Spark (17 page)

              Even as mad as Zach was—with his clenched jaw and that sharp jab of disappointment in his eyes—he was still the most handsome guy I’d ever seen.  I wanted to tell him how sorry I was, but I couldn’t form any words that would quite do it justice, so I just ran out—all the way to the car. 

Alex was right behind me.  He got in, started the car and drove away before he finally said, “What was that all about?”             

I sighed.  “Nothing.  You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”  Then, I’ll never understand my next move.  I grabbed his hand and said, “Just take me away from here, please?”  Without a word, Alex squeezed my hand in his, as if to say,
I’ll take care of you, Tess.  I’ll keep you safe.

              The big surprise ended up being going to fly kites, of all things, and Alex was so sweet and gracious, I almost forgot about what had happened earlier.  He didn’t even mention it.  It was like he knew I just wanted to forget all of it—maybe even forget I’d ever met Zach Webb.  And, as I watched our kites darting and fighting the wind, sailing in the air, I finally calmed down. 

              Before I even got home, Zach had sent me a text:

              -
I have to see you asap… please?  I know why u were here

              So he’d figured it out—that I wanted to know about us, in the future—that I wanted to know if we would be together, no matter what.  And maybe, he already knew the answer.  That, and the way his eyes had looked right through me that afternoon, were enough.  He didn’t have to ask twice.

             
-OK…meet you there in thirty minutes?

              -I’ll pick you up now.

              He sat me down at the lab and stared at me, one eyebrow tensed up like a claw.  “Listen to me.”  He took a deep breath.  “We have to trust each other.  Breaking into my lab when I’m not here isn’t the best way to build trust.”

              I nodded.  “You’re right.  I’m sorry.  I won’t do it again.  It’s just—” But Zach reached up and pressed his fingers to my lips.  “Don’t.  It’s over.  Anyway, we’ve got bigger things to deal with.”

              Bigger things to deal with?  What could be bigger than going back in time to bring my best friend back to life?  I sat back in my chair, bracing for whatever Zach would come up with next.  He was really good at delivering surprise news.  News that your average person would dismiss as complete nonsense.  But, I wasn’t your average person.  And Zach—well, he was far from average himself.

              “What now?”  I breathed.

              Zach just shook his head.  “You are not going to believe this one.”

              “Try me,” I said.  “I’ve been down this road before, remember?”

              “I knew something wasn’t quite adding up,” he began.  “The accident, the numen, the lightning, time being on a plane, the possibility of accessing that plane, at any given moment.  Something was missing.  So I started digging deeper and deeper into my dad’s journals.  Turns out, there was another component to the research.”

              “Oh great,” I groaned.  “Sign me up for Crazy now."  He looked a little mad, so I straightened up.  “Sorry.  You were saying?”

              “My dad developed a computer chip that basically—without going into the exact science, which I don’t even understand myself—makes time travel possible… because it somehow saves the data in your memory.  The stuff you were experiencing that night of the simulation?  That was probably saved on the chip.”

              “And where is this magical computer chip?”

              Zach’s eyes were locked on me, hard.  He looked more serious than I’d ever seen him.  Then he leaned in and whispered something I will never forget, as long as I live.  “It’s in you.”

              Almost instinctively, I jumped out of my seat and started patting down my body.  “What do you mean it’s in me?”  I turned a couple circles.  “Where?”

              “Calm down.  It’s not like you’re being bugged.”  Zach was getting impatient.  The wanna-be scientist, dealing with the village lunatic. 

              “Well where the heck is it?”

              He reached out and touched my arm, lifted my hair away from my neck, touching his fingers behind my ear, along my hairline.  “Here.” 

              I was afraid to touch it, but I couldn't resist.  I couldn’t feel anything but a tiny circle, just under the skin.  “That’s it?  The computer chip.”  I sat—actually fell—back into the chair.  “How did it get there?”

“Injection,” Zach said apologetically.  “It’s rather simple to do, it’s so small.”

“This is a nightmare, Zach.”  If I ever had any doubts that I’d been a lab rat, they were now laid to rest.  I was a case study, an experiment, a test subject—you name it.  I was anything, at the moment, but Tess Turner.  “So what does this mean, exactly?  Am I going to self destruct in 10.3 seconds?”  I managed a weak laugh.

              “No, actually, it means that you are perfectly designed.”

              “For what?  Maximum processing speed?  Thanks, but no thanks.” 

              “Perfectly designed for time travel—in fact—time travel was almost designed for
you
.”

              “Well, that’s a plus.”

              He went on to tell me how he had dug deeper into his dad’s research, how he’d found top secret notes about the implant—a computer chip with virtually unlimited data capacity that was made out of metal rubber, a highly conductive plastic polymer.  When paired with the numen, the ability to access the plane was highly likely.  "It was an experiment far before it’s time," Zach said.  "It had never been done before.  But his dad never lived to complete it."

              “And
my
dad ok’d this—putting a chip in my head?”

              “Your dad signed a release, yes.”

              “But why?  How was that going to help me wake up from a coma?”

              Zach shrugged.  “Maybe he thought somehow your subconscious mind would have the capacity to go back and change things—like it never happened.”

              That did sound like my dad’s reasoning.  He was a big believer in the sciences—thought everything could be explained in the physical world.  It made sense, that dealing with the emotional trauma of losing me—or all but losing me—would make him jump on the science bandwagon.  He probably thought inserting a chip couldn’t have hurt me any more than I already was.

              “So this chip—it’s basically a time machine.”

              “Basically.”

              “And I’m likely the only person in the world capable of doing this.”

              Zach nodded.  “I believe so.”

              “Then you’ll let me go.”

              “I didn’t say that.  There’s still a problem.  I knew about it the other day when we talked—or broke up, or whatever—but I was afraid to tell you because you were so mad.  I didn’t want to make things worse.”

              “Ok, so tell me now.”  I was prepared for anything at that point.  Then he started fiddling with the computer again and I knew his explanation was going to involve reading some files, the documented proof or who knows what.

              “It’s the problem of the future,” he said. 

What he showed me blew me away.  It was my dream, right there on the computer screen, every detail, down to my pomegranate pink toenails, the lime green curtains, the daisies, the little white box.  All of it.  Zach had somehow read my mind.

But how?  How did Zach know my dream?  Then I remembered something from his dad’s logs… 
reality is singular—both past, present, and future.  In other words, the subject can, conceivably, “re-experience” the past… and “see” into the future, in an instant. 

So it was true—all of it.  Everything Zach had told me was happening. Going to happen.  Someday, we will be standing in my apartment and there will be a little white box near the refrigerator.  Zach will kneel on the floor, ask me to marry him.  And I will accept.  Was it true, then, what Zach had said?  Was everything—every moment of our lives—happening in a single instant?  Was time itself some sort of fourth dimension?

So what was Zach worried about, if I went back and saved Dani?  The future was already set.  It was here, in black and white.  If I went back to the scene of the accident, it would either work or it wouldn’t, right?  Was there a third option?

              “Zach, I don’t know what to say… it makes me happy, reading this.” 

“I like it, too, Tess.  But I’m stuck,” he admitted.  “There must be more to my dad’s work. Something I’ve not found yet.  The implications on the future… changing it.”

Bringing Dani back
was
changing the future—for the better, right?  What was wrong with that?  I was imagining the three of us—Dani, Zach, and I—hanging out, having fun.  Me, with my two favorite people—when it hit me.  My stomach clenched up with the realization: 
There are many, many ways to change the future.
Then, I remembered what Zach had said, when he told me saving Dani wasn’t going to work: 
If we go and start messing around with the past, it will change everything. 
He was afraid of changing the future—of losing me forever—or of losing what he had, forever. 
                           

              I was forced to add another scenario to the mix:

Scenario D:  We time travel, save Dani, but one of us—either Zach or myself—dies instead. 

But before I even had a chance to process that scenario, another one jumped up to take its place:  Scenario E: I could lose both of them.  Dani and Zach could both die.  My mind completely shut down on that one.  Come to think of it, I could die, too.  We all could. 
If the two of them got killed, might as well take me, too,
I thought.  I couldn’t go on by myself, knowing I’d caused it.  Was I prepared to risk everything for the possibility of saving one person?  The person that mattered to me more than anyone else in the world?

Proximity and Catalyst

Document:  The Philosophy of Time Travel 2020:  Section G

Proximity and Catalyst

By Edwin G. Webb

              In order to fully comprehend the concept of time continuum, one must envision an enormous, moving plane, much like the surface of a body of water.  On that plane exists all that has been and all that will be.  The surface moves and ripples, but does not change.  All is one, though fluid.  To experience any particular wave, one must be within its proximity—that is, you must be nearest to the moment and place of such occurrence as is physically possible.  Now all that is required is the numen, the catalyst that will take given reality outside its present confines—a disruptive force.  As such, lightning and water are naturally attracted to one another.  Theoretically, this base attraction is so strong as to puncture the seal between the way we perceive the present and what we
have perceived, as a whole
, allowing full perception of either.  It is highly probable that a subject could return to past experiences if proximity and the catalyst are appropriately aligned.

It was my 18
^th
birthday when we met at the park where Dani died.  I had made my decision.  I wasn’t going through with it.  Zach suggested we meet there for closure—the second time around, for me.  He’d be right there by my side, so I could say my last goodbye to Dani—figuratively speaking.  I had gone over and over it in my mind, but I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t risk three lives for the chance at one miracle. 

It was nearly 4:00 in the afternoon, but the sky was getting dark with an approaching storm.  We sat on the hood of Zach’s car, marveling at how half the sky was this peachy pink color with streaks of sunlight and the other half was a mountainous, moving cloud the color of putty. 

Zach held my hand.  My nose was running and I kept wiping it with a tissue in my other hand.  “You ok?”  He asked.

I nodded.  “Yeah.  Just—well, you know.”

“I know.  I’m sorry, Tess.”

“Zach, I made the right decision, didn’t I?”

“Don’t—”  Zach’s eyes were watering up.  He clenched his jaw.  “Just don’t.”

Now I was confused.  I thought all of this was supposed to be a good thing—for me, for us.  Zach’s demeanor was starting to scare me.  A gust of wind came up and an army of leaves scattered across the grass. In the distance, thunder started to grumble like a hungry stomach.  A thought materialized, then fled: 
There’s still a chance.  For all of us.

No
, I pushed the thought away.  It was too late for all that.

Suddenly my phone buzzed and I picked it up.  Cricket.  “Hold on,” I said, getting back in the car to answer it.

“Hey,” Cricket said.  “Where are you?”

“With Zach.  What’s up?”

“I was just…well, I haven’t heard from you in a while and I was just worried.”

“About what?”

“Are you ok?”

“I’m fine.”

“Tess.”  She sounded skeptical, cautious.

“Look, I’ll tell you about it later.  I gotta go.”

“Wait—Tess?” 

“Yeah?”

“I’m here for you.”

It felt good to know.  Cricket had become a close friend—I knew I could tell her anything and she wouldn’t look at me like I’d completely lost my mind.  She was the most non-judgmental person I’d ever met… besides Dani.  And she trusted me, too.  Which made me feel badly for what I was about to do. 
 

“I know,” I said.

We said goodbye, and I felt a surge of energy, my fingers and toes tingling, restless to move.  I didn’t even stop, but simply called over my shoulder as I took off, running in the direction of the clouds.  “I love you Zach.  Don’t forget it.”

I got out of the car and headed toward the swing.

Back In Time

Everything sped up.  The sky whirled and spun around me, the clouds streaking across.  I saw the moon dart, disappear and then spurts of bright light and darkness tumbled by, too fast to discern the difference between them.  I was running so fast, I couldn’t make sense of what Zach was yelling.  When he came after me, I just ran faster.  It was like I was floating—no flying—across the park, my legs like a well-oiled machine, in sync with the wind.  I could sense that Zach was getting closer, but when I got to the swing, he pulled back because he’d seen what was coming before I did.  I began to swing, hard, furiously, and once I was high enough, I looked over my shoulder and I could only see Zach’s mouth in the shape of “No.”  I had an instant, fleeting pang of regret, a thought of simply,
What am I doing?  What have I done?