“No, Tony. No one can do anything about it. It’s the all-powerful secret branch of the government,” Will said.

  Vivienne didn’t bother with what her colleagues said. She was powering up the control panel that operated the now-forbidden machine.

  When the time machine sprang to life with the telltale sign of power surging through it, eyes turned her way.

  “What are you doing, Dr. Walshe?” Rosalyn asked.

  “I,” Vivienne said as her hands sped across the control panel, “am getting the device ready.”

  “But we’re not allowed to experiment with it anymore …” Marcy trailed off.

  “No, we’re not.” Vivienne was picking up speed now. She moved to the device itself, inspecting it.

  She looked at them, still on the floor, still defeated. “But I don’t care.”

  Vivienne’s assistants looked at each other, surprised. Ignoring the alphabet agency’s request had not occurred to them, and it had certainly not occurred to them that Dr. Walshe, the consummate dedicated professional, might suggest it.

  “When their people come tomorrow, there will be nothing I can do to prevent their takeover of the lab. But today, the lab is still ours. And I intend to make the very most of that fact.”

  All sets of eyes were on her, following her hurried actions with dawning understanding.

  “I don’t want any of you to get in trouble because of my choices. You are all free to leave right now. No hard feelings. I will completely understand. It would be the smart thing to do.”

  But when Vivienne searched for signs that they would take the prudent road, she didn’t find them. She didn’t even bother asking them what they wanted to do. Their answers were clear in the resolve that was taking root on their faces.

  “Are you all sure?” she asked. The consequences of their disobedience could be severe.

  “Hell yeah, we’re sure,” said Will, and his statement was followed by the enthusiastic nods of the others.

  She studied these courageous young men and women. Everything she wanted to find was right there, in their steady gazes.

  “Okay then. We have lots to do, and little time to do it in. We have to move fast, but carefully. There will be no room for mistakes.”

  More nodding heads. More steeled resolve.

  “Will, Tony, and Dale, I want you to go over every square inch of the machine, inside and out. Make sure everything is oiled and cleaned and charged and in perfect running order. Even if it was done recently, do it again. Make sure.”

  Will, Tony, and Dale’s heads bobbed up and down.

  “Rosalyn, Amelia, and Tomas, I want you to go over the control panel’s programming. Every single detail, even if it seems redundant. Check everything twice, three times. Talk about it amongst yourselves. Make sure it all makes sense. I’m going to be updating the program remotely from my computer. I want you to check my work as I go. Any problems, you let me know right away. Got it?”

  More gestures of assent.

  “And guys, not a single word of this outside the lab. Even if you take a lunch break or whatever, don’t talk about what we’re doing here while you’re out of the lab. No risks of anyone getting wind of what we’re up to. No chances. Okay? We’ve come too far.”

  “Absolutely,” Will said. “Of course,” Rosalyn said. They were all in agreement.

  “And when the others come in,” Vivienne continued, “make sure they know what’s going on. I’ll be too busy. Wherever help is needed, ask for it.”

  “What about me?” Marcy asked. “What should I do?”

  “I want you to write a glowing recommendation letter for everyone who works in this lab, yourself included. Make it sound like I wrote it. Make each letter different, referencing each person’s specific contributions to the lab. When you finish, print them out and ready them for me to sign. I won’t have time to read them.”

  “Why do I need to do that today?” Marcy asked, apprehension surfacing like a stone in her stomach.

  “Because I’m taking Kooky’s place in the time machine.”

  Gasps and heavy silence swept across the room. “I won’t be around to sign them tomorrow, nor will I be around to greet the goons.”

  “But …” Marcy started. She didn’t know how to say what she wanted to say. She wished Max were there.

  “You’ll be torn to pieces,” Rosalyn said, summing up Marcy’s rattled thoughts.

  What her lab team didn’t know was that Vivienne had already been torn to pieces long ago. “Maybe. Maybe not,” Vivienne said. “Either way, I have to try.”

  Rosalyn and Marcy didn’t understand why Dr. Walshe’s eyes held none of the fear or sadness they would expect to accompany that statement.

  Speechless, they moved to do their part.

  A Flutter of Butterfly Wings

  “Viv, you can’t do this.”

  “Max, I’ve already told you. I have to.” Vivienne could feel the minutes ticking away while she and Max argued. They had been talking about it for what seemed like hours already, but Max still couldn’t accept what she was doing.

  “You yourself said the equation wasn’t perfected. That it was missing something you hadn’t been able to figure out.”

  “And I just figured it out. I told you. It was so obvious that I could feel it at the periphery, nagging at me. It finally came to me last night.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  Vivienne sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall. It brought tomorrow closer, one tick at a time, no matter what she did. Her father and the Whitters would be here soon. They would never forgive her if she left without saying goodbye, but she couldn’t afford the time for a trip to Danville.

  She couldn’t afford the time for this discussion any longer either. She still hadn’t finished updating the program on her end, and she wanted Max to have the opportunity to check her work, in addition to the other three she assigned to the task.

  “Then I’m wrong, I guess.” Vivienne looked him straight in the eyes. “But I don’t think I am.”

  “That’s quite a lot to risk on an ‘I guess’ and ‘I think.’”

  “So it is. But I have to do this anyway. And I would really appreciate your help in doing it. You are the most brilliant mind here.”

  “Other than yours, of course.” Even though distraught, Max couldn’t refrain from the teasing comment he was accustomed to making. This time, however, it meant nothing. He knew nothing would come of it. It was simply a habit of a time more hope-filled for him.

  His mind flew in desperate flight. What could he do to stop her? He could tell the university administration what she was doing. It wouldn’t want to invite trouble with the government. Or he could tell the government agency itself. It would have armed men here within the hour. He could even sabotage the machine. He could remove a key part so that it couldn’t function. By the time they figured out what was wrong and which part was missing, tomorrow would have arrived.

  His chest heaved as it threatened to break. He knew he wouldn’t do any of those things.

  He looked into Vivienne’s eyes. He didn’t see the impatience she felt. He didn’t discover her love for Ray. He didn’t find anything he didn’t want to find.

  The liquid, milk chocolate brown of her eyes pulled him into them, and he knew he would do whatever she needed him to do.

  “Viv, are you sure?” The voice that had boomed as he tried to convince her not to go through with it had softened to a whisper.

  Her features melted as she stepped toward him. She lifted her hand to his cheek and shared a sad smile. “Yes, Max, I’m sure. I really have to do this.”

  He placed his palm across her hand, pressing it into his cheek, holding what he could of her there for as long as he could.

  “Why?” The strangled word hovered in the air between their faces. They stood only a foot apart.

  Vivienne never thought she would tell anyone there about her and Ray.

  Still, she realized that she had to. Anything less would shatter this good man who stood before her, his heart bared even though he hadn’t once said all that he felt for her.

  She raised her other hand to the waves of his sandy brown hair. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear. He needed a haircut; his hair grazed his collar. She looked into his hazel eyes and the words tumbled out before she had steeled herself to speak them.

  With her hand still under his, pressed against his cheek, she allowed him in for the first time.

  She told him everything he needed to know about her and Ray. He held her hand tighter against his face as the sentences wore on, unwilling to release what he knew with certainty now he didn’t have.

  “If I could have loved anyone other than Ray, it would have been you, Max. I would have loved you.”

  Max didn’t say a word.

  “I would have chosen you, Max. I would have every reason to. You’re a good, kind man. I see very much to love in you.”

  She leaned in and kissed him on the lips. It was the gentlest of kisses, and he would later wonder if her lips had even been there at all. Like a flutter of butterfly wings, they landed on his. When they flew off, he brought his other hand to his lips to hold the memory of her fleeting kiss there, and he nodded fervently. Tears welled in his eyes, but he would not let them fall in front of her.

  He would continue to love her in the one way he still could. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me what you need me to do.”

  And as he pored over her corrected equation, marveling at how simple the fix was, he forced himself to train his eyes on the papers in front of him. Because every single part of him burst with the desire to look at her, to take in her scent, to follow her every movement.

  Whether she lived or died after she stepped into that time machine, he would never see her again.

  He held his heart together as best he could and tried to focus, to help the woman he loved succeed in reaching another man.

  The One Thought

  Vivienne stood before an audience comprised of her entire laboratory group, her father, and Mr. and Mrs. Whitter. They had said their goodbyes and exchanged final hugs. There came a point where nothing more could be said. Some things were greater than life and death, and they could not readily be put into words.

  Mrs. Whitter sought solace in her husband’s shoulder, silent tears escaping despite her intention not to cry. John held his back straight and willed himself to look strong. The Whitters and Vivienne’s father were, in the end, the ones that understood Vivienne’s reason for going, better than the research team that shared most days with her for years.

  They were the only ones that knew her in relation to Ray, and so they were the ones that truly knew her. They accepted why she needed to do what she was about to do. Even her father consented to her course of action, although she was the only living family left to him in this world.

  If all went to plan, that wouldn’t matter. Vivienne intended to gift her father with a happy family life, the one he deserved.

  Like her father, Max was pretending to feel strong even though Vivienne knew he didn’t. Regardless, he had agreed to be the one to start the machine and supervise its trajectory.

  Vivienne shared a last look with all of them, lingering with Ray’s parents and her father, and taking a long time with Max. She willed him to see the affection and admiration she held for him.

  She thought he did before she turned toward the cylinder and crouched through the first door. She ducked through the second. She climbed onto the pedestal and pulled her legs to her chest.

  A wave of doubt rolled through her along with the chill of hollow metal.

  Everything would work, she told herself. This very device had pointed her in the direction of what had always been there: the answer to how to pinpoint the exact moment in time of the subject’s arrival.

  She smiled mirthlessly when she realized that she had now become the subject of her experiment. It was no longer a purple-haired stuffed animal. It was she, with every speck of her dreams, desires, and longings. It was a breathing, beating human being.

  And therein lay the answer that had eluded her for so long. Precisely because she was a live human being, she would be able to direct the machine’s trajectory through time.

  Organic matter was unique. Specifically, organic human matter was unique. It possessed its own polarity, or magnetism, that inanimate objects did not. Kooky was devoid of a magnetism of his own and, therefore, could not interact with the force the magnet beneath him built. It was mere luck that Kooky hadn’t gone much farther into the future than Vivienne intended, because, she realized now, he could have. She’d had no accurate way to control his destination.

  But now she did. Her brain produced energy in the tangible form of waves. Her brain waves were targeted energy that she could control with her thoughts. If she held the thought of April eleventh, 1959 with enough focus, her brain waves would interact with the force propelling her through time to give it its direction.

  Vivienne was certain she was correct about this in the same way she had known so many things that didn’t make sense otherwise, like how she had known she would be reunited with Ray.

  Now, here she sat, ready to launch herself toward him.

  Or to her death.

  She was a scientist, and she was aware there was always that chance. Nothing was infallible, certainly not her.

  Toward the beginning of her research, she discovered that a set of exact circumstances needed to take place for a breach in the time continuum to occur. She had long wondered if the event would have happened at all if she had not chosen to go to the bathroom before leaving Rosie Miller’s party.

  A very precise, specific situation was needed to bring about such gargantuan magnetics and all of its consequent effects. Like dominoes, without a perfect line connecting all of them, even if the first were to fall, the others wouldn’t.

  A sterile lab environment was Vivienne’s only opportunity to recreate the same circumstances that had torn her life, and her heart, to pieces.

  Now she was willingly putting herself at the mercy of forces she still didn’t fully understand, not even after decades of study.

  Alone in the chamber, she sighed heavily. Nothing about her life was as she thought it would be.

  A voice startled her. Already far away, she looked up, surprised to find Max at the entrance to the outer chamber. “What did you say?” she asked.

  Max began to repeat himself, then shook his head. He bent through the doors and went straight to her.

  He kissed her.

  It wasn’t a kiss like she’d given him. This was a kiss filled with longing and repressed passion.

  Vivienne had denied him her heart. That was enough for one day.

  She kissed him back until he believed that she would have loved him if she had not already given her heart to another man.

  In imitation of what she had done to him earlier, he put his hand on her cheek. He held it there only long enough to sear the image of her into his memory.

  Then he left her there, with only one brief, regretful look back.

  Vivienne shuddered when Max shut the first set of latches, sealing her in with a fate she had chosen for herself.

  Then came another click.

  And then a third.

  She had purposefully designed the time device to hold a person. That had been an intentional forethought on her part, always wondering whether this project could take her where she wanted to go.

  But she had not incorporated a way for the person inside the chamber to communicate with the outside.

  This was it. She was pretty certain the two thick layers of titanium would cause her screams to fall short of her research team.

  And it started sooner than she expected.

  Even though she had waited for this moment all of her adult life, she was shocked to discover that she was not ready. Perhaps she could never be ready for something like this.

  The sounds of the machine starting up overcame her hearing and worked to knock loose any thoughts she had. The device was only just warming up and already she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to hold onto the one thought she could not let go of—no matter what. The realization that she might not have the strength to broadcast her intended destination as long as was necessary brought a shiver of dread, colder than the bare, titanium enclosure.

  She tried to hold onto the reassurance of Kooky’s safe disappearance and eventual return even as the machine picked up speed and rattled her brain.

  She had no idea how much time had passed or if the device was at full speed yet or not. She reminded herself, severely, that she could not afford to consider anything other than April eleventh, 1959. Danville. Rosie Miller’s party. She and Ray had just decided to leave the party. April eleventh, 1959.

  With her eyes clenched shut and her teeth clamped down on a washcloth to keep her teeth from breaking with their chattering, she willed will itself to cooperate with her.

  Suddenly, her internal organs began to vibrate and rattle inside her with a terrible intensity.

  Her eyes shot open. They took in blank titanium walls that were moving too much to be more than a gray blur. Even their shine was lost to motion.

  She struck away the fear that her internal organs would implode—or explode—either would be awful and the certain end to her.

  Still, fear threatened to overwhelm her. Panic rose so swiftly and so completely that she almost gave into it.

  Every part of her hurt, and she didn’t know whether or not she breathed any longer. All she knew was lost to vibrating motion.

  Somewhere, ahead of her in the gray blur, was the only thought that mattered.

  With a roar that couldn’t have belonged to her, she bit down on the washcloth ferociously and reached out to snare that thought.

  It almost eluded her grasp, but she powered through its retreat with a guttural growl.

  April eleventh, 1959. Ray.

  Then everything around her, and inside her, went utterly and deathly black.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10