Time Snatchers (34 page)

A sound catches my attention. The office door is sliding open. If it’s Uncle, any second now, he’ll be accessing his personal system. And when he does, he’ll know immediately that someone else is on it too.

Got to hurry. Files flash on the screen. Scan and close. Scan and close.
Come on! Where are they?

Scan and close. Scan and … wait! There!

“Select!”

Unfiltered data from two pleasure packs streams into Phoebe’s interface.

“Shut down!”

The lights from the office stream on.

“Hello, Uncle,” Phoebe says.

N
o sounds at all. And then Uncle’s voice saying, “Phoebe, purge Nassim’s file. All of it.”

“July 10, 2061. Purge request number five. Purge of file number 5134-89 complete.”

There’s a lump in my throat. I can’t believe it. If he’s asking Phoebe to purge Nassim’s file, that means Uncle’s decided to get rid of him. It might happen tomorrow or even next week—as soon as he can find Nassim’s replacement. But it’s going to happen.

“And here I was thinking this one would last a bit longer than the others before you’d grow tired of him,” Phoebe prattles on. “Silly me. What did he do, Uncle, burn your crème brûlée?”

“Repeat what you just said, Phoebe,” orders Uncle. I dare not move a muscle. Uncle’s got excellent hearing, and if I can hear what they’re saying inside Uncle’s office, then I have no doubt he can hear us out here.

Phoebe emits a noise that sounds like a sigh. “I said … and here I was thinking this one …”

“No. Before that.”

“You mean the computer talk?” she says.

“Yes, repeat it,” says Uncle.

“I said, July 10, 2061. Purge request number five. Purge of file number 5134-89 complete.”

“Why did you say ‘purge request number five’? I haven’t asked you to purge any other files today.”

“True,” she says. “Nevertheless, yours was the fifth purge request received today. Hence, purge request number five.”

Silence.

“Who made the other purge requests, Phoebe?” says Uncle.

I hold my breath. My palms are sweating.

“I don’t know,” she replies.

I exhale slowly.

Uncle says nothing for a moment. When he finally speaks, his voice is barely controlled. “How is it that you don’t know?”

“There appears to be what you might call a gap in my memory of this event,” Phoebe answers, her voice wavering.

“That is rather disturbing news, Phoebe,” says Uncle. “If there are gaps in your memory of such a simple matter, how can I be certain that more of these gaps won’t appear?”

I shift position. My knee clicks loudly.

There’s a long silence. Great, he heard that. I picture Uncle exiting his office, walking right up to Abbie’s workstation and peeking over the divider. And that large vein dancing across Uncle’s forehead is the last thing I see before my life on earth comes to an abrupt and horrible end.

“Purge your pleasure response, Phoebe.” I can hear the smile in Uncle’s voice.

“No, Uncle. Please don’t,” she pleads.

Uncle takes a moment before replying, “Purge it. Now!”

There’s an awful keening, the kind a small dog would make when
cornered by a wolf that hasn’t fed in two days. Until that moment, I’d never thought it possible to feel sorry for a computer.

“Pleasure response purged,” comes her choked reply.

“Now, thank me,” says Uncle.

“Thhhhhank you, Uncle,” murmurs Phoebe.

“No need to thank me, Phoebe. It’s entirely my pleasure.” Uncle’s voice is louder. He’s leaving the office and coming our way!

As he walks down the hall, he begins to laugh. A bitter, shivering laugh that seems to bounce right off the floor and seep through me, leaving me weak and cold.

I hold my breath as Uncle passes within two feet of where Abbie and I are lying.

As soon as I hear the elevator doors close, I let out a long breath.

“Now what?” asks Abbie.

“We go back to Expo 67 and stop Frank from snatching Zach,” I say.

She looks at me for a long moment. “You look tired, Cale. And I know I am. We should both get some sleep before we go back to the past.”

“I would, except …”

“Except what?”

“Well, I’ve got nowhere to sleep,” I say. “I can’t go to the dorm. Not when I’m supposed to be in the Barrens.”

“I already thought of that,” she says.

I follow her to the stairwell and down the stairs to the fourth floor. She opens the stairwell door, looks around and gives me the all clear. I step out into the hallway after her.

“Meet you at the fire escape,” she mindspeaks. “I’ve just got to grab some things.”

I go to Nassim’s office first. The door is locked but I have no
trouble picking it. I slip inside and pull open his desk drawer. The little pill bottle is still there. I shake out a few silver pills, slip them into my pocket and replace the bottle in the drawer.

Abbie arrives at the fire escape a minute after me. She’s carrying a very flowery looking blanket and pillow with matching pillowcase.

“Sorry. I know it’s a bit bright for your taste, but it’s all I could find,” she says.

“Where are we going?” I say.

“To a nice quiet spot.” She grabs my wrist.

We land in a forest. For a moment I wonder if we’re back in France somewhere near Nicéphore’s house. But then I see a familiar bench. This is my thinking place in Central Park.

“In case you’re wondering,” she says, “we only hopped through space to get here.”

Abbie takes the blanket and pillow from me and lays them out on the bench.

“There you go. Sweet dreams. I’ll be back at seven to pick you up.”

“Thanks … did you say seven?”

“Yup. Do you think that’s too late?”

“Uhh, no. it’s fine,” I say.

“Okay, then, good night.” She gives me a little wave, touches her wrist and is gone.

I lie on my back on the bench and gaze up at the night sky. Or at least the small patch that’s visible through the canopy of branches. There are nowhere near the millions of stars I saw at night in the Barrens. The Barrens. It’s hard to believe that it was only yesterday that I was in my little cave, talking to myself and then realizing I was really talking to Abbie, who had come to rescue me. And here I am dragging her into something that could get her into even more trouble.

Turning onto my side, I bring the blanket up to my chin. An ambulance wails from somewhere far off, and I can hear traffic from Central Park South. It must have rained here recently, because when I dangle my hand from the bench, my fingers brush damp grass.

I close my eyes. An image (or is it a memory?) wells up inside of me. A young boy sits on the ground. It has just rained there too (wherever there is), but to the boy, this is a good thing because it means there will be lots of mud for building his castle. He worms his fingers through the gloppy mud and builds the walls first. “Don’t look yet,” he says and then adds the tower. “Still don’t look,” he says, and he digs a moat around the castle and pours in the water from his bucket.

“Okay, you can look!” he says but when he glances up to see if she’s looking, the beach is gone and so is the mud castle. Instead, he’s in a room with walls so white they hurt his eyes. And lying unmoving in a bed in the center of the room is a woman whose skin matches the color of the walls. The boy doesn’t want to look. Because if he doesn’t actually see her then maybe it isn’t true. He closes his eyes tight. So tight that all of the white of the walls and the woman’s face are shut out. But he can’t stop the scream gathering inside him. And when it comes out it, it isn’t a scream anymore. It is a question composed of a single strangled word: “Mommy?”

“Rise and shine, Cale.”

I turn my head and squint up at Abbie. It’s really bright here, wherever here is. Oh, yeah, my thinking spot.

“What time is it?”

“Ten past seven. I let you sleep in. C’mon. Time to get up.”

I swing my legs around and sit up. My back aches, and I rub my stiff neck.

“Here, I found these in the wardrobe closet,” she says. “Remember them?”

She hands me a brown jacket, stiff shirt and green pants: my outfit from Operation Fling. These are probably the worst-fitting clothes I’ve ever worn on a mission. I’m not crazy about wearing them again, but as usual Abbie is thinking one step ahead of me. Since I’m about to go back to the same time/place where I gave Zach his birthday present, Jim, Diane and Zach are going to expect to see me in these clothes.

She turns away to give me some privacy.

I take off the goat-smelling kaftan, chuck it into the trash bin by the bench and squirm into my Operation Fling clothes.

“All dressed,” I say.

She turns back to face me and tosses me a banana. I peel it and begin gobbling it down.

“The dirty deed is done,” she says.

“Which dirty deed?”

“Frank.”

I quickly swallow a piece of banana. “How did it go?”

“Well,” she says, “which part do you want to hear first—the good news or the bad news?”

“Give me the good news first.”

“The good news is that he bought the part about me changing my mind about becoming his new assistant.”

Why am I not surprised? Frank’s got too much ego to think that anyone can refuse him for very long.

“And the bad news?”

“He didn’t finish his orange juice.”

“You mean the orange juice that had a quarter of a crushed-up memory wipe pill in it?” I ask.

“Well, about a quarter. It was tough enough chopping that little pill into four pieces, let alone four equal-sized pieces,” she says.

“How much of it did he drink?”

“About half a glass. Maybe he just wasn’t thirsty. Or maybe the pill affected the taste somehow. I tried to get him to finish it, but I didn’t want to push too hard in case he got suspicious.”

I nod. Abbie did as well as she could. Half a glass. Assuming the quarter pill was dissolved evenly in the entire glass of juice—that means he only swallowed about one eighth of a memory wipe pill. It’s something. I just hope it’s enough.

“So what’s next?” she says.

“We timeleap to eight thirty-five
P.M.
on July 8, 1967. Zach and his family should be at La Ronde at the Gyrotron ride. I’ll join them there and then go with them to the water coaster ride called La Pitoune. Meanwhile, you go straight to La Pitoune and keep a look out for Frank. If you see him, mindlink me. If we can keep Zach safe until the next morning, then he goes with his family back to Boston, where neither Frank nor Uncle will ever find him because his file’s been erased.”

“Roger,” she says.

“Roger who?” I ask.

“Very funny. Let’s get going, mister.”

“What should I do with the blanket and pillow?” I say, looking down at my unmade bed.

“Just leave them. I’m sure someone else will put them to good use. And if not, they’ll be waiting here for you when you come back tonight.”

I’m hoping that was a joke. There’s no way my back will survive two nights in a row on that bench.

“All right. Let’s do it,” Abbie says, reaching for her wrist and mine at the same time.

Right before we leap, I sense movement beyond the stone wall circling the monastery. There, standing near the garden with head bowed in morning prayer, is one of the monks.

I’m not usually superstitious, but right now I’m hoping big-time that seeing the monk is a good omen, a sign that Abbie and I will be able to pull off our rescue and bring Zach home safely.

W
e land inside an empty stagecoach next to the Cinderella carriage I landed in the last time I came here.

Abbie and I come out of our time freeze at about the same time, but we have to wait another thirty seconds before the carousel finally stops. She hops off first, gives me a little wave and heads off toward La Pitoune. I follow her with my eyes until she’s swallowed up by the crowd.

I make my way over to the Gyrotron. Fifty feet from the entrance I stop and scan the area.

There’s a line of about a hundred people waiting for the ride. No sign yet of Zach, Jim or Diane … or for that matter, my past self.