The really scary part would come near the end. Ellis had programmed the tablet to track his position in both time and space, so, no matter how long he remained in time’s hurricane eye, he would come out of stasis at the same physical location that he had started. Those calculations were the most difficult. Not only did he have to take in consideration the rotation of the earth, but also the movement of the planet around the sun and the universe and galaxy spinning through space. If he calculated wrong, he could materialize inside a star or, more likely, into the immense vacuum of space.
Ellis had set his destination for two hundred years and eight months. The eight months would allow him to arrive in summer rather than fall. The calculation might not be that precise. Several variables might affect the exact time lapse. The power drawn, the batteries’ storage capacity, the wiring used, even the humidity in the air could cause the arrival date to shift by a few years.
Ellis raised his finger and noticed it was shaking. He stared at the glowing ignition. Then it finally happened. His life did flash through his head. He saw his mother, saw his father, saw himself at college, then him holding an eight-pound Isley followed by teaching his son to ride a bike. He saw Peggy in the snow at Mt. Brighton, flakes on her eyelashes, cheeks red, holding on to him for dear life and laughing. They were both laughing. They hadn’t laughed together like that in…
Sadness, regret, anger, and frustration—the pain reached into his chest, squeezing his heart. Ellis took a labored breath. “Say goodnight, Gracie,” he said, and pressed the button.
Chapter Three
No Time Like the Present
The first thing Ellis noticed was that the overhead lights went out with a pop, signifying he’d just killed the breaker at the substation and possibly taken out the power to his part of the grid. Nothing else happened.
His heart sank in disappointment, but then he noticed that the light illuminating the ignition button was still on and the humming was growing louder. The Aerostar seat started vibrating like a coin-operated Magic Fingers bed, and everything was blurry. As much as he wanted to believe that the time machine would work, his rational mind knew it wouldn’t. His brain was the Chicago Daily Tribune running the banner: DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN even while his senses told him something was happening.
Peering through the webbing of the milk crates, Ellis could still see the poster of the Mercury Seven, only it didn’t look the same. It appeared to change color, turning bluish. The streetlight shining in the window was spreading out in the color spectrum. Then he noticed movement. He watched shadows crawl slowly, advancing like a time-lapse film. They didn’t race; they didn’t flash by; they barely moved, but it was noticeable. Time was advancing outside the crates more rapidly than on the inside. He had achieved the gravity well, and it was self-contained, stable, and he was insulated. He knew this by the simple virtue of still being alive.
He looked at the tablet, and saw the numbers scrolling by, faster with each passing second. The program should auto kill both the gravity well and the electrostatic shell the moment the clock timed out, but what would happen after?
There was no going back now.
He’d been sitting in the time machine for about five minutes, and Ellis was concerned about Peggy coming home. He didn’t know if she’d be able to see him. He should already be moving interdimensionally, but since he could still see the garage—as distorted as it was—he imagined she might be able to see a ghostly, unmoving image of him, still caught in the instant he pressed the button. Once he reached a certain threshold he imagined he would vanish in a burst of light like the starship Enterprise.
How long will that take? I need to go.
As if on demand, there was a jolt and a sound like a freight train. Everything went bright blue and then white. When the sound stopped, he felt as if he were free-falling. He might have screamed, but he never heard it. His mind focused on to just one thought.
So this is what it’s like to die.
Ellis wasn’t sure if he had lost consciousness or if the term consciousness even applied. He was certain the human mind, whether built from evolution or the will of God, wasn’t designed to handle what he’d just done. Human perception of reality could only bend so far. There were limits to comprehension, and without reference points his trip through the world of looking-glass physics remained nothing more than a blur.
Even the duration was hard to judge. So much of human understanding depended on the surrounding environment that even time lost meaning in its absence. If he’d thought about it sooner, he might have counted his breaths or tapped a finger to an internal beat like a clock, but such thoughts were far too reasonable for what he had experienced. Ellis wasn’t an astronaut trained to react to the abnormal with calm indifference. Dropping the tablet, he gripped the armrests of the chair, gritted his teeth, and prayed while years streamed past in the form of sheering light and tearing thoughts.
Ellis believed in the Bible and the Methodist God, not that he’d read the book or had a personal come-to meeting with the Almighty, as his mother had liked to put it. Such things didn’t matter. He hadn’t visited France or read Les Misérables, either, but he was pretty certain Paris was out there. He’d gone to church with Peggy regularly when Isley was alive, less so after, hardly at all in the last decade.
Like with Peggy, he and God had grown apart, yet there was something about riding a bolt of electricity and two hundred solar masses through a twisted reality that got him to make the call. God, he imagined, got a lot of late-night drunk dialings. Aw shit, God, I need your help. I really fucked up this time—damn. I’m sorry I swore just then—fuck, I did it again!
Ellis found it strange that he hadn’t prayed for his life before that. A death sentence should have provoked it, but Ellis had gone to visit Warren at a bar instead of a priest in a church after getting the news. He figured God knew his situation already. What a lousy job that must be, listening to the daily sob stories of everyone on earth. All of them begging not to die or for the life of a loved one, as if everyone didn’t know the deal. Still, no matter how much he loathed the idea, fear overrode pride, and at that moment Ellis was terrified. All he had left was God, and for the first time in years he prayed.
Sound was the first thing to come back, a buzz that grew to a ring that hurt Ellis’s ears. He dug his fingers into the cushioned velour, sucked air through his teeth, eyes squeezed shut. Finally, a booming crack like thunder exploded, and he felt a final jerk.
Then silence.
The vibrations stopped too. The aftermath left him numb, similar to how he felt after shutting off a car engine following a long stint behind the wheel. He opened his eyes. He didn’t know what to expect—a hellish landscape of obliterated ruins, a megalopolis of towers and lights with flying cars screaming by, or the pearly gates and St. Peter shaking his head and sounding like Foghorn Leghorn stammering, “I say—I say—I say you’re early, boy.” What he saw instead surprised him, though it shouldn’t have.
He saw the milk crates.
They were still there. He likely would have died if they hadn’t been, although they looked odd now—warped the way his garage had looked just before things went white. He wondered if time was still bending and it took a moment to realize the plastic had just melted some. All the crates were fused, squeezed down, and listing to one side. They were also smoking. It smelled as if he were back in his high school shop class making polymer paperweights. Beyond the crates he could tell everything had changed. He wasn’t in his garage anymore. He was outside. A breeze brushed past, carrying away much of the smoke with it. He could hear the rustle of leaves, a soft soothing sound.