Chapter Four
“This ought to be close to the time Cameron and Joan went to, shouldn’t it?” he asked, and as soon as Joey heard that he visibly calmed down again. He and Cam were brothers, sort of; Joey’s parents had unofficially adopted Cameron and his cousin Zach many years ago. Zach was still around, but Cam had followed his girlfriend Joan into the future when Joey was only a baby. Zach talked about him a lot, actually; that story was one of the main reasons Mike had gotten interested in tachyons in the first place.
“Yeah, you’re right. They went to 2134,” Joey said.
“Well, that’s all to the good, if he’s had two years to get settled in and adjusted. I’m sure they’d help us, or at least you anyway,” Mike said.
“He knew your dad, too,” Joey pointed out.
“Yeah, but you’re his brother. That counts for more,” Mike said.
“Maybe. He hasn’t seen me in an awful long time,” Joey said.
“A long time for you. It’s only been two years for him,” Mike reminded him.
“Yeah. . . true. He’ll actually be younger than I am now, with the years all switched around like this. He was eighteen when he left so I guess he’d be twenty now. That’s so weird,” Joey said, shaking his head.
“Well, weird or not, do you know where he lives? I can’t remember,” Mike said.
“Wasn’t it supposed to be somewhere in Florida?” Joey asked.
“Yeah, I think it was, now that you mention it,” Mike agreed.
“Dang, that’s a long way,” Joey muttered.
“Yeah, I know, but I really can’t think of any other options. Can you?” Mike asked.
“No, not really. I guess we better see if we can find him, then,” Joey said, and then Mike turned his attention back to the computer.
Give me an address and phone number for Philip and Joan Carpenter in the state of Florida.
“I’m glad you remembered that other name he started using,” Joey commented, looking at the screen.
“I only remember it because somebody at church told me one time that Philip means Horse, and thinking about a horse driving nails and sawing wood always used to make me laugh,” Mike admitted, and Joey laughed.
“How come you never told me that story before?” he asked.
“I don’t know; I was only a kid,” Mike said, feeling foolish.
It wasn’t long before the computer obligingly gave them an address on Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa, along with the phone number he’d asked for. Apparently there was only one matching reference, thankfully. Mike quickly saved the information on his cell phone, being careful to get everything exactly right.
“So how do we get there? The Jeep won’t even make it twenty more miles on the gas we’ve got left,” Joey said.
“I guess we could hitchhike,” Mike said doubtfully. He didn’t like the thought of it at all, but then what other choices did they have?
“They might come get us, if we call them. I know it’s a lot to ask, but you never know,” Joey suggested.
“I wouldn’t even begin to know how to ask somebody for such a thing. Let alone a complete stranger,” Mike asked.
“Well. . . what exactly did you plan on saying when we got to their doorstep?” Joey pointed out.
“I don’t know, Joe,” Mike said with a sigh, running his fingers through his hair tiredly and rubbing his eyes. He’d barely slept in the Jeep last night, and he’d been up at six a.m. the morning before to work on the tachometer. It was beginning to catch up with him.
There was a long pause, and then he shook his head.
“I guess we’ll just have to tell them the truth and see what they say. Come on,” Mike finally said, getting up from the computer. The screen vanished when he got up, and he couldn’t help marveling again at such a cool (if minor) convenience. Probably everybody in 2136 took it completely for granted, but for Mike it was still fresh. Joey followed him to the front desk, where the librarian looked up with her bright smile again.
“Ma’am, is there a phone we could use?” he asked politely, and the lady furrowed her brows.
“You want to call somebody?” she asked uncertainly, as if she didn’t know quite what to think of such a question. Her puzzlement confused him.
“Yes, please,” he said.
“Just use the computer, honey. Type in the number and touch the call button,” she said, as if she were explaining something only an idiot wouldn’t already know. Her attitude made him feel like a fool, and he reddened slightly.
“Thanks,” he mumbled under his breath, and headed back for the cubicle.
“You sure did put your foot in it that time,” Joey said when they got back inside, and Mike could have sworn he thought the whole incident was funny.
“Shut up, Joey; you didn’t know any more than I did,” he said, disgruntled.
“Aw, ease up, dude; I was just joshing you a little,” Joey said.
Mike grunted in reply, typing in the phone number just as the lady had told him. Sure enough, a discreet call now button appeared at the top of the keyboard, and when he touched it with his forefinger the familiar ringing tone of every call he’d ever made in his life filled the cubicle. The screen displayed a soothing psychedelic wave pattern while the call connected, and when it did the colors changed from blue to green. Mike had halfway thought he might get to see someone’s actual face, but apparently not.
“Hello?” came a young woman’s voice.
“Uh, is this Joan Carpenter?” Mike asked.
“Yes, it is. Who’s this?” she asked.
“Ma’am, you don’t know me, but my name’s Micah McGrath, and I’m here with your husband’s brother, Josiah Wilder,” he began, fumblingly.
“I see. And what can I do for you, Mr. McGrath?” she asked.
“It’s a long story, ma’am. You see, I’m an astronomy student and I was working on a machine called a tachometer, which I think you might be familiar with. But there was an accident and it ended up tossing both of us a hundred years into the future, and now. . .” he said, trailing off.
“So now you’re stranded and don’t know what to do, is that it?” she asked, but there was kindness in her voice.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” he admitted.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Rockport, Arkansas,” he said, and at that a note of alarm came into her voice.
“Where did you come through?” she asked urgently.
“Uh, we were in Arkadelphia when we got here,” he said.
“That’s inside the Containment Zone,” she whispered.
“Yeah, I noticed that. They-“ he began, but she cut him off.
“Don’t talk about it on the phone. They listen sometimes, if the computer picks up certain keywords. We’ll be there to pick you up tomorrow afternoon, and in the meantime don’t talk to anyone. You’ll give yourselves away a hundred times by the things you don’t know, and they may be searching for you already. Find a safe place to spend the night and call me again tomorrow at four o’clock from a different phone than you used this time. Do you understand?” she asked crisply, in the tones of one who was accustomed to giving orders.
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed.
“All right. We’ll see you then,” she said, and cut the connection. Joey was close enough to have heard the entire conversation, so there was no need to repeat it for him.
“What do you think she meant, they might be searching for us already?” he asked, and in spite of all his usual tranquility, there was a note of worry in his voice.
“I don’t know, but I sure don’t like the sound of it,” Mike said.
“Me neither,” Joey said.
They left the library not long afterward, walking casually along the street back toward the parking garage. It seemed like the most inconspicuous place they could pick to spend the night, since they didn’t know where else to look. No one paid much attention to them on the sidewalk; they
were both wearing jeans and t-shirts, which didn’t seem to be all that unusual for clothing in 2136. There was that much to be thankful for, at least.
“You did say we’ve still got a little money, didn’t you, Mikey? I’m awful hungry,” Joey said after a while. They hadn’t eaten anything since that can of beans and wieners several hours ago, and Mike felt like he could have eaten half a cow himself.
“I’ve still got about a hundred dollars, if you want to get a burger or something. I saw a stand just now,” Mike said.
“Yeah, that sounds pretty good,” Joey said.
They went to the hamburger stand and ordered two burgers and two cokes, but when Mike tried to pay the man he got laughed at.
“Keep your play money, kid. Come back when you’ve got some real cash,” the man said, and shut the window in his face.
“What was that all about?” Joey asked when they got a little distance away.
“I guess he didn’t think it was real,” Mike said, staring at the twenty dollar bill in his hand.
“They must use different money now than we’re used to. We should’ve thought of that,” Joey said, and Mike sighed.
“I guess we’ll just have to do without, then. It won’t kill us to go a day without eating,” he said.
“Maybe if we could find a coin dealer or a pawn shop or something like that, we might sell the money. Even if it’s not worth anything at face value, it still might be worth something as antiques,” Joey said.
“Worth a try,” Mike said, shrugging.
They walked along the main drag until they found a pawn shop downtown, where Mike emptied his pockets on the counter.
“Can I get anything for this?” he asked, and the man behind the counter riffled through the bills and change for a few seconds.
“No, I don’t deal with old money unless it’s silver or gold. I’ll take that, though, if you want to sell it,” the man said, nodding at the necklace Mike wore. It was an 1897 silver sixpence from Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, set in a coin holder and attached to a chain. It had been a gift from his mother several years ago, when he graduated from high school.
“I’ll sell you the chain, but not the sixpence,” Mike said quickly, stuffing the useless money back in his pocket. The man grumbled at that, but he weighed and tested the silver chain and ended up offering them what seemed like an incredible sum.
“We’ll take it,” Mike agreed, slipping the sixpence into his other pocket.
The man counted out the money, which seemed to be made of something resembling very thin and flexible plastic rather than paper. It was multicolored and speckled with silver holograms.
“Awfully pretty dollars they have nowadays,” Joey commented after they got back outside.
“Yeah, no doubt. I never heard of any of these people on the faces, though. And since when did we become the North American Union?” Mike asked, reading from one of the bills.
“Beats me, buddy. But since we’ve got some spendable cash now, let’s go back and see old sourpuss again. My stomach still has a date with that cheeseburger which was rudely interrupted,” Joey said, and Mike laughed.
“You’re on. Let’s go,” he said.
The man had no qualms about taking their money the second time, and Mike thought it had to be the juiciest and most delicious cheeseburger he’d ever tasted in his life. The Coke was another matter.
“Does the Coke taste funny to you?” Mike asked after a while.
“Yeah, a little. But then again who knows what they might be flavoring it with nowadays. It’s still pretty good,” Joey said.
They slept in the Jeep again that night, with the seats kicked back as far as they’d go for comfort. It was a thousand times better than the night before, if only because there were no screams or gunfire to snap them awake at all hours.
The next day was mostly tedious waiting, interrupted only by a vague worry over Joan’s warning that “they” might be searching for them, whoever “they” might be. The only possibility Mike could think of was the soldiers they’d seen. But there was no sign of them or anyone else, so Mike listened to the radio for a while, trying to accustom himself to the odd music these people liked and maybe figure out something about how the world worked by listening to the news and comments from the announcers.
Most of the talk was blather, pure and simple; the kind of stuff that wouldn’t have been out of place on the radio a hundred years ago, or even two hundred years ago for that matter. There was a fifty percent off sale at thus-and-such department store, and so-and-so was having a birthday next week, and so forth. But amongst the flood of inconsequential rubbish, he did manage to glean a few interesting nuggets of information.
There was apparently a war going on between China and India, for reasons that none of the announcers ever bothered to explain. The thing that seemed to interest them most about the whole affair was whether local jobs at an ammunition plant might be affected; as boring a topic as Mike could easily have imagined. He also gathered that there were now sixty-five states in the North American Union, though how and when that came about was still obscure. President Richards had just canceled a state visit to meet with the president of Brazoria (wherever that was), amid allegations of electronic spying, and a tornado in Kansas had killed three people the night before.
“Things sure have changed a lot,” Mike muttered after a while. He’d said it before, but this strange new world kept surprising him in ways both great and small.
“Yeah, that tornado in Kansas thing; that’s a real shocker,” Joey said dryly.
“Ha ha, very funny. I was talking about all the other stuff. Sixty-five states now, and changing the name of the country, and all that jazz,” Mike said.
“Sounds like mostly superficial stuff to me, honestly. But then again you know what they say. The more things change, the more they stay the same,” Joey said.
“I guess,” Mike agreed.
“It’s getting close to four o’clock. Don’t you think we should call Joan back?” Joey asked. Mike glanced at his watch and saw that it was 3:46; close enough that he probably ought to start looking for a phone.
“Yeah, come on,” he said, getting out of the Jeep and heading back for the library.
“I thought she said not to call her back from the same phone as yesterday,” Joey reminded him, when he saw where they were headed.
“Yeah, I know; we’ll just have to pick a different cubicle. I don’t know what else to do,” Mike said.
There was a different girl at the help desk that day, so they quietly signed in under different names than before, and the girl incuriously sent them to cubicle number five this time. They still had no shoes; even the cheapest ones they’d seen had cost way more than they could afford. But that was all right; the cuffs-over-the-feet trick seemed to work pretty well.
As soon as the got inside the cubicle, Mike called.
“Hello, Mrs. Carpenter? You asked me to call you at four o’clock today,” he began.
“Yeah, that’s right. We’ll be coming into town in about an hour. Where will you be?” she asked, getting right to the point. She sounded tired, but then again that wasn’t too surprising after she’d just made such a long trip on short notice.
“We’ll be inside the parking garage on Main Street near the library. I drive a gray Jeep,” he said, and she chuckled.
“Yeah, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble spotting that. See you soon,” she said, and that was that.
“Come on, let’s go,” Mike said, getting up from the computer.
They were almost back to the Jeep when Joey suddenly stopped moving.
“What’s wrong, dude?” Mike asked, turning to look at him. He wasn’t quite sure how it was possible to turn both pale and green at the same time, but somehow Joey had managed it. His forehead had broken out in sweat, and he was breathing hard.
“Just let me alone for a minute; I’ll be all right,” Joey said.
“You better come sit down for a while, at least,” Mike said. The concrete wall of the garage was built in such a way that there was a knee-high ledge about a foot wide all along the bottom, and it didn’t take much coaxing to get Joey to sit down on it.
“It hurts all over,” Joey said, wrapping his arms around his body.
“Do you need me to take you to a hospital?” Mike asked, beginning to be really concerned.
He thought Joey started to say something else, but whatever it might have been, the words never made it past his lips. They were replaced almost instantly by an ear-splitting howl of agony, and then a sharp pop of displaced air as he disappeared.