Pinball (14 page)

The map shifted, and Steven saw that the area labeled as Granite City now appeared to extend all the way from the boundaries of Alton in the north to Belleville in the south, and from the Mississippi eastward to Carlyle Reservoir. Michael touched something on his keyboard and a red dot appeared on the map, just across the river from where Steven remembered the St. Louis metro area as having been. “This is where we are now. As you can see, the Gateway Arch is visible from my office window. Kind of fitting, I think, considering what we do here.”

“Very,” agreed Steven.

They spent an hour or so reviewing some of the many ways the Guardian could be used. Aside from the obvious ability to use it as a vehicle to travel through Gatespace, Michael explained, Guardians could be set to serve as semi-autonomous sentries on a particular parcel of land, as defined in their Location setup menu; they could, depending on which particular Guardian was being used, be assigned to harvest certain types of materials — wood, stone, or whatever the owner needed; they could be sent to retrieve items from a different location in space-time, theoretically anything at all, from the British Crown Jewels to the Holy Grail. “Of course,” Michael smiled, “There is the distinct possibility that someone could use that function for purposes that might be considered unethical or illegal, so we are rather careful about who Guardians are sold to.”

Steven glanced at Samuel and nodded. “Of course.”
Sheesh.  

Chapter 40

On December 5, 1945, a group of five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo bombers, designated Flight 19, took to the skies east of Florida on a routine training exercise. The mission was intended to evaluate the pilots’ navigation and combat skills in aircraft of this type.

The flight leader was Lt. Charles C. Taylor, who had some 2500 hours of flying time under his belt. The trainees were not as experienced as Taylor, but they had recently completed other training missions in the same area where the exercise was scheduled. The region was not an unfamiliar place to them.

The flight took off at 1410 hours. Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale reported conditions as “favorable,” with the ocean “moderate to rough.” Lt. Taylor was assigned to supervise, not intending to take a leadership role unless there were problems. Instead, one of the trainee pilots was actually leading the exercise; it involved the flight negotiating a triangular course, flying east for 56 miles until they reached Hens and Chickens Shoals, where they would practice dropping their ordnance. They were then to continue east for another 67 miles, then turning to the north-northwest for 73 miles, which would take them over Grand Bahama Island. Then they were to set a course southwest for 120 miles, finally arriving back at NAS Fort Lauderdale.

Radio communications between the planes were routinely monitored by ground stations; the records show that the practice bombing operation was completed successfully. Around 1500, one of the pilots requested permission to drop his last torpedo and subsequently indicated that the flight was proceeding on to their first turn.

Forty minutes later a radio transmission was heard as follows:

Ground Station: What’s your compass reading?

Pilot: I don't know where we are. We musta got lost after that last turn… Both of my compasses are out, and I’m trying to find Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I’m over land but it's broken. I am sure I'm in the Keys but I don't know how far down and I don't know how to get to Fort Lauderdale.

At 1545 Fort Lauderdale tower received a call from the flight, but the flight leader sounded confused and worried. “Cannot see land,” he said. “We seem to be off course.”

The air traffic controller asked, “What is your position?” For a moment, there was no reply.

Finally, the flight leader said, “We cannot be sure where we are… repeat, cannot see land.”

Nothing further was heard from Flight 19 for about 10 minutes. Then contact was resumed, but it was not the flight leader who was heard. Instead, voices of the various flight crews were heard, sounding confused and disoriented.

“We can't find west. Everything is wrong. We can't be sure of any direction. Everything looks strange — even the ocean.” There was another break and then the tower operator learned that, for some unknown reason, the flight leader had handed over his command to another pilot.

Twenty minutes later, the new leader called the tower, his voice shaky. He sounded like he was nearly hysterical. “We can't tell where we are… everything is… [static] …can't make out anything. …think we may be about 225 miles northeast of base…”

Finally: “We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don't know where we are, the water is
green,
no white…”

This was the last transmission ever heard from Flight 19. For five days Naval planes and ships searched almost a quarter million square miles of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, but no wreckage was ever found.

Chapter 41

Two hours later, Steven’s head was spinning. He felt as though he couldn’t fit a single additional fact into his cranium or it would explode.

“Did you have any questions?” Michael asked.

Steven stared at him dully. Questions? Michael had provided answers for every possible scenario Steven could possibly imagine, and then some. How could he possibly have any other questions? Then he remembered the Mini-Guardian that had assaulted the house on that November day a thousand years ago or so, and his curiosity got the better of him.

“I understand that there are smaller versions of some of the Guardians,” he said.

“Yes,” Michael said. “There are four types of Mini-Guardians; the Type 1 is basically an ostrich —”

“It reminded me of a dodo bird,” Steven said. Michael stopped in mid-spiel.

“Yes, I could see that,” Michael replied.

“Is there a history of any of the Guardians ever having gone haywire?” Steven asked. He saw the puzzled look on Michael’s face. “Getting out of control, I mean.”

Michael thought for a moment and said, “We have lost just two of the Guardian series. There was a leased-sequence Type 1 that was sent to a remote interstellar location by one of its lessees — he didn’t accompany it — and we think it encountered an ion storm which fused some of its circuitry. It began Gatehopping randomly, unresponsive to GRACE commands, and we finally lost contact with it. According to the records, the last three recorded Gate accesses were into…” he checked something on his computer. “157 BC, 3724 AD…” his eyes lit up. “and 2013 AD.”

Steven looked at him and said, “It tried to eat my house, so I sort of had to break it. Sorry about that.”

Michael stared at him, amazed.

Samuel broke the silence. “You said there were two losses. What was the other?”

“The Wolf Guardian was lost — I believe its destination was somewhere in the late 26
century, a hundred years or so from now. The owner was lost with it.” 

Steven thought of the enormous chrome skull they’d catalogued and wondered whether the owner had been one of the other slaves or one of the Brotherhood.

“Are there any other questions I can answer for you?” Michael asked.

Samuel paused a moment, and then said, “What if you just wanted to go home again?”

A look passed between all three men. “Uhm… what exactly do you mean?” said Michael. “You can return to your home time whenever you like.”

“No,” said Samuel. “I mean that the manual refers to something it calls Rollback, which sounds like an Undo function. Can it take you back to where you came from, not only when and where, but put things back like they were before you went into Gatespace in the first place?”

Michael was silent for a beat, then nodded slowly. “It’s not recommended because we have no way to know if it’s successful. Once you initiate a rollback, it’s as though you had never been here to begin with; for example, I wouldn’t even remember that you had been here to see me. For all we know, it might simply cause you not only to cease to exist, but to cease to
ever
have existed.”

The three sat in silence. Steven didn’t know what to do. The risk was great, but the possibility of being able to be back with Lynne was even greater.

Finally Samuel broke the silence. “I know what we can do,” he said.

Chapter 42

By mid-morning, Wilkerson had reached the Hudson River and boarded a ferry that would take him across to Manhattan Island.

Upon arriving, he first found a place to hide the cMMU and his pack, secreting two of the extra ammunition clips for the M4A1 in the large inner pockets of his overcoat. He then located his objective: the majestic Cooper Union building at 7
Street and Third Avenue. He stood gazing at the main entrance for a time, then walked around the building, familiarizing himself with it, trudging through the muck and mud left behind by the melting winter’s snow.

Wilkerson spent most of the rest of the day exploring the area, preparing himself for what he had planned for that night. He happened across an alley where he found a man who seemed to be sleeping off a drunken binge — apparently the passage of more than 160 years hadn’t changed things all that much — and rifled through his pockets. He was rewarded with a one dollar bill, a half-dime and a couple of three cent pieces.
With $1.11,
he thought,
I may just be one of the wealthier men in town.

It was approaching noon, so Wilkerson found a food vendor and bought two meat pies and two bottles of beer. He found an out-of-the-way park bench and sat down, watching the people passing by. He ate one of the pies and wrapped the other in a piece of cloth, placing it in his coat pocket. Then he drank one of the beers.

Wilkerson waited, watching a large clock that adorned a nearby building as people, horses and wagons passed by in the street.

At four o’clock that afternoon, he ate the other meat pie and drank the other beer. He sat quietly contemplating what was coming and did something very un-soldierly: he fell asleep.

It was slightly after seven in the evening when he awoke with a start. He glanced at the clock and realized that he was late for the appointment he’d made for himself.

He rushed back to the Cooper Union building, moving as quickly as he could without drawing undue attention to himself. A crowd of well over a thousand people had trudged through a newly arrived snowstorm to hear a relatively little-known politician speak on the topic of the Federal government’s responsibility to regulate certain aspects of social behavior. Politicians giving speeches were a dime a dozen at this time in American history, yet a number of prominent Republicans had brought in this Midwesterner to present his ideas to a New York audience.

Wilkerson went inside and found an empty seat at one end of the fifth row, as near the front as he could get without having to try to squeeze past other people.

The featured speaker was already well into his speech. He was extremely tall — a full head above any other person on the stage — and spoke in a high, reedy voice that carried to the back of the auditorium.

Wilkerson sat listening, thinking about the task he had set for himself but also fascinated by the fact that he was actually here, 169 years in the past. He continued to listen.

The speaker continued in that thin yet compelling voice:

“…under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be
at once
submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In
that
supposed event, you say, you will
destroy the Union;
and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon
us!”
He shook his head sadly. “That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then
you
will be a murderer!’” He stood staring at the crowd, pausing for dramatic effect. 

“To be sure, what the robber demanded of me — my money — was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my
vote
is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle…”

Wilkerson felt a fire flare up inside him. He knew that this was his moment. He stood and cried out, “For the preservation of the South!” as he whipped his M4A1 rifle from under his overcoat and opened fire on the speaker. The weapon was set on full automatic mode, and the gunfire reverberated like thunder in the auditorium. The nattily dressed men seated around Wilkerson scattered in fear like hens before a fox. The M4A1’s shells stitched a crisscross pattern across the tall man’s chest, and he danced a macabre dance of death before crashing to the floor in a pool of blood.

Wilkerson fled up the aisle, glowing with triumph. He had just succeeded in killing Abraham Lincoln.

Chapter 43

Lynne pulled up in the driveway of Samuel’s house, the house that she and Steven had lived in for so many years. There were so many memories here for her; Steven had brought her here when they had been married just under a year, her stomach swollen with Nicolette.

“It’s a bargain,” he had told her, an excited smile on his face. “You know Jimmy Two Eagles that I work with at the plant, right?” She nodded. “This place was his grandma’s. She passed away a couple of months ago and it’s his now, but he and Robyn are happy where they are, down south of town. They could put this place on the market and probably get $90,000 for it, but he knows we need a place with the baby coming. He said if we’d give him $3,000 down, and then $600 a month for fifteen years, it’s ours.”

“But… we don’t have $3,000,” she said, shaking her head uncertainly.

Steven grinned. “Well, I wasn’t gonna tell you yet, but yeah, we do. My aunt Rosalie gave me three grand to put down. She doesn’t want me to pay her back, just come and do fix-it stuff for her at her house.”