Time After Time (30 page)

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Authors: Karl Alexander

BOOK: Time After Time
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“Amy, oh my God, Amy! Are you all right?” And then suddenly he stopped short. They had stepped out of the shadows. Stephenson had a knife to her throat, a hand in her hair.
“Amy! My God.” He stared, unable to believe his eyes. “But who … ?”
“He murdered Carole,” she croaked. “Carole Thomas, my friend from work. I'd invited her for dinner.” Her voice faded, but she managed to continue. “You were right. The newspaper was wrong.”
“A mistaken identity!”
She nodded and began to sob quietly.
H.G. rose to his full height and glared up at Stephenson. “What the devil do you want?”
Stephenson chuckled. “Surely you must know. The special key that overrides the Rotation Reversal Lock circuitry. It's what I've wanted all along. Give it to me and we'll call it quits.”
“How did you find out about that?”
“How else? From the diagrams in your rather spartan Mornington-Crescent laboratory. Given the close proximity of Scotland Yard's finest, however, I did not have the time to ask you for it then.”
“I can't give you that!”
“Would you like to watch Miss Robbins die?”
“She isn't part of this! This is between you and me!”
“The heroic doesn't suit you, Wells,” Stephenson replied contemptuously. “Your voice lacks timbre and your stature significance.”
“My God, man, be reasonable!”
“I'm being perfectly reasonable. It's just that I can't have you following me through eternity like the Flying Dutchman now, can I?”
H.G. did not respond, for he was looking at Amy. His eyes found hers and recognized the utter terror in them, the dismay, the longing to be free.
“Yes, lovely creature, isn't she?” Stephenson slowly drew the flat of the blade across her neck as if caressing her.
H.G. looked at Stephenson with hollow eyes. Nothing came to him.
“But we're wasting time,” Stephenson placed the tip of the knife to her temple. “Give me the key or I'll kill her.”
H.G. slumped. He really had no other choice. When it came down to deciding whether he wanted carte blanche to the cosmos or to be with the one he loved, it was no contest.
“You'll release her, then?”
Stephenson exploded with laughter. “Of course, Wells! Hasn't that been the drift of my remarks? I'm proposing a simple, businesslike trade that I believe will be mutually beneficial for both of us.”
“You promise?” he asked in stentorian tones.
“You have my word as a gentleman.”
“All right. I'm agreeable.” He sighed with relief. “Let her go and then I'll throw you the key.”
Stephenson chuckled. “No, no. My mother was rather an atrocious woman, but her many failings did not include raising a mentally deficient son.” He paused. “Throw me the key. Then I'll release the girl.”
“On your honor?”
“As a gentleman.”
H.G. dug into his pocket and pulled out the small key that overrode the RRL. For a moment, he inspected it wistfully, remembered making it. At the time he had not realized what colossal, immortal powers he was infusing into such a small piece of metal. C'est la vie. A human being was more important than a bloody machine any day, no matter how spectacular the technology was. And he wasn't quoting Huxley, he was quoting himself. Then he tossed Stephenson the key. It clinked on the concrete in front of Amy. Stephenson quickly scooped it up with the knife hand, pocketed it, then tightened his grip on Amy's hair and once again placed the knife to her throat. He backed across the sidewalk toward the street.
“There's just one thing, my dear fellow. Candidly, I'd have expected you to notice by now that I am not a gentleman.”
H.G. gasped and staggered back.
“Please, let her go! She is not part of this!”
Stephenson chuckled. “Oh, but she is, my good man, she most certainly is. Forgive me for being so slow in diagnosing the condition, but you are in love with her, are you not?”
“So what if I am?”
“Then she should be denied the gift of life so that you may grieve for her.”
“No, wait!”
The doctor laughed. “Relax, old chap. I'm not going to murder her before your very eyes. True, I may not be a gentleman, but I do have taste. So do not trouble yourself. Really. Suffice it to say that
she will meet her maker somewhere along the fourth dimension after we have both had a chance to relax and enjoy each other's company.”
Enraged, H.G. shouted at him. “You won't get far! I'll telephone the police!”
“Do what you like, you little fool.” Stephenson laughed, then opened the door to the beetle-shaped motorcar with the canvas top.
“H.G.!” Amy cried with despair. “He took her keys, too! He's got Carole's car!”
Then Stephenson forced her into the driver's seat and made her start the engine.
H.G. ran for the vehicle, screaming, but it was already pulling away from the curb. He grabbed onto the rear bumper. The acceleration jerked him off his feet and he sprawled on the pavement. He looked up in time to see the red taillights of the little motorcar turn at the intersection, then disappear from view.
 
 
With a groan, H.G. got to his feet and ran to her apartment building vaulted up the stairs to her flat intending to call the police.
The door was locked.
He sank down onto the stairs and put his face in his hands. God, what had possessed him to trust, to accept Stephenson as a gentleman? He had been tricked, beguiled like a simpleton, humiliated. He was angry, too. How could he possibly have given up the key?
Suddenly, he straightened up. Key? He fished in his pocket and extracted the ring with keys for Amy's Accord. His mind raced. He could follow them! It did not matter that he had never driven a motorcar before. He understood the principles, he had seen them driven, he had had their operation explained to him more than
once. Moreover, if millions of average twentieth-century human beings could do it, then there was no reason why one logical and rational nineteenth-century human being couldn't do it too.
H.G. hurried from the building and jumped into the Accord parked out front. He quickly scanned the controls, inserted the key, turned it, and the engine sprang to life. He grinned and turned the steering wheel back and forth just to test the feel. He touched the accelerator, then put the motorcar into gear. It leaped forward and smashed into the rear of the vehicle in front. Glass tinkled. He remembered and placed the shift on the “R.” The Accord zoomed backward and slammed into the car behind. More glass tinkled.
“Blast,” he uttered.
Windows opened and lights went on. Irate people began screaming about their cars. Finally, H.G. pulled hard on the steering wheel while simultaneously manipulating the gearshift. The car lurched out of the parking space into the street. He turned it in a wide circle and grazed three parked vehicles on the other side of the street. He turned the wheel back and forth, then pressed down on the accelerator, assuming that like the Helm Lever in the time machine one had to be definitive. The Accord rocketed toward the intersection and flew across Jones Street.
Fortunately, the hour was late and there was no traffic, for by the time H.G. had reached Van Ness Avenue he had driven through six stop signs and sideswiped a dozen more parked machines while weaving from one side of the street to the other. Amy's car it looked like it had been through a meteorite shower.
When he reached the Geary Expressway, he managed an awkward right turn, but overcompensated and flattened a “Yield” sign. The engine began to tick, and he feared that he had damaged it in some way. He was also afraid that if he didn't hurry, he would be too late. He increased speed. His steering became jerky again, and the battered Accord once again swayed back and forth, listing like
an abused ship in a typhoon. Since the road was straight, H.G. was all right until he found himself descending into a tunnel. He became apprehensive and stiffened his grip on the wheel. The vehicle veered into the wall, bounced and scraped against the concrete time after time.
He pulled it to the left and did the same thing against the other wall.
“Great Scott,” he exclaimed and inadvertently pressed down on the accelerator. The motorcar responded and shot out of the other end of the tunnel. H.G. hung on for dear life. The Accord, its suspension system ruined, angled hard toward the right. H.G. used all of his strength to bring it back to the left. He steered farther left to avoid a telephone pole, bounced over the sidewalk and flattened some trash cans before finally getting back onto the roadway. He cursed the machine for having a mind of its own, realizing that, as Huxley had once said, somewhere and sometime, mankind must draw a line in the sand and make his stand against technology.
Somehow H.G. made it to Park Presidio Boulevard. He turned left, not seeing that, unlike other streets this one had a swath of green in the middle.
“What the devil!” he ejaculated.
The Accord leaped the curb, blasted through a hedgerow and tore up the lawn. H.G. frantically pulled on the steering wheel and maneuvered the machine back onto the pavement. He was, however, going the wrong way on a one-way street, but did not realize it until he was inside Golden Gate Park. A car was coming the other way, horn blasting. H.G. jerked hard to the left. The Accord narrowly missed the oncoming car. It jumped the curb, spun around twice, then rolled down a slight hill and finally—mercifully so—came to rest in the middle of a pond in the Japanese Tea Gardens.
Dazed, but unhurt, H.G. scrambled out of the ruined vehicle and did not understand the implications of its resting place. He
brushed off his clothes, then sloshed to shore. Once he got his bearings, he saw the faint outlines of the science museum. He began running for the building.
He got inside via the same basement fire door through which he had so innocently entered the twentieth century five days before. He hurried up to the main floor and raced toward the display room. He was sickened by the dead security guards he encountered: one had been slain in the great hall, the other, surprised and stabbed in the rotunda.
Finally, he was inside the display room just in time to see Stephenson prod Amy into the cabin of The Utopia with his knife. He turned, waved at H.G., then climbed in after her. H.G. rushed after them, but Stephenson slammed the cabin door and locked it. H.G. pounded on it. He tried to dig his hands under the door, a plate, anything, but the smooth, metallic surface had been so carefully planned, so painstakingly built that he could not even manage to slide a fingernail under a rivet.
 
 
Once locked inside, Stephenson released Amy and turned away to familiarize himself with the controls. She threw herself at the door, reaching frantically for the handle. He smashed her in the head.
Dazed, she tried for the door again. He hit her in the belly then again in the head. She collapsed, unconscious.
When she awakened, she felt cold. She heard him breathing and moving about the cabin clicking switches on and off and moving levers. Gradually, her head cleared. She was doubled up on the floor, now half-naked. He had used her blouse to tie her hands behind her. She moaned softly.
Grinning, he kneeled beside her, inspected her face, then used his surgical hands to probe and test her intimate parts. Face it, she told herself, she would die soon. He would use her first; no doubt,
in a variety of ways. If only he would not prolong his bizarre ritual. That was all she could hope for.
He twisted her face into the light, and she found herself staring into his narrow, deep-set eyes. They were the devil's eyes, she thought. Small and wicked. Mad.
“Your hair is not black like hers,” he commented. “And your skin is not creamy enough.” Then he smiled and nodded. “But you're closer than any of the others. By far.”
He picked her up without effort and placed her astraddle him in the chair. She felt the harness being strapped over them both, and she began trembling. The switches were on. The Time-Sphere-Destination-Indicator was set for the year 2000. She heard his interminable breathing in her ear. His arms came around her and his hands grasped the Accelerator Helm Lever. With a joyful shout, he shoved the bar forward until it locked in the flank position.
Nothing happened.
 
 
Suddenly, H.G. lifted his head. He frowned and cocked his ear toward the time machine. Strange, he thought, the engine wasn't making noise. Therefore, Stephenson hadn't left yet. He quickly scrambled to his feet, then gasped. Of course Stephenson hadn't left yet!
When he and Amy had returned from their journey to Saturday, he had replaced the small lock on the central gearing wheel, preventing the pulse generator from transmitting power to the engine.

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