WHY IS THE TIME MACHINE FULL OF SNAKES? Who: Alex and Lorna Summers Where: London What: meeting H.G. Wells When: 1890's Warnings/Rating: Silly violence against fictional animals and snakes Status complete
Alex grinned as he finished dressing. They had been in England for a month and had a month to go now, and he and Lorna were headed out on their second day out together, a date day in old 1800’s England! This was cool! He smiled as he slipped his coin purse into his belt, and his rod into his jacket. He had taken to carrying it as it was one of the things that ‘civilized’ men could do to protect themselves in England, where guns were not really liked a lot.
Lorna was adjusting her vest as she made her way through the room. He hair was freshly dyed and didn’t need a hat, so she was going to take along a pretty lace parasol she’d knit and embroidered instead. Having a day off was fantastic, and getting out of the house was nice, even if London was hot and smelled horrible. She took Alex’s arm grinning cheerfully at him. “You look great.”
“You too, gorgeous.” He raised her arm and kissed her hand, then nodded. “I heard tell of a good farmer’s market, with an actual newfangled drink place which serves coffee of a kind, near the latest playhouse that opened. So we can see some fresh food and stuff, maybe get some coffee, and maybe see a play?” He grinned at her.
Lorna smiled and nodded. “That sounds like fun! Mrs. Van Dyne isn’t expecting us until dinner, so we have plenty of time.” She led the way to the door, opening it with her powers.
Alex smiled and followed her out. He had a bounce in his step and a grin on his face. “This place is kind of fun.” He nodded. New York was fun, but so was London. And even if they only got to be here two months out of the year, if that, even if they were rescued tomorrow, a thing he wished for nightly, this was awesome still.
Lorna nodded and smiled. “It’s pretty nice, but I can’t wait to get back to indoor plumbing.” She scrunched her nose up to illustrate. “But a farmer’s market and play sounds like awesome to me.” She squeezed his arm.
“Me too.” He kissed her nose the chuckled. “For today, we will enjoy it, and worry about the rest tomorrow.” It was a warm day, but with a slight breeze. People were out and about and he grinned as he just walked with her, his wife.
Lorna smiled and took in the sights happily. “You know, our lives are crazy, but they have their benefits.” She stopped him, kissing him softly.
He stopped with her and kissed her back, and hugged her tight. “Yes there are. We don’t go hungry, we see strange new things, we have adventures, and we are together.”
“What more could we ask for?” Lorna said, almost without irony.
Alex smirked at her. “A few modern conveniences, but… you know? I can live without them. As long as I have you. We’re doing pretty damn well.” He kissed her and grinned.
A baby. That was what Lorna wanted most. By now the hope had died down, and she mostly tried not to think about it. She kissed him back, smiling brightly when it broke. “I wonder what kind of produce they’ll have at the market? I’d love some fruit right now.” Getting used to their new diet was almost as hard as giving up indoor plumbing.
He stroked her hair and gripped one of her hands. “Lets go find out. We can see what there is to get, and enjoy the day together.”
Lorna nodded, smiling as she ran off toward the market.
Following her, Alex smirked and knew that this life was just getting better and better. The next few hours only held that as true. A few hours of market wandering however, and a play, made for a thirsty Alex, and so they stopped at a local tavern, a nice one, really. and settled in for a drink and some food.
Lorna was glad she wasn't pregnant when they got to the tavern. The water in London was no good for drinking, but the beer was pretty good. She sat next to Alex, smiling brightly. "I really am enjoying London. It was very nice of Mrs. Van Dyne to bring us along." Lorna smiled when their food was brought out, and took a big drink of her beer.
“Me too. “ A swallow of beer and he continued. “She seems to be quite fond of us, and being a working class servant is not nearly as boring or as annoying as I thought it would be. We get paid and work hard and we even have fun. I like it.” He smiled to Lorna. “And this place is pretty cool.”
Nearby two men were discussing something in rambunctious tones, but the bustle of the tavern didn’t carry their words, not that Alex really cared.
Lorna dug into her meal, eating with gusto. She almost didn’t look up when the rambunctious men started cursing at each other, but one of them was threatening the other with a knife (in a sort of wobbly manner), and then he got punched.
That was when she looked up, because the tavern was suddenly full of a bar fight. She sighed, and used her spoon to deflect a tankard, though the beer still spilled all over her clothes. She stood up and stalked toward the men, pulling a fairly handsome man with a mustache out of the line of a flying beer mug. She used her powers to slow their hands long enough to grab them. She had strong hands from working the farm and kneading bread, not to mention taking care of a rambunctious little girl. “Knock it off!”
Alex sighed and rose and followed along. grabbing the heads to two men who had come to bring chairs against each other, slamming them together and letting them slump, then swing kicking another man in the nose, sending him into a crumpled heap. And he glared as he followed Lorna, Pulling on every ounce of his deadliness as he did so, sending a few men back to their cups, to reconsider getting involved in this particular fight.
The men looked at Lorna, and then at each other. “Who are you, woman? And what are you doing? “ The other man sighed and shook his head. “Forgive him, madame. He knows not his head now, for our argument and his liquor have both gone to his brainpan.”
Lorna nodded and let the eloquent one go. She kept a firm hold on the more belligerent one. “I’ll escort you out, good sir, before you find more trouble than you can manage.” She said it with a soft smile, like she was being nice, but she was mad that her meal had been interrupted, and she wanted this man gone.
The man tried to bluster and jerk loose, but the other laid a hand on his arm. “Go, my friend. We can talk when smarter heads prevail.” With a grumble, the man let himself be led out and called a taxi as soon as he was outside. When Lorna returned, Alex and the man had set tables to right, and he was smiling. “Please allow me to pay for your meal. My name is Herbert Wells.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.” Lorna said with a smile, taking her seat across from Alex. “I just wanted to finish my meal in peace.”
“Nonetheless, I want to.” Alex was staring with an odd look on his face. No way. Herbert Wells? Nice guy, well dressed, and with a pencil and a primitive pad sticking out of one side pocket? No. Way. He coughed and covered with a smile. As well as he could, anyway. “Why don’t you join us, Mister Wells? For a quiet few minutes, anyway.”
He glanced at Lorna, eyes wide.
Lorna giggled. She’d wondered if maybe this was that famous Wells, but she didn’t remember when he’d lived. “That would be lovely, I’d like to hear what that was all about, if you don’t mind.”
“Thank you both.” The man smiled and settled opposite them and waved a hand for a new beer. “I nurse mine, unlike my friend, but my last one was lost in the scuffle. And he was arguing against the possibility raised by another friend of ours, one George Incantatem. George, you see, is an inventor, and he has raised the possibility of time travel.”
Wells looked at them both to see their reactions. And Alex, halfway to drinking, started choking on his beer.
Lorna was mid-bite, and her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Well, surely some things are possible which do not seem like they should be so.”
Alex cleared his throat and nodded. “Some manipulation of energy perhaps, to change how fast things go?”
Happy they had not scoffed, Wells nodded. “Something I do not understand, lady and gentleman, but something I believe could be possible, even if I am somewhat doubtful as to his actually managing it.. I am going to see him straightaway from this place.” Alex shot a look at Lorna and then at Wells. “Would you want company?”
The man stared at them, then grinned. “Yes. I should like that.”
"We both have a deep interest in science," Lorna explained. "I'm Lorna, and that's my husband Alex Summers."
Alex extended his hand to the other man. “Nice to meet you, Mister Wells. “
The man bowed to them both, delighted, and bounced, shaking their hands. “This is fantastic! Are you both sure?” He grinned again.
Alex nodded. “We’re sure, trust us.”
Lorna nodded emphatically. “It sounds amazing!” She reached across the table for Alex’s hand, squeezing it tight. This could be their chance to get home again!
He squeezed her hand in turn, and the man led them out to a hack, and waved for the man to slow and stop. Then he led them in and settled, and Alex followed. “How long has he been working on it?”
Lorna settled in the hack, frustrated by all the skirts she had to wear. The corset alone was a pain in the ass, but the skirts and undergarments were really getting old. “How is he powering it?”
Wells laughed and started to talk. “About a year and a half, he said, and he has some sort of circuitry and gears, something about a stone he found as well. Technology I had not dreamed of, until he told me of it.” Wells shook his head. “The whole thing glows, he said, as if lit from within.”
“That sounds amazing!” Lorna said, and she meant it, too. “Do you think you could travel to the future?”
Alex was curious too, so kept quiet as Wells smiled. “I have no idea what to believe in. If he is accurate, then yes.” He nodded. “It could be the means of walking into the future, and having a glimpse of new things and strange endeavors.”
Alex nodded slowly. “It sounds like the chance of a lifetime.”
“It really does!” She beamed at Wells. “Lucky us for running into you.”
“We’d be glad to help out any way we can.” Alex nodded. This was going to be fun.
Wells smiled to both of them as the carriage pulled up outside a building. “Here we are. Now we learn more!” And he led them out and up to a door, where he knocked, and rocked back on his heels as the door opened, propelled by his knock. The hallway was silent, but a glow came from, far back in it, and a hum that Alex knew and had not heard for over a year. The hum of electricity was low and vibrant, but somehow sounded angry.
Wells led the way in, stepping in carefully, and Alex stepping behind him, every instinct telling him something was wrong. “Hello? George?” Wells voice echoed, and something moved in the darkness. Alex flung himself forward then, just as something large, manlike, and roaring, hurled itself at them. Alex met it with muscles built from hard work and already burning with energy, and the thing howled, fangs as large as his fingers sticking out of an outsized jaw.
“Get back!”
He hurled it back, somehow, and the beastman crashed into one wall, rolle, and coiled to spring, then vanished in a glimmer of light.
Alex panted, shuddering, the arms of his outfit torn into shreds by the claws the thing had shown to wear. “Something, I think, has gone wrong…”
“I daresay, young man. I daresay.”
The feeling of the energy was wrong. Fear gripped Lorna’s stomach, and she shielded herself and Wells as they moved further in. She didn’t see what attacked Alex at first. She shrieked and pulled Wells to her side, which also saved him from an errant bolt of electricity that shot into the wall. She moved to Alex’s side, ready to fight that thing with him. It was a relief when it vanished. “What on Earth was that?”
Alex hmmed, then nodded. “Some sort of beast man.” A morlock, he didn’t say, remembering the books, and thinking Wells had left a few details out in his retelling. He swallowed slowly, then nodded. “We should see if George is still alive, and go slowly. “ He glanced at Wells. “If you’re up for it?”
The man shook himself out, then nodded. “I am. Lets go see.” And he led the way down the hall, Alex and Lorna at his heels, toward the glow. The room revealed a scene of both wonder and nightmare. THe room was filled with twisted metal alongside giant trees that pierced the ceiling, and a small brook that ran right into a wall and vanished. To one side, a Spanish Conquistador helmet lay on it’s side in a giant footprint, dented by something stepping on it, perhaps.
Ribbons of gold ran down a rock face to one side, and a passage led into darkness, where chants came, low and distant, and more glows, while a faint shimmer revealed something vaguely like a Husk attacking someone, then vanishing, in a haze that vanished immediately thereafter.
And on the far wall, machinery had been built unlike anything Alex had ever seen. It looked like steampunk images he had seen, but also incorporated things he had never imagined, and in the center of it was a glowing circle, holding steady and shimmering with energy.
“Oh Boy…”
Lorna whistled and began using her powers to find the inventor of the machine in all this mess. “Be careful, Mr. Wells. This could be dangerous.”
The room seemed to ripple some. as if distorted, and Lorna’s powers would find that energy was there, but diluted, as if not quite solid, or something projected. And there was a scent in the air, something almost familiar, as Alex glanced around the room, seeing one wall shimmer then take on a scene as if of a group of golden skinned people, peacefully cutting… cutting grass? What? Alex shook his head as the images changed and he felt his nostrils itch.
“Something is wrong here.”
“No kidding. I can’t find the inventor.” She frowned, then tried to study the energy of the time machine itself. Maybe that would yield some clues.
Alex glanced around, and as he did so he smelled that smell again. Huhn. “Maybe we should get out of here.”
If Lorna looked close enough, she would see the lines of the machine were wrong, somehow out of place, and that there was a door behind that seeming gateway, a solid one. And fans behind seeming views into others times, blowing in air, and something else…
Lorna looked at the machine, using her powers to feel the energy waves out. She corrected the machine’s calibration, searching for any sign of human life.
With the machine’s calibration corrected, suddenly it glowed brightly, something clicked, and then everything vanished. And the room was empty, save for windblown papers, a few purpleish flowers, and remnants of a desk, pieces of machinery, and that door. Behind it came a groan, even as the energy vanished and Lorna would be able to sense him.
Alex blinked. “What the---?” The scent was gone, too, mostly.”How did that happen?”
“I fixed it.” Lorna said softly, rushing to the door to open it for the man on the other side.
“Holy smokes.” The man stumbled out and Wells moved forward with a cry. “George! What happened?”
THe man stumbled to Lorna and clung, seemingly incoherent, and out of it, his hands shaking and his whole body battered and bruised, his clothing torn. “Time machine didn’t work. Worked like a gate. The focus blew up, and… then things started coming through. Some… flowers… started making me hazy…”
Alex nodded. “So that was what I smelled.”
Lorna held him, rubbing his shoulders. “Shh. Okay. Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll give you something for your nerves.” She still had to medicate her own condition, and she always kept her pipe and stash on hand.
George sank to the floor against one wall, Wells at his side and Alex moved to Lorna’s side. “That was fun, huh?” His words were soft.
Wells was amazed. “Oh! If it had worked! Can you imagine the glory and horror of traveling in time, seeing the far future, perhaps even the brute we saw could be there!” Wells eyes were distant, wondering and Alex grinned to himself. The spark had been lit.
Lorna chuckled and started the pipe for George, showing him how to work it. “It would be pretty amazing. I wonder if we could help out? It seems like he’s close, I bet the only thing standing in the way is a really minor error.”
Alex nodded. “It could be. It’d be nice to visit any time, any place…” To get home. “I’ll take a look in the other room…” He started up and toward it as Wells smiled. “That could be fascinating!”
George was fumbling with Lorna and the pipe, then inhaling and coughing a little. “Oh! Tell him to watch out fo the snake!”
Alex, who had wandered into the room, peered around, then moved to the side of the machine he found, pulling a panel off,. then cried out as a snake, as big as his arm, lunged out. “Son of a bitch!”
“Shit.” Lorna noted, before dashing off after Alex. She grabbed the snake with her powers, and put a shield in front of Alex to be extra sure he’d be okay.
Alex was panting and was about to say something when a second snake hissed and uncoiled near his feet. With a swear, he shot the snake. And there was a sparking and hissing sound as something in the machine started burning. “Oh damn it!”
“WHY IS THE TIME MACHINE FULL OF SNAKES?” Lorna asked, flinging the snake back into the room. “WHAT IS ON FIRE?”
Alex scrambled back and then swore as the whole room seemed to start to spark and flare, and he grabbed Lorna and hurried her out. “I don’t know, and don’t care at the moment, and we all need to get out of here right now!” He swore to himself. A working time machine! They had been so close!!
As they came running out, he scooped up George. “We need to go, now.”
Lorna used her powers to hurry both George and Hubert out the door. The smoke was spreading through the house, and she was very worried her voluminous skirt would be ignited.
When they were outside, Alex shook his head. “I think we’re okay, maybe, and we should call the fire-” And then there was an explosion, and the whole house shuddered, almost seemed to twist, and exploded, or, more accurately, seemed to collapse inward, all at once, burning merrily. Alex stared.
Wells, helping Lorna hold up George, swallowed. “You know… I think I need a drink.”
Lorna gaped as the house collapsed. “Yeah, let’s go get drunk.” She sighed and took her pipe back from George and began packing it again. “I’m going to smoke a bowl and try not to think about this.”
Alex nodded. George, finally out of it enough to realize what was happening, stared at the house, then at them , and fainted.