Paradox (18 page)

“I have made a great many mistakes in my
life. I have made a great many discoveries as well. As a scientist, I’ve
embraced the possibilities, and have found that some lead to great success,
whereas others lead to failure. I confess that my second greatest
accomplishment in life, the TEMPUS Project, was tempered with loss and sadness.
In an effort to understand the past, I had to come face to face with the fact
that I could not change it. Changing it would not allow me to create TEMPUS. My
son and I have grown apart as a result of my discoveries, for I cannot
communicate to him how inextricably our past and my present work are woven
together. I will never be able to tell him, and although I would give anything
to change the past misfortune that has befallen us, I cannot. My loving wife of
twelve years would not want me to, knowing what I have accomplished. However, I
am reminded every time I look at my son that although TEMPUS has been used to
cause great good, it comes with great sorrow.”

Zac looked at Emilee, who seemed just as
perplexed. “What does he mean?” she asked. “I’ve never heard him talk about
this.”

“I don’t know,” Zac said. He continued
reading. “In this time capsule, I wish not only to leave a confession of my
greatest shortcoming, but also a record of my greatest accomplishment to be
preserved throughout history.” Below it was a picture of Zac with his mom and
dad. “My family is, and always will be, the best thing I’ve ever done with my
life. I only regret that I have not had the courage to tell my son. Perhaps
someday I will overcome my inadequacies and will let him know.”

It was signed by his dad, and even though
Zac could read the handwriting, he knew most people wouldn’t be able to discern
it.

“Do you want to hear what they have to say
about it?” Emilee asked, reaching toward the wall.

Zac stopped her hand and guided it back to
her side. “No,” he said. “I don’t think what they say matters.” He smiled to
himself and walked out the door.

Outside, the sun was starting to go down,
its golden light reflecting off the towering buildings. How long had they been
in there?

They tried the Wand again; nothing.

“Wait a minute,” Emilee said. “Your dad
can help us.”

“What?” Zac asked, moving ahead.

“If we’re in the same city as where we
live, but just in the future, then that means that the TEMPUS building might
still be here.”

“But my dad would be long gone by now,”
Zac said. “He
can’t
help us.”

“No, but whoever is carrying on his work
could
,”
she said. “They probably have the technology to send us back even if your Wand
doesn’t work again. It’s our best hope.”

“I don’t have a better idea,” Zac said.
“Let’s head toward it and see what we can find.”

There was a clicking sound that came from
the grass and Emilee froze. “Did you hear something?”

Zac stopped and listened. “Nothing,” he
said.
“Probably just your imagination.”
He walked on.

Emilee
followed,
her steps faster and lighter. She felt something slam against her ankle and
yelled out.

“What?” Zac said, and turned to see her.

Emilee lay on the ground, her legs wrapped
to her knees with a coiled metallic creature. Before she could let out a scream,
it opened its mouth, revealing two needle-like structures that protruded from
it. The boa clamped down onto her thigh, the needles digging into her flesh.

The boa withdrew its long needles,
retracting them into its mouth and closing it. It squeezed Emilee’s legs, and
she let out a yelp of pain. Small spots of blood soaked her jeans where the
needles had been.

“What do we do?” she said. “I can’t even
move.” Panic spread across her face, her look pleading with Zac to do something.

Zac grabbed the boa’s sleek, plated metal
body. He tugged at its coils, but they were fixed; every time he pulled against
them he was met with a resistance that squeezed even tighter. Emilee winced in
pain, and Zac stopped. The last time, all it took was the energy from Emilee’s
broken Wand to destroy it. He wasn’t about to use his own Wand to try to escape.

He struggled against the machine as it
held on with its iron grip. Emilee’s legs were pinned, and soon the people who
were tracking them would arrive and take them away. If that happened, they
might never get home.

An idea struck Zac. Emilee had said it
felt like there was something in her skin above her ankle, something that was
put
there. Maybe it was a type of tracking device. Maybe it was implanted in her
when she showed up at the hospital as an unknown person.

The boa remained motionless; it was no
longer fighting them.

“Zac, I’m starting to feel… strange,”
Emilee said. A sleepy look fell over her, her eyes growing dim.

“Stay with me,” Zac said. “I think I know
what that thing in your skin is. Some sort of microchip or something they’re
using to follow you.”

“Huh?” Emilee asked. She was slipping now.
The machine must’ve injected her with some sort of sedative to slow her down.
He had to do something fast.

“I’m going to have to do something that
might hurt,” he said. “Do you trust me?”

She nodded, grogginess overtaking her.

Zac searched the ground for something he
could use. He walked back and forth through the grass, peering down to see if
there was anything he could use. He came to the sidewalk and stopped. The
thick, plastic-like material was cracked along one edge that met the grass. It
looked like a piece of it was chipping away. He reached down and touched it
with his fingers, wiggling a shard that was splitting off. He moved it back and
forth until it broke off.

Emilee was drowsy now, her body relaxing
as the injection took effect. Whoever was following them would be here soon.

Zac knelt down next to her feet. “You
ready?” he asked. Emilee didn’t answer; he couldn’t tell if she could even hear
him. He placed the sharpest tip of the shard against her skin, right next to
the incision that was on her ankle. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath,
then with a fast slicing motion, slid the shard against it.

Emilee sat up and screamed; the boa
tightened again. Clearly, whatever she was injected with hadn’t gone all the
way through her system yet.

“This might hurt,” Zac said. “Don’t
watch.” He dug the plastic-like splinter into the cut and wiggled it back and
forth, scraping it against her ankle as he tried to pry out the small gray
object.

Emilee squeezed her eyes shut as she
turned her head away. A tear ran down her cheek, and she gritted her teeth in
pain, trying not to scream out.

“Got it!”
Zac
said, and held up a tiny, square piece of metal. “I don’t know what it is, but
I’m getting rid of it.” He tossed it into the grass, far off in the distance.

Immediately, the boa released its grip and
slithered after it. Emilee breathed a sigh of relief as she relaxed her legs.

“That’s how it knew,” she said. “But why
are they following me? It’s not like I’m a wanted criminal or anything.”

“I don’t know,” Zac said, wiping the blood
on the grass. “Maybe it’s just some kind of way they identify people in the
future. Let’s not wait around to find out.” He stood up and raised Emilee to
her feet. She stumbled, and he caught her by the arm. “You gonna be okay?”

She shook her head. “I’m just a little
dizzy, that’s all. I think whatever they put in me is still spreading.” She
draped her arm over Zac’s shoulder and steadied herself on him. “We need to
keep moving. It’s not too far from here.”

They walked on, putting more distance
between themselves and the park. Every few minutes, Zac checked the Wand to see
if it would work, but it didn’t, even though there were more lights. The Wand
was up to three now; apparently there was less interference.

Zac talked continually to Emilee, asking
her questions to keep her lucid. “Stay with me,” he said. “TEMPUS is just ahead
if my sense of direction is right.”

They arrived at a flat surface, a metal
platform that was surrounded by concrete on all sides. Zac relaxed, surveying
the area. Something was wrong.

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“What?” Emilee asked. She was getting
weaker. The cut on her ankle was causing her more discomfort, and she continued
to limp.

“This is where TEMPUS was… where it should
be.” He turned completely around, looking in all directions. “It’s gone.”

“Are you sure this is the right place?”
Emilee asked, her speech slightly slurring.

“Yes,” Zac replied. “The cemetery’s over
there.” He pointed to the distance, the green grass engulfing gravestones and
surrounded by a bright white fence. It looked like it was made from the same
material as the sidewalks. “My dad had the TEMPUS headquarters built here so he
could always see my mom’s grave from his office.”

He lowered Emilee and sat down, taking a
rest. He brought his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them,
resting his forehead against his knees. “We’re trapped here,” he said. “We’ll
never get home.”

“We might,” Emilee said. “You’ll figure
something out.” She relaxed her eyes.

“Me? I don’t have any idea what to do.
This place is abandoned; it’s like it was filled in with concrete or covered in
metal or something. Why would they do that?”

Emilee struggled to speak. “Maybe… maybe
people found out that time travel wasn’t such a great idea after all. Maybe it
was too much of a temptation to change things that weren’t meant to be changed.”

“But wouldn’t anything they changed affect
us, too?”

Emilee didn’t answer but was still
breathing. Zac glanced at the cemetery in the distance. He stood up and lifted
Emilee with him, guiding her toward his mother’s gravestone.

“What are we doing?” Emilee asked.

Zac was quiet. “We have no place else to
go, no one we can turn to. We’re out of options and I don’t know what to do.”
They approached the gateway and followed the sidewalk into the small, ancient
space. The gravestones were aged, some more than two hundred years old,
crumbling away from the cruelty of time. Zac made his way down the sidewalk
toward the familiar space, the place he had visited so often.

Even nearly two centuries later, it was
the one place that felt like it hadn’t changed to him. His mother’s gravestone
was just ahead; he could pick it out among a sea of monuments just like it.

“My dad doesn’t talk about it,” he told
Emilee. He wasn’t sure why he was telling her about it. Maybe it was to keep
her alert. Maybe he just wanted to keep himself from crying. “The way she died
in front of us… I hope I never have to witness anything like that ever again.”
He looked at Emilee, who was trying her best to listen and keep her eyes open.
“It was in a crowded place. I’ve asked my dad about it, but he refuses to tell
me more. He says he doesn’t remember anything, but I know he remembers it. He
just doesn’t want to.”

They reached the place his mom was buried.
It was almost a holy place for him, the one place he felt most connected to
her. Even now, he felt like she was right there with him, watching over and
guiding him.

He lowered himself down and placed his
fingertips on the gravestone, running his fingers across the worn letters of
his mom’s name. It was something he did each time he visited it. It gave him a
sort of physical connection to her. Though worn with time, it was still legible.

“They never caught the person who did it.
Even with all those witnesses there.”

Zac
recoiled
his
hand as he looked to the left of her name. Something else was carved there. He
rubbed away the dirt covering it to reveal his dad’s name. He had forgotten
that his parents planned on being buried next to each other. He froze as he saw
the date of his dad’s death.

It was the same date as when he had used
TEMPUS to find Emilee.

Zac shook his head and read the date
again. It couldn’t be true. That would mean that his dad would die today. That
is, the today of the present, Zac’s present.

Somehow, on the same day he used the
wormhole to bring him here, his dad died.

Or was killed.

Maybe TEMPUS wasn’t malfunctioning. Maybe
Emilee didn’t come here by accident. Could it be possible that none of this was
a coincidence, that someone had orchestrated it this way? A chill ran up his
spine. He had to get back to his own time.

“Emilee,” he said, gently shaking her.
“Emilee, we need to get going. Something’s gone wrong.”

“Hmmm?” she mumbled, barely awake.

“I think someone brought you here as a
distraction. I think someone else was behind sending us to prehistoric times
when we tried to go to Roswell.” Emilee stirred. “I’m starting to think that
someone
wanted
us to think that TEMPUS was malfunctioning.”

“Why?” she asked. She was almost
completely passed out now.

“I don’t know. But if we don’t get back to
stop them, it means my dad is going to die.” Zac took the Wand and checked the
indicator lights. Only three were lit up. Was there still interference? Or did
it mean that it was losing power? Zac didn’t want to wait to find out. He could
walk around all day trying to make all four lights show, but if it was losing
power, that might not happen.

He put his hand under Emilee’s chin,
lifting her face and looking into her eyes. He spoke in a soothing voice, calm
and yet urgent. She tried to open her eyelids but could barely lift them.

“Emilee,” he said, “I’m going to try to
get us back. We’re going to have to try to go back like we did when you held on
to me and used your Wand.” He lifted her up, and her head flopped down onto his
shoulder, her arms hanging limply at his sides. “I don’t expect it to work, but
I’m going to try again.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her
close.

Zac gripped the Wand and placed his thumb
on the sensor. “Here goes nothing,” he whispered, and shut his eyes, pressing
down hard.

He felt like he was thrown back, like
something had slammed into him. He could still feel Emilee next to him and
clung to her. His teeth hurt, and a throbbing pain like a migraine pulsed
through his head. His muscles tensed, and it felt like his arms were being
stretched out of his shoulder sockets.

And then, nothing.

Zac felt a cold, smooth surface under him.
Emilee lay next to him, eyes still closed. He leaned in and checked to see that
she was still breathing; she was.

He sat up, looking through the glass that
surrounded the platform. He breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that they were
back. He gently shook Emilee, trying to wake her. She stirred and sat up,
taking in her surroundings.

“Where are we?” she asked, blinking her
eyes. She seemed confused and frightened at the same time.

“We’re back,” Zac said. “At least, I think
we are.” He helped her to her feet, draping her arm around him. “I’m going to
take you up and help you find a place to rest. It looks like the sedative is wearing
off. I need to find my dad.” He led her toward the hallway but stopped when he
heard a voice behind him.

“Is everything okay?” Bryce came running
over and grabbed Emilee’s other arm, steadying her.

“I can walk on my own,” Emilee said in a
labored voice. “You guys don’t have to help me.” She tried taking a step
without them, but stumbled under her own weight.

“She’s hurt,” Zac said with urgency.

“I’m fine,” Emilee insisted.

“No,” Zac said, “that thing bit you or
injected you or whatever it did. You need to get it looked at.”

“What thing?” Bryce asked, examining the
small spots of blood soaking through her jeans. “What happened?”

They guided Emilee up the hall toward the
office. “Emilee didn’t use TEMPUS,” Zac said. “Someone else did, and they left
her in the future with a broken Wand so she wouldn’t be able to get back.”

Bryce stopped.
“Who?” he
asked Emilee.

“She doesn’t know,” Zac answered for her.
“She said someone took her and she doesn’t remember anything. When I found her,
she was in a hospital. I need to talk to my dad, right now.”

Bryce nodded. “Yeah, I’ll take Emilee and
have her checked out.”

“I don’t
need
to be checked out,”
she protested. “I just want to rest a little. Just let me lie on the couch for
a while. I’m already feeling better.” Zac could tell the sedative wasn’t
affecting her as much anymore; she was much more alert.

“Fine,” Bryce said. “I’ll take you. Zac, I
think your dad is in his office.”

“Wait,” Emilee said. She grabbed his hand,
and Zac turned to face her. Emilee leaned in and gently kissed him on the
cheek. “Thanks,” she said.
“For coming after me.”
She
smiled.
“And for not leaving me.”
She gave his hand a
small squeeze and let go.

Zac’s mind swirled as Emilee and Bryce
turned and walked down the hallway. He brought himself back to his senses and
hurried to his dad’s office. What would Zac tell him? He couldn’t tell him
about the date on the gravestone. He needed to tell him that TEMPUS was being
tampered with. Someone was behind it all. Someone that wanted to see it shut
down for one reason or another.

He threw open the door to his dad’s
office. Dr. Ryger looked up in surprise.

“Zac,” he said. “What do you need?” His
mood changed to anger.

“Dad,” he said, “I need to talk to you
about TEMPUS. I think something’s wrong.”

“I know there is,” his dad said. “That’s
why I shut it down, but you still went and disobeyed me, activating it again.
Right now, I’m considering having Chen and Bryce removed from the project for
what they did.”

“I’m sorry,” Zac said. “I know I shouldn’t
have used it, but I needed to do something about the attack. I couldn’t just
sit back and watch.”

“Yes, you
could
have,” his dad
said. “But instead, you risked everything because of your impatience.”

“That doesn’t matter now,” Zac said. “Dad,
I need you to listen to me. Something bad happened. Someone close to the
project wants TEMPUS to fail; they want
you
to fail.”

“It
does
matter!” his dad yelled.
“You don’t just go and decide to travel through time at your own whim! There
are consequences!” His tone softened. “Look at Rock; look at his brother. I
don’t want the same thing happening to you or to anyone else.”

“But it
did
happen to someone else,
Dad. It happened to Emilee.”

“What?”

“She disappeared. At first, we thought she
had gone back to change things in her past, but when I found her, she was in
the future.”

Dr. Ryger looked stunned.
“The future?
But we never travel to the future. No one
should ever know what will happen to them. It might guide their future choices.”

Zac thought of the date he saw on the
gravestone. What if it wasn’t true? What if that was just one possibility? By
coming back to save his dad and making sure he was okay, did he change things?
“I don’t want to argue, Dad,” he finally said. “But Emilee didn’t use TEMPUS;
someone abducted her and used it to take her to the future.”

“But that’s impossible. There are only a
handful of people who know about that computer system, and Emilee is the one
who helped design the program for it. No one else understands the programming
code.”

Zac was about to reply, but he stopped
himself. A sudden realization filled him with dread. Emilee was the one who had
programmed the computer, but there was more than one person who knew how to operate
it. She wasn’t the only one who knew how to set the coordinates for the
wormhole.

“Dad,” Zac said, “where’s Chen right now?”

“I sent him home,” Dr. Ryger said.

Zac backed out of the room. “I need to get
back down to the platform,” he said. “I think I know who messed with TEMPUS and
manipulated the wormhole.”