chapter 11
TEAM 3, YEAR: 2095
Time Remaining: 185 Days
Team Three materialized in a small clearing in an otherwise heavily treed area. The dense forest served its purpose well, acting as a shroud to hide this sudden appearance from onlookers and avoid the chaos that would inevitably ensue. The sounds of distant traffic were barely audible over the roar of a nearby creek, swollen and overflowing from annual spring runoff. The crisp air that filled the damp forest smelled of springtime decay.
Having never travelled time before, Spencer’s first instinct was to look at his hands to make sure they were still there. Satisfied to see that they and the rest of his body had made the journey intact, he took a step away from the pine boughs poking uncomfortably at his side and brushed stray needles from his freshly-issued field op uniform. A uniform was not required for his role in the Research branch of the NRD, nor his brothers’. Logan, to Spencer’s left, untangled the spindly branch of a young birch tree from the strap of his backpack. To his right, Asher stepped delicately through the muddy water like a cat through snow, looking for higher ground.
“I hope this isn’t an indication of how well the next six months are going to go,” said Asher. He stood resignedly in the water, feeling the icy, wet cold seep into his boots.
Logan held the branch he had untangled from his backpack straps. It still had several of last year’s leaves attached to it. One of the brown, lifeless leaves broke away and he caught it with his other hand. He rolled the withered stem between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know,” he said, inspecting the leaf. “I think I’d like to leaf at some time.”
Asher rolled his eyes and groaned.
Spencer ignored his brothers and focused on the compass on his watch. The compass was unnecessary because Spencer knew his exact location, but his compulsive nature forced him to double check.
“Okay, guys.” Spencer slid the sleeve of his jacket over the bulky time travel watch and looked at his brothers. “Let’s go.”
Spencer sloshed through the water toward the front of the park leaving his older twin brothers in his wake. The identical, six-foot-two, broad-shouldered figures followed behind him, cracking jokes about their little brother who followed every rule to the letter. Spencer had no interest in their thoughts or opinions. Their undivided attention was not required at this moment, so he let them entertain themselves. It was just easier. Spencer’s focus and drive were just two of the many ways he differed from his brothers and likely how he had received more promotions in his career than his brothers, despite being four years younger.
Feeling like a third wheel around the twins was nothing new to Spencer. Having grown up in their shadow, the scenario was always the same: the twins and him. The Two Musketeers…and Spencer. Spencer was an exceptionally bright child and could see that, even at a young age, he and the twins were different. The twins were loud, messy and always pushing the limit of their parents’ patience, whereas Spencer preferred to spend time indoors on quiet endeavours like reading or puzzles.
When Spencer turned six, the boys’ principal informed their parents that Spencer was extremely advanced for his age and recommended skipping him past grade one into grade two for a more appropriate challenge. His parents had always suspected he was gifted but never pursued it, assuming that every parent thought the same about their children. The twins, despite their good natures and zest for life, failed to set the bar high in terms of academic achievement. With the addition of a new sibling named Emily, and their father being deployed for months at a time for his job in the Defence side of NRD, things in the Grayson household were hectic. The twins alone were a full-time job and adding a new baby to the mix meant that the majority of Spencer’s exceptional scholastic achievements went unnoticed.
Years passed and the twins left for university. In their absence, a peaceful calm returned to the rural Grayson home. Spencer found that without the twins underfoot, the days seemed to yield more time and found he could accomplish far more when not fighting for personal space, peace and quiet or simple routine. He took extra classes allowing him to graduate from high school a year early, putting Spencer two years behind the twins academically.
Spencer’s excitement at the prospect of a field op-esque opportunity dampened after learning the twins would be his teammates. Employees from the Research branch rarely went on NRD operations, let alone as an op lead with two subordinates—a level two and a level three, no less. His excitement turned to sheer anxiety when he learned the level two and level three subs Mitch had chosen were his twin brothers, and he worried how they would handle him as their figure of authority. Spencer knew the twins were a handful at the best of times and reining them in could be impossible. They rarely took anything or anyone seriously, a fact that drove Spencer to madness. Even as children, he felt he had to be the one with common sense, not that it made any difference. He continually found himself in the same situation: the twins would have some great idea, which Spencer knew from experience would inevitably end in disaster. Without thought—or maybe with thought, but without care, Spencer could never be sure—they ploughed ahead. Unsurprisingly, the end result was always the same: smashed windows, razed sheds, wrecked sleds, bikes or cars. Destruction.
The team trudged through the muddy, wet forest. With each step, their boots made sucking, squelching sounds. Within minutes, they reached the edge of the small urban forest—the trees, bushes and muddy undergrowth ended abruptly to reveal the manicured expanse of the sprawling city park. Their exit from the bushes startled an elderly woman walking her pugs past empty flower gardens. She glared at them suspiciously as if to punish them for whatever delinquent activities would draw three grown men dressed in matching outfits into a soaking wet forest at nightfall.
“Good evening, ma’am.” Spencer smiled at the woman as he dragged his boots across the grass to wipe away the mud. She looked away quickly and picked up her pace.
Metropolitan Park, affectionately known by its many loyal visitors as “Retro Metro,” was Tricity’s oldest park and the city was experimenting with the park’s attractions. The playground area was a throwback to early-century parks and their more simplistic play structures: covered tube slides, mini zip lines, chain bridges and monkey bars. The park was a hit with children and parents alike despite having none of the standard play equipment other city parks had. Most other parks featured at least one airboard park; a hangout where kids could sharpen their skills and perform tricks and stunts while hover skating over obstacles on their airboards—a flat, skateboard-like platform that hovered in the air, propelled by foot power. It was also missing AirForce360, an outdoor arena where kids could fly child-sized versions of some of the world’s fastest jets and engage in laser dogfights. The miniaturized planes puttered through a designated airspace with a fraction of the speed and manoeuvrability, and a maximum fifteen-degree tilt in any direction. Sensors in the planes ensured no mid-air collisions. For younger children, two-storey, mind-stimulating play structures were equipped with HangTime technology that eased children to the ground like an invisible hand should they fall. The parks that featured these types of play equipment were always very popular. But kids, no matter what the era, loved a park where they could actually crash their bikes or airboards, get scars or jump off the swings and try to land without falling. Adults were drawn to the park by nostalgia, and it was not uncommon to find adults swinging alongside their children.
Tonight, Retro Metro was visited by the Grayson brothers for a much different reason. The forested portion of the park was thick enough for a team of three to materialize in with no one being the wiser. However, the most important reason was its proximity to Spencer’s condominium.
With the majority of the mud scraped from their boots, the three men strode toward the front entrance of the darkening park. They walked past the swings, monkey bars and rope castle. To their right, a few teenagers played gravity-assist Frisbee with a disc that lit up as it flew. To their left,
a man pushed a giggling little boy on a swing. A chocolate-coloured puppy raced around the pair barking, jumping up and nipping at the boy’s heels as he swung by.
Just outside the park, two layers of red tail lights were visible through the trees. The sparse traffic on the aging road below moved considerably more slowly than the steady stream of faster-moving tail lights following the air route above. Travel by road was becoming less and less common, but not everyone had converted to cars that flew.
“Are you sure you’re not home yet?” asked Asher. His eyes were fixed on two women in short shorts jogging toward them. He put on his best smile—unleashing the dimples—and gave the ladies a quick salute as they passed. The women giggled and he turned and walked backward as they jogged past.
“I’m pretty sure. It’s about quarter after seven,” said Spencer. He looked again at his oversized watch to confirm the time he already knew, having checked it just moments ago. He quickened his pace.
Spencer’s watch differed from most watches. While it had many standard watch features, it had many features other watches did not, the most important being that it was an auxiliary control for the time travel backpack he wore on his back. A screen displayed a GPS-enabled map marking their geographical position and several digital clocks showed various time zones. One clock showed present time—the current time for where he physically stood at that moment: March 19, 2095, 19:18. The other clock showed the time and date from where he had originated, August 23, 2097, 08:18. A timer counted down, with one-hundred and eighty-four days, twenty-three hours and forty-two minutes remaining.
Logan took several quick steps to catch up with his little brother. “Working on the weekend, Spence? Trying to make a good impression at the office?” As they neared the stone wall marking the park’s entrance, Spencer’s condominium building became visible beyond the traffic.
The twin’s playful abuse rolled off Spencer like water off a duck’s back. “It’s not a character flaw to want to do a good job. I take my career seriously and it wouldn’t hurt the two of you to put a little effort in.” The twins rolled their eyes at his remarks, as he knew they would.
Just as they were about to exit the park and cross the street, Spencer abruptly veered to the left and onto the grass.
“Hey, what’s the deal?” asked Logan.
Spencer pointed up at his balcony, his familiar eye able to pick it out faster than his brothers. “I’m home.”
“I thought you said you’d be at work?” Logan squinted and pointed at each floor as he counted up and across the balconies. Through the large living room windows, he saw a shadow moving behind the curtains.
Spencer turned and sat down on the stone wall. “I thought I would be. At the beginning of the project, I stayed well past seven and sometimes eight o’clock most days.”
“Even on Saturdays? You’re such a nerd.” Logan rolled his eyes at Spencer.
“Maybe he’s got a hot date lined up,” laughed Asher. He sat down on the wall beside Spencer.
Spencer crossed his arms and thought, trying to recall what he had done on this very night nearly two and a half years earlier. “No, I don’t think so. Well, not that night anyway.”
The twins looked at each other and burst into a fit of laughter. “When was the last time you went on a date?” asked Asher.
“I go on dates,” Spencer snapped, irritated at allowing himself to be goaded by his brothers. He looked back up at his balcony and smiled. “I just don’t tell you about them because I don’t want to admit that I’m related to either of you.”
Logan patted his little brother on the shoulder before sitting on the wall beside Asher. “That’s funny. I wouldn’t want to have to admit to my dates that I’m related to such a stick in the mud.”
The twins’ reputation for being lady killers was widely known in both their personal and professional lives. The two men possessed a level of confidence and rugged good looks that would make a movie star envious. Their charisma and outgoing personalities were matched only by their want of a good time. Add to that the novelty of being twins and the result was a magical spell under which impossible numbers of the fairer sex had fallen.
“Live life to the fullest” was the philosophy upon which the twins’ core beliefs were based and they enjoyed no more commitments than work, beer and Friday night rocketball. Spencer secretly wished he shared some of their qualities; there was an easiness about them and everything seemed to come to them so naturally.
To the uneducated eye, the twins’ looks were identical, as if from a production line. They shared the same wide set jaw, broad shoulders and brown hair that, whether intentional or not, always looks perfectly messy. Their eyes were blue when they were younger but changed to chocolate brown as they grew up. Spencer told them countless times it was because they were so full of shit. While both twins were in decent physical shape, Logan was slightly thinner than Asher. Logan attributed his leanness to his great athleticism while Asher claimed it was because Logan could not handle his liquor.
The bond the twins shared grew stronger as they aged, and as adults, they spent most of their free time together. They bought condos in the same building, across the hall and one unit apart. They also shared a love of sports and were both very active in “retro” activities like hockey, football, soccer and lacrosse. Older now and with more than a few sports-related injuries between them, they were starting to prefer their feet, skis or wheels firmly planted on the ground.
“Okay, smart-ass. How are we going to get you out of your condo so we can get in?” asked Asher. He looked up at the figure partially visible through the gap in the curtains.
“Let me think for a second.” Spencer stared up at the balcony and chewed his lip in thought.
Logan chuckled. “I know.” Logan pulled a red device the size of a kidney bean from his pocket, slid it into his ear and smiled at Spencer. “Trust me.”
The look in Logan’s eyes reminded Spencer of the day that followed the Great Snowstorm of ’74. Kicked out of the house for being rambunctious, the twins and Spencer explored the snowy depths of the backyard. The twins were delighted to discover a snow bank nearly touching the roof peak of their garage. To eight-year-old boys, a gift of this magnitude rivalled that of a brand new AirBoard under the tree on Christmas morning. Spencer found himself on the roof of the icy, snow-covered garage, sitting in a battered, antique wooden sled, a twin on either side. The rickety skis straddled either side of the snowy roof peak, wobbling timidly under Spencer’s meagre body weight. After years of well-intentioned love and abuse from the twins, the sled showed significant signs of aging—chipped skis, broken brakes and missing wooden planks on the seat. Excited at the prospect of what the twins touted as, “the greatest ride of his life,” Spencer listened carefully as they explained the plan. When they launched him and the sled off the roof, he would sail over the gap like a bird, land safely on the snow drift and have a smooth ride into the garden. In the eyes of a four-year-old, this was clearly a no-lose situation. The twins pushed Spencer and the sled as they ran along the steeply-pitched roof. As they neared the edge, one of the skis broke off. The sled stopped suddenly, but Spencer continued forward. Asher lost his balance when Logan tripped on the defunct ski and fell. The twins rolled down opposite sides of the roof and landed in soft snow banks like screaming sacks of flour. Spencer tumbled over the roof’s ridge and dropped like a stone to the freshly shovelled sidewalk below, luckily sustaining no more injuries than a sprained ankle and twisted wrist. Spencer learned a lot that day, but the most valuable lesson was to never listen when the twins say, “trust me.”
“Logan! What are you doing?” demanded Spencer in a loud whisper. He leaned over Asher, trying to keep his voice from being heard by people walking past them on the sidewalk.
“You’ll see.” With the little red phone snugly placed inside his ear, Logan thought about the number he wanted to dial. On his eyes, he wore Icomm contact lenses that intercepted his brain’s commands and transla
ted them into instructions an electronic device could execute, in this case, the little bean-shaped phone inside Logan’s ear. When Logan thought about placing a call, a phone icon appeared on the contact lenses, but to Logan the tiny symbol looked like a large projection just out of his arm’s reach. As Logan thought of the numbers he wanted to dial, the numbers appeared beside the phone icon then flashed three times—indicating the call was placed—then disappeared. The phone icon turned lime green, shrank and slid down to the bottom right corner of his vision where it stayed unobtrusively. Hearing the phone ringing on the other end, Logan smiled at his little brother.
Spencer heard the muffled ringing of the recipient’s phone in Logan’s earpiece and he saw the shadow move in his condo. Realizing what his brother had done, Spencer lunged over Asher with the intent of tackling Logan to the ground and forcing him to end the call, but his hands seized nothing but air. Asher grabbed Spencer around the waist and tackled him to the ground. Asher was thrilled to finally get a rise out of his younger brother as if this had been the first really productive thing they had accomplished all day.
“Hello?” answered a voice on the other end of the phone.
Spencer stopped fighting Asher and they both lay unmoving on the ground at Logan’s feet. Asher had Spencer locked in a half-nelson and the pair strained to listen to the conversation Logan was having with the 2095 version of his little brother.
“Hey Spensssssse, hooooow’s it goin’?” Logan slurred.
The Spencer on the other end of the phone did not speak immediately as if he suspected the nature of the call. “Good…How are you?”
“Weeeeell,” said Logan in a singsong voice, “I’m not going to lie to you. It could be better.”
“Are you drunk?” asked past-Spencer, the impatient incredulity clearly audible in his voice.
“Hmmmmm…yes!” said Logan, with a heavy emphasis on the yes. “I’m stuck at the bar and I really need you to come and pick me up.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s not even seven. How is it you’re loaded before seven o’clock?”
“Weeee’ve been at the bar since two. We got an early start today, Spenssssse!” Logan giggled.
“Where’s Asher?” asked Spencer, knowing that if one twin was loaded, the other twin was usually equally drunk and not too far away.
“He’s gone home. He left me here.” A sulky emphasis on left.
“What do you mean ‘he’s gone?’ Why would he leave you?”
“When we got to the bar, Ange, yooooou know Ange, the waitress that Asher always makes a fool of himself in front of?” Asher kicked Logan awkwardly in the shin. “Ow! It was her day off and she came in to pick up her sweater and we told her she should stay and have a few drinks with us. Annnnnnyway, she stayed all afternoon and now they’ve gone off together and left me heeeere all alone.” His voice rang with drunken self-pity.
“Why don’t you call a cab?” snapped past-Spencer callously, more of a demand than a question. He had been through this too many times before. “I have plans.”
“Yooooouuu don’t have plans Spence, you never have plans. What are you doing?”
“I’m on a date.”
Both twins shot accusatory glares at the future-Spencer in their presence. Logan silently mouthed, “Rude!”
Spencer shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“I don’t believe you,” said Logan. He peered at the shadowy figure moving behind the curtains. “Are you sssssure you’re not in your living room, right now wearing SquidoPus pyjama pants?”
The shadow in the window moved suddenly and the curtains flew open to reveal a two-and-half year younger version of Spencer standing in his living room wearing a white t-shirt and SquidoPus pyjama pants. Logan dropped to the ground beside his brothers and all three scrambled clumsily for cover behind the low stone wall.
Logan covered the device in his ear with his hand so past-Spencer on the other end of the line would not hear him. He whisper-yelled to the Spencer on the ground next to him, “By the way, I can’t believe you have SquidoPus pyjama pants.”
Spencer was unapologetic. “They’re extremely comfy.”
“You never said your date was with SquidoPus,” whispered Asher, as he accidently kneed Spencer in the ribs.
“Who are you talking to?” demanded the Spencer on the phone.
“Hang on a sec Spenssse, there are some very beeeeeauuutiful ladies here…”
“Logan! I don’t have time for this,” protested the Spencer on the phone. Logan slowly peered up over the wall and watched as the Spencer in the condo whipped the curtains closed. No longer under threat of being seen, the three men took their places atop the stone wall.
Logan made a tutting sound. “Spensssssssse, there’s always time for ladies. You wouldn’t be so wound up all the time if you realized that…” Logan trailed off. He looked at Spencer beside him and pretended he was one of the mythical ladies.
The Spencer on the phone heard a muffled Logan doing a bad job of trying to make a good impression on some poor woman. “Hey, Baby, you’re looking pretty fine this evening!”
Asher could no longer contain his laughter and had to cover his mouth. Spencer looked livid and gestured for Logan to wrap it up.
“Ugh. Well, turns out she wasn’t a lady,” said Logan, sticking his tongue out at the now fuming Spencer beside him.
“Take a cab,” ordered the Spencer on the phone.
“I can’t do that Spensssssse! You know I’m allergic to cheap air fresheners. Aaaaand I’ve lost my credit keys.”
“Pay the cab when you get home. Surely you have spares?”
“Ashhhhh has my credit keys.”
Future-Spencer watched Logan in awe, equally impressed and disturbed by his brother’s capacity for lying on the fly.
A moment of silence could be heard over Logan’s earpiece. “For the love of Christmas.” Past-Spencer exhaled in frustration. “Alright, where the hell are you?”
“Way Off Base,” said Logan. “You know, the bar that’s down the road from the base? The one we try to get you to come to but you’re always too busy?”
“Shut up. I’m leaving now. And don’t go anywhere because if you’re not there when I get there I’m leaving without you and you can either walk home or sleep in a bush.”
“Ooooh Spence, you’re my favourite broth…” The line went dead. “…er,” finished Logan.
Logan smiled smugly at Spencer as he removed the earpiece and slid it back into his pocket. Spencer was irked, but not surprised, that his brothers were having fun at his expense, again.
Logan saw that Spencer looked less than pleased. “What? I got the job done, didn’t I?”
The sun had set completely and the aged street lighting had come on, illuminating the pot-holed and patchy road beneath. Light pods hovering above the air traffic illuminated the vehicular air routes. The brothers settled themselves on a wooden bench facing the street and waited for past-Spencer’s car to leave the parking lot.
Spencer thought for a moment about something Logan had said. “There is no way you could see what kind of pants I was wearing,” said Spencer.
“I took a guess. I saw them in your bathroom once.”
Spencer looked at Logan and all three began laughing.
The men passed the time speculating about the op as they watched the building. Only minutes had passed before Spencer’s silver two-door car emerged from the parking garage. As the car approached the lot exit, it rose into the air and its wheels folded into the undercarriage as it merged into the lines of air traffic.
Spencer stood and looked at the twins. “This is it. Showtime.”
In the privacy of the elevator whisking the men up to Spencer’s floor, Asher quizzed his younger brother. “So you don’t think the past version of you would deal too well if all three of us showed up on your doorstep?”
Spencer watched the numbers above the door light up in succession. “You know, I’m unsure. The problem is that if you two a
re involved, I would think it was a joke. I’d probably think you created a hologram or something.”
“I guess I could see that,” said Asher. “In fact, I can’t believe we didn’t come up with that ourselves.”
“I know,” said Logan, shaking his head. “We’re losing our touch.”
Spencer rolled his eyes. “I’m really not sure what I’d think if I came home and found myself in my apartment, so I think it’s good that you warm me up to the idea. For all the good it will do. I probably won’t believe you.”
“Well, that’s nothing new,” said Logan.
The elevator chimed and the door opened.
“You remembered your keys?” asked Asher, as they stopped at the second last door on the right.
Spencer held up his keys and gave them a shake. The key ring was thin and rectangular with twelve or thirteen different keys hanging from it. Each key was similar in that they were all slender, elongated shapes with the diameter of a pencil. Some were cylindrical, two were square, one was shaped like a plus sign and several were shaped like long, extruded letters. Spencer chose a well-worn key and slid it into the small round hole above the door handle. The light beside the keyhole flashed green, and he heard the locking mechanism inside release.
As Spencer entered his condo, the lights came on and he surveyed “his” home. There was no visible difference between the condo he left in 2097 and the one he now stood in. If he had not known he had just travelled back in time, nothing in the appearance of his home would have indicated that he had. The furniture, floors, wall colour and art were the same, as were the curtains that covered his windows and sliding balcony door. Even the large rubber plants and dragon tree beside the balcony doors seemed no smaller than he could recall. The white leather couches and the glass coffee table sat in the same location they did in 2097. He made a mental note to call a decorator when he returned to 2097.
The twins took off their jackets and flung them over the back of the white leather sofa. Logan flopped onto the couch and made himself at home like this night was no different than any other Saturday night. He turned the TV on and a commercial promoting a lunar vacation materialized. The intangible screen appeared several inches in front of the living room wall, spanning nearly its full width and completely obscuring the art hanging on the wall behind. Spencer heard Asher rummaging through his cupboards for a snack as Logan flipped through the channels looking for a rocketball game.
Spencer shook his head in frustration at his brothers’ lack of focus. “Uh, guys? Aren’t we in the middle of something?”
Asher appeared from the kitchen holding a bag of multi-grain crackers. “Seriously, Spence? No chips? The food in this place is as boring as you are.”
The rocketball game went to a commercial advertising the 2096 line up of Everblast jet bikes. Logan muted the sound, though his attention remained fixed on the scantily clad woman sprawled across the leather seat of a cruiser. The commercial ended and the next one advertised MicroMaid cleaning services.
“I guess we should get you back here, eh?” Logan looked at Spencer with a grin, sliding the little bean back into his ear. Logan dialled Spencer’s number again. The past version of Spencer answered, now half way to the bar.
“Hey, Spensssse! Where are you? Yeah, okay, never mind. As it turns out, the bartender had my wallet and keys. I’m in a cab. Thanks, though!”
Asher and Spencer overheard a verbal barrage of name calling and suggestions of what Logan should do to himself. Logan pulled the earpiece out of his ear and held it in front of him and all three stared at it, listening intently to past-Spencer’s rant.
“You need to learn to chill,” Logan said to the Spencer standing next to him. Logan ended the call, cutting past-Spencer off mid-sentence.