I realize you’re not going to believe this at first, but it’s absolutelytrue. Follow all of her instructions, get this machine of hers going again . . . and she’ll be yours. Eventually. (Certain courtship rules still apply, of course; take a couple weeks first.) “Compromise” is the key and “equality” the grease for this maiden’s lock. Not to mention “S-steam”. Don’t worry; you’ll understand in due time. Um, you might want to burn this note as soon as you know everything is true. Just in case.
David Maddock.
The real David – the one living in the twenty-first century – stared at the note for several long seconds. The chill in the attic penetrated his dazed thoughts. He adjusted the straps of his suspenders for comfort and cracked open the book once more. It wasn’t an easy read, either, despite the lyrical quality of the writer’s penmanship and her engaging, slightly rambling, almost conversational style; he was a computer programmer by trade, not an electrician, and never mind a physicist.
But the gist of the technical diary was how this woman, Elaine Cuttleridge, had managed to tap into what he guessed were nineteenth-century terminology equivalents of quantum wormhole physics, and powered it all by means of the several lightning rods he had noticed sticking up over the roof earlier; lightning rods which normally channelled all that energy safely down into the ground, but which, when switched over, could power the machinery cluttering up his newly inherited attic, causing its whirling cube of rings to link to itself four-dimensionally.
In other words, she had somehow managed to create a time machine. In his attic. Which he had deeded to himself in his own will . . . under the pseudonym of “Uncle” David Cuttleridge.
Twisting in the chair, David looked around the attic at the half-uncovered equipment. Well, a corner of his mind thought idly, that explains the archaic, accordion-style camera over in the corner. I must have taken these pictures of my . . . wife . . . myself . . .
His wife. For a moment, David felt dizzy with the contradiction between his bodily lusts and his mental quandaries. Shaking it off, he forced himself to concentrate.If this is all true –ifit is – then somehow I have to figure outhowto get all of this stuff working again. Because . . . dayamn . . . that is onehotwoman. Brilliant body and a brilliant mind, and somehow she ends up all mine? Predestinationparadox, here I come! And – wow – how liberal she must have been, to be so willing to pose so naughtily . . .
Another thought had him flushing hot and cold with the possibilities. If shecancreate a time machine, then I can go back in time. I can live in the era I’ve always wanted to visit! Of course, the medicine and the transportation technology levels would suck, he acknowledged, but just think of the possibilities. I could see Caruso perform in person, not just on some rusty, static-filled cylinder recording. I could invest in companies I could look up in the stock market’s history books! And best of all, predestination paradox would work in my favour, because I know I’ll have succeeded in going back in time . . .
. . . No, no, don’t rush, he reminded himself, looking at the note he had penned to himself at some point in time. Romance is the key . . . well, along with compromise and equality. And “S-steam”. Or did I mean “esteem”? Well, probably straightforward steam, given those photographs . . .
Flushing again, this time with excitement of a more cerebral and emotional nature, David hurried to finish uncovering and dusting off every precious piece of equipment in the attic.
Pushing his bowler hat back on his head, David lined up his feet on the floor and lifted the dart in his hand. The noise in the pub swelled for a moment, then quieted again, allowing him to hear thethwup!of his dart hitting the dartboard for a fifteen-point score. His teammate and buddy Kevin cheered, clapping him on the shoulder while the other two guys groaned. Turning around to face them, David caught sight of the television over the bar. The sports channel had given way to a weather update.
One of the words on the screen captured his attention:Thunderstorm.
“Uh . . . I gotta go, guys.” Glad he had chosen to stick to a flavoured club soda, David grabbed his long brown duster and shrugged into the leather overcoat. He paused to fetch his darts from the board, packing them into their plastic case, and tucked the case in his pocket. “We’ll continue this later, right?”
“But . . . we’re winning!” Kevin protested. “And what isupwith you and bad weather, lately? Ever since you inherited that house on the hill, you’ve been vanishing into it any time a thunderstorm rolls along!”
“Maybe he’s fancying himself as a modern-day DoctorFrankenstein,” one of the other two dart players drawled, then laughed as he picked up his beer.
“Maybe I am.” David fl ashed his friend a grin and a wink. Tugging at the brim of his hat to make sure the wind outside wouldn’t sweep it away, David nodded a polite fare well to the three of them and left the bar. The drive home in his truck didn’t take long, but the lightning was already flickering in the distance by the time he got out. Hurrying inside, David didn’t bother to remove his coat. That storm was approaching fast, and he didn’t want to miss a possible lightning strike.
As soon as he reached the attic, he double-checked the batteries of the flashlight on the neatly tidied desk. One of the many notes to himself he had found had concerned the power going out for a few moments. Once he was satisfied he would still have light if the storm overloaded the power grid, he moved to the switch board. They were large, stiff, old-fashioned levers insulated with glass and padded with rubber, and the thought of his Elaine – well, she wasn’thisjust yet – playing with such dangerous equipment made him nervous.
The flare of light and rumble of sound encouraged him to try. Grasping the wooden handles, David pulled each of the four levers down. The arrays of copper wiring, glass tubes, brass fixtures and those strange wire-wrapped hoops forming a sort of oval-sided cage . . . did nothing.
Nothing.
Disappointed, David wondered if he had done everything right. Some of the equipment had been replaced over the years by more modern versions, and he had added a few replacements of his own, mainly of things which had corroded or deteriorated with time. The instructions in Elaine’s diary weren’t always clear, though the worst parts had been appended in his own handwriting with terminology the twenty-first century mancouldunderstand. But the machine wasn’t working.
Itispredestination paradox, David reminded himself, staring at the inert machinery. Iknowthese things are going to happen, because they already did happen. I—
KERBOOMMMM!
Dazzled by the flare of daylight-bright whiteness, deafened by the window-rattling explosion, David struggled to see and hear. Hecould feel every hair on his body prickling up at the sheer proximity of all that electricity. Blinking several times, he finally focused on the oval cage and found it glowing with an eerie purplish-white light. That light suddenly stretched inwards to the centre of the rectangular cage, shading from violet to blue, green, gold, red, and crimson where all the streaking lines met in the three-dimensional centre. Then they flared outwards again, opening into a rippling mirage of milk-white light.
It blurred the lines of the machinery visible on the far side, and distorted the voice, too, but not so far that David couldn’t tell it belonged to a young woman.
“Oh! Oh, I did it! I actually did it! I’ve invented a temporal vortex! But . . . to the past or to the future?”
Prompted by all the notes and clues left by his future and past selves, David moved closer and called out to her. “ To the future, my lady!”
“Oh! Uh . . . who is this, please?”
“David Maddock. I take it you are Miss Elaine Cuttleridge?”
“Uh, yes. Yes, I am. But I am T-totally surprised you should know my name – unless I’m F-famous in the future?”
Good grief, she even talks like she writes, David thought, amused. She didn’t stammer, shepronouncedthe letter, stating it aseff-famous. He knew it had been an affectation in some American circles a hundred or so years ago, meant to emphasize a particular word by stating its starting letter as a sort of fancy prefix.The verbal and print version of italics, back in an era where italic fonts hadn’t been differentiated yet . . .“I’m afraid not, Miss Cuttleridge. It seems I know you because I inherited this house . . . from my time-travelling self, in association with you.”
