So you think it worked?”
Phil shifts his weight. “I couldn’t say. I vote to try again with something else. Maybe the time machine doesn’t work with metal objects.”
“Try something organic,” Junior says. “Like in The Terminator: you can’t send weapons.”
Agent Dick glowers at him, but he takes a pencil out of his suit pocket. “Here.” He hands it to Matt.
Junior rubs his hands together. “This is so cool. I bet only the wood part goes.” He looks at his boss. “Uh, sorry, sir. Just trying to be helpful.”
Matt sets the pencil in the portal. “Are we good to go, Phil?”
Phil holds up his finger for half a minute, his eyes on the battery gauge, and then points back at Matt “Yep.”
Matt shuts the lid and engages the lock. “Ready, Cass.”
Cassie types in the command, but the moment she hits the “return” key, the lights go out.
A moment later, they come back on. Something is on the landing pad.
“It worked!” Matt claps his hands together.
The room breaks out in raucous cheers and high fives.
On closer inspection, we discover that Junior was right: only the wooden part of the pencil was transported. The cylinder is very cold, but appears undamaged. The bar of graphite, the synthetic eraser, and the small metal band are still in the pod, surrounded by thin flecks of yellow paint.
Agent Dick turns to Picasso. “Let’s try something bigger. Something alive.”
Someone in the back hollers, “Why don’t you go?” and someone else adds, “It wouldn’t be a fair test, he’s already dead.”
The crowd laughs, but Dick ignores the jibe and addresses Junior. “Get me a mouse from the genetics lab.”
Junior trots out.
“Let’s get things set up, people, so we’re ready when Smith gets back with the test subject.”
I watch Cassie reset the software.
Would it be possible to send something back in time and save the twins? Prevent Isabel from getting stabbed? If so, why didn’t the note warn me? Instead of telling me to “prepare for the worst,” why didn’t it tell me to buy antibiotics?
The answer hits me like a truck: because I had to come here—or HIS universe gets screwed up.
Shit.
I wait until everyone is finished. “Did you guys move the pencil to a different time or to a different location?”
Picasso looks at Cassie, and Cassie looks at Matt, and Matt looks at Phil.
“I don’t think that question makes sense anymore,” Phil says. “The time machine simply pushed the wood to a different place in four-dimensional space-time. From our frame of reference, the pencil seemed to jump to the landing pad because you don’t remember it being there.”
“But doesn’t that break the laws of physics?” I glance from Cassie to Phil, and then back at Matt. “What about causality and time travel paradoxes?”
“Yeah, good question,” Matt says. “We need to do more tests.”
“You can’t change your own past,” Phil says. “So this p
encil must have come from another universe. And ours went somewhere else.”
“What?” Cassie says. “All at the same instant? You mean there’s somebody in another universe running the exact same tests?”
“And probably having the exact same conversation.”
She lifts up her hands and stares at them. “That’s creepy.”
The door bangs open, and Junior jogs into the room carrying a small cage. “Good luck, little buddy.” He hands it to Matt. “Remember that it started with a dream and a mouse.”
There are a few snickers.
Matt places the frightened mouse in the portal, shuts the lid, and locks it. “Go.”
Spatters of blood appear on the landing pad a moment before the lights shut off.
Cassie lets out a yelp. “What the hell?”
Absolute darkness descends, the smell of burning circuits filling the air.
We hear the equipment power down, and for one very long moment, there is complete silence, not even the low rumble of the ubiquitous air exchange fans.
And then an alarm goes off, and the overhead sprinklers start spraying water all over half a billion dollars worth of computers and electronics.
Picasso’s voice booms out over the gush. “Mr. Smith, can you get to the control panel and shut off the damn rain.”
“I can’t see a thing, sir.”
Cassie’s voice hails from in front of me. “Use your cell phone as a flash light.”
Small pockets of light appear around the room, the bodies of the owners hunched over their phones to keep them dry.
Picasso’s voice is calm but compelling. “Do it now, Smith.”
Someone can be heard tripping across the equipment toward the back of the room.
“Everyone else, stay put. They should have the power back on—”
The lights come up, and bings can be heard all around the room as the computers reboot. Matt scrambles across cables and around desks and flips the master power switch before we’re all electrocuted. The computers and all the equipment fade to black. He catches my eye, his face white, and then glances at Cassie, silently asking: Did you see the blood?