A Place in Time
an excerpt

“Hey, it’s Eddie. Boy, imagine seeing you around on this side of town.”

Eddie wasn’t much of a boy. At fifteen he was small and spotty; he hadn’t quite grown into his ears yet. At the snickering voice, the boy stopped dead in his tracks and looked over, a terrified expression stealing over his face. “Danny!” he blurted. His eyes darted to the left and right, taking in the other three boys that had also seemingly materialized from the evening shadows.

“Observant, isn’t he, lads?” Danny mocked, still leaning against the lamppost. There was a contemptuous sneer in Danny’s voice that spoke volumes about his dominance over the smaller boy. In actual height, Danny wasn’t really very much taller than Eddie, but what he lacked in size he made up for in style. Danny wore cowboy boots freshly imported from America, tight, dark jeans and a black leather jacket he had spent all his summer job money on. His dark hair was combed back off his brow in imitation of James Dean, and he kept a half-smoked cigarette behind his ear. “Take it you got my money?” he asked, cool, dark eyes focused back on Eddie.

“I don’t owe you anything!” Eddie retorted, but the boy’s voice shook.

Danny chuckled at this, and his three lackeys soon took up laughing in suit. In appearance, they were like caricature copies of Danny, only some how less refined. “What was that?” Danny asked, pushing off the lamppost. “Did I just hear you talking back to me?”

Eddie was backing away slowly. “I don’t owe you anything!” he repeated. “I’ve as much right to walk through this part of town as you!”

“I’m not saying you don’t,” Danny countered. “Just that maybe you won’t have such a good time coming through my territory with such a large debt unpaid.”

“Forget it,” Eddie said. “I’ll just go the long way round.”

With a simple nod of his head, Danny instructed one of his lackeys to step forward and grab Eddie from behind, pinning his arms behind his back.

“Way I see it,” Danny said, advancing with cat-like grace, “is that you owe me a new shirt.”

“You’re full of it,” Eddie protested, struggling against the lackey.

“No. Here, I’ll spell it out for you. You and I, a week back, we got into a tussle. You got over that shiner pretty fast, by the way,” he said in mock admiration. “Now, in that tussle, I busted your nose open and you bled all over my brand new shirt. I didn’t have time to go home and change, so I had to play six sets in that shirt. You know how hard it is to get blood stains out of a sweat-soaked shirt after sixteen hours on stage?”

Eddie glowered. “Then you owe me a new shirt as well—I bled all over mine, too.”

With perfect finesse Danny slapped Eddie hard across the cheek, then grabbed the front of his shirt, hauling him closer. “No. You see, the difference is that my shirt was a gift from my uncle down in London. It was brand new, unlike the crusty hand-me-down rags you’re always wearing.” Releasing the shirt, he shoved Eddie back into his lackey. He waited until the chuckle from his three friends subsided. “Now, cough up some money!”

“I haven’t got any on me!” Eddie cried.

“Turn out his pockets,” Danny instructed, turning away as if bored. One of his friends delivered a punch to Eddie’s gut to wind him before they rifled through his pockets. Taking the cigarette out from behind his ear, Danny struck a match and easily lit it with the long, slender fingers of a guitarist. He took a drag, coughing only slightly afterward.

“No money, like he said,” Allen called. He was Danny’s number one lackey—tall as a man, but dumb as a post. They had a somewhat symbiotic relationship: Danny had kept people from making fun of Allen by turning Allen in a much-feared bully.

“Got some gum,” Jerry said, poking through the contents in his hand. He was a mousy-looking fellow, dressed almost identical to Danny sans leather coat, with dark hair in tight curls. “Guitar pick, house key, rubber band. Some bits of paper.”

Danny feigned interest and took the proffered contents, holding his cigarette between his teeth.

“Hey! Give those back!” Eddie cried, having found his voice. He lunged at Danny, but Allen clamped a large hand on his shoulder and effortlessly held him in place.

Intrigued by the outburst, Danny returned to the items with renewed interest. Anything that sparked such a passionate response from Eddie had to be of some value. One of the pieces of paper had some barely legible numbers scrawled on it, but the other was a neatly folded up flyer. Unfurled, it boasted of a band contest, that evening at a club not far from where they were.

Unable to help himself, Danny burst out laughing. “What, you thought you were going to win a band contest?” he jeered. “Oh, that’ll be the day. You and your little skiffle band with their tea box bass.” A chorus of laughter joined Danny’s. “No, what they expect at that sort of place is a real band: one that plays rock and roll!”

“Yeah,” Robbie said, the smallest, youngest and meanest of Danny’s gang. He shoved Eddie viciously to the ground. “Rock and roll.”

“There a cash prize for this contest?” Danny asked, stepping up to peer down at Eddie.

“Yeah.” The boy was rubbing his stomach, not attempting to even get up. “But you had to sign up weeks ago. They’re booked solid; no way they’ll let you in now.”

Danny gave a swift kick to Eddie’s side, the pointed end of his cowboy boot doing much to make the boy yelp in pain. “Looks like they’re about to have an opening.”
--

Stratton and the Strikers weren’t a professional rock and roll group by any stretch of the imagination, but Allen had his own kit, Robbie had an upright bass and Danny had a used electric Fender Telecaster he had bought while on holiday in Hamburg. It was more than a little beat up, but plugged into an amp it was still far superior to anything else anyone thereabouts had. The exotic cut of the Fender body and brilliant sunburst body turned heads anytime Danny played it, and coupled with his blended Teddy Boy-Rocker look, it didn’t matter how bad they sounded—they were cool. Jerry was also rather proficient on piano, and even if Allen could barely keep a beat, they were popular.

The contest was being held in the cellar of an old pub, which had recently been gutted and refurnished. They called it The Inferno, named so because when the bands started playing and the kids started dancing it got so hot and muggy down there that the walls would sweat. On stage, playing to the dancing crowd, Danny was in his element. It didn’t matter that they were just copying songs off the radio or that they weren’t likely to win the contest—for him, being the center of attention for those few moments was all he really needed to feel alive.

They ran through three of their most popular songs—two Elvis Presley and one Chuck Berry—and left the stage to cheering and loud applause from the crowd. Curious members of the audience pushed against them once they made their way backstage, and Danny pulled a good looking blonde girl to his side to chat up for the evening. The memory of Eddie, left bruised and gasping on the street so Stratton and the Strikers could claim a place in the contest, was already a distant memory.

“Oh, I don’t know if I ought to go this far from the club,” the pretty blonde hesitatingly said.

“Aw, come off it, Betty,” Danny encouraged, slinging an arm around her. He had pilfered two bottles of beer back at the club and held them between his forefingers as he escorted her across the street. There was an old mill not far from The Inferno that was a rarely used, except by the occasional ambitious couple. Danny wasn’t expecting to get lucky with the nervous girl on his arm, but he didn’t think some friendly necking was out of the question. “What do you think is gonna happen, eh? I’m a nice guy, aren’t I?”

“I don’t know,” Betty protested, tittering in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood. “I just met you.”

“Yeah,” Danny agreed. “And I already bought you a drink,” he said, pressing the cold bottle into her hand. “Besides, isn’t it nicer out here, under the stars, than in that sweaty, loud club?”

“Well, that is true,” Betty said, taking the bottle awkwardly. “Thank you.”

“That’s better. Now, I promise I’ll walk you back to the club just the same as I walked you away from it. Honest. There’s nothing wrong with a boy wanting to take a little stroll with a pretty girl, is there?” He gently tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“I suppose not,” she quietly replied.

“Good girl,” Danny praised. He kept his movements casual, but did not alter his path away from the old mill. By the time they arrived he was half way through his beer, though Betty had only taken a few tentative sips from hers.

“I don’t like the look of this place, Danny,” she said. “I would like to go back to the club now.”

“Nonsense,” Danny said, slipping his arm around her waist to squeeze her up against him. “There’s nobody in this old mill. Come on, I want to show you something.”

“No, Danny,” Betty pleaded. “I’m scared.”

“Of what? Ghosts?” He laughed robustly. “Come on.” With such compact muscles bunched under his young, lanky frame, Betty was no match for Danny’s pull. It wasn’t long before the pair was stumbling through the ruins in the dark. Danny tripped and laughed, catching himself on Betty to keep from falling. Once stabilized, he didn’t immediately let go, instead cozying up fondly.

“Danny, stop it,” she said, trying to push him off. “You’re drunk.”

“I am not,” he vehemently denied. “And nice girls don’t push nice boys away like that.”

“Nice girls don’t go into scary, dark buildings with boys they barely know, either.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Danny agreed, a smile in his voice. “Guess we know what kind of girl you are then, huh?” Inching closer, his laughter, dark and mirthless, echoed through the empty old mill ruins.
---

“If that’s all? Professor Biggles? If that’s all, Professor, I’ll be going.”

“Hmm?” Biggles stood on the top level of a three-step ladder, peering into a complicated piece of towering machinery. “Oh, yes. That’s all right, Joanne. You’re free to go! Have a nice evening, and would you mind locking up on your way out? That’s a dear, thank you.” The dodgy-looking little professor said all of this without lifting his cool blue eyes off the tower. One hand held a screwdriver, neatly pinioning a screw in place, while the other shined a torch down into the circuit boards.

Joanne cleared her throat. “It’s Friday, Professor.”

“Hmm?”

“I said: it’s Friday.”

At last, Biggles looked down at her, dipping his nose so he could peer over the top of his reading glasses. “So it is,” he cheerfully said. “Well, I don’t think I shall need you this weekend, so feel free to take Saturday off, all right?”

Joanne was a pretty girl in a sort of plastic way: her hair was highlighted blonde hair and she carried a different designer handbag everyday, but the scowl she wore betrayed her annoyance. “I meant its payday. Again. I don’t mean to be pushy, Professor, but this will be the third week you’ve sent me home without pay.”

“Oh dear,” Biggles said, frown lines creasing his face. He set the torch and the screwdriver down, then pulled the little reading glasses off his face, stashing them in the pocket of his knitted cardigan. “You know I’m still waiting for the funding from the university to come through,” he said patiently, tired himself of the well worn line. He stubbed his short little fingers together anxiously. “It’ll probably only be another week, Joanne. I can pay you in another week, I promise.”

“In another week you’ll owe me as much money as the university is granting you,” Joanne said, not unkindly. There was a strange sadness in her voice as she took the professor in.

At forty-two, the little man looked older than his natural age. His lightly peppered dark hair was shaggy and unkempt. He wore his sideburns long and thick, groomed forward so that they nearly connected with his impressive mustache. It was a style that had been dead and buried at least thirty years and it did little to convince his investors he was an entirely sane man. “That’s not true, Joanne,” he protested mildly. “The money will easily cover your pay, as well as funding for the rest of my project.”

With some contempt, Joanne let her eyes pull off Biggles himself, to focus on the towering contraption he stood beside. “Your time machine,” she deadpanned.

“It’s a time oscillator!” Biggles contested, somewhat more hotly. “You know that. Why, why time machines are just a thing of science fiction!”

“Yes,” Joanne said. “If it ever got out you were spending your grant money on a time machine instead of a … time oscillator you’d be labeled a quack and never work again. So it’s a very good thing that isn’t what the rumors say.”

Forlornly, Biggles climbed down the small stepladder. “Joanne, I need you. What will I do come Monday if you’re not here?”

“Answer your own phone, I suppose,” Joanne said. “Which never rings. Take your own notes, which you mostly already do. I think you can manage to lock up the place on your own as well.”

“But I could never make tea like you do, Joanne,” he pressed, his soft voice rumbling affectionately.

“I’m sorry, Professor Biggles, but as much as I would like to sit around here all day, making you tea, I just can’t do it. I’ve got to make money and try to advance my career. You’re a sweet old man and I hate to leave you in this big, empty place alone, but I just can’t do it anymore.” She gave him a pained smile, looking like she was about to cry. “I’m sorry. Goodbye!” She then turned on her heels and hurried out of the laboratory.

Remorse gripping at his heart, Biggles watched her leave, listening until the clatter of her heels on the floor receded away; until he heard the front door slam and her car start up and drive off. Only when she was truly gone did he reach up to flatten down one side of his mustache and say, “But I’m not old.”

No one answered him.
--

Biggles convinced himself he could win Joanne back the following week. The grant would come in and he would cash it and present her with all her back pay, as well as a week’s advance. There would be no way that the girl could turn that down! Confident with his plan, he gave himself the weekend off, putting both the time oscillator and the girl out of his mind.

Come Monday, Biggles was baffled to find the old building he used as his laboratory unlocked. He switched on all the lights, peeking into each darkened corner in alarm. He expected to find his things stolen, or his computers and machines smashed, but nothing was out of place. He stood around scratching his head for a while, before wondering where Joanne was with the tea.

Crossing to the small room he had set up for her office, he puzzled over the fact that the kettle was cold and one of Joanne’s fancy handbags was not sitting on the desk. He was just about to pick up the telephone and ring her house to ask if she were ill, when the conversation of the Friday before returned to him.

Dejectedly, Biggles made himself a pot of tea and sat down on his stepladder. Feeling sorry for himself, he realized he hadn’t even managed to remember to lock up after she had left.

No grant check came in the mail that afternoon, nor did it arrive any other day that week.

Undistracted, Biggles worked on his machine with zeal, day in and day out, making progress in leaps and bounds. But without Joanne there to remind him to buy groceries—and to eat them—Biggles, in his tireless tinkering, forgot. After just one week without the girl, the pantry was empty, the laboratory was a mess and the oscillator was as complete as it could be without further funding. It wasn’t that Joanne had kept the place running—she didn’t understand any of the principles involved in the oscillator, and never did more than answer phones and make tea—but her presence had been a positive one. She had let Biggles prattle on to her about time fluctuation and temporal vectors. She hadn’t understood, but she had listened.

Without realizing it, Joanne had become the audience that Biggles desperately needed. She might have never believed in the work he was doing, but she had supported him by showing up everyday and that support had given him hope. For Biggles, there had been a sense of camaraderie; with Joanne around, he hadn’t been alone.

Now the old laboratory was quiet and still. There was no life at all, when Biggles stopped moving. No one had been there to encourage him to complete his machine and no one would be there to celebrate and cheer with him when he finally proved that it worked. What good was his life’s ambition if absolutely no one in the world cared whether or not he was successful with it?

“Stupid machine,” Biggles said, giving the monolithic tower a swift kick. The echo resounded through the room, and the fan built into the machine to keep it cool churned angrily. “Oh,” Biggles said, suddenly regretting his action. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He patted the cool metal case until the churning settled. “It’s not your fault after all, is it?” Biggles said. “You work just fine. It’s me that’s all messed up.”

Walking around the tower, he opened the case on the other side, which contained in it one of the key elements to the oscillator. The loop of leather didn’t look like much, but it was the most essential part of the oscillator. Embedded with nearly microscopic circuitry and fiber optics, the loop was intended to be placed around whatever object was to be oscillated in time. Biggles had had quite a bit of success with test objects used in the belt, although Joanne had not expressed much interest in the proceedings.

Biggles was quite positive when the items placed within the loop vanished they were being transported through the temporal ether, returning only when the recall switch on the mainframe signaled its return. Without sending a sentient object—one that was able to repeat what it saw—through, however, there was no way for Biggles to prove his theory. He had sent a cat once, but it had been as explanatory as the orange. The items vanished, that much was certain, but where they went was anyone’s guess.

Last week, before Joanne had left, he had sent a video camera on a tripod through, set to record. It came back with thirty minutes of black footage recorded, and some very faint noises that might have been nothing at all. Biggles was afraid to send much more than that, because if the time oscillator actually was working, there was a very good chance he was sending oranges and felines and things into a prehistoric cave or a peat bog or the dwelling of some 11th century farmers—whatever had been on this property in the past. There wasn’t too much danger about an orange being discovered in a strange location, or even a cat, but a 21st century video camera in the wrong hands in the wrong time could be very dangerous indeed, and the oscillator wasn’t yet calibrated enough to pin point how far back in time he was oscillating the items.

“Well, that funding isn’t ever going to come at this rate, is it?” he asked, speaking to the machine itself, though not expecting a reply. “And there’s really only one thing to be done for that, isn’t there?” He glanced at the unresponsive tower. Then somewhat furiously, he tied the loop of leather around his waist, cinching it like a belt. “I’ve no other choice, you see!” he cried, defending a one-sided argument. “Science is everything, and I have nothing if this doesn’t work!”

Going to the machine, he began to set it up for transfer. “I don’t suppose Joanne would even miss me, if I should never turn up again. But the cat was fine and so too shall I be. Perhaps they’d simply think I had gone completely mad in the end and ran off into the night. Would serve them right!” He twisted a dial all the way to the left. “There, six hours should be plenty of time to figure out where I am and find something to bring back to convince them.” He took a deep breath, before letting it out. “Oh, I suppose I had better leave a note, just in case.” Fetching a pen and a piece of paper, he hurriedly jotted down a short message that simply said, “Experimenting—do not turn off this machine. -Prof. Biggles”

Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he flipped the final switch and stood back as the electric current in the loop suddenly surged to life.

Unable to help it, Biggles squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and waited for something majestic.

But nothing seemed to happen.

“What was that?”

The voice had belonged to a frightened girl, and Biggles’ popped open one eye in curiosity. He found himself standing a very dark room, and would not have been able to see at all, except that residual electricity was still dancing across his skin and clothes. “Hello?” he called, trying to keep his heart from thumping too wildly—the power must have blown.

Someone—probably the girl—screamed. It wasn’t the startled scream of someone bumping into something in the dark, but a blood curling, terrified scream. Concerned that something horrible was happening, Biggles began to run in the direction, intending to assist in whatever way he could.

“What the fuck!” cried someone else—a man by the sound of his voice.

There was a crash in the distance, and then Biggles himself tripped over a wooden crate on the floor, almost invisible in the dark. He flung his arms out, pin wheeling them to try and keep his balance. He lunched to the side, trying to find footing that wasn’t debris strewn, and then caught something solid and held on.

It took Biggles a moment to realize it was a person he was now clinging to—as the man was now desperately trying to push him away—and he righted himself almost instantly. “Dreadfully sorry about that,” he apologized, rebalanced at last. “Who are you? What’s going on? What has happened to the lights?”

“Is this some sort of sick joke?” the other person angrily demanded.

“I’m . . . I’m afraid I don’t understand. How did you get in here?”

“Didn’t know we needed your permission! You some kind of creep likes to hang out and give kids a scare?” There was a quiet flurry of movement, and then the speaker struck a match, illuminating a pool of the room in feeble yellow light.

Biggles was surprised to find the person he had stumbled into was little more than an overgrown boy—he merely had the voice of a man. Dressed in a fancy black leather coat, his dark hair slicked back with grease, Biggles thought he displayed a charmingly retro style. The boy’s eyes were narrowed unwelcomingly, though.

“Not at all,” Biggles replied, looking around desperately. He noticed discarded crates all over the plain concrete floor and felt something tickling his belly. “Oh my word,” he breathed, startled. “This is…” he turned around completely, and sure enough, though his visibility was limited, he could tell he was no longer in his laboratory at all. This building was in ruins, dilapidated and falling in on itself.

The match burned too low, and the boy shook it out and lit another. “This is the old mill,” the boy said, his tone cruel and condescending. “You sure as hell gave Betty a start, showing up glowing like a ghost and all that.”

“It worked!” Biggles suddenly exclaimed. “I don’t believe it! Well, yes, of course I do! But, don’t you see, it worked!” He clapped his hands together delightedly. “Tell me, my dear boy, what year is this?”

“You really are a nutter, aren’t you?” the boy replied, the cruelness in his voice turning to disgust. “Ought to call the coppers on the likes of you.”

“Now, now! Don’t be rude, boy, just answer the question! Judging by your clothes, I’d wager it’s either the late 1950s or the early 1960s. Is it?”

“Very funny, mate, ha ha,” the boy said. “Look, you scared my bird off already, I’m not playing some daft kid’s game with you.” He turned around, shook out the match, and began picking his way out of the ruined mill.

Unable to do anything else, Biggles set about following him. “This isn’t a game,” he protested, frustrated. “The least you could do is answer my question.”

Within a few seconds they were approaching a pocket of lighter darkness, which Biggles realized was a hole in the wall that led outside. There were stars out, but for the most part, it was still very hard to see.

“1963 all year, mate,” the boy mockingly replied, turning around to walk backward. “I’ll admit, was a neat trick, the glowing bit. Better used in a magic show than on a couple of teenagers though. Now bugger off.” He turned and began jogging away.

Biggles sighed, patting himself down absently. Walking away from the mill, he turned a complete circle, utterly disoriented. There was no street, no neat row of building across from the mill. He might as well have transported himself across space as well as time for all that he recognized his surroundings. “Wait!” he called, turning back to the boy. He quickened his pace, trying to catch up. “Where am I?”

The boy didn’t slow until he reached the street, where he straightened out his shoulders and took on a laid back expression of boredom. When Biggles finally caught up with him again, the boy expressed surprise. “Stop following me,” he said. “The joke isn’t funny.”

“It’s not a joke,” Biggles insisted, a hand pressed into his chest as he caught his breath. “My name is Professor Biggles, you see. I’m… I’m an inventor! And I’ve just invented the time oscillator and traveled back forty-four years in time!”

“Sure, all right,” the boy said, affecting a terrible American accent. “And I’m Elvis Presley. How do you do, partner?”

“I’m being serious,” Biggles protested, frowning. “This is possibly the biggest breakthrough in human history! Why won’t you believe me?”

“If you were standing about in an old mill, about to it make it with some fine bit of skirt, and some old tosser showed up all glowing like Father Christmas, saying he’s from the future, would you believe him?”

“Well. Well, I might.”

The boy glanced down the street both ways, as if looking for someone. Seeing they weren’t being observed, he nodded. “Then prove it.”

“Prove it?” Biggles repeated, suddenly aghast. He hadn’t considered the need to do such a thing. “Well, I didn’t exactly prepare to need to do that!” he said. “Besides,” he added, a little more hotly, “it’s probably best if you don’t know! It could be dangerous to tell the people of the 1960s the truth about time travel.”

Laughing, the boy shook his head. “All right, sure. I believe you. You’re from the future, congrats mate. Me, I’m off to the club again, see if I can’t pick up another bird. One that don’t spook so easy.”

Aware he was about to lose the only person he might be liable to meet in the middle of the night in 1963, Biggles hurried after him, fishing through his pockets for anything that might aid him. “Oh, look, look,” he said excitedly, pulling out his wallet. Taking out a five-pound note, he handed it over to the boy. “1963—you’re not on the decimal system yet. That’s legal tender from the year I come from.”

The boy held it to the light, intrigued despite himself, but then shrugged, handing it back. “Well, that don’t prove anything. You could have had that made up.”

Scowling, Biggles stuffed the note away. “You’re not a very easy sell, aren’t you?” Grumbling, Biggles furrowed his brow. “1963, what happened in 1963? Oh, of course! The President of the United States was assassinated!”

“JFK?” the boy said, quirking an eyebrow. “Mister, this joke is just getting worse and worse. Why don’t you go and try it on some little kid?”

“But it’s true! It happens in November and—” Biggles suddenly clapped his mouth shut. He was doing something very stupid, revealing information about such an event before it happened. There was absolutely no reason for him to prove himself to this boy. Revealing too much about the future was undoubtedly perilous. He just had to collect a newspaper or something to prove he had been there and wait six hours for the recall switch to return him home. It was only a shame it was night—he would have quite liked to wander around England in the early 1960s.

“What?” the boy prompted.

“I can’t tell you about the future,” Biggles said, forlornly, stubbing his fingertips together. “Put it this way: if I tell you about what’s going to happen to Kennedy now and later it comes to pass, will you actually think I was telling the truth about being from the future, or instead would you perhaps think that I had something to with the assassination?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t want to put you into that position.”

“Tell me this,” the boy said, putting a hand on his hip. “Have you heard of Daniel Stratton?”

Biggles put a finger in his ear as he pondered, wondering if perhaps he had heard the name before, in some movie or television series, but after a few seconds of pondering, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, that doesn’t ring any bells. An actor you’re fond of, perhaps?”

Shrugging, the boy said, “That’s me. Guess I’m a nobody in the future.”

Sobering slightly, Biggles smiled. “Well, forty years is a long time, Daniel. You could be a happy, hardworking father, after all. There are many unsung heroes in the world.”

Danny proceeded to roll his eyes. “So, why 1963, eh? And why in the ruins of an old mill, instead of off saving Kennedy?”

“I can’t interfere with the future like that,” Biggles said with a sigh. “And, well, the process is a bit dodgy still.” He fingered the loop around his waist self-consciously. “I didn’t really know where I was going to end up. I mean, I’m in the mill because, in the future, that’s where my laboratory is built. But my experiments all returned inconclusive data, so I figured I had better test it for myself. Now I know why my recordings were all black—I bet that mill is completely dark, even during the day.”

“Probably,” Danny said, looking back down the street as some people surfaced rather a bit away from them. He watched them until they turned a corner.

“Does that mean you believe me?” Biggles said, trying to deny the bit of hope he felt in his chest.

“Not a lick,” Danny replied, refocusing on him. “But it’s a real good story.” His eyes trailed down Biggles’ figure, settling on the hands that were twisting the loop tied around his waist. “That’s a weird belt.”

“It’s not a belt at all,” Biggles proudly said. “It’s the time oscillator—what brought me here.” Figuring he had at least another five hours before the recall was engaged, he untied the belt to show it off better. “See, you’ve certainly got nothing like this in the 1960s. There is enough power in the fiber optic motherboard of this belt to power the current space shuttle fleet ten times over.” He hooked his nail under a small catch on the loop and slid aside a small door, revealing some blinking circuitry inside. “See?”

Danny leaned closer, narrowing his eyes at the lights. “Fancy stuff, old man. Don’t prove anything.”

“Oh, I wish I had brought a mobile phone. I never found a need for them, but you would have quite liked it, I should think.”

“Mobile phone?”

“Yes. It’s like a handheld telephone that you can use to communicate with anyone from pretty much anywhere in the world. It runs on batteries, you see, and satellites, so you don’t need a cord or a wire or anything. Rather like Mr. Spock’s communicator on Star Trek.”

Danny just stared at him.

“Oh dear, 1963 really is an awfully long ways back, isn’t it?” He laughed. “Why, you know, I’ll not even be born for another two years!” He blinked. “I could see my parents as young adults,” he said, a surprised wistfulness in his voice. Shaking his head, he began retying the loop around his middle. “But of course I can’t do that. Wouldn’t want to cause a paradox or anything.”

Danny simply watched him retying the belt, his eyes not leaving the item even once it was secured. “Looks pretty expensive, anyway,” he said. “Even if it don’t travel in time.”

“I should say so,” Biggles agreed. “I’ve spent all my life gathering and developing the technology to make this belt work. Oh, you should see my laboratory, Daniel. The computers there would blow your mind.”

“Not much interested in computers, me,” Danny said with a shrug. His eyes were still on the belt, and his voice had changed, somehow less cruel. “Listen, you got a place to stay in the 1960s then, or what? ‘Cause I gotta get back to the club, but you could come and catch a kip, if you wanted.”

“Oh, well, that’s very nice of you,” Biggles said, surprised at the offer of generosity. “What I’d really like is a newspaper or something with the date on it. You see, if I can convince the faculty back home that I’ve really traveled to the past, they’ll finally send me the grant check I need to continue my research.”

“Right,” Danny said, clearly unconvinced. “Well, it’s possible you’ll find something like that down in the club. They got flyers and them things, for passing out, which all got dates on them.”

“Well, I should like to see a real 1963 club anyway; it sounds like a load of fun.”

Danny didn’t look especially pleased with the idea, but he led Biggles across the street and back down the stairwell into The Inferno. It was still swelteringly hot down there, but the evening had worn on enough that a good deal of the patrons had already gone home. There was a five-man band on stage, crooning out a love ballad, which wasn’t doing much to inspire the remaining tired club goers.

“Oh, this is quaint,” Biggles said excitedly. “You know, the Beatles got their start in a club rather like this. Of course, that was in Liverpool.”

“They’re all right,” Danny called over the noise, pushing past people as he maneuvered through the crowd. “Bit stuffy, if you ask me.”

“Well, wait until next year, Daniel. Things’ll change very quickly for them, then.” He rubbed his hands together. “Oh, how I should like to watch the rise and fall of the Beatles,” he cheered. “They’ll be bigger than Elvis, you know.”

“Get off it,” Danny said, dismissively. He pushed another couple aside. “Come on, this way.”

Biggles did his best to keep up with Danny. He was aided largely by the fact that when the club patrons saw such a strange, middle-aged man picking his way among them, they were curious to see where he was going and so stepped aside. It didn’t take long for Biggles to grow self-conscious with all those eyes on him, but he did his best to ignore them, breathing a sigh of relief when Danny finally let him into a small back room. Once the door was closed and the noise was cut down, he said, “That’s better.”

“This place shuts down round one, but you can take a rest for a while, and them flyers are over there.” Danny gestured to a small narrow table against the wall.

“Thank you,” Biggles said, wandering over. Perusing the flyers, Biggles was dismayed that they almost all exclusively listed dates without listing the year. He nevertheless pocketed a few of the flashier ones and turned to find Danny studying him. In the brighter lights inside, Biggles was able to see Danny more clearly. As he had been born in 1965, most of the 1960s were little more than a colorful blur to him. In some ways, it was hard to believe Danny was for real—if he had been asked, Biggles would have assumed everyone would be in bellbottoms and dashikis.

“Find everything you need?” Danny asked, cocking a hip.

“Well, not quite, but hopefully these will do. I don’t see why I can’t repeat this experiment anyway. That’s what science is all about, you know: repeatability. I’ll just have to come back in the daylight sometime.”

Out in the club, the ballad ended and was followed up by a much livelier song. Unable to help himself, Biggles started tapping out the beat with his foot. “You know,” he said, “I wouldn’t mind watching them play for a while.”

“You’re probably thirty years older than everyone out there,” Danny replied.

“I most certainly am not,” Biggles retorted. Then he softened. “But I do see what you mean.” Smiling, he said, “Still, I suppose it can’t be helped. If anyone asks, you can tell them I’m a manger looking to sign new bands. That would pacify them, wouldn’t it?”

“It would,” Danny agreed, a smiling ticking at the corner of his mouth. “Come on then,” he said. “I’ll buy you a pint and get you a spot.”

Biggles didn’t know why the boy had gone from being completely skeptical of him to open and welcoming enough to buy him a drink, but he didn’t much mind. Watching some genuine skiffle and rock and roll bands in the 1960s was certainly a better way to spend the evening than wandering the dark streets looking for a newspaper.

“Here you are,” Danny said, kicking a chair away from an empty table. He slapped a pint of lager down and gestured with his hand for Biggles to sit.

Watching Danny’s hand, Biggles nodded. “Do you play too, then?” he asked, pulling the pint toward him. It was watered down, but still quite palatable.

“’Course I do,” Danny said. “Daniel Stratton and the Strikers, that’s ours. We’re the best band, hereabouts.”

“Oh, are you?” Biggles asked, suddenly intrigued. “I should like to see that! I admit, all of this is a bit before my time, you see, but I really am quite fond of classic rock.”

“What’s that?”

Laughing, Biggles nodded. “Well, it’s what they’ve been playing; Marvin Gaye and Chuck Berry and that sort of thing. Those songs are considered classic rock in the future, but it’s lovely to hear them fresh, when they were new.”

“Still on about that, are you?” Danny said, shaking his head. “Well, you’ll have to come back tomorrow then, my mates have already gone home for the night.”

“Sadly, I’m not sure that’s entire possible. You see, Daniel, operating the time oscillator uses up quite a bit of energy. By the time I get back, it will have been operating for six hours, which is nearly the machine’s maximum run time. It might be more than a month before I can get the reserves together to test it again, and I imagine I’ll be juggling press and media by then. I’d quite like to see you play, but I’m afraid I’ll be a bit too busy.”

Shrugging, Danny looked away, eyeing a few of the single girls still in the room. “Your loss, mate. Now, just make yourself comfortable, eh? I’ll be back before the club closes.”

Biggles watched Danny walk off to chat up some young girls, but soon let his attention wander to the performers on stage. Before long, between the lager and the music, he was quite enjoying himself. If Biggles had been younger—or simply more extroverted—he would have joined the other dancers on the floor.

He caught the eye of a few curious patrons, but for the most part was unmolested during his stay. Before he was quite ready for it, the last band performed their last song and began packing up. Aware that meant it was now one in the morning, Biggles got to his feet stiffly, yawning rather profusely. Though he glanced around for Danny, the boy didn’t resurface, and Biggles eventually shuffled out of the club after the crowd. There he watched the couples fade away into the shadowy streets until the lights shut down behind him and he found himself all alone.

“Nothing to be done for it, I suppose,” he said aloud, trying to figure out the direction he had come from. There were still several hours before the recall kicked back in, but it wouldn’t hurt to return to the mill early. He was getting quite tired, and it wouldn’t do to fall asleep in the door stoop of a building that had been knocked down thirty years ago and replaced with offices.

Just as he crossed the street a figure ran out of the shadows, in the direction of club. Biggles didn’t need to squint through the darkness to know it was Danny; he could just tell it was the boy, returning for him. “I’m over here,” he said in a quiet voice that carried in the silence of the night. It was amazing—this street was always quite busy in the future, even in the middle of the night.

Despite Biggles’ quiet tone, Danny seemed surprised by the voice. He jammed his hands into his coat pockets as he strolled across the street. “Thought you would have capered off by now,” he said.

“Well, I’ve no where to really caper off to,” Biggles replied. “My recall doesn’t kick in for a few more hours. I thought I would head back to the ruins and try to get some sleep.” Danny now smelled rather strongly of alcohol and women’s cologne—Biggles could only assume he had been lucky with one of the girls he had been chatting up. “It was nice of you to come back for me though. I’m surprised.”

Danny’s eyes flicked down as he shrugged. “Hey, well, if I were displaced forty years in time, I’d like a mate too,” he said, giving Biggles a crooked, not entirely friendly, smile. “Come on, I know a place you can get some sleep. Probably way past your bed time, eh?”

“A bit, yes,” Biggles admitted. “And while I quite appreciate your kindness, I really can’t accept. You see, if I go with you and the recall happens when I fall asleep, it won’t be your house I’ll rematerialize at, but the home of whomever lives there forty years from now.”

“How do you know I don’t live there in the future?”

“I don’t. But I also I don’t know that you do. In fact, the building might not even exist anymore. There could be a road there now, or offices or shops or anything. No, I had better go back to where my laboratory is, in the future.”

“Seems a daft place to build a laboratory, in an old mill,” Danny said.

“Well, it’s not in ruins in the future. The mill is long gone in my time. In fact, after the mill was torn down, they built a factory warehouse,” Biggles said, walking with Danny back through the darkened field. “And by the time I moved in, the factory had been shut down for ten years and the whole building was in disrepair. I purchased it cheap and converted it to serve as my laboratory.”

Shaking his head, Danny said, “Keep on like that and I might start believing you.”

“I hope so,” Biggles said with a sigh. “It would be nice if someone did.”

Danny did not reply.

When they reached the hole in the wall that marked the entrance to the mill, Biggles turned around and extended his hand. “I appreciate your help, Daniel, even if you don’t believe me. Perhaps I’ll look you up in the future. That would give you quite the shock, wouldn’t it?” he said, smiling.

“You do that,” Danny said, shaking his hand. Glancing over Biggles’ shoulder into the darkness, he said, “You gonna be in there all night then?”

“Yes,” Biggles replied, grinning impishly. “So you’ll have to bring your little girl friends somewhere else.”

To Biggles’ surprise, Danny actually managed a smile at that. “I promise not to bring any birds here tonight, but there’s no such promise tomorrow.”

“Fair enough,” Biggles said. “Good night, Daniel. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

“See ya, Professor.”

Biggles ducked into the mill and began carefully picking his way over the crushed crates and ruined beams. It was impossible to say for sure that he was where he had been when the oscillator had activated, but the laboratory was large and spacious, and he felt confident he wasn’t going to materialize in the middle of a desk. Settling down against a crumbling crate, Biggles crossed his arms over his chest and let himself drop into a light snooze—he hoped to be awake when the transition took place.

It seemed only moments later that Biggles felt a gentle tugging at his waist. He was sleepy enough to try to brush it aside and ignore it, but when he made to roll over in bed, he dislodged the crate he was leaning against and fell to the ground with a start.

“Shit,” he heard Danny say.

“What?” Biggles said, disoriented. He struggled to right himself. “Daniel?”

There was a clatter of noise and then Danny switched on the torch he was carrying. It was not out of concern for Biggles though—the boy was hurriedly maneuvering his way through the messy mill, making his way for the door. In his left hand was the leather oscillator belt.

“Daniel, no!” Biggles cried, suddenly surging to his feet. “I need that belt to get back!” He promptly stumbled over some debris and nearly lost his footing. Danny did not heed his cry, and the light from his torch began to fade.

Desperately, Biggles scrambled to his feet again, crashing over the ruins in his effort to chase after the boy. He doubted Danny understood how important it was for him to get the belt back: if he wasn’t wearing it when the recall hit, the belt would return—without him. There would be no way to reactivate the machine in the future; he would effectively be trapped in 1963.

“Please, Daniel,” he cried, sudden desperation clutching at his chest. “Please, please, I need it back. You don’t understand!” Though Biggles had never felt like he entirely fit into the world he was born into, he knew he didn’t want to be trapped in the past, either—not when his life’s ambition would be abandoned and undoubtedly destroyed when he failed to return and reclaim it.

Not slowing, Danny finally reached the opening to the mill and ducked out, plunging the interior into darkness. Once in the open, the boy began to run in earnest.

“Daniel!” Biggles cried again, stumbling out of the mill after him. He already felt winded and disoriented. The thought of chasing the boy across a field in the middle of the night filled him with dread. Even as he stood there staring, the boy hit the pavement of the street and picked up speed. Miserably, Biggles took a deep breath and began jogging after him.

After a few blocks, when Danny realized Biggles wasn’t about to let him go, he called out, “Just give it up, old man!”

“It isn’t a joke,” Biggles cried, out of breath. “I’ll be trapped here in 1963 if you take that belt!”

“Should’ve called the coppers on a loony like you after all,” Danny sneered.

“Please,” Biggles begged. “I haven’t got much time.”

Even as the words left his mouth, the belt began to glow. Bewildered, Danny dropped it and the crackling energy began surging along it, making the leather twist on the street.

“Insolent child!” Biggles yelled. Finding a sudden fount of energy, he sprinted forward, hoping he could grab the belt and wrap it around his middle in time.

He reached it just as Danny bent down and gingerly picked the writhing loop up. “How’re you making it do that?” he demanded, holding the belt out of Biggles’ reach.

“It’s oscillating, you fool!” Biggles retorted, for once sounding contemptuous himself. “I have to complete the connection for the recall to work!” He snatched the leather out of Danny’s hand and before the boy could react, wrapped it around his waist. Just as he fastened the two ends together, the boy ploughed into him, knocking him flat on his back in the middle of the street.

Seconds later the blaring of a car horn was all Biggles could hear. He looked up, just in time to see the car swerve into the oncoming traffic lane to avoid hitting them. Without thinking about it, Biggles grabbed Danny around the arm, dragging the boy off the street, so they could both collapse on the sidewalk together. As winded from his sprint as he was, it took Biggles a few seconds to realize that Danny was gaping at his surroundings.

The boy had pushed to his feet after Biggles had hauled him to the sidewalk. Now he was staring in bewilderment at the brightly lit store across the street from them—the Tescos was closed, but the car park was still illuminated, as was the store’s sign. Only seconds before, the lot had been a dirt road and the rest of the field heading to the river.

Surprised, but relieved, Biggles stood up, fingering the belt around his waist comfortingly. Though he couldn’t yet explain how Danny had been oscillated through time along side him, Biggles was thankful that had both been brought to the future instead of both being stuck in the past.

Putting a hand on Danny’s shoulder, he pleasantly said, “Welcome to the future.” Then, considerably harder, he added, “The first thing I ought to do is turn you over to the authorities for thievery.”