The Runestone Incident (The Incident Series, #2) (10 page)

10

“Hold it, Kirkland,” Dr. Little demanded before Nate and his officer could do much more than step over the base of the nearest mirror. The young professor’s tone was a shade sharp—he and Nate had been involved in a neighborly dispute over a rotted tree. The professor went on as he typed, still using that same brisk tone, “You can’t get in the basket yet.”

Nate said, “Wait here,” to Officer Van Underberg and stepped back over the mirror base to where the rest of us were standing by the workstation. “And why is that, Dr. Little?”

“We don’t know where they’ve gone.”

“Can’t you just keep the mirrors as they are and send us to the same place?”

“If you want to go in blindly, yes,” Dr. Little said, like it didn’t matter to him if Nate did just that. “But the generator will need to be recharged and the equipment cooled down before we send another basket.” The specifics of STEWie’s internal structure were above my pay grade, but I knew that a not insignificant dose of thorium was needed for the machine’s massive power requirements.

“But that’s not the only problem,” Dr. Little added.

“Basket interference,” Dr. Baumgartner said slowly. “Yes, it could very well be an issue.”

Dr. Mooney, who had been silent up to this point, joined in the discussion. “Hmm, yes…Unless we make sure Chief Kirkland and his officer arrive far enough from the basket that’s already there.”

“We better get to work, then.” Dr. B moused the other workstation to life and she and the other two professors launched into a technical discussion of the matter.

“Would someone please explain to me what basket interference is?” Nate asked.

“It’s trouble,” Abigail said. “Two STEWie baskets can’t
coexist
in the same place and time. If we send you after them blindly, Chief Kirkland, your basket will return as soon as you step out of it and into—what were the years that you mentioned, Julia?”

“1898 or 1362.”

“I get it,” Nate said. “Our basket would no longer be needed since theirs is already there. And since baskets are invisible, we’ll have no idea where theirs is, so we’ll have to search for it—”

“—or rely on Julia’s husband to bring you back,” Dr. Little finished the sentence for Nate.

I winced. “Call him Quinn.” He had wanted me to take him on a STEWie trip, but I’d refused. I should have realized that he would take matters into his own hands.

“And even if the basket interference thing weren’t an issue,” Dr. B said, “the prudent thing to do would be to check for ghost zones before anyone else steps into STEWie’s basket. It’s pretty clear that they didn’t run the recommended safety checks—that’s an overnight procedure. We
could
send the new WMR, I suppose.”

Nate shook his head at the lab’s wheeled mobile robot. “Sending the WMR ahead will take too long. Every minute that passes here is, what, half an hour there? We’re wasting time
talking
. Professors, just get us somewhere close to them—but not too close—whatever the year and location.”

This was a bad idea. If Nate ended up shooting Quinn, it would make for an awkward development in our relationship. More importantly, it would mean bad publicity for the school and unwanted attention on Sabina. Everything was just starting to get back to normal; this was the last thing any of us needed.

“I’m coming too,” I said, raising a hand.

Nate shook his head at me without bothering to stop as he strode back over to the mirror-laser array. “Quinn has kidnapped Dr. Holm and hijacked STEWie like he was taking a car for a joyride, Julia. This is no longer a personal matter.” He said it as if he thought it hadn’t ever been a
personal matter
, and that I should have filled him in immediately. Well, perhaps he was right.

I hurried after him and pulled him aside. “Look, I don’t know what happened, but if you really think Dr. Holm is in
danger
, you need me there to talk to Quinn. Having said that, I’m sure there’s no chance of him harming her, so I don’t think we need the guns.” I wasn’t used to seeing Nate with a sidearm, in his full campus security chief gear. School policy dictated no guns on campus, concealed or not, and campus security followed that rule until a more serious threat came up, which wasn’t often. Most of the problems that merited their involvement had to do with pilfered lab items or stolen bicycles.

“I’m not leaving my sidearm behind, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” Nate’s voice wasn’t exactly low and Dr. Little called out from the workstation, his fingers still busily moving, “I’m not sure a gun will work as you expect, Kirkland.”

“It’s the kind of thing that would draw attention to itself if you used it,” Dr. B said. She and Dr. Little were side by side at the TTE workstations, she in her skirt and bodice, he in his vest and slacks—they were a mismatched pair if ever there was one. Dr. Mooney was pacing back and forth behind them as he pondered the problem of the double baskets.

What the professors were saying about modern devices was true enough—we had been able to use Abigail’s Polaroid
camera
in Pompeii, but only discreetly. It had refused to come out of its leather bag on more than one occasion. We ourselves had not fitted in seamlessly either, managing to get time-stuck more often than not, forced to wait for History’s paths to rearrange themselves.

“We
could
just wait them out,” Dr. Baumgartner suggested without looking up from her workstation. “They’ll have to come back soon enough. How many supplies could have been in that backpack? A few days worth?”

“It was a large backpack,” Oscar said.

Still standing inside the mirror-laser array, Van Underberg rubbed his mustache and said pensively, “What if Mr. Olsen returns alone?”

“Exactly,” Nate said. His hand was still on his sidearm. “With a sad story about Dr. Holm not making it back.”

“Oh. He wouldn’t do that, would he, Julia?” Abigail asked, patting me on the arm.

“No,” I replied, more firmly than I felt all of a sudden. After all, I hadn’t seen Quinn in what for him had been a whole year. People did change.

“What’s going on here?”

It was Dean Braga. I hadn’t thought to call her. Oscar must have gotten in touch with her after calling security. She had traded her power heels for the sneakers she kept in the mahogany cabinet of her office and looked winded from hurrying over from the Hypatia House. Dean Braga was too busy to attend every thesis defense, even one as newsworthy as Kamal’s, but the call from Oscar had sent her running over to the TTE lab.

A sudden silence, interrupted only by the humming of the computer equipment, descended on the room as everyone waited for me to explain. I did, using as few words as possible. Except the threat to Sabina, I left nothing out. There was no hiding what had happened—not now.

Dean Braga seemed to think otherwise. “No word of this is to reach the media.”

“Got it,” said Nate, nodding at his officer.

“Everyone at Kamal’s defense heard that something has gone wrong in STEWie’s lab,” I pointed out. “You might want to confiscate Jacob Jacobson’s cell phone, Dean Braga. That is, if he already hasn’t tweeted about this.” Jacob’s tweets had saved the day last time, in what I liked to think of as my first case with Nate, but this was a different matter entirely.

“I’ll tell people it’s a student prank. Let’s stick to that story until proven otherwise,” Dean Braga said, raising my level of admiration for her. Perhaps, micromanaging aside, she had the most important quality a dean could possess—the drive to put the good of the school first, no matter what. She added, “We can deal with correcting that mistaken impression later. If it
is
mistaken—are we sure, absolutely sure, that this isn’t a prank?”

I nodded. “I wish it was.”

She eyed the fallen monitor with its long crack as if estimating how much it would cost to replace. “Then for the time being let’s try to control the flow of information as best as we can.”

“There you are, Dr. Mooney,” Dr. Payne said, peering through the propped-open doors of the TTE lab. “I’ve told your student that I have a couple of questions for him, but otherwise he can consider himself passed.” Behind him, we could see
people
streaming out of the thesis defense classroom. I couldn’t help but notice that everyone had chosen the longer route out of the building, which took them past the lab, rather than the more direct route via the other hallway. Several people had stopped by the open double doors and were looking in with frank curiosity. We were losing control of the situation.

Dean Braga sensed it as well and took charge. “Oscar, why don’t you show everyone out and then remain at your post. If anyone asks, the building is closed for the day. Abigail, please go back to the graduate student office and make sure everyone knows not to tweet or text about this incident. Dr. Baumgartner, I think you might as well change out of those clothes. It doesn’t look like you’ll be going on a run today.”

“No, I suppose not. But they might be, it sounds like.” Dr. B nodded toward Nate. Officer Van Underberg was still standing by the mirrors, following our conversation from afar.

“What’s this?” Dean Braga raised a thin eyebrow.

Nate explained, “Officer Van Underberg and I were about to go after them and bring them back.”

“Bring whom back?” asked Dr. Payne, still leaning in through the door. “Who has gone where?”

Dean Braga nixed the security chief’s plan without taking the time to explain the situation to the history professor. “Let’s not be hasty and make a bad situation worse by blindly jumping into STEWie’s basket. We need to put our heads together and see where we stand and what’s to be done. Julia, explain to me about your husband again. But not here. Let’s find a more private venue. And Dr. Payne…”

“Yes?”

“You might as well join us. It sounds like we may need your expertise.”

Leaving Officer Van Underberg to guard the lab doors, his uniform lending a lie to the story that there was a student prank in progress, Nate and I faced three academics across the rectangular conference room table—Dean Braga, Dr. Mooney, and Dr. Payne. I usually brought refreshments for regularly scheduled meetings, and I fought the impulse to slip out to check whether there was anything left over from Kamal’s thesis defense. Cookies would have probably made everyone feel better (even Nate, who usually didn’t eat junk food, as he called it). I did pull out my yellow legal pad from my shoulder bag to start a list of what needed to be done.

The point Dean Braga brought up first surprised me. She suddenly looked worried. “If we decide that someone should go after them, it shouldn’t be me. I need to stay here and oversee things on this end.”

It was unlikely that anyone would have suggested
otherwise
—
we needed the campus police, someone knowledgeable in time travel, and an expert in American history like Dr. Payne, who looked mildly interested in the proceedings. I watched Dean Braga nervously fiddle with the top button of her dark gray power suit, which is when I put the pieces together. It was well known in the science departments that Isobel Braga had what can only be described as a time travel phobia. I didn’t blame her. She had entered the field of geology with the goal of studying Earth and its past with her feet planted firmly on it, poring over evidence etched into rocks and fossils and tectonic plates, not stepping into a whirlpool of warped light to make jumps measured in thousands of years. I suspected it was why she had sought out her position. She had no doubt been happy to leave behind the lab that had changed so much since she’d first stepped into it a good thirty years ago.

“We need you here, of course, Dean Braga. To oversee things,” I said. Nate nodded shortly in agreement, and I watched Dean Braga’s shoulders relax and the look of consternation disappear from her face. It was replaced by concern for Dr. Holm and the reputation of the TTE department and St. Sunniva University itself.

“As you know, I’m not supposed to travel,” Dr. Mooney said glumly. “I’m sure either Dr. Baumgartner or Dr. Little will be pleased to offer their help.”

“For what?” Dr. Payne asked, and I realized we had not filled him in yet. Dean Braga gestured at me, so I told him the story in a few sentences. The professor listened impassively, as if years of studying history had prepared him for all ranges of human behavior. When I had finished, he gave a little sniff but said nothing.