Time After Time (23 page)

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Authors: Karl Alexander

BOOK: Time After Time
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“Well?”
Now it was his turn to be concerned, for no familiar noise was forthcoming. He turned off all the switches, then tried them one more time.
Nothing happened.
“There seems to be a bit of a problem.”
“What?”
“It doesn't work.”
“Damn.” She sighed. “For a minute there I thought I was going to be the first real Alice in Wonderland.”
He broke out into a cold sweat, suddenly struck with a horrible thought. What if he were stranded out of his own time?
His face ashen, he quickly unstrapped them, sprang out of the cabin and ran to the engine compartment. He glanced wildly at the displays around him, but they did not reassure him. The terrible thought crossed his mind that someone else—perhaps Grinnell or even Preston—could have assumed his identity and continued his career. He lifted the hatch and inspected the engine with the penlight. His hands, however, were shaking so badly that the beam of light fluttered radically. He could not see a damn thing. He took a breath and collected himself, then began investigating the electrical leads from the switches to the flywheel and the pulse generator. They were all in good condition. Then he wondered if his machine could traverse such a minuscule time differential of three days. It shouldn't make any difference, he told himself. Certainly, to have an engine operational for exactly one fourth of a second was cutting it close, but it was not beyond the capabilities of his design.
“I just realized something,” she whispered into the compartment. “This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever done in my life!”
“If I were you,” he countered matter-of-factly, “I would have thought that agreeing to have lunch with me was a much more serious mistake.”
“Listen, don't you think this—this charade has gone on long enough?” She hesitated and nervously glanced across the room at the door. “Face it, this is insane!”
“Call it what you like.”
“Can't we please get out of here? Any minute now someone is going to walk through that door!”
“My dear girl, I have no intention of leaving here until I discover what is wrong with my time machine,” he said. “For you, the choice is a matter of trust. For me, the decision is cosmic.” He continued working, his face and hands now black with grease.
“I'm not going alone!”
“Suit yourself.”
“Come on, H.G.! Let's go!”
He did not respond.
She leaned against the outside of the engine compartment, closed her eyes and bit her lip.
He worked his hand inside the reversal housing to see if any kind of debris could have lodged there. All seemed clean and clear and well lubricated … there were no burrs from friction … no foreign metal chips that may have stuck to the gear teeth … . Wait a minute! What the devil was that? Fingers moving like spiders' legs, he felt a cylindrical object that hung loosely, yet was attached. That did not belong there!
He extracted his hand, rummaged through his motley assortment of tools and found a hacksaw blade. He pushed the flexible steel into the housing cavity and laboriously sawed through the foreign object. There was a small clink when the thing finally fell into the housing well. He pulled it out and examined it in the flashlight beam.
It was a small, obscure lock.
He did not comprehend, for he was trying to remember something that he had done which had not yet occurred. “Now why in the devil would I have locked the engine?”
“What?”
“This was the reason it wasn't working.” He held up the lock for her to see. “The gearing ratio was locked so that it wouldn't turn.”
“Why did you do that?”
He crawled up out of the compartment, closed the hatch and straightened up. “I'm not sure that I did. Since it hasn't happened yet, I'm not sure who put the lock on.”
“Would you please explain something to me?” she asked. “How could you arrive here by time machine if the damn thing wasn't working?”
He grinned. “It was working … when I left.”
She stared at him, unable to respond. She did not resist when he took her hand, led her into the cabin and strapped them both into the chair. She seemed dazed by the implications of his last remark. He engaged the switches. There was that characteristic low hum, and he was gratified and relieved. Since the “Ready” light was not working, he waited a full twenty seconds until he was sure that the pitch of the idling energy fields sounded right. Then he glanced at her, the ultimate question in his eyes.
She gazed back—astonished at the sound—then gulped and nodded.
His lips formed a brief kiss and he winked at her. Then he resolutely shoved the Accelerator Helm Lever forward until it locked in the flank position.
 
 
Stephenson had to clutch his knees to keep his hands off her as she drove back to her apartment. He kept glancing at her, wondering if she felt the same way that he did. The porno flick—as she had termed it—had been more than either of them had bargained for. It had involved the violation of a beautiful teen-age girl by a cult of desert-sun worshippers, climaxing with an orgy in homage to Satan.
He remained incredibly aroused. He wondered if he should touch her. After all, she had suggested the entertainment in the
first place. No, no, better to let her make the initial move. He feared rejection; he feared surprised outrage. Observing was a long way from participation. He could not blindly accost this Marsha McGee, for she was obviously not a professional harlot. But, oh, how he wanted to.
“Well?” she asked. “Did you like it?”
How could I not like it? he thought. It was a marvelous, priceless work of art! A glossy black pearl to toss into the ugly eye of morality and womankind! I loved it!
“I thought it was an extremely interesting and challenging piece of entertainment,” he replied.
“Yeah, it got a little heavy in the end. I would've been satisfied with just some clean, good, old-fashioned sex. But I gotta admit, it really turned my head around.”
When they were back inside her apartment, she replaced the Fleetwood Mac music with something called Alice Cooper. Stephenson did not understand the name, although he preferred the sound to that of its predecessor. She made them drinks and reported that they had smoked the last of the homegrown. She seemed surprised that he did not carry his own weed; or for that matter, drugs of any kind. Then she shrugged.
“I guess it's pretty hard to come through customs and security and all that with anything that gets you high.”
“Quite true.” He nodded.
She laughed. “I'll bet if they legalized everything no one would do it.” Then she was up again and in her bedroom going through her dresser. She returned with a small vial of white powder and a tiny silver spoon, the handle of which had been sculpted into the form of a man and a woman engaged in a sexual union.
He grinned, for he recognized the substance in the vial as cocaine, a stimulant that he had used liberally in medical school. He recalled with pleasure the incredible athletic feats he had performed
under the influence of the drug. Once, he had come out of a scrimmage against Oxford carrying the ball and had trampled five of their best players while galloping the length of the field to score the winning points. He had, however, never permitted himself to indulge in the drug while on his sorties in the East End. He had always feared that the cocaine would cause him to spurn caution in favor of reckless abandon.
“Like a toot?”
“Would you mean a spot?” he asked good-naturedly, trying to hide his excitement.
“Toot, spot, whatever.” Her voice quavered with anticipation.
“It is cocaine, is it not?”
“High-grade. My boss brings it in on his boat and gives me grams for a song.”
“Please, then.” He bent his head forward expectantly. She shoveled, held a spoonful under his nose. He pressed one nostril shut and quickly sniffed. She did his other nostril, and he fell back against the couch, his blood racing, his head popping clear. He was unaware that a slight trace of white powder remained on his upper lip beneath his nose. He heard her sniff several times and gasp. Then she leaned over him—her breasts pushing into his shoulder—and slowly licked the cocaine off his lip.
The gesture was so incredibly erotic that he was unable to move or respond in kind. She settled back on the couch and gazed at him.
“This has been a wonderful evening!” he exclaimed.
“Unhuh.” She nodded.
“A delightful dalliance! A perfectly marvelous way for two extraordinary human beings to prepare for, ah—a time-honored moment?”
“Really.”
“You know, Marsha, I feel that I have been in your shadow for
ages now, and that quite suddenly you have turned to face me and acknowledge my presence.”
“Whatever.”
“Do you—do you wish that we honor our—celebrate your acknowledgment and my humble acceptance?”
“Unhuh.”
“Then why don't we—” His throat went dry, and he was seized with a fit of coughing. “Excuse me.”
He bolted up, fled into the sanctuary of her bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. His breathing was shallow; his sinuses were draining; his teeth were grinding. He suddenly realized that the cocaine was not pure no matter what she had said. There was some other chemical mixed with it that was twisting his thought processes. And yet, he felt so good! The drug, however, was not his dilemma. The problem was that he had never asked a woman for sex before without first making the perfunctory deposit of a gold coin. Even his romp with his sister had been at her suggestion. This Marsha McGee was not a prostitute. Oh, she might be a wanton little slut by Victorian standards, but she obviously did not accept money. So bloody what? If she gave it away, she was a fool.
He sniffed, then swung out of the bathroom and slammed the door. He would just come right out and ask: would she like to rut with him? Fornicate? Copulate along with the ghoulish noise of Alice Cooper?
He came around the corner, his voice heavy and guttural. “Marsha …” He began. He stopped, then took out his pocketwatch and opened the lid, for he did not have to utter a sound.
She was lounging on the couch, one leg drawn up and thrown over the back, the other spread out on the pillows, its foot touching the floor and moving in small circles; her arms were behind her head, and her hair fell over them in the shape of a flower. She was
smiling up at him impishly, because in his brief absence, she had removed all of her clothes.
In a quiet, chilling sort of way, he went berserk.
 
 
Amy felt unbelievably weak and drained. She lifted her head, opened her eyes and instinctively glanced at her watch. It read 10:23:45. Only a few seconds had passed since H.G. pushed the lever forward. He pulled her up from the chair, and she leaned against the side of the cabin. The metal wall felt warm, and she thought that strange since she would have expected it to be cold. She also heard creaks and groans emanating from inside the plating; that seemed even more bizarre. She tried to remember what had happened after the lever had clicked and locked, but the passage of time had been so brief, so infinitesimal. She was vaguely aware of a mad swirl of bright colors and then a flood of blackness, but that was all.
They left the time machine. Her strength returned, and she glanced swiftly around the display room. Everything seemed the same. He certainly appeared no different. What was he doing now, anyway? Inserting and turning a small key in a thing marked “RRL” over the door handle? Oh, well.
“Nothing's changed,” she uttered hollowly.
“We only went to Saturday, remember?” He smiled generously like the Cheshire cat.
Was she the first real Alice? Had she actually jumped forward in time? She frowned, not wanting to believe, yet knowing that something had happened.
“What have you done?” Her voice was crisp and clear.
“Taken you to Saturday.” He appeared perfectly relaxed; he was not tugging on his mustache.
“I have the distinct feeling,” she said “that you haven't taken me anywhere.”
“Oh,” he replied casually. “You're in the same place. It just happens to be Saturday night right now as opposed to Wednesday night.”
She wanted to say, bullshit, but sighed instead, determined to let him play out his hand.
“Come on,” he whispered brusquely.
She followed him out of the exhibit to the door of the display room. She looked back at the time machine and she saw a faint, bluish glow dissipating around it, but wasn't sure.
They came to the edge of the rotunda, and she remembered it well from what seemed like just a short time ago. The space was empty. She could hear the wall clock clack away the minutes as they remained poised on the periphery. Finally, he gestured and moved off to the right. She did not follow, for she had spotted a newspaper left folded on the information desk next to a cold cup of coffee. She knew that H.G. could not have staged that; she had been with him the entire time. Before he could stop her, she boldly headed for the desk. Section two of the morning Chronicle lay on top, and her eyes immediately went to the date.

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