“They’re not happy about this idea, Adelaide. They want in, and they want us out of here.” Thankfully the doors were holding, but if there was a librarian or a scout out there, they’d be able to get in.
I moved a little closer to the doors, “Listen,” I yelled to the crowd outside.
A fist slammed against the glass again and I jumped back in alarm. “Noah, put that gun away!”
“No way.”
“You’re not helping,” I hissed at him. “Please people, listen to me!”
“Come out here and we’ll listen,” one of the people yelled. The group echoed their agreement.
“Please, there’s no reason to be angry, we’re here to help you.”
“How do we know you’re not with them?” another man shouted.
“You have to trust us,” I pleaded.
“Yeah right!” More fists banged against the glass. Someone found a shovel and started banging that against the doors.
“Daphne,” I said, backing away. “Get back to Doctor Lancing’s office.” She turned and ran. “Noah?”
He backed away too, keeping the gun pointed at the group. “Maybe this was a bad idea, Adelaide.” He jumped as the shovel made contact again, and a crack formed from where it struck. “Run.”
I turned and yelled to him. I could hear his footsteps behind me and glanced behind to see him following me with the gun. As we ran past another guard I grabbed his gun as well. I had no intention of using it, but I didn’t want the other people to get their hands on it either. I heard the sound of glass shattering behind us but focused on taking the correct path back to Doctor Lancing’s office. I couldn’t even be sure if there were other guards from other parts of the lab, still alive and well armed. “Noah what do we do?” I asked as I ran.
“Just keep going, Addy!”
We turned the last corner. Daphne was standing in the doorway to the office, peering out from behind the door. She opened it wide as we approached and I saw her eyes fill with fear as she refocused behind us. I ran through, Noah just behind me and she slammed the door. Noah threw his weight up against it and scanned for some extra security measures. When the first bang hit the door he jumped back and re-aimed his gun. “Shit.”
Daphne was crying. I pulled her behind me and pointed my gun as well. “Adelaide,” she said to me, her voice broken.
“Wait a minute!” I said. I dropped the gun on the desk and ran past her, ignoring what she was trying to tell me. “I’ve got an idea, Noah.”
“You better make it quick, Addy!”
“Adelaide,” Daphne said again, urgency in her voice this time.
“Just one moment, Daphne!” I waved her off and ran into the hospital room again. I wasted no time in putting the helmet back on my head and sitting in the chair. I saw Daphne follow me into the room and gasp before my mind was assaulted.
I squeezed the arms of the chair and tried to focus the thoughts on the crowd outside the door, but the images I saw kept going back to Noah and Montgomery being tortured. I tried to focus on the office outside, but Doctor Lancing entered my vision, leering down at me, and I was suddenly very afraid. I lost my fight and my mind was all over the place. Places I didn’t recognize, someone’s home, other young children, an older man who cowered in a corner. A small bit of consciousness became aware that Daphne had grabbed my wrist. She was going to take us away somewhere. Yes, I thought! She’ll take us all out of here! As soon as my mind had registered it though, she let go again. I heard her say something to Noah. Noah was in the room. My body was rigid with pain. My head was pounding. Where did Daphne go?
Noah was yelling something at me, but I couldn’t hear it. As soon as I heard his voice the images in my head went back to those of him being tortured. Suddenly I could tell that he was on the floor, writhing in pain, and it was no longer just in my head. My arms would not move. Noah was pleading with me. I wasn’t the one hurting him, why was he pleading with me? “Noah!” I managed to yell. Focus, I yelled at myself. I turned my mind to Eliza, lying in the bed and I heard Noah stop yelling on the floor. My mind scanned the length of her body, and remembered what the back of her head looked like, the open skull and the claw digging into her brain.
My mind was suddenly freed. I wasted no time in taking the helmet back off. Noah was panting on the floor. “Noah!” I jumped off the chair and went to him on the floor, the sound of pounding on the door outside did not cease. “Are you okay?”
“I think so. What the hell happened, Adelaide?”
“I don’t know.” I looked around the room wildly. “Where’s Daphne?” I exclaimed.
“She left.” He shook his head as though trying to clear it and pressed a hand against his right temple. “She told me to wait here.”
“As if we could go anywhere.”
“She tried to take us somewhere, but she couldn’t feel you. She said it was like you weren’t here. What is that helmet, Addy?” He looked warily at it.
“Don’t worry about that now. We’ve got-” I was distracted by Daphne entering the room again.
She left the door open and beyond in the office I could see Jim standing at the desk. “Jim!” I called.
He held a hand up to silence me and pushed a button. I could hear a door unlock and a mass of feet pad into the room with him. I made to get up to defend him, but Daphne and Noah held me back. We could hear confused murmurs through the doorway before one voice spoke up above the rest.
“Jim! You’re Doctor Lancing?” I could hear gasps and more murmurs.
“No,” Jim said. “Doctor Lancing is dead. I killed him.”
Epilogue
Noah laid in the grass, staring up at the glass of the dome. His eyes automatically went to the spot that had been shattered in the attack. The glass had been repaired months ago, and Jim repeatedly told him that it was exactly the same as the other glass panels now, but Noah swore it looked different. A constant reminder of what had brought him to this state.
He had not anticipated this sort of fear when he and Addy tried to take over the lab. In fact, until the crowd had come after him, he had no fears at all. Now he had nightmares all the time. If it wasn't the lab being attacked again by the Gardians or by Doctor Lancing somehow finding his way back to this time, it was worse: getting stuck back in a time period he couldn't stand and resorting to living a normal life.
He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Addy had tried to convince him that if he ever got stuck again, Daphne would recognize it, and we'd come back for him. Daphne, his odd, surrogate daughter. He didn't understand why she clung to him so much. Addy said it had to do with another version of Noah from the future being a father figure to her. Noah laughed once at the idea. The sound disappeared in the massive space.
There she was, running across the open space, calling for him. No, he thought, sitting up. Not calling, yelling. Frantically yelling. Noah was on his feet and sprinting toward her. "Daphne! What is it!" he yelled as he closed the distance.
She stopped and waited for him to approach. "Something's wrong with Addy. When I brought her back, she seemed frightened. She said to get you, she said you'd understand."
The two of them were now racing across the lawn. Noah tried to work out what would have Adelaide frightened. She made it back, so she must not have gotten stuck. Perhaps she had seen Doctor Lancing. She had sent him back to the early 1600s, and her current mission put her in 1933 and later. Could he be over 300 years old? Adelaide said he looked exactly the same when she saw him in the future as he did just a few months ago.
They went through the glass doors of the entrance to the time travel lab and down the halls to the return chambers. "In here," Daphne said as she stopped in front of a door and opened it.
Adelaide was pacing back and forth, but stopped and ran to Noah when he entered. "Noah! I saw him again, he was there!"
It was just as Noah thought, Doctor Lancing had tracked her down. "What was Doctor Lancing doing in the 1930s? How did he find you?"
> She shook her head. "No, not him. Byron!" She whispered the name as though saying it out loud would call him to the present.
The name meant nothing to Noah. "Who's Byron?"
"The man I saw in Shakespeare's time. The one I suspected of not belonging there. I was right, he didn't." She looked at him frantically.
It jogged his memory. He remembered the conversation with Adelaide so many months ago as they ate lunch. He gasped slightly as the implication hit him. "There's another time traveler."
Special thanks to Sean for introducing me to Nanowrimo and daring me to do it. To PS, who gave me reason to push myself nearly every day in the end. To my sister, Heather, who filled my head with visions of glory after it was over. To my other sister, Nicole, who corrected my grammar and tried her best to point out my plot holes (and who probably has something to say about that sentence). To St. Elmo's Coffee Pub for providing me with my weekend morning ritual writing space and the best chai lattes in existence. And to Nanowrimo for sending me those motivational emails that I didn't believe until it was actually happening to me.
The Sphere: A Journey In Time Page 23