Winston Chase and the Theta Factor Page 9

  He already possessed the chronoviewer and chronojumper, both of which were limited to working within the same physical place. This would have to be one of the pieces that worked across space. Already, Winston found himself wondering what he would want to see and where in the world he would want to visit.

  He held up Little e and pushed energy out to its tips.

  “Here,” said Theo. He fished in his front pocket for a moment and drew out a Swiss Army knife. With a practiced flick, he opened a hook-shaped attachment. “Sorry if it’s a little old-fashioned.”

  “What is it?” Winston asked.

  Theo gave him a disbelieving glance. “A can opener. They don’t have can openers in the future?”

  “Well, sure, but…” This probably wasn’t the time to get into a discussion about modern appliances.

  Winston handed Theo the can. The curator hooked the tool’s blade over the can’s edge and deftly see-sawed the knife around the lid until it remained barely attached.

  Theo handed the cylinder back. Winston fought against a sudden surge of nerves and the feeling that perhaps he wasn’t ready to handle the added responsibilities that would come with whatever capabilities this piece provided. After all, he’d accidentally blundered back to 1966 and nearly drowned himself in the river, nearly losing the Alpha Machine and Little e, just because he’d been startled at the wrong moment.

  And yet, here he was with Theo, another Alpha Machine piece in hand, because his dad had somehow known that Winston would have either that exact “accident” or one very similar to it. In a way, that meant that his father was watching over him, even now. The thought allowed him to find a point of calm in his mind to hold on to as he upended the can into his palm.

  Out dropped another metal ring. It was slightly smaller than the chronoviewer, also with a circular bulge at one point in its circumference, but this piece gleamed with a glossy black coating rather than silver. As with the other Alpha Machine pieces, this one bore almost no markings. Instructions not included.

  He peered inside the can and found another Ziploc baggie waiting. It contained three color photos.

  Winston groaned.

  “What?” asked Theo.

  “More clues. I’m just not that good at these things, at least not without Google.”

  “Who’s Google?”

  Winston realized his mistake. “I can’t tell you. I’ll open up a wormhole or something.”

  “What’s a wormhole?”

  “Never mind.” Winston opened the bag and arranged the photos next to the new piece. “I don’t suppose he told you where the next piece is located, did he?”

  Theo chuckled. “Of course not. Claude always loved games and puzzles.”

  “Cribbage,” said Winston.

  “Yes. I remember he was a great partner at four-handed. We played a lot of cribbage in our off-hours.”

  For a moment, Theo’s gaze drew distant and his features mournful. Winston saw the face of a man who had spent almost two decades in hiding, afraid and unwilling to make any real connections to the world around him. At least Claude had managed to watch his son for a couple of years, although he had only been able to do it as an old man near the end of his life. Theo was not that far gone yet, but he seemed to have little beside this museum to show for his life.

  The thought sent a flash of anger through Winston. How many people had Project Majestic ruined? Was Bledsoe the only one able to come through unscathed and more powerful than when he started? That would have to change.

  “I’m really sorry,” said Winston.

  Theo blinked out of his recollections. “For what?”

  Winston shook his head, unsure how to say what he felt. “For everything you and my dad and my mom had to go through. It’s not right.”

  The curator smiled ruefully and sighed. “In the big scheme, you know, a life is a small thing. We learned that in the war. People died by the millions. Eventually, you have to ask yourself…is it worth it? Is it worth giving up a life, even your own life, for the right cause?”

  He waited for Winston to answer, but Winston didn’t know what to say. Until this week, the biggest sacrifice he’d had to consider was skipping hang-outs with Shade in order to finish computer repair jobs on time.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Sorry, I haven’t really thought about it.”

  “You know right from wrong, good from evil. And you know what happens when evil comes to your home. Sometimes, you have to go out and meet evil on its own turf to protect the people you love. Any kid can understand that, right?”

  Winston remembered Bledsoe calling him and revealing that he’d taken his father prisoner, presumably for interrogation and torture. And then, just this morning, the email and photo of his mother…

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s right.”

  Theo nodded. “Don’t be sorry for anything, Winston. You didn’t ask to be here or to be who you are.” He peered over the top of his glasses at Winston. “Just use your gifts for good. I got the easy job: sit around here and wait. Your job is to use the abilities your parents gave you to set things right. Otherwise, this will all have been…”

  He swallowed and looked away.

  For nothing, Winston thought. If I fail, this guy’s life — everybody’s life — will have been for nothing.

  “Right,” he said, then quietly repeated it to himself. “Right.”

  12

  Looking for Lane

  Alyssa scraped the remains of hastily devoured chicken and gravy from her plate and set her tray on the cafeteria’s return counter. Today might mark a new record for the fastest ingestion of a Shifford hot lunch. Her stomach grumbled with displeasure, and she hoped her effort wouldn’t return to haunt her during class, but this was her only chance before the end of school. She had to be quick. If Winston was right, every minute mattered.

  She was nearly out the cafeteria exit, shouldering her backpack, when a girl called her name.

  “Alyssa!”

  Adrienne Kuhn jogged up to her, a carton of chocolate milk still clutched in her left hand, curls bouncing and head tilted with confused accusation. She grabbed Alyssa’s arm. “Hey, where you going so fast? You didn’t even sit down with us.”

  Alyssa had zero time for distractions. “I have to make a run for the library. Gotta study for…a test.”

  Worry filled Adrienne’s widening eyes, and Alyssa tried not to grimace.

  Stupid move. Adrienne shared most of her class periods, and even she would know there wasn’t a test coming up in the next day or two.

  “What test?” Adrienne asked. She shook her head, sending curls jostling about her shoulders. “Please tell me I didn’t forget something.”

  Alyssa forced a smile and slowly eased away from Adrienne’s grasp. “No, no. It’s an after-school online thing my mom has me doing.” Perhaps because she was so preoccupied with Winston, Alyssa added, “Math stuff.”

  Adrienne beckoned behind her at the hundreds of chatting, laughing kids convened for first lunch. The cafeteria smelled of frozen fried chicken, cheap gravy, and the always-available staples of pizza and hamburgers. In her current rush, though, the place’s beehive buzz of barely restrained chaos unsettled Alyssa. She had far more important things to do than the daily lunch huddle.

  “Come on,” Adrienne pleaded. “I have big news.” She leaned in close, almost whispering. “Susanna says that Toby wants to ask me out to the dance.” She pulled back, brown eyes wide and gleaming with expectation. “Isn’t that crazy?”

  “Yeah.” Alyssa nodded with fake disbelief. “So crazy.” She forced herself not to walk out on the spot. What was the proper expected response in this situation? The words slowly formed in her mind.

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  Adrienne practically jumped up and down with excitement. “I don’t know!” She tugged on Alyssa’s arm again. “Come back to the table. We really need to talk.”

  Good God.

  “Adrienne, I’m really sorr
y, but I gotta go. Maybe you should just…” Read a book? Get a grip? Pick a boy who doesn’t try to cheat on his algebra quizzes? “Flip a coin?”

  “What?”

  “A coin,” Alyssa repeated. She shifted her weight impatiently with the need to get away. How could stuff like this have seemed even minimally interesting only a few hours ago?

  “Alyssa, this is like the biggest decision of the year so far. It’s Toby. Toby!” With a wave of her milk carton, her wide, glittering eyes fell into shadowed gloom. “You know what he did with Jessica last year. She was so excited, but then… I don’t want that to happen to me.”

  Alyssa forced her fingers not to curl into claws. “Then say no.”

  Maria gripped her arm even tighter. “He’ll ask someone else! And you know how hot he is. I’ve been wanting to go out with him forever!”

  The memory of Winston’s words nearly blotted out Adrienne’s chatter. You have to find him. You have to make him believe you, and you have to do it fast. Everything depends on it.

  This time, Alyssa did pull her arm away. She took two steps toward the exit.

  “I’m sorry, Adrienne. You want the truth? Toby is a jerk, and you’re only interested because he’s popular and cute. He’s going to dump all over you like a line of front loaders. Get over it.”

  Alyssa left Adrienne gaping amid the clank and clamor of the kitchen crew. No doubt, that little dismissal was going to make her life difficult later.

  Her backpack bounced as she sped down the halls and into the library. This early in the lunch break, only a scattering of students sat hunched over graphic novels or iPads. Shelves of magazines lined the wall to Alyssa’s left, and the librarian’s desk stood empty to her right. She approached it and searched in vain for Ms. Rust, the librarian. Alyssa feared that the old woman had slipped away without leaving a note. Then the librarian’s white-topped head popped into view near the back of the room, just above the countertop over the school’s historical biographies collection.

  Everyone knew that Ms. Rust was twenty months away from retirement. She wasn’t exactly a bitter old hag, but two decades as the librarian of Shifford Middle School had worn her down. By October, every kid knew that you only had about a fifteen-second window in which to get a short, simple answer. Anything longer would result in an inevitable lecture on the evils of the Internet and how kids used to take a much more active role in their education, how libraries used to be a place of learning rather than entertainment, blah blah blah.

  Alyssa hoped that this one time she could get a decent amount of information out of the woman without blundering into an old-crone lecture.

  By the time Ms. Rust appeared at the end of her row pushing a rolling cart of books, Alyssa was most of the way to her. “Ms. Rust!” Alyssa waved and flashed her best, most ingratiating smile.

  The librarian made eye contact via her default squint, an expression that managed to meld skepticism with chronic hip pain. “Yes?” she asked.

  Alyssa confirmed that nobody was near them, then played her most irresistible card. “If you have a minute, I have a research question. I tried looking this up on the Internet, and I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe you could help?”

  That set the hook. The beginnings of a smile appeared at the corners of Ms. Rust’s mouth. “What are you looking for?”

  Alyssa hadn’t thought this plan through far enough, so she tried to keep things simple. “Umm, I’m searching for somebody. He’s an old family friend. Sort of a rich, reclusive type. I tried googling him, but came up empty. My grandmother’s sick, though, and she’s really anxious to find him. Before it’s too late.”

  Not bad.

  “Well, there are databases we could try,” said Ms. Rust. Have you searched anything besides…Google?” Her mouth twisted with disdain when speaking the name.

  To be fair, Alyssa had not progressed beyond twenty minutes of fruitless googling. A Vincent Lane old enough to have lived during World War II apparently did not exist in the modern world. Alyssa hoped she wouldn’t have to resort to combing through ancient spools of microfiche, like she’d seen in movies. That looked exhaustive and incredibly time-consuming.

  Seeing Alyssa’s hesitation, Ms. Rust sighed and resumed pushing her cart toward the front desk. “Yes, we have several options. First, though, can we narrow it down a bit? Do you know where he lives?”

  Alyssa shook her head. “No, not really. Probably in the western United States.”

  Ms. Rust eyed her wearily. “That does not narrow it down.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Do you know where he’s lived previously?”

  Alyssa tried to recall the little bit Winston had told her. A beach town… A bridge…

  “Astoria,” she said. “But that was a long time ago.”

  “All right.” Ms. Rust nodded, warming to the game. “Do you know in what year he was born?”

  Alyssa rubbed her forehead. No, Winston definitely had not mentioned that. Still, if Theo had been about twenty-five during the war in 1940, then that would put him around…

  “Maybe 1915,” said Alyssa. “Give or take a few.”

  Ms. Rust’s eyes widened. “You’re looking for a centenarian?”

  Alyssa decided not to crack a joke about him being half-horse. “Possibly, yeah. His name is Vincent Lane.”

  Mrs. Rust gave a little “hmph” of satisfaction, as if Theo’s age only made the challenge more appealing. “I should send you to the public library for this. They have more access and subscriptions. But…genealogy does happen to be a hobby of mine.”

  For the next ten minutes, she took them through a series of databases and websites. They found a Vince Lane in the Astoria city directories from 1961 to 1988, but then he disappeared, and Alyssa worried that Theo might have died. By now, Ms. Rust was committed to the pursuit, and she was willing to use her personal subscription to Ancestry.com. That site generated a handful of leads, one of which appeared in a 1992 Portland phone book, although only as a name and phone number. The same name reappeared in 1993 and 1994. In 1995, the entry gained a street address just before disappearing in 1996. Still, Mrs. Rust ran the address through PortlandMaps.com, which showed the home in the Sellwood district, measuring 1,136 square feet, and under the ownership of one Vincent Lane.

  “There’s your man,” said Mrs. Rust, leaning back in triumph just as someone rang the front-counter bell for help. “Or at least as close as we can get.”

  “That was amazing,” said Alyssa, and she meant it. “I had no idea you could do that. Thank you, Ms. Rust.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The librarian scooted back from her desk and stood with a wince. “Lunch is winding down. Duty calls. Do you need to write that down?” She motioned at the monitor.

  “Oh!” Alyssa found a piece of paper and a pencil to scribble down the information she needed. “Thanks.”

  Alyssa was tempted to dial the number on her cell phone that very moment, but she remembered Winston’s caution: “Keep the battery out and only make a call if it’s life or death.” The FBI could be monitoring her phone and waiting for her to use it precisely for this sort of information. Everyone connected to Winston would be at risk.

  “My battery is almost dead,” she fibbed. “Could I use the school’s phone?”

  The tip of Mrs. Rust’s tongue protruded from between her wrinkled, pale lips, and her squint narrowed to a slit. “You know that students aren’t allowed to make personal calls.”

  Alyssa tried to look both sad and anxious. “But it’s for my grandma. And it will only take a second.”

  The front-desk bell chimed again. With a quick intake of breath between her teeth, the librarian caved. “Two minutes,” she said as she logged out and closed her browser. “You can use my office phone.” She pointed at the phone on her desk. “Dial nine to get out.”

  Alyssa could have hugged her. “Thank you so much, Ms. Rust. I really appreciate it.”

  The librarian shuffled out to the front c
ounter. Alyssa lifted the phone’s handset, punched the number nine, and heard a dial tone. Heart racing, she dialed the ancient listing for Theo Tremaine, a.k.a. Vincent Lane. On the third ring, the line clicked and a raspy, quavering voice said, “Hello?”

  Alyssa didn’t know what to say. Everything that sprang to mind sounded ridiculous. Hello, my boyfriend just traveled back in time — or is it forward? — to tell me to call you. Got a moment?

  No, nothing like that would do. She didn’t know where to begin, but if she didn’t say something soon, he was going to think this was a prank and hang up.

  “Hello?” she began hesitantly. “Is this Vincent Lane?”

  He sighed. “If this is a sales call, delete me from your list immediately. I’m supposed to be—”

  “My name is Alyssa,” she interjected. “I was asked to call you by the son of somebody you know. Somebody you worked with many years ago.” She waited, but the man said nothing. She tried again. “Does the name Chase mean anything to you?” she asked.

  After several heartbeats, the old man replied, “Should it?”

  Alyssa wanted to jump out of her skin. What was she getting herself into?

  “The Mr. Chase that you used to know, his son asked me to contact you today. He says it’s very important.” She lowered her voice to a whisper and skipped straight to full-on nuts. “He says the world depends on it.”

  No response.

  She took a deep breath, hearing her own words play back in her mind. “I’m sorry. I know this must sound crazy. I don’t blame you if you want to hang up.”

  She nearly dropped the phone when the man said, “You’re not crazy, miss. How can we meet?”

  13

  Clue Conundrum

  Winston knew he would have to experiment with the new Alpha Machine piece eventually. His first test with the chronoviewer had been simple enough: connect, concentrate, and see into the past. Easy. Then, of course, there was his first test pairing the chronoviewer and chronojumper, which had nearly been catastrophic. Reluctant to jump straight into the possibility of another disaster, Winston decided they should focus on the new clues.