Susan Squires: A Twist in Time

The men from the outside came into the building. Galen could feel them behind him. Again he glanced back. They were shadows in the shadows behind Casey. No swords. But they carried long, heavy metal clubs oddly wrought and ungainly, swinging from straps on their shoulders or held at the ready. Galen did not know what these were, but he recognized the ready stance, the brandishing. They were weapons of some kind. Of that he was sure.

They were walking into the mouth of hell. At least that was what it felt like to Lucy. The lab doors opened. Leonardo’s time machine sat glittering on the platform of the two-story lab.

It was really beautiful.

“I’ll take that diamond,” Brad said through gritted teeth.

Galen held it out.

She wanted to shout that they should never have come, that this was all wrong. But it was no use now. Even as Brad snatched the huge diamond from Galen’s palm, a dozen men in military gear crashed into the lab behind them. Lucy whirled. They carried machine guns. She wished she’d told Galen about guns, how easy it was to kill from a distance. He mustn’t think his sword was any protection.

He didn’t move a muscle at the entrance of these ominous reinforcements. It was as though he wasn’t surprised.

Brad muttered to himself as he strode across the lab to the machine. He fitted the diamond into the newly repaired prongs at the head of the control lever. One of the lab-coated guys handed Brad what looked like a giant jeweler’s pliers. They must have been made specially, because they fit right over the diamond. He clenched the prongs tightly around the diamond.

He stepped back looking triumphant. Relief and anticipation coursed through the room.

Casey turned to Lucy and Galen. “Now, if you will give me your shoulder bag. That square outline means you’ve brought the book as well.” When Lucy hesitated, Casey gestured impatiently. “It’s not as though you have a choice here.”

She swung the bag over to him. He picked it up and fished out the book. That smile again. He glanced over to the machine. “Steadman, I have an urge to try it out. Just to see if your repair job worked. Ahhhh, but with whom? Our little bookseller isn’t trustworthy.”

This was it. This was her test of character. Could she embrace the tragedy for Galen’s sake? “Send Galen,” she said, her heart contracting. “He’s got to go back. The fact that he’s here has probably already changed things.” She refused to look at Galen. If she did, she’d cry.

Brad pushed past Casey, his eyes flashing. “You think I’m stupid? He takes it and brings it back to somewhere else in a month and you’ve got control of it again. If anybody is going to try the machine out, it’s me. It should have been me in the first place.”

Casey raised his brows at this outburst. “You didn’t have the guts the first time, Steadman. As I recall.”

Brad’s face was mobile with emotion.

“Not our Viking, either. I have some . . . questions for him.”

“Me, too.” Brad’s eyes were a little wild. “And I’d like to beat the answers out of him, twice a day, for a long time.”

“Steadman, you surprise me. You’re getting a backbone. A little late, maybe.”

Brad wheeled on Lucy. “And you, you slut—”

“Will you use the machine or nay?” Galen rumbled, cutting off Brad’s tirade.

“Okay, you.” Casey gestured to one of the assistants, a slight Hispanic guy. “You’re our lab rat.” The guy looked like a rat. A cornered rat. Panic surged into his eyes. He didn’t move.

“Casey, it’s got to be me. I want to go.” Brad looked to Lucy in triumph, as if that proved he was a better man than she was worth.

Casey looked disgusted. “You we need in case it doesn’t work. You’re the expert, the one who can fix it, remember?”

Brad stood, his chest heaving. His glance darted around the lab. Then he stilled. “Okay. Yeah.” He seemed to get some control back. “Get over here, Rodriguez.” Brad turned to face the machine. When the assistant didn’t move, Casey gestured to the military guys. Two moved up and pushed Rodriguez forward with the butts of their machine guns.

“This is going to change the world,” Brad said. “And I provided the power.” He knelt and flipped switches on the lunch box– sized power source. He didn’t seem to recall that it was Leonardo who built it. “Jensen never gave me credit for the quality of my research,” Brad muttered. “Fuck him. I’ll have his job.”

Brad stood in front of the machine. “Christ. I won’t need his job. I’ll have my own institute. ‘Multiphasic Research.’ That’s catchy.” He pulled the lever down. The machine began to whir. He grabbed Rodriguez. “Now where shall we send him?”

“You could see Alfred the Great change the world,” Galen suggested. The gems began to throw colored beams around the ceiling. Behind Lucy the military guys gasped.

Brad’s eyes lighted up. “The event that made us what we are today . . . the fall of the Danelaw to Alfred . . .” The machine seemed to pause. “Yeah, Rodriguez. Think about that.”

Casey tossed a gun he took from a holster under his jacket. “Just in case.”

Rodriguez didn’t catch it; Brad did. The assistant looked paralyzed with fright.

“Think of the twelfth day, fifth month of a.d. 912,” Galen called above the hum of power in the room. “The hill to the south of the plains outside Whitby.”

“Yeah,” Brad murmured. “Bet those cretins have never seen one of these.” The sound of his voice was almost lost in the hum. Whether he meant a time machine or a gun Lucy didn’t know. Galen took her hand. His calluses grounded her against what was about to happen here. Didn’t Casey see it? Brad was going back. Maybe he’d take Rodriguez with him, or maybe he’d shove the assistant out of the way at the last minute. But apparently everyone in the room was too ignorant of history to know that Alfred was already dead in 912. The battle between Alfred and the first King Guthrum was long won, and it had not eliminated the Danelaw, just controlled its spread. Brad was going back to the battle where Galen had fought Egil.

Suddenly the machine snapped into action. The gears all whirred into a blur. Casey darted forward, realizing Brad’s intent too late. Brad shoved Rodriguez, who stumbled back.

Brad and the machine both disappeared.

There was a long moment when the only sound in the room was the gasping of lungs and the click of weapons being readied against a foe that wasn’t corporeal but time itself.

Galen put his arm around Lucy’s shoulder. Casey looked around wildly. Rodriguez lay on the lab floor, gasping in relief.

“God damn it!” Casey yelled. “The fucking idiot.”

“What . . . what happens now, Colonel?” The lead military guy was lost.

“We wait,” Casey snapped.

They waited. If Brad was successful, he would be back within minutes, and even if—

The lights went out in the lab. What sounded like thunder boomed all around them, as if lightning had struck the building.

And then the machine was sitting on the platform once again.

Alone.

The lights blinked on. No Brad. But the machine’s bright surface was splashed in several places with red-brown. Lucy put her hand over her mouth.

Casey strode to the machine and examined it. “Looks like Steadman bought the farm.” Casey didn’t seem concerned.

Lucy’s imagination was working overtime. Brad set down in the middle of Galen’s battle. Slashing swords and swinging axes, the smell of blood and smoke—all as she remembered it. Brad would start shooting wildly. He’d kill people, but the clip would run out sooner or later. Then those left standing from both sides would fall on him. . . .