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  I don’t think that qualifies as expecting the unexpected.

  Robert ignored the nanite interjection, something else he’d come to expect, but had not yet learned to wholly deal with.

  In theory he understood that the transmogrification machine they sought to secure might be the key to capturing the mysterious Professor—and sometimes Doctor—Tobias Smith, who had caused problems in at least three galaxies and several periods of history. Evidence suggested that where the machine went, the not-good Professor/Doctor would soon follow, but the machine wasn’t in the museum. He wasn’t even sure the museum was in there.

  The website insisted that a museum did reside within the bowling alley, but there was nothing on the exterior to indicate its presence. It was possible that information about the museum had vanished into the brick with the murals. He hoped that the museum had not vanished into the bowling alley or they’d wasted a serious chunk of time getting to where a museum used to be. Not that it being there guaranteed they’d find any useful information. How useful could a museum be that shared space with a bowling alley?

  He could concede that it wasn’t the only strange pairing they’d encountered upon entering the town of Wilcox. There was the gun/doughnut shop they’d stopped at on the edge of town. Good doughnuts, excellent gun selection. Also in the weird pairings column was the bait/beauty shop. No one asked to stop there, though even Fyn had wanted to stop at the Jesus Saves snow cone and fireworks stand. A pity it was closed.

  Everything about this present, this Earth, this time, was weird to Robert, even the save money, live better Wal-Mart. They’d seen several getting here and they all seemed to attract many customers, so it must be more interesting inside than outside. He would have looked it up on his smart phone, but it had half a bar and no network in this part of Wyoming. Six months ago bars and networks weren’t on his mind, nor were this town or its bowling alley and possible museum site. Back then there’d been nothing on his mind, though he didn’t like thinking about that.

  He frowned at the bowling alley. Aside from its unfortunate exterior with its awkward dome top, the bowling alley was just a two-story structure set to the rear of a poorly maintained parking lot. Something that tried to be landscaping—and failed—straggled on either side of the wooden double doors of the bowling alley. Weeds, with a surprising lack of enthusiasm, poked out of the myriad cracks in the parking lot’s tarmac. In his admittedly limited experience with weeds, they seemed to always be enthusiastic. Both doors had head-high windows that needed washing. One had an off kilter, unlit “open” sign somewhat visible through the grime, giving the whole a dispirited appearance that didn’t bode well for the usefulness of the museum that might or might not exist.

  Man in black jeans, Ric, pulled in next to the only other vehicle in the lot: a pickup that looked long past its sell-by date. Robert was aware he should have known its age and manufacturer. He was a guy, only he wasn’t a real guy. He was a male.

  Define difference, Nod asked. Are they not synonymous? Wynken and Blynken indicated their confusion in what was now familiar nanite fashion.

  Carey gave the truck an admiring glance. “Nineteen thirties Ford. Sweet grillwork.”

  That’s the difference. Robert mentally dredged up a few more examples, like sports, spitting, passing gas, and banging beer cans against the forehead. Not being a real guy he didn’t know that many. All three nanite personalities winced. Did that make them male, female or gender neutral? He still didn’t know. If there were gender cues, he wasn’t sensing them, though in a strange way he “saw” them with more clarity than most of the real people he’d interacted with since his little sister yanked him out of his psychotic break six months ago. He blinked, well, six months and nine years.

  Delilah would have preferred to heal him at the moment of the psychotic break, but that would have messed with the timeline in ways difficult to predict, and pinpoint time travel was impossible—even for someone like his sister who routinely did the impossible. There’d have been no quantifiable impact on anything but him if they could have healed him in the present, but she and the nanites had determined that there’d been too much atrophy of both body and brain for a successful healing. So six months ago, Delilah had used the space/time portal on the Kikk Outpost, arriving nine years in their past—and within a successful healing window determined by the nanites. Once they’d healed him, they brought him to the present. The process had upset their birth order by making him the younger sibling, but it had protected the past.

  When he’d expressed concern for the future, the familiar stranger she’d become informed him that the future would have to look out for itself. She had her brother back. Game over. The time travel aspect, and the sibling birth order messing, would have made his head ache, but the nanites made sure nothing ached these days. They also helped him manage the negative aspects of being a genius—aspects that had caused the psychotic break.

  This was his first visit back to Earth since his awakening and he found it more alien than the alien planet in another galaxy where he currently lived and worked. He’d been odd before the break, but now he was a hybrid of uber-odd. Because of the mental download, he knew this world, knew much of the time and the culture, but he didn’t know any of it. He felt sixteen and a thousand, he felt scary and scared—not of his surroundings exactly, but of making a wrong move or saying the wrong thing. Of taking down the wrong person. Of injuring someone who didn’t deserve to be injured. He, who had never held a weapon or taken a life, was afraid of hurting someone. Talk about mind bending. He felt the weight of his sister’s confidence mixed with General Halliwell’s less than enthusiastic endorsement. Of course, the General was still pissed at Delilah for waking him up. Maybe he’d have gotten over it if he could have disciplined Delilah but she was married to the Gadi, Helfron Giddioni, and out of his jurisdiction.

  “Lock and load, Chewie.” Carey unbuttoned his navy sport coat.

  Without the integration of his sister’s memories, Robert wouldn’t have understood the nickname as much as he did—which was not a lot. There were similarities between the famous, fictional wookie and Fyn, Robert supposed. It fell into that guy gray area where even his downloaded memories couldn’t help.

  Once outside the vehicle, Fyn and Carey closed on the entrance like it was a military objective. It felt odd to know that, but odd was where he currently resided.

  “Closed.” Carey pointed out the hours listed on a notice tacked in a corner of a grimy window.

  Fyn tried the door. “Not locked.”

  He released the two words like he had a per day quota. He also seemed to think the unlocked door was an invitation to enter. The others went in on his heels, and since their mission required it, Robert followed them into a shabby foyer, though he felt conflicted about it. It was empty of everything but a staircase and an arrow tacked to the wall pointing up for the bowling alley. Still nothing about a museum. There appeared to be no access to the ground floor. The building seemed to be fashioned from cement, but he still wondered at the wisdom of having a bowling alley on the upper floor. And why did he feel the rumble of an engine through the soles of his tennis shoes?

  Fyn took point with an air of menace. Robert might have been worried, but Fyn had entered the plane that brought them here in the same way. The other two followed, though it was unclear if they felt menace or curiosity. On their six, Robert was the last to enter a world more alien than the one in the other galaxy where he wished he was right now. No question the Kikk Outpost was weird, but he expected it to be weird. He hadn’t expected this.

  Expect the unexpected.

  I’m working on it, he told them, even though he wasn’t. How did one work on expecting the unexpected? And even if one managed it, could one really expect this?

  Pipes, cylinders, grills, vents, gears, and pistons gleamed dully in the gloom. They appeared to cover part or most of all four walls and various other surfaces, including sections of the floor. The air he inhaled was damp,
smelled of popcorn, stale coffee, and hotdogs. A metallic taste lingered on his tongue. Somewhere that engine pulsed, stronger now that they were on the upper floor; sending a distinct hum up through the soles of his shoes, and now he could hear steam hissing in pipes. Should have expected that in a place called Steam Generation. He moved deeper into the room, past his companions who looked around like they expected something to explode. It wasn’t an overly pessimistic expectation.

  The potential was there.

  To his right there was a counter setup, most likely the source of most of the smells, with two picnic tables for customers. The steampunk detailing had leaked over into this space, too, which seemed to take up needed space for people. It was, he reminded himself, a small town. Possibly they did not require more space. In a desultory fashion, a part of his brain was running numbers on what portion of the population would be here. An imprecise equation, caused by imprecise data, but his brain didn’t care. It just liked to run data. Prior to the introduction of the nanites to his system, this process hurt. He was not sorry those days were behind him.

  He turned, curious about the lanes. The six lanes looked—once again not what he’d expected. Carvings and more of the pipes and gears added a mad scientist element. Not his sort of mad scientist. The kind who had a hunched over Igor as an assistant and believed switching brains was a reasonable research goal. Robert blinked. Igor? That didn’t feel like something he’d think.

  Out of the shadows all around them lights pulsed, as if the power supply was inconsistent. Some of the gears and pistons managed sluggish movement. What light there was made the shadows appear deeper and somewhat sinister. No one spoke. Maybe they were at a loss for words, too. No sign of a museum, in or out of shadow. He should be disappointed, worried even, but instead he was fascinated. So were his nanites, though their fascination was laced with curiosity—a state of being for them since their liberation from the test tubes. They’d been quivering with delight since arriving Earth-side. Robert frowned. If nanites could quiver?

  Do you wish us to assess?

  They felt his agreement before he formed a mental yes and sent drones out through the soles of his feet, their brief flickers of light easily camouflaged by the intermittent lights around them. Because of the mental link, a part of him traveled with them, and he felt as baffled as they at how low tech it was, despite the complexity of pipes and gears everywhere. The steampunk details were for show until the paraphernalia was well above human height. That was logical and sensible in a business that did not wish to be sued by severely burned customers. Or explain missing digits to parents. Steam did move through the higher piping, causing the observed sluggish movement of gears and pistons. But steam that was not hot was also being injected into the space through a series of Victorian-looking vents on the floors—

  Humanoid. Female. Above this space.

  Above? Where? How? Robert looked up. The dome. Of course. It was dark, except for an eerie, and faint, red glow. Information began to arrive via the nanites. There was something up there, based on the layout of the building. Some kind of wooden control panel, though the reasons for it remained unclear. He also received information on a possible site for the elusive museum in the floor below, across from the steam engine room.

  Robert was used to having his thoughts pulled in different directions, but not his physical body. He wished to check out the female and the museum and the power plant. Until the different desires could be reconciled, he stayed where he was, waiting for more data to provide direction.

  “What do you think, Prof?” Ric’s voice was pitched low for reasons that weren’t clear.

  Robert could and did think many things. Figuring out which thought process was suitable for sharing, or that his companions would find relevant, was still a challenge. Delilah said it would get easier. He hoped his sister was correct.

  “There’s someone here.” Fyn took that information out of the queue before Robert could decide to mention it. His stance turned even more menacing. Perhaps it was a “muscle” requirement.

  Not that muscle was indicated just yet. The “someone” was probably Emily Babcock, not a chainsaw-wielding murderer—Robert made a mental note to thank Delilah for that memory. Emily and her brother, Edward, owned and operated the bowling alley and had since they inherited the property from their parents five years ago. They were the same physical age as Robert: twenty-five. It was a small, but troubling reality that his actual birth date was thirty-five years ago. He tried not to think about it as it made his left brain ache, even with the nanites helping out. His right brain had no problem with the anomaly.

  “Where?” Ric asked.

  A grinding sound from above provided the answer and resulted in varied and interesting responses from his companions.

  Ric took a step back, his hand sliding under his jacket.

  Like two halves of a scary whole, Fyn and Carey stepped back as well, but they drew weapons—Fyn’s an alien ray gun and Carey’s a Glock—each taking a position better suited to covering the area where the sound originated.

  Robert felt a similar urge to reach for a weapon—a side effect from the mental download of his sister’s memories he felt sure—but he had no weapon on his person for a follow through. His role in the mission was as a scientist, the geek, but his senses stayed on high alert. He’d gotten better at managing the instincts not his own, but this was new. The lack of weapon didn’t make him less lethal, he realized, as his body shifted into black ops mode that was both familiar and not.

  His little sister had done some scary stuff while he’d been lost in crazy.

  He tried to shake it off, but black ops refused to be shaken, as a shadow from above grew larger. The whir came from a winch and pulley. The shadow resolved into the shape of an…airship? A mini version of one, he decided, curiosity trumping caution. He edged forward to get a better look. A propeller spun on the tail, but the top where an envelope would be was carved out, leaving a place for a pilot, whose form was visible in that space, well, as visible as the murky light allowed. She worked levers that appeared to control the descent. The basket hanging below might have held a small mammal, assuming one could be persuaded take a ride. The set up appeared to be for show, though why they needed a “for show” airship was unclear.

  Airships are integral to steampunk mythology.

  Robert thought it was steam that was essential to steampunk mythology, but let them have it. It didn’t matter what he or they thought. Nor was it germane to their mission.

  The faux airship stopped short of the floor and the side swung open. The pilot, despite bulky boots on her feet, dropped onto the floor, with only a minor vibration passing through the wood. She was enveloped in a long, white coat that she hadn’t buttoned up, and she wore goggles that she pulled down, letting them hang from her neck like ungainly jewelry. She turned in a half circle, her coat billowing out. She didn’t appear to see them in the shadows as she lifted her arm and pointed something toward the rear of the building.

  Sound exploded from hidden speakers placed for maximum effect. She sang—loud and off key—using the remote as if it were a microphone, something about not feeling like dancing, but then proceeded to dance with a lack of inhibition that impressed Robert—who lived in inhibited when he wasn’t in crazy—as she headed toward the counter setup. As if to light her way, light expanded toward their shadows.

  The steam had built enough to almost stabilize the power output, he deduced, pulling data out of early reports from the nanite scouts.

  “Risky Business.” Carey stowed his weapon, his voice raised just enough to be heard by his companions.

  Robert had no idea what this meant, though Fyn seemed to.

  “Too many clothes and no couch.” Fyn’s gun disappeared back onto his person as fast as it had appeared.

  Carey seemed to want to argue the point, but shrugged instead.

  Ric withdrew his hand from inside his coat and settled into his “men in black” stance. Did he copy
from the movie, or had the movie copied from him? Strange to be familiar with a movie he’d never seen. It was clear none of them considered her a threat. Robert was not so sure. He had zero experience with women, but his senses were kicking out warnings he lacked key data to accurately assess. Despite the warnings he was not averse to shifting in her direction for more assessing.

  She was tall and moved easily, despite the heavy boots and enveloping coat. There was air moving from somewhere, he decided. She lacked forward momentum sufficient to make her coat billow that much, no matter how confident her stride. As the light built, puffs of cool steam drifted up out of the vents, appearing to wrap around her, even as she blew through them, forcing them to shift and dance on passing air currents. While he appreciated the spectacle, he found the reasons for it obscure, but then he had limited experience with women, except his sister, who even he knew wasn’t a typical female.

  Beneath the coat she wore what appeared to be a red and black striped corset over some sort of white tank top and cargo pants that hung low on her hips and had many pockets. The pants were baggy and should have increased her rustic factor. They did not. Perhaps it was the corset that offset the rustic. His lack of people knowledge quadrupled where women were concerned. She stopped, upping her level of dance involvement with the music by turning in a circle, her hips kicking from side to side, her coat flapping back to give tantalizing glimpses of a female form. Increased light glanced off a section of her skin mid-body that appeared to be bare below the cinched in corset, and light reflected off something in that region. Her singing increased in volume, as well, though not in tonal accuracy. If anything, the volume decreased tonal quality.