Going Back Page 22

As Ben turned to face Agent Hessman, a puzzled Claire looked at them both briefly, wondering what they were talking about.

  “We won’t be altering a thing,” Ben said. “Claire has all the signs of influenza and will not survive through 1920. I’ve checked, and there is nothing that a Claire Hill contributes to history.”

  “Well, I like that,” Claire pouted. “I know I haven’t made it yet. But . . . wait, what?”

  “Ben—”

  “What she has will kill her in her century, but in ours she can be saved. Quite easily, in fact.”

  “Ben, we don’t even know if that would work.”

  “It did for Sue; we saw the two of them whisked away.”

  “You could end up a pile of tangled limbs bleeding together for all we know.”

  “It’d be just like anything else on us. The clothes we wear, the tools we have on us. Lou, I could bring Claire back with my beacon; then we get a med team to fix her up. History would not be altered in the least. The machine will dump my consciousness back into my original body and create a projection for Claire from the energy of her body, which will then become her new permanent body once the machine shuts down.”

  Claire followed about half of that, shook her head, and gave up.

  “She’ll be out of her time,” Agent Hessman countered.

  “I already am,” Claire snapped, and then more gently to Ben, “You would do this just to save me?”

  “It would be a one-way trip,” he told her. “We could get you fixed up, but there would be no coming back for you because history‍—‍”

  “History records me as dead and gone in a year. Yeah, I get that. I get to live, but forever in another time.”

  “That’s about the size of it. That is, if Lou here says it’s okay.”

  “Give me one good reason why I should allow this,” Agent Hessman said.

  Ben said nothing but reached out his hand for Claire to slip hers into.

  “Yeah, it always comes down to that.” Agent Hessman sighed. “Very well; I leave it up to Miss Hill.”

  “Claire,” Ben said, “you’ll be encountering all sorts of new things and strange sights, but if you’re willing, you can join me in my time.”

  “It sounds a little scary,” she said after a moment’s pause. “Heck, it sounds a lot scary . . . Do they have women reporters in your century?”

  “Are you kidding?” Ben grinned. “Your hero Nellie Bly was just the first in a small army of them marching through history.”

  “And you’re going to be there?”

  “Well, of course. And I’ll always . . . that is, I’ll . . . be there for you.”

  She saw the sudden shy look, grinned, and spun around to face Agent Hessman. “Then let’s do this.”

  “Very well, but not here,” Agent Hessman said. “Someplace less out in the open. Quickly.”

  He led them in a swift march back beneath the bridge, where the three of them stood near the shore of the river. First Agent Hessman took out his beacon, then Ben his while Claire clung close to him. They stood for a moment looking out across the water as Claire held close and nuzzled into Ben’s shoulder and chest.

  “You two first,” Agent Hessman told them. “That way I can confirm the disposition of the last of my team.”

  “Okay then,” Ben said. “Hold on tight, Claire.”

  She wrapped both arms around his waist, her chest pressing up against his and head tilted up to regard him with a look of longing. Ben held up uncertainly, his beacon ready in his left hand while the woman in his arms looked . . . expectant. When he failed to do anything but stammer and look uncertain, Claire rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, for the love of God, are all men in your century this afraid of kissing a woman?”

  Because the year 1919 was during a comparatively conservative time period regarding relationships, Ben was caught by surprise when Claire reached up and planted a kiss right on his lips. His eyes bugged out wide as they held the pose. Then, with lips still locked, Claire reached down and pressed her hand into Ben’s, specifically the one holding the beacon.

  Lights exploded from within them both, that look of shock frozen on Ben’s face as he and Claire melted away into the night. A new star grew beneath the bridge and was gone in a wink.

  “Well,” said Agent Hessman once they had both fully vanished, “about time one of them did that. I thought they’d never kiss.”

  With that, he pressed the button on his own beacon, and soon he, too, was lost to a flare of twisting lights, no longer to be seen in this place and time.

  36

  Love Finds a Way . . . Finally

  Inbound travelers. Looks like our last two returning.”

  General Karlson came rushing up to the control booth as the announcement was made. The chamber before him and the team in 2019 had a ceiling resembling a small star, and through its central pupil some returning specks lit up the room, accompanied by a thunderous roar. Already all but two pods had been opened and emptied, and now the technicians were ready to scurry in yet again once the remaining two travelers returned to their bodies. First came a flicker of starlight lashing out from the eye down one of the cables, awakening the status monitor of one of the pods below.

  “Special Agent Hessman’s vitals coming to life,” one technician reported from his monitor to the general. “All signs look alive and well.”

  “That’s a good sign,” General Karlson said with a breath of relief. “What about Professor Stein?”

  “He’s coming in slower than he should, but it looks like . . . Wait a second. We have a mass imbalance.”

  “A what?” the general said. “Explain.”

  “I can’t,” the technician replied, frantically working his controls. “We have something else coming through that wormhole. Attention, all techs,” his voice rang out through the chamber below. “The instant Professor Stein wakes up, get him out of that pod immediately. We have a biomass signature coming through. Repeat: Stein’s carrying a passenger, and there’s not enough room in that pod for the both of them!”

  From the rear of the control booth, General Karlson heard but still shook his head in disbelief. “But how can that be possible? I thought only their consciousnesses were sent back.

  “And a new body formed for them at the other end, yes,” a second technician quickly explained as he worked his own part of the board. “But it might be possible, if he was holding on to someone at the other end, for the energy umbilical to dissolve that person into an energy stream that he draws back with him the same way he would anything he was holding. If theory holds, a new body forms here around the consciousness of that other person.”

  “Wait, a person?”

  “Yes, General; I’m getting a second set of brain waves.”

  Another spark lit up on its way down to the one remaining pod. A pair of technicians was helping Agent Hessman out of his pod when Professor Stein’s pod popped open. No time to let him rouse on his own, the instant the instruments showed brainwave activity, another pair rudely yanked him out and slammed the lid behind him. They were thus barely in time to witness the unexpected.

  Directly from the eye of the wormhole itself, a second pulse of energy shot down Professor Stein’s cable and passed harmlessly through the pod’s lid to meet with the interior workings and fill the pod’s interior with a blinding blaze of white light. Professor Stein was barely on his feet as the brightness enveloped the pod, a concerned look crossing his features, while off to the other side Agent Hessman managed a tired grin.

  A final flare nearly blinded all within the chamber and then was gone as suddenly as it had come. All was normal save for the reading on a screen in the control booth.

  “We have biosigns within Professor Stein’s pod. Repeat, we have additional biosigns. Medics and quarantine team to the chamber immediately.”

  That
voice was followed by another bellowing out from the control booth, one that needed little in the way of amplification to be heard.

  “This is General Karlson. Shut down the wormhole. Shut it all down. Then someone tell me what the heck is going on out there!”

  Ben didn’t wait for anyone to help but burst past the techs helping him and sprang open the lid. She lay there, dressed as she had been a moment before, eyes fluttering open to behold Ben standing over her, backlit by the light from the star behind him as the spinning blades gradually slowed.

  “Now that was a kiss.” She smiled. “Not bad for a first effort.”

  “Claire,” Ben said, reaching down a hand, “how do you feel?”

  He pulled her up; then one leg at a time she climbed out of the chamber, her eyes never leaving his own.

  “Pretty spry for a one-hundred-twenty-four-year-old lady,” she quipped.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dimming glare of the apparatus overhead, she found herself panning from one miracle to another. She saw wondrous devices she had no names for, as well as materials of a workmanship unknown in her era. She glanced up to see the blades and giant ball they were attached to now coming into focus as they spun ever slower, enough now to see the walls of wire wrapped around the hundred-foot bubble above them. Then she looked over and saw in the control booth the somewhat displeased look of a man with three stars on his shoulders.

  “I’ll handle the general,” Agent Hessman said to the pair, “but first someone get me a computer pad.”

  One tech rushed out to one of the devices at the far end of the chamber to retrieve the requested item, while General Karlson left the control booth and entered the chamber as another team marked with red crosses on their shoulders came in through the main entrance.

  “Over here,” Ben signaled to the medics.

  Ben led Claire to the center of the elevated circle of pods, Agent Hessman following them, though more to interpose himself between them and General Karlson as the latter came storming over, an obvious question the first thing from his lips.

  “Who, in all creation, is that?”

  “In a minute,” Agent Hessman replied, holding up a hand. “First have to check and see what’s what. Ben, I’ll need to synch with your hand computer as a cross-check.”

  “Immediately, Lou.”

  As one tech brought up a computer pad to Agent Hessman, Ben took his portable computer from a pocket and walked over to stand next to him. Seconds later, both devices were synched.

  “Doing a quick comparison on history of the period,” Ben muttered. “Should have the results in a moment.”

  Frustrated by the lack of anyone willing to face his wrath, the general turned to Claire, who replied with a bright smile and an offered hand. “Claire Hill, reporter. Late of the year 1919. I think I may have some catching up to do.”

  “Miss Hill,” General Karlson replied, not taking the hand but managing to reign in his anger with a polite smile. “Now, if someone would kindly explain‍—‍”

  “Results coming in,” Agent Hessman suddenly called out.

  For a moment all fell into silence. No one spoke, even the general holding his tongue, and the sound of the blades above quickly disappeared completely as they drifted to a stop. The only thing that mattered at this point was if the mission had been a success or not.

  “World War II . . . ,” Agent Hessman read off, “check. All parameters match up. The Holocaust . . . sadly, that too lines up. From the looks of it . . .”

  Agent Hessman spent another moment to confirm, reading through the screen’s display comparing the data from the main computer versus what had been stored in Professor Stein’s computer upon his departure.

  “Everything checks out. General Karlson, we have complete mission success.”

  A scattered cheer went up from the milling techs, even General Karlson letting out a sigh of relief. A moment later an announcement came from the booth: “Mission confirmed. We are no longer reading a TDW. Repeat: we’re clear.”

  “Good,” General Karlson said with a tired nod. “Now, Special Agent, if you would kindly explain a couple of things.”

  “All will be detailed in the briefing,” Agent Hessman replied, “but first Miss Hill here has an old-fashioned case of influenza that needs looking after.”

  “Medics”—Ben signaled to the ones who were waiting by the sidelines‍—“the lady here needs some looking after.”

  Two medics stepped forward, but Claire clung all the closer to Ben as they came.

  “It’s okay, Claire,” he assured her. “They handle this sort of stuff all the time.”

  “I’m still not leaving your side.”

  “It’s okay,” the first medic said with a smile. “We can give you a quick antibiotic, then examine you more thoroughly later.”

  “An anti-what?”

  While the medic was fishing out a pill for Claire to swallow, the general was back to glaring at Agent Hessman.

  “First off, what about the others?” Agent Hessman asked.

  “Lieutenant Phelps and Dr. Weiss are currently in comas,” the general told him. “I don’t know what happened out there, but their consciousnesses returned and they haven’t woken up.”

  “And Agent Harris?”

  The general hesitated for a moment before replying, “Phelps and Weiss might come out of it, but Agent Harris . . . her readings completely flatlined at one point. We took her out of her pod immediately and have her on life support, but no one knows what to make of it. Now, what happened, and who is this young lady?”

  “What about Captain Beck?”

  “What about me?”

  Agent Hessman spun around to see Captain Beck walking up to the platform with a tired grin on his face. Claire had just finished swallowing a couple of pills and something blue and fluid when she saw him and brightened. “Robert! You’re alive!”

  She leaped over to greet him with a big hug and a quick kiss on his cheek.

  “I awoke in a very much alive and well body, though a bit mentally frazzled,” Captain Beck replied. “Still am, actually. Just something about going from near death to perfect health in the blink of an eye that gets a bit confusing. But what about yourself? How is it that you are here?”

  “Ben took a chance.” She shrugged.

  “Then may I be the first to say welcome to our century, Miss Hill.”

  “You may indeed.”

  “If that’s all finished with,” the general interjected, “can we try this once again?”

  “General,” Ben said, stepping up beside Agent Hessman in support of his friend, “there’s a lot we have to tell you in the briefing, but may I now simply say this. At one point we had a discussion on if all our modern benefits are worth what we went through to get them. Of the people on the two different teams we found back there like ourselves, the bulk of them were trying to get a better Present for everyone, but we finally decided that the present we know and have dealt with is better that any unknown alternate possibility. It may in fact be that World War II and the Holocaust were inevitable. That maybe the larger events are beyond anyone’s ability to change when it comes to time travel.”

  “A nice sentiment that I shall include in the report,” the general began, “but if I may‍—‍”

  “But, as I think we have just proven,” Ben continued, with a smile to Claire, who slipped over to his side, “there may be times when we can at least change the little things.”

  “I see,” General Karlson said, his tone a bit more subdued, “and I might even approve save for one question.” He stepped over to look at them both, his gaze settling on Claire as he spoke. “I gather they swept you up from the past.”

  “Direct from the year 1919,” she said with a smile.

  “Are you anyone that history will miss? I hate to sound harsh, but before you leave this cham
ber and see anything else, I must know, or you’re going straight back to when you came from.”

  They held gazes for a moment, and the general soon discovered that Claire was someone who could stand up to his practiced glare. Ben was quick to rise to her support, his arm wrapping itself around her waist.

  “From everything that I can tell,” he said, “she is no one of any historical consequence . . . except that I think I love her.”

  “About time you said that out loud,” Claire began. “Now do I have to get forward again, or are you going to‍—‍”

  Ben quieted her with a kiss, one long and deep, for the first time in his life taking the initiative. An act which neither Claire, nor anyone in the chamber grinning at the sight, seemed to mind.

  “Good enough for now, I suppose,” the general said, turning away.

  He was about to question Agent Hessman further on some matters, but the other had stepped away from the techs and soldiers to a relatively quiet spot in the chamber. While the medics came in to escort Claire and Ben away for a more complete examination, General Karlson joined the team leader.

  “Lou, you’re worried about something, and that worries me. What have we missed?”

  “About the mission? Nothing,” Agent Hessman answered. “But this whole thing just got me to thinking. If one group traveled back to change history‍—‍”

  “Then someone else might try to do so again?” the general finished for him. “And next time not be as nice.”

  “Three time machines, three chances at messing up history,” Agent Hessman stated. “And that’s not even counting the possibility of something like a terrorist group getting control of one for their own purposes.”

  “An unsettling possibility, I’ll admit. What would you recommend?”

  For a few moments Agent Hessman paced; then he stopped and looked the general straight in the eye. The answer he gave was one the general expected, indeed had seen coming since before the start of the mission, but now Agent Hessman at last gave voice to it.

  “We need to set something up to monitor time travel before history outruns us.”