Time and again, p.7
Time & Again, page 7
"Yeah," he said back. "No. I meant 'we' the team. Not we-including-me. I'm way too old and way too famous to do that kind of thing anymore."
"All right," Ruby said. "Just making sure it wasn't one of those recently single midlife crisis things."
Jaccob blanched. It was pretty obvious to everyone he hadn't expected his divorce to come up in this meeting.
"Nothing like that," he replied. "And anyway, I'll be busy on the tech side of things. If there's a way to get to the bottom of that email you got, I'm going to find it."
"The email is a good lead," Kara said, taking back control of the conversation. "But that's not the only tech angle we should be chasing."
"It isn't?" Jaccob seemed intrigued.
"I don't think so, no," Kara answered. "If somebody has really traveled back in time to the here and now, then that activity has also got to have left a trace--seismic, radioactive, atmospheric ... something. I think we should be looking into that too."
Ruby cocked her head to the side. "Go on."
"It stands to reason," Kara replied, "that people or machinery traveling through time would create enough of a disruption in at least some of the measurable, observable qualities of spacetime that a person with the right equipment should, theoretically, be able to detect it."
"Theoretically?" Ruby repeated.
"I'm just saying--" Kara shook her head and shrugged. "This is all theoretical at this point. But if--and I maintain that's a pretty big 'if'--but if someone is traveling through time then there will be ways for us to pick up on that. Maybe even trace it."
"With the right equipment," Jaccob added.
"Yeah," Kara said. "That part."
"I'm guessing from your tone of voice that you're not currently in possession of said equipment." Ruby drummed her nails against the stem of her glass, clearly displeased with the current tack of the conversation.
"Yeah, no," Kara replied. "It's never been my area of interest before now."
"Well, that doesn't really help us, does it?"
The question was probably rhetorical, but Kara answered anyway. "It doesn't."
"Could you build it?" Ruby asked her then.
"Maybe--?" Kara answered. "With enough time and money and the right tools, probably. But there's also a chance we don't have to."
"Go on."
"The kind of equipment I'm talking about already exists."
"It does?" Yumi asked.
"I thought you just said it was all theoretical," Lisa added, frowning at Kara over her martini.
"It is," Kara replied. "But theoretical doesn't mean impossible, it just means unproven. And there are people all over the world who study this stuff. In fact, there's a professor right here at the university who's done some really promising work on understanding disruptions in spacetime. He's supposed to have a lab full of exactly the kinds of machines we'd want for this investigation."
"There is?" Lisa was a Poli Sci major but spent plenty of her elective hours in the sciences. "Wait, do you mean--?"
"Yep." Kara sipped her cocktail as she nodded.
"Do you think he'd let you use his lab?" Lisa seemed doubtful. "Or look at his research?"
"Oh, he'll do better than that," Ruby asserted.
"He will?" Kara asked.
"You just get me his name and his department, and let me handle the rest," Ruby replied. "If this equipment exists, it'll be at our disposal soon enough."
"Almost ... like magic?" Lisa dared ask.
"Gold star, Miss Yamamoto," Ruby answered, lifting her glass toward Lisa in a toasting gesture. "Exactly like that."
CHAPTER SIX
Having never bothered to attend college herself, Ruby Killingsworth hadn't much experience with campus life. But she'd hired enough fresh graduates over the years to know that parking on the University of Cobalt City campus was perpetually inadequate. Normally she'd have driven herself on an errand of this variety, but she no more cared to walk from whatever far-off parking spot she'd inevitably get stuck with than she trusted her little Porsche two-seater to an overcrowded lot full of hungover teens.
By the time the limo pulled up in front of the newly constructed experimental wing of the Podmajersky Sciences Building, Ruby was sure she'd made the right decision not to drive. Not only was the tiny parking lot absolute bedlam, the "Re-elect Prather" propaganda was in full swing; she appreciated not having to look up and see it. As it was, she'd had to turn the radio off to avoid his commercials.
Lyle Prather was a pernicious narcissist, and the fact he'd managed to get elected in the first place was little more than proof of the collective gullibility of the American public. He'd been mostly out of her hair since she'd so abruptly ordered him off the stairs of her aircraft on the heels of the bombing of the White House concert. But emails from her legal department had been trickling in over the past several weeks that pointed to Prather's once again becoming a very present fly in her ointment.
But Prather was a problem for another day. This morning's self-important misogynist was one Professor William Kummerfeldt. Kara had given Ruby only the most basic rundown on the man--his areas of expertise and his general attitude toward people outside the sciences. Lisa had contributed a few anecdotes to illustrate his very well-known attitude toward women. He did not sound like the kind of person Ruby made a habit of conversing with.
This meeting was likely to stretch her patience thin, and possibly push her to use her powers in a way she rarely needed to these days.
She'd realized during the brief period in which she'd been missing her magic just how little she currently needed it. It was possible all the years of arcane influence had made an indelible mark on her closest associates, but the fact remained that people genuinely feared and respected her. Whatever was behind it, the revelation that her directives alone, without their magical component, were enough to see her will enacted had been an interesting one.
So today's meeting was likely to see her flex a muscle she hadn't needed in a while. If the reason for the meeting were any less dire, she might even have looked forward to it. As it was, Ruby was unlikely to enjoy the process, but she'd get the work done, nonetheless.
With magic or without, she was going to get what she was after this day.
The limo pulled into a loading zone alongside the newly refurbished J. Stevens Experimental Sciences Wing, and Ruby took a moment to let herself grimace as the driver got out. Funny how she'd never noticed how many things in this damn city were named after Jaccob or his ex-wife until after he'd made his unceremonious exit from her life a couple of years back.
Ruby watched her driver try the unassuming metal door before coming back to let her out of the car. Lisa had told her this side door was likely to be unlocked, and that it opened to a utility stairwell with access to the lower floor. Coming in this way meant Ruby could get where she was going without being forced to choose between traversing a busy staircase and waiting for a slow and possibly crowded elevator. Hers wasn't the most recognizable face in Cobalt City, but she wasn't exactly an unknown, either. She was likely much safer from unsolicited musical numbers in the sciences building than she'd have been in most other places on this campus, but she still preferred not to be accosted at all if possible.
She was hoping to avoid not only the attentions of campus wannabes, but also any questions as to what she was doing in the sciences building.
Lisa and Kara had done good work preparing her. Ruby was in the door and down the stairs within moments, and without encountering another living soul save for her own driver. Where the staircase ended, a matching door opened into the lower-level lobby. It was a dim cavern of a space with polished concrete floors, exposed ductwork, and walls that were bare save for the occasional poorly painted mural. Ruby supposed it was designed to look spartan, industrial, and cool, but in reality, it looked unfinished and uninviting, right down to the portable chalkboard painted with the Cup-O-Chino logo, sporting an arrow pointing to the nearby stairs and advertising a "Stardust Latte" in flowy script.
Ruby did not want to know the ingredients in that drink.
There was a bustle and din in this place, a chaos of students rushing from lectures and labs. She'd been warned the schedules in this building were wild and weird, and there was little chance of finding the place any less busy than it was at this moment. Ruby had contemplated trying anyway, but Lisa had made it clear that any time the student traffic went down, the chances for the professor to be out of the building went up.
And she was not about to make a second trip.
Ruby crossed the lobby, passed the offensive chalkboard, and rounded the corner toward the hall she'd been told housed the professor and the equipment she'd come seeking. She was proud of herself for swallowing the curse word that came to her lips when she nearly ran headlong into a twelve-foot-tall statue of her ex-lover in the center of the wide hallway. Seeing as one of her motivations for taking the basement route had been to avoid the much taller one in the building's main lobby, being surprised by this one was a particular upset. If she ever found out the identity of the artist, they would be in for a whole world of hurt.
The oversized stone-and-metal edifice would have been offensive enough in any case, but the choice of the artist to depict the man half in and half out of the Stardust suit might as well have been made to attack her personally. The bronze Jaccob was shirtless, with one hand on his hip and the other pointing at some unknown thing in the distance, and Ruby couldn't decide whether the sculptor had exaggerated the definition of his biceps ... and his abs. It was too much in every dimension. She brushed her fingers across the smooth metal of the statue's thigh as she passed, putting just enough intention into the exchange of energies to assure the thing would start to crack a few days from now and wind up a pile of dust and bolts by the end of the month.
It might have been more satisfying to watch it crumble right there at her feet, but the need to be sure no one could tie her visit to the statue's demise won out over her desire to watch it fall in real time. She'd have to check with Kara and see about tapping into any security cameras this building might have; watching from afar wouldn't be quite as satisfying, but she'd probably enjoy it.
She found the room where she understood her professorial quarry would be teaching and peeked in through the narrow window built into the door. It was one of those large lecture halls with seats arranged amphitheater style in a steep slope leading to another set of doors to the room from the floor above.
The classroom was packed. Rows upon rows of fresh-faced undergrads and serious older scholars stared at a smart board at the front of the room as their fingers poked frantically at laptops, tablets, and tiny keyboards set on the narrow tables in front of them. Normally Ruby wouldn't mind a room full of witnesses, but today's conversation was around a strange and sensitive enough subject that the lecture hall full of eager learners just wouldn't do.
This seemed like as good a way as any to warm up her magic muscles.
Getting Professor Kummerfeldt to look at her was easy enough. Their eyes met for barely a moment before he turned back to his class, shut down the computer he'd been using to project onto the smart board, and told the students they were dismissed.
Ruby couldn't help but snicker as the throng of visibly confused coeds packed up their things to leave. She took a moment to marvel at how quickly that had all transpired. Sometimes men were too damn easy. Probably why she hadn't bothered with any since being through with Jaccob. Women were always far more interesting.
And any hankering for male anatomy was easily enough satisfied by her increasingly frequent dalliances with Loki. Sure, it had taken some time and a pretty big favor for them to get back in her good graces after the business with Vivienne and the demon Ramisiel, but they'd practically bent over backward in their attempts to garner her forgiveness. Eventually, she'd melted, but only after Vivienne had declared she'd forgiven them already.
Gods were complicated. Mortal men, much less so.
Professor Kummerfeldt was shooing his students out of the room with the urgency of a manager about to run afoul of union overtime. Once Ruby was sure the last of the students was headed out the upstairs door and that none of them were about to try and exit through the door she intended to use, she let herself into the lecture hall proper and approached the professor.
This really was going to be too easy. She'd seen the look he wore on plenty of men before today. She'd barely had the chance to apply any magic at all and he was already putty in her hands; this fellow was going to be no trouble at all.
"Professor," she greeted him as she approached.
He opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out.
"My card," she said, popping open her clutch and handing over the tiny item. The only card she used these days was blank: a slip of polished metal with an NFC chip embedded and a QR code only visible to infrared cameras. She didn't remember where the idea had originally come from, but it was a flex she enjoyed and a sure-fire way to keep her personal info from getting out courtesy of some paparazzi's telephoto lens.
Professor Kummerfeldt fumbled with the card before sliding it into the pocket of the shabby chambray shirt he wore unbuttoned in lieu of a jacket. There were cartoons on the tee shirt he wore underneath it and enough wear in his khaki pants to make Ruby wonder just how well this institution did or did not pay its employees.
"What can I do for you?" he asked, his voice cracking like he was a twelve-year-old schoolboy instead of a professor well into his fifties.
"I need a favor," Ruby replied, tempted to leave the magic out of her statement but deciding it wasn't worth the extra time. She hadn't come here to play with this man, she'd come to get things done.
"A ... a favor?" he asked, still stumbling over his words. He shoved his hands into his pockets for a moment then extended his right toward her. "I'm um ... I'm Bill Kummerfeldt."
Ruby stepped forward just enough to shake the man's hand. "Charmed, I'm sure.
"What is it--?" the professor asked. "What can I do for you?"
The hardest part of the conversation turned out to be pretending to give a damn about all the things Professor Kummerfeldt wanted to tell her. Ruby sat through diatribes on his work and his expertise and very detailed histories of the theory and operations of the equipment he was more than happy to lend.
More than happy, of course, was almost surely a function of her magical influence and not of any genuine desire on the part of the professor to share his instruments or work. By the time she was in the car and on her way back to the office, Ruby knew more about scientific theories surrounding time travel than she ever would have cared to. But she'd done what she'd come to do, and that was the thing that mattered.
Kara would have her gear, and that would put them one step closer to figuring this whole mess out. Whatever nonconsensual scientific education Ruby had to endure to make that happen was entirely beside the point.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Anyone who worked for Goblin Entertainment long enough got to know when and when not to call the boss.
Ruby had long ago empowered her best and highest-ranking employees to make decisions without the need to consult her. Most of the time, even when decisions had to travel up the corporate ladder, they stopped a rung or two below Miss Killingsworth's office. And on those rare occasions when that didn't happen, those with the means to contact Ruby directly had a complex matrix by which to judge just when and how to go about that. The farther from the middle of her day an issue came up, the more urgent it needed to be for it to be brought to her immediate attention.
No one reached the point in their career where they had access to Miss Killingsworth's direct email or priority phone number without knowing better than to use it in off hours barring an actual emergency.
So when her phone rang before she'd finished her coffee that Thursday morning, Ruby was as surprised as she was displeased. And when she saw the call was coming from Arsho Barsamian, she was downright disturbed. Arsho had been the building manager since the Ruby Tower was little more than a set of sketches and a pile of permits. They had supervised every brick laid, every wire run, and every finish as it was installed--both during the initial construction and the recent refurbishment after the demon occupation. And they'd done all of that without ever having disturbed Ruby outside of office hours.
All signs pointed to something unpleasantly urgent. That the call was coming in on her priority phone meant Arsho wasn't taking any chances with the possibility of Ruby not answering. The scant handful of people who had that number knew she'd answer it any day, any time. If there had been any way this issue could wait, the call would have come in on the standard business phone, or it would have been an email.
"Yes?" Ruby tried not to sound too gruff as she flipped on the speaker and set the device down on her vanity. She may have to take this call, but she was going to finish her face while she did.
"I'm sorry to bother you so early, Miss Killingsworth," Arsho began.
"Yes, yes," Ruby replied, cutting them off with a wave of her hand she didn't much care Arsho couldn't see. "Don't waste my time with apologies; I know you wouldn't have called if it wasn't important. What is it?"
"I just got summoned to the loading dock," Arsho replied. "And I've got two trucks here that say they're from the university marching band. The one driver says there's equipment they're supposed to unload, but I don't have any paperwork on this, and Special Projects isn't answering the phone."
"No one's answering the phone," Ruby reminded them, "because it's eight o'clock in the morning, and nobody is expected in the office until after nine. But I don't think this is a bit for Special Projects anyway."
"You don't?"
"I don't." Ruby finished with the eyeliner pen and set it back on the vanity. Picking up her mascara, she continued, "Have one of the drivers open the back of his truck. I'm pretty sure I know what's in there, and it won't be band equipment."
