Twists in Time

by Various

  She handed Tommy her cake, and like any nine-year-old boy, he took it and began stuffing his face. Wrapping her arms around Scott’s waist, she pressed her face to his shirt and breathed in his clean scent.

  “You,” she whispered back. “Always you.”

  THE END

  If you enjoyed What you Wish For, you should check out Never Forgotten by: Kelly Risser.

  The lights flickered as Jon clicked the last wire into place. Finally, after months of research and number crunching, he was ready to test out his new theories. Flipping open his laptop, he ran the numbers one more time to make sure they were right. Just the slightest flaw in his calculations would end in a disastrous waste of time and funds.

  Seeing no errors, Jon looked over at the device his team had cobbled together. It wasn’t very exciting on the outside, just a box with a small control panel and some wires, but the inside held a small chunk of well-shielded plutonium that would fuel their tests.

  For three years now, they had been working on breaking into the fourth dimension of time with no success. After much discussion, Jon was convinced the answer lay at the subatomic level. All they had to do was vibrate matter at the smallest level. But each attempt they had made failed to move the Higgs boson field enough to generate the wave needed to open a gateway to the past. Jon had been sure that adding in the new data from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider would give him the key he needed to put his theories into application, but nothing he had done had worked.

  All the numbers had been out there, but it had taken a lone freshman—an art student—to see the pattern that he had been missing. He both loved her and resented her for finding the missing piece of his puzzle. It was too bad she had to work in the historical society’s vaults today. Jon would have loved to have had Cydnee next to him as he cracked open the secrets of time travel. Once he was sure his device would work, he would take her to meet the artists of those fantastic pieces she toiled over to repair. It would also give him the chance to take her out on that date he had been promising her.

  The door to the control room opened, and Jon’s assistant, Skylar, came in. “It’s ready,” she said as she sat down in her chair at the massive console. She flipped a few switches, testing to make sure everything was right on this end.

  “Does everyone have their bracelets?” Jon asked as he shook his wrist, repositioning the silicon band so it rode better.

  Skylar shook her wrist, showing off the band that would protect her. “Yes.”

  In the small-scale testing, they had found shaking the Higgs boson field affected everything in the surrounding area. It had taken several attempts for them to realize that what they were doing really did have an effect, they just weren’t seeing it. Jon had worked out a device that negated the energy and allowed the wearer to ride out the wave and experience the changing of time.

  So far, it had worked like a dream, and they had been able to make a small item vanish for a short period, but that didn’t mean they had actually transported it in time. Now they needed to work on the full-scale experiment so they could send something more substantial back in time and record the event. A camcorder sat next to the main device, ready to be shifted. When the experiment was over, they would be able to look at the tape and tell if the thing had truly traveled through time.

  Moving his computer out of the way, Jon turned to the Plexiglas window separating them from the main testing area. “Then clear the room, and let’s fire this baby up,” he said eagerly.

  Skylar nodded and pressed a few buttons on the console. Red lights flashed inside the room, signaling the crew to get out. Once everyone was clear, Skylar flipped another switch that locked down the doors. This was one of the many safety precautions they had all agreed on—if they really did travel through time, there was no telling what could come back with the camcorder. “We are clear and locked down,” Skylar informed him.

  Nodding, Jon reached up and flipped off the final safety switch. Their future depended on what happened next. If everything went according to plan, they were all going to be in line for the next Nobel Peace Prize. With that thought in mind, Jon pressed the button to start the device.

  A low hum vibrated out from the center of the test room. Both Skylar and Jon clenched their teeth against the rattle echoing through their bodies. They had experienced this sensation before in the small-scale experiments, but it was nothing compared to the power of the full-scale test. Jon watched the numbers rise as the device slowly warmed up. There were some fluctuations in the calculations, but everything was within standards. A soft pulse radiated from the innocent-looking box, making the air shimmer as it went out.

  Jon stood up from his chair to watch. The machine pulsed again. This time, the wave that flashed out was stronger. It hit Jon, making him queasy, but he had experienced this sensation before, too, so he didn’t think anything of it. A third pulse rolled out. Jon smiled as the wave hit the camcorder and the thing disappeared.

  Then, the wave hit Jon, knocking him back to his chair. He gasped for breath. “Shut it down!” he cried to Skylar. She was also gasping.

  Unable to respond verbally, Skylar nodded and started flipping switches. Another wave plowed into them. This time, the world around them flickered for a second before coming back into focus.

  Grasping his head, Jon held on to the console controlling the experiment. This was not supposed to happen. The bracelets were supposed to protect them from the Higgs field’s shaking. Taking a deep breath, he joined Skylar as she desperately flipped switches and turned knobs, trying to get the thing to stop.

  Another wave of energy slammed into them. This time, the entire room vanished for a second before snapping back into reality. Fear shook Jon as he scrambled up to the console. He had made a drastic miscalculation. Their camcorder was not going to show them anything. Yes, it was affected by the shaking of the field, but so was everything else in the room—everything not protected by the bracelets! How could he have been so stupid as not to see how this would work?

  Another wave crashed into them, pushing Skylar and Jon both out of their time. This time, the area around them solidified into some kind of forest before disappearing back into the lab.

  “We have to stop it!” Jon screamed as he ripped off his bracelet and threw it down on the table.

  Skylar followed suit and yanked her bracelet off. Another wave of energy hit them, but it skittered over them without pushing them out of time.

  Jon took a relieved breath and turned back to the computer and console to shut things down, but nothing happened.

  “It’s not working,” Skylar complained as she shifted in her seat to reach more of the controls.

  Tension tightened Jon’s chest. “What do you mean it’s not working?”

  “It’s not working!” Skylar snapped at him. “As in, it’s not responding to the shutdown codes.”

  “Then shut it down manually!” Jon yelled. He grabbed the microphone and punched the button that would connect him to the rest of the team waiting in the next room. “Emergency shutdown! Now!”

  The next wave of energy slammed into them. It passed over Jon and Skylar without changing their location in time, but the energy burned. The door to the experiment chamber flew open, and one of Jon’s underclassmen ran in.

  Jon watched in horror as the next pulse of energy hit, and the man disappeared. A few seconds later, the man’s body reappeared, dead.

  Swallowing hard, Jon turned and ran out the door. It took him two more pulses to reach the terrified staff waiting in the outer room. Three more of them were dead. Two stood there in shock; their bracelets sat on the floor next to them. “What happened?” Jon cried.

  Another pulse hit, and the bodies disappeared, only to reappear a few seconds later more decomposed than before. There was only one explanation—they had managed to move through time. The fast decay of their colleagues showed that much.

  One of the interns dropped to the floor in a fit of tears. Her clothing was tattered, and she loo
ked as if she had been abused. The other stood there in shock, covered in mud. “Dinosaurs,” she muttered. “I saw dinosaurs.”

  “Shut it down!” Jon yelled to Skylar as he ripped the bands off their dead assistants.

  She nodded and pushed her way into the room. Another pulse of energy rolled off the machine, staggering her back, but she forced her way further into the room. She had just reached the device when a stronger wave rolled out.

  Jon watched in horror as the energy from the field tore Skylar apart, atom by atom. The device whined and rattled on the table before letting out a loud bang that bounced it on the table. A wave of light and heat shot out as the shielding around the plutonium cracked. Buzzers throughout the room blared to life, announcing the release of radiation. The wave slammed into Jon and the two surviving members of his team. They all gasped as the heat burned through them. None of them had to look at their tags to know the dose of radiation they had just received had been massive.

  “Come on.” Jon stood up and looked into the room. “We have to shut that off before it blows up and kills everyone.”

  “But how?” the girl sitting on the floor asked. She was starting to pull herself together after whatever ordeal she had been through.

  Jon stopped to think about the problem. The waves were coming out faster now. There would be no way to get close enough to the thing before the shaking of the field would break apart their atoms. The only way they could get close was to use the bracelets to negate the field. “I have an idea.” He grabbed up one of the discarded bands and slapped it onto his wrist. When the pulse hit him, the world went dark and the energy pushed him out of time.

  Staggering, Jon stumbled forwards as his feet met with uneven footing. He stopped and looked around at the changed world. A huge forest stretched out around him. His eyes scanned the massive ferns covering the ground with some type of pine trees towering above them. He had never seen anything like them. A noise from his right drew his attention. It was a high-pitched squeaking and the rustling of vegetation. Jon turned to face the unknown sound, ready to run if he needed to.

  The ferns parted, and a small creature darted out. It stopped and stared at Jon. The creature was no more than a foot tall and looked like a cross between a bird and a lizard. The strange animal stood on two hind legs and held two shorter arms out in front of it. Another high-pitched squeaking sounded as a second of the lizard-bird things rushed out to the first. The first one snapped at the second before the pair raced off into the undergrowth again.

  Jon stood there, amazed. He wasn’t big on history, but he was an avid reader of science fiction, and he had seen that creature described before. He didn’t know what the real name of the lizard-like thing was, but he knew it from those dinosaur books as a compy. Horror stole over him as that fact sank in. He had just seen a dinosaur. Yes, it was a small dinosaur, but where there were little dinosaurs, there were big dinosaurs!

  Glancing around, Jon tried to find someplace to hide, but nothing presented itself. With the bracelet on, the wave of energy should carry him back to his present, but how long would it take? And if he moved, would the wave take him back to his original position? He stood rooted to the ground, debating over what to do. The thunderous crunch of underbrush and the sound of a large animal moving made Jon’s mind up for him. He turned and raced away from the unknown creature. There was no way he was going to stay put and get eaten before he could get back and try to turn the machine off. He just needed a place to hole up so he could survive until the wave came to carry him home. Then, he would be able to tell if his idea would work.

  ***

  The sudden evenness of the floor surprised Jon as he materialized back into his own time. He fell to his knees, relieved that he’d returned to his original location. Ripping off the silicon bracelet, he dropped the thing away from his body before the next wave could come and sweep him away again. Four days. He had spent four days in the sweltering heat of the Jurassic, but only a few seconds had passed here.

  Grasping his head, he tried to stop the spinning sensation that was making his stomach upset. It didn’t do him much good. In the few days Jon spent hiding from dinosaurs, he had come to two conclusions. First, he had been a complete and utter fool to mess with the mechanics of time; and second, he would not live long enough to set his error straight. While he’d been trying to survive, the effects of the radiation he’d received had started to show. If he and the remaining members of his team wanted to live, they needed to seek medical attention right away. The trips through time were not going to make that possible.

  After hours of calculations and bad ideas on how he could set things right, Jon had come up with one answer. He needed help—someone smart who could think on their feet and would stand a chance of surviving in whatever situation they were thrown into; someone who knew what he had been trying to accomplish; and above all, a caring individual who would help him in his time of need. He could only think of one person that fit the bill—Cydnee.

  Pushing his way up from the floor, he left his bewildered teammates and ran as fast as he could through the building and out onto the college’s campus. He paused for a moment to look at all the people. If he didn’t do something soon, they would all die. While he had waited for the wave to bring him back, he had run the numbers—if the machine continued to run unchecked, the waves would slowly get stronger until they shook the Higgs boson field so hard it tore everything apart at a molecular level.

  Shaking this thought away, Jon turned and raced across campus to the historical society’s building. Ignoring the stares of his fellow students, he ran through the museum part of the building and hit the restricted-access door that would take him down to the restoration rooms.

  “Cydnee!” Jon yelled as soon as he hit the vault door. A group of students stared up in shock at him, but he ignored all but the woman that he was looking for. He hurried over to her and grabbed at her arm. “I need your help.”

  Cydnee gave him a surprised look that quickly turned to confusion. “Jonathan?” She asked as her eyes slid down to take him his filthy clothing. “What happened to you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Jon pushed her question away as he grabbed her bag from the floor next to her. He pulled her up from the seat and pushed her out the door before anyone could protest. “I need your help.”

  She looked up at the man dragging her out of work. “What’s wrong?” Jon was normally a levelheaded man, and there had to be something wrong for him to get worked up enough to physically drag her out of work. She glanced at his clothing one more time. It was muddy and torn. He had definitely been up to something unusual.

  “Do you remember those equations you helped me with?”

  Cydnee was quiet for a moment as she thought. “You mean that pattern dealing with the hugs bose thing?”

  “Higgs boson,” Jon corrected her. “I managed to figure out how to move the field.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Cydnee congratulated him.

  “No.” Jon shook his head as he hurried her through the historical society’s building. “I made a mistake, and there’s a problem.”

  The bit of joy on Cydnee’s face fell away. “What’s wrong?”

  “We can’t get close enough to shut down the machine,” Jon explained. “If it continues to run, it will destroy the place.”

  Fear filled Cydnee. “What can I do?”

  “I need you to help me turn it off,” Jon explained.

  “Um.” Cydnee’s steps slowed as they left the building and started across the campus commons. “You know I don’t know anything about your science stuff,” she protested.

  “I know.” Jon wrapped his arm around her and pulled her along. “But you’re the only one I trust to do this.”

  Cydnee gave him a confused look and planted her feet so they would have to stop. “And why can’t you turn it off?”

  Jon stopped and let out a heavy sigh. “Because I won’t live long enough to do it.” He turned to face the horror-stri
cken girl. “Look. There was an accident in the lab. The shields on the machine cracked and dosed everyone there with a massive amount of radiation. If we don’t stop it, it will tear the world apart at a molecular level.” He wrapped his arm around Cydnee and pulled her back into motion.

  “What about Skylar? Can’t she do it?” Cydnee protested.

  “Skylar’s dead.” Jon said the words softly as the pain of losing his friends ate at him. “So is most of my team.”

  “Wait!” Cydnee slammed on the brakes again and pulled out of Jon’s grasp. “She’s dead?” She turned to stare at her friend in shock.

  Jon swallowed hard. “Yes. The device malfunctioned and killed her.” Taking up Cydnee’s hand, he gave her a pleading look. “Please help me stop this before everything is lost.”

  Cydnee stared at him hard for a moment before letting out a resigned breath. “What do you need me to do?”

  Jon pulled her in against him for a hug. “Thank you.” He turned and got them back into motion. “I’ve got these things that will protect you from the energy waves, but it will knock you out of time for a little bit.”

  “Out of time?” Cydnee tried to stop again, but Jon pulled her along. “What do you mean ‘out of time’?”

  “We were experimenting with time travel,” Jon explained. “The wristbands will let you ride the energy waves back in time. It will drop you someplace in history for a few days before picking you up and bringing you back to the present. I tried to get to the machine myself and got taken back to see dinosaurs. It was the most amazing thing. I would do this myself, but I’m already starting to feel the effects of the radiation from when the device malfunctioned. Karlee, Tom, and I will need to get to the hospital soon for medical treatment if we have any hope of surviving this.”

  “What about the radiation?” Cydnee asked. “Won’t it affect me, too?”

  “No.” Jon sighed. “You won’t be in the room long enough to get that much exposure to the plutonium. All I need from you is to hurry across the room and punch in the abort code. That will shut the machine down, and you can get out of there before you get enough radiation to make a difference.”