Twisted Time

14 - Thirty-per-cent rule

The contraption room, 00:05

Ric's words leave Dan gaping in surprise. Her thoughts race, and she is too preoccupied to notice the lights in the room flickering in unison, including the displays. Ric grasps her hand and pulls her against his chest in a fluid motion, his other arm wrapped around her shoulders. Taken by surprise, Dan squeals and is about to voice a protest. Then the light-show registers, and she swallows her objection against the manhandling. Not another time shift, please. I will never get used to this shit. If not for Ric reacting so fast...

She holds onto his pullover while lifting her head to check the ceiling lights. The seconds until the illumination stabilises tick by like eternities. Dan releases the air she kept in her lungs for too long in a desperate sigh. "Thirty-per-cent rule, right, you told me. But—this is nerve-wracking."

"It is. I wonder why the shifts keep happening. I've never heard of recurring instabilities in the time fields."

Dan frowns. "Should I be worried? I mean, whom else can I ask?"

"That's what I'm here to find out. Stick with me, and we both might learn something."

Still caught in his clumsy half-embrace, she wonders if Ric means the sticking literally. At least he seems in no hurry to release her, and she has to suppress the urge to tear away. Aware she would be lost without him, both in a foreign building and in a future century, she shivers, and he pulls her closer.

"Thanks for anchoring me in this time, I think." She wriggles in his embrace. "Otherwise, I'd have gotten myself whisked to that parking lot again. And perhaps straight into the arms of a police officer wondering where I disappeared to."

Ric holds her tight while his eyebrows raise in an unspoken question, but Dan is in no hurry to elaborate. "Listen, Ric, I really appreciate your support and all, but don't you think we should try to solve a few riddles? We can't spend the night hugging in the headquarter of some criminal organisation."

As soon as his arm is gone, she misses the warmth of it. His hand brushes hers in a gesture that could be interpreted as affectionate. Dan's stomach fills with fluttering butterflies. Get a grip, girl, you can't behave like the helpless chick in a rom-com. He is a total stranger.

Still, to judge by the reaction of her body, it was probably too long since someone touched her in such a tender way. But now is the wrong moment to swoon over a random guy like a love-struck teenager. With a deliberate effort, she dons her best I'm-a-serious-scientist face.

Ric's smile shows her he isn't fooled. "I guess it's time we verify Doctor Lent's diamond theory. Suggestions on how to approach the problem?"

"You got the information about rocks from the screens over there, right?" She points at the middle console. "If they run this as a business, they should have more information stored, like the chemical components of the rocks in question or something else to identify them."

"Sure, there are rows of letters and numbers, chemical formulas. But I've not the slightest experience in geology. Rocks are—just rocks for me."

"For you, but not for me." Elation floods her tired body. For the first time since she left Bowler's office, Dan doesn't feel clueless and out of synch. "Who claims to have read my biography? If it's halfway accurate, it should mention the fact I graduated in material sciences. Otherwise, it isn't worth the paper it was printed on. Granted, my speciality is the study of polymers. But I remember enough of my chemistry courses to distinguish diamond and granite."

Ric's face is an unreadable mask as he takes her wrist and guides her to a workstation. His grip tightens when she attempts to shake herself loose. "Ouch, not this wrist. It hurts from last time. You can show me the component analysis without abusing me."

His grip softens. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. It's just—you're my only real chance to bring this job to a successful closure. I don't want to watch you disappear into thin air if I can prevent it. Especially not if your other date is a police officer somewhere in the far distant past. What if they arrest you? The thirty-per-cent rule would prevent you from coming back."

"Wait, if I were handcuffed to something with more mass than a third of my body weight, a lamppost for example, would I stay there?"

"No, you wouldn't. But as long as the officer holds you, skin on skin, I guess you'd stay with them."

"Oh." Dan gags. "No, thanks. The boy is not my type. Besides, too young."

Ric grins. "Do I get to hear the story?"

"Maybe later. First, the rocks."

Ric's grip is gentle now, and he guides her back to the middle console. Dan squints to study the screen. She should have brought her reading glasses from the car, where they sit useless amidst her possessions on the passenger sheet. Ric presses her arm for a moment, reassuring, and uses his left hand to enter a complex string of commands into the touchscreen. A list of chemical abbreviations in an angular font pops up.

Dan whistles between her teeth. "C stands for carbon. These two are diamonds for sure."

Her partner leans closer, his gaze following her pointing finger. "Here we have another one. If the third column gives the weight, they must be worth a fortune and a half. And here... this is the formula for aluminium oxide or corundum. I can see one with traces of chromium, too. Must be a ruby, a big one. Here, another series of corundum, this time containing iron. That would make them sapphires if I remember correctly. Here we have Beryl, or Emerald to be precise. I learnt the formula by heart for a test once: Be3Al2Si6O18 and traces of Cr. It's another piece of giant proportions. Then, we have—"

"Stop it, woman, enough. You convinced me, not a single doubt left." His chuckle is warm, but Dan resists the pull of his hand.

"No, wait, there's something else. This is the formula for calcium carbonate or limestone. What's the use of it? It is worthless, marble at best."

"Art, statues probably. Didn't the greek and roman artists use marble for their stonework? I'm sure they steal everything sellable on the black market they can lay their hands on."

"Right, and antiquities get only more precious with time, I guess. Smart. We might find gold on the list too, then." Dan scrolls down the rows, but Ric switches off the screen.

"I'm sure we will. But we know enough, and I copied the data. Let's move on. It would be easy to destroy or sabotage this TA. However, I'd like to find the other one first."

"What stands TA for?"

"It's short for temporal animat. Blame yourself for the dull name."

"Oh, did I name it? Or will I name it?"

"You did, in my timeline, and you will, in yours. If we find out what these people plan for you before we raise their alarm."

Dread sends an icy finger down her spine. "Speaking of alarms. How is it possible they haven't detected their data leaking to your box thingy yet?"

"The box thingy, as you call it, is programmed to prevent this. Although we can't exclude cameras or heat detectors monitoring the place."

Before Dan finds time to voice her concerns, the lights flicker. She throws herself at her companion in a Pavlovian response, clinging to his neck.