August 30, 1933 CE
Turkish Baths, London
Jump jeebies prickled down Nathan's back and churned his stomach. He leaned against a damp limestone block wall and caught his breath. Potted palms and over-sized ferns cast lugubrious shadows in the light from ruddy, art deco sconces. Sweat slicked his forehead, or maybe it was just the cloying humidity. Mist roiled from the shadows and enshrouded the glowing lamps.
What was this place?
Where was Charlotte? Or had she just dumped him here, like she'd done when she sent him to the abandoned subway tunnel?
A touch at his shoulder made him whirl about. A spindly fellow wearing only a towel and a glistening red smile simpered at him. "My, my, aren't we the jumpy queen tonight?" He ran ruby fingernails through his long, elaborately coifed scarlet hair.
Nathan looked twice. Yes, he was definitely male, despite painted toenails, lipstick that looked like he'd put it on by eating it, and mascara layered like purple tar. Where the hell had Charlotte left him this time? She'd implied he was headed back to 1933 London, but this person looked more like someone from a Vegas drag show. A bad drag show, at that.
She examined Nathan from head to toe. "You are a pretty one. What's your name, dearie?"
Her accent spoke more of Eton than Liverpool, not that Nathan was an expert. Her. Nathan's lips quirked. She was clearly male, but with all that paint, she surely would prefer the female pronoun like any other drag queen. "Where are we?" he asked.
"Oooh! Your accent is adorable." She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "I love Americans." Her hot breath brushed his throat and reeked of whiskey and peppermint. She undid the top two buttons on his shirt and teased his chest. "You know, you're not dressed for work. Or undressed. You're so beautiful. Don't hide it." She undid another button. "We rentboys need to stick together, don't you know? I'm Quentin, my dear. What did you say your name is?"
Nathan pushed her hands away. "I didn't." Rentboy was clear enough. He redid the buttons. It would be just like Charlotte to dump him in a male brothel. Nathan didn't have anything against flamboyant drag queens. They just weren't to his taste. Maybe she could help him, though. "I really need to go back to my room in the Hotel Russel, but I've misplaced my shoes." Wherever he was, he couldn't walk around barefoot.
She tipped her head and smiled, but sadness lurked in her eyes. "No need for a snooty hotel, dearie. I have a bedsit not far from here. We could go there." She lowered her voice to a sultry husk. "I'm sure we could find something for you to wear."
Nathan swallowed. He could take advantage of her yearning, but her sadness spoke to him. At least she seemed to know about the Russell. "I just need to get to my room. I need help, and I appreciate your offer. But—" He hesitated, not wanting to insult her. Or hurt her.
She straightened her back. "I understand." She fluffed her hair. "I'm not to everyone's taste, more's the pity. Still, you've not struck me, nor made fun of me. I don't sicken you." She stopped and gave him a narrow look. "Do I?"
"No. Of course not. It's just, well—"
She sighed. "It's all right. Long ago I decided to be me, and to be happy. Are you happy, my nameless friend?"
"I'm Nathan." Was he happy? It wasn't the kind of question he thought about. Still...when Haakon had held him in the other night, when they both thought they might die, then he'd been happy. "Yes. I guess I am."
"Don't guess. Be happy. Like me. What others think doesn't matter. What you think is all that matters." She grabbed his hand. "Now, come with me, my lovely, to my locker. You can have my sandals, if it's shoes you need. I often go barefoot anyway, so people can admire my toenails." She stuck out a foot and wriggled enameled toes.
Quentin led Nathan through the foggy passages to an empty locker room. He pulled open-toed sandals from his locker and pushed them into Nathan's hands. "Take these, my dear." He pointed to a curtained doorway bordered by two palm trees. "That's the way out. It leads up to Bloomsbury."
A beefy man wearing a towel sauntered in from the fog and halted when he saw Quentin. A sneer twisted his features. He accosted Quentin and pushed him against the wall of lockers. "You bloody faggot. You make me sick. I told you to keep away from me." He clenched Quentin’s throat in a mammoth fist, while his other fist slammed into Quentin's face.
Blood sprayed. Quentin shrieked and squirmed free, falling into a huddle on the tiled floor.
The man cocked his arm for another blow, but Nathan grabbed his wrist and twisted. "Leave him alone."
The man's face contorted in fury and he twisted his arm free. "What're ye doin', mate? Is ye with this Nancy-boy? Watch it, or I'll take care of you, too."
Nathan crouched in the Tae Kwon Do defensive posture he'd learned as a teen. If this asshole came after him, he'd get the surprise of his life.
The man rubbed his knuckles and seemed about to launch another attack, but a handsome man with military bearing strode into the room from the corridor Quentin identified as the exit. "I say, what's going on here?" He spoke with a clipped Oxford accent, just like the pompous math professor who taught Nathan differential equations. His tone suggested he was accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed without question. He tugged at his tweed jacket, stiffened his upper lip to match his ram-rod back, and glared at the beefy man.
Nathan hated the privileged snob already. He decided offense was the best defense. "This man hit my friend." He pointed at the beefy guy, who sent him murderous look but said nothing.
Lord High I’m-better-than-you tilted an eyebrow at Nathan. "You're a Yank." He glanced at Quentin as though he were a particularly repulsive worm, rolled his eyes, and turned to the other man. "Is that right, Miles? Did you strike this...person?"
"My Lord, I swear I did nothin'. ‘Sides, jest look at ‘im. He deserves bein’ smacked up the side of the head."
“That’s unbecoming behavior, Miles. I thought you were a gentleman.” The newcomer glanced at the man's bloodied knuckles, shook his head, and then turned to Nathan. "I've recently met the most charming American. I do believe I shall make her my wife."
Nathan said nothing, wondering what this had to do with him. Unless this foppish guy thought all Americans knew each other.
The man seemed to reach a decision. He made a limp-wristed waving motion at Nathan. "Be a good fellow, will you, and run along. I'll handle these two. No harm done, I assure you." He pulled out an oversized wallet from his coat and shoved a sheaf of bills toward Quentin.
Quentin's bloody nose didn't look like "no harm" to Nathan. But before he could say anything, Quentin piped up, "Be a prince, Nathan, and do like milord says. I'll be quids in and dosher in a fiddle."
Nathan said, "What?"
She dabbed at her nose with bank notes. "Off with you, I say. Ya don't want to be part of what me and the good lord will be up to, now do ya?" She stopped to leer. “Unless ya want to join us? But I keep all the smackers. It's me he wants, and you he chased away.”
Nathan hesitated a moment longer. Quentin had been so fearless before, but defenseless, too. Like she needed protecting. But now avarice—or was it lust—gleamed in her eyes. With a mental shrug, Nathan said, "I think I’ll take this fellow's advice and leave. Thank you for the sandals. I enjoyed meeting you."
Quentin was no longer paying attention. She made google eyes at the other two men and primped her hair.
Nathan backed out through the curtains, trotted down the corridor, and up marble stairs to the rush of Bloomsbury. The vintage automobiles and the attire of passersby told him he was back in 1933 London, or close enough that it didn't matter.
Except it did matter. He needed to find Haakon, or at least Nell and the other Timekeepers.
He fingered the hotel room key in his pocket and wondered about the date. Had Charlotte sent him back to the day they left, or was it before that? Or after it?
That hotel room was his only sure contact with Timekeepers and Haakon. He was sure he couldn't find his way through the warren of the British museum to their headquarters.
He pushed through the early evening crowds. A short, elderly woman bumped into him and her umbrella snagged on his wrist, wrenching his arm backwards. He flinched and turned to free himself.
The woman pressed close and gripped his wrist. She spoke in a muffled whisper. "Thank the Great Spirit. We thought we'd lost you forever when you disappeared from your hotel."
Nathan's breath caught in his throat. "What are you talking about? Who are you?"
Her eyes crinkled in a spider's web of wrinkles when she grinned at him. "Why, I'm Nell. You must remember me. It's been...well, longer for me than for you. But I certainly remember you."
"Nell? But she's young. Nearly my age."
"Sometimes people such as us meet out of order. You've experienced this before, yes? With Charlotte?"
"She abandoned me here. Not once, but twice." The memory made him tug his arm free.
"She's on your side, son. As am I. We're all trying to help you and our friend Haakon."
He might believe that about Nell, but not Charlotte. "If you want to help, just put us together."
"Sometimes, you have to create the world you want." She nodded to a bistro. "At least come sit with me."
Nathan fought against his natural stubbornness. A bulky man wearing a stevedore's cap bumped into him, took in his open-toed shoes, and muttered, "Bloody pounder." Maybe listening to her was a good idea. What other choice was there? He let her lead him to a table in a shadowed corner where she ordered a couple of pints and some crisps.
He tasted his drink and made a face. Warm beer. He should have known. "So talk to me."
"Why don't you tell me your plan?"
"Find Haakon, of course."
"And then?"
He hadn't thought it through. "He'll know what to do." He always did.
"You know the importance of your friend, Leo?"
"As I remember, he's a minor figure. Einstein's student, I think."
"He's instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission. His inspiration this week is the start. He eventually writes the letter that Einstein sends to Roosevelt that starts the Manhattan project."
"What project?"
An enigmatic smile twitched on her lips. "Exactly. We're on different timelines. Haakon and I are from the one I just described, you and Charlotte are from another. In a couple of days, those timelines will irrevocably split."
"So it's all the more important that I connect with him now, before that happens." Was she dense?
"What do you think that will accomplish?"
"Haakon and I will be together." That was all that mattered.
"Yes, but what will Haakon do? That sets up an irreconcilable conflict for him. If he does his duty, he makes sure that Leo has the necessary revelation. But if he does his duty, the alternative timelines vanish, right?"
"They don't vanish, exactly. He just can't get to them. And we'd still be together."
"How do you know that? Once the bifurcation passes, won't you be in your alternative, and he in his? Forever separate?"
Haakon sat up and blinked. He hadn't thought of that. "I don't think so."
"But you're not sure. So the safest thing, if the two of you are to be together, is for him to not do his duty, right?"
"I guess. Yes." That made sense. "All the more important I get to him."
"But then Haakon might be the one who disappears. Worse, the Haakon you love is the one who is honorable, who does his duty. Failure to do so fundamentally changes him, and your relationship to him."
She was relentless. Like any good scientist, following a chain to its logical conclusion. "What's your point?" he snapped. This wasn't helping anything.
"There's a way the two of you can be together no matter how he chooses. Think about it."
"In the past. Of course. But how would we ever find each other unless we connect now?"
Nell reached into her satchel and pulled out what looked like an iPad on a sliver chain. "This is a timepiece. It's preset to take you back to 13 October, 126,891 years before the common era, in Abiquiú, New Mexico." She slid it across the table toward him.
Nathan looked at it like it was radioactive. Still, the date and place were vaguely familiar. He gave her a puzzled look.
"This is the time and place where Haakon first took you, in the Pleistocene, but exactly one year later."
"You think he'll look for me there?"
"Yes."
"Certain, as in it happens, for sure?" She was old, so maybe she lived through it and knew for sure.
"Time travel has taught me that nothing is certain, and everything is possible. But I'm confident he'll find you."
This was tempting. At least it was acting rather than being acted on. "But, what about Leo? What about his so-called date with destiny?"
A Cheshire grin twisted her lips. "Schrodinger's cat."
"What?" Then he got it. "Oh! If I don't observe Haakon, then he both does his duty and doesn't. It's in the netherworld of possibilities. It’s like Schrodinger’s cat, both dead and alive until we open the box and look. We can reconnect regardless of which choice he makes." He frowned. "But does that mean his choice doesn't matter?"
"Of course it matters. His choice is forever part of who he becomes in the timeline it creates. But whatever he chooses, the two of you can reunite in the past. This is your chance."
At last, a faint hope flickered in Nathan’s heart. He touched the timepiece. "How does this thing work?"