Time-Travel Duo

by James Paddock

The light turned orange in the other direction and she inched forward, watching a U-Haul truck slow toward a stop. The orange changed to red and although hers hadn’t turned green yet, she punched the accelerator just as a dirty black and rust truck appeared from the lane beyond the U-Haul truck, accelerating as though he could beat the already red light. Annie slammed on the brakes and the truck whipped by, the driver giving no more than an irritated glance.

  It was seconds before Annie took a breath, plopped her forehead against the steering wheel and willed her heart to slow. Traffic passed around her. The horns that sounded seemed to be coming from off in the distance until she was startled by a knock on her window. She looked and hit the window down button.

  “Are you all right?” the man said. He was tall, baby-smooth bald, and bent at the waist to be able to peer in at her.

  She nodded her head. “Yes. I’m fine.”

  “Then you need to move your car. You’re blocking traffic.”

  Annie looked. Her light was red and she was sitting in the middle of the intersection. Cars were easing around her, the drivers giving her dirty looks. Horns were still honking.

  “Oh, damn! Sorry!” She eased the car forward, receiving another round of angry looks and honks, until she was clear of the intersection. She pulled to the curb and closed her eyes.

  After a minute she looked at her crimson face in the mirror. What is your problem? What’s the big rush? Professor Grae didn’t mean what it sounded like he meant, or you probably heard it wrong. Anyway, what’s another minute or two to get there without killing yourself or someone else?

  Annie looked twice and then again before pulling back onto the street, certain that she wasn’t going to be so lucky with a close call the third time. She drove below the speed limit, patiently waited on all lights, and arrived on Professor Grae’s street at 7:32. She found his house, parked at the curb, and got out. There were four cars in his driveway including a familiar red LeBaron convertible, which she stopped and stared at. “Why is he here?” With knitted brow and a quickened pace she continued up the drive and onto the sidewalk that led up to a deep porch spanning the width of the house. Annie was up the steps and half way across the porch when Professor Grae’s silhouette appeared behind the screen door. He pushed it open.

  “Ms Caschetta. Thank you for coming.”

  Annie stopped and looked at him. “I’m not promising anything.”

  He held up his hand. “I know. We just ask that you delay your decision until you’ve heard us out.”

  “Decision about what?”

  “About whether to come on board or not. I’m sure you will, otherwise we would not have approached you.”

  Annie tilted her head and gave Professor Grae a suspicious look.

  “Please come in. No need discussing this on my porch.”

  He stepped aside and she walked in. In the foyer her eyes and ears were drawn to the left into a study. Seated were a professor she recognized but with whom she had not had dealings, Charles Walshe, the fat dweeb from Professor Grae’s class and with whom she certainly did not expect nor want dealings, and the owner of the red convertible parked outside, her grandfather. She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it.

  Professor Grae stepped around her. “Please come in; have a seat. You know Mister Walshe, and of course your grandfather. I don’t know if you’ve ever met Professor Bradshaw.”

  Bradshaw stood and offered his hand. “We formally met nineteen and a half years ago, but I doubt you remember, Annie.”

  Annie shook his hand. She had seen him around campus, and as she thought about it, sometimes talking with her father. She released his hand and sent a questioning glare at her grandfather.

  “Bradshaw was there the night you arrived in the time machine, screaming your lungs out.”

  She turned back to Bradshaw. “Then you were there when my mother arrived forty-eight hours later.”

  Bradshaw nodded. “Jerry Blaylock and I performed CPR. We were devastated when we couldn’t save her. I’m sorry.”

  “That was twenty years ago.” She again looked at her grandfather, suspiciously at Walshe, and then at Professor Grae. “Were you there, too?”

  Grae nodded his head.

  “What the hell is going on? If you and professor Bradshaw were part of it, I understand, but what the hell is he,” she pointed her finger at Walshe, “doing here? And how come I didn’t know about you two, and who the hell else was there who is also lurking around the campus?” She sent another glare at her grandfather who sat as though no more than an interested bystander, a stupid grin plastered to his face.

  Grae raised his arms, his palms turned down as though he was a preacher motioning his congregation. “Everyone please sit down. Annie, why don’t you have a seat there and we’ll fill in all your blanks.”

  Annie ignored the invitation to sit on the leather sofa next to her grandfather and chose instead a rocking chair on the opposite side of the room. Everyone turned to face her as if she were about to give a speech.

  “Would you like something to drink? I have tea, coffee, no soda I’m afraid though I believe there is a little Cranapple juice, and beer.”

  “To serve me beer, Professor Grae, would be worth a $2000.00 fine or six months in jail. I don’t need something to drink. I need an explanation.” She eyed the beer in Walshe’s hand as though ready to dial 911 and turn everyone in.

  Charles Walshe raised his beer to her. “I turn twenty-three the same day you turn twenty.”

  “You have my birthday?” Annie made a face, rolled her eyes and turned her glare onto Grae.

  “Yes,” said Grae. “An explanation is what you are about to get. Until recently I was not aware that you knew all the details as to your birth and your mother’s death. I have to admit that when I found out about your sudden demonstration of detective skills at the age of fourteen . . .”

  “Thirteen.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I figured out that there was something seriously amiss when I was thirteen. It was on my fourteenth birthday when I got into my father’s face about it and, shortly thereafter, learned all the gory details.”

  Professor Grae smiled. “Thirteen . . . fourteen . . . semantics. You were a child when you started playing Sherlock Holmes. It was decided by your father, your grandfather and your godparents to enlighten you with all the ‘gory details’ as you like to call them, but leave out who the team members were, at least the ones who you would probably be coming into contact with in your academic career. They are Thomas Bradshaw and myself, as well as two others who are not important here and thus of whom I am not at liberty to divulge.”

  Annie’s head bobbed with the rocking of her chair, her mind racing through the faces of every professor she knew on the MIT campus. “Who is Jerry Blaylock, and why not?”

  “Jerry is one of the others. You haven’t a need to know them and they are not important to what we are doing here. Besides, they do not live in this part of the country.”

  “It was my life and my mother’s life, so I think I have a right to know. Other than that, you’re still not telling me anything I don’t already know, like why Charles,” the dweeb, she wanted to add, “who was three years old at the time, is here now, why this group is being formed, and what you are planning on doing.”

  Professor Grae nodded. “Reasonable questions. I was approached by Professor Bradshaw and Dr. Hair, your grandfather,” he pointed, “about two years ago.”

  “I know who my grandfather is.”

  “Yes, of course. They asked if I’d join them in forming an exploratory committee to investigate whether enough new knowledge had been developed to restart the program, as before, privately. I was reluctant at first, I must say, but by that fall I was fully on board to proceed forward. Two months ago Charles, while in the process of doing his own time travel research and coming up with information and conclusions very similar to your father’s and grandfather’s many years past, found us out. Although he
made no indication of revealing his discovery to the world we decided it would be prudent to bring him in on the program. His knowledge and young mind would be valuable. Besides, three people are not enough. Neither are four. To be fully operational, and safe, it’ll take five, and each of those five must be able to do all the jobs of the other four.”

  “So this group has been formed to raise, like a phoenix from my mother’s ashes and the ashes of my father’s failed effort, the time-travel experiments.”

  “Your father didn’t fail, Annie,” her grandfather said.

  “My mother, your daughter, died. That sounds like a failure to me.”

  Dr. Hair closed his eyes.

  “There were mistakes made,” Grae said, “but what we learned was as valuable as the discovery of electricity. It was an accident that your mother fell into the wormhole, but it happened and we did bring you, and then her back. The circumstances of her death had nothing to do with the experiment itself.”

  “If she hadn’t of ended up traveling back in time 44 years, she would not have died. If it was such a success, why was it all shut down?”

  “First of all, Annie,” her grandfather said, “the program was funded and controlled by the board members of Broad Horizons. Their charter called for dismantling as soon as you and your mother were brought back. We, Howard, Thomas, your father and I, and the others, had no say about it, though at the time we were in total agreement. It was an emotional trauma, not only for your father and me, but for everyone involved. We were not cold-hearted scientists. The shutdown was a unanimous decision. I also think the power of time-travel, the unknown effect it could have on us, on the past and the future, the thought that we could accidentally eliminate our own existence, scared everyone.”

  Professor Bradshaw spoke up for the first time. “It wasn’t entirely sent into the scrap yard, Annie; at least not in the permanent sense. We sort of expected that we would pull it out again someday, we just didn’t realize this much time would go by first.”

  “Maybe we’ve been waiting for you,” said Grae.

  Annie looked back and forth between the four pairs of eyes and then settled her gaze upon her grandfather. “Why? My mother wasn’t initially involved in the experiment. It was kept a secret from her even long after she accidentally stepped into it. It sent her into labor with me. Can you imagine suddenly finding yourself in a time 44 years in the past with a newborn child to take care of? I’m sure she thought she had gone insane.”

  “We sent her a letter that same night,” Grae said, “but as you know, it fell into the wrong hands. It was months before it got to her. It was pure luck that she got it at all.”

  “Yeah, I know all about the German spy who turned out to be my great-grandfather. I thought I knew everything and now I discover there were other players I wasn’t told about.” She looked down at her shoes. “That’s neither here or there, I guess. The real question is, why do you think I have anything to contribute, and,” she looked up at Professor Grae, “what did you mean by what if I could talk to Tony one more time? Am I hearing what I’m thinking I’m hearing?”

  There was nothing but silence from the men. She shook her head. “No! The entire idea is crazy. You were right to shut the thing down because I think you were playing with fire . . . with God’s fire. You were lucky that the only bad thing that happened from it was my mother’s death.” She pulled her fingers through her hair. “I can’t believe I just said my mother’s death was lucky.

  “If you think that I’m going to jump at the chance to go back in time so that I can talk to Tony again, you all are crazy. It may not look like it but I am trying to get over him. I have to. I don’t want to drag that out any longer and seeing him again, especially when I know he will die, would probably be more than I could bare. And what about Mrs. Grae, Professor? Do you really think your life would be better by being able to talk to her again? I’m sure that’s what you also have in mind.” She stood and shook her head. “No. No not only for me, but I think it should be no for all of you. Destroy this thing and put it away for good.” With those words she strode out of the room and out of the house.

  “I really thought she’d jump onboard,” Doctor Hair said. “I underestimated my granddaughter.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Professor Grae turned from the window where he had watched her race out to her car. “Let’s give her a little time; let her, and us for that matter, get through finals.”

  Chapter 5

  May 17, 2007

  Annie was back in Cambridge before she caught herself driving too fast again. She eased off the gas pedal and coasted up to the next stop sign. She waited on crossing traffic, started to go and then waited on another car a half block away. When it finally passed she started to go again, glanced in her mirror, and slammed on her brakes. A police car nearly plowed into her rear end.

  His lights were not on so she assumed she was not in trouble for anything, but she felt really stupid—for the second time that day—with the nose of her car poking into the intersection. She pulled her composure together and then with focused control proceeded through the intersection. The patrol car paused at the intersection, and then followed, again coming uncomfortably close to Annie’s bumper. For block after block he stayed behind her. She signaled and then turned, and the speed limit went to 30. The patrol car remained with her. She held her speed to 25, and then became worried he’d pull her over for going too slow. She sped up and then panicked when her speed was suddenly 33. She nearly slammed on her brakes again. Her speed dropped below 30 and she held it there for another two blocks before pulling to the curb. As the patrol car cruised by she looked up at the houses along the street as though searching for an address, afraid that if she looked at him he’d see guilt written all over her face and decide to stop and talk to her. What she could possibly be guilty of, she had no idea, other than parking in intersections and trying to run over Mrs. Williams.

  When the patrol car was gone, having turned at the next corner, Annie continued to stare out her window, thinking about the confrontation at Professor Grae’s house.

  They were right to shut it all down twenty years ago, she thought. What kind of history did her mother change as it was? There was no way of knowing unless she had lived. Maybe the reason why she didn’t was so that she wouldn’t see what she had done. Maybe the first time around we lost World War II and we became a German speaking country, or Japanese speaking. Maybe we still won, but more men died, or our homeland was attacked first and New York or Washington was destroyed. Maybe Hitler did get the secrets of the atomic bomb and managed to drop it on us before we did so on Japan.

  Admiral Harris drove Robert Oppenheimer to meet her mother because she believed that that meeting was the reason she was there. What happened at that meeting? Did she tell Oppenheimer something that helped us succeed in developing the first atomic bomb and thus end the war, killing millions of Japanese people in the process? If so, was that good or bad from the viewpoint of the big picture? What did her mother change, if anything?

  Annie had wondered about that many times over the years since she had learned of it all; had played the what-if games, had run all the possible scenarios. It all came to a head when she was sixteen and started exploring the idea of going back in time herself, and then had given up, realizing the danger of it. There was no way of ever knowing.

  Suddenly there was a knock at Annie’s window. She jumped and then turned her head to look into the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen. Unfortunately they were the property of a Cambridge police officer, a very young, good-looking and big Cambridge police officer. She pressed the button to lower her window.

  “License please.”

  “Yes, sir.” Annie’s hands shook as she dug into her purse for her wallet, aware that the officer was watching her. She handed him her license.

  “That’s your bankcard, Ma’am. I need your license, unless this is a bribe. If so I’d prefer cash.”

  She looked at him with her m
outh hanging open.

  “That’s a joke, Ma’am. Relax. Just show me your license.”

  Annie exchanged her bankcard for the driver’s license and handed that to him.

  He analyzed it. “You were driving erratically, Ms. Caschetta. Having trouble with your vehicle?”

  “No, sir. I was . . . I was looking for . . .” Don’t lie. “I wasn’t . . . I’m not feeling very well.” At least that wasn’t a complete lie. She was about ready to throw up. “I just had a fight with . . . my grandfather.” That’s better. “A bit upset is all.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be driving when you’re upset.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s why I pulled over.”

  “It appeared to me you pulled over because I was behind you, that a police officer made you nervous.”

  Complete honesty, Annie; complete honesty. “And that, too, yes.”

  He smiled at her. “We’re not here to hassle you, Ms. Caschetta. We’re here to protect and serve. I suggest you find another place to sit and get your emotions under control. You’re parked at a fire hydrant.”

  “Oh! Sorry. I’m almost home. That’s where I’m going.”

  He looked up the street and then again at her. “The address on the license is south of here. You’re heading in the wrong direction to be going home.”

  “Oh, ah . . . I’m not living there anymore. I’m living back with my father, now.”

  His eyes went to the wedding ring. “I see. If this situation remains permanent, you’ll need to go by the RMV and get your address changed on your license.”

  “I . . .” She started to explain that the situation was in fact very permanent, and then decided to leave well enough alone. What difference would it make anyway? “Yes, officer.”

  “Worley.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s Officer Worley, Ma’am.”

  She nodded her head.

  “Caschetta is familiar for some reason. Have we met before?”

  Annie shook her head. “Don’t think so. There’re a few Caschettas around. My husband’s family is from Vermont.