Revolution in Time (Out of Time #10) (3 page)

No words were needed; they knew each other’s hearts too well.

He kissed her tenderly then made himself comfortable in a reading chair. He picked up his book, but never opened it, choosing instead to watch over her and think of their life yet to be.

~~~

Elizabeth sat curled up with Huck and Jim and floated down the Mississippi while Simon battled Cardinal Richelieu with the other Musketeers. Although she and Simon never had trouble passing the time together, they were both restless souls. Despite his protestations to the contrary, Simon was as much of an adventurer as she was. If they couldn’t go somewhere themselves, books would take them there. They both loved to read and, even though they were both lost in their own worlds, they liked to do it together. Thankfully, Teddy’s library here, although not a patch on the one he’d had in San Francisco, was still big and comfortable and filled with wonderful books. But books could only distract her for so long. After two days of rain, Elizabeth was ready to get out.
 

The day started on the gloomy side with on and off showers, but now the sun was finally starting to poke through the gray clouds. A shaft of sunlight snuck through the window and seemed to be crawling across the carpet toward her in invitation. Who was she to say no?
 

She put her book aside. “I’m going to check on Hubert.”

Simon didn’t look up, but gave a soft grunt of acknowledgment.

“Do you want to come?”

Another soft grunt was her reply. She wasn’t surprised at his indifference; she didn’t really expect him to come, but she had hoped for more than a grunt.

“Fine,” she said dramatically and got up from her chair. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him lift his gaze from the pages of his book and watch as she put on her shawl with a toreador’s twirl.

He slid his eyes back down to his book when she turned to him again.

With a shrug, she headed for the door.

“Say hello for me,” he said just before she reached it.

Elizabeth grinned and turned around. Simon didn’t look up, but she could see him fighting a smile.

“I will.”

She found Hubert hanging out in his usual spot on the daffodils. He was bigger and considerably fatter than when they’d first met. She lifted the hem of her dress to keep it off the wet grass and bent down to watch him.
 

“Hungry?”

In answer, he took a big bite out of a leaf and chewed away.
 

“You and me both.”

Her appetite had never been exactly bird-like and now that she was eating for two it was virtually non-stop. She was only two months in. She could only imagine how enormous she’d be near the end of her pregnancy.

With a sigh, she stood and looked around the backyard. Some of the leaves on the trees still glistened with the morning’s rain and sparkled in the sunlight. Birds chirped happily in the trees and frogs croaked at the edge of the small pond down the hill.

It was idyllic. She stood there taking it in, feeling at one with it all until the moment passed and she grew bored and restless. They’d done pretty well not doing anything, but it was starting to grate a little and Teddy’s project was the cheese to her mouse.

Mrs. Dunlop’s voice cut through the quiet. “Phone call, Mr. Fiske!”
 

After a few moments, she heard the squeak of the barn door as it opened. Teddy stepped out, pulled a pair of goggles off his face and let them settle around his neck. He took off a pair of thick leather gloves as he started toward the house, leaving the barn door tantalizingly open.

He’d said it wasn’t dangerous. Not too dangerous, but not really all that interesting either. Science stuff. But science stuff was better than no stuff, she thought as she started toward the barn.

It wasn’t like she was going to go inside. She’d just stick her head in. Just peek. A teensy-weensy peek.

She waited until Teddy had gone inside and then moved around the side of the barn to the doorway. It was a small door, cut out of the larger sliding barn doors. She peered inside, but it was dark. She couldn’t see anything. She leaned in as far as she could without actually stepping in. She saw some sort of metal something, but it was just too dark to make out. One small step inside wouldn’t hurt.

She lifted her skirts to step over the high threshold.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

She winced, froze in place and then turned around to see Simon standing behind her with his hands disapprovingly planted firmly on his hips.

“The door was open,” she said feebly.

“And you simply can’t help yourself.”

The words were understanding, but the man who said them wasn’t.
 

“Aren’t you curious?” Elizabeth asked. She gestured to the unexplored treasures hidden in the darkness.

“To the point of death? No.” He took her arm. “Come along.”

Elizabeth resisted and he let her go.
 

“I think you’re being a little dramatic,” she said as she readjusted her blouse.

Simon scowled and pointed to the sign next to the door—
Danger
.

“That’s just to keep snoopy people out.”

Simon raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, and probably me.”

“That’s true,” Teddy said.
 

They both spun around in surprise. Elizabeth felt a tiny wave of guilt. Usually, she trespassed without any qualms, but doing it to Teddy was different.

“About the other people,” Teddy said. “I guess I should have shown you before. It doesn’t really matter.” He laughed to himself. “Matter.”

They looked at him blankly. “It’s very funny if you’re a particle physicist.”

“We’ll trust you on that,” Simon said and held out his hand to entreat Elizabeth.

She ignored it and turned to Teddy. “Can we look?”
 

Simon’s arm fell to his side. “He’s already said—”

“I don’t see why not,” Teddy interrupted.

Simon sighed, but he was beaten and knew it. Teddy let Elizabeth step inside and followed her in.
 

Simon came in last. “So it’s not dangerous?”

“Oh, no. It’s quite dangerous,” Teddy said as he turned on the big overhead lights. “At least when it’s on.”

A large machine, perhaps ten feet tall, sat in the middle of the barn. It looked a little like a small water tower with an oblong tank at the top and two thick legs beneath it. Each leg had a series of metal donuts around them at set intervals and wide copper pipe angled between them, crisscrossing like shoelaces.
 

“What is it?” Elizabeth asked.

“A voltage multiplier.”

“I’ve seen something like this before,” Simon said. “In a museum.”

“I’m sure,” Teddy said as he walked around it, admiring his work. “It’s quite advanced for 1912, but a relic in your time. It’s an early particle—”

“Accelerator,” Simon finished and then he went pale. “You’re not trying to split the atom, are you?”

“No, not quite.”

Elizabeth understood why Simon went pale. Splitting the atom was nuclear, and not something that should happen in a barn. “Sorta splitting it?”

“I’m working on particle acceleration. A new form of energy.”

“Nuclear energy.”

Teddy nodded. “Eventually.”

Simon reared back. “Dear God in Heaven, you’re not building a bomb?”

“No,” Teddy said. “Although it’s possible, and Mr. Bohr will help do just that. But not for many years.”

“This is your nudge?” Simon asked.

Teddy nodded and smiled with pride.
 

“That’s one hell of a nudge,” Elizabeth said.

She circled around the machine to admire it. It was impressive. She noticed a cellar door on the far side of the barn. One of the flaps was open. She started toward it.
 

“What’s in there?”
 

Teddy hurried to catch up to her. “You should stay away from that. It’s dangerous.”

Elizabeth grinned. “Now I’m even more curious.”

Teddy closed the door. “It’s storage.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound very exciting.”

“Uranium.”

“I take it back.”

Simon stepped forward and took Elizabeth’s arm. He walked them both away from the door. This time, he didn’t have to coax her along. “You can’t be serious.”

“Very. But it’s safely contained. There’s no real danger.”

Elizabeth frowned. “But you just said there was.”

“Well, uranium,” Teddy said with a shrug.

“And on that note,” Simon said. “We shall be leaving this barn. Forever.”

He led Elizabeth outside and even took a few steps toward the house. Teddy followed them out.

“It really is safe. But just in case.”

“No snooping,” Simon said in a tone that would brook no argument.

Elizabeth wasn’t inclined to offer any. “Don’t worry. I have no intention of becoming a human glow stick.”

Simon nodded but eyed the barn warily.

“Now you know my secret,” Teddy said almost shyly.

“I’m glad,” Elizabeth said. “It’s better when we can share them, isn’t it?”

“The ones we can share, yes,” Teddy said but then gestured back to the barn. “I should do a few things.”

“Of course,” Simon said. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

Teddy smiled at Elizabeth. “You’re never a bother,” he said, then blushed and went back into the barn.

Simon gave Elizabeth one last glare, and they started back toward the house.

“He doesn’t think I’m a bother,” she said.

“He isn’t married to you.”

T
HE
FLOORBOARDS
CREAKED
UNDER
her feet. Elizabeth mentally shushed them and turned back to see if she’d awakened Simon. Amazingly, he was still asleep. He was what she called “caveman ready” these days. The slightest sound or disturbance and he was up like a shot. That was, of course, when he managed to go to sleep at all. Tonight, his body had won out over his mind, and he’d fallen asleep at a decent hour. It was just her luck that the night she had ants in her pants, he was snoring soundly.
 

Careful not to wake him, she grabbed her robe from the foot of the bed and tiptoed toward the door. The floor creaked again and she wondered if she was already getting fat. Her hand went to her abdomen. It still felt the same, on the outside, at least, but on the inside, it was anything but.
 

She managed to escape the room without too much noise and gently closed the door behind her. The hallway was dark, but there was enough moonlight to see by. It was nearly full but the eclipse was still a week away. She’d be glad to get home. Not that she wasn’t enjoying her time with Teddy, she was, when she saw him at least. But he was working awfully hard.
 

Maybe that was why he didn’t seem quite himself. Oh, he was still the sweet, adorable man she remembered, but there was a shadow there, too. Something new and dark around the edges. He shed it whenever she looked too closely at him, but she’d seen it and felt it. It was probably just fatigue. There was a lot of that going around.

Carefully, she made her way downstairs and toward the kitchen and Mrs. Dunlop’s fried chicken. She’d had her share at dinner that night, but another half share wouldn’t hurt.

She made it to the bottom of the stairs and turned toward the back of the house when she saw a light at the far end of the hall. It flickered on the dark hardwood, and she heard the telltale pop of a log in a fireplace. It was nearly three in the morning. Maybe Teddy was having trouble sleeping, too.

She started toward the room when she heard his voice. She couldn’t make out what he said, but he was probably problem-solving. She talked to herself all the time when Simon wasn’t around and sometimes even when he was.

She got a little closer and the words became clear.

“It worked out all right?” he said. “I liked him.”

“Yes.”

The other voice said only one word, but she’d know it anywhere. After all, she’d just heard it. She stopped walking and listened harder.

“I’m glad,” Teddy said. “Not just for, well, you know.”

“Yes.”

Again. It was crazy. Either she or Teddy was crazy. The second voice she heard was Teddy’s as well. Elizabeth talked to herself, but she seldom answered.

Had the pressure finally gotten to him and he’d slipped a gear and gone all Jekyll and Hyde? He was a mad scientist, after all.

As she stood in the hallway unsure of what to do, the conversation went on.

“You’ve done well, but you need to work faster.”

“I could if you helped me.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

There was a pause then, and Elizabeth forced herself to move closer. She wasn’t far away, just on the edge of the doorway. The room was silent now except for the sound of a log on the fire breaking and falling into the ashes.

Slowly, she peered around the corner. It was the study, and the light from the fire cast flickering shadows across the dark room.
 

Teddy stood to the side of the fireplace staring into the embers. “I hope I can do it.”

“You can,” came the second voice. But it wasn’t coming from Teddy. It came from the large armchair facing away from the door and angled toward the fire. Either Teddy was a skilled ventriloquist or someone else was there. She wasn’t sure which was freakier.
 

Then the voice from the chair spoke again.
 

“Come in, Elizabeth.”

Okay, definitely that one.

Teddy looked over at her in surprise.
 

She took a tentative step into the room. “Hello?”

A man rose out of the chair and turned to face her. It was Teddy. Another Teddy. And he smiled at her. “Hello.”

Elizabeth gripped the door for support. Even though she’d seen her duplicate self once when Teddy had shown her his secret time travel machine in San Francisco, there was no preparing for the shock of seeing this.

Both Teddys hurried forward. “Are you all right?” they asked in stereo.

“Oh, don’t do that,” she said and regained herself.