Timestruck Read online

  The Y2K problem that so terrified Mrs. Benson had resulted from the need to conserve expensive space in a computer’s memory. Traditionally, only the last two digits of a year were used when recording dates in a computer program. Thus, when the year 2000 arrived, some computers were going to read the new year as 1900. Others would stop working altogether.

  As Gina had assured Mrs. Benson, most large corporations and governments had already made the changes necessary to eliminate the problem. Unfortunately, there were no hard facts available on how many computers were not Y2K compliant. Predictions on what would happen at midnight ranged from airplanes falling out of the sky and elevators tumbling dozens of stories to the ground, to the stock market crashing and causing a worldwide depression while nuclear missiles launched themselves at predetermined targets, to nothing much happening at all. In Gina’s opinion, the biggest problem of Y2K was the uncertainty, that allowed all kinds of shady characters to make money from the fears of the uninformed.

  But whether the world entered the new millennium with disastrous results or with a snore, for a small business like The Brown Detective Agency, the issue was economically crucial. No bills could be sent out until the date on the computer was adjusted, so that charges made to clients would be properly listed. In addition, if income tax information was incorrectly dated, and tax payments weren’t made on time, the agency would soon be in trouble with the IRS.

  The computer Gina was dealing with was one of those programmed to reset itself to an earlier date. From the information showing on the monitor, it looked as if the automatic resetting had already taken place, which was strange. The year was showing as 1972. Even more puzzling was the time of day, which was displayed as 11:57:06 P.M., exactly twelve hours late. But it didn’t matter. The system was so simple, not to say primitive, that it wasn’t going to take long to reset both the date and the time.

  “I’ll be out of here in half an hour, forty-five minutes tops,” Gina told herself, and began to type in her first command.

  It was then that she made the mistake. For someone whose fingers were as nimble on the keyboard as hers were, and who was as knowledgeable about computers as she was, it was a mystery to her how it happened. Afterward, when she thought about those few crucial moments, all she could remember clearly was sitting there, staring

  at the screen where 792 appeared, and realizing that, instead of typing in the correction she intended, she had inadvertently transposed three of the numbers from the wrong year – and she had already hit the Enter key.

  She was going to have to start over again to reset the program. She’d have to give up her lunch break, and she was going to have to rush to pick up her paycheck in time to cash it before the credit union closed. It was definitely not a good way to end the old year.

  In desperation she hit the Escape key twice, hoping against all logic that she could erase the error she had made. Nothing much happened. The computer continued to display the date as 792, though the time had advanced to 11:59:10 P.M.

  “The third time is the charm, so I’ll try it once more,” she said, and pressed the Escape key again.

  The time display changed to 12:00:00.

  “It’s not midnight. It’s not even noon yet. What’s going on?”

  As the time display changed to 12:00:01 A.M., the computer exploded. It happened silently and in slow motion. The screen simply split open before Gina’s face, and a red flame enveloped her. She tried to scream, but she could not draw in enough air to make any noise at all.

  She thought she was about to die, and for an instant thoughts of all the things she still wanted to do in her lifetime whirled through her distraught mind. Then the fiery redness was gone. In its place was a cold black tunnel through which she was being sucked. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and her last conscious thought was that, contrary to everything she had read or heard about the death experience, there was no light at all at the end of this particular tunnel.

  1:30 P.M.

  Friday, December 31, 1999

  “Honey, I’m home!” The bearded man stuck his head around the door frame and peered into the inner office. “What the – Gone already? That’s the thanks I get after I bring you a cup of coffee?”

  He glanced around the empty room, then stared at the computer. The screen displayed a list of names, addresses, and charges—all the information he needed to start billing clients. On closer inspection he saw that the dates were correct.

  “All right! She did fix it.” Taking a swig from the cup of coffee he had intended for Virginia McCain, he sat down at the computer. “Now I can print out the January bills. Bob Brown is going to be very happy about that.”

  Being careful not to spill coffee on the keyboard, he set to work, alternately typing commands into the machine and sipping the hot, bitter liquid. Within a few minutes he had forgotten all about Virginia McCain.

  When late evening came and Gina still hadn’t returned to the shabby boardinghouse where she lived, Mrs. Benson grumbled for an hour or so. Precisely at midnight, knowing her rights as a landlady, she went into Gina’s single room and packed up her few belongings. She stacked the boxes in the basement, where she kept the effects of any tenants who left without paying their rent. It was a common enough occurrence, especially with young people, who, in Mrs. Benson’s opinion, were almost always flighty and unpredictable.

  Sometimes renters came back later and paid what they owed, plus interest, so they could get their belongings back. Most of the time the stuff just accumulated until Mrs. Benson called in a local charity organization to haul the boxes away.

  She wasn’t overly concerned about Gina, although she was greatly annoyed at not receiving the rent on the room. She was also disappointed in the young woman. Sometimes people you didn’t think would turn out to be deadbeats, were. It was now clear to Mrs. Benson that Gina McCain was one of them.

  Chapter 2

  For Gina, time had stopped. Unable to breathe or move, she was being sucked through that cold black tunnel for what seemed like an eternity. She wasn’t experiencing any pain, but the dark emptiness and the lack of any sense of direction combined to produce heart-pounding terror.

  Abruptly, with no warning at all, the darkness ended, and she was bathed in light. And with the awful clarity that sometimes occurs during nightmares, she knew she was falling from high above the earth. She wasn’t plummeting downward, she was just drifting, softly and gently, like a feather borne on a current of air.

  Still, she was certain that when she finally hit the ground, she was going to die. Oddly, though, now that she could use her eyes again, she wasn’t afraid. What she felt was curiosity, so as she slowly turned head over heels, she took the opportunity to look around.

  She was seeing through a mist that softened every object. Perhaps the haziness was due to oxygen deprivation after not being able to breathe for so long. Or maybe her vision had been damaged by the computer explosion. It didn’t seem to matter which it was. Since she wasn’t able to do anything about what was happening, she just accepted her predicament.

  The blue sky above her contained a few streaky white clouds. Off to one side was a range of mountains, tall, jagged peaks topped with snow tinted pink and gold by a sun that appeared to be rising. Below her stretched a thickly wooded landscape. In some places the forest had been cleared and the land planted in neat rows. Born and bred in a big city, Gina wasn’t sure what the crops were, and she couldn’t tell the exact time of year, but the leaves on the trees indicated either spring or summer.

  She did like all the different shades of green, and the way a silver stream meandered through the land. Seen through the softening mist, the landscape was prettier than Rockefeller Center in the springtime. She wondered idly if there were any hyacinths growing down there. She always liked the blue hyacinths planted beside the fountains at Rockefeller Center.

  Without any effort on her part she turned over again, and this time she noticed a structure directly below her, set in the
largest of the cleared areas. A wooden palisade surrounded a group of buildings made of pale, creamy stone. Right in the middle of the enclosed space was a two-story building with a higher tower at one corner. As she revolved in the air, Gina glimpsed what looked like a garden, with a few small trees and neatly laid out beds of colorful flowers.

  If it were possible to breathe, she would have sighed, for she experienced an intense longing to explore that handsome central building and to sit in the garden under the trees when they were in bloom. It was a ridiculous idea. She knew nothing about gardens, and she didn’t know if those were the kind of trees that ever bloomed. The longing she felt was the futile, last-minute daydream of a woman about to perish. And yet, so strong was the emotion that tears started in her eyes as she relinquished the thought.

  She kept looking at the garden until she suddenly realized that she was about to crash through the red-tile roof of the big building. The tiles were just a few feet away. She was falling faster now, and she discovered that she could breathe again. She filled her lungs with one frantic gulp of air and let it out in a last, despairing shriek as she fell through the roof.

  “No!”

  Gina landed hard on a bed. She was aware of a mattress bouncing under the sudden impact and of a sound like that of ropes creaking. Someone was occupying the bed, and her precipitous arrival knocked the breath out of him. She heard his gasp. Of course it was a man; with her luck, it would be a very angry man. She had fallen face down, but she was quickly tossed over onto her back, with the man firmly on top of her, holding her thighs between his. Her wrists were wrenched up over her head and pinned there by hands so strong they were like iron shackles. With her body pressed against him from shoulder to thigh, she could feel that he was a very manly man, and he had a deep, loud voice. His outraged roar almost broke her eardrums.

  “What in the name of all the saints are you doing? I was asleep!”

  Gina was so astonished to find herself still alive that she couldn’t speak at first. She looked upward, bemused, to find the ceiling of the room intact, with nary a sign that she had just crashed through it. She blinked a couple of times before she realized that the jolt of her landing had banished the mist obscuring her vision. With perfect clarity she saw her coat drift through the ceiling and watched it float down to cover both her and the man under a swath of black leather.

  With another roar the man threw off the coat, just as Gina’s heavy purse thudded to the floor beside the bed. There was still no sign of a hole in the ceiling.

  Early morning light was pouring through a pair of windows at one side of the room, so Gina was able to see with unusually sharp vision the man who held her pinned to the mattress. He was staring at her as if he could not believe what his eyes beheld. Still holding on to her wrists, he shifted position so his astonished gaze could take in all of her, from her short dark hair to her black turtle-neck sweater and black leather miniskirt, to her black tights and boots. Then he moved on top of her again and looked directly into her eyes.

  Gina stared back into silvery gray eyes that were like mysterious, bottomless pools of ice water. His lashes and eyebrows were brown, but his hair was blond, cut to just below his ears. He was a handsome man, with a long, straight nose and a square jaw, and he had definitely been working out regularly, because he was a mass of hard muscle pressing down on her skinny body.

  His mouth was beautiful. Perfectly chiseled lips curved upward to meet a tiny line at either side of his mouth. Gina guessed he was a person who smiled a lot. She caught a quick whiff of a slightly piney fragrance. He smelled good, too. Her nose seemed to be working overtime, just like her eyesight.

  The unknown man’s weight on her was not unpleasant; it was almost welcome. For just a moment Gina reacted to his closeness with unaccustomed warmth, relaxing a little in his grasp, almost as if she trusted him. Her lips parted in an involuntary invitation. She moistened her dry lips, and she saw how he watched the slow movement of her tongue.

  That was the instant when she remembered what she hated most about men.

  “Get off me, you jerk!” She heaved with all her strength. The man didn’t move an inch. To her fury, he just grinned at her. Then, slowly, as if to make it plain that the action was by his choice and not by her command, he rolled to the side of the bed and sat there.

  “Who are you?” he demanded. He was no longer shouting. His voice was lowered to a pleasant level, but his eyes were narrowed, and Gina realized he was regarding her as if she were an enemy. “You are not one of the maidservants. I have never seen you before.”

  She couldn’t blame him for being annoyed. After all, she had dropped into his bedroom while he was sound asleep. She disliked being wakened abruptly, and it was pretty clear that he felt the same way.

  “Who are you?” she asked, rubbing her forehead with one freed hand, trying to clear her mind. What, exactly, had happened?

  ‘What are you?” he countered.

  “What do you mean, what am I? You have eyes. Can’t you see I’m a woman?”

  “I can see that you appear to be a woman. I also note that you bear no weapons, unless you carry a knife hidden in those very impractical boots.”

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  “In my bedroom,” he said. “I assumed you knew as much. Answer my questions. Who are you? Did Fastrada send you?”

  “Who is Fastrada?” The instant she spoke she could see that he thought he had made a mistake. It was apparent to her that he wished he hadn’t mentioned that peculiar-sounding name.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “What kind of language is this we’re talking? How do I know how to speak it, and how do I know it’s not English?”

  “I understand now,” he responded. “You are mad. Who but a madwoman would dress as you do? Who else would claim that she doesn’t recognize the language she is speaking as if she was born to it, or dare to say she doesn’t know who is the queen of Francia?”

  He put out a hand to touch her arm. Fearing he’d try to restrain her again, Gina scrambled to the wooden footboard of the bed, as far from him as she could get. It was impossible to get out on the opposite side from him, because the side of the bed was pushed against the wall. In fact, the bed looked like a studio couch or one of the fancy daybeds Gina had seen in upscale furniture advertisements.

  “What I need to know,” the man said, his words drawing her attention away from consideration of his bed, “is how a madwoman found her way into my private chamber without being stopped by the guards. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” he added in a gentle tone, as if he didn’t want to upset her.

  “Don’t patronize me!” she shouted at him. “You want to see mad? I’ll show you mad! Let me out of here. So help me, if this is some kind of trick, I’ll sue you for everything you’ve got.”

  “You are the one who leapt on top of me,” he said quietly.

  His reminder of the way she had arrived in his room quelled her brief bout of belligerence. Gina was suddenly too terrified to think rationally. She had no idea what was happening, or where she was, or who the handsome weirdo in the bed was. He ought to be ashamed of himself, talking so calmly to a woman he didn’t even know when he wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.

  “Oh, dear,” she whispered, gaping at the unclothed, obviously very strong man whose muscular presence on the edge of the bed was preventing her from escaping. He didn’t seem to be aware of his own nakedness, but she was having trouble keeping her eyes focused above his waist. “Do you think you could get dressed?”

  “That is the first sensible thing you’ve said. It’s an excellent idea, too.”

  His smile was devastating. It lit up his face and made his eyes glow. She could almost forgive him for calling her a crazy woman. She watched with great interest as he rose to pick up a loose woolen tunic and pull it over his head. The way his shoulder muscles rippled was truly fascinating. It wasn’t until he had the plain blue garment on that she realized she should have seized the oppor
tunity to escape from the room while he was distracted. But if she did escape, where would she go?

  “Please tell me where I am,” she said.

  “I will do so, if in return you will tell me how you came into my bedchamber unchallenged by my men-at-arms.”

  “It’s a deal.” That wasn’t exactly what she said. In the strange language they were speaking, which she understood perfectly, though she could speak nothing but English, the word she used was closer to compact, or firm agreement.

  “You are in Francia,” he said.

  “That tells me exactly nothing. Where in Francia?” Though she said France, the word came out as Francia, and she knew somehow that the word she’d wanted to use didn’t exist yet. What was going on?

  “This household is in Bavaria,” he said.

  “That explains the mountains.” She had seen the movie version of The Sound of Music. In her confused state she was eager to seize on any hint of the familiar. “Are we near Salzburg?”

  “Nearer to Regensburg.”

  “I don’t know that place.”

  “Don’t you?” He looked at her as if he didn’t believe her. Or as if he still thought she was crazy.

  “Tell me how I got here.”

  “That,” he said, “is something you have agreed to explain to me.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t explain it. I was hoping you’d know.”

  “Conversation might be easier if you reveal your name,” he said with a faint smile. “I am Dominick, lord of these lands, loyal noble to Charles, king of the Franks.”

  “Do they call you Dom or Nick?” she asked, stalling for time while she tried to figure out if he could be the crazy one.