Stolen Time Read online

  No longer worried that she might be shot at any moment, Dorothy allowed her head to fall back, taking in the space.

  It was, in a word, extraordinary. Nothing like the world she’d left in her own time, but familiar, somehow. Like a place she’d walked through in a dream. The ceiling arched high above her head, going up and up forever, and, though the walls started as craggy rock, they quickly morphed into flat, hard steel and wire and glass. The spotlights hanging from the ceiling were larger than anything Dorothy had ever seen before—the size of stagecoaches, at least—and so bright that she couldn’t look at them directly.

  And everywhere, everywhere, there were people. They were mostly men, but a few were women: straight-backed, serious women, wearing clothes that hid their figures, their faces scrubbed of makeup. These were not women trying to please the men around them. These were warriors. Fighters. Dorothy had to remind herself to keep her mouth closed as they walked past. Women like this didn’t exist where she came from. Even her mother, who hated men, had built her life around them. These women were different.

  Dorothy remembered the strange, hollow feeling she’d had on the morning of her wedding.

  This, she thought, furiously. This is what I was looking for.

  A grin threatened her lips, but Dorothy bit it back. Her fingers itched to reach into pockets, discover more treasures, but she resisted the impulse. If she really wanted to be part of a team, she needed to prove that she could be trusted. Which meant helping the others find this Professor person, instead of helping herself to the contents of strangers’ pockets.

  She was almost there—

  “Private!”

  Dorothy stopped walking, her spine rod-straight. Hadn’t the soldier whose uniform she was wearing been called private something?

  Did that mean that shout was directed at her?

  Blast. She could just pick out the rapid approach of footsteps through the throng of thumping boots behind her. Fear prickled up her arms. The hall leading to the east wing was just ahead. Three yards, maybe. Less than fifty feet. The muscles in her legs tightened.

  “Private!”

  It was no good—he was too close. Running would only blow her cover. She turned slowly, shaking out her legs to release the tension. A man was pushing through the crowd of soldiers. He wore the same uniform she did, but without the hat. His hair was cropped so close to his skull that she could see the pink of scalp through the prickly brown strands.

  “Do I—” she started. The man glanced at her, frowning, and then looked away. He lifted a hand to flag down a short, muscular woman with a long black braid who stood a few feet ahead of them both.

  Dorothy jerked back around, relief and nerves flooding over her in equal measure. From the corner of her eye, she caught the soldier turning to look at her again. She kept moving, a little faster now.

  Twenty more feet. Twelve . . . five . . .

  The walls narrowed in as Dorothy stepped out of the gateroom and into a dark corridor. It was mercifully empty. She felt herself relax into her too-large uniform, her legs going wobbly around the knees as she glanced to her left. The corridor ended in a simple door, clearly marked with the words East Wing.

  The Professor should be behind that door. She started toward it when a flash of metal caught her eye. She turned and saw that there was another door in the short, narrow hallway. This one was made of dull metal and marked with a single word:

  RESTRICTED.

  Her breath caught. Reality seemed to fold in on itself. She blinked, half expecting to find herself back in the Second Star, the anil swirling around her.

  She’d seen this before, just as she’d seen the tunnel before.

  Before she could stop herself, she stepped forward and tried the door handle—locked. Obviously. It’d been locked in her vision, too. Her eyes flicked down, finding the raised, metal keyboard below the latch. Just like before.

  She looked over her shoulder. The east wing was just a few more feet away. The plan had been to go straight there. Meet the others. Find the Professor. Prove that she could be part of a team. This wasn’t the right time for a detour.

  You shouldn’t trust them, she thought, remembering Roman’s words. Something prickled inside of her.

  She couldn’t bring herself to move away. It was as though the door were whispering to her, urging her closer. She had to know what was on the other side.

  She lowered a hand to the keypad. There were twelve keys, numbered one through nine, along with a pound sign, asterisk, and zero.

  Her vision hadn’t lasted long enough to show her a code. Although, she realized, if it really had been some sort of glimpse of the future it would’ve probably just shown her standing here now, confused.

  She pressed the five, and a green light flashed—she flinched, jerking her hand away. The light blinked three more times, and then turned red, issuing an angry buzz. After a moment, it disappeared.

  Dorothy bit into her lip, thinking. If this were a safe she’d have it open in minutes. But she didn’t know how many numbers this code required, or what the purposes of the pound sign and asterisk keys were. Even if she could figure out the numbers used in the combination by studying their level of wear (the one and four keys looked particularly well scuffed), there were too many possibilities to account for.

  “Blast,” she muttered, pinching her nose between two fingers. This wasn’t impossible. It couldn’t be. She just had to think it through. Safe combinations typically had three numbers . . . but the numbers could be double digits, so, really, it was anywhere between three and six numbers. Or maybe—

  “You there . . . Private!”

  Dorothy froze. She recognized that voice. It was the soldier from the gateroom, the one she’d thought had been calling to her.

  Footsteps thudded down the corridor behind her. She straightened, mentally flipping through every possible excuse she could have for being inside a military complex, wearing a stolen uniform, and trying to get through a locked door.

  It didn’t take very long, because there was only one, the truth, and she didn’t think this soldier was going to believe that she had to get through this door because she was a time traveler who’d had a vision of it and now she desperately needed to see what was on the other side.

  Oh God, those footsteps were coming closer. . . .

  There was really only one thing left for Dorothy to do, the only thing besides picking locks that she was actually any good at. She relaxed her face, hoping that men in the 1980s were at least as big a bunch of fools as men from the 1910s, and turned around.

  The soldier stopped walking, and that familiar leering, possessive look flashed across his face, twisting the corner of his mouth and narrowing his eyes.

  Dorothy felt a hint of disappointment, mingled with her relief. Every damn time.

  The soldier cleared his throat, the expression vanishing. “You’re, um, new, aren’t you? I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

  Chin down. Head tilted. Eyelashes lowered. Dorothy registered these commands without thinking about them. It was instinct—like a cat landing on its feet after a bad fall.

  “Is it that obvious?” she asked, lip curling in a soft smile. The soldier swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat. She slinked toward him, a move made much more difficult by the too-large boots on her feet. “Perhaps you could help me. You see, I’m so silly and seem to have forgotten the code. . . .”

  LOG ENTRY—MAY 9, 2075

  16:42 HOURS

  WEST COAST ACADEMY OF ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

  Now that we have a complete team, NASA and WCAAT have worked together to outline a training regimen. That consists of medical training and English language lessons for Chandra, flight school for Ash, and various martial arts and weapons training for Willis. WCAAT has agreed to bring Natasha on as the crew’s historian, so she’s been spending her days boning up on the few periods of history she’s not already an expert on, and I’ve officially hired Zo
ra as our backup mechanic.

  NASA gave me some hassle for this, until I pointed out that, so far, my daughter has assisted on the construction of two time machines, compared to everyone else on earth’s zero. She’s more qualified than any other person alive.

  The schedule is grueling for everyone. Hours of classes and training, followed by group sessions with Natasha where we study history. But not normal history. No wars and politicians and dates and things of that nature.

  We study the price of milk in 1932. The proper way to greet a stranger in 1712. Makes and models of common automobiles in 1964. Popular music in 1992.

  In other words, the boring bits of history.

  We’ve taken a few small trips through time already, but these are mostly team-building missions. NASA wants to see how well we work together before they send us anywhere exciting. Last week we went to 1989 to watch the Berlin Wall come down, and, a couple of days ago, I took the whole team to Chicago, 1908, to watch the Cubs win the World Series.

  But tonight’s going to be even better.

  Tonight, we get to watch a man land on the moon.

  30

  Ash

  MARCH 17, 1980, FORT HUNTER COMPLEX

  Ash found the stairwell right where the soldier had told him it would be. He checked over his shoulder to make sure no one was following him, and then he slipped inside. The door settled shut behind him with an ominous thud.

  The soldier had said this entrance would be guarded, so Ash was careful to walk silently, breathing through his nose and rolling his feet to keep the soles of his boots from creaking. He checked over the edge of the stairwell every few minutes, eyes peeled for movement.

  He was already several flights down when he caught the corner of an army-green uniform and heard a small sound, like someone clearing his throat.

  Here we go. Ash stayed near the wall, letting the shadows conceal him. He waited until the soldier was facing away, and then he crept up behind him, pressing the SIG Sauer to the back of his neck. “Evening, sir.”

  The soldier jerked and reached for the walkie-talkie at his belt, but Ash caught him by the wrist and twisted his arm behind his back, pushing his face into the wall. “Afraid I can’t let you do that.”

  The soldier grunted. “Who’re you?”

  Just your friendly neighborhood time traveler, Ash thought. He tightened his grip on the soldier’s wrist, pressing the gun deeper into his neck. The man flinched.

  “We’re going to take a walk,” Ash said. “All you gotta do is stay calm, and everything will be grand. Does that sound okay to you?”

  He kept his gun leveled against the back of the man’s head until the soldier slowly nodded.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Just down the hall,” Ash said. “Keep moving.”

  Ash pushed the soldier down the empty corridor, stopping when they reached the door Quinn Fox and the Professor had disappeared through only a few moments before.

  He nodded at the door. “Get it open.”

  The soldier jabbed a few numbers into the keypad. The lights flashed green and a quick beep beep beep told Ash it was unlocked. He pushed it open with his shoulder, dragging the soldier with him. “I’m going to tie you up now,” Ash told the soldier. “No hard feelings or nothing, I just can’t have you alerting anyone to my presence. Got it?”

  The soldier swallowed. Then nodded.

  “Strong and silent type,” Ash muttered. “I like that.”

  He pulled a bandanna out of his jacket pocket and began winding it around the soldier’s thick wrists. When he finished, Ash pulled the man’s gun and walkie-talkie from his belt and added them to his own. “Now, I’m going to trust you to stay right here until I get back. Is that clear?”

  Another shaky nod. Ash left the soldier where he was and headed through the door.

  Darkness yawned before him. Ash took a step forward—and then paused. He couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead, but the air felt thin, and his footsteps echoed. The smell of smoke and engine grease clung to his nostrils.

  He inhaled, deep, tilting his head back. He had a sense that the room went up and up and up.

  What was this place?

  Slowly, his eyes began to adjust to the darkness. He could make out the silhouettes of objects hanging from the ceiling and jutting up from the floor. Something long and curved sliced through the black, and he could’ve sworn he saw the jagged halo of propellers, shadows blanketing their edges.

  It was a hangar, he realized, and felt a hint of excitement, mingled with disappointment. He wished it were brighter. He would’ve liked to see the aircrafts the US government kept hidden in a secret bunker deep inside a mountain.

  Not that he had the time to ogle planes just now, anyway. He eased deeper into the hangar, gun cocked, eyes peeled. No other shadows moved through the darkness, no other sounds echoed off the walls.

  “Where’d you go, Quinn?” he muttered, surprised at the viciousness in his own voice. Adrenaline spiked through him.

  Was he really going to do this? Was he really going to murder someone in cold blood?

  He’d killed a person before. He’d been a soldier during wartime, after all. But those people had been armed. They’d been shooting at him.

  He swallowed, picturing Quinn’s dagger flashing silver in the darkness. The cold bite of a blade sliding into the skin just below his ribs.

  It doesn’t have to end like this.

  Of course it does.

  He didn’t want to kill anyone. But he didn’t want to die, either.

  He tightened his grip on his gun, easing around an old fighter jet. His heart was thudding like a jackrabbit inside his chest. She had to be here. People didn’t just vanish into thin air.

  A finned tail cut through the darkness, catching his eye. He squinted, forgetting about Quinn for a fraction of a moment.

  There was an aircraft hidden in the shadows. It was bullet-shaped, like zeppelins from the forties, but smaller. As Ash’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he could just make out the shape of black stars gleaming from the metal.

  He moved closer, his breath a spiky ball in his throat. He half expected it to be a copy, like the Black Crow. But, no. The ship was real, so real that it made him feel like a fool for mistaking it—even for a second—for the impostor in the Fairmont’s parking garage.

  The Dark Star was here.

  His heartbeat sputtered. Why was it here?

  The Professor wouldn’t have taken the time machine into the complex with him. He would’ve left it in the woods, hidden, so that he could go back to it later. It being here now could only mean that the soldiers found it, that they brought it here. Which meant they knew the Professor had snuck into the complex.

  Ash held the pistol before himself, approaching the ship like it was a horse that might spook. The door was already open.

  He took the stairs two at once. His world had narrowed to a single point. No sound came from inside the ship, not a footstep, or a breath. Ash could practically hear his own heart pounding through the stillness, echoing, making the Star’s steel walls tremble.

  The scent hit him first: pipe smoke and aftershave and burnt coffee. The Professor’s scent. It was like seeing a ghost—or smelling a ghost—and it took everything Ash had not to drop his gun right there.

  He tightened his fingers, the SIG Sauer’s plastic creaking. The Professor had come this way, too, hadn’t he? He could even be here, now, trying to get his ship the hell out of here before the complex guards found him.

  “Professor?” Ash whispered, inching forward. The ship’s control panel gleamed in the darkness, all well-oiled wood and shiny chrome. Professor Walker had style; no one could deny him that. The Dark Star was much larger than the Second Star, designed to carry a team comfortably. Ash eased through the three main rooms of the machine—passenger cabin, cockpit, and cargo room. All were empty.

  “Quinn?” Ash tried instead. He imagined he heard a laugh—something faint, barely more
than a release of breath—and he spun around, finger trembling against the gun’s trigger. But there were only empty chairs and shadowy walls and nothingness.

  Ash’s eyes had grown tired from straining against the darkness. He relaxed for long enough to grope along the time-machine walls for the light switch. The darkness scattered, and he saw that the cabin was empty. No one was there but him.

  Ash exhaled, lowering his gun. Perhaps he should be relieved, but he wasn’t. He felt like something had been taken from him. He’d seen the Professor walk into this room, and he’d seen Quinn follow him. But neither were here.

  It was as though they’d vanished. And, with them, any hope Ash had of keeping his prememory from coming for him.

  He felt as though the air had changed—grown colder, more still. He slid his gun into the back waistband of his jeans, eyes moving to the Dark Star’s windshield. He hadn’t noticed in the dark, but now he could see that it was covered in small, cramped numbers, written in the Professor’s handwriting.

  Curious, he drew closer.

  2071—4.7

  2073—6.9

  2075—9.3

  2078—10.5

  2080—13.8

  Ash felt his thoughts hitch. He thought he recognized those numbers. Didn’t he? The first obviously seemed to be a year, and the second looked like a magnitude number, which was a number used to quantify the scale of an earthquake.

  Ash hadn’t gotten to New Seattle until 2075, so he had no memory of the 2073 earthquake though, of course, he’d heard the Professor and Zora, and even Roman, talk about it. He seemed to recall that it was somewhere around a 6.9. And of course he remembered the 2075 earthquake. That one had definitely been a 9.3.

  “2078,” Ash murmured, his eyes moving down the list. “10.5.”

  But that number couldn’t be right. There had never been an earthquake over a 9.5, not in all of history. The devastation would be catastrophic. An earthquake of that size would destroy all of North America. Maybe all of the western hemisphere. It would cause a mass extinction event in line with what killed the dinosaurs.