Time-Travel Duo

by James Paddock

  “Let’s just wait until Robert and Howard get back,” the older man said.

  “I don’t have to wait for my grandfather to voice my opinion,” Annie said. “My opinion is that it will change way too much.”

  “It’ll change everything, yes,” the big guy said. “What’s wrong with that? It’ll save thousands of lives, not just on September eleventh, but also in the years of war that follows. And in the end, who would even know?”

  Annie just looked at him.

  “Not even us. We would wind up not even being here right now.”

  Annie pointed her finger at him. “Think about that. If we’re not here right now, how can we stop it?”

  “Because it’ll never happen. If we stop 9/11 now we’ll not have to be here to stop it again.”

  “There’s something convoluted about that theory.” After a long silence Annie said, “Stopping what happened on that day doesn’t stop it from taking place some other day. It’s like trying to win one battle that no one yet knows about when the war, which we also don’t yet know about, is out of control.”

  “So you really think we shouldn’t try to do something about 9/11?”

  “No, but I’m not sure that dropping information on the police or FBI will accomplish a whole lot.”

  “All we’re planning on doing is anonymously providing names, flight numbers, and intentions. Give us a little credit for intelligence. We’re not going to put in anything that sounds like we’re a sky-is-ready-to-fall apocalyptic organization who the FBI should ignore. At worst they’ll have to detain the 19 hijackers at the gates. Once they start digging they’ll discover how close al-Qaeda and the Taliban came and will start ramping up security.”

  “It won’t be enough to build Homeland Security. It won’t stop it from eventually happening somewhere else.”

  “Probably not, but for this one battle we’ll have immediately saved nearly 3,000 lives.”

  Annie strummed her fingernails on the arm of the chair. “How long have you guys been planning this?”

  “Almost two years,” the older man said.

  “And how long have you been planning my involvement?”

  The two men looked at each other, then the older man said, “A little over a year. That was when we fully understood our mass limitations.”

  “Why did you wait so long to approach me?”

  “I wanted to but your grandfather refused, said it wasn’t time, that you weren’t in the right place. He was right; we weren’t ready yet, so what was the point?”

  “Now I’m in the right place because you think that doing something to save my husband’s life would be my motivation.”

  The men didn’t say anything.

  “But that’s not how you approached me, Professor Grae. You said, what if I could talk to Tony one more time? That was why I was so taken back when you threw this 9/11 thing at me. I had formed the impression that you all just wanted me to fix your personal losses, like your wife and grandfather’s wife, my grandmother, and my mother, and Professor Bradshaw’s . . . what? And what about you, Mister Walsh? Who have you lost who you want me to save or talk to?”

  He looked at her a long time, opened his mouth, closed it and then looked away.

  “I’m sorry,” was all Annie said. The exchange ended for several minutes until Annie said, “You were the guy in the booth, weren’t you?”

  “Booth? What booth?”

  “The Beam Me Up Scotty time travel booth at the Star Trek convention five years ago. You were with another guy, wore white shirts and black ties. You had stains on both your shirt and tie and carried a few more pounds. You were way out of dress in the midst of all the Trekkies.”

  “You remember that?”

  “It was probably the only serious thing at that convention. You had no idea how close to the real thing you were.”

  “We did and didn’t. We knew we were onto something but nobody would listen to us. We were a couple of freshmen. Who was going to take us serious?”

  “Did you go to Amal Dorai’s Time Traveler’s Convention two years ago?”

  Again, Charles opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  “Are you okay?”

  He met her eyes and then jerked away. “Yes. I’m fine.” He recovered from whatever he needed to recover from and said, “No, I didn’t make it to the convention.”

  “I think I went.”

  “You think?”

  “I remember going but can’t recall a thing about it.”

  “You? With perfect photographic memory can’t remember?”

  “Exactly.”

  Again Annie went silent. Patrick knew he should retreat, that he was committing a grave sin by spying, but retreating wasn’t possible. He had to know what they were talking about, what her grandfather was doing here. Are they seriously discussing trying to stop 9/11? Is Annie part of some crazy organization—cult—that thinks they can travel back in time? He noticed a platform affair with steps that was closer to where Annie was. He worked his way to it and then crawled inside where he could see out the small, half-inch cracks. He settled, deciding, like Annie, to wait for her grandfather.

  Chapter 47

  June 14, 2007

  Both of the men had gone off to do whatever they were doing before Annie arrived, so she sat in her pink chair, thinking. She caught herself reevaluating the Dweeb. She’d never really had a conversation with him before. She simply didn’t like him from the first time she saw him in one of her undergraduate classes. After that he had become a weed to ignore in the MIT landscape. Yes, he was intelligent, but he was a fat nerd, though, she had to admit, not as fat as he used to be. And he still carried around food stains. But if she let him go out of focus when she talked to him, he wasn’t all that bad. She wondered about his reaction to the mention of the Time Traveler’s Convention. It was like the topic suddenly spooked him, or that he was embarrassed to say that he actually did attend. She figured once she admitted that she went he would fess up, but he didn’t. What was that all about?

  She noticed a cage near the door to the RV, a size used for ferrets, hamsters, rabbits or some other such animal. She went over and looked at it. There was a bed of newspaper, food and water, a rubber ball, but no animal. She returned to her chair.

  This 9/11 plan bugged her and she still couldn’t put her finger on why. Maybe it was the fact that it was all theory. No one knew for sure what would happen if that huge a piece of history was suddenly altered. In the end would Tony not have a reason to join the Army? Would she never wind up in the position to say those words to him? Or would things change so much that they wouldn’t have gotten married? Of course that’s the way it would be; she wouldn’t meet him at all. There was hardly a human being who was not affected by 9/11 so everything would be different. Everyone’s future would alter at least a little, if not tremendously. The entire world would head off on a different course.

  And then she sat up. If I change the outcome on that day then most likely, almost certainly, this mobile time-travel lab would not be here right now. That means that if I were to travel to 2001 and actually was able to stop the hijackings, my grandfather would not be here to bring me back. I’d be stuck there . . . with my 14-year-old self.

  “That wouldn’t work.”

  That couldn’t happen though, could it? Identical molecules couldn’t exist together. I wouldn’t be with myself. I’d replace myself.

  “That would be insane!”

  Suddenly realizing she had spoken out loud, she closed her mouth. The two men were in the RV and likely didn’t hear her. She relaxed back into the chair, but her mind kept working it.

  It’s obvious that it can’t be done, or shouldn’t be done. In any case I can’t do it. But would it be a risk just to go back to Logan Airport for a few minutes? What could I possibly alter other than the words that I say? It’d be like throwing a grain of sand into the Mississippi and then looking for a ripple in the Gulf of Mexico. The ripple would immediately be absorbed by
the Mississippi, just as would be my ripple in the atmosphere of Logan Airport.

  The slamming of car doors broke into Annie’s thoughts. She looked around at Professor Bradshaw and her grandfather. “Glad to see you’re back,” Bradshaw said and then entered the RV with three plastic bags of groceries.

  When her grandfather settled into the chair next to her she said, “You look worse than you did this morning.”

  “I get a little tired in the evenings, is all. Other than that, I’m doing fine. So, you’ve had the day to think our plan over and you’ve returned.”

  “It can’t be done.”

  “Thomas!” he called out.

  Bradshaw’s head poked out the open RV door. “What?”

  “The lady says it can’t be done. You all might as well come have a seat so she doesn’t have to present her argument more than once. How much time do we have?”

  Bradshaw looked at his watch. “Just over ten minutes. Charles is nuking the apple pie. We’ll be ready to observe over pie à la mode. After that she can tell us what she thinks.”

  Annie looked at her grandfather. “Ten minutes until what? What are we observing?”

  “The results of our test. We brought the plant up hot this afternoon and ran an event.”

  “An event?”

  “We procured several hamsters from a local pet store and then ran a four hour event.” He glanced at his watch. “We’re about to see the results.”

  Annie’s gaze flicked to the animal cage and then back to her grandfather. “You’re still running tests? I thought you had this procedure nailed down.”

  “We did until a week ago. After a 2,500-mile road trip we have to check everything out. We did a 4-hour, 20-meter offset with a minus 1.75-meter elevation change for a total Δr of 20.08 meters, Δt of 14,400 seconds. The pair of hamsters and their transport cage will appear over there.

  Annie followed his pointing finger to painted markings on the ground.

  “Of course it’s not the same as when we sent you the phone. That was real time with a 3356.79234 kilometer offset and a 944.88 meter elevation change.”

  “Is the plant still running right now?”

  “It’s in hot standby.”

  Her grandfather started into a coughing spell. Annie watched for a few seconds and then had to turn away because she would only get angry with him for doing nothing about it. She looked again where he had been pointing. The eight-foot diameter circle was cleared of growth, swept clean and then marked with a spray-painted white X. She looked up at the decal over the door to the lab. She pointed at it. “Who came up with that?”

  “Charles,” Robert said. “Don’t bring it up around Howard, though; it gets him riled. Surprised he hasn’t scraped it off already.”

  “Was the X marks the spot his idea, too?”

  Her grandfather shrugged his shoulders. “What can I say? He’s still just a kid.”

  “Based on age, I’m more of a kid, but I’m not juvenile or unprofessional.”

  “Does that mean you’re joining us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re voicing opinion over little details like you’re taking a share of the ownership.”

  Behind her glare she thought, am I? She looked again at the Have Time, Will Travel decal over the door and remembered the last words she said to Tony not even five months past. I hope the hell you get killed. Yes, she was taking a share of the ownership. She wasn’t going to admit it though. But if she said nothing it’d be the same as admitting it. “I have concerns.”

  “Nothing wrong with concerns. But concerns are different than announcing that it can’t be done. Here comes the pie.”

  Hot apple pie and vanilla ice cream. Normally it would have excited her palate. She ate without tasting it, hardly noticing she was even eating, all her senses aligned with the white X. After a bit she wanted to ask how much longer, but didn’t want anyone to think she was interested. She thought she felt something, a vibration, expected to see a bright light—she was told it would be preceded by a white light—and then realized the vibration was originating within her own body. She was shaking with anticipation!

  She put the pie aside and stood. “One minute,” Professor Grae said. She pushed her hands into her pockets and looked away from the X. She looked at the lab door, at the decal, down at the steps. As her eyes passed across the slats in the platform something moved; a flash of muted color. She took a step forward.

  “Any second now,” her grandfather said.

  “There!” Professor Grae said.

  Annie spun around. Three feet off the center of the X was a faint glow of light. Its intensity grew until she wanted to turn her eyes away, but not so intense that she had to. A breeze messed with her hair, sent her clothes to rippling. She reached up with both hands to hold her hair back, out of her eyes. Her paper plate of pie crumbs and dab of ice cream flipped off the table and landed upside down. The plate held for a second before the wind snapped it away. There was not a sound except for Annie’s beating heart.

  And then suddenly the light flared to the point that she did have to turn away and then with a low frequency pop—more like a whumph!—it went out. She turned back. Resting on the ground where the glow had been was a small cage with two very excited hamsters. She walked over and touched the cage. The temperature was normal. She pulled out one of the hamsters. Its eyes were bright and alert, its nose twitched. It wiggled. She carried it over to what was left of her ice cream, melting in the dirt, scooped a little on her fingertip and presented it to the animal. He sniffed around it a few times and then cleaned it off her finger.

  She returned the hamster to its cage. The men hadn’t stirred from their chairs the entire time, only sat watching her. She moved her chair so as to form a semicircle with the others, placed the hamsters in the middle and then sat down.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do.” She looked at her watch. “Tomorrow morning at precisely 8:00 you’re going to run this test again. This time you’re going to send them back twelve hours.”

  Nearly in snap unison, the men looked at their watches. Professor Bradshaw spoke first. “If we do that they should show up again in eight minutes.”

  “Precisely.”

  Her grandfather grinned but didn’t say anything.

  “What about them?” Charles said, pointing to the hamsters. “They’d be here twice.”

  “I don’t think so, Mister Walshe; part of the experimental discovery.” Annie said. “I’d ask if we are in agreement, but we’ll find out in eight minutes anyway.”

  “Agreed as far as I’m concerned,” Professor Grae said.

  The rest nodded their heads. “Looks like a go,” her grandfather said.

  And then they all nervously waited.

  At 8:00 and fifteen seconds by Annie’s watch, the glow began. This time, having tied her hair into a ponytail, she was prepared for the wind. As the glow grew she kept her eyes on the hamsters in their cage seven feet in front of her. If her theory was correct they would . . . the light flared with a whumph! . . . disappear.

  Charles pushed his bulk out of his chair and walked over to look down at the spot where the hamsters were, and then at Annie. “You knew this, didn’t you?”

  “Just applying logic to physics. How could identical molecules exist at the same time?”

  Charles started to go get the hamsters now resting in the cleared zone.

  “Leave them. In five minutes they’ll return to tomorrow morning.”

  “They will?” Charles looked over at Robert.

  Robert laughed and presented his hand, palm up. “Let me present my granddaughter. She’s back to her old self, and she seems to be in charge. Let’s see what happens.”

  Five minutes later the glow of light reappeared around the hamsters in their cage until the light flared, and with a whumph! it all disappeared. Simultaneously the little rodents reappeared in front of the seated scientists.

  Annie extracted one of the hamsters and went
through the same checks as earlier. She put the hamster back and pulled out the other one. After the second analysis she returned the animal and, setting the cage next to her chair, sat back down. “Let’s see what happens next.”

  “There’s more?” Robert said.

  She looked at her watch. “Seven minutes.”

  Professor Grae shook his head. “This is unnerving. Not only are we dutifully following her instructions, but now we have no idea what they are, nor what is about to take place.”

  “After what I just witnessed,” Bradshaw said, “she has my interest. I can’t wait to see what happens next.”

  Robert said, “I’m assuming this all takes place between 8:00 and 8:30 tomorrow morning.”

  “We shall see in six minutes.” She rubbed her hands together, felt the sweat, and then attempted to rub them dry on her jeans.

  Robert noticed her movements, and then after minutes of unsuccessfully trying to catch her eye said, “I don’t think we’re ready for this yet.”

  “Ready for what?” She looked at her watch again. Two minutes.

  “You know what I’m talking about. We’re not certain this is 100% operational.”

  “You . . . we just did a live test. The next step is a human subject. I don’t see anyone else around with the qualifications.”

  “We’re going to do the same thing with you?” Grae said.

  Robert glared at her. “I don’t like it. We should wait.”

  “This is the reason you hauled this all the way out here. You’ve finally convinced me. I’m ready. We’re going to test it on me in one minute plus 12 hours.”

  “No, we’re not!”

  “Yes, we are!”

  They shot visual daggers at each other for a few seconds and then both of them turned their attention to the white X. Grae shifted forward in his chair muttering something about not liking it either, and Bradshaw got to his feet. Charles sat perfectly still, eyes big, hardly breathing.

  The minute passed, and then another. Annie rose from her chair and took several steps toward the X as if something had happened and she simply couldn’t see it from where she was sitting. After a few seconds she turned to her grandfather. “How are you going to talk me out of it?”