Hot and Steamy (31 page)

Pausing on the sidewalk, Thomas looked first one way, then another, before leading her to the door on the side of the building. He unlatched the padlock, pushed the door open, and pulled the chain hanging from the ceiling. The fluoresced bulb flicked on with a whoosh.

Locking them in, he grabbed a handheld torch and led her down the steps. The torch gave a bright, clear ray of light.
Flashlight
, she corrected herself, a word that still sounded funny on her tongue.

“This way.”

She followed him down one long hall and then another. He unlocked and relocked a heavy set of wooden doors, then continued. “It's in the next room. Are you all right?”

She sneezed in response. “I'm fine, Thomas, except for the dust.”

The next set of doors took Thomas longer to open as he hunted through his keys. The trio of locks opened with a click. Alva's questions about his extreme carefulness, maybe even paranoia, vanished as he gave her the light.

“Go on while I lock these behind us.”

The light bounced off the device ahead, creating a golden glow that made Alva gasp and instinctively place her free hand over her womb in protection. Awed, yet curious, she stepped closer, trying to make sense of the majestic machine that loomed before her. It gleamed as if with an inner fire, the dash fitted with a breathtaking array of knobs and dials. Two bronzed arches flowed like liquid across the two seats to the back, where more knobs, levers, and buttons were arranged. The back deck held what looked like a giant fan fronted by a large storage box. Her mouth gaped open as she took it all in.

“Thomas. . . then, you mean, y–your stories are true?”

His gaze held hers. “Alva, never would I lie to you, ever. Yes, it's true.” He directed her to sit while he went to the table in the corner. “I'll get us some tea and maybe we can figure this out, and hopefully jog your memory.”

Alva sipped the tea he offered, then set her cup on the table as he reiterated past events. “All you remember when you woke up in the hospital, besides your charming doctor, was that you fell, right?”

She felt her face warm as she nodded. “I had nightmares for months about falling from the sky and landing in a cornfield. The dreams never made sense.”

“How could they?” he asked. “When you see horse drawn and steam-driven vehicles on the roads, how could I explain that there really is another place in which airships fly powered by kinetics and steam? You already doubted my story of how you helped me adjust this flying machine. I know it's hard to believe that's how we came here, that we really do have another life.”

Alva closed her eyes as the mathematical calculations ran through her mind. “I know the probabilities . . . I just never connected my memory lapses and how things sometimes felt
wrong.
”

He nodded and welcomed her to take a closer look, his mood lighter. “I knew at some point I'd get you to see. I knew it!”

“Yes, I understand, but I still don't remember it all. I guess that doesn't really matter.”

“It'll come. Right now, I need your help. There's something I haven't told you.”

“Oh?”

“I've been back and forth, several times.”

Her eyes widened. “Now, brother, this is going too far.” It was like when they were children, him always trying to take advantage of her gullibility. Her anger rose. “Thomas, I'm not a child any more. Don't do this to me.”

“I'm not lying. Here.”

Her eyes fell on the colorful newspaper he held out. So unlike the black and white papers here with their flat, monochrome images. Headlines and colors screamed for attention.

“So different,” she murmured. “So modern, but. . . “The feeling of familiarity faded when she spotted the headline:

Thomas cleared his throat and explained, “There's the problem. Do you recall the huge change when the Inventors gained power over the Puritans? We were finally able to invent freely again?”

She shrugged. “No, but it sounds interesting.”

“Defore tried to take over while I was here. He made the mistake of talking about my time travel and got caught up in a wave of witch-hunting hysteria. It's pushed all the inventors back underground. I was going back to help; then this happened.”

Alva rose and eyed the machine, now noticing the pockmarks and punched-in sections of the metal for the first time. Black scorch marks wriggled around the dials like snakes.

“Smoke poured out when I started the machine up again. I've checked everything.” His gaze held hers. “Alva, I know, you haven't been yourself, but your abilities are still there, just a little rusty. Will you take a look? Please?”

Despite her uneasiness, she couldn't resist inspecting the gleaming machine. Thomas opened the toolbox stuffed with bulbs, wires, and tools. She studied the dials and opened the compartment doors, her mind on autopilot as she tested wires and changed fuses. She realigned a cog here, tightened a wheel there, making adjustments without knowing why she did them, but instinctively knowing they were right. A few minutes later, she nodded and stepped aside.

“Okay, try it.”

“Are you sure?”

She stared at him, hands on hips. “Now you doubt me?”

He smiled and pushed the button on the dash. The dials spun and lights sprang to life. The machine rattled and then steadied, the machination humming, the cogs falling into place with a
click
, a
clack
, and a high-pitched
ting
.

He let the machine run while he pulled over a leather bag, the sides bulging at the seams. “Alva, I'm afraid I have something else to tell you. The reason the machine went out of adjustment was that I accidently bumped the lever in mid-flight. It got stuck and sent me somewhere else, six months in the future.”

A cold feeling settled over her. “Whose future, where?”

“Mine—and yours.”

“Six months from now, you visited?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn't tell me—”

“I tried to tell you before . . . before you got smitten with the doctor. Tried to tell you before you married him. But you were so happy and—”

The feeling of dread threatened to choke her as she decided whether to take the paper he held out. “B–but that doesn't mean something has to happen, or that it will happen, right? This paper from the future . . . it might not mean anything.”

A shrug was the only answer he could offer. “I don't know that it will happen, any more than I know that this machine won't misfire and go hurtling into an unknown dimension. But it's still worth considering, isn't it?”

With a nod, she took the paper, unfolded it, and gasped at the black-and-white image before her. She read the headline,
Doctor and Family Found Dead After Break-In.
She didn't believe it—couldn't—yet it still struck fear in her heart. She folded the paper, not daring to read further, not wanting to learn things that she had no business knowing yet.

The sound of footsteps made her jump, and she thrust the paper at her brother. “Here, take this. Hide it.”

“There's no need,” the man said.

Alva gasped, stunned to see her husband come toward her. “Pierre? What are you doing here? How did you know?”

He wore a heavy black overcoat, his doctor's bag in one hand, their large trunk trailing behind. He set everything down and hugged her close.

“I hope you're not upset. Your brother told me everything. Of course, I didn't believe him, not until he showed me the machine.”

She stepped back, her arms crossed in anger. “Y–you knew, yet you let me continue to wonder if I was losing my mind?”

“No.” He reached out and took her hand. “I only learned of the machine two days ago, but I couldn't say anything yet. Not until everything was arranged. I went to the bank, withdrew some money for us and packed what we needed. I brought your jewels, the pictures of your parents, and your box of mementos. We have a couple changes of clothing and my medical supplies. It's enough for us to start over. I'm hoping that however this works, we'll be able to get the bonds and extra cash I left in our safe deposit box.”

Alva staggered over to the chair, plopped down, and held out the paper. “You read this?”

He nodded.

“Then–then it must be true!” she cried. “It must be real or why else would you be here? We're doomed.”

He came to her side and tenderly held her hand. “Alva darling, listen to me. That doesn't mean it will happen. As a man of science, I still have trouble totally believing all this—flying and time travel and what-not.” He paused, waving a hand at the machine, “But I also can't doubt what my eyes are seeing. We have no choice. We have to take the chance that we can change the future. We must leave.”

Her resistance died as he pulled the heavy cloak from the trunk and wrapped her in it, his hand pausing to caress the babe resting in her womb. “You'll need this. Thomas told me how cold it was his last trip.”

Alva huddled next to him wanting, no, needing to ask the one thing she yearned to know most. “Pierre, the baby? Will it be okay? Please tell me.”

“Yes, everything will be fine. You didn't read the story?”

She shook her head. “No. I–I couldn't. I want you to tell me.”

Her face glowed as he whispered in her ear. Minutes later, Thomas took their trunk and bags, set them inside the storage box, and locked it. “Are we ready?”

Alva's hand tightened in her husband's strong grasp as they buckled themselves in, she sitting on Pierre's lap while her brother fastened two large belts around both of them.

That done, Thomas made one last adjustment to the meters and checked the notches on the time indicator before he fastened himself in.” I don't know how everything with Defore will be resolved, but I've set the timer many months past the year we first left and beyond the time of the events in that newspaper, so we should be safe.”

Alva leaned against her husband, her heart fluttering as flashes of that first ride returned. This time the stakes were so much higher. “Pierre, maybe we shouldn't. . .” Her words were swallowed in a plume of thick, black smoke and an ear-shattering explosion as the machine roared to life and disappeared.

 

A smile of contentment lit Alva's face as she helped her eight-month-old son, Benjamin, finish his lunch. “Eat your carrots, Benny, then we'll go see your daddy and uncle. You want to do that?”

The little boy gave a big gap-toothed grin, his face smeared with orange. “See Da, Unc!”

After wiping the boy's mouth, she picked up the intercom phone and called the nanny upstairs. “Anna, please bring down Benny's sailor suit. We'll be going to the president's office.”

She set down the receiver, still amazed at the recent turn of events. Some things remained a blur, but the yells of Thomas's rival Defore after he was sentenced to death for plotting to assassinate President Thomas Edison and Vice President Pierre LaBonet still rang in her ears.

The Inventor's Party was again in power and new developments like the arthritis medicine she took daily not only improved her life, but offered relief to thousands of other sufferers.

The incredible new steam-powered, kinetic land vehicles Thomas designed had caught the public's imagination and were being built from his plans. His kinetic talking machine was also being reviewed for global use.

Alva caressed her ballooning stomach hidden beneath the flowing Victorian gown's folds and smiled. She anxiously awaited the impending birth of her second child, a daughter. Life was good.

T
he flickering lamp barely illuminated the little workshop, but it was enough for Christopher to admire his work. Ellie lay stretched out on the workbench's oil-soaked boards, little more than a skeleton of brass and wood, yet a thing of beauty to his eyes.

“Are you finished, Christopher?” Ellie asked in her tinny voice.

“For tonight, Ellie,” Christopher replied.

He ran his hand over the feminine curves of Ellie's frame, feeling the gentle vibration of the spinning gears that lay hidden among the struts and crossbars. He wished that the queen hadn't called the Professor to the mainland to help with the war effort. How proud he'd be. More than once the Professor had commented on Christopher's talent. The fact that he'd left Christopher in charge of maintaining the household machines in his absence was evidence of his faith in him.

But of course, it wasn't the Professor that Christopher hoped to please with Ellie.

“Will I be able to walk now?” Ellie asked.

“I hope so,” Christopher said, turning his thoughts back to the task at hand. “Assuming I've attached your legs properly, that is.”

Placing one hand on the frame of her thigh, he gave one of the struts a pull with the other. It didn't give. Satisfied, he said, “Let's engage the drive, and we'll see if I got it right.”