Authors: Dr. Cuthbert Soup
“That's part of the appeal,” said Sullivan. “Where I come from, everything is so safe. You know you can't even take a shower without wearing a helmet? It's the law now.”
“How do people wash their hair?” asked Catherine, to whom such things were of great importance.
“They don't,” said Sullivan. “But it doesn't matter, because you pretty much have to wear a helmet wherever you go, so no one ever sees your hair.”
When the sled-turned-wagon was loaded with supplies, Sullivan said good-bye to his lovely wife, Gurda, with a tender kiss and to his brother-in-law, Stig, with a hearty and hairy handshake. They would've come along, Sullivan explained, but Gurda had her hot yoga class and Stig was way behind on his hunting and gathering. And so, Stigless and Gurda-free, they started out on their uncertain journey to find the hidden time machine and, for Signor Rossini, a working piano.
Sullivan fired up Rufus, the robot dog, and Simon, Professor Boxley, and Pinky climbed aboard the wagon while the others walked alongside. They were promised by Sullivan that the LVR-TS714 version 8.0 was absolutely, positively, without a doubt no more than five miles away. Six or seven at the most. And certainly not more than eight.
As they left the safety of the cave behind, Jason could not seem to think about anything other than his recently discovered destiny of pitching a no-hitter in the World Series. He gripped the souvenir ball in his hand, the horsehide smooth in contrast to the roughness of the stitches. He imagined standing on the mound, the crowd of fifty thousand rising to its feet as he went into his windup and delivered a wicked forkleball. The batter swings, and the ball punches the catcher's mitt with a glorious
smack
. Strike three, game over, no-hitter, and Jason is carried off the field and into the record books.
So lost was he in fantasy that he didn't realize he was making fake crowd noise with his breath as he walked.
“What's wrong, Jason?” asked Catherine with a sly grin. “You sound like Darth Vader having an asthma attack.”
“Huh? Oh,” said Jason. “I was just, uh, thinking about something.”
“Baseball?”
“Yeah.”
Future President of the United States Catherine Cheeseman had also been thinking about her destiny. She had never seen herself as a politician; at this point in her life, she really wasn't sure what she wanted to do. In school, she had taken a career aptitude test, which involved answering scores of multiple-choice questions by coloring in tiny dots with a number-two pencil. After all of that careful coloring in of all those dots, the results stated that she would be best suited to working in a factory that makes Japanese flags.
“Pretty crazy, isn't it?” she said, admiring the campaign button. “To know what life holds in store for you? Though, to be honest, I'm not sure I want to be president. Too much pressure.”
Jason shrugged. “Could also be fun. Maybe I'll arrange it so you can throw out the first ball at the World Series.”
“Gee,” said Catherine. “Then I'll be sure to have something to put in my memoir.”
“Maybe you can get Simon to write your memoir for you.”
“Good point.”
As they walked and talked, something suddenly occurred to Jason. If his great-nephew was middle-aged,
that meant that in Sullivan's world, Jason would be dead, which bothered him greatly at first. Still, did he really want to be alive in a time when helmets were required in the shower and the world was run by the evil Plexiwave empire? Then again, if he and his family had anything to say about it, there was no way Plexiwave would take over the world.
Once upon Some Times, there was a family of time travelers who had found themselves stuck there (in Some Times, that is) while wanting nothing more than to find their way out of that dreadful place. As they set off to find the machine that very well might make that possible, they found that the terrain in Some Times was as unpredictable as the weather. One minute the ground was hard and flat, the next hilly and covered in deep, shifting sand that made walking slow and arduous. They traveled through an overgrown meadow, then into a grove of gnarled oak trees, then out onto a stretch of dry, cracked earth.
Sullivan suddenly removed the remote control from the wagon's cup holder and used it to stop Rufus in his tracks. The rest of the group stopped as well and watched as Sullivan took a moment to chew a bit on the inside of his lip and pull worriedly at his beard.
“Sullivan?” asked Catherine.
“Of course we're not lost,” came Sullivan's preemptive response. “It's just that things look a little different this
time, that's all. I'm absolutely, positively, one hundred percent sure it's this way. Easily ninety percent, that's for sure. Seventy-five percent at the very least. I think we've got at least a fifty-fifty chance of finding it if we keep going this way.”
“I am losing patience,” grumbled Ethan in broken English. “I must have access to a piano.” For emphasis, he waved his composition in the air before folding the pages and shoving them into his pocket.
“Don't worry, Signor Rossini,” said Catherine. “We should be at the opera house soon.”
“We had better be,” he said with a scowl. “Otherwise I will find it on my own.”
As Jason and Catherine exchanged a look of concern for their father and wondered if he would ever return to normal, Sullivan started Rufus on his uncertain journey once again. Another half hour had passed when they began to hear some type of commotion. It grew louder as they drew nearer to the source.
Just up ahead, not more than a quarter mile, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of busy people, engaged in various tasks, moving like ants across the desert floor. They were building something, and as the wagon neared, it became apparent just what that something was.
“Wow,” gasped Catherine. “They're building a pyramid.”
“Well, that's progress, I guess,” said Sullivan.
“I can't wait until it's finished,” said Simon.
“Well, you're going to have to wait, Grandpa Cheeseman,” said Catherine. “Looks like they've got a few years to go.”
The structure appeared to be about one-third finished, and, as with any large construction project, some people were working while others only pretended to work, and some made no attempt to look busy and just stood around, talking. Though Catherine found the scene nothing short of fascinating, Pinky did not like the situation one bit and signified so with her trademark warning of danger.
“Maybe we should ask those guys for directions,” said Simon.
“That's a dumb idea,” said Gravy-Face Roy.
“I think it's a great idea,” said Steve.
“Yeah,” said Catherine. “Great idea. Let's all learn to speak Egyptian, then we can wander down there and ask them if they would be so kind as to direct us to the nearest abandoned time machine.”
“That was sarcastic, wasn't it?” asked Simon.
“You're catching on,” said Catherine.
After a quick discussion, it was officially agreed upon that they would not ask the ancient Egyptians for directions, and would instead continue to rely on Sullivan's sketchy recollection of where he had stashed the time machine. And so, they gave the ancient construction site a wide berth as they passed, barely drawing notice from the workers, the talkers, or the guys pretending to work.
By and by, they crested a small hill, and Sullivan stopped
and scanned the landscape, left to right. “Wait a minute,” he said with a bob of his head. “I think we're getting close now. Yes, I believe I hid it in an abandoned mine just over there to the left. Hundred percent sure. Eighty percent at the very least.”
The electronically yapping dog lurched forward and made a sharp left turn. They followed the wagon down the hill, where they saw yet another construction site, this one far less ancient than the first, as evidenced by the fact that it seemed to be the future home not of a brand-new ancient pyramid, but of a brand-new shopping mall. There were bulldozers, a towering orange crane, and, as with the previous site, some people working, people pretending to work, and others just standing around talking.
“Uh-oh,” said Sullivan, because he could think of nothing better to say. He was a hundred percent certain, eighty at the very least, that this is where he had chosen to store his time machine for safekeeping all those winters, summers, and springs ago. Now the abandoned mine was home to a sprawling shopping complex, which, when finished, would feature no fewer than three coffee shops and a place that sold deep-fried cheese.
Jason and Catherine stood and stared and hoped that Sullivan had made a mistake, something he certainly seemed capable of doing. Professor Boxley nervously bit his nails.
“Are you sure?” Jason asked. “Are you sure this is the place?”
“IDK,” Sullivan responded.
Ethan scoffed in Italian and spat out a puff of Italian-sounding air. “This is the most hideous opera house I have ever seen. It's no wonder they're tearing it down.”
“Uh ⦠yes,” said Catherine. “But don't worry. I hear the new one is going to be spectacular.”
Without another word, Sullivan drove nearer to the site, and the others followed. They approached the enormous crane, which would have been quite helpful in the building of a pyramid. Sullivan continued on, and just beyond the crane he and everyone else stopped in their tracks.
Rusted, dented, and dust-covered, the LVR-TS714 version 8.0 sat on the gravel-strewn ground, looking like something completely incapable of traveling along the Time Arc.
“Is that it?” asked Jason. “Is that your time machine?”
Sullivan shook his head disbelievingly. “I don't know what to say.”
“Say it's not your time machine,” said Steve.
“I'm afraid I can't do that, Steve,” said Sullivan. He stepped off the wagon and his feet crunched through the gravel as he walked toward the badly damaged machine he had built from the ground up with his bare hands. He gazed upon his once splendid creation with extreme sadness. Slowly and gently, he reached out to touch its dusty surface, when suddenly the hatch door flung open.
Out from the egg-shaped time machine walked a man in a fluorescent orange vest and a bright yellow hard hat. And some other stuff, too, of course, like pants and a shirt. And work boots, which ground into the gravel as he stepped from the LVR-TS714 version 8.0.
“You have to jiggle the handle,” the man said to Sullivan. “And watch out for the squirrels. They'll bite if you're not careful.” He said nothing else, and walked over to the crane and climbed up into the driver's seat. Sullivan was devastated. Not only had his beautiful work of scientific art been rendered completely useless for the purpose of time travel, it was now being employed as a construction site port-a-potty and a home for wayward squirrels.
Sullivan peered inside, confirming what he feared he might find. Besides the obvious accompanying odors, the control panel had been completely torn out, the wires gnawed and frayed by sharp rodent teeth. The LVR-TS714 version 8.0 was a complete and utter disaster.
“Well?” asked Professor Boxley. “How bad is it?”
“I can't believe it,” said Sullivan, his voice weak and defeated. “Everything is broken except for the restroom.”
“That's horrible,” said Catherine.
“That's awful,” Jason agreed.
“That's great,” said Simon. “Because I really have to go.”
“Do you think it can it be repaired?” asked Professor Boxley, looking even more nervous than usual.
Sullivan turned and slumped to a seated position in the open doorway of the time machine. He rested his head in his hands. “Well,” he said. “Nothing's impossible. Except that.”
“What are you saying?” Catherine demanded. Ever since discovering that Sullivan was her great-nephew, and that she would one day be president, she found herself speaking
to him differently, as if she were the adult and he the child. In some ways, that was certainly true.
“I'm saying,” said Sullivan, “that it would be faster to build a new time machine from scratch than to try to repair this one.”
“And how long would that take?” asked Jason.
“Mom once made a cake from scratch,” said Simon. “And that only took a couple of hours.”
“We're not talking about a cake here,” snipped Catherine. “We're talking about a time machine. And I thought you had to use the bathroom.”
“Oh yeah.” Simon slipped past Sullivan and into the hollow shell of the time machine, where he would, for the first time in his life, contemplate the wisdom of having a sock puppet on each hand.
“Even if we could find all the parts to build a new one,” said Sullivan, “it took me almost two years, working around the clock, to finish this one.”
“We can't afford to stay here that long,” said Jason.
“Well,” said Catherine. “It took one brilliant scientist two years to build this one. We have three of the brightest scientific minds of all time.”
“Three?” said Jason. “But Dad's ⦔
“Yes, I'm aware of the situation,” said Catherine. Right then and there she decided that she'd had just about enough of the craziness that was Some Times, and she no longer felt like putting up with it. She marched over to her father, took him firmly by the shoulders, and looked directly into his
eyes, just as she had seen her mother do on those occasions when Olivia had decided her husband needed a healthy dose of tough love.
“Listen, Dad,” she said. “I know you're in there somewhere. And we need you. Mom needs you. So please try. Try to remember. Your name is Ethan Cheeseman. You're a scientist. You're not a composer. Do you understand me? You're not a composer.”
With each true statement that sprang forth from Catherine's lips, Ethan's face underwent a gradual change, until finally he sighed heavily and placed his hands on his hips. “I understand,” said Ethan, in a thick Italian accent. “You don't like it. You don't like my new opera.”