Combination Lock
“How’s he doing?”
“Doing?” Harold Martin finally let the professor’s hand drop to the floor and shook his head. “He’s dead. That’s how he’s doing. You should have made him tell us the combination before we came here!”
Sanders sat in the machine, tapping the keypad like a madman. “How the hell was I supposed to know he would have a heart attack?”
“You’re wasting your time. There are over a million possible combinations. It could take years to find the right one.” Martin cocked an ear toward the street outside their little room. “The crowd’s getting pretty worked up out there. I warned you not to take flash pictures. They probably thought you were shooting a gun at them.”
Sanders continued working the keypad. “You’re the one who speaks French. What are they shouting at us?”
“They’re saying ‘guillotine’ mostly.”
“You’re joking.”
“I wish I were.” Martin left the professor’s body where it lay and sneaked a peek out the window. “I think some of them are coming up this way. You’d better hurry. Any luck?”
“Not yet.” Sanders tried another combination on the keypad. Nothing happened.
“I don’t want to say ‘I told you so’, but you were the one who wanted to study the French Revolution. You knew the risks. Taking those pictures...”
Sanders continued working the keypad quickly and carefully, trying different combinations. “That’s right. Just blame it all on me.”
“Come on! Can you do it or not?”
“I’m trying, dammit!”
Martin pressed both hands to his temples in frustration. “You’ll never figure it out. They’re coming up here, all right. Isn’t there another way out of this room?”
“No.” Sanders finally ceased his frantic typing. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
The footsteps of dedicated Frenchmen pounded up the stairs. They beat a staccato at the door, shouting angry words.
“Yeah, I know. Do we really have a choice?” Their eyes met for a few precious seconds.
“No.”
The door splintered and cracked under the blows from a dozen men.
As the door finally flew open with a loud crash, Sanders pushed the auto-destruct button on the time machine and hung his head. “I’m sorry it had to end like thi...”
Copyright © 2006 by Bewildering Stories
on behalf of the author
