“What is that?”Ness took her hand back so she could point at theRay.
Mel hesitated, then said, “It’s a time machine.Or it was.”
“Cool.Way better than Toby’s stupid tablet.”
Alice’s gaze met Mel’s and she had the sense that Mel understood exactly what Ness referred to.And that a lot had happened to them between now and when they’d driven away less than a week ago.
She so wanted to ask, but there was a warning look in Mel’s gaze, too.Well, if they survived, she could get the story later.
“We still managed to crash land,” Mel said, with a grin.
Ness’s answering smile was more natural.
“How did you get here?”Mel asked.
Alice shrugged.“No idea.That’s not a time machine.”And yet…she looked away, then studied their surroundings again.If she wasn’t wrong, they weren’t that far from the silo.
She looked again.If they weren’t that far from the silo, then this might be…had they somehow ended up at Area 51?
That would be so ironic.John Phillips had tried so hard to make this happen.John Phillips?Could he somehow be behind all this?
And if this was Area 51, where were the guards and such?
“Is it just me,” Mel said, interrupting her thoughts, “or is it not hot enough?”
Alice and Ness both looked at her like she was crazy and then Alice looked up.
The sun was beating down, but she couldn’t feel it.It was neither hot or cold.It was just—what was medium called?Temperate?The trouble with temperate, it implied something good.
This didn’t feel good.It felt off.It felt wrong.
Con didn’t remember closing his eyes as Rita touched the device Stella had given her.But he must have because he had to open them to see if anything happened.
He wouldn’t, he realized, have minded just keeping them closed.When Jack had told him that he’d have adventures and encounter dangers traveling through time, he’d mostly believed him.Now he just wanted some down time to catch up, or just have a little bit of normal.
Rita’s hand squeezed his and he found he could open his eyes to see her.
At least she was still here.
She nodded to her right and he looked, feeling the jolt of shock go through him.Wow, he could still feel shocked.
Stella and Alastor were still there, but they were frozen, caught in the moment they’d left them, with hands extended in anger.
Well, it was kind of a relief not to hear them arguing with each other.And then he wondered how they looked to them?Were those two looking at them?
“I think we’re in a different time from them,” Rita said in a whisper, as if the two might hear them.
It was as good a theory as any he could come up with.But what they reminded him of were the insects caught in gel in his high school science class.
Now he noticed the air was less stale, the square less dystopian, though it was still empty.The sun shone down, but couldn’t quite warm or light the space and the air around him still felt off.
“Do you suppose the Pitts is anywhere we could find it?”It seemed like a good time to leave, even if he had no idea where to go.Was there anything outside of this place to find?
“We could look,” Rita said.
“Do you want to?”Con asked.What he meant was, how did time feel about it?
She shrugged.“It would be better than looking at those two.”
