Jaclyn the Ripper (39 page)

Yet he couldn't forget Amy and the boys, nor the future of mankind. He was one man in billions, but he'd be damned if he'd give up trying. “At least give me the satisfaction of knowing when.”

“Ah, yes, the end of time.” She smiled breezily. “The Current Year Indicator read 2353, so that would be the year your progeny blew up the planet.”

H.G. looked away and shook his head, deeply saddened. Tears welled up in his eyes.

“But that doesn't mean you're going there, does it? For all we know—without the declinometer—you could end up in the beginning.” She chuckled. “Wouldn't that be a tad ironic, eh?” She inserted the special key in the dash, turned it. The engine started, hummed quietly as it warmed.

Abruptly, a different sound came from beneath the floor, another strange rumble that dissipated into a low groan.

“Some technological monster needs attending to,” H.G. said automatically. “The air-conditioning, perhaps?”

“You'll smell its remains in hell, dear boy.” She set about checking the switches on the instrument panel, then gave him a sidelong glance. “What, no testimonials?”

He shook his head.

“Don't fret,” she cooed. “What if my crimes in the last few days have sickened enough people to side with other sickened people? And together they influence future generations to think twice about their headlong rush toward self-destruction? Don't you see, Wells? There is hope for your kind. Just as there is no hope for mine.” She laughed insanely. “Therefore, I am a shining example of who not to emulate, am I not?”

He stared at her.

“Don't worry, my little twit, I promise you I shall strengthen my case in the future. I'll select only victims who genuinely serve others, and I'll cut them up with such bestiality that even the tabloids will be shocked, and then maybe mankind will see where it is going and correct itself, though I'll wager that I'm wrong.” She leaned close. “You see, I'm destined to be a Don Quixote on the fourth dimension—a beautiful Doña Quixote astride a time machine instead of a donkey, with knives instead of a broken lance.”

“Are you quite finished?”

She frowned with irritation. “The point is, Wells, that how or when the human race self-destructs means absolutely nothing to you or me. Surely, you must understand that.”

She blew him a kiss and opened the cabin door.

“Haven't you forgotten something?”

She turned.

He nodded and managed a smile. “You don't expect me to press the lever myself, do you?”

“I left enough of your arms free to do exactly that. Yes.”

He shook his head incredulously. “I'm sorry, but I have no intention of committing suicide. So unless you've rewired my machine with some sort of remote device, I'm not going anywhere. That is, unless you choose to shove the lever forward yourself and go along for the ride.”

“Oh, I think you will.” She pulled out her cell phone, compared the
time to the clock on the instrument panel. “Let's see. . . . It's now four minutes till ten.” She gave him a dazzling smile. “I'm going to leave you, go lose myself in the exhibition and give you some time to yourself. I'll come back at, say, ten straight up. If you're still here, I'll have no choice but to seek out your lovely wife, Amy, and you know what will follow.” She gave him a little flutter wave. “Bon voyage.”

“You'll kill her anyway!” H.G. screamed from the chair.

Crouched below the door, Amber had heard Jaclyn's ultimatum—a time-traveling version of the Siberian dilemma—not that it mattered. The monster was backing out of the cabin, and Amber was going to attack her as she climbed down the ladder. Amber had no weapon other than her indignation, her determination, her bare hands. She tensed.

Wait.

She got a better idea and ran back around the time machine. She hid in the engine compartment just as Jaclyn was climbing down to the floor and walking past, then disappearing inside the exhibition.

Trembling, fearful, Amber took in her surroundings. In idle mode, the engine was vibrating all around her, and she was terrified that if she touched the wrong thing, she would be incinerated in an explosion of blue energy. She rooted through her purse and found the screwdriver that H.G. had used the night before. She gathered her courage and settled herself, then began unscrewing the reversal housing. Her hands shook—her muscles quivered—it took all her strength to loosen the screws, but finally the piece came free. Carefully, she lowered it to the floor, then saw the small door in its center and was mortified. Removing the housing hadn't
been necessary at all. Annoyed with herself, she peered up at the gears, shiny and black with grease.

Shoes clicking on tile.

Amber froze, listened. Jaclyn was coming back in the center gallery, humming a melody that sounded like it came from a music box.
Christ, has it been four minutes?

Her heart pounding, Amber took a breath, then reached up inside the housing, twisted her hand and found the hole in the central gearing wheel, but the screwdriver was too big and wouldn't fit. She heard Jaclyn climbing the ladder to the cabin. Frantic, she upended her purse on the floor, rummaged and picked through the mess and finally found it.

The nail.

The nail he'd laughed at and tossed back in her purse when she was trying to find a screwdriver.

Once again, she peered at the central gearing wheel.

“You disappoint me, Wells,” said Jaclyn. “Your poor, poor wife.”

H.G. turned his head and saw Jaclyn in the cabin doorway, wagging her finger at him. She was reaching for the Beretta in her waistband, apparently planning to send him to hell in a more conventional manner, when he made his decision. It wasn't so much his belief in the basic goodness of man or his blind faith that somewhere in her ugly soul Jaclyn would keep her word and not harm Amy—rather, it was revenge. Jaclyn was half inside the machine. Part of her would go with him.

He shoved the Accelerator Helm Lever forward.

A resounding clink.

Nothing happened.

Great Scott, I'm still here! The bloody bitch has wrecked my machine!

Like the bicycle lock before it, the nail had stopped the time machine from rotating.

Amber heard Jaclyn cursing, scrambling down the ladder and coming around to the engine compartment. She coiled, held her breath. When she saw the hatch opening, she rammed it shoulder-first, her momentum propelling her outside on top of Jaclyn. Amber punched and clawed furiously, drawing blood, but Jaclyn was much faster, much stronger than she could have imagined. The monster slammed the Beretta into her face, rolled out from under and was on her feet, poised like a dancer. Dazed, Amber saw the gun and scrambled up. She backpedaled toward the exhibition, hoping to lose herself in the dark shadows.

Jaclyn fired. The bullet hit Amber above the left breast and spun her around. She went down on one knee, but was numb to the pain. She was looking for a weapon—anything—but Jaclyn was much closer now, aiming at her head from point-blank range.

When the earth seized up.

 

The entire West Pavilion rose—foundation and all—teetered, then slammed back down, the rumble from beneath becoming a huge thunderclap.
The building jolted, stuttered, shook wildly, objets d'art flying like missiles before smashing against buckling walls, the tinkle of shattering glass, faint in the deafening roar. The floors liquefied, their stone and tile undulating, then cracking.

Jaclyn fell over backward as she fired again. Her shot went wide, and she smacked her head, rolled over, and in a blind panic, tried to hold on to the floor. Amber crawled under a display case that hadn't yet gone over, that was doing a mad tap-dance on broken tiles.

Inside
The Utopia
, H.G. shouted in terror, yet couldn't hear himself in the crash of sound. The cabin pitched and rolled, yawed on its gyroscopic mounting while the engine hammered against its moorings. Dust and debris filled the air. He thought fleetingly that his machine wasn't wrecked at all and had accidentally started on its own. Then the lights went out, and he gritted his teeth and prayed for the horror to end.

Outside, the galleries went on moving, their walls like trees in a windstorm. The display case that Amber was under finally toppled sideways, and things fell around her, bouncing and clattering on the floor. It was a croquet set from legendary weekends at Spade House. Instinctively, Amber grabbed a mallet and clambered to her feet. Debris was flying, peppering her. The portrait of H.G. Wells over the archway was rat-a-tat-tatting against plaster, and then the ceiling started coming down, great chunks of it falling around them. Jaclyn scrambled up and sidestepped it, was coming on fast, the gun waving as she tried to maintain her balance. Amber swung the mallet one-handed, hit Jaclyn in the head, knocked her sideways, swung again and hit her flush in the face. Jaclyn staggered back under the archway, hand to her face, blood pouring from her nose.

And then the archway gave way in a shower of masonry, its large centerpiece pile-driving Jaclyn to the floor, the portrait of H.G. smashing her head and shattering, shards of glass slicing her face and arms. She twitched and lay still.

The noise stopped.

Inside his time machine, H.G. hung on as the cabin lurched right, then left one last time, then settled back on its base and was finally still. He blinked, coughed. The earthquake had loosened the tape that held
him to the chair, actually tearing it at the bottom. He pushed against it and succeeded in ripping it farther up. His hands shaking, he worked at the tape, marveling at the earthquake. Where he had failed, some supernatural force had stepped in.
Was it Fate? Or some deity with less indifference . . . ? Or, or should I reconsider the existence of God?
His readers and critics, his literary friends—Conrad, Shaw, James, Ford and the rest of them—even if he could tell them, they would think he was joking.

He had been saved by a deus ex machina.

Finally, he pulled free from the tape, unbuckled himself from the chair and stood unsteadily, feeling for the instrument panel as if on the deck of a ship. He climbed down from the cabin, waving futilely at brown clouds of dust in the air, looking around warily. The lights came back on, an emergency power system starting, but Jaclyn was nowhere in sight. Then there were sirens in the distance, a network of community alarms echoing in the canyons, the guards shouting beyond walls of cracked glass.

He went into the exhibition, immediately saw Jaclyn as the earthquake had left her—under the broken piece of archway and his wrecked portrait, its smile wrinkled, but still in place. He was wondering if she was dead when movement caught his eye. Amber was sitting on the good end of a broken bench, slumped over, rocking back and forth, holding her shoulder.

“ 'Dusa?” he said, astonished.

“I'm okay.”

“My God, 'Dusa!” he gasped, realizing she'd been shot. He rushed over, kneeled before her and caressed her face while peering at her wound. “Let's get you to a surgery.”

“Look
out
!” Amber shouted.

H.G. turned.

A groggy Jaclyn was rising up from the rubble, the dust and the glass, and was aiming the Beretta. H.G. saw the gun and instinctively threw up his hands, knowing he was too late and expecting the bullet, but Amber had vaulted off the bench and thrown herself at Jaclyn just as the monster fired.

Hit in the stomach, Amber crumpled on top of Jaclyn.

Jaclyn was trying to extricate the Beretta out from under Amber when H.G. stepped on her wrist and ground down with his all weight until he felt her bones crack and saw her hand go limp. She grunted in pain and tried to crawl away, but had no strength. His chest heaving, H.G. picked up his Beretta, wished the earthquake had been more thorough and that it hadn't come to this.
I abhor violence.
He looked down. Jaclyn's eyes flickered at him, and he was filled with loathing for this woman and what she had done, especially to Amy in the last universe.
Indeed, I abhor violence, but I do make exceptions.

He shot her between the eyes.

H.G. made Amber comfortable on a slanted piece of ceiling and went through her pockets until he found her phone. She smiled dreamily at his fumbling hands as if—however fleetingly—they were trying to find her and hold her soul.

“Nine-one-one,” she said with a laugh and coughed up blood. “Then press the green button.”

He did so.

Ten rings later a recorded message told him that due to an unusually high volume of calls they could not answer right away, but that he should stay on the line and wait for an operator.

“They put you on hold,” she managed.

He nodded and gulped.

“My century put you on hold because—” She coughed up more blood. “I'm so . . . afraid.”

“You're going to be all right, 'Dusa,” he whispered, “you're going to be all right.”

“Just hold me.”

He set the phone down and put his arms around her, held her gently and tried not to look at the wound in her stomach or the blood soaking
through her clothes. She struggled to breathe. He felt her body spasm in pain and winced in sympathy. Then she relaxed and went limp against him. He stroked her face, and she breathed easier and smiled at his touch.

Moments later, he heard a tinny voice from her cell, picked it up and shouted at the operator to send an ambulance, and when the operator asked where, H.G. said, “My good man, look at your screen! The GPS will tell you where!”

“I love you,” Amber whispered to him.

He held her again, tighter this time, and buried his face in her hair, helplessly so. There was nothing he could do or say.

“It's okay,” she went on, “you don't have to love me back. You have Amy, and that's enough.”