The Future Door (16 page)

If we can just get to the time machine and stop Moriarty from doing whatever he did, all of this will go away
, Griffin thought.

And everyone, including Sherlock Holmes and Miss Pepper, will be saved!

23
TIME-TRAVELING TEAPOT

G
riffin plunged through the second door, narrowly avoiding a hail of gunfire. He froze when he saw his uncle bending over an elegant pedestal. Nigel Moriarty was not only a criminal genius but also an incredible artist and engineer. The pedestal on which the time machine teapot was displayed was remarkably beautiful, with a custom-fitted silken pillow on top of it to house Rupert's invention.

“I can't tell which way he went,” Rupert said anxiously.

“The machine has three settings: past, present, and future.

There's no way to tell how far into either direction he traveled.”

“Uncle, I think you should just choose one!” Griffin shouted. He could hear the approaching footsteps of their enemies pounding down the corridor behind them. “We haven't any time!”

“Oh, I disagree. We have all the
time
in the world!” Rupert muttered. He threw a switch on the side of the teapot and extended his hand to Griffin. “Take my hand!” he said.

And as Griffin felt the firm grip of his uncle's hand, a blaze of swirling light erupted from the top of the teapot and exploded around him. He could hear the door behind him swing open and the angry shouts of Moriarty's henchmen.

Then the world around him completely changed, and he found himself pulled out of his very existence. The sensation felt almost like someone had reached down and pulled him up by the roots of his hair, only there was no pain at all. And the next thing he knew, he found himself flying through a long tunnel of light and sound.

Prior to its happening, Griffin hadn't thought much about what time traveling would look or feel like, but even in his wildest imaginations, he never would have expected the experience to create music.

A melodic warbling, almost like the sound of a pipe organ or calliope, seemed to be all around him. It was a beautiful melody, impossible to describe, but one that brought to mind swirling space and gently turning planets.

He felt a sense of tremendous peace.

Then, almost as suddenly as it had begun, he felt the lights around him begin to change. The feeling of being pulled grew weaker, and gradually a brand-new environment spread out in front of him.

Moriarty's underground lair had changed.

Instead of an elegant parlor, Griffin found himself in an empty underground chamber. There was a tiny bit of light, made from flickering torches set at regular intervals down a long corridor of dirt and rock.

“Where are we?” Griffin asked.

Rupert stood beside him, looking pale and uncertain in the flickering torchlight. “What you mean is,
when
are we?” Rupert replied.

Griffin noticed that his uncle's knuckles were white as they gripped the teapot's handle. But then Rupert's anxious expression suddenly changed from concern to excitement. He grinned, gazing around at the dirt and rock.

“Do you realize what this means?” he exclaimed, staring down the passageway that led from the empty room. “I've done it. I've really done it.” He looked down at his nephew with a triumphant smile on his lips. “Welcome to the future, my boy!”

Griffin smiled back. It was great to see his uncle so happy.

And it really was awe inspiring to think about. To actually have traveled through time! Griffin shook his head in disbelief. It was completely surreal, and there was no doubt about it—his uncle truly was a genius!

“What year do you think we've arrived in?” Griffin asked.

“No way to be certain,” Rupert replied. “As I said before, the device doesn't have the ability to navigate to a particular point in time.”

“But if that's the case, how can we possibly hope to arrive at the same time and place as Nigel Moriarty? We could be hundreds of years off !”

“True,” Rupert admitted. “But since time is irrelevant when using this device, we can always go back into the past and keep trying until we get there.”

Griffin groaned inwardly. Jumping back and forth through time and hoping to get lucky enough to arrive at the same time and date as Nigel Moriarty seemed almost impossible. Griffin assumed that Moriarty had traveled to the future, because he had used whatever information he'd gathered there to affect the present. But then again, what if he had traveled to the past and used his present knowledge to affect the time that they were currently in?

The prospect of trying to figure it all out gave Griffin a headache. But at least they had managed to escape Moriarty's henchmen and were currently in possession of the time machine.

It gave them the upper hand, and he hoped they would discover a way to use their advantage wisely.

As they walked down the tunnel that led out of the chamber, Griffin noticed that the pathway was laid out differently from the way it had been when they had first entered.

Rupert didn't seem to notice. He was excitedly rambling about how his time machine would change the world and how everyone would finally give him the recognition he so richly deserved.

Griffin didn't have the heart to mention that Rupert's machine already had changed the world, and not in a good way.

So he kept silent, letting his uncle savor his triumph.

After following the torch-lit passage for several hundred yards, Rupert and Griffin came to an ancient-looking staircase. Unlike the one that had led downward from underneath the monolithic stone, this one twisted upward to a clear opening in the earth.

“Hmm, future generations must have found this place,”

Rupert muttered as they climbed upward. “But I wonder why they didn't install handrails.”

Griffin had been wondering something along the same lines. If this was indeed the future, why did everything look so primitive? He wouldn't have expected future generations to still be using torches to light passageways.

This thought had just occurred to him when they exited the tunnel and found themselves standing in a cave opening surrounded by tall pine trees. A cool evening breeze rustled the branches and brought with it a fresh-smelling fragrance. The stars blazed overhead, and in the distance Griffin could make out what looked like a campfire somewhere in the vicinity of the huge Stonehenge monoliths.

Rupert saw it too and said, “Perhaps they have turned Stonehenge into a campsite for tourists. Let's go see if whoever's there can help us discover precisely what year this is and what kind of transportation we can get to London.”

As they made their way through the woods, a task made a bit more difficult for Griffin because his walking stick kept sinking into the damp earth, the fire from the campsite grew larger.

In fact, as they got closer to it, they realized it wasn't a small campfire at all. It was a huge, roaring bonfire.

Griffin could make out silhouettes moving in front of the flames. They seemed to be wearing long robes and dancing.

And that was when it suddenly hit him. Those figures were definitely not campers, and this was not the future.

“Uncle?”

“Hmm?” Snodgrass replied, still walking toward the big bonfire. He seemed unconcerned about the strange figures, probably assuming that in the future anything could be possible.

“Uncle, I think we'd better not get any closer,” Griffin whispered.

“Why?”

“I don't think those are campers,” Griffin explained.

“Nonsense!” Rupert boomed. Griffin winced at how loud his uncle's voice sounded.

The figures, who were now fewer than twenty yards away, suddenly stopped their dance. As they turned and stared at the spot where Griffin and his uncle were standing, Griffin could clearly see their dark cloaks and long hoods and knew them now for precisely what they were.

Griffin grabbed his uncle's arm. “We're not in the future; we're in the Iron Age! Those people are druids, and they are not going to want us here!”

“What?” Rupert replied, appearing confused. “You're wrong.

This is the future! I set the switch on the machine myself!” He glanced back down at the teapot, inspecting the switch.

The tallest of the dark-robed figures let out a cry in a language Griffin couldn't understand. Suddenly, all the rest withdrew long daggers from beneath their cloaks.

“Well, whatever you did, it didn't work!” Griffin said. “Let's get out of here!”

Snodgrass fiddled with the knob on the side of the time machine, oblivious to the danger they were in. Griffin watched as the cloaked figures marched toward them, knives extended.

If they didn't do something quick, they were literally history!

Griffin, seeing no other way, reached over and grabbed the switch on the teapot. He toggled it back and forth for a moment, hoping that it would jar the machine into moving in the proper direction. Then he threw the switch forward to the spot marked “Future,” and the world around them began to spin with flashing lights once more.

He saw the cloaked figures hesitate. But then, at a command from their leader, they leapt forward, shouting and brandishing their weapons. Perhaps it was because what they were seeing looked like magic to them, or for some other reason; Griffin couldn't tell. But rather than being frightened, they seemed intent upon attack.

Hurry!
Griffin thought as the lights swirled faster. They still hadn't disappeared, and the druids were just a few feet away.

He saw a glittering blade rise, and the cloak of one of the nearest attackers fell back, revealing a pale face twisted in rage.

The knife swung down just as Griffin felt the familiar pulling sensation jerk him off his feet. There was the sound of cloth tearing in the vicinity of his trouser leg, and then everything turned back into the chorus of unearthly music and brilliant light.

24
MISS FITCH

W
hen the lights cleared for the second time, the first thing Griffin noticed was that it was no longer night. Warm sunshine was all around him, and the gigantic stones were devoid of any angry tribesmen.

Griffin breathed a sigh of relief and gazed down at his trouser leg, which was, as he suspected, torn at the bottom. The knife had just missed his good leg by a few inches. If it had struck, it would have been the second time he had been wounded in such a way.

After breathing a quick prayer of thanks, he leaned on his stick and gazed around at the grassy plain surrounding Stonehenge. It appeared to be deserted.

Glancing over at his uncle, he saw that he was muttering angrily as he examined his machine, checking it for damage. He turned to Griffin and growled, “What do you think you were doing back there? You could have broken the knob off twisting it back and forth like that!”

“I'm sorry, Uncle. We were out of time—they were going to attack us. I thought that maybe some part of it had failed to engage the last time we used it and maybe jiggling it a little would put it right,” Griffin said.

Rupert gave an irritated snort. “That is not the proper way to handle delicate equipment, nor is it very scientific! The next time you get an idea like that into that oversized brain of yours, ask me first!”

“All right, I will,” Griffin said contritely. He realized that his uncle had a point. What if he had broken the machine? They could have been stuck anywhere in time without a way back!

They walked across the grass toward a strangely paved road. Everything was even and flat—no cobblestones or dirt.

Griffin could tell, even at a distance, that whatever had been used to make the road hinted at future technology. Rupert concluded that it had been made of some kind of hardened tar, an ingenious way to produce a smooth and traversable surface.

Suddenly, a roaring sound caused both of them to look up.

Hurtling toward them at an incredible speed was something that looked to them like a silver carriage. It squealed to a stop just inches from where both of them stood, staring dumbfounded at the futuristic-looking machine.

A door slid open on hidden hinges, and a woman stepped out from inside the machine. “Whateryoudoin,tryintocausean accident?”

Griffin couldn't make out the woman's rapid speech at first.

It sounded like English, but it was spoken so quickly he couldn't figure out what she'd said.

“Excuse me?” he replied with a blush.

Griffin noticed that the woman was dressed in a most scandalous fashion. All that she wore was a loose-fitting blouse with the words “Abercrombie & Fitch” written upon it and tight-fitting trousers of some kind of stretchy, blue material.

Griffin decided that the words, perhaps, were the woman's name.

Griffin tried to look away, feeling embarrassed. He'd never imagined that people in the future would dress like that! Griffin noticed that his uncle was staring at the woman, his mouth gaping.