Susan Squires: A Twist in Time

“Okay. Give me the book. I’ll take a look. You wait in the lobby, Miss Rossano.”

Like hell. She wasn’t giving up her book. She leaned forward and stuck out her hand. “That’s Dr . Rossano. Nice to meet someone else who reads sixteenth-century Italian.”

Casey stared at her. Boy, if reptiles had blue eyes . . . He didn’t take her offered hand. He shot a disgusted glance to Brad. Then he gestured down the hall.

She saw Brad swallow as he led the way. Casey fell in behind them.

Brad opened a door at the end of a long hall. Lucy had memorized each detail of the diagram in Leonardo’s book. But that didn’t prepare her for the sheer size and weight of the machine standing on a platform across the lab. It gleamed faintly in the tiny work lights that still left shadows in the cavernous lab. The whole experience was like the first time she’d seen Rodin’s The Thinker in the sculpture garden at the Norton Simon Museum. Everybody knew what it looked like from pictures in countless art books. But that never prepared you. It was that dense occupation of space that gave it emotional resonance.

The giant, brass gears towering above her, immensely heavy, made her catch her breath and struggle for air. The gems that studded the wheels coruscated with emerald green, ruby red, and the blue of sapphires as big as your fist. Where had Leonardo gotten such jewels? A fortune winked from among the interlocking wheels, none bigger than the huge diamond that formed the knob of a control stick. Everything looked just as it was in the book, except for the lunch box–sized metal box bolted to the frame just under the largest wheel.

Could this medieval machine really send someone to another time? On the face of it, it was ridiculous. Yet if anyone could build a time machine surely it would be Leonardo da Vinci. Half scientist, half artist, in some ways he was more than either—a magician, perhaps. Was it that possibility that had fueled her obsession?

Both the colonel and Brad watched for her reaction. She thought Brad might explode with excitement. “It’s Leonardo’s machine, all right.” She couldn’t help that her eyes filled.

“Da Vinci?” Casey’s voice was sharp.

Lucy nodded. She could hardly see his light eyes in the dim room.

Brad tried to calm himself. He cleared his throat. “If the book is right, this machine could be more important than you’ve been thinking, Colonel.” Was Brad excited only to prove himself to Casey? Maybe.

Casey’s hard eyes reassessed her. “And you , Dr. Rossano, know what it is.”

She nodded slowly. Well, at least he’d never believe her. “Yeah. It’s a time machine.”

“A time machine,” Casey snorted. “Right. Are you crazy, Steadman?”

“No, you’ve got to see the book, Colonel,” Brad protested. He hurried to a long table that faced the machine and switched on a small work light. “Luce, bring the book and show him.”

Lucy hefted her bag off her shoulder. The book wouldn’t help a military guy believe. Huge girders loomed in the ceiling far above her. The place had that peculiar sterile environment that left only a faint metallic odor. She pulled out the book and spread it open. Casey leaned over it. Lucy pointed. “Leonardo’s signature.” She flipped pages to show the diagrams on assembly, key notes in the margins, mathematical equations. Then she flipped to the full drawing. Casey drew in a breath. She paged back. “Here’s where he says that time is a vortex. And here . . . he says the jewels focus the power.”

“How do I know that’s what it says?” Casey asked softly, his eyes darting over the text.

“You can check it with another expert in archaic Italian.” There. That would buy time. She could feel the machine looming above her, heavy with . . . with purpose. That was bad.

“How do you select a time? There are no dials or settings we could see.”

Lucy smiled. This would seal his disbelief. “It says in the book that you pull the handle and just think about the time you want to be in.”

Casey blinked once and chuffed a disgusted laugh. “Oh, great. I get the really good assignments.”

“Okay. I know it sounds a little out there,” Brad admitted. “That’s why we’ve got to try it. If we’ve spent a lot of someone’s money powering a machine that doesn’t do anything, better to know that now. If it’s a hoax, all the Italians have is a fortune in tourist dollars when they put it on display in the Uffizi. But if it’s not, then we’ve got something everybody is going to want.”

Lucy was dismayed at Casey’s look of speculation. He couldn’t be considering powering up the machine, could he?

“And then this wasn’t such a crappy assignment after all,” Brad continued. “In fact, you can probably name your next one.” Brad really struck a chord with that. Casey thought he’d drawn a crappy assignment and he was now thinking how nice it would be to come up with something incredible no one ever expected. “So why don’t we test it out? Right here. Tonight.”

No, no, no. Definitely not . Lucy looked around wildly. The machine seemed to be vibrating in satisfaction. “Wouldn’t . . . wouldn’t that be bad scientific method? You should do a . . . a controlled experiment.” Brad was always talking about controlled experiments.

“Well, we’ve got a problem,” Brad said, his eyes on Casey. “We can’t go to my boss, or your boss, and tell them we’ve got a time machine. We’d be laughed out of the office.”

“Well, yeah,” Casey said, dripping sarcasm. “I guess we would.”

“Unless we had proof. Come on, Casey.” Brad was on a roll. Sure of himself. “You want prestige and power. If it works, you’re in like Flynn. A time machine built by Leonardo da Vinci and powered by our project?” It must have killed him to share the credit for the project.

Casey was becoming convinced. He’d gotten that speculative look, in spades. “Your little lunch box over there works?”

“Of course it works,” Brad said through gritted teeth. “We successfully moved the gears today using a fraction of the power it’s capable of.”

“Could you go to the future?” Casey stared at the machine, even though he was addressing Lucy. He was caught by the possibilities. He would be the one to use the machine tonight. Maybe that was okay. But it didn’t feel right. She shook herself mentally. What was she thinking? She had to get out of here or something . . . momentous would happen.

But she answered anyway. “I don’t know. Leonardo was more interested in understanding the past. I guess if time is really a vortex you could go either way.”

Casey continued to stare. “What if you can’t power up the machine again once you’re there?” Oh yeah. She’d been through that possibility in her mind a thousand times.

“According to Leonardo, the machine can’t stay in another time forever. It’s too much pressure on the flow of time. It’ll snap back to where it came from with you or without you.”

“If he knows what he’s talking about. And if he doesn’t?”

She took a breath. “You get stuck there, along with your machine.” There. That should make them think twice about using it.

Brad looked desperate. He wanted the project to succeed that much. “Look,” he said. “There’s always risk. Somebody has to be first. Chuck Yeager had to go up and fly fast even though nobody knew what would happen when you broke the sound barrier. John Glenn had to go up in Friendship I. Sometime, somebody just has to do it.”

Casey peered at the illustration in the book, then straightened. “I agree.” He turned to Lucy. “How about her?”

Both Brad and Lucy were stunned. “She isn’t even part of the team,” Brad sputtered.