Читать книгу THE BETTER PART OF VALOR - Morgan Mackinnon - Страница 19

Chapter 12

Langley, Virginia

CATE Project Lab, 2002

When the two friends regained consciousness, they were lying, still on the blanket, he still on top of her, in the glass chamber of the CATE project’s transplacement device. At about ten by ten feet, it could accommodate anything transplaced that would fit inside. The door smoothly swished open, and Cresta was on her feet, stomping outside.

“Who is the asshole who just activated retrieve?”

Rushing into the room was the junior engineer, Kurt Kaufman.

“I’m sorry, Doctor! I don’t know what happened. The device, the retrieve function just activated by itself. I was watching when it tripped. I’m so sorry!”

By this time, Jim Sanford, Vernita Connor, and George Montoya also rushed into the chamber and stood with open mouths.

Cresta regained her composure, shaking as she did so, smoothed down her rumpled afternoon costume, and looked at the man still in the chamber who had jerked to a tense crouch, hands knotted into fists, ready to fight. Cresta approached him with her palms up.

“Myles? Please believe me there is no danger. You must trust me on this. Please?” The man glanced around, assessing his surroundings, perhaps looking for enemy snipers and seeing none, unclenched his hands. Nodding at the woman in front of him, he was indicating he was not going to kill anyone within the next few seconds but she had better make her explanation quick.

Cresta took his arm and announced to the others, “People? May I present to you Lieutenant Colonel Myles Walter Keogh, Union Army, and Captain, US Army, Seventh Cavalry.”

She got Myles seated in the conference room off the main lab and gave him a glass of whiskey. Waiting until he’d taken a large swallow, Cresta looked at him.

“Myles? I know this is going to be hard to explain, so try to stick with me. The first thing I want you to know is that I have never lied to you. My name is Cresta Leigh. I am an alienist or, as we call us now, a psychologist, and I am a widow. I really did have an ancestor named Kiernan McDade who lived in Dublin. Okay? The only thing I didn’t mention to you is that I am from your future.”

Seeing the look of sudden disbelief, she held up her hands again. “I know it’s a big stretch, but you need to believe that I mean you no harm and the people here mean you no harm. In fact, I was sent to your time to contact you and bring you to the future which is…now.”

She glared again at second engineer Kurt Kaufman, who was still within her sight.

“You should have had enough time in the past, I mean, in your time for me to explain but you, we didn’t. That means we’ll try to explain to you now, what all this means and why we need you here in the future. I mean the present. I’m asking you to trust me. Can you do that?”

Her eyes. Those impossibly violet eyes. Keogh wasn’t sure what was going on, but he saw compassion and…caring in those eyes. Did she care for him? He squelched the notion. Yet she said these strange people meant him no harm, so perhaps the least he could do would be hear them out. He addressed the people in the room at random.

“What future? What…year?”

“Myles, it’s the year twenty-oh-two. One hundred twenty-seven years from where you and I just were.”

Keogh was speechless at first. He wanted to go back to the blanket in the grass and the picnic basket and the poems. These strange people were all looking at him now, expecting some reply, so he did the best he could.

“I do not know what any of this means, but I believe I know Cresta well enough by now to let you explain. I have fought in nearly one hundred battles of the Civil War and am assigned to the Seventh US Cavalry in Dakota Territory fighting Indians. I believe I can handle this.”

Cresta heaved a sigh of relief. Let’s get settled, let’s talk about this and see what can be done to salvage this operation. She explained to Keogh where the restroom was as well as what it was and said they needed to get “the team” assembled before they could begin. Keogh nodded in understanding, seeming to intuitively comprehend he would not be able to break out of here, wherever or whenever this was, by brute force, so he might as well sit still and see what happened.

As Cresta went tiredly out into the corridor, Vernita grabbed her hands. “You bitch! We knew by his photo he’d be a fox, but he’s much better in person! And landing on the transplacement platform on a blanket, him on top of you? Girl!”

Dr. Leigh shook her head. “It’s not what it looked like. He thought he was protecting me.”

Vernita let her go but thought to herself, Damn! I wish I could find somebody who looks like that to protect me!

Cresta headed for her locker, knowing just how much they really had to explain to Keogh. Her mind drifted back more than a month ago when the whole thing started and that ridiculous moment when she spilled coffee on her suit.