would never have to leave the station.”
The policeman said, “I don’t see what would be wrong with that. I’ll let you.”
Martin said, “Great, I’ll be back later.”
Munich Germany
March 14, 1933
Later
University
Dorsey stood in the center of the operating room in front of the dog, the cat was on an operating table a few feet away, the nurse filled the otherwise white and bright room with a grimacing frown. A necklace hung outside of the white surgical gown Dorsey was wearing; it was a strange arrangement of lines that seemed to bend the mind when one gazed upon it. Sometimes the necklace seemed to reflect blue light off its black surface, although that might be just a trick of the light.
The nurse said, “Let me tuck that into your surgical gown for you doctor.”
Dorsey said, “No, it has to be out for the operation to work.”
The nurse asked, “Doctor?”
Dorsey said, “I don’t have to explain myself to you.” and he started to cut into the dog.
As he worked the nurse asked, “You’re taking the brain of the dog out as well.”
Dorsey said, “Well yes, of course, how else will the cat be able to use the dog’s vocal chords?”
The nurse said, “Oh, um, I see. But the brains of the animals are much different in size.”
Dorsey said, “I think I can make it fit.”
The nurse said, “You don’t think that will hurt the brain?”
Dorsey said, No chance skipper.”
The nurse just stared at Dorsey for a few minutes.
Dorsey said, “I didn’t think about this until now, “He held the cat’s brain in his hand,” but I could also put the cat’s brain into the dog although why anyone would want a dog that meowed like a cat I don’t know, but of course I could never kill the dog.” He handed the cat brain to the nurse. In ten minutes, he took the brain back and set it inside the dog’s empty head. There was, of course, a large gap in the head. Dorsey touched the back of the dog’s head with one hand and grasped the necklace with the other. Blue light streaked out from between his fingertips. The brain seemed to grow in size and attached itself to the dog’s head. The nurse blinked and shook her head. When she looked back both the dog and cat were sitting up.
The nurse asked, “The anesthesia?”
Dorsey said, “I didn’t need any, don’t worry though, they were never in any pain, I wouldn’t have wanted that.”
The nurse said, “But they have just been through major surgery.”
The dog jumped down from the table, rubbed against her leg and purred. The cat wagged its tail and barked at her.
Dorsey said, “Tomorrow we are going to do another pair so that they can breed, people are just going to love them.”
The nurse said, “I don’t think genetics work like that.”
Dorsey grasped the necklace and said, “This was a very special surgery, their genetics have changed as well. Skipper, get ready for tomorrow, we are going to create history, again.”
The nurse asked, “Why are you calling me Skipper?”
Dorsey’s face went flat, it was the only time she had not remembered him smiling, he said, “Nurse, the question is not ‘why do you call me skipper,’ the question is, ‘why not?’”
Outer Space
March 27th, 1933
ish
The Aulterian’s body was nothing but a skeleton, but Mike had an idea. He stood in front of the captain, “Um, Captain, can I have a word?”
The captain whole body was sunk low and he swung the whip slowly back and forth.
Mike said, “Sir.”
The captain said, “Oh blobby, life is so meaningless if one can’t inflict pain on others.”
Mike said, “No need to be so melancholy sir, and my name is Mike, if you would remember, I have been your first mate for 75 years now. I have an idea to rejuvenate the skeleton to bring it back its vigor.”
The captain said, “Really blobby, that would be great.”
Six of Mike’s eyes rolled back into his head. “I will cover the skeleton in jello, a red colored jello, and it would be fun to whip it off the thing.”
The captain asked, “Would the Aulterian be able to feel pain?”
Mike hoped that the next lie didn’t turn out to be too clever for the captain. “No, sadly, it is too far gone, but we have just discovered that jello can feel pain.”
The captain’s jaw fell all the way to the floor.
Mike continued, “So we could not only restore the body, but we could make jello into other shapes, and creatures, we could call them jello molds.”
The captain said, “Yes, this is the greatest news I have ever heard. Even better news than when my son was born.”
Mike said, “I heard that was a disappointment,”
The captain said, “I blame the cook.”
Mike said, “Oh yes, I forgot you ate him.”
The captain said, “That reminds me, I don’t know why, but I think these jello molds should have fruit in them.”
Mike said, “I can think of no practical reason for it, but yet it sounds like something we should definitely do.”
Munich Germany
March 15, 1933
University
Zog trotted down the halls of the university looking for nonscientific things to investigate. The smell of fresh, blue paint which covered the walls filled the air, all of the doors had now been replaced as money funneled into the university, and their metal frames seemed to shine. Frosted windows hid the dark secrets of the labs, but Zog had a confidence that he could detect what he needed to detect. His gut would lead him.
A loud meow echoed from beyond one of the new metal doors and his gut caught on fire. He flung the door open with such force that the frosted glass shattered.
A dog stood on the desk, its paw stretched up towards a nearby bookshelf. It wiggled its but, and jumped, but was nowhere near high enough to reach the top, and its head smashed against the side of the bookshelf, and its body fell to the floor. The dog meowed in pain.
Zog grabbed his head, “This is like the letter Q all over again.”
Dorsey said, “The poor thing doesn’t realize it’s a dog yet.”
Zog said, “Did you do this?”
Dorsey said, “Yes, it will be fine, it will just take some time for it to adjust.”
Zog said, “This is the type of thing I was sent here to stop, it’s nonscientific something something.”
Dorsey said, “Well skipper, this is actually very scientific. New grounds, I will be famous for this, you will be famous, probably, just for knowing me.”
Zog said, “I can’t let you do this.” He looked around the room, the room was just an office with a wood desk, a couple of bookshelves, nothing really could be used as a weapon other than a lamp, but it was made of porcelain, he would surely break it he beat the man to death with it. He remembered how his mother would be so mad at him when he broke porcelain. It would be wrong. Zog sighed. But his gut started to tap-dance and he heard the smallest bark coming from under the desk. Zog scooted around the desk and saw a cat standing at attention, not something he had ever seen in a cat, and the cat was barking. It stood behind a doctor’s bag. There had to be a knife in the doctor’s bag. Zog reached into the bag, and after pushing aside a stethoscope, he saw there was a knife. Zog grabbed it, stood and plunged it into Dorsey’s heart.
Dorsey grabbed the knife, pulled it out, then made a motion like he was spreading peanut butter over the wound. The wound was completely healed. Dorsey said, “Skipper, that is no way to handle a knife, you could hurt someone.”
Zog’s stomach started doing the Lindsey, which confused Zog because he didn’t remember what the Lindsey was. But after a few brief moments, Zog remembered it was a dance, and Zog sprung into motion again. The necklace had glowed when he was doing the peanut butter trick. The necklace had allowed him to perform some sort of magic on himself, Zog neede
d that necklace and grabbed for it. When Dorsey realized what Zog was doing, he dropped the scalpel and tried to hold onto the necklace, but his fingers soon collapsed under the intense strength of the giant.
Zog held the necklace in his left hand and said, “Now I rearrange your face.” Now Zog did an amazing thing, even with the magical necklace. He rearranged Dorsey’s face into what he imagined a Q to look like. Never in the history of medicine has such a complicated surgery ever been attempted, but Zog did the surgery with no surgical instruments and only his right hand. First Zog pulled the mouth to the corner of his face, then elongated his nose, and pulled it down so it crossed over the mouth. Next, he pulled both ears down four inches on either side to make room for the eyes, which were moved over next. When Zog realized he was finished, he looked at what he did, and a pride swelled up in him.
Dorsey, however, was not very pleased with the transformation, and ran out of the room. It was very hard for him to see where he was going with his eyes as they were, if he opened both of his eyes at once his mind would try and focus the images together as if the eyes were in their regular spot. His mind, not being able to reconcile the conflicting images, strained to confusion and a headache swelled in him. But he knew his life was in danger, and he ran through the halls of the university.
Oppenheim started to scream at him when he entered his lab. “No, you fool; I think I have almost made contact. Dorsey smashed into the antenna, and it crashed onto the floor. The specialized radio tubes which would take weeks to order cracked as they hit the floor. Dorsey continued to scream and ran out to scrape walls, doors, and a few other projects.
Munich Germany
March 15, 1933
Later
Police Station
Martin looked at Lindsey through the bars of the cell. “It won’t be long now. They were going to let me into the evidence room to get the time machine, but a man came in that they are going to book with attempted murder.”
Lindsey stepped back away from the bars, “That’s awful, do you know what happened?”
Then they heard a loud crash behind Martin, and he turned to see it. Beyond the rows of cells, mostly empty, except one that held Lucien, Zog was handcuffed and three officers surrounded him. One of the officers pushed on him and said, “Go there.”
Zog stretched his hands out and the handcuffs snapped in two, “No push me. I will go where you want.”
One of the other officers asked, “Should we put another pair on him.”
Another officer answered, “He’s broken two already if he breaks more we won’t have any left.”
The last officer said, “They don’t do any good anyways.”
The first officer said, “Please sit here Zog.”
Zog said, “Thank you for being so nice. Your Mom good.” and sat down in the first of the rows of desks.
The lieutenant came over to Zog and said, “I hope we can clear all of this up because I really have no idea what happened over there at the university.”
Zog said, “Zog try to help.”
The lieutenant said, “The first thing that I need help to understand is that the reports state the incident started when you discovered he had made some sort of cat-dog thing.”
Zog said, “That right.”
The lieutenant was speechless for a moment, then continued, “Well, that doesn’t make any sense, what do you mean?”
Zog said, “Dog was cat, and cat was dog.”
The lieutenant said, “Zog listen here, if you can’t tell the truth about the very first thing, then it seems you will spend a long time in jail for this.”
The first officer from before leaned into the lieutenant and said, “Actually sir, that part is true, I saw it myself.”
The lieutenant looked at the officer then back at Zog, “Well, if he’s telling the truth then…” He looked back at the officer.”What!”
The second officer said, “I also saw it.”
The lieutenant paused and looked at his men, looking for any sign they were pulling his leg. “Very well. The second point I want to clear up is that you claim the Nazis sent you to protect the world from crazy Jewish scientists, yet you attacked one of only two scientists in the university who weren’t Jewish.”
Zog’s eyes widened and he said, “Ooh, I did a bad thing.”
The Lieutenant held up his hands and said, “Well, it’s not like it would be OK if you assaulted a Jewish scientist, but it’s just not consistent with your story. So you didn’t know that?”
Zog said, “No. Me not know.”
The lieutenant said, “It seems believable enough that you didn’t know. You don’t seem very…” The lieutenant looked up at Zog and realized he shouldn’t finish that sentence. “Anyways, the method you used to hurt Professor Dorsey doesn’t make any sense to me. Can you describe what happened?”
Zog said, “I try to stab him, but nothing happened, so me made his face into a Q.”
The lieutenant blinked a few times. “Pretty much all of that doesn’t make sense to me.”
The first police officer leaned forward again and said, “This was also very unbelievable. The first part about stabbing with nothing happening, I don’t know, but Dorsey’s face was rearranged, like with plastic surgery, no blood, no bruising. I have no explanation for how it happened.”
The lieutenant looked up at the officer, and then at the other officers who nodded in agreement. He put his face in his hands for a few moments. “I have a full confession, but I don’t think any judge in the whole world would convict him. Put him in the cell.”
Martin turned to Lindsey and whispered, “That was strange.”
Lindsey said. “Yeah, things seem to be so much different here in Germany.”
Martin said, “I know.”
It took a few moments before they got Zog to a cell, and then one of the regular guards carried the time machine back to them and handed it to Martin, “Give us a good show tonight.”
Martin turned to him and said, “I will.”
Lucien started to scream, “It’s a time machine, don’t let them start it.”
Zog turned to look at them and yelled, “Nonscientific something something. Are you Jew? It’s like the letter Q all over again.”
Martin and Lindsey disappeared. After a few minutes the phone on the lieutenant’s desk rang, he picked it up hesitantly. “Hello... yes, chief.. I agree, very weird things… the details...yes, well I don’t there is much I can say at the present, I mean some of the eyewitnesses are describing things which, well, are actually impossible...can I put you on hold for a second?” He pushed a button on the side of the phone and said to himself, “What am I going to tell the chief?”
The first officer said, “Well, old Smitty’s not too bad of a guy, he’ll understand.”
The lieutenant said, “This is the chief from Berlin.”
The three officer’s eyes bugged out and they covered their mouths.
The first officer said, “You can’t tell him about those things, I saw it with my own eyes and I barely believe it.”
The second officer shook his head yes, “Perhaps you can say that this was an April Fool’s Day Joke.”
The lieutenant said, “April Fool’s day, but it's still March.”
The third officer pointed and said, “But wait, there were those American’s here, we could say that they celebrate April Fool’s Day in March and that they were the ones who started the rumor.”
The Lieutenant asked, “Do you think he would believe that?”
The first officer said, “It's more believable than anything that has happened today.”
The lieutenant said, “Lucien, how certain are you that that was a time machine?”
Lucien said, “Martin stopped in my office and wanted my help to recharge the thing. I think he thought it was going to be difficult to convert the currency.”
The lieutenant said, “I don’t think they’re coming back, so we are going to drop charges against Lindsey, Zog, and
Lucien. I know nothing, nothing. The lieutenant picked up the phone and said, “This is Lieutenant Schultz, sorry to keep you on hold, I just wanted to sort out a new report before answering you.”
New York
July 31st, 2015
Bad Restaurant
Lindsey, Martin, and Burt sat in the dingy restaurant drinking odd tasting sodas.
Burt said, “OK, then you came back and then what happened.”
Martin said, “It's not that simple. I pressed the start button and the weightless feeling came over me. I thought I could hear something about the letter Q as I traveled the years. This time, however, I felt myself hitting something like a stone ceiling. My uncle had explained that sometimes when you traveled you would hit these pockets where time was all bunched up, and I realized that had to be what it was. I was still stuck in time travel; unable to interact with the world, but now I was able to see it.”
“A little girl, perhaps four or five, looked over a white stone wall at a yellow flower. She reached for the flower, and it looked like it was too far away, but she stretched up and stood on her tippy toes until she was able to reach it, then she held it tightly as she fell back, and the flower snapped off its roots, but the force of it breaking was all it took for her to go tumbling down to the ground. Her grubby brown outfit was adorned with a yellow star of David. That made me think that something might be wrong. That was the type of outfit that the Jewish people had to wear right before and during the concentration camps. I saw two German soldiers grab her, and then a man, presumably her father, ran after them. He wore the same type of outfit with the Star of David on it. One of the soldiers raised a pistol and shot the man between the eyes. They didn’t even stop to look at the man but dragged the little girl and she started to scream and cry. Then the bunching was gone and in a few minutes I was back in New York.”
“When I saw Lindsey was with me, I was very relieved to see her, I asked, ‘did anything strange happen to you on the trip?’”
Lindsey said, “Nothing had happened to me. I just felt like getting a beer down at any bar that is close by.”
Martin said, “So we had materialized in the street, but no one had noticed us, so we looked around and saw an unfamiliar, but welcoming bar. Then I …”
Lindsey screamed, “A clown.” and pointed.
Martin said, “That is rude to point Lindsey, I’m sure the clown won’t hurt you.”
Lindsey said, “We have to get out of here, actually I have to get out of here, you can fend for yourselves against the horrid thing.”
Martin looked over, but it was just a regular clown, not a scary or strange one. He held a balloon animal in his hand. Lindsey ran out of the restaurant, and Martin slowly walked towards the exit, Burt tried to run after Lindsey, but he bumped into an old woman with a white tee shirt that read “Grandma” on it. Burt said, “Oh, excuse me miss, we didn’t think this restaurant was nice enough to have a clown.”
The grandmother said, “Well you see, that’s why we brought our own.”
Martin looked over by the grandmother, a few kids ran around holding toy airplanes and wearing pointy hats which said “Happy Birthday.”
Munich Germany
March 22, 1933
University
A group of professors was packed into the dean’s office.
The dean said, “Unfortunately in the past few