by Mike Parker
“What in the blue blazes is going on?” Ainsley asked, suddenly finding the full force of her voice.
“It’s a long story, Aunt Ainsley,” Barry replied.
“Aunt Ainsley?” Nick asked in bewilderment. “You mean this is…”
“This is my son, Barry. And I am Carl, albeit a somewhat older version of myself than you likely remember.”
“Whoa,” Nick gasped. “I did not see that coming.”
“I’m sure you would like an explanation of many things,” Carl stated. “But first, how much time do we have? When do you leave?”
“Nick leaves at 3 AM,” Ainsley answered. “I have until three tomorrow afternoon.”
“That should do,” the old man stated. Then grasping Ainsley’s hands he said, “It is so good to see you again. I will explain everything to you, I promise, but first, who’s hungry?”
“I could eat,” Nick grinned. “We’ve been tight on cash the last several days so it hasn’t really been an all you can eat buffet if you know what I mean.”
“This place has excellent burgers,” Barry stated, pressing a small red button in the center of the table activating a holographic menu screen. “Just select what you want and they’ll bring it right out to you.”
As Nick ordered something to eat, Ainsley wrestled with the situation. Part of her felt like rushing over and hugging her brother, but at the same time, it didn’t really feel like him. And the news of a nephew would be terribly exciting if she had not just learned that he was the one sending cryptic messages to her through time.
“Ok,” Nick said determinedly, having completed his order on the holographic screen. “Enough with the pleasantries. Someone tell me what on earth is going on here!”
“I can understand your anxiousness,” Carl said calmly. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions. Son, you should probably start, since you’re the only one who remembers how all this began.”
“I guess so,” Barry replied willingly, but with a hint of embarrassment or shame. “My dad has always been a good dad. He’s always been there for me and treated me well, you know? But at the same time, there has always been this deep sadness about him. Like he’s carrying this super heavyweight for some reason. Then, six months ago, when my mom, Jessica, was killed in a car crash, he became incredibly despondent and sullen.”
At this point, Ainsley could see the tears well up in both Carl and Barry’s eyes. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said sympathetically.
“Shortly after my mom passed, I was up in the attic rummaging through some boxes of old stuff and I came across this.” Barry reached into his backpack, pulled something out and set it on the table.”
“That looks just like,” Nick said in bewilderment.
“The Little Bird?” Carl finished the time traveler’s sentence. “That’s because it is.”
“I found it in a box of my dad’s old stuff along with some journals, textbooks, and other gadgets. I knew that my dad had always regretted and felt responsible for what happened to the two of you.”
“What happened to us?” the reporter inquired. “You mean bouncing aimlessly through time?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what? What happens to us?” she asked urgently.
“About three months after Nick’s visit to Gettysburg, the two of you were, or should I say will be preparing to attempt the first two-person teleport. Just before you leave, there is a massive explosion in the lab. It will later be discovered that someone in one of the other labs failed to follow proper safety protocols, causing the blast. The initial explosion set off a chain reaction which led to the cataclysmic failure of the synchrotron itself. The entire building was a wreck. The two of you and Dr. Stevens were killed instantly. My dad, who was on the far side of the lab at the time, was buried in rubble, but they eventually pulled him out after about 27 hours.”
“That’s awful!” Ainsley gasped.
“No kidding!” her partner agreed.
“From what I’m told, dad was never the same after that,” Barry continued. “Within a few months, he had sold off a few very lucrative patents, retired from MIT and moved up here to Vancouver to find anonymity.”
“Fortunately, I found Jessica instead,” Carl interjected. He smiled gently, but his voice was still laden with sadness. “More accurately, she found me. I don’t think I would have made it all this time without her.”
The conversation was momentarily interrupted by a small drone delivering their meals and beverages to the table.
“Mmm, that is delicious,” Nick cheered taking the first bite of his burger. “So, what happened next?”
“Dad had never talked much about his work at MIT, but that day in the attic I found myself incredibly intrigued by his work for some reason. I started digging through more boxes, finding files and data reports from his days in the lab. I spent weeks and weeks pouring over them day and night. Eventually, I had an epiphany. What I thought at the time was a brilliant idea.” Barry paused and looked sheepishly at his father.
“I think we’ve all been there, Barry,” his aunt said kindly. “Go on.”
“I thought I could somehow use this,” he continued, tapping the Little Bird on the table. “to go back to the lab at MIT, around the time of your Gettysburg trip and warn my dad of the danger and make sure that the four of you stayed away on the day of the explosion.”
“Unfortunately, my son didn’t really think it through,” Carl spoke up. “He didn’t consider the fact that if he successfully prevented the explosion, or even kept us safe from it, there would be a domino effect from that action.”
“You wouldn’t feel guilty for our deaths,” Nick suggested.
“You wouldn’t retire from MIT and move to Canada,” Ainsley added.
“I would never meet my wife,” Carl said.
“And I wouldn’t be born,” Barry concluded. “Yes, I understand all that now, but I was just so desperate to fix things.”
“I know you were, son. And I appreciate the thought.”
“Anyways, there’s more to the story, but involves some more technical information that my dad and I agreed would be best discussed somewhere more private – if you know what I mean.”
“Of course,” Nick said and then took another bite of his burger.
“Finish up your food and then we can head back to our place to finish this conversation,” Carl suggested. “In the meantime, perhaps you could regale us with some stories,” he said making air quotes, “of your travels.”
“There certainly have been some interesting moments,” the reporter chuckled.
– 34 –
Now My Head
Really Hurts
It was nearly seven o’clock as they settled into their chairs in Carl’s living room. They had spent a lot of time talking about the places they had been and things they had seen, but now Ainsley and Nick were eager from more answers.
“Thank you,” Ainsley said, taking the cup of tea from her nephew. “So, I take it your plan to go back and warn us didn’t exactly pan out.”
“Well, yes and no,” Barry answered sitting on the couch next to his father. “I did figure out how to get the Little Bird working again. I was able to set it to take me back to MIT. I dug up whatever information I could about the floorplan of the old synchrotron building and I took my best guess of things based on my dad’s notes as to where exactly his lab was located. And then, I made the trip back in time.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” Nick noted. “You must have your father’s wits.”
“Only a portion of them I’m afraid,” the young man continued. “Instead of arriving in the lab I appeared in the synchrotron room instead. And rather than getting there shortly after you returned from Gettysburg, I got there just before.”
“That’s pretty close, all things considered,” Ainsley offered.
“Upon arrival, I realized that the Little Bird did not have enough energy stored in it to successfully make the return trip home. I
knew this was a possibility, in fact, I wasn’t sure if after twenty-five years it would have enough energy to complete even a one-way trip, but there was only one way to find out.”
“Technically there were two ways to find out,” Carl interjected. “Blindly trying it and hoping for the best or asking the guy who invented the thing for his advice.”
“I figured, worst case scenario I would have younger you to help me figure it out,” Barry said with a smirk. “However, since I had arrived in the synchrotron room anyways, I figured I would try and recharge the Little Bird right then and there and be done with it, just in case I needed to make a fast exit for some reason.”
“Okay,” Nick said, “So what happened next?”
“You did, Nick,” Carl explained. “What Barry didn’t realize was at the exact moment he was charging the Little Bird, you were teleporting back from saving Lincoln. He also didn’t realize the beamline he was siphoning energy off of ran directly into our lab.”
“The overload,” Ainsley whispered.
“Not just the overload,” Carl said. “But the Little Bird Barry was charging and Nick’s Little Bird were the exact same device from two different times, existing in extremely close proximity, simultaneously and linked via the beam.”
“Which is what caused the temporal burst,” Barry added. “Which sent me back home and you bouncing randomly through time.”
“By doing so, my son had inadvertently changed the past. Instead of returning safely from Gettysburg, you went to JFK’s assassination.”
“When I got back, at first I thought nothing had changed. Everything seemed pretty much the way it was before. But then I started to notice subtle changes.”
“Like what?” the reporter asked.
“Like, a picture that always used to hang right over there was gone.”
“What was the picture?” Nick inquired curiously.
“It was a photo of the three of you and Dr. Stevens in the lab together taken shortly after the Gettysburg mission,” Barry explained. “It took me about a week, but eventually I decided I needed to come clean and ask my dad for help.”
“Once Barry told me what he had done it didn’t take long to conclude that he was the one who had caused the overload and temporal burst,”
“Did the explosion still take place?” Nick asked.
“Yes, it did,” Carl answered. “But none of us were hurt by it. None of us were in the lab that day.”
“So, how did you still end up here?” his sister inquired.
“We weren’t in the lab that day,” the physicist explained, getting a little choked up in doing so. “Because we were no longer using the Phoenix.”
“Why not?” the pair of time travelers said in unison.
“After the burst, the two of you traveled around for close to a month. The last message we received from you placed you somewhere in Australia in the early 1800s. Twenty-four hours later, the phoenix revved up. I was so excited that you had finally returned, but when we opened the door, we found Ainsley’s body lifeless on the floor with arrows in your chest.”
“That’s awful!” his sister gasped.
“According to the Doc, you had been dead for several hours and there was no hope for reviving you. After you had been killed, the next time your recall came the Turtle Dove brought you back to the lab.”
“What about Nick?”
“As far as we could tell, sometime between your death and your teleport home, Nick managed to sync the Little Bird, so twelve hours later he returned to the lab too. He was in much worse shape though. Arrows, stab wounds and bruises all over. I had Doc do an autopsy on both of you and he found poison in your systems as well, likely from the arrow tips.”
“That’s terrible!” Nick exclaimed.
“After that, we shut the whole project down,” Carl said sadly. It was clearly painful for him to retell the story even all these years later. “I left MIT, moved to Vancouver, met Jessica and more or less carried on the same track as Barry remembered from the previous timeline.”
“I’m confused,” Nick said. “Why would we continue on traveling through time for another couple weeks after you have told us all this? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because according to the reports of your travels my dad had stored in those boxes, you have never been here before,” Barry explained.
“So why are we here now?” Ainsley said in confusion.
“Because we brought you here,” Carl declared. “Using the Turtle Dove I had in storage, we were able to lock into your signal. Since we had the reports we knew exactly where and when you would be. It took a few attempts, but once we linked the two devices, Barry was able to record a message that would be sent to you every time you opened the line to communicate with Doc and me back in the lab.”
“But how did we get here?” Nick repeated the question.
“Using the Little Bird,” the physicist explained. “I used our device kind of like a magnet to pull you a little closer to our time and location every time you teleported.”
“How was London in the 1880s closer than Dallas in the sixties?”
“Well, you know how when you try to put two magnets with opposite polarity they repel each other?” Barry answered. “Let’s just say our first attempt didn’t really go as planned, but from there on out we knew it was just a matter of time until we narrowed in on you. Or, more accurately, you narrowed in on us.”
“But now what?” Ainsley pondered aloud. “Nick still teleports in a few hours. Should we just sync now and go back to the lab?”
“If we go back now,” Nick reasoned, “We avoid the violent Australian murders, we warn ourselves about the explosion, but then Carl doesn’t retire, Barry’s never born, and therefore he doesn’t go back and create the temporal burst. We don’t bounce through time and end up here to be told about the Australian massacre or the explosion so we can go back to warn ourselves and now my head really hurts!”
“I know it can get a little confusing,” Carl admitted, “and to be honest, anything we do is a bit of a crapshoot as to how it will all turn out. There really are no guarantees what the ripple effects of our actions may be.”
“Which brings us back to: Now what?” Ainsley repeated.
“Acknowledging that there is no way to completely avoid or predict paradoxes, I’ve come up with a plan that I think gives us the best chance at a positive resolution without totally altering the current timeline.”
“Well, lay it on us old man Carl,” Nick said with a grin. “Admit it. You missed me.”
“I missed some of you,” Carl retorted with a slight smile. It was the first smile of any sort Barry had seen on his father’s face in a very long time.
The group spent the next couple of hours discussing Carl’s plan. They re-examined every angle in search of any possible way things could go horribly wrong. In the end, everyone was convinced that the plan, although far from perfect, was their best chance at setting things straight. As the clock struck midnight all their preparations were complete. The only thing left to do now was to put the plan into action and hope for the best.
“Thank you both so much,” Ainsley gushed giving both Carl and Barry a huge hug. “I hope things turn out for you guys.”
“Ok, now,” Carl explained, “I’ve modified Nick’s Little Bird and added two additional buttons which are pre-set with teleport directions. Start with the red button. It will take you back to the synchrotron room one minute before the time that Barry arrived.”
“Sounds good,” Nick said, “And then I guess we’ll just see how it goes from there.”
“Exactly,” the physicist concurred. “And I’ve given Ainsley a teleport on demand button. No more waiting for some arbitrary window to move on to the next time and place. Plus, it has a one minute delay so Nick should have a few moments to get his bearings before you arrive – just in case.”
“That certainly would have come in handy in Mexico!” his sister stated.
“Okay, I gue
ss that’s it,” Carl said thoughtfully. “Oh, and one more thing for good luck.” He pulled an apple out of his sports coat pocket and shoved it into the center of the Old Bird, which is what Nick had taken to calling the Little Bird that Barry had dug out of the attic. Then he set it on the ground and pressed a button. With a quick flash of light, the Old Bird vanished.
“Guess that’s my cue,” Nick chuckled. He pressed the red button on his wristband and disappeared.
“Good luck,” Barry said nervously.
“Thanks,” Ainsley replied. She gave her brother and nephew a long hug, then the newly added button on the Turtle Dove and teleported out of the living room, leaving Carl and Barry alone wondering what would come next.
– 35 –
How Do You
Like Me Now?
“There you are,” Nick said softly.
“How are we doing?” Ainsley replied in a similar tone.
“Good so far. The Old Bird was right here when I arrived and it looks like you were right: there are no security cameras with a view of this particular spot.”
“So far, so good then,” the reporter said with fingers crossed.
Nick placed the Old Bird on a nearby pipe running out of the synchrotron, across the open space and then through the exterior wall of the room. “If our calculations are correct, this should be the beam line into our lab.”
He pulled a ball of string out of his pocket and began wrapping it around, securing the Old Bird to the top of the pipe. When he had tied off the string he turned and looked at his partner. “Seriously? You’re texting right now?”
“Are you saying I shouldn’t tweet: After traveling through history in a time machine my brother created, Nick and I have just returned from the year 2042 to sabotage the MIT synchrotron and save the world?” Ainsley joked.
“Absolutely not!” the time traveler replied. “That’s way more than 140 characters.”
“Fine,” the reporter said in mock defeat and put her cell phone away. “But seriously, I haven’t had internet access for weeks! How’s a girl supposed to survive?”