Herbert Trilogy II
Pathways:
A Quantum Adventure
by I.M. Tillerman


EXCERPT

Chapter Two–A
“76 Documented Cases of Malfeasance”

“Ruth?” the giant, weary, dimly lit face on the TV screen beckoned again. Startled, I stepped backwards and to my right a few feet, but Hawkeye’s blue, three–inch eyes followed me. My instincts, as well as my traditional Midwestern upbringing, dictated that I answer, “No, sir, I’m not Ruth,” but the words seemed locked in my mouth. Reaching out with my right forefinger, I sharply punched the “POWER” button on the satellite receiver, and much to my relief, the visage of Captain Benjamin Franklin Pierce vanished.

“Who the heck is ‘Ruth,’ anyway?” I quizzed myself. “I don’t remember any ‘Ruth’ on M*A*S*H…or any Ira, either, for that matter.”

Brown Bear, having licked the residual, syrupy cheese from my lunch plate as thoroughly as the neighbor’s Persian cat slurped up cream from a saucer, jumped down from the couch and trotted over to me, apparently assuming that I was questioning him, rather than myself. I scooped him up and held him close to me, as much as an act of security as a gesture of affection.

“The only Ruth I know is Papa’s sister…rest her soul.”

When the phone rang, I flinched, nearly dropping Horatio the Steadfast. Lowering him safely to the carpeting, I admonished myself, as I climbed the stairs to the kitchen: “Get a hold of yourself, Joyce, for Christ’s sake! It’s just some flaw in the DVD. Papa always says that they don’t have all the bugs out of those DVD players yet.”

“Butzy?” Jude asked on the other end of the line.

“Well, duh!” I fired back, still a bit edgy. “Who the hell else would it be?”

“Well, I love you, too, sis,” she said, sounding wounded.

“What’s up, Judith?” I asked, toning down the sarcasm a little. “Conscience eatin’ at ya for deserting your only sibling during this festive holiday season?”

“I don’t know what to do, Joyce,” she stated, seriously. “Jess’ aunt and two cousins came for a surprise visit, and I kinda feel like a third thumb over here.”

“That’s because, Nimrod,” I began, the embers of sarcasm newly fanned, “you are a third thumb over there. Come home at once, dopey.”

“What the heck’s the matter with you? Why so nasty?”

I closed my eyes, composed myself, and answered her: “I’m sorry, Jude. Just come home, will ya? Trust me on this one. I’ll set up the Monopoly game and put on some Christmas CDs.” Anything, I thought to myself, so that I don’t have to go near that freaky television set downstairs.

“Well, okay, I guess,” she surrendered, profoundly lacking in conviction; I virtually always beat her at board games.

“I’ll even handicap you a thousand Monopoly bucks, Old Fellow. Two, crisp, orange 500 dollar bills. What say?”

“Sounds good, Holmes,” she acquiesced, her enthusiasm at least minimally peaked.

“Cheerio, Watson,” I sang out, returning the receiver to its hook and ushering Brown Bear out the patio door for a quick venture into the frigid late afternoon darkness of December. When I looked up at the completely overcast sky, it appeared as though there were moving lights running along the other side of the clouds; I imagined a colossal giant – the size of the Sears Tower – shining a huge flashlight down on the clouds from high overhead, then running it back and forth on the tops of the clouds, as though he were searching for something below him in the dark. At first, I thought it was the beam of a searchlight illuminating the underside of the clouds, as local merchants sometimes did for grand openings or special sales events; however, there were no beams streaming up from below. The light, whatever its source, was originating from a point or points above the clouds. Presuming it to be some kind of optical illusion, I let Horatio back in, brushed the snow from his furry paws, closed the door, and forgot about it.

I had just finished setting up the Monopoly game board on the long, oval, dining room table and was counting out the 500 dollar bills, when Jude stepped in the front door, stomped her feet on the heavy throw rug, stepped out of her boots, and tossed her coat across the end table next to the loveseat.

“Don’t forget,” she reminded me, “the extra thousand bucks for your ‘dopey Nimrod’ sister.”

“A thousand bucks it is. And also a thousand pardons, Memsahib,” I replied, bowing from the waist. “I apologize for the disparaging epithets over the telephone. Your wish is my every command.”

“You’re so weird, Einstein,” she said, pulling out the heavy dining room chair across from me and plopping down onto it.

“I know…but you love me, notwithstanding.”

“Is it me, or is it hot in here?” she asked, slipping off her red Christmas sweatshirt with St. Nicholas emblazoned on the front, and revealing a rather bizarre T–shirt under it, especially for the holidays. I had passed the shirt on to her with great ceremony earlier in the year when it no longer fit me; it was lime green and had a white alien on it, the kind with large eyes, wide forehead, and skinny neck. Over the creature was a single word, ROSWELL. Under it, five famous words from The X–Files, my favorite show on the SCI–FI channel, The Truth is Out There.

“Awesome shirt!” I declared.

“Gracias,” she replied. “A good friend of mine gave it to me.”

After the third CD of Christmas music had reached its finale with “The Hallelujah Chorus,” Jude and her white Roswell alien stared across the table at me, and the former, peering at me over the tops of imaginary granny glasses, asked, nonchalantly, “So why are you letting me win at Monopoly?”

“What?” I answered, absentmindedly, once again pondering the identities of “Ira” and of any “Ruth” other than my father’s late sister.

“I said, ‘Why are you letting me win at Monopoly?’”

“I haven’t the foggiest notion of what you mean, child.”

“Well, when you passed on Marvin Gardens, I thought, ‘Okay, she’s saving her money for Boardwalk, so she can have the set.’ But when you didn’t buy Boardwalk just now, well, then I knew you either had lost your mind or maybe had just decided to let me win…just to be nice. Que pasa, amiga?”

I sucked in a deep breath, exhaled it slowly, relaxed my shoulders, and lowered my head in subservience.

“Okay…let’s have it, Einstein,” she ordered, tapping the fingers of her right hand on “FREE PARKING.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you this, Jude, but the weirdest thing happened to me while you were over at Jess’. I was watching a M*A*S*H DVD, and when I went to shut the thing off, the face of—”

My words were severed by the uncommon sound of our living room leviathan just a few feet from us, Herbert, whose motor suddenly kicked in and started purring, like Papa’s John Deere tractor after its spring tune–up.

“My God!” Jude exclaimed. “Why is the clock’s motor running?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, honestly, as we walked together to a spot in front of its massive glass door and planted ourselves there. “It ran for a few seconds this afternoon, but it stopped as soon as I let go of the button.”

“What button?” she cross–examined me, the ring of judgment in her voice.

“The one on the end of the crystal cylinder in the back of the clock.”

“What are you talking about, Einstein?” she asked, frowning in disapproval. “You haven’t been time traveling, have you? We promised not to do that!”

“No,” I reassured her sincerely. “I haven’t…scout’s honor, Jude. Let me show you what I’m talking about.”

I reached around into the back of the humming clock, but my forefinger found only an empty shaft.

“What the heck?” I declared.

“’What the heck’ what?” she asked, suspiciously.

“It’s gone. The cylinder’s gone. I don’t understand it. I put it back after I pushed the button and it accidentally came on.”

“What button?”

“No, wait…,” I corrected myself. “The phone rang; it was Papa checking in from the hotel downtown. I must have laid it down and then got sidetracked and forgot about it.”

“What button?” my sister asked again, this time more desperately.

“It’s gotta be around here somewhere, Judith; help me find it.”

“What button?” she demanded, stepping in front of me and blocking my movement.

“If you hold the cylinder like a stopwatch, and then push the top of it with your thumb, it moves down a little and turns on Herbert’s motor…or at least it seems to do so. It was probably just my imagination. Or perhaps it was just a fluke.”

“It turns on the motor?” my sister repeated, the mischievous Grinchy smirk returning to her face. “Really, Joyce?”

“I think so, yes,” I answered curtly, resenting being penned in by her. “Help me look for it. It has to be around here somewhere. It can’t just sprout legs and walk away.”

Pushing her aside, I knelt down and gazed among the myriad of brightly wrapped presents already jammed together under the Christmas tree, while my assistant – the trace of that devilish grin still on her face – searched under the two cushions of the loveseat and then under the three of the couch across from it. As though in quest of Easter eggs, I poked my snout into every imaginable niche in the dining room and kitchen, while Jude ransacked the family room. On the threshold of screaming in frustration, I heard someone rummaging around in the basement directly below me.

“Oh, that’s great,” I remarked to Horatio, who, with great interest, had been shadowing me and who now waited nervously at my feet for our next move. “That’s all we need…a prowler in the basement.”

“Jude?” I whispered, looking around. “Jude?” Then it hit me.

“What in God’s name are you doing in the basement, Judith?” I inquired snottily moments later, riveted at the top of the steps, legs separated and arms akimbo.

“Lookin’ for the crystal cylinder! What do ya think?” her voice echoed back.

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