6
SOUTH DAKOTA
LEENA'S BED AND BREAKFAST
"It's definitely the Lava lamp," Artie said. He was in Pete's room at the bed and breakfast, with Pete and Myka and the artifact. Claudia, laptop in hand, watched him from the hallway, peeking around the corner, keeping the artifact on Pete's nightstand out of sight. Artie was wearing a bulky welding helmet on his head with the darkened face shield down. "This is the earliest existing prototype of the first arc welding helmet, designed by Frederick M. Bowers," he had explained, lowering the face shield. "The protective visor will stop the artifact in there from affecting me when I look at. Well, it should."
"Wait a minute," she had said. "Should?"
Presently he rejoined Claudia in the hallway, raised the face shield.
"What's that thing doing to them?" she asked. "They're just . . . sitting there." She had begun typing on her laptop as soon as Artie named the Lava lamp as their artifact. Now, she paused.
"Hard to say," said Artie. "We don't have any idea what this artifact is. Without knowing that, there's no way to—"
"Here we go!" said Claudia, excited.
"You've got something?"
"Maybe." She squinted at her screen. "Philip K. Dick! Oh boy. The science fiction writer was known to keep a Lava lamp in his home. I bet that's it! Didn't they find this thing in Berkeley? The guy lived a pretty messed up life," she told Artie, glancing up. "Did drugs, went mental, wrote tons of stories, believed that our reality was actually an illusion sitting on top of the true reality."
"Which was what?" prompted Artie.
"He had a vision, well, visions, really. Delivered by a red laser beam sent from an intelligent living satellite in space. Supposedly. VALIS, he called it. Vast Active Living, something or other, I don't remember exactly. Anyhow, he believed that it's actually still Roman times, like first century A.D., and our world, all of history, is an elaborate deception by the Devil, or some other real dark forces, hiding the true reality and our true identities from us. Keeping us confused. Obscuring the truth that we're all actually in Roman times. Early Christians, in hiding. Waiting for the imminent return of Jesus. Like, any day, now. What are you grinning for?"
"You passed up a perfectly good opportunity to joke about my age. That's all. Please, continue."
"Whatever, Articus. Listen, that's it, isn't it? What we're dealing with. PKD's Lava lamp. So what's it doing to them, and how do we get them out? Just bag it?"
"No, no. The link between Pete and Myka and the artifact is too great. If we disrupt that link without getting them out of its control first, it could permanently damage their minds. No, we need to be very careful." He glanced into the room, at the still forms of Pete and Myka. Both were seated on the floor and looking towards the Lava lamp on the nightstand as if it were an altar. "As for what it's doing"—he rubbed his chin—"it could be doing anything. If it is Philip K. Dick's Lava lamp, they may be in some sort of shared hallucination. It could be showing them false realities or nothing at all. They might be frozen in the instant of time when they first looked at the lamp, or they could be living out entire lifetimes. There's no way to tell."
"Well," said Claudia, at his shoulder. She peeked into the room, too, at Pete and Myka. "You have a plan to get them out, don't you?"
Artie opened his bag, the black satchel that he always carried, and peered inside. "I'm working on it."
# # #
SOMEWHERE IN WYOMING ON INTERSTATE 80
All through the rest of the evening and the dark of night, Pete drove them steadily east along the highway. Through Nevada, they crossed next into Utah. Passing near Salt Lake City, they continued east into Wyoming. The morning sun was rising in front of them, brilliant in Pete's tired eyes, as they approached Cheyenne. Japan or California or whatever it was exactly lay far behind them.
Beside him, Myka slept fitfully. At times seeming very much like herself, and at other times slipping into a type of quiet confusion. Within the last few hours, she had begun complaining of being cold, and Pete had previously removed his hooded sweatshirt and allowed Myka to cover herself with it. The heater roared, blowing out hot air, and now Pete pulled at the neck of his T-shirt, flapped it against his damp skin, trying to cool himself down. The sun was blinding, a fierce orange ball low in the sky directly ahead.
Despite several attempts, they had been unable to reach Artie or Claudia again on the Farnsworth, which now sat useless on the dashboard, pushed up against the front windshield between Pete and Myka.
In the passenger seat, Myka moaned and shifted position. Pete glanced over. "How you doin', Mykes?"
She sniffed, and blinked her eyes. "Chilly," she mumbled, and then sat up straighter. "Tired. Where are we?"
"We're getting there," Pete assured her. "Do you need anything?"
"The Farnsworth?" she asked, eyeing the device.
"Useless." Pete shook his head. "We're on our own for now, but once we get back to the Warehouse, Artie will help us figure this out. Just hang in there."
"Pete," she said weakly.
"Yeah, Mykes?"
"Thanks."
He nodded, watching as Myka leaned her head back and closed her eyes again.
For another hour, he drove steadily on towards Cheyenne. As they neared the city, something began to tug at him. A vibe, he realized, one growing slowly stronger as they continued east. Now that he felt it, he realized it had been there tugging at his mind for the last several minutes.
Something wasn't right.
He slapped himself in the face, waking himself up, and peered through the windshield. What was he sensing?
Before long, he figured out what it was. All the cars on the road — those driving around him in the same direction, and also in the lanes across the median heading the opposite way — were all older cars. The trucks and other vehicles too. Not just older, like a few years or a decade or two, no this was something else. Peering at each nearby vehicle one by one, he realized that every single one of them was pre-1970.
What are the odds, he wondered, that every single car and truck out here would just happen to be a vintage model?
"Mykes," he said, glancing over, "you with me?"
She opened her eyes. "Hmm?" More awake: "What is it, Pete?"
"I'm getting major vibe-age right now. Something is definitely happening. I think the story might be changing again." He pointed out all of the old vehicles.
Now, both of them watched the road and the surrounding scenery. The Cheyenne exits were approaching.
"Pete," said Myka, pointing. "Look at the gas price being advertised on that sign."
"Okay, there's no way that's the right price," he replied. "That's like a price from the sixties."
"The gas prices, Pete. All the vehicles appearing old. You said yourself, they're all vintage, pre-seventies models. What if—"
"You think we've gone back in time somehow?"
"It wouldn't be the weirdest thing that's happened today." A tremor ran through her, and she pulled Pete's sweatshirt close. "I'm so cold, Pete."
"Alright, hang on, Mykes." He swerved into the far right lane and pulled off the highway onto the next exit ramp. "Let's see if we can figure out what's going on. And hey, if gas is that price, think how cheap a burger and fries will be, Mykes." She smiled weakly.
At the end of the ramp, he turned right. Just as he began to accelerate, a flashing light appeared in the rearview mirror. A police car pulled out after them.
"You gotta be kidding me!" Pete exclaimed.
"You didn't signal," said Myka.
Pete looked at the steering column in frustration. "There's no turn signal," he replied, dumbfounded. "It was here. Now it's gone. It's like the car became an older model with us sitting right here in it."
Glancing over her shoulder at the police car behind them, Myka said, "Maybe you were supposed to use your hand?"
Carefully, Pete brought them to a stop on the dusty shoulder of the road. Just ahead, at an intersection with no traffic light, sat a small two-pump gas station. The price on the sign by the side of the road matched the one back on the highway.
The police car rolled to a stop behind them, and a moment later, the officer sauntered up to their car and peered inside. Pete rolled down the window. "Is there a problem, officer?" He put on a wide smile, glanced worriedly over towards Myka. "Listen, we're actually with the Secret Service," continued Pete, digging for his badge. "And my partner is feeling under the weather. You probably hear stories like this all the time, but, uh . . ."
The officer ignored Pete, calmly writing out a ticket in his book. He handed the slip to Pete and then without a word walked back towards his own vehicle.
Pete looked at Myka. "Well, that was weird. Don't cops talk in the Sixties? Hey, at least you didn't Tesla this one." Myka forced another smile. "I hope they don't expect me to show up in court," Pete laughed, looking down at the ticket in his hand.
The ticket wasn't filled out. Instead, the officer had written a short note on the reverse side.
Your time is running out. Check that service station for All-Purpose UBIK. It will help prevent further decay.
"What the heck is UBIK?" Pete held out the ticket bearing the strange scrawled note towards Myka.
"Pete," she said after studying it for a minute, "this is Artie's handwriting."
"Artie? Are you sure?"
"Positive. Don't you recognize it?"
"How the—" Pete whipped his head around, but the patrol car was already driving away in the opposite direction.
"That name is familiar," said Myka.
Forgetting about the police officer, Pete turned back to Myka. "What name? UBIK?"
She nodded. "I think it's another Philip Dick novel."
"Of course it is," Pete muttered. "But you haven't read it?"
Myka shook her head.
"Well," said Pete, putting the car in gear. "Somehow Artie got a message to us. I guess we should go check it out." He indicated the gas station just ahead. "Whatever this UBIK is." He pulled back onto the road, wheels crunching across the gravel shoulder. He drove them to the gas station. "Good thing I can drive stick," he said, shaking his head at the altered controls of the car. "If this keeps up, we'll be riding a horse and buggy to the Warehouse."
# # #
SOUTH DAKOTA
LEENA'S BED & BREAKFAST
"Is that thing hurting them?" Claudia watched from the hallway as Artie examined Pete and Myka.
"Myka's heart rate is a bit erratic. Pete seems fine for the moment. But since we don't know what the artifact is doing to them, we shouldn't let them linger in there any longer than necessary."
"Does that mean you have a plan? You know how to wake them up."
"I might have a plan. Yes." He returned to the hallway, next to Claudia, and began digging once more through his black bag. "I think . . ." He shuffled the contents around. "It just might . . . yes! That's it. It may just do the trick."
"What? What is it? Tell me, Articus." She glanced at the old man. "That is totally you're new nickname by the way."
Artie muttered something foreign sounding under his breath.
"What?"
"Latin. Which is what they spoke in Rome, by the way. It means, child, you are a pain in my"—he withdrew an item—"yes! Here it is!" He handed the bulky object to Claudia.
"What are we going to do with this?" It was a metal-framed light, sort of like a lantern. The bulb was red.
"If I'm right? Wake up Pete and Myka."
"And if you're not right?" They shared a look. "Stupid question. Nevermind. You've got this, Articus. Red-haired girl shutting up now."
# # #
SOMEWHEN IN CHEYENNE, WYOMING
"Apply liberally," said Pete, reading the label on the aerosol can. "Guaranteed to freshen up even the most stubborn stale odors, liven up faded colors, and add years to the life of your most precious possessions with its patented protective formula." He searched the can for ingredients, but found no further information. "What the heck is this stuff?"
"It does the trick." Pete looked up, found the teenage cashier watching him. The pimply-faced boy gestured to the can he was holding. "My girlfriend used that stuff when she was under the weather with mono. It pepped her right up."
"It heals people, too?" Pete shook his head dubiously. "I don't know. Where I come from, when something is too good to be true it's probably . . ." He looked back down at the can. "An artifact," he breathed.
"Where are you from?" asked the cashier. "Around here?"
"Uh, South Dakota," Pete answered, distracted. His mind was racing. Artifacts behaved like this; but then, he and Myka were already trapped within the effect of an artifact, so maybe the odd can of UBIK, a creation of the author Philip K. Dick, was just a component of the reality-altering effect generated by the Lava lamp. "How much?" he asked.
"Forty dollars."
"Forty bucks? That seems a bit expensive for . . . whenever this is." But if it could actually help them, it would be worth it. After all, it was the strange note written by the police officer on the back of that ticket, but actually sent to them somehow from Artie, which had brought him here. Led him to this odd can of whatever.
Pete dug out his wallet and peered inside. All of his bills had reverted to earlier versions, all dated from the Forties and Fifties. At least he wouldn't have to try and explain why his money had future dates stamped on them. And thankfully, he had just enough to pay for the expensive spray can. As he handed over the money, he caught sight of a notepad resting on the counter, the top sheet of which was filled with doodles. The same doodle, over and over. That fish-shaped symbol, the two intersecting curved lines. The symbol which that man back in Japanese Berkeley had told him to watch out for. The teenage cashier gave Pete his change and flashed a secretive smile.
Thanking the kid, Pete hurried outside.
"Alright, Mykes," he said, standing at her lowered window. "I got it." He held the can up for her inspection.
"How do we use it?"
"Just spray it on us, I guess. Whatever we want to stop going backwards in time." He raised the can. "Well, here goes nothing." He pressed the nozzle and sprayed the contents all over himself. Next he reached inside the passenger window. "Close your eyes," he told Myka, before covering her head to feet in the strange spray.
"Smells lemon-y," said Myka, sniffing.
"A little, said Pete. He opened the back door of the car, sprayed more within. He coated the whole exterior of the car, sprayed under the hood, got the tires, and finally inside around the driver's side, the steering wheel and the dashboard.
"There we go," he said, shaking the now-empty can. "Hope it does the trick." He climbed inside the car, tossed the empty aerosol can into the backseat. "That cost me forty bucks." Crestfallen, he added, "I didn't get a receipt."
Ahead, an antique car puttered past, going maybe twenty miles an hour. "Okay, that is an old car, Mykes. Time is still slipping back. We have to hurry."
"I feel a little better," she replied. She was moving his sweatshirt aside. "Not as cold. My head still feels . . . not quite right."
"Hang on just a bit longer. Next stop, Leena's."
# # #
Pete looked forlornly at the stopped car. "I wasn't counting on gas stations no longer existing." He turned and stared off in the direction they had been travelling. "We're so close. I'm sorry, Myka."
"It's okay." She was leaning heavily on the silent, unmoving car.
"We should only be a few miles from Leena's. Assuming it's still there. Of course, it won't be Leena's. Mykes, what if we're too far back and the B&B is gone? Are we stuck here?"
"I don't know, Pete."
From back along the dirt road came the sound of an approaching buggy. "Do you hear that, Myka?"
Together, they waited and watched.
A moment later, the buggy, a black horse at its head, came into view. The driver was a man. Seated with him on the bench were a woman, likely his wife, and two small children, all of them dressed in old-fashioned dress clothes. The buggy slowed and stopped.
"Need you assistance, sir?" called the man. "Madam?"
"Yes! Yeah, we do! Myka"—Pete turned to his partner—"we're saved."
"What manner of vehicle is that?" asked the man.
"The not moving kind," Pete told him. "Our horses sort of split. Listen, can we get a ride with you folks? About five miles farther up this way. There should be a bed and breakfast there. An inn, do you know it?"
"Aye, I know it."
"You are dressed rather oddly," said the woman, from the seat beside her husband.
"Well, we were dressed for, uh, work." Pete looked down at himself. Myka had his hooded sweatshirt. He was wearing a plain gray T-shirt, slacks. Sneakers. The woman's clothes appeared quaint and old-fashioned to Pete, turn of the century.
She whispered something to her husband, who shook his head. She whispered with more animation. Again, her husband shook his head. She hissed something, which Pete caught part of — something about their children. Finally, the man appeared to relent.
"Alas, friend, we're in a hurry and must be on our way." He looked apologetic. "I am sorry." He moved to urge the horse onward.
"Wait! Please, stop!" Pete thrust his badge forward. "United States Secret Service," he cried. "We need your vehicle."
"Secret Service?" The couple shared a confused look.
"Federal agents," called Myka, brandishing the Tesla. The family looked wide-eyed at the strange weapon.
"What on Earth is that?" asked the woman, covering her mouth with a hand. The younger of the two children began to cry. The woman hugged the child close, stroked th child's hair.
"Sorry," said Myka, grimacing. She tried to stand straight, but fell back against the car, too weak to remain upright unassisted. "But, we really need your buggy."
# # #
"The President?" asked the bewildered man, staring up at Pete and Myka, who were now seated on the bench that he and his family had just vacated. "Of the United States?" The man and his family were standing together on the side of the road.
"That's right," answered Myka.
Pete, meanwhile, was looking with some confusion at the reins.
"What exactly is the President doing in South Dakota?" asked the woman, frowning.
"Umm." Myka searched for an answer. "Campaigning."
"Ready, Mykes?" asked Pete, fumbling with the reins.
"Do you know what you're doing?" she whispered.
"Not really."
"Give me those," she demanded. She took the reins from him, slapping at his hand and ignoring his look of concern. "I'm okay, I've got it." A quick wave of light-headedness came and passed. "Thank you, again," she called to the family standing at the side of the road.
"Your country thanks you, too," said Pete. He tossed the keys for the rental car to the man, who caught them deftly out of the air. He looked at the keys oddly. "It's all yours," Pete said, as the buggy began moving. "It's a stick shift now. But it drives great. It needs a tank of gas, though. You'll probably have to wait a while until gas stations are invented."
A moment later when Pete looked back, the family was still standing where they'd left them, watching as their horse and buggy rumbled farther and farther away.