Interesting Places (Interesting Times #2) (15 page)

“Yes, maintenance,” Tyler agreed.
“Maintenance is required for this unit.”

“Clearly,” the cyborg said. “Carry
on.”

Oliver continued pretending to
inspect the fallen cyborg as the other one walked away. “Thank god they’re
idiots,” Tyler said. “You’d think people being run by computers would catch on
a little faster.”

“They expect logic,” Oliver said.
“This is the least logical thing anyone has ever done. Let’s stick him in the
back and get out of here.”

They lifted the cyborg by the arms
and dragged him to the rear of the Humvee, then heaved him into the back. “It’s
a shame,” Tyler said. “I loved those hamburgers.”

“When we fix the timeline we’ll go
there and give him the biggest tip he’s ever seen,” Oliver said. “Let’s get out
of here.”

The Humvee’s keys were in the
ignition. Oliver assumed that cyborgs didn’t worry much about their vehicles
being stolen. He switched it on. “Back the way we came? We’re not going to run
into any streets that don’t go all the way there?”

“I think we could try Chestnut,”
Tyler said. “Oh, forget it. Better safe than we get stuck doing U-turns. Go up
to Bay. It’s farther but we won’t get lost.”

They managed to reach the house on
Filbert Street without any complications. Artemis was waiting for them inside.
“You took significantly longer than I expected,” she noted, sipping a cup of
tea.

“We got turned around,” Oliver said.

“And we had to shoot a cyborg,” Tyler
added.

“I see. You were lucky, then.
Anything else?”

Oliver considered telling her about
the girl in the ballerina skirt, but this didn’t seem like the right time for
it. Maybe Tyler had been right and it was just some “time thing.” The girl he’d
seen had been entirely at ease with the cyborgs, though, and she’d definitely
seen
him
. “It was fine,” Oliver said.

“Good. I have packed some food.” She
nodded at a wicker picnic basket near the door.

“Where did you get a picnic basket?”
Oliver asked.

“It has been here since the 1920’s,”
Artemis said. “I do not know who brought it here originally.”

“Other people know about this place?”
Oliver asked.

“It would seem so.” Artemis shrugged.
“In any case, if they return, I am certain they will not miss it after all this
time. If you think you will be needing anything else, you should collect it
now.”

“I think we’re all set,” Tyler said.

Artemis looked at him. “Are you
certain, Mr. Jacobsen, that you might not prefer to bring your standard
clothing along with you? You will look like a walking target when we cross over
to Sally’s world.”

“Good point,” Tyler nodded. “I’ll get
yours, too, Oliver.” He disappeared upstairs.

Jeffrey rubbed against the girl’s
ankles. “What am I supposed to do? I don’t want to be alone.”

“I do not think we will require your
services. However, I will not stop you from joining us.” Artemis frowned. “I do
not recommend it, however.”

“Why not?” the cat demanded. “You
think I’ll just get in the way? I think you’re forgetting who kicked Dracula’s
ass. It sure wasn’t these two knuckleheads.”

“I had no doubt of your bravery.
However, if we succeed in our mission, everything will be put right, and
reality here will adapt. If we fail, we will likely be dead, and you will either
join us in that fate or be trapped in a world even more unpleasant than this
one, as hard to believe as that may sound.”

“Oh,” Jeffrey said.

“You’re staying,” Oliver said.

“But…”

“No,” Oliver interrupted. “I’m
putting my foot down here. If we don’t come back and the world stays like this,
you can go outside and find your girlfriend and still have as normal a life as
anyone could expect.”

“She’s not really my
girlfriend
,”
Jeffrey said. “We had one dinner and then we went and made fun of dogs down at
the park.”

“You’re staying here.”

“Fine,” Jeffrey said. “How long
should I wait for you?”

“From your perspective, the change
will be nearly instantaneous,” Artemis said. “You should feel several
timequakes…”

“Which is like an earthquake, but
with time,” Oliver said.

Artemis glanced at him. “Yes, that is
one way of putting it. After that, things outside will shift dramatically. If
after a few minutes nothing has changed, it never will.”

“That sounds awfully final,” Jeffrey
said.

“Time travel is not without consequences,”
Artemis said. “Which is why it is forbidden.”

Tyler came downstairs with his and
Oliver’s clothes neatly folded in his arms. “I have a couple extra guns, too,”
he said. “I don’t know how many shots these things can get off before they need
to be recharged, and it’s not like we have anything to recharge them with.”

“It will not hurt to have extra,”
Artemis nodded. “I do not expect a great deal of combat once we reach the other
world, however. Their mirror was in Federation City, which should be relatively
safe.”

“Federation City?” Oliver asked.

“It occupies much the same location
as Washington D.C. does here,” Artemis said. “As I said before, in many ways
that world will be indistinguishable from our own. In others, it is quite
different. The American Federation rather than the United States, for example.
They never had a civil war. A surprising number of people speak Esperanto…”

“Really?” Tyler asked. “I never knew
that.”

“It hardly seemed relevant to what we
were doing at the time.” Artemis finished her tea. “We have delayed long
enough. Let us depart. We have quite a journey ahead of us.”

Chapter 17

Saying goodbye to Jeffrey proved to
be more difficult than Oliver had expected. As they prepared to depart the cat
acted as if Oliver’s ankles were made of Velcro. “You’ll be okay, won’t you?”
he asked.

“I hope so,” Oliver said. “Don’t
worry. You’ll know pretty quick if things worked out. Just wait for the
timequakes. You’ll probably blink and suddenly be back in our house, wondering
what I’m going to make you for dinner.”

“Will I remember any of this?” the
cat asked. “If it works, I mean?”

Oliver didn’t honestly have any idea,
but as always, Artemis wasn’t far away. “Yes,” she said. “You will each have
another set of memories, but they will feel more like a dream than reality. You
will remember a world in which the cyborgs came here and all of these things
happened, but you will live in the world where they did not.” She frowned
slightly. “That is difficult to explain, but you will grow accustomed to it.”

“You’ve done this before?” Oliver
asked.

“Something similar,” the girl said.

“Please don’t die,” Jeffrey said.

Oliver knelt down to scratch the
cat’s head. “I’ll try my best, okay?”

“You can pick me up if you want to.”

Oliver’s eyes widened slightly.
Jeffrey rarely wanted to be picked up, and usually that was just so he could
see something better. He figured he might as well make the most of the
opportunity, scooping the cat up and holding him close. “You take care of
yourself, okay? If nothing here changes, I mean. Have a good long life.”

“It won’t be as good if you aren’t
around to cook me shrimp. Promise you’ll make me shrimp when you get back?”

Oliver sighed. “I promise.” He
briefly considered kissing the cat on the top of his head, but decided that
would be taking things too far. Jeffrey would never let him hear the end of it.

Once outside, Artemis balked at the
idea of riding next to the dead cyborg in the Humvee. “It appears that your
trip was indeed complicated,” she noted.

“We were going to dump him
somewhere,” Tyler said.

“Dump him now,” Artemis said. “We’ll
be far from here before a patrol finds him.”

The trip out of San Francisco was
fairly simple. Oliver found Van Ness without getting turned around and headed
south out of the city. They passed several cyborg patrols on foot and a number
of other vehicles, but for all intents and purposes he and Tyler appeared to be
two cyborgs off on some cyborg business. They didn’t attract so much as a
second look.

Oliver hesitated when they reached
the on-ramp to the freeway. “Is there a speed limit now?”

Tyler shrugged. “I haven’t been on
the freeway in a while. Just drive as fast as everyone else.” Oliver gestured
outside. The freeway was currently devoid of other vehicles. “I don’t know,”
Tyler said. “Drive casual.”

“Drive casual,” Oliver muttered.
“Fine.” He nosed the Humvee up to 60 miles per hour and resolved to keep it
there until they saw another car he could match speeds with.

The Humvee’s instrument panel had
been modified to include a console with digital readouts that Oliver was sure
indicated
something
to the cyborgs, but he honestly couldn’t tell what.
It didn’t seem to matter as far as operating the vehicle itself went, though.
Driving was the same as it had always been.

The morning fog had burned off and
while Oliver could see one helicopter overhead, it didn’t appear to be taking
any interest in them. With no traffic to impede them, they’d be able to make it
to Santa Clara within an hour, as long as nothing went wrong.

It took half an hour for things to go
wrong. Oliver heard a clicking noise and then a voice came through a speaker
built into the cyborg instrument panel. “This vehicle is out of its designated
operations area,” it said. “What is your designation?”

Oliver and Tyler shared a worried
look. “PT-8556BA?” the voice asked. “Are you operating this vehicle?”

“He’s not here right now,” Tyler
said.

“Why didn’t you just say
yes
?”
Oliver whispered.

“What if they know him or something?”
Tyler whispered back.

“Who is this?” the voice asked. “What
is your designation?”

Oliver thought it over. “SCI-3422XB.
I required this vehicle for…a special assignment.”

It was nearly a minute before the
voice replied. “SCI-3422XB was rendered inoperative. What is your correct
designation?”

“No, it’s definitely me,” Oliver
said. “SCI-3422XB. I’m fine now.”

“He got better,” Tyler volunteered.
Oliver glared at him.

“I suggest you drive faster, Mr.
Jones,” Artemis said from the back seat. “I believe we will have company soon.”

“What is your designation?” the voice
asked again.

“Is there a way to shut this stupid
thing off?” Tyler asked, fiddling with the controls on the instrument panel.

“Cease vehicle operation immediately
and wait for contact,” the voice commanded.

“I’d say shoot it, but you might kill
the car and we’d be stranded here,” Oliver said. “It’s not worth the risk.” He
pushed the vehicle up to 80.

The voice over the speaker commanded
them to stop the Humvee twice more before apparently giving up. They made it
another ten minutes and then Tyler spotted a helicopter heading in their
direction. “That one’s spotted us,” he said.

Oliver looked up. The helicopter was
taking a position overhead. “Do you think they’ll try and shoot us?”

“Not from there,” Tyler said.
“They’ll want to see what we are before they blow us up.”

“Well, I guess that’s comforting,”
Oliver said. He checked the rear view mirror. Another Humvee had appeared
behind them. This one didn’t seem concerned with speed limits; it was gaining
on their position rapidly. Oliver pressed the accelerator down as far as it
would go. There was no point in pretending they were just cyborgs out on some
business anymore.

The exit they needed for Santa Clara
was still two miles away when Oliver saw four more Humvees in front of them.
They’d parked in a V formation that looked like it was intended to form a
roadblock. At least eight cyborgs stood in front of the vehicles, weapons
trained on them. Oliver pulled the Humvee onto the shoulder and barreled past,
just managing to squeeze through the gap between one of the other Humvee’s
bumpers and the crash barrier. Their Humvee was hit twice by weapons fire and
Oliver felt his hands tingling as the energy dissipated around them. The
vehicle’s interior lights flickered and for a moment Oliver thought it might
die on them, but the engine kept going. “That’s only going to work once,” he
said.

“Make haste to the vault,” Artemis
said. “We’ll be safe inside.”

Oliver hit the exit ramp at top speed
and had to brake sharply to make the turn toward
Casa de Flores
. He
remembered the route well enough. The cyborgs would have no way to anticipate
where they were going, so roadblocks shouldn’t be a concern here, unless the
helicopter overhead was able to coordinate with the five Humvees now chasing
them to start cutting streets off. Hopefully they’d be quick enough for that
not to be a concern.

Oliver kept the Humvee’s speed up as
he entered the former retirement community, driving over what remained of the
front gate, which was now just a piece of twisted, charred metal. Oliver
stared, amazed at the destruction laid out in front of them. Whatever defenses
Casa
de Flores
had had, they’d been used to full effect when the cyborgs had
invaded. Several of the houses had been razed and several had clearly never
been occupied in the first place; they appeared to have been covers for
stationary weapons platforms, instead. Oliver could easily make out the remains
of three gun turrets that looked like something straight out of a video game.
The shell of a burned-out tank sat in the middle of one street, and another had
been blown to pieces. It appeared to have taken a bomb hit from directly
overhead. “They put up one hell of a fight,” Tyler marveled.

“That was their purpose,” Artemis
said. “Stop in front of the last house. You remember which one, Oliver?”

Oliver did. That house remained
untouched, although the front door had been left open. The cyborgs had probably
gone inside to look for people and left after finding none. They wouldn’t have
known about the closet’s secret function, of course. Oliver pulled into the
driveway and they climbed out. In the distance he heard the screeching of
tires. The cyborgs weren’t far behind, and the helicopter that had dogged them
for the last twenty miles was directly overhead. It had been joined by another,
Oliver noted. It hardly mattered now, though. They were here.

The three of them hurried inside the
house, Tyler bringing the picnic basket along, and headed for the closet. Once
inside, Artemis shut the doors behind them and said, “Identify.” The closet lit
up around them as the scanner activated, stopping at each of their eye levels,
before dropping to their feet and rising again. “Artemis. Alpha One access.”
The closet chimed.

Tyler cleared his throat. “Tyler
Jacobsen. Alpha access.” The closet chimed again.

“Oliver Jones. Alpha access,” Oliver
said, just as he had the last time he’d been here. This time there was no
chime. He heard the front door crash open as the cyborgs stormed inside.

“What’s wrong?” Oliver asked.

“Seven never authorized you in this
timeline,” Artemis said. “I should have remembered that.” She sighed. “Artemis.
Alpha One access. Emergency protocol three.” She looked at each of them in
turn. “Now this really is a one-way trip.”

“What do you mean?” Oliver asked.
Then he heard several loud bangs and a sound like metal tearing, and the
elevator went into freefall.

“Is that supposed to happen?” Tyler
shouted as they fell.

“You did hear me say
emergency
?”
Artemis asked him.

Metal screeched as emergency brakes
slammed into operation and the elevator began to slow down. Far above them
Oliver heard more explosions. “What’s happening up there?”

“I would think none of you know the
meaning of the word
emergency
,” Artemis noted. “The house above us is
being demolished. When that process is complete, the shaft we currently occupy
will be collapsed. If the cyborgs ever manage to find it, it will take them
months to dig down to us. The matter should no longer be relevant at that time.”

Shortly the elevator ground to a halt
and the doors slid open. The vault was exactly as Oliver remembered it. Above
them he heard a final explosion, and then everything was quiet.

Artemis stepped forward as Oliver
heard the humming of a new electronic system powering up. Pinpoints of red
light appeared, sweeping across the floor in front of her. “What is that?”
Oliver asked.

“Targeting system,” Tyler said.
“You’re an intruder.”

“Artemis. Alpha One access. Disable internal
security,” the girl said. The pinpoints of light disappeared.

“Was that for the turrets?” Oliver
asked.

“Yes,” Artemis said. “They will
recognize you as hostile, so I cannot leave them active. Oliver, please go and
check on the mirror.” She looked around. “I have a few items I must collect
before we leave. We will meet you at the time machine.”

“Does it matter if the mirror is
still there?” Oliver asked. “We’re going back in time, after all.”

Artemis stared at him. “Go and check
on the mirror,” she said firmly.

“Fine, fine.” Oliver started down one
of the aisles. He was fairly certain he knew where he was going.

“I still can’t believe we have a time
machine,” he heard Tyler say as they started off in another direction. “What
are we picking up, anyway?”

Oliver found the mirror without any
trouble. It was no longer broken, and he could see his own reflection clearly.
The tape that had formerly protected it was gone, though. He supposed if the mirror
had never been broken, the tape never would have been put up in the first
place. It seemed strange to him that the mirror looked so ordinary. He’d never
have suspected it was anything other than what it looked like.

His seemingly pointless assignment
complete, he turned and started for the time machine, reaching it just moments
after Tyler and Artemis. Tyler swung the hatch open and helped Artemis inside,
then turned to pick up the picnic basket.

“What were you looking for?” Oliver
asked.

Tyler looked away. “Just stuff we
need for later.”

“What stuff?”

“Gentlemen,” Artemis’s voice called
from inside. “While time may no longer seem like a factor to you, I assure you it
is to me. Come along. Now.”

Tyler climbed into the time machine,
with Oliver following a moment later. He pulled the hatch shut behind them.