The Last Time Traveler

by Aaron J. Ethridge

  “Oh yeah,” the young man said. “Well, that one was your fault anyway.”

  “What?” the traveler chuckled.

  “Nothing,” Cleo replied, blushing teal again, “Morgan's just an idiot.”

  “She's right,” Morgan nodded. “I am.”

  “Alright...” Robert replied. “Well, just days before that the three of you were up here eating ice-cream without me.”

  “No we weren't,” Azure said.

  “Actually, we were,” Cleo corrected. “It's part of that future that never happened.”

  “Yeah,” Robert said, “it is. What was that great combo you came up with, Morgan?”

  “I don't think I remember...”

  “It was pistachio with maple syrup,” Cleo reminded him. “And that was actually really good.”

  “Oh, I'm sure it was!” the traveler replied. “But I didn't get any. And what was it you wanted to have with the blueberry there, Morgan?”

  “I just can't seem to...”

  “It was honey, Morgan,” Cleo replied. “Don't you remember?”

  “Oooo,” Azure said, “That does sound good.”

  “I'll go get some!”

  “No, no,” the traveler replied, “I think we'll save that for a second date. Don't you, Morgan?”

  “Absolutely!”

  “You know,” Azure began, “it's crazy to think that I've sat up here eating ice-cream with you guys even though it never happened.”

  “I guess it is a little,” Robert admitted.

  “How did I end up on the ship, anyway?” she asked. “The day you guys picked me up, for the second time I guess, Doc said he'd tell me more when I was ready, but he hasn't yet.”

  “It's actually a rather interesting story,” the traveler replied, excitement flashing in his eyes. “We'd gone to collect the Orb of the Gods just as two different apocalypses were destroying your home world simultaneously!”

  “So how did that get me here?”

  “To start with,” Robert began, “you were basically this priestess-warrior...”

  “I was?” she interjected.

  “Oh yeah,” he replied. “Anyway, you served at one of your people's most holy temples. The very temple, in fact, where the orb was kept. Well our little party, led by me naturally, broke into that temple by crashing my car through the roof...”

  “Seriously?”

  “Absolutely,” he nodded. “I then did some of my magic and in seconds there was nothing but e-zombie dust filling the floor of the foyer.”

  “E-Zombie?”

  “Think zombies made out of robots!” he smiled. “Nightmarish! Man what a rush... Either way, we belted down stairs toward the orb and... and actually why don't you take over Morgan?”

  “What?” the young man replied. “Nah, man. You go ahead and finish.”

  “No, Morgan,” Cleo smiled, “seriously. You tell Azure how she got rescued.”

  “If you want,” he sighed. “Um... So... Well, like Rob said, there were all these e-zombies all over the place and when we got down stairs you were alone down there with them...”

  “Honestly?”

  “Yes,” Cleo nodded, with a wide smile. “Go on, Morgan.”

  “Right,” he said clearing his throat. “Well, you screamed and attracted our attention. And fortunately only one of the zombies was after you because the rest wanted to kill us. And anyway, everybody opened fire... well, I didn't because I didn't have a gun yet. That was before you taught me to shoot. But either way, we killed the thing and then you came with us. In fact, you even helped us recover the orb.”

  “Wow!” Cleo said. “Did you just see that, Rob? That's what humility looks like!”

  “I don't like it,” Robert replied shaking his head. “It looks pretentious.”

  “Anyway Azure,” Cleo continued, “what Morgan didn't tell you is that he saved your life. If he hadn't reacted when he did there's no way you'd have made it. And if you hadn't then you wouldn't be here with is now. So, Morgan is actually the reason you're here and not just another missing person.”

  “If he didn't have a gun...”

  “Oh,” Cleo giggled. “He charged it with a baseball bat?”

  “Baseball bat?”

  “It's like a metal club,” Cleo explained. “And actually the zombie almost killed him.”

  “So,” Azure said, turning her eyes to Morgan, “you actually risked your life to save mine?”

  “Yeah,” he nodded.

  “Why didn't you tell me before?”

  “I...” he stammered. “I don't know... I mean, it would have seemed like bragging about doing the only thing I could have done. Ya know what I mean?”

  “I think I actually do,” she smiled. “And that surprises me.”

  “I know,” he sighed. “Sometimes I'm hard to follow.”

  “No,” she laughed. “I mean, your reason for not telling me surprises me. I just really wish I could remember it all.”

  As soon as she said this Robert shot bolt upright and snapped his fingers.

  “Azure,” he said, “I apologize!”

  “For what?”

  “For getting so distracted,” he replied. “I cannot believe I forgot to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Me and Doc backed up your memories,” he smiled.

  “You what?” Morgan asked, swallowing as he spoke.

  “We figured she might want them after she settled back in,” the traveler explained. “So, we backed them up on the ship and Doc ran a quick backup with a hand scanner after the whole beach party thing. We've got 'em if you want 'em.”

  “I absolutely do!” she exclaimed. “That's amazing.”

  “It sure is...” Morgan whispered.

  “One sec,” Robert said, leaning over and hitting the com. “Doc, you there?”

  “I am, Robert.”

  “Azure's ready to have her memories back.”

  “Excellent! Send her down to the medi-bay and I'll take care of it immediately.”

  “Be right back!” Azure said excitedly, rising quickly from her seat and making her way to the medi-bay as fast as those heels would let her.

  “So...” Morgan said slowly as soon as she had left the room. “Rob, out of curiosity, what do you do when you get caught lying?”

  “I never get caught,” the traveler lied.

  “Actually, that’s a lie, Rob,” Cleo pointed-out.

  “That’s true,” he nodded. “That is a lie. Well done!”

  “So what do you do when you get caught?” Morgan asked again.

  “Nothing,” Robert chuckled. “I’ve got the kind of personality where everybody just thinks it’s funny when I lie to them.”

  “Not everybody,” Cleo replied, gazing at him.

  “Almost everybody,” he admitted. “And beside Cleo, I never lie to you.”

  “And that’s also a lie,” she asserted.

  “You’re absolutely right,” he confessed. “That is a lie. And I'm telling you the truth about it because I respect you so much.”

  “Anyways,” Morgan continued, “do I have that kind of personality?”

  “No…” Robert replied, shaking his head. “No you don't. And it's not even a close call... Why? Have you been lying?”

  “No…” the young man replied defensively.

  Just minutes later Azure strutted... and I mean strutted... onto the bridge and made her way slowly over to Morgan's seat. She reached down, pulled him up, wrapped her arms around him, leaned forward, and kissed him. And, yeah... I mean kissed him... For Morgan the moment seemed to last somewhere between Oh! My! Goodness! and infinity.

  Although it was the single greatest experience in his life he was a little disappointed by the fact that it was obviously a hallucination brought on by overwhelming desire or some of that second hand weed smoke. Or in fact, he might have even died... Maybe those miniskirts really had given him a heart-attack. He knew he should have brought that defibrillator...

  Afte
r several seconds of complete ecstasy Azure brought his moment of paradise to an end.

  “That,” she said quite sexily, “was for almost getting yourself killed saving my life and then not ever bothering to brag about it.”

  “Well I...” he began.

  He was stopped mid-sentence by Azure's forcefully flying hand. She slapped him with everything she had to give! The young man's head jerked to the side revealing to his three companions a perfect blood-red imprint of the young lady's hand on the side of his face.

  “And that,” she said, her tone pretty much as un-sexy as it gets, “was for the lying, the bragging, and the manipulation! So, now we're even, Morgan! Now you get the chance to start over for a third time! And the only reason you get that is because it's just possible that there's a nice guy buried somewhere inside that moron that you are! Cleo, can we talk?”

  “Absolutely,” Cleo replied, jumping from her seat, a wide smile on her face.

  The two ladies stepped quickly from the bridge leaving the young men once again alone.

  “Well,” Robert sighed, “that was a rather climatic end to our little micro-date... At least it was memorable, I guess.”

  “Rob,” Morgan said after a few seconds. “Did you see what just happened?”

  “Yeah,” the traveler sighed. “Yeah, I did, Morgan.”

  “She kissed me,” the young man said excitedly. “She kissed me on the mouth! I think she may have even used her tongue a little!”

  “You know, Morgan,” Robert laughed, “I really do love hanging out with you!”

  “Enough to tell other people?”

  “Well... No,” the traveler replied. “Not that much. Well... not yet anyway...”

  “I see where you're coming from,” Morgan replied.

  Chapter 11: Electric Avenue

  “Do it, Vox,” Robert said just moments after the ship stopped on the edge of Never Never Land.

  “Done,” Vox replied seconds later. “Twenty minutes after the last time Delmont used the machine it took off, flew to an empty section of space, then exploded.”

  “That was time delay disability,” Robert grinned.

  “Man...” Morgan replied. “Y'all fit a lot into that one little box...”

  “Can you check the time-lines for me?” the traveler asked.

  “Sure thing,” Vox nodded. “Looks like that did it. Calvin was never kidnapped and the time-lines are getting back to how they should have been.”

  “Awesome!”

  “Where to next?” Morgan asked.

  “Well,” Robert replied. “As soon as the girls are done talking we're going to have another little conference. After that you and I have some shopping to do.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah,” the traveler nodded.

  Just over an hour later all six companions were once again gathered around the conference table.

  “Alright,” Robert began, “this one's gonna be a little different...”

  “Are they all going to be a little different?” Morgan asked.

  “Probably, Morgan,” the traveler replied, “just shut up and listen.”

  “Check.”

  “This time Delmont...”

  “Who is really good looking,” Azure interrupted.

  “May I continue?” Robert asked, a slight touch of annoyance in his voice.

  “Please do,” she smiled.

  “Thank you,” he replied before continuing. “The next situation is one of much more standard time theft, if you will. Delmont took an off-the-shelf emergency generator and sold it to a society that hadn't developed anything that advanced yet. It was very fuel efficient, but produced massive amounts of waste material.”

  “What did that do?” Vox asked.

  “A few things,” Robert replied. “First it gave the society a slight technological and production edge resulting in them making advancements years before they should have. It also caused the society to look at pollution as a necessary evil, and part of the price of progress. This philosophical shift completely changed their world and hundreds of years later it was a total mess. It also killed a number of slightly less efficient, highly Eco-friendly generators that should have been developed just a few years down the road.”

  “So, how do we fix it?” Doc asked.

  “We sell one of their major corporations an even better generator,” Robert smiled.

  “That seems like a bad idea,” Morgan pointed-out. “I mean, we're trying to take away the technological edge the first generator gave them. Giving them a better one isn't going to do that.”

  “That's actually a fair point,” Azure nodded.

  “Yeah,” the traveler chuckled. “Old Morgan's a deep thinker. But we should be able to keep the technological damage to a minimum while completely eliminating the environmental issues.”

  “How?” the young man asked.

  “Well,” Robert explained, “we're going to sell them a generator that is even more efficient, and much cleaner, but more expensive to produce than the Delmont generator.”

  “What good will that do?” the young man asked.

  “That's a fair question,” the traveler smiled. “And the answer is: It'll give the corporation we sell it to a very slight advantage. You see, the lower fuel costs will offset the cost of production, so that in the long run our generator will be more profitable. However, our generator will also be harder to maintain and much more expensive than the Eco-friendly generators the society should have eventually developed anyway. And the fact that our generator is so clean should undo that philosophical shift and make the people more environmentally aware again. The end result: both the Delmont generator and our own will eventually fall out of favor and be replaced with the generators the society should have used in the first place.”

  “You really are a genius, Rob,” Cleo said, a look of admiration in her eyes.

  “I guess I kind of am,” he agree.

  “So what's the first step?” Morgan asked.

  “You and me are going to pick up a generator for Vox,” the traveler replied. “Then he and I are going to modify it a bit to make it just what we want.”

  “Sounds good,” the young man nodded. “When do we leave?”

  “Now.”

  Just minutes later Robert and Morgan were marching down the gangway a short distance from what looked like a truly giant intergalactic bazaar.

  “So why are we here?” Morgan asked.

  “I just explained that like ten minutes ago,” the traveler pointed out.

  “I mean,” the young man explained, “why have we come here to get the generator rather than just picking one up from Never Never Land?”

  “Wow...” Robert replied. “You really are full of good questions, man. But are you sure you want to hear the answer? It'll take a few minutes.”

  “I got time...”

  “Alright,” the traveler said taking a deep breath, “First off, Never Never Land doesn't have unlimited resources, Morgan. The generators eat up huge amounts of power, not to mention the fact that we have to keep the sun burning. Then there's the food and production needs for day to day life on the island. You with me so far?”

  “So far.”

  “Good,” Robert replied. “Well, that means eating up resources to make something like a generator that we can easily pull out of the time-line is a bad idea.”

  “Why can we pull this generator out of the time-line?”

  “It's a piece of junk,” the traveler chuckled. “Nobody ever buys it and it just ends up dumped at a junk yard.”

  “Does it even get recycled?” Morgan asked.

  “I don't know...”

  “What?”

  “This place is only about seventy-five years from the end, Morgan,” the traveler explained. “So I don't know what happened after that. But, as of time stopping, it didn't get recycled.”

  “Wild!” the young man replied. “So what other junk have you collected from outside Never Never Land?”

 
; “All kinds of stuff,” Robert replied. “Most of the ship actually.”

  “What?”

  “You see, Morgan,” the traveler explained, “time travel was universally outlawed shortly before Delmont's idiotic romp through the past. We didn't even have a working time machine when we first realized the end was coming.”

  “How did you even see it coming?” Morgan asked.

  “We monitored the time-lines in order to attempt to enforce the law,” Robert replied. “Eventually the future began to collapse until it reached a complete stand still. We only had a few centuries to get ready. As a result everything we had was thrown into building Never Never Land. The Ship doesn't even have a time drive...”

  “What do you mean?” Morgan interrupted.

  “The Ship, that giant ship in Never Never Land, doesn't have a time drive in it,” the traveler replied. “We used a planet based system to open... a time-hole is probably the easiest way to explain it... and flew through that.”

  “Does the ship have a name?”

  “Yeah,” Robert nodded. “It's actually Hope, but nobody calls it that. Just like the island is really Haven. Over time people just started calling them the island and the ship.”

  “It's weird that your ship doesn't have a name.”

  “It does,” the traveler chucked.

  “Oh yeah,” Morgan nodded, “The Time Machine.”

  “Nah,” Robert replied. “I lied about that.”

  “Then what's it called?”

  “Cleo.”

  “Yeah... that makes sense, I guess.”

  “It does,” the traveler nodded. “She put a lot of work into it, along with me and Vox. And being a ship it needed a lady's name. Cleo was far and away the obvious choice.”

  “I can certainly see that,” Morgan agreed. “So what all did you collect for the ship?”

  “The ship...”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I started out all alone with a time-pod, Morgan,” the traveler replied. “I picked up enough stuff to expand it to carry two. After that we searched the time-lines and found Vox. I went back and introduced myself to him when he was around twelve. I'd leave and show up six months down the road or so. By the time he was sixteen he realized I really was a time traveler and hopped into the pod with me to head to Never Never Land. Since then he's been a vital member of my team.”