STEALING TIME

by

Christopher Stasheff

Copyright 2010

 

CHAPTER 3

 

"We think your murderer dragged your body to the river and pushed it in," the big man added.

Ada glanced at the gray water at the far end of the alley and shuddered.  She turned back to McAran and his big friend, staring, numb.  Then anger came to her rescue.  "This is ridiculous!  Stand aside, please."  She started toward the mouth of the alley.

The two men gave way reluctantly.  McAran said, "Of course—we won't hold you against your will.  But remember, once you step out onto the street, everything changes—either you, or the world."

The big man nodded.  "As long as you stay in this alley, nobody knows that anything out of the ordinary has happened to you.  Once you step out, though, it stops being a secret."

"Nonsense!"  Ada brushed between them.  "I'm alive, and I'm going home to prove it!"

She strode down the alley and out onto the sidewalk—and, in spite of her assurance, felt oddly relieved to see the Embankment as it had always been.  She turned west and hurried.  For the first time, her guardian's house would be a welcome sign.

A man weaved toward her, obviously drunk.  The buttons had burst through their holes in his weskit; his coat was rusty, his hat dented—a thoroughly unsavory-looking fellow.  Nose wrinkling at the aroma of cheap gin that emanated from him, Ada stepped to the side to let him pass—but he stumbled and lurched into her.

Into and through.  She stood frozen in shock—the man had actually gone through her as though she didn't exist.  Then she whirled to watch him weave away, straight toward McAran and his big friend.

They side-stepped adroitly, then came up to Ada, full of sympathy.  "I know it's hard to get used to," McAran said, "but as far as this world is concerned, you no longer exist."

"Ridiculous!" Ada spun and flailed her arm at a lamp post—and stared in shock as her arm swept through it as though it were made of smoke.

"That's the way it is," McAran said, as gently as he could.  "It's real.  You're not."

"But—you can't mean that I've become a ghost!"

"Only as far as this world is concerned.  We've started a new timeline, you see, and it's a little out of phase with the main one—not enough to keep us from seeing people and objects, but enough so we can't interact with them."

"Of course," the big man said, "you could go to America or Australia, take a new name, and make yourself a new life—but you're dead to the old one."

"I won't believe it!"  Ada spun away and stepped into the path of the next passerby.  "Sir!  Excuse me!  Might you have the time?"  But the man stepped through her and went his way, completely unaware of her presence.  Ada turned to stare after him, feeling the chill of the eldritch steal over her.

"You're the key to this timeline," Angus said softly.  "We're visitors from the future, so we can't start or stop it."

"You started it when you saved me from that woman!"  Then Ada froze, startled at her own words.

McAran nodded slowly.  "We did—but we started it by changing what happened to you.  When you decide what to do, this time line will rejoin the main one and pinch itself off, then decay.  History will go on as before—but only if you make a decision.

"Decision?" Ada asked through stiff lips.  "What decision is there?  What choice have I?  Only the choice of being buried in the waters of the Thames in 1893, or disappearing forever!"

"No," McAran said.  "It's a real choice.  You can stay in 1893 incognito."

Yorick nodded.  "History says you disappeared on this date, after visiting the burned-out factory—but that's all it says.  There's no record of you after that date."

"Because I died!"

"The history books don't even say that," Angus told her.  "Lots of people disappear by their own will every year.  They leave town, assume new identities..."

"And if they're women, they starve!" Ada said angrily.  "Or become women of the streets!  I've heard of them, girls from the country arriving in London starry-eyed, and young men meet them at the coach door and invite them home, oh yes!  But not for love and marriage, you may be sure of that!"

A gentleman would have been shocked that a lady knew of such things, but McAran and his big friend only nodded sympathetically.  Either they were no gentlemen, or...

Or McAran spoke truly when he said they came from the future.

The thought gave Ada a chill—but something inside her stirred with excitement.  If they were gentlemen and weren't shocked, then women of the future would be allowed to know something of the less attractive side of life, perhaps even have some idea what to expect on their wedding nights!  Against all odds, eagerness began to stir within her.  What other wonders might the future hold?

"Well, there is another option," McAran said.

The big man nodded.  "You could come back to the future with us."

She stared at them, trembling with fright—but also with excitement.  "How... how can you make such an offer?"

"Because we're members of a time-travel organization," the big man said, "the Guardians of the Rights of Individuals, Patentholders Especially."

Ada frowned.  "Odd name for a group of time-explorers."

"We have an odd founder," the big man said with a perfectly straight face, and Ada wondered why McAran glared daggers at him.  She had no time to think about it, though—the prospect was too compelling.  "What is it like," she asked, "your future?"

"Well, we come from the 1950s," McAran said, "and among other things, women are allowed to earn their own livings."

The big man nodded.  "They can even practice law."

Ada stared.  The future was too fantastic, too good to be true.

"In fact," McAran said, "we're from the early days of the organization, just setting it up.  We're still setting up our headquarters, recruiting agents, trying to find ways to finance what amounts to a major company—and we need a lawyer."

"We were kind of wondering if you'd want the job," the big man said.

Ada's eyes widened even further.  She stood frozen by hope.

McAran mistook her silence for reticence.  "All right, I know it's not the world's greatest job!  You wouldn't have to do any of the dangerous stuff, though—well, not physically dangerous, anyway.  And all right, women lawyers aren’t all that well-accepted in the 1950s, but they are allowed to practice!  Besides, we can always hire somebody else for the actual courtroom work, as long as you do the research and prepare the case."

"Well, of course,” said Ada.  "I'm a solicitor, not a barrister."  Then she remembered.  "That's right, you don't make the distinction in America, do you?"

"How'd you know we were American?"

The big man elbowed McAran in the ribs.  "Ang... I think that means she's taking the job..."

"Oh!" McAran brightened.  "Will you?"

"It's a fascinating prospect," Ada said, "and there's nothing to keep me here, really...  Though I must send word..."

"No."  The big man shook his head firmly.  "The records say you just disappeared, no last words, no letters to anyone.  Do it and you'll start another mini-time stream that'll just damp itself out."

Ada frowned.  "You mean whether I want to or not, I can't?"

"That's what it amounts to."  McAran held out a hand.  "If we're going to work together, we should be better acquainted.  My first name's Angus."

"Yes, you Americans do place a great deal of emphasis on Christian names," Ada said with a smile, and took his hand.  Her fingers seemed to tingle and her stomach fluttered—after all, he was the first man outside the family she had ever touched.

"And my friend is Yorick."

"Yorick?"  Ada stared at the big man, who took her other hand and said, "Hold tight.  Brace yourself, now, Miz Rector."

Ada saw that McAran had take a small gray box from his cloak and set his thumb on a bump in its surface.  She was wondering why the big man had slurred the word "Miss" so badly when a sudden vertigo seized her, a dizziness that made her stomach turn.  She stumbled and would have fallen except that she had lurched up against the big man's chest.  Nausea rose.

"It always takes you like that the first time," McAran said.  "The second or third too, but you get used to it eventually."

Ada thrust down the nausea and turned to ask what he meant—and saw the darkness behind him.  She pushed against Yorick, straightening and turning to look at him but saw the darkness behind him, too.  Looking farther around, she saw that they stood in a pool of light surrounded by the total darkness of some vast midnight place.  Behind and beside her were the white walls of a large booth, perhaps six feet wide and four deep.

McAran stepped out the open fourth side and turned back to hold out a hand.  "Careful—you have to step down as you come out."

Feeling very much disoriented, Ada took his hand and stepped down.

"Welcome to 1953," Angus said.

Ada looked around, but all she could see was a waist-high box beside the white booth. 

Yorick stepped down beside her and pointed to the box.  "That's the actual time machine; the booth just keeps us inside its field.  Angus has a remote control to activate it."

"To activate it from sixty years in the past?"

"Space-time is curved," Angus explained, "and time is movement in the fourth dimension—so a pulse in that dimension can go from one point to another almost instantaneously, no matter how many years separate them in the third dimension."

Ada frowned.  "Rather like a rabbit being confined to running a path on the ground, while the hawk that hunts it can pounce upon any place along that path?

"Yes, exactly!"  Angus beamed at her quickness.  "I'll have to remember that analogy.  The time machine could pull Yorick and myself out of the past because we built up a great deal of chronological energy as we went back into the past to visit you."

"We weren't a natural part of your local time/space matrix," Yorick explained, "so the time-energy could snap us back here, to out departure point."

"But I was a part of my native time," Ada objected.

Angus nodded.  “That's why you had to be in contact with us—holding our hands.    Between the two of us, we had enough time-energy to bring you back here with us."

Ada frowned, thinking she understood, but not certain.  Still, she knew she would eventually—this certainly would not be Dr. McAran's only attempt to explain time travel to her—so she took refuge from the topic in examining her surroundings.  She surveyed the gloom beyond their circle of light, glanced up at the glowing tube suspended above them.

"Fluorescent," Yorick explained.  "Electricity passing through a gas makes the light."

Ada realized she was going to have to accept a great many things as though she were reading one of Mr. Verne's novels.  "What is the darkness around us?"

"We're inside a cavern," Angus explained, "one with no door or window."

Ada stared at him.  "No access to the outside world at all?"

"Well, there is a crack in the rock about six inches wide," Angus said.  "It makes a natural chimney, goes all the way to the surface and comes out in the middle of the wall of a gully—so there's air to breathe.  Other than that, though, the only door is the one we jut came through."  He nodded at the time machine.

"Very secure," Yorick noted.

"You certainly won't need to worry about burglars."  But Ada looked again at the darkness and shuddered.

"Yeah, well, I know it isn't much now," Angus said, "but we're just starting out."  He limped into the darkness, gesturing.  "We're planning on a steady building program."  He touched a wall and light glowed.  Ada blinked in surprise, then remembered that his lighting was electrical and, therefore, instantaneous.  It was considerably more harsh than the yellow glow of the electrical lamps she had seen in a friend's home, but nonetheless reassuring, especially since it revealed a very pleasant sitting room, through the ceiling was a bit low—certainly no more than eight feet.  She came toward Angus slowly, caressing the back of a wing chair and marveling at the softness of its brocade.  "There's no real reason for these walls except to mark off a room?"

"Well, that's the only real reason right now."  Angus sounded a bit gruff.  "Trying to make it a bit more cozy, you see."

"There're going to be fifty rooms in here eventually, Miz Rector."  Yorick came up beside here.  "The biggest will be a gymnasium, thirty feet high and seventy-five feet long.  There'll be classrooms and a costume wardrobe and a hair dressing salon—oh, and of course a bedroom and a sitting room for each of the agents."

"So it won't be mere partitions and ceilings for the illusion of separate rooms?"

"Definitely not!" Angus snapped.  "There'll be soundproofing for real privacy, there'll be a clinic with the latest medical equipment, an office for each of us, a common room where all the agents can get together, and a cafeteria for them all to eat in!"

"That would be a little too big for comfort just now," Yorick pointed out.  "We'll have to make do with this sitting room and the kitchen that's just beyond that door."  He pointed at a doorway across the room, then turned to pull a sliding panel into place—but it was really a sliding wall, and Ada stared in amazement as it snapped into place, enclosing them in a comfortable room with pictures on its walls, carpet beneath their feet, and occasional tables set next to davenports and armchairs.  There was even a fireplace with flames dancing within it, and if they were artificial, Ada would never have been able to tell.

"There's a utilities room for the generator, the furnace and air conditioner, and the water heater," Yorick added.

Ada wondered what a generator was and why the air needed conditioning, but she schooled herself to patience—no doubt all would be revealed in due course.

"The time machine requires a lot of electricity," Angus explained, "so we have to have a pretty big generator."

"We only run it at night," Yorick told her, "so that no one will see the exhaust fumes coming out of the flue in the cliff face."

"Six hours of running is enough to charge the batteries for a day's work," Angus said.  "Of course, it's kind of uncomfortable, keeping so much gasoline on the premises."

"Of course," Ada said, wondering what "gasoline" was.

"We're thinking of using windmills to power the generators more or less permanently," Yorick said.  "Of course, geothermal power would be a lot less visible."

"But windmills charging batteries have their advantages," Angus said.

“They might make the public start wondering where the electricity was going, though," Yorick demurred.

Ada had the feeling that she had stepped into a running argument between the two men.  "Are we beneath a city, then?"

"Well, no, we're inside a mountain in the Rockies," Angus said.

Ada thought of a mile or more of rock above her and suddenly felt as though she were suffocating.

"But there are ranchers and hunters passing through," Angus went on, "and they'd be bound to wonder why there was a lone windmill standing out on a mountainside—so  we're thinking of starting a windmill farm, posing as an alternate energy research firm.

"Windmill and solar," Yorick reminded him.

"And wouldn't the locals wonder even more about all those solar panels!" Angus said.  "So we're thinking of disguising it as energy research, a pilot power project, selling electricity to the neighboring farmers and ranchers while we're siphoning off what we need for our headquarters."

"But we're smart enough to realize we'd have to set it up as an official corporation," Yorick said, "or at least as a private company.  We'd have to draw up a charter, file incorporation papers—and how many other legal steps, Heaven knows!"

"And lawyers."  Angus turned to Ada.  "Want the job, Ms. Rector?"

Ada's heart leaped, then set off running.  To be able to practice law openly, to be admitted to the bar, to not have to hide the knowledge she's been gathering!  Striving not to show her excitement, she said, "It certainly sounds to be a fascinating challenge—but I do need to know a bit more."

"Of course," Angus sat back, obviously trying not to show a sudden hurt, and Ada realized she'd have to be very careful of his feelings.  "For example, this 'energy research'—it should indeed be an effective deception.  Why, though, would such a blind be necessary?"

"Because we have enemies," Yorick answered.  "Sorry to break it to you like this, Ms. Rector, but being a GRIPE agent may be hazardous to your health."

Ada froze.  Could he really mean people might try to murder her?

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