He went to the front of the car and raised the hood. Inside was the strangest little engine Jack had ever seen.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Turbo-jet," said Ken proudly. "And if you'll notice, you can't see inside the car—one-way glass. And it's got radar brakes and a hundred other new gadgets on it."
"But I thought the turbo-jet engine was still in the future," protested Jack.
"It is," said Ken solemnly. "That's where our bargain basement is—in the future."
The big car swept along the superhighway as silently as a floating cloud. The speedometer read 160. Ken explained that was 160 kilometers, or about 100 miles an hour. He buzzed it up to 200 kilometers once when some youngsters in a souped-up sports car sought to race with them.
"They use solar power," Ken explained, "but it's broadcast power and wouldn't work in a car sent back to the past. They made one like the picture, which just showed the outside, and I suppose they assumed we use turbo-jets back in this period. It must be pretty ancient to them."
"Why would people from the future want to set up a store in the basement under the Eat-A-Bite Restaurant?" protested Jack.
"Not from the future—in the future. For some reason, that basement door is in a time fault. People from now can go through it into the future and come back, and bring inanimate objects with them. But the people from the future can't come back to the past for some reason—that's why they can't go out and get things themselves, and that's why they want us to bring them rare antiques, like newspapers and books."