Oliver put his hand back on the machine. “Does it have a name?”
“Probably. I don’t know. I just call it the time machine. It works for me.”
“Where did it come from?” Oliver looked around for a plaque to find the identification number, but couldn’t see one. “I want to look it up. The entry for this thing must be amazing.”
Sally looked on the floor. “I didn’t see it earlier. Maybe it got moved. Anyway, I don’t know a lot. It was built during World War II by the Germans. They’d seen the end coming by that point and wanted a do-over.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. I hardly believed that Nazi stuff when I was reading your history books. Anyway, Artemis sent a team to Berlin to steal it. She’s pretty big on nobody being able to change the timeline.”
Oliver walked in a slow circle around the time machine. It seemed to have no other features than the portholes and a hatch on the side one could use to gain entrance. “It’s amazing. How does it work?”
“You’d have to ask a German physicist. Quantum something or other. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could use it?”
“It’s not allowed?” Oliver asked.
“Oh, no,” Sally shook her head at him as if he were a naughty child. “Artemis says it’s too dangerous. But it’s fun to know it’s here. We could go anywhere. Or I guess anywhen might be a better way to say it. You could go back in time and see any historical event you wanted firsthand. Or go to the future and see how your life worked out. What would you do, Oliver?”
“I don’t know,” Oliver said. “Honestly, I never gave it any serious thought. Time travel is just a fantasy. Or it was just a fantasy. I never imagined it could actually work.”
“You want to sit in it?”
“No,” Oliver said. “I’d probably be too tempted to turn it on and see what it can do.” He wasn’t about to tell Sally, but seeing a time machine in person seemed like a good reason to catch up on Doctor Who tonight.
“Yeah, me too.” She smiled at him. “What do you think it would be like to go back and see the dinosaurs up close?”
“I guess it would be amazing.” Oliver imagined himself standing on a grassy hill, watching a Tyrannosaurus hunt in the distance. “You’d sure have to be careful, though, or you could get eaten. And you’d have to make sure you had enough gas, or whatever fuel it takes, so you could get back.”
“Right. Wouldn’t want it to be a one-way trip.”
“No.” He peered through one of the portholes, but it was too dark to see what was inside. “Was it ever used?”
“Sure. Operation Valkyrie worked the first time.”
Oliver knew a bit of World War II history. “Hitler was actually assassinated?”
“Yeah. They blew his ass to hell. Then the Nazis went back and managed to change it. Seems like a waste of a time machine to me.”
Oliver nodded. Most people thought about killing Hitler when they talked about having a time machine. He could think of lots of better things to do with one than save the man’s life. Actually, anything sounded better than saving Hitler. “What happens if you go back in time and kill your grandfather?”
“I don’t know. I’d try to avoid killing your grandfather if you ever take it out for a spin.”
“What would you do?” Oliver asked.
“Hard to say,” she shrugged. “A lot of your history is still pretty strange to me. Maybe I’d go back and see some of it for myself.”
“Amazing. You could meet Gandhi, or John F. Kennedy, or…I guess anyone you wanted. You’d just have to remember to only be an observer.”
“As long as you don’t change the past, you’re fine.” Sally patted the time machine’s hull. “The possibilities are pretty endless, if you think about it.”
Oliver examined the floor around the time machine again. “I still don’t see its catalog number.” He wanted to check the database to find out more about the device, but the interface only took numbers. There was no place to type in “time machine.”
“Don’t worry about it. We should probably get going. Oh, and Oliver? I wouldn’t mention this one to Artemis when she asks what you saw here. Time travel is one of those things she gets really uptight about. She might not let you come back here if she thought you were getting any ideas about it.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Oliver said. “You’re probably right, though.”
“Of course I’m right. I’ve known her longer than you. Anyway, you want to get some pho before we head back? I know a good spot near here.”
As it turned out, Oliver did want to get pho. But even as he ate his noodles, he couldn’t get the idea of time travel out of his head. It was going to be hard to get to sleep tonight without thinking about the things he could do now.
Chapter 10
Another slow week passed by. Artemis had no assignments for them and the world somehow went on without the team needing to save it. Oliver would have had to admit he was getting a bit bored. It wasn’t as if he enjoyed having his life placed in mortal danger, but it was difficult to make the transition from fighting a famous vampire to hanging around the office without feeling a bit let down. He spent most of his time reading files, but even though the files were interesting, he felt himself wanting to get out and do something.
If there was a light at the end of the tunnel for him, it was that once he finished going through the files he’d picked up at the vault he could ask to go back there in the name of doing more “research.” Admittedly, what he meant by research was just ogling the artifacts that he wasn’t allowed to play with, but he figured he could spend weeks in the vault without seeing the same thing twice. Maybe he’d even find the guy who had gone missing in there. He must have some interesting stories to tell.
Tyler used the time to take Oliver and Sally on a tour of even more of his favorite lunchtime spots. Oliver never failed to be amazed by how much the man could eat with no apparent weight gain, typically ordering two entrees to start with and almost always needing seconds. He’d been meaning to ask more about werewolf metabolism, but Tyler had admitted he didn’t know all that much, himself. “We don’t have conventions,” he’d said once. “I wish we did. I could finally get some questions answered.”
Oliver found himself spending more time with Sally during the lull in activity than he ever had before, although it might have been more accurate to say she was spending more time with him. Every time he turned around she seemed to be there, asking about how his research was going, asking about his day, and whenever nobody else was around, returning to her favorite subject: the time machine. Where would he go? What would he do? Wouldn’t it be fun? Under other circumstances Oliver might have found the constant barrage of questions annoying, but the subject of time travel was one he found endlessly fascinating. He’d even found himself starting to daydream about it. He’d open the hatch, get behind the controls, choose a time, and off he’d go.
Sally only mentioned the time machine when they were alone, though. Oliver found it a little strange she even kept it from Tyler, but she’d explained that Artemis preferred them not to talk about it at all, even amongst themselves. “It’s our little secret, okay?”
“Works for me,” Oliver had said. He wasn’t about to claim he understood why Artemis wouldn’t even tolerate discussion, but he wasn’t about to risk being banned from visiting the vault when there was still so much to discover inside.
Oliver was on the couch watching television after work one night when the doorbell rang. He glanced at the clock. “It’s a little late for salespeople,” he said. “I wonder who it is.”
“You don’t really have any friends,” Jeffrey noted. Oliver glared at him. “I didn’t say you shouldn’t have any friends,” the cat explained. “You just don’t have people over. I’m not complaining; it makes my life a lot easier. I don’t want to have to sit here saying meow and licking my butt every time you have company.”
“You still lick your butt,” Oliver said, going to the door.
“You lick your butt!” Jeffrey declared.
Oliver was more than a little surprised to see Sally waiting on his doorstep. “You busy?” she asked. She held a paper grocery bag in one arm.
“I…no, not really. What’s going on?”
Sally stepped past him into the house. “Nice place. I’ve never actually been inside before.” She’d been outside just once, he remembered, helping Tyler rescue him from a Kalatari ambush. They’d fled the city shortly after and Oliver hadn’t gone back to his own house for several days.
“Hey, crazytimes,” Jeffrey said from the couch.
“Hey, dog food,” Sally said. She walked over and scratched the cat behind the ears. Jeffrey stretched out and purred loudly.
Oliver closed the door behind her, still unsure what she was doing there. “Do you need something?”
“I brought you some stuff,” she said. She took a large bottle of tequila out of the bag.
“Oh. Um…I don’t really drink.” This was an unprecedented level of familiarity coming from Sally. For a brief moment he wondered if this was her way of hitting on him, but he dismissed that idea almost immediately. Sally wasn’t one to beat around the bush; if she’d actually had any romantic interest in him, he wouldn’t have to wonder about it.
“You don’t think you can drink with me?” she asked. “Don’t worry. I got some margarita mix to go with it. You like them blended or on the rocks?” She looked at him. “You’re probably a blended guy, right?”
No, she definitely wasn’t hitting on him. “On the rocks is fine,” he said, just a bit defensively.
“That’s what I like to hear. And I got movies.” She reached into the bag and fished out two shrink-wrapped DVDs she’d probably picked up at the grocery store.
Jeffrey looked at the covers. “Back to the Future and Star Trek IV,” the cat said. “Oh, I like that one. Chekov says he has to find the nuclear ‘wessels.’ It’s funny because Chekov is stupid.”
“No, Chekov has an accent,” Oliver said. He looked at Sally, now even more confused. “Is movie night a thing we’re doing now?”
“Why not? I didn’t think you’d be doing anything.” She looked around. “You’re not, are you? Nobody else is here?”
“Just us.”
“Then get us some glasses and let’s do this.”
Jeffrey insisted they watch Star Trek IV first. “San Francisco looked so crazy in olden times,” the cat said.
“This movie isn’t even 30 years old,” Oliver said. “It’s not exactly ancient history.”
“It is when you’re a cat,” Jeffrey said. “They probably didn’t even have litter that clumps.”
“I honestly have no idea,” Oliver said. “I don’t think all that much has changed for the average cat, though.”
Oliver felt himself getting tipsy by the time Sally started Back to the Future. “Some people need a car to travel through time,” she said, leaning back on the couch. “We’d just need our machine.”
“I’d go back to the time of the great cat ancestors,” Jeffrey said. Oliver had told him all about his visit to the vault the night he’d come home from his trip there. “I’d bring them Friskies and they’d worship me as a god.”
“What would you do with our time machine, Oliver?” Sally asked. “What would you really do?”
“I still don’t know,” Oliver said. “I might go to the future, just to see what happens. I guess I’d have to make a list.” His vision blurred for a moment as he watched Marty McFly struggle to make it to school on time. “Wow,” he said. “This tequila is strong.”
“I brought you the good stuff,” Sally said. “You feeling it?”
“I want to try some,” Jeffrey said.
“This would knock you right out, little cat,” Sally said. “You’d need to gain about a hundred pounds of body weight first.”
“Aw,” Jeffrey pouted.
Oliver had seen Back to the Future half a dozen times over the years, which was just as well tonight. In addition to his intermittent blurred vision, he was starting to feel dizzy. The tequila seemed to have no effect on Sally at all, though. She kept peppering him with questions about time travel. “Just think about it,” she said. “Think, Oliver. We’ve got a working time machine. We can do anything we want with it.”
Oliver rubbed his eyes. In the distance he heard a faint noise that sounded like rushing water. He looked toward the kitchen. Had one of them left a faucet going? “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Jeffrey asked. “I know I can’t hear this movie, because everyone keeps talking.”
Oliver was sure he hadn’t left a faucet on, but now the sound of the rushing water was growing louder. He recognized the sound now, though. It wasn’t really water at all; it was the same sound he’d heard every time he’d used his power to change things. He’d heard it the night he’d given Jeffrey the power to speak, and again when he’d destroyed the Kalatari. He looked at his margarita, unable to remember if it was his third drink or his fourth, or maybe his sixth. “I think I’ve had too many of these.”
“Is it water?” Sally asked. “Do you hear water?”
Oliver nodded, then frowned. He hadn’t mentioned that noise to her before. “How did you know about that?”
“I read your file.” She smiled at him, but now her smile didn’t look friendly at all. She looked like a spider that had just spotted a particularly juicy-looking fly. “The time machine, Oliver.” She put a hand on the side of his head to steady it, forcing him to look at her. “Think about the time machine.”
The sound of rushing water grew yet louder. Oliver looked at his margarita glass again. “Did you drug me?” He was aware that his speech was slurred now, and his tongue felt like it had doubled in size.
“Of course not,” Sally smiled. But her eyes said she was lying.
“You put the whammy on him!” Jeffrey cried.
“Just think about the time machine, Oliver. It’s real. It’s right there in the vault. It works. We can go back in time.”
Oliver shut his eyes. “We can go back in time,” he said sleepily. “We can go wherever we want.” The sound of rushing water was loud enough now that his eardrums felt like they’d shatter. And then, like a switch turning off, it was quiet again.
Oliver sighed deeply. He was exhausted, for some reason. Too much tequila. He felt the world still spinning around him, and then he promptly passed out.
Chapter 11
Oliver woke up on his couch with his head feeling like someone had taken a hammer to his skull during the night. Jeffrey lay curled up next to him, sound asleep. On the television the DVD menu for Back to the Future played on an endless loop. It would probably keep repeating until the end of time, or at least until someone shut the power off.
Oliver’s mouth felt dry and tasted as if he’d been chewing on a dirty sock. He squinted against the sunlight coming in through his living room windows. “What time is it?”
Jeffrey stirred on the couch, not opening his eyes. “It’s too early for this,” he said.
Oliver picked up the empty bottle of tequila and examined the label, as if doing that was going to answer his question. “How much of this did I drink?”
Jeffrey stretched out on the couch and sat up to start washing his face. “You can’t hold your liquor at all,” the cat said. “You passed out before Marty McFly even got to the school dance.”
“What the hell was I doing?” Oliver’s memory was failing him. He remembered drinking with Sally, but he hadn’t realized he’d had so much.
“You kept going on about how you had a time machine. It got pretty annoying.”
“Where’s Sally?”
“She left right after you conked out. She said she had stuff to do, and thanks for the movies. And then she said you should fry up some sausage for my breakfast.”
Oliver doubted very much that Sally had said that last part. He squinted at the wall clock. “At least I’m not late for work. I’m going to take a sh
ower.”
“I’m going back to sleep,” Jeffrey said, lying back down. “Put some music on for me, will you? Maybe some smooth jazz.”
“Really?”
“Of course not. My playlist.” The cat had spent a great deal of time picking out his favorite songs to listen to while Oliver was at work. He’d insisted on having a remote control available so he could turn the stereo on and off whenever he wanted. His playlist was heavy on old Michael Jackson albums.
Oliver got cleaned up, took two aspirin, and caught the train for the financial district. He was still having trouble remembering everything that had happened the night before. Oliver hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he didn’t really drink; in hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have started off with a pail of margaritas. It had felt like a pail, anyway. If he didn’t know better he’d have thought Sally had slipped something into his glass. That really wasn’t her style, though, and even if it had been what motive could she possibly have had? If she wanted him knocked out she could just have punched him in the head. She’d done it before, and Oliver wasn’t too proud to admit that Sally could have wiped the floor with him using no more effort than he did swatting mosquitos.
Oliver bought a large black coffee at a shop across the street from his building and then caught the elevator up to the 41st floor. “Good morning, sunshine!” Bruce called as he passed the reception desk.
“Do I look that bad?” Oliver asked.
“You’ve sure looked better.” Bruce nodded at the water cooler. “You’re going to want some of that. Hydrate yourself.”
“I’ve got coffee.”
“You’re going to need more than that.”
Oliver retreated to his office. He was beginning to wish he’d brought the bottle of aspirin along from home. He could always make a run to the drug store for more, if need be. There were only about six different Walgreen’s within walking distance of the office.
The first earthquake hit about half an hour later. At first Oliver thought it was just in his head, but after fifteen seconds he realized the entire building was swaying, not just his own body. It was far from the largest earthquake he’d ever felt in San Francisco, but at that moment he’d have greatly preferred the ground to stay where it was supposed to. His stomach felt like it might decide to empty its contents into a trash can at any given moment.
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