New Kind of Thread Idea: Your Vintage Life

[plain old dave]

Special Agent Reading, Maine. (III)

The door opened and if Morris had been working a subject in Kentucky, the lady (term used VERY loosely) might be called "white trash". Permed hair, and he could tell she had had a VERY rough life. He would bet his very next 3 paychecks he was looking at Margaret Dellings.

"Ms. Dellings?"

"Yeah, waddaya want?"

He slowly and deliberately removed his credentials from the breast pocket of his jacket, and unfolded the badge.

"Special Agent Reading, National Security Agency. I'd like to speak to you for a few minutes. May I come in?"

"I guess this is Union Station. Come in." she grumbled.

Agent Reading entered the living room. He greeted Dr. Gordon. "Dr. Gordon. And Mr. Philbrook, I presume?"

The old man nodded, warily. "You seem to know a LOT about us, but who the h-e-double hockey sticks are YOU?"

"Special Agent Morris Reading, National Security Agency. If you watch the news, you might think we get paid to snoop into people's private business. I prefer to say it's my job to, well, know things. Everybody in this room knows Frances Dellings in some manner. What only Dr. Gordon and I know is that she is indeed alive and well. And I do need to tell you all that all this information is subject to the National Security Act of 1950 and unauthorized disclosure is subject to significant criminal penalty."

"My job is information, as I mentioned, I am paid to know things. About a week ago, there was what the physicists call a "singularity" just a few miles from here. Frances Dellings was operating a 1937 Plymouth on the Amoskeag Bridge one September evening in 1942 and apparently the singularity presented in this area then, as well. She entered the bridge in 1942 and left it in 2013."

Margaret was almost incandescent. "You better get outa here and I mean NOW. Alla ya."

"Ms. Dellings, I want to show you something before I leave," said Agent Reading as he removed an iPad from his suitcase. He powered it up and drug his fingertip across the screen. "I want to show you one photograph that was taken this morning in Oak Ridge, Tennessee."

He showed Margaret the picture he had taken at lunch that morning with Frances eating a barbeque sandwich.

She fainted.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Dr. Gordon cleared the other two men away from Margaret Hutchins -- he was, after all, an M. D. , and if he didn't know anything about the physics of time travel he at least knew how to deal with a patient who had fainted from shock. Michael Philbrook was staring at the image on the iPad as though he was looking into an opened grave.

"My folks had pictures of Frannie. If that ain't her, it's her long lost twin. What the hell is this all about?

Special Agent Reading retrieved the iPad and closed the image. "I've told you all I'm at liberty to say, Mr. Philbrook. As soon as we get Ms. Dellings -- Mrs. Hutchins -- situated, I'm going to have to ask you to return to your vehicle. I need to have a few words with Dr. Gordon in private.

Philbrook helped Gordon move Maggie to a green vinyl recliner in the living room, and her eyelids began to flutter. "It's not her," she insisted. "It looks like her, but it's not her, people don't come back from the dead."

"Ma'am," said Reading, "please rest here for a few minutes. Mr. Philbrook, please excuse us, Dr. Gordon and I have -- unfinished business." The agent grasped Gordon by his elbow and steered him back into the kitchen as Philbrook obediently made his way back to the Lexus to wait.

"Now, Dr. Gordon," Reading began with a tight smile, "we need to -- clarify your involvement in this affair. Who, exactly, are you working for?"

For once in his life, Mark Gordon was speechless.

"You heard the question, Doctor. For whom are you working?"

"I work for Donahue Memorial Hospital, and I know my rights. Are you placing me under arrest? If so, on what charge."

"Doctor, doctor, please. We're grown men here, this isn't some cops-and-robbers melodrama. I've asked you a straightforward question, and I want a straightforward answer. Why are you *here?* Why have you gone to considerable effort -- compromised your professional ethics -- to drive all the way out here to -- to -- East Bunghole or whatever this town is and talk to this old woman? It doesn't seem like your -- usual haunts."

"Usual haunts?"

"We know a lot about you, Dr. Gordon. You've -- come to our attention -- in connection with this -- matter -- and accordingly we've taken steps to, shall we say, get to know you better. And we've learned a great deal. We know all about how you like to spend your -- free time, those websites you like to visit for example, your -- shall we say -- hobby. How's your marriage going, Doctor? Tell me, how's Rochelle?"

Gordon blanched.

"So, you see, Doctor, information is our business." Reading sat on the edge of Maggie Hutchins' rickety kitchen table, held out his hands, and smiled. "But we find that we'd rather that -- the persons who have come to our attention -- help us out a bit." He put a hand on Gordon's shoulder. "When you're good to Uncle, Dr. Gordon, Uncle's good to you."

Gordon laughed nervously. "Who writes your dialogue, Mr. Reading?" he said with forced sarcasm. "It's really quite dramatic."

"I can arrest you, Dr. Gordon. You know that, don't you. Oh, the charge doesn't matter, we can come up with something, but the charge isn't the point. Imagine the -- disgrace. The hospital isn't very happy with you, you know, that little stunt with the deputy sheriffs -- bad form, Dr. Gordon, bad form. The hospital gets enough bad publicity over budget cuts, executive malfeasance, malpractice suits without becoming involved in a National Security scandal. No, I'm afraid your career won't last long once that hits the media. And those payments on your mortgage, Doctor -- really, a house on the Point? A bit ostentatious for a man who isn't even a department head, wouldn't you think? Rochelle doesn't like the town -- maybe she'd like Maplewood better. Assuming you could get a job there, that is. Or maybe you're thinking private practice -- but oh, the way news spreads over the internet these days..."

Gordon had enough. "All right, all right," he exploded. "I just -- wanted to *know,* that's all. I just wanted to -- know, one way or the other. I'm not working for anybody, I swear it. I'm not working for anybody. I just wanted to -- know."

"Oh, we knew that all along Dr. Gordon," smiled Reading. "I just wanted to hear you say it, that's all." He patted the doctor on his shoulder. "I think we have all we need from you, so you and Mr. Philbrook are free to go."

Gordon gathered up his briefcase along with what remained of his dignity, and tried mightily to come up with some cutting farewell remark, but his well had never run particularly deep, and now it was bone dry. "All right then," he finally said. "All right."

"Oh, one more thing --" added Reading. He always relished a chance to say that, even adding a touch of Peter Falk to his voice as he held up his finger. "I'm going to have to ask you for those -- items you removed from Frances Dellings' purse back at the hospital. She noticed they were gone, and asked us if we might recover them. Sentimental value, you know. I promised I'd do my best." He held out his palm, and with a grunt, Gordon handed over the nail file, the key ring and the Girl Scout knife. Reading put the items in his inside pocket. "Thank you Doctor," he said, with another of those tight-lipped smiles in which he seemed to specialize. "Your government will -- appreciate -- your discretion in this matter."

Gordon left without a word. Reading heard the Lexus start and pull out of the driveway. Thru the kitchen door he watched it move up the dirt road back to the highway.

"Now, Mrs. Hutchins," he said, in a pleasant, almost gentle voice. "We have some matters to discuss. I'm going to ask you to accompany me on a little trip."

Maggie looked up from the chair. "I don't know who you are, but you can't make *me* go anywhere."

"You miss my meaning, Mrs. Hutchins. After you hear what I have to say, I'm willing to bet you'll *want* to come with me."

 

[Gingerella72]

Lizze and plain old dave, Bravo! This is such a fun read.....can't wait to find out what happens next!

Bartenders, someone a couple of pages ago suggested an area in the lounge to post fiction, and after this, I agree! Maybe as part of the Reading Room?

 

[F. J.]

Whitfield . . .

Whitfield is a real town not far from here, minus a vowel. I'm deliberately distorting the geography and some of the place names here because, after all, it's fiction...

Oh, I was just saying the first thing that popped in to my head when I read "Whitfield". In Mississippi, it's synonymous with "looney-bin".


Just one more off-topic:
A friend and I once were trying to find somewhere else and his GPS tried to take us to Whitfield. I guess it thought one of us was crazy. . . . :crazy:

 

[plain old dave]

"After you hear what I have to say, I'm willing to bet you'll *want* to come with me."

Hello, Alice. Welcome to wonderland, Reading thought. The shrinks at the outbrief said to break the news gently. Well, they weren't here with this piece of poor white trash that life had taken a big, hot, steamy you-know-what on for most of the last 70 years. Scandals, failed marriage, couldn't hold a job... The Maine Unemployment System indicated she had filed for unemployment benefits at least 5 times, and that was just since the system was computerized. Restraint, they said. Heh. Well, so much for THAT.

"I am sure you have heard of Oak Ridge, Tennessee"

"Yeah... Ain't that the town they invented the Atomic Bomb in? All sorts of nuculer stuff, right?"

"That was the original mission, yes. But over the decades, the Labs' mission has broadened considerably. Radiation medical therapy was invented in Oak Ridge, and today the fastest computer in the entire world is there."

"So what's that got to do with Ma and me?"

"You're candid, and I can appreciate that. Have you ever seen the TV program, Stargate?"

"Once or twice. Got some Government people that go all over the universe or somethin', don't it?"

"Yes. I'm not a scientist, either. My business is knowing things. From what the scientists tell me, your mother went through something like that. Only instead of traveling thousands of miles, she traveled 72-odd years into the future. Where YOU come in, Margaret, is over the day and a half I spent in a car with your mother driving to Oak Ridge, I learned a lot about YOU. She talked about you endlessly as we drove and she wants to see you almost as much as she wants to go home to 1942."

"Can your eggheads get her home?" She grew strangely thoughtful for a second. "And what happens to ME if ya get her home?"

"Thank you for mentioning that. They tell me that one of the physicists at Oak Ridge had written a paper about quantum physics, what he called "folding space". UT-Batelle, who operates the Labs, thought it was an interesting theory, but one that could not reasonable be explored. That changed about a week ago. Ever since your Mother showed up here and now, ORNL has been on a crash program to replicate the singularity. There is, of course, military application. If we can perfect the technology, we can send troops right where Al-Quaida is IMMEDIATELY. This technology could help us win the war on terror. For you, though, it's a chance at a new life. I know how rough things have been. My job is information, and I'm not going to waste your time with fake empathy or telling you things you already know. What I will say, though, is for YOU this is a chance at a clean slate. From what the scientists say, at least for the people in 1942, it will be like none of this ever happened.

"Bears mentioning, too, that there are other nations with 'interest' in this technology and we believe there is a good chance that they might try and get to you to get us to turn your mother over. THAT's why I came up here."

Margaret thought about all this. Could, really, her entire life have been a bad dream? Could this Fed be right and everything, after all this, wind up completely different? The Fed seemed to be honest. He wasn't no do-gooder; to HIM she was just an assignment. Just the job. What did she have to lose? At worst, it would be a free trip to Tennessee, and maybe.... She decided to not think about that. Her brow knitted in concentration as she finished the Pall Mall. This Fed seemed to be a little Matlock, a little Peter Gunn, a little Joe Friday and a whole lot of dangerous if you crossed him. That shrink from the hospital left looking like a whipped puppy. What'd he tell him?

She sighed and put out the cigarette.

"So like they say on the news, all I am to ya and your eggheads is an "asset"? You're honest, and I like that. All right. When do we leave?"

 

[plain old dave]

Oak Ridge.

Frances was standing under the portico as Dr. Wilcox drove up in a different Ford. This one was even smaller than the one they drove down from Maine in. About as long as an A-model, but even lower. Was cobalt blue and had lettering on the door saying "US Department of Energy." As the car stopped, she heard a clunking noise and Dr. Wilcox motioned for her to open the door. She got in.

"Anything in particular you want to see, milady?"

She looked over, and Doc was wearing something she had not seen a single man wear since she got here: A bow tie, and a fairly nice one. Out of the corner of her eye, too, she caught a glimpse of a tan hat on the back seat. Maybe the future wasn't a TOTAL wash. She smiled slightly at his chivalrous remark.

"Aw, I dunno. Maybe what you got as a grocery store? Say, you said we won the war here. Is there a lie-berry or a museum or somethin'? They got a LOT goin' on, and I'd like to know a little about it."

"As it happens, there IS a Museum of Science and Energy. Just down from the hotel, and they do a fine job of telling what all we do here. We'll go there adn see how the day develops."

They turned left onto the State highway the locals called Illinois Avenue, and came up to a red light. She looked off to the right and saw a giant building that said "Wal-Mart" on it.

"Big place for building supplies. An' they didn't spell "wall" right."

"Wal-Mart? That's not a building supply place. Was named after a man named Walton. THAT's one of our grocery stores. Got a department store in it, too. Service station, too."

"Wow! Do you all have business that just do one thing now?"

"A few, but Wal-Marts are everywhere."

"Oh. Like Kresge's."

"Yes, and Wal-Mart is running "Kresge's" out of business. Sears, too."

She grew wide-eyed. Sears and Roebuck? Just when she was starting to understand the future, here was another curve ball. As they turned left into the museum parking lot, she saw a "Tinseltown Theater" across the street.

"What's playin'?"

"You mean at Tinseltown? They have 10-12 movies all at different times. I can look when we get stopped."

He parked the car, and they went in the Museum. He was right, these "Labs" had their hands in everything from soup to nuts. They hadn't cured cancer, yet, but they used this 'radiation' to treat it apparently. she remembered Jimmy down at the garage that had died of stomach cancer 2 years ago. Seemed like at first, he just lost his appetite for some things. Then he started losing weight, Watching him go was just awful. Last time they went to the hospital to see him, he looked like he was gone already. The Docs said there wasn't nothing they could do. Might he have been all right with this 'chemotherapy'?

She was starting to get a little bored with all this technology, when she heard the familiar strains of the Glenn Miller Orchestra's "Moonlight Serenade", and it led into "In The Mood". She went over to the display. Had a guard shack like at the National Guard Armory at home at its entrance.

Dr. Wilcox joined her. 'Thought you'd wind up over here. There's some pretty rough stuff in there. You SURE you want to see this?"

"Yeah."

Doc, to his credit, didn't say a word. She noticed his suit. First one she'd seen since she got 'here' that looked like it had been tailored. He was wearing that new Stetson... Open something? Strato? Either way, it suited him. They went through the exhibit, and some things were familiar. There was Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini... Heinie soldiers marching. A letter from Einstein to Mr. Roosevelt. Some pictures of soldiers, a couple Army Air Corps bombers. There was pictures of 2 cities that was just.... gone. Probably the 2 Jap cities we bombed, she thought. One bomb did all that? Geezus. Then, a picture down the way caught her eye. Had.... something stacked in a trench and looked like soldiers standing at the top of it with ordinary people looking down into it. She got closer, and couldn't believe what she saw.

It was dead people.

She barely made it to the ladies' room before she threw up. Dr. Wilcox was waiting outside after she cleaned up.

"You all right?"

"I will be." Her voice broke, and her eyes filled with tears. "I heard about stuff like that, but never believed it. Pa and his friends that was in the last war, they all thought what we heard about Hitler and the Jews was like what they said about Belgium." She tried to collect herself, and failed. "Hitler and them Heinie bastards are killin' Jews like they was rats. You said we used this new bomb on Japan. Why didn't we bomb the Heinies to hell and gone with it instead?"

Dr. Wilcox was thoughtful. Hadn't realized the Holocaust would be this impactful. "That WAS the original plan. But by the time the first one was ready, Hitler had killed himself and the Germans had surrendered."

"Makes sense to use it on the Japs, maybe. We had a couple Marines come home from Guadalcanal last week. Japs don't surrender, they'd rather die. They threw everything at us on Guadalcanal but the kitchen sink from what these guys said. I think I seen all I need to here. Can we go?"

"Of course."

They quickly left the museum and made their way over to Food City.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Frances Dellings hadn't traveled much in her life -- travel wasn't something people like her did very often, it was for other people, for the kind of people who read the New Yorker, wore silk stockings every day, talked thru their noses, and owned Buicks. Oh, she'd gone to the Fair that time with Ernie, all the way to New York on the Down Easter, but that was a special treat, something they'd saved up for for a whole year. And they'd driven to Boston a couple of times to go to ball games at Fenway Park or Braves Field, and on one of those trips Ernie'd took a wrong turn driving home and they'd had to spend the night in a tourist camp somewhere in New Hampshire, just like in "It Happened One Night," but that was the extent of her travels. Most of her life was circumscribed by a tight line extending south to Westkeag, east to the First National store, west to the end of Orient Street, and North to Chickawaukee Lake, where everybody liked to go for summer picnics and the occasional swim. Everything she needed, everything she wanted, could be found within that small boundary.

But now she was seeing the world, and to be honest, she was enjoying that part of this whole insane experience. She'd heard stories about the South, she'd read Uncle Tom's Cabin and Gone With The Wind, her grandfather had told her stories about the Civil War, but this South was different from what she'd expected. Once you got past the funny accents, people seemed friendly, people just going about their business like they do anywhere. And she had to admit the food was unlike anything she'd ever eaten. When they toured the grocery store, she was overwhelmed by all the things on the shelves. At the National, they had a lot of different things, but the store he showed her was maybe four times as big and contained maybe four times as many different products -- one whole row of cold cereal, an entire row of different kinds of soda, another entire row of nothing but potato chips.

"I notice you got a lot of fat people around here," she laughed. "Maybe this is why."

Walking around the grocery store made her hungry, and she was looking forward to lunch. First, though, Dr. Wilcox wanted to show her something he called a "mall." From what he'd told her, it was a place with a lot of stores, something like Main Street back home, probably with a big department store like Senter-Crane's, a dime store like Kresge's, some clothing shops like Puritan's or the Boston Store, a drug store like Walmsley's or Goodnow's Cut Rate, maybe a Postal Telegraph or a Western Union office, and place to buy papers and magazines like State News. But as the car pulled into an enormous parking lot, Frances was mystified.

"Where's the street?" she asked, as Wilcox pulled the car into a slot. "I see all these cars, but where's the street?"

"Well, this is the part you'll find interesting," he replied. "The street is -- inside, in those buildings."

She'd seen some strange things since she'd been here, she'd seen some things she'd been hard-pressed to explain, but an indoor street just about took the cake. Wilcox noticed the mystified look on her face, and explained as they walked toward the mall entrance. "You went to New York, right? And rode the subway? Think of a mall as being something like that -- a way to go from place to place, from store to store, without being exposed to the elements. They're not as popular now as they were, say, twenty or thirty years ago, because people do a lot of their shopping now over the Internet, but there's still a lot of them around. This one is one of the biggest in the whole state, and it's easy to wander around and get lost, so I think it's best if we stick close together."

Frances nodded. This didn't look like the kind of place where she'd want to get lost -- it seemed as crowded as New York.

They stepped thru an entrance widening out into a wide street with no sidewalks -- the whole street was a sidewak, lined on either side with open store facades. Hundreds of people surged along clutching shopping bags, women with haughty faces and high-heeled boots, men with their heads down and their shoulders thrusting a path thru the crowd, families with children shouting and pulling their parents in opposite direction. Frances noticed a store selling books. "Oh, let's go in here," she enthused.

Frances loved to read, and so did Ernie. They took the Courier, of course, and the Bangor paper, and sometimes Ernie bought the Daily Record out of Boston so they could read Walter Winchell and laugh at the way he put things. They took Life and the Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies Home Journal and the Movie-Radio Guide, and sometimes they got Look and Liberty if it looked like there was something interesting in it. From the size of the bookshop, Frances figured these people liked to read too.

She looked around the store, and saw pyramids of identical volumes. "There's a lot of books in here, but they all seem to be big piles of three or four different ones."

"Best sellers," commented Dr. Wilcox. "Stores like to sell the most popular books, but it's not always so easy to find the ones that aren't so popular."

She wandered over to a rack displaying rows of magazines. She recognized a couple of the titles -- there was Time, the Reader's Digest, National Geographic -- she always liked to read that one at the library -- and Cosmopolitan. She reached for a copy of the latter title, and Wilcox gave a visible wince. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Well -- ah -- I think you'll find that one's -- not to your liking."

She gazed at the cover. A woman with hardly any clothes on smiled out, her body surrounded by slogans in big, bold print. "TEN SEX TRICKS TO MAKE YOUR MAN MOAN FOR MORE!" declared the most prominent. Frances felt herself flushing, and quickly shoved the magazine back onto the shelf. "My god," she whispered, "what if a kid sees that? What if a *cop* sees that?"

"It's a different world, Frances," replied Wilcox. "People are a lot more -- ah -- open about certain matters than you're used to."

"I mean, I'm a married woman and all, but -- my god. There are things you talk about in public and there are things you don't. Ernie sent away one time for one of them Little Blue Books out of the back of Popular Mechanics and I made him hide it under the socks in his drawer. God! I don't think I like this store, let's go someplace else."

They wandered back out into the street and Frances looked around. At the end of the street a gigantic electric sign spelled out the word "SEARS."

"Sears and Roebuck," she said. "We got that at home, but it's just a place where you go to pick up things you order out of the catalogue. This one looks like a whole store."

They approached the Sears entrance, and Frances hesitated. "It's so big," she exhaled. "They must have everything in the catalogue in there." She looked at Wilcox with a questioning look in her eyes. "What do people *do* with all this stuff?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do people *do* with all of this? All these stores, all these *things.* I mean, I have five dresses, three pairs of shoes, a spring coat, a winter coat, and a couple of hats. What do people *do* with all these clothes, all these -- things?"

"It's a different world, Frances," said Wilcox with a rueful smile. "People like to buy things, lots of things, and we've kind of built an entire society around that."

"But what do they do with all the stuff when they aren't using it? Where do they *put* it all?"

"I guess we ought to drive out to a subdivision and show you," chuckled Wilcox. "In science, we talk about how a liquid or a gas expands to fill the space available for its containment. I guess it's the same way with people and their possessions today. The more space we have, the more we feel compelled to fill it up."

Frances shook her head. "How do they afford it all? Is everybody in this century rich?"

"No, no they aren't," admitted Wilcox. "In fact, there are a lot of people around today who are just as bad off as y....as some people were in your time. But you know that little card I gave you? People use those to buy things and pay for them later."

"Like going to the pawn shop or to Household Finance? They borrow the money and pay it off later?"

"Well, sort of," he explained. "The way it's set up, they poy off part of the debt each month and keep adding to it by buying more things, and they're charged interest on the amount that's unpaid, so the debt keeps increasing until they pay it off, even if they don't buy anything."

"That's legal?" she asked, her eyes wide.

"Not only is it legal," continued Wilcox, "it's encouraged. You see those people over there?" He pointed to a table near the Sears entrance where a young blonde woman sat behind a row of large plastic bottles. Occasionally someone would approach the table, fill out a little card, and walk away with one of the bottles. "That woman there is signing people up for credit cards -- every person who signs up gets a free bottle of pop as an incentive.

"And then they go out and buy lots of things they can't afford and don't have room for, so they have to buy a bigger house and then they fill that one up and then they have to buy another bigger house, and on and on, and they never pay any of it off."

"That's pretty much the size of it."

"Why?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why do they do it? They know they're never going to pay it off, they know they don't *need* all the stuff they're buying, so why do they do it?"

"Well, that's a good question, Frances. I guess they feel like they have to because it's what everybody does."

Frances thought for a long moment. "You people are pretty smart," she concluded. "But you ain't as smart as you think you are."

 

[scottyrocks]

My goodness, I am so enjoying this.

I don't know if I'm happy about, or dreading a meeting between Frances and Margaret.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Margaret Hutchins was seventy-five years old, and she'd never flown. When she was fourteen, she'd gotten into a fight with another girl at Sweetser, and that girl had slapped her hard on her right ear, puncturing the eardrum, and ever since then she'd had dizzy spells. The doctors told her to avoid flying, and she'd been able to avoid it her whole life.

Not that there was ever anywhere to fly to. When she was married to Walter, they never took vacations, and there were never opportunities to take them anyway -- she'd spent her entire working life as a sardine packer, at Stinsons, at Port Clyde, at National Sea Products, wherever she could find work. She'd done that right up until the early '90s, when the canneries shut down and by then it was too old for her to do anything else. So she sat in her little house off the dirt road in Whitfield, watched her stories on the television, and waited, inevitably, to die. All she had to remember her working life by was the missing tip of the little finger on her left hand, a remembrance of a day when she'd tried too hard to meet her quota and lost control of her scissors. She'd often wondered what happened to that fingertip, if the sardine eater who opened up the can ever noticed it.

But now, she was about to fly. She was sitting in the Augusta airport, waiting for a Government plane to take her to Tennessee to see her mother. "What a laugh," she thought. "See my mother."

The airport was located alongside the state Air National Guard base, and men in uniform tramped all around as she and Agent Reading waited for the plane. She couldn't figure him at all -- he seemed to actually believe all this crackpot stuff about time shifts and singularities, whatever the hell that was. But, hell, it beat sitting in the house, and it wasn't costing her anything, so why not.

She was still unsettled by what Reading had said, though, about how if they could return this woman who claimed to be her mother back to her own time, the life she'd known would never happen. What would become of her then? What life would she lead instead? Would she grow up, go to college, maybe, have kids of her own one day, never have to look a herring in the eye as she snipped its head off?

"Imagine a river," Agent Reading had said. "Imagine a river that's flowing in a defined course, from source to sea, and then something happens and diverts that river from its course. Everything after the point of that diversion changes. We believe your mother was that point of divergence -- we believe that the timeline that was supposed to occur was diverted the moment she disappeared from that bridge in 1942, and everything that's happened since then *shoudln't* have happened. We don't know how else the future was changed, the extent of the impact beyond what happened to you and your family, but we do know that, from the standpoint of 1942, your mother's disappearance changed the future. We need to send her back, so the timeline that should have existed all along will exist."

She'd looked at him like he had three heads. "Maybe he *does* have three heads," she thought, as she watched him eat a candy bar purchased from a vending machine. "Maybe he came off a flying saucer and is gonna take me to Neptune and dissect me or something. It makes about as much sense as all the rest of this foolishness."

What would she say to her mother when they met? "Hah," she thought to herself. "Mother. That's rich."

A man in a dark suit stepped up to Agent Reading and they exchanged a few words. Reading took a sheaf of documents from the man, and stepped toward Maggie. "Get your things," he said in a brisk voice. "Our flight is boarding."

 

[plain old dave]

Alcoa, Tennessee.

The flight to Tennesee was uneventful. Agent Reading briefed Margaret on what they might expect on the ground.

"We will be landing at a civilian airport, but on the National Guard side. If we tell you to lay down in the seat, DON'T get up til we tell you to."

"Ya expectin' terrorists or somethin'?" Margaret was still suspicious, but something about this Fed, Reading, just seemed to 'click'. He reminded her of Joe Friday.

"Something like that. We have credible information that the Russian Mafia is aware of the singularity, at least. It is not yet clear yet to what extent they are, but we have to take every precaution. We were going to put you up at a nice hotel in Oak Ridge, but given developments we will have to make space at the Guest Quarters at Y-12. It is the most secure place in the entire State of Tennessee, and you'll be safe there."

"Didn't a bunch'a hippies bust in there a while back? Seems like I heard that in the news."

Agent Reading smiled his thin, little smile. "I wasn't assigned here then. Now, we'll be met on the ground by an associate, Special Agent Lodge. I think we're coming into Mcghee-Tyson, so you better buckle up.

Margaret could tell the airplane was slowly descending, but the actual landing startled her. After such a smooth flight, the jolt was a surprise. And then the rapid braking. It was so fast she had to struggle a bit to stay upright in the seat. Presently, they taxied up to the terminal.

"Welcome to Knoxville," said Agent Reading as he put on a sort of vest over his shirt sleeves and strapped a holster about halfway down his leg. He expertly transferred his pistol to the new holster, installed a silencer on the M4, and picked up his briefcase. "We better get moving; the faster we're at Y-12, the better."

Margaret had lived a LOT, that was sure. One thing she had learned was how to read people. And Reading seemed wound up now that they were in Tennessee, for lack of a better way to put it. "Okay, but I ain't no spy or spook or nothin'. I'll move as quick as I can."

They made their way down the ladder, and waiting on the tarmac was a medium blue Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. The lady Fed leaning on the fender was wearing a dark colored pants suit. Incongruously, she looked like Veronica Lake's double but was carrying a huge shotgun. Kinda looks like what Hunter useta have, Margaret thought as they walked up to the car. Reading spoke,

"Ms. Hutchins, Special Agent Lodge. Special Agent Lodge, Ms. Hutchins."

The women exchanged pleasantries, and they loaded into the car. Left the base and turned out onto the access road that led to Alcoa Highway. About halfway out, a car was broken down off to the side. Reading spoke to the other Agent,

"Meg, are you thinking what I am?"

"We're made."

"Yep. Let's take the initiative. Pull over and be ready."

Margaret's heart got up in her throat, and it felt like her heart would come right out of her chest. These Feds are for real! she thought. Special Agent Reading turned around as he removed the vest.

"Ms. Dellings, if you see either of us raise a gun, you need to lay down in the seat until we let you know it's clear. This feels Russian to me, and the Russians don't have backup. Usually."

He got out of the car, and walked up to the broken down vehicle. As he did, Margaret heard the shink-shink of a pistol having a round chambered. Looking over the front seat, she saw a cocked .45 Automatic on Special Agent Lodge's lap. Lodge glanced in the mirror.

"Ma'am, you better sit back. Morris is the best there is at this sort of thing, but we may have to move quickly. Don't worry, you're safe."

She watched Reading apparently chatting with the owner of the car, and he eased around front and started looking under the hood. Suddenly, two other figures flanked him. Without any warning, he decked one of the three with the tool he was holding, floored the second one with a low sweeping kick, then threw the third through the Plymouth minivan's windshield. By then, the second one got up with a knife. They traded swings for a minute, then Reading caught the other man's arm, bending it at an impossible angle. While the man was holding his shattered arm, Reading made a roundhouse kick that knocked the man back into the van's open hood and he shakily came back at the agent. A second roundhouse kick put the man's lights out. Margaret was simply floored. Steven Seagal couldn't a did better, she thought. Reading checked the three unconcious men, and ziptied them together. He walked back to the car and got in.

"Chuck Norris wishes he was ME." Reading smiled his thin smile, again.

Margaret finally managed to speak. "W-who was them fellas?"

"Based on the MO, they were Russians. The broken car scam is a classic Russian Mafia move. The Alcoa police will pick them up shortly.

"Are they...."

"No, I didn't kill them." He smiled, again. "Will say THIS, though: they better get used to eating oatmeal for a long while. Somehow, they won't get their phone call and by this time tomorrow, they will be on their way back wherever they came from. Russians don't usually give grab squads cell phones, and hopefully the Russians will assume this was just routine counterespionage. I told them I was in the Air Guard."

Lodge shifted the car back into Drive and slowly drove off.

Margaret was flummoxed. "Them fellas tried to kidnap us or worse and you're drivin' like ta Church?"


Reading said, without turning around:

"If we'd have sped off, like in one of your 'shows', and there were any backup teams they would instantly have known they were blown. This way, they assume all is well and for whatever reason the main team decided to not make the grab."

By this time, they had gotten on to I-140, the Pellissippi Parkway. Suddenly, 2 black Ford Excursions came up. One dropped back about 5 car lengths, and the other rocketed up about the same.

Lodge said, "Better late than never."

Margaret appeared confused, and Reading explained. "That's the Special Response Team. They're armed to the teeth. We're not out of the woods, but anybody that wants us will have a VERY difficult time of it. You may as well relax and enjoy the ride. We'll be in Oak Ridge in a half hour."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Frances could say one thing for these people -- they knew how to make a hamburger. She and Dr. Wilcox were sitting in a restaurant near the mall, finishing their lunch, and Frances couldn't remember a hamburger as thick or as juicy. "Back home," she explained, "you get a hamburger, and it's kinda flat and dry, and the roll is flat and dry, and they don't put all this -- stuff on it. Of course, for eight dollars I guess I got a right to expect somethin' more for the money."

"I guess our prices would be kind of a shock to you," acknowledged Wilcox, finishing his own sandwich. "Of course, people earn more money now, so it all evens out. A garage mechanic like your husband might make thirty thousand dollars a year, and that's not very much money in our world."

"Jeezuz," exclaimed Frances. "Ernie makes twenty-four dollars a week down to the garage, and that's when he can work a full week. When he gets sick, you know, from the lung trouble, he don't make that much. And I make fifteen a week at the store, so we're doin' a lot better than a lot of people we know. Matter of fact, we were savin' up to get an electric refrigerator till the war come along, but now we put all that in bonds. Maybe after the war we'll have enough money saved up to buy a house instead of rentin', maybe even be able to send Maggie to college some day."

"The postwar dream," mused Dr. Wilcox.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, after the war, a lot of people had the same plans as you and your husband. They moved out of the cities and towns, into what we call the suburbs -- you saw some places like that when we were driving out here."

"You mean those places where all the streets were straight an' everything looked the same? No thanks, I don't want to live anyplace like that -- I like where we are now. If I need to use the phone, I yell across the alley and Alice tosses it out the window to me. Butchie says we ought to pay half their phone bill, but maybe after the war we can get a phone of our own."

Dr. Wilcox was smiling.

"What's so funny?" demanded Frances.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," he demurred. "It's just that stories like that remind me of my own mother. She lived in a neighborhood like that, where everybody knew everybody and people thought nothing of just walking into somebody else's house and helping themselves to a cup of sugar or something. I often think we've lost out on something, the way we live today, all spread out and all."

"I wish I was home now," sighed Frances. "No offense, Dr. Wilcox, you're good enough company and all, but -- this ain't home. It ain't the sound of my family in my house, my town, all the people I know -- all the people wonderin' what happened to me. The hamburger was good though, but I'd still rather be home."

Wilcox was looking at his pocket phone. People in this century seemed not to wear watches much, Frances had noticed, and instead whipped out their phones to check the time. Maybe they'd really get smart and hook their phones onto chains across the front of their coats, like Pa does with his watch.

"Your daughter -- Margaret -- is en route now, and I was hoping there'd be an ETA. We're expecting her to arrive at Knoxville shortly, and --"

As if on cue, the phone emitted an irritating noise. Wilcox checked the screen and raised it to his ear, a concerned expression on his face. Frances noticed he didn't say hello.

"I see," he said to the person on the other end of the call. His expression deepened from concern to urgency. "Acknowledged, we'll leave immediately, route seven alpha theta." He didn't say good-bye either, instead slipping the phone into his inner pocket.

Frances could tell something was seriously wrong. "It's about Margaret, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so," replied Wilcox. "She's landed safely, but there's been an -- incident on the highway on the way back to the base."

"What do you mean 'incident?' Why can't you people speak English?"

Wilcox pursed his lips and tried to compose a statement on the fly. "You remember we mentioned to you earlier that -- other parties are interested in the work we're doing to return you home. Well, it appears such parties have made an attempt to - intercept your daughter."

"Parties? Intercept? English, Doctor. English. You tryin' to tell me they're tryin' to KIDNAP Maggie?"

"Well, in so many words, yes. We believe it may have been agents of Russian organized crime."

"Russians? But the Russians are on our side!"

"It's a long story, Frances," said Wilcox, waving his credit card in the air and motioning for the check, "and I don't really have to explain it all to you now. We've got to get moving, and get back to the base -- we'll be using an alternate route in case we're being traced, but we're going to try and get back there as quickly as possible. From here on, things are going to be moving fast."

Wilcox was as good as his word. WIthin half an hour, they were pulling thru the gates at Y-12, and two men in uniform escorted them into a side entrance. "Follow me, Frances, and I'm afraid I can't answer any questions. Just do as I say and everything will be all right."

Frances noticed beads of sweat trickling from under the tan hat.

They moved quickly down a corridor Frances hadn't seen before, and stopped at a thick metal door. Wilcox bent down to peer into something that looked like the viewer on a Mutoscope machine from the penny arcade -- "Hell of a time to be lookin' at Little Egypt" was the thought that flickered quickly across Frances' mind, but before she could question his actions, the door slid open and Wilcox gestured for her to step inside.

The door slid closed behind them, and Frances looked around what seemed to be some sort of gigantic garage or hangar. It was damp and chilly and smelled of wet concrete. Behind a glass window at one side of the room she noticed a long line of men working at computer machines, some wearing headphones like a telephone operator, and some peering into a row of what looked like television screens along the wall. The lights flickered strangely, a sort of sickly greenish-yellow. Wires and cables and shiny aluminum balls were hanging from the girders in the ceiling, in one section of the floor, she saw something she couldn't explain -- something like a cross between a gigantic conveyor belt and a treadmill. And in a corner of the gigantic room, she was astonished to see her car, the green Plymouth, its crushed fender repaired as good as new.

"Dr. Wilcox," she asked in a muted voice, "What's this place all about? What's my car doing here? What's all this World's Fair stuff?"

"No time for questions, Frances, please. From here on, things are going to start moving fast. We're going to try to send you home. But there are several things we need to do first. FIrst of all, we need you to change your clothes."

"What? Change my clothes? You don't have time to answer questions, but you got time for a fashion show? What the hell is this all about, Doctor?"

"Please. It's essential that you take nothing back with you that you didn't have when you got here. You must be wearing exactly the same clothing you had on when you arrived. We've brought your things from the hospital, they're in the anteroom there, please go now, and change. We've little time to spare."

Frances was heading in the direction of the room, but Dr. Wilcox's voice brought her up short. "Frances! Wait!" He was holding the phone to his ear again and nodded furiously. "Change your clothes, Frances, and then report back to me immediately. I've just gotten word that Margaret has arrived."

 

[plain old dave]

I-140/TN-62.

Margaret saw the landscape flashing by, and wondered how fast they were going. The Ford's speedometer was right in between 130 and 140, and the old woman wondered how that Veronica Lake lookalike managed to keep the car in the road. Or, for that matter, how those huge SUVs were keeping up. A road sign said "Oak Ridge National Research Laboratories" and they veered to the left, the cop car's tires howling in protest. They blew by a gas station called, oddly enough, Raceway. They were coming up on a bridge over a river, and Agent Reading's iPad chirped.

Reading growled to himself as he looked at the screen. "Meg. We have to take Bethel Valley. I'll message the SRT."

Margaret was almost beside herself. What had she gotten into? This was like a James Bond movie or something. "W-what's happening?"

Agent Reading curtly said, "Hang on, this will be a tight turn" as the convoy made the exit onto Bethel Valley Road at about 100. "That last message was that the initial route back had been potentially compromised. As they went up the secluded back road, Margaret noticed that all the side roads were blocked by police cars that ALL said "US Department of Energy". They got to a gate that, for some reason, made her think how much tighter the security was than even at Fort Knox. The guards were all in green fatigues and all had the same small burp gun that Special Agent Reading had. They seemed a little edgy, too, but they went through the gate just fine. On the other side, a huge man with a walrus mustache got in the car.

"What kept you?" the huge man said, and for some reason his voice reminded Margaret of Sam Elliott from Tombstone.

Reading answered, "Marshal, I will tell you of a truth no good deed goes unpunished. Stopped to help some "stranded motorists" and got a good kickboxing workout for my trouble."

"Sounds fascinatin'. I tried to tell you people to stay close."

"Well, you know Dr. Wilcox. He's a history nut. I am sorry, Margaret, this is Deputy Marshal Thibidoux with the US Marshals' Service. Marshal, this is Frances' daughter Margaret."

Marshal Thibidoux glanced back. "Ma'am." He started scanning the entire area as they drove across the reservation. "I heard a LOT about you while we were bringing Ms. Dellings here."

Margaret wasn't quite sure what to think. Federal marshals, the NSA, Oak Ridge? Her mother? One thing she WAS sure of, though, and that was that Special Agent Morris Reading had saved her life. Her head started spinning.

Agent Lodge looked back, concerned. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I get dizzy spells now and again. Nothin' big."

Just then, they came to a parking lot that said "National Security Directorate". Lodge pulled the car up to the front door, the big marshal got out and unholstered his revolver and Agent Reading kept his M4 at the ready. Agent Lodge helped Margaret out, and the three briskly walked in the door while Megan Lodge parked the Crown Vic. Once they got through the door, Special Agent Reading said to Margaret,

"Alice, welcome to Wonderland. Let's go down the rabbit hole."

 

[LizzieMaine]

They'd had to cut the blue and grey print dress off her at the hospital because of her injured shoulder, but she couldn't find any evidence of the damage as she examined the garment. "They do good work here, I'll give them that," as she pulled the dress over her head. She buttoned the single row of buttons up the bodice, and then snapped the row of snaps at the placket. They'd even washed and pressed it for her. Some service.

Her green wool coat was draped over a chair and she slipped it on. A handkerchief was still wadded in the pocket along with a slip of paper, which when she pulled it out turned out to be the stub from a ticket to the Tivoli, the show she'd gone to see with Ernie last week.

"Last week," she thought. "Last month. Seventy-two years ago. Which is it? Or is it all of them at once?" She'd be glad when all this science stuff was over, she preferred to experience time the normal way, with everything in a simple, neat sequence. She plopped the black felt hat on the back of her head, arranged her hair, slung the pocketbook across her shoulder, and headed out the door.

She emerged back into the hangar amidst a rumble of confusion. People were rushing to and fro across the computer room, the television screens were lit with elaborate displays of charts and graphs and maps, and a knot of people stood near the main entrance. She recognized several of the men, Dr. Wilcox was there, having changed into a white lab coat, and that big Marshal with the moustache. Agent Reading was there too, along with a woman he didn't know, a blonde in a peek-a-boo hairstyle. And at the center of the knot of people, she glimpsed an elderly woman in a pink sweatshirt, a woman with tight, curly hair and rather prominent ears. The ears reminded her of Ernie's -- and she caught a quick breath as she connected the dots.

Dr. Wilcox spotted her and rushed to her side. "Frances, we're almost ready to go here, but you've still got a few minutes, and there's someone here you've wanted to meet. Frances, this is Margaret."

Frances looked into the elderly woman's face, and tried to see the face of her daughter, the little girl with the floppy hair ribbon and the crooked smile she'd last seen, what, a month ago? The elderly woman looked at Frances, with an expression of fear, astonishment, and -- anger, trying to remember the face she'd last seen a lifetime ago.

"Mum?" Margaret whispered. "It can't be you."

Frances could feel tears forming. "It's me. It really is me. It can't be -- you, can it? God almighty, it can't be you."

Margaret shook her head. In the hangar, the lights were growing brighter, and a rumbling whine began to fill the room. "This is me all right," she replied. "This is what's become of me -- because you left."

"I didn't leave," whispered Frances. "I was taken. They must've explained..."

"Don't matter how you explain it. I needed you -- and you weren't there."

"I'm sorry. I'm -- sorry."

"You should be."

Frances felt an ache that went deeper than any ache she'd ever experienced, an ache extending into the very core of her soul. What could she possibly say? "We're going to put this right," she finally responded. "That's what they promised to do here, and we got to believe that they will. And everything will be different, you'll see."

Margaret looked at her impassively. This woman looked like her mother, sounded like her mother, maybe even *was* her mother. But in the reality she herself had lived for more than seven decades, she had long since ceased to *be* her mother. The anger had burned her, scarred her, and in its own dark way had kept her alive, and she couldn't just throw it aside. "We'll see," she finally said, biting off the words. "We'll see."

Frances made a motion to embrace her daughter, but Margaret instinctively stepped back. Dr. Wilcox and Agent Reading rushed up, and Reading handed her her nail file, pocket knife and the set of keys. "Compliments of your friend Dr. Gordon," said Reading. "He was very cooperative once I -- reasoned with him."

"Don't put the keys away, Frances," added Wilcox. "You're going to need them. Come with me, it's time."

They bustled across the hangar floor toward the Plymouth. It was exactly the way she remembered it, the chipped paint, the recapped tires, the little dent along the side of the running board, the black and white "A" sticker on the windshield below the V-for-Victory-shaped inspection sticker, the top half of both headlights covered with black friction tape. It looked exactly as it had when she last drove it -- however long ago it was.

The rumble from equipment in the girders high above escalated into a whine.

"Get in the car, Frances," said Wilcox, "and listened to me carefully. I want you to start the car and drive onto that pad in the middle of the floor. Put the car in neutral and when you feel the wheels starting to move again, shift into gear and let out the clutch. You'll feel the speed, just as though you were driving on an actual road. Shift thru the gears and watch the speedometer. You'll have to try and remember how fast you were going when you were on the bridge -- when you get to that point, sound the horn, and then put both your hands firmly on the steering wheel. Do not let go of the wheel under any circumstances. Clear?"

She nodded. She looked across the hangar to see Margaret standing quietly, looking on with a stony expression. "Thank everybody for me, will you Doctor? You've been very kind."

"Good luck, Frances. Good luck." Wilcox squeezed her hand, and she got into the car.

Key into the ignition, turn to the right. Pull out the choke halfway, pull out the throttle a third. Deep breath, and punch the starter pedal with her right toe. The engine rumbled to life. Push in the throttle, push in the choke, shift into first and let out the clutch. Frances took a deep breath as the car lurched into motion, rolling slowly toward the pad.

Wilcox gestured into the glass-enclosed booth as the Plymouth moved into position. The whine escalated into a piercing scream, and the metal spheres began to glow. Frances could feel the pad starting to move under the car, and she shifted into gear. The needle on the speedometer passed ten. She shifted into second. The needle passed twenty. She shifted into high gear. The needle trembled, moving past thirty. As it neared thirty-five, she hammered her palm down on the horn button, sounding a single clear, extended BEEEEEEEEP.

Wilcox threw an arm signal. The spheres glowed like the sun, and a cloud of fog coalesced around the vehicle, speeding along yet not moving forward. Frances took a deep breath and clutched the steering wheel, her eyes fixed straight ahead.

And suddenly there was a sharp, harsh crackle. The fog dispersed as quickly as it came.

She was still in the hangar, and Wilcox was waving his arms frantically. "Stop the car!" he bellowed, straining to make himself heard over the noise from the equipment, as the scream paced down to a whine again, and from a whine to a rumble. "Stop the car!"

Frances stepped on the brake, slowed down and brought the car to a stop. Wilcox rushed up and motioned for her to roll down the window. "Shut it off, Frances, shut off the engine. We have a problem. It didn't work."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Six hours had passed, six more hours in this world, this century where she'd never wanted to be in the first place, and Frances Dellings was gritting her teeth in frustration. She was sitting in Dr. Wilcox's office, and she wasn't in any mood for light conversation. He'd spent the rest of the afternoon in consultation with his staff, Margaret had been taken away by the Marshal and Agent Reading and that girl with the hair, and she'd been left to just stand there like she'd been played for the prize sap of the universe.

Dr. Wilcox had tried to reassure her. He'd invited her to his office to share supper, promising her a real treat, something she'd probably never had before, but as she looked into the flat cardboard box spread out on his desk she wasn't especially impressed. He'd called it "pizza," and built it up to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but as far as she could tell it was almost the exact same thing as the "hot tomato pie" they sold at Pineao's Market down in the South End. She and Ernie used to get it sometimes when she was too tired to cook, and it was good, but it wasn't the greatest thing she'd ever eaten, not by a long shot. The only difference she could see with Dr. Wilcox's "pizza" was that it was thinner and had slices of some kind of spicy sausage on top. Big fat hairy deal.

"Doctor, you didn't answer my question," she demanded. "Your Flash Gordon gizmo out there didn't work. *Are* you gonna be able to get me home, or am I stuck here for good. And you know what answer I wanna hear."

"Frances, please," Wilcox pleaded. He'd taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. The bow tie was loosened and askew, and patches of sweat were visible around his armpits. "I told you we're still trying to figure out what went wrong. It could have been any one of a hundred things -- the calculations could have been off, someone could have made a data-entry error, a circuit could have overloaded, the spacing of the elctrodes might have been off, the whole system might have been too much for the generators. We just don't know."

Frances bit off a small chunk of the "pizza." The sausage gave it a spiciness that complemented the tomato sauce. Could be worse, but it wasn't bad. "And what have they done with Margaret?" she continued. "Those men of yours took her off somewhere and I haven't seen her since."

"She's being held in a secure location," explained Wilcox. "They're probably debriefing her about what happened on the highway, just a formality you understand. She's not in any trouble and I'm sure they're taking care of her."

"I don't want to be stuck here for the rest of my life, Doctor," Frances said in a low, even voice. "I -- can't be stuck here. Do whatever you have to do, do it however you have to do it, but for God's sake -- get -- me -- home."

She wanted to get up and leave the room, and punctuate her exit by slamming the door as hard as she could. But fat lot of good that would do, there was one of those uniformed guards right outside in the corridor. She couldn't do anything on her own here, anyway. Where was she going to go? She was helpless, and if there was one thing Frances Dellings hated, it was feeling helpless.

Wilcox pored over the display on his computer screen, absently chewing a bite of the pizza. A string of cheese and tomato had dripped onto his shirt, but he was completely oblivious, completely absorbed in his analysis of the information. There *had* to be something he was missing, there had to be an error he hadn't noted. Theoretically, it should have worked. The modeling was accurate, he was sure of that. But Frances Dellings was still sitting in his office, still gazing at him with those fierce, angry eyes, and no matter how right he thought he'd been, he'd clearly been wrong.

Frances didn't know what to do to pass the time. She'd eaten her fill of the tomato pie, there were no papers or magazines in the office to read, there was nothing to do but sit and stare at the sickly green cinder-block walls of the office. "Dammit," she thought to herself. "Dammit."

Her frustration was interrupted by the chirping of a telephone. "These people don't even know how to make a telephone bell," she grumbled to herself. Wilcox took the call, and stood up, clearly agitated.

"Are you sure about that?" he said. "Are you absolutely sure about that?" His face took on an intense expression and he tossed the phone to the desk. "Frances, we may be onto something. Stay here, I'll be right back, I promise."

He hustled out the door, knocking the pizza carton to the floor in his haste.

"Stay here," said Frances, kicking at the fallen box. "As if I had anyplace else to go."

 

[plain old dave]

Special Agent Reading was, for once, somewhat confused. Certainly, Ms. Hutchins had ample grounds to be bitter and resentful and just maybe it was his steady diet of 50s family shows and It's A Wonderful Life every Christmas Eve for the last decade or more, no matter where in the world he was. But somehow he had just hoped for a happy reunion, even though he knew beter. The physicists had said before he left for Maine that they were going to try and sustain a generated singularity and were "reasonably sure" the singularity would sustain long enough to get Mrs. Dellings home.

He knew enugh about scientists to know "reasonably sure" really meant "let's roll the dice and hope for eleven." Agent Lodge went back to the car to check in and report, and it seemed like the decent thing to do to check in on Margaret. Before he did, though, he went back to the car and put the SiG 9mm in the trunk and got his show gun out. It was an old Smith and Wesson Heavy Duty .38-44 that originally had had a 6 inch barrel and was originally carried by a Maine State Policeman. The .38-44 was Smith and Wesson's answer to the ineffectiveness of the standard .38 Special in stopping Depression-era cars. It was really a .357 Magnum loaded in .38 Special cases and built on the big .44 frame. At some point, the barrel had been cut back to its current 4 inches, making it a much more comfortable revolver to carry. He dropped 6 custom loaded .38-44 shells in the chambers and slide the pistol and two inverted speed loaders on his belt before going back in to check on Frances.

As he entered the office where she was waiting, he could tell she was furious. "Good evening."

"Good evening yourself." She shot daggers his way, but noticed the big sixgun he was carrying. "What'd you do what that bakelite thing you had?"

Reading smiled, slightly. "Well, Frances, you might say I am developing an appreciation for the classics. Thought you would appreciate seeing something at least possibly familiar."

Frances' look softened, slightly. "That's kind of you to do."

"Thank you. Is there anything you need? Anything I can get?"

"No, thank you. You're a regular Charlie Chan, but I suppose I'm all right."

Frances wilted, ever so slightly. "Looks like Margie hates my guts."

"Well, for her, she's had 70 years to think about this. In my line of work, I come across all sorts of people. Good, bad and all in between. Sometimes, though, I come across people that are just.... angry."

"Angry? At what?"

"All sorts of things. Spouses, children, jobs... Sometimes, though, they're just angry at the entire world."

"That's a horrible way to live."

"That it is. Not much of a life at all." Reading got distant for a second.

"Did I say something wrong?"

"No, not at all. I was just thinking about my brother, Frank. He was killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan last month."

"That's awful. Was he a soldier?"

"Thank you. No, he and I are... were in the same line of work." He smiled his dangerous little half-smile. "I need to go see somebody."

Morris' mind was clicking over as he walkted toward the smoking area, sure he would find Margaret there. As he walked, he came across Marshal Thibidoux. He had his feet up on a desk and was reading a newspaper. He looked up and glared at Reading through his eyebrows.

"Howdy. I told you so."

"Rub it in. What's your take on the Hutchins woman?"

"From what little I have seen, she ain't no more retired than either of us. She's a professional, career female dog if you catch my drift."

Reading half smiled, again. "Yes. You confirmed something I was thinking. I'll catch up with you later."

He walked the rest of the way to the smoking area, and quietly opened the door. He watched Margaret smoke 2 cigarettes before she turned around and was startled by him just standing there.

"Gaaaa! You wanta scare an old lady to death?"

"Not at all. Just wanted to check in and see how you were getting along. They just about have your room at the Guest Quarters ready. It's very nice accomodations, roughly a Holiday Inn Express."

"Thanks." Margaret became... tentative. "You see how that cowboy with the moustache looks at me? Y'd think I'da killed his dog or somethin."

Reading smiled his thin-lipped half-smile. "Or something. As I said back in Maine, it's my job to know things. As you saw on Airbase Road, sometimes I have to get... assertive. But usually, I just find things out. Before this evening, Margaret, I knew a lot of facts about you. But I couldn't quite figure YOU out. But, I'm sorry to say, I did just that about 10 minutes ago."

Margaret hardened back up. "You're startin' to sound like that shrink!"

"Be that as it may, I have you figured out. You have made a career out of being angry and resentful. You need to know a few things about the team that has just saved your life.

"Special Agent Lodge? She's a Gold Star Spouse. Megan Lodge's husband was Staff Sergeant Darren Lodge. Career Marine. Did a tour in Afghanistan and 2 in Iraq before he was killed in action in a place you may have heard of called Fallujah.

"Marshal Thibidoux? Lost his entire family in a house fire while he was on a mission taking somebody you may have heard of to trial: Manuel Noriega.

"Dr. Wilcox? His mother was killed in a car accident while he was in graduate school. She was only 41.

"And me? Super-bad Agent Morris Reading, the man that knows everything and could probably think of 15 things in a room to kill someone with, including the room itself?"

Margaret was standing utterly amazed and dumb-founded and for once, speechless.

"About a month ago, I watched Taliban operatives behead my brother on a propaganda video. You say life's been hard? Welcome to the human race, Ms. Dellings. It's hard for ALL of us. You have made a career out of bitterness and resentment, and here you are with a chance NONE of us will ever have. I know your calendar age. But it's time you grew up."

With that, Special Agent Reading turned around and walked back inside the National Security Directorate office building, leaving Ms. Dellings to her thoughts. In all her 75 years, nobody had ever talked to her like that. Who did this Fed think he was? But then, he DID have a point. She got another Pall Mall out to light up, but somehow just wasn't in the mood for a cigarette, for once.

 

[rjb1]

Great writing! Keep up the good work. (I'm having a "Twilight Zone" moment. I stayed in Alcoa TN last night on a business trip and was driving on the Alcoa Highway EXACTLY where the action above "happened".)

 

[LizzieMaine]

Even the toothpaste in the twenty-first century irritated Frances Dellings. Back home she used Pebeco, she'd used it all her life, she liked the sour-tangy flavor that woke her up each morning, gave her a little kick to get her started each day. But they didn't have Pebeco here -- when she asked for it at the little shop in the hotel lobby, they didn't even know what it was and sold her some kind of strange jelly-like stuff instead. It tasted sweet and cloying and it irritated her, just like everything else in the twenty-first century.

"Phooey," she thought, as she wiped her mouth on the towel. She'd hoped to be home by now, she'd had faith in Dr. Wilcox and his scientific mumbo-jumbo, but it looked like he was in over his head. She didn't need him, she mused ruefully, she needed that other bow-tie wearing man, the one she'd watched on the television, the one with the flying blue box.

She dressed slowly. She wished she'd had more of her own clothes to wear -- these twenty-first century clothes felt funny, they fit wrong, and even the fabric had a strange, slippery feeling between her fingers as she pulled it on. She didn't know why she was even bothering to put clothes on, she'd just as soon spend the whole day in bed. They'd managed to find her a simple flannel nightgown, and that, at least, felt a little bit like home.

But there was no point hiding, she thought to herself. She was stuck here, until or unless Dr. Wilcox could get his dingus to work, and she might as well try and cope with it as best she could. Picking up her old brown leather pocketbook, she headed for the cafeteria.

There were few people sitting at the tables. It was late in the morning, and the breakfast rush had long since subsided. "Good," she thought to herself. She'd just as soon not see anybody. She picked over the selection of cold Variety-Pack cereals and tossed a little box of corn flakes into her bowl, selected a little paper carton of milk, and took a seat. Corn flakes tasted the same in any century. She wouldn't have minded some Shredded Ralston instead, but at least the corn flakes didn't irritate her.

Frances munched the cereal in solitude. Someone had left a newspaper sports section on the table, and she idly leafed thru it as she ate, not making much sense of what she'd read. Some baseball player had been suspended for a year for "using steroids," whatever that meant. And the Red Sox, it seemed, were the defending world champions. "Well," she muttered under her breath, "at least that's something."

She felt dry after finishing the corn flakes, and wondered if they had any orange juice left. She was about to get up and look, when she stopped short.

Margaret was standing in the doorway, looking straight at her.

"Hello," Frances said, as Margaret sat down opposite her. "I was going to go get something to drink. Can I bring you something?"

"I don't need nothin'," replied Margaret. Frances nodded slightly and continued over to a table with a coffee pot and a carafe of juice. "Thanks, though," Margaret called, as an afterthought.

Frances returned to the table with her juice and took her seat. Margaret was idly folding, unfolding, and refolding a corner of a newspaper page. "So," said Frances, realizing how trite a conversational gambit that was as soon as it escaped her lips. "Are they -- treating you all right? Dr. Wilcox mentioned you'd had some, I guess, trouble on the way here?"

"I got no complaints," said Margaret in a flat voice. She continued folding and unfolding the paper.

"The food here is pretty good," continued Frances, gesturing to her empty cereal bowl.

"Corn flakes," replied Margaret, eyeing the empty box. "Corn flakes are good.

"Yeah," agreed Frances. "Good old corn flakes."

They sat silently. Frances sipped her orange juice, just to have something to do as she eyed her daughter, still trying to comprehend that this leathery old woman was her *child.* She remembered giving birth to her on a dark rainy night, she remembered nursing her, she remembered her first steps, her first words, she remembered sitting at her bedside those awful nights a year or so back when she'd come down with the whooping cough, trying to comfort her by reading from a tattered volume of "Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories." She remembered the little girl who played on the kitchen floor, annoying Hank the Cat with a piece of string, the little girl who pulled Mikey Philbrook's hair and made him holler, the little girl who was so proud of learning her alphabet when she wasn't even in school yet.

The little girl. The old woman. The same person, the same individual, yet worlds different.

"Listen," said Margaret, fixing Frances in her gaze. They had the same eyes, that much was for sure. "Listen, I said some things there, back in that garage there when they first brung me in. I'm sorry."

Frances lowered her head. She could feel the tears.

"So am I," she slowly replied. "I'm so sorry."

"I know you didn't have no choice in any of this. That cop there, that Reading, he give me a talkin'-to, an' I talked some with that Dr. Wilcox. They explained stuff."

"It must've been hard for you," said Frances. "I mean, I know that's a stupid thing to say, of course it's been hard. But for me, it's only been a month or so since I've been gone -- I miss you, I miss your father, I miss Ma and Pa and Butchie and Alice and everybody. But it's only been a month since it happened, only a month for me, and for you it's been more than seventy years. That's just so hard for me to -- imagine, and to see you sittin' there, like you are..."

She trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

"I'm an old woman," said Margaret. "I'm an old woman and I don't have much life left to live." She paused, wishing she had a cigarette right now. "But I just wanted to say, no matter if this thing they got rigged up with the shiny round things works or it don't work, I just wanted you to know -- I'm glad I got to see you again."

Frances took her gnarled old hand, and noticed the missing fingertip. "Oh, Maggie..." she sighed.

"Yeah, them friggin' canneries, you know? Hell of a life -- but it was a living."

Frances reached into her pocketbook, took out her billfold, and withdrew the snapshot. It was a bit crumpled now, and she tried to flatten it out as she slid it across the table to Margaret. "I -- I want you to have this," she murmured. "I want you to have this."

Margaret picked up the photo, a relic of something she'd thought she'd lost forever, and gazed at it for a long time. She remembered the texture of that rough wooden doorstep, she remembered the gasoline smell of her father and the way her mother always seemed to smell of soap. And she remembered that time in her life, that long-lost, long-forgotten time when she'd felt happy, secure -- and loved.

 

[plain old dave]

Frances and her mother chatted for quite a while before Margaret moved on. Just as the old woman got up, Frances noticed the blonde with the peek-a-boo hairdo coming her way. She was wearing a charcoal pinstriped pants suit that looked like something Marlene Dietrich might wear and walking shoes, and as she got closer, Frances noticed a tiny flag brooch on her left lapel. She had a hot cup of coffee and what at first looked like a giant donut sandwich on her tray. As she got closer, she recognized it was one of those round rolls they called "bagels" that Ernie and her had tried at the World's Fair.

“Hello. Mind if I join you?”

As if I had anywhere else to go, Frances thought. “Go ahead. It’s a free country.”

The blonde sat down and unbuttoned her jacket, revealing a .45 Automatic strapped to her side. “Thanks. I’m Meg Lodge, and I work with Morris. Don’t worry, I’m not as buttoned up as he is, though. How are you?”

“Well, considering I don’t know a soul and the whole world’s gone crazy I suppose I’ll get by.”

“Yeah. Morris has said a good bit about you, and I thought you might use some company.”

“Thanks, not many women around here. Anybody ever tell you you look just like…”

“Veronica Lake?”

“Yeah! Ernie and me took in Sullivan’s Travels at the Tivoli last summer and I can’t wait for her next picture.”

“Veronica Lake’s one of my FAVORITES, too. I’m sure you noticed my pants suit?”

“Yeah. Marlene Dietrich?”

“Yes! You need clothes to move around in in this line of work and I made a pattern up from one of her movies. I’m what they call a “retro” buff. The Depression and WW2 eras fascinate me, and I just can’t learn enough about them. I go to this Internet site called “The Fedora Lounge” where we discuss all about your era, but there’s nothing like talking to people that LIVED through something.”

Frances was pleasantly surprised. Instead of her being the innocent abroad, here was Veronica Lake wanting to know all about Frances Dellings’ life. The future wasn't a complete wash. “I suppose. You know, I’m starting to get stir crazy here. You think we could sneak out tonight, and maybe take in some hillbilly music at that Yonder Holler ballroom I heard on the radio?”

“It’d be easier to sneak out of Fort Knox. Say, I’ll get us some dinner makings and we’ll just listen to the Grand Ole Opry tonight on WSM. Don’t think I could get any beers on the Campus here, but I’ll sneak over to the Tienda Nony out in Oak Ridge and get some REAL Coke in glass bottles.”

Coca-Cola in glass bottles as something unusual? These people were sure fond of bakelite, so why not?, Frances thought. “Sounds all right. Like I have anywhere else to go.” Just then, Frances recognized the lapel pin. It was a tiny rectangle with a gold star. Just like the flag in Mrs. Erickson’s window down the street. “I just recognized your brooch. Dr. Wilcox said there was a war on, and I’m so, so….”

Meg placed a finger to her mouth. My Darren was a Marine, and it’s been a few years now. Thank you, but he always said if he didn't come home he didn’t want anybody feeling sorry for me. I’ll have everything ready at about 6 or so and we’ll have a cookout at the Guest Quarters.”

“Looking forward to it.”

 

[LizzieMaine]

Dr. Wilcox showed Frances a sheet of paper covered in dense mathematical equations, but it might as well have been written in Babylonian for all the sense it made to her. "I took algebra in high school, Doctor," she reminded him, "but that was a long time ago. You want debit here and credit there, I'm your gal. But this Einstein stuff ain't for me. Talk English."

"Well, It's not something I can explain -- in so many words," he protested, but I'll try. We failed to take certain -- irregularities into effect when we ran the original calculations to generate the singularity -- to get the machine in the hangar to work the other day. But we think -- we *think*, mind you, we can't really prove anything yet, but we think, by implementing these compensations, that it *will* work the next time we try."

"Can't you test it?" she asked impatiently.

"Well, we did do a -- static test last night, we rigged up a test jig using a -- well, we used a grocery cart, and it seemed to go thru, but we can't know for sure. Once it passes thru into the other timeline, we have no way of tracing it. And -- and, Frances, this is important -- if we send *you* thru we'll have no way of knowing on this end if it worked or not. In fact, if we succeed in sending you back, you'll have never been here in the first place -- so we won't have any memory of sending you thru at all."

Frances pondered that bit of paradox and shook her head. "You guys earn your paychecks, that's all I can say. So -- if it does work, there's no way to know if it *will* work, because it never will have had to work at all."

"That's about the size of it." Wilcox took off his glasses and absently polished the lenses with the tail of his lab coat. "Once you start fooling around with timelines, there's really no way of knowing what the effects will be or won't be. For that matter, sending that shopping cart thru might mean that something happens on the other end that will drastically change the way history unfolds. For all we know, a future President of the United States tripped over that cart, fell off the bridge, and died, and we're living in a drastically altered timeline right now."

"You're a real barrel of laughs, Doctor," she said dryly. "Anybody ever tell you that?"

"In this business, we have to laugh from time to time or we'll go insane."

"So, when do we try it again?"

"Well, that's another thing. Everything is timed to the split second, and we have to send you back at the precise moment you left. Our records on the original singularity that brought you here indicate that it opened at precisely 2249 hours UTC on Friday, September 11th 1942. That would be ah -- 5:49 pm Eastern Standard Time."

"But wait -- that can't be right," protested Frances. "The last thing I remember before -- that fog bank -- was that Lowell Thomas was on the radio, and he comes on at quarter of seven."

"Ah. Well, you see another problem. We'd forgotten to take Daylight Savings Time -- or, I guess, it'd be War Time for you -- into account when we made our last attempt, we were an hour later than we should have been. We tried to send you back at 2349 UTC -- which is 6:49 pm standard time. It's -- ah -- fortunate that the attempt failed."

"I don't like the sound of that, Doctor."

"You might not have ended up where we wanted you to go," Wilcox said, in a tone that suggested he didn't welcome any further pressing on this particular point. "In any event, if the adjustments we're making in the apparatus after our last test are completed in time, we hope to make another attempt tomorrow evening."

"Well then," said Frances. "I guess I better get a good night's sleep tonight."

"That's the spirit." He patted her arm and wandered down the corridor, his mind already lost in further calculations.

Frances watched him go, pondering the impact a stray grocery carriage might have on the fragile thread of history.

 

[plain old dave]

Frances was sitting in her room at the Guest Quarters. It was well after 5, and she had had yet another full day at the Labs. Yet more questions from the physicists and now a few doctors. Thankfully, though, these doctors weren't shrinks like Gordon. They seemed to be honestly making sure she was in tip-top health. She actually got off the reservation for a while that afternoon, and went to the Oak Ridge Hospital, where the Labs ran a thing called a "Radiation Emergency Assistance Center." They ran a lot of tests over there, and apparently this radiation could be VERY dangerous. They weren't there but for a little over an hour and went right back to the Labs. Agent Lodge drove today, and the women chatted as they made their way back toward the reservation.

"Well, at least we got out for a minute," said Agent Lodge as she wheeled her big Plymouth Fury sedan back onto Oak Ridge Turnpike.

"Yeah, it's somethin' I guess." She looked across the street at the Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep dealer. "Don't the people here in Oak Ridge like DeSotos and Plymouths?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Chrysler Corporation quit making DeSotos over 50 years ago, and Plymouths 10 years ago. It's a shame, as this '72 Fury is a BEAST of a car."

"Too bad. Dodges are all right, but that's a lot of money for a car. Who's got $1000 for a car , when you can get one just as good for $100 less?"

"Well, a lot of people like fancy cars now."

"Yeah, Doc went on about how you people borrow money and don't pay it back."

"True. I heard you asked about the Russians the othe day."

"Yeah. Mr. Roosevelt says Uncle Joe is on OUR side, but RUSSIAN gangsters tried to kidnap Margaret?"

"Not much in the way of law over there now."

The trip was uneventful and she had spent the afternoon, wondering what Meg would have for them for the dinner. Now, there was a knock at the door and there Meg was, wearing a pair of high-waisted, side button shorts and a short sleeved shirt.

"You ready?"

"Sure. Let's go."

They went downstairs to the back of the Guest Lodging, a picnic area. Dr. Wilcox, Agent Reading, Marshal Thibidoux, Margaret and a few faces she'd recognized from the failed attempt to go home yesterday. There was a large oil drum that had a fire going in it and smoke coming out a pipe. She instantly recognized the smell of the barbeque she had had the other morning. Everybody chatted and interacted, and before long Dr. Wilcox went over and started fiddling with a Zenith portable, one of the new Trans-Oceanics they had at the furniture store downtown. "Listen to the world on the super-long distance short waves!" the newspaper ad said. Just a month ago, that seemed absurd. But here in the world of tomorrow, anything was possible and almost usually happened. Doc finally got done fiddling, and a hillbilly string band started playing. The announcer, who didn't really have as much accent as the people here around Oak Ridge and Knoxville did started speaking and introduced the Grand Old Opry.


The evening pressed along, and while the barbeque was good, as was the hillbilly music, she just couldn't stop her mind from racing. What if the dingus don't work? What if I'm stuck here?

Meg showed her this Fedora Lounge on her bakelite shorthand notebook, and the Internet was a lot easier to follow than that television stuff. For one, the pictures didn't move. But it just looked like these people would get into the most useless arguements. She read one where people were arguing about the size of armholes in mens' suits, for Pete's sake.

After a while, people drifted off and went along home, but Meg was still just ambling around. She looked... distracted. Frances decided to see what was wrong.

"Meg? You look like you got the weight of the world on your shoulders. Anything you want to talk about?"

Lodge turned around. She looked inexpressibly sad. "Darren loved cookouts. He always said after he retired from the Marines, we'd cook out and listen to the Opry every Saturday night. But here I am, and... and.... I.... "

She was right on the edge of a complete meltdown, and Frances just KNEW she needed a shoulder to cry on. Just like Mrs. Erickson last week. So, she did. Meg Lodge just let it all out with a convulsing, soul-searing wailing cry. Frances thought, Here I am, 72 years in the future, and Veronica Lake is crying her eyes out on my shoulder over her husband that got killed in a war.

They stayed up for a little while, talking, and she just didn't think Meg needed to be alone. So she put her to bed in the other queen-sized bed in the room and before long was deeply asleep.