part 6

Eventually my body realized it would have to leave off making tears if I was to continue to have blood and other body fluids.

I sat up and rubbed my face with my hands. "I could use something to drink." I said.

"If that means we can stand up now, my ass thanks you." Adam replied. "This hardwood is beautiful, but I'm hoping somewhere in the house you have a seat made of something softer."

My butt was numb too. He got up slowly and then helped me stand. We held each other for a little while, rocking gently where we stood. Then I led him down the hall and into the kitchen where I opened the refrigerator. "I have milk, diet pop, sorry, some cranberry juice, water of course, there's a couple of beers from when the roofers were here," I said.

"A tall glass of cold water, no ice," he replied. I had installed an island counter with stools along one side and Adam eased himself into one of them. "I really like what you've done with your house. I've been dying to know what it looks like on the inside."

"I'll give you the nickel tour whenever you like." I poured two glasses of water from the pitcher in the refrigerator, one with ice and one without. We both drank long and deep before we spoke again.
"It sounds like you've been watching me," I said.

"Well, yeah. I hope you don't mind. I know it isn't fair, but I couldn't help myself. I mean, I don't want you to think I've been stalking you or anything, I didn't want to interfere with your life or drive myself crazy either, I just kept up with where you've lived and what you've been doing. I drive by the house occasionally. I never stop, just take a look. You know, twice in the last five years you've actually looked right at me and not recognized me."

I was a little stung by that. "When? There's no way I wouldn't have recognized you, you look exactly the same. You could at least have grown a beard as a disguise."

"I did," he laughed, "I shaved today just for this. See how my chin is lighter than the rest of my face?"

I looked at him carefully. "You're right, I hadn't noticed that! I don't know, it's hard to believe I wouldn't have noticed something about the way you look or walk. Some cues like that are hard to cover up. When did I see you?"

"I drove by here about two years ago. You were sitting on the porch with some guy and looked up as I cruised by. The other time was in the hall outside the English department. I went by to see what your office looked like, and I picked a time when you were supposed to be in class. But as luck would have it, when I turned the corner toward the main office, there you were, facing right towards me and talking with some older woman. I stayed on the other side of the hall and tried to keep some bodies between us, but I'm pretty sure you looked right at me as I went by. When I got out to my car my heart was pounding and I was shaking all over. That was just last February. Now don't shake your head like that, it's true. The reason you didn't know it was me is because I was wearing my hat, my shades, and my fake nose."

I had to laugh. "You have a fake nose?"

"No shit, it's awesome. I made it out of latex and it just slips over this one. It's not even really a whole nose, it's more like, uh, a nose 'fall'. It runs down the bridge and has two little strips that fold over the sides. I blend it in and it completely changes the shape of my face, since you can't see my eyes or my chin because of the shades and the beard. If I’m feeling particularly paranoid I take a little wax and put it behind my ears to make them stick out a little bit. Subtle little changes so I look different, but not like some kind of mutant. I'll show you sometime."

I was still laughing at the thought of Adam putting all this together. "I'm not sure what to think about being scrutinized all this time. I suppose I should feel like someone I love has been watching out for me. I just can't believe you've been here in town. It seems kind of dangerous."

"I actually live in the city, I've been there about a year. Before that I was in Denver, before that in Seattle. I just come up here every once in awhile to see how you're doing. And I don't wear the fake nose except when I'm in public around here."

"Do you have a secret identity?"

He held out his hand. "Meet Mike Dean."

"Mike Dean? Hmm. What made you pick that name? Mike . . . Dean."

"Mike is the most common male first name in the country. Dean is the first name I came to as I flipped through the phone book that doesn't belong to anyone I've ever known. Simple, but doesn't sound made up. All in all, a name that has no connection to me and doesn't stand out."

"Nice to meet you Mike. What do you do?"

"I program in UNIX and I build time machines."

I slammed my glass down on the counter and stared at him. A chill went up my spine. "You made another one?"

"I made five of them."

I was stunned. "You have five time machines?"

"Well, I only have three. You know what happened to the first one. The second one didn't work very well so I tore it down to build the third one. It didn't work at all, but I learned so much from making it that I didn't need any of the parts so I kept it. The fourth one works like a charm but it's a little small. It's kind of my favorite. The fifth one is finished and thoroughly tested. It's as big as a locomotive and can send anything that will fit through a two meter opening anywhere in time you want." He was grinning from ear to ear.

"Oh, my god."

It was time for me to sit down again.

I stepped around Adam and sat on the stool next to him. My head was filled with many different thoughts clamoring for my attention, but I shielded myself from the worst and picked the most innocuous one. "So you came to take me for a ride?"

"Well, not yet. I'm hoping somewhere down the line we'll have a chance to go through it, but we'd need the resources of NASA to pull if off. I expect to get them though."

I put my hand on his shoulder. "It works perfectly but we can't use it. This is the point where you get cryptic and start confusing the hell out of me before you straighten everything out so I can understand. Please, let's skip the confuse me part and go right to the make me understand part. I know you know what I need to know, please, please, make me know it now." I kissed him gently on the cheek.

"OK, I know what you mean, sorry. All right, here it is. There's still one thing I want to save as a surprise, but this is what's going on. You may have forgotten what I was telling you the night I showed you The Thing, so I'll just give you the whole story again.

He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “The Thing worked exactly the way I designed it to work, it accelerated a material object along the time continuum. The problem was that it put two things together in the same place at the same time. That's a bad thing, as you witnessed. So obviously I needed to make one that would accomplish the same goal in a different manner, and that's what I've done. But there's a separate issue that remains. There's a property of temporal displacement that makes it inherently impossible to do what the time machines in science fiction stories do, the way people in general anticipate how time travel would occur. That's the assumption I had to throw out, lo those many years ago, in order to reveal how time travel is actually possible. It works, but it doesn't work the way you think it would. Now, I know that's not what you want to hear, but if you'll just bear with me, I can take you to the lab right now if you like, and we can turn it on, and send something through it into another time, and after you see how it works you'll understand everything. And you won’t want to go for a ride. Yet."

I was still reeling from his appearance and now he was telling me about a working time machine that didn’t work.

"Let me see if I understand this. Somewhere, right this minute, standing in your lab, is a fully functional time machine?" He was smiling and nodding enthusiastically. "And even though you say I wouldn't want to, I could actually, not theoretically, actually use it right now to travel to another time, any time, a thousand years ago or a thousand years from now?"

Still nodding, "In a word, yes."

I was getting chills again. I was talking to Adam Janus, and he had made a time machine. For five years my sense of the significance of this accomplishment lay buried, interred with the other thoughts and images that still brought me pain. In this moment however, my sense of awe began to mount again, in the face of an event of historic proportions and my proximity to it.

"Oh, my god," I said again, as usual. But I didn't want to give up my expectations. "So, could I travel back a hundred years and talk to the people who lived here then?"

"Uh, no."

"Right. You said it doesn't work the way I think it would. But you'll explain everything? And I'll be satisfied with your explanation?"

"Yes, and yes."

"I see," I said. I thought about it for a second. "OK, let's go."

"Right now?"

"Adam, you're offering to show me a time machine. My alternative right now is to do housework."

He laughed. "Of course. First, I have a small request to make."

"Your wish is my command."

"Oh, yeah? Well let me think, I may want to change my request."

"I'll still say yes."

"OK, I was going to ask for a sandwich, but I have a better idea."

He picked me up and carried me into the bedroom where we made love with the urgency of the reunited, and afterward I cried again, naturally, and then we lay in each other's arms and talked and laughed as if nothing of what had hurt us so much for so long had ever even happened.

Eventually, the conversation returned to the time machine. "Have you ever traveled in time?" I had to ask.

"Not yet, but it’ll happen. I see a day when ordinary people in wholesale numbers will time travel short intervals just like they ride on airplanes today. I can think of all kinds of applications that you wouldn't normally associate with time travel."

"Really?" I was starting to get excited again. "You just have to figure out a way to tell people about it without worrying some asshole is going to kidnap you."

"You know, I think you might be right," he replied, and sat up. "The most important thing is to make sure no one has exclusive control over the technology. That's why this morning I uploaded everything I've done to about twenty locations all over the world. I mean everything, all the theoretical stuff, all the mathematics, all the engineering, all the specs, all my test results and data, everything. Then I sent URLs to around a hundred people who would either understand it or want to disseminate it. It's already done, it's too late for anyone to stop it. Not only that, but I've arranged a demonstration for tomorrow and there should be about forty people there, mostly physicists and reporters. It's going to be a circus, but tomorrow evening it should be on every TV station on the planet."

I started laughing before he was finished. Then I threw myself on him and started kissing him all over. "This is going to be so much fun!" I said. "And I get to see it first! Let's go!" I bounced out of bed and grabbed my clothes.

He hesitated. “Any chance I could get that sandwich before we go? I haven’t eaten all day.”

“Adam, it’s nearly one, didn’t you eat any breakfast?”

“Too nervous. Not anymore, I’m ready to eat my fingers.”

“You’re welcome to anything I have. I’m going to jump in the shower. Then I'll be ready to face the future . . . and the past." I felt wonderful.

By the time I was done and dressed, he had made us both sandwiches and eaten nearly all of his.

"Sorry, I couldn't wait.”

"You need to replenish your glycogen." I replied. "You're going to need plenty of strength for tomorrow, and who knows, you may wind up getting some more exercise later anyway."

"Yeah? Well, you know best. This is great, having a personal trainer."

"And you're my only client, so you'll have my undivided attention."

"You just want a ride in my time machine."

"Hey, let's go, you're done and I can eat this in the car!"

I don't know how long it took us to drive to Adam's lab, maybe an hour and a half, it must have been longer than it seemed. We wound our way through an industrial district to an old, two story, red brick building that looked to be a small warehouse. The parking lot may have been paved at one time, but now it was mostly dirt and weeds.

Adam used a remote to open one of two large garage type doors on the end of the building and we drove inside. The space was empty except for some boxes stacked here and there, and we parked against a wall that looked like it separated the storage area from offices.

One of these had been converted to a simple living space which was actually quite nice. There was a modern kitchen with a big island, tables and chairs, entertainment center, and a queen size bed that left me wondering who he had shared it with over the years. Everything looked very comfortable.

“Can I get you something young lady? A cold, refreshing beverage perhaps?”

He was enjoying this.

I looked at the far wall. “It’s in there, isn’t it?”

He raised his eyebrows and nodded as he leaned against the kitchen counter and folded his arms.

With a subtle inclination of his head he indicated the door on the other side of the room. He was grinning like a cheshire cat.

“Just go on in?” I asked.

“Door’s open.” he replied.

I stepped up to it, threw it open with a flourish, and stepped into the room beyond.

It was one open space. There was no second floor, the room opened all the way to the roof and two rows of windows on each side filled it with light. There were tables and shelves covered with electronic equipment along each wall and in the center, just opposite where I was standing, was a console right out of Star Trek. Curved and tilted towards the operator, it was a glossy black surface covered with lights and displays of all kinds, facing a big upholstered chair on a swivel. But the room was dominated by a single object that lay in the space beyond, a huge, roughly cylindrical array of components and wires and big, black or stainless steel or otherwise unidentifiable elements arranged along an axis in a manner similar to the one I had seen before. It wasn't really as big as a locomotive, but it was big, at least twenty feet long and from four or five feet to about ten feet in diameter. The end pointing directly at me was a round opening, hollow for a few feet and covered by a thick piece of transparent plastic or glass held in place by four big clamps with long handles. In the covering was an opening, about two feet square, with a door and a little shelf on the opposite side.

A time machine.

"Wow," was all I could say.

Adam made no attempt to show me around or tell me about what I was seeing, he just stood behind me and let me soak it all in at my own pace. I walked slowly through the workspace. Along the sides of the machine were more tables covered with electronic gear and computer monitors, with wires and cables running everywhere. I inspected both sides carefully, even though I couldn’t identify anything I saw.

“It looks like a rocket engine laying on its side,” I remarked.

“Very good, Vorta. That’s exactly what I tell people I’m working on.”

I saw no reason to be timid. I returned to the console, looked over the array of instruments, and carefully seated myself.

The chair swiveled silently back and forth as I inspected the surface of the console. I had no idea what most of it represented, however there were a few things that were very clear, even to me. High on the left was a large digital display that indicated the current date and time. On the right was an identical display containing only zeros. Below each was a numeric keypad.

Dead center in the front surface of the console was a circular recess, and inside it was a horizontal handle with a black rubber grip. Above the handle, on the top surface of the console, was a large green light.

I reached out carefully and grasped the handle, gently at first, then more firmly. In a few moments Adam would turn this and something he selected would travel in time. I took a deep breath, withdrew my hand and let the chair embrace me. My heart was beating very fast. Behind me, Adam spoke.

"Care to take'er for a spin?"

"Oh, my God." I said. "Oh, my God."

"Are you going to say that every time you see a time machine?" said Adam. "You seem settled in and I don't see any reason not to get this baby online. That's what we're here for eh?"

He was beaming. He strolled over and stood next to me. “I see you’ve met Mr Switch. Go ahead and reach in there again.”

I did as he directed.

“Now, this light is green, which means it’s safe to turn Mr Switch. Go ahead, rotate it clockwise.”

I looked at him uncertainly.

“Go ahead, nothing will happen. Get a feel for how it moves, it takes some effort to turn.”

I began to rotate the handle as he indicated. It moved smoothly but there was a firm, even resistance.

“It rotates ninety degrees. Horizontal is off, vertical is on.”

I took two or three seconds to accomplish this. When it reached vertical, there was a muffled but very satisfying click.

“Good, now back the other way.”

I repeated the procedure in reverse. This was fun.

“Want to try that again, just for practice?” he asked.

“Nope. Not until it counts. You’re going to let me operate this thing?”

“Yer damn right, cap’n.” As he spoke he reached over my shoulder and began to enter data and the time machine came to life.

“Now,” he explained, “Here’s why this one won’t blow up. Rather than try to move an object along the time continuum, this device generates a field that opens a window into the other time." The computer screens came on, displaying various graphs and other mysterious images. "It's synchronized with the other local time flow and inertia so that as something moves from this time to the other time through this portal," he indicated the covered opening, "it moves into the other space naturally, displacing what's there if it can."

Different parts of the machine began to make noises, hums and whines, and I thought I could feel static electricity in the air.

"This synchronization is very important, because if I were to establish a fixed target time, it would be similar to the situation with the first machine. If you put something through, the first part of it is already there at that time and so on. This is calibrated so the time on the other side is flowing at the same rate as the time on this side, just displaced by a fixed amount." He stepped back. "There you go. It needs about forty seconds to warm up and then we'll be ready to rock. When it's reached operative status, yellow lights will start blinking all over the place, there on top of the portal, across the top of the console here, and down inside where the switch is."

"Oh my god, Adam, this is so cool. You've done such a great job with this console thing. It's all done so professionally, like something from a movie."

"Well thanks, that's the effect I was going for. I'm glad you like it, it was a little extra work, but I think it was worth the effort."

"Me too, believe me, it's just beautiful. Why is the opening covered? Is that made of glass?"

"It's acrylic. It's to keep what's over here, here, and what's over there, there."

"I don't understand."

“Well, we don’t know what conditions are going to be like on the other side. What if there’s a fire or a tornado or something? Even modest differences in temperature and air pressure can be big problems.”

“That sounds like a reasonable precaution.”

“Exactly. It could even be worse. Say you set it to a year from now but in between the Vogons have destroyed the Earth. You’d have an open window into a total vacuum and air pressure would blow us and everything in here right out into space.”

“Ok, I get the picture. Beware the Vogons.”

“I certainly avoid them.”

I was getting another picture too. “So it's a two way portal. Something from the other time can come here?"

"Yep. Light too, it's very cool, you can see into the other time, and anyone in the other time can see into this one, it's just an open door between the two."

"And the little door is so you can put things in there and send them to another time?"

"Exactly."

"And through the acrylic, you can watch everything."

"Right again. And tape it and so forth."

"Hmm, what's to stop me from setting this thing to half an hour ago, walking through the door into that time, and meeting us when we came in?"

"Do you remember meeting yourself just now? That's one hint that you won't do it, and in a minute you'll show yourself why you couldn't do it."

At that moment I was startled as a deep tone sounded a warning and the lights he had indicated all came on simultaneously. I sat bolt upright and began wringing my hands.

"Oh, Adam, this is so exciting!"

“Ok, it’s operational. That means that the switch you were turning is also online. The next time the little fellow hits vertical it’s showtime.”

“Got it.”

“Now, before we start shooting random jetsam from my workshop into other unsuspecting eras, maybe we should take a quick peek into some other time just to get your feet wet.”

“Whatever you say!”

"All right, pick a time, and just enter it there. The display indicates plus or minus the time we turn it on. It's not that important, you're just going to see the same thing anyway."

"What are you talking about? That doesn't make any sense. I'll see the same thing if I set it for an hour from now as I will if I set it for a thousand years ago?"

"Well, not exactly, but it will look that way. In a moment, I’ll explain the terrible secret why."

"If I set if for an hour from now, won’t I be looking at the inside of the time machine an hour older?"

"Nope.”

“Ok, let’s start with an hour from now.”

“Excellent choice. Just touch the hour display to select it . . good, just type in a one . . there, that’s all there is to it. Now, whenever you're ready, turn the switch you've been fondling so suggestively, and we’ll take a look into yon future.”

“Just like that?”

“Just, as you say, like that. It's ready, are you ready?"

"I’m ready, let's go!"

I reached into the recess and grasped the rubber grip. It was soft and warm and comfortable. Before I could begin, the door was smashed in and uniformed men with rifles started pouring into the room. In seconds the walls were lined with gun barrels. In the moment of stunned silence that followed this invasion, a stocky man in a suit entered slowly behind them and stood surveying the situation. I had never seen him before, but I knew who he was before Adam said his name, quietly and with disgust.

"Pike."