He got the taxi driver’s shoulder bag out of the backseat and put all his worldly goods in it: time machine, pistol, ammunition, water bottle, two rare documents, the driver’s wallet and porn notebook. They might be worth a lot or nothing. The Bible store probably didn’t have much porn.
The toolbox was bulky, about fifteen pounds, but it might be valuable. He rolled the blanket into a tight cylinder and tucked it under his arm. He could walk to MIT in two hours this way, maybe three.
A group that looked like a family was fishing at the end of the parking lot. They’d evidently dispatched the youngest, a boy, to go find out about the taxi driver. He ran about halfway, then slowed to a jog, a walk, a shuffle. He took off his cap to reveal an amateur haircut.
He was about ten, wearing clothes that were clean but seemed more patch than original cloth.
“Mister? You fishin’?”
“No. I was just driving to MIT and ran out of gas.”
“Gas?” That anachronism evidently hadn’t survived.
“My car’s fuel cells ran down.”
He nodded slowly at that. “My pa wondered about the car. Where you got it. If they was more.”
Matt looked up at the group, and they were all watching the transaction. The father waved in a friendly way. “Well, let me go talk to him.” Pump him for information. He waved back and followed the boy.
The man had a broad-brimmed black hat and was dressed all in black, maybe fifty years old. His wife was younger, in a shapeless black shift that fell from neck to ankles, with no ornamentation other than a silver cross. The man had a similar one, both evidently snipped out of sheet metal.
“He’s headed to MIT,” the boy said.
The father shook hands conventionally and said his name was Mose. “So that ’splains the car.” He looked up the street. “They got lots of old stuff there. That one looks ’most new.”
Matt nodded noncommittally. “How the fishing?”
“Couple a little ones.” Mose looked down at the transparent toolbox. “Got a extra rod, but the reel’s broke. You fix it, you could try your luck.”
Matt set the box and bag down. “I’ll take a look at it. No guarantees.”
“Abraham?” The boy ran off to get it.
An opportunity to find out something about the now and here. “You all live in Arlington?”
“Past few months. Prob’ly go back in the city ’fore it gets cold.” He didn’t have anything like a New England accent.
“Native Bostonian?”
“Aye. Grandfolks come up from the Carolinas. You?”
“Mostly Cambridge. And Ohio,” he added without thinking.
“Ohio the state?”
“It was some long walk,” he improvised. “My father wanted me to go to MIT.”
Abraham brought over the rod and reel. “She won’t let go a the line,” he said, and demonstrated by jerking it taut twice.
“Let me see.” Matt took the contraption and sat down on the ground. Pulled the toolbox over, as if he knew what he was doing, and found a set of small screwdrivers. The smallest Phillips head fit the recessed screws that held the reel together.
“Helps to have the right tools,” the man said ruefully. Help even more if one knew what one was doing, Matt thought, but he kept the thought to himself.
It was an elegantly compact system of wheels and pawls and a cam, controlled by a button on top. He studied it, pulling gently on the line while doing this and that. The cam seemed stuck in an odd position, so he pressed it gently. Suddenly, a click, and the line pulled loose. “Here, this is it.” He held it up to Mose and showed him the part that had come unstuck.
“The drag?”
“Whatever you call it.” He loosened it with an external dial, gave it a drop of oil, and tightened it partway.
“So you workin’ at MIT?”
“Used to.” Take a chance. “You know anything about chronophysics?”
He laughed. “Didn’t have school past readin’ and numbers. Not much in numbers—that’s what you do?”
“Used to. See whether I can get my old job back.”
Mose jerked his head in the direction of the cab. “You can get that old thing to work, they better give you a job.”
Matt screwed the housing down tight and handed it up. “Give that a try.”
Mose stirred up a jar full of dirt and pulled out a wriggling worm, and threaded it onto the hook at the end of the line. He did a couple of arcane tests, the worm dropping and stopping, then grunted okay.
Matt followed him to the water. With a practiced flip of the rod, Mose sent the bait out in a satisfyingly long arc. It splashed about twenty-five yards out, and he handed the rod to Matt.
“Uh … what do I do? I’ve only fished with cane poles.” About two hundred years ago.
Mose picked up his own rod and demonstrated. “You feel the fish bite, wait a second, an’ set the hook.” He gave it a little twitch. “Not too hard. Then reel ’er in.” He rotated the handle on the side, clockwise, and the line came back. Matt imitated him.
“So what do you do in this kronny stuff?”
“Chronophysics? Well, I’m actually kind of a handyman. I build … devices for experiments and fix them when they don’t work.”
“Plenty of that around. If MIT doesn’t take you back?” Indirectly asking, “What did you do to get fired?”
“Mose …” he looked around. “Can you keep a secret?”
He transferred the rod to his left hand and crossed his heart. “Swear to Jesus.”
“I’m … well, I’m sort of an experiment, myself. I’ve been asleep for almost two hundred years.” Mose just looked at him. “What year is it now?”
“Seventy-one.”
“Seventy-one years from what?”
Mose winced. “Don’t talk like that,” he whispered.
“Look, I mean it. I don’t know anything about this world. You’re way in my future.”
“That’s why you talk so funny.”
“Yeah.”
“I thought it was maybe Ohio.”
“No, it’s the way everybody used to talk. Thanks to TV, I suppose.”
“I’ve heard of that. We don’t have it anymore, praise Jesus. Sometimes you see piles of them, all burnt, left over from the Day of Return.” He looked around. “That’s what happened seventy-one years ago. Jesus came back, just as was prophesized.”
Matt had a strong urge to set the pole down and go south as fast as possible. Find someone at MIT who would tell him what was going on.
“You shouldn’t let on you don’t know,” he continued quietly. “Some folks aren’t reasonable. And there used to be Deniers.”
“Used to be.”
He nodded and reeled in some line. “Still are, ’way west, in Gomorrah. Or so it’s said. Nothing in the Bible about that, just the old Gomorrah.”
“California?”
“I heard it called that. Or Hollywood,” he said slowly, savoring the three syllables. “Decent folks say Gomorrah.”
“No doubters out here, no Deniers?”
“Not since I was a boy.” He looked troubled, staring out to where his line met the water. “It was a bad time. Best not to talk of that either, except in family.”
“There’s a lot people don’t talk about,” Matt said.
“It wasn’t that way in your day?”
“Not so much—wait!” The end of his rod twitched twice and, before he had time to react, bent sharply.
“Got one!” Mose said. “Steady, now.” The fish swam left and right as Matt reeled it in, and a couple of times it sped straight away, overcoming the drag, but in a minute Matt had it close to shore. Abraham waded out with a hand net, and used it with both hands to lift the fish out of the water. It was as big as an adult’s forearm, and lively.