Portals in Time 2

by Michael Beals

  “And it’s not the only problem,” Kat remarked. “We’ll have no way of knowing where he’s going to.”

  “Actually, that’s not a problem. Time machines have a slipstream, so if you’re somewhere nearby when Grantham travels, you’ll be drawn into his wake. He wouldn’t be expecting anyone to follow him, so you’d probably get away with it, but… there is a big but to this.”

  “Which is?”

  “How far he travels. If he’s only traveling for ten years or so, it doesn’t matter, but two days ago I went forward to 2030, and I can tell you, life was very different. Cars were different; women’s clothes were different; everyone had their noses in a cell phone, even the kids. Also, if you’re in 1875 and are wearing clothes from that era, you’ll look ridiculous if Grantham goes forward to 2030. And if you go into 1875 wearing clothes from the fifties, people will stare at you. There’s also a money issue. If you need time to find out where Grantham lives, you’ll probably be in New York City, which means you’ll need time period money. They changed the look of US currency in 2025. Make sure you use the correct currency for the time period you are traveling to.”

  She tried to imagine what life was like in 2030, but it was seventy-six years in the future. Eighty years in the past, women wore long dresses. Now they were short, and women wore pants. With any luck, women would wear pants in the future. If they did, maybe she could wear pants under her dress and strip off at the last moment.

  “Could we experiment while we’re here?”

  Harper laughed. “What, dressed like that? In any time period, that outfit is going to attract a lot of attention.”

  “Don’t you have a pair of jeans in your wardrobe department, and a simple shirt?”

  “Sure do.” He stared at her. “You do realize what you’re letting yourself in for? Going forward in time is very disorienting. It’s not like coming back from 1875. I’ve done it three times now, and it always makes my nose bleed.”

  “Where do you travel?”

  “As you did, I go to Central Park. It’s barely changed in two hundred years. I wear a tracksuit when I travel forward in time. Tracksuits don’t change much.”

  “What’s a tracksuit?”

  “Loose pants and a sweatshirt. They haven’t been invented yet. They’re made of thick cotton, and you wear them with sneakers, but they didn’t become popular until 1975 on Earth, but they’re quite popular in Hell. I always keep a pair. They’re very useful.”

  There was a knock at the door. A young receptionist walked in with a tray of coffee and snacks, and for a while, they ate and drank coffee, but Kat didn’t stop thinking. Even if Harper agreed to let her have his new time-bending device, she would have to go back to Earth again, and she would be on her own.

  Kat said, “Mr. Harper, I’m very grateful that you’re so open with us. I’m sure it can’t be easy when security is such an issue, but I have to ask the inevitable question.”

  “Can you borrow the device?” Harper ventured. “Well, as you’ve been commissioned by Hades to track Grantham down, I don’t suppose I can say no. He is the Boss, after all.”

  “I’ll look after it. I won’t lose it or let it fall into enemy hands.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. The device isn’t like an artifact, which you can put in your pocket. You strap it to your wrist, and once it’s activated, it blends with the atoms of your body and becomes part of your arm. It will look as if your arm has grown a large wristwatch.”

  “How do I get it off?”

  “You need to know how to de-program it and switch it off.”

  “So I need another tutorial?”

  “Of course.” Getting up, he went over to a large safe, mounted in the wall, adjusted two separate dials, and heaved it open. “It’s not very big,” he said, extracting what looked like a jewelry case, “but of course it wouldn’t be, it straps to your wrist.”

  Sitting down again, he opened the case. Inside, encased in purple velvet, sat a watch that looked remarkably like a Breitling Chronograph, complete with a stainless steel bracelet, except that it didn’t have a minute hand. In the center of the watch face was a jet-black window until Harper turned the adjustment crown, and it suddenly lit up.

  “As you can see, this isn’t a watch, but it’s certainly a timepiece. You turn the crown to select the date and time you want to go to and then press Go, which you do by tapping the watch face.”

  “And when I want to come back?”

  “You tap the watch face twice. Simple.” Setting the year to 1956, he glanced at her. “Now for the tricky bit.”

  Slipping the watch onto his wrist, Harper snapped the bracelet closed. What happened next was astonishing. There was a faint humming sound, Harper sucked air as the stainless steel bracelet buried itself into his wrist, and then a translucent veil of skin morphed over the watch. Kat peered at it. The year Harper set was glowing through the skin.

  “And all you have to do is tap your wrist?”

  “Precisely, as you’ll see.” Standing up, he stepped away from the chair, glanced at Kat, and then tapped his illuminated wrist with his middle finger. There was a high-pitched whining sound, and Harper vanished.

  Giselle stood, peered at the spot where only moments ago Harper had stood, and then shrugged. “That’s exactly what happened when you and Jock disappeared. Harper’s now standing in this room in 1956.” She made a face. “I hope they didn’t move the furniture.”

  Kat watched and waited. She’d expected Harper to come back immediately, but ten minutes later, there was still no sign of him, she began to worry. He was wearing the only time machine the Gypsies possessed. If he didn’t come back, they’d have a problem. She glanced at Giselle. She knew the Gypsies better than any of them.

  “You think he got lost?”

  She shook her head. “I doubt it. He’s probably talking to someone. He went to 1956. If someone was in the room when he arrived, they might not know who he is.”

  “But he’s one of the directors.”

  “The time machine is very new. Maybe Harper met himself and is asking technical questions.”

  “How bizarre would that be? I’d be scared witless if I met myself.”

  “You might want to consider that if you plan to go anywhere on Earth when you were alive. Choose a time when you couldn’t possibly have been there.” She laughed. “Otherwise, you’ll have a lot of explaining to do.” She put on a sultry Kat voice. “What d’you mean, you’re dead?”

  Kat smiled. Giselle had a wicked sense of humor. “No problem.”

  At that moment, there was a soft whirring sound, and Harper reappeared. For a moment, they all stared at him, then Dore said, “Did you meet your better half?”

  Harper grinned. “As a matter of fact, I did, and he had some exciting information for me. Next year, we’ll have a better version of this device, where you can travel to any time you want, past, present, or future. My future self was showing me how it works, and it’s rather quite ingenious. So when you go looking for Grantham, you might want to consider going to 1955, switching devices, and then moving forward.”

  “Couldn’t you bring one back with you?” Kat asked.

  “I asked him that, but he said it was impossible. With the new device, once you’re time traveling, you can’t get the watch off your wrist. It’s part of your anatomy.”

  Kat gazed through the window. It looked as if the wind had strengthened. A flock of terns had settled on the beach and were facing into the wind, their wings tightly folded, and she wondered if it was safe to fly in the helicopter.

  “It all sounds very worrying. I think we’ll stick with the one device. So my next question is, when do we take your device? It also sounds as if I’d be wise to buy a tracksuit, which means going to Bloomingdale’s. I don’t know how long it will be before we all go back to 1875 again. We may even be going back to a different year. First, we’ll have to meet our new team member and revisit the mines, which I’m not looking forward to. If we’r
e still alive, and Rostock hasn’t shot the hell out of us, we’ll be coming back to New York City and then traveling as a group.”

  “Then you’d better leave it here,” Harper said, removing the watch from his wrist and putting it back in its box again. “Are you worried about Rostock?”

  “Yes, I am. If Rostock is one of McInnes’s cohorts, he’ll try very hard to get rid of me, and I believe he’s coming out of hospital any day now, if he’s not already.”

  “I can check for you, if you like. There’s only one hospital for the police.” Picking up the phone, he tapped in a number. When it was answered, he said, “This is agent Harper. Can you put me through to recovery?” He waited again, and then said, “Can I speak to Sergeant Rostock?” He paused. “Is that so? When was that? I see. Okay. Thank you.” He put the phone down and turned to Kat. “He was released last night.”

  “Did they say if anyone collected him?”

  “I’m afraid not, but if he’s stationed at the mines, he’ll be there by now. Do you want me to send out a scouting party to see what he’s doing?”

  “No, it’s okay, Stan, but thank you. We’ll see you in a few days.”

  They met Lily Armstrong in the canteen at Ellis Island. She’d just finished her shift at a bar called The Hooded Crow and was in a cheerful mood. With her short dark hair and a freckled, elfin face, she was a pretty young woman, and Kat took an immediate liking to her. Giselle had given Lily a ballpark explanation of the Grantham situation. As it turned out, Lily had heard rumors about how to escape from Hell. And she often heard stories about a mysterious organization offering a new life.

  “Was money ever mentioned?” Kat asked.

  Lily raised her eyebrows. “It’s always about money, but the prices are all over the place. One of my regular customers, a guy called Sam, told me he’d paid $150,000. He was drunk, of course, so I didn’t believe him, until he disappeared.”

  “What do you mean, he disappeared?”

  “He ran a used car lot over on 9th Avenue. Made a fortune. Anyway, he used to come in every night, regular as clockwork, but after that night, he never returned, and the next time I was in Chelsea, the car lot had closed down.”

  “But how do you contact these people? They can’t exactly advertise.”

  Lily blinked. “Well, if Sam was telling the truth, they do. He said he found the number on a business card inside a public phone booth. It was advertising Holidays of a Lifetime. When he called the number, the guy who answered was very secretive and asked for his home number. Said he’d call him back at an agreed time. But as I said, Sam was a bit drunk, so I thought it was just a shaggy dog story.”

  Kat sipped at her canteen tea. It was disgusting. “Have you ever seen one of these cards?”

  “Who, me? You’ve got to be kidding. Where am I going to find $150,000?”

  Kat gave her a foxy smile. “You’d be surprised.”

  So Kat told her about their plan to find Grantham, that it would entail Lily having to pose as an escapee and fly to wherever she was told, probably the ranch at Quiggly’s Gulch. Kat told Lily it wouldn’t be easy, because she’d almost certainly be watched.

  “And when would I get this artifact?” Lily asked. “And who would tell me how to use it?”

  “We don’t know the answer to that, but someone would have to show you. Then again, it might be the same as the artifact we use, in which case, we can show you, but I wouldn’t worry about it. The important thing is that, once you know where you’re supposed to be going, you make sure you’re last to teleport, and then don’t.

  “I don’t teleport?”

  “No. You put the artifact back in your pocket and wait for us to rescue you. We need to know where the escapees went.”

  “But what if someone is watching us, making sure we do as we’re told?”

  “Don’t worry about that. We’ll be nearby. We’ll deal with it.”

  Lily made a cute, girlish face. “So, I never get to enjoy real life again?”

  Kat shrugged. “Well, maybe you will. At the moment, three of us are going in search of Grantham. If we think you’re up to it, maybe you can come with us.”

  “She will be part of the team,” Giselle remarked. “It might not be very safe to leave her behind, not with Rostock on the prowl. For all we know, Grantham has a passenger list. If Lily doesn’t turn up, he might have someone go looking for her.”

  “There are quite a few things to sort out. Lily will need somewhere else to live. Once she’s made contact, paid the money, and the whole thing’s been organized, she can’t go back to her apartment. I’ll talk to Pernass. We’re a bigger team now.”

  “I’d deal with first things first, if I were you,” Dore said. “Shouldn’t we find one of these cards before we make plans? We’ll also need a Protected Operations Room. We can’t work out of our apartments.”

  Dore was right. If Grantham had spies, they would have to be very careful. She’d intended asking Pernass if he wouldn’t mind allocating one of his offices, but if there were spies inside the Elites, it probably wasn’t a good idea. But as Dore had said, first things first, they needed to check out the phone booths.

  So they all jumped into Kat’s car and drove to the closest public phone on 9th Avenue, but there was no card. They visited three more phone booths before they came across a card advertising Holidays of a Lifetime. It was Scotch-taped to the wall beside the phone, and it was hard to miss. The card was slightly larger than a regular business card, it portrayed the image of a rainbow and a young couple holding hands, but the phone number people were invited to call, had a Boston area code. Strike one, Kat thought. We have a number. All we need now is an Operations Room and $150,000. So they drove to the Chrysler Building to talk to Pernass.

  “$150,000?” Pernass quailed. “And an Operations Room. This isn’t World War 2, Kat. Can’t you use your apartment?”

  “No, we can’t. If Grantham’s people have the call traced, we’ll all become targets. We don’t know how big Grantham’s organization is. It could be a huge network, like some kind of Mafia.”

  “And you want me to transfer $150,000 into Lily’s bank account? That’s an enormous amount of money. Where am I supposed to transfer it from?”

  Kat laughed. “From the Gypsies. They print their own. You should be more concerned that we’re going back to West Fork.”

  “I also had Persephone on the phone again this morning, threatening me with ex-communication if anything happens to you. Apparently, Rostock is back on the scene, and he’s not drinking.”

  “He’s not drinking?” she snorted. “Wow! I must have made an impression on him.”

  “You certainly made an impression on Persephone. She’s making my life a living hell.”

  “Well, you’re certainly in the right place for it.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  K at had to admit, Pernass had done an excellent job with the Operations Room. Five miles from Central Park, it was situated on the top floor of the old Cosmopolitan Hotel, which once had been the bridal suite. Two untraceable telephone lines were installed, and the living room was large enough to use as a launching site. The Cosmopolitan Hotel was the oldest hotel in NYC, which meant that, if they didn’t arrive any earlier than 1845, they could teleport into the past in privacy. Lily was delighted. It meant that, once the money was paid, she could live in the suite, not that they’d be spending much time in Hell in the next few weeks.

  “So,” Kat said, patting Lily’s arm, “we’re all set, the money’s in your bank account. Pernass has arranged a flight to Grand Junction, Colorado; then, a helicopter will be standing by to fly us to Thompson Springs, Utah. After we land, we’ll have a Jeep standing by for the rest of the way. All you have to do is make the phone call.”

  “I have to make the call?”

  Kat thought about it. “Well, you don’t have to. I could make the call if you like.”

  “Would you mind?”

  “No, I guess not. I’m just a voice. They’re
not going to know I’m not you.” She looked at the others. “So let’s do this.”

  Sitting down at the small desk, she placed the Holiday of a Lifetime card in front of her and dialed the number. To her surprise, it was answered by a woman.

  “Holiday of a Lifetime,” the woman sang.

  “Good morning,” she said, putting on a shy voice. “My name’s Lily Armstrong. I was given your number by a friend.”

  “And has your friend been on one of our wonderful holidays?” the woman asked, brightly.

  “He’s there now.” She paused for effect. “I know what the holidays are and I really, really... need this kind of holiday. I’m just not sure if I can afford what he paid. Can you tell me what your prices are?”

  She heard the woman inhale. “Well, that depends. How long have you been here?”

  “Not… very long. I arrived about three years ago, but I’m not sure if I can take much more.”

  “Oh, I understand,” the woman said, sympathetically. “Most of us feel the same way, which is why it’s so expensive, of course. Perhaps I can give you a rough idea, and we can go from there.”

  “That would be wonderful. What’s your starting price?”

  “Well, our starting price is $50,000, but that doesn’t take you very far. You’d have to fend for yourself if you know what I mean. It’s not a good deal for a woman. For $150,000, we could offer you somewhere to stay for a short period. But our most popular deal would give you a job as well, a way of settling in. Most people prefer it, but it costs more. That particular deal costs $200,000. Then there’s the luxury promotion, which would really set you up, but it’s very expensive.”

  “Oh dear,” Kat said, plaintively. “I can really only afford $150,000. How far back are we talking about?”

  “Hmm, well, that’s the thing. For $150,000, we will be sending you to the mid-1800s. You will be given the exact year on the day of your departure. We’ll be giving you $300 in contemporary currency to start you off. Of course, $300 went much further in the mid-1800s than it does now. Are you good at your job?”