The Time Traveler Adventures

EPISODE 8 - DOUBLE HELIX

Breathing heavily from the exertion, I stopped and bent over, trying to catch my breath! My heart was racing and I was light headed but I managed to pull myself together. The wound in my side throbbed but it didn’t seem to be bleeding. Gingerly, I pulled the Motrin out of my pocket and popped a couple more into my mouth. I looked over at my future self and saw him getting to his knees. He seemed to be okay so I looked back at the remains of the robot. We had definitely “deactivated“ it!

“You should have told me that the machines had the ability to travel through time!” I snapped at my future self! Angrily I kicked at the broken enforcer and took a bit of satisfaction as the casing sparked and broke apart, scattering wires and circuits across the floor. Then I saw it. The enforcer’s artificial brain. It was no larger than a baseball. There must still be energy going to it because it glowed with a blue aura. I reached out to touch it but future Henry stayed my hand.

“Don’t” was all he said and he picked up my baseball bat from where I had dropped it on the floor. With one swing, he shattered the enforcer’s ‘brain’. There was flash of light like a flashbulb and then more bluish fluid began to leak out on the floor. The shattered ‘brain’ rolled to it’s side and came to rest against some debris.

“I didn’t know they had time travel ability,” future Henry said, answering my earlier question. He‘d reached down and picked up his pistol. “Except for the time I took Anna Marie into the future to show her what was going to happen, I have not run into an enforcer. This throws a joker into things. If they have come up with the ability to track us through time, we won’t stand a chance.”

I had gotten down on my knees and was looking at the wreckage of the robot. There was something very familiar about a clump of wires which lay exposed on the floor. I followed a wire until it disappeared into the broken robot. I pulled the metal casing apart and there it was. A miniature version of my time machine! I looked up at my future self.

“That explains how it got here without the use of the Time Machine,” future Henry said. “But that means that if this one came back through time, then they can send others. We don’t have much time!”

“How did it find us?” I wanted to know.

“My thoughts would be that it knew where to look for us. I’m sure records still exist about where and when we lived. All they would have to do is access their data base and send the enforcer back in time to stop us.” I half listened to my future self but I still was looking closely at the enforcer’s circuits. I was tracing wires and examining circuit boards when I noticed something strange. I snapped out a circuit and stood up, handing it to my future self.

“No, this is a type of homing device,” I said, looking up at him. “They are homing in on the Time Machine! Wherever our Time Machine is, they can find it!”

“Yes, I see,” future Henry said, breaking the circuit in half and dropping it back on the floor. I took the bat from his hand and beat the tiny Time Machine to dust. At least they could no longer track their enforcer.

“We need to disable the Time Machine” my future self said.

“Can’t we just send it into the future?” I wondered. “Say a week? Then we can figure out a way to fix this problem and when time catchs up to the Machine, we will have it.”

“No”, future Henry said, shaking his head. “Wherever we send the machine, the robots will find it and everyone in that time will be in danger, including our future selves and families. Besides, there is no guarantee that we will ever catch up to the Time Machine. We may do something here, in the past, which sends us to a different time line.”

Future Henry grabbed the cordless screwdriver from the workbench and attacked the Time Machine’s control panel. Within moments, he had the main circuit out of the machine and deactivated. He handed it to me and smiled. “Don’t lose it. We will need it later!”

Settled back in the kitchen, future Henry looked at me. I knew he wanted me to “solve” the problem but I couldn’t think. My mind was still unsettled after having been attacked by a Terminator. Emily and Anna Marie were gone, taken to the future. I was very distracted. But I tried to clear my mind and think.

“Let’s look at what we have,” I said hoping something would come to mind. “You have tried to keep Anna Marie and the Matthias boy apart! They always get together no matter whare you are in the world.” My future self nodded yes. He looked horrible! He looked like he’d aged in the last 10 minutes. He just sat there with his face buried in his hands.

“You have been unable to keep them from getting married and unable to prevent them from having young Henry? Then, you have been unable to talk young Henry out of building this machine. This about cover it?” My future self just nodded again. “So, short of murder, we are unable to effect a change in this timeline, right?” My future self buried his face in his hands again and nodded.

I leaned back in my chair and looked at the ceiling. Then a thought came to me. I sat back up quickly and spread my hands. “Tell me again about the DNA strand that we have. Is there any way to alter it? Is there any way that we could change the DNA in us so Anna Marie will not inherit it? Or….is there anyway that we can change this DNA strand in Anna Marie so she will not pass it on to young Henry? Keeping in mind we do want young Henry to be born but be born normal instead of super smart!”

“I don’t know anything about DNA,” future Henry lamented. “It was never our field of expertise. I only knew one person who may know the answer to but he died in an accident years ago…….” His voice trailed off as he sat up in his chair.

I smiled because I knew who he was talking about! Doctor Michael Thomas! A genetic specialist, who worked right here in the university. Everyone said his ideas were ahead of their time. If anyone would have the answer, it would be Doctor Mike!

Future Henry began to get up and then sat right back down. He banged his fist into the table in frustration. “Darn it! I never thought of him because, by the time I found out about this problem, Doctor Michael was dead. One night, there was a horrible auto accident out on the interstate and he was killed.”

“When did this accident happen?” I wanted to know but future Henry shook his head.

“I don’t remember,” my future self said. “It wasn’t a date that stuck in my memeory. It was just a day I lost a collegue but I think he had been dead about 25 or 30 years. I would think that this accident will take place in the next couple of years!”

“I did see him last week in the cafeteria and I haven’t heard of anybody being killed in an accident so….” I looked at my watch. It was 10:45 AM.  “Doctor Michael has a 8:00 class,” I continued, “which should be letting out any minute. I would suspect he’d be in his office in the next 20 minutes or so.”

By the time we got to the Biology building, Doctor Mike was in his office, grading papers. I walked in and made myself at home in the chair across from his desk. He looked up and raised his eyebrows.

“Henry” he said. “To what do I owe this honor?” Behind me, future Henry had just shut the door to the office and the sound made Doctor Michael look toward him. I saw Doctor Mike’s eyes narrow and then his eyebrows went up again. Putting his marker pen down on the desk, he looked back at me. “The resemblance is uncanny Henry,” he stated. “Your father?”

“Mike,” I said, “hope you are having a terrific day because I’m just about to make it memorable!”

My future self settled himself in another seat across from me and he smiled. “Hello Mike,” he said. “It’s been a long time but you are looking good!”

All in all, I think Doctor Mike took it very well. I’m not sure he totally believed our story. The entire time we were explaining what we wanted, his eyes kept moving back and forth between us. He did have a couple of questions and once he asked to examine the mole both of us had on our neck. It may have been the future crystal recording that convinced him but I think that the similiarities between me and my future self were the convincing elements.

Doctor Michael leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “You are asking me how to suppress a specific strand of DNA. Or perhaps alter it so that it’s characteristics do not pass onto future generations? Short of massive kimo-therapy or high doses of radiation, I think what you ask is impossible. It is an intriguing hypothesis but.........“  He leaned forward in his chair and shuffled a paper or two before looking up.

“Are you familiar with what DNA looks like?” Doctor Mike asked, reaching over and opening a text book. While he was paging through the book he continued, “Do you understand it’s composition? Let’s post some DNA strands here and we’ll have a look!“

I started to stand up and thank Dr Mike for his time and then I noticed he was no longer with us. That’s not to say he’d left the office but he was deep in concentration, tracing DNA strands with his fingers. I watched him pull out a pencil and begin to scribble on the margins of the textbook. I looked at my future self and he shrugged. Dr Mike was mumbling something about pyrimidines or purines and a covalent bond and I guess he realized he tuned out because he looked up and grinned sheepishly. He shook his head and threw his hands out. “Henry, I think you are on the wrong track!” he said, closing his book. “You asked me how I would change a DNA strand to inhibit a particular trait and there is no answer for that…..” He trailed off and looked back and forth between future Henry and myself. “Each strand of DNA is formed by units of phosphate (P) joined with units of deoxyribose (D). These units alternate to make the bases of a strand of DNA. The two side strands are connected by the two bases and that’s where you confused me. You asked me the wrong question!” “Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins,” he continued.” There are about 20 amino acids that establish the character of proteins. Three of those amino acids are phenylalanine, valine and isolencine and Henry your answer is there! You could get the effect your looking for by breaking apart and reassembling the Amino acids! We already have a process which does that!” “What process is that, Mike?” Doctor Thomas stood up and moved to a locked cabinet across the room. He opened it, and reaching inside, he sorted through a number of bottles and jars until he found the ones he wanted. He sat back down in his chair and put three bottles on the desk. “This is your answer,” he stated, pushing the bottles towards me. “This liquid can break down the Amino acids and rearrange them in specific sequences. These bottles contain a general neutralizer and I would have to examine Anna Marie in order to synthesize a precise formula. This formula is too general and there may be unexpected side effects if this was administered as is.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I have time tomorrow after my morning class. Bring Anna Marie by and I will pull some blood and take a tissue culture. I could have a formula within a week or so.”

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