The Time Traveler Adventures

EPISODE 9 - PARADOX

During the walk back to the apartment, I felt elated. Doctor Mike was going to solve all our problems and it looked like the future was bright and rosy! It appeared as if we would save mankind and we didn’t have to kill anyone to do it!

I looked at my future self and it seemed as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Where he’d had this defeated look about him, he now looked almost contented. And he smiled for the first time since I met him.

Once back in the apartment, were immediately faced with another problem. Doctor Mike had wanted to see Anna Marie tomorrow after his class but Anna Marie and Emily were two days in the future. I suppose I could call Mike and tell him we could do the tests the day after tomorrow and wait until we “caught” up to my family. Or we could activate the Time Machine and go and get them.

Suddenly, I was worried again. Several discouraging thoughts crept into my mind. I looked at future Henry and shook my head. “How do we know we haven’t changed the timeline? How do we know we will catch up to Emily and Anna Marie if we just wait? Terminators or not, I am in favor of activating the Time Machine and going to get my family!

“Henry,” he said, almost collapsing into my…his…favorite chair. “If we have changed timelines and Emily and Anna Marie are gone from our future, then even with the Time Machine you couldn’t get them!”

I was so angry I almost burst! “Then why did you take them?” I shouted angrily at him. “What was so important you couldn’t leave them here?” That expression of defeat came back to my future self and he lowered his face into his hands.

Making up my mind, I pulled the main time circuit from my pocket and walked into the back room. I was not going to allow my family to get away from me. Despite the robot terminator’s ability to ‘home’ in on the Time Machine, I was going to go two days into the future, get them and bring them back. We would keep the appointment with Doctor Mike and save mankind. Then, I would send my future self back to where he belongs and finally, I would destroy the Time Machine! Then I would live happily ever after with my wife and daughter!

As I was working on replacing the time circuit in the control panel, future Henry came into the backroom and nodded his understanding. He walked over to the Time Machine and handed me his pistol. “It’s fully loaded. Get them and bring them back here so we can put this behind us!”

I nodded and slipped the pistol into my pocket. I had the circuit in the machine but it wasn’t activated. To activate it was to send out a signal to the terminators so, instead, I set the time coordinates for two days in the future. I would activate the circuit, energize the machine and slip into the future all in one motion. Once there, I would instantly deactivate the circuit until I was ready to return.

My future self forced a smile and he stepped back. I hit the switch to activate the circuit and then set the Time Machine in motion. The kaleidoscope of whirling lights hit my eyeballs and I had to blink. The Machine lurched and pulled me out of the moment and threw me into the future. Within one heartbeat, I was back in my backroom. I instantly deactivated the time circuit and slipped the pistol out of my pocket. I sat there for a few moments to see if I had been followed by a terminator robot.

Seconds became minutes and nothing happened so I pocketed the pistol and got out of the Time Machine. Walking into the front room, I called out Emily’s name. Then she was there, in my arms, kissing me and holding me close. She had heard the time machine activate but had been afraid to come out. She still thought my future self had gone insane.

I looked for Anna Marie and saw her in her playpen. I went over and picked up my daughter, hugging her tightly. I looked back at Emily and smiled. “Let’s sit down for a moment and talk. You need to know what has been going on. Future Henry really has not gone insane! Instead, he…I…have created a problem that we need to fix.”

The conversation went about as expected. Emily seemed to understand what was happening, but at the mention of Anna Marie and the role she is to play in the future of mankind, Emily reached over and took her from me. For the rest of the conversation, she protectively held Anna Marie and I pitied any terminator who tried to get her away from Emily!

“So now,” I concluded, “we have to go back to the past and keep that appointment with Dr Mike. If he can synthesize a formula to give to Anna Marie and suppress this intelligence gene, then this problem will all be over and we can get on with our lives.”

“I have a question about time, Henry,” Emily said. She stood up and handed Anna Marie to me. She turned and walked out the kitchen into the front room. She was back in just a moment and laid two identical phones on the table in front of me.

“When you took me from the past….I mean when your future self took me from the past and put me here two days in the future, I had my cell phone with me.” She pointed to the phone on the right. “Now that I’m here, I find a second phone…an identical phone sitting in its usual place by my purse.”

I nodded and looked at her questioningly. “Don’t you get it?” she asked, raising her eyebrow. I knew that look. It was her ‘I can’t believe you did that’ look or her ‘how naïve are you’ look.

“Two phones Henry! They are the same phone but there are TWO of them! They are identical! Now, how can that be Henry?” How can the same thing exist twice?”

I guess I deserved that ‘how dumb are you look’ because I didn’t have an answer to her question. There were two phones. I bet if I looked in my closet, I might just find the clothes I was wearing to be there also. There were two Henrys! There was quite a bit of difference in age but we were the same person. I really never thought about the paradox of the same object existing twice in the same place and time. It really opened up a whole new train of thought for me.

But, first things first. We had to get back to the past, avoid all the terminators sent to kill us, find a cure for Anna Marie and save mankind. Then I could think about this paradox that Emily asked me about.

I stood up. “We need to go, Emily”, I told her and she nodded.

“Henry,” she said. “There is something I want to take back with me to the past because if two phones can exist at the same time, I want two of these!” Without another word, she turned and walked out of the kitchen.

I wondered what it was my wife wanted two of? What was so important that she needed a duplicate? What? Carrying Anna Marie, I walked to the back room to get the Time Machine ready. It was a minute before Emily came back. She was holding a……?

A golden coin worth a LOT of money

"...as I looked in Emily's hand, there lay the red and black plush box that held the priceless and one a of kind triple pear shaped sapphire earrings given to her by her late grandmother to wear at our wedding. Emily had lost one during the reception and was inconsolable. I squeezed her hand over the box and told her "I couldn't think of anything better to have 2 of. Let's go" She brushed away her tears, took Anna Marie in her arms, and stepped into the time machine with me."

When Emily walked into the backroom, she had the family photo album in her hand. "These pictures are priceless, Henry," she said. "They are all I have remaining of my family! If anything should ever happen to this album, it would kill me!" I smiled and hugged her. "Let's go" I said. We have work to do!"

Emily came back into the kitchen, carrying a book. A book? "Honey, why would you want 2 books just alike?" "Henry, you know I belong to that Book Club, and had gotten my latest selection a couple of weeks ago, and how much I liked it. Today, while Anna Marie was napping, I looked at the books in the bookcase, just hoping to find something I hadn't read. This one was on the very end, I picked it up remembering how we had laughed because the characters had our names. Henry, it's the same title, the same authors, the same cover, but...it's different inside! I opened it to the first chapter, and the one I had read began in the 1850's...this one begins in the present time! I didn't have time to read any farther because Anna Marie woke up, so I want to take this back with me to see if I'm dreaming or confused or what!"

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