Chapter 17: June 23, 2012

Tyrone barely looked up when the door to his lab opened; he knew it was Megan.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked, practically out of breath. She looked good, if harried, in a yellow shirt and blue jean shorts. “Rory’s watching the kids.” She took in a deep breath. “The quiet is nice.”

“I have a prototype,” he said, looking up at her over his desk. “An Anchor that can keep you steady in the seas of time.”

There was a long silence as Megan looked at him before finally saying, “Really?”

He nodded, and set it on the desk between them. It was a small black box—similar in size and shape to a larger square watch—with a black band he’d cobbled connectors for. “It’s not much, but ... maybe we can make it work.”

She began to reach for it, then paused. “Is it ... safe? How does it work? Charge? Everything?”

“Go ahead and put it on,” he suggested with a gesture. “Though it’s not fully tested yet. That’s what we need to go do today—preferably somewhere not quite so close to the epicenter—so don’t turn it on yet.”

She took it and strapped it on her wrist. “Heavy,” she replied, then looked at it. “Reminds me of a smart watch, like I’ve seen in the future.”

“I had to scavenge some smartphone parts,” he admitted, “Though the battery’s the harder part. You’ll need to keep it charged, and I’m not yet entirely sure how best to do that.”

“How long will I have between charges?”

“Eight or ten hours, I think. You’ve said you’ve never gotten unstuck while sleeping, right?”

“If I did, I got back before waking up,” she said with a laugh and a shrug. “Don’t ask me how that works.”

“My wife could probably explain it better, but it probably has to do with the time mites going dormant or something like that,” he suggested before pushing himself out of his chair. “But speaking of going testing, why don’t you and I take a walk?”

She nodded, brushing some of her hair back, looking very different from the scared college student he’d seen her as before—but very similar to the woman who’d first invoked the Sphere Protocol with him. “Whatever you say, Doctor Williams.” He’d long since gotten past correcting her on the term, finding it interesting to observe when she called him that as opposed to Tyrone.

In short order they were walking on the sidewalks of campus, heading to a nearby shopping area.

“How is your wife, by the way?” Megan asked. “I’ve been so busy now that Xavier’s done with kindergarten, if you can believe it. He’s quite the little man these days.”

“She’s doing well. Adella keeps her tired, too, but she’ll be able to start teaching again in the fall, thanks to campus day care. Personally, I think she’s missed being in the lab and in the classroom.”

“I can imagine!” They walked a few more paces before Megan wondered, “Has she made any more progress on the time mite analysis?”

Tyrone grimaced. “Well, I think she’s fully confirmed that they’re sexually transmitted.” That was an awkward thing, getting the necessary fluids to check for them. “So aside from the inherent ontological paradox of it, I think we can safely assume that you and Rory gave them to each other.” He paused, the problem still bothering him. “I struggle with the ontological paradoxes for ideas,” he admitted. “Even with a dynamic tau, I can’t actually account for them. Yes, time travel is weird, but it follows rules.”

“And ontological paradoxes break the rules as far as you can tell,” Megan completed. “Yes, I know. I can’t explain it either.”

“But there shouldn’t be ontological paradoxes with things, Megan. That doesn’t even make sense!”

“You’re the physicist,” she said with a shrug.

He was, but there was something too nonchalant about the way she treated the paradoxes—and the Pivots.

Like how she had outright lied to him years earlier about what the Pivots even were. Four instead of three. Ignoring the one in 2006, and inventing two more. Why was she so coy?

They were quiet as they walked, transitioning off of campus and soon reaching the shopping area. People were hustling and bustling about the stores and restaurants, as befit a day in mid-June when the weather had a short cooler spell.

“Alright,” Megan said as they reached a corner, stepping to the side to look down at the device on her wrist. “So, how does this work?”

Tyrone reached over to show her. “This here is the power button, so let’s go ahead and do that...”

The LED in the corner of the box turned on, flashing green for a few seconds, then going solid. “So, it’s on?” she wondered.

“Yep. So now in theory, you should be—”

A sudden sense of disorientation came over him, and he doubled over. It wasn’t ... nausea. Not quite. But something similar. And just as soon, it had passed.

And it was hot. Like it had jumped twenty degrees outside.

He looked up at Megan, who was looking at him, a concerned expression on her face. “Well, fuck,” she muttered.

“What?” he asked.

“You get used to it after a while,” she replied, then looked up and around, like she was getting her bearings.

Tyrone did the same, and at first he didn’t understand, but then—

He realized it was... different. The buildings were all roughly the same, but the decor had changed. Some of them were different, and he noticed one being open that had closed when he had just started graduate school. People still milled about, but there were significantly fewer of them—and the fashion was... different.

He could barely believe it. He had traveled through time.

“So, step one is to figure out when we are,” Megan said softly. “It’s hot, so summer. Fashion looks to be ... I don’t know. I don’t recognize most of these restaurants and stores.”

That’s when Tyrone noticed one other detail: the daily-newspaper dispenser at the corner was no longer rusted and empty. It was full, just like when he was a kid. He walked over and looked; Megan followed. “August 29, 1995,” he said, feeling his mouth go dry.

She’d never reported going back so far.

The shock was evident on her face, as well; she had gotten significantly more pale, and her eyes were rolled up into her skull as she thought. “Fuck,” she whispered.

Meanwhile, Tyrone scratched his chin. How had that even happened? He had made sure to keep the polarities—

Oh.

He’d meant to hook the red wire up to the MCB, but must have forgotten that last step. Instead of dampening a chroniton flux, he had enhanced it.

At least it was an easy fix, when they got back.

“So,” he said, “This can bring us to the next function, which is getting us back quickly. If you press this button here—”

“No,” she said firmly, focusing her eyes on him again. “We can’t go back yet. There’s ... something you need to do.”

He paused, thinking. It came to him after a few moments. “The letter from a stranger, that you told me about when the Accident happened.”

“The letter from you,” she corrected. “Thankfully, we don’t have to stay long, because it is really hot right now.” She started digging around in her pocket, and then pulled out a small, folded bill. She unfolded it; twenty dollars.

“What if they check the date?” he wondered.

She held it up. “I’ve been holding on to this since 1995,” she replied. “When I received a letter telling me to do that very thing, and to start carrying it around with me all the time in June 2012.” She smirked. “Message from my future.” She glanced around, then pointed at a nearby store. “It should be enough to get some stamps, an envelope, and some paper and a pen. All the things we need to send the letter.”

Tyrone nodded, thinking. He’d never really made the connection before—though he should have—but in 1995, he had also received a letter. He’d wondered how that could have happened—or when he needed to tell Megan about it—but suddenly it clicked into place.

He had an inkling of what Megan went through, bouncing through time, having strange things happening and then later learning why.

“Alright,” he said. “Why don’t you go buy the right thing and—”

“No,” she replied, shoving the bill at him. “Remember when we bought the calendars last year—uh, years ago for you, I guess? You have to pick, even though I know what it’s going to be.”

“But you buy things for your house, obviously knowing what they’re going to be in the future,” he pointed out.

It made her pause, almost like he had caught her out in something. “That ... that’s different,” she replied, her breath a whisper. “Those aren’t Pivots—far from it. This might as well be.” She wheeled on him, raising her voice. “I don’t think you appreciate how crucial this moment is.”

“As I recall, you listed it as a Pivot when you enumerated them during the Accident. But I couldn’t find any trace of that in the data. Why the difference, Megan?” He couldn’t help but raise his voice.

She looked wounded, her mouth a thin line as she seemed to search for the words. Before she said anything, a police car coming down the street slid into a parking space twenty feet from them. Tyrone hesitated.

Megan glanced over at it, and nodded. She put out an elbow, obviously for him to take. “Sorry. Let’s go into the store and discuss there.”

“Agreed,” he replied, taking her arm. He didn’t like the idea of pretending to be her beau—they both had spouses back home—but figured the appearance was more important.

The two of them walked into the store; he noticed the dirty look from the cashier, but said nothing. They broke arms once they reached the aisle with all of the things.