Chapter 3: Back to the Future

A by product of time travel that no one knew about was the momentary blindness and nausea brought on from the rapid assault to your senses immediately after travel. But for some reason only on your return.

When he re-materialized in the time travel chamber, Tim Murphy needed to shield his eyes from the suddenly ultra bright lights. He also needed to make a concerted effort to control his nausea.

Nausea controlled and his sensitivity to light diminishing, Tim decided it was time to see how the younger him had reprogrammed their body. He looked down at himself and saw no change whatsoever.

His confusion was understandable. He had believed that if he went back in time to change his future, then he should have become the future result when he re-materialized from his trip.

While his eyes readjusted, his confusion deepened. The two scientists who helped him go back in time were both frantically working on the computers used to control the time portal. They looked to be yelling at either each other. With his equilibrium finally achieved, Tim moved to the exit but the door was still locked. He touched the hand ID pad, and the computer failed to recognize him. He typed in the override combination to unlock the door, and that worked.

With a pressurized ‘whoosh’ the door opened, and the screaming amplified. It was mainly aimed at him. “Get the fuck down on the floor before we have to shoot you,” screamed one scientist who was preparing to swing a baseball bat while the other screamed “How did you get in there! Who the hell are you?!”

Tim’s vision was still blurry but he could see these were not the same scientists who helped him take his trip. In fact, he didn’t recognize these two scientists at all, and he personally knew each person allowed in the lab. So, rather than debating with the obviously over-excited scientists, he dropped to the floor and spread his arms and feet out as they demanded.

Once on the floor, an outer door opened and a face he had not seen in many years burst in and took over handcuffing him and searching for identification or weapons.

The security guard had subdued Tim and was now trying to figure out just what had happened.

“We were going over last minute checks for next week’s initial trial of the new machine when all of a sudden the return horn sounded, the embarkation room sealed itself, and then he appeared.” the younger of the two scientists said while gesturing to the handcuffed unknown on the floor.

“No, tell me exactly what happened,” the guard asked.

“That IS what happened George,” the senior scientist exclaimed. “We did not even have the power cells connected to the room yet since we only had authorization for one run during next week’s test when the committee gets here.”

George Johnson, the man who had recruited and trained Tim to be security for the underground labs at Ft. Sam Houston, was now glaring down at the obese man dressed in a copy of the uniform he was wearing.

“Who the fuck are you?” His shotgun was still trained on Tim.

“What do you mean, George ... it’s me Tim. You know Tim Murphy. The guy you hired and trained to be the guard for this place over fifteen years ago.”

The confused face syndrome seemed to be spreading. It was now present on all four faces in the most secured and secret room in the secured and secret laboratory. The lab spread out underneath a Texas Army National Guard Armory, a defunct helipad for Ft. Sam Houston and the newly relocated Brooke Army Medical Center. BAMC is the flagship for medical training for the U.S. Army.

“I have no idea who the hell you are, or how the hell you know my name, but we are going to find the answers,” the conversations came to an abrupt end with that statement from the guard. “To the holding cell with you until we figure out what in the hell is going on here.”

When the younger scientist and the older guard moved to get a handcuffed Tim off the floor it was the first time Tim Murphy actually realized he was still nearly 400 pounds and he felt no differently than when he had left to visit himself in the past.

‘What the hell is going on? I had Terry and Jordan helping run the equipment when I went back in time, then I come back and here are two guys I don’t know and George is still alive and still the guard of the lab, ‘ Tim thought. ‘What the fuck went wrong?’

The walk to the holding cell was not difficult, since everyone knew the way. That fact did not go unnoticed by George the guard.

‘This guy is an easy 400 pounds but he moves like he has been trained in martial arts, I’ll keep the cuffs on him ... wait a second he knows where we are going. Who the fuck is this guy?’ George thought to himself as he followed a few steps behind the prisoner, and Mike Jensen, the younger scientist on duty tonight. ‘He really seemed to know me but I’ve never seen this guy in my life. A guy his size I would remember.’

After securing Tim in the holding cell, George began the process of following a procedure they had only trained for but never had to use in a real life situation.

“Okay, I’ll notify Washington on what happened, and what we think happened. You go back and make sure everything is powered down. Just in case someone else appears, or maybe might be trying to gain control of the machine.”

It had become second nature for the workers in the lab to call the time travel machine just ‘the machine.’ It was a simple way to keep from accidentally acknowledging the existence of such a device when of course, it didn’t exist.

Mike Jensen, the young scientist, agreed with a nod and turned to leave when George stopped him with a request.

“You know what ... make sure you guys just power everything down. Don’t go trying to figure out what happened, we have teams for that sort of thing. You two just turn everything off and we’ll start the security protocols for when the response team arrives.”

After another nod, George was left alone in the anteroom outside the holding cell. He ran his fingers through his hair, gave a hard exhale, and glanced at the secured door. Then he went back to the security office across the hall from the holding cell.

Tim, now alone in the cell, knew there were cameras in the cell and that George would turn them on as soon as he got to his office. So, in the thirty seconds or so after being placed in the holding cell and George going across the hall to his office, Tim needed to get out of the handcuffs. Luckily they were not normal metal handcuffs but actually were plasticuffs. They’re easier for law enforcement to carry and use; but, if you know what you are doing, they’re also easy to escape. Tim knew how to get out of them. Once they were off, he kept his hands behind his back, to give the impression he was still bound by the cuffs.

Tim’s mind was running a mile a minute, trying to figure out what had happened. The trip went exactly as he had planned. His past self was right where he remembered, and it looked like he was convinced of the truth. He knew deep inside if put into that position he would definitely take advantage of the pill to improve his life. So what went wrong?

‘Let’s see ... the trip went perfectly. No one else saw me back there at the creek and he listened to everything I had to say and took it all with a grain of salt. I know he took the pill. So why am I now still the same as before. Why are there new scientists working here rather than the guys I knew? Why is George still alive?

‘Wait a second, the older scientist said they were going to start their first test for the committee next week. That means they are actually about ... lemme think ... ummm, about a year and a half or maybe two years behind where we were when I left. Why are they behind?’ Tim’s love for all things science fiction forced it’s way to the front of his mind and he thought, ‘Did I come back to the wrong timeline?’

That thought stopped Tim dead cold.

‘The hand pad to open the door did not work when I put my hand on it. That must mean my hand print is not in the system. But the override code did work and the door opened. I wonder if any of me is in the system?’

Tim was alone with his thoughts and was slowly working through what could have possibly happened.

George Johnson was in the security office and the hidden camera feed from the holding cell showed on the giant TV screen hung from the wall.

‘Who the fuck is this guy? He seemed like he knew me but he did not know either of the other two. He actually seemed surprised to see me. Was it cause he was caught where he shouldn’t be or something else?’

George was also trying to piece together what had just happened in the time travel embarkation room.

“Wait a second, I think he just got out of the cuffs.” George Johnson, rather than going back into the holding cell and investigating if the prisoner had in fact slipped out of his cuffs, he typed a few instructions into the security computer and watched the security feed.

“Maybe this is some sort of alternative reality that I’m not familiar with and in this reality, I never took a job at the armory which means I must have,” before finishing that thought Tim heard a pressurization sound similar to when the door opened and he then noticed a lightly green colored cloud of mist pouring in from the vents in the top of the holding cell. Tim knew George must have figured he slipped his cuffs and decided to just use a knockout agent to keep the prisoner asleep until the bosses arrived to decide what they wanted to do with him.

Tim knew trying to hold his breath would be useless. The only thing he could do was spread out on the floor in as much of a comfortable position as he could find, before he fell unconscious. The act of keeping his hands behind his back was no longer necessary so he put his hands under his head like he was going sleep and used his arms as a pillow. He did not have to wait very long to fall asleep.

‘He knew what was going to happen. He also knew there was nothing he could do about it so he just got comfortable. Most try holding their breath then fall in awkward positions, sometimes even injuring themselves, ‘ George thought.

After a few minutes of monitoring the now sleeping prisoner, George called his superiors to inform them of what had happened.

“No sir, I’ve never seen him before in my life. Doctors Jensen and Thompson have also said they do not know who he is. They told me they were working on the coolant systems for the machine, when the return klaxon alerted them. The embarkation room door closed, and sealed itself. They were both on the other side of the room and neither one was actually on a computer at the time.”

George waited for his superior to finish asking his question. “Yes sir, their side of what happened is corroborated by the security footage of the lab. The security cameras were activated when they swiped themselves into the lab with their hand print identification. And yes sir, they followed procedure by individually logging themselves into the room rather than riding a swipe of someone else. As you know sir, these scientists sometimes forget to follow the proper security procedures but these two guys are normally good about. Today these guys did everything perfectly.”

Another round of questions from another supervisor had George describing what happened from his point of view.

“Yes sir, I was in the security office going over the procedures for next weeks’ visits when the klaxon sounded. A few seconds after that, I got the security call from Dr. Mike Thompson saying we had an intruder. I grabbed the closest set of plasticuffs and a shotgun from the rack next to the door. I ran to the embarkation room. Dr. Thompson and Dr. Jensen had the intruder getting in a face down position. I had the shotgun pointed at him and cuffed him. Then Dr. Jensen and I escorted him to the holding cell.”

“One thing of interest I did notice sir was that while we were escorting him to the holding cell, neither myself nor Dr. Jensen needed to tell him where to go. It was like he knew where the holding cell was and walked straight there.”

“Finally, sir, while he was in the cell, I had a hunch he had slipped out of the handcuffs because he seemed to be holding his hands further apart from each other but still behind his back like he was faking it. So I gassed him, and when the vents closed and gas began to pipe into the holding cell he gave up on the charade of keeping his hands behind his back and just got himself as comfortable as he could even using his now free arms as a pillow.”

“Yes, sir, we are now on lock down. We are awaiting the travel team to come and pick up the prisoner.” After a brief pause to listen to the other end of the call, George answered “Yes, sir, it has been an interesting evening ... but all the same, I would have rather caught the Spurs game.”