Yesterday's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Sci-Fi Thriller (14 page)

Olivia sat on the rug by her father, playing with some kind of Barbie doll. I guess even geniuses can like dolls.

I sank down into the leather couch. “Let me show you what I found on Viviana’s uncle.”

I cast my tablet’s display to Stan’s widescreen display on the wall. It showed a grainy newspaper article. I pointed to it. “Viviana Petrescu’s uncle is a man named Zaharia Dudnic, the man you see here. My theory is that he traveled forward in time in 1979. That’s when he disappeared. Viv vanished in 1980.”

Stan took a pull from his beer.

“I realize all this sounds crazy, and if it weren’t for the materialization … well, we’ve been through that.”

“Wait.” Stan frowned. “How do you know this guy is her uncle? They don’t have the same last name.”

“Well, it’s a long story, but—”

“One of your hunches.”

“Yeah. Something like that.” This was getting tricky.

Craig slipped a lock of his daughter’s hair behind her ear. “So you think he created a time machine?”

“Yeah, that’s my guess. I don’t think it was Viviana.”

Olivia’s Barbie wore a lab coat and had a small stethoscope around its neck. She stood it on her father’s leg and jogged it up and down and side to side as if it were talking. “Oh, my. How very sexist of you, Dr. Beckman.”

I smiled at Craig, then addressed the doll. “Well, thank you, Barbie—”

“Dr. Baumgartner, puh-leeze.”

“Thank you, Dr. Baumgartner. Viviana could indeed have built the machine, but Zaharia Dudnic was a theoretical and applied physicist specializing in space, time, and energy.” I was careful not to sound patronizing.

Baumgartner was silent. Olivia pouted.

I switched to the next image. “Here’s the critical paper, from 1978. ‘Anomalous Energy Production During Deuterium Electrolysis Using Palladium Cathodes.’ In it he says—”

Dr. Baumgartner jumped up and down. “Nong, nong, nong. Warning. Warning. Cold fusion. Junk science. Nong, nong, nong, warning, warning.”

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. I was prepared for this reaction but not from a Barbie doll acting as a proxy for a twelve-year-old girl.

Craig smiled. “She has a point, you know.”

“Maybe. But since the Fleischmann—”

Stan raised his hand. “Hold on, could someone bring me up to speed, please?”

“Well, around, what, 1990?” Craig looked at me with his eyebrows raised.

I nodded.

“Around 1990, two scientists, Fleischmann and Pontus—”

“Pons,” Dr. Baumgartner said.

I looked from the doll to Olivia. I caught an echo of the paper’s title in her mind. How could that be? How could she know all this stuff?

Craig cleared his throat. “Right, Pons. Fleischmann and Pons said they’d discovered a way that unlimited energy could be produced in a bucket.”

I crossed my arms. “Not unlimited, Craig. You’re making them sound like kooks.” Now I felt like pouting. “A gallon of seawater holds a lot of energy. In the deuterium. Much more than in a gallon of gasoline. But it’s not unlimited.”

“Well, yeah.” Craig leaned back. “But anyway, it turns out these guys made a mistake, screwed up somehow, and it was all bogus.”

Stan nodded. “Right. I remember something about that. They botched the measurements. All bullsh—baloney.”

I held up both hands. “Hold on. Not so fast. It’s true the guys were totally discredited, and from then on no one wanted to touch this topic. But today, some scientists think it’s worth pursuing. Research is going on right now. Anyway, no one believed Dudnic either.”

“So he’s another crackpot scientist,” Stan said. “Where’s he now?”

I shrugged. “Who knows? Viviana seemed to think he’d be here, meet her at the gate, so to speak. And now she’s disappeared. And look, he’s not a crackpot. Not necessarily. No one doubts that she materialized out of thin air, right?” I looked around the room.

Craig scratched his chin. “Energy production and time travel are completely different—”

“I’m just saying that if someone is smart enough to make a time machine, you can’t dismiss him as a kook.” I took a breath.

No responses. Even Dr. Baumgartner was quiet.

“Right. So she and those animals appeared at the ballpark. Therefore, someone has created a time machine or something equally impossible. Since she was his niece, and he himself disappeared years ago, it’s a reasonable conclusion that he made a time machine. And if he could do that, he could certainly do the other. The energy thing.”

Craig tapped his finger on his chin. <
Eric’s getting into one of his moods. Change the subject.
> “Speaking of thin air, did you notice that when something materialized, it was merged with anything that was in the space? Like her finger or the bat wing. Right? Well, what about the air? If you merge air into the blood, you’re headed for trouble.”

One of my moods? I looked at the floor. “Who knows? Maybe the gases are pushed out of the way.”

Craig said, “Too bad you didn’t meet Viviana, Stan. She’s an interesting woman. And I think maybe Eric has a thing for her.”

Dr. Baumgartner started singing. “Eric and Vivvy sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

Why didn’t anyone understand? This was important. I had to find Zaharia Dudnic.

* * *

Viviana sat on the veranda of her room in the Continental Suites Hotel in Marin County, soaking up the early-morning sun and sipping a mimosa cocktail.
Ah, freedom.
But that freedom wouldn’t last if she didn’t get a valid-looking ID.

She had plenty of money but no driver’s license and no credit cards. When she’d checked in to the hotel, she said her purse and luggage had been stolen—all she had was cash. They went along with it but seemed skeptical. The longer things went on without her showing an ID, the more suspicious they became. They’d be less suspicious at a cheaper hotel, but she liked this one.

More importantly, she couldn’t rent or buy a car, and she couldn’t open a bank account or rent a safe-deposit box.

Her cache from the tree held ID and credit cards, and those would have worked fine had she only jumped ahead a few years, as intended. Also, in that case, she would have had contacts who could have created new documents for her. Those contacts were gone now—dead or out of business.

She reviewed the contents of her cache, neatly listed on her legal pad. A roll of twenties and two rolls of hundred-dollar bills—$48,000 in cash. Untraceable, high-quality diamonds and a half-deciliter of gold pellets.

Her five stock certificates were all worthless—she could find no record of those companies in the newspaper. Her three fake California driver’s licenses, expiring in 1983, 1988, and 1990, were also worthless. She had jumped forward in time much too far.

She kept these things with her at all times in a snug-fitting, trail-runner’s backpack.

The funds would last her for a while, but without an ID, she was dead in the water.

She’d made some indirect inquiries about where someone might obtain fake documents. For example, waiting in line at the grocery store she’d asked, “I’ve heard teenagers often carry fake IDs. Where do you think they get them?” The answer was always the same: “The internet.”

So, that became priority one: figuring out what the internet was and gaining access to it. With that aim, she put on an outfit that showed off her best qualities and walked down the block to a coffee shop called Starbucks.

She ordered espresso—the closest drink they had to the Turkish coffee she was used to. Four dollars! She still hadn’t acclimated to inflation. Prices had tripled since 1980, even more for coffee.

Sitting down, she drank slowly, watching the other customers working at their portable computers. Amazingly small computers. And why were they here and not in an office?

Viviana was now a platinum blonde with short-cropped hair. She’d done a quick-and-dirty job of cutting and dying her hair herself—if she’d gone to a salon and asked for a makeover when she looked like the photos in the tabloids, they would have been onto her. Once she had a new look, she went in to have the job professionally finished.

The final result, smooth and shiny, looked like something from the 1950s to her, but apparently it was the current fashion. Viviana also added a beauty mark to her cheek with makeup. The mark didn’t change her appearance, but by bringing attention to itself, it distracted people from matching her to the woman on the covers of the tabloids. Finally, she wore thin gloves to obscure the fact that much of her pinkie was missing.

Her floppy hat and sunglasses were probably the most effective parts of her camouflage.

A young man came in, ordered the cheapest coffee, and started working on his computer. He was a bit of a square, with a complexion that hadn’t completely cleared up and glasses that sat crookedly on his nose. His jeans and t-shirt were clean but worn.

He seemed to be doing several things at once on his computer: playing a game, working with text, and even talking on a videophone.

During a lull in his activity, she went to his table. “Excuse me. I was impressed with how fast you are with your computer. How fast you are typing, for example.” She spoke slowly, trying to get every word right. Her tendency was to leave out words. “Am going to store” instead of “I am going to the store.” It took a lot of effort to fight against that.

She disguised her accent by adding a bit of Texas drawl. “I have a few questions about computers. Could I join you?”

The man/boy moved his computer over, almost knocking his coffee onto the floor.

She sat and smiled at him. “May I get you something? Would you like espresso? Anything on menu you like? On
the
menu?”
Incetineste
. Slow down
.

He was eager, and she got him an old-fashioned grilled cheese. “My name’s Janet.”

“Hi, Janet.” He hesitated then shook her hand. His grip was limp then firm, as if he rarely shook hands with women. “Oh. I’m Zachary. Zach.”

“Could you assume I know nothing about computers and tell me enough so I learn more on my own. I’d like to pay you.”

“That could work. I’m free all day.”

They talked about what he could teach her, and he suggested she pay him $200 for the day.

“Two hundred and fifty, and not a penny less.” She winked.

“It’s a deal.” He shook her hand again and blushed. “What kind of computer do you have?”

“Well, right now, no computer. I had used my boyfriend’s, but we broke up.” She glanced at Zach. “I think it was an Apple.”

“You mean a Mac.”

She frowned. “Oh, I don’t know. But just assume I never used one. I want to buy one. Maybe you could help me with that?”

“Right now?”

“Sure, if that would work.”

“Yeah. I could drive you. I have a great car.” He looked toward the parking lot.

“I thought you might.”

He stood up, knocking against the table. “Yeah, that’s mine over there.” He pointed to a small convertible painted in gray primer, with a cracked windshield. “It’s an oh-nine Miata. I’m fixing it up.”

“I bet girls like to ride in that car.”

“Yeah.” He sat down. “Well, not yet, but when I get it fixed up, they will. I’m going to paint it candy-apple red.”

“Where would we go to buy computer?”

“I know just the place.” He stood.

“Wait, why don’t we finish our drinks, and you can start teaching me.”

“Ask me questions,” he said. “That’s usually the best way.”

“Okay. First question. What is internet?”

His eyes bugged out of his face. “What is the internet?”

“Right. The internet. What is the internet?”

“Wow. Well, okay. The internet is a network of computers that—”

“Sorry. Network? I’m sorry, I don’t …”

“Wow. Okay, think of it as billions of computers that are all connected. Like a net.”

“Billions, really?” She looked at him sideways.
Probably exaggeration.
“And where is it?”

“Where’s the internet?” He cocked his head.

Was he suspicious? Question was okay. “Right. Is in—is
it
in Washington, DC? Maybe there’s one in San Francisco?”

“No, it’s like a net that extends all over the world.” He held his fingertips together, then gestured to the other laptops in the room. “All of these computers are connected to it.”

She looked under the table. “But your computer isn’t plugged into anything.”

“No, the connection is wireless. They have Wi-Fi here.”

“Yes, I see that there are no wires … Oh, is like radio? You’re connected to radio station?”

“Yeah, kinda.” He folded up his computer and popped the last bit of sandwich into his mouth. “You ready? You’re really going to like my car.”

“Sure. Am all yours.”

Viviana held Zach’s arm on the way out to his car. The Miata was held together with duct tape and pipe clamps, and one side was lower than the other. Here was someone who could use some extra spending money.