The Last Time Traveler

by Aaron J. Ethridge

  “These invisibility belts are incredible!” Morgan exclaimed as they marched away from the ship. “I feel like the Predator.”

  “That’s funny,” Cleo said thoughtfully. “I’ve felt that way about you for a while now.”

  “That was completely uncalled for!”

  “I’m just teasing,” she giggled. “You don’t really. You remind me more of like a bald, dumb wookie or something.”

  “Thanks…” he sighed. “That’s much better.”

  “At least wookies are nice guys,” she pointed out.

  “Sometimes,” he chuckled. “But you better watch your step. What if I decide to tear your arms of out your sockets?”

  “If I were you I wouldn’t try it,” she replied.

  “No…” he admitted. “I wouldn’t if I was me either.”

  “Would you two try to keep in mind that we’re saving the universe here,” Robert said. “We’ll have plenty of time on the ship for mindless chatter.”

  Moments later a slap echoed through some of the surrounding trees causing several birds to take flight.

  “What was that?” the traveler asked.

  “Nothing!” Cleo replied. “Morgan just needs to watch where he puts his hands!”

  “How I’m supposed to do that Cleo?” he asked defensively. “My hands are invisible and I can’t see you!”

  “Well then, put your hands in your pockets!” she demanded.

  “When I do that I can’t walk!” he explained.

  “Morgan what in the universe is wrong…” she barked. “You know what? Never mind! Wherever you are get in front of me!”

  “I don’t know where I am!”

  “Would you two shut up!” the traveler said quietly. “You’re going to get us caught!”

  “Cleo…” the young man said after a few moment's silence.

  “What is it Morgan?”

  “What did I touch?”

  “Would you shut up?!?!” she exclaimed. “Oh and Rob, I want a lock put on the stealth field generator cabinet.”

  “I find that very offensive, Cleo!” Morgan replied.

  Shortly after this exchange the entire band was very carefully making its way through the front gate. Before them was a massive cavern just filled with future security guards. Fortunately for the party, however, most of them were more interested in hot space-coffee and their planet's equivalent of Dunkin Donuts than they were in keeping a group of invisible would-be heroes out of their base. As a result the entire band reached the control panel to the bay in less than five minutes.

  As soon as Cleo started punching buttons Morgan decided to help her.

  “Dun dun dun... dun dun... dun dun dun...,” he whispered. “Dun dun... dun dun dun.”

  “The theme song to Mission Impossible isn't going to help her, Morgan” the traveler pointed out.

  “It couldn't hurt.”

  “Unless, of course, it gets us caught and killed!”

  “Oh... right.”

  “Got it,” Cleo said triumphantly moments later.

  The vault that held the time machine was actually a large box of cormax set in the middle of a huge and mostly-empty cavern. Robert moved the party behind the structure before switching off his stealth field generator.

  “We should be perfectly safe here,” he nodded. “Nobody walks back here for the next year-and-a-half or so.”

  “Great,” Morgan replied, switching off his own invisibility cloak. “Now all we have to do is break into the un-break-into-able box.”

  “Exactly,” the traveler smiled, pulling the it-wasn't-actually-a-flashlight from his pocket.

  He flipped a switch on its side and a long blade of orange light shot from the silver cylinder.

  “I thought you said it wasn't a light saber,” Morgan said, staring at the traveler from under knitted brows.

  “And it isn't,” he explained. “Light saber is a copyrighted term. This is a light sword or photon saber depending on who you ask.”

  “Be that as it may,” the young man said, shaking his head, “you said it was a flashlight.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he nodded. “I lied. I didn't want you playing with it.”

  “It didn't have a power crystal,” Morgan pointed out. “What harm could it have done?”

  “You could still have lost it,” Robert replied. “Either way, we can argue about it back on the ship. For the moment we've got work to do. Stand back.”

  “Hiding it from swag-mad pirates,” the young man muttered under his breath as he obeyed the command.

  Vox stepped up and stuck a pair of handles to a section of the wall as Robert jammed the light blade into it. Slowly, but surely, the photon saber sliced through the not-quite-indestructible cormax. In roughly twenty minutes there was a hole in the vault large enough for them all to pass through.

  “Okay,” Morgan said, gazing through the opening. “How are we going to put that back when we're done?”

  “Have some faith, bro,” the traveler replied slapping him on the back. “Let's go.”

  In less than three minutes Cleo's magic fingers had disable the ship's security and opened its hatch.

  “Doc,” Robert said. “You and Morgan keep a lookout. This shouldn't take twenty minutes.”

  “Keep a lookout?” Morgan asked. “Don't you know whether or not anyone's coming?”

  “Yes,” the traveler nodded, “and they're not for about twelve hours. But random elements Morgan! Never underestimate the random elements!”

  “Right,” the young man nodded. “Well then, me and Doc here will keep a look out for any bands of swag obsessed pirates that happen to just randomly pop into existence here in the un-break-in-able vault...”

  “I would appreciate it,” Robert chuckled before turning to make his way into the ship.

  “Why are we out here, Doc?” the young man asked as soon as the traveler was out of earshot. “I've spent enough time around Rob to know he's full of crap about half the time.”

  “No quite that much,” Doc chuckled, “but I take your point.”

  “Right,” Morgan nodded. “And I can tell you this, we ain't out here just in case of random pirate attack.”

  “That's almost certainly true,” Doc nodded.

  “So why are we out here then?”

  “Well, when Rob lies, which is often enough, he always does it for what he believes is a good reason. Because of that you can often figure out what the truth is by looking at what's going on and what his motivation for lying might be.”

  “Okay, let's pretend I understand what you just said for a minute.”

  “Alright,” Doc nodded.

  “So why are we out here then?”

  “Well, it could be that Rob is lying about no one being around. For instance there could be patrols of guards marching all over this place that may or may not notice us.”

  “Why would he lie about it?”

  “To keep us from being nervous,” Doc explained. “At the moment we believe no one's coming. As a result we're not on edge.”

  “Weren't,” Morgan corrected. “We weren't on edge. Now that I know we're surrounded by guards I'm very nervous!”

  “We don't know that we are,” Doc pointed out. “It could be that Rob was telling the truth about that. Instead, he might have been lying...”

  “Stop,” Morgan demanded. “I don't want to know anymore. The guards are bad enough. I'll just keep on keeping a lookout for them!”

  “Very well,” Doc smiled.

  “Let's talk about something else.”

  “Alright,” Doc replied. “What would you like to talk about, Morgan?”

  “Tell me about Baguette.”

  “About what?”

  “Your home world Baguette,” Morgan explained. “Did I say it wrong?”

  “No,” Doc chuckled. “You said it fine. What would you like to know?”

  “How do you live on a planet with no water?”

  “There's plenty of water,” Doc explained. “It's just be
low the surface of the world.”

  “Weird...”

  “Well, it seems weird to us that people could thrive on a planet the surface of which is mainly covered by water.”

  “Yeah,” the young man replied. “I can see that I guess...”

  For the next fifteen minutes or so Doc and Morgan discussed the differences between Earth and Baguette as well as the rather fascinating culture of the Baguettians. As the twenty minute mark drew near, Doc sent Morgan to check on the traveler's progress. As the young man neared the bridge his ears were met by more of Robert's singing. Once again he was filling the air will familiar eighties lyrics.

  “Do you ever sing anything but Billy Idol songs?” Morgan asked as he stepped into the chamber.

  “Yes,” Robert said, sliding out from under the console. “Yes I do, Morgan. And do you know why?”

  “Why is that, Rob?”

  “Because I’m a simple kind of man who was born on the bayou, right down the road from the house of the rising sun. But then I ran, I ran so far away. And after that Morgan, I walked five hundred miles and I walked five hundred more. All to get away from that tainted love.”

  “That is weird...” the young man mused. “I mean you being born in New Orleans… What year was it?”

  “Ten Sixty-six.”

  “That's crazy! I mean, that was... Oh... I see... Are you about done?”

  “No,” the traveler replied. “We're completely done. Let's go.”

  In less than five minutes the ship security was re-activated and the entire band was standing outside the massive hole in the vault.

  “Check this out, Morgan,” the traveler said. “I think you'll like it.”

  Doc and Vox opened a tripod and set a small device on top of it into which they fed the end of a very long coil of material that exactly matched the color of the vault wall.

  “Is that cormax?” Morgan asked, glancing down at the material.

  “No,” Vox replied. “It's dullex.”

  “What's the difference?”

  “A lot of things,” Vox replied. “For one thing dullex is a lot easier to work with. Of course, it ain't near as strong.”

  “No it's not,” the traveler sighed. “You could probably break through the dullex patch we're about to put in with nothing more than a sledge hammer and a cold chisel in a week or so. Well... if you worked in shifts. Anyways, do you think it will hold Vox?”

  “I'm pretty sure it will,” Vox nodded before pushing a series of buttons on the dullex fed device.

  Immediately a red laser scanned the area of missing wall. Within seconds the machine was filling the void with flying dullex that hardened almost instantly. In just over two minutes the opening was gone.

  “Well,” Morgan said, gazing at the now seemingly undamaged wall, “I'm impressed.”

  “Yeah,” Robert nodded. “It's kind of the ultimate in 3D printing.”

  “Do they still call it that?”

  “No... Let's go.”

  Vox and Doc attached both a stealth field generator and a gravity reducer to the section of cormax wall laying on the floor. Moments later it was invisible and practically weightless. Both of them grabbed one of the handles Vox had attached to it earlier. Then the entire band fired up their invisibility cloaks and started making their way out of the cavern. They stopped just long enough for Cleo to turn the security back on in the bay. Fifteen minutes later they were on the bridge, the job completed perfectly, and their ship headed toward the heavens.

  “Alright,” the traveler said thoughtfully. “Should we go ahead and try it?”

  “No, Robert,” Doc replied, shaking his head. “We should head back to Never Never Land.”

  “Well this shouldn't change the time-lines much,” he replied. “If at all.”

  “True,” Doc nodded. “But I see no reason to take chances.”

  “You're right,” Robert sighed. “Cleo, love... Love?”

  “I guess, Rob,” she replied, a coy smile on her face. “You've been a fairly good boy lately.”

  “I'm glad,” he smiled. “In that case, Cleo, love, second star to the right.”

  “No problem,” she replied, punching a number of buttons on the console.

  “That's was easier than I was afraid it would be,” Vox pointed out.

  “Agreed,” Doc smiled.

  “It's what I call a job well done,” Cleo said, leaning back in her seat and putting her hands behind her head.

  “Don't do that,” Morgan insisted.

  “Don't do what?” she asked.

  “Don't lean back and put your hands behind your head like that,” he explained. “You're going to kill me stone dead.”

  “What is wrong with you, Morgan?” she asked, a tone of annoyance in her voice. “Do you want to tie me up in a straightjacket? Would that make you happy?”

  “Whoa!” he exclaimed, clucking his chest. “Whoa! No! Do not ever say... No! No! Do not ever even think anything about anything that has anything to do with you, me, and a straightjacket! Do you hear me? I mean... Unless for some bizarre reason we end up married.”

  “Don't worry, Morgan,” she sighed. “That ain't gonna happen!”

  “Right!” he cried. “Exactly! Cleo! Engage!”

  “Engage what?”

  “It means go...”

  “Oh right! Next Generation. But we're already going...”

  “Right,” he replied nodding his head. “Exactly. Well... I'm going down to the medi-bay to check my blood-pressure.

  Roughly half-an-hour later Morgan made his way back to the bridge to find Robert sitting at the controls alone.

  “How's the old blood-pressure?” the traveler asked with a grin as Morgan lowered himself into a nearby seat.

  “It's good,” he nodded. “And I finally figured out, bro…”

  “Figured what out, Morgan?” Robert asked.

  “It’s you…”

  “What’s me?”

  “You’re the other guy,” Morgan pointed out.

  “Yeah, I am,” the traveler sighed. “So, how’d you figure it out?”

  “Doc told me,” the young man explained. “He said he thought I should know because it might help prevent any more little episodes. Whatever he meant by that.”

  “Ah…” Robert nodded. “You know Morgan, that’s not actually figuring it out.”

  “No… I guess it’s not…” Morgan mused. “I never did have any kind of a chance, did I?”

  “Well… no, man,” the traveler said shaking his head, “you didn’t. But it ain’t exactly like it was an even playing field.”

  “What do you mean?” the young man asked.

  “I mean, Cleo’s addicted to me,” Robert explained.

  “Addicted to you? You really are a megalomaniac.”

  “No, I’m serious, Morgan,” the traveler chuckled. “You see… Well… first of all I guess you should know that there’s more than one kind of green woman in the universe.”

  “Oh! My! Goodness!” Morgan exclaimed.

  “Breath, Morgan. Try to stay with me. Anyway, the women of Cleo’s people.”

  “You mean the Escargotians.” the young man pointed out.

  “Yeah… I guess I do. Either way, their women feel emotions on a level we can’t begin to comprehend. All their love, hate, rage, envy, jealousy…”

  “Most of those are negative.”

  “Well, I get those from Cleo a lot for some reason,” the traveler explained.

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “Like I was saying,” Robert continued, “all their emotions are more powerful than anything we can imagine. Then there’s the body chemistry. They’re like little pheromone factories. I’m sure you’ve noticed how good Cleo smells.”

  “Boy have I!” Morgan exclaimed, deeply snuffing the lingering Cleo in the cabin.

  “And that’s just her mainly sitting around on the ship,” the travel explained. “If she were to go for a jog or play tennis or something it might kill you.”r />
  “I believe it might,” the young main speculated.

  “Then there’s the fact that their sweat tastes like maple syrup to human men.”

  “So far I get why I love her,” Morgan replied nodding his head, “but not why she’s addicted to you.”

  “Right, right,” Robert said. “Well, when they’re attracted to a man they become receptive.”

  “Receptive? You mean like Kif?”

  “Kif?”

  “From Futurama.”

  “Oh… Well, no, not that receptive,” the traveler said thoughtfully. “But it’s actually kind of similar. Either way, the point is that she and I had been working on a project together for a couple of years. During that time she became very receptive to me. Well, we finally succeeded right after she turned eighteen…”

  “Which is what she is now,” Morgan replied.

  “Yeah, but that was the first time she turned eighteen,” Robert explained. “Anyways, we were both really excited and jumping around and cheering and she got all hot and sweaty and I wasn’t nearly as strong as I am now and… I kissed her.”

  “You kissed her?” the young man asked sitting bolt upright in his seat.

  “Yeah…” the traveler nodded. “I believe I meant to just give her a little peck on the cheek or something, but she turned into me and… I think I went temporarily insane. It’s all like a blurry flash of ecstasy.”

  “So, you kissed her?”

  “Yeah. I mean like, I really kissed her,” Robert explained. “Like picking her up, spinning her around in the air, panting for breath when we were done kissed her.”

  “Like with your tongue?” Morgan asked his voice overflowing with excitement.

  “You know what,” the traveler replied shaking his head. “I don’t want talk about that. We’re saving the universe, man! I ain’t got time to get distracted. However, after the universe is saved… Boy do I plan to set aside some time to get distracted!”

  “So that made her addicted to you?”

  “Well yeah,” Robert explained. “When they’re receptive their bodies will pull bodily chemicals from the male they’re receptive to.”