Time Travel Short Stories, page 47
She crossed the room and held out her hand to Droop.
“Good-night, Mr. Droop,” she said.
Surprised at this sudden demonstration of friendship, he took her hand and tipped his head to one side as he looked into her face.
“Next time you see me, I don’t suppose you’ll know me, I’ll be so little,” she said, trying to laugh.
“I – I wish’t you’d call me Cousin Copernicus,” he said, coaxingly.
“Well, p’raps I will when I see ye again,” she replied, freeing her hand with a slight effort.
Rebecca retired shortly after her sister and Copernicus was once more left alone. He rubbed his hands slowly, with a sense of satisfaction, and glanced at the date dial.
“July 2, 1892,” he said to himself. “I’m only thirty-four years old. Don’t feel any older than that, either.”
He walked deliberately to the shutters, closed them and turned on the electric light. Surrounded thus by the wonted conditions of night, it was not long before he began to yawn. He removed his coat and shoes and lay back in an easy chair to meditate at ease. He faced toward the pole so that the ‘side weight’ would tend to press him gently backward into his chair and therefore not annoy him by calling for constant opposing effort.
He soon dozed off and was whisked through a quick succession of fantastic dreams. Then he awoke suddenly, and as though someone had spoken to him. Listening intently, he only heard the low murmur of the machinery below and the ticking of the many clocks and indicators all about him.
He closed his eyes, intending to take up that last dream where he had been interrupted. He recollected that he had been on the very point of some delightful consummation, but just what it was he could not recall.
Sleep evaded him, however. His mind reverted to the all-important question of the recovered years. He began to plan again.
This time he should not make his former mistakes. No – he would not only make immense wealth promptly with the great inventions, he would give up liquor forever. It would be so easy in 1876, for he had never taken up the unfortunate habit until 1888.
Then – rich, young, sober, he would seek out a charming, rosy, good-natured girl – something of the type of Phoebe, for instance. They would be married and –
He got up at this and looked at the clock. It was after midnight. He looked at the date indicator. It said October 9, 1890.
“Well, come!” he thought. “The old Panchronicon is a steady vessel. She’s keepin’ right on.”
He put on his shoes again, for something made him nervous and he wished to walk up and down.
The first thing he did after his shoes were donned was to gaze at himself in the mirror.
“Don’t look any younger,” he thought, “but I feel so.” He walked across the room once or twice.
“Shucks!” he exclaimed. “Couldn’t expect to look younger in these old duds, an’ at this time o’ night, too – tired like I am.”
For some time he walked up and down, keeping his eyes resolutely from the date indicator. Finally he threw himself down in the chair again and closed his eyes, nervous and exhausted. He did not feel sleepy, but he must have dozed, for the next time he looked at the clock it was half-past one.
He put out the light and crossed to a settle. Here he lay at full length courting sleep. When he awoke, he thought, refreshed and alert, he would show his youth unmistakably.
But sleep would not return. He tried every position, every trick for propitiating Morpheus. All in vain.
At length he rose again and turned on the light. It was two-fifteen. This time he could not resist looking at the date indicator.
It said September 30, 1889.
Again he looked into the glass.
“My, but I’m nervous!” he thought as he turned away, disappointed. “I look older than ever!”
As he paced the floor there all alone, he began to doubt for the first time the success of his plan.
“It must work right!” he said aloud. “Didn’t I go back five weeks with that future man? Didn’t he –”
A fearful thought struck him. Had he perhaps made a mistake? Had they been cutting meridians the wrong way?
But no; the indicator could not be wrong, and that registered a constantly earlier date.
“Ah, I know!” he suddenly exclaimed. “I’ll ask Cousin Phoebe.”
He reflected a moment. Yes – the idea was a good one. She would be only fifteen years old by this time, and must certainly have changed to an extent of which he was at his age incapable. Besides, she had been asleep, and nervous insomnia could not be responsible for retarding the evidences of youth in her case. His agony of dread lest this great experiment fail made him bold.
He walked directly to Phoebe’s door and knocked – first softly, then more loudly.
“Cousin Phoebe – Cousin Phoebe,” he said.
After a few calls and knockings, there came a sleepy reply from within.
“Well – what – who is it?”
“It’s Cousin Copernicus,” he said. “Please tell me. Hev ye shrunk any yet?”
“What – how?” The tones were very sleepy indeed.
“Hev ye shrunk any yet? Are ye growin’ littler in there? Oh, please feel fer the footboard with yer toe!”
He waited and heard a rustling as of someone moving in bed.
“Did ye feel the footboard?” he asked.
“Yes – kicked it good – now let me sleep.” She was ill-natured with much drowsiness.
Poor Droop staggered away from the door as though he had been struck.
All had failed, then. They were circling uselessly. Those inventions would never be his. The golden dreams he had been nursing – oh, impossible! It was unbearable!
He put both hands to his head and walked across the room. He paused half-consciously before a small closet partly hidden in the wall.
With an instinctive movement, he touched a spring and the door slid back. He drew from the cupboard thus revealed two bottles and a glass and returned to seat himself at the table.
A half an hour later the Panchronicon, circling in the outer brightness and silence, contained three unconscious travellers, and one of them sat with his arms flung across the table supporting his head, and beside him an empty bottle.
Two Children Reported Missing
Scott Merrow
Fact #1: People don’t vanish into thin air.
Fact #2: Almost anything you can imagine can be simulated on video.
Fact #3: You can imagine people vanishing into thin air.
Conclusion: This tape has been faked.
A nice piece of deductive reasoning, Detective Stanchion thought, giving himself a mental pat on the back. Sherlock Holmes would’ve been proud.
Of course, Sherlock Holmes also said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Hmm.
It was Henry P. Stanchion’s first day on the job since his promotion to Detective, and his first day at the Columbia County Sheriff’s Department, his new headquarters. He was a newbie on two counts. He was excited to be here, but his first day wasn’t going quite as he’d expected.
After his initial sit-down with the Division Commander, he was handed off to Detective Sam Dunn to begin his orientation and for general introductions around the office. They never got that far because five minutes later, before any sort of orientation had even begun, Detective Dunn was called away on a matter of some urgency.
Before he left, though, he sat Detective Stanchion at an empty desk in a remote corner of the room. “Sorry, man,” he said as he plunked a cardboard file box on the desk before him. “Honest to god, I remember what my first day as a detective was like. I was all set to go solve some crimes, and I know you are too. But don’t worry, I won’t be long,” Dunn assured him.
He pushed the file box toward Stanchion. “While you’re waiting, you might have a look through this stuff. It’s paperwork and evidence from an old cold case. Two kids went missing about ten years ago. Never found ’em. We’re getting ready to put this stuff in deep storage, but it can’t hurt to take one last look. A fresh set of eyes and all that. Y’just never know what you might find.”
After Dunn left, Stanchion began half-heartedly rummaging through the box. Well, this is exciting, he thought. Among all the folders and plastic baggies full of this-and-that, he came across a VHS tape in a worn cardboard sleeve. He slid the video tape out and read the label:
PROPERTY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT
* CONFIDENTIAL *
MISSING PERSONS CASE # 08-0033 (OPEN)
DIGITAL/VIDEO EVIDENCE, EXHIBIT 12
BENTLEY J. BARNES (AGE 11)
ANNA MARIA DE LA CRUZ (AGE 11)
Detective Stanchion brought the tape to a cop working at a desk across the room. “’Scuse me,” he said, holding up the tape, “is there a VHS player around anywhere?”
The man looked up, thought about it a moment, then said, “I think there might be one in that storage area behind the briefing room,” he said, pointing behind him with his thumb. “I have no idea if it works, though,” he added. “I’m pretty sure nobody’s used it in a while.”
Detective Stanchion nodded and took the tape to the briefing room. Sure enough, under a dusty pile of old equipment and a tangle of wires, there was a VHS player. With a minimum of fuss he had it hooked up to an old TV. Surprisingly, it worked.
He slid the tape into the machine and pressed PLAY.
The tape began with a black screen and several seconds of silence. Then a young girl’s voice said, “Hi. I’m Anna Maria De La Cruz, and this is my…oh. Oops.”
A moment of silence followed, and then some scuffling noises and the black screen turned bright [as the lens cap came off the camera] to reveal a girl’s face, up close, with a distorted, fish-eye appearance caused by her close proximity to the lens.
The girl was eleven-year-old Anna Maria De La Cruz, a pretty Hispanic girl and at the moment an amateur filmmaker. In the frame behind her was a massive gray stone Victorian-era building, obviously magnificent in its prime, but now slightly dingy and run-down.
It was immediately obvious to Detective Stanchion, and would have been to anyone watching, that this was amateur footage shot from a cheap video camera.
Onscreen, the girl backed up and resumed her position front and center before the camera. She smoothed her long, dark hair and resumed her narration.
“Hi,” she began again, “I’m Anna Maria De La Cruz, but everyone calls me Annie. I’m a documentary filmmaker. And this…,” she said making a sweeping motion with her arm, encompassing the large building looming behind her, “…is my documentary film. It’s about life at the Saint Jerome Children’s Institution.”
She took a couple of steps toward the camera then turned and looked back over her shoulder at the old building. “Saint Jerome’s is what many people call an orphanage. She turned toward the camera and grinned. “And I’m what many people might call…an orphan. Only, I don’t call myself that. I call myself, I don’t know, just a regular person.”
She stepped forward and reached toward the camera, her hand becoming huge on the screen. Then the picture went black.
A second later it clicked back on, and the huge gray building of Saint Jerome’s almost totally filled the screen. The picture was wobbly now; it appeared as if the camera was hand held. Annie was nowhere to be seen, but her voice continued the narration. “There are 223 ‘regular people’ like me at Saint Jerome’s, from age four to age eighteen. When you’re eighteen, they kick you out,” she said. “Good bye, adios, you’re on your own. That’ll be me in seven years, unless I get adopted, which I doubt, but you never know.”
The picture on the screen zoomed further in on the building, specifically on a third-floor window. “That’s my room,” Annie’s voice continued. “Along with five other ‘regular people.’”
The picture zoomed out, and the building filled the screen again. “We eat here, we sleep here, go to school here, and every morning…”
Suddenly, the front door flew open and a young boy dashed out. He leapt down the front stairs three at a time, heading toward Annie. He was a small boy, disheveled, hair-too-long, wearing thick unfashionable glasses – in short, he was nerdy-looking.
“Annie!” he shouted, still sprinting toward her.
The picture on the screen zoomed in and followed him as he ran closer and closer.
Annie, still off screen, picked up her narration. “And here’s another of Saint Jerry’s regular people, Bentley Barnes. As you can see he’s a little weird and nerdy,” she explained. “That’s because he’s a mad scientist. And he’s my best friend.”
As he charged up, the camera followed his face until it completely filled the screen. “Annie, c’mon!” he demanded, gasping for breath.
“C’mon where?” she asked. “As you can plainly see, Bentley, I’m at work filming my documentary.”
“Documentary? Forget that,” he replied, the screen still full of his face. “I need you to film my test run. It’s gonna be historic.”
“What test run?” Annie asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Never mind,” he replied brusquely. “C’mon. Hurry. I’ll explain on the way.”
The screen went black.
When the video returned the scene had changed.
The picture on the screen was still moving about, indicating a hand-held camera. It was indoors now, following close behind Bentley as he hurried down a dimly lit hallway. It appeared to be in a basement since the source of the grayish light was a window high in the wall at the far end of the hall. The walls were concrete and grimy.
The camera followed as Bentley turned into a doorway.
It was a dingy, rather rundown old basement storage room, poorly lit. It was filled with science apparatus and electronic gear; there were disassembled computer components and a multitude of odd-looking pieces and parts strewn everywhere.
Bentley’s back was front and center on screen, entering the room. Annie was not in the frame. Obviously, she was the cameraperson. “Yikes!” she said, her voice over the picture. “What is this place?”
Bentley turned to face the camera. “It’s an old storage room,” he answered. “Sister Claude lets me use it for my science projects. And that…”
He pointed to a corner of the room, and the camera followed. There was a complex, but obviously homemade contraption in the corner. It was essentially a very large cardboard box covered with wires, gauges, computer parts, and various other gizmos.
“…is my time machine,” he said proudly.
The odd-looking machine filled the screen as Annie’s perplexed voice said, “So, explain this to me again, Bentley. You’re going to travel through time…in a cardboard box?”
The camera moved to Bentley’s face as he said, “The box doesn’t matter. It’s all about quantum physics. I’m gonna warp the space-time continuum…” He stopped and thought about it for a moment, then continued. “Look, I don’t have time to explain it again right now. The window’s gonna close.”
“What window?” Annie asked.
Bentley flashed an exasperated look. “Not now.” He glanced at his watch. “Timing is everything in time travel.” He flipped a couple switches on the machine, and it came to life. Tiny colored lights winked on, some wheels began turning, and everything started vibrating. There was a low electronic hum.
He looked at the camera and said, “Set your tripod up over there,” pointing to a spot off to the side. “Just start filming, and leave it running. I need a witness.”
The view on the screen went black for a few moments. When it came back on the cardboard-box time machine filled the screen. The picture was noticeably steadier now with the camera mounted on a tripod.
The machine was vibrating wildly. There was a cacophony of humming and rattling sounds. Bentley stepped into the picture and walked up to the machine. He opened a cardboard hatch on the side and squirmed inside.
A whirring noise began, adding to the already considerable din. The whirring grew louder and louder, and a shower of sparks flew up from somewhere on the far side of the box. Then there was a loud POP, a bright flash of light, and a huge cloud of smoke billowed up and filled the screen.
“Holy moley!” Annie exclaimed, coughing.
When the smoke cleared, the machine was gone.
“Holy double moley!” she said, a tone of astonishment tingeing her voice.
On screen, nothing moved for a few seconds, then there was a loud crackling sound and bolts of static electricity filled the air. A whining buzz began, first very faint, then louder and louder, and…WHUMP!
The machine reappeared…out of thin air.
Thin wisps of steam emanated from the cardboard surfaces. After a few moments, the blinking lights winked out and all the whirling, spinning gizmos gradually slowed down and stopped.
Annie appeared on the screen as she rushed over to the machine. “Bentley?” she called out. “Bentley, are you all right?”
The hatch opened, and Bentley struggled to get out, stepping gingerly over the edge with one leg. He squeezed his body through the small opening, then followed with his other leg. He stood up and stretched.
As Annie watched, her mouth dropped open in astonishment.
Bentley was different. He was…taller. His clothes were nicer. The nerdy glasses were gone. And his features were strange somehow, more developed. More mature. He looked older. He looked like…a fifteen-year old.
As he stood there stretching the kinks out, Annie stammered, “Bentley? What…?” “Who are…?”
“It’s me, Annie,” he answered. “I went two hundred years into the future, to the year 2208. I stayed there for four years.”
