Excerpt

Stark opened the door and entered Chet’s workshop. He glanced around. Chet wasn’t there. He walked back to the doorway of the little room off the main area where Chet’s bed was. It was made up. Stark grinned at the squared corners and the way the sheets covered the straw. Everything in its place, as always. He turned and saw a pitcher of water sitting on the table, a glass turned upside down beside it. He flipped over the glass, filled it, and downed the liquid in three large gulps.

Refreshed, he returned to the front door and called outside. “Chet!” A tap on his shoulder made him jump. He turned around. “Chet.” He exhaled in a wave of relief.

Chet grinned.

Stark’s face lit up. “You got the invisibility blanket to work.”

“The cloaking device? Not exactly.”

Stark frowned. “How do you not exactly make something work? I came in and you weren’t here. At least I thought you weren’t.”

“I wasn’t here.”

Stark rolled his eyes impatiently. “I’ll bite. Where were you?”

“The correct question would be when was I?”

“Would you stop talking in riddles and start making some sense?”

“Sorry. I had to say that. It seemed like the perfect statement at the time… Time.” He laughed hard and deep.

“Must be a good joke. Think you can move it outside?”

“Outside? Oh, I get it. Inside joke. That’s pretty good. I’ll have to remember that one. Okay. Remember that thingamabob you gave me? I examined it and just couldn’t figure out what it did.”

“You know now?”

Chet twisted his face. “I have no idea what it was designed for. I assumed it was a field inhibitor. Turns out, it was just the opposite.”

“Then a field creator?” Start asked.

Chet cocked his head on angle to the side, “Eh…it’s more of a field enhancer, of a sort. I had developed my own circuit board for the cloaking device, but I couldn’t boost the output enough to enshroud me in the energy field. I was at my wits’ end.”

“So you connected your board to the thingamabob?”

He shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands. “I had to try something. You know how I hate to give up.”

Stark laughed. “How do you spell understatement?”

Chet smiled and walked over to the table. “Anyway, in anticipation of my demise, I set everything up and managed to fit it all inside this controller.” He picked up the gadget.

“You always planned on putting everything inside that. Wait… What’s this?” He pointed to a knob affixed to the top of the controller.

“I thought it was a power generator, and I could control how much of a field I would create. I set up the button to the left of it as the on switch and the one to the right for off. Then I hooked up the two buttons on the front of the device in tandem, so that two hands were needed to activate the field. I was concerned what the field might do. If one hand was too far outside, would the field act as a knife and cut my limb off?”

“That would be a bad thing.” Stark smiled wryly.

“To be honest, I thought death was a possibility, but I had to try it. I thought I’d start off with minimal power, so I only turned the dial two clicks to the left. Then I took a deep breath and pressed the activators.”

“Did it work?”

“That depends on your definition of work.”

“Chet!”

He grinned. “Okay. A field surrounded me. At first, I thought I was successful. Then I released the actuators. I found myself standing in the middle of a wooded hillside—this hillside.”

“So it didn’t work.”

“Did you hear me? I was in the woods.”

“Where do you think you were?”

“Right here. But the cabin wasn’t. The trees were. Even the one with the hollowed out hole in the side. Remember? You said we were probably taking out a squirrel’s home.”

“Yeah right. Like you built a time traveler or something.” Stark glanced at his friend’s grin. It took a few seconds, but his eyes grew large. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”