Karen D. Badger - Yesterday Once More (31 page)

Jordan threw the horse blanket to one side and, with great difficulty, she dragged herself toward the area where the tack room should be. As she passed each horse stall, she prayed that she would not be discovered. After nearly an hour, she reached her goal. Her shoulders and neck ached from the strain of dragging herself across the dirt floor. To her delight, beyond the door, she indeed found a tack shop. Spurred on by her discovery, she expended one last concerted effort to drag herself across the room to locate the secret compartment under the workbench.

Jordan worked her fingers around the edge of the board and with very little effort was able to work it free. She lifted the board and searched the floor around her. Now to find a stone...

* * *

Kale threw open the door of the tack room and nearly dove under the workbench in an effort to reach the secret compartment as quickly as he could. He tried in vain to work the cover free. “Damn it!” he exclaimed in frustration. He climbed out from beneath the bench and was frantically searching through the tools on top of it when Andi finally entered the tack shop.

“You could have waited for me, you know,” she said.

“No time. I need to know if Jordan is okay,” Kale said. “Got it,” he said when he finally located a screwdriver and dove back under the workbench. Kale pried the wooden cover from the compartment.

“Is there anything in there?”

Kale reached into the box and searched around with his hand. Suddenly, his eyebrows rose sharply as he encountered an object. “Yes. Yes, there’s something in here.” A moment later he emerged from under the table and held the object out for Andi to see.

“What is it?” Andi asked.

“Damned if I know,” Kale replied.

“Is it metal? Metal means she’s okay.”

The object in Kale’s hand was rectangular in shape with a rough, granular surface. It was obviously manufactured, not something that appeared in nature. Kale turned it over in his hand. “I don’t think it’s metal. It’s gritty. I would expect metal to feel smooth.”

Andi looked at Kale. “Hon, we don’t even know if Jordan put this object in the box. It could have been there already.”

“The compartment was empty. Jordan put this in there. I think she’s calling for help.”

Andi looked around the tack room. “Maybe we can find an object similar to it in here that might give us a clue as to what it is,” she suggested.

“Good idea.” Kale rummaged through the tools on and around the workbench.

Andi began going through a drawer that contained old documents and catalogs. After a few minutes, she pulled an old, worn catalog from the back of the drawer. “Kale, look at this. It’s a catalog from a company called “The Tack-L Box.” It looks like a place for ordering tack shop supplies. Maybe we can find a clue or two in here.”

Kale took the catalog from Andi. He cleared a space on the workbench to lay out the catalog then placed the object from the compartment on the bench next to it. He combed the document page by page, carefully examining the photographs on each page. About halfway through the catalog, a photograph caught Kale’s eye. “This is it.”

“It looks really similar. What is it?”

Kale read the description under the photograph. “This product is perfect for sharpening knives, axes and a variety of other cutting tools. The Tack-L Box keeps only top of the line whetstones in inventory.”

Andi grasped Kale’s arm. “Jordan is in trouble. It’s a stone... a whetstone.”

* * *

Jordan slowly dragged herself back to the main part of the barn, assuming she had to be retrieved from the same location. That meant looking around the floor to find her original drag marks in the dirt. She only hoped she could make it to the transfer zone before being discovered.

* * *

Kale’s heart beat rapidly as he loaded the retrieval algorithm into the computer. “Come on, load already.”

“Kale, honey, rushing won’t get her back any sooner. Don’t shortcut anything. We can’t afford to make a mistake.”

Kale stepped back from the computer and inhaled deeply to calm his nerves. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and looked at Andi. “You’re right. I’m sorry, but I’m worried about Jordan.”

“I understand.” Andi glanced at the computer screen. “Okay, the algorithm load is complete. Go ahead and start the rings.”

They focused intently on the spheres as both pairs came to critical velocity.

“All right, Kale. I am starting the countdown. Five, four, three, two, one—now!”

Kale felt the wave of energy pass over them. When the wave had passed, he glanced at the time machine. It was empty.

* * *

Jordan had managed to drag herself past all but the last horse stall when she heard voices outside the barn doors. With every ounce of strength she had left, she pulled herself into the stall and, once again, hid under the horse blanket.

“John, please take Shawny to his stall, give him fresh water and feed, and brush him down. You know how special he is to Maggie, and we don’t want to disappoint the boss.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said a masculine voice.

Jordan held still, listening to the sound of heavy boots thudding against the dirt floor and the clippity-clop of horses’ hooves. John led the steed to his stall, right next to the one Jordan was hiding in. Jordan closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe slowly and quietly. She listened as John brushed down the horse and filled his water trough and feedbag. Finally, the farmhand left and she was alone once more. Jordan waited for a few more minutes before she dared to venture out of the stall again. When she was ten feet from her goal, a blinding white light suddenly filled the room and then disappeared as fast as it came.

* * *

“No!” Kale screamed. “I knew this would happen. We’ve lost her. She’s gone. I knew I shouldn’t have let her talk me into this.”

“Kale. Stop and think for a moment,” Andi said. “What are the two things Jordan has that the chimp didn’t?”

Kale narrowed his eyes. “I’m really not in the mood for riddles.”

Andi sighed. “I’m going to let that one pass because I know you’re scared. What she has that the chimp didn’t are mobility and intelligence. The chimp was locked in a cage. He could move around inside it, but he couldn’t move around the barn. Jordan can go anywhere she wants.”

Kale stopped pacing. “Jordan may have ventured away from the retrieval site?”

“Yes. Jordan is smart. She’ll figure this out. I think we should try again.”

* * *

Jordan couldn’t believe her eyes as she dragged herself the final ten feet. “Kale, please don’t tell me that white flash was you. Please don’t tell me I missed it.” Jordan placed her forehead on the ground and rested for a moment. “I can’t possibly drag myself to the tack room and back again today. I just don’t have the strength.”

Suddenly, the room was filled once more with a brilliant white light. Moments later the only occupant in the barn was Shawny.

* * *

“Jordan! You’re back.” Andi ran toward the spinning spheres as Kale powered down the rings.

Jordan was clearly furious as she swung her legs over the side of the platform and walked away from the machine. She turned to Kale, hands on her hips. “Want to tell me what happened here?”

Kale’s first concern was for Jordan’s health. “Please, sit down. Are you okay?”

Jordan walked up to Kale and looked him in the face. “No, I don’t want to sit. I’m fine. But I do want to know what the hell happened.”

Kale narrowed his eyes. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. What exactly happened during the transfer? What happened when you arrived in the past?”

Jordan pivoted on her heels and walked away. Then she turned to face Kale once more, obviously upset and frustrated. “I’ll tell you what happened, Kale. The implant failed.”

“It failed?”

“What part of failed don’t you understand?”

Andi interrupted the conversation. “Look, Jordan. Something obviously went wrong that you know about, but we don’t. We’re not mind readers, and we can’t help to fix something unless we know what’s broken. Now, I think we all need to calm down and talk reasonably about this.”

Jordan rubbed her face vigorously with her hands, inhaled deeply, and released the breath slowly. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Okay, I’m calm. When I arrived in the past, I couldn’t move. I had no mobility in my legs at all, and the implant had lost its ‘hum.’ It wasn’t working.”

“But it’s working now,” Kale observed. “That means something happened in the transfer process that reversed itself during the retrieval.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Jordan exclaimed.

* * *

Jordan sat at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee as Kale and Andi prepared a quick lunch.

“Thank you,” Jordan said as Andi placed a bowl of soup in front of her. “I’m starved. I haven’t eaten since we started all of this yesterday.”

Kale carried the sandwiches to the table. “Whoa, say that again?”

Jordan was confused. “I haven’t eaten since you sent me back yesterday.”

Kale exchanged a look with Andi. “We sent you back this morning. In fact, you were gone for less than two hours.”

“No way,” Jordan exclaimed.

“It’s true,” Andi said. “Maybe you should tell us what happened.”

Jordan took a large bite of her sandwich. She paused to swallow before continuing. “Like I said earlier, when I got there, it didn’t take me long to realize the implant had failed. It was really dark, and I wasn’t even sure it was my barn. I knew it wouldn’t be wise to move around too much when I couldn’t see, so I dragged myself to the closest horse stall and fell asleep. In the morning, I was startled by a voice talking to the horse in the next stall. I think it was Jan.”

“How do you know?” Andi asked.

“I was sort of able to see her though the slats. She fit Maggie’s description of her in the diaries. She also called the horse Shawny, which is what Maggie called him in one of my visions.” Jordan spooned soup into her mouth as she recalled what happened next. “Jan was talking to the horse and said something about Maggie having an accident in the barn the day before. I wonder if she was talking about the accident Maggie mentioned in the diaries.”

“If it was the accident she referred to in the diaries, then at least we’ll have a frame of reference relative to exactly when you landed in the past,” Kale said.

“True. Anyway, after Jan left with the horse, I dragged myself to the tack room and left the stone in the communication portal.”

“By the way,” Kale said, “a real stone would have saved us some time. We had no idea what that thing was. It took some pretty intensive investigation to figure it out. We had almost convinced ourselves that the object was put in the box by some previous owner rather than by you.”

Jordan looked incredulously at her two friends. “Are you telling me neither of you know what a whetstone is?”

“You’re looking at city folk here, Jordan. We were clueless,” Kale admitted.

“Well, it was the only thing I could find in the room that was even remotely stone. Maggie keeps a pretty clean shop.”

“Go on. What happened next?” Andi prompted.

“After leaving the whetstone in the box, I dragged myself back toward the spot in the barn where I first arrived. I was almost caught by the farmhand that brought the horse back. I had to hide until he was gone. Then, as I was making my way to the exact arrival point, a bright flash filled the room. I knew you guys were trying to retrieve me.”

“We were devastated when the first attempt failed to bring you back. I thought we had lost you for good,” Kale said.

“I thought I might be stuck in the past forever, which would not have been a bad thing had the implant not failed, but I hoped you guys would try again, and you did.”

Kale retrieved a pad of paper and stylus, and returned to the table. “We really need to figure out the difference between how fast time is passing here versus there, so we can coordinate the transfer and retrieval process better. Otherwise, it will be hit or miss.”

“Good point,” Andi said. “Obviously, there’s a big difference between the two. Jordan, you were only gone for about an hour and a half, but your description spans eight to ten hours. Does that sound right?”

“That’s pretty close,” Jordan said.

Kale scribbled a few notes on the paper. “If we assume that ninety minutes here is roughly nine hours there, we get the time ratio. Now divide the amount of time that passes here by that ratio, and it should tell us how long you’ve been in the past the next time we send you back.”

“We’re not going to do this again until we understand and fix the reason the implant failed,” Jordan insisted. “I’ll be useless to Maggie without my legs.”

Kale nodded. “You’re right. We saw on the recording that the chimp’s implant worked in the past, so it must be the power pack. Tomorrow is Monday. Why don’t we visit the Electrical Engineering department at the university and do a little research?”

Andi, Kale, and Jordan walked across campus to the Engineering building. They had arranged a meeting with Professor Clayton Hibbs to discuss possible interference devices for the implant. As they walked, they discussed their game plan.