Samantha Smart (15 page)

“It’s okay,” Samantha forgave him. “What’s up? Are we in the clear?”

“I’m afraid not,” Smythe replied, sounding worried. “I’ve been doing some research on our friend Jordan, pop icon and time traveler extraordinaire. I’ve found out some very interesting things I’d like you to read. I’ve sent the information to an email account I set up in your name at hotmail.com. To access it you’ll need to type in your username, which is
[email protected]
,
And your password.”

“What’s the password?” Samantha asked excitedly. She had an email account already but was quite happy to have a secret agent one as well.

“
Polly,
of course,” The Professor chuckled. “Well,
Polly11
actually. It’s good to throw a few numbers in there for extra security. Please read the contents in complete privacy as soon as you get a chance and get back to me tomorrow morning if you’re able, all right?”

“Samantha?” Her mother was knocking on the door.

“Okay, Professor! Gotta go–Smart out!” She turned off the device, then answered her mother in a voice that pretended to be sleepy. “Mmmmm... what, Mom?”

“Oh, okay, just checking on you. Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure,” she snuggled up under her blankets. Her mother opened the door, walked over to her bed and plopped Polly down next to Samantha.

“Thought you might want your sleeping buddy,” she smiled, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Tired?”

“Mmmm,” Samantha nodded, smiling a contented smile.

“Well, you’ve had a bit of a crazy week. I think you should probably go to school tomorrow, though–what do you think?”

“Yeah, definitely,” she responded, rolling over and opening her eyes. “Yeah, I want to go to school tomorrow.”

“Everything’s still going well at school, then? There’s nothing there that’s bothering you?”

“No, Mom. Look–no matter what you think, I didn’t run away. I like school; I mostly like home just fine too, I was just–doing something really interesting and really wanted to–to be a part of it. Really.”

“I understand, honey,” her mother smiled warmly. “I know you’re very smart–probably smarter than me even, and my name’s Cindy Smart!
Just promise me if you ever do anything like that again that you’ll let me know about it beforehand, okay?”

“Okay, Mom, I will. I promise.”

“Good. I love you, Samantha. I’ll wake you up and we’ll ride the train together tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay. I love you too, Mom.”

Her mother kissed her on the forehead and tucked her in good, smiled and got up to exit.

“Good night, Polly,” she said as she closed the door and shut off the light.

*

As soon as she had determined that everyone was asleep, Samantha snuck out to the living room and switched on the family computer. She waited nervously for it to boot up and turned the volume knob down so that it wouldn’t make any sounds. When it was ready, she clicked the Internet icon and the browser opened. She navigated to the Hotmail website and typed in the I.D. information The Professor had told her to, smiling as she spelled out the word “Polly.”

There it was: An email from A. Edgar Smythe,
with the subject heading “Jordan Slane.”
Samantha wondered momentarily at The Professor’s middle name, which she hadn’t known, but then shrugged and opened the email. This is what she saw:

To: Samantha Smart

Re: Jordan Slane, a.k.a. Jordan Anderson.

Jordan Slane was born an only child to Vassily Slane and an unknown mother in June of 1986. No more specific birth date is known.

Vassily Slane is known as a powerful, mysterious Wall Street investor of whom not a single photograph exists in the public domain. Doing business largely over the computer or through numerous subordinates, Slane has amassed a considerable fortune primarily in the energy, pharmaceutical and forest products
markets, and has also financed his son Jordan’s efforts to (quite successfully) popularize his singing group, Heatwavvve. Vassily is of unknown age and unknown origin, but does apparently have a social security number and pays taxes. He wields great political influence and is a large contributor to several conservative candidates’ political campaigns though he also supports medical, geological and biological science research to a very generous degree.

In short, Vassily Slane is a nearly-invisible, non-existent person who nonetheless has done a bang-up job at existing, and is someone we need to know more about. I fear, Samantha, that this is someone capable of great, vast manipulations of the world, and his connection to Jordan makes me almost positive that he is involved in, if not the primary force behind these glitches in time.

Please let me know when we can meet or chat via wrist-communicator to discuss this development further.

Yours,

A.E. Smythe

Samantha stared at the computer screen for a moment and then snapped out of her daze. She hurriedly shut the thing down and crept back to her bedroom where Polly was waiting, her nose sticking out of the door in canine curiosity. Getting back into bed, Samantha pulled the covers up around her neck and lie there, her mind spinning.
Jordan Slane? Wall Street fortunes? An invisible enemy?
All these thoughts made the cogs of her mind turn round and round, and the main gist of her thought process kept coming around to one question:
Why?

Why Jordan Anderson? Why a powerful, reclusive investor father?
Why alter time?
That was the real question. Why would anyone
want
to alter time, rich, powerful investor, pop music idol or otherwise? What possible benefit could it have for these people? Not fame, Samantha decided. Heatwavvve
was far more successful, popular and well-known in this timeline than the altered one, where hardly anyone knew their name. Money? She supposed that a powerful investor could make a fortune in stocks, if they had invested in something like taxi-boats, artificial trees or floating plastic sidewalks, but Vassily Slane seemed to have money in none of these things. “Forest products” was a somewhat suspicious investment, as Samantha imagined that anything made of wood might become rare and sought after, though she failed to see any huge future in anything that basic that would totally cease to exist. No, it had to be something else, something more substantial, perhaps a personal stake in seeing global warming succeed. But what could it possibly be?

Samantha sighed and curled up to go to sleep. She decided she would somehow find some time tomorrow to contact The Professor and discuss this latest information further. Surely his magnificent mind could put the pieces together quicker and more logically than hers. She rested her hand on her little Boston terrier’s side and slipped off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

*

School was refreshing the next morning. Samantha forgot how much she missed learning things, even if they weren’t things as advanced as those she picked up from hanging around Professor Smythe. The focus of the day was on geography, which Samantha especially liked; they were studying maps of all the countries in Africa, that huge “dark” continent where it was believed humans had originated. Mrs. Wronsky, her sixth grade teacher, was especially keen on talking about Egypt, which was at the far Northeast corner of the African continent and was home to the Great Pyramids. The pyramids, she said, were constructed by ancient kings known as Pharaohs, who ruled the land thousands of years ago and believed that they were immortal, that is, that they were godlike and would never truly die. They ordered the pyramids built to house their bodies when they died, and believed the massive stone tombs would assure that their spirits could live on and roam free amongst the stars of the heavens.

Samantha found all this very exciting, and began to daydream of time-traveling to these ancient places, living amongst their people and seeing the amazing pyramids when they were brand new. Her imagination blossomed while looking at the paintings reproduced in their school books, seeing herself standing next to a Pharaoh as he directed the construction of these incredible monuments. She thought that this would indeed be a grand experience, though she was a bit troubled upon learning that the pyramids had been built mostly by the work of slaves. Slavery was wrong, she knew, and the thought of it sort of soured her daydreaming.

When lunchtime came, she went outside to the school’s playground, found a secluded spot and contacted The Professor on her wrist-communicator. He was glad to hear from her; it seemed he had formulated some sort of plan.

“Ah, Samantha! I’m glad you buzzed. Your friend Marvin and I have been devising a plan to get to the bottom of this confounding conspiracy. If you and Marvin can get in touch with Brianna and Suki and have everyone meet here tomorrow afternoon, that would be most advantageous.”

“I’ll try, Professor, but my mom is keeping a pretty close eye on me these days, I’m afraid.”

“Ah–I wouldn’t worry about that, Samantha. I had a long talk with your mother this morning up in the lobby. I daresay she’s somewhat fond of me again, and has given the O.K. for you and your friends to come down here for a couple hours tomorrow. Oh, and she expects you’ll either ride home on the train with her when she gets off of work, or maybe you’re going to some show with someone named, er, Jason?”

“Oh. Cool. Yeah, um, Jason,” Samantha tried to explain. “He’s my mom’s new boyfriend. He’s kind of okay, actually. I guess he’s got some money.”

“I see. Perhaps he’s the reason your mother seemed so, shall we say, cheery
this morning.”

“Yeah, probably. She’s all
in love
or something. Whatever. Oh–Professor?”

“Yes, Samantha?”

“Jason actually, um, well, he got four tickets to see Heatwavvve tomorrow night at Irving Plaza. I’m really not sure what to do, but he and my mom said they wanted to go with us, me and a friend, I guess. What do you think, should I totally not go?”

The line was silent for a moment. Samantha could almost hear The Professor’s brain calculating thoughts at some most alarming speed.

“Let me think about it, Samantha. It sounds very dangerous, but it could be an opportunity for us, too. I’ll talk to you tomorrow afternoon. Talk to your friends tonight, and tell Brianna to call me on my office phone if you speak with her. The number is two-one-two, seven-one-nine... ”

Samantha fumbled in her backpack for a pen and paper and began writing down the number.

“Okay–got it,” she said.

“Good. Tell her to call me tonight if she can, I’ll be here. Smythe out.” The Professor signed off.

“Right–uh, bye Professor–I mean, Smart out.” She turned off her wrist-communicator and shrugged. She knew The Professor was putting together some sort of plan, but resigned herself to the fact that she probably couldn’t understand it, at least until he explained it to her in full.

The lunch bell rang and Samantha headed back indoors, happy to come in from the cold playground. The rest of the day’s lessons continued on the theme of pyramids, though in the afternoon they learned about Central American pyramids instead of Egyptian ones. This fascinated her even more, for though these pyramids were somewhat smaller and not as old, they were remnants of the Mayan
civilization, which was supposedly the civilization responsible for creating the time machine. She listened intently to Mrs. Wronsky’s descriptions of how the Mayan people had lived and examined the pictures in her textbook with the eye of someone who had seen many of the symbols presented before. Many of them were similar to the ones engraved into the stone pieces of the time machine, though somehow different as well. She closed her eyes for a moment and could almost see those more ancient symbols as they had flashed through her mind during time travel; still, they meant nothing intelligible to her and she began to develop an even deeper respect for The Professor’s ability to research and decipher them.

Jason was waiting for her after school, having made an arrangement with her mother to meet her and ride home with her in a car service car. He worked half the time from home and so, he said, it was really no trouble for him. He did his best to make small talk on the ride.

“So, Samantha,” he asked cheerily, “are you psyched for the Heatwavvve show tomorrow night?”

“Um, yeah,” she smiled, trying to sound enthusiastic.

“Who are you going to bring?”

“Uh, probably Brianna. Or maybe Suki.”

“Cool. Your mom and I won’t bother you too much. She’s just still a little worried about you, you know?”

“I know. It’s fine. I just hope you guys won’t be too bored.”

“
Bored?
,” Jason boomed. “Only boring people are bored, Samantha. I used to sing a little myself, you know.”

Samantha rolled her eyes. How many of her mom’s boyfriends had said that
before. She forced a smile and just nodded, trying to look interested but hoping fiercely that Jason would not begin to sing.

“Yep,” he continued, “I played with a band in my twenties. Mostly straight-up rock sort of stuff, but sometimes we mixed it up with some smooth R&B-type tunes, kind of like Heatwavvve
but with more of an edge
.
”

“Really?” Samantha squeezed out a response. She was grinning painfully at this point.

“Oh, yeah,” Jason went on. “We almost had a little record deal at one point but the bass player decided all of a sudden that he needed to become a Buddhist monk, and then the band broke up.” He looked up dreamily at the tall downtown buildings as they passed by. “He’s still in Tibet, I think. Man, life would have been a lot different if he hadn’t gotten into making those sand paintings... ”

Samantha continued her exercise of smiling and nodding as the car rolled over the Manhattan Bridge.
Life would have been a lot different,
she thought, rolling the words over in her mind,
if Elliott Bergen had never been born.