UNTIMED by Andy Gavin Illustrations by Dave Phillips Advance Review First Chapter Cover Art Not Final Formatting Not Final Illustration Formatting Not Final © 2011-2012, Andy Gavin. All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. MASCHERATO PUBLISHING PO Box 1550 Pacific Palisades, Ca, 90272 publishing@mascherato.com http://andy-gavin-author.com Copyright © Andy Gavin 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. MS version: 3.20a 75,300 words, November 19, 2012, 1:19:29 PM PST Cover Photo-Illustration copyright © Cliff Nielsen 2012 Interior Illustrations copyright © Dave Phillips 2012 E-book ISBN 978-1-937945-05-3 Hardcover ISBN 978-1-937945-03-9 Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-937945-04-6 Chapter One: Ignored Philadelphia, Autumn, 2010 and Winter, 2011 My mother loves me and all, it’s just that she can’t remember my name. “Call him Charlie,” is written on yellow Post-its all over our house. “Just a family joke,” Mom tells the rare friend who drops by and bothers to inquire. But it isn’t funny. And those house guests are more likely to notice the neon paper squares than they are me. “He’s getting so tall. What was his name again?” I always remind them. Not that it helps. Only Dad remembers, and Aunt Sophie, but they’re gone more often than not — months at a stretch. This time, when my dad returns he brings a ginormous stack of history books. “Read these.” The muted bulbs in the living room sharpen the shadows on his pale face, making him stand out like a cartoon in a live-action film. “You have to keep your facts straight.” I peruse the titles: Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Asprey’s The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, Ben Franklin’s Autobiography. Just three among many. “Listen to him, Charlie,” Aunt Sophie says. “You’ll be glad you did.” She brushes out her shining tresses. Dad’s sister always has a glow about her. “Where’d you go this time?” I say. Dad’s supposed to be this hotshot political historian. He reads and writes a lot, but I’ve never seen his name in print. “The Middle East.” Aunt Sophie’s more specific than usual. Dad frowns. “We dropped in on someone important.” When he says dropped in, I imagine Sophie dressed like Lara Croft, parachuting into Baghdad. “Is that where you got the new scar?” A pink welt snakes from the bridge of her nose to the corner of her mouth. She looks older than I remember — they both do. “An argument with a rival… researcher.” My aunt winds the old mantel clock, the one that belonged to her mom, my grandmother. Then tosses the key to my dad, who fumbles and drops it. “You need to tell him soon,” she says. Tell me what? I hate this. Dad looks away. “We’ll come back for his birthday.” * * * While Dad and Sophie unpack, Mom helps me carry the dusty books to my room. “Time isn’t right for either of you yet,” she says. Whatever that means. I snag the thinnest volume and hop onto my bed to read. Not much else to do since I don’t have friends and school makes me feel even more the ghost. * * * Mrs. Pinkle, my ninth-grade homeroom teacher, pauses on my name during roll call. Like she does every morning. “Charlie Horologe,” she says, squinting at the laminated chart, then at me, as if seeing both for the first time. “Here.” On the bright side, I always get B’s no matter what I write on the paper. In Earth Science, the teacher describes a primitive battery built from a glass of salt water covered in tin foil. She calls it a Leyden jar. I already know about them from Ben Franklin’s autobiography — he used one to kill and cook a turkey, which I doubt would fly with the school board. The teacher beats the topic to death, so I practice note-taking in the cipher Dad taught me over the weekend. He shows me all sorts of cool things — when he’s around. The system’s simple, just twenty-six made-up letters to replace the regular ones. Nobody else knows them. I write in highlighter and outline in red, which makes the page look like some punk wizard’s spell book. My science notes devolve into a story about how the blonde in the front row invites me to help her with her homework. At her house. In her bedroom. With her parents out of town. Good thing it’s in cipher. After school is practice, and that’s better. With my slight build and long legs, I’m good at track and field — not that the rest of the team notices. A more observant coach might call me a well-rounded athlete. The pole vault is my favorite, and only one other kid can even do it right. Last month at the Pennsylvania state regionals, I cleared 16’ 4”, which for my age is like world class. Davy — that’s the other guy — managed just 14’ 8”. And won. As if I never ran that track, planted the pole in the box, and threw myself over the bar. The judges were looking somewhere else? Or maybe their score sheets blew away in the wind. I’m used to it. * * * Dad is nothing if not scheduled. He and Sophie visit twice a year, two weeks in October, and two weeks in January for my birthday. But after my aunt’s little aside, I don’t know if I can wait three months for the big reveal, whatever it is. So I catch them in his study. “Dad, why don’t you just tell me?” He looks up from his cheesesteak and the book he’s reading — small, with only a few shiny metallic pages. I haven’t seen it before, which is strange, since I comb through all his worldly possessions whenever he’s away. “I’m old enough to handle it.” I sound brave, but even Mom never looks him in the eye. And he’s never home — it’s not like I have practice at this. My stomach twists. I might not like what he has to say. “Man is not God.” One of his favorite expressions, but what the hell is it supposed to mean? “Fink.” For some reason Aunt Sophie always calls him that. “Show him the pages.” He sighs and gathers up the weird metallic book. “This is between the three of us. No need to stress your mother.” What about stressing me? He stares at some imaginary point on the ceiling, like he always does when he lectures. “Our family has—” The front doorbell rings. His gaze snaps down, his mouth snaps shut. Out in the hall, I hear my mom answer, then men’s voices. “Charlie,” Dad says, “go see who it is.” “But—” “Close the door behind you.” * * * I stomp down the hall. Mom is talking to the police. Two cops and a guy in a suit. “Ma’am,” Uniform with Mustache says, “is your husband home?” “May I help you?” she asks. “We have a warrant.” He fumbles in his jacket and hands her an official-looking paper. “This is for John Doe,” she tells him. The cop turns to the man in the suit, deep blue, with a matching bowler hat like some guy on PBS. The dude even carries a cane — not the old-lady-with-a-limp type, more stroll-in-the-park. Blue Suit — a detective? — tilts forward to whisper in the cop’s ear. I can’t hear anything but I notice his outfit is crisp. Every seam stands out bright and clear. Everything else about him too. “We need to speak to your husband,” the uniformed cop says. I mentally kick myself for not ambushing Dad an hour earlier. Eventually, the police tire of the runaround and shove past me as if I don’t exist. I tag along to watch them search the house. When they reach the study, Dad and Sophie are gone. The window’s closed and bolted from the inside. All the other rooms are empty too, but this doesn’t stop them from slitting every sofa cushion and uncovering my box of secret DVDs. * * * Mom and I don’t talk about Dad’s hasty departure, but I do hear her call the police and ask about the warrant. They have no idea who she’s talking about. Yesterday, I thought Dad was about to deliver the Your mother and I have grown apart speech. Now I’m thinking more along the lines of secret agent or international kingpin. But the months crawl by, business as usual, until my birthday comes and goes without any answers — or the promised visit from Dad. I try not to let on that it bothers me. He’s never missed my birthday, but then, the cops never came before, either. Mom and I celebrate with cupcakes. Mine is jammed with sixteen candles, one extra for good luck. I pry up the wrapping paper from the corner of her present. “It’s customary to blow out the candles first,” Mom says. “More a guideline than a rule,” I say. “Call it advanced reconnaissance.” That’s a phrase I picked up from Sophie. Mom does a dorky eye roll, but I get the present open and find she did well by me, the latest iPhone — even if she skimped on the gigabytes. I use it to take two photos of her and then, holding it out, one of us together. She smiles and pats my hand. “This way, when you’re out on a date you can check in.” I’m thinking more about surfing the web during class. “Mom, girls never notice me.” “How about Michelle next door? She’s cute.” Mom’s right about the cute. We live in a duplex, an old house her family bought like a hundred years ago. Our tenants, the Montags, rent the other half, and we’ve celebrated every Fourth of July together as long as I can remember. “Girls don’t pay attention to me.” Sometimes paraphrasing helps Mom understand. “All teenage boys say that — your father certainly did.” My throat tightens. “There’s a father-son track event this week.” A month ago, I went into orbit when I discovered it fell during Dad’s visit, but now it’s just a major bummer — and a pending embarrassment. She kisses me on the forehead. “He’ll be here if he can, honey. And if not, I’ll race. You don’t get your speed from his side of the family.” True enough. She was a college tennis champ and he’s a flat-foot who likes foie gras. But still. * * * Our history class takes a field trip to Independence Park, where the teacher prattles on in front of the Liberty Bell. I’ve probably read more about it than she has. Michelle is standing nearby with a girlfriend. The other day I tapped out a script on my phone — using our family cipher — complete with her possible responses to my asking her out. Maybe Mom’s right. I slide over. “Hey, Michelle, I’m really looking forward to next Fourth of July.” “It’s January.” She has a lot of eyeliner on, which would look pretty sexy if she wasn’t glaring at me. “Do I know you from somewhere?” That wasn’t in my script. I drift away. Being forgettable has advantages. I tighten the laces on my trainers then flop a leg up on the fence to stretch. Soon as I’m loose enough, I sprint up the park toward the red brick hulk of Independence Hall. The teachers will notice the headcount is one short but of course they’ll have trouble figuring out who’s missing. And while a bunch of cops are lounging about — national historic landmark and all — even if one stops me, he won’t remember my name long enough to write up a ticket. The sky gleams with that cloudless blue that sometimes graces Philly. The air is crisp and smells of wood smoke. I consider lapping the building. Then I notice the man exiting the hall. He glides out the white-painted door behind someone else and seesaws down the steps to the slate courtyard. He wears a deep blue suit and a matching bowler hat. His stride is rapid and he taps his walking stick against the pavement like clockwork. The police detective. I shift into a jog and follow him down the block toward the river. I don’t think he sees me, but he has this peculiar way of looking around, pivoting his head side to side as he goes. It’s hard to explain what makes him different. His motions are stiff but he cuts through space without apparent effort. Despite the dull navy outfit, he looks sharper than the rest of the world, more in focus. Like Dad and Sophie. The man turns left at Chestnut and Third, and I follow him into Franklin Court. He stops inside the skeleton of Ben Franklin’s missing house. Some idiots tore it down two hundred years ago, but for the bicentennial the city erected a steel ‘ghost house’ to replace it. I tuck myself behind one of the big white girders and watch. The man unbuttons his suit and winds himself. Yes, that’s right. He winds himself. Like a clock. There’s no shirt under his jacket — just clockwork guts, spinning gears, and whirling cogs. There’s even a rocking pendulum. He takes a T-shaped key from his pocket, sticks it in his torso, and cranks. Hardly police standard procedure. Clueless tourists pass him without so much as a sideways glance. And I always assumed the going unnoticed thing was just me. He stops winding and scans the courtyard, calibrating his head on first one point then another while his finger spins brass dials on his chest. I watch, almost afraid to breathe. CHIME. The man rings, a deep brassy sound — not unlike Grandmom’s old mantel clock. I must have gasped, because he looks at me, his head ratcheting around 270 degrees until our eyes lock. Glass eyes. Glass eyes set in a face of carved ivory. His mouth opens and the ivory mask that is his face parts along his jaw line to reveal more cogs. CHIME. The sound reverberates through the empty bones of Franklin Court. He takes his cane from under his arm and draws a blade from it as a stage-magician might a handkerchief. CHIME. He raises the thin line of steel and glides in my direction. CHIME. Heart beating like a rabbit’s, I scuttle across the cobblestones and fling myself over a low brick wall. CHIME. His walking-stick-cum-sword strikes against the brick and throws sparks. He’s so close I hear his clockwork innards ticking, a tiny metallic tinkle. CHIME. I roll away from the wall and spring to my feet. He bounds over in pursuit. CHIME. I backpedal. I could run faster if I turned around, but a stab in the back isn’t high on my wishlist. CHIME. He strides toward me, one hand on his hip, the other slices the air with his rapier. An older couple shuffles by and glances his way, but apparently they don’t see what I see. CHIME. I stumble over a rock, snatch it up, and hurl it at him. Thanks to shot put practice, it strikes him full in the face, stopping him cold. CHIME. He tilts his head from side to side. I see a thin crack in his ivory mask, but otherwise he seems unharmed. CHIME. I dance to the side, eying the pavement, find another rock and grab it. CHIME. We stand our ground, he with his sword and me with my stone. “Your move, Timex!” I hope I sound braver than I feel. CHIME. Beneath the clockwork man, a hole opens. The manhole-sized circle in the cobblestones seethes and boils, spilling pale light up into the world. He stands above it, legs spread, toes on the pavement, heels dipping into nothingness. The sun dims in the sky. Like an eclipse — still visible, just not as bright. My heart threatens to break through my ribs, but I inch closer. The mechanical man brings his legs together and drops into the hole. The seething boiling hole. I step forward and look down…. Into a whirlpool that could eat the Titanic for breakfast. But there’s no water, only a swirling tube made of a million pulverized galaxies. Not that my eyes can really latch onto anything inside, except for the man. His crisp dark form shrinks into faraway brightness. Is this where Dad goes when he drops in on someone? Is the clockwork dude his rival researcher? The sun brightens, and as it does, the hole starts to contract. Sharp edges of pavement eat into it, closing fast. I can’t let him get away. Somehow we’re all connected. Me, the mechanical man, Sophie, and Dad. I take a step forward and let myself fall.