Chapter 2
The audible beating of rain on the windows gained renewed strength. It had been raining for ten days straight. Phileas Fogg, grayed and a bit weathered, was getting cabin fever, but had not suffered so much that he would brave the downpour until he had too, which would be in two hours' time.
Summer days like this were for reading in the quiet dry cool of one's home. Phileas had his tea and refreshments beside him. He had an excellent book in his lap and his friend Jules Verne was visiting, occupied in a chair nearby, scribbling in his ever-present notebook.
Jules was not so young a man anymore. The once soft features and rail thin appearance of youth had given way to full maturity. Fine lines creased his eyes and brow. His face was covered with a luxurious mustache and curly beard, matching his ever-unruly curly head. At thirty-five, Verne was married, and had become a respectable stockbroker; and finally, the published author of a rather well-received book.
His book was a fine adventure of balloon travel. Conventional balloon travel that is, not a luxury dirigible such as the Aurora. Phileas had read his gift copy and found it fascinating. My friend may be onto something with this. High adventure with a pleather of good geographic facts tossed in, plus imaginative imagery concerning places and situations that no one had explored yet. A fine read. It played on the present spirit of adventure and discovery the world was consumed with.
These days, Phileas shared in that preoccupation only from the comfort of his armchair. He had completely given up the life of adventure he had led for so long. He was married to his Rebecca, who while not retired, had at least moved away from fieldwork. They had been married five years and were expecting their second child. Life was good and Phileas Fogg was a contented happy man, looking forward to the future with an optimism and cheer he had never known in youth.
Phileas had also been forced to publicly accept his knighthood. Queen Victoria had made it her wedding present to him. He would have preferred a set of napkins, but one did not refuse the Queen of England forever.
The clock over the mantle struck five times. They were to take Rebecca to an early dinner in town, and a play. Rebecca may also need a late supper when we return. Being pregnant seemed to require a full stomach. He had already asked Mrs. Morgan to have Rebecca's favorite treats ready and waiting.
Phileas stood, excusing himself to change. He placed a hand on the baluster and smoothly moved up the stairs with a grace that came from long years of activity and practice at stealth. A cat couldn't have made it up the staircase so quiet or with more economy of movement. Only someone practiced at watching this man would have noticed his not using the handrail until recently or how he moved up the steps a bit slower.
Entering his room, Phileas looked at the clothes laid out for him with amusement. Passepartout was no longer with him. The good man had also taken a wife and had settled down to a lucrative career of patent filing and gadget invention. Rebecca picked these clothes for him and had Mrs. Morgan lay them out. The servant woman was as bossy as a mother hen, but diligent, loyal, and implicitly obedient to Rebecca. Between the two women, the house was run with perfect precision. The addition of Mary, little Jules's nurse, kept the house quiet when he wanted peace and bustling with the excitement only a two-year-old boy could create when Fogg was up to that challenge. Phileas really had little to do in his own house but handle accounts and enjoy his family.
Yes, life was good.
Fogg shaved and dressed. When ready to go downstairs, he took up his cane. He had always had a fondness for canes. As a young agent, they had been a handy place to hide a sword. Later, he became a coinsurer of the craft. Phileas had collected a rather impressive representation of canes from all over Europe and the Far East, a good thing, and a shame. These days, he had come to require them. The one he picked out for the night was a fine one, carved from English oak. It had been turned into a decorative spiral. He smiled down on it like an old friend, which it was. It was the same one he had with him when he had traveled through time on Dumas's time machine. My lucky cane; that adventure and the following madness nearly did me in.
Fogg reached for the doorknob with the other hand, ready to gather Verne. Before he could touch it, an odd sensation came over him. He felt tingly and dizzy. His sight blurred. In the next second it was over. He reached out, leaned toward the door that wasn't there anymore. A hand came out of nowhere to steady him. It was Verne's. He was looking pale and shaken, too. "I was just about to knock on the door–" Jules's words were interrupted by a swishing sound from across the room.
They both turned to take in the stark white place they were now in and the doorway that had just opened in an otherwise seamless wall.
A man on the other side looked into the room and swore. "Jez'! Damn it, Peter! You were only supposed to bring in one of them!"
A shaken voice apologized from beyond the door. "Sorry, sir. They must have moved closer to each other. I had Mr. Fogg isolated when the coordinates were tapped in."
The man in the doorway added a few more colorfully embellished phrases to his tirade against his associate. He made short paces back and forth on the other side of the opening, highly agitated. He was tall with a thick mop of dark blonde hair, looking to be something under thirty. Raking his hair with a nervous hand, he stopped, collected himself and entered the room. Two steps into the white room, the doorway closed smoothly behind him as if it had never been there.
He looked over his startled visitors, taking a deep breath. "Sirs, I am Dr. Hugh Nance," he said. "If you step this way, what has happened and where you are, will be explained."
"I would take those explanations now, before I commit myself and my friend to your care," Phileas said. He met the other sternly, turning his full attention to him. He stood with his cane down just in front of him, but not putting weight on it. If this came to a fight, he was more than ready. Dr. Nance appeared to have no weapon, but he would take no chances.
The younger man made no show of a threat. If anything, he seemed uncomfortable in their presence. Even standing in one place, he moved with a nervous energy, crackling around him. He lifted one hand in a gesture of either open-handed surrender or momentary reprieve from Phileas's glare. He used his other hand to indicate the sidewall. "It would be better to leave the transporter room first, sir. You are in no danger. If you chose not to stay after you have heard us out, you will be returned to your… your house, right away."
Phileas didn't like it but decided to follow the young doctor's directions. If the room were indeed the inside of a large machine that had transported them here, it might not be wise to continue standing in it. He watched as the man moved to the wall again. Before he could bump into it, the door opening appeared again. He gestured for his guests to go first.
Doctor of what? Jules wondered, magic? He gave the odd door a suspicious eye. From his point of view, they had been transported into a stark white dreamscape. A transporter, as the man had called this room. Coordinates had been used to isolate Fogg or myself before dragging us here, to what purpose?
As usual, Fogg was taking the lead in the face of danger. Verne chose to accept that for now, keeping silent and watchful as he took up the rear. I don't like this any more than Fogg does, but we don't seem to have a choice. I, however, don't plan to let him lead if things go bad. He is past his prime and aging. Our places and fitness to be handling such adventures have reversed.
On the other side of the door, they entered a long hall that seemed to stretch out forever in two directions. They walked forty paces to the left where Dr. Nance caused another magic door to open in the right-side wall. This doorway led to a room no bigger than the one they had arrived in. It resembled a conference room, containing a large table with eight chairs. Two people were waiting for them, a middle-aged man and a woman. They stepped forward to greet Fogg politely by name. They then greeted me in the same way, but with a less restrained attitude. It was a friendly attitude… worshipful even. Ah, appreciative readers?
Phileas looked on, What in the world? They were fawning over Jules. And he was taking it all in stride as if he were signing copies of his book. Yes, that's what it was. They knew of his book. When the fawning was over, they all sat around the stark white metal table; at least Phileas thought the cold surface was painted metal.
"Mr. Fogg, Mr. Verne, I am Dr. Parker, and this is Dr. Hatfield," the older man stated. He was balding with a narrow ring of white hair making a fringe around his scalp. His blue eyes were keen and serious. Dr. Hatfield, a woman of about Phileas's age, was spectacled, with soft light blonde hair pinned up in a simple French twist. All these people wore the same sort of clothing: white starched-looking overcoats over very plain dark blue loose shirts and pants, antiseptic and depressing, like the room. No paintings hung on the stark white walls. No carving or inlay work on the table. The chairs were equally plain in design. Spartan was the best word for it. The place was lit up with glaring harsh light. Phileas scanned for the source, which seemed to be the ceiling itself.
"Mr. Fogg," Dr. Hatfield said. She had a pleasant melodic Welsh voice. "We understand you have some experience with time travel? You were accidentally exposed to it when the writer Alexander Dumas built a time machine unaware of its capabilities. You sent the machine into… shall we say, the time corridor without a specific destination with the intention of it staying there?"
Phileas and Jules stared at the woman, wondering how she had known any of that. They had both said nothing to anyone of those events. "True," Phileas said. "Now, just how did you find that information?"
"It is part of a collection of records that are preserved in government archives," she said, without properly answering. "Also, we found it and moved it out of the corridor. Can't have such hazards to navigation."
Phileas lowered his tone. "I see."
"Sir," Dr. Hatfield said. "We are of a future that knows a good deal about time travel. It is a thing highly regulated and discouraged due to the damage to what we call the time continuum. That term names the passage of time and the events that happen in it that make up our past, future, and present. If the continuum is tampered with, a split can occur, which causes a second past, present, or future. We who regulate time travel attempt to keep that splitting from happening. Imagine if you will, a well-intentioned doctor going back in time and saving the life of Prince Albert. Your Queen Victoria would perhaps live a happier life, but the changes to England's political climate could be considerable. Time would split into two different lines due to his living, and then split again, and again, with every significant decision he had an influence on that differed from decisions she would have made alone."
Phileas had considered just these issues long ago. "What has this to do with me? I take it you wanted only me when you brought us here?"
"This is about someone else who has obtained access to time travel," Dr. Parker said. "The act of traveling through time is detectable. It is possible to detect the time from which the jump began by analyzing the destination. We monitor these activities and have learned that someone from your century has begun a wholesale effort to change the course of the time continuum, starting with ridding their future of your descendants. We don't know the identity of that person, but we are hopeful you do."