St.
Batzy and the Time Machine
Genene
Valleau
genene@genenevalleau.com
Excerpt
Heat Level: 1
Book
Heat Level: 1
A
modern day castle in western Oregon. An eccentric inventor is determined to
reclaim his wayward time machine and save his beloved wife from her latest
misadventure. If only they can travel safely past the black hole…
EXCERPT
Horace Ainsworth patted the side of the giant
red fire hydrant towering two stories above him then addressed the terrier mix
dog staring at him curiously. "It's finished. Now don't you dig in my
Maddie's roses any more or potty on the pansies."
Batzy stared at Horace's retreating back for
a moment before he hiked his leg on the nearest flowering plant.
Then he turned his attention to the
odd-looking structure the Big Human had erected. Not like any fire hydrant he'd
ever sniffed. A canine would have to be the size of King Kong to give this
thing a proper marking.
Though it did smell like the water that
sprayed out of the hose when the human across the street yelled at him. Batzy
grinned and lifted his leg, imagining he was returning the spray of the yelling
human.
As he circled this mysterious structure, the
smell of fresh paint and overturned earth drifted into his nostrils. It was
bigger than the merry-go-round at the park where his human, Chloe, sometimes
took him.
Wonder
what's inside?
Batzy scratched at the side of the structure
then trotted another few steps and scratched again. About halfway around he
found an opening. Not tall enough for the Big Human, but just about perfect for
his little girl, Chloe. Batzy darted inside
and lifted his face to sample the aromas.
No scents of danger but much to explore. Like
this box of dirt. Odd. Big humans usually didn't appreciate the joys of
digging. Hadn't he just been told not to dig in the rose bushes? A sniff and a
poke with his paw uncovered a bone. Fresh out of the package. Batzy looked
around. What game was the Big Human playing?
"Batzy!" his little girl was
calling him.
Batzy stepped out of the digging pit. Hmm. I smell peanut butter.
He put a front paw on a cabinet for balance and nosed a button. A bone-shaped treat
fell into a bowl below. Also fresh out of a package. The Big Human was
definitely up to something. Batzy gobbled it down quickly before looking around
again.
"Batzy!"
Drat! He had to go. On his way out, Batzy stepped
back into the digging box and snatched up the bone. Outside once again, he
pushed the bone through the gap under the fence, and squeezed through after it.
He popped up on
the other side with only a few more streaks of mud on the white of his belly
and wagged his tail at Chloe. He'd go back to explore the Big Human's structure
later.
~ * ~
Satisfied he had neutralized the threat to
Maddie's rose bushes, Horace returned to the workshop in the basement of their
castle-shaped home. In King Arthur's time, the sorcerer Merlin might have
worked his magic in similar surroundings. Had Merlin simply been a scientist
with an observing eye and a searching mind?
That's how Horace saw himself: open to
possibilities and what others might consider impossibilities. He loved to
explore "what if" and took delight in disproving "facts."
Edison did it with the light bulb. The Wright brothers did it with airplanes.
Horace continued that tradition with a flying car and a robot that served
dinner, as well as a play structure made out of a water tower and painted like
a giant fire hydrant for the dog next door. After all, who said inventions had
to be serious?
Horace scanned the stone walls lined with
tables and shelves stacked with high-tech inventions and mechanical gadgets in
various stages of development. What should he work on next?
He nearly set aside the recipe card propped
on the computer keyboard, except he hadn't seen the word "urgent" on
a recipe before. Horace realized it was a phone message from his cousin,
Clement. "Will arrive tomorrow with submarine."
Horace scratched his chin. What would his
space engineer relative be doing with a submarine?
Suddenly, the alarm for the garages began
wailing. A glance at the security monitor showed a truck pulling a trailer
painted in vivid red and orange careening around the castle had clipped the
gutter downspout and set off the alarm.
A net dropped over the trailer, tangling in a
wheel and jerking it sideways. Unfortunately, the truck continued its forward
momentum until it also lurched to a stop, now sitting almost side by side with
the trailer.
If Horace didn't know his wife was safely
painting in her studio, he would have sworn she was driving the truck.
He hurried out of his workshop to be sure
both truck and driver were okay.
A tall, lanky man wearing a white shirt and
black slacks jumped down from the driver's seat as the truck shuddered to a stop,
grinning at Horace. "Hi, Cuz."
A frown creased Horace's forehead as he
stared at the argyle suspenders that kept Clement Ainsworth's slacks pulled up
into a permanent wedgie. The same suspenders Clement bragged had garnered him a
date with the prettiest sorority girl at college some thirty-odd years ago.
"But your message said you'd be here tomorrow."
Clement waved away Horace's confusion.
"I called yesterday. You need a new secretary."
"My nephew took the message--"
"Like I said, you need a new secretary."
Horace made a mental note to come up with a
more efficient way to deliver messages. "Why are you here? This doesn't
look like a submarine."
Clement frowned. "Paperwork hold-up. But
we can start work without it."
"Work on what?"
After a suspicious look around, Clement
dropped his voice to a whisper. "A probe to explore black holes."
Horace also looked around, seeing nothing of
danger except his cousin's lack of driving skills. "You mean black holes
in space caused by stars burning out?"
"Well, that's the generally accepted
theory."
"And do you have a probe in the
trailer?"
"Nah. This is a mobile fabrication
laboratory." Clement walked to the back of the trailer, stepping over the
tangled netting that had captured one of the wheels. "This will make us a
working prototype of the probe."
Horace stepped inside the trailer behind his
cousin. "What is all this?"
"Laser cutter, CNC machine tools,
robotic water jet, a rapid prototyping device--just to name a few. All run by
cutting edge computer software."
Horace's hands tingled with the desire to pry
open the metal casings on the equipment and see how the machines really worked.
"Don't you make anything by hand?"
"You're still living in the dark ages,
Horace." Clement laughed again. "No one makes things manually
anymore."
Horace squared his shoulders, determined not
to let his older, city slicker cousin make him feel inferior the way he had in
college. "I do."
Clement's expression turned immediately
apologetic, something Horace had rarely seen. "That's why I need
you."
With a deep breath and a frown, Clement
looked Horace squarely in the eye. "You're the detail man. You make
visions a reality. Others know the theories, but you know how to make them
work."
"Um...right." Horace was still a
bit off balance and definitely wary of his cousin's change in attitude. For the
first time Horace could recall, Clement seemed to appreciate his skills rather
than denigrating them. Surely Horace could give the man a chance to
explain--and examine these intriguing machines--before Maddie threw Clement off
their property. "Tell me what you have in mind."
"Saving the world."
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