The Time Change Trilogy-Complete Collection

by Alex Myers

  Sam had slowly descended to 400 feet and now he swung the plane around and into a dive, cut off the biggest of the thunderheads, and then quickly crossed. The bumps were coming in intervals, four or five seconds passed between the turbulent crashes, calm was followed by explosive turbulence strong enough that Sam had to constantly adjust the throttle. Sam dodged the big clouds, missed the biggest, and flew in alleys but kept in the general direction.

  “We’re coming up on the Fort Monroe Light,” Robbie said, “and the wings are starting to ice.”

  “I don’t think we have enough fuel to make it, we’ve been in the air for over seven hours,” Sam said as he applied more power. “I need more throttle just to stay level.”

  The airplane was slowing down. The wing struts had a layering of rime. A sudden strong downdraft smacked the plane so hard a large chunk of ice broke from the right wing. The ice had distorted the airfoil and changed the weight and balance of the airplane. This imbalance made the plane shake. “Land—I can see the lights of Norfolk!” Robbie said excitedly.

  “I’m going to take us up the Elizabeth River,” Sam said.

  They were one hundred feet off the ground. Lights were getting caught between them and the layer just above them, creating a glow in which they could navigate.

  “Here’s downtown Norfolk, this is going to be close. Everyone be ready, I might have to take us down at any time. I will have to take it in fast too. Robbie, what do you know about this field where we need to land?”

  “I know a lot about it. It is damn unusual to be sure. My father and I own it for the most part just because of the oddness. The location is the highest point in Tidewater. The field is like a mesa about forty feet higher than the land around it, about one hundred and fifty yards long and sixty-five yards wide. Just below the surface is pure iron oxide, highly magnetized, and arranged in a quasi-regular chessboard-antiferromagnetic state. We bought it about six years ago, and two years ago we put a radio tower on it.”

  “Radio tower? Are there guy wires?” Sam asked.

  “Yes, but only on one end of the field.”

  Sam didn’t respond. He only looked very concerned.

  “That’s enough to land? Right?” Frances asked frantically.

  “Maybe, long ways yes, but the tower and the wires scare me,” Sam said.

  “If it helps, the tower is lit up like a Christmas tree,” Robbie said. “It’s in the approach path to the Norfolk Airport.”

  They passed the mouth of Broad Creek off the Elizabeth River, the entrance to the inlet where the Rigg’s Complex was located.

  “In about two minutes, we need to take a ninety degree turn north up a small cove called Mill Creek. We’ll head up north, northeast for a little more than a mile.”

  The engines spluttered as they hit unstable air, tossing the plane.

  “We’ve slowed to about sixty miles per hour, and I’m about seventy-five feet up. Iced planes stall faster. Robbie, you’ll have to stick your head out and hand signal me in. What time is it?”

  “It’s eleven forty. We’ll be there in five minutes. You will have to come in on the side of the tower. The good news is that will put your heading right into the wind.”

  “And the wires?” Sam asked.

  “The wires are there, we’ll just have to do our best not to hit any.”

  “In the dark?”

  “What do you want me to say, Sam? How did I know we were going land a plane there on Christmas Eve, in a storm, in the dark?”

  The left engine sputtered and the propeller stopped.

  “There’s the light,” Sam said.

  “Isn’t it a bad thing that the engine stopped?” Frances asked.

  “Nah,” Sam said. “When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane you still have sufficient power to get to the scene of the crash.”

  “What does that mean?” Frances asked.

  “That’s just Sam’s attempt at levity,” Robbie said.

  “Seriously, Frances, we still have one engine,” Sam said just as the second engine started to sputter. “How high is that tower?”

  “It’s 153 feet.”

  “We are at seventy feet. Is the tower in the right, left, or center of the field?”

  “Left.”

  “Let’s fly around one time to the right.” Sam’s attention was rock solid. The land came up fast and in their faces. They only cleared the field by twenty feet.

  “I think you just flew under a guy wire,” Robbie said.

  “Is that Jack?” Frances asked as they passed twenty feet above the ground and twenty feet away from someone or something.

  Sam pulled back as hard as he could on the stick, throttled, and barely cleared the trees at the far end of the field.

  “I think I saw two men and a horse,” Robbie said.

  “This time were going down,” Sam said. To accentuate his point, the one remaining engine putt-putted, caught back and roared into life. Sam was trying his best to gain altitude. “It’s icing up again and now it’s snowing.” He turned the plane in a big circle. He pivoted around one wing like a gyroscope on a turn so severe that Frances thought the wings would tear loose. The storm shook the plane back and forth so violently it was like a dog shaking a snake.

  “How high was the wire over us the first time?” Sam asked over the noise.

  “About ten to fifteen feet, I think. I could barely see.”

  “Was it the top wire or the bottom wire?”

  “Middle I think.”

  “Not a good answer. That means I’ve got to come in at about eighty-five feet and plop us into that field.” Sam lined them up at eighty-five feet above sea level; they were coming in fast and then the right engine suddenly stopped. They started to drop fast. “Strap in everyone and hold on tight! If one thing doesn’t get us, then another thing is liable to, and oh yeah, Merry Christmas.”

  The middle guy wire was coming straight at the cockpit.

  “Duck everyone!” Sam yelled, right before the right side of the canopy just above their heads sheared off. There was rain and sleet and wind noise and then Sam sat back up—still trying to land the plane.

  It felt like the very hand of God had smacked the lifeless plane to the ground. Just before falling the final twenty-five feet to the field, Sam managed to pull the nose slightly up, yet it still slammed to earth with an explosive force.

  Then all was quiet and unmoving, only the snow came ambling in from the peeled back roof.

  Frances lifted her head in time to see light gathering in a low hanging cloud above the middle of the field. The light coalesced into a solid living mass, then spit a gleaming flash of light toward the ground, striking the spot on the field where the men and horse had been. The afterimage of the lightning nearly blinded her, and that’s when she heard the moans from the front seat. She tried to look into the field again but saw nothing.

  Once again, a moan and then she heard Robbie say he was trapped and couldn’t move. His seatbelt was caught and wouldn’t release. She leaned up and wedged her body between the seats.

  “Check on Sam, I might have a cracked rib, but I’m okay,” Robbie said.

  Frances examined Sam. “Robbie, do you still have that flashlight?”

  “I did right before the crash.” Robbie tried to look around him. “I’m afraid it must have fallen to the floor—wait—here it is in my lap.” He gave her the flashlight. “I’m trying hard not to get overwrought, closed-in places usually make me panic, by the way.”

  “He’s got blood everywhere!” Frances said.

  “Take off the red lens cap,” Sam said softly.

  “Ok, never mind, it’s just water.”

  “Can you turn that infernal light from my eyes?”

  “Sorry.” She popped Sam’s seatbelt. “Can you move?”

  “If you wait a second and let me catch my breath, I’m still seeing stars.”

  She turned her attention back to Robbie. “I can’t undo your seatbelt.”

  “Here
, try this.” Sam handed her the bowie knife.

  She cut the belts. Robbie, finally released, slumped to the side of the plane.

  “Is this why you carry that knife?”

  “Reason number four why I do,” Sam said, taking back the knife. It disappeared back from where it came.

  “Is there any chance of this plane blowing up?” Frances asked.

  “Can’t,” Sam said. “We used up all the ignitables on the way down. I think I can try to get out. Once I get there, I’ll try to help you two.”

  Sam struggled, got to his feet, and stood on his seat with his head sticking up and out of the plane’s missing roof. Lightning cracked and crashed into the ground nearby. He lifted one leg and tried to hop up and out. Finally giving up, he then swung his other leg up and out and fell out of the plane backward.

  “Sam, I’m going to try to get Robbie up and to the opening—if you can help me lift him out?” Frances yelled as loud as she could. She raised Robbie’s arm and put her head underneath to lift him up. He weakly tried to help her. It took all her strength to get him to a standing position. She felt strong, better than she had in years.

  Suddenly Robbie was lifted up and out of the plane. The sudden movement almost tipped her over.

  “Dad!” She heard Robbie yell from outside the plane.

  She stood and two arms dropped in from the opening above and picked her up and out of the airplane. It was Jack.

  “Come on,” he said in a hurried voice. “We can’t let that lightning hit us.”

  And then he kissed her.

  CHAPTER 34

  Jack held Frances close to him and jumped off the wing of the plane. They stumbled when they hit the ground. Sam, Kazmer, and Robbie were hurrying off the field taking the shortest route possible. Jack had Frances moving before she could speak.

  “How bad are you hurt? You seem to be bleeding really badly,” he said.

  “I don’t feel a thing, Jack.”

  The three men dropped out of sight as soon as they hit the tree line. Jack and Frances were running when the air started to crackle and the smell of ozone filled their noses.

  “Let’s jump,” Jack said. He leapt into the air taking her with him.

  BAM! The lightning hit just behind them. They rolled in the blackberry bramble arm and arm with Frances. After the bright flash, Jack blinked, and saw that the plane had disappeared.

  CHAPTER 35

  The sleet had changed to snow. Kazmer got the fire blazing in the fireplace. His house, overlooking the gray water of Broadcreek, was massive yet somehow still cozy. It was a house made for a family, with five bedrooms and a dining room with a banquet-sized table that had a swirl mahogany field and a setting for twelve. The fifteen-foot, elaborately decorated Christmas tree sparkled and nearly touched the living room ceiling in the center of the prow-shaped window looking out over the water.

  Kazmer’s eyes sparkled like his tree as he looked at his son and two closest friends. “I wish for Kady to be here with her children. This would be best the Christmas ever.”

  “Why don’t you go and pick them up tomorrow, they can celebrate Christmas Day with us?” Jack said.

  “It would be a righteous party to remember, one of stellar dimensions,” Sam said.

  “We could sing Christmas Carols,” Jack said.

  “We could have a feast of fish and duck. There would be nine of us,” Kazmer said.

  “And Sam can tell holiday stories,” Robbie said.

  “And maybe Jack could tell some of his new twenty-first century Christmas tales.” Sam lit a cigar and puffed on it deeply.

  “Are you that hard up for new material, Mr. Twain?” Jack said, laughing.

  “I’ll take inspiration wherever it comes from, even if it’s from the future.” Sam offered everyone a cigar.

  Kazmer put another log on the fire and the glow and warmth spread into the room. The house smelled as if someone had been baking, something cinnamon, perhaps cookies, or a Christmas pie. Snaps, crackles, and the roar of the fire were the only sounds unless they listened hard enough to hear the snow falling and blowing against the windows.

  Robbie and Sam changed into a pair of Kazmer's pajamas; Jack had opted for dry clothes. No one was the same size and Kazmer's clothes fit horribly. Starting from Sam the smallest, to Jack the biggest, all of the clothing fit a bit oddly.

  The cut on Frances’s face had not only had stopped bleeding, but there wasn’t even a scar by the time she got back. She was still in the shower trying to get warm.

  Kaz returned from the fire and sat on the sofa across from Sam and Robbie. They all had a shot glass filled with Slivovitz, a plum brandy that Kazmer had specially imported. Jack was looking out at the water.

  “Wow!” Kaz said.

  “That is incredible,” Robbie added.

  Not knowing what they were referring to, Jack turned and saw Frances from across the room. She was radiant, freshly scrubbed, wore no makeup and looked as young as the day he met her. He walked over to her, grabbed her hands, stared in to her eyes, and kissed her.

  He pulled away from her and looked at her face. “Woman, I’m crazy about you, I always have been, since the first moment I saw you.”

  “Those things you put in me, those nanobots? They are unbelievable,” she said. “They have made me beautiful again or at least younger.”

  “I can sit here all night and tell you how I always thought you were beautiful, or I could—”

  “Kiss me?”

  “Kiss you.” And he kissed her again, this time deeper, longer.

  “Those nanobots are unbelievable,” he said.

  “I know, right? And I’m going to stay like this?” Frances asked.

  “I don’t really know that much about them. I believe they are like a ‘reset’ and then the aging process resumes.”

  “So, I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly look fifty again?”

  “I don’t think so, but I better spend the night with you, just to make sure. I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  They kissed again. Jack couldn’t get close enough; he was afraid of how hard he was squeezing her.

  “I would like to remind you two that you are in a room with three other people,” Sam said with a smile.

  “And I would like to remind you that we are newlyweds,” Jack said, “and I haven’t seen my wife in four months.”

  “Oh my,” Frances snorted. “I haven’t seen my husband in twenty-four years, not months, years. Can I get one of those too?” She pointed to the Slivovitz.

  Kaz hopped up and got her a glass and Jack and Frances sat on the couch opposite Sam and Robbie. Kazmer sat between Robbie and Sam. “I will sit over here so I can make my eyes believe that I am seeing the both of you.”

  “You never were going back in time?” Sam asked Jack.

  “Never. I couldn’t leave her,” Jack said as he squeezed Frances. “I didn’t want to leave any of you to tell the truth.”

  “Then why did you come down here? And not tell anyone?” Robbie asked.

  “I looked around for both of you. I knew that you were heading out to Long Island to be with your fiancée, and I knew Sam was heading to Connecticut to be with his family. I didn’t think she was going to wake up anytime soon,” Jack said and gave a tilt of his head toward Frances.

  “But why come here? You can imagine our concern when Sam saw you on the Norfolk Express.” Robbie asked.

  “Before I came back to this time, they told me that someone had to travel at midnight on the twenty-fourth. I didn’t want to get zapped back six months from now.”

  “Who did you send back?” Sam asked.

  “Not who, but what,” Jack said.

  “My two best horses, they just disappear,” Kazmer said.

  “I only meant to use one.”

  “And Tom Edison’s new airplane.” Sam said. “That should tweak Tom’s nose.”

  “I was thinking it would chap his ass,” Jack said, laughing. He then got serious. “
That field over there, the whole field is a giant sheet of iron except where we were with the horses. We were standing on a twelve-foot diameter of tungsten. We would have only lost one horse if the timing wasn’t off. The first horse disappeared about a quarter to twelve—”

  “So if you are going to set your clock one hundred and thirty-three years ahead, you better set it an extra fifteen minutes more.” Sam chuckled.

  “That’s right, we were fifteen minutes behind 2014 time.” Jack said. “It was taking the biggest objects in the field. That’s why it took the second horse—”

  “And not us,” Kazmer said.

  “And why it took the plane—”

  “And not us,” Robbie said.

  “Or one of us might be spending Christmas Day in 2014.” Jack pulled a flat piece of rubber about ten inches square out of his pocket. “I did get this though.”

  It was the color of a child’s eraser and had black words written on it.

  “This is from Hercules’s grandson, Brent Hopwood. He was helping me with all the time travel stuff. It says:

  I kind of thought you weren’t coming back. Of course, everything you did is well documented. I just want to tell you that it worked, from the blacks, to the Native Americans and especially the comet. We saw it coming and have already steered it away from a collision.

  When I talk of your success, I’m talking about everything you’ve done thus far and everything that you will do in the future.

  I have probably told you too much already.

  It’s important that you all exercise your free will in order to have things play out in the right way.

  One last thing. Your father never came back; well actually, he did only to leave again. He traveled back to 9600 BC and took your sister with him. We cannot tell the changes he’s made but we have an idea what he’s up to.

  If you want my opinion, and I’m not sure that you do, staying in the past was the right thing to do. Thank you for all that you’ve done. I would tell you to have a good life, but I know that you already have.

  Brent Franks, December 25, 2014

  P. S. There are self-replicating, engineering nanobots embedded in this rubber. I think you might need them around 1920, just don’t tell anyone where they came from—but they probably wouldn’t believe you anyway.