The Gatespace Trilogy, Omnibus Edition Page 16

  “So this all began because you wanted to help me finish this book?”

  “Well,” she said, flushing slightly, “yeah.”

  “And what you’re telling me is that after three tries, you want to try it again and risk another fuckup?”

  “I’m really sorry, but yeah, that’s exactly it. We can’t take the risk of it causing problems.”

  Steven started at her. Finally he breathed a sigh and said, “What do you think we should do?”

  CHAPTER 77

  Callie took him through her condo to the garage. Steven was surprised; the house didn’t resemble something from The Jetsons, but was similar to modern architecture he’d seen in his own time.

  They got into Callie’s vehicle, a silver, three-wheeled wedge-shaped thing that she steered with a sort of joystick. From the high pitched whirr of the engine, Steven guessed that it was an electric vehicle. They drove west from Callie’s place until they were near the Mississippi River.

  Steven noticed that the sky was a steel grey color, even though no clouds were apparent. The sun had an unnatural crimson tinge. He looked west across the river and saw that even the great Mississippi seemed to be choked with a putrid sludge of what he guessed was some sort of industrial waste.

  Entering the grounds of a large industrial complex of some sort, they passed a sign that said “North Central Positronics,” and he looked over at Callie and said, “What is this place?”

  “It’s the company that makes the Guardians,” she replied. “We’re gonna try to get this fixed.”

  CHAPTER 78

  Lynne Denver sat at her desk, trying without much luck to restrain the pent-up energy of her twenty-three wound-up third graders as the minute hand of the clock crept slowly toward the 12. Nearly three o’clock, and the children knew it. Finally the bell rang and the kids flooded out of the classroom, roaring toward the school bus loading area like water streaming through a raging rapids.

  She leaned back and stretched, her back dully aching, and was grateful that it was Friday. She graded an assignment from earlier that day, did some paperwork on one of her students who had been out of class for a week with the flu, and began to gather her things to get ready to go home.

  Lynne walked down the hall to the classroom where her friend Nancy Leonard taught second grade. Nancy’s car had broken down the day before, so Lynne had given her a ride to work and now would take her home. “Hey, Nance,” she said as she walked into the classroom, “You about ready? Steve should be here soon.”

  Nancy smiled at Lynne and said, “Sure, let me finish grading these last two papers and we’re outta here.” She was a tall woman with short brown hair and a cheerful disposition. She skimmed through the answers on the last test paper, stacked them neatly and gathered her things. Putting on her coat, she said, “What are you making for dinner?”

  Lynne’s brows knit together, thinking. “I’m not sure. It’s a week before payday and the cupboard is pretty much bare. If I had my druthers, I’d make Steve take us all to the Iron Horse, but that’s not gonna happen for a week or two.”

  Lynne and Nancy walked out to the parking lot, greeting other faculty members who were also on their way home. They stood by the curb, chatting, and after a few minutes Lynne said, “Huh… I wonder where Steve is. He’s never late.”

  CHAPTER 79

  Callie and Steven entered the glass complex which was North Central Positronics and went to the front desk, where a secretary with matching violet hair, eyes and dress asked how she could help them today.

  Callie said, “We need to speak to Michael. There’s been an issue with a Mini-Guardian.”

  The secretary’s eyebrows knit slightly together and she said, “Just one moment and I’ll buzz him.” She picked up her telephone receiver and pressed a button. “What’s your name?”

  “Callie Sullivan.”

  “Michael? Yes, Callie Sullivan is here to see you. She says there’s a problem with an MG. Sure.” She hung up the receiver. “He’ll be out in just a minute. Would you like to have a seat?”

  Steven thought to himself that while they were spending time here, Lynne was waiting at the school for him to pick her up. Then he realized that if he understood what Callie was trying to do, everything would change yet again, as it apparently had three previous times.

  They sat on a bench in the lobby and waited. A few minutes later, a skinny young man with a blonde ponytail, round wire-framed glasses and a stubbly goatee came out into the lobby area.

  “Ms. Sullivan?”

  “Hi, Michael. We need your help with something,” said Callie.

  Michael led them to his office, a glass-walled corner suite with a view of the surrounding countryside. In the distance, jutting up from the horizon, Steven noted the familiar form of the Gateway Arch.

  They sat and Callie began to explain the events of the past day — beginning with its most recent iterations and working backwards. Michael’s expression grew dark when she explained that the Mini-Guardian had torn Steven’s house apart. He shook his head sadly when she told the tale of how Lynne had met her death, and raised his eyebrow when she told him that Steven had destroyed the Mini-Guardian with nothing more than a couple of branches from an apple tree.

  “There’s no record of an MG as having gone missing,” said Michael, “but of course there wouldn’t be, if you used Rollback to erase all those events. Let me look at our records and see which MG unit it was that you had leased…”

  He punched the touchscreen on his computer and said, “Ah, yes. This shows that you had a 24-hour lease period on an MG-1 unit, number Q 12. It was to be set for Intimidation Level 2, which is basically a mildly threatening presence, but non-destructive. If it ripped up the landscape and your house the way you describe, something was seriously wrong. On behalf of NCP, my apologies.”

  “So I had some ideas on how this situation could be remedied,” Callie said.

  CHAPTER 80

  Lynne and Nancy had been standing on the sidewalk by the teacher’s parking lot for half an hour, and Steve hadn’t shown up. Lynne was beginning to feel a little worried. He had mentioned needing to go to Bozeman that day. It was a thirty mile drive one way, and the weather hadn’t been the greatest. She hoped he hadn’t had a flat tire or something. Their Cherokee was in reasonably good shape, but those things happened, and she knew that Steven’s cell phone had run out of minutes recently.

  “I hope he didn’t break down,” Lynne said.

  They decided to ask a co-worker for a ride home. In the teacher’s lounge they found the school principal, Irene Collins, who readily agreed to give them a lift.

  They climbed into Irene’s Dodge Durango and headed north on US 287. Nancy mentioned that she needed a loaf of bread and a few other things and asked if Irene would mind stopping at the Town Pump truck stop. “No problem at all,” said Irene, a large and jovial woman who was the antithesis of the stereotypical school principal.

  Irene and Lynne sat in the truck discussing plans for the school’s Thanksgiving events that would be coming up in a few weeks while Nancy went in to the store.

  The radio was playing softly and Lynne caught the words major weather system as the DJ announced the weather. “Would you mind turning that up?” Lynne said.

  “…and so it looks like we’re in for kind of a one-two punch,” the announcer continued. “Some heavy rain followed by a wintry blast that’s pretty much gonna ice everything over. If you don’t have to go out, they’re saying don’t. If you gotta, well, then… you better bundle up. Now back to your favorite classic rock on KBZM, the Eagle…”

  The radio segued into the long instrumental that was the introduction to Carry On My Wayward Son, and Lynne turned the radio back down. “God, I hope Steve didn’t get caught in the storm. He had to go to Bozeman today for something,” she said.

  “Can you call him?” Irene asked.

  “No, he let his cell run out of minutes,” Lynne explained. She was reluctant to explain that the rea
son was because they were out of money until next week’s payday.

  “I bet he’s all right,” Irene said. Lynne was still not very encouraged.

  Presently Nancy came out of the store, and Irene pulled the SUV out of the parking space and headed for the road.

  CHAPTER 81

  They ended up with a solution that wasn’t terribly elegant, but it was simple enough. Michael saw the advantage of Callie’s plan and called his supervisor, a British gent named Nigel, who came in to Michael’s office and looked over the records.

  “Oh, Christ,” he sighed, “Oi am so sorry for all the problems that this ‘as spawned. Let’s go over to Staging Area C and see if we can’t get this all resolved for you.”

  He led them to a large work area which contained a massive piece of equipment which, to Steven, resembled an electric company’s power plant.

  “This is one of our Type 4 Gatekeepers. These can generate a Gate and maintain its integrity pretty much indefinitely. Older equipment, but I’d not trade it for some of the shite other companies are marketing these days. Excuse my language, ma’am.”

  What they were planning to do was open a Gate to Nigel’s office on a date prior to the time when Callie had placed her order for the Mini-Guardian and place a hold in North Central Positronic’s computer system that indicated that she was not to be permitted to lease the machine. That, they figured, would prevent any of the Guardian-related events from happening.

  As far as Lynne’s accident, well, Callie was still working on that.

  CHAPTER 82

  Irene pulled the Durango to a stop as they reached the parking lot exit. “Oh, my. I just remembered that Scotty asked me to get him some smokes on the way home. I better go back and get those.” She turned her truck around and headed back to the store.

  Just as she parked in front of the store, a semi-tractor driven by one Melvin Settlemoir pulled in to the parking lot and stopped in front of the automotive service area. Settlemoir climbed out of the truck and went inside, looking for someone to mount a replacement tire on his rig.

  CHAPTER 83

  Steven and Callie watched as Nigel went through the Gate that the Gatekeeper created, which was the same color as the one Callie had pulled Steven through but the size of a double car garage door. Nigel waited until his past-office was vacant, then stepped through, swiftly entered a few characters on his computer’s touchscreen, and stepped back through the Gate.

  “There we go,” he said.

  Steven looked doubtful. “If all of that never happened, why are we still here?” he asked.

  “We are standing inside a kronostabilizer field that the Gatekeeper generates,” Michael explained. “It keeps those inside its effect from doing what we call ‘rubberbanding,’ that is, immediately assuming the current timeline as it is ordered by whatever actions may have just occurred on the other side of the Gate. Now, once we power down the Gatekeeper — or we step out of the kronostabilizer field — then what will happen is it’ll be sort of like everything resets to whatever the point of divergence was, the point prior to which events are the same in both the old and new timelines. Steven looked a little dazed. “You may feel a little disoriented when that happens,” Michael added.

  “Are we ready?” Nigel asked. Steven, Callie and Michael nodded. To Steven’s surprise, Callie reached over and took his hand.

  Nigel pressed the power switch. Steven was not at all surprised to see that it was a very large red button.

  CHAPTER 84

  Irene pulled her truck into the Denver’s driveway and Lynne caught sight of the turquoise Jeep Cherokee. “Oh, good, it looks like Steve’s home,” Lynne said as they drove up the gravel driveway. “I wonder why he didn’t pick us up? Well, thanks for the —”

  Just then Lynne realized that most of the front of the house was a pile of debris. “Oh, my God,” she exclaimed, “Oh, God!”

  She threw open the door of Irene’s truck and ran to the house, looking into the huge hole that had been left by the Mini-Guardian. Nancy and Irene got out of the Durango and followed her, not knowing what to say. They stepped carefully through the wreckage where the front door used to be, scanning to see whether anyone was inside.

  “Steve! Steve?” Lynne cried, terror in her voice.

  “Maybe he wasn’t here,” said Nancy. “I don’t think the kids are home yet.”

  Lynne glanced at her watch. “No, they won’t get home for a few minutes yet. My God, what do you think did this?”

  “I have no idea,” Irene said. “It looks like it’d have to have been a backhoe or something.”

  Nancy nodded her head in agreement. “This is crazy… we better make sure Steve’s not in there somewhere.”

  The three women walked through the wreckage-strewn house, half expecting to discover Steven wounded or dead.

  CHAPTER 85

  As the Gatekeeper shut down, Steven expected to feel some kind of rush of disorientation like what he’d experienced when Callie had yanked him through the Gate to rescue him from the Mini-Guardian. Instead, Michael and Nigel seemed to fade away in a haze, but he and Callie were still standing in the staging area, her hand holding his tightly.

  Steven looked around for a moment, then at Callie. “We’re still here?”

  She smiled. “I grabbed your hand so that my kronostabilizer field would surround you, too. Even though the Gatekeeper’s field is gone, mine is keeping us here.” She reached into her pocket and handed Steven a small silver electronic device. “Put this in your pocket.” Once he had done so, she let go of his hand and he looked down and saw he was surrounded by the same soft golden glow that she possessed. “Now we can go back to my place and figure out exactly where and when to get you back home.”

  A North Central Positronics employee saw them standing there and walked over. “Can I help you?” he asked. They came up with an excuse for being there and made for the exit, laughing as they went. They got into Callie’s car and returned to her condo.

  Steven waited while Callie booted her computer. “Okay,” she said. “Let me verify that things are getting back to normal at the old homestead.” She squinted at the screen.

  She looked up at Steven, her eyes huge. “Uhm… I don’t know why, but the records I am seeing show that as of November 2009, your address is, and always has been, a vacant lot.”

  CHAPTER 86

  Steven was pacing the room now, frantic with worry as Callie continued to work at her computer.

  “What do you mean a vacant lot?” Steven said. “It’s always been a vacant lot? What the hell did we do? Jimmy Two Eagles’ grandparents lived in that house for, like, forty years before we bought it in 1995. What did we do?”

  “I don’t know, but try to stay calm,” Callie said. “There’s nothing we can do that can’t be undone. Nothing we can break that we can’t fix.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Steven as a chill ran up his spine.

  CHAPTER 87

  Marcus Aurelius Valens was a soldier in the Legio III Brittania of the Roman Army. His father, Fabius Valens of Anagnia had been the commander of Legio I Germanica based in Germania Inferior, and had fathered a child to one of the servant women in his household. The boy was raised as a Roman, and entered the Roman Army at the age of seventeen.

  He was assigned to III Brittania at the age of twenty, and was part of the force that was sent into the western part of the isle which later came to be the nation of Wales.

  In the second year of his assignment there, Valens was sent to deliver a message from his field commander to the Roman governor of the island. As he rode the long journey from Glevum to Londinium, he stopped near Verulamium for the night.

  Searching for a suitable camping site, he happened across a cave mouth which flickered with a curious green aura. Climbing into the cave to investigate, he encountered loose footing when he stepped on some broken rock in the cave floor and fell into the cave. He fell directly into the vortex which had formed there and found himself trap
ped in the void.

  CHAPTER 88

  Callie worked tirelessly at her computer screen for over an hour, muttering to herself under her breath in that Midwestern accent that Steven now found tremendously endearing, although part of him wanted to strangle her for screwing up his timeline. On the other hand, if she hadn’t intervened, who knows how things might have gone? he thought.

  He watched her as she peered intently at something on her screen, then tapped in more data. He didn’t know whether she was typing in text, or numeric codes, or what, and he figured he was probably better off not knowing. Still, he was insatiably curious.

  At one point, when it seemed as if Callie’s mood was lighter, he dared to ask, “Are things getting back to normal?”

  “Not quite yet. But I did find out why the land had always been vacant.”

  “Really?” Steven perked up.

  “Yeah. It was supposed to be haunted,” Callie answered.

  “Haunted?” Steven laughed. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. According to the records I found, the land where your house is — or was, or whatever — lies at what is considered the northern end of the Gallatin Valley.” Steven nodded. He was familiar with the geography of the area.

  “According to these records, none of the Native American tribes in the area, which included the Blackfoot, the Crow, the Bannock, the Nez Percé, and several others, ever claimed the Valley as their own territory,” she continued. “The Blackfeet, however, had a name for the area. They called it ‘Ahkoto waktai sakum,’ which basically means, ‘Many come together country.’”