And it worked. The people who lived in Brentwood put down silver for the Levi's. Pair after pair disappeared. Before too long, a Valley sergeant strode over to inspect the goods. He wasn't a warrior. He was at least fifty, with a pot belly and shrewd eyes. He was a quartermaster sergeant: somebody who got fighting men what they needed to fight with. Mo army in the world kept going without people like that, and they won exactly zero glory.
This one didn't seem to care. He examined the jeans even more carefully than the Valley rifleman had. He carried a magnifying glass to help his aging eyes look at them up close. Once he was satisfied, he said, “How many pairs have you got left?” Dad told him. He nodded and asked, “What's your price?” Again, Dad told him. Liz waited for the sergeant to pitch a fit. He just said. “Okay. I'll take fifty pairs, assorted sizes.”
It was as simple as that.
Twelve
When Dan stepped into the room he'd found with a word from The Lord of the Rings, lights in the ceiling came on. They were just like the ones in the room under the basement, so they had to be electric lights. Somehow, he wasn't much surprised. And then, a moment later, not being surprised… surprised him.
The room was full of strange, mostly plastic furniture. A rectangular metal box sat against the far wall. The front had hinges and a handle, which made it likely to be a door.
“Oh, wow, man.” The guy with the sledgehammer pointed to it. “Like, what is that thing?”
“It's one of those refrigerators, isn't it?” Dan said. You found them in houses every now and then. They could be dangerous. Little kids sometimes got them open and went inside. For some dumb reason, refrigerator doors didn't work from the inside out. Too often, kids playing games suffocated before anybody found them.
“Yeah. I guess you're right. They kept stuff cold in the Old Time, right?” the other soldier said.
“I think so. I wonder if this one still works.” Dan looked up at the bright ceiling. “The lights do.”
“Oh, wow.” the muscular soldier said again.
“Go get Captain Horace,” Dan said. “He needs to see this.”
“Okay.” The other guy let the sledgehammer fall over with a clatter. Dan was half surprised he didn't carry it with him.
Horace came down the stairs on the double. He walked through the newly opened door. He looked at the furniture, at the refrigerator, and then at Dan. “Congratulations, Sergeant,” he said.
Now Dan was the one who said, “Oh, wow!” Then he said, “Thank you, sir!” And then he walked over to the refrigerator. “Could this thing work?”
“Beats me,” Captain Horace said, which struck Dan as a pretty honest answer. The officer continued, “Why don't you open it and find out?”
Why don't you…sir? Dan thought. What if it didn't work? What if it blew up instead? The captain would say. Well, so what? He was a captain, while Dan was only a just-promoted sergeant. Everybody in the whole Kingdom of the Valley would agree with him. Well, everybody but Dan. And nobody would care what he thought.
He reached out, grabbed the door handle, and pulled. Obviously, that was what you were supposed to do. The door wasn't real easy to open, but it sure wasn't hard, either.
As soon as it swung open about three inches, a light came on inside the refrigerator. Where does it go when the door closes? Dan wondered. But he had other things to worry about by then.
He felt chilly air on his legs. “It does keep stuff cold!” he exclaimed.
Captain Horace came up beside him. Why not? Now the captain knew it was safe. “It sure does,” he said. He reached out to touch a shelf. Then he jerked his hand back. “It's as cold as a winter night in there.”
Dan was eyeing the cans on the shelf. He'd seen tin cans before. In L.A.'s warm, dry climate, they didn't rust away very fast. These, to look at them, might have been made yesterday. They were red, with fancy, swirly letters that ran along the whole length from top to bottom. The letters were so fancy, they were hard to read. When Dan finally puzzled them out, he said, “Oh, wow!” one more time.
“Coca-Cola?” Captain Horace read the name as if he had trouble believing it. Well, so did Dan. There were lots and lots of wasp-waisted green glass bottles around, all of them carrying that same swirling script. “You don't think…? Is there real Coca-Cola inside those things?”
Nobody'd tasted Coca-Cola since the Old Time, or not long after it. Dan picked up a can. It had to be the coldest thing he'd ever touched: so cold, he almost dropped it. “How are you supposed to open this thing?” he wondered. But the can had a metal tab on top. He worked it with his thumb to see how it operated. If you pushed up from under it, the other end went down and…
Ssss! The sudden hiss nearly made Dan drop the can again. Some brown bubbly stuff came out of the opening he'd made. He started to taste it, then paused and sniffed instead. What if it was rotten or something? But it smelled spicy-intriguing. He took a cautious sip.
It had bubbles. They tickled his tongue, and then tickled his nose from the inside out. It tasted like… he didn't know what it tasted like. It was pretty good, though. He took another sip-a bigger one this time.
“Well?” Captain Horace asked. Dan handed him the can. He sipped, too. “It's like sweet champagne!'' he said.
“Is it wine, then?” Dan asked. He knew champagne was wine with bubbles in it. but he'd never had any. It was expensive stuff.
“No way.” the officer said. “You'd taste the booze in it if it were.” Dan nodded. He was like anybody else. He drank beer or wine-often watered down-instead of water whenever he could. Water would do at a pinch, but you always took a chance with it.
“What is it, then?” Dan said. “It isn't water, it isn't wine, it isn't cider or grape juice. It isn't anything” He wanted things to fit into their own neat little slots. Well, who didn't?
Captain Horace took a bigger swig. “It's Coca-Cola, that's what it is.” He handed the can back to Dan. Dan drank some more, too. Horace wasn't wrong. Something like this deserved a name for itself, all right. It wasn't like anything else. It was something out of the Old Time. How did it end up here in the modern world?
The captain let out a loud burp. A moment later, so did Dan. He looked at the can of Coca-Cola. “It's the bubbles, that's what it is,” he said.
“Well, sure.” Captain Horace said indulgently. Then his gaze sharpened. “How did these traders get their hands on Coca-Cola, though? It's an Old Time thing. It doesn't really belong here.”
“Neither does a refrigerator that works. Neither do electric lights,” Dan said.
“I know.” The officer took the can back again and drained it. Dan almost got mad, but the impossible refrigerator held more impossible cans. Captain Horace belched again. “It's all righteously freaky, man.”
“Really,” Dan agreed. His mind leaped. “What if the traders aren't from now? What if they're really from the Old Time? That would explain why they acted funny sometimes, too. They were trying to, like, lake it, you know? They didn't exactly grok how we do things nowadays.”
“I don't know. That doesn't sound very scientific to me,” Captain Horace said. “It doesn't sound very likely, either.”
“Sir, none of this stuff is very likely, either.” Dan's wave took in the lights, the refrigerator, and the can the officer was still holding. “But it's here. What's that thing the Great Detective says?”
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Captain Horace knew what he was talking about, all right. He went on, “But everything here seems impossible! How do we go about eliminating any of it?”