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After climbing about a billion stairs, Jeffery, Brady, and I stood on the top of the ancient pyramid, high above the jungle floor. I fought the urge to sink to my knees from fatigue. The last few days had been tough. Jeffery motioned toward the center of the structure and very solemnly said, “A plateau is a high form of flattery.”
“More of Franz’s teachings, no doubt,” Brady commented.
“No doubt,” I agreed, out of breath.
We approached the center. An odd feeling swept over my body. It seemed as if my movements were suddenly greatly exaggerated. Brady appeared to be alternating between moving in slow motion and faster than I could follow. The closer I moved to the pyramid’s center, the more exaggerated the effect became. I tried to call out to Brady, but the words came out sounding like gibberish. I could see him trying to tell me something but I couldn’t make out what.
Jeffery didn’t seem to notice the effect the pyramid was having on us. Either he was not similarly affected or he had grown used to the feeling from his repeated and prolonged exposure.
I arrived at the middle of the structure. I could see that a square hole opened in the floor a few steps away. Multi-colored lights shifted and flickered from within.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Brady moved to the edge and looked down. He turned, eyes wide with shock. “The Eye of the gods” was a time portal, a rift in the space-time continuum. Past, present, and future stretched out before us.
Because our parents are physicists Brady and I have spent a great deal of time in their lab. As a result, we have more than a basic understanding of quantum physics. While it would be possible for me to explain the laws governing the possibility of time travel, they would be difficult to understand, it would take too much time (no pun intended), and I don’t have chalk and a blackboard to properly illustrate the complex principals and equations. I can, however, suggest some supplemental sources for your further reading enjoyment.
Let me instead just assure you that time travel is possible and actually happens quite frequently.
Have you ever experienced the feeling of déjà vu? Déjà vu is French for “already seen.” Basically, it’s the feeling that you’ve experienced a new situation previously. That, my friends, is time travel. Our universe is filled with tiny, infinitesimal rips in the fabric of time. When a person comes into contact with one of these rips, most often they jump a few seconds back in time and feel like they have experienced the moment before . . . which they actually have - déjà vu. The jump is usually so quick and so short that most people shrug it off, not giving it a second’s thought (get it?).
It’s nothing to be overly alarmed about. The chances of a person’s body being torn apart during time travel are relatively small. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two documented examples of such occurrences. So calculating the probability based on an index ratio of 3.14, we would need ... lots of chalk and a blackboard. Never mind. The chances are relatively small.
“This is like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Brady yelled. The effects of the vortex seemed to have lessened a bit the closer we got to its center. Sort of like the calm eye at the center of a hurricane.
“Mom and Dad have created several small rifts in the lab before, but nothing stable like this,” I replied. “This is similar to many of the higher end space ships produced today,” I continued. “They employ a modified time vortex technology to enable traveling across the great distances of outer space.”
“Focus, Eli,” Brady scolded.
“Right. Sorry.” As I said, I have considerable experience with alien abductions.
Looking deeper into the void, I could see what appeared to be passages or tunnels snaking away in every conceivable direction. “Look at the corridors, Brady.” I pointed into the vortex.
“Like the drawings,” he said.
“What about the drawings?” I asked, confused. But as I stared, the drawings from Franz’s books and the walls of the pyramid suddenly made perfect sense.
“The drawing was a view of this pyramid from above ... far above,” Brady said.
Mountains ringed the pyramid with the rivers of time coursing in all directions from within. Amazing!
“How could this ancient, un-advanced tribe of people have viewed the vortex from the height necessary to create the drawings?” I asked. “I suppose some type of primitive mirror technology could have been utilized, coupled with balloons made of animal skins and filled with some type of lightweight gas from a nearby volcano,” I continued without waiting for a reply. “Of course for that to work, there would have to be ...”
“Eli!” Brady screamed in my ear. “Focus! You are standing at the edge of probably the greatest discovery of all time and you’re talking about filling animal skins with gas!”
I really can go off on a tangent at times. That’s one of the major differences between Brady and me. He’s always so focused and to the point while I tend to get distracted very easily. But to be fair, how the drawings were made was an extremely interesting mystery and I do love a good mystery. My Mom says my inquisitiveness is one of the things about me that she loves the most.
A hand on my arm brought me out of my head and back to reality. “Sorry,” I said, thinking Brady was trying to get my attention again. I thought I had wandered too close to the edge of the vortex and he was pulling me back. I turned away from the rift to find Jeffrey locked in combat with my brother. Brady had swatted my arm across the hole to get my attention.
“Run, Eli!” Brady yelled. “He’s trying to push me in!”
No way was I going to let that happen. “Blitzkrieg!” I yelled and moved to intervene. Jeffrey was small but wiry. Brady had his hands full trying to hold his position in front of the vortex. “Hold on, Brady!”
I raced around the edge of the opening and prepared to engage the cat man. As I closed on his position, my feet and legs suddenly locked together and I began to fall. I tried desperately to maintain my balance but couldn’t move my legs. A quick glance down at my feet revealed a bolas wrapped around both of my ankles effectively tying them together. Bolas are a primitive throwing weapon that use weights on the ends of cords. They are twirled and thrown at the intended target in order to incapacitate it. In this case, the intended target was me. Without the use of my legs, my momentum carried me helplessly forward and I collided with Brady and Jeffery.
A time distortion wave from the portal caused the world to move in slow motion. My impending fall stretched into what seemed like minutes. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man. He stood much taller than any of the other tribesman I had seen. He stood motionless and watched our struggle. A second bola hung in his right hand. The wind caused his long cloak to flutter around his body. The shadows created by his hood concealed his features within its folds. He casually turned and walked behind a stone block. A flash of light flared behind the block and the man was gone.
The distortion wave passed and time resumed its normal march forward. Jeffery, Brady and I tumbled toward the vortex. Jeffery managed to halt his fall and scrambled back away from the portal. I grabbed desperately for the tribesman’s arms and legs in an attempt to catch myself. He still wore the same infuriating grin on his face. Jeff seemed totally at ease and totally unaffected by the forces emanating from the rift before us. Brady and I fought to find some way to anchor ourselves to the pyramid.
“Try to grab on to the seams of the floor with your fingers,” Brady cried.
I struggled to find any type of handhold but to no avail. “There’s nothing to grab,” I replied. The forces began to pull us into the rift.
Speeding the process along, Jeff continued to push us closer to the void. He danced away from our clutching fingers and watched us teeter on the edge of the hole. The weighted balls of the bolas attached to my legs disappeared over the edge of the hole. With a final effort Jeffery reached out, stupid grin in place, and with a single finger to my forehead, pushed me all the way into the rift. Brady grabbed my hand in
a desperate attempt to keep me from disappearing into the portal. He had neither the strength nor the stability to stop me. Both of us tumbled into the void.
I could see that Jeffery stood above us watching us fall in to time. The world jumbled into a sea of colors around me; blues, yellows, reds, and greens mixed at a frantic pace. I spun and twisted, my body at the mercy of the eons of time. Brady tried to hold on but the forces were too powerful. His grip loosened then broke free.
“Brady!” I screamed. I couldn’t see him. The darkness was closing in around me. Very faintly, I heard Brady yelling my name. “Sorry, Bro,” he said from what sounded very far away.
“Brady!” I yelled again. This time there was no answer. He was gone. No! I thought. How would I get through this without my brother? “Brady!” I screamed. “I’ll find you!”
An intense silver light began to glow around me. The vast space inside the void made pinpointing its source impossible. I could only tell that it emanated from somewhere nearby.
Jeffery’s distorted voice floated down after me as the colors faded and the world began to go black.
“When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.”
Once a pun a time I would have thought that was punny.