Prologue (30 page)

“It’s O.K.,” Amanda cooed. “I’ve got you.”

“Aw shit! This sucks!” Ginter said.

“It’s O.K.,” Paul said. “Just give her a few minutes. This is a shock to all of us.”

“Not her,” Lewis said. “That!”

Ginter pointed down the hill to the parking lot. A black and white four-door sedan with a red bulb light on the roof had entered the parking lot and was slowly crossing to the far side. Even from this distance Paul could see the word “POLICE” on the right front door. Ginter and deVere instinctively dropped back down.

Lewis scrambled over to the two women and pulled them lower. “Get down!” he commanded.

Paul lay back in the tall grass.

“Quick, the woods,” Ginter hissed. “Crawl! And keep down. Pamela, just shut up and trust us.”

Pamela and Amanda began squirming along the ground to their right toward the tree line. Paul deVere grabbed the duffle bag. He and Ginter crawled along behind. When the two women reached the trees they crawled past into the forest underbrush before turning and rising to their knees. Ginter and deVere scrambled past them and did the same.

All four watched the cruiser that had now stopped. A man in a blue uniform emerged and began searching the edge of the clearing.

“What’s happening?” deVere asked. “Why are we hiding? We haven’t done anything.”

Ginter leaned back against a tree trunk but kept his eyes on the officer.

“Well, let’s see. This is supposedly 1963 and by the look of that cruiser I’d say we hit it pretty close. We’ve got two white women and one white male and a black guy–and we’re rolling around in the grass in a park with no explanation as to why. When that cop asks for some ID, which one of you innocent geniuses is going to show him your Northeast District driver’s license with a birth date of nineteen
seventy something
?
You, Paul?
Or maybe you could show him your MIT faculty ID? Heck, he can call down to the school to check you out and well, just who would he ask for down there?”

Paul also slumped back.
“Point taken.”
He glanced at the cruiser. “But what’s he doing?”

“I don’t know, but he has company,” Amanda offered. A second cruiser was pulling into the parking lot. The first officer walked over and stood at the driver’s door speaking with the second officer. After about thirty seconds the second uniformed police officer exited his cruiser and the two walked along the edge of the parking lot peering at the ground.

“What are they doing?” Pamela whispered.

“Searching,” Ginter answered.

“For what?”

“For us,” Ginter replied.

“How can that be?” Amanda asked anxiously.

“That’s impossible,” deVere protested.

“Yeah, well, impossible or not they’re going to head up this way pretty soon.” Ginter turned to deVere. “You said you’ve been here. How do we get out of here?”

“That was thirty-seven years ago.” DeVere frowned. He pointed across the clearing.

“Over there behind those woods is the access road those cops just drove up. It winds down to the open area of the park. The park’s pretty big but once we get to the bottom of this hill it’s all open. Anyone could see us crossing it.

“Behind us the other way is The Ledge, an old granite quarry that filled in with water around the turn of the last century–or this century. Now it’s a swimming hole for kids. Has a big ledge you can dive off. Beyond that is a residential neighborhood.”

“We can’t cross any clearing,” Ginter said. “The cops will see us.” He pointed to the opposite tree line. “Is that the only road?”

“The only road up and down this hill,” deVere answered. “There are two reservoirs along that road. Water is pumped up from a local lake and gravity feeds the city.”

Ginter did not appear to be listening. He squatted, studying the two officers 100 yards away. They had stopped searching and were again conferring at the edge of the parking lot.

“What the hell is that?” Pamela asked.

Her three companions turned to look behind them up the hill. About 150 feet above them stood a solitary granite tower.
At its base hung a rusted iron door.
Graffiti was sprayed around the base. At the top was an open roofed observation platform covered with green boards. Over the door “Weston” was etched in the granite.

“An old observation tower,” deVere answered.

“We have to get rid of our IDs,” Ginter said.

“What?” deVere
asked.

“If we get caught we can’t say who we are,” Ginter continued. “It will do us no good. They’ll lock us up.”

Amanda nodded. “They had what they called insane asylums back then.
State Hospitals where they put just about anyone who was ‘crazy.’
Diagnosis didn’t matter. They’ll put us there.”

“I think they’re leaving,” Pamela said. The two officers had gotten back into their cruisers and turned their cars around. They proceeded slowly out of the parking lot.

“Could be a trap,” Ginter theorized. “They might be waiting for us down the road.”

“Why were they here?” Amanda asked. “Why would they be looking for us? How could they know? And if so why didn’t they come up the hill to look for us? If they knew we were here they’d know where.”

“You mean you guys weren’t shitting me?” Pamela asked. Her face betrayed terror. She gestured around her. “This is all fucking real, isn’t it? You have some sort of time machine, don’t you? This is really nineteen whatever?”

“Actually,” deVere began, slumping back down on the ground, “I can’t confirm the date. It’s supposed to be 1963 but who knows.”

“Why are we here?” Pamela asked. “Do you guys have some sort of plan or do you just travel through time to avoid CA agents?”

Ginter studied Pamela. “Actually, babe, our plan had been to bring back all kinds of stuff and convince President Kennedy to invade
Cuba
during the missile crisis by showing a bunch of newspaper editors the foolishness of not invading. But someone screwed up and we left early and weren’t able to get to 1962 and so it’s too late and now we don’t have anything to prove who we are.”

“O.K., stop the bickering,” Paul commanded. “We’re here, and that’s it. The damn thing worked, apparently. You didn’t happen to notice when the return wormhole is, did you?”

“Of course,” Lewis said. “
I
didn’t screw up.
December 8, 1963
,
3:15 p.m.
Train’s leaving from right here in
Derryfield
Park
. The park with the ‘y’ in the middle,” he added, looking at deVere.
“From right over there.”
Ginter pointed out at the clearing from whence they had just crawled.
“If anyone would want to go back.”

“What do you mean ‘want to go back?” Pamela asked. “Why the hell wouldn’t someone want to go back from 19 fucking whatever you said it was?”

“In case you all forgot,” Lewis answered, “when we were last in 2026 we were standing in a room with a very angry Russian with obviously no sense of humor who had recently had possession of what I saw to be an Iver-Johnson .38 pointed at us. If we go back through the wormhole we’ll arrive at the same time we left–just in time to catch four bullets I’d say.”

“But I knocked him down,” Pamela said. “He was on the floor. He may have been knocked out. He was at least groggy.”

“Groggy?” Ginter asked. He nodded. “Yeah, he was groggy. Do any of you have any idea how long we lay collapsed out in that clearing before we revived?”

When the other three looked at him blankly he continued. “Neither do
I
. But in the experiment we ran with a rat it was passed out for several minutes before it revived. Much as I suspect we were. If we go back the Russkie will probably come to before we do. And in case you also forgot our intern, Miss Nikitin, apparently pulled the fire alarm so not only is she lurking about, but the fire department, and also the District cops, are on their way. And who knows, there may actually be a fire so we may revive in time to burn to death.”

Amanda cleared her throat. “Couldn’t we, I mean couldn’t you, get a gun, then when we go back couldn’t we, you know, shoot first?”

Lewis shook his head. “There are two problems with that. One, while we’re still on the floor out cold I bet the Russkie revives and uses our bodies for target practice. The second problem is that without another Accelechron here we can only go back through the return wormhole and all that can go through the contrapositive”-he looked at Pamela-“that means ‘return’ wormhole, is whatever DNA and other material came through the first time. And unless one of you thoughtfully brought a gun…”

When no one responded he continued, “I didn’t think so. So, until we come up with a better idea I think that we’re here for awhile.”

“What’s to prevent that goon from jumping into the machine and appearing here?” Amanda finally asked.

“Can’t,” Lewis answered. “The vortex was closing when we jumped through. Even if he had jumped in a millisecond after us he would have appeared by now. Obviously, he hasn’t.”

“What do we all have?” Paul asked. He opened the duffle bag at his feet and rifled through it. “Money, money belts, the fake IDs,
New York
State
paper driver’s licenses for us three, that’s it,” he said.

Ginter swore. “No computers, no laptops, no printers, no newspaper printouts, no radios, no nothing.”

DeVere turned to Amanda.
“Anything from your end?”

She shook her head. “The laptops were in my office on the other side of campus. I didn’t have time to get them.”

She opened her purse. She reached in and carefully pulled out the sheaf of loose papers she had shoved in at the lab.

”I had printed out Kennedy’s daily itinerary and was studying it at home. I brought it with me to the lab.” She rifled through them quickly.

“I lost all of 1961 and much of 1962 but I seem to have all of 1963 with me.”

“Well,” Pamela said shakily, “at least we’re all alive.
Right?”

Amanda got to her feet, still groggy. She looked around. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed.