Other wagons used the freeway. So did people on horseback, people on foot, people on bone-shaking bicycles, and one guy on a skateboard of sorts. He'd found Old Time roller skates and nailed them to the ends of a board. When he pushed himself along, he could go faster than he would have walking.
Dad eyed his style. “He's not ready for the X Games- that's for sure.”
“They have the sense to wear helmets when they do those stunts,” Mom said. “Knee pads and elbow pads, too. If he falls down, it's just him and the asphalt. I bet the asphalt wins.”
“People aren't nearly as safe here as they are in the home timeline,” Liz said. “They worry about it a lot less, though. It's funny.”
“It's crazy.” her mother said.
“But it's true,” Liz insisted.
“People here figure something's going to get them. And it usually does.” Dad said. “In the home timeline, they think they ought to stay safe, so they try more. And you know what? Sooner or later, something gets them anyway.”
“That's true. But it usually takes longer than it would here,” Mom said, and Dad couldn't very well disagree.
They pulled off the freeway at the Rosecrans ramp, which was still in decent shape. A large sign directed them to GORDON 'S GOOD EATS. Liz knew that offramp in the home timeline, because her family used it to visit cousins. A Denny's sat at that corner there. She stared at Gordon 's. “Oh my God!'“ she said. “It's the same building!”
“It sure is,” Mom agreed.
“Prices will be better here,'“ Dad said, which was bound to be true. He added, “I wouldn't be surprised if the food is, too.”
You couldn't get a hamburger with avocado and vine-ripened tomatoes at a Denny's. On the other hand, you couldn't get an ice-cream sundae or even a Coke at Gordon 's Good Eats, though the orange juice was better than Denny's. When it came to rest-rooms, Denny's won hands down. As she usually did in this alternate, Liz came out of this one wrinkling her nose.
There was a guarded campground next to Gordon 's. Camping behind barbed wire cost another quarter. To slay in character. Dad grumbled when he paid it. Afterwards, he winked at Liz. There hadn't been quarters in the home timeline for years and years. There, a quarter wasn't enough to worry about. Neither was a dollar, even if they still had dollar coins.
Dad asked people coming south what things were like on the Westside. “There's gonna be a rumble, man.” one traveler said. “Hasn't happened yet, but there's gonna be.” Another man nodded.
“Can we get through?” Dad didn't say anything about stopping. “You never could tell who was a spy. or for whom.
The traveler coming down from the north shrugged. “You can try, like. I wouldn't give you no money-back guarantee.”
Some of the phrases of Old Time advertising had stuck in the language here.
The back of the seat reclined in the Chevy. It went back farther than an airplane seat would. You could sleep on it… after a fashion. Liz and her parents lay side by side. One of them wiggling was liable to wake somebody else. Liz had passed plenty of nights she enjoyed more.
By what had to be a miracle, Gordon 's Good Eats had coffee the next morning. Liz didn't usually like it, but she thought of it as medicine now. Her folks poured down cup after cup. It wasn't cheap, not by this alternate's standards, but Dad didn't say boo.
They got back on the 405-they didn't have to pay a toll this time-and started north again. With luck, they would get up to Westwood as the sun was setting. Liz thought that was good for all kinds of reasons. If it was dark, the Valley soldiers would have a harder time recognizing them.
Then Dad passed Mom the reins. He ducked into the back of the wagon. When he returned, his beard was gone. He didn't look like the same person any more. After he took back the reins, Mom did up her hair instead of letting it fall down over her shoulders. She put on a pair of glasses to replace her contacts. She looked different, too, even if not so much as Dad did.
“Your turn. Liz,” she said when she got through.
Liz put her hair up, too. Mom showed her how she looked in a mirror from an Old Time compact. She did seem different, but different enough? Maybe for somebody who'd met her only a couple of times.
“If Dan sees me, he'll know who I am,” she said gloomily.
“Well, what are the odds?” Dad said. “There's only one of him, after all, and we won't be going right back to where we were.”
“Besides, they're probably still trying to figure out how7 we disappeared,” Mom said. “They can't think we'd come back again.”
“I sure hope not,” Liz said.
Curiosity drew Dan back to the house that had been Liz 's. He knew what they said about cats. He knew he ran the risk of hard, unpleasant work. He went anyway. He was a soldier, but he wasn't an old soldier.
Sure enough, somebody-a luckless common soldier not named Dan -had chipped away a lot of concrete from the roof of the basement under the basement. Some other soldier-or maybe the same one-had swept up most of it. Most, but not all. Little chunks still gritted under the soles of Dan 's boots.
Dr. Saul was up on a ladder again. He was poking around up there with a stick. He'd said something about electricity not biting wood. Dan didn't follow all ol that, but Dr. Saul knew his own business best.
Or maybe nobody knew anything. “This can't be the power pack that keep these lights going,” Dr. Saul insisted. “It can't be, I tell you! It's too small-way, way too small.”
“Well, if it's not, what is?” Captain Horace asked.
“I don't know!” Dr. Saul yelled, and then he said something Dan wouldn't have expected to hear from a distinguished scientist.
Captain Horace was about to say something just as lovely when somebody yelled from up above: “They're clanging the alarm!”
What Horace said then made Dr. Saul 's remark seem like sweet talk by comparison. What Dan said made both the officer and the scientist gape at him. He never knew it. though. He was clattering up the stairs, and paid no attention to whatever went on behind him.
He dashed up the stairs from the basement to ground level, too. By then he noticed Captain Horace wasn't real far behind him. But the captain couldn't catch him. Dan ran out ol the house, down Glendon to Wilshire, down Wilshire to Westwood Boulevard, and down Westwood Boulevard to the freeway line.
The shooting had already started by the time he got there. Westsiders to the south were banging away at Valley soldiers up on the freeway. “Take your place!'“ Sergeant Chuck yelled when he saw Dan.
Dan did. He started loading his matchlock. He could see plumes of smoke that showed where enemy musketeers were firing. He worried more about what he couldn't see. Riflemen with Old Time weapons could shoot at him from ranges at which he couldn't hope to reply. They used smokeless powder, too. Unless he saw a muzzle flash, he wouldn't even know where they were shooting from. And if they hit him… No. he didn't want to think about that.
Then he heard a bigger explosion and saw a bigger flash from a distant window. “Good!” Chuck yelled. “Dog my cats if that wasn't an Old Time rifle blowing up!” Ammunition two long lifetimes old could get touchy-could and did. Yes. riflemen needed several different kinds of courage.
A more familiar boom made Horace duck. A cannonball flew over his head and landed with a crash somewhere north of the freeway. Westside artillerymen-or would they be from Speedro?-started reloading their piece.
“Where are our rifles?” Chuck yelled. An Old Time rifle could shoot as far as one of those cannon. A matchlock couldn't come close. Dan didn't waste ammunition trying. The Valley's fearsome.50-caliber machine gun could make hash of the enemy gun crew in nothing flat. Where was it? Nowhere close enough to use, anyway.