Tangled in Time by Pauline Baird Jones

Author:Pauline Baird Jones [Jones, Pauline Baird]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Steampunk Romance
Publisher: L&L Dreamspell
Published: 2010-11-19T05:00:00+00:00

THREE

“That is most unexpected,” Olivia said, when she could manage to speak. If Brae had not been holding her arm so firmly it is possible she’d have sunk to her knees in shock.

“I thought you said it was broken?”

“I said it was not functioning properly.” She frowned, her thoughts seeking an answer that might not be there. In way she still did not understand ideas sometimes came together inside her head in strange ways. And sometimes they didn’t. “The water flow.”

“What?”

“The water in the faucets was stopping and starting. The gauges, too. If the machine was trying to respond to the Emergency Absquatulation Device, and the water flowed into the fractulator at the right moment, it might have initiated the return as it was originally designed to do.”

“I thought you turned it all off?”

“The Emergency Absquatulation Device doesn’t work that way. Once it is engaged, it remains active until it accomplishes its purpose. It was designed to work even if the occupant was incapacitated.”

“We use a self destruct to clean up our messes—though that makes a different kind of mess.” He rubbed his face. “So it’s back in the professor’s workshop?”

Was it? Olivia didn’t know. Would the Emergency Absquatulation Device work across time? Or had it returned to a geographic location? There was an additional possibility. If it had locked onto the professor’s location prior to the malfunction, after the Emergency Absquatulation Device shut down, it was possible the machine would complete that function, as well. It could be anywhere. It might be any when. Though she would be most surprised if it managed to traverse time. Her only hope of finding it was to travel to the future with Brae, as he suggested. Surely it would appear in the historical record, too?

“Without the impact with your wormhole to send it through time,” she longed to know more about that, “it is likely that the machine has gone to where his laboratory used to be.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Crap.”

Olivia took the meaning from the context. “Yes.”

“I need to dig a hole.” He slipped off his pack and opened it, digging through the contents.

For a second Olivia was alarmed. Was he planning to “self destruct” them both?

“I can’t be found or caught with this tech on me. Or my ID.”

“Of course.” She considered this. “Should I bury my derringer, as well?”

“I don’t think it’s a threat to the time line and it might come in handy.” She arched her brows, so he added, “There are a few critters out here we might need to discourage.” He gestured upwards with his chin.

“Oh.” As a bluestocking, she’d declined cultivating a fainting disposition, but this situation was enough to cause her to reconsider. Of course, the vulture circling above them discouraged that.

“We should come up with a story,” Brae said, shedding his vest and his weapons. He looked around, then picked an area behind a large boulder to commence digging with a small shovel. In short order he had a respectable hole. She could see his regret at losing his weapons.

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