A Twist in Time (4 page)

The machine glinted in the fluorescent light, quiet, heavy, utterly real. And about ten feet to the right of it lay the young bearded guy from another time who’d been wounded in the battle.

Lucy couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t a dream at all. She’d traveled in time and now she was back, though somehow she wasn’t in the lab, and she’d brought something with her after all, a guy who was Saxon or German or maybe from Camelot. She’d probably just changed the fabric of time or the course of history or something. He’d fallen against her just as she was disappearing.

Inconvenient timing. Worse than inconvenient. This was
awful
.

She eased her bag off her shoulder and crawled over to the man. Was he dead? He was lying in a pool of blood. His chain mail, made of small interlinking loops of metal, was rent over his shoulder and covered with gore. She dared not look closely at the flesh beneath if she wanted to avoid fainting or, worse, vomiting all over him. Even as she reached for his throat to feel for a pulse, he groaned and rolled his head. His helmet clanked against the cement. Okay. He wasn’t dead. Was that good or bad?

She pulled off the helmet. His hair was darkened with sweat and matted against his head. Two small braids hung from his temples. He was at least six feet—probably really tall for back whenever she’d been—and big through the shoulders.

His eyes fluttered open. He muttered something. German? Scandinavian? She couldn’t understand. She shook her head. He tried again. This time he sounded vaguely like a reading of
Beowulf
she’d heard once at a coffee-house in college. He tried to raise his head. That made his shoulder ooze redly.
Great
. Whatever blood he had left would end up on the cement at this rate.

She looked around, panicked. At least she was in the right century for medical help. This was apparently the underground part of a parking structure. A green exit sign glowed in the corner.

Probably stairs. She’d never get this guy up stairs in his condition. She peered the other way at a sign fizzing weakly. Did it say:
Elevator
? She scrambled to her bag and fumbled for her iPhone.

If she could get a signal down here, she could call the paramedics and use the map locator function to tell them where to pick up the injured guy. She hit the button at the bottom, but no screen came up.
Great
. She’d charged it earlier today . . . apparently time traveling took the charge out of her phone. No phoning the paramedics.

“All right, buddy,” she said with false cheer. “You have to rally round here. If I go for help, you’ll probably be dead by the time I get back.” She knelt beside him and wormed her arm under his shoulders. He got the idea and with her help he managed to sit up with a grunt. He was woozy
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with loss of blood.
Hope this parking structure is on a busy street
. Maybe they could flag down a passing Samaritan.

“On your feet, soldier,” she ordered, putting as much grit in her voice as she could and pulling on his good arm. He managed to get his feet under him and shoved himself up. His leather breeches were soaked with blood on one side under a long rip in the leather. She pulled his arm over her shoulder. Could she do this? If he fainted, it was all over. She staggered as he leaned against her and she put her arm around his waist, slender for the width of his shoulders. They took a few tottering steps. Abruptly he stopped.

“What’s the deal?” She tried to tug him forward. Like that was happening. He just braced his feet, peering around. He spied his bloody sword and pulled her over to retrieve it. He almost toppled over on her as he straightened.

“Okay, you’ve got your sword.” He gripped the gruesome weapon as though it was salvation.

There was some kind of engraving on the blade. “No more stops.” They staggered to the elevator. When the doors opened, white showed around his pupils. No elevators in whenever he was from. “Trust me. We need the elevator.” Like he could understand her. But he let her drag him inside. When the doors closed, his lips went grim. She punched
Lobby
. The result of her disastrous foray into history braced his feet wide and brandished his sword as they rose through five floors. Yeah, elevators felt weird even if you realized what was happening.

The first thing that greeted them when the doors opened was red and white cycling lights across an asphalt drive in front of a huge building blazing with light. The guy stiffened and held up the wavering sword. Two ambulances were backed up to wide glass automatic doors under a sign that shouted:
Emergency Room
into the cold night air. It was drizzling.

“I . . . I know this place,” Lucy whispered. It was San Francisco General. They had come back through time to the parking lot in front of the only trauma unit in the city.

How wild was that? Had she been thinking about that at the moment the machine slung them forward? Whatever. The General was just what her guy needed now.

“Hey!” she yelled to two paramedics just pushing their empty gurney out the doors. “Help me.

This guy is bleeding.”

One thing about paramedics, they decide quickly and they don’t waste any time following through. One big blond ran across the asphalt, dashing in front of a car on its way to the parking structure, and the other one pushed his gurney over at a trot. Her time traveler started to put up a struggle. “It’s for your own good!” she yelled. The paramedics finally wrestled him onto the gurney as he weakened. She put a hand on his chain mail. “It’s all good,” she said, softer this time. He looked up at her. Even in this light she could see that his eyes were really blue. He was breathing hard, but under her hand she felt him stop his struggle. When one paramedic tried to take his sword, her Beowulf guy growled something and gripped the hilt.

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“Better let him keep it,” Lucy advised. She lifted the blade to lay it on the gurney.

“Hey, was this some kind of reenactment?” The blond pushed the gurney over the asphalt. The other pulled and steadied it. “This chain mail is really authentic looking.”

“Reenactments hardly ever result in actual blood,” the other observed as they rushed the patient in through the emergency room doors.

“Got a live one, ladies. Ready, camera, action.” The blond pushed the gurney past the women at the registration desk and through the big double doors to the emergency room. Lucy trailed after them in time to see the patient roll his head and try to sit up.

“Bay three.” A big black nurse in green scrubs pointed. “Doctor! Trauma.”

The paramedic at the big guy’s head pulled him back down. “Take it easy.”

A doctor stuck his head out of a curtained bay. “Type him and get an IV going. Epinephrine.

How’s our blood supply?”

“Depends on his type.” The black nurse directed people who appeared from everywhere. “Page a gas passer,” she ordered a young girl.

“I . . . I’m O positive, if you need blood,” Lucy said into the hubbub.

“That’s good,” the big nurse said, but her attention was elsewhere. “Let’s get those wounds prepped. I want a tourniquet ready for his leg just in case.” She beckoned impatiently to a harried tech pushing a crash cart.

Lucy watched with wide eyes as orderlies and nurses swarmed her guy and began pulling off the chain mail. They cut off a sleeveless leather jerkin sort of thing he was wearing and then his shirt. Another pulled off his boots and cut the leather strips that held his breeches on. One ripped open some sterile packaging and produced a needle. The big man started to struggle again at the sight of the needle. He was shouting in what sounded like a Scandinavian language again.

“Hey!” an orderly yelled as he took a balled fist in the eye.

“Get me some gas,” the doctor shouted as a nurse pulled on his gloves. “I want this guy out now!” Another man in green ran up and pulled down a plastic mask as he checked some dials.

The mask was shoved over the patient’s face. He struggled harder, right until he went limp.

A tech tightened some rubber tubing around her guy’s bare thigh just at the groin.

“Don’t tie the tourniquet, for God’s sake,” the big nurse snapped. “He’ll lose the leg. Leave it loose, so it’s there if we hit an artery.”

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Lucy started forward as though she could help. The big nurse strode over, took her by the shoulders, and firmly turned her around. “You,” she said to the paramedics. “Take her outside.”

The blond paramedic took Lucy’s arm and guided her back out to the registration area. Lucy noticed for the first time that there were several gurneys in the hallway with patients on them.

“They got him now. They know what to do. He couldn’t be in a better place.”

“You just fill out the paperwork. Let them do the tough stuff,” the other one said. They sat her down in front of a tired-looking Asian girl behind a glass barrier with a round hole for speaking and a slot at the bottom. “We’re outta here.”

“Good luck to you.” They disappeared. Lucy was left staring at the expectant Asian girl.

Paperwork. On a time traveler
.

Not good
.

The girl’s nameplate said:
Bernice
. Not exactly Asian, but in San Francisco she could be a fourth-generation immigrant. Bernice pushed a clipboard through the slot. “Just fill these out.”

“Well, uh, that’s going to be a problem.” The truth wasn’t going to do anybody any good here.

It might get her locked up, with people feeding her happy pills.

“Just the basics. You don’t have to know his Social Security number or anything. Did they give you his personal effects? An insurance card from his wallet would be great.”

Lucy was tempted to say she’d just found him somewhere in an alley. He had no ID. He could be a homeless person. But with no connection to him, they’d never let her see him, and she had to keep him close until she could get him fixed up and back to his time. Okay. She’d make up a connection. And how to explain the chain mail and the very big sword? Best to go with the paramedic’s first impression. Reenactment.

“He’s a cousin visiting from . . . from . . .”
Someplace obscure
. “From Finland. I don’t know what kind of insurance they have there.” Was Finland a socialized-medicine state? The girl frowned.

Lucy rushed on. “I’d be glad to guarantee payment for his care, though.” She wasn’t sure how charity cases worked, but she didn’t want them kicking him out if he couldn’t pay. “I’ll give you a credit card.” She began digging through her bag.

“Social Services can contact his family and find out the details. I’m sure you won’t be on the hook for it.” But she took the credit card. She ran it through the machine.

Lucy glanced around at the waiting room full of old people of several nationalities, mothers with crying babies, Mission District denizens looking entirely zoned out. Those patients on the gurneys must have been waiting for admission. “You’re really busy.”

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“Tuesday nights are usually slow, but tomorrow being St. Patrick’s Day, we’re almost up to weekend busy. I wouldn’t want to be here if St. Patrick’s Day was on a weekend. We’re the official knife and gun club.”

What did she mean, St. Patrick’s Day? Lucy concentrated on filling out the forms. At least she could manage the date. She had that one memorized. November 9, 2009.

“Okay, we’re good.” Bernice handed the card back.

Lucy wrote “Bjorn Knudsen” in the space for the name on the form. That sounded Finnish.

Knudsen was the name of the local dairy that made her favorite ice cream. Now for a town. She couldn’t think.
Make one up. Helgard. Yeah. Why not?
“I can’t remember his street address.”

“We’ll get details from him when they’re done with him.”

Good luck with that
. “I can give you my info. He’s staying with me.” Was that a mistake?

“Put that down under the ‘Responsible Party’ section.”

Lucy printed her info carefully. She shoved the clipboard back through the glass.

Bernice scanned the sheet. “You put down the wrong date.” She looked up at Lucy, curious.

“It’s March 16.” She raised her brows at Lucy’s blank look. “St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow?”

Lucy felt her stomach drop. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“Two thousand ten,” Bernice said slowly, careful now, as though she was dealing with a crazy person. “You . . . uh . . . lost a few months there.”

Lucy managed a shaky smile. “Oh. Of course it is. I . . . I guess I’m more shaken up by all this than I thought.” She not only hadn’t come back to the place from which she’d left. She also had lost four months of time. Brad must be crazy with worry. She’d better call him. And he was just the one to help her get her time-traveling companion back to his own year. Of course her phone had no charge. “You have some pay phones around here?”

“Sure. Down by the cafeteria.” Bernice pointed down a hallway absently as she changed the date on the form.

“Thanks.”

Lucy headed down the hall following the overhead signs to the cafeteria. She spotted the phones. But suddenly she felt as though she wanted to vomit. She held out her hands. They were shaking. She needed to sit down, pronto. She headed to the cafeteria, filled with neon lights too bright on orange and purple plastic furniture. Enough to make her stomach turn flip-flops. She sat in the nearest chair and put her head down. Shock. She was just shocked by all
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this traveling through time and battles and bringing back a half-dead warrior and lying to everybody.

She took deep breaths until she felt like sitting up. She needed something in her stomach, even hospital food. She bought some onion soup and a Diet Coke and loaded up on crackers. She sat at a table by some windows, black now with night. The soup wasn’t half-bad. Or maybe it was the Diet Coke that settled her.