Lock & Key

by Gordon Bonnet

  Besides, he should have known that he didn’t open the box, or at least, that he hadn’t noticed it. He’d have remembered that, because he was there, watching Buffy, and the box never moved. Perhaps Fischer and Maggie saw all the possibilities, saw everything in flux, but from his standpoint, it was much simpler. Everything is what it is, and there was no changing it. What was in the past happened a certain way—either with his help, or without it. There was no altering that.

  That was when he remembered another thing that had happened that evening. While watching Buffy dispatch two creepy-looking floating dudes who had stolen her voice, the front door of his apartment had blown open.

  He laughed, then felt a sudden chill. How many other little, random, inexplicable things had been due to people from the Library, people he couldn’t see, watching and manipulating their surroundings in small ways? That thought didn’t bear too much consideration. It was simply too frightening.

  He walked over to the door, silently turned the doorknob, and pulled it gently open. The Darren in the armchair looked up, frowned, and stood. Darren-the-Observer slipped unseen out of the door and jogged down the hall as behind him, he heard the apartment door close, latch, and lock.

  • • •

  It was a twenty-minute walk to where Lee lived, in a nice part of north Capitol Hill. But as Darren stood in front of the apartment building, he saw that the windows of Lee’s place, a spacious and well-furnished corner apartment, were dark. Lee, apparently, was not at home.

  Lee could be anywhere in the Greater Seattle area. Should he wait for him to get back home? Strike off and try to find him? He didn’t have a lot of time. He was going to be pulled back to the Library in less than twenty-four hours whether he figured this out or not. He had to get information, and quickly.

  He cast his mind back to the last time he’d seen Lee—that ill-fated dinner, sitting there at Lee’s dinner table in front of trays of sushi and miso soup, and Lee looking uncomfortable and fidgety. And he remembered a piece of the conversation, the conversation that had ended with Lee pulling out a gun.

  “You look tired tonight. Too many late nights with Sherry?”

  Lee had jumped a little at the name. “No. No, it isn’t that. I wish it was. Too many late nights in the lab.”

  “You need to take it easy, dude. You’re gonna burn out.”

  “I’m on the verge. If I can get results, it’ll make my career. I can’t let it drop now, not when I’m this close. I’ve been there late every night this week.”

  “What are you working on?”

  Lee’s face had changed when he asked that, as if he’d come to some sort of a decision. “I don’t think I can explain it, because I’m not entirely sure what it implies myself. But it’s going to overturn everything we thought we knew about physics.”

  “That sounds momentous.”

  “Yeah.” Lee looked down at his empty soup bowl, his handsome face still, unmoving, unreadable. “Momentous. Yeah, it is.”

  “You don’t seem very excited about it.”

  “Excited?” Lee gave a grim laugh. “There’s such a thing as knowing more than you should.”

  “Damn, Lee, what is wrong with you? I’ve never seen you like this.”

  And Lee had looked him right in the face, and said, “It’s nothing. At least, nothing that this won’t fix.”

  And he pulled out a pistol, and shot him squarely in the forehead.

  That was all. No information. No statement of what Darren had done to merit murder. Just some talk about his research, and once again, that momentary catch in the voice when Sherry’s name was mentioned. Either of which could have been relevant, or not. There was no way to tell.

  However, the one thing that seemed likely was that Lee wasn’t out partying, or with his girlfriend. He was in his lab on the second floor of the Physics/Astronomy Building at the University of Washington, working on whatever abstruse experiments about the arrow of time currently occupied his brilliant mind.

  He glanced into a Starbucks, where a clock said 7:40 PM. It was a good hour’s walk to the campus, perhaps more, and no guarantee he’d be able to get inside the building once he got there. But here fate took a hand—if fate wasn’t what had, all along, been driving him to do what he did.

  This time, fate took the shape of a portly gentleman with a briefcase, flagging down a taxi and shouting “U District” at the cabbie in unnecessarily stentorian tones.

  Before Darren could question his decision, he’d slid behind/across/through the portly man and into the back seat of the cab, and then sat, watching the man set his briefcase on his lap and fumble with his wallet.

  That was fortuitous. He wrestled his backpack from his shoulders and set it in his lap. It was like it was meant to happen. Of course, Maggie would disagree. To her, choice was the most important thing. There was no such thing as destiny, it was all up in the air until individuals made their decisions. And who was he to argue? Of course, that meant the Calvinists were wrong.

  Oh, well, he’d never liked them much to begin with.

  He looked at the man, who had opened his briefcase and was rummaging through some manila folders. He reached out one hand, and passed it right through the man’s head. The man didn’t react.

  He yelled, “Hey, you!” right in the man’s ear.

  No response.

  “Weird. At least if I was a real ghost, I could scare someone. This is more like being nonexistent.”

  As choice would have it—since he had ruled out fate as a determining factor—the portly man was headed to the Magnuson Health Sciences Center, a two-minute walk from the Physics/Astronomy Building. As his unwitting ride paid the fare and maneuvered his feet out onto the sidewalk, Darren slipped out and jogged lightly up the sidewalk and into the crosswalk on Pacific Street. Ahead of him was the glass and red brick façade of the building that housed Lee’s lab.

  And that’s when he bumped into a little old lady in the crosswalk who was heading the other way.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said instinctively, before it registered with him that he not only had struck another real, solid human being, but she was looking at him crossly and brushing her sleeve where he had hit her.

  “Watch where you’re going, young man,” the little old lady said.

  “I’m so sorry, how clumsy of me.” He watched her trot away, giving off disapproval in waves. Then he turned and continued his way across Pacific Street, and it was only when he stepped onto the sidewalk that he realized what must be the truth, and stopped, his heart pounding in his chest.

  Fischer said that he wouldn’t be able to interact with anyone who had disappeared when the temporal paradox had occurred—anyone who did not have a locked end track. That is, anyone who was alive at the time.

  So the little old lady must have died some time in the next twenty-four hours.

  He turned and looked, but she had already vanished into the night.

  Should he find her and warn her? But what good would that do? He didn’t know how she died—a heart attack, a car accident, a fall down some stairs. Even if she believed him—which was unlikely—what, exactly, would he be warning her against?

  He grimaced. This sucked. Maybe the Calvinists were right, after all. Or maybe both sides were wrong. Maybe all the philosophers were wrong. After all, even Fischer, who should know what was going to happen if anyone did, wished him luck with trying to figure out what was going on. Maybe everyone was just whistling in the dark, and pretending they knew what they were doing when no one actually had a clue.

  The bulk of the Physics/Astronomy Building rose before him, a sprawling complex of classrooms, offices, and labs he had only been in once, a year ago, to meet Lee for lunch.

  This time, his luck—or fate, or chance, or whatever—had its attention turned elsewhere. The front door was securely locked. He backed up and scanned the building. There were a couple of lights on, probably in labs or offices, but no way to see into them. His memory of his single visit to the
lab was insufficient even to indicate which side of the building Lee’s lab was on.

  Shit. This is impossible.

  He walked around to the rear of the building, and saw that one of the only cars in the parking lot was Lee’s trim little silver Audi. At least that meant his hunch was right. Lee was here. But the likelihood of his being able to pull another sneak entrance, as he did in his own apartment building, was slim. It wasn’t as if there was going to be a lot of people going in and out of the Physics/Astronomy Building at eight o’clock at night.

  He found a bench under a fir tree, and sat down. Waiting seemed the only option. How late did scientists work? He pictured all of the old science fiction movies, with scientists in basement laboratories hovering at midnight over bubbling beakers of green, viscous liquids. Lee’s lab wasn’t like that—it was gleaming and spotlessly clean, and filled with equipment made of shining metal and glass—but still, he couldn’t shake the image of the mad scientist, working alone at night, and periodically giving the obligatory maniacal cackle and rubbing of the hands together.

  What had Lee found out? It had to be something connecting Lee and him. Why would killing him “fix” what was wrong?

  He leaned back, his brow furrowing. Lee had spent years working on experiments involving time. What if the physicist had somehow got a glimpse of the future, and saw something he didn’t like… something involving him? Something involving Sherry?

  He sat up, an astonished expression on his face. Did Lee see him with Sherry? Like… with her? But how on earth could that happen? It’s not like he would ever…

  But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. If Lee had somehow, through one of his experiments, caught a glimpse of the future, and it was a future where Sherry left Lee for him, that would explain why he did what he did.

  He had known Lee since they were children, and knew Lee’s personality to the last detail. Honest to a fault, as straight an arrow as there ever was, but don’t ever deceive him, don’t ever lie. He remembered the one time he’d seen Lee get into an actual fight, in high school—when a supposed friend had started a rumor about Lee, to the effect that Lee had lied on his application to get into National Honor Society. As if he’d needed to. As if that was even credible.

  But it hadn’t mattered. Lying about Lee, and worse, insinuating Lee himself had been dishonest, had resulted in a bloody nose each, a split lip for the guy who had started the rumor, and three days’ suspension for both. It had been the only time he had ever seen Lee in trouble at school, and afterwards, he was completely unrepentant.

  Could that be it? Could he have seen Sherry, somehow, improbably, cheating on him with Darren, and decided that his deception—whether now or in the future—could only be fixed by getting him out of the way, permanently?

  The temperature fell rapidly, the cool dampness of a Pacific Northwest March day being replaced by a gnawing, bone-deep chill. He huddled beneath his windbreaker, trying to will his teeth to stop chattering.

  An hour passed by, then two. The noises of the city by night gradually faded down to a dull roar as the majority of Seattle’s residents found their way home for the evening. He didn’t have a watch, but he looked up at the moon, faint and fitful behind a haze of clouds, and guessed it was close to 11 PM. And that was when the side door of the Physics/Astronomy Building opened and Lee came out.

  He was dressed impeccably, as always, in a long, elegant jacket, a gray scarf, and a dark British-looking driving cap. He carried a briefcase, and tugged his jacket around him as he trotted down the stairs.

  Darren jumped up and ran toward him, resisting the impulse to call out. Lee wouldn’t hear him. No one would, unless the doomed little old lady was still around, and she certainly wouldn’t want to hear what he had to say.

  Lee clicked the automatic key on his key chain, and the silver Audi’s lights flashed twice. There was a thunk as the locks turned. Lee got inside, started the car, and turned on the heater, but didn’t close the door immediately. He remained with one of his long legs outside, and pulled out his cell phone.

  Darren slipped through him and clambered over the stick shift into the passenger seat, wishing as it jabbed into his thigh that the objects in this queer ghost world were as insubstantial as the people were.

  “Hi,” Lee said. “I hope I didn’t wake you… I wanted to see how you were doing… No, I’m not worried.” He smiled, and laughed a little, but the laugh seemed forced. “I don’t know, I was thinking about you… Oh, I’m just finishing up at the lab… No, don’t worry about me, I’ll be done with this round of experiments soon, and then I’ll have more time…” His voice got softer. “Yeah, I miss you, too… I know, it’s been way too long. Soon, I promise… Take care… I love you, too… Bye.”

  Lee shut off his cell phone with a harsh sigh, and shoved it into his jacket pocket. He put his car into gear with what seemed unnecessary force, and his face set in an angry scowl, he backed up and then drove out of the parking lot.

  That was it. Lee was checking up on his girlfriend because he thought she was cheating. His forehead wrinkled in incomprehension. How could Lee think that? Why on earth would Sherry want him over Lee?

  Then, with some amazement, he realized his recent adventures had shown that he was not quite as hopeless in the romance department as he’d thought. With a renewed pang he remembered Maíre Gillacomgain kissing him—unfair, just completely unfair—and even Jane Bell, who had clearly not been interested in him as a lover, had thought it odd that he had none.

  Maybe Sherry, in their two or three casual encounters, had somehow gotten a crush on him? He tried to recall what had happened during those meetings, but couldn’t think of anything of significance. Nothing she’d said had indicated anything more than mild interest in someone who was her boyfriend’s childhood pal. And certainly, nothing he could remember saying was anything that could be construed as flirtatious.

  But what other explanation could there be?

  It was after eleven, so the Seattle gridlock had tapered off, and the drive to Lee’s apartment only took twenty minutes. Lee pulled his car into a parking space, shut it off, and got out so quickly that Darren almost got his hand caught in the door.

  He followed Lee into the building. That would just be awesome. Stuck in the past with a broken hand, invisible to everyone except a poor little old lady who might already be dead. But he got into Lee’s apartment without mishap, followed Lee around while he took off his jacket, opened the fridge and got a bottle of beer, and did other completely mundane things. Lee sat down in a recliner, opened a science journal of some sort, and proceeded to read for twenty minutes while drinking his beer.

  He watched Lee, waiting for something to happen.

  Nothing did.

  Well, this has been pointless, so far. He looked around for a place to sit—maybe Lee couldn’t see him, but he’d be mighty alarmed if a rocking chair suddenly moved or the sofa cushions dimpled under the pressure of an invisible butt. He finally took his backpack off, sat down cross-legged on the floor, and went into a semi-doze.

  Lee set down the empty bottle by the recliner, tossed his magazine onto an end table, and got up. Darren became alert once more, but it turned out Lee had just decided to go to bed. He turned the light off and walked out of the room, a light in a farther room came on, there was the sound of tooth-brushing, peeing, a toilet flushing, and then footsteps. Then the quiet swishing of Lee getting undressed, followed by the noise of bedsprings creaking.

  The lights went out.

  This was pointless. He could have gotten a good night’s sleep in a real bed, and showed up tomorrow morning, and it wouldn’t have been a problem. He unzipped the backpack Fischer had given him, pulled out a plastic bag with a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and took a bite.

  Instead, here he was. Stuck, accomplishing nothing but eating a sandwich, while in less than a day all of humanity was going to vanish, and he hadn’t the first idea of what to do about it.. Fischer may have
been a little hasty in his vote of confidence. He finished the sandwich, then took off his windbreaker, bundled it, and set it down on the floor. Then he curled up on his side, his head on his makeshift pillow, and fell into an uneasy sleep.

  • • •

  Darren woke up in the middle of the night, groggy and confused, unable at first to remember where he was.

  He’d been in so many places and so many different time periods in the last week that it was getting to the point that he never knew where he was going to wake up. He reoriented his brain. Seattle. Lee’s apartment. The present, or close enough.

  He sat up, and looked around. Light came from Lee’s bedroom. The gleaming red digits on the digital clock on a bookcase stood at 2:14. There was the sound of footsteps, and Lee came out of his bedroom, wearing jeans and pulling on a shirt. His blond hair was tousled with sleep, but he didn’t bother to comb it. He sat down on the sofa, donned socks and shoes, then grabbed his jacket, wallet, and keys, and headed for the door.

  Darren jumped up and followed him, remembering at the last moment to take his backpack and windbreaker, which was still wadded up on the floor where it had served as a pillow.

  They walked silently out of the building and then across the parking lot. Fog shrouded the city, and even the ubiquitous traffic noise was muffled and distant. Lee got into his car—Darren once again narrowly missing getting caught in the door—and pulled out onto the street.

  They’d only gone a couple of blocks when he realized that they could only be going one place—back to the lab.

  Lee’s face was knotted in a frown as he drove. He was speeding—in fact, he ran a stop sign once he saw no one was coming from the cross street, muttering, “Fuck it,” under his breath as he did so. He spoke out loud a couple of times, once mumbling something Darren couldn’t hear well enough to understand, and another time saying something like, “… way to check if it’s certain or only possible.”

  Back to the empty parking lot next to the Physics/Astronomy Building. Darren clambered over the stick shift, and dove out through the car door as it closed, scraping both palms on the asphalt. He got up, swearing under his breath, and jogged after Lee, who strode toward the entrance with an I’m-On-A-Mission pace.