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a_time_slip“You can’t double the battery power this way.” Janie said. “I’ll build you a few more terminals, and then work on the fuse- why are you powering it with dry battery terminals? It’s incredibly old fashioned.”
“It’s the only way I can get the power source to work.” Answered Cyrus.
Janie frowned, then hunched over and began to untangle the mess of wires on the battery terminal. It would be easy to start sabotaging the ship again, especially since they now had her working on fixing the ship’s power issues, but Janie felt bad. Especially now, as the guys were splitting a pizza and celebrating their good fortune.
“Take a break and have some pizza.” Sean said “There’s a plain cheese for you.”
“Thanks. I need to finish this first.” She said, coldly.
“It’s a time machine, can’t you just go back-” began Sean
“No!” snapped Janie “I can’t mess with my own timeline, and if I do, it will create an alternate timeline and I’ve got plenty of those, thank you.”
“I’ve messed with your timeline.” Admitted Cyrus.
Janie glared at him and threw down the coil of solder, and jumped out of her seat, ready to yell.
“Sit down and fix my battery terminal.” Cyrus ordered, before taking a sip of his drink.
“Or what? You’ll bore me to death?”
“No. I’ll cuff you to the seat.”
She sat back down, and picked up the solder, not wanting him to cuff her again. She knew that she could get out of them, but that wasn’t the point. Janie had never seen this side of him before and wondered just how far he would go.
“You’ve already got me in this dress. I can’t run in it, or do anything other than sit around and look pretty.”
“If you’re part of this team, then you have to fit our image.”
“What image? This isn’t a movie. It’s not a game. This is life.”
“You signed up for this!”
“Cyrus. You had a weapon and my daughter was in the room. I would have done anything that you wanted.”
“Fix the battery terminal!” He shouted, storming out of the room.
Janie’s hand shook, and she pushed aside her work until she could calm down.
# # #
“He’s never going to credit you if you keep pissing him off.” Sean complained
“What makes you think you’re going to get any credit?” Asked Janie, not looking away from the wires in front of her “He’s not playing fair.”
“He’s in charge.” Sean set his jaw after he spoke and narrowed his eyes
“Why? You and Jake are smarter than he is. You two did more of the work.” Janie noticed that Sean was upset, and decided to see how far she could push it.
“It’s his ship.”
“He paid for it, and it’s his idea. Wouldn’t that make it belong to his parents? It’s his Dad’s money and his Mom was the one who gave him the idea.”
“How did you know that, about his Mom?”
“I’m not sure. There are a lot of holes in my memory, and a lot of things that don’t make sense about my life.” Janie thought for a moment, and then tried to untangle a pile of wires. She was still upset, and knew that she’d mess up if she tried to solder. “It’s not important.”
“We’re all going to see our families again. It’s part of the plan.”
“He’s never been good at following plans, Sean.” Janie said, realizing that she was done with the improved terminal, and that the pile of wires was nothing more than scrap. She decided to pretend to work on it, just to look busy. “I think you made a mistake in teaming up with him for this, no matter how long you all have been friends.”
“What would you do differently?” He asked, after thinking things over.
“After fixing the ship? I’d go home and work on a real discovery, something that can actually help people. Discovering time travel is only going to ruin things. You guys have already changed a lot that shouldn’t have been changed.”
“Hey, I didn’t change anything.”
“You helped him. You let him.” Janie accused
“I didn’t!”
“She’s never going to believe us.” Said Jake, who had been silently listening.
“Prove it to me. Otherwise you guys have just been lying to me. Are we even friends?”
“We’re friends, Janie.” Jake said “And I really like Nina...”
“Nina is her own person. Apologizing to me isn’t going to change her opinion of you.”
“I know that.” Jake said, defensively “I have to talk to her about the plan.”
“Why is this plan so important?”
“It’s our life’s work.” Jake answered “It will change history.”
“You’ve already changed history.”
“Nothing terrible”
“The next time you don’t agree with one of Cyrus’ plans, why don’t you tell him instead of following him like a blind parrot? The ‘nothing terrible’ that you’re claiming is wrong, and you know it. So stand up for what you think is right.”
# # #
“Jake, Sean, I need your help.” Janie said, after leaving the two guys alone for a few minutes, having a slice of pizza and thinking over the situation. “We’re going home. This trip... it’s too dangerous. We’ll just have to make the best of things there and try to get him to split the lottery money.”
“The lottery money is taken care of.” Jake said, offhand “We invested it in the past, in offshore accounts.”
“You what?” Janie asked, shocked “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“We made sure that we used cash from before 1929.” Sean explained, helpfully “That way we weren’t disrupting the financial system.”
“Jake, take over the navigation console. Central Park is the easiest place to land this. Our origin is -1, 0, 0, 3.” Janie decided to try ordering the two around. The worst that would happen is that they wouldn’t listen to her. She was fairly sure they wouldn’t tell Cyrus. Not today, anyway.
“Are you sure?” Asked Sean, looking over Jake’s shoulder.
“-1, 0, 0, 3. Secondary origin is 0,0,0,0. Enter the coordinates for Central park as the destination but don’t start the journey. Sean, I need you to enter this list of destinations in the GPS. Once you’re done, then Jake can navigate.”
“Cyrus wrote a program-” Sean began, going quiet when Janie handed him a sheet of paper filled with numbers and symbols.
“And you see where that got us. They need to be done separately. I could use him to put up the shields while I use the cloaking device, but I can make do without him.” Janie watched as the Jake and Sean began working, and then shielded the closets. Then, realizing that the battery was going to be drained quickly, she started to shut down unnecessary systems.
“What are you doing?” Asked Sean, as the video game system turned off, and the lights began to flicker.
“Conserving power.”
“We didn’t save.” Sean grumbled “That’s three week’s worth of play, gone.”
“It’s not my fault you were stupid.” She said, as some of the lights switched off. “How are you on those coordinates?”
“Where is this going to land us in the park?” Jake asked “We have to be careful.”
“Oh, now you want to be careful? You stole alien technology, broke the laws of Physics and ignored five different interplanetary laws regarding time and space travel. The time for being careful is done. Also? You both LIED to me. You let Cyrus get away with terrible things.”
“I had no idea it was alien.” Jake said “Really? Are you alien?”
“This is not the time.” Janie sighed and turned off more lights. She wasn’t sure why Cyrus had the place lit up like Vegas, but she was glad to turn some of the lights off. “Your ‘costume’ ideas are really terrible too. I can’t do anything in this ridiculous dress.”
“I think she’s human.” Sean said, quietly. “Cyrus saw her boobs-”
“I’m right here.” Janie said
“He saw your boobs, and-.”
“This is not the time to talk about my boobs!” She exclaimed “Do what I told you to!”
“They’re nice boobs.” Janie said, under his breath
“I heard that, and aren’t you supposed to have the hots for Nina?”
“Sorry.” Grumbled Jake
“Concentrate on the tasks I gave you.” Janie ordered, as Sean began to snicker. “We’re all adults. Stop laughing over something so stupid!”
# # #
“We’re losing power!” Cyrus said, rushing in, moments later. “Increase the battery power, guys and we’ll have to drop some weight. Bali is out until we figure out what’s causing the problems.”
“I’m shutting down unnecessary systems.” Janie calmly explained, as she glanced at a screen “Can you put up the shields while I work on the cloaking device? You didn’t have one installed so I have to work from scratch.”
“What?” He asked, watching as his two friends worked.
“Use that terminal, and- don’t you know your own programming? I can’t do both at once and we’re running out of time.”
“Janie, what are you talking about?”
“I’ve taken over, Cyrus. We’re going home.”
“No! This is my ship, my team. This whole adventure was MY idea.”
“Okay, and it’s my idea that we get home before you destroy the universe. Now, get to work. If you don’t want to program, go to my room and get my work uniform. I can barely breathe in this stupid dress.”
“You look hot.”
“What is it with you guys? Now is not the time for looks! We need to get out of here and NOW. Jake? If Sean is done with his part, you need to run that program this second. Sean, after he runs it, watch the screen and make sure none of the numbers change. If they do you have to fix them or we’ll land somewhere unexpected.”
“Stop bossing around my friends.” Cyrus ordered “And get away- what did you do to my workstation?”
“I cleaned it.” Jane put her hands on her hips, and looked up at Cyrus “It was disgusting. Don’t eat at your workstation.”
“You cleaned? You have not lifted a finger to do ANYTHING the entire time you’ve been on this ship and suddenly you decide it’s time to be a homemaker?”
“This is not a home, and I am not your maid. You want someone to clean, you hire them for it.”
“You’re my girlfriend. You’re supposed to cook and clean for me.”
“This is not 1950! Cook and clean for yourself!”
“Um, guys.” Said Sean
“Why do you always have to argue with me?” shouted Cyrus “I’ve been wonderful to you.”
“You’ve been a controlling nightmare! You basically stalked me! And why did you tell them about our sex life?”
“He said he saw your boobs.” Clarified Jake “We didn’t get too many details-” he stopped when he glanced at his screen “Janie.”
“You gave them details?” Asked Janie, who was so angry that she didn’t notice the lights flickering.
“We’re guys. We talk.”
“That was private! How could you?”
“Um... Is the screen supposed to do this?” Asked Jake, trying to talk over the sound of Janie and Cyrus shouting.
“It’s crashing.” Sean said “I can’t fix these numbers.”
“Get over it, Janie!” Shouted Cyrus, just as the room began to shake.
Janie looked at Cyrus, panicked, then the room was completely dark.
# # #
“Janie!” yelled Cyrus, as sparks began to fly from poorly attached wires. The ship was now on its side and the inside was only lit by occasional sparks and the electric blue glow of Sean’s watch. “Where are you?”
“Is everyone okay?” She asked, sounding like she was far away “We need to get out of here.”
“I’m fine!” Jake shouted “Sean’s over here too!”
“We can see his watch.” Cyrus said, almost laughing in relief. “Janie, you suck at navigating.”
“That’s not why we’re lost.” She said, still sounding far away. It took several moments and a few crashing sounds before she was closer to the three guys. “We need to get out of this ship, now.”
“Calm down.” Cyrus said “We’re too important for this to be anything other than a crash.”
As soon as he spoke, something hit the side of the ship, and it began to roll. The four inside were tossed around like dolls, with Cyrus landing on Janie, Jake getting pinned under a bit of equipment, and Sean landing on a closet door.
“If you can still move, we need to go.” Janie said, once more.
“What’s happening?” Cyrus asked, when no one answered for several seconds
“Get off of me.”
“Janie... I’m sorry.”
“You’re lying on top of me in a crashed time machine.” She said, carefully “You almost destroyed me and my daughter, you kidnapped me and you have been using me for the entire time we’ve known each other. Get off of me.”
“I didn’t want to destroy anyone.” Cyrus said, hoping that Janie could tell that he was looking at her “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. We were going to get a happily ever after and live our dreams.”
“You never asked my dreams; all you did was tell me what you wanted.” Janie said, wondering how hard she’d have to push to get him off of her “And what I wanted was someone normal and mundane.”
“Janie, you aren’t dull and-”
“I’m a cashier, Cyrus. I’ve worked at that job since Lynn was five, and I’ll work at it for at least another six years.”
“You can be so much more. You’ve got potential. Together? We’re unstoppable.”
“I don’t want to be more, Cyrus. I just want to be a normal woman with a normal family.”
“Before all of this happened, I wanted to ask you something Janie. Families aren’t always normal, or amazing. But they do have love, and I’m in love with you. If you love me-”
“I have a family.” Janie said, not realizing what Cyrus was trying to do. “Lynn’s father and-”
“Why did you bring him up now?” Asked Cyrus, wanting to get off of Janie, and realizing that he was pinned to her by something “I was about to-”
The room was filled with a blinding white light, and a loud boom sounded. Suddenly, Janie felt herself tossed around again, and free of the weight of Cyrus.
“It’s the only way I can get the power source to work.” Answered Cyrus.
Janie frowned, then hunched over and began to untangle the mess of wires on the battery terminal. It would be easy to start sabotaging the ship again, especially since they now had her working on fixing the ship’s power issues, but Janie felt bad. Especially now, as the guys were splitting a pizza and celebrating their good fortune.
“Take a break and have some pizza.” Sean said “There’s a plain cheese for you.”
“Thanks. I need to finish this first.” She said, coldly.
“It’s a time machine, can’t you just go back-” began Sean
“No!” snapped Janie “I can’t mess with my own timeline, and if I do, it will create an alternate timeline and I’ve got plenty of those, thank you.”
“I’ve messed with your timeline.” Admitted Cyrus.
Janie glared at him and threw down the coil of solder, and jumped out of her seat, ready to yell.
“Sit down and fix my battery terminal.” Cyrus ordered, before taking a sip of his drink.
“Or what? You’ll bore me to death?”
“No. I’ll cuff you to the seat.”
She sat back down, and picked up the solder, not wanting him to cuff her again. She knew that she could get out of them, but that wasn’t the point. Janie had never seen this side of him before and wondered just how far he would go.
“You’ve already got me in this dress. I can’t run in it, or do anything other than sit around and look pretty.”
“If you’re part of this team, then you have to fit our image.”
“What image? This isn’t a movie. It’s not a game. This is life.”
“You signed up for this!”
“Cyrus. You had a weapon and my daughter was in the room. I would have done anything that you wanted.”
“Fix the battery terminal!” He shouted, storming out of the room.
Janie’s hand shook, and she pushed aside her work until she could calm down.
# # #
“He’s never going to credit you if you keep pissing him off.” Sean complained
“What makes you think you’re going to get any credit?” Asked Janie, not looking away from the wires in front of her “He’s not playing fair.”
“He’s in charge.” Sean set his jaw after he spoke and narrowed his eyes
“Why? You and Jake are smarter than he is. You two did more of the work.” Janie noticed that Sean was upset, and decided to see how far she could push it.
“It’s his ship.”
“He paid for it, and it’s his idea. Wouldn’t that make it belong to his parents? It’s his Dad’s money and his Mom was the one who gave him the idea.”
“How did you know that, about his Mom?”
“I’m not sure. There are a lot of holes in my memory, and a lot of things that don’t make sense about my life.” Janie thought for a moment, and then tried to untangle a pile of wires. She was still upset, and knew that she’d mess up if she tried to solder. “It’s not important.”
“We’re all going to see our families again. It’s part of the plan.”
“He’s never been good at following plans, Sean.” Janie said, realizing that she was done with the improved terminal, and that the pile of wires was nothing more than scrap. She decided to pretend to work on it, just to look busy. “I think you made a mistake in teaming up with him for this, no matter how long you all have been friends.”
“What would you do differently?” He asked, after thinking things over.
“After fixing the ship? I’d go home and work on a real discovery, something that can actually help people. Discovering time travel is only going to ruin things. You guys have already changed a lot that shouldn’t have been changed.”
“Hey, I didn’t change anything.”
“You helped him. You let him.” Janie accused
“I didn’t!”
“She’s never going to believe us.” Said Jake, who had been silently listening.
“Prove it to me. Otherwise you guys have just been lying to me. Are we even friends?”
“We’re friends, Janie.” Jake said “And I really like Nina...”
“Nina is her own person. Apologizing to me isn’t going to change her opinion of you.”
“I know that.” Jake said, defensively “I have to talk to her about the plan.”
“Why is this plan so important?”
“It’s our life’s work.” Jake answered “It will change history.”
“You’ve already changed history.”
“Nothing terrible”
“The next time you don’t agree with one of Cyrus’ plans, why don’t you tell him instead of following him like a blind parrot? The ‘nothing terrible’ that you’re claiming is wrong, and you know it. So stand up for what you think is right.”
# # #
“Jake, Sean, I need your help.” Janie said, after leaving the two guys alone for a few minutes, having a slice of pizza and thinking over the situation. “We’re going home. This trip... it’s too dangerous. We’ll just have to make the best of things there and try to get him to split the lottery money.”
“The lottery money is taken care of.” Jake said, offhand “We invested it in the past, in offshore accounts.”
“You what?” Janie asked, shocked “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“We made sure that we used cash from before 1929.” Sean explained, helpfully “That way we weren’t disrupting the financial system.”
“Jake, take over the navigation console. Central Park is the easiest place to land this. Our origin is -1, 0, 0, 3.” Janie decided to try ordering the two around. The worst that would happen is that they wouldn’t listen to her. She was fairly sure they wouldn’t tell Cyrus. Not today, anyway.
“Are you sure?” Asked Sean, looking over Jake’s shoulder.
“-1, 0, 0, 3. Secondary origin is 0,0,0,0. Enter the coordinates for Central park as the destination but don’t start the journey. Sean, I need you to enter this list of destinations in the GPS. Once you’re done, then Jake can navigate.”
“Cyrus wrote a program-” Sean began, going quiet when Janie handed him a sheet of paper filled with numbers and symbols.
“And you see where that got us. They need to be done separately. I could use him to put up the shields while I use the cloaking device, but I can make do without him.” Janie watched as the Jake and Sean began working, and then shielded the closets. Then, realizing that the battery was going to be drained quickly, she started to shut down unnecessary systems.
“What are you doing?” Asked Sean, as the video game system turned off, and the lights began to flicker.
“Conserving power.”
“We didn’t save.” Sean grumbled “That’s three week’s worth of play, gone.”
“It’s not my fault you were stupid.” She said, as some of the lights switched off. “How are you on those coordinates?”
“Where is this going to land us in the park?” Jake asked “We have to be careful.”
“Oh, now you want to be careful? You stole alien technology, broke the laws of Physics and ignored five different interplanetary laws regarding time and space travel. The time for being careful is done. Also? You both LIED to me. You let Cyrus get away with terrible things.”
“I had no idea it was alien.” Jake said “Really? Are you alien?”
“This is not the time.” Janie sighed and turned off more lights. She wasn’t sure why Cyrus had the place lit up like Vegas, but she was glad to turn some of the lights off. “Your ‘costume’ ideas are really terrible too. I can’t do anything in this ridiculous dress.”
“I think she’s human.” Sean said, quietly. “Cyrus saw her boobs-”
“I’m right here.” Janie said
“He saw your boobs, and-.”
“This is not the time to talk about my boobs!” She exclaimed “Do what I told you to!”
“They’re nice boobs.” Janie said, under his breath
“I heard that, and aren’t you supposed to have the hots for Nina?”
“Sorry.” Grumbled Jake
“Concentrate on the tasks I gave you.” Janie ordered, as Sean began to snicker. “We’re all adults. Stop laughing over something so stupid!”
# # #
“We’re losing power!” Cyrus said, rushing in, moments later. “Increase the battery power, guys and we’ll have to drop some weight. Bali is out until we figure out what’s causing the problems.”
“I’m shutting down unnecessary systems.” Janie calmly explained, as she glanced at a screen “Can you put up the shields while I work on the cloaking device? You didn’t have one installed so I have to work from scratch.”
“What?” He asked, watching as his two friends worked.
“Use that terminal, and- don’t you know your own programming? I can’t do both at once and we’re running out of time.”
“Janie, what are you talking about?”
“I’ve taken over, Cyrus. We’re going home.”
“No! This is my ship, my team. This whole adventure was MY idea.”
“Okay, and it’s my idea that we get home before you destroy the universe. Now, get to work. If you don’t want to program, go to my room and get my work uniform. I can barely breathe in this stupid dress.”
“You look hot.”
“What is it with you guys? Now is not the time for looks! We need to get out of here and NOW. Jake? If Sean is done with his part, you need to run that program this second. Sean, after he runs it, watch the screen and make sure none of the numbers change. If they do you have to fix them or we’ll land somewhere unexpected.”
“Stop bossing around my friends.” Cyrus ordered “And get away- what did you do to my workstation?”
“I cleaned it.” Jane put her hands on her hips, and looked up at Cyrus “It was disgusting. Don’t eat at your workstation.”
“You cleaned? You have not lifted a finger to do ANYTHING the entire time you’ve been on this ship and suddenly you decide it’s time to be a homemaker?”
“This is not a home, and I am not your maid. You want someone to clean, you hire them for it.”
“You’re my girlfriend. You’re supposed to cook and clean for me.”
“This is not 1950! Cook and clean for yourself!”
“Um, guys.” Said Sean
“Why do you always have to argue with me?” shouted Cyrus “I’ve been wonderful to you.”
“You’ve been a controlling nightmare! You basically stalked me! And why did you tell them about our sex life?”
“He said he saw your boobs.” Clarified Jake “We didn’t get too many details-” he stopped when he glanced at his screen “Janie.”
“You gave them details?” Asked Janie, who was so angry that she didn’t notice the lights flickering.
“We’re guys. We talk.”
“That was private! How could you?”
“Um... Is the screen supposed to do this?” Asked Jake, trying to talk over the sound of Janie and Cyrus shouting.
“It’s crashing.” Sean said “I can’t fix these numbers.”
“Get over it, Janie!” Shouted Cyrus, just as the room began to shake.
Janie looked at Cyrus, panicked, then the room was completely dark.
# # #
“Janie!” yelled Cyrus, as sparks began to fly from poorly attached wires. The ship was now on its side and the inside was only lit by occasional sparks and the electric blue glow of Sean’s watch. “Where are you?”
“Is everyone okay?” She asked, sounding like she was far away “We need to get out of here.”
“I’m fine!” Jake shouted “Sean’s over here too!”
“We can see his watch.” Cyrus said, almost laughing in relief. “Janie, you suck at navigating.”
“That’s not why we’re lost.” She said, still sounding far away. It took several moments and a few crashing sounds before she was closer to the three guys. “We need to get out of this ship, now.”
“Calm down.” Cyrus said “We’re too important for this to be anything other than a crash.”
As soon as he spoke, something hit the side of the ship, and it began to roll. The four inside were tossed around like dolls, with Cyrus landing on Janie, Jake getting pinned under a bit of equipment, and Sean landing on a closet door.
“If you can still move, we need to go.” Janie said, once more.
“What’s happening?” Cyrus asked, when no one answered for several seconds
“Get off of me.”
“Janie... I’m sorry.”
“You’re lying on top of me in a crashed time machine.” She said, carefully “You almost destroyed me and my daughter, you kidnapped me and you have been using me for the entire time we’ve known each other. Get off of me.”
“I didn’t want to destroy anyone.” Cyrus said, hoping that Janie could tell that he was looking at her “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. We were going to get a happily ever after and live our dreams.”
“You never asked my dreams; all you did was tell me what you wanted.” Janie said, wondering how hard she’d have to push to get him off of her “And what I wanted was someone normal and mundane.”
“Janie, you aren’t dull and-”
“I’m a cashier, Cyrus. I’ve worked at that job since Lynn was five, and I’ll work at it for at least another six years.”
“You can be so much more. You’ve got potential. Together? We’re unstoppable.”
“I don’t want to be more, Cyrus. I just want to be a normal woman with a normal family.”
“Before all of this happened, I wanted to ask you something Janie. Families aren’t always normal, or amazing. But they do have love, and I’m in love with you. If you love me-”
“I have a family.” Janie said, not realizing what Cyrus was trying to do. “Lynn’s father and-”
“Why did you bring him up now?” Asked Cyrus, wanting to get off of Janie, and realizing that he was pinned to her by something “I was about to-”
The room was filled with a blinding white light, and a loud boom sounded. Suddenly, Janie felt herself tossed around again, and free of the weight of Cyrus.