Steam City Pirates (8 page)

“I see. We Catholics expect this Messiah to be the second visit paid by Jesus. Who cares? As long as we get the same result,” I said.

When Bessie and Seth arrived at noon, I wanted to immediately ask him about the
mazikeen
. He was in his usually high spirits, and he wore knee pants and a blue suit jacket with white shirtsleeves. His mother was wearing her black dress for public mourning of her husband, Arthur. Seth was still insisting his father would be returning to us because he was also half-angel and had merely “disappeared.”

“Seth, I have an important question for you, old boy,” I said, and he immediately left his fiddling with the time machine to walk over to me and give me his undivided attention.

“Yes, Detective, what is it you would like to know?” He searched my face with his eyes.

“We had a visit from a young woman before we came over here. She said she was also a
mazikeen
, and she had a rather large sword at my throat at the time she stated it, so I was listening quite carefully. She had also taken on the physical aspect of Miss Charming after having tied her up in the bedroom. She was attempting to find out information from me. One might also note that in her
mazikeen
identity all of her teeth were made of gold. Luckily, I was able to trick her so that I retrieved my pistol and had the upper hand,” I said.

Seth’s eyes were widening as I continued the story.

“She used her final abilities by disappearing and flying out the window,” I said. “How many of you are there? Should we expect more of her kind in the future?”

Seth furrowed his brow in concentration. “As a future scientist, Doctor Albert Einstein, once said, ‘Space and time are not separate entities but are different directions in a single object called space-time.’
Mazikeen
also seem to be separate entities, but they are opposites serving on the same space-time continuum. Whenever one of our kind enters into the conflicts of mankind, and we take a side, then our other half becomes a part of the opposing side. A philosopher, Georg Friedrich Hegel, believed the only truth is in the whole and that whenever we oppose each other we can overcome our differences only through a process of synthesis, which keeps the best parts of both sides and leads to a more complete solution.”

“Seth is quite right. The Hegelian Dialectic is well known in German thought. Go on, my boy,” Doctor Adler said.

“The point is, when I chose to become part of your group, my dialectical opposite became part of this other group. In the world of the
mazikeen
, there can only be one other oppositional entity. However, for example, if my father were to return and decide to become part of our group, then his opposite side would immediately join with the opposing forces. Is that clear?” Seth asked.

“Yes. I think I understand,” I said. “You mean there can only be one opposing or evil
mazikeen
for every good
mazikeen
who joins our group.”

“Correct. Although I must point out, Detective O’Malley, that even though you may look upon your adversaries as enemies, I must take a more Hegelian position and look upon them as the necessary antithesis on the road to wholeness,” said Seth, a bit too smugly.

“I beg your pardon, Prince Don Carlos. When your antithesis has a sword to your throat, it becomes quite difficult to see the bigger picture,” I said.

“There! You do understand the logic. The historical Don Carlos had his literary antithesis in Mister Schiller’s creation,” Seth said. He then turned around to face his mother. “Mother, may I send Detective O’Malley into the future?”

I was dumbstruck. I certainly wanted to know how we could use this machine to our advantage, but I never believed I would be the person chosen to see if it worked. “Seth, are you certain you know how this device works?” I asked, and my voice caught in my throat.

“Of course. Let me explain it to you the way the inventor explained it to the assembled scientists. You must imagine a spoon stirring inside a pot. The light is the spoon rotating around the inner rim of the pot. The space is the liquid being swirled by the spoon. As the space twists, it will coil the normally linear passage of time with it, spiraling the past, present and future together into one continuous loop. It is this twisting of space and time that will make time travel possible,” said Seth, as he included hand gestures with the presentation.

“So, it works because time-space is not flat but curved. Therefore, past, present and future are combined,” I said, trying to picture myself being twisted inside this kind of whirlpool.

“By trapping light inside a photonic crystal between the two accelerators, we can cause it to circulate. The energy of the circulating light will cause the space inside the circle to twist, causing a gravitational force. We shall be inserting polarized neutrons, which are neutrons that spin in only one direction, into the center of the circulating light. When we see the change in their spin we will know that space is being twisted inside the crystal. This is when you travel in the capsule, Mister O’Malley,” said Seth, smiling.

“How do you know how far ahead I will go in time? It seems rather dangerous. What if I should change something in the future that causes a disaster back here in 1868? Or, if I went into the past and killed my grandfather, what then? Would I not disappear?” My mind was working on the problem as I sat there.

“No, you see, the future physicists discovered that there are many universes, not just one. They are parallel and separate. Thus, with every decision we make on the time-space continuum, another version of us makes the opposite decision and splits off into another parallel universe. In fact, all decisions are theoretically possible because the numbers of parallel universes are infinite. The time traveler was born in the universe where he did not kill his grandfather,” Seth explained.

“You did not answer my question,” I said. “How do you control where I will be sent?”

“Oh yes! There is a time-space gauge that monitors the place on the light spectrum when a particular year took place. Thus, when your body reaches a point when the twisting light causes the exact gravity needed for that specific date and time, you pull the lever and you will be there. You shall not be here, of course,” he said, waving his hand. “But you can use your machine to send yourself back to this date and time whenever you believe you have seen enough.”

I had reached a time and place in my life that I really never wanted to reach. I could accept the supernatural reality of Seth Mergenthaler and his ability to prognosticate future crimes, and I could even face evil
mazikeen
or the perpetrators themselves, but when it came to the possibility of time travel, I was horrified deep within my psyche. My fear came from my Catholic upbringing and the idea that one cannot tinker with God’s creation the way it has been established.

I suppose my fear was at the heart of why science and religion have been mortal enemies for so long. Whereas science held fast to the idea that change was good, religion wanted life to remain secure and predictable. If time travel were possible, so my thinking went, then it meant we could know God’s plan for us in advance. Where was the miraculous nature of being unsure of the future? How can my faith in a higher power mean anything when I can see the past and the future all laid out in front of my mortal eyes like a three-dimensional road map? There was something about time travel that sent my mind reeling in terror at the possibilities. I was so afraid that I knew I had to express it to my comrades.

“Have you traveled with this machine?” I asked Seth. Perhaps I could dissuade him from his need to recruit me by changing the subject.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you before, but
mazikeen
cannot travel through time. Because we are one-half spirit, the magnetic charge in our physical essence is not enough to blend with the space-time light. We do not have enough gravity to make a trip through time,” said Seth.

“Seth may be a genius, Mister O’Malley, but he behaves like a genius only to you,” said Bessie, his mother. “I must see the eight-year-old, and I don’t particularly want my only child to be confronting dangerous criminals,” she added.

“Mother, the
mazikeen
have been facing danger for thousands of years. As you are a daughter of Lilith, I would assume you would know,” Seth said.

“Please, let us keep family disagreements out of this discussion,” said Doctor Adler. “We must focus on confronting the possible dangers in our present. To do this, Mister O’Malley, we need to visit the future. You said this yourself. Why are you now so hesitant?”

I certainly did not want to admit my religious fear to Rabbi Adler, or to any of the others, for that matter. It was one proposition to believe in the intuitive meditation exercises that Becky taught me from her transcendental practices. It was quite another proposition to place myself inside this capsule that had yet to be tested. However, if we were to remain competitive with our adversaries, I needed to take the risk.

When Walter McKenzie and his men arrived, I was seated inside the time machine. I could feel my heart pounding inside my chest, and my mouth was like sandpaper. I could hear nothing but Seth’s voice, as he spoke into a device attached to the crystal capsule. He explained that it would be removed when I started up the machine.

I looked around and saw McKenzie pointing at me inside my tomb. His 315 pounds of Plug Ugliness was shaking like gelatin as he laughed. I would have some words with him if I ever returned from this alive. He had only one of his men with him, big Bill McGuire, the identical twin whose brother, Dan, was killed during our escapades with Jane the Grabber.

“Detective O’Malley? Can you hear me?” Seth asked, peering at me through the thick globe of the crystal.

I nodded.

“Do you see the lever on the left on the panel in front of you?”

I nodded again.

“That controls the spinning energy of the light which will cause the warping of space-time. You, of course, will be part of this journey. The gauge on the top tells you the year and the month. The second gauge tells you the day and the hour. The third gauge tells you the geographical location. You move the three levers to set the gauges as the polarized neutrons begin to be added.”

“Where in blazes am I going?” My voice sounded shaky to me, and I cleared my throat after speaking.

Seth turned around to face Doctor Adler. I could see his lips moving, but I could not hear what he was telling the rabbi. When he turned back around, his face was beaming, as if he had found a chocolate in Missus Schwartz’s bowl. “You can set it for Monday, April 16, 1870. That’s over two years into the future. The location will be Central Park, New York City. Doctor Adler said that the people in the park would not be too surprised by your appearance. There are many such magicians and experiments being done in the park, and they will assume you to be a person selling a new invention. Please act this way if someone should ask you why you are there.”

“All right. That sounds logical. Can we do it now?” I was increasingly nervous at the prospect of sending my body through such an ordeal. Perhaps I would spiral into a new form of Irish stew, and they would clean me out of this module with a large spoon.

Both Becky and Bessie stood near the crystal and waved at me. Becky went so far as to place her red lips against the clear globe. I was not going to match her lips. I was too frightened.

I saw Seth nod his head, and I moved the first lever. I was momentarily blinded by the light pouring into my compartment. I could see nothing at first, and then, gradually, as I felt the vibrating of the crystal, I could see again. My body was not moving or spinning, but everything else was. Gradually, as the spinning of the waves of light and the polarized neutrons became more intense, I looked down at the gauges on top of the panel. They were slowly moving up, from February to March, from March to April, until the year 1868 was completed. I waited as the dates passed until I saw that the date on the gauges was Monday, April 16, 1870. I pulled down on the lever, and the spinning and vibration stopped. I looked down at my hands. They were still white and had the proper numbers of fingers. I did not feel damaged, and my heart rate was quick, but I was not breathing with difficulty.

As the spinning light was now over, I could look out of my capsule at the world beyond. It was green, and there was daylight, and the gauges pronounced my destination properly. I was in Central Park, New York City, on Monday, April 16, 1870. I could see some people coming up to me from different sections of the park. A few came over a small hill, several more walked up the path from the Grand Mall where concerts were held. They all stood around and gaped at my time machine. I decided to risk opening the side door and stepping out into the future I had never experienced.

“Good day,” I said to the gathered assemblage of about fifteen people, made up of both gentlemen and women, and three children. I walked over to a statue nearby. When I saw who it depicted, I immediately thought about Becky and her conversations with me about there being no coincidences, and that I must attempt to associate all reality I experience to the task at hand. The name of the personage was “Johann C.F. von Schiller,” the author of, among other works, the historical play,
Don Carlos
. I turned back around to face my audience.

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. My name is Walter McKenzie, and I am happy you are here to see the final stage in my extraordinary accomplishment. In just one month, I was able to lose over 100 pounds. I was, in point of fact, a slovenly 315 pound gorilla when I began my journey. There were three stages total that I had to complete. The first was what I call the ‘Edgar Allan Poe Stage.’ I ate nothing but French bread and drank French wine while reading from the sad poetry of the great bard who suffered for the loss of his loved ones. I lost 25 pounds in three weeks. The second stage took place at the famed weight clinic of the Mount Sinai Hospital. I like to call it my ‘Disappearance at Mount Sinai.’ There, under the supervision of the excellent staff, I lost another 25 pounds. Finally, I was able to lose the rest of the weight while inside this pressurized compartment you see over there. I like to call her ‘Joan the Grabber’ because she grabbed a total of 75 pounds of ugly fat from my frame!”