In Times Like These (39 page)

“Looks like we have plenty left,” she says.

“What is that stuff?” Francesca asks.

“It’s actually liquid gravitites. Well, it’s in a base solu
tion to stabilize them, but it’s mostly just gravitites.”

She punches a button and flips a lever. The machine vibrates. A couple of seconds later
, a chime dings.

“All done.” Mym smiles and opens the door.

“If only we’d known it was that easy . . .” Francesca says. “I really need one of these.”

Cowboy Bob and Levi have the balloon upright again as we carry Mym’s luggage and my pack out to the gondola. Levi consents to give me a nod as I walk past him.

That seemed downright friendly.

Bob helps us stow the luggage and we climb aboard.

The sky is clear as we loft upwards. This time
, Levi releases all of the cables and we drift up and away from the pasture. The breeze carries us northeast.

“Looks like we might be going to Canada today,” Bob comments.

Farmhouses and fields pass beneath us. A pair of children wave to us as they ride bicycles around their driveway. Bob lets us drift for about half an hour before spotting a handy landing spot. He fluidly guides the balloon lower and lower till we’re about a hundred feet above a grassy hillside. He tosses a cable overboard and its weighted end thuds into the grass below. Moving to the controls, he checks his settings and connections to the batteries, then puts his hand on the lever.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you
 . . .” He flips the lever. “June 10th, 2009.”

The sun has moved. It’s warm out again.
I look over the edge of the gondola and see that the anchor is buried under a pile of healthy grass. I can see the shadows of our silhouettes on the ground below us. I strip off my jacket and roll it into my pack. Blake and Francesca hand me their winter things as well, and I stuff them in as best I can.

Bob depletes the lift in the balloon till we settle to the ground with a thump. He hands Mym the cord as he vaults out of the gondola with some corkscrew stakes in his hand. He screws the stakes into the ground and Blake and I toss him cables to tie off. I swing over the basket edge and bring him the last one. The others follow me out.

Blake is smiling. He slaps me on the back. “We made it!” He turns and hugs Francesca. She’s smiling too. We gather in a circle.

“It’s just one more short hop and you’re home,” Bob says.

I reach out and shake his hand. “Bob, you’re a lifesaver. Seriously. How can we ever repay you?”

He smacks me on the shoulder
. “It’s no trouble. Any friends of the Quickly’s are friends of mine. You don’t owe me anything. I’ve gotten plenty of help along my way too.”

Francesca steps up and gives him a hug. She then turns to Mym and hugs her too. “Thank you so much for helping us.”

Blake shakes both of their hands as well. “You’ve both been so amazing. Thank you so much.”

“I’ve got something for you,” Cowboy Bob says. He walks to the gondola and leans over the edge into one of the storage areas. When he returns
, he hands Francesca a small crystal fob and an envelope. “I found this anchor for you last night when I was going through my stuff from 2009. It’s off the ceiling fan chain in the office. It’s not till about two months from now, but if you guys run into trouble for some reason, come back and see me. I’ll make a point of stopping back by 2009 on my return trip.”

“Where are you off to now?” I ask.

“Since we’re up this far anyway, I might go farther and check out the London Olympics in 2012, or maybe Rio in 2016. I heard that one is a great time.”

“Bob is a big Olympic badminton fan, in case you were wondering,” Mym says.

“Who isn’t?” I smile. Bob grins back. I turn to Mym. “And will we be seeing you again, ever?” I try to sound casual.

“I’ll get your addresses.” Mym pulls out her MFD and speaks to it. “Catalog addresses.” She holds the device up. “Here. Just say them out loud and I’ll have them all.”

We each speak our contact info and she records it and stuffs the device back into her pocket.

“Do you have your anchor?” Cowboy Bob asks.

“Yeah, I have it,” Francesca says. She holds up the piece of wood from the clock.

“It’s about this high up,” Mym says, and holds her hand in front of her chest. “I can hold it up for you. That works the best.”

“You need to de-gravitize that sucker,” Bob says.

Mym reaches into the back pocket of her jeans and pulls out a cylindrical device about the size of a mini mag-light. Instead of a flashlight bulb, the tip has an open
, cupped end. The device is silver but has a clear sight glass built into the handle.

“I’ll show you how to use this,” Mym says. “It doesn’t really get rid of gravitites, as much as relocates them.”

“It basically just yanks them out, so you don’t want to do it to anything living or organic,” Bob says.

“Yeah, dead wood like this is okay, since you aren’t that worried if the interior cells get a little damaged. It’s bad news for living cells though. Gravitites really don’t like to come back out of stuff,” Mym says. “So don’t leave it on in your pocket.”

I smile. “You sound like your Dad.”

Mym takes the piece of wood and sets it on the ground. She points out two small lights on the side of the device.
One is red, the other is green. “The device has a built in temporal spectrometer of sorts. It won’t read frequency, but it will read gravitite concentration. You hold it up to your potential anchor and push the test button.” She demonstrates it on the wood. The red light comes on. “Red light shows the object still has gravitites in it.” She aims the device at a rock sitting near the chunk of wood. The green light comes on. “Green means it’s gravitite free. So the goal is, turn on the de-gravitizer function, and keep sweeping the outside of your anchor until all the gravitites are transferred. It basically just collects them into the chamber inside.”

She shakes the device and I see
the blue solution in the sight-glass slosh around. “Once it starts getting full, it takes longer to get stuff out because of how dense the gravities get, but this one still has plenty of room. Eventually you can find a gravitizer to store them in, for when you want to reuse them on more stuff. That gets a little complex though, so you’re gonna wanna get some help with that.” She hands Francesca the de-gravitizer. “You want to try it?”

“I just point it at the wood?”

“Yeah, you have to put it right up against it for the removal part. You can test it after from a few inches away though.”

Francesca puts the cupped end of the device against the smooth surface of the wood. Mym squats down to help her. “You just
move the safety cover over with your thumb and press that button.”

The device hums quietly when Francesca pushes the button.

“Ooh, I can feel something happening.”

“That’s probably the solution inside reacting to the new gravitites,” Mym says. “So just move it around the surface of the wood. Try to cover each area and then we’ll test it again.”

Francesca slowly sweeps back and forth over the wood, still keeping the cupped end touching it. When she pulls away and pushes the test button, the red light flickers a few times.

“Looks like you’re almost there. Must be a few left,” Mym says.

Francesca repeats the process on the back side of the wood and then hits the front again. This time, when she pushes the test button, the green light shines brightly.

“Nice job,” Mym says.

Francesca stands back up and nudges me. “I get a gold star in degravitizing.”

“You can keep that one,” Mym says.

Francesca smiles and double-checks the safety on the DG before she slips it into her pocket. “Thank you.”

“So that’s ready for use now,” Cowboy Bob says. “You guys ready to see home?”

“Very,” Blake replies. He’s grinning again.

Mym holds up the piece of wood with her fingers on the edges, a little lower than chest high. I set my chronometer and compare it to Blake’s
, then step up next to Francesca. Blake sandwiches her on the other side. We both extend our chronometer hands to touch our fingertips to it. Francesca grips my right arm as I extend it toward my chronometer.

Bob and Mym are both watching us from beyond the board.
“Tell St. Pete I said hi,” Bob says.

“Thank you for this,” I reply.

Mym looks me in the eye and smiles. “Be good.”

We push the pins.

Chapter 18

“When you run into yourself from another time, don’t worry too much about what you’re going to say. The universe won’t collapse if you fail to say exactly the right thing at the right time. Feel free to give yourself a few nice compliments too. It’s not every
day that you can surprise yourself with some sincere admiration.”

-Excerpt fro
m the Journal of Harold Quickly, 1997

The clock says 6:30.

“We did it!” Francesca screams.

We’re immersed in the sounds and smells of urban daytime traffic again. Blake spots a woman on the street, opening her car door a couple dozen yards away, and sprints over to her. Francesca wraps her arms around me and hugs me with vigor. “We made it!” She leans her head back and looks me in the face. “We really did it!”

We’re back.

Blake returns from his brief conversation. “June 10th, 2009.” He beams. “We’re home!”

“Wow. We’re really here,” I say.
We got it right.

“I’ve never been so happy to see downtown St. Pete in my life,” Francesca says. “I’m sorry for anythi
ng I ever said bad about you,” she yells with her arms wide open to the buildings around us.

Blake’s arm shoots up, and
he points to the street. “That’s a cab.” The next moment, he’s sprinting into the street, heedless of the speed of the oncoming maroon mini van.

“Blake!” I shout.
Oh God
.

“You’re gonna get run over!” Francesca shrieks.

I break into a run to get to him. Blake holds his arms out to stop the oncoming traffic. The driver of the van blares the horn but slows and stops. Cars in other lanes continue to speed past.

“You fucking crazy
, man? What’re you doing?” the driver yells, sticking his head out the window.

“I need a ride,” Blake says.

“Use your damn phone and call like everybody else!” the driver says. “I already have a fare.” I reach the curb and see two middle-aged women in the back of the van, peering around the driver’s seat to get a better look at Blake.

Blake walks around the
side of the van and looks past the driver’s head to address the passengers. “I’ll give you . . .” He reaches into his pocket and grabs out his wad of cash. “ . . . four hundred dollars for your cab.”

I can’t hear their
response, but the next moment the sliding door opens and the two women emerge. The heavyset woman who descends second slings her purse onto her shoulder. “You don’t have to ask me twice!”

Blake meets them around the passenger side of the van and hands them a stack of bills. He then opens the passenger door and climbs in next to the cabby.

“I guess we’re going,” Francesca says from behind me, and climbs into the sliding door. I throw my backpack on the floor at her feet and then follow her in and slam the door.

“Thirteenth Ave
nue North and Twentieth Street,” Blake says. “Hurry, and I’ll make it worth your while.” The cab driver has found his motivation, and says nothing more as he gets moving.

The clouds grow darker as we approach the area around the softball fields. I eye the clock on the cabby’s dash. 06:38.

“We were at the field till what? 7:15 maybe?” I ask.

“If that,” Francesca says.

“We should be safe to get to Mallory’s as long as we don’t go by the field,” I say.

“I honestly don’t even care right now,” Blake says. “I just want to get there.”

Blake’s left leg is bouncing up and down in anticipation in the front seat. Francesca leans back into the cushions of the bench seat next to me. “I can’t believe we’re back. It’s so surreal.” She holds her hands to her face. “I can’t wait to see my own house again.”

“No one is going to believe us,” I say.

“It doesn’t matter,” Blake says. He leans forward to look at the stoplight, willing it to turn green.

“I wonder if Carson and Robbie are here yet,” I say. “We never really decided on a specific place to meet.”

“Maybe they’ll be waiting for us when we get home,” Francesca says.

“We could go by their places after Mallory’s to see if they are there,” I say.

“I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere after Mallory’s,” Blake says, pulling out the ring box from his pocket.

Francesca’s eyes widen.
“Oh my God, are you going to propose to her right now?”