The Magic Factory

He bent over, grasping his knees, spent from the effort of using his powers in the real world. He felt like he’d run a marathon. And it had all been in vain. Armando had refused to believe what was before his eyes.

He would have to find the bomb on his own.

From the outside, he grasped the bottom of the window and pulled it upward. He heaved himself up and crawled in through the open window, then plonked down onto the ground beneath it in a sprawled heap. He wished his powers were more easily accessed here; he could certainly do with some cushioning on his behind for all these tumbles he was taking. It would be black and blue before long.

He hurried out of the room and looked first left and then right down the corridor. It was empty.

Knowing that turning left would bring him back to the factory floor where the guards were positioned, Oliver headed right down the corridor.

He moved as quickly and quietly as possible. He reached a door and knelt down to peer in through the keyhole. It was just a storeroom. He moved on to the next door. This one stood ajar. But when Oliver peered inside, he just saw a room filled with wooden shelving and dusty old books.

Oliver went on and on, peering into each room he passed. Where could Lucas have hidden the bomb?

Finally, he reached the last room of the corridor. In the modern era, this room contained Armando’s time machine and the door was a huge steel barricade. But not so here. In the past, the door was wooden, just the same as the others.

Oliver tried the handle and it yielded. He looked inside. The disappointing sight of a room filled with old furniture awaited him.

Frustrated, Oliver closed the door and rested his back against it. His heart was hammering with nerves. Every second that passed felt like a second wasted, a second that he came closer to failing.

He searched his mind frantically, desperate for some kind of memory or clue to surface.

Suddenly, a thought struck Oliver. During the short time he’d been working alongside Lucas, he’d observed a peculiar tic in the old man; a place he often gravitated toward. It was nothing more than an alcove near the place his workbench was set up, but he would walk up to it several times a day, as though the spot brought him some kind of comfort. Oliver wondered, now, if the place had meaning to Lucas. It was worth a shot, since he’d hit a dead end.

Oliver hurried back along the corridor. He peered out to the main factory forecourt. It was still busy, with workmen hurrying all around the place, but the crowds had begun to thin out a little as the working day began to draw to an end. Oliver glanced over at the spot where Lucas’s workbench was situated in the modern factory. Though there was no workbench in this era, the alcove was indeed there. Oliver had only one shot to reach it without being spotted.

He waited until a group of workers began heading for the door, obscuring him from the view of the guards. Then he ran as fast as he could and ducked into the alcove, out of sight.

Now here, Oliver wasn’t sure what he was looking for. The wall appeared to be a straightforward wall. There was no trapdoor or anything beneath his feet. He felt around, touching the bricks in the wall. Then, suddenly, he felt the texture change beneath his fingertips.

At once, Oliver found that this particular brick was loose. He grappled with it, trying to hook his fingers beneath, and finally manage to wiggle it free. And there, behind the brick, was a lever.

Oliver didn’t waste a second. He pulled the lever. Immediately, the wall clicked backward. Could it just be another of Armando’s secret sections, hidden behind a fake wall? Or did something more sinister lurk the other side? Either way, there was only one way to find out. Oliver would have to enter.

He quickly glanced around the side of the alcove, looking at the nearly empty factory floor. The guards were busy ushering workers out the exit. While they were distracted, Oliver made his move. He pulled the fake wall fully open and slid quickly inside. Then he shut himself inside.

It was dark and smelled of dust. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Oliver noticed in front of him was a narrow, metal spiral staircase painted bright red. It looked familiar to hm. He recalled the red staircase his in his own era, the one where Lucas’s bedroom was located. Could it be that Lucas’s room was at the top of these stairs?

Oliver took a breath to steady his nerves. Then quietly tiptoeing, he began to ascend the stairs.

He went up and up for what felt like forever. When he finally emerged at the top, the ceiling was pointed. He must be right at the top of the factory, where there was an attic.

And there, ahead of him, was a door.

Oliver tried the handle. It was locked; a sure sign of secrecy.

Picking locks was a skill Oliver had perfected through the years of being Chris’s brother. He’d lost count of the number of times his bully brother had locked him out of the house, forcing him to learn to jimmy the windows or pick the locks. He’d gotten pretty good at it. It had been awful at the time, but now Oliver could see it had all been good training.

He fiddled with it now and heard the lock click open. He tried the handle. This time it yielded. Oliver entered the attic.

Right away, a chill went through Oliver as it dawned on him where he was standing. This was Lucas’s HQ.

By the desk at the window Oliver noticed notebooks and sketches.

He went over and studied the diagrams, trying to figure out what it was depicting. It was a large ovoid with a complex network of wires covering it and some kind of stabilizing base, like that of a rocket ship.

He turned the page to see a new design, a rework of the first. Then on the next page, yet more lines and shapes.

As he worked his way through the workbook, the feeling of anxiety built inside of him. The diagrams were becoming increasingly meticulous. No more did they look like the excited doodles of an imaginative mind. They were starting to look more and more like schematics: precise, ordered, and thorough. The handwriting was becoming neater, then shakier, as if the hand who’d written them had aged.

Dread crept up Oliver’s gullet. The truth hit him. He was holding Lucas’s finished designs.

This was the bomb.

But there was more to it than that. On the table were more documents. And they were not written in English.

Oliver had had language classes at school. He knew enough to know that the writing was in German. And his history classes had taught him that in 1944, the Germans were the enemies.

Oliver’s heart began to beat rapidly. He quickly thumbed through the paperwork. It was as thick as a dossier, filled with written correspondences. He desperately wished he could read what was being communicated.

But when he reached the last page, he didn’t need a translation to tell him how dangerous what he was holding in his hands really was. His heart clenched as he realized the last page was a contract, signed by Lucas. And there, stamped in the spot for the second signatory, was a swastika.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Oliver’s head spun. Had Lucas sold his bomb to the Nazis?

Oliver noticed then that amidst the paperwork was a photo of Lucas. Not the young boy version of this timeline, but as the old man Oliver knew. And more chilling than seeing the elderly Lucas in the past where he did not belong was what he was wearing in the photo: a Nazi uniform.

The army in his dream. The uniforms matched!

Oliver drew back and gasped. But he had no time to let anything sink in, because suddenly he heard the sound of a revving engine. From the window, he saw a truck entering the shadowy lot of the factory. It drew to a halt and several men jumped out. They streaked across the courtyard. A small shadowy figure ushered them inside the factory. It was the young Lucas.

Oliver grabbed all the paperwork, shoving it hurriedly into his overall pockets. Then he darted out of the room, clattering down the spiral staircase.

He was just in the nick of time. The sound of heavy boots echoed down the corridor as Oliver backed into an alcove. He could hear whispering voices speaking in sharp, hurried German.

Up ahead, the exit stood open, letting in a sliver of moonlight. The men were coming out of another corridor. They were wheeling a large crate across the factory floor, heading for the exit. Lucas was guiding them.

Oliver’s heart clenched. Was the bomb inside the crate?

Just then, Oliver heard the sound of thudding coming from the other end of the corridor, quickly followed by a muffled cry. Armando. Lucas must have locked him in his office!

Oliver felt immediately torn between freeing Armando and following the crate. As the men maneuvered the crate through the exit, he stood on the spot, glancing first down the corridor toward the pounding sound, then back out at the exit.

Sorry, Armando, Oliver muttered under his breath.

He made his move, heading not toward his trapped hero, but streaking instead across the forecourt, following the bomb. He slunk discreetly through the door, letting the darkness of the moonlit evening provide cover.

Oliver ducked down behind a stack of trash cans and watched the scene unfold before him. It was happening so fast; the men loading up their truck with cargo taken from the factory. He had to do something.