by Steven Wolff
“What happened?” Jenkins asks, “Last thing I remember was how our lips froze together while kissing.”
“We were on an asteroid, right?” Howard asks.
“Pretty sure.” Josh replies.
Off in the distance, they hear a car door closing.
“Take a look, over there.” Howard says pointing. “There’s some buildings and cars…”
“Civilization? No way!” Josh says in disbelief, “We can’t be back on Earth? Can we?”
“After all we’ve been through – let’s just go with it.” Jenkins adds.
“Let’s go see what’s going on.” Howard says, taking her hand in his.
They walk for a good ten minutes and approach an old mom-and-pop store that has a sign that reads Harrison Trading Post.
Josh looks around and has a confused look on his face, “What’s with all the pinto’s and Chevy nova’s?”
“Maybe there’s a car show in town.” Howard answers.
Some teenagers walking by suddenly stop and break into laughter, pointing at the three of them. One of them is holding a boom-box on their shoulders that’s playing Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It.’
“Don’t tell me…” One of them says, “Are you trying to phone home? E.T. phone home! Ha-ha-ha! Such dweebs!”
“Dweebs?” Josh asks, “We’re not the ones dressed in parachute pants. Get with the times!”
“What a bunch of losers… come on, let’s ditch them.” They say walking away, laughing.
“Okay…” Howard says as he walks inside the store. Everyone suddenly stops what they’re doing and look at the three of them – wearing their space suits. The old man behind the counter asks, “Don’t tell me… you must be going to a Star Trek convention?”
A customer wearing overalls laughs, “Beam me up, Scotty! Ha! Ha!”
“What’s with these people?” Jenkins asks. Josh looks over his shoulder and sees the local newspaper called the Madisonian. Josh suddenly grabs the newspaper with both hands and holds it up, “DUDE!”
“What, what is it?” Howard asks.
“Look at the date!”
“September 24th… so what?”
“1982!!!” Josh says looking at it, “1982!!!”
Howard turns to the cashier and asks, “Are these reprints?”
“Are you on drugs?” The man asks with concern.
“No, we’re not on drugs? Seriously, we need to know what the date is.”
“That’s this morning paper…”
“So you’re saying we’re in the year 1982?” Howard asks in clarification.
“What year did you think it is?”
“This has to be some kind of joke.” Howard says looking around for a camera.
“Look, either buy something or leave! You’re distracting the customers.”
They head outside and look around. People’s clothing are leathery and full of zippers, others hint at styles from the 80’s. Jenkins notices women’s hair is big and poofy, with lots of hairspray. A group of kids are kicking a hacky sack, trying to see how long they can keep it from hitting the ground.
Josh looks across the street and sees a movie sign marque that reads TRON – Now Showing, Twenty-five cents.
“Are you sure we’re not on a movie set somewhere in Hollywood?” Josh asks.
“I have no idea. Keep in mind we were just on an asteroid – about to die and now we’re in some town in Montana, back in 1982? None of this makes any sense.”
Jenkins pipes in, “I think it makes perfect sense.”
“How so?”
“Asterina said that they can easily manipulate time and space. I think Asterina had something to do with this.”
“You’re suggesting that Asterina intentionally sent us back through time?” Howard asks.
“If we really are in the year 1982, then yeah. We’re obviously not on an asteroid.”
“Maybe we’re dead?” Josh adds.
Howard punches Josh’s arm.
“Owww! Dude, that hurt!” He says rubbing his arm.
“Nope, we’re not dead.” Howard says for certain.
“Then… that means, there’s a younger version of ourselves running around, right?” Jenkins asks. “Let’s go meet them!”
Josh warns, “We can’t meet or interact with them, otherwise – we’ll screw up the whole space-time continuum! It’ll create a paradox which will unravel the fabric of our universe!”
“Someone’s been watching a little bit too much of Back to the future… don’t you think?” Jenkins says with a smile.
“I’m being serious! If we meet our other selves, then every choice and decision we make from that point on, in time will change the outcome of us discovering the asteroid. Then we will never leave Earth and journey to the asteroid, meet Asterina and wind up here.” Josh says.
“So we’re supposed to lay low and avoid meeting people?” Jenkins asks.
“Ideally, yes, but that’s not going to happen. We’ve already met people and probably changed their timelines. I mean – they are probably going to remember seeing three people dressed in space outfits ten, twenty, fifty years down the line.”
“Or… maybe they won’t.” Howard adds.
“Maybe not…” Josh replies.
Jenkins has a confused look on her face, “Just one question… how are we going to make money?”
“Good question.” Josh says, scratching his head.
“I got it!” Howard says in excitement.
“Yes?”
“We’ll invest in stocks or become buddy-buddy with the founders of Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook! We’ll get rich by knowing which companies to invest in, before they get huge!” Howard says with a beaming smile.
“Brilliant!” Jenkins says, hugging Howard & Josh tightly.
Over the next few decades, Josh, Howard and Jenkins positioned themselves to be good friends with all the founders of the top Fortune 500 companies and lived out the rest of their lives comfortably. They were careful to avoid running into their former selves and kept a low profile so not to alter the space-time continuum. Howard and Jenkins got married and had three kids, April, Chantal and Edward. Josh remained close but continued to make the most out of his bachelor life, living his dream.
Decades later, there was one minor tweak to the space-time continuum…
“Breaking News… The space shuttle Enterprise exploded into a huge fireball this evening, nine seconds after liftoff at 10:30pm Eastern Standard Time. Fire fighters and EMS arrived on scene to foam down the main cabin – which survived the blast thanks to a new blast absorbing material called the Howard-Jenkins liner… named after the two philanthropists who donated not only their money, but their time to the development and research of the liner. The lining works by absorbing a shockwave caused from an explosion – then redirects the energy safely outward… leaving whatever is inside unharmed. The Federal Aviation Administration, along with the Department of Homeland Security gave their overwhelming approval to equip all civilian and military vehicles, including Air Force One, with this new lining. Since its implementation, countless lives have been saved, from potential terrorist attacks that could have been deadly, to now a massive shuttle explosion. All seven crew members on board are okay with only minor scrapes and bruises, but expected to make a full recovery…”
The End
CONTACT THE AUTHOR
STEVEN WOLFF
One of the greatest feelings in the world is to get feedback from a reader who fell in love with my writing and its characters. For a reader to share their precious time reading the words I crafted in and of itself is quite an honor, but even better is when take a few minutes to tell me they really enjoyed it. That makes it all so worth it. Each book takes roughly nine months to a year for me to write and it’s definitely not for the money (because there hardly is any) – but because we need each other. Readers need writers and writers need readers. If you want to take a moment to say thanks – I would love to hear fro
m you. :-)
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Table Of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Forward
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Contact The Author
TOC
Other Books By Steven Wolff
Thank You
Other Books By Steven Wolff
Anica Storm & The Wand of Time (Full Version) – A young adult fantasy novel about a girl who inherits magical abilities no human was meant to have. She has to cross over into a magical realm to meet with the high counsel when things suddenly do according to plan.
Got Ghosts? Real Stories of Paranormal Activity – Is a collection of emails sent to the South Texas Ghost Hunters Alliance (STGHA) and The Ghost Education & Research Center – asking for help investigating their paranormal events.
Got Ghosts? 2 – More Stories of Real Paranormal Activity – Following the success of the first book, Got Ghosts 2 has more content, including feedback by Steven Wolff.
Self-Aware – A Zombie Series With A Fresh Twist (Book 1) – Is a Zombie horror book about a woman who wakes up in the early days of the zombie apocalypse with a mutated form of the zombie virus. Her virus heals and regenerates tissue to its default state, allowing her to look normal and healthy, but she still has to eat.
Self-Aware – Revenge Of The Fallen (Book 2) – Continues where the story left off by adding another major threat that must be dealt with or else the whole world will suffer.
THANK YOU
“A special thank you, to Katie S, who helped me imagine and create this book, and a big thank you to Lisa Brock for her editing and consulting. You both are awesome and appreciated!
I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed creating and writing it. A lot of research, time and effort went into this labor of love to make it as scientifically accurate as possible and it’s my hope that it gave you one hell of a ride.
If you did enjoy this book, please take a moment to leave a review, hit like, share and even give an honest review so others can make an informed decision. Let others know how it made you feel, if you laughed or cried, or couldn’t put it down. As a indy writer, I don’t have a publishing house backing me up – I depend on word of mouth and your reviews in order for others to discover me, so thank you for helping me out.
Finally, a big, warm Thank You to you my readers and fans. It’s because of you I write, and I look forward to sharing many more stories with you in the future.”
– Steven Wolff
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