Chapter Twenty-Six

It was the following Wednesday when Arte experienced some of Ray's terror. He was a passenger in the back of the student car, observing as Pinto sped through the streets of downtown Los Angeles without any apparent fear or hesitation. In the seat next to him, the driving instructor looked sheet-white.

"Git along, little dogies!" Pinto yelled out the window, honking the horn at several slow drivers as he moved into the next lane over.

An angry driver who had just been cut off yelled and swore at Pinto, giving him the finger.

"Mr. Bowen, be careful!" the instructor exclaimed. "That car could have hit us!"

Arte ran a hand over his face. The two hours of this session could not end fast enough.

xxxx

Lucrece, who had been unable to reserve a space for that driving sesson, met them back at the building with a cab when it was over.

"Well?" she greeted Pinto. "How did you do?"

Pinto smirked in triumph. "The instructor wasn't too happy a couple of times when I sped up the car, but overall he was pretty pleased with my skills."

"And you, Mr. Gordon?" Lucrece looked over Pinto's shoulder at Arte. "You seem a bit shaken."

"Do I?" Arte said lightly. "Oh no, Miss Posey, you're mistaken. Although I do have to wonder what you were thinking, Pinto," he added, frowning at his temporary ally.

Pinto shrugged. "I like to live just a little bit dangerous."

"A little bit?!" Arte shook his head. "Pinto, I hope that you never drive a car Mr. Norman is riding in. He was agitated enough with me driving, and I didn't take deliberate chances like you did!"

"Alright, nevermind," Lucrece interrupted. "We have some time before any of us attend another session. Are we going to visit the portal again soon?"

Arte sobered. "Yes, about that. As I told you two before, I believe that electricity is the key. Somehow we need to recreate the circumstances that blew the portal open back in 1874."

"I don't know how we can ever hope to generate that much electricity without someone noticing," Lucrece retorted. "And what about the fact that the other end of the portal is in Justice, Nevada? Perhaps something is wrong in present-day Justice and that is why the portal re-directed to Los Angeles instead."

"I've thought of that," Arte sighed. "In fact, Mr. Norman is trying to arrange for a private airplane to take some of us to Justice and investigate that very thing. Unfortunately, there won't be room enough for all of us, so we'll have to pick and choose who goes."

"Then we'll do that," Lucrece said curtly.

"You know, Lucrece was in Los Angeles right before the portal opened up," Pinto said. "She was heading to Justice when this big light somehow transported her and her horse all the way to Dr. Faustina's hideout."

Arte turned to look at her with a start. "That's how you appeared out of nowhere!" he exclaimed. "Rodman and I couldn't figure it out at all."

"You were watching?" Lucrece sounded slightly concerned, as though she wondered just how much they had seen.

"From a distance," Arte said. "We saw Pinto approach you, but it was storming so hard we couldn't see much of anything else very well."

Lucrece relaxed.

"Maybe that could be the connection between the two places then," Pinto offered. "We figured that Lucrece ended up out there because of the crazy storm and Faustina's machines acting up."

Arte nodded. "It could have been an early manifestation of the space-time continuum starting to rip," he said. "And then when it tore apart completely, it just sent us all down that invisible path Miss Posey had crafted to Los Angeles. There might not be anything to see in Justice, especially if that's the case, but we should probably still have a look."

"How large is this private airplane?" Lucrece asked.

Arte thought about it. "Oh . . . I suppose maybe five or six people could go along," he replied.

"Pinto and I will go," Lucrece said. "The others wouldn't know enough about science to make sense of it without us." She paused. "The trip will just take a few hours all together, won't it?"

"Probably, especially if we can't find anything," Arte said. "The pilot should be able to land right in the desert area we want. We could get out, look around, and be ready to go back to Los Angeles in as little time as a couple of hours."

"Then that should be fine. Do you know what day this might happen?"

"Sometime this weekend, perhaps," Arte replied. "Sooner, if Mr. Norman can arrange it. Actually, he's been trying since shortly after we agreed on an alliance. It's been hard to find an available private plane, but just today he received a call that several dates are available."

"Of course you and Mr. West will be going," Lucrece remarked. "And I imagine Mr. Norman and Mr. Rodman want to go as well?"

"Yes, they do," Arte nodded. "But if there's only room for one other besides Jim and myself, Mr. Norman said for Coley to go, since he was in that area with us in the past."

Lucrece nodded too. "Let us know when and we'll be ready."

"Will do," Arte promised.

xxxx

That was how, the next morning, the chosen six arrived at a private airfield and were soon flying along the path to Justice, Nevada.

"We should be there in no more than an hour," the pilot told them. "Maybe a bit more, probably less."

"Incredible, isn't it?" Arte said in an undertone to Jim and whoever else was nearby. "An hour! And in our time it would take us a good two or three days, most likely."

Jim looked out the window at the sights far below. "It's something else, alright."

Coley gave the view a cursory glance and turned his attention to Ray. "Are you sure the club will be alright without at least one of us there?" he asked.

Ray sighed. "Well, I have to hope some of the staff is both competent and trustworthy," he said. "And if the trip really is as uneventful as we've been thinking, we'll probably be back in the same amount of time that a trip to the mountain would take."

"I guess that's true," Coley conceded.

He preferred for Ray to be along, really. And he knew Ray preferred it. In spite of themselves they were both tense, wondering what would happen in the Nevada desert, if anything. It was the same nervous feeling that had plagued Ray when they had gone in search of the portal. Now he wondered again whether something would just mysteriously pull Coley back to his time, if he got too close without realizing. And this time, Coley was wondering more strongly about it himself.

They had gotten a late start that morning; it was afternoon by the time the plane was flying low above Justice. "How far away from town would you say it is?" the pilot called.

Jim and Arte peered at the small town. "It looks like it's been built up quite a bit," Arte noted.

"Yes, it does," said Jim. "The hill was supposed to be at least a few miles away, but with all of these additional homes and buildings it's surely less than that now. I might recognize it, especially if that lightning rod is still sticking out of it."

The pilot raised an eyebrow. "A lightning rod in a random hill in the middle of the desert? You're looking for some strange people."

Jim smiled. "You could say that."

Coley grunted. "They blend right in," he muttered. "The whole town's strange."

Pinto smirked. "Ain't it the truth." He and Lucrece gazed at the town as well, as the plane headed past it. "That looks like the funeral parlor down there," he said, tapping the window.

"And it looks like now it's some sort of a museum," Lucrece remarked in irritation.

"Why, yes," Arte spoke up. "They found all your fascinating additions to the place and memorialized them, according to the town's website. Everyone can take tours and see where the infamous Posey gang had their hideout right under the sheriff's nose for years."

Lucrece rolled her eyes. "It was also our home," she said. "Would you like them turning your train into a museum?"

Arte leaned back. "I'm not sure about that," he admitted. "It's not as though we'd be around to live there anymore."

"Or maybe you're prideful enough that you wouldn't mind having your home on display," Lucrece said dryly.

Arte shrugged. "Perhaps," he said. "But don't tell me you're not just a bit prideful that way yourself, Miss Posey."

Lucrece gazed at the funeral parlor one last time before they were too far past it. "I don't mind sharing my genius with people," she said, "but only if they're intelligent enough to understand it. Most of the people giving and taking those tours likely have no idea what really went into crafting the secret rooms and booby traps hidden in that mortuary. They're just tramping through our home with foolish comments and a superficial sliver of appreciation, if any."

"Ah, then it seems you are actually more prideful on the subject than even I am," said Arte.

"Not that it matters," Lucrece added boredly.

"No, I suppose not," Arte agreed.

It wasn't that much longer and the pilot was pointing out several hills making up the desert terrain. It still took some time, but Jim finally noticed a rusted metal pole and the pilot moved to land the plane nearby.

Jim was out before the vehicle was even completely stopped. He hastened to the hill, searching for the secret lever that operated the door. The others stood by, observing.

"Funny thing, isn't it?" Pinto said. "Seeing the lightning rod so old and beat-up, I mean. And we were all there with it when it was fresh and new a few weeks ago."

The panel slid open and Jim jumped back, wanting to avoid falling inside. Then, once he was sure it was safe, he leaped into the opening.

With the plane now fully stopped, the others began to disembark. The pilot barely noticed, instead staring at the hole in the hill with goggle-eyed fascination. "How did you guys know about that?!" he exclaimed.

Arte glanced over, a bit uneasily. "Oh . . . we've had occasion to run into some very odd things now and then," he said. "As you said, we're looking for some strange people."

Lucrece smirked.

Ray gazed at the entire area in awe as he stepped down, his hair blowing in the quiet desert breeze. "This is where it all started," he mused aloud. "In this barren wasteland, the space-time continuum opened up and sent all of you to this year."

Coley landed beside him. "Weird to think about, isn't it? Especially since for us it feels like only a few weeks have passed, when it's really been 138 years."

He seemed somewhat tense as he studied the desert, his hands on his hips. Finally, determining that nothing seemed ready to happen, he moved towards the hill.

"The actual portal was inside, wasn't it?" Ray realized as he chased after his friend.

"Yeah, down in the main control room." Coley stood at the entrance, not certain if he dared to go down. "What's it like down there?" he called to Jim, who soon appeared.

"Everything's still a mess," Jim said. "There's no sign of Dr. Faustina and Miklos. Either they ended up in the present-day too, or else they just abandoned this place."

"What about the portal?" Ray demanded. "Is there any sign of that?"

"Not that I can tell," Jim said. "I threw a few pieces of old machinery around in the air, but none of them caught on something or bounced back."

Ray leaned back in bewildered amazement. "Does that mean there really isn't anything to see here?" he breathed. "That even though it started here, it didn't stay here?"

"It looks that way," Jim said.

Arte climbed through the opening now. "Well, I want to see this for myself," he said. "And if nothing else, maybe we can find some old notes on the amount of electricity Dr. Faustina used for the machines that last time. That could prove vital to opening the portal.

"Everyone, I would recommend staying together in groups of two, since we still don't know what we're dealing with."

"That's perfectly alright with us," Ray declared.

Pinto and Lucrece followed the agents down but returned momentarily, seeming unimpressed.

"Nothing to see?" Coley greeted them.

"It looks extraordinarily the way we left it," Lucrece said. "There isn't a portal there. I don't imagine Mr. West and Mr. Gordon will linger long. And that's just as well, with very little daylight left."

"I guess that's true," Ray said, visibly relaxing at the news that there was not a portal.

"We'll be nearby," Pinto said. He drew an arm around Lucrece's waist as they began to wander over the nearby dirt and sand.

"They're cozy," Coley commented. "I didn't think they wanted to show it around the rest of us."

Ray looked to him in a bit of surprise. "You noticed?"

Coley smirked. "Maybe they didn't want to show it, but I could see it in their eyes, especially his." His eyes narrowed. "It was weird to realize that somewhere in that sadistic heart, he actually loves her."

"That's strange to think about," Ray admitted. "After the way he treated you, I didn't think he could be capable of love towards anyone."

Coley shrugged. "People like them have odd ideas. It doesn't matter much to me. Someone like Everly would probably be all bitter and want to use it against them, but me, I just don't care that much. Let them love each other if they want. I'd rather move on with my life instead of trying to get revenge."

Ray smiled. "Maybe they realized that, so they didn't mind letting you see their affection for each other."

"Maybe." Coley turned his attention to the opening in the hill. "Do you want to go down there?" he asked at last. "I figured you wouldn't."

Ray shuddered. "I don't think I could stand another mad scientist's lab. Especially underground. It would feel like everything was closing in on me. And I'd probably spend the entire time panicking over the thought of the panel suddenly closing up and trapping us inside." He glanced to Lucrece and Pinto again. "I don't like the thought of leaving our rescue up to them."

Coley nodded, looking thoughtful. "You wonder how far they might go. They want West and Gordon out of the way. And if they trapped the four of us underground, and killed the pilot, those problems might be solved.

"But on the other hand, they can't fly the plane, so they wouldn't want to kill the pilot. And your staff knew we were going away somewhere, so if you and I didn't come back, they'd start an investigation. And if those two just tried to trap West and Gordon, we'd stop them." He crossed his arms. "They realize all that. I don't think they'll try anything."

Ray sighed. "I hope you're right."

Coley pushed away from the panel. "West and Gordon probably won't be down there much longer. Let's just wander around a while and wait for them."

Ray looked relieved to move away from the hill. "Did you ever have to hide out around here?"

"Nah, there's no place to hide out, other than in that thing, and it was already occupied. I went right to the town of Justice, home of the idiots." Coley shook his head. "I'm telling you, Norman, out of all the places I stayed in the years I was on the run, nothing topped Justice in its nuttiness. Most people with any sense stayed away from there. And those who didn't had very little trouble bamboozling that crazy sheriff."

"It sounds terrible," Ray proclaimed.

"It was actually kind of funny, as long as you weren't right there when you laughed about it," Coley smirked.

Ray chuckled.

xxxx

"Junk, junk, and more junk!"

The pieces of metal creaked and groaned as Arte shoved them aside, where they toppled over on the floor. He cringed at the noise.

"There's obviously nothing here that will help us figure out what's wrong in Los Angeles," he said as he straightened. His voice sounded slightly strained.

"It looks like it," Jim agreed. "But somehow I don't think that's what's bothering you, Arte."

"Bothering me?" Arte said lightly. "Why would anything be bothering me, other than not being able to discover the secrets of the sealed portal?"

"I don't know," Jim said. "Unless it's this place in general . . . what it stood for."

Arte sighed, looking away. "I suppose I'm still thinking about when I thought you were dead," he admitted at last. "And instead Dr. Faustina had you here." He shuddered. "It's so unsettling, seeing it 138 years later. And I start wondering what would have happened if Rodman and I hadn't found you and you weren't able to escape from the bad doctor."

"That's a lot to be thinking about," Jim said. He could tell Arte not to think about it, but that was really pointless. The thoughts would still come. Sometimes Jim still thought about when he had believed Arte was dead—although he tried to push those thoughts away whenever they came.

Noticing a piece of old and yellowed paper wedged under a fallen metal beam, Jim reached and carefully slid it out.

Not seeing what Jim was doing, Arte continued. "Then I remember the fight . . . how I thought I was going to lose you for real when I'd just found you alive and well . . . Rodman jumping in to save you. . . ." He sighed. "And all of us ending up out of our time. You know, Jim, even though we both want to get back, it's going to be strange being back there now that we know what the future is like."

"If we ever get back there," Jim said, sounding occupied. "But at least we still don't know what our own futures are like."

"That's true." Arte turned and then stopped, surprised to see Jim with a piece of paper. "What's that?"

Jim held it out. "Something Dr. Faustina wrote after we were all gone."

Arte took it. "'All of our experiments were in vain now,'" he read. "'Every one of the dead people we restored to life have vanished, along with the Secret Service agents who were supposed to verify our claims to President Grant. Obviously it was our own fault; we overloaded the machines with far too much electricity. But what will we do now?

"'Miklos believes they are still alive somewhere. He has been trying to restore the machines' conditions to what they were when the blast occurred, hoping either to bring them back with another blast or to send us after them. So far nothing has worked.

"'Perhaps we will simply have to forget about them and start our experiments anew. Now that we know what works, it should not be difficult to duplicate our triumph. And we have other corpses to attempt to bring back. Maybe, instead of abducting a Secret Service agent to attest to our practice of science, we should be more ambitious. We will abduct President Grant instead! With the agents missing, no one will be there to protect him.'"

Arte looked up with a sickened start. "Jim . . ."

Jim nodded, frowning. "You didn't read about anything like this happening to President Grant, did you, Arte?"

"No, I didn't," Arte admitted. "But if we have to consider the fact that in the past right now, Dr. Faustina and Miklos are alive, maybe they just haven't done it yet. We don't know how much time has passed in 1874 since we disappeared. Those two need time to build a new machine before they try to kidnap President Grant."

"Technically, it seems that no matter when they'd do it, we'd know about it here," Jim remarked. "Arte, wouldn't someone here have to go back to the past before it could be altered again in any way?"

Arte threw up his hands in despair. "That's what you'd think, alright," he said, "but I'm getting so turned around I don't know what's real anymore. How can we really say what the past is or isn't, or what the people there would be doing to affect the present, when there isn't any concrete information on time-travel and only countless, contradictory theories?"

"That's a good point," Jim said. "In any case, Arte, I recommend that we get back to the portal and try harder to work with it. Staying here isn't going to help."

"I thoroughly concur." Arte slipped the fragile piece of paper into a ZipLock bag and put it in his pocket. "There's some figures on this. They might be at least part of what Dr. Faustina used to calculate the electricity for her machines. And it's the only piece of paper here. Let's go home."

Jim hurried after him as he headed back for the escape hatch. "And is home through the portal . . . or back to Los Angeles?" he wondered.

Arte paused. "You know, I'm not sure exactly what I meant. Now too, no matter where we stay, we'll be leaving friends behind in another place."

Jim nodded thoughtfully. "It'll be strange, if we get back to 1874. Mr. Norman and Coley won't be coming, of course. I'll miss those evenings in the library."

"Oh yes." Arte resumed walking, but again soon slowed. "At least, we're assuming those two won't be coming. What if, when we get the portal open, it doesn't give Rodman a choice?"

"Then it probably wouldn't give Mr. Norman a choice, either," Jim returned.

"They'd be forced apart, each unable to live in a time contrary to his own." Arte frowned deeply. "Jim, considering Mr. Norman's state of mind, I wonder if he could stand that at this point."

"I don't know, Arte." Jim frowned too. "After bonding so strongly with Rodman, I'm not sure he could."

"That would be terrible," Arte said grimly, shaking his head. "He's made such excellent progress, judging from what we read in those articles about what he was like before. Coley seems to have been the one person who's been able to get through to him and help him where the doctors couldn't. I don't think he's at all ready to let Coley go, even though he's been trying to brace himself for the possibility that he might have to."

Jim could see the opening now, and vaguely hear the two conversing as the late afternoon light began to wane. "To lose Rodman now might set him back enough that he would completely lose his mind," he remarked. He could envision Ray panicking and trying desperately to follow Coley through the portal, only for it to reject him.

"And even if Rodman wouldn't be affected to that extent, I know he'd be upset too," said Arte. "He decided long ago that he'd be staying here, and Mr. Norman was a large part of that decision."

Jim looked thoughtful. "Let's just hope and pray that there was a meaning to all of this—to coming here, to those two meeting—and that God or fate or whatever won't be so cruel as to tear it all down."

Arte nodded in firm, worried agreement.

xxxx

Pinto was standing with Lucrece on top of the hill as twilight approached the desert. "Weird to be back here, isn't it?" he mused, embracing her from behind.

She nodded. "It's all so different. This area was home once, but it isn't anymore. I wouldn't want to live here now."

"We wouldn't have any peace anyway, living in a museum."

"Justice must be a tourist trap now," Lucrece said in displeasure.

"Probably a catch-all for ghost-hunters and oddballs like that, too," Pinto decided.

Lucrece was amused. Pinto was certainly adapting well to this time period. He had been picking up modern colloquial expressions ever since their arrival.

He laughed now. "Just imagine it—a pack of ghost-busters setting up shop in the museum, maybe hopin' to bag themselves a crooked ghost or two. Maybe even us! But we're still alive and well, so all they'd do is scare themselves all night."

Lucrece smirked. "It would serve them right for intruding in our house and expecting we wouldn't have anything better to do than to haunt them."

Pinto kissed her and she relaxed into his arms. In the increasing darkness, and with the modern electricity and expansion of Justice, the town's lights could be seen in the distance.

"West and Gordon are coming up now," he noted. The footsteps inside the hollow hill were very audible.

"Good. It's about time we were getting back." Lucrece stepped away from Pinto, glancing at the opening on the side of the hill as the agents emerged.

"Well, I picked up some possibly helpful figures, but aside from that paper there's definitely nothing to see down there," Arte announced. "No portal at least."

"As we told you some time ago," Lucrece remarked.

Arte jumped a mile. "What are you two doing up there?" he exclaimed, squinting at their silhouettes.

"Admiring the horizon," Lucrece said half-sarcastically, nodding to the twinkling lights.

Jim and Arte turned to look themselves. "It is amazing," Arte breathed in all sincerity. "Look at that, Jim! Who'd ever think Justice would grow like that?"

"I wonder who runs it now," Jim mused.

"Well . . ." Arte gave an uneasy smile. "That would be another Cord. It seems that law-enforcement stayed in the family."

Coley snickered from somewhere behind him. "Let's hope the idiocy didn't."

"Rodman!" Arte spun around. Coley was leaning with his arms crossed on one of the wings of the plane. Ray was standing near him, resting a hand on its support beam.

"Maybe you still won't admit that you think the first Sheriff Cord was an idiot, Gordon, but you and West are thinking it all the same." Coley pushed away from the wing.

"We are?" Jim intoned.

Arte looked to Jim with an apologetic smile. "It's a . . . conversation we started back in 1874," he said. "Rodman said I wouldn't agree with him aloud because I wouldn't want to badmouth another law-enforcement officer around a criminal."

Jim remained deadpan. "And?"

Arte chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "I suppose I didn't."

"Well, nevermind all that," Pinto drawled. "Are we getting out of here now? That pilot must be awfully antsy."

"We're going," Arte agreed. "Come on, everyone."

He let the others go in ahead of him. As he prepared to climb in as well, he gripped the railing and glanced back, first to the hill and then to the lights in the distance.

Everything certainly was different. The desert looked about the same, but even it had a different feeling now that Arte was examining it from another perspective. It was strange, perhaps melancholy. This area had never been home to him, but to leave it felt as though he was leaving his own time behind.

"Arte?"

He started and looked up at Jim's voice. "Yes, James?"

"Are you coming?"

Arte nodded and stepped into the airplane. "I'm coming," he promised.

xxxx

It was late by the time they reached Los Angeles again. Ray was relieved to be back in the city; perhaps he had also felt removed from the present-day in the desert. The bright lights signified home to him.

And, Coley realized, home to him, as well. He did not want to go back to 1874, except to visit his mother. He had no longer had any doubts, but this day-trip had reinforced his feelings. He had settled into 2012 and it was where he belonged.

Lucrece and Pinto departed at the airfield, hailing a cab. Not even bothering to suggest following them, Arte lingered with the others as they got into Ray's car to return to the golf club.

Conversation in the car was sparse. Perhaps everyone was thinking on what they had taken away from the experience. Or perhaps they were just exhausted.

Or perhaps both. When they arrived back at the golf club and headed inside, Ray could not control the heavy yawn. "I don't think I'll have any trouble sleeping tonight," he said. "And it looks like everything is still standing. It must have been a fairly average day, even without us."

Coley glanced at the marble counter. "There's some envelope here," he noted. "It must've come in the afternoon mail." He picked it up, looked it over, and tossed it at Arte. "It's to you and West."

"What?!" Arte caught the package and stared at it. "Who in the world would be sending anything to Jim and me?"

Jim peered at it. "I don't recognize the handwriting," he said. "We'll look at it in our room so we won't bother either of you." He nodded to Ray and Coley.

"No . . . maybe you should look at it here," Ray said in concern. "It might be bad news, especially since you can't figure out who would have sent it."

Arte held it up to his ear. "I don't think it's a bomb, at least." He tore off the packing tape and opened the flap. Several photographs and a note fell out.

Coley looked at the top picture. "Maybe not a bomb in the strictest sense of the word, but this looks like some kind of a bombshell to me."

Jim had grabbed the note and was reading through it. "You're right," he said. "This care package is from Snakes Tolliver. He says Florence's scientists have been making progress with the portal, and that if we don't want them to completely take it over, we'll have to stop them on the double."

Arte's jaw dropped. "It was sent Special Delivery just today," he noted, studying the envelope. He cast it aside and snatched one of the photographs. "This one shows a large rock apparently traveling through the portal. It's half-in and half-out!"

"And it was taken at night," Jim observed. "They must be working after dark so they won't be seen by the hikers."

Ray was wide awake now. "What are you going to do?" he gasped.

"Call Miss Posey," Jim said. "We'll have her and her gang come out here and join us. We'll have to get up to that mountain somehow and do just what Snakes says—stop them."

"There's no 'somehow'," Ray retorted. "I'll get hold of our helicopter pilot friend and drive all of you back to the airfield in the club's van."

"And I'll come with you too," Coley vowed.

Arte managed a smile. "Thank you both," he said. "Neither of you has to come, not when your place is here."

"It'll be dangerous," Jim said as he reached for the phone.

"We help our friends," Ray insisted. "We're coming."

Coley did not respond. He had the bad feeling that their conversation was being overheard, although he could not see anyone in the lobby.

He glanced around with narrowed eyes while Jim placed his call.