“Fantastic!” Valeria exclaimed, slapping him hard on the back. “I knew you wouldn’t let us down!”
Bradigan caught his balance and nursed the sore spot with one hand. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”
Zachariah shook his free hand with both of his own. “Welcome to the team, Doctor. I’m excited to have you with us.”
“You two didn’t leave me much choice, did you? Cleaning out my home and probably publishing my obituary.”
Valeria shrugged, turning, and walked to her desk. “Take it as a compliment.” Grabbing a folder, she brought it back to him. “It just means I had the upmost confidence in you.”
“What’s this?” Bradigan asked, folder in hand.
“The details for the first insertion.”
He opened it and read: Friday, September 15, 1939, Sherman House Hotel, Chicago, Illinois. “Only eighty years back,” he remarked, “and still within Chicago.”
“See? I have more restraint than you give me credit for.”
“I suppose,” he admitted. “What’s this about, anyway?”
Valeria grinned. “Nothing important, something for my own pleasure if I’m honest.”
“It’s true,” Zachariah added, “She’s been pestering me about this trip for months.”
“So you’re taking the very first manned trip through the tear yourself?” Bradigan asked. “Don’t you masterminds usually send some disposable peon through first to make sure it’s safe?”
“You should know by now, Doctor, that’s not my style.” She smiled and Bradigan could almost see a tinge of guile in her eyes. “Besides, I’ll have you with me if anything goes wrong.”
Bradigan’s eyes shot wide open and he nearly dropped the folder. “You expect me to go into that death trap with you?”
“Of course!” she answered. “Part of your job description is providing, uh . . . what were the words, Pip?”
Pip, whose minimal presence around Valeria almost made Bradigan forget she was there, recited, “providing accurate period social engagement with encountered forepeople.”
“Thank you, Pip,” Valeria said. “Geez, who wrote that anyway?”
“Mr. Cruz, Ma’am.”
“Right. I should have known.” She turned back to Bradigan. “You’ll be talking us out of trouble if need be.”
Bradigan loaded another protest, “But . . .”
“If I may, Doctor,” Zachariah interrupted. “There’s really no cause for alarm. Young Benjamin allowed us to use his beloved pet rat, Charlemagne, to test the safeties. Successfully, I might add.”
“Oh, well, that makes me feel better,” he responded, rubbing his face with both hands.
Valeria sighed. “There’s still over a week before the launch date, and Doctor Zachariah will show you the ins and outs of all the safety systems.” Her face changed and she gained a solemn look in her eyes. “I trust you, Doctor.”
Later that day, Bradigan’s lessons began.
“This is it,” Zachariah announced. He’d brought Bradigan to a lab adjacent to the one that housed Hermes and directed him to a pair of chairs, each covered with a rigid, clear dome. “These are the insertion pods.”
“Seems logical enough,” Bradigan said.
“Indeed. The pods will be mounted upon a rail within the Hermes chamber, and driven into the tear where they will open, release their passengers, and be retracted back out before the tear is destabilized.”
“I see. So anything within the tear is left in the past when the tear closes?”
“Correct, Doctor. I’m sure you noticed that when we delivered the note previously.”
“Yes. The tear was so obvious to look at, seeing one scene inside another. Then the border seemed to ripple and dissipate, and everything within was gone.”
“A keen observation,” Zachariah said. He seemed happy that Bradigan was able to easily pick up on those subtle details. “You’ll notice the tear didn’t shrink into nothingness like you might expect.”
“That’s true.”
“During previous tests, we attempted to lower the power input slowly to achieve the shrinking effect we thought would be the most optimal, but in the end, we discovered our mistake. As the area got smaller, whatever we were trying to send would simply pass back through the curtain and remain in our time.”
“Sounds like it would still work for pulling things out.”
“It did indeed, but we discovered we had to dissipate the curtain quickly, almost violently, for anything to remain in the past.”
Bradigan turned everything over and over again in his mind. “Okay, I understand all that well enough. But how do the pods protect the travelers who still have to get out within the chamber?”
“Well as it turns out, the radiation, and most of the cold, doesn’t naturally pass through the curtain. Small amounts get carried along with the pods but it’s far from dangerous levels.”
“That’s fortunate.”
“Indeed. The mysteries of nature have lent us a helping hand in that regard.”
Bradigan’s mornings and, if Valeria wasn’t there, his afternoons proceeded like this, learning from Zachariah. Whenever Valeria wasn’t otherwise occupied, he spent time discussing period dress and mannerisms with her.
“Seeing as how I chose this jump myself,” she said, “I’m not completely blind when it comes to the period society.” Valeria sat sifting through a stack of dollar bills; one of them, dated 1926, she held up, looking at it through the light.
“Well that’s something.” Bradigan stood on a pedestal in the middle of a room he hadn’t been in before, arms outstretched and surrounded on three sides by mirrors, being measured for a new suit by one of the company tailors. Valeria employed a pair of young identical twin seamstresses, Emma and Ava Lancaster, who had an uncanny knack for historical reproductions. “So it’s a pretty upscale place?”
Valeria smiled in excitement. “Relatively. We’re not attending a ball or anything but I want to wear something nice.” She got up and stood behind him, looking at the reflection of him in his only suit. “And I don’t want you to make me look bad.”
He rolled his eyes.
Emma emerged from behind a curtained off area holding a rectangular box. “This’ll be your outfit, Valeria.”
“Wonderful. Help me try it on.” They moved behind a screen on the other side of the room.
Bradigan needed something to occupy his mind. “So what’s the plan for this trip, anyway?” he asked. “You told me the when and where but not the why.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she answered. “I’ve got the evening all planned out.” She glanced out from around the screen and looked at him through his reflection. “You’re in for a treat though.”
He saw her disappear again and said, “You make it sound like you don’t really need me along.”
“Don’t you try to weasel out of this,” she said. “I’d never send anyone through a tear alone, always even numbered groups for security.”
He sighed.
Ava pouted as he slumped over. “Please straighten up if ya’ would, Doctor,” she said.
“Oh, sorry.” He thought he heard Valeria stifle a laugh from behind the screen.
“Besides,” she said, poking her head out again. “There aren’t any other men here my age to act as my date.”
Bradigan’s body went tense and he felt the blood rushing to his face.
“Doctor, kindly relax. Please,” Ava urged him.
“S-sorry.” This time he definitely heard Valeria laughing. He shook it off.
“Valeria, please stop toying with the boy. It’s making him rather difficult t’ measure properly,” Ava insisted.
Bradigan blinked. “Boy?”
Valeria laughed shamelessly. “Sorry, Ava. No more, I swear.”
Bradigan spent his evenings in study. Heliarc’s secret lab had a modest library and internet access which, he imagined, was untraceable. He’d borrowed a few books and sat in front of his computer in his room with a warm mug of tea, with lemon and honey, he’d poured from a pot delivered on a trolley by the kitchen staff. It was getting late and, leaning back in his chair, he rubbed his tired eyes. He should have been in bed already but the stress of being accountable for the stability of the last eighty years of history weighed on him. He looked at his wall clock and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the pin pad on the door flashing.
“The kitchen staff must be back for the trolley,” he said, standing up. He pushed it toward the door and tapped the flashing button to enable the hallway camera. In confusion he looked at the display and saw, nothing. He slid a little panel aside and revealed a small joystick Pip had shown him a couple days ago. The camera’s view shifted around as he worked the controller, seeking up and down and left and right; meanwhile, the proximity detector continued to flash. After a few more moments, it stopped, and Bradigan, yawning, resolved to report the malfunction in the morning.
Writer by Grace 