Lost time, p.13
Lost Time, page 13
“Nope. Never married as far as I know.” He shifts in the chair. “He had a woman living with him when we met, and he managed to get her into the Bub. But she and the kids were killed when some idiot set off a bomb outside the biodome, happened the day after we closed the doors.” He shakes off the memory and glances over at me. “But her name was Sophie, not Isabel—real cute and spunky—and her kids were just toddlers.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. There was a lot of that flying around back then.”
“So what happened to him?”
“Don’t know. He wasn’t in the biodome when we sealed her up.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” I say. Sophie was Isabel’s roommate when we first met, and I’m left wondering how my parallel self ended up living with her.
Christ, he must have known Isabel too.
“Bloody hell.” Matt’s mouth falls open.
“What?”
“You’re James, right? Only younger?”
I look away, uncertain how to answer—and then decide on the truth. “I’m his parallel from another universe.”
“If that’s the case, then you should be my age.” He looks me over. “And you don’t look a day over forty.”
“Yeah. I’m twenty years behind you.”
He narrows his eyes. “You’re not just from another universe, you’re from another time?”
“I left my universe right before Doomsday mutated. I was supposed to travel twenty years into the past, but the time machine’s targeting mechanism failed, and I ended up here.”
“Crikey. Time and space travel.” He’s quiet for a bit, rubbing his hands together. “That’s a lot to swallow.”
“It gets better. In my world, you built the time machine.”
“I did?” He laughs. “Sweet Fanny Adams. No one ever took my research seriously here.”
“We were in a place called the Magic Kingdom, a government research facility hidden inside a hollowed-out mountain somewhere in the Rockies. There were a hundred people analyzing two other high-tech gizmos they found inside the Einstein Sphere—along with the time machine plans.”
“The Einstein Sphere?”
“Basketball-sized tungsten ball. Weighed a couple thousand pounds. It materialized above Denver going at supersonic speeds, and the resulting impact started a firestorm that took out half of downtown. Never happened in this world?”
“No. What was in the sphere, besides the time machine plans?”
“Instructions for building a quantum-computing device that allowed us to peek into other universes—we called it the Peeping Tom. And designs to create the custom biotech gizmos in my blood.”
“Shite,” he says. “Seems you’re the man of the century.”
“More like failure of the century. I didn’t actually do anything. My name was inside the Einstein Sphere. That’s it.”
“So did you come here to help us?”
I shake my head. “Like I said, the time machine malfunctioned. The people in my world don’t even know your world exists.” I exhale. “So what about Isabel? Do you know anything about her?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” He points to the box on the bed. “That’s for you. I’ve been holding on to it for going on twenty years.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Go ahead. Open it.”
Inside the shoebox is a folded sheet of paper, a hardwood jewelry box that looks exactly like the one I left on my dresser in the cabin, and an envelope addressed to Diego Nadales.
“Christ,” I say. “Where did you get this?”
“It appeared in my refrigerator the night the biodome was sealed.”
“Was there anything, uh, odd in there with it—like maybe an old sock?”
“Nope,” he says. “No dirty laundry. But if the note hadn’t warned me about the bomb, everyone in the biodome, including me, would have been killed the following day.”
I unfold the note and hold it up to the light. The heavy paper has a Kirkland Enterprises watermark in the middle.
Dave.
The words on the stationery are scrawled in black ink—and it’s signed with a stylized capital D.
That bastard. How did he get hold of the time machine? And how did he manage to send something to THIS universe?
I read the note:
Hudson-
Keep this in a safe place until Nadales shows up (and keep your damn mouth shut about it!) Tomorrow morning, run tests on all the contamination sensors. Do it first thing in the morning.
D-
I set the note down and pick up the wooden box. “So what happened after you found the note?”
“I showed it to David Kirk, but he thought it was a fake: The handwriting looked like his, but the watermark had his company name misspelled.”
“Kirkland Enterprises.”
“Yeah. Still, I didn’t see any harm in following the instructions, so the next morning I spent an hour running the tests. The system was new, and I discovered that the sensors in the new sector hadn’t been turned on. I fixed them and was getting ready to leave when the bomb exploded right outside the west end of the biodome—blew the bloody wall to bits. Fifty-seven people died, and if I had been in my apartment, I would have been killed too—and with the sensors offline, the whole biodome could have been exposed to the virus.”
“Christ.”
He rubs his face. “Just wish I would have thought to hand out masks before I started running the tests…”
“Whoever sent that note to you, didn’t want you to hand out masks, Matt. He wanted to make sure you didn’t die, but he couldn’t risk changing anything else.”
“God Almighty. So who sent it?”
“Dave Kirkland. He’s David Kirk’s parallel in my universe. How he managed to get all this into your fridge, I have no idea, but I’m betting it involves a time machine.” I set the note down and take out the small wooden box. “This was in the refrigerator too?”
He nods. “I hope you don’t mind. I opened it to see what was inside.” He rubs the back of his neck. “And I read the note too—the envelope wasn’t sealed.”
“No worries,” I say. “Twenty years is a long time to resist opening the cookie jar.” I slide my hands across the smooth carved wood, my heart pounding in my throat. “It contains an orange seashell?”
“Bloody hell. How’d you know that?”
“Lucky guess.” I open the case and take it out. “I had one just like it in my hand when the time machine dumped me in that pine tree. Shannon found it on the ground next to me and liked it, so I gave it back to her for her birthday.”
“Why’d you bring it with you?”
“It showed up in the glove box of my car—with a note telling me to.”
“Damn,” he says. “This is making my head hurt.”
“Believe me, I know the feeling.”
“Any idea what the connection between the shells is?”
“No, but I think they’re all identical, possibly down to the atomic level. I bet James had one just like it. And I think this one is from yet another universe.”
“Just like you.”
I nod. “So why’d you wait so long to tell me about all this?”
He exhales. “When I helped bring you in through the airlock, I thought I recognized you. But you were in no shape for visitors with crazy messages from the past, so I let it go. By the time you were better, I knew Lani had feelings for you, and I wanted to give you a chance to get to know her before I wrecked everything…” He glances down at his hands. “Anyway, I wasn’t sure you were the right guy, and after holding on to it for decades, I didn’t think a few more weeks would matter.” He looks up. “But when Lani told me your last name, and that you claimed you were from another universe, I couldn’t rationalize it any longer.”
I unfold the note that was in the box with the seashell and read it:
Hey Tarzan-
Isabel’s alive, but if you don’t get your sorry ass back here pronto, she won’t be.
D-
∞
“Oh my god,” I whisper, barely able to breathe. “She’s alive.”
Lani walks in carrying a stack of my clothes. “Who’s alive?” She glances at me, then at Matt, and then repeats her question.
“Isabel,” Matt says, not meeting her gaze. “She’s alive in Diego’s universe.”
Lani turns to me, her face ashen, and squeezes her eyes shut.
“Lani—” I say.
She drops the clothes and rushes out.
Chapter 20
Lani: Without a Flight
I stand gazing out into the cloudless sky long after the plane disappears. In the twenty years since Sam died, I have never felt so empty and alone. And now, with Shannon packed and gone, this shabby, backwater biodome feels like a prison.
I press my fingers against my eyelids, trying to stop the tears, but it’s no use.
I always knew that someday I would have to let go of Shannon, but I never dreamed it would be like this. And I knew in my heart that Diego was never really mine, but that didn’t stop me from falling in love with him.
They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all…
But they’re wrong.
And now you’ve lost both of them.
I watch a lone falcon rising with the wind currents, wondering for the millionth time how the birds and reptiles beat Doomsday. I imagine Shannon up there in the sky, looking down on a world that is all new to her, excitement and anticipation spilling across her beautiful face. She is the one thing that has given my life meaning these last twenty years, a solid and powerful reminder of why I deserved to survive. Out of all the lies, deception, and evil that surrounded my failed attempt to save my brother, one good and true thing happened: Shannon.
Go and see the world, Shannon, and when you’re done, come home.
If I’m honest with myself, I belong here in this sorry excuse for a biodome. It’s my home, and if I were to leave—follow Shannon to another bubble—there wouldn’t be anyone here to deliver babies or treat pneumonia. My life is here with Lucy and the others, and I couldn’t bear to have something bad happen to them.
Eventually, I turn away and walk back across the bubble toward the Radio Room, my thoughts turning to Sam. Our mother died giving birth to him, and although my grandmother did her best, by the time he came along, she was crippled with arthritis. I was the one who helped him get dressed and tied his shoes and kissed his knee when he fell.
Back in the turbulent days before I met David, I would tuck Sam in at night, stroking his sweet face until his eyelids got heavy, and tell him we were family, ohana. And ohana means no one gets left behind.
You should have tried harder to save him. You should have figured out a way.
I sit down on a bench in the park, forcing back tears, and try to decide what I’m going to say to David.
Should I tell him the truth—that Diego claims he’s from 2025 and came here from a parallel universe via a misbehaving time machine?
Would he even believe me?
I shake my head, uncertain what I believe.
All I know for sure is that Shannon is gone, and Diego is in love with another woman—a woman I thought was dead and buried decades ago.
There’s always another woman, Lani—a better woman.
Although I hate myself for even thinking it…
I wish she never existed.
Chapter 21
Diego: Into Thin Air
We fly east, gaining altitude, unbroken grassy plains spreading out as far as the eye can see. I’m the only one in the plane without a biosuit, and this morning was the first time I’d been Outside.
Lani was right: The fact that everyone is wearing biosuits is downright scary. Add to that the knowledge that even the tiniest hole could mean quick and certain death, and I’m beginning to wonder if this was such a great idea.
After a few minutes, I turn and check on Shannon in the back seat. She’s fast asleep, her puppy, Bearhart, snuggled up next to her in a special dog carrier. At breakfast this morning, Lani had dark circles under her eyes, and I can’t imagine that she and Shannon got much rest last night.
I’m sorry I couldn’t be the man you needed, Lani. God knows I tried.
I watch Shannon and her puppy sleep—probably dreaming of each other—and smile when I remember Madders presenting her with that fuzzy bundle of wet tongue and big feet. When Shannon put her arms around the puppy for the first time, the sheer joy on her face had everyone in the biodome in tears, me included. It was love at first sight for both of them, and Earhart quickly became Bearhart.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
I face front, gazing out my foggy window and feeling lost. Shannon is as close as I’ve ever come to having a daughter, but I realize now that Madders is the one she’ll always look up to—the man she loves as a father. Despite the fact that he’s worthy of her trust and love, it’s tough to know that I’ll always be a distant second.
Unlike you, he’s been there for her all along.
The thought sets off another round of regrets.
Before stepping into the airlock this morning, I wrapped my arms around Lani, and she clung to me like she’d never see me again.
Perhaps it would be best if she were right.
When the plane levels off, Matt crosses his arms and swivels his chair to face me. “It looks like smooth air all the way to KC, so feel free to fire up all those questions you must have.”
I must look troubled because he pats my leg and nods at the dash. “Autopilot. No need to worry. In fact, it’s the safest way to fly—if you’re lucky enough to have the equipment. If something comes up, the computer will let us know.”
“Ah. Okay,” I say, although it hadn’t even occurred to me.
We spend the next hour talking about the Einstein Sphere, the Magic Kingdom, and the time machine. In this world, many of the same things happened, but in a slightly different order—and a couple of critical things didn’t happen at all.
Matt found a reference to a “metal ball” of “unknown origins” in an old newspaper article, but it seems there were no letters sintered on the outside, no E = mc2, and the sphere landed in the woods instead of a city. It did start a small fire, and by the time it had burned itself out, things had gotten so bad that no one bothered to investigate further, and it disappeared years ago.
Matt also dug up some stuff on a quantum computer being developed by Stanford. The scientists claimed they were capturing photons from another universe, but the project went under, quite literally, when the rogue nuke was diverted into the Pacific Ocean and half of California was hit by the resulting tsunami. Things happened just as they did in my world—except that in this universe, Phil and the Peeping Tom team weren’t safely inside the Magic Kingdom.
But despite being well behind us in time machines and peeping toms, there was one field where this universe was light years ahead: David Kirk’s biodomes.
But why?
That question nags at me night and day. What happened in this universe that changed things? Could it be as simple as the missing Einstein Sphere: Instead of racing to build a time machine, these people built biodomes? Or was there a Magic Kingdom in this world, and their time machine sent James off to yet another universe? My universe?
Christ. If there’s a Magic Kingdom here, you need to find it.
If there are any answers to be found, they’re locked up inside that hollowed-out mountain. Matt couldn’t find anything on the time machine project, but he did find a few references to a top-secret government installation in the mountains. He thinks the place was built during the Cold War, and the description matches what I remember of the Magic Kingdom.
“I’d bet my last socket wrench that underground city exists,” Matt says. “And if it does, I’m just the man to find it. Hell, even if no one is inside, think of all the tools and computers they’d have. Crikey, it would be like discovering a buried treasure. Do you have any idea where it is?”
“Unfortunately,” I say, “No. I was locked inside for a couple of months, but I don’t remember how we got there. The government guys picked me up in the middle of the night—after I’d been awake for nearly twenty-four hours and hiking hard all day. I passed out ten minutes after they grabbed me, so I don’t even know for sure how long I was in the car. That mountain could be almost anywhere in Colorado.”
“That’s what planes are for, mate. There’s nothing like a good riddle to keep an old hermit like me occupied. Once I get back to the Bub, I’ll start looking for it.” He glances back at Shannon who’s still asleep in the back seat. “But for right now, we need to get ready to land.”
He turns and pats her on the leg. “Hey Shenanigans. Time to wake up.”
“Are we there already?” She bobs her head, still half-asleep.
“Yep,” I say, turning around so I can see her face.
“We’ll be landing in KC in ten minutes,” Matt says as he takes the plane off autopilot. “We’re going to drop off some mail and take on fuel, but it shouldn’t take more than half an hour.”
“Ranger that,” Shannon says.
“And Roger too,” Matt adds, a smile in his voice.
I turn back around and watch the decaying buildings and empty roads slip by beneath us. From this high up, it looks like a vast toy train table with rails and rivers and roads snaking around tree-covered hills and through low-lying towns—only there isn’t a child to flip the switch, start the locomotive puffing down the tracks, and bring the scene to life.
And a hundred years from now, it will all be gone.
Matt shifts in his seat. “I don’t know how much you know about the Kansas City Refuge of God, but they’re not exactly fond of visitors, so they don’t get a lot of planes landing. There’s no control tower or radio contact, even though they have scads of fuel.”
