Time Shuffed

Time Shuffed by Maxwell Blue

It had been a long twenty years for Marcus Wohlsen. He could barely make ends meet when he decided to pass up a number for lucrative jobs over the years in order to keep working on his baby full time, but if his tests today proved correct that was all about to change. Everything rested on his latest experiment. Liz Stinson, his longtime assistant, was waiting for his signal. “Power up the grid” Marcus said. He was on pins and needles and his heartbeat raced in anticipation.

Liz pulled a large switch on the wall and Marcus’s baby came to life. Blue and white lights began to flicker all about his machine and cast an evanescent glow around the lab. They would repeat in a pattern while a large yellow light on top of the machine burn hot like the sun. Marcus was looking down at his watch and counting the intervals of the light patterns. Everything was working on his timetable. He gave Liz a big smile before telling her to shut the power to his machine. Free of its power the machine came to a rest. The lights lost their glow and the cooling fans lost their hum. Marcus was impressed with himself. He could let the world know right now what he has done and he would be a King for life, yet that was not what motivated him. He did it for love. He did it for his brother.

“I think someone left you a text message.” Liz said “I heard your cell phone beeping during the test.”

Marcus went to the main worktable and picked up his cell phone from its cool metal surface. There were a number of text messages and they all were from his accountant, Seth Fiegerman. Seth never had any good news because Marcus was virtually penniless. Marcus learned from Seth’s text messages that he didn’t have the funds to pay for the utilities for his workshop and soon he would lose it all together at the end of the month.

“Liz, did anyone win the lottery last night?” Marcus asked. “I believe I heard it was over nine hundred million.”

“You heard right.” Liz said with a laugh “soon it will be over a billion.”

“We don’t have the luxury to wait for that. Do me a favor.” Marcus said with all seriousness “Write down the winner numbers from the last night’s drawing so I can take them with me.”

“Take them with you?” Liz asked “You are not thinking about…”

“I am.” Marcus said clenching his teeth.

“But we need to run more tests.” Liz said pointed to the test schedule on the wall.

“If I don’t do this then Tommy is going to be sold for scrap,” Marcus reasoned. “Besides I also don’t have the funds to keep paying your salary.”

“As much as I like my weekly paycheck I don’t want to see you rendered into dust.” Liz said.

“We both know far worst can happen to me,” Marcus said with a sigh. “But circumstances have taken the choice out of our hands. Power up the grid again. This time increase the levels one hundred percent. I am going to program in the parameters.”

His assistant did as he asked and soon the workshop was full of lights once again. While the system was powering up Marcus stepped inside the machine. Once inside he activated the destination codes into the command screen. The indicator lights were blinking like crazy, but it took an additional minute before they reached full power and when it did the machine would rattle with every pulse it let off. The countdown clock was only seconds away from launch. He still had time to abort. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

A brilliant white flash blinded Liz and when she could focus her eyes once again she could see that Marcus was no longer in the machine. She examined the insides of the machine and there not even a trace of her boss.

Over thirty minutes went by and there was no sign of him. Liz contemplated what she was going to do. Should she call someone? Marcus’s parents perhaps. Then she could hear that there was someone outside the workshop. She could hear a rustle at door. Whoever it was they must have a key. Before she had a chance to check the security cameras the door slide open and in popped her boss.

“Did you miss me?” Marcus said from the doorway

The sound seemed to come from the underworld and it startled Liz before she could contain herself from the shock. Liz had really been worried that that machine could have killed him. “What happened?”

“Does this answer your question?” Marcus said while handing her a lottery ticket. “Are they not the winning numbers that you wrote down for me?”

“It works.” Liz said softly at first and then she said it again a great deal louder. After which she went into one of her little victory dances, moving to the rhythm of imaginary music singing to herself. “I knew it. I knew it. I KNEW IT!”

“Enough with the singing and dancing.” Marcus said “I need you to cash in that ticket.”

“You are going to let me cash in your ticket?” Liz said more startled than when she though she heard voices from the underworld.

“I trust you.” Marcus said “I have trusted you with all of this” waving his hands towards the machine and the rest of the lab.

“I know.” Liz said “But this is a lot of money.”

“That’s why you are going to keep a good portion of it for yourself. All these years and not once have you asked for a raise, well today is your day. Pick a number you are happy with and deposit the rest into the company account. We’ll hear far less from Seth Fiegerman after that happens. Then we can continue our work and I can save my brother.”

Six months later Marcus’s workshop was working in overdrive. He had used his lottery earnings to upgrade all his lab equipment and employ dozens of more people to work on his time machine, only he never called what they were working on a time machine. He told them that they were working on the Tommy project. Sure they all were curious, but they were able to work around that. The money helped. It was soon known in the scientific community that he would pay much more than the standard rate and this attracted the best people.

Marcus would delegate the jobs to them into small enough parts that no one could ever guess what made up the whole project. It was during this process that great improvements were made. With this additional help advancements were made that would have taken years if only had Marcus and Liz worked on them alone. His team was able to streamline machine. First they greatly reduce the amount of energy needed to operate it and then they were able to shrink the size. Now it would be possible for Marcus to carry the time machine on his back like he was hiking the Himalayas.

“We have been working on this project a long time and I know it is named after your brother, but you never talk about him.” Liz said

“That’s because I don’t know much about him. He was killed before I was born.” Marcus said “He was only a few months old when he died.”

“How did he die?” Liz asked.

“In a bar fight.” Marcus said.

“In a bar fight?” Liz asked with a chuckle despite herself. “I’m sorry. That isn’t funny.”

“One of my parents favorite restaurants was a bar and grill called The Prickly Pear. A man by the name of Brandon Carte started a fight there on the night of March 9, 1965 and my brother Tommy was knocked over from his baby carriage and killed.” Marcus said.

“What are you going to do to this man when you find him?” Liz asked.

“I haven’t decided yet.” Marcus said “Maybe I’ll send him back in time one thousand years.” His voice had a cold edge to it. This wasn’t the first time he thought about it. His face was emotionless, it had frozen over. His eyes were unfocused and glazed over in his long held pain of a missing a brother that he has never known.

“That would be a death sentence.” Liz said.

“He did kill my brother.” Marcus said.

“Indirectly.” Liz reasoned “And after you have stopped that from happening it won’t be true any longer.”

“Perhaps you are right, Liz” Marcus said “I’ll think of something by tomorrow.”