Just in Time: Portals of Time (3 page)

“Never heard that term.” The scowl made his face look older. It was a nice face, though, with interesting angles. And his brown eyes were deep and liquid, swirling with different shades. People of her time had pure colored eyes with no variation. His hair was cut shorter than the men of her time and a rich brown.

“Well,” he said with an angry glance at his brother. “I guess I have no choice but to accept you. For the record, Jess, I wish you’d done it all differently.”

Smiling, Jess answered. “We’ll be fine.”

“I assume, now that you agree you’re in danger, you’ll let me investigate the warnings in an official capacity.”

Jess looked to Dorian for confirmation. She nodded.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. Then to her, “Now, shall we go home and tell Helen about all this?”

“That’s acceptable to me.”

Luke stood. “Mind if I come along? I’d like to see Helen’s reaction.” More quietly he added, “I’m sure there’ll be hell to pay, too.”

Jess agreed, but Dorian could tell he wasn’t happy about his brother accompanying him. Neither was she. Her bodyguard status had annoyed the sibling. And she didn’t need Celeste’s powers to tell her that Lucas Cromwell, Jr. was going to be a problem.

ON THE TRIP
to Jess’s dwelling, Dorian sat in the front seat of the auto vehicle trying to breathe only through her nose. The bumpy ride caused her stomach to pitch, and the stink of the gasoline made her gag. No wonder the world had succumbed to covering entire regions with Domes in the future. The bombardment of poisons emitted daily into the atmosphere from hundreds of thousands of vehicles was horrendous.

“You okay?” Jess asked. “You’re white as a ghost.”

“The smell and movement is causing me distress.”

“I’ll bet. You obviously don’t have cars.”

“No, moving walks get us from place to place, and we use air cycles run on crystals for emergencies when we must travel farther, which doesn’t happen often.”

“Your description of the future is unbelievable.”

She gestured to encompass the vehicle. “So is this. To me.” She glanced out the aperture. Despite the smell of the car, what she saw there still amazed her. Daylight. And sun—glorious, warm sun—which had been totally obscured by her time period.

After they’d arrived in Jess’s office the previous revolution (a total anachronism because they had no sun) and convinced Jess of who they were, they’d walked down from his office to what he called a hotel. Nighttime out of inside had been surreal; people actually walking around in the air was totally foreign to them, though they were accustomed to darkness. But they’d been weakened by the jump and could not fully take in the situation. He’d gotten them a group of rooms called a suite, where they could rest. Only this dawning (another irrelevant term carried over from earlier times) had they actually seen real grass and trees, and gone out of inside to feel the warm rays of the sun. Celeste had come close to leaking moisture from her eyes, she was so moved by their surroundings.

Finally, Dorian and Jess completed the trip. When they drew up to his residence, her mouth gaped. “I’ve never seen a dwelling so big.” She almost couldn’t take in the multiple-level living space for only two people.

“We inherited the place from Helen’s parents. It is big, I guess. A lot bigger than the hotel you three are staying at.”

They’d secured the…rooms with the currency from the diamonds they’d brought with them. In their time, the gems were on display at the Ancient Galleries but had little value. Today, the opposite was true, as they’d researched. Jess had gone to trade the stones in exchange for the current currency in a region called Manhattan, which had not yet imploded on itself and sunk into the water as it would in the twenty-second century.

Once they stopped and exited the vehicle, they entered into the eating space of the dwelling.
Kitchen
, Dorian corrected herself. And the auto-vehicle space was in a
garage
. She’d been trying to think in their terms, but she was still weak from temporal displacement and her mind was not yet functioning with acuity.

“Honey, I’m home.” Jess called out the strange message and placed the auto vehicle’s starting device into a container on a shelf; she followed him farther into the room. Immediately, her stomach roiled again. The smell in here was so intense, she became nauseous.

“Are you all right?” Jess asked.

She pinched her nose. “The smell…”

He sniffed. “Mmm, spaghetti sauce. Haven’t you had it before?”

“No. We have no
food,
as you know it, in my time.”

“What
?
”

“Natural resources ran out near 2200. Survival depends on water drilled from the earth’s core by robotic means, purified and distributed in carefully meted dosages. Nourishment is taken in tablet form, three times a day, with vitamin content and nutrients measured for age, body height and weight and muscle mass.”

“Aw, wow. What a shame.”

“Why?”

Even his eyes smiled. “Wait until you take a taste of supper and you’ll find out.”

Her stomach contracted at the thought.

A door slammed, and Luke stepped into the kitchen right behind Dorian. This close, he seemed bigger than he had when he’d been seated behind his work space…desk. He was taller than she’d first determined, and his shoulders were wide under his clothing. She noticed how muscular his chest area was. He was an interesting male specimen. “Hey, guys. Where’s Helen?”

“I don’t know. School’s finished for the day, and her car is here. I’ll go upstairs and check.” He glanced at Dorian. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Have a seat at the table.”

Dorian went into the dining space off the kitchen, trying to cover her shock at the real wood that was everywhere. She’d never seen wooden floors, box-like things that held utensils, and more wood around the apertures…windows, they were called. She dropped down on a chair, still surprised at its hardness. It made her derriere sore and she missed the conformers.

When Jess left, Luke didn’t lower himself to sit. Instead, he leaned against a wood box with a shelf made of what looked like real stone and stuck his hands in his pockets. He wore brown clothing with little white stripes through it, a white shirt and blue neck cloth. The outfit appeared extremely uncomfortable, like the one she was forced to wear. Jess had purchased scratchy, impractical items for her. She much preferred the two-piece gray tunic and trousers people of her time dressed in.

Not particularly wanting to be around him, she gave him a perfunctory smile.

“So,” he said, his suspicious tone alerting her to focus. “Tell me why the company chose Masterminds to guard Jess.”

“I’m in peak condition, I have an IQ of one hundred and eighty-nine, and expertise in weaponry.”

“And you speak oddly.”

Knowing their speech patterns might not be in sync with the time, before the jump, they’d discussed with the Guardians how to handle the issue. “As I told you, I was raised in another country, a more primitive culture. I was bilingual but didn’t speak English for a long time. My speech patterns aren’t like yours.”

“Yet you don’t have an accent.”

“I’ve perfected English.”

Those dark eyes bored into her. “I have to tell you, Ms. Masters, something about you bothers me.”

“I’m aware that chauvinism is prominent in society, Lieutenant Cromwell. But you have female police officers, don’t you?”

“Hell, yes. Some of our best cops are women.”

“Then, you object to me why?”

“Because, lady, you just don’t ring true.”

Lady?
It must be a derogatory term, because Jess had also used it that way when they first arrived.

“Hello.” The wire mesh on the huge opening of the wall adjacent to Dorian slid back and in stepped Helen Cromwell. Dorian had seen her in the chips, but still, she had to force herself not to gawk as the woman came inside. She was as petite as a youngling, no more than five feet tall. Her features were so delicate that she appeared…breakable. And light reddish hair reached down her back almost to her hips. How did the woman even
survive
with such fragility about her?

“Hi, beautiful.” Luke stepped forward and brushed his lips over her cheek. Dorian knew males and females here had contact outside of joining, but she thought that happened only between mates.

“Hey, handsome.” She looked at Dorian, her eyes widening and her smile brighter. “You finally brought a woman to meet us.”

“Ah, no, Jess brought her here.”

A slight frown.

“There you are.” Jess entered the room, and when his gaze rested on Helen, his face transformed, causing Dorian to take in a quick breath. He enveloped his spouse in a kind of embrace Dorian had only felt with a man in joining. He smacked his lips with hers. “Hello, love.”

They kept arms around each other’s waists. It was fascinating.

“Luke says you brought…” She looked at Dorian. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Dorian Masters.” Dorian extended her hand and took Helen’s. Her bones were also fragile; Dorian was afraid one would snap with too much pressure, so she squeezed lightly.

“Let’s sit, honey. I need to talk to you.”

The three of them occupied confor…chairs around the table. Luke stayed where he was.

“There are some things you don’t know.” Jess held Helen’s hand in both of his, the gesture tender. “Some things I haven’t told you.”

“Really?”

Jess explained briefly about the emails.

When he’d finished, Helen raised her chin, and her face reddened. Dorian knew that to be from emotion. “And you didn’t tell me any of this? I wasn’t aware we kept secrets, Jess.”

“I’m sorry. I felt it was best.”

The woman looked to Luke. “You knew about the threats?”

He squirmed like younglings did on the chips. “Um, yeah.”

Throwing back her chair, Helen stood. She didn’t seem so slight anymore. She crossed to the bowl in the shelf—the sink—and turned a metal mechanism. Even though Dorian had experienced it at the hotel, she was still stunned to see actual running water come out of a spigot and how the extra that didn’t go into the glass was squandered.

After Helen had sipped the drink, she faced them. “I’m furious with you both. We’ll have to deal with that at some point. Right now, tell me the rest.”

Jess was visibly upset, but he explained that Vista Institute had hired him a bodyguard. “They chose Dorian.”

A brief arch of an eyebrow. “I see.” The woman studied Dorian. “And you’re the best they have, Ms. Masters?”

“Yes, Mrs. Cromwell, I am.”

“Good.” She returned to the table. “Tell me how this will work. I’ll do anything to help keep Jess safe.”

Sighing, Jess reached out for her hand. Helen drew it back. “You’re not getting off this easily, Jess. You either, Luke. But we’ll put that aside for now.”

Dorian had just finished the outline of how the body guarding would work when someone out of inside came up to the wire mesh on the wall. With something alongside of him.

“Mrs. Cromwell, my mother said—” The speaker stopped. “Oops. Sorry, we didn’t know you had company.”

This time, Dorian did indeed gawk.

Because, though she’d viewed the chips of this, too, she’d never actually seen a living, breathing youngling…or a real drog.

GRIPPING THE REMOTE
device in her hand, Celeste stared at the video box while her insides swirled with emotion. “I can’t believe this.”

From the sleeping conformer, Alisha made a disgusted sound. “It’s called fiction, Celeste. That means it’s made up.” She held out the printed chip—a book—she was decoding. “Just as this one is.”

“Making up stories is an odd custom.”

They had no fiction in their time, except for those preserved on the chips and a few actual physical books housed in the Ancient Galleries. Society had lost the penchant for fantasy somewhere in the centuries before them because the reality of survival needed so much of their attention. Celeste also suspected the Guardians felt the wild imaginings of impossible events and behavior were unhealthy for people to dwell on.

“You should stop watching this dreadful video, Celeste. The people of today are violent with each other.”

“It’s supposed to mirror reality. But it
is
awful. Men actually do harm to women in this time period, Lisha?”

“And each other. They’re a volatile society.”

Apparently, Alisha was accurate. From the books and newsprint, made from real trees, that Jess had brought over, Celeste learned the people of this time routinely carried weaponry, started war and had no reasonable plan for rehabilitation of miscreants. Even organizations that fought for the rights of horrible-weapon owners were in existence. Celeste had been shocked.

Despite Alisha’s admonishment, Celeste continued to watch the screen. “Why did the females of the time let themselves become so physically inferior to males?”

“I’m not sure. Some twenty-fifth-century anthropologists say it had to do with reproduction. Women actually carried children inside their bodies and then expelled them; they were weakened by it.”

When the view changed to what was called an advertisement, a youngling appeared. With him was a live animal. Celeste reached out and traced her finger over the boy’s image. “Aren’t they beautiful? And he has a kata. I wish I could see a real one.”

Of course, with the dissolution of the atmosphere, plant and animal life disappeared.

“Younglings are not beautiful. They whine. And they have all kinds of ailments. That one has a viral infection, what was called a cold.”

“I think they’re beautiful.” The program began again. “Oh, my Nord, they show joining on this box?” Swallowing hard, Celeste moved closer to the machine. After a moment, her breath speeded up and her pulse skittered. Megadamn, sometimes she hated being so physically affected by what she saw. Still she was enthralled by the couple. “They don’t join like us. They’re talking during the act. Laughing. And…touching in a way we don’t.”

“Seems counterproductive to me and takes a lot of time. Look at what they do with their mouths. It’s called kissing.”