Paradox (9 page)

“Does he ever go, too?”

“All the time,” Emilee said. “But we need
someone to stay back in case there are complications.”

“Complications?”
Zac asked.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Zac watched her as she readied herself,
standing outside the platform. She was so tense, so driven. He was glad to have
her on the mission. For her, failure would not be an option.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, taking a deep breath and
wiping the sweat of his palms against his pants leg. He figured the good thing
about time traveling in the recent past was that he would easily blend in. “I’m
ready.”

The door opened, and Emilee stepped in.
Zac followed, Wand at his side. Standing in the middle of the pentagon, Emilee
squared her shoulders and stared straight ahead at the concrete wall opposite
her. She held her Wand at stomach level and closed her eyes.

“On the count of three,” she said. Zac
placed his thumb on top of the device.
“One… two… three!”

He pressed down hard, and the familiar
sensations came flooding to him like a turbulent storm. Zac felt like he was
almost unconscious, his body being tossed back and forth in violent river
rapids. He thought someone or something had slammed against his shoulder, and
then he could feel the world spinning back into existence.

He opened his eyes. Blurry scenery filled
his vision as realized he was on the ground.

“Nice landing,” a voice said. It was
Emilee’s. A hand came toward his face, and he reached out to grab it. She
hoisted him to his feet. Her skin felt so soft, and he could feel his heart
flutter for a split second.

“Thanks,” he said. He looked around. No
one had seen him; he was in the middle of a field. “Where are we?”

“I had Chen drop us off a bit further from
the site,” she said, starting to walk toward the edge of the tree line. “So no
one would see our sudden appearance and freak out.”

“Has that happened yet?” Zac asked,
jogging to catch up to her. He didn’t catch his bearings as easily as she did,
obviously.

“Not that I know of,” she said. “Though I
always wonder if anyone’s seen us and just thought it was their eyes playing
tricks on them or something.”

They approached the edge of the clearing
and stepped deeper into the wooded area. It was thick and dense, shutting out
the light of the sun. About a hundred feet ahead, Zac could see a road that
wound its way through the trees.

“Are we there yet?” he asked.

Emilee let out a small laugh. “You sound
like my little brother,” she said. “It’s just down the road. We’ll follow it to
the site where she was abducted.”

Zac caught up to her and walked by her
side, now on the road. He could see a playground just ahead.

“I didn’t know you had a little brother,”
he said. “How old is he?”

“Up there,” Emilee said, pointing to a
small playground. It was as if she hadn’t heard what Zac said.
“Part of the campground.
According to the reports, this is
where it happened.”

“In the middle of a
campground?”
Zac said. He slowed his pace to match hers.

“The mom said she went into the shower
room and left her daughter playing on the playground. Said she wasn’t gone for
more than a few minutes, and when she came out, she couldn’t find the girl.”

“So what do we do?”

“We wait,” Emilee said. “The girl is about
six
years
old, brown hair and green eyes. We just need
to keep an eye out for her. If we see anything, we memorize what happens and
write it down as soon as we get back. We call in a tip to the authorities, and
they take it from there.”

“And it works?” Zac asked.

“Yeah,” Emilee said, watching the
playground. “Haven’t you ever wondered why Amber Alerts for kidnappings don’t
last that long? Can’t change the past, but we can affect the future. It’s the
next-best thing.”

There was no sign of the girl at the
playground. Instead, it was empty except for a lone blue car parked near the
shower rooms.

“That’s probably the kidnapper’s car,” Zac
said.

“I think so, too. They’re probably out
here somewhere, waiting for whoever comes by. I think we need to find a place
to hide ourselves so we can get a good look at him.”

“You assume it’s a guy.”

“In most cases, it is,” Emilee said. “Some
pervert or something.
Someone who deserves to be locked in
jail and have the key thrown into a river.”
She started crossing the
road, trying to get closer, when a white van almost hit her.

“Look out!” Zac yelled. Emilee stepped to
the side just in time as the van continued down the road, past the playground
toward the campsites.

“Jerk!” she yelled.

They moved to the back of the building,
trying to find a place to conceal
themselves
.

“What if this doesn’t work?” Zac asked.

“It will,” Emilee said. She brushed a
strand of hair from her face and stared at the blue car. “Where are you?” she
asked the invisible kidnapper.
Still no sign of the girl or
of the abductor.

A woman came out of the shower rooms. She
stopped when she got to the blue car and looked inside, then spun around and
ran toward the playground. “Jessica?!” she yelled.

Emilee and Zac exchanged glances. What was
going on?

“Jessica? Where are you?” She began pacing
back and forth, looking under every structure of the playground.

“Did we miss it?” Zac asked.

Emilee shook her head. “I don’t think so,”
she said. “Unless…”

The woman spotted them, and came running
over. Panic filled her eyes. “Help me, please!” She grabbed Zac by the arm. “I
can’t find my daughter. I left her here for just a few minutes. She might have
wandered off, but I told her to stay put!” She called out again. “Jessica!”

It didn’t make sense, Zac thought. There
was nobody here. They didn’t see the little girl playing, not a soul. Only a
white van that almost hit Emilee because it was driving so fast—

The van.

Zac turned to Emilee. “We’re too late!”

“What?”

“The van.
It
didn’t have any windows. I think we just missed the kidnapping by a minute or
two somehow, and the van turned around to make it look like they were coming
down the road instead of leaving, trying to cover their tracks.”

Emilee stood, a sudden dread coming over
her as she considered the possibility. “Did you get a good enough look to give
a description?” she asked.

“I think so,” Zac said, nodding. He looked
down the road. The van was back, this time leaving the campsites, down the road
and out of the park. “Look!”

Emilee turned. “That’s the one. We just
need to get the license plate. We can’t miss this opportunity.”

The van came closer, and Zac could see a
bald man inside it. The man cast a quick glance at Zac, and with what seemed to
be a knowing look, sped up.

Zac took off running after it.

“Zac!”
Emilee
tried running after him, but Zac’s legs moved faster as a burst of adrenaline
propelled him forward. He couldn’t stand there helpless while some little girl
was terrified out of her mind, probably tied up in the back. He raced after it,
coming to a bend in the road.

The van slowed down to navigate the curve,
and Zac gained on it. He reached out to grab the back door handles, his fingers
brushing against one but not grabbing it.

He cursed and ran forward, arms and legs
pumping like he had never experienced. He had to do more than just get a
license plate number.

He had to get the little girl.

He gritted his teeth as he bolted forward,
and his chest burned as his lungs expanded with each breath of air. His heart
felt like it would burst from his chest any second, and his feet slammed down
hard onto the pavement with each step.

The van was picking up speed. He knew he
had only been after it for a few seconds, but it felt like forever. He was
losing strength and could feel his pace slowing down. He couldn’t catch up to
it. Not unless something happened that made the van slow down again.

As the van continued to drive out of
sight, he made a last effort to get the numbers, straining to see them.

He stopped running. His legs gave way,
dropping him to the ground. He tried catching his breath.

He was so close. He had felt the metal of
the door handle with his fingertips; if he had only been a little bit faster.
If he had only started after it a second or two earlier, he might have been
able to do something more.

Just a few seconds.
That was all he needed. He was able to travel back in time to try to save this
girl, and yet it all came down to a few seconds.

Emilee came running up behind him. “Are
you insane? What were you thinking?” she yelled.

“I almost had it,” Zac said.

“Zac, you could have been hurt,” she said.
“And you could have put the girl in worse danger, too!” She looked around,
scanning the woods. They were too late.

“I have an idea,” Zac said. “We can just
do it again.”

“What?”

“You know… we can travel in time. Why
can’t we just come back again?
Just a little earlier?”

Emilee shook her head. “It’s too risky,”
she said.

“How?”

“We could run into ourselves.
The ‘us’ that’s here now.
It could mess things up even
worse. Time travel is not something you can just play with. There are serious
consequences to consider.”

Zac stood up, panting, and brushed himself
off. “So this was it?”

Emilee nodded. “We only have one chance.
We can’t risk a second. We just have to go back with whatever information we
have.”

Zac took a deep breath and exhaled, his
heart rate slowing down. He smiled. “Good thing I got the license plate number.”

The underground room was empty when they
arrived back. Without thinking, Zac stepped out of the glass doors and hurried
to the journal, furiously scribbling down any information he could remember
from the encounter. Breathing hard, he handed it to Emilee and wiped the sweat
from his forehead.

“Here,” he said. “Take it.”

Emilee combed over the notes, eyes wide.
“You got all that?”

Zac looked up, furrowing his brow. “What
do you mean?”

“This… detail,” she said. “You caught an
amazing amount of information. How did you do that? You were running so fast
after the van, I didn’t think you would catch anything at all.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It was easy.
I’ve always been good at remembering things.”

Emilee shook her head in amazement, her
eyes never leaving the paper. “I’ll say.” She looked up at him. It was one of
the first times he’d seen her eyes in a long time. They were honest and open.
“I think you’ve found your calling here.”

Zac blushed.

Emilee turned up the hallway and began
jogging. “I’m going to go turn this in. Hopefully they can get this scumbag
before he does anything stupid.”

Zac took a deep breath and leaned against
the wall. It felt great to be taking action for once, to not simply be sitting
on the sidelines. He felt a sense of purpose, like he had found his place in
life. Only he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about it.

He thought about how difficult it would be
to balance this and school. But it was only for another year and a half; then
he could devote himself full time to it. Even so, he craved the rush he felt;
he longed to stand on the platform and use the wormhole again.

He looked down at the Wand in his hand. He
had no idea why it worked for him like it did, but he was just glad
that
it did. If he hadn’t accidentally found it, and it hadn’t malfunctioned, he
probably would have told his dad about the underground room. His dad would have
been able to make something up about it, and Zac would have never known the
truth.

But that wasn’t the case. The Wand
activated, the wormhole drew him in, and he went back to the day he was born.
His mind whirled with the possibilities, the things he could see. All of the
events he’d read about in history, the famous speeches, battles, discoveries…
they were all waiting for him. All he had to do was use the Wand, and he would
be there.

He thought it was funny that they had
decided to call the device a Wand. The letters all stood for something:
Wormhole Activation Network Device. But it was like a magic wand with all of
the capabilities it gave the user.

He heard footsteps and turned to see who
was coming down the hallway. Chen approached, carrying a bunch of electronic
parts.

“Glad you’re back,” he said. “Did you run
into any Morlocks?”

“Huh?”

“Just joking.
It’s from the book
The Time Machine
. Where’s Emilee?”

“She’s calling the information in. I hope
it’s enough.”

“It probably is.” Chen slid against the
wall and sat down on the floor. “So tell me about it. Was it easy?”

Zac told him everything, how he almost
caught up to the van and how they missed the actual abduction. “Hey, let me ask
you a question,” he said. “Emilee said something about not being able to go
back to the time of the incident because we might run into ourselves again. Is
that true? We only get one chance?”

Chen nodded. “Yeah, it’s a precaution we
take. Not that we
couldn’t
go back again if we’d wanted to. It’s
certainly possible. It’s just not a good idea.”

“I still don’t see why not,” Zac said,
sitting down with his back against the glass door to the wormhole platform. “If
we’re careful, things should be fine.”

“Not really,” Chen said, shaking his head.
“There are too many things that could backfire on you. There are so many
variables to time travel that you can’t just have ‘do-overs.’”

“But can you really mess something up by
observing it again?
Even if you’re careful?”

“Possibly,” Chen said. “Ray Bradbury wrote
about this in his story called ‘A Sound of Thunder.’ In it, a company travels
to the past for tourists, but they’re careful, because even if someone crushes
a bug, they think it’ll have time-altering consequences.”

“Do you think that’s true?”

He waved his hand. “I don’t think so. I
think we’d have seen the effects by now. But there’s no real way to be sure.”

Emilee came back down the stairs. “Okay.
Called it in.
Now we just wait.” She stretched. “I don’t
know about you guys, but I’m starving. Anyone want to get a bite to eat?”

“Sounds good to me,” Chen said.

“Sure,” Zac said. “I could go.” Maybe with
someone else around, Emilee would open up a bit more.
As long
as Rock wasn’t around.
He wasn’t a bad guy or anything; Zac just felt a
little bit uneasy around him. It was clear that Rock liked Emilee more than
just as a friend. And unfortunately for Zac, she liked him, too.

When they arrived at the restaurant, Bryce
and Rock were sitting at a table, waiting for them. They put an extra table
next to theirs and pulled up some chairs.

“What’s up?” Rock asked. “How’d it go?”

“Could have been better,” Zac said. “But I
think we gave the authorities something good to go on.”

“Good,” Bryce said. “That’s all you can
do.”

The waitress came over and took their orders.
The room was loud, and it was difficult to hear each other over the sports
playing on the televisions in the bar.

“So how do you guys do it?” Zac asked.
“How do you go about your daily life and go to class and everything, knowing
that you can’t tell people what you do at TEMPUS?”

“It’s tough,” Bryce said. “I’d love to
tell people, but obviously we can’t.”

“Our victories are silent,” Chen said. “We
get the satisfaction of knowing we did something great, but we can never tell
anyone.”

Rock nodded. “Think about it: if we told
the world that we had the ability to time travel, how do you think they’d
respond?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Everyone would be lined up at our
door, asking us to fix something from their past, or they’d want to do it
themselves. They’d mess everything up. How selfish is
that
?”

Zac squirmed a little in his seat. “I
wouldn’t call it selfish,” he said. “If you could bring back your brother,
wouldn’t you want to try?”

The table grew silent. Everyone exchanged
nervous glances.

“Who told you about that?”

Zac looked at the others at the table as
if asking for help answering. When no help came, he finally said, “Um, my dad
told me. He didn’t say much; he just said that something went wrong and he was
to blame.”

Rock softened and the tension in the room
lessened. “Nah, it wasn’t his fault. It’s just what happened. I don’t blame the
Doc. But as much as I miss my brother, I still wouldn’t go back and change it.
I grew a lot from it. Yeah, it was rough at first. But it brought my whole
family together. Before that, we never talked.”

Zac hadn’t thought about the good that
could come from the sadness. He couldn’t think of how his mom’s death had made
him stronger. If nothing else, it caused a rift between him and his dad at
first. His dad spent all of his spare time working, and now Zac had an inkling
of what that work was all about.

He had an idea. He might not be allowed to
go back and save his mom, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t go back and at least
see
her one more time. He’d have to figure out how to gain access to the
computer that set the wormhole coordinates. One of them had to know.

“So,” said Chen, “if you could change one
thing, what would it be?
Either in your life or something
else about the world’s history?”

“I don’t know,” Zac lied. “I’ll pass. What
about you?”

“Me? I’d love to go back and tell my dad
what companies to invest in. Microsoft…
buy
a few
shares from Bill Gates…”

“Not how you’d use your present knowledge
to manipulate things,” Bryce said. “If you could fix something, what would it
be?”

“Okay, then,” Chen said. “What about you?”

Bryce was quiet for a moment. He stared
down at his soda, his finger tracing the rim of the glass. “My mom,” he said.
“I know it’s impossible to fix what happened to her, but I would give anything
for another chance to see her one more time. Of course, I’d love to tell her to
stay home that day, to not leave her apartment…”

Rock patted him on the shoulder. “I told
you it shouldn’t have been you to go into the training again,” he said. “You
can’t keep doing this to yourself, man.”

Chen sensed the awkwardness and tried to
change the subject. “What about you, Emilee?”

She looked like a deer caught in the
headlights. Zac knew why, but he wondered who else she’d told about her past.
“I don’t know,” she started, but was quickly cut off by cheering coming from
the bar.

Everyone was gathered around the
televisions, watching the news story that had broken in.

“What’s going on?” Bryce asked a man.

“They found her,” a waiter said.
“That little girl that disappeared.”

Zac felt a chill run up his spine. “They…
how?” he asked.

“News anchor says someone called in a tip.
They traced the plates back to the kidnapper’s place and found her. They’re
taking him in for questioning now.”

As Zac stood in stunned silence, paralyzed
and in shock from the good news, Bryce put his hand on Zac’s shoulder.

“See?” he said. “It’s worth it. That’s all
you, man.”

Zac smiled to himself. He wanted to shout
out that
he
was the one who’d turned the kidnapper in, that
he’d
been the witness. He was proud of it, but he knew he couldn’t say anything. A
feeling of pride swelled over him. “I’m buying dessert,” he told the others at
the table. He looked over at Emilee, who caught his glance and gave a quick
smile.

They had done it. And Zac knew that when
the moment arrived, he’d jump onto the platform again, ready to take on
whatever the space-time continuum would throw at him. Nothing could stop him
now.

Zac walked through the door to his house,
and his dad was sitting on the couch watching a movie, waiting for him.

“Nice work,” he said. “I didn’t get to
talk to you before you guys went out. So how’s it
feel
?”

“I think I’m still in a bit of shock,” he
said, plopping himself down on the sofa. “So much has happened in the past few
days.”

His dad got up and put some popcorn in the
microwave, turning it on. “I’ve only been on a few time leaps, but I don’t
think I’ll ever get used to it either.” He sighed. “I don’t think my body can
handle it too much.”

Zac sat quietly, staring at the television
screen. Finally, he spoke. “Dad, have you ever gone to see her?”

“Who?”

“You know who, Dad. Have you gone to see
Mom?”

The microwave beeped, and he took the
popcorn out, shaking the bag. “Of course,” he said, opening the bag and letting
the steam pour out. “I went to her grave the other day and visited. You may not
have realized this, but when I had them build the TEMPUS headquarters, I made
sure it was near the cemetery. That way, I could always be near her no matter
what. It’s just a short distance away.” He sat down.

“That’s not what I mean,” Zac said. “I
mean have you
seen
her? Have you used the machine to go back and see
her?”

His dad was silent for a while. “Never,”
he finally said. “I can’t.”

“Can’t, or
won’t
?” Zac asked.
“Because if I had built this thing, I would at least go see her
once.
Wouldn’t you want to just go look at her or watch her one more
time?”

Dr. Ryger set the popcorn down on the
couch and turned to face Zac, ignoring the movie. “Son, I haven’t tried to see
her because I don’t need a time machine to do that. I see her every day.”

“What?
In a picture?
It’s not the same, Dad.”

“No,” he said, holding up his hand, “I
know it’s not, but think about it. What are pictures, but
frozen
moments
in time? With that simple technology, we’ve managed to take a split second and,
using the photons of light, capture it forever. That second will never happen
again; it is unique in the universe. Yet we’re able to hold on to it.”

Zac had never thought of it that way. With
digital cameras and smart phones, taking pictures was so quick and easy now
that it didn’t seem like anything special. But his dad was right; it was
revolutionary at the time the capability first emerged.

“But the main reason I don’t need a time
machine,” his dad continued, “is because I have those moments of time frozen up
here
as well.” He pointed to his head. “Your mom lives in my memories.
In yours.
Time’s just a series of memories. Some of them can
stay with us, seeming like they’ll never end. Others are forgotten. But those
memories are things we can go to any time we want. It’s not limited by
technology.”