Time Travel Omnibus Volume 1 Page 9

  Gnash grabbed the books, riffled their pages roughly, looking for something in between. He tossed the first one aside.

  It hurt my heart to see it treated so rough, and I stepped over Gnash, sat down on the bedroll and rescued the book. I grabbed the second book before he could throw it and hugged them to my chest. These were treasure enough for me, and I’d be damned before I’d let Gnash burn them.

  Gnash glared, then forgot me as he reached into the corners of the box. His eyes went big and round and white as polished river rocks. He drew out a piece of cloth. Even in the dim light, I could see it was as fine as anything I’d ever seen in my life. It was green, green as mountain grass, and it had a sheen to it like oil and a gold thread running through it.

  I held my breath right along with Gnash as he unfolded the small square. I blinked my eyes, expecting whatever was inside would be as bright as the beautiful threads. But when he folded back the last corner of cloth, there was only brown. Little brown shapes with darker brown shapes like caps. My breath caught behind my heart.

  Gnash cursed, as good a curse as any I’d ever heard, and stared at the small pile of brown shapes in the middle of the cloth. His lip curled. “What’s this crap?”

  I knew. I knew. My breath wouldn’t go out past my throat. My fingernails were digging into my palms, and the books lay forgotten on my knees. “Nuts,” I breathed. “They’re from a tree.”

  Before I could stop him, he popped one into his mouth and bit down on it. It came out faster than it went in. He spat it onto Old Jerry’s bed roll. “You trying to kill me, bitch?!”

  “You don’t eat them, silly. Well, you can, but they have to be cooked first.”

  I picked up the small ball, slick with spit. It was mangled. He’d bitten it in half, then chomped down on it. Ruined.

  Gnash grabbed my hand, making me drop the ruined mass. “What did you call me?” His voice was low, more dangerous than it had been the night he’d beat the guy with the rock.

  The breath I’d lost in excitement came whooshing back out in fear. As if to remind me, my cheek throbbed.

  “I didn’t—” Before I could finish, fire exploded across the same place. The blow knocked me back onto the pallet. Gnash had moved so fast I hadn’t even seen it coming. I could feel the skin around my eye pulling tight as blood rushed into it.

  Gnash drew back to hit me again with one hand and flung the treasure at my face with the other.

  Anger, hot as the fire in the picture, raced over me. It was like those little brown balls, hitting my face and my chest, had been sucked through my skin. Like they had lit a fire in my chest, stiffened my backbone. Gnash didn’t see my fist coming, any more than I’d seen his.

  Fire exploded over my knuckles as they smashed into his nose. It felt like I’d broken my hand. My eyes and my mouth watered with the pain.

  He yelped and rocked back, the expression on his face almost funny as blood poured down over his mouth.

  I wanted to moan, to cradle my hand and rock and cry. No one had ever told me it hurt so much to hit someone. Small wonder that Gnash preferred rocks and bats and such. But I couldn’t afford to be weak and stupid now. I stood up and picked up his bat before he could think to do it. “You go. Go now,” I said, and I could hear Gnash’s meanness in my voice. Old Jerry had taught me more than I knew, and so had Gnash.

  Fear slid across his face.

  Joy and something I couldn’t name, something hot and laughing, rushed into my chest like water pouring over rocks. The bat trembled in my hand.

  Gnash stood up slowly. His hand slid toward his pocket.

  I steadied the bat. “Go now. Before I call Old Jerry’s friends.”

  For a minute, I was afraid he wasn’t going to do it. I was afraid he was going to fight me. I knew I couldn’t beat him. I was taller, but he was stronger. I was clumsy and he was quick. He knew how to fight dirty, and I didn’t know how to fight at all. But maybe my fiery new backbone would count for something. I wouldn’t go down quietly, the way I had so many times before. Maybe he saw that in my face.

  He made one snarling last attempt to save face. “You think those old coots gonna look after you like I do? What you gonna do now? Stay down here?”

  I lifted the bat a little higher.

  He backed away, gnashing so hard I could hear the bones of his teeth grinding together. Blood was still pouring out of his nose, and his voice was beginning to sound squashed. “I shoulda left you in the street. How long you think you’re gonna live without me to protect you, stupid?”

  “My name,” I said slowly, “is Rosemary.”

  He reached down and snatched up the piece of fancy cloth, swiped at the blood on his face. He wheeled around and stomped away, flinging a few last words over his shoulder. “Don’t come begging back tomorrow.”

  I started to shake. So hard that I had to sit down. The bat hit the floor only a little harder than my butt did. Then I snatched it up again, crawled to the edge of the room and snaked a quick look.

  Gnash was way across the large room, beginning the trek back to above. He had one hand up to his face.

  When I was sure he wasn’t coming back, I crawled around the space, gathering Old Jerry’s treasure. My treasure now.

  My gram had loved the old oak trees above all other living things on this world, save for me. I’d thought the trees were dying, but somewhere, in one of Old Jerry’s driftings, he’d found an oak tree that wasn’t dying. Maybe that meant there were better places. Places where the earth was starting to live again. My gram had said there would be, if I just had the guts to go looking.

  I’d only had pictures. In one of the books Gnash had burned, I’d even marked the page. If he’d ever bothered to look at it, he’d have known what Old Jerry’s treasure was . . .

  Acorns. Five precious acorns.

  A BRIDGE IN TIME

  Joseph P. Martino

  Wherein ‘detour’ takes on a whole new meaning . . .

  The phone rang. He picked it up.

  “Maintenance. Carson speaking.”

  “Tom, this is Sandy.”

  “Yeah, boss, what’s up?”

  “The grocery job finished?”

  “Yeah. There was a bad module in the controller. I swapped it out. When I left, they were getting a shipment of fresh-picked apples from next October.”

  “Thanks for the tip. I’ll stop and get some on the way home. Be sure to send the module to the lab. We need to find out what went wrong.”

  “Done already, boss.”

  “Good. Got another job for you.”

  “What this time? Another warehouse?”

  “No. This is out on Highway 297, about ten miles west of town.”

  “What’s the problem there?”

  “I don’t have details. We just got a call. We have two units at a bridge out there. I figured you’d be the best guy to tackle it.”

  “Thanks for the confidence, boss. I’m on my way.”

  Highway 297 turned out to be a two-lane rural road that twisted and turned through alternate farm and woods. Carson finally reached a bridge.

  This must be the place, he thought.

  There was a sign beside the road:

  BRIDGE CLOSED NIGHTLY

  1 AM TO 2 AM.

  Beyond the sign he could see one of the company’s time gates, both doors raised so cars could drive right through. At the other end of the bridge another gate was visible, its doors also open.

  A knot of people stood near the bridge ramp. He pulled off the road near the fence that blocked anyone from bypassing the time gates, and approached them.

  A guy in a hard hat, he thought. Must be the construction foreman. A guy in a Highway Patrol uniform. A guy in plain clothes, who has “cop” written all over him. FBI maybe?

  As he approached, he introduced himself. “I’m Tom Carson, with the Maintenance Division of Time Gates. You have some kind of a problem here?”

  The man in plain clothes said, “I’m FBI Special Agent Art
hur Hamilton, with the Time Crime Division.”

  Bingo!

  FBI held up a copy of the Wall Street Journal, folded so only the date was visible. The date was for three months ahead.

  Hardhat chimed in. “We inspect the bridge every morning. One of my guys found this newspaper. We called the highway patrol.”

  The trooper spoke up. “The bridge is under our jurisdiction, but Time Crime isn’t, so we called the FBI.”

  “And we called your company,” FBI added, “because there may be a flaw in your equipment.”

  “Look,” Carson said, “I’m used to working with time gates in warehouses. What’s going on here?”

  Hardhat spoke up. “Starting in just over two months, this bridge’ll be closed. We’ll tear it down and replace it. It’s scheduled to be reopened eight months after that. We’re trying something new. Instead of detouring people all over hell’s half acre while the bridge is out, we’re using your time gates. We shunt people down-time from when the bridge is out, let them cross here while the bridge is temporarily closed, then shunt them back up-time to where they came from. If it works here, we’ll use it on bridges with more traffic.”

  “So that’s why you’re closing this bridge in the wee hours every morning?”

  “You got it.”

  “But why not shunt them up-time, to when the new bridge is in?”

  “This way we know the bridge is here,” Hardhat answered. “We can’t be sure when the new bridge will be open. Might be construction delays. A flash flood might wipe out the bridge.”

  “Or terrorists might blow it up,” FBI added, “like they tried to do with that bridge up on I-70.”

  “But can’t the highway department send back messages every day, confirming that the bridge is open?”

  FBI frowned and shook his head. “Besides being illegal, it’s a bad idea. With all that message traffic, no one could scan it all. It’d be too easy for someone to slip in something illegal. Stock prices. Horse race winners. Basketball scores. You name it.”

  “But groceries send messages all the time,” Carson protested.

  “Not the same,” FBI said. “They don’t use the time gates for messages. They place an order for future delivery, specifying a time and date. If it’s a regular order, the supplier loads it on a truck. If it’s for an out-of-season product, the supplier sends it through a time gate. No message traffic either up-time or down-time through the time gate.”

  “Okay, I see what’s going on. But how do you protect against criminal activity here?”

  Hardhat said, “We photograph every car, including the license plate, when it enters the time gate up-time. A computer stores the picture, along with the time and date it entered the up-time gate, and the time and date it was shunted to the bridge here. We take another picture here of every car that arrives from up-time, storing time and date. And likewise for when the car crosses the bridge and is shunted back up-time. Eventually we can match the records from now and up-time, if there’s any questions.”

  “Do you video the car as it crosses the bridge?”

  “No. Just a single photo.”

  “Then any of the cars could drop something off while they’re crossing the bridge, couldn’t they? And you wouldn’t know it?”

  Hardhat and FBI looked at each other.

  “Looks like we have a hole in security,” FBI finally said.

  “I’ll have somebody check the bridge at two a.m. every morning,” Hardhat finally said.

  “Okay,” FBI said, “but if anything more happens, we may need additional security.”

  “Right now,” Carson said, “I’ll check both units, just in case something’s wrong with them. But I think your problem is with the traffic, not with my equipment.”

  The dew lay heavy on the grass. The sun, half a diameter above the horizon, shone red through the morning haze. Ahead of Carson, the crushed stone jogging track curved around some trees.

  Carson held his head high, sucking huge drafts of cool morning air deep into his lungs. He was into his second mile. He had his second wind, his legs were swinging as regularly as a metronome, and endorphins were flooding his bloodstream. He felt on top of the world.

  As he leaned into the turn, another runner, a woman, came out of a side trail. Her long blond ponytail swung in time with her pace.

  Nice legs under those running shorts, he thought. And she’s obviously got a jogging bra under that tank top.

  The woman dropped back and fell in step with him.

  “Mind if I run with you?” she asked. “I do better when I have someone pacing me.”

  “Not at all.”

  They ran in silence for a while, then between breaths she asked, “How far are you going?”

  “Just over three more miles. That’ll make five for me.”

  “Okay, I can stay with you that far. I usually stop at four miles.”

  “You ought to try for five some day.”

  “I’d either have to start earlier or be late for work.”

  “What’s your job?”

  “I’m a stock analyst. And yours?”

  “Maintenance engineer for Time Gates, Inc.”

  “That sounds interesting. But engineering was always beyond me. I was good at numbers, but not at things.”

  They continued in silence until they finally reached the bathhouse.

  The woman untied her ponytail and shook her head. Her hair cascaded down below her shoulder blades. “Time for a shower and then off to work,” she said. “Thanks for letting me run with you. The woman I’ve been running with was transferred out of town, and I’ve missed having someone to pace me.”

  He paused a moment, then said, “You want to try for five miles tomorrow?”

  She cocked her head to one side, then said, “Okay, I will. By the way, I’m Jennifer Campbell.” She held out her hand.

  He shook her hand. “I’m Tom Carson. I start running at five thirty.”

  “Good. I’ll see you then.”

  As Carson arrived at the bridge, Hardhat and FBI were already there.

  “I got your call,” Carson said. “What’s up?”

  “We caught the guy who was throwing out newspapers,” FBI said. “We’ve had the place staked out the past three nights. Last night a car came through. It slowed in the middle of the bridge. The driver threw a copy of the Wall Street Journal over the side of the bridge. This time it went down into the ravine.

  “There was a guy standing down there waiting for it. We caught him with the paper in his hands. We checked the license on the car. It’s registered to the same guy who caught the paper. He was passing information down-time to himself. Open and shut case of time crime.”

  “So what’ll happen to him?” Carson asked.

  “Depends on whether he accepts a plea bargain,” FBI replied. “Minimum of five years in jail. Up to twenty-five years if he goes to trial.”

  “But if he’s in jail, how can he throw a paper to himself?” Hardhat asked. “And if he doesn’t throw a paper to himself, what’s he guilty of?”

  “Look,” Carson said. “Don’t ask me to explain time travel paradoxes. All I do is fix the time gates when something goes wrong. Paradoxes are argued over at a much higher pay grade than mine.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” FBI said. “The crime’s already been committed when he receives information from up-time. Even if he can no longer send it to himself. Anyway,” he turned to Carson, “we’re going to put nets on the sides of the bridge, so this can’t happen again. We called you out here to make sure that whatever we do with the nets doesn’t interfere with your time gates. Can you check that?”

  “Sure. I have my instruments with me. Put up your nets and I’ll run a set of diagnostics on the time gates.”

  It took Carson three days to muster enough nerve to ask Jennifer for a date. As he picked her up at her apartment he asked, “Any preferences? Chinese? Mexican? Italian?”

  She smiled. “Italian sounds good. I had egg rolls for lunch a
nyway.”

  “Fine. Franco’s, down on Fifth Street, is one of my favorite places.”

  After they had placed their orders, Carson said, “You told me you were a stock analyst. Just what’s that?”

  “I work for Consolidated Insurance. We underwrite almost any kind of insurance. Life, auto, fire, and so on.”

  “What’s that got to do with stocks?”

  “The premiums our policy holders pay don’t fully cover the losses we have to pay out. Instead, we invest the policyholders’ money in stocks and bonds. The income from that allows us to reduce the premiums below the true actuarial value.”

  “Hmmm. I never thought about that. I just figured I paid money in, and if I had an accident or a fire I got some of it back.”

  “That’s only partly true. You’d be paying in more if we didn’t invest your money well. But what do you do with time gates?”

  “Fix them when they go wrong.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “It doesn’t happen often. Our failure rate isn’t as low as, say, airliner jet engines, but it’s much lower than that of the telephone system.”

  “What happens if someone gets caught going through a gate when something goes wrong?”

  “That hasn’t happened yet. We haven’t lost even a shipment of apples, let alone a person. There are enough interlocks and safeties that if something does go wrong, the gates are supposed to shut down rather than shunt anything through.” He rapped his knuckles on the tabletop. “I hope they always work.”

  “This bridge-out thing you’re working on. Doesn’t that mean that somebody is in two places a once? Home, say, and also in a car on that bridge?”

  “To my simple mind, it does. However, the quantum mechanics guys say all the atoms in the two people are in different states, so they’re not really the same person. Same thing with cars or anything else.”

  He described the incident involving the Wall Street Journal. “There was a case where a guy was on the bridge and down below it at the same time. All I can say is, it seems to work.”