Lost Friday

by Michael Bronte

  “That bad?”

  “It’s horrible, kid. It’s like that scene in Top Gun where Maverick gets totally blown off at the bar by the lady flight instructor.” Top Gun was my favorite movie at that time. I knew Johnny would know the scene exactly. “It’s actually quite embarrassing for you.”

  “Embarrassing, like how?”

  “Well, she, ah, how do I say this?”

  “Just say it. What does she do?”

  “She discovers that you’re still a virgin. You see, it’s her rather than you that’s been around the block, and she laughs at you, big guy, really puts you down. If it’s any consolation, you end up in a much better situation when you finally pop your cherry.”

  Johnny just stood there gazing at me, and I could tell he was weighing what I’d just told him. Finally, he said, “I’ve already had that date.”

  Uh-oh—the sneaky little shit. “And?”

  “And you’re right, but I’ve told no one, and I mean no one, about that.” He looked at me through narrow eyes. “You’re not bullshitting me about any of this, are you?”

  “No way, José. Listen, if I said the history of the planet would be changed by what I’m here to do, you have to believe me. I don’t have time to explain how, or why, things got the way they are, but you’re destined for great things, kid. All you have to do is follow my lead.” I looked at him pleadingly. “Help me out here. You’re the only one I can trust.”

  Johnny sat on the bed and swallowed real hard. “What do I have to do?”

  * * * * *

  “Prevent them from having sex? This is a history-changing event? You’re a real James Bond, aren’t you?”

  “Listen, dink, I’ll lay it out for you again. Try to pay attention this time, okay?” I went through it again, during which Mom came home, which meant Demetrius had to haul ass back home before Aunt Trina discovered he’d left the house.

  When I was done, Johnny asked, “So how do we know the actual time of conception?”

  “We don’t.”

  “I see you’ve really nailed this down. Then how do we prevent it?”

  “I’m not sure. Let’s think this thing through.”

  “Maybe I should do the thinking.”

  There was a knock at the door and my heart nearly jumped from my chest. I froze. “Johnny, who are you talking to?” Mom asked through the door.

  “Ah, I’m on the phone Mom. I’ll be off in a couple of minutes.”

  “See that you do, okay. And finish your homework before you go to bed.”

  “Sure Mom, no problem. Okie dokie.”

  She left. I scowled. “Okie dokei?”

  “She bought it, didn’t she? Now,” he whispered, “here’s what I think we need to do. First….”

  Johnny went on while I looked out the window. As I did, everything he said suddenly became totally inconsequential because over by the fence to the Sweeney’s yard sat two blocks of hissing, steaming, frozen helium. It was suddenly a brand new ballgame.

  Knowing the look on my face intimately, Johnny stopped and said, “Oh-oh. What’s wrong?”

  “They’ve been here.”

  “Who’s been here?”

  “The Synthetics. We’ve been through this before.”

  I assumed there were more than two of them, and if they saw me, or Johnny—who, to them, was still me—either or both of us could be dead meat. I’d said nothing about Synthetics to Johnny previously, and I took a minute to do so.

  Johnny said, “This just gets better and better. How dangerous are they?”

  I really didn’t want to answer that. “I’ve had to kill several of them,” I said. “It was either that, or they were going to kill me.”

  Johnny grabbed my shirt. “You really expect me to risk my life over this?”

  I understood completely. I mean, an hour ago his biggest worry in the world was whether his favorite jeans were clean, but I still needed him to maintain some cool here. My instincts and the frozen helium told me we didn’t have a lot of time.

  “Listen,” I said, “I know you must think I’m some kind whacko waltzing in here and dragging all this with me, but this is what your life turns out to be. You can change history, kid, and, trust me, the world isn’t such a rosy place two hundred years from now. People live like ants, there’s legalized genocide, and they turn people into fish food, for Christ’s sake.” I paused. “And it gets worse from there.”

  “No one I know will even be alive two hundred years from now. Why should I give a shit about any of this?” he shot back. “It’s not my problem.”

  It was a legitimate question. I had a legitimate answer. “Listen, just like they gave me the ability to travel back in time to alter a piece of history, those Synthetics out there might have come back in time to alter another event.” I paused again. “That event could be you, kid, and now it is your problem.” Johnny let go of my shirt as the smell of vanilla coffee wafted past my nose. Mom was brewing a pot. Soon, she’d yell up the stairs asking if I wanted some with a slice of cake. It was one of her favorite things, and it was all I could do to keep myself together. “Mom and Dad might be in danger as well,” I added for good measure. “There’s no telling how these Synthetics plan on altering this event.”

  I’d assumed all along that there were only Synthetics out there when in my mind’s eye I saw Roarke’s sinister eyes looking back at me. “Are you with me on this, or not?” I asked softly. “I need to know.” I decided to give Johnny a minute and I walked to the window to close it. Imagine my surprise when I saw Kelli Remington and Roy Mulroney standing in the back yard.

  Johnny said, “You know I’ll be in deep shit as soon as Mom finds out I’m not in my room.”

  “Get your coat,” I said. “We have friends outside.”

  * * * * *

  I started to ask, but I didn’t. There was nothing I could do about it anyway, it being why Remington and Roy were there. The last time I’d seen Remington was at the Cool Beans place, which was before she’d been shot at, scraped, and battered by the Synthetics at the Robelles’ house, which was before Lost Friday in continuum time, but after Lost Friday in chronological time—I think.

  “The last time I saw you, you said you were staying behind,” I said to Roy.

  “I did,” Roy replied. “I didn’t come here from that night. A lot of things happened after that, and I came here from six months after that.”

  Translation: shit happened. I really didn’t have the energy to figure it out anymore.

  Johnny nudged me and asked none too subtly, “Who’s the babe?”

  Remington wheeled in her tracks. “Listen, twerp, the next time you address me, you….” She stopped. Her eyes jumped from Johnny to me, and back again. “Oh, my God. There are two of you?” She held up her hands and said disgustedly, “I don’t even want to know.” However, she gave Johnny a closer once over. “I hope you’re not as big a cretin as he is.”

  “Don’t pay her any mind,” I said. “She gets bitchy when she hasn’t had any in a while.”

  “She must be bitchy a lot,” Johnny snapped back, and even Roy thought it was funny.

  I brought us back to the situation at hand. We were on the boardwalk now, outside the arcade near the Whack-A-Mole. Addressing Roy and Remington, I said, “Are you two here to undo an event, enhance an event, or create an event?”

  “We’re here to help you with your mission,” Roy answered. “We think it comes down to this.”

  I took a moment. Roy looked exactly the same as any other time I’d ever seen him. As for Remington….

  “What are you looking at?” she snapped at me.

  “How do I know you’re not a Synthetic?” I snapped back.

  She walked up to me, real close, so close that I could smell the faint aroma of leftover perfume. It was a scent I’d smelled on her a hundred times before. “Because a Synthetic would do anything it took to win your confidence,�
�� she said loudly enough to embarrass the shit out of me, “and I mean anything. As for me, I’m never, ever, going to bed with you, Pappas, not in a thousand years. I’m here for the story.”

  Okay then, I guess we worked that out. I waited for Roy and Johnny to wipe the smirks off their faces, and said, “You know there are Synthetics present, right? I think two of them teleported back for reconnaissance purposes.”

  “That’s exactly the idea,” Roy responded.

  “What is?”

  Remington looked at me and said, “Duh!”

  “We want to use them,” Roy went on.

  “Use them, like, how? They’re here to stop us, folks, not leave a trail of breadcrumbs to the Robelles.”

  Johnny said, “Why would they want to stop us if our plan didn’t have a chance of working? If that were the case, there would be nothing to stop.”

  I said, “That would mean a version of this event has already taken place.”

  Johnny said, “Wow. You’re a real deductive genius.”

  Remington actually said, “I could grow to like you, kid.”

  “It would also mean these Synthetics would know where these Robelle people are located, and quite possibly the time and place of the humpty-dumpty in question,” Johnny went on.

  Roy made like he was preparing to leave. “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I have to find the present Roy and keep him and his men away from the location. They could throw a monkey wrench into this whole thing.”

  I looked around as a salty mist picked up off the water. This was it? Me, Remington, and a skinny kid with wire hair were going to change the course of history for the next two hundred or more years? Jesus.

  “So what do these Synthetics look like?” Johnny asked over his shoulder as he shuffled over to Vero’s for a slice.

  I said, “They’re nothing like Remington, kid. Just look for tall blondes with big boobs.” She didn’t think it was funny.

  * * * * *

  I kept reminding myself of the date, Sunday, March 23rd, and I watched the big clock on the boardwalk click past 9:30 p.m. It actually wasn’t bad out for late March, foggy and on the warm side, but the sporadic mist off the water was just enough to be annoying. “So how do we do this?” Johnny asked as he munched his pizza. Seeing Remington eyeing him, he shoved the huge slice toward her. “You want some?”

  “Not after you’ve bitten into it,” she replied, shoving it back. “Gross.”

  Johnny looked at me and said, “You can do better.”

  “The plan?” Remington moaned.

  I said, “The first step is to find the Synthetics.”

  Johnny tapped me on the shoulder. “Is what you said really true? I mean, do the women really look like grown up Barbie dolls.”

  “A lot of them, yes.”

  “Then check this out.”

  There were three of them, walking down the middle of the boardwalk. Probably no one would have noticed if this had been the middle of the summer, but the three of them together stood out like limes in a bowl of lemons. Indeed, all the Mexican guys with their mamacitas gave them the once over, as did a couple of brotha’s hip-hoppin’ up toward them from the opposite direction. Even the Chinese guys selling egg rolls were yucking it up with Chinese yucks. The Barbies had made a weak attempt at dressing the way twenty-first century—excuse me, twentieth century—Jersey girls dressed, but they missed the makeup nuances and big hair of the late eighties. It just didn’t come off. “That’s them,” I said. “No doubt about it.”

  Johnny said, “Nice,” to which Remington responded, “Oh, puh…lll…ease.”

  “We can’t let them see us,” I said urgently. “If they do, a dozen others will swarm down on us in no time.”

  Johnny said, “We can get behind them if we hop the fence and run back up the beach toward the Tilt-A-Whirl.”

  I knew exactly where he was talking about. It was a section of chain link fence that kept the beach goers and little kids from getting too close to amusement rides, which could be dangerous. The fence veered off the edge of the boardwalk and snaked back along the sand until it met up with another section of our H-shaped boardwalk about fifty yards away. It had to be six feet high, maybe seven. “Remington?” I said. “Do you think you can make it over that fence without being noticed?”

  “Piece of cake,” she said, although I knew it wasn’t.

  “Okay then, let’s get over it as soon as they’re past us, and meet up by the Ferris wheel. Let’s see where they lead us.”

  “Okay,” they both said, and we turned only to face four of the biggest, ugliest Ken Dolls ever made.

  * * * * *

  Roarke said, “To say you’ve been extraordinarily troublesome would be putting mildly.”

  We’d been escorted off the boardwalk and into one of the bungalows near the access road to Island Beach State Park. I remembered that stretch of beach still existed in the year 2194, which meant I’d now discovered the point of teleportation for Roarke and his crew. From the looks of the bungalow, they’d broken in and we were standing in someone’s living room.

  Playing off my attitude, Johnny said, “Who’s this jerk?”

  “Shut up,” I said. “You have no idea what’s going on.” I turned to Roarke, wondering what specific date he’d come from. As I’d just discovered with Roy, teleportation wasn’t a chronological event, and this Roarke replica wasn’t necessarily armed with the same information as the last Roarke replica. Then again, he could have been armed with more. Didn’t much matter, though. He was still a murderous dick, and I knew that me, being my own replica, being in the same spot with Johnny, my own original, could spell the end of the line for me—forfuckingever.

  “Sorry I messed up your plans. I’m all broken up over it,” I said, brimming with fake bravado. I wondered if Johnny could sense it.

  “You have no idea how prophetic that statement is,” Roarke replied. He pointed a DNA-controlled Glock at me, and said, “Take their hands.”

  I thought: here we go again. We were going to be teleported via a DNA lock-on, on me. “Nothing doing,” I said.

  Roarke wagged his Glock and three Ken Doll goons dressed in jean jackets came over and bound our wrists together with some duct tape they must have found inside the bungalow. For a second I thought we were being manhandled by a Swedish rock group. “You know that whatever you do will be reversed by another intervention.”

  “Not this time,” Roarke replied.

  Okay, we’d been through this before too. “What makes this time so special?” I asked as I tested the bindings. I was between Johnny and Remington, and there was no way I could free either of my arms.

  Roarke ran a finger along Remington’s cheek. “Perhaps we could come to some agreement,” he said to her. “I could use someone who is capable at all points on the continuum.”

  “Forget it, handsome. You could never afford me.”

  Roarke stepped back, and you could tell he was pissed. “Your arrogance is going to cost you your lives,” he said to all of us. He motioned us to the couch, and looked out the window as if he was searching for something. He stepped outside a moment later, leaving us with one of the Synthetics posted just inside the door. I figured it was getting close to teleportation time.

  I glanced at Johnny, and, despite his own outward bravado, I sensed his anxiety. I guess I was who I was, no matter the age. I swung the other way, wondering which Remington I had: the one before the sidewalk confrontation with Aryeh, or after. I tried to communicate silently with her. Nothing doing. He eyes were full of anger, bouncing all over the room. With Johnny, however, I knew I could communicate, for I’d be communicating with myself. Sure enough, his eyes were already on mine, questioning. What’s next? they were asking. Like Remington, I started looking for anything that would help us get out of this mess. If we were teleported, I had to think we’d never come back. I glanced at Johnny again, and his eyes were
pleading. C’mon, they were saying, you got me into this; you have to get me out. That’s when it came to me. There was no DNA lock on me. If there was, I could be snatched away at any time as long as my location had been determined. But it hadn’t been determined because Roarke had no way of communicating through the continuum that he’d found me. No, the DNA lock had to be on him, and we were waiting for a prearranged teleportation time when we’d all traipse out to the sand together. I started looking for a clock, and that’s when the second realization came to me.

  As I looked from nook to cranny around the tiny bungalow, my eyes landed on a gun, not a pistol, or one of the Synthetics’ DNA-controlled Glocks, but a long, double-barreled shotgun—a goose gun, the one that belonged to Jenna Robelle’s dad. It was hanging over the mantle on the fireplace. I’d crossed paths with that gun twice before. We were in the Robelle’s house again, I now realized, but it was a different house, one they must have had before the larger one on the outskirts of town. What was Roarke doing here? The answer came quickly. The date was exactly nine months from David’s birth date, but I had no guarantee that this was the exact night of David’s conception when I’d teleported back to this day. My plan had been no plan. I was simply going to find the Robelles and do whatever I needed to do to prevent them from engaging in said conception, that being on the basis that it hadn’t already taken place. My plan was a total gamble, but I knew that Roarke’s presence was no gamble. He was here to stop me.

  I couldn’t help but imagine how many events were tied into this one, how the ripples on the continuum never ended, like the waves of the ocean pounding down on the sand until the grains eroded into nothingness. That’s how I felt, like a grain of sand, and I was about to disappear.

  I felt a tug, breaking me from my funk. “Are you going to get us out of this?” Remington whispered as if getting out of this was like flipping a light switch.

  “I’m thinking, okay?”

  “We’re doomed,” she said sarcastically, to which the Synthetic at the door smiled.

  Shit, I thought, we couldn’t even whisper. Then I thought: we didn’t need to. Johnny would know exactly what I was thinking because it was what he’d be thinking, and that moron of a Synthetic across the room would never know. It had to be true. Okay, what was I thinking? There had to be a way out of this, and it had to be fast. I didn’t even look at Johnny. My eyes bounced from object to object, from window to door, and settled on the goose gun over the mantle. I felt my pulse start to pound, so much so that I felt it clean down to where my wrist was bound with Remington’s. I didn’t even look at her, but I knew she had her eyes on me.