Chapter 3
His tactic worked. They walked together back up to the more social upper levels of the college and headed across campus to the bar favoured by students. Aiden twisted his way to the darkness in the back. It was darker there, and there were a few tables empty, all the while dragging Jessica by the hand with him.
When they got to the table, the server stopped by and took a quick drink order.
Since they had left the hallway, Jess had a strange look on her face and she kept trying to sneak glances at Aiden. He was doing his best to avoid her looks, but he knew she was curious about this change of heart, and sudden desire to go out for a drink. It would really take some fast-talking to distract her, and Aiden knew it. Unfortunately, Jess didn't waste any time and as soon as they sat down the questions began.
"Ok what has gotten into you? You don’t drink and you don’t hang out in bars. I don’t know how many times you have bugged me about coming here after a class to relax. If I remember right, you said it was a fool’s practice and one you wouldn’t be caught dead doing. And now that I think of it when did you change your clothes? You were wearing a black dress shirt less than an hour ago, but now here you are wearing that rag." Jess picked at his shirt, even going as far as to pull a twig from under the collar and showing it to Aiden. "There is something about your face too. You seem to look, older, somehow. What’s going on? What are you trying to hide from me?"
Aiden was starting to feel the pressure; he knew that if he didn’t break off Jessica’s pursuit for truth soon he would have to try yet again to convince her of the situation with no real evidence. That hadn’t worked in the past and he knew it wouldn’t work this time either. Jessica trusted him. Even more perhaps than anyone else that he knew, but it just took more time then he had available. Time again was his biggest problem.
"I'm just feeling a little off, I think I might not be getting enough sleep, and this shirt...I...I spilled some coffee on my other one and needed to find a quick change. Look, how about we go have a dance while we wait for those drinks to show up?"
Luck was on Aiden’s side for the first time since he could remember and the DJ started to play a nice upbeat song almost as if on cue. Jessica had always loved dancing so Aiden hoped this would be enough to break her train of thought. As he watched her attention move towards the DJ booth, he thought he had done it. It turned out he was right; with a deep sigh, Jessica turned back and gave him a stern look.
"Ok...but you have to promise to tell me what is going on in the morning, and don’t think I will forget this!"
Aiden gave his best and happiest smile. "You got it! I promise I will tell you everything, first thing in the morning!"
Jessica smiled at that and dragged him onto the dance floor, all of her thoughts about Aiden’s odd behaviour vanished like a wisp of smoke in a light breeze. Jess got into the music and pulled Aiden inside whether he wanted to go or not.
The drinks went down too easy that night. Mixed in with the music and spending time with his girlfriend again after so long, Aiden quickly forgot about the minutes passing as he once again slipped into the comforts of a world he was starting to forget.
He was just enjoying the time with his girlfriend and co-worker. Once again, everything in the world was okay, there was no wind, no fires, no storms, it was all gone from his mind.
Jessica's mind was so bright and open he loved her even more for it. Her eyes sparkled with the twisting of the lights over the dance floor. The conversation pored over and threw him as fast as the drinks did. During a lull in the conversation, he overheard a couple at another table mention the time. Aiden cast around for a clock, his pulse beginning to race as he remembered everything about his trip.
Finding a small clock hidden behind the bar, he was shocked to learn he only had about one hour left before his time was up. Aiden tried to hide his panic; this evening had been so nice, so normal. It was everything that he was fighting to get back. The circumstances where forcing Aiden to do something he never wanted to do and had never done to Jess. He lied.
"I have to use the can. I’ll be right back ok?"
Jess looked at him with a little glaze in her eyes. Aiden hadn't thought to make her drink more than he did, but it looked like she had drunk more than normal. Probably enough to ensure she would stay away from the lab all night. At least he hoped she did.
"Okay, but hurry back all right? I want to have another dance before they pick a song I don’t like."
Aiden nodded and scurried off towards the bathroom, glancing back behind him as he left. As soon as Jess had turned away, distracted by someone else, he doubled back and raced out the doors back to the lab.
It only took him a few minutes to get back to the lab and it was just as they had left it a few hours ago. Someone had graciously turned the lights off for them, but that was normal. With a push of the button on the wall, the fluorescents flickered to life, and the quiet hum of the converters filled the air.
Aiden raced over and turned on the computers. They were more than a few years old and pretty slow, but still capable enough for the work he did. Not wanting to wait, Aiden threw himself into his old and worn out computer chair, eliciting a loud squeak.
With a few experienced clicks of the mouse, he found the most important file he needed, and began erasing numbers than replaced them with others he had planned in advance while marching up the stairs in his future.
His work was sloppy but due to the lost time, he had to rush through it as fast as he could. He'd wasted so much time in the bar, even if it had been a nice switch from his own personal future. If only he'd known the extent of what his research had meant he would have quit it immediately. Travel faster than light, it was such arrogance, yet he couldn't stop thinking about it. Trying to convince his past self to stop though, had been more than impossible. It turned out he was still as stubborn then as he was now.
Aiden clicked open the latest file he remembered working on and began scanning through the numbers to find the ones he needed to change. He had spent a lot of time figuring out how to make this look close to the same figures as before his changes. He had to be subtle; between himself and Jess, they would notice the changes. If he could get enough figures changed, without drawing attention to them, the experiment would fail and perhaps then, the future wouldn’t be a desolate wasteland as it was now.
Aiden put the final changes on the formula changes he had burned into his memory. "That should do it...I hope." He glanced down at the clock in the bottom right of his monitor and felt the rushing of time as his magic pulled him back into his future. "I just made it!"
Reality began to streak past him as he sprang back to his own time. The magic he used to send himself back in time with the speed of his descent had reversed and it now pulled him forward to his future again. It all happened too fast to see any one particular thing as he sped along a string of time, but Aiden knew one thing for sure, as he saw the earth warp and twist around him. He had failed yet again.
Landing lightly on his feet Aiden rolled as he came in contact with the ground. "Damn it! Damn it! What else can I try?" The stars overhead didn’t offer a reply.
Aiden kicked at the garbage littered around his feet while he railed against anything that got in his way. The fury built inside him as he realised he was running out attempts.
Aiden turned his attention to a rusted out dumpster near the building and hurled his arm as though throwing a baseball at it. A magic ball of sparkling energy flew from his fingers, and the dumpster exploded sending fragments flying through the air. The metal shards rained down around Aiden. Not a one stuck him as he instinctively put personal shield was in place. Reacting in defense was all second nature to him now. He'd learned quickly how to use these skills after finding out he had the power to defend himself. This world was not as kind as the old one. It seemed to be trying to kill anything with life in it.
Aiden had to calm down and think. It would appear every time he went back he hadn’t made e
nough changes. He loved Jessica for her mind. Yet her mind was causing him the most problems. He had to think of another way to change the experiment, there had to be something else he could do.
Aiden looked back up to the top of the tower he had just leapt off mere seconds ago. The broken remains of the moon hung behind the tower’s peak, illuminating his failure. His magic always slowed his landing so he didn’t crash and die on the ground. It was a simple thing to do even when his mind was no longer here in this time. It took almost no energy to land safely at the bottom after he had committed himself to the fall; the trip back drained the majority of his magic. Now Aiden would have to wait at least a full day before he could even think to try again. "I've tried convincing people. I've tried hiding what I am doing, and nothing seems to be working. If I can’t change the formulas enough to change this, what else could I change?"
Aiden flopped to the ground with his back against the wall of the skyscraper from which he had jumped. Sadness replaced the rage and it began to fill him for the first time. He'd tried everything he could think of to save his girlfriend, to save his world, to save humanity. Nothing was working and now he was fighting a clock that he had set in motion. For the first time Aiden realized he might fail. The world might be doomed to the future he had started.
Aiden closed his eyes and forced himself to go over the memories once again. No matter what he changed in his past, his memories were always the same. He knew that somehow, he had become broken from his original timeline. He'd thought about killing himself to save the future of the world. He'd even planned how it would work. Then he had dismissed it. Aiden knew enough to remember the paradox of what could happen if you went back in time to kill yourself. You wouldn’t exist. He didn’t want to take the chance that it really would be the end of him. He also knew that Jessica wouldn’t stop his research. In fact, she would pick it up with even more dedication. It wouldn’t solve anything.
Aiden used his magic to recreate the past. Using magic, he could remember it perfectly. He remembered being in the lab with Jess. They had just realized that it was possible to travel faster than light and their calculations had proved it. They both decided to stay up all night and form the basics of a medium that they could recreate with their computer model. They borrowed a laser from another lab and set it up on campus.
It didn’t take long to target it at the moon and bounce a normal signal back from it. They did multiple test runs and timed the bounce rate. The computer recorded the laser’s return at a consistent 2.6 seconds each time. Aiden himself set up the computer to relay their instructions on how to speed itself up, it didn’t take too long and within moments they were both staring at each other as he pushed the key to fire the laser.
At first, it didn’t seem to have worked at all. Aiden glanced up at the moon to see if perhaps something had gotten in the way and Jessica stared at the computer screen to see if there was some kind of error in the computations. The timer on the computer just sat in the corner blinking zeros. "What went wrong?"
Jessica went over the program again before answering. "I don’t know. The computer said the laser fired, but it doesn’t seem to have bounced back."
Aiden scratched his head as he stared at the same unimpressive screen Jessica was looking at. "Let’s try and turn up the intensity and see what happens. This laser can send a stronger pulse right?"
Jessica nodded as she began again to reprogram the system to measure a stronger pulse from the laser. "Ok let’s run this again and see what happens."
"Wait!" Aiden stopped her from hitting the button.
"This is just a thought, but we should increase the sensitivity of the timer too. If we get a reflection I would like to know exactly how fast it really did travel."
Jessica nodded and changed the parameters the timer would measure. When she was ready, she looked to Aiden and he nodded. Jess started the firing sequence and the computer blinked its response.
Nothing seemed to have happened. Aiden cursed aloud and began to pack up his workstation tossing the equipment with frustration. "Well that sucks. I guess we made a mistake in the math. I was so sure this would work."
"Hold on! Come look at this." Jess moved aside so Aiden could sit down and look closer at the monitor. Aiden put aside his frustrations for the moment and looked at the readout on the screen. It took a moment to register what he was seeing. The number didn’t read in seconds.
"How fine of a reading did you set this to?" Aiden asked Jess as she stood with a huge grin on her face looking at him.
"I left it open, if we got a signal back at all this device would read it."
"Well it can’t be right; this reading actually says it’s in the negatives. That’s impossible!"
"No!" Jess got really excited, her grin large on her face, "think about what we are trying to do. Einstein tells us if we are able to break the speed of light then we can in fact travel back in time. It only makes sense that the counter would read negative. In effect the laser we sent actually came back before we sent it!"
Aiden’s mind reeled with possibilities. "We need to do one more test to make sure. This could all be just a glitch in the machinery."
Jess nodded in agreement and turned serious once again. Setting up the machine to its base settings, she spoke as she worked.
"I’m going to turn it up to full power. I want you to try and see this laser when it goes off." Jess spoke as she finished the settings.
Aiden concentrated on the numbers. He didn’t much care to see the laser; he had seen it so many times already. Before his eyes, a negative number once again popped onto the monitor. He turned to hug Jess in congratulations, and the world flipped upside down.
Aiden blinked his eyes as he cleared the magic he used to recall the memory of that moment. He had no idea what destruction would have come from what they had thought would be a simple experiment. He had gone over the memory pulled from his mind, aided with his magic, repeatedly to see what he could change, but no matter what he tried it always ended up the same, or worse. Now he was running out of what he needed most.
With each leap, he had to climb higher. There was only one building left close by that was taller than the one he had just used. There were more buildings out there, yes, but Aiden knew it would take him too long to get to them. This was going to be his last chance to save the world. Aiden knew if he couldn't fix things this time, this last jump, he would end up in this timeline until his days ran out. That wasn’t an idea he cared for at all.
Aiden raised his fingers to his lips and let out a sharp whistle. At his call, a large dog came running from its hiding spot. The beast ran straight up to Aiden and began licking his hand and nosing around for a treat. "You never give up either do you Razz?" Aiden dug deep into a pocket, pulled out a small dog treat, and tossed it to his waiting friend.
"No matter how long it takes you are always hiding around waiting for me. If I had known German Shepherds were this loyal I would have gone looking for one long before this twisted mess began."
Razz sniffed around Aiden’s pocket looking for his expected dessert. "I don’t know who owned you before, but you have to be one of the best trained dogs I have ever seen." Aiden reached down and scratched behind the dogs' ears while surveying the possible potential in front of him.
Aiden looked around for a suitable place to spend the rest of the night, and quickly decided on a ruined diner not too far away. It at least offered the prospect of some food that may not have gone bad.
Inside the ruined walls, there wasn't much to see, and Aiden noticed he would have to improvise a bed from something he could scrounge up from the rubble. It didn’t matter though, at least with a roof overhead to keep the storms away, and perhaps some food inside his stomach he would be able to think hard on how his last chance would be different from all the rest.
Stomach full of canned corn he found in an old cupboard and what might have once passed for some kind of soup, Aiden lay back and absently scratched his dog’s head.
He had less than two days to figure out how to change his future. Every attempt so far had been a waste. It didn’t matter what he changed in the past everything still happened the same way. "Maybe that’s the problem; maybe I can’t really change anything?"
Aiden rolled that idea around for a while before dismissing it. He had changed things before, once when he had tried to change the laser they used and opted for a non-visible spectrum he had come back to a world full of zombies. If he hadn’t jumped back as quickly as possible, he would have died. There were limits to the defensive abilities of his magic and they didn’t work nearly as well when he slept. Aiden shivered as he remembered. That had been a long two days awake.
He didn’t want to think about the world that had been all fire. This world was bad enough; there didn’t seem to be any people left as far as Aiden could tell. He didn’t go out looking for them, but he was smack dab in the middle of one of the most populated cities ever and not a single person was around. It didn’t take an overeducated college student to figure out that something had happened to the people, which brought back another question.
"Why is it that I am the only person who made it through that disaster?"
Aiden played with the question in his head for a while, just thinking it through.
"Well, at least you are here to keep me company." Razz just looked up at Aiden and flopped over to one side asking for more scratches.
"So I can vouch for two beings that made it through the disaster. I guess that means there must be more." Aiden grew frustrated with himself as his thoughts began to head in the wrong direction.
"No! I am thinking about this wrong." Razz jumped at his outburst and padded over to put some distance between himself and his friend. "I have to fix the mess I have made, not learn to deal with it or look for other survivors. If I can correct my mistake then I won’t have to do anything at all." Aiden threw himself down on his makeshift bed of old towels that he had found stuffed in a cupboard.
"I need some sleep, and then I'll try again in the morning." Aiden cast up a defensive grid around himself. He didn’t know how long it lasted; it was always gone when he woke up. However, it was a habit now and even if it lasted a few hours, it would be better than nothing. Razz saw was he was doing and took up a bed right behind the door. "Good dog" Aiden said as he closed his eyes and got some sleep. His dreams again full of wind, fires, and nightmares.