Where Did The Time Go?

“Hurry up! She’s coming!” Pedro said, yelling downstairs to Stefan, who was now inside the pod preparing for what would likely be both their first and last kick at the can. It’s not every day that someone as young as Stefan was put in charge of such an extraordinary project, but then again, there really wasn’t anyone quite like Stefan either.

Furiously pounding numbers into a keyboard, Stefan looked up at the clock one last time. It was almost as if he was recording the moment in his head for future reference. He absolutely needed to prove that his time travel experiment worked. The only way that he knew how to do that, was to come back to that exact moment, right before the project would be presumably cancelled.

“She has a red folder in her hand, it has to be the cost over runs from the budget, she’s shutting us down for sure,” Pedro said.

It was far from a secret that Dr. Stein had no love loss for Stefan, and it would probably be fair to say she outright detested him and wanted the project to fail. You could trace her contempt for Stefan back to about three years ago, when she was overruled by the MIT governing board of trustees, who would see such a consequential project go directly to a then 19 - year old prodigy, and his side kick.

“Ok, its ready, put the chair against the door and get in here Pedro!” “Hopefully that will slow her down some.” Stefan said.

Pedro was Stefan’s antithesis, the exact opposite in almost every way, which made him the perfect counterbalance that Stefan depended on as his number two.

Stepping into the egg-shaped pod, Pedro sealed the door behind him and put his seatbelt on. The intensity of the blue waves now forming around the outer perimeter of the pod, was starting to create its own frequency, almost painful to the ear.

“Her security goons just busted through the door, we need to get out of here!” Pedro said.

Punching in one last string of numbers, Stefan reached for the continuous motion lever and pressed the green button directly above it.

“Here we go my friend. Hold on,” Stefan said.

While the pod was mostly consumed by a stream of blue light, a sudden beam of white light quickly flashed in front of them, and their pod was gone!

 “Where the heck are we?” Pedro asked.

“Not sure, but it definitely isn’t Cambridge! What does the AI display say?” Stefan asked.

“It says London, England… woohoo, always wanted to travel to Europe,” Pedro said.

Taking off his seatbelt and moving closer to the door, Stefan noticed the AI display panel had apparently changed. The special AI device had generated an additional screen directly below the destination panel called: Current Year and historical events with an enter button directly beside it, which Stefan immediately pressed.

“August 18, 1940?” Pedro asked. “If that’s right, we must be in a time warp, how cool is that?”

“Depends,” Stefan said. “What does it say below it?”

“Umm, Historical event: The Battle of Britain?” Pedro said. “What the hell is that?”

“I’m not sure. I think it might have had something to do with the second world war, but history was never my strongest subject,” Stefan said.

“BANG, WOOSH, BANG!” Bombs were now dropping everywhere. The pod itself was now rocked by several explosions and black smoke entered through a small crack in the window. All Pedro could see out the window was a cloud of smoke, as well as fire and water all around them. The faint sound of machine gun fire could also be heard in the distance. Then, because of the smoke now inside the pod, Stefan broke out into a full-blown asthma attack. Pedro reached for an oxygen mask and placed it over Stefan’s face.

 As he slowly started to breathe normally again, Stefan held out a piece of paper and said “Punch these numbers into the computer and see where it takes us!”

Pedro entered the new numbers in as fast as he could, and off they went one more time.

Stefan looked over at the AI display to see where they were this time. “New York City, December 16, 1985… this could be good,” Stefan said. Forgetting to check the historical event screen, they quickly unsealed the door and stepped outside. Just as they were about to enter what looked like a steakhouse, a man walked past them quickly, and suddenly bullets started flying all around them. Not wasting any time, they both jumped back into the pod and sealed the door. Stefan immediately pressed enter on the Historical Event screen, only to find out they were both now witnesses to the famous assassination of former Gambino Crime family boss Paul Castellano.

As Stefan played with the control panel and entered in some new numbers, the onboard AI device fixed the small crack in the window and created a new screen over it, called: Return home.

Apparently, the onboard AI wasn’t too impressed with the previous destination choices, and had now created its own option. You could see the fear set in on both their faces, as the AI had just demonstrated that it had a mind of its own!

Not wanting to upset the system any further, Stefan immediately pressed enter on the new Return Home screen.

As blue light lit up around the pod again, they both braced themselves for the white flash… and they were off again.

“Awesome, I can see the MIT lab outside the door. We’re home!” Pedro said.

“Why is there a picture of Dr. Stein on the wall?” Pedro asked.

“Oh man, I can’t believe it. We created a time travel paradox coming back,” Stefan replied.” “That isn’t Dr. Stein, our dean. That’s Mrs. Lucy Stein, President of the United States!”

To be continued...