Susan Squires: A Twist in Time

She crouched beside the silver lunch box. “Blue switch. Check. Two whites. Check, check.” Her voice trembled. She looked up at a shout and saw a man lose his head. She screamed. She’d seen it in movies a lot. But real was something else entirely. No comforting latex, no soothing CGI. Blood spurted. The body staggered forward even as the head thudded to the ground and rolled. The attacker whirled away, beset on all sides.

The eyes are still blinking . It felt like someone else was thinking that. She was frozen, staring at the head as, behind it, the body toppled. Her breath started to come fast and shallow. Darkness threatened at the edge of her vision. Get hold of yourself, Lucy. Got to get out of here . With a wrench she pulled her gaze away from the head. The lunch box began to hum. Be quick. Please be quick. Quick. Quick . Now for the chrome button.

A hand on her shoulder pulled her away from the machine. Hard eyes examined her from behind the battered helmet. The man had bad teeth and worse breath. She struggled, but this time the grip was iron on her arm. He said something guttural. German?

“Let me go,” she screamed as though he could understand her.

A shadow loomed out of the smoke behind her attacker. The shadow roared something, and her attacker turned and met the descending sword by thrusting up his small, round shield. As the two engaged, the one who had been gripping her thrust her away. She plunged back to the power box and pushed the chrome button. The feeling of energy in the air thumped in her chest. She pushed herself up and went to the lever. The two giant men were hacking at each other, parrying and thrusting not two feet away. The younger of the two, who had attacked the one with bad teeth, seemed to be getting the better of the struggle. The rest of the battle was closing in on the machine. Huge men everywhere, sharp edges of steel, leather and sweat and blood. She reached up and pulled the lever down. The gears began to spin. Several men staggered away from the machine, pointing. But any lapse of attention could be punished with a killing blow, so the fighting sputtered but didn’t stop. The two giants stumbled even closer.

Machine! she thought. Get me out of here . The gears were really whirring now. In moments she would just disappear the way she came. November 9, 2009 .

Beside her the two men grappled with each other. The younger one thrust the one with bad teeth away. He fell right at Lucy’s feet. The younger one hurled himself on top, but the older man got his axe up and the blade cut the younger one’s thigh. Blood seeped through a long cut in the leather. They rolled and staggered up. But now the older man was like a fury, swinging the axe again and again. A white glow from the machine permeated the smoke. The older man picked up a mace lying over a dead body and swung it at the younger man’s helmet. It clanged. The helmet drooped. The older man reached across the body of his adversary for Lucy. His axe dripped blood. But the younger man pushed up with his sword and it found his adversary’s hip joint. The younger man struggled to his feet in front of Lucy and faced the one with bad teeth, now bared in rage. Was he protecting her?

Things began to slow. Oh, dear. It was happening. She had to focus. November 9, 2009 . She hadn’t brought anything back with her. Except the bruises she’d have from that guy’s grip. The colored beams of light crossed wildly through the smoke like a demented circus. The old guy thrust at the dazed man between them and sliced his shoulder. The younger man fell slowly against Lucy. Warm blood soaked her. In this time a wound like that was a death sentence. No S.F. General Trauma Center to stitch up those arteries. The older man raised his axe. It came down toward Lucy, oh, so slowly. She ducked, even more slowly. The axe head hit the huge diamond on the lever and crashed down onto the lunch box. The axe reverberated, sending the attacker back a pace.

Then everything sped up.

November 9, 2009 . She looked down at the man leaning against her, gore welling from rents in his chain mail. He really needed a hospital. The sensation of being flung forward engulfed her. All was light and sound and whirling vortex. . . .

“That story is . . . is balderdash.” Brad could see Jensen’s veins bulging on his forehead. Jensen ran the Super Collider Lab, but he was about to retire. Brad had thought by delivering an actual working time machine he’d become a shoo-in to get the job. That wasn’t exactly how it was working out. “There is no such thing as a time machine, and no mere girl could have stolen it.”

“Then how does a fourteen-foot machine just disappear without anyone noticing?” Brad was fighting for his professional life here. “No guards saw it being taken out, no reports in the neighborhood of trucks hauling huge cargo. But the guards did see Lucy.” Blaming it on Lucy was the only way to get clear, he told himself.

“I want him off the project.” Casey’s voice was calm. “He brought her in.”

“I can’t put him off the project until we’re sure there is no project.” Jensen ran his palms over his thinning hair. “On the off chance your story is some twisted version of the truth and the damned thing reappears, he’s the expert. You did say Leonardo da Vinci, didn’t you?”

Brad breathed again. He shot a glance to Casey. “I did. Miss Rossano had a book that showed its design, written by da Vinci in 1508.”

“You brought in a double agent,” Casey was sticking to their story that Lucy had taken the machine when their backs were turned as a matter of self–defense. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t spread a little blame around to Brad.

“You didn’t even know what the machine was until our research turned up the book.”

“ Our research? Hers. She played you like a violin, Steadman.”

“Innocent Lucy who always has her nose in a dusty book? She’s lost somewhere and can’t get back. You can sneer all you want, Casey. You just don’t want to admit I was right about this project all along. It’s the most important discovery since space travel.”

“ Was the most important discovery—” That was why Casey was angry. Brad knew how he felt. So close to the brass ring . . .

“What am I going to tell the Italian government?” Jensen practically wailed. “Or the police? They’re looking for Lucy Rossano, who has apparently disappeared into thin air.”

“We told you—”

“I’ll take care of the police,” Casey grunted, interrupting Brad.

“Find a way to get that machine back, Steadman,” Jensen threatened. “Or you’ll never work in any government-funded project again.” He spun on his heel and stomped out of the room.

Like energy leaves a trail through time you can track . Brad sighed. But he had to get Lucy back somehow. She needed his protection. She’d been just on the verge of realizing she was in love with him. She’d said he mattered more to her than just a friend, hadn’t she? Everything was spoiled now, just when all his patience with her since her father died was about to pay off.

“I’ll get her picture to Interpol. She must have taken it somewhere.”

Brad grimaced. “Or some time.” They both knew that if da Vinci’s machine was a time machine, she could take it where they’d never find it.

Casey’s eyes glittered. “In the meantime we’ll turn her life upside down. Let’s find out just who this Lucy Rossano really was.”

Lucy squeezed her eyes shut as though that would stop the headache. Had she been drinking? She never drank to the point of having a hangover.

She was lying on something cold and hard. She blinked her eyes open. Cement. A fluorescent light blared from somewhere close. She smelled oil. She raised her head gingerly. Lines were painted on the cement. Parking structure. She was lying in a parking structure. How had she gotten here? She’d had a wild dream. She’d been at Brad’s lab. The machine turned out to be real. One very scary battle in some other time. It all seemed so clear. One hell of a dream.