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It was seven a.m when I got the call. Mrs. Santiago. The woman knew how to drive you up the wall. “No, Mrs. Santiago! I can’t bring your cat back to life!” I said. But the woman persisted in asking me to raise her beloved Mewmew. “No, I am not an animator! I am an…I said no! I am an archaeologist! Ar-kee-oh-low-jist! No, I dig them up, not bring them back to life! Good day, Mrs. Santiago.”
I hung up the phone. She calls me every day to ask if I will bring that damn cat back to life. Mrs. Santiago was an elderly woman that was very close to her thirty-odd cats. I am not sure where she got the idea that I was an animator. She started calling me just a couple of months after I moved into this building. The building I was in consisted of a few ex-college professors, and a scattering of other professions. There was an artist across the hall and myself. I jumped suddenly when the door to my office burst open. There stood B, panting. Biancamay Lucina Wilson was her name, but I always called her B for short. Her mother had an affair with an important Spanish diplomat and was so named. Her mother was a Las Vegas fan dancer and showgirl.
“Eli, I think I have it!” She puffed excitedly. I blinked at her.
“Not again.” I said with a sigh.
“Elinore!” She whined. That’s me. Elinore May Elisabeth Hoover. In my line of work, I find that I get more results if I go by ‘Eli’. But no relation to J. Edgar Hoover, by the way. I get that a lot. I am what they call a ‘freelance’ archaeologist. I was smart enough to get a doctorate by the age of twenty five, but I was too young and intimidating to be considered for a position at any university. Besides, who wants to sit in a classroom all day and teach kids my own age to dig in the dirt or who Napoleon Bonaparte was? I sit in an office and take odd jobs for people. They call me if they think they have struck it rich. If I find anything, I call in the big guns at the museums and universities. If not, at least I get paid a handsome sum for digging up their back yards. It all works out. I looked up and B was still standing there.
“Sorry, what did you say?” I asked.
“Eli, I think I have it working now.” She said. I sighed again.
“Is it anything like the last time?” I asked her, a little skeptical. “You almost took off my head!” B fancies herself as an inventor. She has made many different things that worked nicely. But this time she was working on a time machine. The last time I tried to help her test it, there was a short in the circuits when I stepped onto the pad. The machine fried and most of my short bronze hair began to turn black and crispy. I wasn’t happy with this. Not to mention I was tingling for a week. It took a little longer to get the feeling back in my feet.
“Eli, it’s different this time. I promise!” She whined again. I just stared at her.
“I am not getting into it again.” I said.
“Come on, Eli.”
“No way.”
“I promise it will work this time!” She put a hand in her pocket. “I even have a key for you to get back now!” She said. I stared at her.
“Seriously, B? Where’d you dig this idea up? Playing more Chrono Trigger?” I asked. When discussing her time machine, I always made reference to the popular video game by Squaresoft.
“What? No! Come on!” She stomped her foot when she said it. I stood from my desk and walked over to her. I was all of five foot six. She wasn’t much shorter than me. Maybe about an inch or two shorter. It isn’t an intimidating height, but with a name like Eli, hey! It gets customers. Eli sounds like a good, strong, masculine name. Not an average, nerdy woman. I sighed and put a hand on my best friend.
“Fine.” I said. It was her turn to blink at me.
“Just like that?” She asked. I nodded. “Alrighty then!” She said as she bolted out of my office like a bat out of hell. I shook my head, closed the door and wandered through my office. There were artifacts from some of my many digs and replica artifacts from other famous digs. I looked at my collection of Native American arrowheads. I am a Canadian. I was born in a little place in Alberta called Drumheller. I loved that place while growing up because it always remains an archaeological site. So why am I in California? You go where the education and work takes you. That is the purpose of a freelance archaeologist like me. No man, no family, nothing. My door burst open again and there was my jolly, round friend B standing there again. She was puffing worse than earlier.
“You know B, running up the stairs won’t help you.” I said. She glared at me.
“Oh shut up. You coming?” She asked. She wasn’t overly fat, but she wasn’t really skinny either. She looked to be a happy one extra large. Of course, I shouldn’t talk. I was scarcely bordering the two hundred mark myself, but mine was all hard worked for muscle. I just didn’t show the weight. I had a larger chest, yes. But my waist was average and my muscle tone was somewhat decently defined.
B’s black hair swung down into her face. She blew the hair out of her eyes.
“Yeah, I am coming.” I said as I grabbed my keys and walked back towards the door. I ushered her out and closed the door, locking it behind me.
“Have you got the car today, Eli?” She asked me.
“Nope. It’s in the shop. You will have to suffer through walking today.” I said. She muttered a few curse words in Spanish that I didn’t catch. There is a slight difference between Mexican Spanish and actual Spanish. It’s kind of like the difference between Quebec French, United States French and actual French. You eventually learn the difference. B was happily bouncing her way down the street. “So, are you absolutely sure that this thing is fixed this time?” I asked her. She smiled back at me.
“Yes, I am sure.” She replied. I sighed again. I was a little nervous. We continued the trek throughout the little city of Ontario, California. I chuckled when I first heard the name. Back home, Ontario is a province. It’s like a state for the American folks. Here, it was a small city. Maybe that was why I chose it. Maybe I wanted that little piece of home you only get when you finally allow yourself to open to the new experiences in life. Distantly in my mind I could hear B yammering on about something, but I never really heard her. I just watched the buildings and cars go by, wondering why I was really here. After about an hour of walking, we finally got to B’s ‘lab’ as she called it. All I saw was a brick building on the outside and a junk yard on the inside. But it was her lab and she liked it. I suppose that is all that matters, right? She grabbed my arm and hauled me with her as she walked into the building. I whistled a little when I saw all the new stuff she had in there: a few new inventions and more old parts and junk that should really be thrown out. I walked into a clear area of the room and looked about.
“So where is it?” I looked around the room, wondering where it was. She grinned like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland.
“Over here.” She smiled as she took hold of my arm again and pulled me over to a corner of the large room. There was a huge glass enclosure in front of me. Hooked up to it were all sorts of wires and microchips and so many things I couldn’t identify. Wait, was that a toaster? I laughed. She frowned. I shook my head. I could see the scorch marks on the floor from the last time we tried to fire this thing up. It was a painful reminder. Once again, I sighed. She went over to a panel a short distance away that had large heavy cables leading up to it. She threw a few switches on the panel and the machine fired to life. “I am one hundred percent sure this is going to work this time.” She said, happily placing the key in my hands. I nodded, but nervously. I took a deep breath, swallowed and stepped into the enclosure.
“So where are you planning to send me?” I asked, my voice shaking a little. Her face lit up. That smile never did bode well. Something was up.
“I figure the French revolution would be nice this time of year.” She laughed at me. I didn’t find it funny. I was feeling the nervous pull in my stomach. I was having second thoughts.
“Are you really planning on sending me to France?” I asked her. She grinned that wide, spooky grin again. Something in my gut tightened. “B, I don’t think I can do this.” I said. I went to leave the enclosure. She closed the door on me. I went to try and open it, but there was no handle. I heard a loud click on the outside. She locked it. “B, what the hell are you doing?” I asked her, worry showing up on my face. She laughed again.
“You are not going to get out of this now. You said you were going to try it out for me.” She said.
“Can’t you use a guinea pig or something?” I asked, banging on the glass. “Biancamay Lucina, you let me out of here NOW!” I shouted.
“I can’t send a guinea pig. It can’t use the key to see if it really works.” She said, firing up the machine. She flipped switches and pushed buttons and the machine made a strange humming noise. “When you want to come back, just push the button on the key.” She said, pulling the large lever to her left. I could see sparks coming from the machine and what looked like lightning. Please tell me she isn’t using a Tessla Coil, I thought.
“What if the key doesn’t work? I’m going to be stuck there!” I shouted. She laughed at me.
“You’re just going to have to take that chance!” She laughed again. There was a blinding flash of white light and a buzzing sound as the machine flared to life. I shielded my eyes. I felt like I was being ripped apart, molecule by molecule. I heard myself scream.
When the flash dissipated and the pain subsided, I found myself standing in a large field. It looked to be late night. There were no lights to be seen for miles. Above me was bright starlight. I looked around in a panic and found a man standing about twenty yards away in front of me. Before I could get a good look at him, I saw him pointing behind me. I turned around too late because the next thing I knew I felt a sharp pain in my face and my vision went black. My hand loosened and I heard the jingling of the chain the key was on as it hit the ground. I felt myself hit the soft grass below me with a heavy thud before I passed out.
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