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Hey everyone. I know I don't post much in this journal anymore. I had a writing slump. Anyway, I'm doing nanowrimo again this year. It's the first time since 2004. Last time I got to 50 000 words by November 30th and it was several hours before midnight too. This year my word count seems to be growing very slowly.
I think that the reason why is because last time I posted the novel in this journal as I was writing it and I was getting feedback and encouragement. This year I've deprived myself of feedback and encouragement by not letting anybody read my novel. It's science-fiction and there's a lot of continuity errors at this point. So I'm nervous about sharing it.
For those of you who don't mind continuity errors, Pandora’s Time Machine
By Saraline Grenier
Prologue
Charles Abbey was sitting on the picnic table waiting. He was sure that tonight would be the right night. He’d been waiting for years and tonight it was time to wait in his back yard.
Two men appeared out of nowhere. They were wearing old fashioned clothing and one of them was carrying a strange object on his back. As Charles rose to greet them, a large dog ran out the back door and bounded toward them barking urgently. The two men ran away yelling.
“No, wait, come back!” Charles shouted after them. He followed as they ran around the corner of the house. They had disappeared. Charles was disappointed. He went back to the backyard where his eldest daughter was playing fetch with the dog.
“I told you not to let him out,” he said grumpily.
“He really wanted to go outside!” she said. “We can’t just keep him locked up in the house. He’s still a puppy, he needs exercise.”
“I’m sure that they didn’t think that he was just a puppy,” he said. He wondered where the two men had gone. Had they gone the same way that they had come? Or were they hiding somewhere?
Part I
The New Job
Stelara had decided not to answer the ringing phone, but the caller was very persistent. She finally answered after seventeen rings.
“Hello,” she said sharply.
“Stelara Henin?” the caller asked.
“Yes.”
“My name is Charles Abbey. I was wondering if you could come in for a job interview.”
“Oh.” Stelara suddenly felt like being more polite. “Which company is it? I’ve sent my resume to so many places.”
“Well, you didn’t send our resume to us. We saw you on In the Wild.”
“I’m not interested in doing any more reality TV.” She hung up the phone in disappointed. The phone rang again. She sighed and picked up the receiver.
“Yes?”
“It’s not for a reality television show. It’s far more dangerous, and we think that you have the strength and courage required for the position. Are you able to start right away?”
“I don’t even know what the job is,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me more about it?”
“I can’t discuss it over the phone,” Charles Abbey said. “I can explain more about the responsibilities the position entails when we meet for your job interview.”
“How do I know if I want to come in for a job interview if I don’t even know what the job is?”
“You’re unemployed, you want this job.”
“How much is the pay? Or will I have to wait until the job interview to find out about that?”
“It’s 70 000 a year.” Stelara was silent for a moment.
“This seems a little sketchy to me,” she finally said. “You won’t even tell me what the position is or what company you work for is called, I didn’t give you a resume, and the salary sounds a little too good to be true.”
“It’s not just a job,” he said. “It’s an adventure. If you’re even a little curious, you can come to the job interview and find out what this is all about. If you’re not curious at all, then you’re probably not the person that we’re looking for.” He hung up. The number was blocked so Stelara couldn’t call him back. He hadn’t told her when or where the job interview would be.
Later that day, Stelara went to the library to take out some books. As she walked through the front door, a business card fell out of one of the books. She picked it up. It had the name “Charles Abbey” on it, along with a handwritten message on the back that said, “Your job interview will be at 7 pm this evening. Hope you can make it.”
Stelara ran back into the library and to the desk. The man who had checked her books was gone.
“Excuse me,” she asked the librarian at the desk. “Where did that man with white hair go?”
“What man?” the librarian said sharply.
“The one who was working here.”
“I’m the only one who’s been here for the past two hours,” the librarian replied imperiously. Stelara turned away and looked at the address at the card. She thought that 7 o’clock pm was a strange time for a job interview.
The address on the business card turned out to be the address for a rather large mansion. The long driveway was blocked by a tall gate. Stelara wondered how she was supposed to get in until she saw an intercom button. She pressed it and said, “Hello, hello, hello.”
“Yes?” a staticy voice answered.
“This is Stelara Henin. I have a job interview.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Abbey is expecting you.” The gate opened and Stelara walked up the long driveway. A man was waiting for her at the front door.
“Hello, I’m Mike. I’m the vice-president of the com pany. Come this way please,” the man said, leading her into the house. He took Stelara to an office. “Please wait here. Mr. Abbey will be right with you.” He left the door open and left Stelara gaping at the high ceiling and large bookshelf. She looked at Charles Abbey’s books. They were in alphabetical order. She picked up a copy of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
“I’m glad you could make it,” a soft voice behind her said. She turned around. She had not heard the silver-haired man come in.
“And here’s the mysterious librarian,” she said.
“Have a seat,” he said. She sat in a chair and he sat across the desk from her.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Charles Abbey,” she said. “And I know that you also already know who I am, so tell me about this job or adventure or whatever,” she said. “It’s some crazy thing where you’re hunting people like in Richard Connell’s ‘The Most Dangerous Game,’ isn’t it?” Daniel laughed.
“So you like short stories then? No, no, it’s nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“It’s a project that’s been passed down for several generations of my family.”
“Does it involve pirate treasure?” Stelara asked. “It took me an hour and a half to get to your mansion, Charles. I hope you’re going to tell me what the job is at least?”
“Just out of curiosity, would you believe me if I told you that the position was for an excursion involving pirate treasure?” Charles asked.
“Are you being serious?” Stelara glared at him.
“May I remind you that this is a job interview, Ms. Henin?” Charles said sternly. “I’m the one who is asking questions. I will answer as many questions as you like after you answer mine. Would you or would you not believe me?”
“I’d want to see some evidence before I believed you.”
“What kind of evidence would I have to show you to convince you that we were going on a pirate treasure hunt? A treasure map? A piece of the treasure?”
“No,” Stelara told him evenly. “I’d want to see all the equipment you had to go on this treasure hunt. I think you’d probably get a lot of expensive gadgets if you were going on a treasure hunt that you wouldn’t have if you weren’t going on a treasure hunt.”
“Well, I’ll just have to show you the evidence before I tell you about the job then,” Charles concluded as he got up and walked toward a closet.
“Are we really going on a pirate treasure hunt?” Stelara asked.
“I suppose that it’s entirely possible that there will be a pirate treasure hunt involved, but I very much doubt it.” He removed something from the closet that looked like the combination of a typewriter and a backpack and placed it on his desk.
“Is that the evidence?”
“This,” Charles said, “is a time machine. It was built in 1882. We found it about a month ago, and look at the condition it’s in! There’s some scratches here and there but no rust.”
“Okay, so you found this thing and you think it’s a time machine. I’ve gotta get going, Charles. I have a bus to catch.”
“We know it’s a time machine. We have all of the documentation to prove it and I can show it to you right now.” He went over to the filing cabinet and pulled out a large folder. “And I take that bus all the time and I know it’s not the last one.”
“You take the bus?”
“I care about the environment. I come from a long line of environmentalists.”
“So your family’s into time machines and they’re environmentalists? How did you guys make enough money to buy this house?”
“My family did not make its fortune with the time machine and our enthusiasm for the environment,” Charles informed her. “Those are just side projects. We’ve made profits from a different kind of business.”
At that moment, a young woman in a jogging suit pulled the door open and rushed angrily into the office.
“Why can’t I go on the excursion?” she demanded.
“I’m in the middle of interviewing someone for the job, Florence,” Charles said.
“Don’t call me Florence,” the young woman snapped. “And also, I feel that my expertise is necessary for this excursion and that you’re making a very big mistake not letting me go, dad.” When she said the word “dad” her voice crackled with loathing.
“Maybe I should go,” Stelara said uncomfortably.
“Absolutely not,” Charles said sternly. “Florence is going to wait until after our interview to speak with me. Aren’t you, princess?”
“I’ll wait until after the interview, but then I want you to answer all of my questions and I don’t care who else is the room. And also, don’t call me princess.” She walked out of the room and slammed the door.
“I can’t call her Florence and I can’t call her princess,” Charles shook his head with confusion. “I don’t know what she wants me to call her. Anyway, Stelara, I’ll just let you read through the documentation. I have some other paperwork that I have to look at. You can sit on the couch if you want, there’s a reading lamp there. Would you like any refreshments?”
“I’d like some lobster and champagne please,” Stelara replied.
He used an intercom to call for some cookies and hot chocolate.
The papers and photographs in the folder were yellow with age. There were diary entries written by people who were preparing to go on a journey with the time machine. The original blueprints were there. There were photographs of people standing with the time machine. Stelara was convinced of its authenticity, but it wasn’t the documents that had convinced her. It was Florence Abbey who had convinced her. Why would she be so eager to go on the expedition if it was not real?
Charles was working at his desk as Stelara went through the folder.
“How come there aren’t any diary entries about the future?” Stelara asked.
“What do you mean?” Charles said.
“You have diary entries from people preparing to go into the future. You also have diary entries from people who watched them disappear with the time machine. You have diary entries from people who traveled to the past. But you don’t have any from when people came back from the future.”
“That’s because they never came back,” Charles said. “They weren’t prepared for what the future held and they probably perished.”
“How do you know that the time machine even works if they never come back?” Stelara asked. “ Just because you saw them disappear?”
“The first journey taken was in 1883,” Charles said. “It was a journey to the past.”
“Yes, I know that. I read about it in the documents you gave me.”
“So you also know that the next journey was embarked on two years later.”
“Yes. And they never came back?”
“That’s correct.”
“Well, what year were they going to?”
“It’s impossible to go to a specific year,” Charles said, “or to know what year you’re going to. We think that they came to this year.”
“Oh!” Stelara exclaimed as comprehension dawned on her. “Because you found it two months ago.” Charles smiled.
“Very good, Ms. Henin.”
“So you think they died.”
“We haven’t been able to find them,” Charles said. “Yes, we think they died, and if they haven’t yet, they probably will die by the time we find them.”
“Then what makes you think that we can survive the future?”
“ I have very much confidence in your survival skills,” Charles said kindly. “My family and I were big fans of yours when you were on In the Wild, although we didn’t care much for the show itself.”
Five years earlier, Stelara was certain that her only fan was her roommate Gita. When she returned from her stint on In the Wild, it was Gita who was happy that Stelara was safe at home. Their other roommate, Jennifer, was only happy that she had the opportunity to tell Stelara off.
“So, you’re back,” Jennifer hissed. “How does it feel to be the most hated woman in America?”
“Don’t listen to her,” Gita said. “You did what you had to do and now you’re okay, which is the important thing.”
“I hope you get deported, Stelara,” Jennifer said, “then you’ll have to move back to Canada and I can find a new roommate.”
“I was thinking of moving back home anyway,” Stelara replied. “I don’t care what Americans think.”
And she did not care about Jennifer’s reaction to the show, but she was happy that the show had not aired on a Canadian channel yet and she was happy that her parents could not get the American channel it was on with their rabbit ears. She called her mother and begged her not to watch it.
“Why don’t you want me to see it?” her mother demanded. She sounded hurt.
“It was really bad, mom,” Stelara said. “It was the worst experience I’ve ever had. Please, just don’t watch it, and don’t read anything people say about it either.”
“But I really wanted to watch it!”
“You don’t even like watching TV,” Stelara snapped. “Just don’t watch it. Please, mom.”
“Well, alright,” her mother said doubtfully.
After she had spoken with her mother, Stelara called the Canadian television station that was supposed to show it and asked them to reconsider. She was told that it had already been pulled out of the line-up because of the reactions of Canadians who had been able to watch it on the American channel.
And apparently, Charles Abbey and his family were able to get that channel.
“Now that you’ve seen the documentation,” Charles Abbey said, “I think it’s time to show you the gear you’ll be taking and to introduce you to the rest of the team.”
“You mean you’re not going?” Stelara asked. Charles laughed.
“I wish that I was going, but my wife feels that I’m too old to travel into the future and she’s insisting that I stay behind. Come with me.”
Stelara followed Charles out of the office and down the hall.
“This journey into the future is much more important than past journeys with the time machine,” Charles explained as they walked. “With climate change and everything else that’s going on, it’s very important that we gather data to show people exactly what’s going to come.”
“Hasn’t your family always kept this project a secret though?” Stelara asked. “Are you going to go public this time? Get the media involved?”
“Oh, no, not the media. If, and only if, the team comes back, we’ll show the data that was gathered in the future to various governments so that they can take the necessary precautions to ensure the world’s future.”
“Right,” Stelara said. She was skeptical that any government would take the precautions necessary to ensure the world’s future.
“Ah, here we are,” Charles said, opening a door. Stelara followed him into the room. It was full of camping gear. “We’re not sure what to expect, so we’ve prepared for anything we can think of. Hopefully this house will still be here and my descendents will help you find anything that you need and provide you with shelter. But in case there isn’t any shelter to be had, you’ll be taking tents and sleeping bags.
“We also have life preservers and inflatable rafts, food, backpacks so you can carry it all, compasses, and lots of other equipment. The group will be going over the inventory together tomorrow morning, and if you think of anything else that you need, please don’t hesitate to speak up. Oh, and we also have cameras for everyone, so take lots of pictures. We have a professional photographer on the team, but still, we’d like to see the future from everyone’s perspective.
“Come, I know the others are eager to meet you.” Charles beckoned and Stelara followed him down the hall.
They entered a room with leather sofas where some people were playing video games.
“Gita!” Stelara exclaimed. She rushed over to hug her laughing best friend and former roommate.
“I finally found a job that I’m not overqualified for,” Gita told her.
Gita was a rocket scientist. Stelara had always admired her friend but she admired her even more when Gita was the only who stood by her during the scandal that followed the first episode of In the Wild.
“You used your head,” Gita reassured her. “You did the smart thing.” Stelara was grateful for her kind words.
One day Stelara’s mother called her. She had a read an article about the show.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Stelara,” her mother said.
“I told you not to read anything about it!” Stelara wailed.
“How could I not read anything about it?” her mother asked. “I heard them making fun of you on the radio when I was in the car. I wanted to know why.”
“Mom, you don’t understand.”
“I thought I raised you better. Did you really kill a mountain lion? They’re an endangered species!”
“I had to do it!”
“For a game show?” her mother said scornfully. “To entertain people on television?” Stelara hung up in tears. It was Gita who comforted her.
“I know you had to do it,” Gita said gently.
Stelara was happy to see her friend in Charles’ mansion.
“It’s so great to see you,” Stelara said.
“You too,” Gita said.
“Allow me to introduce you to the others,” said Charles. “Everyone, this is Stelara, but you already know who she is. Stelara, this is my daughter Sophia. She’s a physicist. She and Gita have been updating the time machine with some new technology.”
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you,” Sophia said pleasantly.
“This is my son Charles Jr,” Charles continued proudly. “He’s just completed a degree in biology and will be studying the effect that climate change has had on plants and other life forms in the future.”
“You can call me Charlie,” Charles Jr said. “It’s easier than saying ‘Charles Jr’ all the time.”
“And this is Michael,” Charles said. “He ran away from the military because he didn’t want to fight in Afghanistan. We’ve been hiding him and I think his military training will make him a valuable asset to the expedition. Michael isn’t his real name, of course.
“And this is Sophia’s husband, Adam Forsythe.” Charles finished abruptly and did not elaborate on Adam’s role on the team. Instead, he gave him a disapproving glance.
“I’m a photographer,” Adam said awkwardly.
“His photos have been in National Geographic and Canadian Geographic,” Sophia said proudly. “He also studies rocks, and he’ll be able to take samples and determine what year we’re in.”
“Well, that’ll be handy,” Stelara said brightly.
Florence came into the room with a small boy.
“Daddy, I want to go to the future too!” the small boy said.
“You’re too young,” Charles said. “Your mother would never forgive me if I let you go. Stelara, this is my son Billy, and my daughter, er…”
“You can call me Gwen,” Florence said quickly. “My middle name is Gwendolyn. Is the job interview finished yet?”
“Why, yes, I suppose it is,” Charles replied. “Stelara, why don’t you stay here and socialize for a bit? You can spend the night here. We’ll arrange to get your things in the morning.”
“Okay,” Stelara said.
Charles and Gwen left the room.
“I wrote an article about In the Wild for my school paper when I was in high school,” Charlie told Stelara. “Do you wanna read it?”
“Maybe some other time,” Stelara said.
“I don’t see why Sophia and Charlie get to go while I have to stay behind,” Gwen said. She was sitting with Charles in his office. “I’m the oldest, I should be allowed to go.”
“Someone has to stay behind,” Charles said. “The journey will be more successful if we have future descendents to help the team.”
“I understand that, but why do I have to be the one to stay behind?”
“You’re the responsible one, and I know you’ll make sure that the project is passed down to the next generation,” her father told her. “Sophia and Charles Jr are the adventurous ones.”
“They’re also more likely to provide you with descendents,” Gwen spat. “I don’t have any desire to get married. Sophia’s already married and she already had a baby when she was fifteen.”
“I told you never to speak about that!” Charles thundered. “It upsets your mother.”
“I wouldn’t start shouting about it if I were you then,” Gwen said. “She might come in to find out what we’re talking about.”
“That baby was given up for adoption,” he said more quietly. “It’s lost to our family.”
“She might come looking for her mother one day. And her mother won’t be here to answer any of her questions. Now, if Sophia were still here, she could tell her daughter all about the time machine-“
“Your mother made sure that Sophia’s child will never find her,” Charles interrupted. “It’s not a possibility. And besides, we need Sophia on the team. She’s a scientist.”
“Don’t you need me on the team?” Gwen asked angrily. “We don’t know what’s in store and my skills might be needed just as much as anyone else’s.”
“You’re an archaeologist, Florence. What could you possibly do?”
“If we find that the human population has died out, I could study bones and ruins and find out how it happened.”
“You study dinosaur bones. I don’t think anyone on the team will find that they need to know any facts about dinosaurs.”
“Dinosaurs aren’t the limit of my knowledge. And how do you know that knowledge of the dinosaurs won’t come in handy? You’ve never been to the future, after all.”
“How could knowledge of the dinosaurs possibly come in handy?”
“You can be a close-minded fool, you know,” Gwen said calmly. “The dinosaurs once ruled the earth and they died out, possibly because of climate change. And you fear that the same thing might happen to the human population.”
“It’s different, Florence,” her father said. “Humans are creating their own destruction.”
“Maybe dinosaurs did too. We don’t know.”
“They were just stupid beasts.”
“We don’t know that either. Maybe they could communicate with each other. Maybe there was a dinosaur society. And maybe they exhausted their resources with excessive use.”
“Florence, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t know where you come up with these ideas.”
“I’m creative. Nobody who’s going is creative, so how are they going to come up with ideas for what to do when they get there?”
“Most of them are scientists, I’m sure they’ll come up with something.”
“I have thought of a million scenarios of what the future might be like, and I know how I would deal with all of them.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. One of them involves dinosaurs.”
“It’s a journey into the future, not into the past.”
“Yes, but dinosaurs once ruled the planet.”
“In the past.”
“And then humans involved. What will evolve if humans die out? Maybe it’ll be lizards again. It was mammals this time around, maybe it will be reptiles next time around and they’ll destroy their environment again and the next ones to evolve will do the same, and it’ll be a cycle.”
“That’s a very interesting theory, Florence,” Charles said as he rubbed his forehead with fatigue.
“Don’t call me Florence,” Gwen said. “And please just listen to me. Humans are like parasites to the earth and she’ll get rid of us. Maybe that’s what happened to the dinosaurs and maybe it’ll happen again and again. Maybe in the future dinosaur archaeologists will study our bones and wonder what happened to us.”
“You’re not going,” Charles said. “I’ve already made my decision.”
Gwen grabbed a vase from her father’s desk with a yell and smashed it in his face.
“I’m so excited that you’re coming too,” Gita told Stelara. They were sitting in a spare bedroom with twin beds.
“I haven’t actually said whether or not I would go,” Stelara replied as Sophia walked into the bedroom with an extra pair of pyjamas.
“What do you mean?” Sophia demanded. “Why wouldn’t you want to go? My sister Gwen would cut off her arm to trade places with you if she thought it would change my father’s mind.”
“Well,” Stelara said, “I was walking down the street yesterday when a crazy old woman came up to me, and you know what she said to me?”
“No,” said Gita, laughing, “what did she say?”
“She said, ‘Beware of the future!’” Stelara said. “’Don’t seek the unknown or you’ll die!’” The three women laughed.
“Are you going to listen to her?” Gita asked.
“Well, it is kind of a coincidence, isn’t it?” Stelara said.
“But I’m going!” Gita said. “It’ll be fun.”
“I’ll sleep on it,” Stelara said. “And my answer will probably be yes. I have some questions though.”
“We can answer any questions that you have,” Sophia said.
“I don’t really understand how this time machine works,” Stelara said. “Can you explain it to me? And keep in mind that I’m not a rocket scientist or a physicist.”
“Sophia and I are probably the best ones to explain that,” Gita said. “Did you ever read A Wrinkle in Time?”
“Yeah, when I was a kid.”
“Do you remember the part about tesseracts?”
“They do exist? Go on.”
“Well, it’s kind of like that except that you probably will still be on this planet. If you went to a point in time when earth doesn’t exist, then you probably would end up somewhere else.”
“That sounds kind of scary, Gita.”
“The odds of ending up at a time like that are very small,” Sophia cut in. “Don’t worry, we calculated everything.”
“Speaking of which,” Stelara said. “I understand what your jobs are for this operation, but what’s my role in this supposed to be?”
“You’re kind of like the bodyguard,” Sophia replied. “It’s your job to make sure that nobody on the team gets killed.”
“Including yourself,” Gita added.
“So I have to take care of myself and the rest of you?”
“We’ll all be taking care of each other,” Gita said optimistically. “That’s why we call it a team.”
“And you won’t be doing your job alone,” Sophia said. “That’s what Michael’s job is too. And we’re also taking a dog with us. We think he may be the first dog to travel through time. Do you like dogs?”
“Yeah,” Stelara said. “What kind of dog is it?”
“A rottweiler,” Sophia said. “Sorry we didn’t introduce you to him when we introduced the rest of the team. My mother was out taking him for a walk. They’re back now though if you’d like to come meet him.”
“I’d be absolutely delighted,” Stelara said. “I really don’t want to hold onto his leash when we’re in the future though.”
“Don’t worry, that’s Charlie’s job,” Gita reassured her. “Don’t tell him I told you this, but that’s the real reason why he’s on the team.”
Sophia brought Stelara downstairs so that she could meet the rottweiler.
“Hi mom,” Sophia said as they entered the living room where her mother was watching the news. “This is Stelara. And this is my mother, Aileen.”
“Nice to meet you,” Stelara said.
“We all enjoyed watching you on that ridiculous show,” Aileen said. “You were way to good for them. I’m glad that you’ll be working for us instead now.”
“Is Bunny in here, mom?” Sophia asked.
“Yeah, he’s behind the couch. Come here Bunny!” A massive scary looking dog walked out from behind the couch. He let Aileen scratch his head and then began to approach Stelara. She put her hand toward his nose so that he could investigate. Instead of smelling it, he licked her fingers and rubbed his head into her palm.
“Wow, he’s so gentle and friendly!” Stelara exclaimed.
“He’s a family dog,” Aileen said. “I’m going to miss him.”
“Mom, have you seen Adam?” Sophia asked.
“He took your father to the emergency room,” Aileen said. “Your sister smashed a vase in his face.”
The next day, Stelara went to her apartment and got some things that she wanted to bring into the future; her tooth brush, her favourite warm sweater, a comfortable pair of jeans, and lots of socks and underwear. A truck came when she was finishing up and the movers packed everything in the apartment up and took it to the Abbey mansion to put into storage in a room in the basement.
“If you come back, it will all still be here,” Charles said.
Everyone spent the rest of the day packing their gear.
"We didn't get a chance to explain the time machine to you properly," Gita said as they packed their things. "You don't have to be touching the time machine to travel through time. What it does is detect when there's a tesseract slash time portal available to travel through, and we don't need the machine to actually get through the time portal. We just need it to know when there's one there."
"If there's a time portal there, is it there all the time?" Stelara asked.
"No, Gita said. "We think they move. We're not sure. We need more data."
"I thought that Sophia said that you calculated everything."
"We calculated what we could. We know that the tesseracts don't stay put." Adam came into the room with a video camera.
"What's with the video camera?" Stelara asked.
"We need it for the trip," Adam said.
"Why, are you turning it into a reality tv show?" Stelara demanded. "I'm not going if you're taking that camera."
"We need documentation though," Adam protested.
"What's wrong with photographs?"
"Video footage is more convincing."
"I don't want to be on everyone's television sets again!"
"Relax, Stelara," Charlie said as he entered the room. "Adam's not filming us. He's filming the terrain and the wildlife. Isn't that right, Adam?"
"Yeah, I guess," Adam said resentfully.
"And it won't be on tv," Charlie continued. "We're not going to show it to everyone. Only important people."
"I thought we were going to see what happens to the earth so we can show everyone the evidence and convince them to smarten up," Gita interjected.
"Most people are going to die," Charlie said. "We don't need to go to the future to find that out. We want to find out what exactly we're facing so we know how to survive."
"So you just care about whether or not your family survives?" Gita said. "You don't care about the rest of the people in the world?"
"If it weren't for the rest of the people in the world, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with," Charlie snapped. "We can't save everyone, Gita."
"Maybe we can try," Gita said quietly.
"We might not be able to save anyone," Sophia said. "We might not come back."
"Stelara, I can ask my father to get some documents together stating that we won't put you back on tv," Charlie said.
"I'd appreciate that," Stelara said.
After everyone had finished packing, they moved all of the gear to the living room on the ground floor. The time machine was sitting on the coffee table slowly beeping.
"We have to wait here," Gita explained to Stelara. "We've calculated that a tesseract will open in this room within the next two to forty-eight hours."
"And you can't leave the room except to go to the bathroom across the hall," Sophia said. "Once the alarm on the time machine goes off, we have to move."
"We have fifteen seconds to get through before it closes off," Gita said. "We've decided that it will be faster if we form a human chain so the first people will just pull everyone through all at once instead of everyone stepping through one at a time."
"And we took the door off the bathroom and put a curtain up instead," Sophia said. "So if you're in the bathroom when the alarm goes off, just pull your pants up and run into the living room."
"Um, okay," Stelara said.
They spent the next hour practicing the rush through the tesseract as a human chain. Charlie and Bunny were at the end of the chain. They used the living room door as the tesseract. Aileen and Charles took turns timing them. Charles' face was covered in bandages.
"I had to get seven stitches," he said proudly. "That's a lucky number!"
All of the backpacks were lined up where everyone on the team could easily grab them. Gita made everyone laugh when she came in wearing a life preserver.
“And here we have Gita, chanelling Michael J. Fox in his role as Marty in Back to the Future,” Charlie said.
“What?” Gita said. “I want to be prepared! We might get there and find ourselves underwater. I’m not a strong swimmer, I’m not taking any chances.”
“How are we going to keep Bunny here?” Stelara asked. “We could be here for forty eight hours. He can’t go to the bathroom in here.”
“My mom’s going to come and take him for short walks,” Sophia replied. “If he’s not here when the portal opens, then he’s not coming with us. But we hope he’s here when the portal opens.”
After five hours of sitting around the living room the team was languid and restless.
“Let’s ask questions that we all have to answer,” Michael said.
“Can I ask the first question?” Sophia asked.
“Sure,” Michael said.
“Okay,” Sophia said as she stretched like a cat and sat up. “What’s your favourite kind of drama on the Internet?”
“Grammar drama,” Stelara said promptly. “It’s so funny. Everyone starts pointing out everyone else’s grammar and it turns into a big battle of who can be the most anal about grammar.”
“Okay, what about you Charlie?” Sophia said.
“This question’s stupid,” Charlie said. “Let’s play video games.”
“You’re so juvenile,” Sophia said.
“Let’s play video games and ask questions,” Gita said. “And you don’t have to answer the questions if you don’t want to.”
“Yeah, let’s compromise,” Michael said.
After five hours of playing video games and asking questions, Stelara fell asleep.
“Wake up Stelara!” Sophia bellowed, shaking her. Stelara awoke with a jolt.
“Why can’t she sleep?” Charlie said, yawning.
“We have to be ready if the portal opens up,” Sophia said.
“The alarm would wake us up,” Gita reminded her. “I think we should just sleep.” She flopped over on the couch and began to do just that.
“Okay, fine,” Sophia grumbled.
Ten hours later they had all slept. They were groggy. Charles brought them some sandwiches and coffee.
“Thanks dad,” Charlie said. A loud siren jumped into their ears.
“What the fuck is that?” Stelara shouted.
“It’s time! Come on everyone!” Sophia shouted back. The team threw their backpacks on and grasped each others hands. Charlie strapped the time machine to his back and grabbed Bunny’s leash.
“Everyone ready?” Michael shouted from the front.
“Yes!” Sophia said impatiently. “Let’s go!” Michael jumped through the portal pulling the chain after him.
“Bye everyone!” Aileen called from the doorway as she gasped for breath. She had run in from the backyard when she heard the alarm. Bunny barked and ran toward her, dragging Charlie back with him. Charlie’s finger jerked from Sophia’s grasp as she was pulled through the time portal. Charlie pulled Bunny’s leash and the two of them ran toward the time portal, but it was already closed.
I think that the reason why is because last time I posted the novel in this journal as I was writing it and I was getting feedback and encouragement. This year I've deprived myself of feedback and encouragement by not letting anybody read my novel. It's science-fiction and there's a lot of continuity errors at this point. So I'm nervous about sharing it.
For those of you who don't mind continuity errors, Pandora’s Time Machine
By Saraline Grenier
Prologue
Charles Abbey was sitting on the picnic table waiting. He was sure that tonight would be the right night. He’d been waiting for years and tonight it was time to wait in his back yard.
Two men appeared out of nowhere. They were wearing old fashioned clothing and one of them was carrying a strange object on his back. As Charles rose to greet them, a large dog ran out the back door and bounded toward them barking urgently. The two men ran away yelling.
“No, wait, come back!” Charles shouted after them. He followed as they ran around the corner of the house. They had disappeared. Charles was disappointed. He went back to the backyard where his eldest daughter was playing fetch with the dog.
“I told you not to let him out,” he said grumpily.
“He really wanted to go outside!” she said. “We can’t just keep him locked up in the house. He’s still a puppy, he needs exercise.”
“I’m sure that they didn’t think that he was just a puppy,” he said. He wondered where the two men had gone. Had they gone the same way that they had come? Or were they hiding somewhere?
Part I
The New Job
Stelara had decided not to answer the ringing phone, but the caller was very persistent. She finally answered after seventeen rings.
“Hello,” she said sharply.
“Stelara Henin?” the caller asked.
“Yes.”
“My name is Charles Abbey. I was wondering if you could come in for a job interview.”
“Oh.” Stelara suddenly felt like being more polite. “Which company is it? I’ve sent my resume to so many places.”
“Well, you didn’t send our resume to us. We saw you on In the Wild.”
“I’m not interested in doing any more reality TV.” She hung up the phone in disappointed. The phone rang again. She sighed and picked up the receiver.
“Yes?”
“It’s not for a reality television show. It’s far more dangerous, and we think that you have the strength and courage required for the position. Are you able to start right away?”
“I don’t even know what the job is,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me more about it?”
“I can’t discuss it over the phone,” Charles Abbey said. “I can explain more about the responsibilities the position entails when we meet for your job interview.”
“How do I know if I want to come in for a job interview if I don’t even know what the job is?”
“You’re unemployed, you want this job.”
“How much is the pay? Or will I have to wait until the job interview to find out about that?”
“It’s 70 000 a year.” Stelara was silent for a moment.
“This seems a little sketchy to me,” she finally said. “You won’t even tell me what the position is or what company you work for is called, I didn’t give you a resume, and the salary sounds a little too good to be true.”
“It’s not just a job,” he said. “It’s an adventure. If you’re even a little curious, you can come to the job interview and find out what this is all about. If you’re not curious at all, then you’re probably not the person that we’re looking for.” He hung up. The number was blocked so Stelara couldn’t call him back. He hadn’t told her when or where the job interview would be.
Later that day, Stelara went to the library to take out some books. As she walked through the front door, a business card fell out of one of the books. She picked it up. It had the name “Charles Abbey” on it, along with a handwritten message on the back that said, “Your job interview will be at 7 pm this evening. Hope you can make it.”
Stelara ran back into the library and to the desk. The man who had checked her books was gone.
“Excuse me,” she asked the librarian at the desk. “Where did that man with white hair go?”
“What man?” the librarian said sharply.
“The one who was working here.”
“I’m the only one who’s been here for the past two hours,” the librarian replied imperiously. Stelara turned away and looked at the address at the card. She thought that 7 o’clock pm was a strange time for a job interview.
The address on the business card turned out to be the address for a rather large mansion. The long driveway was blocked by a tall gate. Stelara wondered how she was supposed to get in until she saw an intercom button. She pressed it and said, “Hello, hello, hello.”
“Yes?” a staticy voice answered.
“This is Stelara Henin. I have a job interview.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Abbey is expecting you.” The gate opened and Stelara walked up the long driveway. A man was waiting for her at the front door.
“Hello, I’m Mike. I’m the vice-president of the com pany. Come this way please,” the man said, leading her into the house. He took Stelara to an office. “Please wait here. Mr. Abbey will be right with you.” He left the door open and left Stelara gaping at the high ceiling and large bookshelf. She looked at Charles Abbey’s books. They were in alphabetical order. She picked up a copy of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
“I’m glad you could make it,” a soft voice behind her said. She turned around. She had not heard the silver-haired man come in.
“And here’s the mysterious librarian,” she said.
“Have a seat,” he said. She sat in a chair and he sat across the desk from her.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Charles Abbey,” she said. “And I know that you also already know who I am, so tell me about this job or adventure or whatever,” she said. “It’s some crazy thing where you’re hunting people like in Richard Connell’s ‘The Most Dangerous Game,’ isn’t it?” Daniel laughed.
“So you like short stories then? No, no, it’s nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“It’s a project that’s been passed down for several generations of my family.”
“Does it involve pirate treasure?” Stelara asked. “It took me an hour and a half to get to your mansion, Charles. I hope you’re going to tell me what the job is at least?”
“Just out of curiosity, would you believe me if I told you that the position was for an excursion involving pirate treasure?” Charles asked.
“Are you being serious?” Stelara glared at him.
“May I remind you that this is a job interview, Ms. Henin?” Charles said sternly. “I’m the one who is asking questions. I will answer as many questions as you like after you answer mine. Would you or would you not believe me?”
“I’d want to see some evidence before I believed you.”
“What kind of evidence would I have to show you to convince you that we were going on a pirate treasure hunt? A treasure map? A piece of the treasure?”
“No,” Stelara told him evenly. “I’d want to see all the equipment you had to go on this treasure hunt. I think you’d probably get a lot of expensive gadgets if you were going on a treasure hunt that you wouldn’t have if you weren’t going on a treasure hunt.”
“Well, I’ll just have to show you the evidence before I tell you about the job then,” Charles concluded as he got up and walked toward a closet.
“Are we really going on a pirate treasure hunt?” Stelara asked.
“I suppose that it’s entirely possible that there will be a pirate treasure hunt involved, but I very much doubt it.” He removed something from the closet that looked like the combination of a typewriter and a backpack and placed it on his desk.
“Is that the evidence?”
“This,” Charles said, “is a time machine. It was built in 1882. We found it about a month ago, and look at the condition it’s in! There’s some scratches here and there but no rust.”
“Okay, so you found this thing and you think it’s a time machine. I’ve gotta get going, Charles. I have a bus to catch.”
“We know it’s a time machine. We have all of the documentation to prove it and I can show it to you right now.” He went over to the filing cabinet and pulled out a large folder. “And I take that bus all the time and I know it’s not the last one.”
“You take the bus?”
“I care about the environment. I come from a long line of environmentalists.”
“So your family’s into time machines and they’re environmentalists? How did you guys make enough money to buy this house?”
“My family did not make its fortune with the time machine and our enthusiasm for the environment,” Charles informed her. “Those are just side projects. We’ve made profits from a different kind of business.”
At that moment, a young woman in a jogging suit pulled the door open and rushed angrily into the office.
“Why can’t I go on the excursion?” she demanded.
“I’m in the middle of interviewing someone for the job, Florence,” Charles said.
“Don’t call me Florence,” the young woman snapped. “And also, I feel that my expertise is necessary for this excursion and that you’re making a very big mistake not letting me go, dad.” When she said the word “dad” her voice crackled with loathing.
“Maybe I should go,” Stelara said uncomfortably.
“Absolutely not,” Charles said sternly. “Florence is going to wait until after our interview to speak with me. Aren’t you, princess?”
“I’ll wait until after the interview, but then I want you to answer all of my questions and I don’t care who else is the room. And also, don’t call me princess.” She walked out of the room and slammed the door.
“I can’t call her Florence and I can’t call her princess,” Charles shook his head with confusion. “I don’t know what she wants me to call her. Anyway, Stelara, I’ll just let you read through the documentation. I have some other paperwork that I have to look at. You can sit on the couch if you want, there’s a reading lamp there. Would you like any refreshments?”
“I’d like some lobster and champagne please,” Stelara replied.
He used an intercom to call for some cookies and hot chocolate.
The papers and photographs in the folder were yellow with age. There were diary entries written by people who were preparing to go on a journey with the time machine. The original blueprints were there. There were photographs of people standing with the time machine. Stelara was convinced of its authenticity, but it wasn’t the documents that had convinced her. It was Florence Abbey who had convinced her. Why would she be so eager to go on the expedition if it was not real?
Charles was working at his desk as Stelara went through the folder.
“How come there aren’t any diary entries about the future?” Stelara asked.
“What do you mean?” Charles said.
“You have diary entries from people preparing to go into the future. You also have diary entries from people who watched them disappear with the time machine. You have diary entries from people who traveled to the past. But you don’t have any from when people came back from the future.”
“That’s because they never came back,” Charles said. “They weren’t prepared for what the future held and they probably perished.”
“How do you know that the time machine even works if they never come back?” Stelara asked. “ Just because you saw them disappear?”
“The first journey taken was in 1883,” Charles said. “It was a journey to the past.”
“Yes, I know that. I read about it in the documents you gave me.”
“So you also know that the next journey was embarked on two years later.”
“Yes. And they never came back?”
“That’s correct.”
“Well, what year were they going to?”
“It’s impossible to go to a specific year,” Charles said, “or to know what year you’re going to. We think that they came to this year.”
“Oh!” Stelara exclaimed as comprehension dawned on her. “Because you found it two months ago.” Charles smiled.
“Very good, Ms. Henin.”
“So you think they died.”
“We haven’t been able to find them,” Charles said. “Yes, we think they died, and if they haven’t yet, they probably will die by the time we find them.”
“Then what makes you think that we can survive the future?”
“ I have very much confidence in your survival skills,” Charles said kindly. “My family and I were big fans of yours when you were on In the Wild, although we didn’t care much for the show itself.”
Five years earlier, Stelara was certain that her only fan was her roommate Gita. When she returned from her stint on In the Wild, it was Gita who was happy that Stelara was safe at home. Their other roommate, Jennifer, was only happy that she had the opportunity to tell Stelara off.
“So, you’re back,” Jennifer hissed. “How does it feel to be the most hated woman in America?”
“Don’t listen to her,” Gita said. “You did what you had to do and now you’re okay, which is the important thing.”
“I hope you get deported, Stelara,” Jennifer said, “then you’ll have to move back to Canada and I can find a new roommate.”
“I was thinking of moving back home anyway,” Stelara replied. “I don’t care what Americans think.”
And she did not care about Jennifer’s reaction to the show, but she was happy that the show had not aired on a Canadian channel yet and she was happy that her parents could not get the American channel it was on with their rabbit ears. She called her mother and begged her not to watch it.
“Why don’t you want me to see it?” her mother demanded. She sounded hurt.
“It was really bad, mom,” Stelara said. “It was the worst experience I’ve ever had. Please, just don’t watch it, and don’t read anything people say about it either.”
“But I really wanted to watch it!”
“You don’t even like watching TV,” Stelara snapped. “Just don’t watch it. Please, mom.”
“Well, alright,” her mother said doubtfully.
After she had spoken with her mother, Stelara called the Canadian television station that was supposed to show it and asked them to reconsider. She was told that it had already been pulled out of the line-up because of the reactions of Canadians who had been able to watch it on the American channel.
And apparently, Charles Abbey and his family were able to get that channel.
“Now that you’ve seen the documentation,” Charles Abbey said, “I think it’s time to show you the gear you’ll be taking and to introduce you to the rest of the team.”
“You mean you’re not going?” Stelara asked. Charles laughed.
“I wish that I was going, but my wife feels that I’m too old to travel into the future and she’s insisting that I stay behind. Come with me.”
Stelara followed Charles out of the office and down the hall.
“This journey into the future is much more important than past journeys with the time machine,” Charles explained as they walked. “With climate change and everything else that’s going on, it’s very important that we gather data to show people exactly what’s going to come.”
“Hasn’t your family always kept this project a secret though?” Stelara asked. “Are you going to go public this time? Get the media involved?”
“Oh, no, not the media. If, and only if, the team comes back, we’ll show the data that was gathered in the future to various governments so that they can take the necessary precautions to ensure the world’s future.”
“Right,” Stelara said. She was skeptical that any government would take the precautions necessary to ensure the world’s future.
“Ah, here we are,” Charles said, opening a door. Stelara followed him into the room. It was full of camping gear. “We’re not sure what to expect, so we’ve prepared for anything we can think of. Hopefully this house will still be here and my descendents will help you find anything that you need and provide you with shelter. But in case there isn’t any shelter to be had, you’ll be taking tents and sleeping bags.
“We also have life preservers and inflatable rafts, food, backpacks so you can carry it all, compasses, and lots of other equipment. The group will be going over the inventory together tomorrow morning, and if you think of anything else that you need, please don’t hesitate to speak up. Oh, and we also have cameras for everyone, so take lots of pictures. We have a professional photographer on the team, but still, we’d like to see the future from everyone’s perspective.
“Come, I know the others are eager to meet you.” Charles beckoned and Stelara followed him down the hall.
They entered a room with leather sofas where some people were playing video games.
“Gita!” Stelara exclaimed. She rushed over to hug her laughing best friend and former roommate.
“I finally found a job that I’m not overqualified for,” Gita told her.
Gita was a rocket scientist. Stelara had always admired her friend but she admired her even more when Gita was the only who stood by her during the scandal that followed the first episode of In the Wild.
“You used your head,” Gita reassured her. “You did the smart thing.” Stelara was grateful for her kind words.
One day Stelara’s mother called her. She had a read an article about the show.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Stelara,” her mother said.
“I told you not to read anything about it!” Stelara wailed.
“How could I not read anything about it?” her mother asked. “I heard them making fun of you on the radio when I was in the car. I wanted to know why.”
“Mom, you don’t understand.”
“I thought I raised you better. Did you really kill a mountain lion? They’re an endangered species!”
“I had to do it!”
“For a game show?” her mother said scornfully. “To entertain people on television?” Stelara hung up in tears. It was Gita who comforted her.
“I know you had to do it,” Gita said gently.
Stelara was happy to see her friend in Charles’ mansion.
“It’s so great to see you,” Stelara said.
“You too,” Gita said.
“Allow me to introduce you to the others,” said Charles. “Everyone, this is Stelara, but you already know who she is. Stelara, this is my daughter Sophia. She’s a physicist. She and Gita have been updating the time machine with some new technology.”
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you,” Sophia said pleasantly.
“This is my son Charles Jr,” Charles continued proudly. “He’s just completed a degree in biology and will be studying the effect that climate change has had on plants and other life forms in the future.”
“You can call me Charlie,” Charles Jr said. “It’s easier than saying ‘Charles Jr’ all the time.”
“And this is Michael,” Charles said. “He ran away from the military because he didn’t want to fight in Afghanistan. We’ve been hiding him and I think his military training will make him a valuable asset to the expedition. Michael isn’t his real name, of course.
“And this is Sophia’s husband, Adam Forsythe.” Charles finished abruptly and did not elaborate on Adam’s role on the team. Instead, he gave him a disapproving glance.
“I’m a photographer,” Adam said awkwardly.
“His photos have been in National Geographic and Canadian Geographic,” Sophia said proudly. “He also studies rocks, and he’ll be able to take samples and determine what year we’re in.”
“Well, that’ll be handy,” Stelara said brightly.
Florence came into the room with a small boy.
“Daddy, I want to go to the future too!” the small boy said.
“You’re too young,” Charles said. “Your mother would never forgive me if I let you go. Stelara, this is my son Billy, and my daughter, er…”
“You can call me Gwen,” Florence said quickly. “My middle name is Gwendolyn. Is the job interview finished yet?”
“Why, yes, I suppose it is,” Charles replied. “Stelara, why don’t you stay here and socialize for a bit? You can spend the night here. We’ll arrange to get your things in the morning.”
“Okay,” Stelara said.
Charles and Gwen left the room.
“I wrote an article about In the Wild for my school paper when I was in high school,” Charlie told Stelara. “Do you wanna read it?”
“Maybe some other time,” Stelara said.
“I don’t see why Sophia and Charlie get to go while I have to stay behind,” Gwen said. She was sitting with Charles in his office. “I’m the oldest, I should be allowed to go.”
“Someone has to stay behind,” Charles said. “The journey will be more successful if we have future descendents to help the team.”
“I understand that, but why do I have to be the one to stay behind?”
“You’re the responsible one, and I know you’ll make sure that the project is passed down to the next generation,” her father told her. “Sophia and Charles Jr are the adventurous ones.”
“They’re also more likely to provide you with descendents,” Gwen spat. “I don’t have any desire to get married. Sophia’s already married and she already had a baby when she was fifteen.”
“I told you never to speak about that!” Charles thundered. “It upsets your mother.”
“I wouldn’t start shouting about it if I were you then,” Gwen said. “She might come in to find out what we’re talking about.”
“That baby was given up for adoption,” he said more quietly. “It’s lost to our family.”
“She might come looking for her mother one day. And her mother won’t be here to answer any of her questions. Now, if Sophia were still here, she could tell her daughter all about the time machine-“
“Your mother made sure that Sophia’s child will never find her,” Charles interrupted. “It’s not a possibility. And besides, we need Sophia on the team. She’s a scientist.”
“Don’t you need me on the team?” Gwen asked angrily. “We don’t know what’s in store and my skills might be needed just as much as anyone else’s.”
“You’re an archaeologist, Florence. What could you possibly do?”
“If we find that the human population has died out, I could study bones and ruins and find out how it happened.”
“You study dinosaur bones. I don’t think anyone on the team will find that they need to know any facts about dinosaurs.”
“Dinosaurs aren’t the limit of my knowledge. And how do you know that knowledge of the dinosaurs won’t come in handy? You’ve never been to the future, after all.”
“How could knowledge of the dinosaurs possibly come in handy?”
“You can be a close-minded fool, you know,” Gwen said calmly. “The dinosaurs once ruled the earth and they died out, possibly because of climate change. And you fear that the same thing might happen to the human population.”
“It’s different, Florence,” her father said. “Humans are creating their own destruction.”
“Maybe dinosaurs did too. We don’t know.”
“They were just stupid beasts.”
“We don’t know that either. Maybe they could communicate with each other. Maybe there was a dinosaur society. And maybe they exhausted their resources with excessive use.”
“Florence, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t know where you come up with these ideas.”
“I’m creative. Nobody who’s going is creative, so how are they going to come up with ideas for what to do when they get there?”
“Most of them are scientists, I’m sure they’ll come up with something.”
“I have thought of a million scenarios of what the future might be like, and I know how I would deal with all of them.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. One of them involves dinosaurs.”
“It’s a journey into the future, not into the past.”
“Yes, but dinosaurs once ruled the planet.”
“In the past.”
“And then humans involved. What will evolve if humans die out? Maybe it’ll be lizards again. It was mammals this time around, maybe it will be reptiles next time around and they’ll destroy their environment again and the next ones to evolve will do the same, and it’ll be a cycle.”
“That’s a very interesting theory, Florence,” Charles said as he rubbed his forehead with fatigue.
“Don’t call me Florence,” Gwen said. “And please just listen to me. Humans are like parasites to the earth and she’ll get rid of us. Maybe that’s what happened to the dinosaurs and maybe it’ll happen again and again. Maybe in the future dinosaur archaeologists will study our bones and wonder what happened to us.”
“You’re not going,” Charles said. “I’ve already made my decision.”
Gwen grabbed a vase from her father’s desk with a yell and smashed it in his face.
“I’m so excited that you’re coming too,” Gita told Stelara. They were sitting in a spare bedroom with twin beds.
“I haven’t actually said whether or not I would go,” Stelara replied as Sophia walked into the bedroom with an extra pair of pyjamas.
“What do you mean?” Sophia demanded. “Why wouldn’t you want to go? My sister Gwen would cut off her arm to trade places with you if she thought it would change my father’s mind.”
“Well,” Stelara said, “I was walking down the street yesterday when a crazy old woman came up to me, and you know what she said to me?”
“No,” said Gita, laughing, “what did she say?”
“She said, ‘Beware of the future!’” Stelara said. “’Don’t seek the unknown or you’ll die!’” The three women laughed.
“Are you going to listen to her?” Gita asked.
“Well, it is kind of a coincidence, isn’t it?” Stelara said.
“But I’m going!” Gita said. “It’ll be fun.”
“I’ll sleep on it,” Stelara said. “And my answer will probably be yes. I have some questions though.”
“We can answer any questions that you have,” Sophia said.
“I don’t really understand how this time machine works,” Stelara said. “Can you explain it to me? And keep in mind that I’m not a rocket scientist or a physicist.”
“Sophia and I are probably the best ones to explain that,” Gita said. “Did you ever read A Wrinkle in Time?”
“Yeah, when I was a kid.”
“Do you remember the part about tesseracts?”
“They do exist? Go on.”
“Well, it’s kind of like that except that you probably will still be on this planet. If you went to a point in time when earth doesn’t exist, then you probably would end up somewhere else.”
“That sounds kind of scary, Gita.”
“The odds of ending up at a time like that are very small,” Sophia cut in. “Don’t worry, we calculated everything.”
“Speaking of which,” Stelara said. “I understand what your jobs are for this operation, but what’s my role in this supposed to be?”
“You’re kind of like the bodyguard,” Sophia replied. “It’s your job to make sure that nobody on the team gets killed.”
“Including yourself,” Gita added.
“So I have to take care of myself and the rest of you?”
“We’ll all be taking care of each other,” Gita said optimistically. “That’s why we call it a team.”
“And you won’t be doing your job alone,” Sophia said. “That’s what Michael’s job is too. And we’re also taking a dog with us. We think he may be the first dog to travel through time. Do you like dogs?”
“Yeah,” Stelara said. “What kind of dog is it?”
“A rottweiler,” Sophia said. “Sorry we didn’t introduce you to him when we introduced the rest of the team. My mother was out taking him for a walk. They’re back now though if you’d like to come meet him.”
“I’d be absolutely delighted,” Stelara said. “I really don’t want to hold onto his leash when we’re in the future though.”
“Don’t worry, that’s Charlie’s job,” Gita reassured her. “Don’t tell him I told you this, but that’s the real reason why he’s on the team.”
Sophia brought Stelara downstairs so that she could meet the rottweiler.
“Hi mom,” Sophia said as they entered the living room where her mother was watching the news. “This is Stelara. And this is my mother, Aileen.”
“Nice to meet you,” Stelara said.
“We all enjoyed watching you on that ridiculous show,” Aileen said. “You were way to good for them. I’m glad that you’ll be working for us instead now.”
“Is Bunny in here, mom?” Sophia asked.
“Yeah, he’s behind the couch. Come here Bunny!” A massive scary looking dog walked out from behind the couch. He let Aileen scratch his head and then began to approach Stelara. She put her hand toward his nose so that he could investigate. Instead of smelling it, he licked her fingers and rubbed his head into her palm.
“Wow, he’s so gentle and friendly!” Stelara exclaimed.
“He’s a family dog,” Aileen said. “I’m going to miss him.”
“Mom, have you seen Adam?” Sophia asked.
“He took your father to the emergency room,” Aileen said. “Your sister smashed a vase in his face.”
The next day, Stelara went to her apartment and got some things that she wanted to bring into the future; her tooth brush, her favourite warm sweater, a comfortable pair of jeans, and lots of socks and underwear. A truck came when she was finishing up and the movers packed everything in the apartment up and took it to the Abbey mansion to put into storage in a room in the basement.
“If you come back, it will all still be here,” Charles said.
Everyone spent the rest of the day packing their gear.
"We didn't get a chance to explain the time machine to you properly," Gita said as they packed their things. "You don't have to be touching the time machine to travel through time. What it does is detect when there's a tesseract slash time portal available to travel through, and we don't need the machine to actually get through the time portal. We just need it to know when there's one there."
"If there's a time portal there, is it there all the time?" Stelara asked.
"No, Gita said. "We think they move. We're not sure. We need more data."
"I thought that Sophia said that you calculated everything."
"We calculated what we could. We know that the tesseracts don't stay put." Adam came into the room with a video camera.
"What's with the video camera?" Stelara asked.
"We need it for the trip," Adam said.
"Why, are you turning it into a reality tv show?" Stelara demanded. "I'm not going if you're taking that camera."
"We need documentation though," Adam protested.
"What's wrong with photographs?"
"Video footage is more convincing."
"I don't want to be on everyone's television sets again!"
"Relax, Stelara," Charlie said as he entered the room. "Adam's not filming us. He's filming the terrain and the wildlife. Isn't that right, Adam?"
"Yeah, I guess," Adam said resentfully.
"And it won't be on tv," Charlie continued. "We're not going to show it to everyone. Only important people."
"I thought we were going to see what happens to the earth so we can show everyone the evidence and convince them to smarten up," Gita interjected.
"Most people are going to die," Charlie said. "We don't need to go to the future to find that out. We want to find out what exactly we're facing so we know how to survive."
"So you just care about whether or not your family survives?" Gita said. "You don't care about the rest of the people in the world?"
"If it weren't for the rest of the people in the world, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with," Charlie snapped. "We can't save everyone, Gita."
"Maybe we can try," Gita said quietly.
"We might not be able to save anyone," Sophia said. "We might not come back."
"Stelara, I can ask my father to get some documents together stating that we won't put you back on tv," Charlie said.
"I'd appreciate that," Stelara said.
After everyone had finished packing, they moved all of the gear to the living room on the ground floor. The time machine was sitting on the coffee table slowly beeping.
"We have to wait here," Gita explained to Stelara. "We've calculated that a tesseract will open in this room within the next two to forty-eight hours."
"And you can't leave the room except to go to the bathroom across the hall," Sophia said. "Once the alarm on the time machine goes off, we have to move."
"We have fifteen seconds to get through before it closes off," Gita said. "We've decided that it will be faster if we form a human chain so the first people will just pull everyone through all at once instead of everyone stepping through one at a time."
"And we took the door off the bathroom and put a curtain up instead," Sophia said. "So if you're in the bathroom when the alarm goes off, just pull your pants up and run into the living room."
"Um, okay," Stelara said.
They spent the next hour practicing the rush through the tesseract as a human chain. Charlie and Bunny were at the end of the chain. They used the living room door as the tesseract. Aileen and Charles took turns timing them. Charles' face was covered in bandages.
"I had to get seven stitches," he said proudly. "That's a lucky number!"
All of the backpacks were lined up where everyone on the team could easily grab them. Gita made everyone laugh when she came in wearing a life preserver.
“And here we have Gita, chanelling Michael J. Fox in his role as Marty in Back to the Future,” Charlie said.
“What?” Gita said. “I want to be prepared! We might get there and find ourselves underwater. I’m not a strong swimmer, I’m not taking any chances.”
“How are we going to keep Bunny here?” Stelara asked. “We could be here for forty eight hours. He can’t go to the bathroom in here.”
“My mom’s going to come and take him for short walks,” Sophia replied. “If he’s not here when the portal opens, then he’s not coming with us. But we hope he’s here when the portal opens.”
After five hours of sitting around the living room the team was languid and restless.
“Let’s ask questions that we all have to answer,” Michael said.
“Can I ask the first question?” Sophia asked.
“Sure,” Michael said.
“Okay,” Sophia said as she stretched like a cat and sat up. “What’s your favourite kind of drama on the Internet?”
“Grammar drama,” Stelara said promptly. “It’s so funny. Everyone starts pointing out everyone else’s grammar and it turns into a big battle of who can be the most anal about grammar.”
“Okay, what about you Charlie?” Sophia said.
“This question’s stupid,” Charlie said. “Let’s play video games.”
“You’re so juvenile,” Sophia said.
“Let’s play video games and ask questions,” Gita said. “And you don’t have to answer the questions if you don’t want to.”
“Yeah, let’s compromise,” Michael said.
After five hours of playing video games and asking questions, Stelara fell asleep.
“Wake up Stelara!” Sophia bellowed, shaking her. Stelara awoke with a jolt.
“Why can’t she sleep?” Charlie said, yawning.
“We have to be ready if the portal opens up,” Sophia said.
“The alarm would wake us up,” Gita reminded her. “I think we should just sleep.” She flopped over on the couch and began to do just that.
“Okay, fine,” Sophia grumbled.
Ten hours later they had all slept. They were groggy. Charles brought them some sandwiches and coffee.
“Thanks dad,” Charlie said. A loud siren jumped into their ears.
“What the fuck is that?” Stelara shouted.
“It’s time! Come on everyone!” Sophia shouted back. The team threw their backpacks on and grasped each others hands. Charlie strapped the time machine to his back and grabbed Bunny’s leash.
“Everyone ready?” Michael shouted from the front.
“Yes!” Sophia said impatiently. “Let’s go!” Michael jumped through the portal pulling the chain after him.
“Bye everyone!” Aileen called from the doorway as she gasped for breath. She had run in from the backyard when she heard the alarm. Bunny barked and ran toward her, dragging Charlie back with him. Charlie’s finger jerked from Sophia’s grasp as she was pulled through the time portal. Charlie pulled Bunny’s leash and the two of them ran toward the time portal, but it was already closed.