Science Fiction

Avalon 9.11 Blitz, part 1 of 4

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1941 A.D. London

Kairos lifetime 120: Nadia Iliana Kolchenkov, Doctor Mishka

Recording …

Doctor Misha knew where she was in 1914.  She might not have remembered the exact time and location, but she could make a good guess.  Where she might be in 1941 was a complete mystery.  About all she could do was dress Elder Stow in a suit, gather some American dollars, and tell Elder Stow to go to a bank when he arrived to exchange the dollars for the local currency.  That, and she hugged him and said good luck.  Elder Stow hugged them all and when he stepped out on to a city street, he sniffed and wiped his eyes.

“Who would have thought?” he asked himself.  Homo Sapiens were not the evolutionary mistake he grew up believing.  They were complex, indomitable spirits.  And the Earth belonged to them.  It was no longer the Gott-Druk home.  It took a couple of years of travel to realize that, but he no longer had doubts.  The Gott-Druk home world was out there, in the night sky, and it was a good world—no, it was a very good world.

Elder Stow pulled out his scanner.  It did not take much effort to recognize he landed in London.  He had visited most of the European capitals in his day and set their recognition patterns in his scanner.  Of course, he was most familiar with Berlin where his people settled and decided on a strategy to take down the human race.  He touched his communication device but paused.  He thought first to find that bank.  He might be stuck in this place for a long time if there were no Gott-Druk presently monitoring the planet.  He looked around.

Elder Stow saw several damaged buildings and one that collapsed entirely.  Men walked around the rubble that looked like it had been on fire several hours ago.  He saw the emergency vehicles parked in the street and plenty of street repair vehicles as well.  He saw three men rummaging through the rubble of one building.  Somehow, he knew they were looking for bodies.

“Excuse me,” he interrupted one man’s journey as the man crossed the street.  “The nearest bank?” he asked.  The man pointed at a broken building where several police officers stood around guarding the vault in case the crowd decided to see what money got liberated by the bombs.  “The nearest open bank?”  Elder Stow rephrased the question.

The man, a workman of some sort frowned and set down the bag he carried.  Elder Stow stared at the bag.  It appeared full of red sticks.  The man did not notice.  He got busy looking around at the streets.  He appeared to think, but at last, he pointed.  “Two blocks, turn left, two more blocks on the right.”

Elder Stow shifted his eyes again to the man and smiled.  “My thanks, Mister…”

“Duko,” the man said.  He snatched up his bag and hurried off.

Elder Stow walked the four blocks shaking his head.  Something did not seem right about that man.  He wondered about the red sticks as well, but he had to pause as he got to a street wholly untouched by the bombs.  It looked full of cars and commerce like any street in any major European city untouched by the ravages of war.

He stopped an elderly woman on the street.  “The bank?”

“That is where I am headed.  You can walk with me,” the woman said, and Elder Stow grunted.  He realized what was wrong with that man. He was not an Englishman.  He spoke with an accent, though Elder Stow could not pinpoint the man’s country of origin.

The woman walked, Elder Stow beside her, and she spoke.  “I’m Mildred Harkness.  I assume you are not from this neighborhood.”

Elder stow shook his head to clear his mind and focus.  “Stow,” he said, and then thought to humanize the named.  “John Stow, and no, I am from America.”  It was the last time zone he visited so he figured it was not entirely a lie.

“I thought I heard Irish for a minute,” Mildred said.

Aha, Elder Stow thought.  The man was Irish, and something else…  “No,” Elder Stow responded.  “Strictly American, and I have some money I need to exchange into the local currency.”  He pulled out a bill to show her.

“Yes, I see,” Mildred said, and smiled for him.  “It just so happens I know the right person to talk to.  Mister Wilson is the man that keeps up with all the current exchange rates.  I’ll introduce you.”

“That would be very kind of you,” Elder Stow responded and returned the old woman’s smile.  They walked in silence for a minute.  Elder Stow hardly knew what to ask.  He thought through information he had gleaned about the second world war.  That was during the early part of his journey with the travelers before he honestly realized the integrity of history was at stake.  At first, he was curious to hear about what his crew might be facing in the future, and what the shape of the world might be in if and when he returned.  He heard all about the Nazis and the atrocities they committed as well as the subsequent Soviet oppressors.  Oddly enough, neither wiped the European map clean the way the Gott-Druk would have wanted.  Something must have interrupted the Gott-Druk plans, because surely a relatively empty Europe that the Gott-Druk could recolonize would have been the plan.

“Odd time to be in London,” Mildred picked up the conversation.  “I assume you are here on official business.  Odd time for a tourist to visit London, what with the blitz and all, though the spring is nice.”

“I have a feeling the blitz may be coming to an end,” Elder Stow said and smiled again.  He recalled it was less than a year.  October to May if he remembered correctly.  He imagined his people would have wanted to break the spirit of the English people, but that just told him how little the Gott-Druk really understood Homo Sapiens.

“An end to the constant barrage of bombs day and night would be wonderful, especially the night raids.  I hardly remember what a good night’s sleep feels like.”

“I would say hang in there, but you Londoners appear to be doing that very well.”

Mildred nodded before she said, “Here we are.”  She took Elder Stow to the window and Mister Williams was very accommodating.  Elder Stow had to remember pounds and shillings were not decimal like dollars and cents, but he could handle the math well enough.

When he left the bank, he saw Mildred had gone.  She seemed a nice person.  Many humans were nice people, and it was good to remember that.  He saw an open luncheon place across the street and thought to get a snack, and tea.  He thought, England and tea.  He had some things to think through before he stumbled forward any further.

Of course, his people did not give the Germans atomic weapons.  They did not want an empty Europe that was full of atomic radiation, even though atomic energy would be the next logical step on the technological ladder, followed by lasers and some primitive sort of computers—what Lockhart and the others called computers—and rocketry.  Such rocketry was little more than fancy explosions that did not happen to use gunpowder.  So anyway, his people planned to empty the continent by more primitive means, by using gunpowder and such, even if it took a long time to do it.

Elder Stow paused.  He recognized the red sticks the man carried.  Trinitrotoluene.  Decker called it TNT; a stable explosive that needed to be set off with a simple pressure wave.  Elder Stow wondered why a man would be carrying around a bag full of…what was the word? …Dynamite.

Avalon 9.10 July Crisis, part 4 of 4

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Klaus, Man in Black, Europe, drove the Mercedes to the stables where they picked up the wagon and two horses, a gift of Count Stefan von Hoffmann.  Stefan saw that the horses were saddled and ready when they arrived.  Nanette got right up on the buckboard and asked Klaus a question.

“Do you have a last name?”

“Novak,” Klaus said.  “It is honestly Nowak, a Polish name.  I am only half-Prussian.  Klaus is a good German name, and I stick mostly with that.  It raises no questions.”

“My husband is Milton Decker, but he says he does not like the name Milton.”

“A good English name,” Klaus said as they started out.  “Perhaps he does not like the name because he is not an Englishman.”

“No,” Nanette said.  “He just doesn’t like it.  He says he even got his mother to call him Decker.  The people we traveled with all called him Decker.  Other people call him Decker or Colonel Decker.”

“What do you call him?”

“I tried calling him Milton a couple of times, but it did not fit him.  I call him Decker.  I guess I am getting used to it.”

Decker and Tony came up to the front and Tony asked, “So why didn’t we take the train to Paris?”

Klaus raised his voice a bit to answer.  “They are beginning to stop the trains heading into the west.  Your papers are in order, and they should not bother Americans, but you never know.  We are three days from Saarbrucken on the border with Lorraine.  Another two days will get us to Metz on the border with France.  We will probably have to show our papers twice, but then we will move on.  Even if the soldiers on the train do not question your papers, personally, we may be stuck in the station for a day, maybe a week while they check everyone else.”

“Better to keep moving,” Decker agreed.  He was not sure when the war would start.  He thought maybe August fourteenth.  He did not have Lincoln there to look it up in the database.  Maybe that was just as well.  Less chance he could screw something up.  Better to get out of Germany without stopping.

Klaus got Tony’s attention.  “You have the purse Count Stefan provided?”  Tony nodded. It was mostly paper Marks and Francs, not the gold, silver, and copper coins he was used to.  He patted his britches leg glad Lincoln showed him a few things he could do in shaping his fairy weave to hide the money.

The travelers did get stopped on the border of Lorraine, as predicted.  The province had only been in German hands for forty-three years, and while that might sound like plenty of time to adjust, it is a mere drop in the bucket the way Europeans read time.  Before 1871, the area was French, and the French sympathies in the province still ran strong along with some resentment against the imposition of the German language on everyday life.

As expected, though, they did not wait long.  Decker tried his line.  “I’ve been recalled, what with all the potential trouble on the continent.  I have a ship for the United States waiting in Le Havre.”

“Why didn’t you take the train?” the man asked.

Tony took up the answer.  “Trains get stopped and face unexpected delays.”

The man nodded and returned their papers.  He did not know if that was true, but it sounded right.

“Besides,” Tony said.  “On the train we would miss all the good people we have seen in our travels.”  He smiled, so the man smiled and gave a small salute as Tony and Decker mounted and they all continued down the road to Metz.

They also got stopped after Metz, on the actual border with France, again as expected.  These guards were tougher and nosier.  They wanted to search the wagon and wanted Decker and Tony to give up their service revolvers.  One soldier lifted the blanket in the back of the wagon and asked, “What is this?”

Nanette watched from the buckboard and held her wand in her lap.  The blanket mysteriously slipped from the soldier’s hand.

Tony and Klaus were up front arguing with the sergeant in charge.  Tony was afraid they found Decker’s rifle, but Decker was right there to answer.  “It is a prototype grill for the general.  He likes outdoor cooking.  This grills without the need for a fire.”  He made it up.

“How does it work?”  The man lifted the blanket again only to have it slip once again from his fingers.

“The black screen.  It collects the sunlight and focuses it, like a magnifying glass.”

“You have two?”  The man tried one last time on the blanket.  This time, he grabbed a chunk of blanket and held it firmly.

“No. It is taken apart.  They work together.”  Decker yanked the blanket out of the man’s hand and recovered the equipment.  He smiled at Nanette and yelled.  “Sergeant.  You better check with your commanding officer before you go any further.  You might be fighting the Russians, French, and British if things don’t settle down.  Do you really want to anger the United States as well with an international incident?  Klaus, get in the driver’s seat.  Tony, mount up. We are going.”

The sergeant felt suddenly like he wanted to let them go.  He thought about the international incident while Nanette put her wand back into her lap.  He moved his soldiers back and let the Americans ride on.  He only later decided he should have looked in the wagon himself and found out what they had back there, but it was too late.

Klaus explained when they got fully into French territory.  “It is a communication device.  There are two of them.”

“They look like monitors,” Decker said.  “I assume they project video as well as audio.”

Klaus shrugged and looked at Tony and Nanette, but they were no help being native to that time and place.  “A ship came down in the Crimea.  We salvaged these four units and brought them to Mishka.  Martok worked on them. Do you know what I mean?”  They did.  Martok was another life of the Kairos, one from the far future who was an engineer and mathematician.  That was about all they knew, but they knew who he was talking about.

“She said she was going to leave a week earlier, only a week after the Archduke got assassinated, but she had to do extra work on your communicator so it would function properly on American electricity.  I didn’t even know there were different kinds of electricity.”

“Anyway,” Decker prompted.

“Anyway, we need three right now in Europe.  Men in Black from satellite offices in Athens, Warsaw, and Scandinavia are headed to Moscow.  Men from the central offices like Istanbul, Sophia, and Vienna, are all headed to Berlin.  Western Europeans, including from the main Men in Black European office in London are meeting in Paris.  Mishka says your job is to deliver the fourth device to the main North American office in Washington.  She says you won’t get there before the first meeting, but it will be needed in the future, as you well know… Whatever that means.”

“World War Two?” Tony blurted out.

“Thanks Lincoln,” Decker said with a grin for Nanette.  “Not for public consumption might have been a better thing to say.”

“Oh.  Yeah.  Sorry.” Tony said.

“So, what are you all meeting about?” Nanette asked to move away from Tony’s embarrassment.

“Mostly about sticking to our job and not getting drawn in if the world goes to war.  We need to watch for aliens and alien threats and let the human race do whatever it needs to do.”

“And the Masters.”  Nanette added.  “We need to watch out for the Masters, too.”

Klaus nodded before he killed that thought.  “The trouble is we have no way of knowing in advance what is or is not supposed to happen, historically.  Only the Kairos can know that.  Maybe if some obscure German arms maker comes up with an alien type of ray-gun. That might indicate something is amiss, but even then, we are just guessing.”

“So, I need to be watchful,” Decker said in part to himself.  Then he spoke to everyone.  “But first we need to get to Paris, then to Le Havre, then back to the United States.  I’m looking forward to all that back pay.”

Nanette nodded.  “I’m looking forward to spending it.  But mostly I can’t wait until you meet my mother.”

Decker made a face like he might want to put that off for as long as possible.  He tried not to let Nanette see.  Tony saw and grinned.  Nanette grinned as well because she saw without having to see.

************************

MONDAY

9.11 Blitz. Elder Stow finds himself in the midst of London’ darkest hours. Don’t miss it, and remember, the episode will run Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday. Enjoy, and Happy Reading

*

Avalon 9.10 July Crisis, part 3 of 4

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Mishka picked up her thoughts when they all got seated and had mugs of the local brew.  “Decker, I don’t know if you can grasp this, but stupidity and ignorance come in all shapes and sizes as well as colors.  It is not always color.  It is not always a black and white situation… If you know what I mean.  Right now, this whole continent looks like war, maybe the whole world, and it has nothing to do with black or brown people.  In fact, the American Civil War is the only war I can think of where the color of a person’s skin mattered, and that was fought to keep things as they were or set people free, not to make matters worse.  Some fought to end the tragedy of human slavery, but some states wanted to decide for themselves what was property and what was not.  Okay.  It got decided.  Human beings are not property, though human trafficking continues well into the future.  You understand human trafficking, and it touches just as many white women as black, brown, and Asian women.”  Mishka paused to growl at her mug.  “The point is, this coming war has nothing to do with the color of a person’s skin, or with European colonialism, or any such thing.  Some people want freedom.  They are oppressed minorities in certain countries and such.  They don’t like the way the European map is currently drawn.  Frankly, I think this whole thing is no more than too much testosterone run amok.”  She shrugged.

“Go on,” Stefan encouraged her as she looked down at her untouched beer.

“It is plain stupidity and ignorance, in my opinion.  America has the right idea, to prohibit discrimination based on race, creed, color, national origin, or sex, even if it takes years and years—a century or two before the nation begins to live up to that ideal.  In 1914, there is still a long way to go.  There may always be some personal incidents or instances of discrimination.  I cannot say.  But they are small, personal incidents.  The system has got it right.  People just have to live up to the ideals.”

“You are on fire right now,” Walter said.  “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I may have to give up everything I have worked so hard for since I was a child.  You have no idea what I have been through and the struggles I have had, as a woman.”

“Tell us,” Nanette said, and reached over to take Mishka’s hand.  Mishka nodded, pulled in her breath, looked at the table, and talked.

“I was born in Estonia.  My mother was second generation English.  My father was technically Russian, though he undoubtedly had mostly Western European blood as well.  We spoke Russian in the house and moved shortly after I was born.  My father was an engineer and we lived in several cities, including Kiev and Moscow, where he ran the waterworks for the community.  He eventually got promoted to the Saint Petersburg waterworks.  He met the Tsar and his family several times, and knew many members of the Duma, including Kerensky and others.”

“Lenin?” Decker asked.

Mishka waved him off.  “I have met him,” she said, and continued her story.  “In Saint Petersburg I had the best education, all the top tutors, and connected with a doctor who treated all the top people in the city, including the Tsar and his family.  I hate Rasputin, I must say.  As early as 1901, when I turned twelve, my doctor-mentor began to write to universities all over Western Europe.  My father encouraged the doctor, though I had no idea.  The doctor did not think much of Russian medical schools and refused to see me shoved into some nursing-midwife program.  He and my father got the Duma itself to write recommendations and they even pledged some money to support me in my time of study.  I had no idea, but when I turned eighteen, I got put on a train and headed for Paris.  Paris was difficult, especially at first…”  She let her voice trail off into the silence and finally took a sip of her beer.

“Tell me,” Nanette encouraged her.

“Well, at first they thought N. I. Kolchenkov was a man.  They had me assigned to housing with a bunch of men.  I had to find and pay for my own housing.  Then I had one professor in particular who said I had no business studying medicine and he planned to fail me and get me kicked out of the school.  I had to work double hard—triple hard.  I passed his class, but barely.  It was hard for four years.  There are many stories you don’t need to hear.”

Food came.

“Lord Leslie was nice, before Walter.”  She patted Walter’s hand.  “He took me to London for Christmas, twice, and the summer between on summer break.  He was studying antiquities.” she said that to Tony.  “He was fascinated with Stonehenge.  He was also part of the upper nobility.  His father was in the House of Lords.  He said he planned to marry me.  I said I was not going to marry him, and I believe his mother sighed a great sigh of relief on hearing that.”  Mishka smiled at her thoughts and ate a little.  “I got a letter and donation from the Empress Alexandra that summer.  She encouraged me to strike a blow for all women.  That letter made Leslie’s mother sigh not so loud, perhaps.

“So, how did you end up here?” Tony asked.

“It was the only residency in surgery I could get in all of Europe, and they thought I was a man.  They were positively delighted to have me until they found out I was a woman.  I immediately got put in charge of the women’s clinic and ignored.  I spent a whole year delivering babies and training the nurse-midwives to run the clinic while I complained to everyone I knew.  I was accepted to residence in surgery.  I had no business in the clinic.  The surgical staff was where I needed to be.  Finally, and I don’t know who got to the university, but I got the chance.”

“And she is the best surgeon on the staff, hands down,” Stefan said.

“Absolutely,” Walter agreed.  “And I think she should stay.  If old Kress gets drafted, she could run the surgical department.”

“Kress is too old to get drafted and Stottlemeyer would probably take over.  You and I, however, will undoubtedly be dragged into it, however it goes,” Stefan countered.

Walter put on his mopey face.

Mishka nodded for the men and then shook her head.  “Now, I don’t know.  Women doctors are rare, in case you did not get that message.  They are even more rare in Russia, and mostly confined to women’s issues.  I’m thinking N. I. Kolchenkov might join the army.  I might get commissioned before they realize I am a woman.  At least I could practice real medicine and my surgical craft.”

“If they don’t discharge you right away,” Decker said.

Mishka smiled for the man.  “But for you, I have the Men in Black in North America getting yours and Tony’s papers in order.  I also have a present for you before you leave.”

“We have to leave?” Nanette asked.  “Right away?”

MIshka nodded this time without shaking her head.  “I will be taking the Sunday train in the morning to Prague. I will change trains there for Bucharest.  Romania is making noises about remaining neutral in whatever madness breaks out.  I should be able to get home from there.  Meanwhile, you shot a man, in case you forgot.  He will be all right…” She looked at Stefan and Stefan nodded.  “But I expect the police to show up at some time, probably in the morning, or it being Sunday, maybe the afternoon the way things work around here, but you need to be gone.  So, Decker, stand up.”  Mishka stood so Decker stood to face her.

Doctor Mishka took two insignia of rank from her purse.  She unpinned his insignia of lieutenant colonel and pinned on the full bird.  “It is my honor.  Congratulations Colonel,” she said. Decker came to attention and saluted.  She returned the salute saying, “I will have to learn how to do that properly.”  She handed Decker the lieutenant colonel silver leaves and a pair of captain’s bars.  “You might recognize the captain’s bars.  They were yours that Casidy got from Major Lockhart.  She kept them through all your adventures with her own lieutenant bars.  Give the captain bars to Tony when he is ready. He has been registered as a captain and your adjutant back in the states, but I know he has more to learn.  You, on the other hand, will train African American marines and no doubt some of your ideas will filter into the whole marine corps.  Watch your history.  Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“Ma’am,” Decker said with another small salute.  He put the insignia away for safe keeping.  He patted Tony on the shoulder.  “You need to hit the books as soon as we get some.”

“Sir,” Tony said, and swallowed.  He was a scholar, not a fighter.  Books he could handle.  He was not sure about war, but he would not let his country down in their time of need.

************************

Don’t Forget tomorrow (Thursday) there will be a post and the end of the episode.

*

Avalon 9.10 July Crisis, part 2 of 4

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Mishka raised the sword in her left hand and tried to position herself the way the Princess told her. She looked at her opponent.  He had a nice scar on his right cheek.  The Princess said she would see what she could do about that.

“You fight with your left hand?” Van Stassen said. This was not expected.

“Right-handed would be too easy,” Mishka replied.  She turned to look at her companions and winked.  She traded places again with the Princess and she was ready.

Van Stassen shrugged.  He came at her legs, her left side and right side on the backswing.  She easily parried and he stepped back.  He grinned for his companions who returned his smile.

With more determination and strength, he came at her neck and arms, left and right on the backswing.  He probably expected to break through her defenses by strength alone, but again she easily parried, and he took a step back to consider his options.

The Princess risked a word in German with her heavy Greek accent.  “Boring,” she said, and came at him with the exact same blows he aimed at her, but all four in quick succession.  Right, left, right, left.  He backed up in surprise.  He almost failed to block the last blow.  He tripped over a protruding rock and fell on his backside.  The men with him tried not to laugh, but some could not help themselves.

The Princess graciously waited for the man to get up.  He got up angry.  If he thought, he would have realized she was much better than him.  The way she moved, she appeared to be toying with him, like she was preparing to teach him a lesson.  But he did not think.  He just got angry and came at her with wide, wild swings.  Mishka later remarked that his footwork was all wrong as well.  His blows were extra strong because of his adrenalin, but she had long since learned to let such blows slide off her sword rather than try to stop them.

He swung at her legs, and she took one step back.  He swung at her head, and she took another step back.  He tried her mid-section, and she did not bother to step back.  To the untrained eye, it might have looked like he was gaining the advantage and she was losing ground, but in fact, he was tiring himself out because he had no way though her defenses, and she was looking for a weakness she could easily exploit.

He showed her when he raised his sword again to strike at her head.  He raised it too high thinking to put some extra strength from gravity into his blow, but all he did was expose his shoulder.  She stabbed.  A quick in and out.  Then she ducked a little and pointed her sword straight up, grabbing the hilt with both hands.  The swords struck near the hilt of his sword.  He may have cracked her sword, but his sword reverberated right up his arm and into his wound.  He shouted, dropped his weapon, and put his good hand to his bleeding shoulder.  When the Princess pulled her sword back and stepped back, she scraped the man’s cheek making a two-inch-long cut.

“There,” Doctor Mishka said as she returned and watched the man’s cheek turn bloody red.  “Now you have matching scars. One on each side.”

One of the men with van Stassen pulled a pistol.  He looked like he had every intention of shooting Mishka.  Decker had his rifle in his hands, as usual, and he shot first.  The man dropped his pistol, grabbed his own shoulder, and fell to the dirt.  “That is not how this game is played,” Decker bellowed.  Stefan nodded and looked at van Stassen’s second.  After a moment, the man also nodded.

Mishka put her helmet and possibly cracked sword in the back of the wagon.  She called Nanette to sit on the Buckboard beside Klaus and told Decker and Tony they had to ride in the back.  The buckboard at least cushioned the ride a bit.  Mishka mounted her horse and Walter and Stefan mounted as well.  While Klaus drove the wagon past the motor coach, Mishka stopped to face van Stassen.

“You need to respect women.  You have good nurse-midwives who will run the whole clinic if you let them, but in any case, the women come to you for help, not to be emotionally scarred and damaged by you.”  She turned to one of the men supporting van Stassen.  “Doctor Meier, I am ashamed of you.  One day, people like you who blindly follow orders and go along with the crowd will be the downfall of Germany.”  She rode off, Stefan and Walter on her tail.  She turned in her resignation letter a week ago and already argued with Kress and Stottlemeyer, so leaving Heidelberg should not be a problem.

When they got back to the housing near the University Hospital, the travelers saw that Mishka was all packed and ready to go.  “It is July,” she said.  “The Archduke Ferdinand got assassinated two Sundays past.  Whole nations are mobilizing on the verge of war.  Russia and Germany are on opposite sides.  If Serbia and Austria-Hungary fought each other, just the two of them, that would be one thing, but there are alliances and connections everywhere.  The continent is ready fall like dominoes.”

“I heard the British foreign office is trying to mediate between the parties,” Stefan said.  “Even Kaiser Wilhelm is thinking of a diplomatic solution, if my sources are correct.”

Mishka shook her head, vigorously.  “You know, tomorrow is just as much a mystery to me as it is to anyone.  The twists and turns in life are just as surprising to me as they are to you.  But every once in a while, history rises up and slaps me in the face.”  She took a brush out of what would someday be called a carryon bag.  She stared at it like she did not know what it was.  “There will be a war—A Great War, and God help us.”

“We usually ignore her when she says things like that, I mean about the future,” Walter said.

“She said she wanted to face van Stassen right before she left in case he got in a lucky blow,” Stefan added.

Mishka put the brush back in the bag without using it and latched the bag shut.  “I need to get out of here.”

“I told her she should stay,” Walter said.  “She is an excellent doctor and surgeon.  The staff will mostly be taken into the armed services, but as a woman and a foreigner she would not have to worry about that.  This could be an excellent opportunity for her. She could teach, stay on the surgical staff, oversee the women’s clinic.  She might even get promoted to van Stassen’s boss.  Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Mishka took a blouse out of a trunk and looked it over.  She frowned when she saw a small spot.  “I am going home while I still can,” she said and licked her finger to try dabbing the spot.  “Mother Russia needs doctoring.  Who knows?  With my training as a surgeon, I might join the army myself.”  She folded the blouse and repacked it, slamming the trunk lid closed.  “Sorry Walter.”

The man sighed while Stefan suggested they all troop down to the tavern for a bite of lunch before anyone leaves.

Avalon 9.10 July Crisis, part 1 of 4

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1914 A.D. Heidelberg

Kairos lifetime 120: Nadia Iliana Kolchenkov, Doctor Mishka

Recording …

Decker stepped out of the time gate onto a grassy knoll.  There did not appear to be anyone around.  A large, flat, field covered the ground just below him.  He saw a wagon track road that came part way into the field and stopped.  He imagined it might have been a farm field in the not-too-distant past.  Beyond that, the trees went rapidly down the hill to a wide river.  At the bottom, he saw an old stone bridge that crossed the river, and on the other bank, a city that had to be Heidelberg.

“Warm,” Nanette said as she came through the time gate.  She pulled off her shawl and stuffed it into the pack she wore at her side that doubled for her purse.  It used to be their all-important medical purse that Alexis once carried, but Doctor Mishka took most of their things.  She still had some elf bred crackers, a ball of fairy weave she could shape into a blanket and a tent, her wand, and hidden under a flap of cloth on the bottom, the Beretta that used to belong to Boston.  Nanette paused to sniff the air.  This felt like summer.  Definitely not Southern California in the spring.

Tony came through tugging on his breeches.  “This uniform has too many buckles,” he said.

“You will get used to it,” Decker responded.  He and Tony visited the marine base in the Los Angeles area and saw examples of the combat fatigues worn by marine officers in the Great War.  They imitated the look with their fairy weave clothing, but all the accessories would take some getting used to.

“Why are we here so far from the city?” Nanette asked.  “I thought Doctor Mishka, a younger version would meet us here.”  She checked the sun.  It was perhaps nine in the morning.

Decker did not respond.  He merely pointed.  A mule-drawn wagon and three people on horseback came onto the field.  They stopped where the road stopped, turned the wagon around, and the riders tied their horses to the side of the wagon.  One of the riders appeared to be a woman, and the three on the hill began to move down to intercept them.

Down below, one rider got between the woman and the back of the wagon.  “Nadia—Mishka.  You don’t have to do this.  You can still back out of the duel, and no one would blame you.”

Mishka stopped and looked at the man.  “Karl Frederic von Stassen has been put in charge of the women’s clinic since I finally got transferred to the surgical team.  But the man is a pervert.  He fondles and abuses the women put under his care. Someone needs to teach him manners, and since the men are all cowards, that leaves it up to me.”  She put her hand out to indicate the man should move out of the way, but he did not move.

The other man came up behind Mishka.  “Von Stassen is an excellent swordsman, and no stranger to the duel.  They say he has killed three men and injured a dozen more.”

“I do not doubt that.  The man is an ass.  I would imagine he has been in two dozen duels.  But this time, he has gone too far.  Move Walter.”  The man blocking the back of the wagon moved, reluctantly.

Everyone paused to look when a motor coach came to the field, followed by five men on horseback who talked and laughed like they had no concerns in the world.  At the same time, Decker, Nanette, and Tony came to the field.  Nanette called and waved, and Mishka returned the wave and a smile.

Doctor Mishka checked her hair bun and made sure every strand stayed in place.  She raised her hood, which obscured her appearance and covered her hair completely.  Then she welcomed the marines and Missus Decker.

“Colonel,” she called to the group.  “Allow me to introduce my friends Doctor Walter Wagner, my driver Klaus, and my second Graf Stefan von Hoffmann.”  She turned to the other side.  “Lieutenant Colonel Decker and his adjutant, Lieutenant Anthony Carter are United States Marines.  Nanette is Missus Lieutenant Colonel Decker.”  Mishka smiled at them, and it made Nanette smile.  The men shook hands and passed pleasantries before Stefan interrupted with a question while Mishka got a straight saber out of the back of the wagon and got a helmet with leather that fell to her shoulders and a mask that covered her mouth and nose, leaving only her blue eyes exposed. Otherwise, she stood in slacks and a loose-fitting blouse like the man across the way.

“First blood?”

Mishka merely nodded and turned to Nanette and the marines, thus turning her back on all the others.  While Stefan and Walter walked out to meet von Stassen’s second and make sure the rules were understood, she faced the Americans.

“A duel?” Decker asked.

Mishka nodded and traded places with the Princess and lowered her mask.  The Princess was an inch shorter, but no one would notice the small difference.  Her eyes were still blue, though not exactly the same shade as Mishka’s eyes.  Of course, her face and features were noticeably different, being a different person in the many lives of the Kairos, and her hair changed from Mishka’s medium brown to a very light golden brown that looked almost blonde in the morning sun, but her hair had also been put in a bun so the helmet and mask would completely disguise who she was.

“This won’t take long,” she said in Greek that the travelers could understand perfectly.  She risked a glance behind her.  The man swung his sword in wide and wild arcs to test the movement and flexibility of the weapon.  He had obviously been trained, though not too well.  She did not doubt he killed a man and injured some.  But she had years of one on one to the death—battlefield experience he could not imagine.  “I’ll try not to hurt him too badly.”

“I could just shoot him,” Decker suggested.

The Princess grinned and swung her own sword a few times. She looked down the edges to the point.  It was a good weapon, and sharp.  She traded once again with Doctor Mishka, turned to face her opponent, and walked to the center.  She found the sword in her left hand.  She left it there.  The Princess was a lefty.

“You wear a helmet?” Van Stassen’s second asked, though they had supposedly already discussed this.

“A concession to this woman,” Mishka said.  “I do not expect my opponent to hold back, and with the mask and this loose clothing, he can pretend he is fighting a man.  He does not need to see my face.”

Van Stassen seemed unconcerned about that.  He looked more than confident he would draw blood on the woman easily enough.  She called him a coward all over the university and accused him of rape and other things van Stassen’s superiors did not need to know about.  She needed to shut up.  He imagined he might even strike a killing blow.  She was welcome to wear a helmet and mask.  It would not help her and might even make it easier for him to kill her, accidentally of course.

Avalon 9.9 California Dreaming, part 6 of 6

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Tony, Nanette, and Sukki were ready to get out of the hospital as soon as the sun rose on the next day.  Tony finished his book and started pacing, waiting for the others to show up.  Nanette and Sukki relaxed in their room. Apparently, they stayed up most of the night talking about one thing or another.

The travelers agreed to stay a week to ten days so the police could catalogue all the destruction they caused, even if they were not the ones who actually caused it.  It involved a couple of interviews and lots of police paperwork that made Lockhart laugh.

“I used to have to fill out things like that, in triplicate.”

They actually stayed two weeks so they could see the premier of the movie their friends were in.  Lockhart and Katie took Sukki to the movies three or four times before that.  They introduced her to popcorn and introduced Tony and Nanette to talking pictures.  When they saw one in technicolor, they all felt amazed.

The couple got the travelers tickets to the premier.  They had a wonderful time. The man said the critics liked the movie well enough in the screening.  The woman said, now they would see if the audience liked it as well.

The next day, Mishka took them all to a sound stage.  Lincoln remarked that they had not been bothered by a time displacement since the time in the alien woods.

“And I don’t think you will,” Mishka said.  Doctor Mishka brought them all to an isolated area where they had lights but no cameras.  She said the stage was not being used that day, and she had already warned the security guards that she would be borrowing it for the day, and she did not want to be interrupted.”

“Polio research or training?” the head of security asked.

“I will be experimenting, so keep everyone away,” she answered.

David and Gabriella were both there to watch and run interference if they did get interrupted.  When the travelers said they were ready, Mishka spoke as briefly as she could.  She reminded Lockhart and Lincoln that the Storyteller, her next life, had memory problems.  Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory messed things up in the ancient days when he traveled to the days of the Princess.”  Lockhart interrupted for those who did not know, and he realized of those present, only he and Lincoln knew, so he explained a little.

“Unless something of historical importance is happening, the Kairos does not know he has other lifetimes or anything about the Men in Black or anything else.  As far as he knows, he is just living an ordinary, normal life.  It must be hard, though, because the memory block is not perfect.  Past and future things keep leaking through.  That must make it very hard to function as a normal person.  When I first met him in Michigan, he only remembered the Princess, and that was not so bad.  When I met him again some years later, when the Vordan came to Earth, he got overwhelmed with the sudden influx of the memories from too many lives.  He almost became incapacitated. “

“Yes,” Mishka said.  “But he cannot tell you what you need to hear unless you screw up and become yourselves a threat to history.  I am hoping this advanced warning will prevent that.”  She continued with her speech until Katie interrupted.

“I was thinking about my identification that Gabriella so kindly typed.  I do have a doctorate in Ancient and Medieval cultures and technologies, but I would be afraid at this point to teach those classes because, frankly, I have learned better with some, maybe many things over the past five years.  I think I need to stick to my desk at the pentagon and maybe build a small department to go out on archeological digs, especially.  Someone needs to make sure the things people dig up are safe for human consumption.”

“We used to have a person who did that, but she retired recently,” Lockhart said.  “We haven’t filled that position.”

“Then it is settled…” Katie began, speaking primarily to Lockhart.

“Ahem.”  Mishka took back the conversation.  “That may work,” Mishka said.  “Alien lifeforms are not proven until Jennifer flies a science team to the asteroid belt, and even that comes back as grainy videos and digital information that plenty of people claim is all fake.  Keeping alien artifacts from disturbing the natural course and progress of the human race over the next hundred and fifty years or so will be important.  Alien technology discovered before humanity is ready for such things can skew everything.  But to continue…”

Mishka got to a point where she finally said something practical.  “Now, I don’t know if this is going to work.  Me being in the same room with the time gate is difficult enough.  It has not been long since I figured out how to do that, and the technique is a bit shaky.  Projecting the appropriate gate from the Heart of Time on Avalon to this studio stage is another thing entirely, but here goes.”  Doctor Mishka closed her eyes and held up her hands.  Something rumbled.  For a few seconds, it felt like a real California earthquake.  A great flash of light made people blink and turn away, and they heard Mishka pushed back to fall on her rump.  “Ouch,” she said, before the gate stabilized.  “Let us hope the next two are not so dramatic,” she added.

“Just the one gate,” David said.  “She hoped to have three gates side by side which is why she wanted such a big, enclosed space.”

“Hush,” Doctor Mishka quieted everyone.  She nodded and appeared to be listening intently before she spoke.  “We will have to do this one at a time,” she said.  “This gate is 1914.  We will do Elder Stow next and then the regular gate to 2015 if we can bring it here.”

Lockhart, Katie, and Lincoln all looked at each other, and Katie asked.  “What do you mean Elder Stow next?”

Lincoln added, “I assumed he came from 2010 like the rest of us.”

“Ah, no,” Elder Stow said.  “In the past, especially the deep past, your time and mine seemed so close together, and so far away, it hardly mattered.  I am sorry.  As the time drew closer, I felt I should say something, but it never seemed the right time.  You see, my two children and I were picked up in 1932, a couple of years before now.  I am ashamed to say my Father and Mother started working with a certain fellow in Germany.  I have heard you speak of the man and some of what he does or did.  I am sorry.  I hope to rectify the situation when I get there.  I am sorry.”

“His return date is early 1941,” Mishka said.  “We have discussed it, thoroughly.  It would not be right for him, at this time, to interrupt what has already happened from his life perspective.  Changing events now might well alter the future, and that is what we are trying to avoid.  He might even get shunted off into a parallel earth and have no way back to this reality.  And unlike regular attempts at time travel, the math of energy expenditures and such, that I really don’t understand but Martok understands, he will not automatically be drawn back into his correct time at some point.  In fact, he might accidentally fall through a time gate on Earth or out there somewhere, and find himself who-knows-where, in the middle of some atomic war.  He won’t age the number of years difference or get younger because he will still be out of sync with his own time zone.  It would be a mess—a potential mess.”

“Take a breath,” Decker said.

Mishka smiled.  “I haven’t done that since Heidelberg.  You people are so nice, I feel like a talker again for the first time in years.”

“In any case,” Elder Stow spoke to finish the story.  It came out like a confession. “My companions and I were set down in the days of Danna, the Celtic goddess.  We saw the chaos going on there and quickly scooted back in time.  It took a bit to figure out we were going backwards, not forwards in time, and I thought that perhaps we could go back to the time of the flood and somehow hold on to our place and land on the Earth.  I saw three times when my Gott-Druk people returned to the Earth with no good intentions.  In Tetamon’s day, the Elenar were present, and I felt even the first time through that somehow my people were on the wrong side.  I found us again in Wlvn’s day, but the Gott-Druk there, the meat eaters… Even I felt they needed to die.  The third time, we passed through Odelion’s island peacefully.  We got all the way to Saphira’s time, but the huntress caught us and explained that the time gates ended at the Tower of Babel.  The Heart of Time began at that time.  The gates did not extend all the way to the flood.”

“So, you gave up that dream,” Sukki said.

“Not the dream, but that way of achieving the dream, certainly.  We turned around and came forward, and found our people, where a scout ship landed on the small island in Odelion’s day.  That whole trip took us about four years.  You understand, we did not move as quickly or efficiently as all of us moved coming forward in time.  We did not have horses, among other things.  It took months of negotiations to settle matters and make a plan.  I knew about the Kairos by then, and knew he had to be removed from the equation.  We went to do that very thing and you people showed up, and the Elenar showed up.  My children died, and when you left the island, I followed with every intention of killing you.”  Elder Stow sighed.  “But I have learned some things on this journey as I have said.  One is that forgiveness is a good thing.  I sleep better and the food does not grumble in my stomach.  We Gott-Druk should let go of our grudges.  Stupid and stubborn is not the way to grow fat and full of wisdom.  Another thing is touch.  Hugs are good.”  He reached out and hugged Sukki, and everyone else.

“So,” Decker said rather loudly since he was not really a hugger.  “Having all hugged, we are ready to go.  Any idea what we will face when we get there?”

“Heidelberg,” Doctor Mishka said.  “I was in residency at the University Hospital.  You will see.  Go on.”

There were more hugs and some tears, but Decker, Nanette, and Tony went, disappearing in time.

************************

MONDAY

Episode 10 July Crisis will be four posts long: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday. In fact, episodes 11 and 12 will also be four posts long, so don’t miss the Thursday posts. Thus, the last three episodes in book 9, the end of the Avalon series, are shorter, but, well, you will see. In the meanwhile, Happy Reading

*

Avalon 9.9 California Dreaming, part 5 of 6

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Gabriella drove in her Red Cross uniform, her purse sat beside her on the front bench seat.  It held her all-important medical identification.  “I have a Hollywood perfected identification that says I work for the Board of Health, Los Angeles County.  We shouldn’t have too much trouble getting into places.  You have your Identifications?  Doctor Mishka called me late last night and had me type them up.  Did I spell the names right?”

“Yes,” Katie said.  Her I. D. said Doctor Katherine Lockhart, Professor of Antiquities, Georgetown University.  She fit or could fake the description well enough but thought about the name.  Though married for a couple of years, she had not had much occasion to use her married name.  She needed to remember that she was no longer a Harper.  She was a Lockhart now.  She looked back at her husband in the back seat who read his card out loud, and slowly.

“Robert Lockhart, Federal Marshal.  I got promoted.”  Katie laughed.

“Oh,” Gabriella said and looked worried. “I forgot.  You are not actors.”

Lockhart assured the woman.  “Years on a Michigan police force and military police in Saigon has to be worth something.”

Gabriella hoped that would work.

Katie left her rifle in the car, hidden under the front bench seat.  Lockhart left his shotgun under a blanket in the back.  Katie still wore the same dress she wore the day before.  Fairy weave could be freshened with a word.  She slipped her handgun into her purse where it would be out of sight.  Lockhart wore his sidearm, and with his federal identification he did not worry about it, but he had a big suit jacket that he buttoned, and that covered the whole thing apart from the slight bulge at his side.  Gabriella ignored the issue of the guns.  She was used to seeing all sorts of things on the studio lot.

They parked across the street and saw no building that said medical lab.  Nothing said doctor’s office, or rehab facility, or any such thing.

“14158,” Katie read the address, and they looked at the numbers on the buildings, when they could find numbers.  Gabriella finally found it on a door between the bookstore and the coffee shop.  The number was on the glass, small, unobtrusive, and with no other identification.  There appeared to be only stairs on the other side of the door.

Lockhart backed up.  “The lab looks like it is upstairs, if this is it.”

Gabriella tried the door, but it was locked.

Katie tried the box beside the door which she thought was an intercom system like she might find downstairs in an apartment building.  She buzzed the upstairs, but no one answered.  She tried again, and Gabriella saw someone coming down.  Two men came to the door.  One looked professional.  The other also dressed in a suit but honestly looked like a thug.

“No soliciting,” the thug said.

Gabriella got out her fake Identification and said plenty loud. “Board of Health.  Open up.”

The thug looked at the professional looking man behind him.  The man had been staring at Lockhart and Katie when his eyes got suddenly big, and he seemed to recognize them.  “Travelers.  Kill them,” he panicked, shouted, and turned to race back up the stairs.  The thug went for his gun tucked neatly away in his shoulder holster, but Lockhart drew first and fired.  The thug collapsed as Gabriella screamed softly.  Lockhart was for chasing the other man up the stairs, but Katie, and the dead thug got in the way.

“To the car,” Katie said.  “We need backup.”  Lockhart understood and he grabbed Gabriella by the arm to get her moving.  They ran back to the car as Katie got on her wristwatch communicator and reported to the others even as gunfire came from the upper windows.

###

When the call came in, David said he knew the street and where he was going.  They zipped through a few back streets along the way, turned a corner, and found themselves in a very strange looking forest.  David let out a shout.  “Where did this come from?”

“This does not look like any forest I have become familiar with on Earth,” Elder Stow spoke up from the back seat.

“I don’t think we are on Earth,” Lincoln said.  The trees had purple leaves and the undergrowth looked all red and purple as well in the dim light.

A dozen helmeted soldiers came from the trees.  The one out front removed her helmet and came to David’s side because David rolled down his window.  Lincoln refused, like the glass might make an affective barrier against the weapons these soldiers carried.  He got startled when the woman spoke.

“Lincoln!  Elder Stow!  What are you doing here?  This is 2300, and not even on Earth.”

“I said that.” Lincoln agreed and pointed.

“General,” one of the soldiers called for the woman’s attention.  The soldier also pointed.  Not ten yards away, the forest came to an abrupt halt.  A picture of Los Angeles came into focus.  Men were firing out of the second story windows, some with Tommy Guns.  Three people looked trapped around some parked cars, trying to return fire, and pedestrians were screaming and running in every direction.

Lincoln saw a man on the street.  “Doctor Malory,” he shouted.  “The one smoking the cigar.”  The man tried to get into the coffee shop door, but a woman with a baby carriage stood there screaming, blocking the entrance, and not moving.

“Taggert,” The woman general called, but the man was right there.  He clicked a few things on his rifle and fired, a red streak shot across the way, from one world and one time period, to the other.  Doctor Malory went down.  Someone from the year 2300 killed a man in 1930 Los Angeles.

“It’s Amber,” the woman said and leaned into the open window.  “Too bad your database doesn’t have future information so you can’t look me up.  Good to see you again, and Elder Stow.”  She saluted slightly, pulled her head from the car, and shouted.  “Alice!”

The two time zones slowly straightened out.  Lincoln heard Taggert.  “What is a cigar?”  Then the alien forest vanished along with Amber and her soldiers.  Lincoln, David, and Elder Stow found themselves in an alleyway.  Lockhart and Katie were to their left, and Decker had pulled up to their right.

Elder Stow popped out of the car, his weapon in hand.  He set it while sitting in the car, watching the upper windows of the building spray the cars with bullets.  He stepped forward and fired, a wide angle shot that crashed through the windows and through the plaster to cover the upper floor with his Lockhart-dubbed heat ray.  The fire from the upper floor stopped instantly, even as two police cars roared up, followed shortly by a firetruck.  Good thing.  The upper floor was on fire in several places.  The front end of the roof collapsed from lack of support, but the smoke leaked out everywhere.

“Back in the car,” David shouted.  Lincoln and Elder Stow complied, and David backed out of the alleyway to the street behind.  He started right off down the road and got lost in traffic.  “I imagine you don’t want the police asking too many questions.”

“No.  Thanks.  How did you know?”

David nodded.  “Both Gabriella and I are Men in Black, west coast, headquarters in San Francisco.  We have offices in Chicago, Dallas, and Washington.  Also, Ottawa and Mexico City.  That about covers North America, but you know, most of us after basic training work regular jobs and just keep our eyes open.  Most never get called on or needed, but with Doctor Mishka, I’m getting used to weird.  You know, weird?”

“Yes, son,” Elder Stow said.  “We know weird very well.”

###

It took a bit of explaining, but the word Polio explained a lot.  Mishka made a couple of phone calls and Lockhart, Katie, and Decker became official overnight.  Mishka did not tell Decker that he was already officially on the military roles of the Marine Corps, and as a full bird colonel.

The dead might have been a problem if the witnesses hadn’t seen a power ray come from the woods that no longer existed.  The police themselves saw the power ray that came from the alley and destroyed the whole front end of the second floor.  Everyone on the second floor died and the guns even melted.  There did not seem to be much equipment there to identify, but Mishka did identify most and concluded they were working on gain of function.

Doctor Stinson escaped out the back.  “But we got Malory.  That is two out of three.  I just need to put people on alert coast to coast to keep their eyes open for Stinson.  I will probably have to go wherever there is an outbreak until someone can come up with a vaccine.”

“But you have a pill that can immunize and cure the disease,” Lincoln said in near protest.

“The one thing we don’t do is alter history,” Mishka responded.  “And we try to stop the Masters from altering history as well.”

Decker, Lockhart, Elder Stow, and Katie all nodded, and Decker spoke.  “We already covered that.”

Avalon 9.9 California Dreaming, part 4 of 6

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“Polio,” Lincoln complained. “I got the polio vaccine as a kid.”

“We did, but they didn’t” Decker said.

“I see the antibodies,” Elder Stow said.  “I’m not sure, but I don’t believe you can even spread the disease.  I don’t see the same reaction in Sukki, Tony, or Nanette.  They are carriers.”

Nurse David took a step back.  “It can be transmitted through feces and sometimes saliva,” he said.  “Mishka went to Orange County because there is a polio outbreak there and it appears to be spreading to Los Angeles.”  He picked up the phone and made a call.  It took them an hour to locate Doctor Mishka.

“The Masters,” Doctor Mishka said, plainly.  “I got one in the 1930 outbreak and shut down their gain-of-function lab, but two of the doctors got away.”

“Doctor Malory?” Lockhart asked.  “It has been a week since our arrival in this time zone.”

“Yes, Malory and Doctor Stinson.  I tracked one to the other side of the Rockies, then flew back quickly to LA when I got a call. I thought they would be here where the outbreak started, but no such luck.  Get the three to Los Angeles General and get them into beds.  I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Los Angeles General?” Lockhart asked and David nodded.  “Meet you at the hospital.”

“Tell them they will be uncomfortable for a while but do not worry.  I can replicate the appropriate antibodies to kill the disease before complications set in.”

She hung up and Lockhart turned to Katie. “I hope we did not infect that nice couple.  Those movies are great.”

David took the phone and called the ambulance.

By nine o’clock that evening, Doctor Mishka had not yet arrived.  The nurse started saying things like the patients are resting comfortably and they should go home.  “There will not be much change before morning.”  Lockhart and Decker said they were staying.  Elder Stow and Katie agreed.  They sent Lincoln to fetch supper, so they were all fed and only needed to find a comfortable chair where they could get some sleep.

Mishka showed up at midnight and went straight to Elder Stow.  “Scanner.”  She stuck out her hand.  He gave it to her but squinted as he did.  “The lab must be in Los Angeles.  Doctors Stinson and Malory have to be here as well at this point.  Hopefully, we will catch them at the lab.”  She sat quietly and worked, quickly trading places with Martok the Bospori so he could work directly on the device.

“That is remarkable the way you do that,” Katie said.  “It is like you become a completely different person, even if you are the same person on the inside.”

“Still me,” Martok said in his deep alien voice.  “It is just me in a life that has not even been born yet.”  He grinned.

“You know,” Lockhart said.  “It used to bother me when he said things like that.  Now it just feels like old news.”

“There,” Martok said, and traded back to Doctor Mishka.  She turned on the scanner and frowned.  There were at least a hundred places in the city, any one of which might be the lab.  “Looks like we have our work cut out for us.”  She looked at Elder Stow.  He touched something on the scanner.

“Now they are recorded, and you can call them up anytime,” he said.

She nodded and turned to Katie and Decker.  “Let’s go see our patients before the disease worsens.”

“Shouldn’t they sleep?” Katie asked.  Mishka did not answer, and she did not stop walking.

When they got in the room where Tony slept, he woke right up and moaned a little before he sat up.  Doctor Mishka held out her hand and said the word, “Bag.”  A medical bag, such as doctors used to carry in the thirties appeared in her hand and she rummaged through it to find what she wanted.  The jar had any number of pills in it.  She got one and gave it to Tony with a glass of water and instructions.  “Stay here and rest tomorrow.  You can get back on your feet the following day.”

“Boring,” Tony complained.  Lockhart handed him the book he picked up in the lobby. It was Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man.

“I never read the book,” Lockhart admitted.  “Tell me if it is any good.”

Nanette and Sukki shared the room next door.  They claimed to be sisters, but the nurses put up a stink.  At first, the staff wanted to separate the black woman and put her in a completely different ward, but this was the only ward still set up for polio patients since the last outbreak four years earlier.  Fortunately, it was not presently full, so they let the sisters room together.  Unfortunately, the ward would be overflowing once the current outbreak took hold.

Nanette and Sukki got the same pills and instructions.  They did not complain.  Now that Sukki would be going with Katie and Lockhart and Nanette would be going to 1914, a hundred years earlier, the sisters wanted to spend some time together, even if Boston could not be with them.

When they returned to the waiting area, Doctor Mishka made the rest of them take a pill, except Elder Stow.  “I do not expect the immunization of the gods to diminish for as long as you live, but the influenza mutation we call polio is relatively new.  Some variants go back to fifteen hundred BC, but modern Polio is since about 1650-1700, about Elizabeth’s day and the founding of the modern Men in Black organization.”

“Is it alien?” Lincoln asked.

“No,” Doctor Mishka said.  “Pox is alien.  Chicken pox, smallpox, monkey pox.  But Earth is quite capable of developing hostile bacteria and viruses.  Polio is essentially an influenza mutation.  We had the Spanish Flu.  Polio is less deadly but more debilitating.  I believe there is covid in your future.  All viruses.”

“Why is Elder Stow exempt?” Katie asked.

“He had a more advanced vaccine.  I know.  You all had the polio vaccines, unlike our patients, but yours is not so strong.  It requires booster shots.  Consider this pill your booster.  Now, I want you all to go home and rest.  I would invite you all to my home to rest, but my son is getting into fights in school and my husband is due home.”

“What—”

“He is a long-haul truck driver, a far cry from being a retired army major in the war. You see, he was a German major.  Now, sadly, it is beginning to look like war again on the horizon and he is making noises about going home to Prussia.”  Doctor Mishka shook her head.  “We were enemies in the war.  He got wounded, and, well, sometimes things don’t work out like you expect.  Go get rooms near the studio.  I will meet you there first thing in the morning.”

###

First thing in studio land meant sunrise.  The lighting was often best at that time of day.  They met outside the gate so they could walk in together.  Doctor Mishka got Gabriella, the in-house LPN and part time medical secretary to type up the list of places and addresses with two carbon copies.  It took about an hour.  The list carried over to the second page, so she stapled them together.  Doctor Mishka went through the list and circled a third of the places, with addresses in red.  She circled another third in regular black pencil.  Lockhart and Katie got the ones circled in pencil, and Gabriella would drive, though Lockhart said he knew how to drive a stick shift.  Elder Stow and Lincoln went with her RN, David.  Decker came with Mishka, and she sounded like she had some things to discuss with the man before she let him go to 1914.

“Like no betting on sporting events where I already know the outcome.”

“Back to the Future,” Lockhart said with a smile.

“Something like that,” Mishka said, and added, “If you find Stinson or Malory, or the lab, call out on your watch communicators.  We should not be out of range from each other.”

“I keep forgetting we have these things,” Lincoln said.

“We all do,” Lockhart agreed.

After that, it did not take long to begin the search.

###

David, Lincoln, and Elder Stow crossed the first one off their list.  David did not imagine they would find a gain of function lab at the university, but Lincoln said you never know.  In his day, most of the true research departments in the country were university related.

Elder Stow did say, “They are making good progress on radiation and uranium testing.  I did not imagine it this early.  In ten years, they might split the atom.”

“1945,” Lincoln said, and then paused.  How could Elder Stow not know this?

###

“It was a longshot,” Doctor Mishka said as she returned to her car and banged on the car roof.  “Beverly Hills High School has some interesting equipment for a high school.”

“I got plenty of stares,” Decker said.  “Hard to concentrate when you have people looking over your shoulder.”

“Some of these kids have probably never seen a black person before in their whole lives, except maybe the servants,” Mishka said, and when she got in the driver’s side, she waited for Decker to get in before she continued.  “Good thing you went full military dress uniform, Colonel.  Otherwise, I doubt they would have let you passed the door.”

“It is what I wore on the train from Omaha.  Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I can accept the fact that these people are not really racist, they are just ignorant.  I am willing to accommodate some to avoid the hassles that come with ignorance.”

“Very well put,” Mishka said as she started out toward the next stop on the list.  “You know you will have to do a lot of accommodating in 1914.  That is just fifty years post-slavery.  People are just not that fast to learn.”

“I understand.”

Avalon 9.9 California Dreaming, part 3 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Come two o’clock, the eight travelers followed the couple through the gate.  “They are making some H. G. Wells time travel movie,” the man told the security guard.  “They need some costume shots at the last minute.  That is why you don’t have them down on your list.”

The security guard did have something.  “I have a note for Mister and Major Lockhart.  The doctor said she returned early from her out-of-town conference because she had an emergency call to the Orange County Hospital.  I don’t know the emergency, but she may be gone for a while.  Make yourselves at home.”

“Major Lockhart?” the man asked Lockhart, but Lockhart pointed at Katie.

“My wife is a major in the marine corps.  In the future, you know.”

The woman looked happy.  “I love this modern world.”

The man pointed at the woman.  “Montana farm girl.”  He paused to see that he was talking to Decker.  “And a black marine colonel.”

“I love it,” the woman shouted.

“She’s a Democrat,” the man confided to Decker, rightly assuming that Decker was a Republican.  Decker laughed.  “So, Mister Lockhart, you aren’t playing a military officer?”

“Men in Black.  Assistant director.”  When the man had no idea what he meant, he added, “I hunt aliens.”

The man shook his head.  “You try to pitch this to Thalberg, and he will have you ejected from the lot.  Mayer won’t go for it either unless you have some dancing girls.”

“Selznik?” the woman asked.

“Not even him.  Too complicated.  You need a good plot, like by Dashiell Hammett, and stay away from the little green men and mermaids.  No one will ever believe it if you make a film with mermaids.”

At the moment, Katie was explaining to Sukki that the street they walked down was not honestly made of buildings.  “They are mostly false fronts just painted to look real.”  She paused when she saw three workmen trying to raise a grand piano with ropes and pulleys.  She imagined the second floor of the building was just another false front, but maybe not.  Of course, Sukki wanted to go over to the building to look in the window and see what Katie meant by false front.

One of the workers moved to warn her away from that spot and Katie grabbed her to keep her from walking under the piano.  Having the piano fall on her head was one cliché they did not need to do.

Everything changed all at once.

The lot looked suddenly like a war zone, changing around them, and the couple, and the workman who let out a shout like an enraged elephant, went with the travelers.  Red and bright white energy beams shot back and forth across the street ahead of them, where the buildings, real buildings, looked like they had been bombed to rubble.

“Everyone get down.”

“Everyone down.”

“Get down,”

They all scrambled behind a wall into what looked like it had once been a kitchen.  The travelers pulled their guns and got ready to defend the group, but they did not know who to shoot, or whose side they should be on.

Four human looking men jogged up to get behind the same wall.  One stayed by what used to be a window, but the other three faced the travelers and their guests.  They all touched something on their shoulders and the full head and face coverings they wore retracted revealing one old man, one woman with short hair, and one young black man who spoke.

“Who are you people?  This whole area was supposed to be evacuated before the fighting began.”

“Who are we fighting?” Decker asked.

“We are time travelers who stumbled into your battle,” Lockhart said.

“My ancestor was said to be a time traveler,” the black man said and stared hard at Decker.

“Time travel is mathematically impossible, sir,” the woman said.

“The Duba are coming,” the man by the window shouted.

Helmets went back on, and the soldiers ran to the wall.  The travelers joined them as Elder Stow shouted.

“Decker Wall established.”

Something like octopuses in armor came floating across the street, firing their white heat weapons.  Those energy strikes began to bounce off Elder Stow’s wall, before the octopuses themselves came to the wall and could go no further.  The corresponding fire from the humans, including the travelers, had no such restriction.  The octopuses did not seem to know enough to retreat when their charge stalled.  They started to be killed, and it did not take long to finish them.

The young black man lowered his helmet again and said something like a shout at Decker and Nanette, but the voice got cut off and everyone found themselves back on the studio lot.

“Time displacement,” Katie called it, as the workman made that elephant sound.  They heard another call.

“People.  Photographer.”  Someone did not sound happy.

“You might sell that idea,” the woman spoke up first.

“I smell a story there,” the man agreed.

“People.  We can’t do a photo shoot without my actors,” the shout came from down the way.

“Hark.”  The man posed with a hand to his ear.  “I hear the call of the publicity train.  Track twenty-five.  All aboard.”

The woman pulled herself together.  “That building with the red cross on it.  That is the doctor’s office,” she pointed and turned to shout.  “Coming.”  She turned one last time to Nanette.  “Your guns are real, aren’t they?”

Nanette nodded and Tony said, “Time travel is not always safe.”

The man nodded.  “Anywhere else in the world would be a big problem, but in Hollywood, people assume everything is a prop.  Come along Missus C.”

They walked off together, the woman saying something in the man’s ear.  The travelers turned to the doctor’s office, but Sukki had to pause.  That movement through time shook something up, even if they did not move at all and the future time area moved to them.  She threw up by the door.  Nanette swallowed her own bile.  Tony watched, like he was just thinking the same thing.

“Quick,” Katie said.  “Let’s get her inside.”

A man met them in the waiting room and directed Sukki and Katie to the bathroom.  Tony collapsed to a chair and said he felt tired, and he had a headache.  Nanette agreed with him, but also held her stomach.  Decker helped her to sit.

“David Brine.  I’m Doctor Mishka’s nurse,” the man said as he felt Nanette’s forehead, looking for fever.  He moved to Tony and asked, “Any sore throat?  Any trouble breathing?”

“A little,” Tony said.

“How about you?” David asked Lockhart, Decker, Elder Stow, and Lincoln.  “Any influenza-like symptoms?”  Lockhart and Decker shook their heads.  Lincoln, a bit of a hypochondriac, looked like he might develop symptoms if he thought about it too much.  Elder Stow already had his scanner out and the diagnosis attachment. With that, he could analyze things down to the atomic level.  In this case, he could search Tony, Nanette, and Sukki for hostile bacteria or viruses.

“I thought we were immunized against everything,” Lincoln complained.

“We are,” Lockhart answered.  “But Sukki was made human when we picked up Tony and Nanette.  I don’t know how much protection those three received before we moved out of range of the gods.”

Katie came out with Sukki who looked flush and needed to sit, and Katie added, “I remember Constantinople.  That doctor thought we would carry and spread the plague.”

“Doctor Malory,” Lincoln and Decker said at the same time to identify the suspect in 1934.

Elder Stow turned his scanner on Lockhart and then Lincoln before he spoke.  “We are all infected.”  He checked Decker and Katie.  “You call it Poliovirus.”

************************

MONDAY

Polio stops the travelers in their tracks. They try to find the  source of the outbreak and run into another serious time displacement. Until Monday, Happy Reading.

*

Avalon 9.9 California Dreaming, part 2 of 6

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The travelers spent most of the two days on the train in the lounge car despite the smoke.  One person, Doctor Malory seemed determined to drive everyone out of the car with his cigars.  One woman complained, but the stewards told her there was nothing they could do.  Doctor Malory appeared to have the run of the train, and he sat alone at a two-person table right next to the back-to-back four-person tables where the travelers ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That might not have been so bad, but he kept his cigar lit the whole time he was eating.  The food was excellent, served on the finest china on cloth-covered tables, but the smoke kind of ruined it.

Doctor Malory finished each meal with a leisurely drink.  Gin and juice in the morning, scotch whiskey after lunch and brandy after supper.  He never left the table until after the travelers left, so there was never any time to really talk.  Doctor Malory watched them the whole time, and while the travelers quickly learned to ignored him, realizing that he was probably bored, traveling alone, and while they might have felt a bit sorry for him, no one was about to ask the man to join them.

When they arrived at the Oakland California station, they felt like they had enough of trains for a while.  They took the Union Pacific transit across the bay to San Francisco where they agreed to stay the day and take the train to Los Angeles in the morning.

First thing, they found the Wells Fargo Bank where Marshal Casidy deposited some money on account back in 1875.  He had both Lincoln and Lockhart sign signature cards at the time.  After fifty-five years of interest, the account had grown to quite a sum.  Once Lincoln was able to prove his identity with his signature, it was an easy thing to take out five hundred dollars, a substantial enough sum in the 1934 depression.  Everyone got ten dollars to spend on whatever they wanted, and they booked four rooms in a posh hotel where Sukki roomed with Lockhart and Katie, Decker and Nanette had a room to themselves, Lincoln and Tony agreed to share a room, and Elder Stow got his own room because on the train he snored so badly.

They went sightseeing.

They rode the cable cars, saw the giant redwoods, and went to fisherman’s wharf which in 1934 had mostly fishermen.  “Put-puts,” Katie told Sukki and pointed at the little green boats.
“That was what my father called them when I was twelve. They have small engines, though I see some are still rigged with sails.  By the time I came here at age twelve, they had mostly been replaced with bigger boats with diesel engines. He said at first the bay filled up with put-puts, and now I see he was right.”

Lockhart and Katie delighted in introducing Sukki to saltwater taffy, and then they all got some fudge, chocolate, of course, and after that Sukki said she was never going to eat anything except chocolate.  Elder Stow chuckled.

In the morning, they had a surprise.  When they went down to the dining room for breakfast, they found Doctor Malory sitting there, watching.  They politely said hello before they asked for a table, or rather two tables that were not near the man and his cigars.  Then they took the ferry back to Oakland and got to the station where they had a forty-five-minute wait before the train left for Los Angeles.

While they waited, Sukki complained that she did not feel too well.  Nanette and Tony agreed with her.

“Too much rich food?” Katie guessed and looked at Lockhart.  “Her system is not used to that.”

“Maybe Doctor Malory’s cigars,” Lincoln suggested.

“Maybe just too much sugar,” Lockhart shrugged.

The trip to Los Angeles went smoothly, and only Lincoln thought they would run into Doctor Malory in the city.  Lockhart said the man did seem to be following them.  Decker agreed, but his attention focused on Nanette who had an upset stomach.

 They got hotel rooms for that night and first thing in the morning, they headed off to one of the big fenced-in Hollywood studios where they had to figure out how to get through the gate.  Security in those places was tight.  The studios figured every two-bit kid from Kansas wanted to be in moving pictures, so they did not let anyone in except those on the list.  Lockhart sent word to Doctor Mishka.  Lincoln looked up her real name, Doctor Nadia Iliana Kolchenkov-Richter.  Richter was the name of the German Major she married after the first world war.

They had a long wait.

Lincoln and Tony got them all rooms in a nearby hotel where they paid for a week in advance.  Lincoln and Tony agreed.  The price for four rooms for a week was highway robbery.  The others watched while people went in and out of the gate all morning.  Fortunately, there was a restaurant nearby with outdoor seating.  They took two outside tables at eleven and continued to sip their tea and coffee until two in the afternoon.

Katie thought she saw Buster Keaton, or one of those silent film stars, but she could not be sure because the man kept smiling and laughing.  She could not remember ever seeing Keaton smile.  Later, she imagined one man looked like Clark Gable, or maybe Spencer Tracy.  They looked so young.  Lincoln swore that one young man was Carry Grant, but Katie was not sure he was around that early.  At last, around one o’clock when the waiters made noises about them needing to move on, they saw a couple that Lockhart recognized.  He went to say something, and Katie and Lincoln followed.

“Wonderful to meet you,” he said.  “I’m Robert Lockhart.  My wife, Katie, and friend Ben Lincoln.  I just wanted to say I love your movies.  I’ve seen all of them.”  He stopped himself when he realized what he did.

The woman grinned but the man nearly choked on his drink.  “All?”

“Sorry,” Katie apologized for the group.  “My husband probably should not have said anything.”

The man and woman looked at each other, and the woman spoke.  “We just escaped from a photo shoot.  Our movie will be released in two weeks.”

“Late lunch,” the man said.  “So, tell me, swami, how many of these movies do we make?”

Lockhart looked at Katie, who looked at Lincoln, who said, “More than one more.”  Lincoln did not fully answer the question.  He stayed too busy grinning at Lockhart who blew it and feeling good knowing that he was not the only screw-up in the group.

Lockhart sighed.  “Honestly.  We were just talking about time travel.  I should not have said what I said.”

The man pointed to the group.  “I imagined you were actors, what with the guns and all.  Some western?  What is with the black naval officer?”  Most of the holsters had a western-like look.  The woman got it.

“Time travel?  Oh, Nicky.  Our movie gets to have children.”

“Wait a minute Missus C.,” the man said sternly.  “Time travel?  You come from the future looking for autographs?”  He was joking

“Not really,” Lockhart said and turned to Katie.

She sighed to match Lockhart’s sigh and had a thought.  “We are trying to get in touch with Doctor Richter—Doctor Mishka, but the studio is locked down tighter than Fort Knox.”

“Doctor Mishka,” the woman said, excited.  “I made a silent with her once.  She made a lot of silent movies, just bit parts, when they needed a fill-in.  The studio wanted to give her a contract, but she turned them down.  She said she was already contracted with the studio, as the studio doctor and she did not mind filling in here and there to keep the productions rolling, but she did not want her face plastered all over the world.”  She turned to the man.  “You remember the good doctor.”  She turned back to Katie.  “He hurt his leg during the filming, and she fixed him right up, good as new.”

The man put his hand out as if covering the woman’s mouth, without reaching across the table to actually cover her mouth.  The woman jolted but shut her mouth and gave him her snooty look.  The man said, “Time travelers, like H. G. Wells?  I don’t go for much of that science fiction stuff.”

“Me neither,” Lockhart said, honestly enough.

The man and woman appeared to speak to each other with their eyes alone.  Finally, the woman nodded, and the man spoke.  “Give us a chance to have lunch and we will take you through the gate and to the doctor’s office.”

“Thank you,” Katie said, as Lincoln shelled out two five-dollar bill tips for the impatient waiters with a request for more coffee.