The ELI Event B007R5LTNS

caught immediately, as had the curtains, the ceiling, and the paneled walls. The old house was dry and rotten, and the fire spread with terrifying swiftness. The entire rear section was almost completely engulfed.
    Robin’s mother, already burdened with poverty, loneliness, and desperation, did something she had never done before. She froze. Her body paralyzed, she could only watch in terror as the hungry wall of flame approached her and Lizzie.
    The fire, now completely out of control, reached the fuse box. In a moment, the front of the house went dark, then was illuminated through the smoke only by the awful yellow-orange glow from the kitchen. In the bedroom, Robin screamed, “Mama! Mama! Lizzie! Where are you?” but his voice was lost in the thunderous roar of the fire. Stumbling, he made his way down the hall toward the kitchen, but could not reach the doorway for the intense heat now pouring from it. He stumbled and fell. Again he screamed for Mama; this time, his voice reached her and broke the spell.
    “Robbie!” she cried, trying to move. “Get away!” Her legs finally responded, and spinning around, she tried to escape. The old dinette set in the kitchen had already given way to the heat, though, and lay in her path, all melted Formica and red-hot pot metal. When she tripped, the baby was violently wrenched from her grasp and plunged, wailing piteously, into the fiery darkness.
    Robin, now crawling on his stomach, forced himself into the doorway. His right forearm landed on the searing hot carpet tack strip and he withdrew, scarred, crying in pain and anguish. The doorway was impassible; he could not go any further. The last thing that registered before the heat and smoke completely obscured his view was Mama, skirt and apron in flames, one blackened arm reaching toward him, crying, “Robbie, get out! Get away! Save yourself! Robbie, get away!”
    He desperately tried once more to get to her but his body would not—could not—endure the heat. His eyes were singed, his lungs were filled with smoke, his limbs were burned and blistered. He got to his knees, coughed hoarsely, retched dryly, fell down again. His senses and emotions, critically overloaded by the physical pain and the hideous spectacle before him, at last tuned out everything and granted him unconsciousness.
    Robin heard neither the sirens in the background nor, mercifully, his mother’s final scream.

Four
    The fugitive scientists gathered in the kitchen area of their private laboratory complex. It was completely underground, well out of the city, and out of reach of Lokus’s troopers, at least for the moment.
    Pan-Li offered to make some tea and busied himself with cups, pots, and strainers. Aurora sat quietly at the small table, crying. Lucinda comforted her, both of them trying to cope with their grief and shock. Denes, his heart forever wounded by the loss of their friends and colleagues, could not sit. He paced, also in silence, his eyes wandering aimlessly about the room.
    When Pan-Li had the water heating, Denes said to him, “Perhaps we should go, um, check the temporal relocator.” Pan-Li gave him a quizzical look. With a slight inclination of his head, Denes indicated the seated women.
    “Ah,” said Pan-Li. “Yes, perhaps we should.”
    They left the kitchen and passed through the dim hallway leading to the laboratory. As they approached the large metal door, it slid back with a slight rasping sound, then slid shut again behind them. They stood looking at each other blankly for a moment.
    “I suppose we may as well actually check the equipment,” Pan-Li said.
    Denes nodded. “I’ll look over the chamber if you’ll check the control room.”
    Pan-Li turned, entered the small room to his left, and began activating the machinery. Lights flickered to life, the familiar electronic hum rising until the door closed. Through the thick glass panes that separated the control room from the transmission chamber area, Pan-Li produced a strained, thoroughly unconvincing smile.
    Denes turned away and walked to the center of the large, mostly empty room. He stopped in front of the chamber, the heart of the temporal relocator, where a subject stood before being ripped from his own time and deposited into another. An enclosed translucent cylinder with thick cables running in all directions from its base, it was large enough for only one person, perhaps two—although that had never been attempted.
    Denes placed a hand on the cool,