by Michael Shaw
“Ecclesiastes,” he nodded.
I sat down at the table, Bible in hand.
He grinned and watched me set it down, admiration in his eyes.
“I was never raised in any of this myself.” I continued to examine the book. “We didn’t go to church, and… I don’t know. I just never looked into it.”
Steven wrapped his hands around his coffee mug.
“You’re a man of science.” I lifted the book. “How did you come to believe in this?”
“They’re not entirely incompatible, you know. Faith and reason.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but I stopped myself. I let him state his case.
“I don’t believe in spite of reason. Rather, I do so in tandem with it.”
We shared a silent moment of eye contact.
I lowered his Bible back down. It sat in between us. “You said something about everyone having a purpose.”
“Correct.”
“Do you think these purposes are unavoidable?”
He smiled, noticing the thought I was putting into everything. “I simply think that what is meant to happen will happen.”
“What do you make of free will, then? And all the things you’ve seen with time travel? How do you consolidate all that?”
He scratched his chin, an intrigued look in his eye. “Jonathan Ashe.” He took a deep breath. “You’ve encountered paradoxes, haven’t you?”
I leaned forward and pictured my days with the pocket watch. Encountering my future self, and then my past self, several times. Causal loops. Knowledge that I gained from myself that I wouldn’t have been able to access otherwise. I tilted my head. “Perhaps I have. What do you make of them?”
“Grab a pen and paper.”
I fetched them for him, and he began drawing, doing the best he could to keep his hand steady. “Many have thought that time travel works like this.” He drew a line with two endpoints on it. “If you live on this timeline, and you go back in time,” he drew a new line and pointed an arrow from the first line to the second, “you’ve actually gone to an alternate reality. If you encounter your past self, it’s a different ‘you’ than the ‘you’ that you are. So if you change the past, you didn’t actually change your past. Rather, you changed an alternate universe’s present.”
I rubbed my temples. “Is that how you think time travel works?”
“Not at all, actually.” He turned the paper over and drew a new timeline. Near the end of it, he placed a dot. “On the contrary. Based on what I’ve encountered - and I’m willing to bet you’ve encountered it too - when traveling back in time, you find that events occur in the exact same way, down to a tee.” He drew an arched line from the dot to an earlier part of the timeline, then traced the timeline back over again until he reached the dot. “It turns out, time travel keeps you within the same reality, but that reality is much more rigid than we thought.”
He glanced at me to make sure I was following.
“Keep going,” I said.
“Because of this, we encounter paradoxes.” He traced the semicircle created by the timeline and arching line. “If I find a secret location because my future self tells me where it is, and then I later go back to inform my past self of the location, how was the information originally gained?”
Sounds familiar, I thought to myself.
“It’s a conundrum. But the loop is contained. Nothing ever changes.” He sighed. “So, my thought is that there is a… third party.”
“A third party,” I echoed.
“Yes. The Third Party puts these loops in place.” He shrugged. “Who knows why, but their existence is implicit of an external source.”
I tried to put the pieces together. “So… your ‘third party’ is in control. The Third Party causes these loops.”
“Yes,” he nodded.
“And you believe the Third Party is… God?”
“You don’t have to believe me, Jon. I’ve come to my conclusions, just as you will yourself.”
“But if what you said about time travel is true,” I put my hands on the table, “if there is only one, immutable reality, then changing the past is a futile endeavor.”
His eyes fell.
I rubbed the sides of my nose.
“I suppose now is the time for me to reveal to you my reservations.” He swallowed and put his hands flat on the paper. “I am completely willing to help you, as you have seen, but,” his eyes met mine, “just think about what might happen when you go back to save them.”
“What do you mean?”
“In this present, your parents are dead. Perhaps in this reality, we have the answer to whether your mission was successful.”
“Steven, what are you saying?”
He closed his eyes and let it out. “What if you go back, and your parents’ murderer kills you as well?”
The room fell into silence.
I stared at Steven, with ideas, feelings, and jumbled thoughts all bouncing around my head.
He opened his eyes back up.
I considered what path I would take, but after all this work, it was clear to me. I locked eyes with Steven and spoke firmly. “Better to know what’s killing me than to wait for a mystery.”
∞
“One more day,” Steven exhaled with satisfaction. We stood over the watch. “One more day, and it'll be finished.”
He had been right about how long it would take. It ended up being a whole month, but the time was just one of the things expended; by the end of all the constructing, analyzing, reconstructing, and refining, I was more than ready. This was it. I connected the Core and its components to the rest of the watch, and Steven calculated that by the end of the night, Model Seven would be ready.
My hands had become much rougher, and they began to hold cuts and bruises all over. It was surprising that a project so small could do that kind of damage, but the watch had to be perfect. I learned so much more from Steven than I ever could have on my own.
That afternoon, I finished up making final touches. Steven estimated the watch to reach a hundred percent by one in the morning, but we both agreed to give it until sunrise.
I made my way out onto the patio, dusting my hands off, and I sat next to Steven. He smoked yet another cigar, and I stared into the distance. My eyes glided across the dirty white tarp on his car and over to his old shed. The door was cracked; the last time I’d seen it, it was closed shut.
“June 23, 2042.” He tapped on the top of the cigar. “Today, we have no power to control time. But tomorrow, you’ll have a hundred years in the palm of your hand.”
“I can’t believe it.” I picked at a callous in my hand, keeping my gaze up at the grass and sky. “I’m finally going to go back.”
He puffed out a cloud of smoke.
“I’m finally going to attain what I’ve been striving for this whole time.”
He leaned back on the bench, letting the cigar hang loosely in his mouth, staring out with me. The sun was just beginning to set.
“Do you still feel the way you did about the past?” I asked, keeping my eyes forward.
He inhaled a raspy breath.
“Do you still fear that my efforts will be futile?”
He coughed into his arm, turning his head away from me.
I swallowed, watching the sun descend.
“If I didn’t think you were meant to go back for your parents, Jon, we wouldn’t even be sitting here together right now. All that work you’ve done will not have been for granted.”
“You said you’ve never seen the past change.”
“‘For everything there is a season,’ Jon.”
“Yeah. You’ve said that before. ‘A time for everything.’”
“That means there’s a first time for everything, too.”
I watched his smoke clouds mix together with the outside air.
“Have you considered that when you go back, you may be the first human being to successfully change history?”
The light
was vanishing, the sun hiding further and further behind the horizon. “I’d be less worried about changing the past if it had actually been done before,” I said softly.
Steven scratched the back of his neck. I shifted my eyes over, noticing his bump once again.
“I used to be worried all the time.” He cracked his knuckles. “But I don’t worry anymore.”
I looked back out at the world, and then at his shed. The cracked door.
“I might get concerned sometimes, but never worried.” He glanced at me. “Tell me. Have you ever been able to live with the feeling that everything’s going to be okay?”
“No,” I replied immediately. “I don’t think such an assurance exists, unless I can secure it myself.”
He just smiled, staring off into the distance.
“Was that another idea from your book?”
He chuckled.
I closed my eyes and exhaled, rubbing my eyelids.
“You’re going back for a killer, Jon. Are you going to be able to defend yourself?”
“I’ll have a weapon. My father’s gun.”
“And was there not a second man at the scene? An accomplice?”
“Peter Simmons. The cops killed him that night.”
“But you may encounter him if you change the past.”
“Maybe. Probably.”
“So you think you’re ready.”
“I was ready the second I found the watch in that box.”
We now sat in darkness. Our words were followed by a silence between the two of us, interrupted only by the occasional chirping cricket.
Eventually, Steven put a hand on my shoulder. “Best wishes to you, Jon.”
I brought my eyes up to his. “Thank you, Steven. For everything.”
∞
That night, I found myself unable to sleep. Thoughts of saving my family kept me completely awake. And the stakes were even higher now. If I saved my parents, then I could potentially save everyone else. Jason. Alex. Even people I may not even end up meeting, I realized. Cooper. And Sam. By changing the past, I could save them, too.
The sound of Steven getting up and walking down the stairs hit my ears. I closed my eyes and ignored it.
I didn’t know if it was the same feeling that Steven Edward was describing, but for a few minutes that night, I felt at peace. I felt like everything was going to be okay.
But it was only a few minutes, because while I lay in my bed, Jacob Richards’ phone began to vibrate, just like it had the first night. I opened my eyes. It kept vibrating. I picked it up and checked the number. My hairs stood on end.
Everything was not going to be okay.
∞
Hunter Calhoun’s number displayed under the time. Two in the morning. I swallowed and let the phone ring like before. But this time, he left a voicemail. It popped up on the screen a few minutes later, and I immediately listened to it. He spoke in a low, crackling voice. I kept the phone against my ear, holding my breath.
“You’re so lucky Jacob’s phone is untraceable, Ashe,” he bit. “But I know you’re out there. I thought I’d let it go, but it just came to my mind, again. The news is still having a field day with it, how you were found next to the Luna building. How that guy somehow got through all those cops to whisk you away.” He laughed coldly. “I don’t know if you ever found your Steven Edward, but I thought I’d pass some news along to you. We were able to dig something up on him, eventually. Only thing we could find was a medical surgery. Guess what it was?” He chuckled, a menacing satisfaction in his voice. “Scar removal and reconstructive face surgery.”
My heart beat rapidly.
“If only you could see the pictures,” he breathed. “I’ve lied in the past, Ashe, but I’m done crying wolf.”
No… I pressed the phone against my ear. No, it can’t be him. It can’t be.
He laughed once more. “This keeps happening to you, doesn’t it? You come looking for a savior, but instead you find defeat.”
I dropped the phone and jumped out of bed. I snatched my father’s gun into my hand and put it in the back of my pants. Wasting no time, I ran out of the room.
Steven’s door hung open. I ran all the way down to the basement. Above all else, I had to get the watch. I turned on the light. It was gone.
“No,” I ran back up the stairs, “Steven!”
He was nowhere in the house. I hurried outside. Under the moonlight, I saw the shed. Door open. I bolted inside. No one. One thing caught my eye. In the back corner, I saw a table pushed to the side. I rushed over. On the wall was something mildly familiar. A door frame. Connected to it, a red and green button. The red button was illuminated.
It was a portal.
“How…” I pressed the green button. It didn’t light up. “Steven?” I pressed it again. “Steven!” I screamed his name aloud, slamming against the portal’s frame. There had to be a way to get to him. I emerged from the shed. What is going on? Why did he do this? Staring at me was the tarp on his vehicle. As I stood there under the moonlight, I pulled the tarp off, and the sight of the vehicle made me shudder.
A dark green truck. It held a damaged headlight and bumper. I staggered back away from it. The truck that hit Mrs. Nelson. Mind racing, I ran back into the house.
There has to be something I’m missing. I searched all the side rooms. No traces of Steven. He had no other vehicle; he escaped through the portal. How does he have a portal?
I stopped in the middle of the hallway; the only door left was the office. I rushed inside. The left closet door hung open. I had never looked inside that one. My arms shivered. I held my breath and reached behind my back, pulling out my pistol.
I jumped in surprise when Steven emerged from inside. A different look on his face. Calm, but frowning. Solemn. He wore two gloves. Thin, black, covering his entire hands. On his wrist, Model Seven.
I tried to pull my gun out, but for some reason, I couldn’t. Something was holding me. I looked at Steven.
He held a hand toward me; I was frozen.
“What…” I breathed.
He flicked his hand to the side. I slammed against the wall, and he took slow steps toward me.
I pulled my torso up against the wall, watching him come toward me. “Midas.”
“Even further improved.” He tapped the back of his neck. His gloves had no apparent mechanism on them, either. They were sleek, formfitting.
“You have Midas?” I exhaled.
Slowly, a grin crept onto his face. It was a smile I had never seen him wear before. But I had seen someone else wear it.
My lips shook. I couldn’t believe it. “Hunter?” I put my hands below me and pushed myself up.
Hearing his name put a smile on his face. He forced me back onto the floor. “Thank you for building me the perfect time machine, Jon.” He tilted his head. “You and I both know that I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“What happened?” I looked him up and down. “How did you-”
“You ought to know, Ashe. I had to learn it the hard way. When it comes to time travel,” he looked down at himself, “mistakes can have big consequences.”
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall. “No. This can’t be happening.”
“But while I was in the past, I was still able to put myself to get use.” Hunter lifted his wrist and examined the watch. “You did such a great job, Ashe. Model Seven is going to do wonders.”
“What do you mean? What did you do in the past?”
He smirked. “I guess you could say I made a little mess.”
I tried to break free, but his grip was even stronger than I had felt it before. “What did you do? Where did you go?”
“You had a wonderful family, Jon.”
“What?” I yelled.
Hunter’s eyes locked with mine, revealing wild insanity within his pupils.
I swallowed. “It was you? You killed them?”
He returned his eyes to the watch, admiring it. “I did…”
He said softly.
“You’re a madman.”
He received it as a compliment, standing confidently before me.
“Why?” I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Why would you do that?”
He returned his eyes to me, and he chuckled. “You amaze me, Ashe. All the answers are before you, and you still find a way to ask questions.”
“You lied,” I heaved, my breaths growing longer and heavier. “You lied to me again?”
He paused, lifting his eyes to me.
“All that about faith? About the things you’d learned in life? You were just lying to me again, weren’t you?”
He didn’t reply. He just backed away. He stepped toward the closet door slowly, keeping me subdued with Midas.
“All those years you’ve lived, and you haven’t learned a thing,” I growled. “You’re still the selfish kid I’ve always known-”
“Shut up!” He screamed, thrusting his hands toward me.
My head rocked against the wall. I braced myself against his push.
“Drop your self-righteous act, Jon! I’m doing nothing different than you are.”
“How? We both know you’re just going to use that watch for your own gain, just like your younger self used me-”
“Why do you want to save your parents?” He spat.
I shivered, watching Hunter’s wrinkled face.
“Is it for them? Really?” He pointed at me. “Or is it for you? It’s just your security. Your happiness. Chasing the nice, sweet childhood you never had!”
“Don’t you dare.” I bared my teeth.
“Look at yourself, Jon.” He passed the threshold of the closet. Why are you doing what you do?”
I pressed against the push of Midas.
We shared a moment of eye contact.
Hunter shook his head. “Some things never change.”
“What now?” I called. “You’re not going to kill me?”
His breaths grew heavy, just like mine.
“I’m still going to go back. I’m still going to save them no matter what you do.”
