Hello all! Apologies for the silence. I didn’t think I’d really be missed.

I’ve been devoting more time in the past month to “Time Untied” (given the waning views on the latest ‘Epsilon’ – don’t worry, I will finish it – and the yearly NaNoWriMo efforts). Currently “Untied” is at 150,000 words and we’re at one of the two major events I was aiming for.

Yeah, the serial is going to be two Books again (like “Time & Tied” Books 1/2 and 3/4 were full arcs with a breakpoint). I’ll figure out how to break things up whenever I get through it. I can’t post here as I write owing to the time travel messing with earlier scenes.

Still, I figure you should see more of what’s going on there. Hence this character page with information.

I’ve been trying to cut my “point of view” characters back (from almost the full cast), meaning I shift only between three, hence the first category. Any commentary welcome. Enjoy!

POINT OF VIEW CHARACTERS

MAJOR CHARACTERS

MINOR CHARACTERS

Let me know if any of them leave you wanting more information, or if you think it would be worth it to post some excerpts of what is likely to come.

PREVIOUSLY: Everything. Including this guest post.

PART 96c: RESPITE II

“The innumerable possibilities are now in your hands,” Frank remarked, coming up to stand beside Carrie.

“Ah, yes. Here we are, in the world with an unknown future,” the blonde mused. She spun the graduation cap she was holding, finally turning away from the school library. “Where really, my hands are no more important than anyone else’s.”

Frank jerked his head back towards where she’d been looking, in the process dislodging his own cap, which he caught. “Were you just thinking about the van crash, the timelines, and Mindylenopia?”

“Yeah,” Carrie admitted. “And not only her sacrifice in the past. I’ve realized she’ll likely still be a part of our future.”

Frank frowned. “Wait, what? Carrie, our paths are all un-predestined here. Especially for us, two people who never graduated high school in that alternate timeline.”

“Meaning we can change this timeline, Frank,” Carrie asserted. “ONE timeline. We didn’t change the nature of the universe. So while our lives will be different, that alien artifact that your Future Luci mentioned? Something tells me that’s a fixed point for us as well. Meaning there will be time travel. Meaning Temporals. Meaning a new Mindylenopia could be born into this future, with a new Glinephanis, and new interferences.” She smiled. “It’s how we HANDLE all of those events, that’s what becomes the real difference.”

“Right,” Frank said. He smiled back. “You’re getting good at this temporal theory stuff. And you can peek a few days ahead with your power too, so that’s an advantage if there’s trouble.”

Carrie snorted. “Yeah, but no. One thing Chartreuse and I have kinda decided is to leave future vision scrying to her. I mean, even setting aside the ‘me seeing only pre-destined things’ problem, if I’ve resolved not to randomly poke my fingers into my own past? Then I should have the courtesy to not to do it to my future self either. Or anyone else’s future selves.”

“So you’re renouncing your powers?”

Carrie shook her head. “I didn’t say THAT.”

“So it’s merely that you prefer to think about… other things whenever you’re with Chartreuse?”

“I didn’t say that eith–" Carrie eyed his waggling eyebrows, then reached out to smack him in the arm with her graduation cap. “Seriously? Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Frank chuckled. “Sorry. It’s just, ever since it became official around the school, you’re both so cagey about how far you’ve actually–"

“And you KNOW I’ll smack you again if you keep on that topic, right?”

“Okay, okay, back to time travel. Carrie, what if by not using your powers, you end up making an otherwise avoidable mistake?”

“Oh, I’ll make mistakes.” Carrie idly pulled some strands of hair into her fingers, twisting them about. “After all, you only truly learn by messing up, and then correcting things. Assuming you can. Because the alternative? Being told ‘hey, you have to do this now’? That’s not learning. That’s damn annoying. Whether you’re being told ‘what to do’ by a future version of yourself or not.”

Frank grinned. “Wise words. For the record, I voted for you. For valedictorian.”

Carrie chuckled. “Thanks. But I’m glad Laurie won instead. I think she’s come further than anyone else did in our four years here. Well, in terms of the stuff normal people get to know about.” She dropped her hair and sighed. “We should get going to our designated grad rooms. Keep in touch next year from university, and all that?”

“For sure,” Frank agreed. “I’ll message you whenever I’m doing my mathematics homework.”

“Ha!” Carrie rolled her eyes. “I said I was considering a MINOR in maths, so that I’m not completely out of the loop on time travel theory and whatever. Kinesiology, that’s where it’s at for me.”

“No, I mean I’ll want someone with cool temporal stories to tell, who can remind me why I’ll want to keep studying this stuff.” Frank grinned, then began to walk away, only to pause and gesture. “After you, O Temporal One?”

Carrie shook her head. “Don’t inflate my ego. Let’s simply head towards the uncertainties of the future together, okay?”

With a shared nod and a smile, the two teenagers clasped their hands and walked down the school hallway one last time.

END OF TIME & TIED

CARRIE MAY RETURN IN... TIME UNTIED

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE?

• The story of Chartreuse continues in "Epsilon Project"'s second story, "Wish Fulfilment", if you would like to read more about her in the summer after high school.
• This site will continue with "Epsilon Project"'s fourth story, that you can vote on here until the end of May (tomorrow). It will publish Sundays, with weekly votes.
• Time Untied. Yeah. If you haven't been reading the commentaries, the saga of Carrie was once envisioned as being five seasons, aka ten books. We're not even halfway. That said, not much else has actually been written. But this Friday, I will post an excerpt from Time Untied that I wrote in 2015, including an explanation for why I'm not calling it Time & Tied Book 5.
• There will be one further Commentary posted in a week (next Tuesday), with behind-the-scenes for the last parts, some more site stats talk and character analysis.
• You can go back and read "Time & Tied" from the beginning if you like, it's been recently reformatted. Related, I'm rerunning it daily on Royal Road Legends (we just hit Book 3), where there is the occasional character poll. (You can also comment here about your faves.)
• I run a personified math webcomic too. If that is in any way your thing.
• There are a number of links in the sidebar to other serial sites with similar material (time travel, voting, etc).
• There are a number of other good serials on "Top Web Fiction", which you can easily access by clicking here: Vote for T&T ;)
• Maybe someone will comment with another suggestion...?

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie/Elizabeth forked the timeline. This allows her to become a Temporal God in the timeline she created.

PART 96b: RESOLUTION

Chartreuse counted to ten before following Frank and Beth around to the front of the library. She watched as the time trippers piled into the time car and, after Frank grabbed the briefcase from the trunk, finally pulled away from the building.

She then ducked down as the gunman who had fired in their direction ran down the front steps of the library, waving his weapon. The guy managed to prevent a vehicle that had been pulling out of the parking lot from leaving. It was as the guy climbed into the passenger seat, pointing his gun at the driver, that Chartreuse knelt down in the snow, to open the trombone case she was carrying.

She pulled out the temporal gun. Along with one other item.

As the gunman’s hijacked car drove out onto the road, there was a flash of light. The driver swerved to avoid hitting the glasses-wearing teenager who had appeared. The car hit a patch of ice and spun out, slamming into a nearby telephone pole. The passenger door was wedged shut in the impact; for the moment, there was nothing to worry about there.

Chartreuse attached her item onto the recharge port of the gun. She then moved to get herself a good bracing position at the bottom of the staircase, kneeling down, pressing the bottom of her boot back into the concrete pillar. She knew the kickback from the gun would be a problem.

A second blond man ran out of the library, followed closely by Lee and Luci. The guy dashed down the stairs, and got about three steps further before being clocked in the head by the dictionary Lee had thrown. Their adversary went face first into a snowbank. Not that far away from him, another familiar person appeared from out of nowhere.

“Tim?” Luci gasped. She took the stairs down two at a time, pausing at the bottom. “Chartreuse? What are you doing?”

“Preparing,” she muttered back. She took aim across the parking lot.

Luci blinked. “When did you end up with the temporal gun? And why is the safety off?”

Luci reached down for it, and Chartreuse slapped her hand away.

“Chartreuse!” Luci said. “You’re being reckless - and what do you have on the recharge port?”

“A battery.”

Luci’s eyes widened. “WHAT? You CANNOT be thinking of charging that thing while you’re firing. That’s INSANE.”

“So is she,” Chartreuse whispered.

A short distance away, Laurie appeared.

Luci now reached down with both hands, and so Chartreuse shoved her friend back, out of the way. Luci fell into the snow. “Luci, I’ll, you know, explain later, there’s no time now!”

“Why not? Chartreuse, what is going on?”

Chartreuse looked back at the asian girl, and then at Lee, who was helping her stand back up. In that instant, Chartreuse wondered, what if she died here, and never got to explain?

“Okay, fast version? The day after we, like, talked to Mr. Waterson, I had a vision of today. Looking into it more led me to this experience ten minutes ago, where I used a set of paired relaxation crystals to tell our Carrie to, you know, nudge Mindy’s time car. And now I know that in, like, a few seconds, I’ll have my only chance at saving her.”

Chartreuse looked back across the parking lot. Which was when the blonde teenager appeared, her maniacal laughter echoing eerily around the whole area, her feet starting to lift off the ground as temporal energy sparked all around her, originating at her fingertips.

Chartreuse fired.

Energy lanced out of the gun.

The cackling blonde girl absorbed it. At first.

Chartreuse never moved her finger off the trigger. Even as her own body was driven back into the concrete post behind her, she continued the sustained burst. Tears sprang to her eyes as she felt an ankle give out with a snap, but she kept the gun up and on target. The battery on the port chirped… and the energy blast continued. Across the parking lot, Carrie stopped laughing.

“Chartreuse, stop!” Luci shrieked.

“I’m not losing her again,” Chartreuse cried. “Carrie! Carrie, I love you! CARRIE, COME BACK TO ME!”

“Chartreuse, the gun’s overloading!” Luci reached out again, only to have Lee pull her back, twisting his body around and using it as a shield.

The temporal gun exploded in Chartreuse’s hands.

But not before Carrie’s head had snapped back, her body falling into the snow as the golden light in her eyes faded away.

Carrie listened to the voices around her for a minute or two. From the sound of things, she was again in a hospital. And… geez, had the entire temporal group come to pay her a visit? She cracked open an eyelid.

“Carrie’s awake now,” Luci said immediately.

Opening her other eye, Carrie was able to make out… well, Luci, Frank, Clarke, Julie, Corry, Laurie, Tim, Lee, and even her own father. But not… “Char-treuse?” Carrie croaked out, through dry lips.

Laurie clasped her hands together. “Carrie immediately wants her girlfriend. The one who saved her soul. Oh my God, all the squee!”

The people closest to the head of the bed moved away, and as Lee did so, he made an elaborate gesture towards the next bed over. Carrie followed his motion, where she saw…

“Hi Carrie,” Chartreuse chirped. “I’d, you know, give a thumbs up, except…" She held up her arm, which had been completely wrapped up in bandages.

“She’ll be fine,” Clarke broke in, as Carrie found herself unable to avoid looking horrified. “Don’t worry.”

“Yeah, in fact we originally came here to see Chartreuse,” Corry remarked, crossing his arms. “We didn’t know when you’d wake up. So don’t get a swelled head, Waterson.”

“Speak for yourself,” the older Waterson objected.

Carrie licked her lips, her gaze shifting over to her father. “Dad. Gods, I’m sorry, I never meant to leave you alone in the present for so lon– geuh, I… I mean…"

“He knows about the power,” Frank reminded Carrie. “There was this whole thing where you had a double named Beth wandering through the school last month? So we kind of had to fill him in?”

“Oh. Right.” Carrie brought her hand to her forehead. Last month? “What day IS it?”

“January second,” Tim supplied. “H-Happy new year.”

“I really hope having no coins means we’ll get a few months before we see more time travellers,” Julie observed.

Carrie exhaled. “Yeah, there… there won’t be any more of that happening. Not now. We’re on a parallel time track now.”

The people around her bed exchanged glances. “Carrie,” Frank began. “Based on the temporal theory that a Future Luci explained to me, it’s highly unlikely that multiple time tracks–"

“TRUST me,” Carrie interrupted. “Our Luci’s path itself could be different going forwards. We can talk theory later, but for now, even if anyone from the revised future does try to rewrite us? Believe me when I say I know how to divert them out of our timeline.”

“In a SAFE way, yes?” Chartreuse piped up. “Because I don’t want a rerun. Even setting aside the, you know, temporal gun blowing up on me, I had to stick close to Beth last month in order to get a read on her majorly displaced temporal energy. That way I could, like, use it, in order to forecast my way further into the future than I ever have before. And that sort of ‘vision plus’? Featuring Insane Carrie clarifying the library events I’d seen? Not my, you know, happiest place.”

“I’ll find a safe way of dealing with time travellers,” Carrie assured. She checked herself. “Actually Chartreuse, we both will. Together.”

Chartreuse beamed.

Carrie’s gaze shifted back to her father. “Thing is, in this timeline, I can’t bring Mom back. I’m sorry. If it means anything, she was alive, in the future of another timeline… maybe that’s why some part of you felt like Mom never died?”

Hank Waterson flinched. “Oh. Well. Was she happy there?”

“I… I don’t know. Damn it, I didn’t even check.” Carrie’s head hit her pillow. “I’m sorry. I should have. Hell, maybe I could have even brought her too, I had all that power, it’s just I didn’t even think, I was so focussed on the separation. Dad, I’m so sorry…"

His hand reached out to squeeze hers. “It’s okay, honey. Let’s assume she was happy, and focus on the present. Because Carrie, you’re what’s important to me right now.”

She squeezed his hand back, and found that she was able to meet his hopeful look with a smile.

Lee cleared his throat. “Uh, hate to interrupt a moment, but we already DO have two other time travel guys? Arrested at the library?” He jerked his thumb towards the window. “Do we worry about them?”

Carrie frowned. “No, I wouldn’t. If they were trying to disrupt the awakening of my full potential, it didn’t work.”

“I’ve filed a police report there anyway,” Mr. Waterson added. “Along with what happened at the library, they’re being charged with the attempted kidnapping of my daughter. Never mind that it was technically that Beth girl at the time.”

“So, like Shady, they’re going to end up in the justice system,” Luci mused.

“S-So what’s next for us then?” Tim wondered. “Anything?”

“No,” Carrie groaned. “I pass on doing ANYTHING for the next while. Well, aside from schoolwork, which I guess I’m massively behind on, since my leaving during the talent show.” She looked towards Laurie. “Meaning guess what? You’re still in charge of the cheerleading. In fact, if you’re willing, it’s yours for the rest of our senior year.”

Laurie blinked. “Golly. Thanks.”

Carrie smiled. “Just because this new timeline has me staying in town, that’s no reason to take your future away from you.”

“But Laurie’s behind in her schoolwork too,” Corry protested. “She left for her fake art camp right after you vanished, Carrie!”

“So I’ll work hard,” Laurie said, crossing her arms in imitation of her brother. “Plus I have lots of friends who can help. I’m not letting Carrie or the other cheerleaders down, bro!”

“Ooh, watch out, Power Cad,” Lee said, chuckling at Corry’s sigh of resignation. “Double V here might end up running the school with the Cross One. Instead of it being you and the Rich Witch.”

Clarke frowned. “Witch? Lee, you might want to consider updating–"

“No, no, it’s fine, Phil,” Julie interrupted. “After all, those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. The only thing that matters to me right now is how the two of us could work on the time car together. To kind of… find ourselves again.” She fingered her rose brooch before leaning into him with a smile. Clarke grinned back, raising his arm to encircle her shoulders.

Frank turned to Carrie. “That reminds me. We didn’t spot the car anywhere in town. Did you send it back?”

Carrie pressed her hand to her head. “Oops. No… I forgot. Didn’t want to do a global removal, or we’d likely have ended up with our Glen again. He’s a headache I don’t need. It’s probably for the best though? No time machine, no time gun, no Temporals, just us, and our normal, everyday lives from this point on.”

“No car and stuff?” Laurie moaned, her arms uncrossing. “Golly, I really hope alt-future-Laurie enjoys using my art supplies.”

Mr. Waterson cleared his throat. “Well, as much as I’m enjoying learning more about recent events, unless there’s anything else that’s urgent, I think my daughter and her girlfriend could use their rest.”

Carrie’s eyes went wide. “Oh. My. God. Dad, NO, do NOT say girlfriend yet, we haven’t really officially - oh NO!” She jerked her gaze back over to the adjacent bed. “Chartreuse, you said you had to get close to Beth? Are you saying you two have, like, kissed the way we did, and that the whole school now knows about… about…"

“No,” Chartreuse gasped. “Carrie, you’re, you know, the only one for me. And if you want, no one outside of this room has to, like, know that.”

“Okay. Okay, good.” Carrie let out a breath. “I mean, others can know. I just need a few days here, minimum.”

“Confirming it IS a relationship?” Luci said, winking.

“She did say kissed Beth ‘the way we did’,” Corry remarked.

“Plus there was that whole soul saving they did,” Julie observed.

Carrie felt her face getting warm. She pulled her bedsheets up over her head. “My Dad said it’s rest time. Goodbye now!” There were a few chuckles, followed by a shuffling of feet as people started moving away.

She gave it a good ten seconds, then pulled the sheets back down to her neck. “But before you leave? Thanks. For everything. I mean it.” She made a point of meeting each of their gazes with a smile, as they looked back at her. “Because I wouldn’t be here now. Not if it weren’t for each and every one of you.”

NEXT: Respite II, an Epilogue of sorts. Please stick around.

ASIDE: Part of the reason for splitting the last entry at this point is for site transition time back to Epsilon Project. (You can vote for that plot here.) But it’s ALSO because Drew Hayes was taking guest posts this week on his site. Read my post here, which in continuity, takes place a few months after the events above. Then consider sticking around on Drew’s site to check out his material, and the other guest posts.

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie of the past (Elizabeth) is trying to figure out how to not become the Future Carrie of Timeline Four.

PART 96a: THE ULTIMATE PARADOX

“Missed me,” Elizabeth shouted as she charged through the fog, getting near to where she imagined Carrie would be.

“I’d rather not have even more memories of being in hospital, but I will if I have to,” Carrie shouted back - with a voice that was far too close.

Elizabeth back-pedalled, and carefully began to generate a temporal attack in her palms. A blast that she hoped would freeze at a distance, and not be the temporal freezing that required transmission by touch. “You will be banished,” she shouted, hoping to continue to keep Carrie’s attention on her, and off Buffy.

“I can’t banish myself, stupid,” Carrie snarked back. “I’m immune!”

“I mean you will be banished from being my future. Ha!” Elizabeth retorted. “Because even if you ARE good looking, you’ve got a lousy attitude.”

Something cut through the mist towards her. Elizabeth dropped towards the ground, firing off the charge she’d been generating. Energies collided, spiralling left, and there was a booming sound as they blew out (in?) another part of the wall. Well, that had been pointless. She probably wasn’t going to win this with temporal energy either.

‘Not unless you create a larger charge!' a part of her insisted then. ‘Just give yourself over to it, time is everything, it’s the humanity holding you back… let it go…’

Elizabeth grit her teeth, and pushed herself back up onto her feet. “Yes, fine, you’re part of me, but I remain in control,” she asserted, saying it aloud to put more force behind the thought.

“No, I’M in control,” Carrie’s voice came again. “Because I’ve now worked out how to deal with there being two of you here.”

“Oh yeah? Kinky, but no thanks,” Elizabeth shouted back. She back-pedalled again, knowing every time she spoke she gave away her position - and she nearly stumbled into the wall. Damn it, the mist was disorienting her now.

“The reason I can affect memories,” Carrie continued, as if she hadn’t heard, “is because they’re formed by the passage of time. Meaning, of course, if I can reach into someone’s past and disrupt the particular time when those memories were stored? I can erase, or with a bit more finesse, even alter them.”

Elizabeth tried firing off another blast towards the sound of Carrie’s voice. Carrie simply laughed.

‘You can do better than that. You need to let yourself go.’

It felt like the temporal side of her was starting to pulse within. Elizabeth did her best to ignore it. She couldn’t fight a war on two fronts. “You going somewhere with this?” she hollered.

“Of course.”

Carrie’s voice had come from right behind her! Elizabeth spun, but Carrie had already grabbed hold of her arm, twisting it, even as her other hand pinched in at Elizabeth’s chin.

“Because here I am, RIGHT here, RIGHT now, and I’m about to make both of our pasts an absolute misery unless you surrender. So, do you surrender? Well, Elizabeth, my pathetic defeated teenage self, DO you? Because it’s not too late for us to have a few genuine, happy memories, you know…”

It occurred to Elizabeth then that Carrie was probably homing in on the sound of her own voice, at which point she would jump back in time a few seconds in order to get Elizabeth into this undignified position, and thereby allow herself to home in. Well, wasn’t that clever.

‘Two can play at these games… let it happen…'

“I’m not surrendering,” Elizabeth gasped. “Not to you, nor to my temporal demons…"

“Then you’ve already lost,” Carrie said. “Really, Elizabeth, see sense. Allow me to tweak your memories. That way you won’t realize that when you go back and become your other self in this room? You’ll be working for me. And everything you’ll do will lead us to an outcome here where I am the victor… where you both gave up…"

Elizabeth brought her heel down as hard as she could on Carrie’s foot, twisting free of her counterpart’s grip - and feeling like she was out of time. She was getting angry, and scared, and confused - soon, if she did much more than jump back to become Buffy? She might indeed lose control. Which she couldn’t afford, her prior self needed the keycard tucked in her waistband. She reached for it - it was still there. In fact, yes, it was time.

“Know what, Carrie? I forgive you,” Elizabeth breathed. “Now pardon me as I…"

She time slipped back.

Carrie growled, as she reached out for Elizabeth a second too late. “Fine,” she declared, spinning around to face the mist. “That merely makes it one-on-one again. All too easy.”

“Or not,” came a response from somewhere ahead of her. “Because our paradox - I’ve finally figured it out. In fact, it’s not even a paradox at all.” The sound of footsteps drew nearer. “Though if it’s any consolation, you were right about one thing.”

And seventeen year old Buffy - or rather, the most up-to-date version of Elizabeth - stepped out of the fog. With her eyes a bright gold, and her blonde hair flowing in waves around her, despite the lack of any wind. “I did end up having to surrender to something.”

When the words ‘accept incoming call?’ appeared on the main screen, Bernard reached out to acknowledge. “Who is this?” came Lee’s voice. “Turn on a video link.”

“Um, it’s Bernard? That is, a friend of your resistance,” Bernard clarified. “Er, no video available?”

“Huh. Okay. Let me know when Megan’s team gets there?”

Bernard eyed the other feeds. “If you mean the resistance forces, I think they’ll reach the control room in a couple minutes. Looks like there’s no one else left to stop them any more.” He turned to Amelia. “Come to think, we’d better prop the door back open, so they can get in.” The redhead nodded, moving to replace the mop.

“And what’s the status on Carrie?”

“She’s down in the displacement room. Hopefully incapacitated,” Bernard said.

“Hopefully? Can you maybe sound a little more certain?”

Bernard didn’t answer. He couldn’t - he’d vanished from the room.

“Amelia!” Anthony gasped. “Bernard’s–" The blonde boy disappeared too.

Amelia turned from where she’d propped the door open. “Uhm… guys?”

The control room remained empty, save for Glen’s unconscious body, until Megan Falls walked in three minutes later.

Carrie fired off a temporal blast at Elizabeth. And to her shock and confusion, Elizabeth seemingly absorbed it. How? This teenaged version was too young to know how to do that.

“See, I figured out what I was trying to tell myself,” Elizabeth said airily. “With the apple.”

Carrie readied another blast, a bigger one.

“I was actually trying to remind myself of the discussion I’d been having the first time I ever pulled off that little trick. Last year for me, ages ago for you.”

Carrie fired off her second blast, one that would bump Elizabeth several minutes into the future, rather than a few seconds. Again, incredibly, Elizabeth absorbed it.

“It was a talk with Frank about self-consistency,” the teenager continued blithely. “Versus multiple time tracks. By which I mean timelines that can branch off from the main one, looking much like the way that circuit burned out into forking paths on the wall there - do you remember that talk at all?”

“This isn’t POSSIBLE,” Carrie screamed. She began to form an even bigger charge in her hands. Yes, it was all about power. Power, a power that she had, which her younger self didn’t.

“Wrong,” Elizabeth countered. “This IS possible. What’s really incredible about this whole future is that, despite all of the arguments we made back then… in the end, you latched onto the temporal model of self-consistency? Seriously?”

“No, NO, you can’t,” Carrie said with mounting horror. A horror that came from an increasing awareness of what Elizabeth was saying. She tried to make her charge even bigger. “I’ll freeze you and reprogram you. You won’t be able to absorb this. Never in my past have I have EVER been able to absorb something like this!”

“Let me tell you a secret.” Elizabeth took a step forwards and leaned in closer to Carrie’s ear. “Not. From. Your. Timeline,” she whispered.

It happened the day Frank died, saving Luci’s life. After her consciousness had become trapped inside him. What had allowed that event to become a temporal lynchpin?

Mindylenopia! Oh God, Mindy was the key. By inserting herself into the timeline, Mindy had forced Carrie to power up faster. To learn a technique like banishing sooner. Mindy had moved her abilities along at an accelerated rate - in fact, Glen likely wouldn’t have revealed himself two weeks ago, if not for Mindy! Surely, Mindy’s involvement meant that Elizabeth/Carrie had it somewhere within her to undo this.

Moreover, she had told Luci/Frank that she would fix things, one way or another. She had meant that.

And there WAS a way. She saw it now.

“Go to hell, other me,” Elizabeth gasped. Her eyes flashed golden. She felt like she was being torn in two…

And Carrie gave up. Glen guided her towards the stairs, out of the Dijora house, and out of town.

And they never returned.

And Carrie grew up to hate herself even more.

And later she went back in time and abducted her own pregnant mother.

And Theresa, after receiving a mysterious mental message about her mission, bided her time through history, ultimately joining the resistance, to ensure that Mindylenopia could go back, so that the split would occur.

The split that resulted from the fifty year old Carrie facing off against her seventeen year old self.

It happened the day Frank died, saving Luci’s life. After her consciousness had become trapped inside him. What had allowed that event to become a temporal lynchpin?

Mindylenopia! Oh God, Mindy was the key. By inserting herself into the timeline, Mindy had forced Carrie to power up faster. To learn a technique like banishing sooner. Mindy had moved her abilities along at an accelerated rate - in fact, Glen likely wouldn’t have revealed himself two weeks ago, if not for Mindy! Surely, Mindy’s involvement meant that Elizabeth/Carrie had it somewhere within her to undo this.

Moreover, she had told Luci/Frank that she would fix things, one way or another. She had meant that.

And there WAS a way. She saw it now.

“Go to hell, other me,” Elizabeth gasped. Her eyes flashed golden. She felt like she was being torn in two…

And Elizabeth pulled away, vanishing into the time streams.

And Frank’s life was saved.

And shortly thereafter, Elizabeth decided to save her mother too.

So Theresa revealed herself, and the time machine was reconstructed in a car, and her friends came after her, only to have Mindylenopia sacrifice herself back in Miami.

And from there, Elizabeth was dragged back into the future, to seal the split and reunite the timelines - except they would not be reunited. Could not be reunited.

Not once Elizabeth had seen a way to defeat her fifty year old self.

“STOP!” Carrie howled. “There can be only ONE timeline. MINE!”

“Lynchpin moments are a bitch, aren’t they?” Elizabeth remarked, stepping back. “Turns out I can do more than simply overwrite when I target one. It’s fine, I’m building up to a timeline separation here, so you’ll have your own future back soon enough. For all the good it will do, given how the resistance is closing in.”

“NO!” Carrie continued to charge up the insane amount of energy in her palms. “You can’t. I mean think about it, if you do this - your mother, she’ll be trapped in THIS timeline. Where I dragged her, out of our unified past. Our mother will be in what you’d call an Alternate Timeline Four. You’ll NEVER see her again.”

Elizabeth stared. She nodded. “I know,” she said, sadly.

In one last ditch effort, Carrie brought her palms up, and released all the temporal energy that she’d been generating, right into Elizabeth’s face.

Elizabeth simply boomeranged it.

Carrie fell back onto the ground, her body locked in temporal suspension, her mouth frozen open in an ‘o’ of surprise.

Elizabeth stepped forwards. “You’ll get our mom, and an extra teenaged Glen in this alternate timeline. Good for you. As for me?” She looked up at the ceiling. “I get my future back.”

The blonde drew in a huge lungful of air, increasing her concentration. Her mental message back through time to this timeline’s Theresa had been sent. She’d shoved her friends back into their present, into the other timeline. Her timeline. What was becoming the true timeline. The only thing left to do was… separation.

The Earth began to shake all around her.

It was like that time she’d planned on channelling the destructive force of Shady’s bomb into the time streams, except the sensations felt a hundred times more amazing. For while this alternate future timeline could continue on as it liked, with Megan’s forces in control of the building, Elizabeth/Carrie would be able to rewrite the future of her true timeline. Everything from this point of her life onwards? Would be a complete unknown.

As such, the Earth around her could be moulded in her image.

Everyone would have to bow down before her.

Bow down, because she was a cosmic force.

No, more than that, at this point she was A TEMPORAL GOD.

Unyielding. Unbeatable. Unstoppable.

Carrie Elizabeth Waterson threw back her head and laughed in an insane euphoria. It was time to return to her present.

NEXT: Resolution

ASIDE: So that’s… good? Two posts left, as I split the last section. Voting for T&T can still be a thing. Also, Rev. Fitz, who wrote our latest April Fools Entry (with the Elder Carrie) has been examining serial sites this month. He just recently looked at Time & Tied. So check out his thoughts, and if you haven’t yet, his serial too!

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie of the past (Elizabeth) is trying to figure out how to not become the Future Carrie of Timeline Four.

PART 95b: CARRIE VERSUS HERSELF

They barely got three paces inside the room before Glen was pointing a gun at them. “Freeze!” he said. Elizabeth’s companions froze in place. She realized then that he’d used his mental power.

Except while Glen sounded confident, Elizabeth noticed that he looked worried. He obviously hadn’t expected their mad rush into the control room. Then, looking around, she realized something else. Elizabeth quickly reached out, grabbing the mop that Anthony was still holding, tossing it back behind them. Keeping the main door ajar.

“Move back.” Glen waggled his gun, and Elizabeth, Bernard, Amelia and Anthony all stepped backwards, towards the wall. “I don’t know how you managed to gain access,” Glen remarked. “But this facility DOES have an armoury, and we WERE prepared for that unlikely eventuality.” He gestured at the floor, where there were at least a half dozen other gun-style weapons, along with a small box of what Elizabeth assumed were bombs.

“Unbelievable,” Elder Carrie remarked from behind Glen. “To think that I was once that insanely stupid. God, I hate myself.”

“Come over here and say that,” Elizabeth challenged.

“Don’t even bother with them,” Glen said to Carrie. He rose from his chair and began to advance. “The only question now, Elizabeth, is whether we send your friends here back to their present as they are now… or whether you force us to do it with them a little more… let’s say, wounded?”

Bernard turned to look at Elizabeth. “A version of you actually picks this guy over us?”

“I know,” Elizabeth sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m working on it.”

Glen stopped a few paces away. “Funny. Come on now, this will be SO much easier if you simply accept your destiny."

“That’s far less interesting.”

Glen spun at the unexpected voice. He found himself unable to bring his gun to bear in time, Buffy having followed her remark up with a sprint inside the room, and a full body tackle. With the redhead on the ground, his gun bouncing away, Elizabeth shifted her own attention towards Carrie.

The fifty year old Carrie stepped towards one of the other weapons on the floor, then seemed to think better of it as Bernard made a similar dive. For a moment, Elizabeth sensed her future self trying to establish a temporal freezing field. She nullified Carrie’s efforts.

With that, Carrie charged out of the nearest available exit. The one that led down into the displacement room below. “What, are you trying to escape?” Elizabeth shouted. “If you think you’re so superior to me, PROVE it!” She chased after herself.

Buffy beat her fists into Glen’s side, smacked him about the head, and tried to knee him in uncomfortable places. “Why?” she shrieked. “Why didn’t you make me into a better person? WHY?!”

“Stop! Carrie, I’ve been trying to help,” Glen answered, trying to protect his body while simultaneously attempting to push her off of him. “Besides, that’s still in our future, I haven’t even done anything yet. Stop, I haven’t done it yet!”

“Eliz– err, Buffy, we got this,” Bernard said.

Buffy stopped herself, breathing hard, and noticing that Bernard was now holding a gun on the both of them. Amelia was rounding up the rest of the weapons, moving them to the corner, out of reach, and Anthony was approaching with some rope.

Buffy pushed herself back, rising again to her feet. “Right.” She eyed Glen. “I forgive you too. That said, you try any more of your mental tricks here? Things will not end well for you.”

Anthony began to tie Glen up.

Bernard inclined his head towards the exit. “Buffy, go help yourself.”

“Just a second,” Buffy said, straightening her blouse. “You’ll need the code to turn off the lockdown here, so the resistance can get in.”

“I’ll never give that up,” Glen assured them.

“You won’t have to,” Buffy noted. “Seeing as you entered it into the system, in this room, maybe five minutes ago.” She allowed the time streams to coalesce about her, and after carefully anchoring herself in the present, she slid back to see what the necessary computer input was.

Elizabeth supposed that she should have expected her future self to ambush her as soon as she charged through the sliding door into the displacement room. And yet, she hadn’t anticipated it, and as such she had the wind knocked out of her as the two of them then fell on the ground in a flurry of arms and legs. Elizabeth tried to kick out at her counterpart, but the fifty year old had the advantage of leverage - and of course, a future her would knew most of her moves. Or her expected moves, anyway.

Elizabeth reached out and yanked hard on Carrie’s long hair.

“Yeow!” Carrie screeched. “What, are you in grade school?”

“I was going to say the same,” Elizabeth shot back. “Why won’t you let me play in your sandbox?”

“My God, I’m so immature,” Carrie groaned.

Carrie still seemed temporally weak, but Elizabeth fast realized that where Carrie was holding onto her, her arm was going numb. The feeling was spreading up and into the rest of her body. That wasn’t good. But Elizabeth couldn’t seem to squirm free, she couldn’t seem to… oh. Wait. Duh.

Her eyes flickered to gold, and she slipped back in time thirty seconds. After rolling to the side, she then rejoined the present, in time to see Carrie face plant into the floor as her prior self disappeared. Elizabeth quickly pushed herself back up onto her feet, rolling her shoulder to try and regain the feeling in that arm. There was no point in her tackling the prone Carrie - this battle wasn’t going to be won physically.

Sure enough, Carrie had soon risen to her feet as well. “I guess I should be glad that I’m finally displaying half a brain,” she remarked.

“This won’t be like it was in Miami, Carrie,” Elizabeth declared. “I’m no longer that vulnerable girl. I’m ready for you.”

“Ha! Sure you are. Considering less than an hour has passed for us since then, I’m hardly shaking in my boots.”

“Weirdly enough, it feels to me like mama’s disappearance happened a lifetime ago. Despite you being the old maid here.”

Carrie snorted. “Oh, stop. You must know you cannot possibly win?”

“I don’t know that at all.”

“I’m YOU!”

“And yet… you seem unsure.”

“While you seem weak.”

Carrie brought her arm up, and Elizabeth realized too late that her future counterpart had been readying a charge of temporal energy. It hit her with enough force to launch her back into the far wall of the room, and it was all she could do to avoid getting herself pushed out of the present, and a few seconds into the future.

Carrie could have prepared a finishing blow in those few seconds.

Elizabeth slid to the floor, ending up in a seated position. “You know,” she wheezed, “I should really look into this masochistic streak I seem to have.”

“Stop talking,” Carrie said. Her eyes flickered over completely to gold, and she fired off another blast of energy.

Elizabeth snapped her arms up. She’d anticipated Carrie’s move this time, but all she’d been able to think of as a counter-move was to try and freeze time in her immediate vicinity. Rookie mistake - the blast was still moving for her, albeit much more slowly, and now she’d never be able to speed up her own time to dodge it. Not without releasing the freezing field and being hit.

Carrie laughed. “I am such a…”

Elizabeth never found out what Carrie thought she was, because right before the temporal blast could reach her, it was struck from the side by a counter-blast of temporal energy, sending the whole sparking assembly careening off to the side. It impacted the wall, a chunk of the panelling vanishing completely into the streams of time.

“Sorry I’m late,” Buffy said from the doorway, lowering her arms. “Bunch of things cropping up at the last moment. You know how it is.”

“Not as such, but I guess I’ll know soon enough,” Elizabeth said. She pushed herself back to her feet. “Thanks, Buffy.”

“No problem.”

Carrie jerked her gaze back and forth between both versions. “At least you’re making this interesting,” Carrie acknowledged. “But even with two of you, you still have only a primitive understanding of our power."

“We’re fast learners,” Elizabeth noted. She allowed the power to wash over her then, tentatively embracing the sensations, knowing that her own eyes were flicking to gold - and yet allowing it to happen. After all, she would become Buffy, right? She would maintain control.

“Fine,” Carrie snarled. “Let’s do this. But first, I’ll make sure we have no interference from your friends up there.”

She fired off two more pulses of temporal energy. Two wall panels were temporally banished in their wake - along with whatever was behind them, if the sparking was any indication. A klaxon sounded briefly, and the door to the room slid closed, along with blast shields slamming down over the observation windows above.

Elizabeth frowned, as a burn mark also appeared on the wall, spreading out from one of the missing panels. And whereas at first, the dark scorching had looked like it would follow a single path, it very quickly radiated out, looking more like a trident or a tree branch. Multiple paths. For some reason, that felt significant.

Elizabeth was so distracted by the image that she didn’t even notice the huge tree trunk that came hurtling at her moments later.

“Damn. We’re cut off,” Bernard remarked, as the blast shields dropped into place, blocking their view of the three Carries down below.

Anthony glanced sidelong at Bernard. He was now holding the weapon on Glen, as they had determined that it was an energy pulse set to stun. So it’s not like he was about to fill the Temporal full of holes if Glen tried anything. “Can y-you undo that?”

Bernard shook his head. “Doubt it. Carrie probably fried the hardware.”

“Wouldn’t there be sensors in that room or something?” Amelia guessed.

“Maybe,” Bernard yielded. “But I don’t know how to turn them on. So aside from having shut off of the lockdown, there’s not much more I can do. Aside from watch the progress of the resistance, which is what Glen had calibrated the system for.”

“I won’t help you,” Glen said.

Bernard sighed. “No one even asked you for help.”

“You’re only making this harder on yourselves,” Glen continued. “And harder on Carrie too. You need to surrender now, it’s the only way that girl can have a happy childhood! That’s her ONLY chance, you understand me, you Mundane morons? The ONLY way that you can still live out your dull, pathetic lives, is to give up. So that we can fix Carrie’s mind, retrain her, such that she doesn’t remember how one day she will–"

Anthony fired, and Glen slumped to the ground, out cold.

“Tim!” Amelia gasped.

He looked over at his friends and smiled weakly. “It occurred to me that he might be using his mental power more subtly. To w-wear us down. W-We’re all tired of being manipulated, yeah? W-We didn’t need him conscious… right?”

Bernard grinned back. “Good point. Wish I’d thought of that myself.” He turned back to the monitors. “I think Luci’s forces will be here in less than five minutes. They can help us out.”

“Weirdly enough, I don’t think Elizabeth has that kind of time,” Amelia sighed, looking again towards the blocked windows.

Buffy tackled Elizabeth in the nick of time, the tree trunk flying over their heads and slamming into the wall. Elizabeth snapped her gaze over towards the huge object. “Whoa! Where the hell did that come from?” she gasped.

“When the hell,” Buffy corrected breathlessly, continuing their roll across the floor. “Reverse banishment, that was a something Carrie knew about, which could be manifested from somewhen.” A mist began to appear within the room, making it harder for them to see. “Takes hella energy and concentration though, so I’d say we’re good for at least another ten seconds.”

“You will become me!” Carrie shrieked from within the growing fog. “I’m starting to feel these events in my past now.”

“Not good.” Buffy swallowed. “Look, Elizabeth, this is where we part ways. I need to strategize.”

“Oh. Pity. It’s been fun,” Elizabeth said weakly. She pushed herself back up off the floor. “I don’t suppose you can come up with a way of dispelling this mist first?”

“Actually, I’m creating it,” Buffy admitted, her golden eyes glowing. “So that it’s harder for Carrie to target. Remember from geography, the foggiest place on Earth, just off Newfoundland?”

Elizabeth blinked. “We’ve already figured out how to reverse banish?”

“Kinda? I’ve had some time to consider, since I told myself about the ability, and fog’s basically air. I really want to turn my concentration back to our Ultimate Paradox though. Okay?”

“Understood.” Elizabeth clasped herself by the shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Thank YOU,” Buffy said. “You’re the one who will soon give yourself the key card, after all.”

Elizabeth chuckled, then pulled Buffy back down as another huge tree flew through the fog towards them. “Right, that’s got to stop.” She exhaled. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

Launching herself forwards, Elizabeth charged through the fog towards her future self. And, to the increasing annoyance of the temporal powers she tended to keep locked away, away from her destiny.

So her powers began to push back.

NEXT: The Ultimate Paradox

ASIDE: It all ends with Part 96. Maybe you see how at this point? I’ll be splintering the end of Book 4 into three posts, for a couple reasons. One of them is to give me a transitional week, as the site returns to “Epsilon Project”. Until then, the usual vote for T&T, if you please?

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie of the past (Elizabeth) is trying to figure out how to not become the Future Carrie of Timeline Four.

PART 95a: ENDGAME

“What are you doing?” Glen asked.

“Preparing to isolate myself,” Carrie grumbled. The fifty year old pulled the small bomb out of it’s container in the armoury. “This ought to do it.”

Glen shook his head. “I’m still not following.”

She turned to glare at him. “The only reason younger me - hell with it, let’s call her Elizabeth - is able to function here in the future, and wherever they are in this building, is because of whatever her friends are now telling her. Yes?”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“So, if we eliminate them, Elizabeth becomes an easier mark. And a bomb is a lot more efficient for doing that than a bunch of separate temporal banishments.”

Glen rubbed the back of his neck. “Ignoring the historical ramifications for the moment, the fact that they’re unlikely to split up? Means that if you blow up Elizabeth’s friends, you’ll blow up your past self too.”

Carrie nodded. “Hence I go after the others before they got here.”

“Except they already ARE here. So… how does that work, exactly?”

“I don’t know yet. But I’ll make it work,” Carrie asserted. “I’ll destroy them before they arrive, and let that ‘bleedthrough’ effect thing sort the rest out.”

“Um, Carrie? You don’t experience ‘bleedthrough’,” he reminded her. “You’re the cause, not the effect. You get saddled with the memory headaches. Ergo, even assuming you can pull this off, what if it merely leaves you with a massive migraine, unable to act at all?”

“Then at least Elizabeth will be similarly affected,” Carrie snapped, feeling her patience slipping away again. “Look, Glinephanis, there must be some way I can change things in the same manner as Mindylenopia did. But to succeed, I’ll need to know everything I can about how to identify that ‘time car’ back in Miami. That way, as soon as my connection to the time streams fully kicks back in, I can go back to destroy her friends before they get here.”

Amelia looked from Elizabeth, who was now holding an apple, over towards Buffy, standing in the doorway of the janitor’s closet, and then back to Elizabeth. “I don’t get it,” she admitted.

“Me neither,” Anthony chimed in.

“I might,” Bernard said, looking uneasy. “Except I still don’t like it. It violates the law of conservation of mass, among other things.”

“Show them,” Buffy suggested, stepping into the room and gesturing towards the door.

Elizabeth looked down at the apple she was holding, pursed her lips, and then marched back out of the janitor’s closet. She pulled the door closed behind her. There was a brief silence.

“So… now what?” Amelia asked.

Bernard crossed his arms, looking over at Buffy. She was now holding her palm against her temple, and grimacing. “You just went back in time, came back in here, and tossed that apple at yourself, right?”

Buffy nodded. “Yeah. Meaning I’m back to being Elizabeth again, by the way.”

“Wait, s-so where did Elizabeth get that apple f-from?” Anthony asked.

“From Buffy,” Amelia said, with a shrug. “The real question is where Buffy got HER apple from.”

“That was from being Elizabeth,” Bernard said dryly. “You’re both asking valid questions, you see. There never was an apple - and yet it was once here.” He rubbed his eyes, beneath his glasses. “She’s done this once before, WAY back when we first discovered the time machine. It’s a Catch-22, and I never did work out how she pulled it off.”

“I think it’s simply something I can do,” Elizabeth admitted. “I even did it with the time machine once. I assume I’m using it here to try and tell myself something. Maybe that’s also what Liz tried to do with Carrie.” She sighed. “I don’t know why I have to keep picking the path of temporal headaches.”

Amelia stared back at the door. “Maybe Buffy is about to walk back in, not carrying an apple, but instead carrying the ultimate weapon to use against her future self?”

Again, there was a brief silence.

“So, n-not that,” Anthony concluded.

“Damn it, I’m trying to tell myself something,” Elizabeth repeated. “Subconsciously. But WHAT?”

“An apple a day keeps the Carrie away?” Amelia suggested.

Bernard leaned against the nearby shelf. “Maybe you’re trying to hint that this is something Carrie can’t do,” he decided. “That it’s something she’s never mastered. So if you can nail it for her, you can change her mind, make her realize that your path is the better path forwards.”

Elizabeth gave him an uncertain look. “And I demonstrate this bizarre power in some definitive way to Carrie… how, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” Bernard said. “But I’m starting to feel like we won’t find out by staying here, in defensive mode.”

“For the record, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Glen remarked.

“For the record, I don’t care,” Carrie shot back.

They had purged the remaining knockout gas from the generator’s control room and then returned there. It was a position they could easily fortify, and even use to draw in reinforcements if necessary, given the proximity to the displacement room.

“We’ll release the lockdown for at most ten seconds,” Carrie insisted. “That will drop the temporal dampening field, and allow me to jump back to Miami, despite my current weakened condition. Once I’ve planted the time bomb in their car, I leap back here to reap the rewards.”

Glen eyed the monitors that he’d pulled up. “It looks like the resistance incursion is stalled at level two. All right. When you’re ready, give me the word.”

He supposed he should simply be happy that he was finally dealing with a Carrie who could embrace her powers, even if she seemed to have become a bit overconfident about them. That was the Carrie he’d met when he was young, before going back to when she was a teenager, so it was nice to finally be back with ‘his’ Carrie.

“Go,” Carrie stated.

Glen dropped the alert. Carrie disappeared in a flash of light. Glen began to count in his head, one-onethousand, two-onethousand, three-onethousand… and Carrie was back. He reinstated the lockdown. “Well?”

She glared at him. “Well what? Do you still remember Frank shooting me with the weapon and all that?”

“Yup,” Glen affirmed.

She glared out through the observation windows. “I rushed that. Maybe they split up. Or a couple of them escaped the blast. You didn’t mention they had another means of time travel available to them.”

Glen shook his head. “They didn’t. Or not that I know of.”

Carrie rubbed her chin. “Perhaps they saved key circuits. Rebuilt a device. I should have lobbed the bomb at them, instead of setting it in the car.”

“It’s not like you can’t try again,” Glen remarked. He gestured at the floor. “We looted the armoury, we have more bombs.”

“Right. Hold on, I’ll see if I can track their actions after the airport affair a little more carefully…"

“I’ll keep trying to pick them up in the present on internal sensors,” Glen offered. He began to tap at the keyboard again.

Anthony peered out the door. “You’re r-right, Elizabeth - they must have dropped the lockdown. The r-red lights are…" The corridor lighting changed again. “…back.” He quickly re-closed the door.

“Is the resistance breaking through?” Amelia wondered.

“No,” Elizabeth said, pressing her palm against her temple again. “No, I should have realized this. If I were in charge here, I’d have tried retaking the control room. Damn it! They must be there now, with Carrie doing experimental time jumps. Maybe they can even bring back future reinforcements. I need to start thinking strategically. To start thinking like… ugh, like that Carrie.”

“So what d-do we d-do?” Anthony asked.

“Well, Bernard’s right,” Elizabeth sighed. “We can’t keep playing a defensive game. There’s only one way I’ll be able to stop a single-minded Carrie from harming anyone else - no matter the cost to myself.” She looked around at them. “Know that you don’t have to come along.”

“Still not leaving without you,” Amelia reminded.

“Right.” Anthony reached back for the mop. “After all, s-someone’s got to deal w-with Glen as you face yourself.”

“So you’re stuck with us,” Bernard agreed.

Elizabeth smiled. “Thank you. I don’t deserve… actually, hmm. Know what? On second thought, strike that. Maybe I do deserve friends like you.” She looked towards the closet door. “More to the point, maybe I even deserve friends like Buffy.”

“Um, friends like yourself?” Amelia asked.

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes. Yes, because you know what? THAT’S Carrie’s weakness. How she hates herself. How, I hate myself.” She smiled. “Think about it. Nearly every time I’ve met another incarnation, I’ve argued, I’ve tried to beat myself up, I’ve hoped to change my own experiences… I’ve never seriously tried to work WITH myself. To accept my flaws, and my future… and consider that maybe they’re not so terrible after all.”

“Um… except f-for how this f-future kind of is terrible?” Anthony said, gesturing around them.

“Oh, well, this future is terrible, sure. But for the first time, I’m starting to wonder if I can accept that MY future destiny ISN’T.” Elizabeth straightened her posture. “Or rather, that it won’t have to be, not once I truly deal with myself.” She stepped towards the door. “Meaning it’s not only time for the final battle between Carries…” She pushed the door open. “But that it doesn’t have to be one-on-one.”

“This is ridiculous,” Carrie said, her eyes flickering from yellow back to blue. “When I centre on them, all they’re doing is moping about Miami. But when I jump ahead a few days, I can’t pick them up at all.”

“So track them more gradually,” Glen said idly.

“Even ignoring how I’m not at full strength, and the fact that watching a minute back then is the same as a minute in the here and now, it’s SO BORING,” Carrie moaned. “I am narrowing it down though. I think something happened on their third day there. Damned if I know what. Where are Elizabeth and her friends in the present, have you spotted them?”

“Yeah. They’re approaching our position.”

Carrie blinked. “Wait, for serious?”

Glen nodded. “Yeah, but I’ve locked and re-keyed the ID on the door here to a random sequence. We’re secure. I’m more worried about these resistance forces. They’re not giving up. Maybe you should pop up there and scare the hell out of them, make them retreat?”

Carrie gestured. “Fine, fine. In a little while, I’ll time travel back to now, and do that.”

“Right.” There was a brief silence. Glen cleared his throat. “Thing is, you haven’t appeared to them yet, implying that in the future you might not–"

“Glinephanis?”

“Yes, Carrie?”

“Shut up, I’m busy.”

“Okay then.”

She resumed trying to pinpoint whatever Elizabeth’s group of friends had been doing in Miami. Instead of focussing on Elizabeth herself.

“Slight problem,” Bernard remarked. Again, he reached out towards the ID reader. Again, he tapped the access card that Faye had provided, back when Walter had first arrived to program the temporal generator. And again, nothing happened. “This card isn’t working any more.”

“Carrie’s in there though," Elizabeth murmured. “I can sense it.”

“Maybe they’ll open the door if we knock?” Amelia said hopefully.

“No,” Elizabeth said slowly. “It’s time. Give me a moment. As long as I believe in myself, and believe that I can… that I AM going to survive this encounter… I… I will be able to…"

“…give myself this,” Buffy finished, appearing in a flash of light. She seemed scared and out of breath, her eyes flickering between blue and gold, but she nevertheless extended her hand to her double. It held a new key card.

“Nice! You got the card off of Carrie,” Bernard said, grinning.

Buffy drew in a long breath, then turned to him, smiling weakly and rubbing her temple. “Nope.” Her eyes settled on blue.

“Okay, so, key cards are our new apple,” Elizabeth remarked. She reached out to accept it, turning it around in her hands as she looked Buffy up and down. “Thanks. I’m guessing I’m more on offence this round?”

Buffy nodded. “Yeah. And I’m afraid when I left I still hadn’t figured out how to resolve our ultimate paradox. Namely how we can accept becoming her, and yet somehow NOT become her.”

“That is a puzzler,” Elizabeth agreed. “Keep working on it, okay future me?”

“Oh, you bet.” Buffy dusted off her hands, becoming increasingly more chipper. “After all, I think I will have been getting close soon, knowing what I will have to be seeing a short time ago while I have drawn her fire like you already will.”

Anthony rubbed his forehead. “Okay, that sentence right there? That’s where Temporal ends up being a better language than English.”

The two blondes glanced in his direction. “Sorry,” they chorused in unison. They then looked back at each other and let out simultaneous giggles.

“That is somehow cute, and yet scary as hell,” Bernard observed.

Elizabeth smirked. “If you think that’s scary?” She brandished the new key card, moving in closer to the reader. “Just wait until we’re both fighting our future incarnation.”

The reader pinged, and the door unlocked.

NEXT: Carrie Versus Herself

ASIDE: I’ve been watching the anime “Steins;Gate” this month. I think that, if you enjoy this serial, you’d enjoy it - and vice versa. (Both are slow to start, and get convoluted.) I’ve been blogging about my experience watching it, if you’re curious.

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie of the past (Elizabeth) is trying to figure out how to not become the Future Carrie of Timeline Four.

PART 94b: BUFFY’S RETURN

Carrie Elizabeth Waterson looked around at her time travelling companions. “Don’t all talk at once.”

Timothy Anthony Whitby cleared his throat. “What about Mindylenopia’s weapon?”

Frank Bernard Dijora held it up. “Drained. I already used it to take down Future Carrie, that’s why she’s not breathing down our necks.”

Anthony nodded. “L-let me have a l-look then. M-Maybe I can see how we m-might recharge it?” Bernard handed it over.

“Related, how much longer is that one shot going to keep Future Carrie out of it?” Elizabeth asked.

Bernard shrugged. “No way of knowing.”

Elizabeth sighed. “Perfect.”

Then again, she reasoned, if they kept using the gun, there was an obvious defence. Whenever Carrie regained consciousness later? She could theoretically jump back to right after she was shot. Negating the effectiveness. Good thing her future self wouldn’t have tried that already. “The gun’s hardly a permanent solution anyway.”

“Permanent?” Laurie Amelia Veniti gasped in horror. “You’re saying you want to kill future you?”

Elizabeth jerked her gaze towards Amelia. “Whoa! No, no, I want to… to… I don’t know, fix her. So that I have something to look forward to, something that isn’t… isn’t HER.”

Bernard leaned in. “That reminds me. I did overhear Carrie talking to, um, an even more Future Carrie…"

“Liz,” Elizabeth offered.

“Sure, to Liz. They were saying that the only method Carrie had for dealing with a future self was to overwrite bits of her own past. To remove the need for Liz to interfere with herself in the first place.”

Elizabeth raked her fingers back through her hair. “Okay. Except I’m not about to change the events that brought me here. Especially the truth about my mama. I won’t deliberately hide that from myself. I can’t. Because as long as I know about it, I also know that I don’t want to become the sort of person who would do it.”

“I get that,” Bernard said. “Thing is, Liz was wondering if there was another way. She didn’t give details.”

Elizabeth pursed her lips. “So maybe Liz sensed something, but it’s a thing she needs a younger self to do? I don’t suppose she passed along anything helpful, like a note.”

“I was insubstantial at the time, I don’t think the Carries even knew I was listening. But even if Liz had, her existence is being overwritten here.”

“Hold on.” Amelia gestured out towards the observation windows. “Aren’t we sitting in a huge time machine here? Can’t we use that to our advantage?”

Bernard adjusted his glasses. “Fair point. I guess I was mostly watching when Walter set the controls, and as such might be able to do something - but when would all we travel to?”

“Back to our present,” Amelia asserted. “Or, well, your present,” she amended. “A few weeks ahead of me, whenever you left to recruit me.”

“Carrie would only follow us back,” Elizabeth countered.

“So we’ll set a trap for her,” Amelia insisted.

“I can see through time,” Elizabeth sighed. “So we have to assume that Carrie can too, and that she’s better at it. She would look before she leapt, then pop in before we could come up with the trap. Or worse, find a way for us to spring it on ourselves. No, we’ve GOT to deal with Carrie in the here and now, before she regains her full strength.”

“It was a good thought though,” Bernard assured Amelia, off her crestfallen look. “Actually, in a similar vein, maybe we can use the information in the building’s database? The future knows more about Carrie than we do…"

As Bernard walked over to the main board, there was a flash of light over by the exit. “Sorry, but we’ve got to get out of here, now,” the newest arrival asserted, pulling the door open.

Elizabeth did a double take, recognizing another seventeen year old version of herself. “Uhm, yeah, okay ‘Buffy'…"

Buffy rolled her eyes. “I’m serious, there’s going to be a–"

“Lockdown. Lockdown,” came an automated computer voice. “This building is now in lockdown.” A red light on the wall came on, strobing, as half the overhead lights switched off.

“And they’ll start to pump knockout gas into this room momentarily,” Buffy concluded. “So get a move on.”

“Okay, n-not a fan of gas,” Anthony decided, hurrying to the door. Amelia ran over after him. Which was when the lock on the door clicked - but as Buffy was holding it open, there was no problem.

A hiss of air came from some overhead vents, and vapours began to pour out. “Damn. Glen must be in some auxiliary control room,” Bernard reasoned, hurrying after the others.

Buffy followed them out… shutting the door in the face of a surprised Elizabeth.

“Buffy,” Amelia shrieked. “You locked yourself in!”

“No. She’s about to realize she has to travel back to give you the warning,” Buffy assured the redhead. A puzzled look began to form on her face. “Meaning I’m Elizabeth again.”

Bernard lifted an eyebrow. “You know,” he remarked. “Maybe we should be trying to figure out a way to use your time travel abilities as our weapon of choice.”

Glen tapped at the holographic keyboard that had allowed him to interface with the building. It looked like he hadn’t been able to gas the main control room in time - and now he wasn’t sure where the other time travellers had gone. With the whole place in lockdown mode, he didn’t have complete access to the sensors any more.

Still, once he’d been notified of the external resistance forces closing in, initiating the lockdown had been the priority - along with getting their internal forces to mobilize in response. He wondered why security had been decreased throughout the building; what few personnel they had here would now have their hands full. New regulations following his departure, perhaps?

Oh well - on the bright side, he hadn’t seen the Theresa version of Mindylenopia on the monitors yet. And surely he and Carrie could take care of the rest of those idiotic teenage Mundanes by themselves.

A groaning noise brought his attention back to the fifty year old blonde woman, laid out on the floor nearby. He turned away from the computer systems, crouching next to her. “Carrie? Are you conscious yet?”

“What. The. Actual. F–"

“Somehow, Frank managed to get here ahead of us,” Glen interrupted. “With some sort of energy weapon. He hit you with it. Are you okay?”

Carrie blinked her blue eyes open. “No,” she snarled. “No, I am NOT ‘okay’. Somehow I’ve been cut off from the time streams.”

Glen frowned. “Seriously?”

“You think I’m lying? I can’t–" She broke off, as an attempt to push herself up merely made her eyelids flutter. She nearly hit her head as she crashed back down onto the ground.

“Maybe you should take it easy for a bit,” Glen suggested. “Frank and the others from your past, they’re not going far, not with a lockdown in place.”

“I will NOT take it easy,” Carrie snapped. “Not so long as my younger self is out there, running around my present and screwing up my history.”

“Carrie, it never goes well when you lose control of your emotions,” Glen soothed. “Besides, if the video image I pulled up is any indication, so far the only thing your prior self has done is pull in the rest of her prior time travelling companions - minus Mindylenopia. And with the lockdown, the dampening field will make any further attempts like that difficult for her at best.”

“Peachy.” Carrie took a few deep breaths. “But you’re not wrong. Okay, finding my zen.” She blinked a few times, then smiled. “There we go - I AM still attached to the time streams, it’s only that my senses have been… somehow numbed. Temporarily.”

“See?” Glen remarked. “So we get you back to full strength, trap the other time travellers in a room somewhere, and then you can send them all back to their–"

“Back to the Stone Age,” Carrie growled.

Glen frowned. “Er, really? Because even if you never directly interacted with those ones after we left town, surely they’re still a part of your past. I’m not sure you can simply–"

“I’m Goddamn Carrie Elizabeth Waterson, Temporal Queen!” Carrie spat out, her anger bubbling up again. “If Mindylenopia can mess with my past, I sure as hell can do whatever I want with it too. Yeah?”

“O-kay then.” Glen cleared his throat. “Except you can’t banish your younger self to the Stone Age. Can you?”

“No,” Carrie yielded. Her lips tightened. “No, but I have other plans for her.” Her eyes focussed on his face. “She will become me. Make no mistake.”

“I’m n-not sure how to charge the gun back up,” Anthony admitted. “That is, I c-can see how, based on our version, but I have n-no idea what sort of outlet or b-battery it plugs into. That part’s different.”

The four of them had retreated to a janitor’s closet. Bernard knew about it, because it’s where Mindylenopia had stashed their third security guard. Curiously enough, the room was now empty, containing only cleaning supplies. He decided it was a Timeline Three versus Four thing.

“Pity we don’t have a way of using Julie’s tracking device,” Bernard mused. “We might use it to pinpoint Glen’s location, and thereby trap the two of them, the way they just tried to trap us. Except I left the main assembly back in the time car.” He turned. “Elizabeth, do you think you could jump there and get it?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I haven’t ever seen that car, not really, and I don’t think anyone I know would be around it now either. Moreover, it feels like that lockdown triggered some kind of temporal dampening field. Becoming Buffy and warning you about the knockout gas, it required more concentration than I would have expected.”

“Then you’re saying we can’t get out to Luci or the resistance either,” Amelia sighed.

Elizabeth swallowed. “Know what? I hate to say it, but maybe we should simply surrender.”

Bernard turned again, from where he’d resumed examining the janitorial chemical bottles. “You can’t be serious.”

Elizabeth looped a strand of hair around her fingers, tugging on it. “Yes, I can be. Because the longer I think about this? The more doomed I feel I am. No matter how good my time travel skills are, hers are better. That’s the way it works. A more experienced me will always be better, that’s got to be why Carrie always avoided a “Liz”-style conflict.”

“No,” Amelia said softly. She stood straighter. “I don’t know if my motivational speeches have improved since the hospital over a year ago, but Elizabeth? You CANNOT tell me that the Carrie out there is a better person than you are. No way. You… you’ve always been my mentor.”

Elizabeth looked at her. “Amelia, seriously? Me a mentor?”

The redhead nodded. “So I have faith that you can fix this. Because we never know what we’re capable of until we’re forced into a corner, which is what’s happening to you here. So don’t surrender to the evil Carrie, okay?”

Elizabeth swallowed. “Thanks Amelia, I… I’m flattered. And frankly undeserving, given my attitude towards you and so many others throughout the majority of our time in high school together. But even if I can say I’m a better person now, we’re not fighting a battle of ethics here. We’re fighting a battle of inevitability.”

The blonde cheerleader sighed. ”Meaning if I turn myself in, maybe the future Carrie will respect that. And sure, my OWN future will suck, but I can accept that if at least the rest of you can go on with your lives. Because when I left you behind in the present, that’s all I really wanted.”

“I d-don’t think that’ll happen,” Anthony protested. “I mean, b-based on what Future Luci said to us? Our future lives will suck for as long as you’re w-working with the Temporals. In any timeline.”

“We’re also not leaving without you,” Amelia insisted.

Elizabeth yanked on her hair hard enough that she winced. She pulled her fingers free. “Look, I’m still open to other alternatives - but really, what can we DO? We don’t even have a Temporal to consult for advice, and Carrie’s got Glen on her side.” She frowned. “Speaking of, what happened to Mindylenopia, or Theresa, or whatever you decided to call her? I didn’t spot her when I was looking for people who’d recently experienced a massive temporal displacement.”

Bernard put a bottle of bleach back on the shelf, letting out a sigh. “She didn’t make it, Elizabeth. Back in Miami, Mindylenopia drew Carrie’s attention away from us, to a decoy car, and it exploded.”

“W-Wait, no,” Anthony said, pushing himself off the wall. “I saw Theresa. Like, an old Theresa, way older than she had b-been in Miami. She was w-working with the resistance in this timeline.”

“What?” Amelia gasped. “But we saw Mindy die. Didn’t we?”

Bernard frowned. “So… maybe what I told her in Timeline Three bled through, and she lived? Except if that’s true, why would we still remember the explosion…”

“Agh, it’s just more questions without answers,” Elizabeth groaned.

The door to the janitor’s closet swung open. Bernard reached back for the bottle of bleach, Anthony grabbed a mop, and Amelia dropped into an approximation of a fighting stance. But it was only Buffy standing in the doorway, smiling wryly. She then tossed an apple at her past self, Elizabeth catching it by reflex.

“There you go,” Buffy remarked. “There’s our biggest unanswered question.”

Elizabeth looked down at the apple, then back up at herself. Her eyes went wide. “Oh, Buffy. We cannot be serious,” she gasped.

NEXT: Endgame

ASIDE: The last time we saw Buffy was way back in Part 48, when Carrie tripled herself. The apple is an even older reference. Two weeks left. Hope you’re enjoying. Care to vote for T&T at TWF?

PREVIOUSLY: Much Elder Carrie (Liz) sabotaged her own Timeline Three, leading to Elder Carrie abducting her teenaged self from the past.

PART 94a: REALIGNMENT

Carrie’s fingers curled around the crystal object, aware that more tears were coming. Because here she was, at the mercy of her Future Self, being time shifted into Her Future… a future where Carrie would never see her parents, her friends, or that one ray of sunshine - her once possible girlfriend - ever again.

“CARRIE!”

Oh no, now she was imagining Chartreuse’s voice in her head.

“Carrie, are you there?! We don’t, like, have much time, but PLEASE hear me, there’s something you’ve gotta do!”

Okay, this was becoming surprisingly vivid for a delusion.

“Chartreuse?” Carrie whimpered.

“Carrie!” the voice came again. “Yesssss! Ohhh, I really hope you’re, you know, the right one. Look, we’re not giving up on you. The others, they’re gonna follow you, they’re following you even now - but you’ve gotta, like, hide them from the other you. Okay?”

Carrie blinked. What the hell did that mean?

“I mean you’ve gotta, like, spot their time car, and nudge it. Nudge it ahead, into, you know, the other timeline. Temporarily. Hurry!”

Oh sure, right, piece of cake, just do the thing she had no idea how to do, while her Elder Self was busy keeping her powers in check.

“If anyone can do it, you can! Please Carrie, PLEASE, otherwise… otherwise, you know, I think you’ll be lost to us forever.”

The meditation crystal dug into her palm so hard it hurt. No. She wasn’t going to lose Chartreuse forever. Hell, nothing in life had been easy to this point, right? Why assume that knowing the truth about her mama would have made things any easier?

So, as she was towed along in the wake of her Future Self, Carrie cautiously extended her senses, looking for the ‘time car’ that kept getting referenced. At the same time, she became aware of a wake, like what existed behind a boat, that was rippling out around them… could she somehow nudge a time traveller out of it’s path, and ahead of them? Even preserve it in some sort of time bubble?

She spotted the vehicle right before her Future Self emerged into The Future, wincing as her ‘nudge’ ended up being more like a powerful ‘bump’, and what little temporal energy she had left completely ebbed away at the act.

Frank stared. Both Carries had disappeared. At this point, neither the old-old Carrie who had been reaching for the activation panel, nor the old Carrie who had been arguing with her, were present. Instead, Frank saw that Walter had somehow set his chair back up, and was reaching in for the activation panel himself.

Frank looked around the room, feeling like he’d missed something. He leaned back in towards the observation windows, catching sight of Mindylenopia down in the displacement room - she was standing and waving. Not on the floor, defeated. Then there was a bright flash of light, forcing him to look away, and when he turned back, the displacement room was empty.

Walter jerked his hand back from the panel. “What did I just do?”

Frank reached out to tap at the desk. It felt solid now.

Walter spun to face him. “Where did you just come from?”

“Oh, I’m Chronologic Patrol.” Frank fumbled in Mindy’s handbag for the temporal gun, pulling it out and pointing it Walter’s way. “Just stay calm, I don’t want any trouble.”

Then there was another flash, and three more individuals appeared in the room. The Older Carrie was back! Along with Glen, and a blonde teenager in a blue business suit… but that had to be his Carrie. Could it be that, somehow, he was here at the end of their journey from the airport? Frank quickly reached down, flicking the switch on the gun over to “Carrie” mode, and he fired at the Elder Version.

At the pulse of high energy, the old Carrie collapsed down onto the ground, even as the recoil sent Frank flying back into the wall, hard enough to leave a crack. He groaned, feeling dazed. His version of Carrie didn’t look that much better off, having slumped to the floor after their arrival.

“I’m OUT,” Walter shrieked, running for the door. “You don’t pay me enough for this!”

As such, the only person in the room retaining full command of their faculties ended up being Glinephanis, aka Glen Oaks. And after taking in the situation, and snarling, “You Mundane morons,” his next move was to drag the unconscious Elder Carrie towards the door, following after Walter.

“Glen, wait,” Frank protested. He took a couple of shaky steps, then decided it might be better to check on the status of his own Carrie instead.

She looked up at him as he touched her shoulder. “I’m still here,” she murmured, dazed. “So did that time bump on your car work? Did it hide you from my older self? Have we won?”

Frank crouched down. “We haven’t won yet.” He glanced at the door through which Glen and Elder Carrie had exited. “But we may have bought ourselves some time.”

“Peachy.” She shook her head. “Okay, the freeze effect is wearing off. I feel like I’ll be able to do time stuff again soon. For my next trick, I shall attempt to not become the Carrie who kidnaps mama, and her unborn child.”

“Er, great. How will you do that?”

“No idea. Help me up.” She blinked at him. “Actually, correction. Take off your stupid wig while I remove this jacket, and then help me up.”

Frank straightened, tugging off the disguise he’d been wearing. Meanwhile, Carrie tossed aside her flight hat, allowing her long blonde hair to flow down her back again, and she shrugged off the jacket part of the business suit.

He reached a hand down. Carrie clasped it, and he pulled her onto her feet. “Do we have a plan?” he asked.

“Good question.” Carrie looked around. “Where are we?”

“A stationary temporal generator on the day of your fiftieth birthday. Mindylenopia was just sent back in time, into our past.”

“Oh. Okay, sure.” Carrie moved to look through the observation windows. “Why are we here? Didn’t you arrive in a time car?”

“We did,” Frank admitted. “The circuits were fried. Luci impounded it yesterday, sort of. I’m not sure where it is now.”

Carrie shook her head. “Wait, what? You didn’t mention Luci had come to Miami with you.”

“Er, no, not Luci from our Present. This time’s Luci, a Future Luci.”

“Ah. That’s going to get confusing, isn’t it,” Carrie sighed.

“Well, not necessarily. I died in the past, so if anyone says Frank, it’s probably me,” he said, trying to make a joke of it. He frowned. “Then again, I used the name Bernard with Mindylenopia…"

Carrie shook her head. “You’re not dead, Frank, don’t say that. It’s Timeline THREE where you died, and that’s gotta be where I ended up hip-checking your car, to keep you safe. When I left you in the airport, a few minutes ago, you were raving about us being in ‘Timeline Four’. So that should still be where we’re at now - er, unless you’re saying you later died in ‘Timeline Four’ too?”

“I… I don’t know. Wait, you did what to our vehicle?”

“You were constantly a few seconds ahead of the temporal wave created by Mindy’s arrival in the past, until right before my arrival here. It was Chartreuse’s idea.”

“Okay then. Er, which Chartreuse?”

Carrie smacked her palm against her face and dragged it down until it slid off her chin. “I don’t know, one of ‘em. Look, for my own sanity, as of RIGHT now, everyone who’s temporally displaced? Meaning not part of this future? Meaning us? Middle names. Understood?”

Bernard nodded. “Sure. Except I… I don’t actually know the middle names for Tim or Laurie.”

Elizabeth exhaled. “I will make them up if I have to. Where are they, anyway?”

“They’re still out with the resistance forces. Actually, I need to get them a message,” Bernard realized. “With Future Mindylenopia back in our past, and Carrie temporarily down, Luci and the rest of them need to know that it’s time to storm in and take this building.”

“Thrilling. Meanwhile, I kind of want all of us middle namers together, so let’s see if I can’t kill two birds with one jump. Give me a moment, knowing how to centre on people is fresh in my head.” Elizabeth closed her eyes. Moments later, she disappeared.

“Freeze!”

Tim jerked his hands into the air. “Whoa, whoa, J-Julie, it’s me.” He turned to Lee, only to see that the operations co-ordinator had also drawn a weapon. Though unlike Julie, he wasn’t pointing it at Tim. Yet.

“How did the kid get in here?” Lee demanded.

Julie shook her head. “I don’t know. I turned around, and there he was.”

Lee turned his head. “Theresa, did you see where he came from?”

“Theresa?” Tim blurted. “Wh-What happened to Megan??”

“Hold on,” the red haired woman said, over the video link. “It IS possible that things get a little weird now…”

Which was when seventeen year old Elizabeth popped into the room. “Hi!” she chirped at Lee. “Resistance, yes? Start the attack. I need to borrow… Tim, what’s your middle name?”

“Um, Anthony?”

“To borrow Anthony. Correction, I’m taking him, because he’s from the past, and as such, probably not coming back here. Thank you, have a nice day.”

Anthony shook his head. “Carrie, what–"

“Elizabeth,” she corrected, before grasping his shoulder and time jumping.

Laurie did a double take. One moment, Luci had been walking ahead of her, leading her to the car - and in the next moment, the asian woman was gone. Except, turning around, Laurie discovered that Luci was now approaching her from behind. “Luci?” she asked.

“Okay, where did you come from?” Luci demanded.

Laurie blinked, and pointed over Luci’s shoulder. “Back there?”

“No, I mean one moment I was alone out here, and now I’m not,” Luci insisted. “How did you do that? And how do you know me?”

“What?” Laurie protested. “Okay, no, see, one moment you were up there, and now you’re back here.” She continued to point for emphasis.

Luci shook her head. “You’re not making sense - but you do look familiar. Are you one of the guests from Carrie’s party, perhaps?”

Laurie stared. And then Elizabeth appeared beside her. “Found you,” the blonde said. “Why are you here with - ooh, hold up, you’re Luci, right?”

Luci nodded, now looking concerned.

“Luci, can you make a point of locking down the time car that must have recently appeared? I can’t grab it yet, but I sure as heck don’t need the extra aggravation of worrying about it while I fight myself.”

Luci gaped. Elizabeth then turned to Laurie. “I think your middle name is Amelia?”

Amelia blinked. “Yeah - y-you know about that?”

“I must have looked it up at some point. Come along, Amelia.” Elizabeth reached out her hand. Amelia took it, and then the both of them disappeared off the street corner.

“This is incredible,” Anthony said, as Elizabeth and Amelia appeared in the generator control room next to him and Bernard. “Carr– um, Elizabeth, could you, like, pop the entire resistance invasion force into this room by doing that?”

“No,” Elizabeth said, letting out a slow breath. “Because first, it would have to be one at a time, second, I only made it back here by centring on Bernard, and finally, those couple trips took a LOT out of me.” She released Amelia. “But I wanted us all here because I need your input. Given how I think I’ll now need to defeat… me. Future Carrie.”

“You… you’re okay with doing that?” Amelia wondered.

Elizabeth shook her head. “No. Not really. Because I don’t see how it’s even possible. Carrie knows my every move, not merely because she’s particularly canny, well educated, or - let’s toss this in for laughs - hauntingly good looking, but because she WAS ONCE ME. Meaning the Elder Carrie HAS TO KNOW whatever it is I’m going to try next.” The blonde bit down on her lower lip. “As such, whatever I think of is a bad idea. So I’m kind of open to suggestions?”

At first, no one spoke.

ASIDE: The stage is set, the Liz & Mindy pieces will be explained shortly. What might you suggest to Elizabeth?

Incidentally, Tartra wrote a WFG review on Saturday, then we set a new all time high pageview count on Sunday, shattering our ceiling of 113. Hello to the person who apparently read the archive? (With the Part A&B thing, T&T is now 128 posts long.) Tartra writes “The Other Kind of Roommate” if anyone’s looking for more reading material.

PREVIOUSLY: Frank, Laurie and Tim ended up in the future of “Timeline Three”. A timeline where Mindy never travelled back. But then Carrie got herself to destroy “Timeline Three”…

PART 93b: TIMELINE FOUR REDUX

Luci had just arrived at home when when she received the call. She pulled the device out of her pocket, blinking at the display. “Answer,” she told it. The call connected. “Phil? Something wrong?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” he said, his holographic face looking very frustrated.

Luci tossed her key fob on the side table and shut her front door. “How was the visit? Is Laurie okay?”

“Laurie’s fine. Luci, I’ve pulled my tow truck over to the side of the road.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But I feel like maybe it’s bleedthrough?”

She peered at his expression. He seemed sincere. “Can’t be. There’s no major operations planned in the area that would attract attention.”

“Luci, I’ve pulled over to the side of the road, and for no particular reason, I’m remembering that time I worked on a Chevy in… I think it was senior auto shop class.”

“Phil, I swear, we’re not up to anything.” Luci chewed her lower lip. “Want to meet though? At the small cafe on the outskirts of town?”

“Yeah. Yeah, for some reason you saying that makes me feel better.”

“Okay, good. See you there in an hour.” Luci hung up the phone, reaching back for her key fob, as well as the medical device she used to identify people in the database after swabbing them for DNA.

She stared at it. Why on earth had she picked that up?

“Luci, what in the hell are you idiots doing?”

Luci sat back on her couch, staring blankly at the angry holographic face of Julie LaMille. She was beginning to feel overwhelmed. “You too?”

“What do you mean me too?”

Luci shook her head. “Bleedthrough.”

“I know,” Julie snapped. “For some reason, I’ve been expecting you to call me for the last half hour. What operation are you people–”

“No operation. Julie, you don’t understand,” Luci insisted. “This is crazy, for some reason we’re experiencing bleedthrough on a massive scale, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. I’ve got techs talking about a car that isn’t there, an operative who says Mindylenopia contacted us out of the blue looking for help with her suicide mission, and plus I made way too much toast for breakfast this morning. NONE of which is connected to ANYTHING!”

Julie frowned. “Back up to the suicide mission thing.”

Luci sighed. “That’s just Mindy fulfilling her destiny. She’ll go back in time today, then get banished by Carrie. It never changed anything, remember? In the end, Glen still managed to snare Carrie, spiriting her out of town.”

There was the sound of Julie drumming her fingers on a desk. “So are your people helping Mindylenopia go back?”

“No. We explored the possibilities weeks ago, and couldn’t find a new lynchpin. Don’t spread it around, but the whole mission was deemed a predestined lost cause.” She grimaced. “We were WAY too cunning in our youth.”

“Is there a rogue faction within your ranks plotting something then?”

“Julie…"

“Look, I’m serious. The phone call I was expecting? I feel like you wanted me to get you things.”

“‘Things’? What ‘things’?”

“Oh, well, let’s see. It was either party favours for Carrie’s birthday, or ‘things’ that could help Mindylenopia get access to the stationary generator.”

“Ha ha.” Luci shook her head. “Look, according to our intelligence, Carrie made a call yesterday demanding a DECREASE of security at the generator this evening. So Mindylenopia doesn’t need us anyway, it should be no problem for her to… to… wait. WAIT.” She seized the edge of the couch. “Julie, why would Carrie do that?”

Julie rolled her eyes. “You’re asking me? I presume it was to make sure Mindylenopia succeeds in taking the trip, predestiny and all.”

“No, no, there’s no need to make SURE she succeeds, we KNOW she succeeds,” Luci protested. “She’s in our past. That’s not a change Carrie has to make. So why are we feeling the effects of bleedthrough here? The only way it makes sense is if… oh no. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but could Mindylenopia have once FAILED to make it back? Are we now overwriting a timeline where she FAILED?”

“Luci, that would mean Carrie wanted someone to mess with her past. Worse, the implication is that, to fix things, we have to stop Mindylenopia from going on her trip.”

“I know.” If she’d felt overwhelmed before, now she felt positively adrift. “So… I guess we better keep our options open. Julie, if you wouldn’t mind, please get us your ‘things’? Meanwhile, I’m going to organize an emergency strike force to take on the generator station… having them ready might mean we can stop Mindylenopia. If we have to. Hell, we might even manage a foothold, given the lower security - though I’m hoping it’s not a trap we’re falling for here either.”

Carrie glared at her reflection. She didn’t enjoying seeing the lines on her face, the hints of grey in her hair, or even the bright yellow gown that she had chosen for her birthday celebration. But her displeasure went deeper than that. “At least it’s almost over."

“What is, my love?”

Carrie didn’t bother to turn to face the woman who had spoken, continuing to glare at her reflection. “This damn headache. Which a future me in a horrible sweater indirectly inflicted, for absolutely no good reason. I’ve spent the better part of a day looking into things, and the only conclusion I can draw from my latest experience is that I hate myself. A lot.”

“Is there anything I can do to make you feel better? A mass–"

“No,” Carrie snorted. “It doesn’t matter. Liz won’t be back, not in this timeline. Also, tomorrow, I want you to give me the name of that forum where they were talking about visions. I want it shut down.”

“Y-Yes, my love… I meant no disrespect…"

“Fine, good.” Carrie finally turned to regard the woman sitting on the edge of her bed, the one dressed in the elaborate purple gown. And Chartreuse’s eyes were cast down towards the floor. As it should be.

“It’s time I got out there,” Carrie decided. “Moreover, if you perform well tonight as my pretty Canadian eye candy, I’ll allow you to give me a special birthday gift after everybody has left.” She grinned. “Would you like that?”

Her companion swallowed. “My love, I d-don’t want to go out there…"

Carrie tensed. “What?”

“Because if I do… I feel that… that I might be hurt…"

“You want to defy me, on my fiftieth birthday?”

Chartreuse shrank back, curling into a ball. “My love…"

“Well, you can stay in here then. With your pretty dress and your stupid visions!”

Raising a palm and twisting it in against her pounding head, Carrie stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

“Lee? What’s wrong?”

He turned to look over his shoulder at Julie. “The bleedthrough, I guess?” he admitted. “I’m starting to feel dumb about sending Luci out to Carrie’s property. Yet I still feel like someone’s supposed to be stationed there, and reporting in.”

“Right.” Julie ran her fingers back through her hair. “Well, if there’s something to find, Luci can find it.”

Lee chuckled. “Kind words you have for the same woman who, just last month, you referred to as a–"

“We reached an understanding earlier today,” Julie interrupted. She furrowed her brow. “For some reason, it felt right.”

Lee raised his hands in the air. “Hey, I’m happy for you both.” He looked back at his monitors. “What I’m not happy about is the fact that I’m running out of time to pull the trigger on our forces at the generator. Do we storm in, or not? We still have NO intelligence on whether we can allow Mindylenopia go back in time.”

“We should let her go.”

Lee turned to the side monitor to look at Megan. Then he mentally checked himself - Megan wasn’t his redundancy for tonight’s mission. Theresa was. One of the oldest members of the resistance. “But Theresa, how can you be sure?” he protested.

She smiled quietly back at him. He was reminded of the knowing looks she’d had before, way back when she had been a simple waitress in their hometown cafe. “You’ll simply have to trust me,” Theresa said.

One moment, Carrie was reaching for an hors d’oeuvre. The next moment, she was on the ground, screaming. Her past - it was completely breaking apart. Carrie dropped her mental shields into place, and tried to pinpoint how things could possibly be going so very, very wrong.

She had never thought her temporal pain could be any worse than an ice pick to the skull - and yet now, on top of that, it was like her head was simultaneously in a vice, making the misery so much worse, even through the shielding. Making things hard to track.

The issue, it seemed, was that hadn’t left town with Glinephanis? Except she damn well HAD left! But no, she hadn’t. For some reason, it now looked like she had still been in town for Christmas during her senior year of high school. Then… wait, where the hell had her past self ended up? And how had Young Carrie become so… so BROKEN?

Carrie’s eyes widened, as she deciphered the key moment. In a time period when she should have been three years old.

Pushing herself back to her feet, and ignoring the concerned mutterings of all the people around her, Carrie tore open a rip in the fabric of space-time, and stepped through it. Into the lounge of a Miami airport.

Elder Carrie glared at him for a moment, then shook her head, brushing her hair off her shoulder. “Oh, it wasn’t your fault,” she assured Glinephanis. “You did your best. I know who’s really to blame - it’s these stupid Mundanes and that damnable Mindylenopia! They’re all dooming my childhood.” She peered at him. “Perhaps you can still be a bright spot in my younger self’s life though? Will you come with me now? Some of my memories could remain valid, not be inserted by force.”

Glinephanis nodded slowly. “I’m with you to the end. But Carrie, there are more time travellers here in Miami. Mindylenopia and a number of your old classmates. We all came in a time car. They might still try something.”

She growled. Cleaning up her history was going to be a real pain, huh? She hoped she wouldn’t need to mess with too many memories. “Fine, I will deal with them as soon as I get my younger self here restrained back in my present. Grab hold, we’re leaving.”

She grabbed her teenaged self by the collar. Apparently, that Carrie had dressed herself up in a blue business suit, almost like she was pretending to be their mama. Good grief, how had she EVER been so STUPID? Glinephanis took her by the arm, and she pulled them back towards the rip… with her younger self still trying to break free of the freezing. Apparently, this was going to be a long trip home.

The lounge door burst open. “Carrie!” Laurie shrieked.

“Carrie, fight it,” Tim called out. “Whatever is going on, fight!”

Frank charged in between the two of them.

“Frank, don’t get close!” Mindylenopia shouted, grabbing onto him by the waist, slowing him down. Not that it mattered.

“Carrie, FUTURE Carrie, it doesn’t have to be this way!” Frank shouted, looking right at her for a change, rather than at her broken teenaged variant. “You don’t have to do this, not to yourself…"

Carrie did her very best to ignore them all, busy concentrating on getting a foothold on the time streams, without losing her mental hold on the Younger Carrie. It was surprisingly difficult. It occurred to her that maybe that’s why the old “Liz” version she had encountered in the generator hadn’t tried this genre of persuasion? Preferring to snare herself in the “Mindylenopia Catch-22 scenario” instead? Which had, she now realized, somehow precipitated this entire situation.

Well, she would soon set everything right. Young Carrie was weak, and no match for her.

Pulling Glinephanis and her younger self forwards into the time streams, Carrie soon realized that the time trip, which should have taken seconds, would instead drag on for close to a minute. Because Young Carrie continued to wriggle against her hold, at one point whimpering out, “Chartreuse?”.

Carrie decided that her best plan would be to arrive in the future at the stationary temporal generator outside Ottawa. There were dampening fields in the displacement room which she could activate, ones which might help her to control her younger self long enough for a memory implantation, or removal, or whatever else she’d be forced to do to get history back on track.

As such, they emerged from the time streams in the main control room of the Ottawa generator facility.

Where a teenaged Frank Dijora immediately shot her with a prototype for a temporal gun.

NEXT: Realignment.

ASIDE: If it all makes sense, please vote for T&T at Top WebFiction. If it doesn’t make sense, drop a comment before the vote for T&T. Three weeks left.

PREVIOUSLY: As the time group got ready to send Mindylenopia back, Carrie realized something was happening at the temporal generator.

PART 93a: NOWHERE TO RUN

“What’s taking so long?” Mindylenopia demanded. Carrie had to be onto them by now.

The primary tech, a man named Walter, looked up at her. “Well, actually,” he began, “the temporal generator has no geo-temporal records to draw on, for a time from before it was built. And while we do have the material on site that can localize earlier times, the system still has to compensate geographically, ensuring that a traveller doesn’t end up floating in space or buried in the ground or something.”

The redhead sighed. “Yes. I’m Temporal, I know that. You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for your authorization codes. But look, the specific day in October doesn’t matter, I picked it randomly. So if that’s the problem, I can…”

She stopped, as the slight rumbling noise in the control room ceased, followed by a chirp from the computer terminal. The main panel changed to green, and Walter turned back to his old style physical keyboard. “There we go," he remarked. “Year is encoded. Your date… locked in place. Displacement room is set for a thirty-three year trip to the past. Satisfied?”

“No,” Mindy stated. “Not yet.” She looked through the large glass observation windows of the control room, down to the displacement room below. It was large, the size of a small theatre, capable of sending back a hundred people at once, if necessary. “I’m going down there to uncouple the wall circuits. When I wave my hand at you, you will activate the displacement.”

Walter looked uneasy. “I wouldn’t advise that.”

“It won’t send me back, not with the wall circuits cut. That’s the failsafe.”

“Yeah, uh… we’ve been having some… glitches in the system this evening.”

Mindylenopia turned to Bernard, who had been quietly observing the last several minutes from the doorway. “Make a note. Safety at this site has been compromised.”

“No!” Walter protested. “It’s only that, if something went wrong, you’d have no way of getting back, and there’s so much paperwork…”

Oh brother. She couldn’t play along with this any more - they were out of time. Mindylenopia stared Walter in the face. “Listen. When I wave my hand at you, you will activate the displacement.”

“When you wave your hand, I will activate the displacement.”

“Good man.” Mindylenopia tossed her handbag in Bernard’s direction, and he fumbled to catch it. “The rest is your problem.” She sprinted for the stairs leading down to the temporal displacement room.

“She’s active! All units, please acknowledge, Carrie is active and using super speed to bear down on the generator.”

Luci reached up to touch her earpiece. “Acknowledged.” She didn’t question how Lee was aware of that fact. In a way, this was actually a good sign. It meant that Carrie wasn’t using any finesse - which in turn implied that their blonde nemesis was worried. Were they about to pull this off?

She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind as young Laurie Veniti ran up to her, gasping for breath, and grasping her by the shoulders. “Luci!” Laurie squealed. “Luci, I… ohmigod, I did it. A creepy guy was about to sexually molest a version of Chartreuse, and so I did it, I kicked him real hard in the… the…"

“Good for you, Laurie,” Luci said, giving the redheaded girl a hug. “Good for you.” She squeezed once. “But we have to get back to the car now, okay?”

Laurie looked up at her, nodding wordlessly.

Frank walked closer to the large glass windows. There was the sound of what he assumed to be a door sliding open and closed, and moments later, Mindy strode into the room. She looked up at them, and waved. Walter reached out for the panel…

And then everything started to move as if in slow motion.

Frank didn’t clue in right away. It merely looked like the tech’s hand was meeting incredible air resistance, or like he was trying to resist Mindylenopia’s mental command. But then Frank realized that Walter’s eyes were squinting, and closing, and gradually opening… as if in a protracted blink. What?

Now the tech’s hand was an inch away from the panel - and that’s when she appeared.

The blonde woman was drawing in great lungfuls of air, her face was drenched in sweat, and the yellow dress she was wearing had been torn in two places… but she was there. Holding Walter’s hand back, preventing the final activation. Then she pulled him bodily back from the main board, shoving his chair to the side, causing the tech to collapse onto the floor.

“Good,” the Elder Carrie said, her chest heaving. She slammed both hands down onto the edge of the desk that ran the length of the room, under the observation windows. Seemingly trying to prevent her legs from collapsing out from under her. “SO GOOD. But. You. Were. Not. Good. Enough.”

She reached out to smack a button, drew in a huge breath, then leaned down to yell into the nearby microphone. “Mindylenopia! I see you down there. This was the last straw, you understand? You’re finished! You hear me? FIN-ISHED.”

Though the observation window, Frank saw the redhead’s hazel eyes widen in horror - and then she collapsed down onto the floor, like all the fight had gone out of her. Which was when Frank finally realized that Elder Carrie was paying absolutely no attention to him. The time dilation hadn’t even affected him, had it? How else could he have registered what was going on? Did Carrie not care about him, could it be that only Walter’s palm could activate the time jump?

He had to try. He stepped in, reaching around Carrie to bring his palm down on the necessary panel.

Except his hand passed right through. Then it continued down, right through the desk, and Frank stumbled forwards as there seemed to be no solid objects around him to arrest his motion. With mounting horror, he realized that even the floor felt weirdly spongy. Frank brought his hand back out of the desk and up to his face. He could see right through it.

Well, of course he could. Because if Mindylenopia didn’t travel back, he didn’t exist. Right? Numbly, Frank wondered why time was pulling a slow fade on him, like Marty McFly in “Back to the Future”, rather than simply winking him out of existence. Did that mean that there was still a chance? That he was somehow neither alive, nor dead? But what chance did they have if he couldn’t TOUCH anything?

“I win again,” Carrie said triumphantly.

“Sorry, no,” Carrie answered herself.

Carrie spun, reaching up to wipe the sweat out of her eyes. She felt her mouth forming an ‘o’ of surprise. Because yes, somehow, it was her who had spoken. An older her. Had to be older, the lines in the face were still there, and the blonde hair looked even more grey… except at what point would she think a sweater like that would be a good fashion statement?

“You… you can’t be here,” fifty old Carrie choked out. “Why would I want to change THIS?”

“Funny thing that,” even-older Carrie chuckled. “Let’s just say that the future isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And this, in a sense, this was the major turning point. This lynchpin moment.”

“But you… I… how… why…”

Sweater-wearing Carrie, whom Carrie decided to dub “Sweater Liz” in her own mind for the sake of convenience, gave her a pitying look. “Really? My fiftieth birthday, and I’m still that stupid?”

Carrie clenched her jaw. She snapped her gaze towards the observation windows and then back to Sweater Liz. “Mindylenopia’s really working for me somehow? Is that it?”

Sweater Liz seemed to ponder that. “I suppose that’s a good an answer as any.”

“Meaning that’s NOT an answer.”

Sweater Liz sighed. “Fine. You’re making my point for me here, you know. We’ve never been good at these sorts of interactions.”

“Oh, I’ve learned how to handle Future Me,” Carrie retorted.

“I know,” came the retort. “I’m you. Your plan is to rewrite your history to eliminate the need for me to even be here. Works great in the short term. What about the long term?”

“I never travel back long term. Never erase that much of myself.”

Sweater Liz gestured. “Mindylenopia’s going back long term.”

Again, Carrie’s gaze drifted to the windows and back. “It’s not like she can change me. Not that much. Not with Glinephanis back… wait, how far forwards in my timeline are you?”

“Do you want to find out?” Sweater Liz crossed her arms. “Because here’s the thing, Paradox Woman. I’m going to trigger that panel. Which both sends Mindylenopia back AND locks you into being me, and oooh, we both know how much I HATE that. Right? Being locked into a destiny? Your only alternative would be to rewrite the last few minutes, perhaps days, to keep me from ever being here… but guess what. In that timeline, Mindylenopia MUST go back too. Otherwise I’ll still be here to see to it.”

“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” Carrie snarled. She wished she wan’t so tired and dripping sweat everywhere, not to mention partially propping herself up using the desk. It felt like that took some of the bite out of her words.

Liz chuckled. “Maybe. Maybe not. Have you ever wondered, whether there might be a better way for us to deal with our future selves?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ve started wondering. About that, and more.” She rubbed her chin. “In particular, I wonder… when is it that we stopped being curious about what we could do?”

Liz smiled. And Carrie realized that her Future Self really was going to do it. At some point in the future, she was going to go crazy in the head, and come back to give herself this asinine choice, this ultimatum… and Carrie was forced to admit that, truly, she now had no idea how to stop herself.

Which meant there was no way to prevent Mindylenopia from going back. Even beating up Liz here only meant that she’d get beat up by herself in the future. And as Liz had said, there was only one sure fire way she knew about to avoid becoming a future incarnation.

“I HATE YOU!” Carrie screamed.

“I know,” Liz said.

Liz reached out for the panel.

Carrie flashed back in time a day and a half.

Everything changed.

NEXT: Timeline Four Redux

ASIDE: Carrie herself destroys Timeline Three. What does that mean? As always, feel free to speculate. Also, did you catch last weekend’s Commentary post?

PREVIOUSLY: One of the security people is immune to Mindy’s mental power. Elsewhere, Laurie hears sounds of a struggle.

PART 92b: VENI, VIDI, VENITI

“Tim, I can hear someone nearby who’s in trouble,” Laurie said.

“On or off the property?”

“On,” Laurie answered. The sounds of a struggle were coming from within the small grove of trees, where there seemed to be a gazebo.

“Okay, well, HQ here assures me that it’s not safe to approach,” Tim stated. “Double back, and meet up with Luci.”

Laurie felt torn. Given the trees, she might be able to approach the gazebo unseen. But Tim was right - what if she was caught? And what if being identified screwed up everything? Worse, what if she somehow messed up their timelines for good? Besides, what could she even do to stop whatever was going on?

“Please,” came a female voice. “Please, stop.”

Laurie made a fist. No. She had already been taken advantage of so much in her life - she wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone else. More to the point, her standing up to Frank about Mindylenopia this morning? It would mean nothing if she couldn’t follow through on her own principles now.

“Tim, I’m going in anyway,” she asserted. Drawing on her cheerleading abilities, Laurie jumped over the fence.

“Good evening… how exactly do you have authorization to be here?”

The brown haired security woman stared levelly at Frank and Mindylenopia. Almost before Frank had registered the movement, her weapon was out, and pointing their way.

“We need to run a systems check,” Mindylenopia said casually. “Call down a tech who can set the controls for a thirty year time jump, okay?”

The woman lifted an eyebrow. “That’s back to before this facility was even built. I’ll have to phone up the chain for confirmation.”

“No, you won’t,” Mindylenopia countered, putting emphasis on the words. She took a step closer.

The security guard’s head shook. “No, I really will. Also, I think you should put that handbag on the ground before you come any closer?”

Mindylenopia looked sidelong at Frank. It was as she had feared - her mind power was ineffective against this person. So it was up to Frank to come up with a better plan, before Mindylenopia was forced to provide the necessary incentive by firing off her ‘temporal gun’ at people. Shots which would render the thing less effective against Carrie herself. Fortunately, he had the hints of an idea.

“Wait,” Frank began. “The two of us, we’re with the… Chronologic Patrol. It’s a new unit - we conduct safety inspections. We need to see how well the system aligns for a time jump of that magnitude. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re activating anything tonight."

The security woman shook her head. “A new unit, where the dress code is casual? Including bad wigs? And why haven’t I heard of you?"

“The Patrol works under the radar,” Mindy continued smoothly. “Undercover. Moreover, there’s reason to suspect one of your technicians here is violating safety standards, hence our turning up unannounced. We have clearance though. How else could we be this deep in the facility?”

The security woman stepped a little closer. “I don’t know,” she answered, gun still up. “How else COULD you be this deep?”

That’s when Frank spotted the ID badge at the woman’s hip. And the first name on it: Faye. That name, coupled with the woman’s apparent immunity to Mindylenopia’s mind control - it triggered a memory. A memory of Lee’s sister, who in grade nine, had come close to beating up a boy to get a book back for her younger sibling. Could this be her? Was there a way to use that knowledge?

“Question for you, Faye,” Frank blurted. “If you had to choose between your job and your family, which of them would you pick?”

Her gun swung to point only at him. “No contest. Do you think I’d even be working in here if it didn’t help me keep my family safe?!”

Frank realized he had hit a nerve, and so chose his next words carefully. “Here’s the thing, Faye. Maybe, after our inspection, you won’t need this job to ensure your loved ones are safe.”

Her arm shook slightly. “What, are you talking promotion? Or are you part of some military coup?”

Frank glanced at Mindylenopia, wondering whether they should admit to one of those. Her ‘what the hell are you doing’ face made him realize he was now in this on his own. “I’m saying we’re the Chronologic Patrol,” he said, turning back to face Lee’s sister. “We’re conducting safety inspections.”

Faye stared. She seemed to be thinking hard. Then the gun barrel swung down, and she presented the hilt of the weapon towards them. Mindylenopia quickly stepped close enough to grab it away from her. “It is now possible,” Faye remarked. “That I did this under duress. To help my family.”

She marched back towards the communications link at her station. “Priority request,” she said, thumbing the button. “Send a tech. A couple of inspectors have turned up down here.”

Laurie was close enough to the gazebo to hear everything now. It sounded like a man and a woman arguing. And the female voice sounded somehow familiar, the same way Clarke’s voice had sounded familiar to her the previous evening.

“What?” the male was saying. “I heard you go both ways. Am I not good enough for you? Or is it that you only give it up for the lady with the golden eyes?”

“Her name is Carrie,” came the quiet response. “And we’re in love.”

“Hah! That’s rich. She’s got girls in every country. Probably guys too. And if ‘your Carrie’ really loved you, she would’ve kept you close tonight. Or at least had someone stop me when I dragged you out here. No, Chartreuse, she expects you to give influential people like me a good time tonight, in exchange for receiving favours later. Yeah?”

Laurie’s breath caught in her throat at the name.

“Just… stop. PLEASE stop,” Chartreuse begged.

“Stop what? Telling you the truth? Or stop doing things like this to you?”

Chartreuse whimpered.

The firework was arcing over the gazebo before Laurie even stopped to think about it. It exploded with a bang, lighting up the area, and causing the two figures to separate.

“Kick him and run, Chartreuse!” Laurie shouted immediately after, pressing herself up against yet another tree trunk. Her heart was beating so fast, she was worried it would burst out of her chest. “Kick him and run, and, like, keep on running!”

“Who the hell is out there?” the assailant snarled. In the brief light of the firework, he’d looked at least forty, and a bit out of shape.

“Someone who, like, believes people like you can get away with stuff too often, you know?” Laurie wasn’t entirely sure why she’d decided to spout ‘valley girl’ talk. She supposed it was in the hope that it would trigger something in her old friend. “And someone who is finally, like, taking a stand!”

“Oh yeah? Well, news flash. I’m smarter than my father. I won’t get caught the way he was. So you better run along now before you become a victim too!”

Laurie looked to the heavens and crossed herself. “No. You leave Chartreuse alone!”

“Oh, you’re gonna get it now…"

Laurie heard the sound of someone being shoved to the ground, but from the measured steps in her direction, it didn’t sound like the person approaching was Chartreuse. It occurred to her that the only advantage she had was the fact that the guy didn’t seem light on his feet.

“Stand back up and kick him down, Chartreuse,” Laurie pleaded. She began to backpedal from tree to tree as he came closer. “Take a, you know, stand! You’ve gotta do it, if not for yourself, then for, like, me, and people like me, otherwise he’s gonna keep doing it, or maybe he’ll get a firework in the face next, because I, you know, didn’t think this through, and don’t know what else to do, and golly, now I could be screwing up the timelines, um, please, Tim any suggestions…?"

She then realized that in her haste to get away, she’d started back-pedalling towards the house. Perfect.

“Laurie,” came Tim’s calm, measured voice. “Try to hide. Luci’s on her way.”

People were going to have to bail her out. Again. The same way her brother always did. Her brother, who didn’t even exist in this timeline. Laurie felt like crying. As she’d feared, she was ruining everything. What more could possibly go wrong now? Could this get any worse?

No, she realized. Things couldn’t get any worse. She had hit rock bottom, she was at the point where she had nothing left to lose.

“When I get my hands on you,” the man growled, “you’re gonna wish you’d minded your own…"

Laurie knew that a red dress wasn’t the best outfit to be wearing when performing a back handspring. But in retrospect, that’s probably what made the guy freeze in place, allowing the cheerleader to complete her maneuver by planting her hands and kicking back and up with her legs. It was a solid hit, right where she’d intended. The predatory man crumpled to the ground with a high pitched whine.

Nothing left to lose. Had she seriously just done that?

Laurie grabbed her handbag back off the ground and charged back towards the fence, leaving the man laid out in the dirt. She only paused long enough to catch her breath, upon registering the fact that the fifty year old version of Chartreuse was now standing by the gazebo, her mouth open wide. “D-Did you just flatten Councillor Linford?” Chartreuse gasped.

Laurie shrugged. “Your turn next time,” she declared. “Also, you look good. The red hair works. It’s never too late to find a nice man or woman who truly loves you. Okay?”

Not waiting for a response, Laurie sprinted off the property.

One moment, Carrie was reaching for an hors d’oeuvre. The next moment, she was on the ground, her palm against her forehead.

Someone was going to time travel. And they were going to do it with intent - and more importantly, with a plan - for changing history. Who was it? Some fool with a homemade machine in their basement, and lottery numbers in hand? Carrie dropped her mental shields into place, and tried to localize the disturbance.

It was North America. It was Ontario. It was… in town? Ridiculous. In that case, she wouldn’t even have to warn a prior self. She could get there in person. Was the person so clueless?

A shiver ran down her back, as she focussed in… and realized that it wasn’t some crazy person in a basement. The stationary temporal generator to the south was powering up. Impossible. How could anyone have gained access, much less someone who might change history?!

Carrie turned her attention to the time streams, looking for the warning signs, looking for something to nudge. But she couldn’t track back mentally - there was now a waterfall in the way. The anomaly she’d sensed. Well, that was a problem.

She could still deal with this though.

Pushing herself back to her feet, and ignoring the concerned mutterings of all the people around her, Carrie began to speed up time for herself, relative to her surroundings.

NEXT: Nowhere to Run

ASIDE: I kind of love today’s title. Did you spot all the callbacks, like Faye, Linford and the “Chronologic Patrol”? Only four more episodes/weeks to go now! Another Commentary this weekend, before we’re into the home stretch. Everything changes next week, but it all makes sense as far as Miami is concerned… care to do that T&T vote thing?

PREVIOUSLY: They need what Julie has, to help Mindy travel back. But Luci tried to throw Julie out, after some uncomfortable truths were revealed.

PART 91b: REWRITE THE FUTURE

Julie had pulled her glasses back out. The way she tapped at the arms and blinked very deliberately helped Frank realize that they were some sort of technological device; maybe she was using them to read the daily news. Or to communicate with someone?

Then again, Luci didn’t seem to be concerned by Julie’s actions. The asian woman merely glared at her house guest from across the dining room table, as Julie continued to stare at her lenses. Deliberately ignoring everyone present. With a sigh, Frank made sure Tim and Laurie were okay on the sofa, the blonde boy doing his best to console their redheaded friend, then he returned to the table.

“Okay,” Frank sighed. “Julie. Here’s the thing. What you’ve got? Luci thought it would make this mission safe for us. Or safer, at least. Knowing that, why would you willingly take those items away, increasing the danger?”

“Because obviously Luci doesn’t need them after all,” Julie said dryly. “Besides, if she truly cared about safety then her resistance friends wouldn’t be–"

“I have been trying to FIX that, Julie! I was making an effort, and I’ve redoubled my efforts since losing–”

“Oh, I’m sorry, you want points for better late than nev–"

“Okay, stop,” Frank said, cutting between them. He drew in a long breath. “Look. I obviously don’t know the whole history here. But I DO know you two - or knew you - when you were my age. Back when Julie tended to work on her projects all by herself, while Luci had a habit of speaking her mind regardless of the consequences. Back when, despite those differences, you both cared. About each other, and about what was going on around you. So, know what? I think that means you still care. Both of you. Somehow, you’ve simply blinded yourselves to that reality over the last thirty years.”

Julie’s posture went rigid, and she reached up to pull her glasses back off. Luci bit down on her lower lip, turning away from Julie to face the wall. For a moment, neither spoke.

“People are dying, Frank,” Luci whispered at least. “You of all people MUST realize that. And when you care too much, and then people die, it hurts that much more.”

“I’m not about to die,” Julie muttered. “Your resistance could at least care a little bit about how much I stick my neck out.”

“You questioned what we were doing,” Luci said, turning back and smacking her palm against the table. “ALL the damn time.”

“Because you were blinded by vengeance. Sorry,” Julie immediately amended. “I don’t mean you, Luci. Some of your group were though. Still are. I couldn’t be a party to that.”

“Oh, why, because you’re such a saint?” Luci sniped.

“No, precisely because I’m NOT a saint,” Julie said. “And what I didn’t enjoy seeing was my darker places reflected in your resistance group. Hence, my trying to clean them up for you - leading to my getting attacked for those efforts. Damn it Luci, if you’d only listened to me back then, then maybe…" Her voice trailed off.

Luci sat back, looking tired. “Corry wasn’t my call. You know that.”

“I know, I just…" Julie shook her head, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Maybe Frank has a point. Maybe, in the end, I was looking for a reason to wash my hands of the whole thing. And I finally got it.”

“And maybe I didn’t like you showing us what we were becoming,” Luci admitted. “I won’t deny my ethics have become… flexible these days.”

Julie rubbed her forehead. “Tell you what.” Her gaze swung towards the couch. “I’ll stick with you for this one, if you’ll have me. Because I want to guarantee young Laurie’s safety.”

Luci nodded. “You have that guarantee. And your acquired immunity to mind control makes you a useful asset for us. Not that I only see you as an asset here,” she amended. “I do care. At least a little.”

Julie chuckled. “So, suddenly friends again?”

“I wouldn’t say that. But I’d say we’re not adversaries.” Luci shook her head. “We never should have let that happen.” She hesitated, then stretched her arm across the table. Julie regarded the hand, then reached out to shake it.

“Thank goodness,” Frank sighed. He winced as both ladies turned to look at him - he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Um, yeah, so what’s the plan then?”

Luci dropped Julie’s hand, standing back up. “The plan? Is to follow Mindylenopia’s plan, until she travels back. At which point we storm the stationary generator, so that the Temporals are facing chaos both inside and out. That gives us our best chance ever to obtain time travel… as long as Carrie doesn’t rewrite everything. That’s the key. We cannot attempt this without that piece in place.”

“Right. Well, we should have a few tricks in store for Carrie,” Frank said, glancing back towards Tim and Laurie. “Mindylenopia’s weapon will help.”

“Hold on,” Julie said. “What’s going to stop Temporals from using the stationary temporal generator in the States next week? Or the one in Japan, or Ireland, or any of the other sites around the world? They could travel back from then to yesterday, and be here to mess with Canada now. After all, they’ve already got their representatives in town for Carrie’s birthday celebration.”

Luci shook her head. “Temporals may have the better grasp on time travel theory, but without Carrie, they’re as locked into predestination as we are.” She grinned. “Meaning we long as we can take the building in the present, we’ll HAVE it.”

“Just one loose end remains,” Frank said. “What did Mindy say, when you told her she could be tortured and killed on her mission to our past?”

He shifted his attention back to Luci, only to see that she was frowning. “Frank, I mentioned she calls us, we don’t call her, yeah? Well, we know where you and Laurie need to be positioned - but when you meet her? I’m afraid you’ll have to give Mindylenopia that information yourself. At which point… well, yeah, I guess she could abort the whole thing.”

Frank stood by the side of Highway 19 that night, south of Ottawa. Luci had dropped him off there, before driving back in to monitor Laurie; Julie had offered to take Laurie and Tim to their necessary locations in advance. Frank took a moment to mentally review what he knew of that part of the mission.

Carrie apparently had residences in many capital cities around the world - but she preferred Canada, where she had grown up. So her fiftieth birthday was being held locally. And Mindylenopia had been invited. Luci had hypothesized that the invitation was a test of the redhead’s fuzzy allegiances, or simply a way to keep an eye on her… either way, Mindylenopia had RVSPed. To the tune of ‘I’ll stick to lurking outside, not unlike the spy you take me for’.

So Laurie would lurk in her place. And as long as the Temporals thought Mindylenopia was there, they wouldn’t be looking for her to storm the building housing the stationary time machine. The building that Frank and Mindylenopia would soon be inside, so that he could get the prototype temporal gun… and then, assuming sending a message was possible, he would cue the resistance to storm in. Piece of cake.

Assuming Mindylenopia had no problem with dying in Miami, years later down her timeline.

He checked his watch - almost nine thirty.

“Bernard, why are you wearing that ridiculous disguise?” came a voice from the darkness.

Frank jumped, absently reaching up to touch the blonde moustache and wig he’d put on. “Uh, I thought it would help fool the video cameras.”

“Right. Because they only use video to identify people,” Mindylenopia said, coming close enough for Frank to see her rolling her eyes. “Oh well, it’s low tech, so it can’t hurt. Maybe you’ll buy yourself time because they’ll be so busy laughing. Come on.”

“Mindy. Mindylenopia, wait,” Frank said. “You have to know something first. About what’s liable to happen to you if you succeed in going back. I promised someone I would tell you.”

“Uh huh, sure. I already checked the history books, there’s no record of me,” she objected.

“Right, true enough.” Frank drew in a shaky breath. “Thing is? I’ve got very good reason to believe that you’ll end up temporally banished by the Carrie you meet in the past. And that, although you’ll survive, and rebuild many of your memories, you won’t survive what comes after that.”

“Speak the truth, please,” Mindylenopia grumbled.

“I did,” Frank said, speaking automatically.

In the process of turning away, Mindylenopia froze. She slowly swivelled her head back. “Are you one of those vision mystics?”

“No.”

“But you’ve spoken with one.”

“Not as such.”

“Yet somehow, you think past Carrie knows that I’m coming for her?”

“Not that either.” Frank shook his head. He sighed. “It’s complicated,” he yielded, using the word Chartreuse had with Tim.

She stared at him. “Part of me wants you to spill everything now.” She licked her lips. “But the sensible part of me only wants to know one thing. This future for me, which you seem to be forecasting - will that Mindylenopia change things? Will her ripples eventually kick this timeline in the teeth, or preferably somewhere even more painful?”

“I’m going to go with yes,” Frank said. After all, how could he even be here otherwise?

Mindylenopia considered that. “Good. Come on.”

Frank hesitated. “Mindylenopia - are you sure?”

She looked over her shoulder again. “No, of course not. Where’s the fun in being sure? Even with the effects of time travel being globally predestined, nothing’s ever sure, not really, not until it’s happened. So, since I’m not in the history books, I’m banking on your predicted past future being flexible. Heck, this mission to get me back could still fail somehow.”

“But if it succeeds, and it leads to banishment and death…"

“Everybody dies, Bernard,” Mindylenopia observed. “The question is what sort of footprint you want to leave behind. Sounds like I’ll go out making an impact.”

She began to stride away. “Look, I appreciate the warning, but don’t bring it up again. Because even if we assume a Carrie-esque banishment leads to me forgetting about this conversation? No one should really know too much about their own destiny. Otherwise, there’s a chance it’ll become someone else’s.”

Frank felt a tension in his shoulders relax. He felt like he’d legitimately held up his end of things, and their plans hadn’t been aborted. “Okay then. I’m right behind you.”

Carrie glared at her reflection. She didn’t enjoying seeing the lines on her face, the hints of grey in her hair, or even the bright yellow gown that she had chosen for her birthday celebration. But her displeasure went deeper than that. “There is an anomaly.”

“There is? What is it, my love?”

Carrie didn’t bother to turn to face the woman who had spoken. She continued to glare at her reflection, her eyes flickering from blue to gold and back, hoping to pinpoint the problem. Annoyingly, if there was a source behind things feeling not-quite-right, it remained elusive. “I don’t know,” she said at last, spitting the words out. That was a three word chain she spoke very infrequently. “Probably just a sign that I’m going to need to rewrite the timelines, and go through this day again with a massive headache. Stupid Mundanes, don’t they know that messing with today will simply make me ANGRY?”

“Is there anything I can do to make you feel better? A massage? Bring you some chocolate? Do a vis– I mean, a massage?”

Carrie snorted. “No.” She pushed herself away from the vanity, clenching her hands into fists. “Wait, were you about to say vision quest? Did you get back into those while I was out of town?! I thought we’d cured you of all that mystic nonsense, along with that silly accent!”

“N-No, I m-mean yes, I mean… my love, I only stumbled into an online forum where they were discussing it…”

“Stay off that forum. Better yet, tell me about it tomorrow, we’ll shut it down.” Carrie felt her fingernails digging into her palms. “I’m the one and only authority on what DOES or DOES NOT happen within the time streams. Is that understood?”

“Y-Yes, my love… I meant no disrespect…"

“Fine, good.” Carrie finally turned to regard the woman sitting on the edge of her bed. Like Carrie, she was dressed in an elaborate gown. However, her’s was purple, to complement her hair, which had for years now been dyed a bright red. When in Rome, and all that. Carrie smiled, seeing that the woman’s eyes remained cast down, towards the floor. In obedience. As it should be.

“It’s time I got out there,” Carrie decided. “Moreover, if you perform well tonight as my pretty Canadian eye candy, I’ll allow you to give me a special birthday gift after everybody has left.” She grinned. “Would you like that?”

Her companion swallowed. “Oh yes, my love,” the woman repeated. She started to look up.

“Excellent. Eyes down. Remember your place.”

Carrie’s first ever female paramour immediately complied. Honestly, there were times when Carrie wondered why she had even bothered to track down and recruit Chartreuse. But the girl had been so fond of her in high school… and then so malleable because of their history together. Even now, Chartreuse still had her uses, for instance in identifying illicit online message forums.

Snapping her fingers at her old high school friend, and with the hints of an anomaly still tickling at her senses, Carrie strode out to meet her birthday guests.

NEXT: Storming the Castle

ASIDE: Remember the April Fools entry? “Elder Carrie” is back, and meaner than ever. Meanwhile, the fourth person in that Tuesday graphic… will be Chartreuse. She turns up everywhere. If you’re enjoying, take 5 seconds to vote for T&T?

PREVIOUSLY: A fifty-year old Carrie has abducted her teenaged self. Characters have pursued her from their past… to the uncertain future.

PART 88b: FUTURE IMPERFECT

And Carrie felt the time streams pulling at them, and there was nothing her friends could do, she was being pulled away, pulled off into the future, down a path that had no turns…

Wait, could she move? Was Elder Carrie losing her grip? Her fingers twitched, but no, that wasn’t enough, she was unable to pull away… a single tear trickled out of the corner of her eye, as Carrie Waterson, the future Temporal Weapon, surrendered herself to the inevitable. Her hands slipping into her jacket pockets.

Which was where she felt a hard object. Of course - it was the meditation crystal. The one Chartreuse had given her yesterday, or rather the day of the talent show. Carrie had brought it along with her, feeling like it might help her to feel connected to Chartreuse… and by extension all of the other people she had been hoping to protect. But she had failed them. She had failed them all. Even her parents.

Carrie’s fingers curled around the crystal object, aware that more tears were coming. Because here she was, at the mercy of her Future Self, being time shifted into Her Future… a future where Carrie would never see her parents, her friends, or that one ray of sunshine - her once possible girlfriend - ever again.

“CARRIE!”

Oh no, now she was imagining Chartreuse’s voice in her head.

“Carrie, are you there?! We don’t, like, have much time, but PLEASE hear me, there’s something you’ve gotta do!”

Frank gently tapped at Laurie’s face until she murmured and her eyes blinked open. She immediately sat up, seemingly registering how he’d taken her out of the time car, to be laid in a field. “What happened?” the redhead gasped. “Did it work? Are we in the future?”

Frank nodded. “We… think so. The time circuits shorted out.” He looked towards Tim, who was pacing around the car. It sat a short distance away, in the same field. “Anything?”

Tim shook his head. “No sign that we were hit. But you’re right, the trip didn’t feel like the previous ones, and I thought I saw sparks through the windshield before I blacked out.”

Laurie looked back and forth between them. “What? Problem with the length of the jump? The fact that it was trying to orient on a future me? Something else?”

“No idea,” Frank said. “We’ve done even crazier things than what you’ve described, and never experienced a jolt like that. So I can’t explain it.”

Laurie shivered. “There’s patches of snow out here,” she realized. “This weather is is a far cry from Miami.” She peered through the dusk towards a nearby rural road. “But at the same time, it all seems weirdly normal, huh?”

Frank reached out a hand to help Laurie to her feet, which she accepted. “I’m guessing we’re back in Ontario,” he observed. “But there’s no way to be sure.”

Laurie began to brush herself off. “No, I meant, if this is the future that Glen and Mindy were talking about, the one with the temporal war, it looks normal instead of more… more… golly, I don’t know.”

“Post-apocalyptic?” Tim suggested, approaching.

“Different,” Laurie decided.

Tim chuckled. “W-Well, we have yet to look around. Though after four time trips, I see the car still hasn’t managed to arrive on a road… boy, s-so much for the practical aspects of a time machine vehicle, huh?”

Laurie smiled back. “We’re in the future. Maybe we can get a hover conversion, like in the movies.”

“Hah!” Frank said, smiling too. “I’ve never seen the sense in flying cars. Unless you’ve got something like an airport control tower, there’s no practical way to avoid mid-air collisions.” He turned back to the road, spotting a vehicle turning the corner. It was going to drive right past them. “Uh oh. I hope that’s not a future version of us.”

“H-Hide?” Tim asked. “Or ask for h-help?”

Laurie scrambled to get over to the side of the road. “Oh, they’re gonna see the car anyway.” She waved. “And I think that’s a tow truck!”

“Help then,” Tim concluded. He looked at Frank. “Because I d-don’t think we want to split ourselves up OR leave the time machine alone in the middle of this field.”

“Still…“ Frank grimaced, then sighed. “Okay, I yield. Let’s flag it down.”

They stood by the side of the road, the tow truck slowing as it approached. It probably would have stopped even if Laurie hadn’t been jumping up and down with her arms in the air. Frank barely had a chance to register the logo for ‘Sam & Al’s Garage’ on the door before it opened and a blonde haired man in his late forties or early fifties jumped down out of the cab.

“Hey,” the guy said with a wave, slamming the door behind him. He pushed a pair of glasses up higher on his nose and adjusted his cap. “Lucky break for you guys that I was driving by. What’s the… trouble… damn. Is that an old Chevy?!”

“Yeah. We’re not from around here,” Frank said. He wondered why the blonde guy’s voice sounded familiar. “Plus our vehicle might have sustained damage, so I’m nervous about starting it up. Could you maybe give it a quick once over?”

“Amazing. I haven’t worked on one of these since my senior year of high school,” the blonde said, letting out a low whistle. He walked over to run his fingers over the hood. “How did a bunch of teenagers get their hands on…" He paused, looking at them a bit more closely. His eyes gradually widened. “No. No, it can’t be you. This is impossible.”

“Clarke?” Laurie ventured. “Clarke, is that you?”

That’s when Frank caught the resemblance. Laurie was right. This man could definitely be Phil Clarke, over thirty years later.

“Laurie? Tim?!” The tow truck operator looked from the both of them over to Frank, and then took a couple steps backwards. “No! How can you all be here - looking like THAT? None of you ever… we never… what date are you all FROM?!”

Frank looked over at his companions. Could they trust this version of Clarke? Then again, did they have much of a choice at this point? “December,” he offered. He provided the year, and when it looked like Clarke was trying to do mental math, he added, “Your aforementioned senior year of high school.”

Clarke shook his head. “Impossible. That’s impossible. That’s…" He stepped forward, and reached out to poke at Frank’s shoulder, tentatively, as if wondering if his hand would go right through. When they made contact, Clarke recoiled, then turned and headed back for the truck.

“W-Wait,” Tim protested. “Clarke, we’ve landed in an unknown future, we need a hand here!”

“I have to make a phone call first,” he shouted back. The cab door slammed shut. Moments later, it lit up inside, as if Clarke had a very bright phone engaged where he was hunched over.

“Are we in trouble?” Laurie wondered.

“Clarke’s m-my friend,” Tim insisted. “Whatever he’s doing, it will help us.”

Frank was getting an uneasy feeling. “I hate to say it but… based on that reaction… maybe we don’t end up returning to our present? Or at least, not to our home town?”

“Why wouldn’t we go back home?” Laurie demanded.

Tim flinched. ”Because Clarke’s acting like he hasn’t seen us in thirty years,” he deduced. “Oh no. Does the present think we died?”

“Then again,” Frank continued, “maybe Clarke’s shock is simply the result of some Temporal wiping our memories. Meaning we’ll be unable to tell the present about this trip, and as such, we’re very unexpected.”

“So we CAN get home?” Laurie asked, wringing her hands.

“I thought a Temporal’s m-mental influence faded over time,” Tim objected. “Unless we WANT to f-forget, like Clarke’s sister. S-So why would we want to f-forget this?”

Frank winced. “I don’t know. Though Carrie’s memory wiping? That would last, from what we know of her impact on Shady.”

Tim frowned. “S-So you’re s-saying Carrie might end up tampering with our…"

“Know what?” Laurie interrupted. “Maybe we simply NEVER talk about this to anyone. Because all your talky alternatives sound awful.”

Frank exhaled. “Maybe that.”

Clarke looked out at them from behind the tow truck’s windshield, shook his head, and a moment later, the glow surrounding him disappeared. He reopened the door, adjusting his hat again. “Okay guys. Let’s have a look at that Chevy.”

“I-Is everything okay, Clarke?” Tim asked.

The blonde hesitated, then nodded. “It will be. And hey, call me Phil, all right?” He gave the group a tentative smile.

“So this car… it’s your time machine?”

“Yeah,” Frank affirmed. “Do you see anything wrong with it?”

Clarke poked his head back under the hood. Tim felt worried - based on Clarke’s reactions to this point, Frank’s theories about memory manipulation seemed valid. Because while Clarke remembered the Chevy, he didn’t seem to remember converting it into a time machine.

Then again, maybe when you got old, you forgot about a lot of childhood stuff? Except their temporal activities seemed like the sort of thing you’d remember. Unless Clarke hadn’t helped with the time machine car in their present after all… but then, what else could he have been doing at Julie’s for most of December? With a sigh, Tim decided to stop speculating.

“I don’t think the car’s about to explode when you start it up,” Clarke concluded. He straightened, and dropped the hood back in place. “Man, I miss having them this easy to diagnose. These days, cars mostly drive themselves, to the point where you have no idea what the issue is if they grind to a stop.” He pulled a rag out of his pocket to clean his hands. “Granted, as far the time machine pieces go, that’s beyond my understanding.”

“But don’t time machines exist now?” Laurie wondered.

Clarke shrugged. “Not in cars. And there’s no ‘For Dummies’ books about them. The technology is highly regulated, and to handle security leaks, the ‘net was flooded with misinformation, things designed to blow you up before you could ever manage to create a time distortion.”

“So time travel isn’t d-done by the general public?” Tim mused.

“Nope,” Clarke affirmed. “Not since… well… yeah, I probably shouldn’t be giving out future information. Even if…“ He glanced at Frank. “Damn, I am SO out of my depth here. But if you’re willing, I had hoped to bring you to someone who could help. She’s the person I phoned when I first realized who you were.”

“Oh! Is it Carrie?” Laurie asked.

Clarke visibly shuddered. “Hell no, not her. Not Carrie. You will know this person though. I think. Which is probably all I should say until we’re there.” He glanced at the Chevy. “You want to try driving it and follow me? Or shall I tow? I’d recommend the latter, since there’s room for everyone in the truck, and I wager this thing’s still running on regular unleaded gasoline. No point draining the tank.”

Frank rubbed his neck. “Tow then, I guess. Except where is this person you’d be taking us to? For that matter, where are we now?”

Clarke thought for a moment. “You’d realize soon enough. We’re a little ways outside Ottawa. That’s where we’re headed.”

Laurie did a double take. “Wow. Is Ottawa still the capital of Canada?”

Clarke nodded. “Yeah.”

“Hold on.” Frank pulled Mindy’s piece of paper back out of his pocket and looked at it. “That means we’re in the 613 area code. This string of ten digits… it could be a phone number.”

“Ten digits… an old school phone number?” Clarke said. “You’re just full of surprises. I mean, the system’s backwards compatible, so whatever you have should still work, but who are you planning to contact thirty years out of date?”

“I won’t know until I try it,” Frank admitted. “Can we use your phone?”

Clarke tugged on the brim of his hat. “Depends,” he said. “Will it get me in trouble?”

“I’ll hang up if it’s someone problematic,” Frank assured him. He looked to Tim. “But there’s a chance I’ll need your linguistic expertise.”

Tim nodded, closing the distance between them.

Clarke frowned, but reached into his pocket to pull out a small device. “All right. Phone,” he said. The bright light from earlier returned, and this time Tim saw that a holographic keyboard had been illuminated in the air. Clarke moved his fingers around the virtual image. “I’m keying in audio only, anonymous guest, location tracking off,” he noted. “Keep the call short. Not because I don’t have the bandwidth, but because I feel like we don’t want to be noticed.”

Clarke swiped left, and the keyboard image resolved itself into that of a virtual numerical pad instead. It included buttons to dial and hang up. “There.” He placed the small device into Frank’s palm, then turned. “I don’t even want to know what you say, so Laurie, care to help me position things for the tow?”

As Clarke went to join the redheaded girl, Tim looked down at the device, then up at Frank. “Who do you think will answer?” he murmured.

Frank eyed Mindy’s note. “I figure maybe it’s whomever helped Mindylenopia get back to the past in the first place. And maybe that person has information we need about Carrie - except maybe they only speak Temporal.”

“L-Lots of maybes,” Tim observed.

Frank nodded. “Translate if you can?”

Tim nodded back, and Frank reached up to tap experimentally at the holographic keypad, keying in the ten digits. After a series of clicks, there was a buzzing noise that Frank took to be equivalent to a ring. Almost immediately, a familiar sounding female voice came on the line, demanding, “Who is this and how in hell did you get the number?!”

They both recognized the voice, Frank’s eyes going wide. “Mindylenopia?!” he blurted out.

NEXT: Identity Crisis

ASIDE: In case you missed it, there was an amusing ‘April Fool Update’ yesterday, written by Michael F. Read that to get a sense of why Clarke wouldn’t want to contact Carrie here (even though his story is not in continuity, it’s semi-accurate). Commentary coming tomorrow, regular schedule resumes Tuesday, want to vote for T&T?

PREVIOUSLY: A fifty-year old Carrie has abducted her teenaged self. Characters have pursued her from their past… to the uncertain future.

PART 88b: A FUTURE DARKLY

Elder Carrie bit her lower lip in amusement as the Temporal in front of her was fidgeting in his seat. It was clear that Glen was nervous, his body language was broadcasting it aggressively. Elder Carrie took a moment to appreciate that, this was not a side of Glen that she had seen often, but it had confirmed the change of roles in their relationship: Carrie was in control. Carrie was in charge. The best part of this is that Glen knew he was in trouble.

Elder Carrie locked eyes with Glen as she removed her coat, without blinking she hung it on her new “coat rack” and watched as Glen flinched.

“Is this making you uncomfortable?” Elder Carrie asked, motioning to the “coat rack”.

“I don’t think it is tasteful,” Glen responded, avoiding further eye contact. “I think it’s a little cruel,” he continued.

“Cruel?” replied the Elder Carrie. “Coming from YOU that’s a laugh. Cruel was you changing my childhood, cruel was you letting my past self know about about my sibling prematurely!” Her voice cracked with emotion. “What is ‘cruel’, Glinephanis, is that we got here because I trusted you, and you proved to be incompetent.”

An awkward silence fell on the two time travelers. As Glen looked down on the floor in guilt, abandoning his usual confidant demeanor, Elder Carrie poured herself another glass of wine and let her arm fall on the “coat rack” showily. She let the rack hold her weight and leaned on it as she swirled the wine in her glass playfully.

“This,” she said motioning to the “coat rack” once again, “is nothing compared to the trouble you have put me in.”

Glen could no longer avoid her gaze and finally yielded. He gazed up to see that right next to the mirthful and half drunk smile of Elder Carrie was the horrified and painful face of her younger counterpart. Carrie Waterson, the young Carrie Waterson, was frozen in place, trapped in time by her future self. The once powerful, albeit naive teen was powerless in the face of an older version of herself that had both more experience, and better control of her powers. She was now frozen in place, being forced to act as a makeshift coat rack. Glen could see the plea in her eyes.

“It is still pretty distasteful,” the Temporal finally managed. “How much longer are we going to have to keep her like this?”

The Elder Carrie stopped swirling her wine and looked at her younger self contemplatively. In a swift motion she grabbed a hat off of the sofa Glen was sitting on and rested it on the younger Carrie’s outreached hand, then took a step back and admired her work. “I’m not sure,” she replied, “call me an egotist but I am growing quite fond of myself as a coat rack.” The Elder Carrie took a sip of wine. “I really do just tie the room together.”

The Elder Carrie was taken aback now as the tone in Glen’s voice changed to annoyance. “I think you have misunderstood me, when I said it was not tasteful or cruel I was not talking about her treatment…”

“Go on”, said the Elder Carrie.

“I was talking about her style. The airport uniform she is wearing, it just does not go properly with the drapes,” continued Glen.

The Elder Carrie had not expected this, and was earnestly offended by Glen’s assault on her interior decorating skills. “What are you talking about?!” she snarled.

“The drapes Carrie, they clash with her navy blue, black and yellow vertical stripes just do not mesh well, either change her clothes or change the drapes.”

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to change the clothing of someone frozen this stiff?!” The Elder Carrie countered.

“Fine, then change the drapes, I said you could do one or the other!” Glen retorted.

She winced. “No. NO! I stand by those drapes, they are little unconventional–”

“A little unconventional?” Glen interrupted “They have black and yellow vertical stripes, Carrie! You might as well have lined your living room with ‘caution tape’ because that’s what it looks like!” The Temporal was out of breath.

She finished her glass of wine in protest and pointed at the drapes in fury. “They were CHEAP Glen, I am not spending a fortune on something that just blocks out light!”

“Well that’s the problem, isn’t it Carrie? Everything has got to be cheap with you! You can’t spend the extra money to get some drapes that aren’t an eyesore and you can’t even spend some money on a real coat rack. A coat rack left out on the street would be a better option if you are being so frugal!”

“WHAT?!” she screamed, “and get bed bugs? You know how dangerous discarded furniture is, Glen! At least I know where this one has been.”

In her fury, Elder Carrie lost concentration on her younger counterpart, giving her just a moment to plea, “Help me Glen please!” before being frozen back into place.

“Stay out of this,” The Elder Carrie sneered.

Glen looked on Carrie with exasperation and said: “Thank you, she wasn’t even contributing to the conversation!”

“I know right?” replied The Elder Carrie. “She just rudely interrupted us without saying a thing about the drapes!”

Glen frowned. “Why do we fight like this? It’s just furniture.”

“I don’t know, Glinephanis,” Elder Carrie sighed. “I guess the drapes are really not all that important. I’m sorry. We can replace them with the bright red ones with the paisleys you liked.”

“Those paisleys are going to clash too,” said Glen with his arms crossed.

“WILL NOTHING PLEASE YOU?!” the Elder Carrie shouted.

“A basic sense of décor will! A simple and basic sense of décor! Why is that so hard to ask for?!” countered Glen.

A single solitary tear ran down the frozen Carrie’s eye.

“Look, she’s crying, now she is far less appealing as a coat rack!” said Glen impatiently.

The Elder Carrie opened her mouth as if to say something when she was suddenly hit with an epiphany. Running over to the nearest lamp, the Elder Carrie removed the lamp shade and placed in on her younger self’s head, obscuring her tears and horrified expression. “What do you think Glen?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Glen said positively. “Yeah! I think that works! She is much better looking as a lamp, plus that black lamp shade actually goes well with the drapes!”

“And you doubted my sense of décor!” the Elder Carrie said playfully. Glen smiled back at her and poured a glass of wine for himself and for Elder Carrie. They clinked their glasses together as the tension between them softened. “You know,” said Glen, “if you can keep her like this I can glue a light fixture to her head and then she would be a functioning lamp.”

“There is no need Glen, my past self was always pretty bright…”

^.- APRIL FOOL. ^.-

Gregory Taylor, who normally writes this story, has today created their own entry for Unice5656 who normally writes “Fantasia”, so you can go check that out next. (I’ll post a direct link to my post there once I’m awake.)

For a full list of all six April Fool’s Swappers and their stories, as well as dozens of other serial novels that you might enjoy, check out the Web Fiction Guide Forums.

Thanks for reading, and remember, the best way to support your favourite serial novelist is to tell all your friends about them!

NEXT: The real 88b, “Future Imperfect”, posts TOMORROW. Then a Commentary Post on Monday!

ASIDE: Hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I did. With no prompting, Michael actually nailed some elements of Future Carrie’s personality pretty well… I’ll leave it to you to decide which ones, as before we officially meet the older Carrie again, we’ll get some future context. Oh, care to vote for T&T at TWF?

PREVIOUSLY: Frank caught Carrie up on everything. Then Glen told Carrie why she can’t save her mother.

PART 87b: TRAPPED

She had allowed the time stream to coalesce about her, had been about to pinpoint her mother and jump to her, which was when…

“Carrie, when your mother was taken, she was pregnant.”

The water became deathly cold. Cracks formed in the scene around her, and then the image shattered, leaving Carrie standing back in the small airport lounge, staring at Glen. With a twisting in her gut. “No,” she whispered. A reflex word, because deep down, she knew it to be the truth.

Things were starting to make sense.

“I’m sorry,” Glen said. He looked around. “Carrie, maybe we can still run away together."

That time in the hospital, when she had felt like she and her mother couldn’t both exist, because of a strain on the time streams… it had actually been because she and a sibling couldn’t both exist. One person with temporal powers was bad enough, to have two?! Insanity. Why had nobody ever told her this?

“My Dad… did he…"

Glen shook his head. “He didn’t know. Elaine was barely a month along, I’m not sure if she even suspected.” He continued to look around nervously. “Carrie, please, we need to get out of here.”

The repercussions continued to wash over her. If she saved her mother, all she was doing was pushing her fate onto her unborn brother or sister. Removing herself from the timeline as a child wouldn’t fix things either. The future could simply try again, with someone else. How could she do that? How could she make someone else suffer in the same way that she was suffering here? How could she make a SIBLING suffer that way? Was the path forwards with Glen truly the only one?

Glen pulled at her arm. “Carrie…"

She ignored him. There was something more to this. Why hadn’t she been able to pinpoint where her mother had gone, that time she had first tried to figure it out? Why hadn’t she ever been able to learn the fate of Elaine Waterson? The only one who might have been able to stop her would be someone with similar powers…

A rip began to form in the fabric of space-time.

“I did it to myself,” Carrie realized. “I can’t save my mama, because I’m the one who’s going to abduct her. Along with my unborn sibling, in order to stabilize the timelines. I do it because… because I was always predestined to do it. I’m the Chosen One, the ONLY one with the power to do it and hide the truth, so it has to be me.”

“Bloody hell,” Glen gasped.

A fifty year old Carrie Waterson stepped through the rip in space-time, dressed in a bright yellow gown, and looking royally pissed off.

“Glen’s up here,” Frank asserted, looking down at the tracking device as he ran. “In a room, it’s probably some lounge area.”

“Stop,” Mindy asserted, reaching out to grasp him by the shoulder.

Frank shrugged her off. But when he turned to look at the redhead, his feet stumbled to a stop, not having expected the look of horror on Mindy’s face. Tim and Laurie stopped also, looking back and forth between them.

“What?” Frank asked. “What, are we too late?”

“Maybe,” Mindy said. “Let’s approach cautiously, okay? Listen at the door first. There’s…" She shook her head. “You ever get the feeling that your past has finally caught up with you? Even if that past is the future?”

Carrie couldn’t move. She wanted to scream, wanted to run, wanted to lash out at the older version of herself - and she couldn’t. She was trapped. But then, in a way, they were both trapped, trapped by time, by fate, by the cosmic forces that refused to cut her a break. Insanely, the thought that popped to the forefront of her mind was how at least her present day three-year-old self was tucked away safely in bed - so which of them here in Miami should be adopting the middle-name tradition of becoming Elizabeth?

“You have irrevocably screwed up my past!” Elder Carrie said, glaring at Glen. “That’s NOT why I sent you back, Glinephanis!”

He winced. “You, that is, she– Carrie, your younger self was about to time slip, and mess with your mother. Telling her the truth, it was our last chance.”

“She wasn’t jaded enough for that knowledge. Not as this teenager! Even now, she’s trying to figure out a way out of this one.”

Glen swallowed. “Which you know, because you were once her?”

“Which I know because it’s taking considerable effort to keep myself temporally numb. Plus yes, it’s what I would be thinking in her position.” Elder Carrie bared her teeth. “You broke her, Glinephanis. Broke ME. She will still have been me though. I’ll now have to see to it personally.”

“I’m sorry,” Glen apologized.

Elder Carrie glared at him for a moment, then shook her head, brushing her hair off her shoulder. “Oh, it wasn’t your fault. You did your best. I know who’s really to blame - it’s these stupid Mundanes and that damnable Mindylenopia! They’re all dooming my childhood.” She peered at him. “Perhaps you can still be a bright spot in my younger self’s life though? Will you come with me now? Some of my memories could remain valid, not be inserted by force.”

Glen nodded slowly. “I’m with you to the end. But Carrie, there are more time travellers here in Miami. Mindylenopia and a number of your old classmates. We all came in a time car. They might still try something.”

A growl came from the Elder Carrie’s throat. “Fine, I will deal with them as soon as I get my younger self here restrained back in my present. Grab hold, we’re leaving.”

Carrie felt her future self (or alternate future self, maybe, somehow? Oh God… so trapped…) grab her by the collar. And Glen latched onto Elder Carrie’s arm, and then they were all being pulled back towards the rip in space-time…

Which was when the door burst open. “Carrie!” Laurie shrieked.

“Carrie, fight it,” Tim called out. “Whatever is going on, fight!”

Frank charged in between the two of them.

“Frank, don’t get close!” Mindy shouted, grabbing onto him by the waist, slowing him down. Not that it mattered.

“Carrie, FUTURE Carrie, it doesn’t have to be this way!” Frank shouted, looking from her to her Elder Self. “You don’t have to do this, not to yourself…"

And Carrie felt the time streams pulling at them, and there was nothing her friends could do, she was being pulled away, pulled off into the future, down a path that had no turns…

Wait, could she move? Was Elder Carrie losing her grip? Carrie twitched her fingers, but no, that wasn’t enough, she was unable to pull away… a single tear trickled out of the corner of her eye, as Carrie Waterson, the future Temporal Weapon, surrendered herself to the inevitable.

Frank pounded the floor where they had disappeared.

“This is bad,” Mindy murmured, her face pale. “She’ll be monitoring us from this point on… oh no, no, no. Tim, get Frank. Laurie, you’re with me. We’re heading back to the Chevrolet. NOW.”

“B-But…” Tim began. However, Mindy had already grabbed Laurie by the arm, and was maneuvering her out of the room. So Tim looked towards Frank, who was now kneeling on the ground and looking like he’d just lost his best friend. Which, Tim supposed, might not be far from the truth.

“Frank,” he ventured, moving to touch his companion’s shoulder. “We’ve gotta go.”

“I shouldn’t have waited,” Frank said numbly. “We should have tracked Glen right away. We could have stopped this.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Frank, Mindy needs us back at the Chevy,” he said, tugging on the other boy’s arm.

“And what did the older Carrie even mean?” Frank said, turning his head. “The bit we heard, about Glen having broken her… damn it, what were they even talking about before that?!”

“Frank, time machine. We still have a chance to do something. Come ON,” Tim said, surprised at the force of his own voice.

Frank swallowed. “Right.” He scrambled to his feet. “Right. And we still have Mindy, she might tell us more now. Let’s go."

The two of them quickly caught up to Mindy and Laurie in the corridor. They all hurried out through the arrivals section, pausing only when Mindy started snapping her fingers. “Paper, I’ll need paper… Tim, come with me, stammer a lot and make writing motions. We’ll ask that businessman to lend us his pad.”

“B-B-But,” Tim began again.

“Good, like that,” Mindy asserted. “Frank, wait here a moment with Laurie,” she added, practically dragging Tim towards the guy in the suit who was scribbling something in a book as he talked on his cell phone.

“She’s scared,” Laurie said to Frank, as they watched. “She’s trying to act in control but… but in seeing that future Carrie… golly, it really freaked Mindy out.” She shook her head. “That… it IS what we saw, right? That was a future Carrie abducting… herself?”

“I think so,” Frank answered. “But we’re not finished yet. We can’t be. Mindy must know somewhen we can go. Or have some future knowledge we can use.”

“You think?”

“Yes.”

Laurie shifted her weight back and forth. “Really? Or are you only hoping that, because we’re kinda out of other options.”

Frank didn’t answer, which Laurie supposed was answer enough. Mindy strode back towards them then, scribbling something on her newly acquired piece of paper. The man briefly called something out to them before getting pulled back into his phone conversation.

“All right,” Mindy concluded, folding up the sheet. “This is for you, Frank. Put it in your pocket, and wait two days before looking at it, all right?”

He blinked as he took it from her. “Um, okay, but why…”

“We’re going to hang around Miami for at least two days, acting normal, see?” Mindy continued. “Blending in. Acting passive. We time jump, we enter her domain, whereas so long as we’re here, she probably won’t bother to trace us closely. Not for any length of time. She’ll jump ahead instead, and if she focusses on anyone, it’ll be me. If we get separated, remember, she can use time as a weapon, but she’s not omniscient. She can miss things. Details. Be covert.”

Laurie didn’t like the resignation in Mindy’s tone. When her brother planned things, he never sounded like that. “You’re talking as if we’ve already lost,” she murmured.

Mindy grimaced. “Now that Carrie’s Future Self is involved? I guess I am. But there’s still a chance. Maybe. To that end, you might as well know the truth about why Carrie couldn’t succeed with her mother - I’m pretty sure Glen spilling the beans is what created this mess. But if I tell you, it’s on condition that you all agree to let things play out normally for two days. No matter what! You all cross-your-hearts promise that?”

“Of course!” Frank blurted.

“O-Okay, if it helps Carrie,” Tim said.

“Are you sure we can handle it?” Laurie squeaked.

Mindy flashed her a smile. “Oh, Laurie. Don’t worry, a lot of my earlier reluctance was a fear that one of you would tell Carrie. Which, if she already knows, is no longer an issue. But know what? On your few visits to the cafe this past year, I’ve seen you really coming into yourself. Emerging from the shadow of your brother. Yes, I believe you can handle this.”

Laurie nodded back, feeling a newfound confidence. “Okay then.”

So Mindy told them. And while the thought of Carrie, faced with the choice of either inflicting her own destiny onto a sibling, versus one day removing her own mother from the timelines, made Laurie feel sick to her stomach… she wagered the temporal truth of the situation was even worse, given the way Frank reeled.

“So there’s no way to get Carrie’s attention through her mother,” Frank said. “When Elaine’s plane leaves the airport shortly…”

“Oh, Gods, do NOT mess with that,” Mindy said, eyes widening. “Remember, you do NOT want Carrie’s attention. Not the one who’ll be looking now. Rather, we need to do everything we can to AVOID her attention.” She glanced around. “We’ve spent too much time talking in one place. Wait out front, I’ll go get the time car, we can take it to a hostel for the night.”

Mindy began to stride for the exit, the teenagers hurrying to catch up. “Wait, Mindy,” Laurie protested. “Why take the car?” Something about that felt wrong.

“Glen’s still with HER,” Mindy said. “Since Glen knows about it, we can’t hide it, but we CAN make her think it’s broken or something. So stay back, okay? Also, two days, acting normal, no matter what. You all promised!”

“Sure,” Frank said, exchanging a glance with Tim.

“Good.” She paused, a ghost of a smile flickering over her face. “One last thing. If this all goes south as fast as I think it will - in the end, know that I’m glad I could make an impact.”

Mindy ran off. The knot in Laurie’s stomach tightened. “Frank, no. Something’s wrong. I wonder… I wonder if this is maybe how Chartreuse feels sometimes?”

“F-Frank, she’s right, we’re missing something,” Tim said. “Was Mindy maybe mentally influencing us? She wouldn’t try to time travel without us, would she?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Frank said. He blinked. “But we did miss something. Mindy moved the car. Glen wouldn’t know where it was, not right away. All she’s doing here is leading him and that Future Carrie right back to it. Why?”

“So that Future Carrie’s not watching us?” Laurie whispered.

“But if she’s watching Mindy instead…” Tim murmured.

They all exchanged glances, then Frank took off at a run. He’d barely made it outside before there was the sound of loud explosion from out in the parking lot. By the time the teenagers got there, they were unable to even approach the flaming, burning wreckage of the Chevrolet Cavalier. Or it’s lone occupant.

NEXT: Getaway

ASIDE: That went to hell pretty quick, hm? Any feelings about it, or what’s next? There’s also that vote for T&T, perhaps.

PREVIOUSLY: Carrie went back in time to save her mother. Frank has caught up to her at the Miami airport.

PART 87a: THE PLAIN TRUTH

Frank ignored everyone else in the Miami airport, devoting all his attention to not losing sight of Carrie. After all, this might be their only chance - and she was angling for an ‘Employees Only’ door. He shoved the walkie-talkie back in his pocket and got a grip on the belt of his slightly-too-large pants as he ran. He pushed past someone, mumbling an apology.

The door Carrie was aiming for seemed to open in front of her as she arrived, and she charged through it at full sprint. Frank tried to sprint himself, reaching out and catching the door before it could swing shut. He burst through, spotting Carrie down the passageway.

“Carrie!” he called out, risking the shout now that they were out of the main area. “Carrie, wait, we’re in another timeline!”

“Frank, stop,” Carrie said.

Except she hadn’t said it - the voice had come from behind him. He spun as the door closed, revealing… Carrie. Another Carrie. Except this one was dressed differently. She was wearing a white blouse with a blue business suit, her hair having been gathered up underneath a flight hat. Which made her look much like Elaine Waterson had, moments ago. “Carrie, what–"

Frank stopped, for as he turned back to look at the prior Carrie, she disappeared. One second she was there, then there was a flash of light which made him blink, and then… nothing. Empty hallway. Of course, Frank realized - she’d escaped through time, to become the Carrie in the business suit, who was here now. Frank turned back to her. “Carrie?”

“You couldn’t stop her,” Carrie observed. “Maybe you can’t stop me either. But I have questions. So many questions.”

“H-How far back did you just go?”

“No, Frank. I get the first question. Namely, how in hell did you get back here?! I destroyed… at least, I thought I’d destroyed…"

“The chip?” Frank finished, as her voice caught in confusion or possibly frustration. “You did, but you didn’t. It’s complicated.” He reached into his pocket to shut off the muffled noises coming from the walkie-talkie.

“That’s not an answer,” Carrie countered. “I need more.”

Frank rubbed his forehead. “Well, what we all thought was the chip wasn’t really the chip. So we were able to reconstruct the time machine after all. Which we did because we had to get a message to you. And it all took weeks, Carrie - weeks where we never saw you. Or your mother.”

She flinched at that.

“We figured out what you were planning,” Frank continued. “At least in as much as saving your mom - and with you dressed like that, is it your intention to take her place? To vanish instead?”

Carrie’s mouth twitched. “That other me jumped back a day and a half,” she said after a moment. “To give herself time to prepare for this event. I’d rather not time slip again, but I will if I have to. If you make it necessary.”

It took a second for Frank to realize that she had answered his initial question, about how long she’d been in town. “So what about your intentions here?”

She stared. “Was it you who brought Glen back in time?”

It was Frank’s turn to flinch. Had she been watching them? Well, there was no point denying it. “Yes,” he admitted. “Which goes to show that he doesn’t want you to do this either, Carrie.” A thought occurred. “Wait, have you already spoken with Glen?”

Carrie crossed her arms. “My intention is to bring my mom back into our present. To give her back to Dad. Admittedly, she’ll be almost fifteen years out of time synch, but saving her in the ‘now’, and having her around while I grow up - I already know that’s not a possibility. Her absence made me too much of who I am. It brought me to this point. If I try to paradox my way out of that, it’s liable to render the younger me comatose. So, this is the best alternative I could think of. A parting gift, as I return to this airport and vanish in her place.”

Frank shook his head. “Except Elaine was never in our present. So I’m afraid your plan won’t work.”

Her jaw clenched. “Maybe it will work if you tell me the date when you left.”

Frank exhaled. “But Glen also thinks this event is something you can’t affect. He wouldn’t tell us why.”

Carrie frowned. “Well, if that’s truly the case, I have a backup plan.”

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “You’re a couple questions deeper than me now. And here I thought I was the curious one.”

“Carrie…"

She pulled her hat down tighter against her head. “Did Char– or rather, who all is actually here with you and Glen?”

So she hadn’t been watching them after all. “Laurie is, that helped us get to Miami. And Tim, to translate any Temporal talk. And, ah, well, Mindy.”

Carrie’s posture became rigid. “Mindylenopia?!”

“Is that another question?” Frank said, seizing the opportunity.

“No!” Carrie countered, her face a flurry of emotions. “Except how is that possible, she… I banished…"

He wanted to spill, to tell her about Mindy/Theresa and Chartreuse’s conclusions about Timeline Four, but at this point, he also desperately wanted to know what her next plans were. He had to be assertive, the way he had been that day in the hospital over a year ago. Well, over a year, relatively speaking. “I’ll explain it all, but first it’s your turn to answer a question,” he insisted.

Her hands curled then uncurled. “Glen spoke to me earlier,” she admitted. “He must have spotted me as I was checking out security at the airport. I didn’t want to speak with him, but he pursued me, blocks away. Tried to offer up an alternative plan, said that we could leave here and still relocate somewhere, somewhen.”

“Carrie, even though he came here with us, his plans aren’t the same as ours,” Frank insisted.

She shrugged. “It’s fine, I wouldn’t let him finish. I knew I had to be here to open the door for myself, and to delay you.” Her lips pursed. “But I did say that I would meet him again, after this conversation.”

So she was going to Glen next. Frank swallowed. “Okay, well, here’s the thing. Our whole worldview is ‘Timeline Four’, Carrie! Not Glen’s ‘Timeline Three’, not the one that Chartreuse told us about. Because, thing is, when you banished Mindylenopia… she became Theresa. The waitress in the cafe.”

Carrie’s eyes went wide, and she took a step back. Frank charged on. “See, in our past, Mindy influenced Linquist, who created that temporal gun, and he in turn influenced us, and Theresa influenced us, and then Mindy’s the one who fixed our time machine, and so it’s all so interwoven at this point that ‘Timeline Three’ can go to hell! We want you back, Carrie. Everyone wants you back in the present, and maybe that can be a thing in this New Timeline.”

Aside from biting down on her lip, Carrie hadn’t displayed any other outward signs of emotion. She seemed to be processing the information. So Frank gave her the time. “I’m not good for you, not good for any of you,” she said at last.

“Chartreuse would dispute that,” Frank objected. “And maybe it’s egotistical, but I think we’re better for you than Glen. And better than you being by yourself. Actually, there’s been talk of a rather nasty ‘Future You’, which is what Mindy had initially been trying to change… and it’s not too late to change that future. I’m sure it’s not.”

She stared at him, then slowly shook her head. “Going back to the present to fix my future, I don’t see that as an option.” She drew in a sharp breath. “Thing is, if all else fails, there was a first timeline. The one where I was never here, where you all led perfectly good Carrie-free lives. That’s what I was angling for by doing this, and if I can’t manage it by disappearing in your present…”

She let her voice trail off, giving Frank a pointed look. It took a second, but the piece snapped into place - oh no, was she referring to her ‘backup plan’? “Carrie, no,” he gasped. “You can’t… look at what happened when Julie tried to erase herself!”

“I’m not Julie,” Carrie said quietly. “I’m Temporal Paradox Girl.” She tugged on her hat again. “I’m going to leave you now, Frank. Don’t follow, or I’ll be forced to temporally freeze you in place, and I’m not sure I have the skills yet to put a short time frame on that effect.”

“Carrie, we came here from December 30th,” Frank blurted. “We had a stand-in for you at school, so your absence wasn’t missed. Your Dad knows about you, and he’s okay with it. Please, don’t throw all that away. Look into all the options before you do something rash!”

She back-pedalled away from him, down the hall. “No, no, stop making everything harder for me,” she pleaded. “Stop talking! Don’t follow!”

“Carrie…"

She turned and ran. Frank clenched his fists, but as requested, he didn’t follow. After all, he had to tell the others everything, and if she ended up temporally freezing him, the truth might come out too late.

“I told her everything,” Frank said. As soon as Carrie had vanished from view, he’d radioed the others, and everyone had converged at the ‘Employees Only’ door. “I… I don’t think she took it well,” he admitted. “She seems determined to disappear, whether she can rescue her mother here or not. And she said she’d freeze me in time if I followed her.”

“A-Are we letting that stop us?” Tim asked.

Frank shook his head. “No. But you’ve got to understand her state of mind before we pursue. She doesn’t seem to want to accept any alternatives…" He shook his head. “Yet I can’t think of how to convince her to find another path forwards! Damn it, what other arguments can we make??”

Mindy sighed. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe Carrie has to know.”

Frank turned. “Know WHAT?”

“The reason she can’t save her mother. The reason she shouldn’t destroy herself. Trouble is, I have no idea what that knowledge will do to her. She might give up and shut down entirely.”

“Carrie’s not the sort of person to give up,” Laurie asserted. “And we have to do something.”

“We are running out of options,” Frank agreed. “Mindy, if revealing your secrets will help…"

Mindy grimaced. “Oh, I’m not telling YOU. I’m not even sure I’m telling her. First, I’ll try speaking to Carrie as I used to as Theresa, maybe that passive assistance I gave to her counts for something. We’re going to lose her trail though, if we stand around here much longer!”

“Maybe not. She went to meet Glen,” Frank said. As Mindy’s eyes widened, he added, “so that’s how we’ll find her. Based on what Carrie was saying, I don’t think Glen found our tracking device after all.”

Carrie ran into the small lounge room, wanting to get away - only to find that he was already there, waiting for her. Of course. He would have had to use his mental abilities to clear the room out of other people. Besides, what other events would be on his schedule for the evening?

Carrie sagged back against the door as it closed behind her. “We’ve never been in Timeline Three,” she accused.

“So you did speak with Frank,” Glen remarked. “Pity. But whatever this timeline is, it doesn’t change anything.”

Carrie used her palm to wipe away any tears that might have escaped after her prior conversation. “If that’s so, then you’re not stopping me any more than Frank was. This attempt, it’s my true ‘swan song’, alright? My parting gift. At least give me that."

Glen stared at her for a moment. “I’m sorry, Carrie. So sorry. But you can’t save your mother. Just… let’s run away together. Then we can zap the time machine into oblivion, after Mindy and the others return to the present, okay?”

“WHY? Why can’t I do this? Because you should know that, if I truly can’t do this, I’ll be heading back to make myself disappear before mom even gets to Miami instead!”

“That would have… similar repercussions. If you stop and think about it, I don’t think you’ll really want to do either of those things.”

Carrie strode over to grab Glen by the front of his shirt. “WHY?” she shrieked again. “Why can’t I actually do the ONE thing that I want to do with these temporal powers of mine?”

“You’re not old enough to know that yet.”

She shoved him back, making him stumble. “Wrong! If I can mentally project myself around the present, temporally banish someone, and find people up and down my own timeline, I’m damn well old enough!”

He grabbed a chair for balance. “Carrie, no! This isn’t how things are supposed to play out…”

“Because I change things! I’m Paradox Girl, that’s what I do, right?! You’re just bitter because of how I got you got in trouble for losing me at the talent show, huh?”

“Carrie, please, you need to calm down. I want you to experience us being together, I don’t want to see you to be captured and spoon-fed those memories, but the longer this conversation goes on, the more likely that outcome is becoming…”

“Then I’ll leave,” Carrie asserted. “Leave this conversation, this room, this time. Unless you tell me right the hell now, I’m time jumping, and no one will find me ever again! Not you, not Chartreuse, not Frank, not anyone!”

“Carrie…”

“Bye, Glen.”

“Carrie, when your mother was taken, she was pregnant.”

NEXT: Trapped

ASIDE: Is it falling into place yet? Oh, and don’t confuse this part with “The Plane Truth”, when we first learned about Elaine’s fate.

PREVIOUSLY: To figure out the Miami International Airport, the time group split up - Laurie, Tim and Mindy in one group, Frank and Glen in the other.

M.I.A. (in 2014)

PART 86b: M.I.A.

“I don’t think we’re getting a boarding pass unless someone buys a ticket,” Laurie sighed, watching Mindy talk to the airline receptionist.

Tim poked her arm. “Or maybe it’s only…" He used both hands to slip on the sunglasses he was holding. “A matter of ‘time’. Yeeeeaaaaaahhhh?”

Laurie slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. “Tim! Ohmigod, no, we have to stay serious. Also, I hated that CSI show. The original was better.”

Tim pulled the shades back off. “S-Sorry, couldn’t resist. And you seemed really tense.” He glanced over towards Mindy, then back to Laurie. “Tense is not good. Understandable, b-but maybe you need to try to relax?”

Laurie pulled her hands back to her sides, her eyes again on Mindy. “No. Carrie’s in trouble. Frank’s trusted us to keep track of Mindy. I can’t screw that up. I can’t relax.” Her fingers curled.

Tim shook his head. “Laurie, if you wind yourself up too tight, you’ll crash, like you–" He winced, but couldn’t think of another way to end the sentence. “Well, like Chartreuse said you have before. I’m sure you’ll d-do your best, we all will, but if the unexpected happens… d-don’t beat yourself up, okay? If there’s one thing I’ve found out about our time group, it’s that n-nothing really goes according to plan.”

The redhead nibbled on her lower lip. “Right.”

“You’re d-doing good here,” Tim assured her. “Give yourself permission to smile at my lousy j-jokes.”

The corner of Laurie’s mouth twitched up. Which was when the walkie talkie she was holding crackled to life. Her arm jerked up. “Yes?” she gasped, mashing the talk button.

“Get everyone back to the car,” came Frank’s voice.

“Frank, what’s the problem, what happ–" She caught Tim’s look and checked herself. “Okay. We’re meeting at the car.” She released the talk button. “Tim, go get Mindy, okay?”

He nodded back, hoping for the best but fearing the worst.

“You let Glen get AWAY?” Mindy said, slamming her hands down on the car hood.

“I didn’t let him get away,” Frank countered, equal parts anger and sadness gnawing away at him. “Glen told me that if I didn’t let him leave, he’d tell security that I was some sort of terrorist. And with his power, they’d probably believe him. Pop the trunk, we need to get Julie’s tracking stuff back out.”

“Fine. Mess with her devices while I move the car,” Mindy sighed. “Glen knows where we parked, we don’t want him escaping with the time machine.”

“Y-You’re saying you put Beth’s tracking device on Glen?” Tim asked.

“Kinda,” Frank admitted. “The one Julie got off that hairband over fifty years later, at any rate. So, not ideal, but she’d charged it up and tested it. And since I kind of suspected Glen would try something like this, I slipped it in his pocket while we were moving the car off the beach.” Mindy handed the central device over to him. “I’ll just need to retune all this so that it reads Miami, at this point it’ll likely show Glen as being in our town library…"

“Why would Glen run away now?” Laurie piped up.

“What?” Frank asked, already messing with Julie’s device.

“Why do it now, while there’s still time for you to react?” Laurie pressed. “And not later, like when Carrie’s mom is about to land?”

Tim’s hand reached out to cover the display, forcing Frank to look up at him, then over to Laurie. She was biting down uncertainly on her lower lip.

“That’s… a good question,” Frank yielded. “Glen must have figured now was his best chance. What with being away from Mindy, who might otherwise advocate on our behalf. I shouldn’t have split us up.”

“It’s fine that you did, the decision seemed sound,” Tim assured. “But Laurie makes a good point - are you sure nothing happened right before Glen left?”

Frank thought back, slowly shaking his head. “We were looking for ways around security while you were checking out the boarding pass angle. We’d just agreed that even security outfits might not be enough to do it when Glen leaned in and told me he was leaving. He…" Frank frowned. “He did seem to be looking at something over my shoulder. I glanced that way, but I don’t know what he saw.”

“Something temporal,” Laurie concluded. “It had to be.”

Frank shrugged. “Maybe. Let’s see if we can figure out where he went before speculating.” It took almost thirty minutes to recalibrate the machine, by which point Mindy had walked back from re-parking the car. She glared at him.

“Is it a good time to point out that I never wanted Glen along in the first place?” she asked.

“No,” Frank grumbled. “Here’s the weird thing though. Unless I’ve done something wrong here, it looks to me like Glen’s left the airport entirely.”

“That is weird,” Tim agreed.

“So Glen knew you were bugging him, and thus put the tracker on someone else,” Mindy suggested.

Frank winced. “Possible.” He frowned, then finally directed his attention back to the three of them. “Okay, well, I think Glen’s already told us all he was going to about the limits of Carrie’s abilities. Is it practical to still chase him down? Or do we resume our efforts inside?”

Their eventual consensus was to make sure they had an airport plan before getting sidetracked looking for Glen. Laurie even pointed out that if things went badly that evening, they could time travel back to now, so that they could follow Glen instead… which Frank suspected would cause larger issues, but he made a note of how Laurie’s simpler way of looking at time travel might prove useful later on.

“I think Frank sees me as a nuisance,” Laurie sighed. “I was the wrong person to come. It should have been my brother.”

Tim shook his head. “D-Don’t say that. From what Clarke told me, when Frank was with Clarke and Corry back in the past, your brother was a bigger n-nuisance than you could ever be.”

She frowned. “Except my brother saved Julie!”

“Just as you’re helping to save Carrie.”

Laurie poked her fingers together. “But I can’t understand things, not the way Corry can! I’m only here because it’s Miami. So Frank’s been dismissive, and I’ll probably end up tensing up like you said, and then we’ll all have to try again somehow, which we wouldn’t need to with Corry and what if in the end I’ll have spoiled our only chance to save–"

“Laurie,” Tim broke in, stepping closer to meet her gaze. “Breathe. First, Frank’s not being dismissive, he gets p-preoccupied by technology. P-Plus he’s concerned about Glen, and he’s f-focussed on Carrie.” The blond boy smiled at her. “Second, being aware of tensing up means you’re less likely to do it. And f-finally, you’re more connected to Carrie than Corry could ever hope to be. Don’t lose sight of that.”

Laurie swallowed. “Chartreuse tell you to say some of that?”

“That last bit,” Tim admitted. “Honestly though, I’m making up a lot of this as I go along. In f-fact, focussing on you is kinda helping me not f-freak out myself. So thanks for that.”

The corners of Laurie’s mouth twitched up again. “You’re welcome.” She took in a long, slow breath. “I wish this wasn’t a life or death situation for the girl I idolize.”

“It’s not. Not yet, at least,” Tim said.

“Hey,” Frank said, approaching them with Mindy trailing along behind. “So, we’ve now got clothes that can have me pass for an airport worker. Don’t ask. I figure we grab some dinner, then have Mindy liberate us some boarding passes.”

Laurie’s partial smile faded. “We’re sticking with that plan then?”

“Unless you’ve come up with a better one.”

Laurie dropped her gaze to the ground. Corry would have come up with a good plan, she reasoned. She wasn’t the planning type. “No. But try and make sure you don’t disrupt anyone’s vacation, okay?” she murmured.

“Being choosy about our targets would draw more attention to us,” Mindy countered. “And time will smooth out minor changes.”

“Laurie’s right though, individuals are still important,” Tim put in. “Don’t you agree, Frank?”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed. “Yeah, let’s be choosy on the passes we grab. Thanks guys, keep acting as my conscience check whenever I lose perspective.”

Mindy let out a noise of exasperation, which made Laurie want to cringe. But then she felt Tim nudge her arm, and she looked up in time to catch Frank’s grateful smile towards her.

They had all been through security now. Mindy had ‘convinced’ the ‘donors’ of their boarding passes to stay in the main airport until after 11pm. Which wasn’t too much of a stretch, since Frank and the rest of them had gone through security at only half past ten. Frank glanced at his watch. Elaine Waterson’s plane would be on the ground by now.

“Check, check… we set? Over.” Frank clicked the button on his walkie-talkie.

“Clear at customs,” came Mindy’s voice.

“Um, all good here!” Laurie reported, situated at the entrance to the baggage claim area.

“N-Nothing on my end,” Tim reported. “And no way to tell who might be here to pick up Mrs. W for her transfer.”

“All right. From this point on, report on any sighting of Glen, Carrie, or Elaine,” Frank concluded. While the others were stationed at points that Mrs. Waterson would logically have to pass, he was mobile, able to go wherever he was needed. For now, he paced around the baggage area, pretending to look for misplaced luggage.

Slipping his walkie talkie away for the moment, Frank reached down to adjust his belt. Pity that the room Mindy had located hadn’t had any pants in his size. But he wasn’t going to quibble over something that helped him to blend into the background.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Frank whirled. “Could you tell me where the washrooms… oh, never mind, I see the sign,” the woman in the purple dress finished. She smiled at Frank. “Thanks anyway!”

“Ma’am,” Frank said, nodding as she sauntered off. He quickly made for an area with fewer people, deciding there probably was no such thing as a perfect disguise.

Ten minutes later Mindy made the first report. “W’s clearing customs,” she reported. A pause. “She’s through, and heading for a red haired man who went through right ahead of her. They seem to know each other.”

“Is he from her company? Or a Temporal agent?” Frank asked.

“How should I know?” Mindy said crossly. “I’ll follow in a moment. No sign of Carrie or Glen.”

The seconds seemed to stretch out longer than before, until Laurie’s frantic voice came onto the channel. “Ohmigod. That’s my DAD, guys! Carrie’s mom, she’s with my dad, and they’re coming this way, do I run and hide?!”

“What?” Frank nearly dropped the walkie talkie.

“He must have been on the plane! What if I’m somewhere else in the airport too? Or what if I’m not, but something happens here with my dad that screws up my future?!”

“You won’t, it’s all predestined,” Mindy broke in.

“Laurie, you’ve got this,” Tim added right after.

Frank was busy making for Laurie’s position. A couple paces away he was brought up short at the sight of Elaine Waterson. Looking eerily the same as she had during Frank’s first time trip, right down to her clothing. Which made sense. Oh no, she wouldn’t recognize him from that encounter, would she?

Realizing that Laurie had turned away, inspecting the wall, Frank turned too, so that he was only seeing Elaine out of the corner of his eye.

“Hello?” Mindy said over the system. “Update?”

Frank brought the walkie-talkie back up but Laurie’s voice came over the channel first. “I tried to look casual - they walked right by me! Saying something about town. Because, golly, it makes sense, Dad’s older brother lived there. That’s how we ended up - will end up - moving.”

Frank frowned. “Was your uncle friends with the Watersons?”

“Um… I dunno. Our families don’t mingle these days,” Laurie said.

“M-Maybe they m-met on the plane,” Tim suggested. “Sitting next to each other.”

“Focus!” Mindy said sharply. “Carrie. Glen. Anywhere?”

Damn it. Frank angled his way back towards Mrs. Waterson and Mr. Veniti, looking around for any trace of the other time travellers. “Not yet,” he reported. “Laurie?”

“I didn’t see either of them,” Laurie said.

“Nor me, and I’ve been scanning en route,” Mindy said. “Could Carrie have arrived earlier, outside the airplane from Ontario or something?”

“I hope not,” Frank sighed. He approached Carrie’s mother, trying to keep his back to her. She was still talking to Mr. Veniti, saying something along the lines of ‘good luck on your genetics project’.

“Nothing my end yet,” Tim offered.

“We’ll be headed your way soon, Tim,” Frank muttered into the walkie-talkie. “If we have to, we can regroup and…”

He almost missed her.

Something told Frank to look left; maybe it was intuition, or perhaps there had been a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. But when he looked, there she was. Carrie Waterson, dressed the same way she had been the night of the talent show. Gripping a photograph. She looked around, seemingly disoriented - and their gazes met. And her eyes widened, briefly flickering back to gold.

Then she turned and ran, shoving her way back through a few people.

“Frank? You trailed off,” Mindy pointed out.

“We’ve found Carrie,” he gasped. “I’m in pursuit.”

NEXT: The Plain Truth

ASIDE: It took six parts (weeks) but we’ve caught up to Carrie. Any speculations on why she can’t save her mother before the big reveal? There was some interesting talk in last week’s comments about genetics. And any desire to vote for T&T?

PREVIOUSLY: Chartreuse knows something is up with Carrie, but not what. Carrie will have destroyed a time travel chip, and may be destined to leave town.

PART 80a: VANISHING ACT

Chartreuse entered the classroom she’d been invited to after school, to find Carrie sitting behind the teacher’s desk. She took a second to appreciate the fact that her temporal friend had asked to meet in the same room where they had ‘interfaced’ during September’s dance before closing the door and setting her books by the chalkboard. “So, is class in session?”

Carrie looked up. “I hope not. Because I don’t seem to have the right answers today.”

It was just the two of them. As Chartreuse approached, Carrie stood and walked around the desk to meet her. “Chartreuse…" Her fists clenched and she looked down at her feet. “Damn it. What I SHOULD tell you here is that I don’t care about you, and that I never have, so that you can get over your feelings. Because where I’m going, I can’t take you with me.”

“Carrie?”

“Except I can’t say that, I can’t, because I’m scared Chartreuse, I’m SO scared about how things might play out, and you’re the only one who knows about everything that I’ve seen and done and…"

She looked back up then, and she was so close to tears that Chartreuse didn’t even think about it. She reached out to grab Carrie in the biggest, tightest hug that she could manage. Carrie sobbed then, and after a moment, her hands slipped around Chartreuse’s sides to hug back.

Chartreuse closed her eyes, preferring to let her other senses capture the moment. The feel of how Carrie’s body was pressed up against her. The scent of whatever fragrance her friend was wearing. The sound of the quiet sobs of the girl she’d fallen for.

Alas, she knew the moment was bittersweet. To the point where, when Carrie finally released her, and started to draw back, Chartreuse nearly didn’t let her.

“I’m sorry, Chartreuse. I’m making everything about me again.”

Chartreuse reopened her eyes and smiled. “That’s my Carrie. At the centre of the, you know, universe.” Carrie let out a noise that seemed to be half laugh, half choke, reaching up wipe at her own cheeks. “So where are you going, and why not take me with you? Glen, like, won’t allow it?”

“Oh, I’m not going with HIM,” Carrie assured. “In fact, I fully intend to embarrass him tonight at the talent show. My raging headache isn’t the only reason I set that event as my point of departure.” She took a step back to pull a tissue from the box on the teacher’s desk, blowing her nose.

“You’re going ALONE? Carrie, no…"

“I’m going through time, Chartreuse. We’ve seen how that messes with your head. But even if that wasn’t an issue, this is something that only I can do.”

“WHY? When are you, you know, going? Aside from the obvious chip destroying side trip, that is.”

Carrie tossed her tissue into the wastebasket. “I’m sorry, I can’t. If I tell, then Glen, or someone else at some future time, they’ll try to drag it out of you. I won’t allow that. Not knowing, it keeps you safe. Besides, I’m not even sure if my plan will work. Hence the scared part.”

“But if you leave, what happens to, like, the rest of us? Your friends, your father… me…"

Carrie sighed. “In at least two alternate timelines, everyone led perfectly good lives without me around. I’m sure they can do so again. My father’s kind of a special case, but that gave me the insight into what I’m going to do, so he should be okay as well. You…" Her face crumpled again.

“Oh, God, Chartreuse, you’re the only one I still can’t figure out. I wish I could at least give you an answer here. I think I’d hoped that somehow, the two of us, in this room… and yet…"

“My feelings kinda defy all common sense, huh?”

Carrie licked her lips. “I don’t know. I’m truly sorry. I… I’ll leave it up to you as to whether you tell the others? About everything? Causality loops aside, maybe it will help them understand why I have to destroy the time machine on my way out.”

Chartreuse nodded, then closed her eyes, taking a second to call up the sensations of having Carrie in her arms moments ago. “Okay,” she decided. She turned and headed back to her books. “If you’re going for sure, like, at least take this with you.” She reached into her pencil case, pulled out a relaxation crystal and returned to press it into Carrie’s hand.

“Chartreuse?”

“Take this piece of me with you, Carrie. That way, you’ll know there are people out here who, like, care about you. People who you can turn to for help if you get stuck again. I know it’s not much, in fact it’s, you know, actually kind of a cheap parting gift, but I hate the thought that in time you might forget. Forget all about–"

Carrie’s lips pressing in against her own cut off the rest of that sentence, indeed made Chartreuse forget about whatever she’d been about to say about forgetfulness in the first place. To her chagrin, in the time it took for the kiss to fully register as being a thing, and for her body to start properly reacting, Carrie was already drawing back. Chartreuse felt like a part of her brain wanted to scream. She tried to distract it by looking into Carrie’s wide eyes. Those gorgeous, deep blue eyes.

Carrie swallowed. “Okay. So that’s a thing I actually did.”

“I-Is it a thing you might, you know, do again? I wasn’t ready.”

Carrie’s eyes darted around the room. Her fingers obtained a stranglehold on some locks of her hair. “I… oh, Chartreuse, I would. I’m still not entirely sure what this is I’m feeling, but know that I really would. Except I can’t! Not now. It’ll only make it harder for me… or rather, for the both of us, when I… I have to…"

“A proper goodbye kiss, Carrie? Please?"

Chartreuse wasn’t entirely ready the second time either, but she made sure it lasted much longer than the first.

“Corry’s band was pretty good, huh?” Laurie said brightly as the applause died down. “Even if he had to perform sitting down on account of the ankle.”

“Yeah. Claude seemed to, you know, play all the right notes,” Chartreuse murmured. She wondered whether Megan had actually spoken to the bass guitarist, or any of the others she’d attempted to influence. Well, they were only twenty minutes into a two hour event, maybe chaos would erupt later. Not that it would change anything.

“Well, sure Claude did. He had been practicing their songs since way before Glen got kicked out on Monday,” Laurie noted. “Megan wouldn’t have insisted that Corry choose him for no reason.” She tilted her head. “Chartreuse, are you okay? You shouldn’t keep worrying about what happened with you and Megan last night, yeah? Because I spoke to her, and I think she understands how you’ve been under some personal stress.”

“It’s not about Megan,” Chartreuse sighed. “Sorry, Laurie. It’s more that, the closer we get to, like, Carrie being up there, the more… conflicted I feel.”

The others, sitting around her, they would know of Carrie’s plans right away. Or at least, Julie would, as Carrie would be dressed the same as she had been that night she’d destroyed the time travel chip. Lee and Tim might suspect too, if they saw her backstage. Glen, of course, would already know - but he believed that Carrie would go back, destroy the chip, then return. Except she wouldn’t. She wasn’t coming back. Was she?

The points of the crystal Chartreuse was holding dug into her palms.

Laurie touched her shoulder. “Golly, what is it? Did Carrie finally give you an answer today, Chartreuse?”

The whimper escaped from Chartreuse’s lips before she could prevent it. “Oh, Laurie. Let’s, like, talk about it later, okay?”

Up on stage, the freshmen juggling routine finished with only a couple of objects on the ground, and they took a bow. Then Kim announced Glen’s magic act.

Chartreuse’s breath caught. Her eyes darted to the side, eyeing Frank on her right, and Luci beside him. The two of them also exchanged a glance before they all returned their attention to the stage.

Glen came out, wheeling a large trunk. He was followed by Carrie. Ignoring the light patter as Glen began to speak, Chartreuse watched as Frank’s attention shifted to Julie, who was sitting behind them. Almost imperceptibly, she nodded back. On stage, Glen produced a bouquet of flowers, which he tossed out into the crowd.

Frank shifted, like he was about to stand up. Chartreuse reached out to seize him by the leg, and he turned to her in surprise.

“Don’t,” she whispered, even as part of her said to release him, to let him try, to see whether he could succeed here, where she had failed.

“Chartreuse,” he murmured back. “Julie thinks this might be when Carrie–”

“I know. Don’t. Causality, you know.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Actually, we only have the effect. The cause could be any time Carrie looks like that. If we keep it from being right now, that gives us all more time to determine–"

“No, it’s gonna be, like, now.”

“Why? Did you have a vision?”

Chartreuse closed her eyes. “Something like that.”

“So, for this trick… I will make Carrie disappear!” Glen said, flipping open the trunk.

“Chartreuse. I still have to try.”

She counted to three in her head, then released Frank’s leg. Hearing him get to his feet, she reopened her eyes.

“Carrie! Don’t… don’t do this! Not now!” Frank called out.

Students, parents and teachers alike all turned to regard Frank; the group of them had chosen seats closer to the back. He tried his best to ignore the attention, focusing instead on the stage. Carrie also paused there, one booted leg in the trunk. She fired off a quick, resigned smile. “Frank? What, you jealous that Glen gets to work his magic on me instead of you?”

There were a couple of laughs within the crowd. “Y-You… you know what I mean,” he called back. “Me… Julie… Lee… all of us, we only have your best interests at heart!” Carrie simply looked his way for a couple more seconds, then shook her head, resuming her climb into the trunk.

“Carrie!” Julie said, joining Frank on his feet. Luci rose as well, silently.

“You’ll have to excuse them, they saw what happened when I tried to do this to a watermelon last week,” Glen quipped, spinning his wand in his hand. Another wave of laughter rippled through the crowd, drowning out the growing murmurs.

That’s when Chartreuse noticed it. The photograph that Carrie had pulled out of her jeans. She was looking at it, as Glen closed the lid of the trunk on her. That fact seemed important, because Tim had mentioned a photograph too, hadn’t he? Almost a week ago now, in what would be for Carrie, another few seconds. Had that been the same image? What was the significance?

As Glen began to spin the trunk on stage, Frank looked back at Julie, seemingly unsure as to whether they should simply take their seats or not. So Chartreuse rose with them, motioning to Frank and plucking at Laurie’s sleeve. “Come with me,” she sighed.

“Chartreuse?” Julie questioned.

Chartreuse didn’t answer, she simply edged herself into the aisle and headed for the auditorium doors. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that the others were following. And beyond them, up on stage, Glen was now opening up that trunk. That empty trunk.

Carrie Waterson was gone.

NEXT: Not Forgotten. (PREV: A commentary last Sunday)

PREVIOUSLY: Glen gave mental suggestions to others, trying to do away with a chip Julie had created, meant to restore the time machine. Instead of Lee getting the chip, a future Carrie appeared to destroy it.

PART 78a: CHEER UP

There were two major announcements at school on Monday morning. The first was that Glen would no longer be the bass player for Corry’s band. While there was some confusion within the school about that, it at least made sense to Chartreuse. After all, given what Tim had said on the phone about the conflict he and Lee had experienced with the redhead on the weekend, not to mention the audacity of Glen mind controlling their friends, they could hardly keep working together in a band. Not in any amicable way.

The second announcement was that Laurie would be acting as the head cheerleader until further notice. That was the announcement that didn’t make sense to Chartreuse. Not because it was Laurie - she knew better than anyone how much her friend had been going all out this year, even sketching diagrams of possible new routines for the team that week Carrie had been in hospital - but because giving up the lead ran against Carrie’s nature. More to the point, the timing implied a temporal connection that she couldn’t see, again based on the weekend’s events.

Chartreuse knew Carrie could avoid her at the end of the school day, if she chose. Their timetables were almost a match - except last period, when Chartreuse had Physics while Carrie was in Drama. So the mystic girl made a point of standing outside the Art room at the end of lunch, before that class started, reaching out for Carrie when her friend arrived moments before the bell.

“Carrie…"

“Chartreuse, not today,” Carrie sighed, evading the outstretched arm.

“Carrie, please don’t make me do a reading. I want to help, and Laurie’s, you know, my friend too. Where is this headed?”

Carrie hesitated just inside the doorway. “I’ll call you tonight,” she yielded.

Chartreuse decided that was the best she’d get.

Carrie had opted to avoid having a major blowout with Glen at school. Yet her headache was flaring up again by the time she arrived at their training warehouse that afternoon, meaning she felt unable to project the proper amount of rage for their conversation. As such, she began quietly with, “When were you going to tell me that Lee was in possession of a microchip to resume time travel?”

Except she didn’t say that at all.

What came out instead was the more sensible, “When were you going to tell me that I had destroyed the microchip Lee had for time travel?”

“After the possible stress of our upcoming act for the school talent show was behind us,” Glen admitted. The words somehow addressed either query, regardless of the one she’d actually spoken.

Carrie pressed two fingers to her temples. “And how dare you keep things from me, like your threatening Lee using his job at the library?”

Didn’t say it. Hadn’t happened.

“And how dare you keep things from me, like the fact that I’m almost ready to make a time jump of such precision?”

“Again, I thought it prudent to wait for you to raise these subjects first,” Glen said, seating himself on the desk he’d obtained for the warehouse space. “We’re dealing with some rather dodgy timeline issues here, a fact I’m sure you’ve remarked on by now.”

Carrie grit her teeth. So were they in a new timeline now? Or rather, ANOTHER new one, again overwriting an old one, on account of her actions? And, of rather more importance, was this new ‘timeline five’ perhaps only a restoration of Glen’s ‘timeline three’?

“Yes, okay, let’s finally talk about this,” she decided. “About the timelines. About fact that you’re not simply here to train me, but rather to take me away. From this town, from my life, from everything that’s important to me!”

Glen eyed her. “Then I did tell you that, in the alternate timeline you mentioned to Mary Clarke?” He shrugged. “Carrie, that is what is meant to happen. You’ve even realized it on some level - seeing as you’ve put Laurie in charge of your squad.”

Carrie grimaced. She’d done that more to have the chance to process the temporal pain which had kicked in. After what Lee had said to her Sunday night (in either timeline), she rather hoped her headache wasn’t going to continue right through until whenever she took that trip back in time. But was Glen right, was it a sign they were again in timeline three?

“Glen, no,” she countered. “I’m not going to run away. I’m not going to let one of my… my…" She forced herself to acknowledge the truth. “One of my friends die!”

Glen leaned forwards. “I don’t think that has to happen. Not any more.”

Carrie flinched back. “What?”

“It’s as I said once to that boy Clarke - time resists universal change, but individuals still have the free will to screw things up locally. You rewrote history to save your friend? Very well, time is now attempting to compensate. To provide you with an alternative reason to leave with me. One that does not involve anything quite so drastic.”

“What reason?”

“Why, precisely the opposite to before - you must leave with me in order to keep your friends safe. After all, so long as a time machine can exist here, in this time? The danger of whatever happened on that other track you erased is all too real. Conversely, what you’re faced with now is simply the chance to remove the possibility of more time travel - and more deaths - before departing this town. Then everyone’s lives can go on as normal.”

“Except mine.”

He sighed. “Carrie, understand that I care about you when I say this? You need to accept that your life can never be normal. And the more you mess around trying to delay our destined departure, the more others might suffer.”

Carrie clenched and unclenched her hands. She began to pace, not certain if the activity was meant to help her work through the logic, to avoid meeting Glen’s gaze, or both. “Thing is, the Carrie who leaves with you? Is kind of a horrible person for running away,” she asserted. “By leaving, there’s every chance I’ll become like that too, always getting more and more bitter about my situation, leading to even greater suffering down the timeline.”

“Carrie, you must know I’ll help you out. In fact, I can’t help but notice that you’ve been rejecting all my advances as a boyfriend these last few weeks. Perhaps, if you opened yourself back up to that possibility, you would be more–”

“Ohhh, you need to shut up about that NOW.” Carrie stamped her foot as she pivoted. “Glen, you haven’t merely concealed important things from me. If what Lee told me is even partially true? You also have serious issues in terms of seeing others in this time as ‘Mundanes’ to mentally influence as you see fit. I don’t want a boyfriend like that. I’m becoming sketchy on whether I even want a trainer like that! It could colour everything about my powers, and it makes you…"

A junction point for the entire temporal war. Those words, from the letter Mindylenopia had left with her father back in October, flashed back into her mind. For an instant, Carrie froze in place. Then another pang speared through her head - would she have even had this revelation in the other timelines? - and, giving up on dealing with the constant throbbing, Carrie paced over to her school bag to grab another aspirin.

“Makes me?” Glen prompted, his tone half amused, half annoyed.

“Kind of a pain in the ass.” Carrie worked up some saliva and swallowed the pill. “Glen, I don’t believe that my only remaining choice is leaving with you. I can’t believe that. There has to be another option.”

He shrugged. “Well, we can delay for a little while yet. Resume our work on the act for the talent show, perhaps? That is why we’re here. You need to deal better with crowds, and using magic as a front for testing your powers in front of people still seems like the best plan to me.”

“Fine,” Carrie sighed. “Let’s finish going through that routine.”

It was later on, as she was walking home, her headache again submerged beneath medication, that Carrie realized something. If her ultimate decision would indeed be to destroy the time chip and then leave with Glen… she could do that at any time. At any FUTURE time. Yet she hadn’t. She’d gone back to the PAST to destroy the chip.

Why? Why do that, subjecting herself to the extra pain of this rewritten timeline? If the original path, where Lee had the chip, had truly led to someone’s death, surely she would have provided herself with a bit more information! Yet if it hadn’t, and this was all paradox, why was she making a headache part of the process?

“Because I have this perverse desire to torture myself at every opportunity,” Carrie concluded, kicking at a pop can on the sidewalk. She kicked at the can twice more, until it was close enough to someone’s recycling bin, and then dropped it in.

Except, what if this was more? Was Carrie’s rewriting of the timeline here an attempt to give herself a unwritten message? If so, what was the damn message?

“Carrie?”

“Hello, my confusing ray of sunshine.”

Chartreuse gripped her phone a bit tighter, trying to force the butterflies in her stomach to quiet down. “C-Carrie… um, ummm, maybe, like, don’t use pet names? Unless you’re calling me to… to say…"

“Damn it. I’m sorry, Chartreuse. I can’t do anything right today.”

Chartreuse expelled the butterflies with a quick breath. “Oh no! Don’t say that. You’re, like, too hard on yourself. So, what’s going on? Why are you stepping back from your, you know, cheerleading? Is it temporal?”

There was a brief silence. “Chartreuse, you remember that day in the cafe? When I explained to you about the four timelines?”

When you told me you weren’t sure if you were in love with me? Gee, Carrie, what do you think? “Of course!”

“Well, we’re in a new timeline again. Meaning what happened on that night, with Lee and the chip and everything, it’s put us into ‘overwriting’ territory, as opposed to ‘fulfilling destiny’ territory.”

“Ohmigod, you’re not, like, going back into hospital, are you?”

“What? Oh, no, no, it’s not that bad. Yet. Actually, I think I’m giving myself a message. But I’ll be damned if I know what it is, and it’s taking a toll on my head. So it’s just as well that Laurie take over for me, for a while at least. I hope she can rise to the challenge.”

“Oh, I’m sure she can!” Chartreuse assured her friend. “And thanks for telling me, it’s, you know, helping things to make more sense.” She leaned in against her desk. “See Carrie? You’re a nice person, telling me stuff and giving Laurie a chance for leadership in this timeline. Make sure you’re, you know, acknowledging your good points too, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, Dad said something similar during dinner, about good for me giving Laurie her shot, but you’d think I’d at least… I’d… oh no. Dad. Chartreuse, if I simply up and leave town with Glen, what happens to my Dad?”

Chartreuse frowned. “Well, I imagine he’d, you know, look for you. Why, what, like, happened with him in those other timelines?”

“I don’t know. I never thought about it. I’m the worst daughter ever.”

“Carrie, stop already! You’re, you know, processing a lot here. You’re thinking about him now, that’s what’s important.”

Again, a brief silence. “You’re right, Chartreuse. More to the point, this HAS to be what I was trying to tell myself. Because I see it now. How I’m going to lash back against destiny.”

“Okay, great! It is great, right?” Chartreuse pressed. Carrie really didn’t sound sure.

“It’s… complicated. I’m sorry, Chartreuse, I need to go now. There’s a bunch of stuff I’ll need to figure out before Friday’s talent show.”

“The talent show? I, like, did see that you and Glen were going to be in that, but how does it, you know, fit in?”

“Later, Chartreuse, okay? Keep being awesome.”

“Okay, but what…"

It was too late; Carrie had already hung up.

Chartreuse stared at her phone for a solid minute before shifting her attention over to the circle of crystals she’d laid out on the floor. Just in case. She bit down on her lower lip. Then, with sudden resolve, she tossed her phone aside and moved into the circle, sitting down and assuming the necessary meditative pose.

“Ohm, ohm, oh my,” she murmured. “Spirits from beyond… show me… what is to come…"

Minutes passed. Chartreuse maintained her regular breathing, waiting, pleading for guidance. At last, an image swam up before her… of Megan Falls. Chartreuse tracked with the junior student at school as she spoke with some of her friends about the talent show, but soon realized there was nothing there that would help her with Carrie.

She banished the vision. An hour later, after splashing some water on her face and getting ready for bed, she took another run at it. “Spirits from beyond,” Chartreuse chanted softly, deliberately. “Show me… what is to come… with Carrie?”

It seemed to take forever. And when the image finally coalesced, and it was Megan Falls again, Chartreuse couldn’t help but kick out at one of her crystals in frustration. How was she supposed to get a proper reading on Carrie’s situation when the spirits were obsessing over Megan?!

It didn’t occur to her until the next day that perhaps there was a very good reason for the mystical forces to be doing that.

NEXT: Connecting

PREVIOUSLY: Julie told Clarke’s sister that she had a way to not cut herself off completely. Chartreuse struggled with how to admit her feelings to Carrie.

PART 75b: MORE QUESTIONING

Clarke followed Tim upstairs to his bedroom. “You know, we could simply talk down in the living room,” he suggested.

Tim shook his head. “All discussions with L-Luci about L-Linquist’s l-language have been in my room. M-Might as well keep the weirdness confined to that part of the house.”

Clarke frowned. “What’s Julie doing that’s weird?”

“Nothing. S-Sorry, that’s not what I m-meant…” Tim pushed open the door to his room then gestured at his desk chair, moving to sit on the edge of his bed. Clarke closed the door after them before sitting. “It’s just, everything’s kinda connected,” Tim finished. “And I don’t want m-my parents walking in at a bad time.”

“Right. Okay.” Clarke rubbed his neck. It felt like they should ease into the conversation. “So, how are your studies?”

Tim smiled. “Fine. Also, Julie appreciated your birthday card.”

Or Tim could cut to the chase for him. “She… said that?”

“Not at first,” Tim admitted. “I’m still trying to understand her m-mannerisms. Her exact words were, ‘At least he didn’t send a gift too’, but she seemed flustered. The way L-Luci gets sometimes when explaining to me about a l-linguistic time travel thing that once included Frank.”

“Ah. And her parents, did they…"

“They d-didn’t do anything. They d-didn’t even come back to town this year. Jeeves got Julie a cake, that seemed to be enough.”

“Right,” Clarke said, feeling relieved. He’d hated the idea of not being there for Julie while her parents were around. A thought occurred. “How much has she told you anyway? About her family?”

Clarke nodded. “Except she won’t tell me directly.”

He licked his lips. “I think she knows that, unlike me, you’d end up pressing her for m-more details. Or m-maybe that she’d hate herself m-more for not giving them.”

“Right. Well, what about you, are you okay with this arrangement?”

Tim uncrossed then recrossed his legs. “I was getting pulled back in anyway, through L-Luci. This is a g-good way for both you and Julie to be happy without j-jeopardizing whatever Julie’s doing. Plus I get a better idea of what’s really going on with all my f-friends.”

“That’s not exactly an answer.”

“Hm. Right.” The shorter blonde ran a hand back through his curls. “I’m okay with this,” he decided. “I mean, it’s one m-more thing on top of Corry’s band, but we’re high school seniors now. I gotta get better at r-responsibility and c-conversations and the like.”

Clarke nodded. “You will let me know if it gets uncomfortable though, yes?”

Tim smiled again. “For sure.”

After a bit more talk about Julie’s state of mind, discussion shifted to Linquist’s language, Corry’s band, and finally the courses they were taking that year. Clarke was struck by just how much Tim was becoming a part of their circle of “temporal friends”, while - like Lee - still managing to stick to the fringes of the action. He wondered how sustainable that situation was.

“What can I get you?”

Chartreuse looked up at the redheaded waitress. “A whiskey?”

Theresa lifted an eyebrow. “Unless you’ve had a few extra birthdays, I think you’ll need to try again.”

Chartreuse smiled weakly. “Right. Then, like, a water. Actually, two waters.” Just as well - she had no idea what she’d be like while drunk.

“You got it.” Theresa smiled. “And hey, whatever you’re working up the courage for? I’m sure you’ve got that too.”

As the cafe waitress moved off, the pink haired mystic turned her attention towards the cafe window beside the booth. The cold November wind was blowing leaves and scattered newspaper pages down the street outside. The pages reminded Chartreuse that midterm report cards would be out soon. Which in turn reminded her that, one year ago, Carrie had been in the hospital. Heck, about a month ago Carrie had been back in the hospital! So what if it happened again, and Chartreuse STILL hadn’t said anything? No. She wasn’t going to back off today. She couldn’t.

“Hey, Chartreuse,” Carrie said, shrugging off her jacket and hanging it on the peg by the booth before sliding in to sit across from her.

“Carrie,” Chartreuse acknowledged, watching her through the reflection in the glass of the window. She closed her eyes, counted to three, then turned to face her friend while simultaneously reaching out to grasp both Carrie’s hands.

“I’m sorry, but I gotta, like, say this now. See, you are, you know, so VERY important to me. Like, more than friends important. And, you know, it’s important for me that you know that, even if I can never, like, show you those important feelings in public.” Chartreuse swallowed. “Or maybe even in private. But I couldn’t keep holding it in, you know? So I hope you knowing about my feelings doesn’t, you know, destroy our friendship forever?”

Carrie raised her eyebrows and blinked her blue eyes, her gorgeous blue eyes. Seemingly on the verge of making a quip, with the corner of her mouth turned up, she then thought better of it, and instead said, “Actually, Chartreuse, I suspected you felt that way.”

Having not anticipated that particular response, Chartreuse wasn’t sure where to go with the conversation. She released Carrie’s hands from her grip. “You… but… h-how long?”

Carrie reached up and started to do that cute thing where she looped strands of her hair around her fingers and started tugging. “From when Clarke’s sister was in town. I got to thinking more about how you’d been reacting to me then, and as such I started paying more attention to how you were looking at me presently. To be honest, when I clued in as to your true feelings, I was squicked out. Initially.” She paused.

“Initially?” Chartreuse squeaked out, her insides feeling like they were being compressed in a vice.

Carrie sighed. “When did it start for you? Like, all summer, were you undressing me with your eyes while I was obliviously–"

“NO!” Chartreuse gasped. “It was, like, the dance, at the end of September. When we were, you know, doing that reading on Corry, and I worried I’d almost lost you. That’s when I really felt connected, when I really felt… felt us…"

Carrie let out a breath. “Okay. Okay, good, that makes me feel better about things. I think.” She yanked hard on her hair, hard enough to start grimacing. “Thing is, we BOTH know I date guys. So if that’s my preference, you know what that HAS to mean for us as a couple, right?”

Chartreuse reached into her pocket, squeezing the meditation crystal she’d placed there. Seeking a measure of tranquility in the inevitable end. “Carrie, I can’t say it. You have to, you know, say it to me.”

“Chartreuse…" Carrie’s eyes flickered all around the room, checking for anyone listening, or perhaps seeking a distraction, before finally bringing her gaze back to Chartreuse’s face. The blonde bit down on her lip. “Chartreuse, I… I… damn it, the fact is, I don’t know. I actually don’t.” She winced. “Ohh, no, please don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“That crazy hopeful look, don’t do that.”

“What look am I SUPPOSED to, like, get?!”

“Not that one.” Her already low voice became a whisper. “Chartreuse, seriously, I don’t think I like girls, not the way you do.”

Chartreuse slumped in her seat. “Carrie, you’re killing me here.”

“I don’t like girls - but honestly, with you I don’t know! So maybe you’re… different?”

“Carrie, I’m still a girl!”

“But you… go both ways.”

“That doesn’t, like, make me not a girl! Look!” Chartreuse straightened, stretching her arms out. “Girl parts. Same as you.”

“I… I know.” Was Carrie’s gaze lingering a bit on her body? Or was that wishful thinking? “Okay, let me lay it all out here,” Carrie sighed, looking out the window.

“Like I said, at first I was squicked out by the thought of the two of us. Particularly given how you’d been training me. But then I realized, the first guy I decided to really commit to, Glen? He turned out to be a trainer too! Worse, he’s mostly seeing me as Future Carrie, making him the latest in a LONG chain of guys who never did it for me emotionally. And with that realization, coupled with your apparent interest, came a questioning of my entire gender choices. Leading to me no longer being squicked, but more, uh, curious.”

She returned her gaze to Chartreuse, her cheeks colouring in a way that made Chartreuse want to hug her. “But DON’T get excited, because following that I, uh, looked up a couple stories. On the internet. And reading them didn’t turn me on. I just couldn’t picture myself doing, um, those things. In that way. So I’m pretty sure I’m straight. Except the girls in those stories weren’t like you, heck, NO ONE is like you, so… so we’re back to damn it, I don’t know. You know?”

“Not really,” Chartreuse admitted, wishing for all the world that she did. “I never, like, went through a questioning phase. My parents talked to me, I read some books, and it all kind of, you know, snapped into place.”

“Lucky you,” Carrie sighed.

“Could you two keep it down here, please? You’re bothering the other patrons.”

Chartreuse jerked her gaze over to Theresa, who was now setting a couple of water glasses on their table. She tried to keep from looking too troubled herself, figuring Carrie’s horrified, wide-eyed stare said it all.

As soon as the water glasses were down, Theresa raised both hands. “Wow, sorry! That was a joke. I don’t know what you said, you two girls have been as quiet as church mice. Quieter, even. CSIS is worried you’re planning some form of espionage. I’ll assume you need another few minutes before you order, okay?”

As Theresa moved off, Carrie let her bright red face drop down until her forehead was touching the table. Chartreuse reached over to give her friend a pat on the shoulder. “Carrie, would you like to, I don’t know, sleep with some of my crystals tonight? To, you know, relax your mind?”

The noise Carrie let out was either a laugh or a sob, it was hard to tell. Then she raised her head, and it was even harder to read her expression. “Sleep with your CRYSTALS? Oh, Chartreuse.”

“Carrie… um, look, that wasn’t, like, a euphemism…"

“I know. Oh, I know.” She reached out to grasp Chartreuse by the arm, and now her smile was genuine. “Please, keep being the random, confusing ray of sunshine in my tortured, temporal existence. Just know that, as far as any relationship goes…" Her voice trailed off.

“You’re still, you know, figuring things out?”

Carrie slowly nodded, then pulled her hand back. “I am. I will say something though. Something that’s going to break all the rules I set in place, including us not talking about powers any more. So promise not to tell Glen about this?”

Chartreuse nodded. “Of course!”

Her hair looped around her fingers again. “Okay. Here it is. I… last month, I… oh hell. I wiped an entire timeline out of existence. To save a single person.”

Carrie’s face had become neutral, but something about her eyes seemed to be asking ‘could you love a person capable of that?’. “Carrie…" Before Chartreuse could complete the thought, she was struck by a realization. “Was the person Frank?”

“Ow!” Carrie untangled her hand from her hair. “How did you know?”

“This, like, impression I had last month. When the two of us were checking on you in the hospital. In retrospect I thought I had, you know, misread his upcoming breakup with Luci, but if your condition back then was, like, linked to this wiped out timeline thing…"

“It was. And if you were that close to working it out? Maybe it explains why Glen seems to know something now too…" Carrie shook her head, then made a decision. “Chartreuse, I can’t handle this alone. After we order? No more secrets.” She smiled sadly. “I’m going to lay a timeline theory on you that will blow your mind.”

NEXT: Bad Signs. Care to cast the weekly T&T vote? At least one person found us there this month.

ASIDE: This was the first new part (separate from the original T&T writing) to be written since Part 48, and the “LoN” guest post, which started off Book 3; more Chartreuse was necessary here. New commentary coming this Sunday.

PREVIOUSLY: Julie agreed to talk to Mary Clarke. Carrie had a condition for all the interactions.

PART 72b: THAT’S A WRAP

Mary sat on the couch rubbing her temples as Julie stood over her. Like Carrie, Julie had requested a closed session. And like Carrie, Julie had wasted little time in laying out the situation, backing up Clarke’s account of the time travel incident from last November. About her self-suicide.

The accounts matched perfectly – perhaps a little too perfectly? Because as much as she loved her brother, she had to allow for the possibility that discussion with his friends could have “filled in gaps”, consciously or not, in the eleven months since then.

“I’ll be frank,” Mary said at last. “If my brother hadn’t been so adamant about this talk, I would have thought it all to be a practical joke. As it is, I’m still sorely tempted to chalk everything you’ve said up to a mass hallucination. But okay - if you did truly travel in time, and DID come close to killing your parents… well, Julie, it’s a wonder that you can stand there and speak about it so calmly.”

“I don’t allow myself to dwell too much on the past,” Julie yielded. “Memory can be deceptive. Doc Golden taught me that.” She paused, then moved to sit on the couch next to Mary. “But I won’t say that my actions back then don’t haunt me. They do. That’s why I volunteered to go on more time trips with everyone. It’s also why I’m currently…" She stopped herself. “Why I allowed myself to be put into the position that I’m currently in."

“You mean with respect to your parents?”

Julie shook her head. “No way. They’ve been a non-factor for close to a year now. And with Golden’s help, I’ve been dealing with the fact that my parents don’t love me, not to mention my little self-destructive impulses. Plus Jeeves is acting more and more like a father to me, and as long as he doesn’t outright demand custody, mom and dad are content to let sleeping dogs lie. They see it as better than a huge legal scandal. No, I meant the position with respect to my isolation.”

“Okay, so like my brother, I’ve missed the direct link. Why are you pulling away from everyone?"

Julie leaned back. “How much do you know about someone named Glen Oaks?”

Mary shrugged. “He’s the guy going out with Carrie, right?”

“He’s also from the future and he has crazy mental powers that allow him to alter the will of others.”

Again Mary found herself raking her hand back through her hair. She wondered why more psychiatrists didn’t go bald. “That’s a new one on me,” she admitted.

Julie stood up again. “See, this whole thing, it’s bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger than all of us. Clar– Phil, bless his heart, he thinks there can still be a simple answer to everything. This time, there isn’t. However… and you can tell him this if you like… I know it will all work out in the end.”

“How can you be sure?” Mary protested.

Julie looked back at her. “Because I received a letter from the future.”

It was right about then that Mary decided they were all crazy… herself included. “A letter. From the future.” Mary sighed, resting her head back on a couch pillow. She fought back the impulse to laugh out loud. “And it told you, what, that closing yourself off from people who care about you, like Phil, would ensure peace and prosperity in the world??”

“Not in so many words,” Julie replied. “But it’s the reason no one can know what I’m doing. Not Phil, not Carrie, not anybody.”

“Then no one can help you,” Mary stated flatly, professional distance be damned. She glared at Julie. “And by extension no one can help my brother either, because he refuses to stop obsessing. So how about I write you a different letter? I’ll date it from the year 3000 and everything! We can use it to get you and the rest of your band off the psychotropic drugs, ensuring that you’re living in the present for a change.”

Julie looked back at Mary reflectively, drumming her fingers on the wall. “Look, if I tell you more, do you promise not to repeat the rest of it to anybody?”

Mary was pretty sure repeating any of the last five minutes to anyone would be an exercise in futility. She made a vague waving gesture in the air. “What the hell. I’m leaving tomorrow morning anyway.”

Julie continued to regard the other girl in silence for close to a minute before speaking again. “The future letter I got was in Carrie’s handwriting. So it must be legit. It directed me to watch her, and rescue certain electronic parts from her trash. Which I did. I’m now reconstructing the time machine.”

Mary stared. “Of course you are.”

“But the others cannot know that, lest word get back to Glen,” Julie insisted. “That’s also why it had to be me. Luci and Frank, they’re the ones Glen would suspect, not me.” She frowned. “However… there is one thing that bothers me.”

“ONE thing?”

“The letter was so vague. I mean, Future Carrie must have written it in a hurry, but even so…” Julie shook her head. “No specific dates. No indication of how the parts would need to be reassembled.”

“No mention of people you could talk to,” Mary added dryly.

“I’ve never been a team player,” Julie countered. “I work best in isolation, and over the long term. And this WILL take a while, surely another reason why I was selected. It’s just, something about the situation bothers me, and I can’t pinpoint it.”

“Loverly.” Mary finally pressed both hands to her temples. ‘I’d help you out, but you broke my brain,’ is what she was inclined to add. As it was, she opted for one last shot at psychoanalysis.

“Well, your situation has no easy answer,” she stated with a calm she did not feel. “What you need to do is decide what’s more important to you. Complete secrecy over some ridiculous one-woman plan that even you apparently aren’t allowed to completely know about… or being a little more forthcoming to my brother and the people who call you a friend. Hell, more than a friend.”

Julie’s face twitched. “It’s more complicated than tha–”

“Goddamn it Julie, it’s only more complicated because you’re MAKING it more complicated!” Mary fired back, patience gone. She rose out of her seat to stare Julie right in the eyes. “Not everything in your life is a damn conspiracy! Now, are you happy about closing yourself off from my brother?! Don’t think about it, just answer!”

“No.”

“Good. Then DO something about it!” Mary concluded, slapping her hand against the wall next to the brunette’s head.

Julie jumped at the action, then frowned, seemingly mulling it over. “There… may be something I can do,” she realized. “Thank you. So much.” A pause, and then, “You know, you’re a lot more ‘in your face’ than Doc Golden ever was.”

“I’m a university student,” Mary repeated, feeling the adrenaline surge leaving her. She pulled her arm back and allowed her body fall backwards onto the couch again. “As such, I think you’d better leave now, before I add anything I shouldn’t.”

Julie nodded, heading for the stairs. “I’ll get Phil to come back down and check on you.”

“I wish we didn’t have to do this,” Clarke sighed. He leaned back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling.

“You promised,” Carrie reminded him. “This was my condition. If Mary showed ANY signs that she was having trouble dealing with what we’d told her…”

“I know! I know, I’d just hoped… well, I don’t know, that she would be able to do more. Even help us going forwards. For that matter, Julie saying she’d ‘make things up to me’ is awful vague. What if she wasn’t serious? What if she changes her mind? What if…”

“Clarke,” Carrie interrupted. “You know your sister. Do you really think Mary will be able to handle the rest of her studies after what she’s been told? That she’s not going to be constantly worried about you? That she’s not going to mention the time travel to anyone else?!”

Clarke made no reply. He knew he had to grant Carrie her points. So he merely looked over towards the door to the basement. The room where he’d left his sister, minutes ago, lying on the couch.

He couldn’t see it, but at that moment she was, in fact, looking up at the redheaded boy who had walked up to her.

“Look, if you have any problems the doctor is not ‘IN’, okay?” the blonde university student groaned. “I need a rest. A lot of rest.”

“I’m not here about my problems,” Glen responded. “I’m here about yours.”

Mary sat up slightly. “I beg your pardon?”

“You are going to do something for me now,” Glen continued calmly. “Listen carefully. You are going to lie back down and forget everything you have been told about time travel over the last few days.”

“What?” Mary protested weakly even as she lay back down. “I… I don’t…”

“Your conversations with Phil, Carrie, and everyone else had nothing to do with time travel. They were simply discussions of a personal nature. Discussions about relationships and so forth.”

“They were simply personal,” Mary repeated automatically. “But…”

“Once I have left this room,” Glen persisted, “you will not remember seeing me, and the idea of time travel will seem as ludicrous to you as it did before Phil brought it up. Any apparent gaps in your memory will be filled in by your own mind. Do you understand me, Mary Clarke?”

“I… I understand,” Mary yielded, her body relaxing.

“Good,” Glen affirmed.

He took a couple of steps towards the stairway. Then, after he had confirmed that the door at the top was still shut, he looked back towards Clarke’s sister. “One last thing,” he said, unable to keep from smiling. “Before everything is completely forgotten… you will tell me what was said to you by the following people….”

NEXT: Four Part Harmony. Voted for T&T lately?

PREVIOUSLY: Luci and Frank have each talked to Mary, Clarke’s sister. Carrie is trying to convince Mary of time travel.

PART 72a: KILLER CONVERSATION

Carrie collapsed back onto the couch, breathing hard.

When she reopened her eyes, it took a few moments for the image before her to resolve itself into the concerned and slightly confused expression of Mary. “What… what just happened?” Clarke’s sister inquired softly.

“What did you see?” Carrie said testily.

Mary hesitated. “It looked like my quarter… vanished. Only to reappear a second or two later. But it could have been a trick of the light…”

“It wasn’t the light,” Carrie said, clenching her jaw. “I moved it forward in time.” Whereas if she’d moved it back, causing coexistence instead? Boom, and no more quarter. Not only more difficult, but far too dangerous.

Mary’s pause was longer this time. “And that’s the proof,” she concluded.

“That’s it,” Carrie affirmed, finding the strength to sit up and wipe her brow. “It’s the best I can do right now, without losing complete control. I’m still in training. Hence, using a quarter, not a person.”

She held Mary’s gaze until the older girl was forced to look away, back towards the coin. “I’m not sure I’m convinced,” Mary admitted. “However… I’m no longer as skeptical either.”

“Will you at least accept that time travel may be possible for the remainder of our dialogue?” Carrie pressed.

Mary re-pocketed the quarter. “I’ll accept that there is something beyond the norm that you and your friends are experiencing. We’ll call it time travel.”

“Don’t call them my frie–” Carrie cut herself off with a wave of her hand. “Never mind. On to my more ‘personal difficulties’, as you put it earlier. Okay?”

Mary nodded. “All right…”

Carrie took in a breath. Suddenly faced with the prospect of admitting it, she was no longer sure she wanted to say it any more. But if she couldn’t tell Clarke’s sister, who else was there? “I killed Frank,” she blurted. “And I had to wipe out an entire timeline to erase that misdeed.”

At first, Mary could only stare. Her voice, when it came, was uncertain. “You killed…”

“I don’t expect you to believe it,” Carrie interrupted. “Hell, I sometimes wonder if the mind that merged with mine was outright lying - the power I would have had to tap into to accomplish what I did would be immense. But the memories were too vivid. The pain too raw. So the fact remains that, by delaying my destruction of the time machine, I killed my frie– killed someone.” She slumped back into the couch, feeling exhausted. “I can’t even tell Glen that. He thinks we’re living a whole other timeline.”

“All right,” Mary said slowly. “Then you’re telling me that you are capable of altering past events?”

Carrie couldn’t help it, she laughed. She had to check herself to avoid coming across as hysterical. “That and more. Me and my powers, we’re balanced on a knife’s edge, and if I fall off… well, I don’t know, but I suspect it would be very, very unpleasant for anyone around me.”

“That’s why you’re retreating from everybody?”

Carrie tensed. “I’m not… well, okay, I am. But I have to. It’s the only way they’ll all be safe.”

Mary pursed her lips. “Seems you and Julie could have something in common then.”

“I don’t want to hear anything about Julie.”

“No?”

“NO!” Carrie said, standing up. She had to throw her arm out for balance, as the sudden motion made her dizzy after her earlier efforts. “Look, I didn’t tell you what I did merely so that you could psychoanalyze me into inviting people back into my life!!”

“Then why did you tell me?” Mary continued patiently, rising as well.

To her surprise, Carrie found she actually had to think about that one for a moment. “Because I had to tell someone,” she said at last. “It’s been gnawing at me inside. I thought… I thought maybe talking about it with someone would help.”

“And has it?”

“I don’t know,” Carrie admitted. “Does knowing about what I did change your opinion of me?”

“I suppose it explains why you’re pushing people away. But the killing you speak of, it doesn’t sound like you did it intentionally…"

“Of COURSE not!”

“So why would it change anyone’s opinion of you?”

“Because it changed my opinion of myself.”

Mary hesitated once more, so Carrie decided to save her the trouble of answering. “Look, it’s fine, I’ve said my bit, thanks for listening. It’s time you moved on to Julie. She’s someone you might actually be able to help.”

Without waiting for another response, Carrie turned and headed for the basement stairs. She heard Clarke’s sister offer up some final platitudes about friendship, but she chose to ignore them.

“Goddamn it, stop ignoring me!” Corry shouted. She heard him thump his fist into the wall of the LaMille living room.

“I’m not ignoring you,” Julie said, still refusing to meet his gaze. “I’ve heard every word.”

“Fine. Shall I drop by tomorrow to bring you to Clarke’s house, or can you make it on your own?”

“Corry…”

“Julie, you are GOING! End of story.”

Julie finally spun. “If I’d known you were going to act like such an ass today, I would never have let you in the house!” she snapped.

“If I’d known what a selfish bitch you were becoming, I never would have offered you that partnership in running the school!” Corry shot back, meeting her gaze.

The brunette pursed her lips. “Touche,” she yielded. “But my going to see Mary… it won’t change anything!”

“Changing things is not the point!”

“What? Then what IS the point?!”

“The point is, Clarke is damn worried about you,” Corry answered. “And he’s not the only one. This closing yourself off simply because of - what is it anyway? Glen and his mental powers? Whatever your reasons, it isn’t healthy! I admit, Glen worries me too, but there’s not much we can do about him right now. Besides, he plays a good bass guitar."

Julie sighed. “It’s more complicated than you make it sound.”

“I don’t doubt that!” The redhead paused. “Thing is, if you don’t go today, Clarke’s efforts will all be for naught. Efforts with my sister, with Chartreuse, hell, he’s risking being sent to the nuthouse by his own relatives for pity’s sake! He doesn’t deserve that. So you need to talk to Mary. Doesn’t matter what you say, be it the truth, some sob story about repressed issues with your parents, or what you’ll have for breakfast in the morning. Just go see the damn shrink, okay Julie?”

The two teenagers stared unflinchingly at each other across the room. “Fine!” Julie said at last. “But don’t expect miracles.”

“I never do,” Corry retorted, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Unless, that is, they’re the type of miracle which people like us manufacture, eh?” He fired off a grin, one that Julie found she could meet with a wan smile.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Frank replied, turning his head. He moved to rise from the swing he was sitting in, only to have Luci shake her head and sit herself down in the swing that was adjacent. She looked at the ground. So Frank did too. The ensuing silence was eventually broken by the sound of laughter from across the park, where a couple of kids seemed to be playing an evening game of tag. “You wanted us to talk,” Frank said at last.

“I’m not sure I love you,” Luci countered.

He jerked his gaze back up to see her looking at him, a sad, worried expression on her face. “Oh…” was all that came to mind.

“I’m sorry,” Luci continued, speaking in a rush. “It’s NOT you. It’s me. All me. Things in my history. Things that maybe, on a subconscious level, have had me pulling away ever since that logbook turned up. Leading to some conflicted feelings, and as long as I’m busy working through those, I don’t want to be in a relationship. Not with you, not with anybody.”

Frank stared. “So… we’re breaking up then?”

She winced. “I don’t… it’s… yeah,” she whispered. “We are. I’m sorry.”

“Do I get a say in this?”

She swallowed. “I… I guess? Thing is, some of my issues are about rejection.”

Frank tried to figure out where to take that. He felt strangely numb.  “Well, for the record, what I feel for Carrie isn’t the same thing I feel for you.”

“I said it’s NOT about that!” Luci retorted, frustration creeping into her tone. “It’s about something from my past. About a time when I chose to be silent, and yet probably should have spoken up!”

“And it’s something you don’t think I can help with?”

“I didn’t say that either!” Luci countered. “Maybe you can. Actually, part of me hopes you can. But part of me also feels like it would be weird, talking to you about it as a boyfriend.” She rubbed her temples. “It’s like, when these memories charged in, it was a harbinger of the end of our relationship.”

She drew a deep breath. “Ugh, which sounds STUPID, now that I say it out loud. I don’t know, am I the only one who’s been feeling weird about events lately? Have you felt ANYTHING like this too??”

She looked so insistent that Frank felt a need to think back. And a thought did occur. “Now that you feel mention it,” he said slowly. “Shortly before Carrie woke up in the hospital last week, I felt… I can’t describe it. Adrift, somehow. Like something about my relationships with people had… changed. At the time, Chartreuse gave me a funny look. But then Carrie regained consciousness, so…” He shrugged.

“But then it’s not just me.” Luci finished. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth. “Except…” She shook her head. “Somehow, I don’t feel like that changes this. Changes us breaking up. I don’t know, I hope I can explain it better once I can process it myself. For now, know that I’m truly sorry. REALLY. For hurting you this way. It’s the last thing I… I ever wanted to…” Her voice caught.

He pulled a tissue out of his pocket and handed it over. “So we’re breaking up then,” he concluded, this time not making it a question. “I suppose it would be worse to string each other along, right?”

Luci finished blowing her nose. “I guess. Though maybe I’ve been doing some of that too, recently.”

“Or maybe it’s that I wasn’t paying attention. I’m good at that.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “There really are no easy answers, huh?”

Luci choked back a laugh. “Oh no. Did you talk to Clarke’s sister?”

“Er, maybe. That is, yeah. I hope she’ll have better luck with Julie than with us.”

Luci’s different coloured eyes shimmered slightly in the fading light as he looked at her again. “She didn’t do such a bad job with us, did she? We’re talking again.”

“Yeah,” Frank admitted. “Yeah, we are.” And despite all the confused feelings he was experiencing, when he grasped Luci by the hand, he found that he could still smile.

NEXT: That’s a Wrap

PREVIOUSLY: Clarke needs Carrie to talk to his sister Mary about time travel, to help Julie. Luci spoke to Mary about her past.

PART 71b: PSYCH DOUBT

“Carrie!”

Carrie turned away from the cheerleading discussion she was having with Steve. “Clarke? What the hell are you doing out here, you’ve got a game in under ten minutes!”

“I have to know your answer,” the blonde boy insisted. “Before the game. About whether or not you’ll talk to Mary about you-know-what. Chartreuse said you’d think about it!” he reminded as Carrie opened her mouth.

The head cheerleader paused, then flashed a smile in Steve’s direction. “Go tell the others we’ll be running routine six to start. Laurie takes point, she’s been acting like a bundle of energy all week.” Carrie’s fellow cheerleader nodded at her, then as he went to join the others, the blonde returned her attention to Clarke.

“Clarke, you HAVE to realize this is neither the time nor the place.”

“Carrie, please, YOU have to know there’s no way I can concentrate on the game, not with this foremost on my mind.”

Carrie shifted her gaze to the side, tugging on a strand of hair. When she spoke, she kept her tone carefully neutral. “Okay Clarke. Because it’s you… and because of what you’ve done for me and Julie in the past… I’ll agree this ONE time, to do what I can to convince your sister. But there’s a condition!”

Clarke regarded the index finger which she was now jabbing upwards at his chin, and at the cold intensity of her gaze. “Name it.”

Mary looked down at the phone receiver in confusion before lifting it back up to her ear. “Did you just ask me if I enjoyed your school’s first basketball game of the year?” she asked, mildly amused.

The boy on the other end of the line coughed. “Um, yeah. Kind of a redundant question, I guess… we won, yay…”

Mary chuckled. “Frank - it’s Frank, right?” She waited for the murmur of assent before continuing. “Frank, something tells me you didn’t get my brother to put me on the phone merely to ask my opinion on this evening’s sports event. Though for the record, I was suitably impressed by Phil’s extra three pointer at the buzzer. Despite the team already being up by 10 points.”

“Um, yeah,” Frank repeated. “I guess you would be.” He cleared his throat. “Look, Clarke - that is, Phil - he’s not crazy about the whole time machine thing. And I don’t mean ‘crazy’ as in ‘thrilled’, I mean ‘crazy’ as in ‘nuts’. In other words, he’s not nuts. Really.”

Mary ran her free hand back through her hair, her smile fading. “Okay, well, apparently I’m due for a visit from Carrie tomorrow after school. I’m reserving judgment until then.”

“Yeah, Clarke - Phil - mentioned that to me before giving you the phone. But I figured it couldn’t hurt to have my voice back him up.”

“Noted,” Mary yielded. “Don’t worry, my current theory leads towards something in the water here rather than the need for extensive teen psych testing.” She smiled, though when Frank remained silent, finally prompted him on with, “So what did you want to say aside from that?”

“Um, well, Phil also said you can help people with their problems?”

Mary’s brow creased. “In as much as I can as a university student,” she said warily. “One who, incidentally, is starting to think she’ll need to have a little chat with a certain family member regarding her inflated status among his peer group.”

Mary could hear a slight chuckle from Frank. “Yeah, well, still,” the boy continued. “He thinks highly of you, so I was just wondering… in all those classes you take, where they probably talk about getting patients to discuss their emotions and such… uh… do they ever talk much about… love?”

“Aw… boy,” Mary said, correcting herself from the phrase ‘Aw, for crying out loud’. She moved to sit herself down in the nearest convenient chair. Even after two years of dating Doug, she still wasn’t sure about her own thoughts on the matter.

“If not, it’s cool,” Frank added hastily. “I just have this hypothetical situation, where there’s this guy who’s going out with one girl, and he likes her, but at the same time he’s very concerned about this other girl who’s been going through a lot lately. She has this shady boyfriend to boot, and so while our hypothetical guy likes HER too, it’s not exactly the same thing… yet even with that, he’s still worried about the girl he’s going out with, because now she may be avoiding him and he’s wondering if she thinks that he doesn’t care about her any more because of that other girl. Is that, er, hypothetically speaking, a thing that’s ever come up?”

Mary pondered the multitude to ways she could approach this based on what she was growing to learn about her brother’s friends. She decided to simply be straightforward. “As a matter of fact, I was asked a very similar question recently. Let me tell you the same thing I told that person. First: Your question has no easy answer.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Thus, secondly, what you need to do,” Mary continued, “is decide what love means for you personally. Think about it. Talk to your friends about it, if that helps. And talk with Luci too, since she may have some of the same questions.”

“Err, how did you know that I was referring to…”

“I took a shot. Relationships are tricky things, Frank. But you’re only, what, seventeen? Don’t stress out over it. Give it time. Things will work themselves out one way or another, you’ll see.”

Frank sighed. “It always comes back to TIME, doesn’t it,” he said after a moment. “One other thing then, could you… well, could you also tell me what Carrie says to you, regarding your upcoming talk about, um, you know what…?”

“Depends on what she says,” Mary replied. “I’m inclined to say that you should ask her about it yourself.”

“Yeah… yeah, okay,” Frank concluded. “Thanks, uh, Mary. Sorry if I bothered you.”

“Not at all,” Mary Clarke assured. After a couple more quick pleasantries, she hung up the phone and walked out to the front hall. “Phil!” she called. “We need to talk! Phil?”

“Your brother went out shortly after handing the phone over to you,” her mother shouted back from upstairs.

Mary rolled her eyes. “Oh, loverly. Where did he go?”

“You did very well in the game,” Laurie said, staring down at the floor. “We’ll have a good shot at the trophy this year, I guess.”

“Yeah… you were great with your cheering too,” Clarke agreed. “I think you were even out-cheering Carrie!”

“Oh. You saw that?” Laurie was unable to hold back her blush. However, when she raised her head, the smile that had begun to appear fled her face. “Except you didn’t come to my house to talk with me about any of that.”

Clarke sighed. “No. You’re right. It’s Julie. I want her to talk to my sister this Saturday about whatever it is she’s going through. But while I think Mary’s finally going to be willing, Julie’s refused to see me. She won’t return my calls, and even Jeeves said he didn’t think he could do anything to help me out. However… I know Julie is still speaking with Corry.”

“So you want me to get my brother to convince Julie to see your sister,” Laurie murmured.

Clarke spread his arms out apologetically. “I’d speak to Corry myself about it, but he’s not keen on talking to me either. Not since he discovered how I’d apparently ‘let Julie close herself off again’. As if there was anything I could have done to stop her.”

Laurie bit down hard on her lower lip. “Why should I help?”

Her words were so quiet that Clarke wondered if he hadn’t misheard. “What?”

“Why should I help?” Laurie repeated, louder. “W-Why should I be the one to fix things with you and Julie?? I mean golly, Clarke, this’ll be the second time I do it, or don’t you remember how I told you stuff about Corry’s plans before Julie’s birthday last year? Which only allowed her the chance to hurt you like this now! Gods, Clarke, I don’t like seeing you hurt, I don’t like seeing what she’s doing to you when she ignores…” The redhead forced herself to stop, swallowing hard. “Julie isn’t good for you, Clarke. Why do you keep going back to her? WHY?”

“Because,” Clarke replied, now unable to meet Laurie’s gaze. “She needs me.”

“Maybe she’s not the only one.”

Silence hung in the Veniti sitting room, neither teen able to look at the other. Laurie finally spoke again. “I’ll talk to Corry.”

“Laurie…”

“I’ll talk to Corry!” Laurie repeated. “So let me know when Julie needs to show up at your house or whatever and I’ll see if we can work it out. I’m not promising anything, but I swear I’ll try because it’s you.”

Clarke reached out to take her hand. “Thank you, Laurie. I… I owe you one. Two. Big time. I’m sorry that you had to become involved in this way. Really I am.”

Laurie met Clarke’s gaze and immediately turned away, trying not to blush again as he squeezed her hand gently. The warmth in her cheeks told her the effort was futile. Just as futile as all her efforts had been to get Clarke to notice her. Perhaps, she thought to herself, this was a sign that was truly time to move on. “It’s nothing,” she murmured. “Don’t worry about it…”

Carrie sat quietly on the couch in the Clarke’s basement, staring up at Mary. Sizing her up, as she no doubt suspected Mary was doing to her. Of course, the two of them were alone, as Carrie had requested (well, demanded) that Clarke not be present while they talked.

“So,” the elder blonde girl said to her at last. “Time travel?”

“Time travel,” Carrie repeated back, her tone even. “It’s possible. I can do it. I have done it. Nevertheless, I don’t expect you to believe a word of it.”

Mary ran a hand back through her hair before taking a seat next to Carrie. “Look, I’m not calling you, or anyone else a liar,” she assured. “But a claim like that? I need to see proof.”

‘My very EXISTENCE is the proof,’ Carrie thought to herself. But of course, she couldn’t say that. “Then I’ll give you the best demonstration I can,” she stated. “After that, if you’re willing, I would like to speak with you briefly on a related matter. Then tomorrow you can speak with Julie, or not… it’s none of my business.”

Mary offered up a partial smile. “Well, time travel or no, at the very least it looks like Phil’s friends have their share of personal difficulties.”

“Whatever petty problems anyone else has, I can top them in a heartbeat,” Carrie shot back. She felt vindicated to see the smile fade from Mary’s expression, yet at the same time, she also had a tinge of regret for being so harsh. She reached up to tug lightly on a few strands of her hair. “I’ll need a coin,” she continued before she could dwell on the matter. “A quarter or loonie would be best. One of yours, so you know it’s not a trick.”

“All right,” Mary said, reaching into her pants pocket and pulling a quarter out.

“Toss it on the coffee table there,” Carrie continued. Mary did so. “Now,” the blonde sighed, “watch the quarter closely. Please try to avoid blinking… I very much doubt I’ll be able to do this more than once without resting in between.”

Mary shot her a bit of a perplexed look before shrugging and turning her attention to the coin. As did Carrie, reaching her palm out as she concentrated on the piece of metal. Her eyes closed. With effort, she pinpointed the quarter among the infinite drops of water that were flowing through the stream that was time itself.

It wasn’t easy. It would have been simpler to touch the object, but in that case, surely Mary would cry foul. Carrie’s body shook slightly as sweat broke out on her forehead. Almost… there! She had it! Doing everything she could to avoid making her next move a conscious one, Carrie kicked at the droplet with her mind.

NEXT: Killer Conversation. Consider ye olde WFG vote.

PREVIOUSLY: In Book 3, Carrie destroyed the time machine and Julie broke up with Clarke.

PART 71a: SHRINK RAP

“Okay…” The word was hesitant, unsure. “Phil, you know what you just said, right? You’re telling me that, last November, or just under a year ago, Julie stole a time machine. Which she used to travel BACK to the year when she was born – whereby she tried to prevent her own BIRTH??"

“I know, it sounds crazy,” Clarke admitted. “And since then, Julie’s used it to stop people from the future who want to mess with our timeline. But Mary, I swear to God, it’s all true! And since Julie can’t explain any of that stuff to her regular psychologist, you’re the only one who can help her! After all, you’re studying psych in University!"

Clarke’s sister stared at him for a moment before raking her hand back through her short, dark blonde hair. “Phil… it sure sounds like someone needs counselling…”

“Not ME,” Clarke protested. “Just ask Carrie. Wait, no, she’s not talking to us - ask Frank or Luci. There really IS a time machine, and I think that’s part of why Julie has been adamant about retreating from everyone. Including me!”

Mary sighed and walked over to the window of Clarke’s bedroom, staring at the streetlights outside. She remained that way for a moment before turning back to him. “All right,” she said evenly. “All right bro, if this really IS true, what PROOF do you have?”

Clarke relaxed. “Give me a day.”

“What do you mean the time machine has been destroyed?!”

Frank reached under his glasses to press his thumb and index finger to the bridge of his nose. “If you must know, Carrie did it,” he said quietly. “She junked it after she got out of the hospital last week.”

“But… but… WHY??” Clarke asked. He realized that he’d raised his voice, and a few people in the school library were turning to stare. Quickly, he slipped into a chair next to Frank at the table. “Why?” he repeated, softer.

“I don’t know,” Frank continued, after observing the other students going back about their business. “She’s not talking to me about it. Heck, the only person she spends time with any more is Glen. My best guess is it had something to do with…”

He gestured at the far section of the library. It was still undergoing some repair after the van that had crashed into the building some three weeks earlier. When Mindy had come back from the future, only to be banished from their time by Carrie.

“But… look, Frank, I wasn’t kidding. I’ve got to convince my sister that this thing exists, so that she’ll agree to help Julie! And Mary’s only in town for the next three days, until this Sunday morning, so it has to be fast! Maybe… I don’t know, maybe somehow a message can be sent into the past, like the way we convinced Corry? Or could we convince Jeeves to get us into the mansion without Julie knowing, so that we can show Linquist’s old lab to her? Or…”

Frank slammed his textbook closed, cutting off Clarke’s voice. “Look,” he began, and for the first time Clarke noticed the pain in his friend’s voice. “The time machine is gone. The group is gone. I’ve tried speaking to Carrie, and she’s not talking. So there’s nothing short of a miracle that’s going to change her mind about things.” Frank paused. “I’m sorry, Clarke. There’s nothing I can do for you.”

Clarke clenched his hands into fists, then relaxed them. “I’ll find someone else who can help then,” he decided. “I’m not going to let this drop. I can’t! Julie deserves better.”

When Frank didn’t lift his gaze to meet Clarke’s, the tall boy stood and walked out of the library.

“Carrie, are we still talking?”

The response wasn’t immediate, and when it came, it sounded reserved. Wary, even. “Yes, but not about our powers,” Carrie said to her, without turning to meet her gaze.

Chartreuse tried not to fidget with the crystal around her neck. “Okay. It’s not about those. It’s, like, about Clarke. He wants his sister to help counsel Julie, but to do that properly he needs, you know, proof of time travel. And, well, now you’re the only one left who… who can…” Her voice faltered as Carrie finally turned to face her, with an expression that was part anger, part sadness.

“That’s about POWERS, Chartreuse!”

“Only indirectly,” Chartreuse protested. “Like, I dunno, maybe you could have Glen do something mentally for Mary instead? Please Carrie, PLEASE don’t be mad…" It felt like a hand closing around her heart.

Carrie finished pulling her gym bag out of her locker, then slammed it closed and leaned her head against it. “Chartreuse, you helped me through a REALLY difficult time. You have no idea how much I appreciate that. But if you’re going to bring this up after I expressly said to NEVER–"

“Carrie, come on, it’s Julie! Our friend! She’s, you know, closed off even worse than you, and I mean, it’s gotta be because of what we, like, all got up to together! Right?”

“That’s not my–" Carrie cut herself off. Then she muttered something, and Chartreuse wasn’t certain, but it sounded like ‘Timeline Two’. The blonde girl pushed herself away from her locker. “Tell Clarke I’ll think about it.”

“Okay,” Chartreuse said, unable to hold back her relief. Though as Carrie began to walk away, it occurred to her to add, “Are we… still good?”

“I’ll think about that too,” Carrie said, again without turning. “Right now, I need to get the cheerleaders ready for the big game.”

Chartreuse bobbed her head. “R-Right, I’ll be watching!” And trying not to picture myself in your arms, she added mentally. She shuddered, wondering just how much longer she was going to torture herself with the feelings she had… feelings that Carrie didn’t seem to return.

“Hello,” Mary Clarke said as she walked into the front foyer, drying her hands on a dish towel. “Mom said you came here looking for me…?”

“Yeah,” Luci replied. The girl hesitated. “Can we talk somewhere private? Where your parents won’t walk in on us?”

Mary hesitated, then gestured down the hall. “Basement’s as good a place as any. I’m staying down on the sofa bed this weekend; never had my own room in this house.” She glanced at the clock. “Though we’ll all be leaving to get to Phil’s basketball game shortly…”

“I won’t be long," Luci said slowly. “Thing is, if I leave… I don’t think I’ll be back."

“Let’s start a conversation then," Mary decided, venturing a smile.

The young asian girl frowned, but ultimately nodded. It took at least a minute after they proceeded downstairs for her to speak again. “Clarke tells me you’re pursuing a psychology degree,” Luci began at last. “That he wants you to counsel Julie.”

Mary nodded. “Look… Luci, is it? If this is about that time travel stuff he was telling me about last night–”

“It’s not,” Luci interrupted. “It’s personal. There’s some issues that I… I need to talk to someone about. And if Clarke has confidence in you, then I do too.”

Mary tried not to wince. She was tempted to tell this young girl that all she could realistically do would be to offer a referral, but there was something in Luci’s tone… Mary gestured to the couch instead. “Have a seat. But know that I’m only fourth year university, so if this is big stuff, I might have to bring in an actual professional.”

Luci sat on the edge of the couch. “I understand. I’ve had professional counselling before,” she asserted. “But I don’t want that, not this time. Not when… when…” Her fists clenched on her jeans, and her head bowed.

“Okay, ease up,” Mary soothed. “What’s this all about?"

Luci sat unmoving for a moment, and when she lifted her gaze again, there were tears dancing in the corners of her eyes. “I was abused by the next door neighbour as a child, which is affecting me now in ways I never thought possible.”

Mary exhaled. “Oh, loverly. You don’t pull any punches, do you."

Luci leapt to her feet. “And I know what you’re about to say," she said, pacing across the floor. “That you’re not the person to take this to. But I told you, I’ve been to the pros once before, and all that’ll do here is ensure that everyone at school gets to know I’m a head case. Again. I don’t want that! Because I don’t have psychological scars, I don’t, I dealt with it back then, I… I… damn it, the issue is, I don’t know why this memory has been emerging lately!”

Mary paused. “Don’t you?” she asked quietly.

Luci opened her mouth, then closed it, and finally threw herself back onto the couch, crossing her arms. “FINE. Maybe I do. Linford, Linquist, you don’t have to be a genius to spot the name similarity… except, transference aside, I KNOW they’re different people. And the log book didn’t trigger the crumbling memory block. So the timing is WEIRD. It’s like one evening I was simply thinking about Frank and then the images just…” She stopped, closing her eyes and thunking her head back into a pillow. “I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry.”

“Wait,” Mary said, raising her hand to stop Luci as the young girl moved to stand. “How is Frank involved?”

Luci paused, then settled herself back on the couch. “He hasn’t done anything to hurt me, if that’s what you’re thinking,” the young girl countered. “He’s been great, when I see him. Granted, of late I hardly see him, I’ve been more obsessed with this notebook I found because… okay, you want the Reader’s Digest version of my life?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. Mary nodded. “Might help.”

Luci took in a deep breath. “I’m adopted. No idea who my real parents were. The Primroses got me out of the orphanage when I was six. I was put into school with kids a year younger than me because I’d never applied myself in learning. There was also this neighbour, Mr. Linford, who… who took a fancy to me.”

Her jaw tightened. “I didn’t know at first. No one did. I thought he was a great guy, letting me use his pool. Then once I realized, once he started making advances… well, I liked my new parents, and my school, so I didn’t want to raise a fuss for fear of getting sent back. To the orphanage, I mean. By the time I finally told my mom about what he’d done, he’d flown the coop.”

“Is that when you got the professional counselling you mentioned?” Mary inquired as Luci took an extended pause.

“Yeah,” came the eventual answer. “I said I didn’t want any, but my parents insisted I speak with someone. After those sessions, I did feel better, I’d accepted it wasn’t my fault - and I closed it off. I thought I could shoot for happier memories. But maybe it was still hard to get close to people? I’ve chalked that up to my above average intelligence - heck, I’ve skipped three grades and I’m two years younger than my peers - but I guess it’s more. It wasn’t until I got to know Frank that I thought I could finally…” She stopped again.

Mary smiled gently. “Tell me about Frank.”

“Frank.” Luci pressed two fingers to her forehead. “Well… he’s intelligent, like me. With book smarts, that is, he’s SO clueless with people at times. He’s also… how do I put this? He likes me for who I am, and not in a bad way. Before him, I was all about growing up as fast as possible. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Is he the only one who likes you for yourself?”

Luci squirmed. “I guess not. But his opinion is the most important, since we’re kinda dating.”

“Kinda?” Mary kept her tone carefully neutral.

“Okay, we’re dating,” Luci yielded. “But we drifted over the summer. He spent more time on temporal mechanics than dating mechanics. And then when school started, he was more concerned about Carrie’s boyfriend Glen than me! Which… okay, I have to accept that in retrospect, because of who he turned out to be. But at this point, me and Frank aren’t talking any more.”

“Because he’s been brushing you off?”

“Yes! Well, okay, no. Not since I called him on it last month. Actually, he even took me to a school dance.” Luci slumped down in her seat. “Look, I see where you’re going with this. You think I should have talked to Frank instead of you. That he’d be more than willing to help me out, once I’ve confessed to him the deeper issues behind why I’ve gone all notebook vendetta on Linquist.” She thunked her head back again. “Maybe you’re even right. But there’s a bigger emotional issue at stake!”

Mary stared at the girl on her couch in mild fascination. In fact, that hadn’t been where she was going with this at all; she hadn’t even had a destination in mind. The use of questioning to allow the patient to arrive at their own conclusions… it was more effective than she’d thought. She wondered what her next question should be.

“What emotional issue is that?” Mary continued.

The silence that followed stretched long enough that she thought she’d finally said the wrong thing. But then Luci spoke again.

“It’s this," the young girl whispered. “The sense of joy and happiness I got when working on bringing down Linquist… it’s like the same feeling I got when I was going out with Frank. Which doesn’t seem right. It implies that both are simply a way I’ve been tackling that abuse from when I was young. Yet if THAT’S true then, well…" Luci looked back up at Mary, searching her expression carefully. “Mary… how does someone know if they’re truly in love?”

Mary’s eyebrow began to twitch. “Whoa boy.”

Previously: Luci’s consciousness became trapped inside Frank’s body with him, all because Carrie wanted to rig up the time machine. Frank took control, for a last ditch effort…

PART 3.23b: TIMELINE FOUR 2

“Carrie, I…” Frank/Luci turned to look at her, seemingly searching for the words. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “Please don’t blame yourself here. This is my decision. I know what’s going to happen, but according to our calculations, it’s the only way.”

Carrie sighed back. “Oh, now what are you–” She stopped when she saw the look in Frank’s eyes. And saw not only the quiet intensity there, but somehow, how those same eyes were also pleading desperately with her.

Which was when it first occurred to Carrie to really question why, ever since the plan had been proposed, Luci had not been in control of the body.

“No,” Carrie breathed, the truth of the situation dawning on her. The reason why Frank was experiencing those physical pains as he tried to enact this plan. Along with the explanation for why Luci’s essence would get forced out of Frank’s body. But he wouldn’t… he COULDN’T…

Frank nodded slightly, as if he knew she’d worked it out. “Take care of Luci for me, Carrie.”

“Frank, NO!” Carrie screamed, jumping for him.

He brought Luci’s hand down. The rod slammed into the fuse box. There was a huge shower of sparks, and an explosion of light and sound. Carrie was knocked back off her feet, only dimly aware of the cloud of smoke billowing around her. Only dimly aware of the residual static left in the air, after Luci’s body and the time machine had disappeared. But all too aware of the lethal charge that had been sent through Frank’s body.

Carrie felt like her head was being peeled open like an orange.

After a couple of hours (seconds? days?) she realized Glen’s hand was on her shoulder (she still had a shoulder?). “This,” came his voice (so far away!), “was the key event. We have to leave town, Carrie. Now."

“DO… YOU…. MIND?!” Carrie shrieked, rolling over onto her back, holding her hands to the side of her head. If she moved them, surely the top of her head would pop off. “FOR GOD’S SAKE GLEN, FRANK JUST DIED. HE’S DEAD BUT IN THE OTHER TIMELINE HE WASN’T AND IT HURTS INSIDE OH GOD IT HURTS EVERYWHERE, WORSE THAN IT DID WHEN THIS ALL STARTED I CAN’T TAKE THIS IT’S TOO MUCH I WANT TO DIE TOO OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO SOMETHING!!!” She couldn’t tell if she was yelling, or if her head was simply adding reverb to every syllable.

“Carrie, calm down,” Glen said sternly, leaning over her. “You’re feeling some added pain because of your proximity to this event, but give it a few hours. You’ll be fine. I know, because this is the reason I was sent here. To ensure that in our timeline three, the one where your powers awaken, you will leave town when one of your classmates unexpectedly passes away. Don’t worry about the rest of them changing anything once we leave, I’m pretty sure Frank’s last act shorted out the time machine for good.”

There was a cracking noise as Carrie’s fist connected solidly with Glen’s nose. “THAT’S… NOT… HELPING!” she howled, before slapping her palm back against her head. She realized that she was hyperventilating, yet somehow, that knowledge didn’t help her to stop.

“OWW!!” Glen yelped. “You dough Carrie, gedding so emodiondal ondy maggs de payn werze. We shud work on dat.”

Carrie curled up tightly into a ball, trying hard to resume breathing regularly without inhaling too much smoke. Gradually, awareness of her surroundings returned - Frank’s parents were shouting something upstairs. Probably upset that the basement door had been jammed closed prior to their experiment.

“Carrie, we hab to go dow. You hab no altwernatib.” Glen chuckled. “As dey say in daht moobee, come wid me if dyu wand do libe.”

The pain was starting to ebb – from her head, if not from her heart. Desperately, she tried to take stock of the situation. Did she really have no alternative but to run away with Glen? Part of her thought so. Actually, most of her thought so.

Because there was no way to explain this to anyone. No way at all, and if this was how timeline three was supposed to play out, then Glen was right. Besides, she’d already burned all of her bridges in town, slapping Julie, cutting off Chartreuse… it was time to move on.

‘What sort of monster ARE you?’ Elizabeth accused.

‘I’m you,’ the majority of her mind retorted. ’The girl tied to time. The girl who should never have existed. Come on now. We can’t fight fate.’

‘Like hell we can’t! We said we’d FIX this!’

‘HOW, idiot? How can we fix this? How do we even know the first THING about fixing something of this magnitude?’

The part of her that was Elizabeth felt the fight draining out of her. ‘We’ll figure it out. Later. Then come back and tell ourselves…'

‘…changing our future, preventing us from coming back…'

‘I’m immune to paradox, damn it!’

‘And the tradeoff is, whatever we see, becomes permanent. Surely you’ve realized that by now? We saw this, and we haven’t come back yet, meaning we cannot change this. Stop fighting. This is our timeline. It’s time for us to go.’

Elizabeth/Carrie shook, her cheeks wet with tears. “No, no, no, no…!”

“Cub on, Carrie,” Glen said, pulling her to her feet. “I cad use by pawwer to ged us oud of here. Bud id hass to be dow.”

Mindylenopia! Oh God, Mindy was the key. By inserting herself into the timeline, Mindy had forced Carrie to power up faster. To learn a technique like banishing sooner. Mindy had moved her abilities along at an accelerated rate - in fact, Glen likely wouldn’t have revealed himself two weeks ago, if not for Mindy. Surely, Mindy’s involvement meant that Elizabeth/Carrie had it somewhere within her to undo this.

‘No. You remain weak.’

Moreover, she had told Luci/Frank that she would fix things, one way or another. She had meant that.

‘No, stop!’

And there WAS a way. She saw it now.

‘NO!’

“Go to hell, other me,” Elizabeth gasped. Her eyes flashed golden. She felt like she was being torn in two, but despite Glen guiding her towards the stairs, she pulled away from him, vanishing into the time streams.

Carrie pressed her palm into her forehead, then marched to the window. “Any future Carries want to come back to tell me what to do this time?” she called out into the darkness. “Send me a letter maybe? No?”

She stared down at the ground outside. “Screw it,” Carrie sighed. She turned and knelt back down in front of the time machine. Yet as she reached out to open it, another Carrie appeared. Smelling of smoke, with her hair awry, dirty smudges on her tearstreaked face, and two golden eyes that seemed to be staring right though her present - prior? - self.

Carrie had never been more terrified in her entire life.

“This… ends… HERE,” Elizabeth hissed, and before the Carrie of the past could react, her future self had popped open the time machine, yanked out a bunch of the electronics, and then slammed her free hand right into her double’s chest.

Carrie screamed.

Then she couldn’t stop screaming.

She screamed as she felt her future counterpart sinking into her, she screamed as the memories of the coming week began to overload her psyche, and she continued to scream as she relived Frank’s death. Soon her throat was raw and her own vision had become blurred with the tears of her counterpart and the only thing she knew about now was how to scream.

Which was when she finally, mercifully, fell unconscious.

“Hrrngh.”

“She’s awake,” came a voice. “Chartreuse, go get her father!”

“Hrrngh,” Carrie said again, as she heard someone running from the room. Wait, that voice… she recognized that voice! She forced her eyelids open.

“Hey there,” Frank said, smiling down at her. “Welcome back. You were really starting to worry us there, Carrie. You’ve been unconscious for over a week now.”

Carrie blinked away the tears that were reforming in her eyes. Over a week? Yes, that made sense. The only way that OTHER her had been able to keep from going temporally insane had been to merge. To merge, then induce unconsciousness for the duration of those other memories. The ones leading up to now, the moment in Frank’s basement when he had… no. He was here. Because she had pulled apart the machine…

“You’re alive. Oh, Frank, yes, you’re alive!” Carrie tried to sit up, but felt too weak. She became aware of the fact that she was lying in a hospital bed. “L-L-Luci,” she croaked, mouth dry. “Where… WHERE?”

Frank blinked. “I’m not sure. She’s been spending a lot of her time lately with Tim, working on that gun and logbook. Why, did you need us to find her? What the heck happened anyway?? Your father said you simply started screaming, and in your room I found the time machine all wrecked!”

Carrie ran a quick self-assessment. The pain in her head, it was back to manageable levels. And yet - something felt off. It took a moment, but Carrie pinpointed the problem.

When Shady had brought back his machine, destroying “timeline two” and setting in motion “timeline three”, there had been little resistance. And timeline two had been irrecoverably overwritten. But here, when Carrie had initiated what she might as well dub “timeline four”… that was not the case. That third timeline, the one where she had fled town? It wasn’t giving up quietly at all. It was still out there. But that was impossible!

“Carrie?”

She forced herself to remain calm. The trouble was, Glen wouldn’t know they were supposed to be leaving town today. Right? Because he hadn’t been waiting for a date! Rather… for an event. An event… that could still happen. Pushing this new timeline back in line with “three”? Unless she became powerful enough to not merely delay, but truly prevent a classmate’s death…

‘You CAN’T DO…'

“Shut UP!” she shrieked at the voice of resistance in her head.

Frank flinched. “I’m sorry?”

“No, not you,” Carrie said, bringing her palm to her forehead. “Sorry. As to what happened, I… I made an error in judgement. One which I’m now attempting to correct.”

“Oh! Does that mean our time group is back together?”

Carrie bit down on her lip. The best chance for her friends… surely it was to make her new timeline four as much like timeline two as possible. The one without the machine. The one where her powers hadn’t awakened. The one where Frank had also lived.

“No. The more I connect with the rest of you, the more I might cause someone’s… no. I’m sorry, Frank. Any time travel, it’ll be me and Glen now. We’re the anomalies, it has to be that way. Is the time machine destroyed?”

“I… I left the pieces under your bed, but…”

“Good. Consider it gone. Never speak of it again.” She would dispose of those pieces. Then get Glen to teach her as much as he could about what she was capable of, while staying away from the rest of them. That was the best way to keep everybody safe. The best way to preserve her destruction of timeline three.

“Carrie, I don’t understand.”

She turned to face the opposite wall, biting down hard on her lip. “I know you don’t. Please don’t try. Just… leave me be.” The pain, the sheer mental and physical agony of dealing with the time streams and the ramifications that came from her alterations of them… honestly, it was her cross to bear. Hers alone. The girl tied to time.

After all, ever since the loss of timeline one? It had been the only reason for her existence.

END OF BOOK 3: Destruction

-New Commentary this Sunday!

-A vote for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” does bring in a hit or two. (A personal recommendation or review might even get people to read past Part 1.)

-This does mark the first time I’ve ever revisited a prior scene… and changed it. Did you notice the bit with Carrie at the window is from Shattered Part 2? Related, one of my favourite “Buffy” series quotes was spoken by Oz in Season 3: “Time’s up. Rules change.”

-We now leave Carrie, on her own to deal with her new timeline, with all the other teenage relationships similarly broken around her. You can walk away and hope for the best… or stick around for Book 4: Resolution. Coming next week. Tell your friends.

Previously: An accident with the time machine placed Luci’s consciousness into Frank’s body. They can communicate while unconscious, and are looking for a way to fix things.

PART 3.23a: TIMELINE FOUR 1

Carrie frowned. “So… you’re inside Frank’s head… and he’s in there with you… but he can only surface in your dreams?”

Luci/Frank managed to suppress a sigh, poking her/his fork into her/his plate of cafeteria fries. “Repeating that back to us isn’t going to make it any less true, Carrie.”

“Right, okay.” She thought for a moment. “On the bright side, if both essences are available, we have a shot at disint… er, UNintegrating the two of you. Right?”

Luci/Frank shook her head. “I was late to school today because I wanted to keep at the equations. So far, it doesn’t look good. Did you and Glen have any luck talking about the machine itself?”

Carrie shook her head back. “I stayed on the phone with him as long as my dad would let me, but the only scenario we can think of is to have your body - that is, Luci’s - available on the other end of the wormhole when you emerge from your initial trip. You know, when you first got, uh, fused. Granted, it presumes Luci’s essence will be able to find itself - yourself - and then, for the sake of self-consistency, it will require that the resulting version of Frank travels in time, to our present. Where he pretends he’s Luci. Which would be what you’re doing here.”

Luci/Frank wrinkled her nose. “Okay, but since I know I’m NOT pretending, we know THAT plan won’t work,” she reasoned.

“Aha, but how do I know you’re not just pretending to not be pretending?” Carrie countered, waggling her finger. Luci/Frank glared. Carrie lowered her hand. “Fine. If it’s any comfort, the longer this goes on, the bigger the temporal headache I seem to be getting. I might not last until your future arrival date.”

“My own body might not last either!” Luci/Frank noted. “When I checked on myself this morning, my body’s pulse was even weaker than last night. Besides, what do we tell my parents, that I went on vacation to Florida??”

“Point,” Carrie yielded. She pressed a hand to her temples. “I suppose we might jump in time ourselves, to meet your temporal exit THAT way – except Glen’s not sure what a time trip would do to Luci’s body in it’s present state. But at this point, the only other alternative might be…”

Luci/Frank swallowed her/his forkful of fries as Carrie trailed off. “Might be what?” s/he asked.

Carrie sighed. “A time-share of my temporal self. Luci, know that I won’t let things end for the two of you this way. I promise that much.”

Her tone had become very serious. “Carrie, can you even control your temporal self yet…?” Luci/Frank pressed, trying to read into her expression.

“No. But if it’s within me to do it, I’ll find a way," Carrie said. Her grip tightened on her soda can. “Somehow, I’ll find a way to fix things.”

“Luci! LUCI!” Frank called out.

Luci blinked as she felt the palm slapping at her cheeks, and with effort, she managed to focus on the image of Frank above her. “Oooh,” she moaned. She propped herself up on one arm, realizing she was lying on the grass of their dreamscape. “It… it happened again, didn’t it…”

Frank nodded. “That’s the third time, and the second time tonight. I don’t like it. When you go transparent like that, it’s as if you’re… fading away. You’ve got to hang on, Luci! We’ll figure a way to get you back where you belong!”

Luci shifted her focus back to the blue sky. “Frank, it’s been four days, and in terms of saving both of us, we’re back to square one.” She paused. “In fact, I don’t know if you realized, but I – that is, our body – it blacked out in class today too. If Chartreuse hadn’t caught me…” She swallowed. “I don’t want to die, Frank. Not like that.”

He grabbed her by the shoulders. “No one’s said anything about dying. We’ll find something! We always do.”

“Frank, seriously? Even with Glen’s input, we still don’t know half of the science we’re dealing with!” She pounded her fist into the ground. “It’s time to face facts, we’re running out of time! I’m… I’m simply going to die, and there’s nothing we can do about it!”

“No!” Frank countered. “You are NOT! Not so long as I’m here!” He pulled her into an embrace, and Luci hugged back, hard. Then, after a moment, she worked to change her body. And before Frank had a chance to react, he was holding a twenty year old.

“Frank, don’t,” Luci said as she felt him pulling away. “Please, don’t. If this doesn’t work out… I want something to take away with me. Something good, like the time I looked like this, and I told you my feelings. In fact, since we’re only in a dream, you could even–”

“Luci, stop,” Frank protested. He ceased trying to pull away but refused to meet her gaze. She saw him biting his lip. “We both know this is more than a dream, it’s… I don’t know, a mind link. So don’t tempt me this way. It’s not right. When you’re back in your own body, then… then maybe.”

Luci remained in his arms for a moment before reverting back to her normal appearance. “Maybe?” she said quietly, as they separated their embrace. “Tell me Frank, if I do get back, will we really be able to have a healthy relationship?”

“Well… why not?”

“You know why,” Luci said quietly. “The memory you saw. The one I’ve spent years repressing.”

Frank’s face fell, and he looked down at the ground. “I wasn’t going to bring that up again.”

“You didn’t have to. The more I struggle to hold onto myself, the more that particular mental block crumbles away.” She paused, then closed her eyes. “Fine, let’s do this. How much did you see?”

Frank sighed. “He touched you. He…” His tone became harder. “Your parents should never have let you use the pool next door!”

“Were my clothes still on?” Luci continued, feeling a strange calmness come over her. She reopened her eyes.

Frank was staring, horrified. “Of course they were. You don’t mean…”

“Okay. You really did only brush the surface."

“Oh dear God, Luci!! You mean he… that is… he didn’t… DID HE?!”

The young girl shook her head. “Oh, he didn’t go THAT far, if that’s what you’re thinking. Linford touched. He had me touch back. He took a couple pictures. We never…" Her voice trailed off as she began to feel sick to her stomach.

She shoved the emotion aside, deciding instead to focus instead on the facts. The way she always did. “I was seven at the time. Barely four months out of the orphanage, and I didn’t want to cause any trouble. I didn’t want to get sent back, to be… rejected. The way I always had been, for mouthing off and being a know-it-all.”

“What–” Frank’s voice cracked. He tried again. “What happened to this pervert?!”

Luci shifted her gaze to the horizon. “I’m not sure… when Linford moved away at the end of the summer, I finally got up the nerve to tell my parents about it. Mom and Dad, they raised an uproar and got me some counselling, but the perpetrator himself, he didn’t leave any forwarding address.”

She sighed. “Ultimately, we Primroses decided to move too. It’s how we ended up in this town. And ever since coming to live here, I’ve tried my hardest to forget. I wanted to move on, and to… to overwrite those memories with some happier ones.” She slumped. “Pity I never got the hang of social interactions at school.”

“Oh, Luci…” Frank reached out to put an arm on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off, stepping away, looking at the ground.

“Wait, let me finish. Let me do a thorough analysis.” She swallowed hard. “So… this has become a case of classic displacement. Linford to Linquist. And even though I know they’re both different people, and maybe Linquist isn’t as bad, they both did things to me, without my permission. Which is why, deep down, I can’t feel truly comfortable so long I know that they’re somewhere out there. Experimenting. Hence, my obsessive vendetta with the logbook when it turned up.”

Luci spun back to face Frank, a tear running down her cheek. “But it’s worse than that. The more I find myself facing up to those truths here, the more I feel that my desire for a loving relationship with someone has been largely motivated by the desire to overwrite those bad memories. So… was ours a romance of convenience? Did I truly love you, or did I pick you because you were my best shot? Is it possible our relationship has been doomed from the start?”

Frank took a step back as if struck. “If… if that’s honestly what you believe, then… I suppose we both have some serious thinking to do.”

Luci started to turn away.

“BUT,” Frank continued, “That doesn’t change our current situation. Boyfriend, best friend - those sorts of distinctions are unimportant right now! You’ve told me what you believe, so let me tell you what I believe. Namely that someone with your strength of character wouldn’t let her life be dictated by the actions of some perverted BASTARD. That’s not the Luci I know! That’s not the Luci I fell for! And moreover, that’s NOT the Luci who is going to come out of our current situation feeling even stronger than she was before! Okay?!”

Luci couldn’t stop the tears from coming, but for the first time, she didn’t feel like they made her weak. “Thank you, Frank,” she choked out. “I only hope you’re right. And that I don’t die here. That maybe, one day, we can figure out our–” Her voice caught. Again he moved towards her, and again she waved him off. “Wait, stop, I’m about to–”

She fell to her knees and threw up all over the grass.

“Oh, Luci,” he murmured, wiping a tear away from his own eye as he reached out to gently stroke her hair. “My poor, dear Luci… don’t despair, I’ll get you through this… no matter what it takes.”

It was exactly one week after the initial incident that saw the four of them gathered together again in Frank’s basement. Carrie, Glen, and Luci/Frank. Or rather, Carrie mentally amended, Frank/Luci. Because according to Frank, Luci’s essence had grown so weak that he’d had to retake control of his own body after waking up that morning.

“It won’t work, you know,” Glen declared, folding his arms as he leaned back against the wall.

“It will,” Carrie countered. She ground her palm into her throbbing temple. “It has to.”

The trouble was, Luci’s own body wasn’t faring much better than her ‘essence’, having become cold to the touch. On top of that, the e-mails Luci had been writing for her parents, trying to explain her continuing absence from town had been less than convincing. A police investigation was already underway. So if this effort didn’t work… well, Carrie wasn’t looking forward to the temporal repercussions.

Glen shook his head. “I’m telling you, it’s a bad plan.”

“Look, if you don’t have anything useful to say, don’t say anything at all!” Carrie snapped.

“Actually, Glen is correct when he says that this is liable to kill at least one of us,” Frank/Luci rasped.

“But you said there’s a chance, right? I mean, despite having to take control, Luci’s essence is still inside you?”

Frank nodded slowly. “Ohhh, yes. She’s still in here. She just hasn’t been able to articulate since last night. I…” He winced and clutched at his stomach. “I r-refuse to let Luci give up so easily.”

“Which isn’t helping you any,” Glen observed. “You’ve been getting weak and feverish throughout the day. If I didn’t know better, I’d say your body has started fighting against her. Perhaps treating her essence like some kind of virus.”

“Oh, shut UP, Glen!” Carrie fumed. “As long as there’s still a snowball’s chance in hell of this working, we’re doing it!!” She looked around the room. “All right, it’s almost exactly one week since the incident. The machine’s set for a one hour jump, I’ve jammed the tweezers in where you said, and that metal rod is long enough for you to reach the fuse box, to access the extra power. You’ve got a coin to use, so… let’s light it up! Okay?”

Frank/Luci nodded weakly and slipped off the chair to crawl over next to Luci’s body. He slipped his arm around her, reaching out to brush some hair off her face. “I said I wasn’t going to let you die,” he murmured, smiling sadly. “So you can stop arguing with me.”

Carrie’s eyebrows knit at the oddity of that last sentence, watching as Frank placed Luci’s limp palm on the handle of the time machine. He then dropped the coin into the slot, and slowly brought the metal rod into position.

-Book 3 ends on Friday. Care to vote? Or comment? Tell me you’re not bored…

Previously: Frank’s body appeared after a time trip, while in the present, Luci is unconscious. Worried, Carrie discusses the mechanics of the time machine with Glen.

PART 3.22b: DO YOU MIND? 2

Carrie began to look ill. “You’re saying that when the time machine became active, with Luci connected to Frank through the tweezers, rather than through physical contact… no, NO, look, her whole body is still here!” She grabbed for Glen’s shirt with one hand, while pointing at Luci with the other. “So she must be okay, right?"

Glen rubbed his forehead. “Look, I’m no expert on the inner workings of the devices themselves, what I’ve said is pretty basic temporal theory. All I can say for sure is that the equations get trickier when metal is involved. Because it’s metallic coins which are flash fried in the thing as a power source. So maybe Luci… her brain… well, part of it might have been flash fried too. Through that metal conduit."

“But… but look, LOOK, she’s still breathing…” Carrie said, releasing him as her whole body began to shake. “And it w-was just tweezers…”

Glen bent down next to Luci’s body once more, again checking her eyes and her pulse. He shook his head. Maybe the time had come for them after all? “There’s no way to know for sure, but given she’s been like this for more than half an hour…”

“No! I refuse to accept that I had a hand in turning Luci into a… a vegetable!!” Carrie said, stepping forwards. “There must be some…”

She froze as the basement door opened, and there came the sound of someone rushing downstairs. But it wasn’t one of Frank’s parents. In fact, as Glen turned, he saw it was Frank himself. The latest arrival took in the scene, immediately catching sight of the body on the floor. He then dropped the time machine, running to kneel down by Luci.

“Oh my God!” Frank gasped. “What’s happened to me?!”

“We’re not sure,” Carrie admitted. “Glen thinks that some part of Luci was…" She stopped. “Wait, happened to YOU? What do you mean, Frank?"

Frank turned to look at her. “I am NOT Frank,” he retorted, blinking back a tear. “And I want back inside my body right NOW!!”

“Huh. Well, this is unprecedented," Glen mused.

Luci/Frank stared at the page of equations in her hands, trying hard not to cry. Not again. Carrie and Glen had left long ago, when Frank’s mother had insisted on her son coming up for dinner.

Dinner, of course, had been a quiet affair… it had felt awkward pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Luci knew she’d acted oddly enough for Frank’s parents to sense something was up. At least they’d interpreted it as sickness, advising him to go and lie down after the meal. And though it meant that Luci couldn’t go back down to the lab to try and work things through on the large chalkboard, maybe that was for the best. Her body was still lying on the bench down there, covered by a sheet.

Which felt unbelievably creepy.

Naturally, both she and Carrie had pressed Glen for more information, immediately following her return of Frank’s body to the present. “All right, all right!” Glen had said, after several attempts to deflect. “My best guess? What happened here is Luci’s… essence…? For lack of a better word… was caught by the event horizon of the wormhole. But instead of being lost forever, it somehow managed to connect up with Frank’s body.”

“Then where’s Frank’s ‘essence’?!” Carrie had demanded. Glen could only shrug helplessly.

And shortly thereafter, Luci/Frank had lost all self-control. “Damn it, Carrie! This is all your fault, with wanting to rig the device!” she’d screamed, kicking the other girl in the shins. Carrie had let out a loud yelp and fallen backwards, almost on top of Luci’s own body.

Seems a kick from Frank’s body packed more of a punch than what she’d intended. But it’s not like she’d had much time to get used to being inside him or anything - as soon as she’d regained consciousness after her unscheduled trip, she’d reset the machine to travel back to now! Having held out some hope that doing so would automatically fix things.

Which it hadn’t. Did this mean that Frank was somehow trapped inside HER body, unable to get out? Unable to move, unable to speak? Or was HE the one whose essence had been…

Luci looked back down at the paper she held, before crumpling it up and throwing it aside. Followed by the pencil. She drew her knees (yet not her knees) up to her chest (Frank’s chest) and finally allowed another tear to escape her/Frank’s eye.

This was so messed up. They couldn’t even duplicate this situation in reverse, like they’d done the time she’d been prematurely aged. Hell, to hear Glen speak, it was lucky she’d survived this experience at all. But of course, the worst part of this whole situation was how, deep down, Luci knew she’d been lashing out again. At people who didn’t deserve it.

This wasn’t Carrie’s fault, no more than it had been Julie’s fault when Frank had ended up in the future with Mindy. No, this was all on her. On her and her obsessive nature.

She’d allowed herself to get distracted. Again. Not by the logbook this time, but instead by the revelations about Glen’s origins and mental powers. Frank’s wild suppositions at the start of the year had apparently been correct. And she’d been thinking more about the repercussions of that, and the temporal gun, instead of the task at hand.

Why had she written off Frank’s concerns? Why had she tried to bring his focus back to her in September, and off the person with the crazy mental powers? Worse, ever since her vendetta against Linquist had ramped up, she’d simply started avoiding him. WHY? Did she not want this relationship with Frank after all?

There was a ring of truth to that which alarmed her.

Luci prided herself on her intelligence, and yet here she was, still making huge emotional errors in judgement. Errors which might have now cost the life of the boy that she… loved? Well, it was impossible to fix any of her relationship issues now.

‘Maybe not…’

Well, perhaps not, if she could work through the equations. Find a way to reverse things. But she was so very tired… Luci looked over towards her clock, checked herself, and looked to where Frank’s bedroom clock was. Already after 2am! At least her parents wouldn’t worry. Carrie had said she’d suck up her pride long enough to talk to Julie, to pretend like Luci was staying over at the mansion. Their standard fake-out. But that would only work until school resumed tomorrow…

‘Sleep, Luci… sleep…’

Luci’s eyes snapped open. She couldn’t sleep! Not until she had the answers she needed! Luci tried to shake herself awake, almost knocking Frank’s glasses off in the process. Another tear ran down her cheek at the realization, and she brushed it aside.

Focus, girl, focus! You can’t break down now… not now, not when Frank needs you the most. If only he was here though, to help her with these crazy temporal equations! They had been such a good team that way. If only he was here…

‘Luci, sleep, and I can be here…’

Luci’s eyes snapped open again - and she realized with some shock that she was back inside her own body. Except she was no longer in Frank’s room, or even under the sheet in his lab. She was sitting underneath a tree, with a field of green grass spread out around her.

“What? How?” And she reached up to her throat, recognizing it was her own voice coming from her own vocal chords.

“It’s elementary, my dear Luci,” came Frank’s voice from above. She looked up in time to see him jump down from a tree branch and land on the ground beside her. He fired off a weak smile. “You see, my body - or rather our body? - is now unconscious.”

“Then you saw and heard the whole thing,” Luci concluded. The two of them were now following a wandering pathway through the ‘field’ dreamscape, comparing notes.

Frank nodded back. “It’s a weird feeling, having my body do things without any control over what those things are. I guess you just have the more dominant personality? Or perhaps it was the only way my own mind decided it could keep your essence stable. At any rate, I couldn’t get through until your - our? - consciousness started to drift. Which it wasn’t prone to do so long as you were focussed on fixing things.”

Luci looked at the ground. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, no, nothing to apologize for. Actually felt oddly satisfying kicking Carrie in the shins…”

“No, I mean sorry for everything,” Luci corrected. “For not believing you about Glen back then. For going through the logbook again when I said I wouldn’t. For not giving it my all today, when helping you with the machine. And most of all, for avoiding you when we should have been working things out.” Her fists clenched. “I’ve been the worst girlfriend ever.”

Frank pursed his lips. “Luci, I wasn’t racing to give you a phone call either," he pointed out. “And I’m the one who tripped an activation circuit, and who shouldn’t have prematurely plugged in a coin into the device merely so things would be lit up more clearly. That’s all on me, not you."

“Still, you didn’t almost get me killed and banished to the past!” Luci reminded. “That happened to you, all because the first thing on my mind was a vendetta against Linquist! I’m so sorry, I just… God, I don’t know why, but he irritates me so much!”

Frank stopped walking. “Luci… our minds are connected here. I can’t see everything but, ah, you don’t have to hide the truth of that situation from me any more.”

Luci froze. “What do you mean?”

Frank glanced down at her, then shifted his gaze skyward. “Oh boy. See, in the beginning, right after we… well, ‘merged’… you slipped unconscious. I tried to find a way of getting through to you then, but I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing and… instead of contacting you, I ended up sifting through certain memories of yours.”

Luci blinked and involuntarily wrapped her arms about herself. “Do you mind?” she said irritably. “I have some very private stuff in my psyche!”

“I know! It wasn’t intentional,” Frank insisted. “Really it wasn’t. But at the time, you were feeling hurt and scared and confused. Which brought up a similar time you’d felt that way, namely back when you’d been aged up by Linquist. From there it was only a short leap to your childhood when…”

“NO!” Luci gasped, and almost before she knew it she had physically reached out to slap her hand over Frank’s mouth. “Don’t say it!” she whispered. “Don’t make me remember that time, please, Frank, don’t, don’t… that part of me, I blocked it off, even from myself…!”

Her body shook, her eyes pleaded. Frank slowly nodded, and she took her hand away. “I-I’m sorry," he said. “Obviously, I… I misjudged the scope.”

“Obviously,” Luci said quietly. Moving off the path, she plucked a daisy from the grass and began pulling petals off of it one by one.

“Er, how about we go through some temporal equations then?” Frank ventured. “See about getting the two of us back where we belong.” He waved his arm, and a chalkboard appeared in the field with them, already containing some rudimentary equations. He walked over and began to write.

Luci joined him a couple of minutes later. They didn’t speak of the incident again that night.

Unfortunately, despite their efforts, every calculation pointed towards one of them being dead before the week was out.

-Next Episode: Timeline Four. Ending Book 3.

-Isn’t that interesting? Any speculations? Either about their situation, or Luci’s past? One more week, and this whole book wraps up. As always, you can vote for T&T at TWF, or recommend to a friend.

Previously: Julie broke up with Clarke. Carrie hoped Frank or Luci could rig the time machine for an automatic run. Hank Waterson wrote a short story about the Chosen Bunny.

PART 3.22a: DO YOU MIND? 1

Frank’s basement lab was empty; the lights were off, and all was quiet. There was a brief explosion of light, and then all was quiet again - though now Frank’s body was lying on the ground. It sat next to a black box that resembled a cross between a computerized slot machine and a cash register.

“Ooooohh,” he groaned. “Frank, what caused that?”

The teenager struggled to sit up, moving to rub his eyes, his hands hitting his glasses. The dark haired boy paused, then reached up to pull the glasses off. He lay there for a moment, staring at them in shock.

“What the hell?”

Having spoken again, Frank reached a hand up to his throat. Then, slipping his glasses back on, he pushed himself up to his knees and took a look down at his body. “Oh my God,” Frank choked out. “Oh God, no, oh no, no, no… wh- what’s HAPPENED to me?!?”

Frank’s body swayed unsteadily for a few seconds before dropping back to the floor and falling unconscious.

“Hello,” Mrs. Dijora said pleasantly, opening the door. “How can I help–”

“He’s with me!” Carrie said, dashing down the hall behind her. The blonde teenager grabbed the arm of their visitor, tugging on it. “With us, that is,” she clarified. “We’re all still finishing our extra curricular project in the basement and we need Glen’s help! Now!"

“Oh,” Frank’s mother responded, nonplussed. “You know Carrie, if you’d all started this project earlier in the week, you wouldn’t have this sort of problem on a Thursday night. Because regardless of what Frank’s contribution is, I want to have him back upstairs in time for dinner. Which will be within the hour.”

“Um, yup, I’ll let him know that,” Carrie assured, while dragging Glen towards the basement door. “Now c’mon Glen, this is really TIME sensitive stuff!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Glen said, a hint of a frown appearing on his features. He looked back at Mrs. Dijora. “Er, I’ll keep my coat with me,” he assured her, having not had the time to pull both arms from the sleeves.

Frank’s mother watched in confusion as the two teenagers slammed the basement door shut behind them. “Teenagers. Everything’s life or death for them,” she decided, heading back into the kitchen.

“All right, what’s this about?” Glen questioned as Carrie hopped down the stairs ahead of him two at a time. “Your call sounded urgent.”

“You have NO idea,” Carrie retorted. She jabbed a finger at something just outside his field of view. “What the hell did the time machine DO to her?!?”

Glen moved down to the point when he could see where Carrie was pointing. His frown deepened, and he quickly moved to kneel down next to the unconscious body on the floor. Yes, unconscious - Luci still seemed to have a pulse. Meaning he didn’t know whether this was the event he’d been waiting for, or not.

“How long has she been like this?” Glen asked.

“Twenty minutes. Half an hour maybe,” Carrie said. “You sure took your sweet time getting here! I even debated calling an ambulance, but the tingling in my head says this is something temporal."

“I got here as quickly as I could,” Glen countered. He rolled Luci’s body slightly, stuffing his wadded up jacket under her head before lifting one of her eyelids. Her eyes didn’t seem to be focused on anything. Problematic. He needed more information.

Glen glanced around the room. “You said your time machine was involved. Where is it?”

Carrie swallowed. “It… it vanished. It took Frank along with it. Which is kind of the other reason I didn’t want to get Frank’s parents all worked up with an ambulance.”

Glen slammed his palm on the ground. “Carrie! I WARNED you about the danger of using it for more time trips, I TOLD you to destroy –”

“We WERE destroying it!” Carrie yelled back, hands clenching into fists. She bit her lip. “Kinda.”

Glen stood. “How do you KINDA destroy something?”

Carrie’s face took on a pained expression. “We… we were going to send the machine on auto-pilot a couple of months into the future. As a fail safe. So it would be available later. I even thought, hey, it’ll get Frank and Luci working together again, so that maybe I could leave the time group on a slightly better note than… than…” She threw her arms out to the sides. “Look, I made sure they were being careful, and that they weren’t arguing about their relationship or anything!”

“They were still messing with something they couldn’t hope to understand!” Glen fumed. He stared at her for another long moment. Carrie didn’t seem as distraught as he might have expected. So it probably wasn’t time yet. “Fine, what’s done is done. If we want to have a chance of fixing it, you’ll need to describe to me exactly what happened."

Carrie looked past him towards Luci’s prone form. She swallowed again, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. The two of them were completing an analysis of some of the circuits. To see if there was any failsafe to prevent activation, should no person be touching the lever directly. Frank was reaching down inside the device - he said something looked a little funny - and he asked Luci to hand him the tweezers. She was in the process of doing so when the machine let out a whine, there was a bright flash of light, and then…" She reopened her eyes. “Then Frank and the machine were gone, and Luci was left there on the floor unconscious. After five minutes of trying to bring her around without success, I called you."

Glen pursed his lips, then moved towards the lab bench near Luci’s body. After a moment of looking around, he reached out and grabbed a set of twisted, blackened tweezers off the floor. “Are these what Luci handed to Frank?” he questioned.

Carrie shrugged. “How should I know? Probably.”

Glen frowned. “Well, they’re metallic.” He paused. “That’s bad. I’m sorry, Carrie… I’m not sure there’s anything we can do for Luci.”

“What are you talking about?” she protested. “Luci’s body is still here, she’s still breathing and everything, we simply need a way for her to wake up!”

Glen sighed again, rolling his eyes heavenwards before turning back to his future companion. “All right,” he decided. “I was hoping to avoid such direct talk of future technology but… Carrie, exactly what do you people know about how these portable time machine units work?”

Carrie crossed her arms. “Well, they require a coin to activate, and the date on the coin corresponds to the year of arrival. Meanwhile, the place of arrival is determined by who is holding onto the handle, which has some sort of DNA sensing technology integrated into it. Though it seems that a trip to the future might involve not changing location at all, if you don’t have a counterpart there. So there’s also some built in homing device to target Earth, maybe.”

“Mmm. Yes, that’s about right,” Glen said, with grudging respect. “Though since the device goes along with you, the travel to a time with no counterpart takes it’s toll. More universal calculations, more circuits engaged, more power, more chance for burnout too. That’s on top of the normal proportional recharge, all part of the reason why not many such units were made.”

“Okay, so how does any of this relate to what happened to Luci?!”

Glen tossed the mangled tweezers aside. “It has to do with how the time machine manipulates the wormholes.”

Carrie blinked. “Worm… holes? Frank’s said something about them, but I never really bothered with trying to follow the science…”

Glen made a quick circuit of the room, grabbing a pencil and a sheet of paper that someone had started making notes on. “Wormholes,” he repeated. “Even in this time I know there’s been discussion on the subject.” He drew two circles, close to the opposing long ends of the sheet.

“Earth,” he said, pointing at one circle. “Alpha Centauri,” he continued, pointing at the other circle. He folded the paper over so that the far ends of the page were touching, and the circles overlapped. “Wormhole,” he concluded. He jabbed the pencil up through the paper at the Earth circle, the tip emerging through the circle he had denoted Alpha Centauri.

Carrie rolled her eyes. “Yes, the classic demonstration of using a wormhole to get to a far away place a lot faster than running along the length of the page itself. I HAVE seen that before. But what–"

“It works with time too,” Glen cut back in. He unfolded the sheet and drew a long line connecting the two holes. “1950,” he said, now physically writing that in over the first hole. “2000,” he continued, denoting the second hole. “Same principle. You want to travel from 2000 to 1950? The machine homes in on 1950 using the metallic substance you input, refines based on the traveler’s DNA, then creates a temporary wormhole that will fold space-time appropriately to transport the individual.”

Glen folded the paper over again as he spoke. “Once space-time is sufficiently warped, the device sucks you through,” - he pushed the pencil all the way through the hole - “then allows this universe’s timeline to snap back into place,” - he released one end of the page to let it straighten out - “all accomplished in a blink, before there’s any far reaching effects. Like miniature black holes or the like.”

Carrie observed Glen quietly for a few seconds. “So??” she said at last. “Lovely demonstration, but I STILL don’t see how that relates to why Luci is–”

“Oh for goodness sakes Carrie, can’t you at least humour me and PRETEND to have the mental discipline of your future self?” Glen snapped, before he could stop himself.

Her jaw clenched as he tossed the paper aside. “Sorry. But look, this latest issue is obviously related to how those portable time machine units control what matter gets pulled through the wormhole. Everything within a certain radius can’t get yanked in, or you’d be travelling with the ground you’re standing on.” There was a brief silence. “Do you see the problem now?”

“Sure,” Carrie said tightly. “Somehow the machine makes a point of registering anyone touching the handle, or any person touching that person, but ultimately rejects other biological matter within the same radius. Clever.” Her eyes were drawn to the tweezers. “Oh, wait. Are you saying…”

She hesitated, so Glen decided to complete the thought. “Yes, if the people going through are not in direct contact with the handle - or, less safely, with each other - the time machine might start closing the wormhole on them early.” He paused. “Best case, some people don’t go on the trip. Worst case? Depending on how badly you’re linked? You could end up on the other end of a time journey with only half a person.” Glen shook his head. “So, do you finally understand what happened here?”

-Do YOU understand? Any comment? This is the first time I’ve tried to go into the actual mechanics of time travel… and it’s why I can’t market this as Hard SciFi. I’m no physicist. But hopefully I invented something plausible.

Previously: Hank Waterson writes a story about woodland creatures with magical powers who have the names of Carrie’s friends. Raccoon Glen found evidence Fox Julie was a traitor.

PART 3.21b: WOODLANDS OMEN 2

“Right, a fox got double crossed, I’m so sure,” Carrie retorted.

“Carrie, she should get the benefit of the doubt,” Clarke put in quietly. “If we persecute people based largely on their animal heritage, we’re no better than the humans.” Carrie blinked at the beaver in surprise, appeared to think about that for a moment, then with a frown, she released Julie’s tail.

“But, okay,” Laurie said, puzzled. “If this documentation IS fake, and Julie’s NOT the traitor… who else COULD it be?”

As if on cue, there was the sound of something breaking the surface of the earth less than a metre away. Everyone turned in time to see a groundhog poke his head out. “Oh, g-g-good you’re still h-here!” it said in relief, scampering out of the hole. Behind him, a squirrel peered out of the hole as well.

“Luci?” Frank said in shock. “Where have you been?”

“Covert work underground,” Luci explained. “Sorry that me and Tim are late, but he can’t conjure his flashlight any more and we took a couple wrong turns.” She jumped out of the hole and shook the dirt off of herself.

“We were able to translate a pertinent passage though,” Tim said, holding a sheaf of papers out towards Julie. “I think you’ll be p-pleased with the r-r-results!”

“Passage? Covert mission? What the devil is going on here?” Corry said.

“Something I turned up in the warehouse the other day,” Julie said, running her eyes down the top sheet. “Evidence of the fact that the humans have been planning their recent dumping activities for MONTHS, along with the ‘inside informant’ - who, ergo, is not me. The problem was, the critical passages were either in code, or a language I didn’t recognize. So I somewhat reluctantly called for Tim and Luci’s services.”

“This is a very clever smokescreen you’ve put together in case of capture Julie,” Glen said, folding his arms. “But you underestimate our ability to see through it.”

“Hold on. Let’s see what Luci and Tim turned up first, then compare,” Lee suggested.

Julie flipped to the second page, then quickly the third, before looking up at Tim in surprise. He nodded and shrugged. “Let’s get him then,” Julie declared. Throwing the sheets aside, she pounced - however, Glen was already moving.

With a speed no one had expected, Glen dove to the side, rolled a metre away and came up with one palm extended. “Freeze,” he ordered. All the other sentient animals stopped in place, with looks of surprise on their faces.

“Whoa, you’re totally more powerful than you look,” Chartreuse said, trying in vain to move her feet or her wings.

“Damn straight,” Glen said, now making no effort to hide his evil grin. “Of course, it helps that all of you have had your powers mostly leeched away by this point.”

“But… but you’ll soon be losing your powers too!” Laurie protested. “Glen, why are you doing that?”

“Because,” Glen explained patiently, “as Tim’s translation no doubt revealed, my powers aren’t tied to this forest like yours are. And once you all revert, the humans will be granting safe passage for me and one other, all the way back to my real home. Far, far away from here!”

“The translation actually wasn’t that specific,” Tim admitted. “It just said the r-raccoon wants out of here.”

“We were kinda hoping that by doing things this way, you’d give everything away,” Luci added.

“Oh. Well, whatever,” Glen said with a shrug.

“Wait, who’s the other one you’ll be with?” Clarke asked.

“Who else?” Glen said, gesturing towards Carrie.

The bunny twitched her nose. “Me?? News flash, Glen, I don’t I want to go with you if this is how you treat my friends! I mean really, Glen, how COULD you?”

Glen shrugged. “Carrie, my mission was to track you down, and use a magic charm to help you understand your own inherent powers of sentience,” he replied. “Unfortunately, at the same time as I was awakening YOUR powers, Mindy and Shady were prowling through the forest, scouting for ways to expand that human settlement. To keep my item hidden from their probing, I buried it in that clearing - not realizing that it’s aura was still active, and able to affect other animals!”

“So, what, you think we gained our intellect and magical abilities because of this magical charm you owned?” Luci scoffed. “Please. I’m more special than an ordinary, everyday squirrel!”

“Believe what you like,” Glen said airily. “All I know is, after years of travel to track down the Chosen Bunny, I had to spend even MORE time messing around here, to learn how to reverse sentience on a bunch of useless creatures!” Glen shook his head. “I had hoped that by splicing together my Linquist contract with the signature I found for Julie, you’d all be thrown all off the track… and in another day, things would no longer matter… but, no matter. You’ve become weak enough for me to gain the upper ‘paw’ regardless.”

“Glen! If this is the real you? I’m staying right here!” Carrie said. Her body tensed. “And… and I’d totally put my paws on my hips to emphasize that point if only I could move!”

“I am sorry to hear you say that. But you’re coming with me regardless,” the raccoon said, smirking. “Because if you hadn’t figured it out yet, you dumb bunny, your powers aren’t tied to this forest either. It’s not the dumping, but rather that pendant I gave you earlier in the week which is suppressing your abilities. And once you’re powerless, we’ll be going. Don’t worry, your powers will be restored when we arrive back at my home.”

“But that’s kidnapping!” Carrie shrieked. “You won’t get away with that, or with using my powers in order to start a future war!” She shuddered. “Wait, how did I even know that’s what you were involving me in?”

“As the Chosen One,” Glen said. “Deep down, you knew all along.”

“You… you spent all this time tracking me down because your faction needed more power in order to stage takeovers of neighbouring forests!” Carrie realized. “And somehow you knew I could be more powerful than any of the other animals on Earth!”

“Oh, great, Carrie’s a powerful weapon. This information would have been useful a week ago,” Corry sighed.

“Too bad there’s no such thing as time travel,” Julie agreed.

“But Carrie, if you’ve got a bunch of magical power inside you, how come you can’t use it to shatter that pendant you’re wearing?” Laurie said.

“I… I’m not sure how to even move,” Carrie said. She grimaced in an internal effort, tears springing to the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry guys. I… I don’t think I can do anything!”

“Here, let me get that for you then,” Lee offered, moving to take the offending jewellery off Carrie’s neck. There was a beat, as all eyes shifted to the porcupine. “Yeah, hey, I could move all along, I just wanted to hear Glen reveal the plot,” Lee said, tossing the pendant aside.

“Hmmmm. A natural immunity? That’s not good,” Glen mused.

Freed of the magic draining item, the blonde bunny quickly rounded on the raccoon, her blue eyes bright. “Kidnap ME will, you? Threaten MY friends?! Well then, it’s YOUR turn to freeze, you EX-BOYFRIEND!”

Carrie bounded forward, catching Glen before he’d even taken two steps. One tap on his forehead, and he dropped like a stone, lying on the ground as if he was frozen in time. Carrie blinked down at her paw in surprise. “I can DO that?”

With Glen down, all the other animals gave a collective sigh of relief, having regained their own mobility.

“Nice work, Carrie!” Chartreuse said, gleefully clapping her wings together. “And that was a totally cool fake out, Lee!”

Lee shrugged, tugging at his jacket lapels. “I live closest to the affected clearing - I must have built up a little extra internal power or something.”

“So what do we do with Glen now?” Tim wondered.

“Humans don’t look twice at roadkill,” Julie said offhandedly, producing another nail file from her fur.

“Julie dear, that’s a little gruesome, even for you, isn’t it?” Clarke said, reaching out to touch her arm. Julie hesitated, then gave a yielding nod.

“I say give HIM that pendant,” Luci suggested. “Seal it permanently around Glen’s neck somehow. I mean, if it worked on Carrie’s powers, surely it will work on his.”

“Good thought,” Frank agreed. “In fact, now that we know who our insider is, we can threaten the humans with exposing all this dumping they’re doing. If Shady really wants to keep things quiet, they’ll have to stop their interference.”

“Ooh, but what about cleaning up the damage that’s already been done?” Laurie said worriedly. “Chartreuse, your conjurable conjuring crystals, could they purify the area?”

Chartreuse shook her head.  “Already considered it. There’s, you know, too much there for me to handle.”

“Well, from what I learned about this glop from Mindy, there is a primary ingredient,” Julie offered. “I believe all we’d need to do is figure out how to neutralize that. Then the problem will take care of itself.”

“In that case, it’s a good thing I’ve spent the last few days analyzing slime from the clearing,” Corry spoke up. “You’ll be pleased to know that we’re not up against anything radioactive. Though the strange thing is, the primary ingredient - and believe me, I triple checked this - it seems to be… well… lime jello.”

“J-J-Jello?” Tim said, surprised.

“If jello neutralizes magic, remind me not to forage for it,” Lee said.

“Hah. If THAT’S all it is, I’m sure we can come up with a counteragent,” Carrie asserted, dusting off her paws after having given Glen a kick in the ribs. “Why, by working together, there’s nothing we can’t do!”

“What’s more, Corry’s analysis also explains why these humans were able to dump so much of that stuff within a fairly limited area,” Frank remarked.

“Oh?  How do you figure?” Luci wondered.

Frank shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? There’s always room for Jello.” He had no time whatsoever to parry before the hammer and the croquet mallet came crashing down on his head.

Hank Waterson leaned back in his chair, letting out a yawn and massaging a cramp in his wrist. How had he managed to get through all that in one sitting? A glance at the clock showed that it was after 2 am. What incredibly inspired writing!

Yet now that he was actively thinking about it, Hank realized that he had questions. For instance, where exactly had the idea for that Mindy person come from? Why had he made accusations against Carrie’s friend Julie? And why had he turned Carrie’s boyfriend into the traitor? Was his subconscious trying to tell him something? Maybe he should keep Carrie grounded, so that the two of them wouldn’t be able to spend time together…

“What am I saying?” Hank muttered aloud. “This is fiction. It has no basis in real life." Besides, Carrie was good at finding a way around rules she didn’t like, so it wouldn’t do to keep her away from Glen. Moreover, he would be changing the names of the characters anyway. He could even change the villain’s identity once he got into editing. The whole story was still in a rather indeterminate state.

Shaking his head, Hank Waterson carefully stacked the story’s character sheets, and placed them back into his ‘Woodland Creatures’ folder. He then reached out and turned off his desk light, blissfully unaware of that fact that everybody’s temporal reality had recently entered a very similar indeterminate state, courtesy of his own daughter.

-Next Episode: Do You Mind?

-I hope you enjoyed this little detour/omen. Had you figured out who the traitor was? Do you see how things might tie into the real plot? Feel free to comment or vote for T&T.

Previously: Hank Waterson writes a story about woodland creatures with magical powers who have the names of Carrie’s friends. … Roll with it.

PART 3.21a: WOODLANDS OMEN 1

Hank Waterson did a quick scan back over what he had written. His short story had thus far incorporated most of Carrie’s friends as woodland animals with human sentience. Along with them, he had now written in two actual human characters, whose mysterious conversation had implied that there was a traitor within the animal group. Who was it?

Hank rubbed his chin. He wasn’t quite sure which one of them to use, and thus he decided to simply see where the narrative took him.

Slowly, the woodland creatures came out of hiding.

“So… what do you think about that?” Frank wondered.

“Mindy’s got a nice back end, for a human?” Lee offered.

“Okay, pretty sure Frank’s referring to the fact that there’s totally a TRAITOR among us!” Chartreuse wailed.

Lee shrugged. “Trying to lighten the mood.”

“Don’t. Now is the time to get serious," Corry growled. “Because if one of us is feeding these humans lies, and telling them things that will lead to us losing our powers within a week? That’s a MAJOR problem."

“It can’t be one of us. Whoever the traitor is, they already knew about this clearing having ties to the magical effects,” Julie noted. “Remember, that Shady guy implied it was their dumping here that caused a neutralizing effect."

“Hey, any of us could know more about this clearing than what we’ve said,” Luci said, glancing about suspiciously. “The question is, why would anyone want us forest creatures to go all mundane?”

“Unless the traitor knows of a way to keep themselves immune,”

Carrie suggested. “And they’re hoping to use their sentience to rule over the rest of us.”

Everyone’s eyes shifted towards the fox and bear. “Oh great, predators being persecuted again,” Julie grumped, twitching her tail.

“Hold on, everyone. Finger pointing doesn’t do us any good," Clarke said. “We need proof to make an accusation.”

Laurie raised her paw. “Why don’t we simply ask the humans which animal is working with them?”

Her brother sighed. “Laurie, approaching humans is not wise, they - oh, wait, they keep records. Maybe we could obtain some of their files? That could tell us something."

“We’d have to go into town for that though,” Frank pointed out, beginning to pace. “And the longer we’re out of the forest, the more the magic fades too. If we’re caught, we’d lose everything.”

“Someone could do it if they already had as idea as to the specific bases of operations used by these particular humans,” Lee noted.

“So Glen could do it," Carrie realized. “He’s spent some of his evenings skulking about in town. If anyone knows the layout, it’d be him.”

“But what if he’s the traitor?”

“Frank, stop accusing Glen of things already,” Carrie sighed, turning and slamming her mallet down on his head in exasperation.

“Um, but Carrie, I, like, said that,” Chartreuse noted, waving a wing as Frank fought to keep his balance.

“Yeah, Carrie, stop hitting on my boyfriend!” Luci declared, swinging her own hammer at Carrie. Carrie managed to block with her mallet… then both objects simply disappeared. Both Carrie and Luci blinked at each other in surprise.

“The magic problem is worse here,” Clarke decided. “We need to get going. Let’s at least see what Glen turns up, it could give us a starting point. Okay?”

Everyone present exchanged glances and nods. “And as a show of good faith, maybe Glen can grab me some of that aspirin stuff while he’s in town?” Frank mumbled.

“Crazy other animals,” Glen grumbled as he scampered down the alleyway. “As if I didn’t know it’s been four days - they didn’t expect me to know where Shady and Mindy were right away, did they?"

The raccoon peered out onto the darkened street and then headed down towards the part of town where the warehouses were located. “For a small town, it’s sure trying to work towards having more industry,” Glen observed. He soon found a hole in the fencing around the complex, and squeezed through. “Now, let’s see… that paper I found in Shady’s trash yesterday, it said Linquist was using Warehouse 3… hopefully I can find something in there to appease the masses.”

As it turned out, the warehouse was locked, but a few smashes on the padlock with a large rock allowed Glen to gain access. “Hmmmm,” Glen murmured as he scanned the interior - which was not much larger than your average sized human apartment. “If I know these humans, there’ll be a… yup, right over there.”

He hurried over to the corner that held the video surveillance equipment, and after giving it a look, he wound the tape back to erase his presence. He then pulled out his magical magnet and waved it over the devices for good measure. If it was strong enough to attract a garbage can, it was probably strong enough to mess with their electronics.

“At least the town’s still small enough to have lousy security,” Glen muttered. “Shady probably installed this in here himself. Still, it’s possible that there’s a silent alarm too, so I should work fast.”

The raccoon turned to start a quick search of the bins and filing cabinets, pausing as a file out in the open caught his attention. Sitting right next to the TV monitor, it was labelled ‘Security Breach 08/22/88’.

“Yesterday?” Glen mused. He flipped open the folder and his eyebrows went up. “Oho! Well then, it would seem we’ve found our traitor…”

“It’s, like, ridiculous, having to be up this early,” Chartreuse yawned as she looked out at the lake. “The sun’s barely up. Why can’t Glen stay up later, rather than, you know, waking us earlier?”

“Time is of the essence at this point,” Corry grunted. “Hell, last night I couldn’t get my yardstick to stay around long enough to take a precise measurement!”

“He’s trying to install new drapes in our cave,” Laurie explained brightly. “The old ones are so drab, even if they do compliment the existing decor so well. Soon we may even get a window to go with them too though looking at your faces I’m probably acting too perky for the hour so I should shut up now, should I?”

“It’s not THAT early,” Carrie insisted. “I’ve been up at this hour to meet with Glen before. We’ve watched sunrises together, it was romantic.”

“Hm, speaking of romantic, has anyone seen Luci?” Frank asked. “She seemed to disappear after yesterday morning’s meeting.”

“I’m sure she’ll be along,” Julie replied, filing her claws once again. “Unless she’s the traitor, that is.” Frank frowned.

“Well, hey, let’s just hope Glen has a stronger lead today, okay?” Lee put in. “What with infighting giving me a worse headache than the ones Frank gets from not reacting in time."

A silence fell upon the group. A few minutes later, Glen hurried out of the treeline and headed towards them. “Glen!” Carrie cried out happily, her bunny ears quivering. “Have you brought us good news at last?"

“Well, I have news,” Glen said, holding up a folder of papers. “It’ll be good for some, not so good for others.”

“Meaning what?” Clarke asked.

“Meaning, I think we’ve got our traitor," Glen explained. He flipped open the folder, and tossed a picture out onto the grass. Everyone leaned in for a closer look. There was a moment of silence. Then Corry made a lunge for Julie.

“Get her!” the bear snarled as Julie rolled away, firing her nail file at him. It grazed by Corry’s ear. Coming up on all fours, Julie then made a leap towards the trees, only to have the flickering forms of a broom and a tennis racquet crisscross in front of her. She hesitated only momentarily before making a move to dodge underneath them, but that moment was enough to allow her to be brought up short by a yank from behind.

“Ow ow ow ow!” Julie shrieked, falling onto the ground. “The tail is attached, you know!”

“Consider it retribution for all the times you’ve salivated over me and my kind,” Carrie shot back. “Now it’s time for a rabbit to put YOU on a hotplate!”

“Again with the persecution,” Julie said, turning her head, eyes flashing. “You have no evidence that I’m the traitor! So I’ve been in a human warehouse, so what??”

“So,” Glen said, clearing his throat, “you know more than what you’ve been telling. I also turned up THESE files–” He paused to toss some more pages on the ground. “–which show an agreement between Linquist and an unnamed co-conspirator to do the dumping in that clearing. Unless I’m very much mistaken, that top document has your paw print on it.”

“What??” Julie shrieked.

“I always knew you were a sly fox, Julie,” Corry said, glaring at her while rubbing his ear. “But I never realized how low you’d stoop to get your own way around here.”

“I should have guessed," Carrie said, bitterly. “I know she made friends with me only to secure the bunny vote in our part of the forest, so I should have KNOWN she’d betray us.” She took firmer hold of the tail in her paw and twisted it.

“Will you CUT THAT OUT?” Julie said, baring her teeth at the rabbit. “For the moment, I’m not going anywhere! And fine, I’ll admit that I’ve started doing a little covert work with that human Mindy, but it was only to discover what was really going on!”

“Then how do you, you know, explain this contract?” Chartreuse inquired, holding it out.

“I don’t know,” Julie said, peering at it. “Mindy did make me put my paw on something after I approached her, for her own protection. But that wasn’t it.”

“And what’s the reason for the security photo?” Frank asked.

“Mindy gave me the key to their warehouse the other evening. I went looking for files relating to the dumping. But Mindy said nothing about surveillance equipment… I think I’m being set up!”

-We’ve shifted from ‘Detour’ into ‘Omen’, as there will now be elements of foreshadowing for the end of this Book, and into Book 4. Any thoughts? Any desire to vote at WFG?

Previously: Hank Waterson writes a story about woodland creatures with magical powers who have the names of Carrie’s friends. … Roll with it.

PART 3.20b: WOODLANDS DETOUR 2

“The others… are coming…” Carrie panted out as she skidded to a halt at the water’s edge. She reached out to splash a little water on her face. “Oh yes, didn’t even take the direct route, and I still win!"

“Some things never change?” Clarke said, swimming closer to the bank.

“Ooh, yes, you always seem to do it, Carrie!” Laurie said, having come closer herself. “You’re so cool, with the hopping and the bouncing and the dashing and it’s hard to say whether a bunny can tap into the magic better than we can or if you’re just naturally so athletic but either way you’re an inspiration to us all and I really wish I had some of your coordination because I can never seem to stand on my ball for very long without falling off of it though you know that stuff could be completely different from magical ability so forget I said anything about it and oooh, what’s that new thing you’ve got hanging around your neck??”

By the time Carrie had explained to Laurie about the charm Glen had given her, Frank, Luci and Chartreuse had all made their way to the lake. “I found, you know, most of the early sentients,” Chartreuse hooted at Clarke. “I figured we didn’t need Jeeves or Megan or especially Azure or…”

“This is fine,” Clarke assured. “Now, the reason for calling you all here is because of what I found while felling some saplings to the north.”

“Near the human settlement?” Corry said, arcing an eyebrow.

“Right,” Clarke answered. “See, there’s this place that’s kinda glowy and tingly which does not feel good and… well, you have to see it for yourself. I ran into Lee up there and he’s keeping an eye on things.”

“Freaky,” Luci said at last. None of the others had spoken since arriving at the outskirts of the small clearing. “So,” the squirrel continued, “any ideas on what’s causing the weird green glow? Or any of the other effects, like the dying trees?”

“Nope, but I wouldn’t suggest going in there to find out,” Lee said. “I tried shuffling closer to that tree in the clearing’s centre and nearly sank right into the bog.”

“It must have freaked you out,” Corry observed. “You’ve let your quills do a shredding job on your jacket again.”

Lee shrugged. “Life of a porcupine is never easy.”

“Well, I could totally fly out to that tree,” Chartreuse offered.  “Except, you know, I’m more of a water bird and the thing looks like it’s dying so might not support my weight…”

“You see now why I thought we should check this out though, right?” Clarke noted.

“Yes,” Julie replied, frowning. “The question is what does this mean?”

“Ooh! Ooh, wait,” Laurie broke in. “I know this clearing! I used to play around here a couple years ago - in fact didn’t we all have that big forest glade party here? It was around the same time a number of us were getting that whole self awareness thing!” She began nodding vigorously. “Yeah, yeah, we were celebrating that, and I’m pretty sure the party was here, because it was shortly thereafter that I first conjured my clothes and my ball! Am I right or am I right??”

“I think you’re right,” Frank realized. “Except this clearing didn’t look the same, not back then. It wasn’t marshy, there was more grass, less of an odour…”

“And less general eerieness,” Corry agreed. “But we stopped coming here shortly thereafter. When the human settlement expanded.”

“Bah, you’re imagining things, I haven’t been here before,” Carrie countered. She had moved to a position a little ways around the perimeter. “Now c’mere and check this out, I’ve found some partially submerged human looking barrels!”

Everyone headed over to see what Carrie was looking at. “Um, hate to tell you this Carrie, but those barrels don’t look like humans at all,” Chartreuse noted.

“Thank you Miss Literal,” Carrie countered. “Sheesh, why couldn’t we have magically learned a language that was less ambiguous than English?”

“Barrels of human origin, I understood you,” Luci said. “Moreover, that has to be the source of the ground acting like some wacky bioengineered sports drink.”

“Say, I think that’s a label out there,” Lee said, pointing. “Fell off a barrel. Anyone want to get close enough to read it?”

“Allow me,” Clarke offered, pulling out his magic lacrosse stick and extending it into the clearing. He used the mesh to snare the paper and pull it back in to the group.

“Okay, um, it says… ‘Linquist’s Dribs and Drabs’,” Frank mused, after smoothing out the sheet. He looked up. “What’s a Linquist?”

“Whatever it is, it sounds really evil,” Luci decided.

“Look, guys… I really don’t think we should hang around here any longer,” Julie decided. “And when someone as fearless as me is saying that, I’d pay attention!”

“Much as I hate to admit it, Julie has a point," Corry chimed in. “After all, what if we’re exposing ourselves to the very source of the recent magical drain? We could be getting dumber and less powerful without realizing it.”

“Hold on a minute,” Carrie said, having again moved a short distance away. Her ears twitched in the air. “I’ve found a wide path back here and… do you hear that? There’s some sort of engine approaching.”

There was a pause as everyone listened for the noise.  Then Lee’s eyes went wide. “Truck!” the porcupine announced.

“Humans?” Laurie gasped.

“Scatter!” Clarke shouted.

The 4x4 backed carefully down the trail, up to the edge of the clearing, after which both driver and passenger exited the vehicle. The red haired driver turned to regard her companion, who kept his hat pulled down low over his eyes. “Hey, Shady,” she ventured as he climbed into the rear of the truck. “You SURE we should be dumping this stuff so close to our town?”

The man in the hat gave an irritated grunt as he undid the rope that was holding two new barrels in place. “It has to be here, Mindy,” he affirmed. “It’s the only way to deal with our little sentient animal problem.”

“Right. I know. But what we’re doing, it won’t harm anyone, right?” Mindy pressed.

“You say that like we’re blowing up a hospital or something,” Shady grumbled. “Trust me, all this glop will do is shut down a crazy ecosystem that should never have existed in the first place.” He threw the rope aside. “In a couple months, this whole area will be clear for more development, more businesses, more jobs, and better living conditions.” He pulled the top off of one barrel of green slime, and then kicked it out the back hatch of the truck. It fell into the edge of the bog.

“Ah. Good points, I guess…”

“Besides. Even if what we’re doing here comes to light, and people object, I’m reworking things so that Linquist takes the fall,” Shady added, his grin visible beneath his hat. “We have a bright future ahead of us, Mindy, mark my words!”

“Yes, well, I want to believe that,” Mindy sighed. “But then there are other times when I get to thinking about the animals, and I wonder…”

Shady cut Mindy off with a growl as he rolled the second barrel out the back. “First concern for humans, now animals?” he rasped. “For gosh sakes, Mindy, pick a damn side!”

“Can’t I be on both sides?” Mindy protested.

Shady mumbled something under his breath. “Look, I can guarantee to you that what we’re doing here is perfectly fine for the animals. Okay?!”

“Oh? And how can you do that?”

“Because I’ve been in contact with one of them sentient beasts for weeks now,” Shady said with a grin. “In fact, that’s the thing that assured me any so-called magical effects around here will dry up after another week or so of dumping. So don’t cry for the animals, Mindy. Because they want to be rid of their mistakenly acquired human-like sentience as much as we want it too!”

That said, Shady closed up the back of the truck and returned to the passenger seat. He only looked back out when he realized Mindy wasn’t following him. “Aw, what is it NOW?” he sighed.

Mindy blinked and shook her head. “Oh, sorry. It was the weirdest thing… but when you spoke of the animals that way, I could have sworn I heard a collective gasp coming from all around us.”

Shaking her head, she returned to the cabin of the truck, started the ignition, and drove away.

-Shady’s back! Kind of. Not really. Are you enjoying this? Care to vote for T&T, or otherwise let me know?

-Incidentally, at less than 1500 words and only 9 kB in a text file, this marks the shortest entry in the series… ever. Even Part 47 (Respite) was over 1500, and having completed edits on Book 4 last weekend, I can say all future parts are longer than this.

Previously: The time group fractured. Mindy used mental powers to get Hank Waterson to write a letter, warning his daughter Carrie about Glen.

PART 3.20a: WOODLANDS DETOUR 1

“This isn’t working,” Hank Waterson decided, after another twenty minutes of struggling with his novel. “I need to take a step back and get away from all this angst. Maybe… yes, of course. There was that collection of short stories requesting submissions before the end of the year. I’ll have another go at that.”

Hank closed his current document and reached into his desk drawer to pull out a small folder labeled ‘Woodland Creatures’. “Now, let’s see… I was superficially basing these new characters on Carrie and some of her classmates… I must remember to change the names later.” Hank half smiled as he browsed back over his character outlines, then began to write.

It was a bright sunny day, and Carrie was hopping merrily down the woodlands path, her long bunny ears jutting out cutely behind her.

“Did you want some barley to go with your hops?" chattered a nearby voice. Carrie turned to see a chipmunk watching her from a nearby tree stump. She immediately produced a huge croquet mallet from out of nowhere, using it to bonk Frank on the head.

“No rabbit puns!" the bunny girl accused.

“And stop watching Carrie!” came another voice, a smaller hammer coming down next to the mallet. “Remember, you’re dating me, not her.” Luci adjusted her skirt and twitched her long squirrel tail, after which both her and Carrie’s magical objects were dispelled back to the nothing from whence they came.

“I… I just thought Carrie might need some cheering up…” Frank protested, his eyes spinning around in a swirly pattern. “After last night’s date with Glen…”

“Hm. How DID that go?” Luci asked, scampering closer to Carrie. “Did you learn any more about him?"

“I learned he’s very generous,” Carrie said. She reached into her tank top and pulled out a small pendant on a chain. “Seeing as he gave me this present!"

“I still don’t trust him,” Frank protested. “I mean, Glen’s always wearing that mask…”

“He’s a raccoon,” Carrie reminded. She pulled out her mallet again for an over the shoulder shot, but this time Frank managed to produce his magical tennis racquet in time to block her. “There you go, much better reflexes that time,” the bunny applauded him.

“Your pendant seems to be glowing though," Luci mused, scampering left, right, over Carrie’s head and then under her arms to try and get a better look. “Is that normal? Should we analyze it?”

“It does make me feel all tingly,” Carrie admitted. “But this is a magical forest. One expects to have such tingles.”

“Does one? Because we’ve been feeling less and less of those," Luci reminded her, whiskers twitching. “It must be that the magic is fading, and we don’t know why.”

“Right, good point," Carrie sighed. “Soon the humans in that nearby settlement are going to see through the illusions, and start wondering why we wear clothes and have opposable thumbs on our paws.”

“Actually,” Frank piped up again, “we English-speaking clothes-wearing animals are the exception in this forest, not the norm. It’s more likely that we’ll simply lose the ability for higher thought, reverting back to being much more typical forest creatures."

“Yes, thank you for that uplifting reminder, Frank,” Carrie grumbled.

“He does make a point though,” Luci chattered. “If this magic fade keeps up, we may lose the ability to conjure our items, which makes us more vulnerable to… FOX!"

Luci made a jump for a nearby tree as Carrie spun, already whipping out her mallet. It’s handle connected solidly with a long pool cue, and Carrie grimaced with the effort of holding the solid length of wood at bay. “Why don’t you give this up already?” the bunny said through gritted teeth. “You’re never going to get me, Julie.”

“Just keeping you on your toes, much like how you do with Frank,” the fox replied, flashing a smile from behind the cue. “You don’t really think I’d eat a friend, do you?”

“I’d be more convinced if you’d stop licking your lips at the sight of me,” Carrie retorted.

“Aw. You know I can’t control my biology,” Julie said innocently. “Come on Carrie, have faith. This is only a test. Because here’s the thing, it feels to me like your parrying skills are slipping, and if I really wanted to, I could probably–"

Julie stopped speaking as, with a little flash, Carrie’s croquet mallet completely vanished. With a shout of surprise, Carrie jumped to the side, even as Julie executed a quick flip over her pool cue to land on her feet instead of her face.

“Hey!” Frank shouted in surprise. “You shouldn’t be able to counter her conjured item like that! Not that I’m complaining or anything,” he added, as Julie turned her gaze upon him. “And I’d get stuck in your throat, we know I would.”

With a shake of her head and a swish of her long red tail, Julie flipped her long wooden pole back into the null space from whence it had come. “I’m so misunderstood,” she lamented. “I’ve never so much as nibbled on a fellow sentient creature. I eat berries, grasses and fruit.”

“And insects, and fish, and mice…” Luci muttered.

“None of whom talk back to me. What, a fox girl can’t vary her diet from time to time?”

“Don’t change the subject," Frank protested. “What was with your dispelling of Carrie’s mallet??”

“Julie didn’t do that,” Carrie admitted, her bunny nose twitching. “It’s weird, I just… couldn’t hold it any more. You were right, Luci. This magic fading stuff is accelerating.”

“Or you’ve been playing around with your magic abilities too much, Carrie,” Julie retorted. She produced a nail file from the fur behind her ear and began using it on her claws. “It’s like I’ve always said. Only strike when it’s to your advantage to do so.”

“Still, in the year since we got these powers, none of us have ever really questioned where the source magic came from,” Frank chattered. “That now feels like a major oversight on our part.”

“Yeah, you never know what you’ve got until you start losing it,” Luci agreed. “But at this point, where would we even start looking for the source of our sentience power?”

The four animals exchanged uncertain glances. The silence was broken by a familiar voice came from overhead. “News, news, I’ve totally got news, you know!” Chartreuse called. “Calling all sentients, I’ve totally got… oh hey, there you guys are!”

“Oh good, a visit from our resident loon,” Julie said dryly.

Chartreuse dipped down lower, circling above the others as she spoke. “There’s news over at the lake!” the loon wailed. “Clarke’s found something that could be important, we should all, you know, get together and get over there ASAP! I’ve already notified Corry and Laurie and they…”

“What?!” Julie interrupted, jerking her head up. “Nuts!”

“Hm? Nuts?” Luci said, perking her head up.

“Chartreuse! I asked you to STOP telling Corry stuff before you tell me!” the fox girl shouted. Quickly discarding her nail file, Julie dropped to all fours and dashed off in the direction of the lake.

“Well, Corry was totally closer,” the loon said to Julie’s retreating form. “Now, hey, has anyone seen Glen?”

“He’s doing his nocturnal thing,” Carrie replied. “It’s okay, I can fill him in later. Come on, I’ll race everyone to the water’s edge!”

“Race? Oh, sure,” Frank mumbled as Carrie bounded off without waiting for a reply. “Except since the rabbit is always the fastest, what’s the point…”

At the mouth of the lake, the only sound was that of the river water splashing down over the rocks. A bear sat quietly on the bank, looking into the rushing current, apparently scanning for fish. He adjusted his silk shirt, cocked his head to the side… then quickly spun, producing a reinforced yardstick. “Don’t even try it.”

“Try what?” Julie inquired, standing up from where she had been crouched the grass. She brushed off her jeans.

“You know what,” Corry grumped, still pointing the yardstick at her. “You and that pool cue, you’re always searching for some balls to smack around. There will be none of that happening here!”

“Ugh, well what ELSE am I supposed to do with my stupid cue?" the fox sniffed. “At least YOU got a handy measuring tool.”

“Hmph,” the bear grunted noncommittally. He dispelled his stick and turned back to the water. “I still can’t believe how we predatory animals were somehow reduced to conjuring up little more than makeshift clubs. I mean, who decided that any potentially useful weapon could only be generated by the prey?”

“Fate?” Julie guessed, moving closer to Corry while still keeping a respectful distance. “Or, see it as a challenge. If we don’t have an actual mallet, we’re forced to think, which keeps our minds fresh."

“Mmm. Yeah, I guess. Still, if I had a human crossbow, I could take over your part of the forest in no time.”

“And if I had a human rifle, you’d be ousted from your area so fast it would make your head spin,” Julie smirked. “But since that’s not the case, we have to make the best of our situation. Like how your sister does.” Julie pointed past Corry towards the treeline. Laurie was now visible there, amusing herself by trying to balance her beachball on her nose.

Corry’s face took on a pained look. “I say again, you and your pool cue leave my sister and her artistic interests out of this! She may be more teddy bear than brown bear right now, but eventually she’ll realize how she’s capable of so much more.”

“Right. Last I heard she was catching fish by talking them to death.”

“Julie…” Corry began dangerously, but he stopped upon hearing another animal approaching from the forest. At almost the same time, a beaver broke the surface of the water nearby.

“Hey!” Clarke called out from the lake, shaking water from his head. “Everyone assembled yet?"

-Yes, we will get a few parts of this. Are you enjoying it? Do you think it’s a colossal misstep? Does the animal mapping at least feel accurate? You can always vote or comment.

Previously: Clarke is talking to his sister Mary about conversations he had earlier that Sunday. Specifically, when Julie said the only way for her to fit in was to be alone.

PART 3.19b: SHATTERED 2

“All right,” Clarke decided. “If you’re out of the group, I’m out too. It will be like before, I’ll be your sounding board, and the two of us can–”

“NO, Clarke - it’s not like that now!” Julie interrupted. She sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Look… I-I’ll give you this much. Consider, if Glen has the power to alter anyone’s will, then anything I say or show - to anyone! - is only one more avenue he can use to figure me out. And so, even if you DON’T know what I’ll be doing, the more you see, the more likely it is that you’ll be coerced into saying something. Glen might even use you to… I can’t risk that.” She shook her head. “Glen already has the upper hand, given his knowledge of the future. I refuse to give him anyone… anything else he can use against me.”

Clarke frowned. “So this is about Glen.”

“Not completely. It’s… well, no, I’ve said too much already,” Julie decided. “But Clarke - Phil - please know that whatever happens to me in the coming months… I have truly appreciated everything that you’ve done for me. In the past, I used you, abused you, and you… you responded by showing compassion, understanding, and then by crossing the boundaries of time in order to save my life. In doing so, you, more than anyone else, showed me what true caring was all about. Thank you. I… I will never forget that.”

Her voice caught then, and she reached out for him, her fingertips brushing away some of his hair from his ear. Then, almost before he realized it, she was up on her toes, pressing her lips up against his.

In all the time they’d spent together as a pseudo-couple, ever since it had become “official” that day he’d brought the eclairs to her on that October day back in Grade Ten… they had never kissed on the lips. And now…

“I’m sorry,” Julie whispered, pulling back even as his arms moved to embrace her. “I shouldn’t have… Jeeves can show you out.”

“Jewels, don’t do this… JULIE!”

But she was gone, having turned and fled the room. Clarke ran to the doorway after her, and he called out to her again, but she did not return. Had he seen a tear at the corner of her eye before she turned? Or maybe, like so much of their relationship, maybe he’d only imagined it.

Outside, a light rain began to fall.

“Ouch,” Mary said quietly.

“Ouch,” Clarke repeated. “So it’s as I said, the only issues are between me and a number of my friends.”

“But one friend in particular.”

Clarke forced his tone to remain level. “One in particular,” he admitted. “Thing is Mary, I made a real mess of everything today, and Julie was simply the icing on the cake. So I keep running through everything in my mind, trying to figure out exactly where I went wrong… like maybe if I’d gone to Julie’s house FIRST this morning… or maybe if I’d pursued her up to her room…”

“Phil, second guessing yourself does no one any good. What’s done is done, you can’t change it.”

“Oh, Mary, you have no idea how often that subject gets debated around here,” Clarke groaned.

“My point is you now have to look towards the future. I mean, maybe this was just some spur of the moment thing on Julie’s part! Do you think she’ll come around again by the end of the week?”

“Julie doesn’t do spur of the moment,” Clarke countered. “Nor does she do things in half measures, so I… I think I’m cut off for good. Yet I’m pretty sure her current state of mind is tied up in all the other events that are going on right now! So… so maybe, if I figure out how to get everyone to truly accept her and treat her decently again, that will make things all right! What do you think??”

Mary didn’t reply at first. “Phil,” she began slowly, “It sounds to me like Julie is in even worse shape than Carrie. If she has truly cut you off, and no one was closer to Julie than you, will platitudes by other classmates really have much of an effect?”

“Well she… or maybe Corry could… that is… for God sakes Mary, I can’t just sit here and do nothing, can I?!”

His sister sighed audibly. “Bro, I know you don’t want to hear this, but from what I’ve learned about Julie since the events of your school last November? She wasn’t the most stable person to be in a relationship with anyway,” Mary said. “As such, maybe a little time apart will help give you both a little perspective. You can always approach Julie again later, yeah? And in the meantime, check in with that butler she has, to make sure she’s still seeing that Doctor Golden fellow.”

“You think she’s crazy.”

“I didn’t say that, Phil. I just think that she’s having some issues right now that are beyond the scope of what you or your friends can do to help her.”

“You think she’s crazy and that she needs more psychological counselling! Well, it’s not that!” Clarke said, slamming his free hand down on his desk as he shouted at the phone. If only he could have explained the full truth to Mary about Glen’s mental powers! “The trouble is, none of us can talk about what’s at the core of all this!” he said, frustrated. “No adult would ever believe what we… would ever… wait, Mary, you said you’re coming to town, right?!”

A pause. “Yeesssss…” his sister said guardedly.

“And you’re already into fourth year university, so you know a lot about psychoanalyzing people, right?”

“Phil, I see where you’re going with this, and no.”

“But Mary, it’s perfect!” Clarke insisted. “If I can’t help Julie, I can at least provide her with a counsellor who might do her some actual good! One who can be told the whole truth and who won’t try to have us all certified insane!”

“Bro, the whole family shrink thing is just me putting on airs,” Mary countered firmly. “I’m angling for a PhD, so I still have a lot more schooling to do before I could even THINK of safely giving professional advice!”

“Mary… please,” Clarke pleaded. “Think of all the times in the past when we were moving from place to place, and you helped me out. You didn’t need a signed piece of paper to do that! Julie needs someone, and… and you’re all I’ve got. Besides, you know I’ve been dodging around things, this way I’d finally be able to tell you everything. In person.”

The silence on the other end of the phone extended for so long that Clarke wondered if they’d lost their connection. “Loverly,” his sister finally muttered. Then louder, “Phil, I will THINK about it, provided you do NOT endlessly bring this up with me between now and then.”

“Thank you,” Clarke replied, his mind already leaping ahead to her arrival. He’d explain about the time machine, and Glen, and Carrie, and then Mary would talk with Julie, learn what was bothering her, and then everything would be all right again. Yes, everything would be all right again…

Nothing would ever be all right, not any more. But, Julie wondered, did she really deserve any better? She wiped her cheeks dry with the palm of her hand and stood up, pulling the letter out of her pocket once more. The same letter that had been left in her mailbox that morning.

She scanned over the contents for what felt like the hundredth time. “She’s right,” Julie whispered, as she reached the bottom of the page. “I am the only one who can do this. But that knowledge doesn’t make it any easier.”

Julie clenched her fists, then ripped the paper in half, followed by the envelope, before crumpling them both in her hand. Letting out a long breath, she tossed the pieces into the fireplace. One match later, and they were both burned down into ash.

Julie then proceeded up to her room, removing the silver brooch she wore in the shape of a rose. She placed it into the small jewellery box on her vanity, then after a moment of hesitation, picked it back up and shoved it back into the depths of her lowermost drawer.

“All right,” Julie said calmly to herself. “Long term planning is your forte, and Carrie knew that. It’s time for a new plan.”

Carrie glowered at the black box sitting on her bedroom floor. “I WILL destroy you!” she stated. As if saying that out loud would somehow make that possible future into a reality. The trouble was, the time machine was the only failsafe she had. The only tool any of them had which could undo things if she lost control of her time powers.

She was sure that’s why Glen didn’t like it. But it was also the reason she’d insisted on keeping it with her, after regaining consciousness last night. Like a crutch.

What WAS it Glen was so worried about? Oh sure, he’d framed it as, if Carrie were always thinking about ways her friends might be able to save her from herself, she’d never properly develop into the temporal being she was supposed to be. Screwing up their wondrous timeline three. But was it only that? Did Glen think someone else could get their hands on it?

Then again, maybe they didn’t need the machine; if Carrie went golden-eyed nuts, they had that gun thing now.

“Keep quiet about that, or Glen’ll want you to destroy it too,” Carrie muttered. She pressed her palm into her forehead, then marched to the window. “Any future Carries want to come back to tell me what to do this time?” she called out into the darkness. “Send me a letter maybe? No?”

She stared down, and was reminded of the rocks Frank had been heaving up at her window from the backyard earlier that day. She’d called on her father to get rid of him. She probably shouldn’t have done that. She probably shouldn’t have done a lot of things. Like sending Chartreuse that message saying her mystical services would no longer be required. How many more bridges could she burn? Pretty soon, no one but Glen would even want to save her.

“Screw it,” Carrie sighed. She turned and knelt back down in front of the time machine. Yet as she reached out to open it, a thought occurred. Glen had been teaching her about pushing objects out of time, the foundation of banishment. She even remembered doing it with a glass that time in the hospital… somehow. “And what, you think you can push the time machine into the future, for later use?” she muttered aloud. “You can barely budge a thumbtack two seconds ahead.”

No, her mind reasoned back. But Frank or Luci might know of some way to rig the time machine for an automatic run, sending it forwards in time without a pilot. That way, if the apocalypse happened, derailing everything, the time machine would still reappear at some point in the future. Letting someone fix it. Besides, would waiting an extra few days, allowing herself to calm down, be such a bad thing?

Carrie stood back up. Okay then, she would at least explore that avenue. After all, what was the worst thing that could happen?

-Next Episode: Woodlands Detour

-How’re you doing out there? Thoughts on revelations? Still a vote button at the top of the page. New Commentary this Sunday.

Previously: Mindy was banished by Carrie, but left a warning message about Glen, via her father. Carrie was knocked out by an energy gun… in fact, most people were knocked out by something.

PART 3.18a: MAKING THE ROUNDS 1

“Yeah, right into the library,” Clarke admitted, lying back on his bed as he held the phone receiver up to his ear. “But we’re… we’re all fine here.”

“You don’t sound sure of that,” Mary remarked. “Look, sorry I didn’t make it back for Thanksgiving – Doug wanted me to meet his family - but I’ll be making it up to everyone by coming to your first basketball game of the season in a few weeks. Okay?”

Clarke found he was unable to hold back a smile. “That’s great news, Mary! Just… just great!”

“Uh huh. Okay Phil, even if I weren’t majoring in psychology? I’d know something was wrong. Out with it.”

“What? I… uh…” Clarke shook his head. “I swear I’ll manage to bluff you one of these days! Though seriously, the family’s fine. School’s fine. The only issues are, well, between me and a number of my friends.”

“Yeah? You want to talk about it? I’m speaking as your sister here, not as the family shrink.”

Clarke passed his hand in front of his eyes. “Actually,” he sighed. “It seems like I’ve already spent this whole Sunday talking…”

It had made sense for him to visit Carrie first. She had been the last to regain consciousness the previous night, and she hadn’t spoken to anyone at Julie’s place, except to ask Glen to take her home. Yet even though she had looked normal at the time, blue eyes and all, Clarke was worried. Not only about Carrie herself, but also at the rift that was again forming between her and Julie.

Mr. Waterson answered the door when Clarke knocked. “I’m afraid Carrie is unavailable to speak with friends today,” he said immediately. “She’s been acting too irresponsibly of late.”

“Oh, well… she kinda has information I need for a group project,” Clarke hedged. “It’ll only take ten minutes.”

“She’ll be at school tomorrow,” Mr. Waterson pointed out. “This can’t wait?”

“Not really. It’s sort of extra curricular. A lot of us are involved in it,” Clarke explained. He disliked skirting the truth like this, particularly around someone like Carrie’s father, but he really did want to speak with her. Though as it turned out, while Clarke’s reasoning was enough to get him an audience, Carrie wasn’t in much of a talking mood.

“Did Julie send you?” the blonde questioned. She marched across the living room, heading for the window, arms crossed. She didn’t even look his way.

“No. But that’s just it, I am a little concerned about the friction building up in our little temporal group…”

“Then you’ll be glad to hear it’s not a group any more,” Carrie cut back in. “There will be no more use of the time machine. If you’ll take that message back to the others, I think we’re done here."

Clarke winced. “Look, Carrie… I know having your powers released again must have been rough…”

“Rough? ROUGH?!” Carrie spun away from the window to face him now, her blue eyes blazing with anger - yet there was something else there too. Fear? “You have NO idea, Clarke, NONE at ALL, all right??” Carrie shot back. “Suffice to say, there’s going to be nothing more going on that’s even remotely temporally related until Glen and I can balance these forces inside me!”

Clarke waited until some of the tension had drained out of the air. “Then you didn’t change over willingly last night,” he stated, in a tone that invited comment.

“No, I… well, yes," Carrie said. Her gaze slipped away. “It was a plan me and Glen devised to deal with Mindy. I was to give myself up to that inner demon when I heard Glen say the words ‘swan song’. I chose those words myself, because I had this crystal swan three years ago that… oh, why am I even bothering to explain this to you?!”

“Because sometimes it helps to talk about stuff?” Clarke offered.

“Yeah, that worked out SO well on Thursday, when me and Julie were at cross purposes,” Carrie shot back. Clarke winced, recalling the slap. She jabbed a finger back in his direction. “I’m done. With the group, even with Chartreuse. Glen is the only person who can help me now."

“You’re sure we can trust him, then,” Clarke said, again not quite phrasing it like a question. “Even with his apparent mental abilities.”

“Yes!” Carrie said forcefully. She drew a shaky breath. “Yes, I have to trust him. Because he’s all I’ve got. It doesn’t matter what Mindy put in that letter she left with my father, I can’t simply…” She stopped. “Scratch that. You never heard that, there is no letter.”

“Er, okay…”

“In fact, I don’t ever want to hear Mindy’s name again,” Carrie went on. “I don’t know what time I sent her to, and I’d rather not think about it. You can tell that to the others too!”

“Then you’re sure none of us can–”

“Damn it Clarke, there’s no US! No group, not any more!” Carrie interrupted. She pursed her lips. “Except… okay, maybe answer me one question? What was it that pulled me out of doomsday-Carrie mentality last night? Because somehow, I know that wasn’t Glen.”

Clarke accepted the change of subject, explaining to Carrie about the gun that had been discovered in Linquist’s safe. “Great, I was a weapons guinea pig,” the blonde moaned, pressing a hand into her temples. “You probably should have killed me outright, who knows what long term effects will plague me now.”

“Well, if it looks like you’re growing a third arm, you let somebody know, all right?” Clarke responded, venturing a smile. Carrie was hard to read, but she seemed to be calming down. “I mean, time travel or not, we want to help you. That’s all we’ve ever been trying to do.”

Carrie moved her hand to rub the bridge of her nose. “I know,” she murmured. “I know. But here’s the sad thing. None of you can help me, at least not safely.” Her gaze fell upon Clarke once more, and this time he was pretty sure that she was trying not to cry. “Look. We’re still done, but tell Julie I’m sorry for slapping her the other day, all right? Her idea was actually a good one."

Clarke began to respond that it would be better for Carrie to tell Julie that herself, but the blonde cheerleader was already brushing past him. Before he could get out half a sentence, Carrie was out of the living room and running upstairs.

“So you say Carrie has major emotional issues owing to some burden that’s been placed on her?” Mary mused. “I hate to tell you this bro, but emotional issues are typical for teenagers."

“Yeah, but this is the sort of burden no one should ever have to carry alone,” Clarke countered, switching the phone to his other ear. “So given Carrie’s pushing people away because of it, that can’t be healthy.”

“Probably not,” Mary agreed. “But even so, I wager there’s one or two people who can still get through to her. If not you, any other candidates?”

“Well, Glen. Or the next best bet would be Frank… I actually ran into him in front of the house, after talking with Carrie.”

“You might have trouble getting past Carrie’s father,” Clarke cautioned. “I think she’s sort of grounded.”

“Oh.” Frank frowned. “I really think we need to talk about that whole temporal plan I authorized though, and she isn’t answering her phone.”

“Try saying it’s an extra curricular group project,” Clarke offered. “That got me past Mr. Waterson. Getting Carrie to talk at all though… that may be the real challenge. I didn’t exactly soften her up. If anything, I did the opposite. Sorry, Frank.”

“Well, historically speaking she’s had more experience through high school using people as tools versus being their friends,” Frank observed. “A bit like Julie. So it’s a matter of us working around that, right? I mean, would she be able to ignore me indefinitely if I was heaving rocks up at her window?”

“Depends on how good your aim is.”

Frank grimaced. “Well, there’s that oak tree, I can get reasonably close if I have to.”

“Maybe you and Luci could tag team on it?” Clarke suggested.

There was a pause in the conversation then, awkward enough for Clarke to realize that he’d accidentally hit a nerve. “Julie explained to me about the log book and the gun Luci found,” Frank said at last. “While we were waiting for her to regain consciousness. I think… that is, it feels like me and Luci have issues there. We barely talked when I was walking her home after. Maybe I’m trying to avoid that situation now, by coming to see Carrie instead. I don’t know.”

“Relationships do generate issues,” Clarke agreed. “If nothing else, it’s good that you’re acknowledging one.”

“I’m not sure I am. Girls are a mystery. I don’t know how you and Julie manage to keep it all together. Say, do you think Carrie would let me travel a week into the future, to see how I handle things with Luci?”

Clarke pursed his lips. “Frank, I’d strongly recommend avoiding any talk of time travel with Carrie today. Even jokingly.”

Frank let out a long breath. “That bad, huh? Guess my work is cut out for me then.” He shook his head. “I’m starting to feel like I should have gone to see Chartreuse this morning instead. As girls go, she at least feels approachable right now.”

“Well, whatever you decide, let me know if I can be of any help," Clarke said, clapping the other teen on the shoulder.

“I will,” Frank replied, reaching up to touch the bandage on the side of his head. “Thing is, the relationship stuff? I think I’ll have to work it out by myself."

“Do you think Frank was able to help Carrie then?” Mary asked.

“I really don’t know,” Clarke sighed. “It became the least of my worries. See, I wanted to check up on Tim today too, because of how he got involved in recent events. But before I got to his house, there was this other encounter. When I passed by the local cafe, I saw Glen. He was talking with Lee. So I went in to find out what that was about.”

-Who remembers Mary Clarke from Book 1, Part 11? Some main characters do have siblings. Thoughts on character reactions so far?

Previously: When Mindy reappears, Glen and Carrie plan to banish her, while Julie and the others plan to capture her. Luci has discovered a “temporal gun” in Linquist’s safe.

PART 3.17b: BANISHMENT 2

“Well?” said the voice Glen recognized as belonging to Luci. “Does it say the gun freezes people in time or not?”

“I d-don’t know yet! I can’t t-translate under these conditions!” came the reply.

“Steady on Tim,” Clarke soothed. “Here, I’ll hold the flashlight.”

Glen moved to intercept the four individuals. “Clarke!” he called out amiably. “Luci, Julie, Tim! Fancy meeting all of you here.”

“Glen?” Julie said. “Uh, didn’t Carrie tell you that this is an incredibly unsafe place to be right now??”

“Is it?” Glen said, blinking. “You should all be on your way somewhere else then.”

“Can’t,” Luci retorted. “We have some presents for Mindy, when she arrives here.”

“They can wait,” Glen insisted. “I really, REALLY think we should convince ourselves that it would be safer somewhere else.”

The four teenagers looked at each other. “G-Good enough for me,” Tim said, turning around.

“It does make sense,” Clarke agreed. “We should head home.”

“I’m not so sure,” Luci said, frowning. “Yet I’m thinking of a lot of places where I’d rather be.”

“No. No way. There’s nowhere else I would rather be right now,” Julie murmured, her body starting to shake. “Not after what I’ve caused.”

“Julie should bring you back to her place and serve some hot chocolate,” Glen continued calmly. “It’s getting cold out here and you’re all thirsty.”

“It IS cold,” Luci agreed.

“And I am thirsty,” Clarke added.

“Aren’t you guys coming?” Tim wondered, already three steps away.

“Why… what… why…" And Julie’s gaze focused in on Glen. “My God. YOU’RE ONE OF THEM!"

Glen turned quickly to focus all of his attention onto her. “Julie, don’t–” he began, but he got no further. With a speed and agility that surprised him, she had leapt to his side, while dashing a liquid out onto a rag in her hand. He tried to push her away.

“Nap time, mind warper!” the brunette cried out, slipping under Glen’s arm and slapping the rag against his face.

“No!” Glen protested, trying to keep from breathing in. “I have to wake…” His knees buckled, his vision blurred. “…goddamit… uhn, C-Carrie, SWAN SONG!” His last cry delivered in little more than a speaking voice, Glen then fell unconscious.

Julie stared down at her unconscious adversary. “Okay,” she decided. “Weird choice of last words…”

“Uh, guys? Whatever Glen meant by that, it was loud enough to get someone’s attention,” Clarke said, raising a finger to point over Julie’s shoulder. Julie turned, in time to see the figure rising up from the ground in the vicinity of the swingset. The figure had long blonde hair flowing out behind her, and when she turned, her eyes were glowing gold in the darkness.

“You will be banished,” Carrie said, raising her finger to point at the group of them.

“Ohhh HELL!” Julie swore, eyes going wide.

Luci immediately reached into her jacket, yanking out the gun she had been concealing. Originally in multiple parts within the safe, it’s six inch long barrel had now been screwed into the base, which itself was comprised of numerous of dials and lights. The main one showing four settings. Fortunately, while it seemed to be an energy weapon, it was at least partially charged, and included a standard trigger.

“Tim?” Luci said, trying to keep her hand from shaking. “We need the stats on this sucker like NOW.”

Electricity began to spark at the end of Carrie’s fingertips as she strode forwards. Clarke grabbed Tim, and both of them backed off to the right, as Luci and Julie began to circle around slowly to the left. Carrie paused as they split up.

“Okay, Carrie,” Julie began. “Stay calm here. We’re your friends.” She saw the movement in Carrie’s elbow a split second before her hand came out, and only just managed to dive out of the way of the crackling energies the blonde fired at her.

“Tim?” Luci called out again. “I can’t simply start firing this thing at random, I may only have the one shot! Is there a setting I can use to merely knock Carrie out?”

“D-Don’t rush me!” the small boy called back. “I need a minute, Linquist’s short form never makes sense!”

“I hope you have a minute,” Luci mumbled before dodging in a little closer to Carrie. “Hey, hey, ignore Julie, look at me!” She then backpedalled furiously, even as Julie became aware of the sound of more running footsteps approaching.

However, while Carrie did begin to focus on Luci, the bright flash of light and the appearance of three more individuals about a metre in front of the blonde quickly had everyone’s attention.

“Oh, GEEZ!” Frank choked out, stumbling to his feet. Next to him, Corry and Mindy remained on the ground, unconscious.

“Frank, get DOWN!” Luci screamed out. “You’re spoiling my shot!!”

“Oh look, more people here I can banish,” Carrie said with a smile.

Julie saw a tall figure spring out of the encroaching darkness, slamming into Frank even as electricity lanced out from Carrie’s fingertips. Frank was knocked back off his feet, his head hitting a partially concealed rock as he fell… but with that, the crackling energies passed harmlessly by both him and his rescuer.

“Ohmigod,” Chartreuse breathed from the edge of the park. “Lee tackled him in time.” She then joined Frank in the land of unconsciousness, the additional weight on Laurie’s shoulders almost pulling the redhead to the ground as well.

As Chartreuse collapsed, a certain redhead sprang to her feet. “Everyone back off!” Mindy shouted, whipping a knife out of her pocket. And Julie realized that Mindy had only been faking unconsciousness, to allow Carrie to get close enough for an attack. Oh no, she had to get in there with the chloroform!

“Mindy! Stop!” Julie cried out. Not even thinking about how she’d managed to completely ignore the redhead’s implicit command to ‘back off’, while everyone else had taken a few steps back, she launched herself forwards.

But Mindy saw Julie coming out of the corner of her eye. She checked her swing at Carrie in favour of leaping out of the way, so Julie’s dive only resulted in her ending up back down on the ground.

“Good! Everyone stay down, out of my line of sight!” Luci yelled. “Tim? Setting for Carrie OR Mindy? TIM?!”

“Calm down!” came Clarke’s voice out of the encroaching darkness. “Everyone just calm…”

Mindy jumped in towards Carrie again, her knife raised. The two of them were almost face to face now, Mindy’s knife held in the air, inches away from Carrie’s chest… and Julie saw Mindy hesitate. “Dammit Carrie,” Mindy whispered. “I never wanted to hurt…”

The electrical discharge hit the redhead at point blank range. She barely even got a chance to scream before she had disappeared in a crackling of energies and the sound of a thunderclap. “One down,” the golden eyed Carrie said calmly. She turned to face Julie, who had been readying herself for another attack on Mindy, and Julie abruptly discovered what it was like to be a deer caught in a car’s headlights. Oh lord. Did chloroform work on a temporal weapon?

“Luci!” Tim called out. “Setting four, on Carrie!”

Luci cranked the indicator over and immediately pulled the trigger.  For a second it seemed like her actions would have no effect at all, but then a sequence of lights on the gun lit up and a pulse of energy flew out of the end of the barrel, striking Carrie in the side. The effect was immediate. The building energies in Carrie’s palm fizzled out, and the blonde crumpled to the ground, Julie seeing her eyes flicker back to blue as they shut.

Luci, however, was unaware of this, as Julie then realized that the recoil on the gun had propelled the shorter girl back a good ten metres, right into the trunk of a tree. She now lay slumped at its base, out cold.

At last, all was silence.

The quiet stretched on for what felt like an eternity to Julie, however it was really under a minute before there came the sound of Laurie’s tentative voice from the treeline: “Is… is it all over?”

Julie looked up from where she had crawled over to check Carrie’s pulse - the blonde had one. Which meant either Carrie was only knocked out, or her heart rate could still be read through that gun’s ‘temporal freezing’.

“I think it’s over,” Julie agreed, her voice shaking.

There was another moment of silence. “So,” Lee said, clearing his throat as he pushed himself up. “Uh, will you guys still be needing my help? For moving all of these unconscious bodies?”

Not very far away, though completely unaware of recent events, Hank Waterson sat at his writing desk. He stared at the page in front of him in irritation. “This letter has nothing whatsoever to do with my novel,” he muttered. “It doesn’t even make sense. Where did it come from?” He scanned down the words on the sheet once again:

‘Waterson.

‘If you read this, it’s been over two days since my arrival. I assume either my mission is failing, or I neglected to turn off the equivalent of a post hypnotic suggestion. Either way, no more beating about the brush:  Glen ‘Glinephanis’ Oaks may not be a time criminal, but neither is he whom he appears. He is not merely a trainer. He represents a junction point for the entire temporal war. Please, DO NOT TRUST HIM. I retroactively apologize in advance for whatever methods I may use, or may have used, to convince you of this.

‘Yours, Mindylenopia.’

“It must be some game of Carrie’s,” her father concluded. Except, if that was true, how could it be in his handwriting? He shook his head. “I guess I’ll show it to her once she gets back from the movies with Glen… and she’s NOT going to put off our little talk about responsibility any longer.”

That decision made, Hank set the sheet aside and turned his attention back to his novel. Trying to figure out what he could do to fracture his character dynamics even more.

-Next Episode: Making the Rounds (aka the fallout from this)

-We’re maxing out on character tags in this post, even Hank’s involved. Was the resolution with Frank at all what you expected? Feel like casting a vote or comment?

Previously: Luci and Tim were busy translating Linquist’s notes. Carrie threatened everyone, and went for training with Glen. There’s a plan to capture Mindy when she reappears.

PART 3.17a: BANISHMENT 1

“Jewels, I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Jeeves thought you might have already left.”

Julie didn’t reply. He waited a moment, then approached, touching her shoulder. She flinched slightly but otherwise didn’t react, continuing to lean on her arm, resting against the bars of the cage they’d set up down in Linquist’s secret basement lab. By placing the enclosure within the alcove at the base of the passage from the upstairs washroom, they’d only had to weld a grate with a door over the wall.

“We’ve got less than two hours left,” he continued softly. “When did you want to head out?”

“As soon as I hide the key to this makeshift cell,” Julie murmured after a moment. “You should leave the room first. No one but me can know where it is.”

Her tone was flat and tired, as it had been so often when none of the others were around. “Jewels, we’re doing the right thing,” Clarke insisted.

“Are we?” Julie challenged, turning her head to look at him. “Carrie doesn’t seem to agree. We haven’t seen her since that night. And she’s returned my one call with a terse ‘Leave me alone’.”

“Meaning she hasn’t objected outright,” Clarke noted.

“Or that what we do no longer matters.” Julie pushed herself back from the bars. “Phil, she summed things up pretty well with her ‘do whatever the hell you want, just hands off the time machine’ attitude on Thursday. Which we’d better take seriously. Unless you’ve got a mace and flail handy.”

“This Mindy business has been stressing her out,” Clarke soothed.  “She’s on edge, saying things she doesn’t mean…”

“Oh no! She meant every word of that tirade. In case you didn’t notice, it was made… painfully clear.” She reached up to trace a hand across her cheek. “No, trust me Phil, somewhere in her mind there were bounds, and I overstepped them. Several times in that single day, in fact.”

“You only did what you felt you had to do,” Clarke said after Julie fell silent once again. “Give it a little time, let Frank talk to Carrie once things have settled down… Carrie will realize your intentions were good.”

“Were they? WERE they? Because in case you didn’t notice, Luci was bang on during her little rant too. In my haste to act, I made a right mess of things. Not only for Corry, Frank and Carrie, but indirectly for Luci, Laurie, Lee, even Joe and Tommy… hell, it’s starting to look like the only person who’ll come out of recent events completely unscathed is me.” She kicked at the iron grate. “But hell, isn’t that the way all my plans are supposed to work? With me on top?”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”

Julie strode over to lean against one of the lab benches. “Well, at least there’s one good thing that’s come of this. It’s taught me that I can’t be anyone’s follower. Since trying to ‘help’ has only served to awaken in me the desire to take firmer action. And doing THAT has put me in a position where I only know how to do what’s best for myself! So what’s left after all that?”

“Teamwork?” Clarke ventured.

Although he could no longer see her face, Clarke suspected Julie was grimacing. “I’m not like you, Phil. I’m no good at passing the basketball. In grade school, I was always the girl people wanted on the other team. For years, all I had driving me were my own selfish goals. Which weren’t even mine, in a way! I didn’t care who else got hurt, as long as I emerged victorious in the end.”

“You’re different now. Besides, it’s not like you can work for Mindy’s team instead of ours.”

A pause. “I suppose not.”

Clarke frowned. He’d been trying to make a joke. But something about her tone there bothered him. He wanted to follow up, but that’s when there came the sound of someone falling down the access chute. Clarke and Julie both turned in time to see Luci land awkwardly in the caged off section of the room. She immediately jumped up and grabbed onto the metal bars.

“Great! You’re still here,” Luci panted. “Tim’s upstairs waiting for me… let me out of this cage, we have to get into that safe of Linquist’s!”

“The SAFE?” Julie crossed her arms. “Luci, I’m not sure if you’ve been keeping up, but we’re preparing to chloroform and imprison a rather dangerous girl for questioning. Now is hardly the time for safe cracking.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not safe cracking. I know the combination,” Luci said breathlessly. “We found it in the same passage that stated ‘I have placed within my safe the gun for temporal freezing'. Well, either that or ‘gun for cool tempos’, but Tim’s pretty sure it’s the former.”

“Tim? Wait, why is he here?” Clarke asked.

“Uhhh, he’s kinda been helping me translate,” Luci said. “In fact, he’s still at it now, trying to fill in some rather key details.”

“So you never gave up looking at the logbook, huh?” Julie said dryly.

Luci sighed. “No, Julie, I didn’t. And yes, it’s the reason I was unreachable two days ago. You happy now? But listen, when Linquist was… was poking at me, he discovered that my DNA was ‘in temporal flux’. Which WE know was because of the time machine, even though he interpreted it to mean I was an alien. Remember?”

“Sure, you’ve told us,” Clarke agreed. “But how does his logbook help us here?”

“Simply put, if Linquist could correctly identify my premature aging as ‘temporal flux’, I figured he might also have some technology we could use as a viable temporal weapon! And so his gun for ‘temporal freezing’ might be able to freeze Mindy before she hurts Frank or Corry! THAT’S why I doubled down, spending the last thirty six hours trying to translate this particular passage of his book! With Tim’s help. So, uh, kinda had to tell him some of the time stuff to do this. Don’t be too mad.”

“Hold on,” Julie protested. “Are you saying Linquist made a gun that actually freezes time in some way?”

“I don’t know, you haven’t let me out to have a look at it yet,” Luci said impatiently. “Plus there’s the fact that Tim’s still working on the translation. However, even if Linquist IS lying through his teeth about this thing - and I wouldn’t put it past him - it can’t hurt to check, can it? If this Mindy is half as bad as she sounds, we may need all the help we can get.”

Clarke and Julie exchanged a glance. “Fair point,” Julie admitted, pulling the key back out and approaching the iron door. “After all, if there is some weapon that keeps Mindy from getting away, I might be able to avoid more wrath from Carrie.” She half smiled. “Also, it’s not like we can keep Luci in the same cage where we’re dumping the redhead, right?”

“You’re gonna try tapping into a vision? Again? So soon?” Laurie began to fidget as Chartreuse moved into the circle of crystals on the bedroom floor. “Can’t I talk you out of this?”

“No. I have to do this,” Chartreuse sighed. “Something’s totally up surrounding the return of this Mindy girl and Carrie won’t tell me what it is. She’s blocking me off, too busy doing who knows what with Glen. However, the closer we get to Mindy’s return, the more things feel like they’re, you know, coming into focus… so I should have, like, better luck now than I did yesterday.”

“When you were sick in the bathroom for over half an hour! And that was after seeing only shadows! This Mindy stuff, it’s not good for you!”

“But it’s important. And you helped me out then,” Chartreuse said with a weak smile. “So if I see something even more unsettling this time, I’m counting on you to, you know, help me again.”

“Well, duh,” Laurie said. “Even if I don’t want you to do it, helping is the least I can do after you’ve helped me out so much the last couple days. Not to mention everyone else, running interference what with covering for my brother and for Frank… golly, if this goes on any longer my parents are gonna FREAK. And I told them Corry’s okay! S-So you DO think he’s okay right?”

“Laurie dear, please stay calm,” Chartreuse pleaded as she closed her eyes. “There’s barely an hour left and I need positive alpha waves.”

Ten minutes later, Laurie was helping a woozy Chartreuse stumble over towards her phone, where she began a frantic search for Lee’s number.

“I’m not ready for this, Glen.”

“Yes, you are,” Glen assured her. Carrie continued to pace back and forth in the middle of Willowdale Park. It was dusk now, the sun had set five minutes ago. “Remember, I was originally going to have you do this the day Mindy first arrived.”

“Which was before you found out that my time travel was occurring with the help of a time machine! Before two days of near constant training barely managed to push a thumbtack out of the present, let alone alter the flow of time or wipe out a memory! Before the only attempt to access my inner demon resulted in me knocking myself unconscious before I could fully let go!” Carrie spun to face him, placing her hands on her hips. “You REALLY think I’m ready to face Mindy?!”

Glen ran a hand back through his hair. “Well, um, the important thing is that you believe you’re ready.”

“My point exactly.”

“Look, you’re closer than you think,” Glen insisted. “And we’ll keep on with your training once we’ve gotten through this crisis.”

“If I’m still alive,” Carrie retorted. “Which reminds me, you’d better damn well kill me if it looks like I’m about to blow up all of time. If you don’t, I’ll haunt you to hell and back in the afterlife. Assuming there even IS an afterlife after I destroy our whole solar system.”

“Oh, Carrie,” Glen said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “I am sorry it has to be you. I really am.”

She shrugged him off and stepped away. “Stop touching me. Look, we’ve got somewhere between ten and twenty minutes before Mindy reappears. I’m going into that trace thing. You know what to do to rouse me. Or rather, other me. Keep an eye out for Julie and her crew too, I’m sure they’ll be here any moment. You know what to do with them as well.”

That said, Carrie plunked herself down in the grass by the empty swing set and closed her eyes. A little over eight minutes later, Glen heard the sound of approaching voices.

-This is SURE to go well… hm, gun for cool tempos, any thoughts?

Previously: Luci and Carrie independently decided to resume contact with Julie and the others. Glen told Carrie that she would return to him, and that she should destroy the time machine.

PART 3.16b: BLAME GAME 2

Luci shifted her attention from Chartreuse to Laurie to Clarke and then back to Chartreuse. “What do you mean,” she began, “when you say that Frank is now somewhere in the FUTURE?”

The young girl listened with half an ear as Chartreuse launched into an explanation of Julie’s plan. Internally, she wondered why the wealthy brunette hadn’t returned home yet. This all made no sense. What did they mean the car crash was related to a supposed visitor from another time?

I mean, sure, car accident, lockdown, but that had only been one of a number of things which Corry and the other student factions had done to each other that day. Right? RIGHT? So… so why did the three of them look so serious?

“Ok, whatever,” Luci said as Chartreuse finished. “Julie’s theories aside, have any of YOU seen this Mindy character??”

“I have,” Laurie piped up. “I was in the library when she arrived.”

“And did she look like she was some time traveler with mental powers?” Luci challenged.

“I… I don’t know. She had a gun with her. She ran after Carrie. I was scared.”

“Well… well…” Well, why didn’t someone tell me this sooner? That was what Luci wanted to say. Unfortunately, she already knew the answer was ‘we tried’, a response which she knew would only further aggravate her.

She really had become too obsessed with that log book. To the point of putting the rest of her life not merely on vibrate, but on total silent mode. As a result, Frank - and Laurie’s brother - had become stuck two days in the future. How could she have let this happen?!

“I’m back. Oh, good, you found Luci,” came Julie’s voice from the sitting room entrance.

“She arrived on her own,” Clarke noted, which was all anyone had time to say before Luci launched herself towards the new arrival.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BOYFRIEND?!” she shrieked, grabbing onto a handful of Julie’s sweater. “How could you send him off on such a rash, inconceivable, unprepared whim of a temporal mission?!”

“They went of their own volition,” Julie replied quietly.

It was her tone that brought Luci up short. She’d expected Julie to snap back at her, perhaps engage her in a shouting match - not reply in that soft, sad tone. As such, she offered no resistance as Julie pulled her sweater free from the shorter girl’s clutches.

“Now,” the brunette continued, “I suggest we modify our plans in order to incorporate a smokescreen with respect to Frank and Corry’s location over the next forty six hours. They’ll be back on Saturday night, that much is certain.”

There was the briefest of pauses before Laurie Veniti broke down in tears. “This is all my fault, oh God I never should have suggested that stupid idea to you, I didn’t know enough, I should have kept my stupid mouth shut, why didn’t I realize this would happen, oh God I’m so stupid, stupid, stupid, oh God, oh Corry, oh Frank, oh Corry…."

“Laurie! Laurie!” Chartreuse said, hurrying over to grab the redhead in a hug. “This isn’t your fault! You hear me? It’s not anyone’s fault!” She rubbed Laurie’s back as her friend buried her face in the crook of Chartreuse’s neck. “All this means is that something totally freaky happens in a couple days that will, you know, prevent Frank and Corry from time traveling back to us. That’s it! They’re not dead or anything! They’re only, you know, potential hostages, maybe.”

“At least Mindy is out of the way for now, right?” Clarke noted, after casting a worried glance at Laurie himself.

Julie nodded. “Yeah. We learned as much from Lee, who said Mindy vanished in a flash of light. I was going to explain more to him, but he decided I’d been right. If he doesn’t know, he won’t have to lie about it later."

“Well peachy as all THAT sounds,” Luci cut back in, hoping to reassert herself, “exactly what did you mean by ‘modify the plan’, Julie? Seems to me it’s been shot all to hell. You have no more knowledge of this Mindy than you did BEFORE your unauthorized use of the time machine stranded our friends in the future!”

“Frank authorized it. And two days hardly qualifies as a stranding," Julie countered. A measure of her own assertiveness was creeping back into her tone. “And as far as capturing Mindy goes, we can still do that, as per the plan. We know that she’ll be arriving along with the machine in the vicinity of the park, we even know roughly when, we simply need a way to ensure that redhead stays knocked out once she arrives!”

“Oh, sure, piece of cake,” Luci fired back.

“Look, we’re not debating this any more!” Julie said, throwing her hands up into the air. “Okay, fine, so my track record today has been lousy. So Megan’s running the school and we don’t have the time machine. So what?? I’ve always been better at the long term game! I can do a lot in two days! At least I’ve been actively involving myself here! Where the hell have you been since lunchtime, Miss Lucille Isabella Primrose??”

For a moment, Luci wasn’t sure if she wanted to get right up into Julie’s face again, or simply break down like Laurie. Neither option felt palatable. So with the simple response of “None of your business”, Luci quickly spun on her heel to stare over at the wall. She tried to ignore the lump in her throat.

“Fine,” Julie sighed. “So I propose we do phone tag with the Dijoras and the Venitis. Say that Frank and Corry are staying here tonight for whatever reason. Laurie can stay too, to add credibility. Luci too, maybe. That buys us twelve hours.”

“Perhaps more than that,” Clarke put in. “They said school would be cancelled tomorrow. Structural reassessment. We can drop by to visit our lockers if we need something, but otherwise school is out until Monday.”

“Fine, good,” Julie repeated. “So, does anyone else want to bitch at me here?”

The only sound was that of Laurie’s quiet sniffles. Until, from down the hall, there came the loud crash of someone slamming open the mansion’s double doors. It was followed by the loud scream of “JULIE!”, in a voice easily recognizable, even from within the sitting room. Then, “Julie, why the HELL can’t I sense Frank Dijora anywhere in the present?!?”

The time travellers in the room exchanged glances. “Well, on the bright side, she’s no longer Mindy’s hostage!” Chartreuse offered up.

Carrie stomped up to her house, clenching and unclenching her fists. The last words she’d spoken at Julie’s house still ringing in her ears.

“If any of you interfere with the time streams again, I’ll banish you all to the middle ages!”

Yeah, that had quietened down the lot of them. She wondered fleetingly if it was really an idle threat. After all, maybe a day or two stuck in history would convince the others that they shouldn’t muck about with time travel until AFTER consulting with time’s “ultimate weapon”!

Carrie froze, her hand a short distance from the doorknob. Oh no, what was she even thinking?! After all, the conclusions Julie and the others had drawn had been accurate. And the idea itself had been a pretty good one. Honestly, THAT was what irked Carrie the most. If only she’d been there, working with them… but she hadn’t been. She’d been working with Glen instead.

And because of that, they had no time machine, and Carrie would HAVE to return to Glen, not only to learn about banishing Mindy, but about how to keep Frank and Corry safe, while making sure Mindy didn’t get her hands on the portable time machine permanently, and of course Laurie and Lee were ALSO back in the mix, confusing things…

Carrie looked down at her hand. She swallowed. She wasn’t sorry about slapping Julie across the face. And yet, she realized now that she’d derived no satisfaction from it.

The blonde teenager reached out again open her front door, but this time before her hand could touch the doorknob, the door was opening from the inside. “Carrie!” her father shouted. “Where have you been?? I have been worried sick!”

“I… I was out with Glen,” Carrie said truthfully. “Something came up at school, and we had to have a talk about it.”

“I’ll say something came up at school! It’s all over the news!” Hank Waterson retorted. “Your friends Frank and Julie called, not knowing where you were, and some female police officer in plainclothes came by indicating to me that you were one of the people this escaped lunatic was shouting about… Carrie, I’d started calling the hospital every fifteen minutes, asking them if any unidentified girls had been brought in!”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Dad…”

“You watch your mouth young lady!” he interrupted. “Now, I realize you want to be free to live your own life, and I’ve been trying hard to accommodate you in that respect… but on a day when the school library gets demolished by some girl who refers to you by name, you should at least give me the courtesy of a phone call!”

Carrie paused. Her father was interpreting her momentary outburst as ‘let me live my own life’ rather than ‘as if I didn’t have enough to deal with’ - which was probably for the best.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she replied, switching gears. She tried to bring a few tears to her eyes and found they came with alarming ease. “I was scared, and I didn’t know what to do.”

“Oh, Carrie,” Hank sighed, softening his tone. He reached out to pull his daughter into an embrace. “I know we’ve had our differences, but I thought we’d reached an understanding. I want to be here for you. I want you to feel like you can tell me anything. The thought that I’ll receive another phone call like the one I had last year, it scares me to death.”

“I know,” Carrie murmured, instinctively reaching out to hug her father back. “I really am sorry. SO sorry. But honestly, there’s nothing I can tell you. I don’t know why Mi– that girl was after me today, so I just got scared and Glen happened to be nearby and I lost track of time.”

Her father led her inside the house. He pulled back slightly from the embrace, closing the door, and looking to meet her gaze. After a moment, he nodded. “All right then,” he said. “For now, I’m just happy to see that you’re okay. But we will have another talk about responsibility, mark my words. Now, take off your shoes and come into the kitchen. I’ve kept dinner warm.”

Carrie nodded, wiping her cheeks dry. It occurred to her then how much in character this was for her father of late - Glen must have been overreacting when he had said Mindy would influence her father and friends in some way. Unless this was all such a carefully engineered plot that even Carrie couldn’t see through it, in which case Mindy probably deserved to win.

However, deep down Carrie knew Glen was still dead right about one thing… in the end, she was the only one who could deal with Mindy. And so, she was going to have to sneak out tonight, and go back for training. Because she had less than two days to figure out how to release her temporal self… safely or otherwise.

-Next Episode: Banishment.

-Happy Thanksgiving Weekend to fellow Canadians! You may recall these episodes take place mid-October, in the week following that holiday. So this time next week, we’ll be temporally in synch - and caught up to Frank! Care to Vote? Or speculate in comments?

Previously: Glen told Carrie he’d show her how to banish Mindy. Luci and Tim worked on Linquist’s notes. Julie and the others sent Mindy, Frank and Corry two days into the future.

PART 3.16a: BLAME GAME 1

Chartreuse paced around the park once more before approaching Julie. “It’s been almost an hour,” she pointed out quietly. “Lee went home. It’s getting totally cold. I don’t think Frank and Corry are coming back.”

“They would want to be sure not to overlap with themselves after dropping Mindy off,” Julie responded. “We should give them a little more time.”

“But what if Mindy’s, you know, turned the tables on them in the future? Maybe she has two more people on her list of hostages!”

“Then we have forty seven hours to ensure that’s NOT what ends up happening! In the meantime, you can go home if you like, but I’m staying here a little longer!”

Chartreuse opened her mouth to reply, but then seemed to think better of it, and simply resumed her pacing. Julie folded her arms and looked up at the night sky. ‘Damn it,’ she thought. ‘Why haven’t they time traveled back? What went wrong with my plan??’

“This is perfect! Oh, Tim, you’re wonderful!” Luci exclaimed, scanning down the page of translated material. It looked a bit like she wanted to hug the sheet. Or maybe hug him. Tim edged his chair backwards. “Though I see a few corrections I can help you with… let me use your pencil?”

Tim continued to stare at her, even as the younger girl reached out her hand abstractedly. It wasn’t until she’d grabbed at thin air a few times that she finally looked up from the page and realized he was wasn’t offering her anything to write with. “Tim?”

“L-Luci… I mean, yeah, fascinating language and all, but this scientist guy is also using some kind of short form notation, and his verb tenses are insane. We’ve got a good start on this. It’s been hours. Isn’t it time for a break?”

Luci gestured airily. “I’m not tired. Though if you want, I can take what we’ve done back to my place to keep working. I’ll just need to call you if I get stuck, if that’s all right?”

She seemed surprised when he pushed himself away from the writing table in his bedroom. “No. No, it’s not all right, Luci. I see now that you’ve been obsessing way too much over this! You m-may not feel tired, but you look it. Now, why aren’t you telling m-me the whole story?”

“Story? What story?”

“The one that explains how you only recently got something from Linquist, a guy who left town three years ago. The one that explains why you think that the word which occurs so often is ‘aliens’, not ‘bacteria’. The one that explains why you selected this particular passage about some ‘safe’ as being important, despite it being halfway in!”

“Oh. That story.”

Tim nodded. “Sometimes I get short of breath, but I’m not blind, you know. Tell me, Luci, why is it so important that we keep working, not only through lunch, but after school at my place, and now into supper??”

The young girl pursed her lips. “It’s personal.”

“Maybe, but I seem to be involved now.”

Luci frowned, considering. “All right. Linquist and I have a bit of a history together, that’s all. He… did some things to me. Things that might relate to something that Frank and a few others are working on now. I also suspect the guy’s not really gone, so I want to be ready if and when he comes back.”

“Right. Well, I d-don’t think he’ll turn up tonight,” Tim countered. “So let’s both take five. More, even. Because I won’t help you any more until I know you’ve eaten something.”

A smile flickered across Luci’s face. “That’s sweet Tim, but…”

“No! No but!” Tim interrupted. “Now, my mom offered supper to the both of us. I’m going to tell her that we’re ready to eat!”

Luci seemed to size him up. “All right,” she conceded. “All right. I suppose I should check back in with my parents too, seeing as it’s… oh, wow, it’s past eight…” She went for her backpack, but paused and turned back to add, “You know Tim, that assertiveness bit works well for you. Your voice gets melodic and you hardly stutter.”

He blinked. “I d-d-d-don’t?”

Shaking her head, Luci presumably searched for her phone as Tim back-pedalled out of the room. When he returned after talking to his mom, Luci almost run into him full tilt as she exited, looking frantic.

“I can’t stay,” she apologized. “Both Frank and Julie have been trying to reach me for a while, something’s up, I have to go, I… uhm…” She hesitated. “Can I leave our translations with you? You’ll keep them safe?”

“Uh, of course, b-but what…”

“Thanks. No time to explain, even assuming I understood it myself, but I promise I’ll tell you more when I can. Okay?”

Faced with Luci’s concerned expression, Tim found he could only nod in reply. He followed her to the front door. “Is there anything I can do to help? Did something bad happen to one of them?” he wondered.

Luci slipped on her shoes. “I hope not. I really, really hope not.”

“Problem! If I do that, something bad will happen.”

“Carrie, you’re being paranoid,” Glen assured. “Nothing bad will happen.”

She shook her head. “You weren’t here when I was planning on channeling the power of a bomb through my body and into the time streams!Hell, it took me up until last month to accept that balancing my powers was even possible. Now you’re asking me to simply surrender myself to this… this ultimate weapon force I’ve got?!”

“Not surrender,” Glen explained patiently. “It’s more like a… a time share. You regain control once your temporal self has accomplished the thing that we’ll be asking of it.”

Carrie stood up and began pacing around the floor of the largely empty warehouse. A place that Glen had apparently acquired after arriving in town, for ‘training purposes’. Because he was her trainer. Not her boyfriend. Oh no, having a relationship, that was something only normal people got to do.

“I don’t like it,” she said. “I’ve stuck with your last hour of meditative hocus-focus techniques because they seemed to make some sort of sense. But switching that on… no, I can’t! It’s WAY beyond anything I’ve attempted with Chartreuse!!”

“I’m not Chartreuse,” Glen pointed out. “Carrie, if we want to deal with Mindy, this is the only way. We must send her to another year, and wipe her memories, ensuring that she can’t return. Doing that requires your temporal self.”

Carrie clenched and unclenched her fists, opening her mouth to make a retort - when she realized something. She turned towards the storage bay doors. “Something’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, when you said Mindy, I checked my mind, and something is… right. Which is wrong!”

“Carrie, sorry, but you’re losing me.”

The blonde teenager shook her head, feeling her long hair brushing about her shoulders. “It’s… look, for the last year, I’ve been living with this dull ache in my head. It only gets bad when people talk serious temporal paradox, or unauthorized temporal incursions occur. Hence a bit of mental strain in the school library earlier, when my brain wanted to explode out of my skull.”

“Yes, that’s your temporal sense,” Glen affirmed. “The future you never talked much about it, except to request an acetaminophen equivalent.”

“Fine. So, Mindy’s incursion was bad at first, but it eventually ebbed back to a point where I could block the pain, using something Chartreuse taught me. Yet now that extra pain is… gone. Like, I’ve been blocking nothing.” She frowned. “Maybe Mindy time traveled somewhen else?”

Glen shook his head. “You’re the only one who can initiate time travel at will. The rest of us need you, or some form of technology.”

“Yes, fine, so what if she had a time machine?”

“Impossible,” Glen asserted. “She would have had to bring along a portable version, and very few of those were ever made. Besides, if Mindy COULD jump about in time at will that way, I believe even she would have been employing a more reserved approach.”

“Well, all right… but supposing she got her hands on my time machine then,” Carrie countered.

Glen’s body tensed up. He swallowed. “You… you mean you still have a time machine? As in, a portable one?”

Carrie nodded. “Left to me by the Mundane benefactor who awakened my powers. I assumed you knew. How else could I have been travelling in time?”

“Using your own power!” Glen started to look almost scared. “Wait, you mean you haven’t accessed your temporal self at ALL? Any time trips you take are only by scrying, or using technology?!”

“Obviously! Why else would I be so sure something bad will happen if I ‘time share’?!”

“But it’s been almost a year! What on Earth have you been doing?”

“Freaking the hell out! Like any normal person would!”

“Oh, Carrie. Oh no.” He walked up to her, and grabbed her by the arm. She wished he would stop doing that. “No wonder your head’s been aching! Promise me that you will destroy your time machine at once - it’s more dangerous to this timeline than Mindy ever was!”

“Moot point if Mindy’s got it,” Carrie retorted. She pulled her arm free again. “Enough is enough. I’m calling Frank. He can check on the status of our machine.”

He made a grab for her shoulder, and she dodged. “Carrie, you must NOT contact your friends,” the redhead insisted. “With both Mindy AND a time machine loose in this era it’s even more important that we train you to handle…”

“Glen,” Carrie interrupted, opting to shift from a loud rage to a quiet one. “I care for you. I do, and I’m glad of your help. But if you don’t let me talk to my friends RIGHT FRIGGING NOW, you are going to picking your teeth up off the floor.”

Glen let his outstretched arm fall back to his side. “I could stop you. Mental abilities, you know.”

Carrie shook her head, and called his bluff. “You won’t use them on me.”

In the staring contest that followed, Glen dropped his gaze to the floor. “You’re right,” he admitted. “You’re the one person we can’t risk altering directly, Carrie. Not now that your abilities are active. Mindy knows it too, I’m sure that’s why she wasn’t more ‘persuasive’ with you when she spoke.”

He turned away. “So, fine, call your friends. Check on your machine - and ideally, destroy it. Because no one in this era can be allowed to time travel, except you. I’ll wait here. You’ll be back, once you’ve realized that I’m your only chance against Mindy. All I ask is that you don’t reveal this location to anyone. Her spies could be everywhere.”

“Obviously,” Carrie responded. She stared at Glen for another minute, trying to figure out if there was some way she could offer up a form of stern apology, but ultimately left without saying another word. Best that she not phone from the place that they didn’t want to be found.

Yes, we’re catching up to Frank the “slow” way. There was a clip of “Coming Soon” pieces featured at the end of Sunday’s commentary. Do people read those? Alternatively, any further thoughts on ‘banishment’?

Previously: Mindy visited Mr. Waterson. The temporal teenager group are plotting to capture Mindy, using the time machine. Meanwhile, Carrie tries to understand timeline theory with Glen.

PART 3.15b: FRAGMENTED PLANS 2

Glen shook his head. “Carrie, you’re forgetting your immunity to paradox. You can send me back in time to make sure your powers don’t overwhelm you or kill you now, in timeline three, and yet still have it be the same timeline where I wasn’t here - because that’s not a thing. I was always here. It’s all the same timeline.”

Carrie dropped her head down onto the table. This was really bugging her. Not because it didn’t make sense, rather because it did, and yet she felt like it shouldn’t. “Okay, fine. You also said there’s a faction within the Temporals who disagree with our - their - policies, which is the reason the Mundane we call Shady was able to get a time machine and come back to activate my powers in the first place.”

“Starting our timeline three,” Glen agreed.

“Mindy is ALSO a part of this faction, and she came here to finish the job that ‘Shady’, her future blow-up-the-hospital friend started. Which potentially starts timeline FOUR. Which is what we now need to prevent.”

“There you go, you’ve got it!” Glen agreed.

Carrie sat for a moment. “It’s LUNACY," she decided. “Can’t I give Frank a call? He’s a lot better at following this time-space junk.”

Glen reached out to grab Carrie’s arm before she could retrieve her book bag. “No phone calls. I meant that, Carrie. Not to Frank, not to your father, not to anyone. We don’t know how many people Mindy has compromised.” He smiled. “Don’t worry. No one is better at wrestling with temporal mechanics than you."

Carrie pulled her arm free of his grasp. She tugged hard on a strand of her hair. “Come on, Glen, you really think my own FATHER is going to give me up to Mindy? I mean, he’s probably so worried, after what happened at school!” Glen said nothing, merely shifting his weight back and forth uneasily in his seat. “Fine then, I’m calling.” She reached for her bag again.

“Wait,” Glen sighed. “Fine. There’s something I haven’t mentioned. Mindy has these… mental powers.”

“Oh, of course,” Carrie sighed. “Everyone who wants me dead HAS to have THOSE." But she felt too weary, too mentally drained to continue with an argument, so she gave up on her book bag in favour of looking expectantly at Glen.

“If she chooses, Mindy’s voice can make people do things they might otherwise be unwilling to do," Glen explained. “And being an actual Temporal, she’s damn good at it. Better than this Mundane you previously encountered. Granted, the power works best on adults, or on people who are emotionally vulnerable, but, given access, Mindy could eventually convince even the President of the United States that he was a rodeo clown.”

Carrie felt a chill run through her. “Glen? Your description feels very personal. Something in your tone tells me you’ve got an inside track on this mental ability too."

Glen smiled wryly. “Can’t put anything by you, hm? You’re right, Carrie. How else do you think I managed to set myself up here so quickly? Obtain all the required school documents? Deflect questions as to where my parents have been for over a month? I can do it too, if I choose.”

“Fine,” Carrie said. “Then you use your mental powers to go and deal with Mindy. I’ll be home, in my bedroom, drawing up a new cheerleading routine.” She moved to rise, only to have him reach out and take her arm again.

“I’m sorry, Carrie,” Glen said. “It doesn’t work like that. Even setting aside that I’ve only used my mental power very sparingly here in the past, me and Mindy, we’d be locked in a stalemate. The only one who can deal with the temporal threat right now is you.” His grip tightened. “Mindy needs to be banished from this time period. It’s okay, I’ll show you how to do it.”

“Why? Why ME!?” Carrie protested, banging her free hand down onto the table. “I’m just a girl! All right? A senior student trying to juggle her offbeat social life with her studies! I never asked for these temporal powers!”

“No,” Glen agreed. “You didn’t. You were born into them. But remember timeline one? Without these powers, you wouldn’t have been born at all.”

Carrie bit down hard on her lower lip. She felt like screaming. Or throwing something, hitting someone, lashing out at whatever future forces were conspiring to make her present a living hell.

But there was no one to attack. Even if fate were some sort of living entity, Carrie doubted it could be punched in the face. No, the truth was, Carrie had been born - when she never should have existed. With no powers, there was no Carrie. Simple logic.

As such, there was only one outlet currently available upon whom Carrie could vent her frustrations. The person who had smashed up their school library in an effort to start timeline four.

She sank back down into the booth. For a few moments, she remained with her elbows on the table, her blonde hair clenched in her fists, staring down at the pathetic looking strawberry chunks floating in what remained of her shake. Her decision, when she made it, was the only one that could make sense.

“What?” Glen asked. “I couldn’t hear you.”

“I said,” Carrie repeated, still barely above a whisper, “Tell me what I have to do to banish Mindy.”

She felt tired. So very, very tired.

“I must admit, I still don’t get why you two need me,” Lee said. Julie had sent Chartreuse to corner their classmate after his shift was up at the library, getting him to come to Willowdale Park. Where he was now standing, giving them a puzzled look.

“I swear, we’ll explain everything,” Julie assured. “But for right now? It might be better that you don’t understand. That way, if something goes wrong, you’ll have deniability.”

“You do understand the plan?” Chartreuse asked.

“Well, yeah. I lure this Mindy girl over to that place in the ravine where Corry and Frank are hiding. By pretending that Corry is Glen, given the similar hair. Pretty straightforward. You sure this Mindy will show?”

“Pretty sure,” Julie sighed. “I mean, I called Glen’s room at the Clayton and left a message on his answering service for her. It makes sense that she’d be monitoring. But remember, Lee… if Mindy pulls her gun on you, or does ANYTHING to make you think she’s dangerous - or even inexplicably friendly - we abort. Your safety is paramount.”

“Cut and run, yeah,” Lee agreed. “No problem there.”

Julie grimaced, starting to have second thoughts. After all, what if Mindy saw through the facade before Frank and Corry could link up with her and use the time machine? Was dusk enough to mask what was going on, or should they have waited longer? What if Mindy hurt somebody? Was using Lee even necessary, or just mere paranoia?

All objections voiced by the others, all objections Julie had countered in her drive to make sure they disposed of this Mindy girl. But, Julie wondered, was she truly acting out of concern for Glen, Carrie and everyone else? Or, as she had done earlier in the day, was she doing it more in the hopes of regaining some of her former glory? Or worse, of being the one who was in control, when faced with a person so similar to the man who had manipulated her in the past?

Julie hated when she started questioning her motivations. She no longer liked what she found. However, she had at least been up front with everyone this time. That is… almost everyone.

“Look, Lee, this really could be dangerous,” Julie said, speaking before she could think about it. “Mindy has these… okay, know what? Never mind. I’ll talk to Mindy instead of you. Sorry to bring you all the way out here for nothing. You should go.”

“Hey, if you went to the trouble of getting me involved, I’m sure you had a reason,” Lee countered. “Besides, I’m good at dodging. Plus I really do feel indebted to you and Carrie and everyone for finding Sing’s necklace. It meant a lot to her - just as this seems to mean a lot to you guys.”

“But…”

“Too late now anyway,” Lee said. “I wager that approaching shadow is your Mindy.”

Julie spun to see where Lee was looking, then with a curse, flattened herself down onto the ground and rolled under the evergreen shrub, next to where Chartreuse was already hiding.

Lee moved away from Julie’s position, towards the person that, Julie had to agree, looked like Mindy. It occurred to her now that they could be playing real havoc with the timeline - would Carrie double over in pain somewhere as soon as the time machine was activated? Why the hell wasn’t she answering their messages?!

Well, Clarke and Laurie were out looking for her. As well as looking for Luci, and even Glen. What more could they do? After all, it wasn’t Julie’s fault that time girl had gone AWOL. Or been kidnapped. Maybe tortured. Julie grit her teeth. She would fix this. She would.

She felt a hand reach out for her own, and she squeezed Chartreuse’s palm back in response. Not certain which of them was reassuring the other.

Frank resisted the urge to pop the top of the time machine open, to check the controls for the umpteenth time. He knew they had been set correctly. The coin was in, the only thing left to do was pull the handle. Which he would do as soon as Corry reached out and grabbed hold of Mindy.

Julie had made it all sound so terribly easy… as she had with her plan in the computer lab before lunch. Of course, that train of thought took him to Luci. Where HAD she disappeared to after that class? If she was upset with him, why hadn’t she at least called someone else?

“Hold tight, we’re up,” Corry muttered. Frank felt his heart rate increase as the sound of Lee’s voice reached their ears. He gripped Corry’s ankle even tighter.

“Yeah, well, as I say, Glen’s always bugged me,” their dark haired friend was saying. “So when I heard you wanted him, I decided to ambush him and tie him up in the woods for you. I’m getting decent pay for this, right?”

“I’m skeptical!” Mindy retorted. “He’s sneakier than you’re making him out to be.”

“Well, check it out, he’s gagged back there behind that tree,” Lee continued. “See the red hair?”

Frank heard Mindy take a step closer. Then another. Then… “Hey, that’s not–”

“NOW!” Corry shouted, making a dive for Mindy’s leg. Without even thinking about it, Frank yanked down on the time machine’s lever with his free hand.

He felt the usual effects of the time distortion, dimly aware of the fact that he’d kept hold of Corry’s foot. Then he was forty eight hours in the future. Back in the park. With Carrie Waterson standing no more than a metre away, her blonde hair trailing out behind her in waves, her eyes glowing a brilliant gold.

“Oh, GEEZ!” he choked out, letting go of the time machine and stumbling to his feet. Some sort of electricity sparked at Carrie’s fingertips. It helped him make out the forms of Corry and Mindy, unconscious on the ground - and that of Glen Oaks, who was also lying on the ground nearby.

“Frank, get DOWN!” Luci screamed from somewhere behind him in the dark. “You’re spoiling my shot!!”

“Oh look, more people here I can banish,” Carrie said with a smile. Electricity lanced out from her fingertips, Frank was knocked back off his feet, and everything faded to black…

Cliffhanger! Theories? New Commentary coming this Sunday, including a preview. Voting remains a weekly option.

Previously: Someone called “Mindy” appeared in the present. Carrie met with Glen, who revealed he’s also from the future. Julie called for a temporal meeting, and Laurie overheard.

PART 3.15a: FRAGMENTED PLANS 1

“All right, we can’t wait any longer,” Julie decided.

“But Carrie and Luci aren’t here…”

“Frank, for all we know they’ve fallen under the influence of this Mindy girl already.” Julie crossed her arms. “Look, we’ve sent messages, and spoken to their parents, and that’s all we can do until they decide to respond.”

After clearing out of the school, the group of temporal teenagers had sent a series of messages back and forth, to the effect of reconvening at the LaMille mansion as soon as possible.

Corry cleared his throat. “Before you start, I’d like to once AGAIN voice my objection to my sister being here."

“In which case I’ll totally overrule you again,” Chartreuse declared. “Laurie has as much right as the rest of us to know the truth! Remember, like me, she knew before. Prior to that memory wipe at the hospital affecting, you know, all non-time travellers."

“Too bad that didn’t stick on you,” Corry griped.

“Look, Corry,” Clarke offered. “Chartreuse once forgot, and now she knows, and it hasn’t traumatized her. Plus she’s Laurie’s best friend, so it must have been tough not being able to talk about it. What’s the harm?”

Laurie’s head bobbed. “Yeah, stuff makes more sense this way! I wondered why Chartreuse was doing, like, those weekly readings on Carrie. Actually, I was starting to think that maybe Chartreuse and Carrie were in some sort of roman–"

“Laurie! Ixnay!” Chartreuse gasped.

“Except,” Corry said to Clarke, ignoring the outburst, “the situation got pretty dangerous last year. And there’s no reason to believe it’ll be any less so now. THAT’S the harm. I notice no one’s called Tim or Lee to bring them back on board?”

“Corry has a point there,” Frank granted. “Maybe…”

“No! Laurie’s here, and she’s staying!” Chartreuse argued.

“Chartreuse, you’re not running things!” Corry said. “Clarke, you understand this is a safety thing, right?”

“I suppose it is a consideration.”

“Um, shouldn’t I get to decide for myself?” Laurie ventured.

“See? She, like, wants to stay!”

“Corry did make a good point though, so…”

“Chartreuse, she didn’t say THAT.”

“Guys, let’s allow Frank to complete his thought?”

“Golly, I didn’t mean for this to be a fight.”

“HEEEEEEEYYYYYYYY!!!”

It was hard to say whether it was Julie’s scream that caught everyone’s attention, or the crash that came as a result of her smashing the jade figurine against the lemonade pitcher Jeeves had brought in earlier. Regardless, all eyes were now on the brunette as she stood, fists clenched, with broken glass and lemonade flooding the silver tray beside her. She took in a deep breath and threw the figurine on the ground.

“Much as we all might enjoy a good argument with Corry, we… don’t… have… the… TIME!” she shouted. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there is a homicidal redheaded girl from the future after Glen, Carrie and who knows who else… and what’s more, that girl seems to have the power to control people’s minds! I know first hand how that makes your argument here, and even our huge problems with Megan at school today, look so damn small that they’re barely even an afterthought!"

Corry was the first to break the ensuing silence. “Um, back up. Mind control? Julie, with all due respect… maybe you need to lie down.”

“I know what it sounds like,” she replied, jaw clenched. “But I also know I’m right. Don’t you remember? About that guy from the future who was held captive in this very room back when Carrie was in the hospital? He could do mind control too.”

Frank nodded slowly. “I wasn’t here, but I gather you mean Shady, the one who gave you the gun and turned you against Carrie. Who then told Luci that Carrie was a temporal weapon who would destroy the world. Who ultimately tried to kill everyone by blowing up the hospital.”

“No, the OTHER guy from the future,” Julie said, unable to hold back her sarcasm. “Obviously him!”

Chartreuse frowned. “Ooh, that does SOUND familiar… but I’m, like, a little sketchy, probably because of the memory wipe…"

Corry folded his arms. “Oh, please. You’re forgetting I saw this ‘Shady’ guy too, in the basement of the hospital. And while he did have some sort of power over us, if it was mind control, wouldn’t he have used that same power to talk his way out of jail?”

“Carrie might have done something to prevent that,” Frank put in.

“Okay guys, stop. Jewels, we’re all on board with the redheaded girl being our priority here,” Clarke said, moving to touch her arm. “What have you turned up so far?”

Julie flashed the tall blonde a grateful smile. “Right. So, after talking with the van driver and then going to visit the Clayton Hotel after school, I know this much about Mindy, our newest arrival.” She pulled out her small black book, to thumb through her notes.

“This Mindy was picked up somewhere out of town by Lars. According to the hotel desk clerk, Mindy stormed in this afternoon, asking about any long term guests, claiming shortly thereafter to be a relative of Glen Oaks and asking for his whereabouts. She was sent back to talk with the manager. Despite being seen entering his office, said manager told me he didn’t remember seeing anyone of Mindy’s description. I don’t think he was lying.”

Julie drew in a breath. “Mindy then went back out to Lars' van, and got him to drive not only TO the school, but INTO the library, with nary a second thought. Mindy proceeded to get the principal to talk about Glen, and give up the location of a student, namely Carrie, without even a single wave of her gun. That’s VERY unlike Hunt.” She looked up. “So call me crazy if you like, but this all implies mental powers. Worse, as Carrie ran out, she looked to be in some sort of temporal pain.”

“Plus Carrie knew this girl,” Corry admitted. “As Mindy arrived, Carrie said ‘It’s HER’. You think she was able to see this coming?"

“We could ask Carrie, if she were here,” Chartreuse murmured. She began to fidget. “I’m starting to think this Mindy has, like, taken her hostage and is even now writing up a ransom demand!”

“No, Carrie can defend herself,” Frank asserted. “I’m sure she put Mindy in her place.” Nevertheless, his fingers drummed nervously on the couch. Another silence settled on the group.

“Okay, Julie’s onto something,” Corry admitted. “New question, how do we corner this Mindy person and find out what her true intentions are with respect to our resident temporal weapon?”

“Yeah, uh, I was just trying to figure out how you corner someone who can control your mind,” Clarke said.

“Lee,” Chartreuse concluded. “Julie, the other day you said Lee never, like, seemed to be influenced by any attempts to control him?”

“Yes, that’s true,” Julie sighed. “And I guess Lee owes us one for finding Sing’s necklace. But even if he has some type of mental immunity, would he really be able to catch this Mindy? She seems to be a lot more in-your-face than Shady ever was.” She paused. “To be fair, we’d have to give Lee all the background information too. Tell him what he’s getting into.”

“I don’t think Carrie would go for that,” Frank said.

“Carrie’s not HERE,” Corry pointed out. “Damn it Dijora, you can’t play favourites, bringing Laurie in while hesitating on Lee!”

“Um, hello?”

Everyone turned, blinking at the person whose presence they’d all but forgotten. Laurie sat there, her hand raised in the air.

“Sorry, Laurie. Go ahead,” Clarke encouraged her.

She brought her hand down. “See, um, I was thinking that if you can do all this time travel stuff - which sounds totally cool and all by the way, despite the additional freakiness that seems to come with it - er, but anyway, if you can do it then why don’t you simply transport this Mindy girl to another time? Like days in the future? That would give us all longer to plan, maybe get a jail cell set up for her that traps her powers. Or something like that?”

“If Mindy’s a time traveler, she’d only time jump her way back out," Corry countered.

“No… no, no, hold on, Laurie’s onto something there,” Frank realized, leaning forward in his seat. “If Mindy really could time travel freely, wouldn’t she be acting with more finesse? She’s been as subtle as a brick - as if she’s on some sort of deadline. Maybe she’s due for a temporal pickup. And if our time machine yanks her out of time, maybe it thwarts that. After all, we now know she doesn’t have to be touching the handle of the time machine to be transported, only one of us does. Heck, if whatever her story is checks out later, we can return Mindy moments after she was taken.”

“Nice thought, but how would we manage Mindy reappearing in a cell?” Clarke asked.

“It would take some doing,” Julie said, frowning. “But, as was the case with us, an initial time trip might knock Mindy out. And assembling a cage in a day or two isn’t impossible, not with my resources. Meaning as long as Lee’s the one to guard her, we’re in the clear.”

“In that case, we should, you know, displace Mindy from time as soon as possible, right?” Chartreuse asserted. “Given how, the longer this Mindy’s in town, the more people’s lives are in danger. Notably Carrie’s and Glen’s.”

Julie thought back to the expression on Mindy’s face, when she had scanned the library and then squared off with principal Hunt. “Agreed,” Julie said. “We’ll act now. Tonight. I think I’ve got a plan…”

Carrie swirled her straw unenthusiastically in her strawberry shake as she contemplated what Glen had told her. She finally looked up, and after verifying that no one else was paying attention to them in the corner booth of the cafe, spoke to her companion once more.

“All right,” Carrie said quietly. “Let me try to work through this. Please help me out if I ask?” When Glen nodded back, she took in a deep breath. “You’re saying we both exist in timeline three. The first timeline being the one where I didn’t exist.”

“Right. A poor timeline, if you ask me.”

“Shut up, I didn’t ask for help there.” She couldn’t handle his efforts to be charming, not now. “That initial timeline was overwritten with timeline two, the one wherein someone brought my mother back in time, and then she met my father, creating me. But within that second timeline, my powers only awakened in the far future, for me to fight in a war. A war between us - the Temporals, for lack of a better word - and some others, which you call the Mundanes.” She rubbed her forehead. “You seriously use that term? It’s so cliche.”

“If the shoe fits.”

“Fine. Enter timeline three. Which is this one, the one where my powers have awakened as a teenager, due to that war spilling even more into the past. As such…” She paused to regroup her thoughts, taking the opportunity to sip at her shake again. “As such, I’ve kind of expected Carrie from timeline two to intercede at some point, steering me back on whatever path she originally took. Steering me back into alignment with the unpowered timeline. Why are you not from that one?”

“Versus me also being from timeline three, where you’ve had your powers for decades? Yeah, I see your issue,” Glen yielded. “Thing is, timeline two Carrie, what little I can gather about her, would have been little more than a pawn, being used by others. You, by contrast, with years to perfect your abilities, are a force of nature. Why would you force yourself back onto lousy timeline number two?”

His argument did make some sense. After all, if the present were to morph around a person, turning them into a millionaire, why would they fight it? “I guess I follow that,” she said. “But in that case, why would I send you back at all? It’s simply creating timeline four, where I’m getting early training. I’m sabotaging my own past… aren’t I?”

What do you think? Hurrah for timeline theory! You can comment, or click the vote above, or tell others about the serial, or know what, thanks for simply being here.

Previously: Luci discovered Linquist’s logbook was in another language. Someone named “Mindy” crashed a van into the school library and chased after Carrie, claiming Glen was a temporal fugitive.

PART 3.14b: THE CONSPIRACY UNFOLDS 2

At the warning, Julie spun to face Clarke. “But…”

“Frank ran to the office to keep tabs on things there,” Clarke continued doggedly, “And there was an announcement that all students are get into a classroom and remain there until further notice. We need to comply, to avoid calling attention to ourselves.”

Julie clenched her jaw, but based on the van driver’s expression, she realized that she had probably obtained as much information as she could from him. “Okay. But listen, we’ll need to convene a meeting of all time travellers ASAP,” she asserted, moving around the van. And coming face to face with Corry.

“A meeting which will include me, I presume?" the redhead said.

“Not today," Julie said, trying to dodge past him.

“Hold on!” Corry countered, moving to block her. “With something of this magnitude? I could cause even more damage by being out of the loop. Besides, if I’m not aware of whatever time travel stuff you and your friends have been unleashing, how can we be expected to effectively run the school together, partner?”

Invoking the partnership caught Julie off guard. She was tempted to point out how Megan was really the one in charge now, only to have a small voice interject, “T-Time travel?” from behind the adjacent reference shelving unit. Everyone spun as Laurie Veniti poked her head out.

“Laurie!” Julie said. “I told you to stay back, out of sight!”

Corry’s twin made a little shrugging motion. “Yeah, but that announcement said to go into the nearest classroom, and since I saw my brother creeping up on you I figured we could all go somewhere together… with Clarke too! S-So what are you saying? Because there’s something about time travel… something I can’t quite put my finger on…”

“Hold on,” Clarke interrupted, raising his hand. He’d noticed the school librarian hang up his phone, and Mr. Price was now heading towards them. “We really need to table this discussion for later.”

The halls were deserted. Hunt had apparently managed to evacuate the school during the hour Carrie had spent in the auditorium. Good. At least, Carrie assumed the building had been evacuated – she supposed some people might still be managing a silent lockdown inside the classrooms. But there were no police officers roaming the halls like she might have otherwise expected, and the level of ache in her head implied the massive changes were done with - for now. She decided to risk visiting her locker.

She found the note inside. It was unsigned, but Carrie knew who it had come from, given the handwriting. ‘Suggest you don’t go home.’ it read. ‘Meet behind park, at ravine. Will explain.’

“Yes, I think you’d better explain,” Carrie murmured. “Who is this sister of yours, this Mindy-onomatopoeia? Are you really some fugitive from the future? Or are you merely from a time traveling family that you elected not to tell me about, GLEN??”

She crumpled the note in her hand before grabbing her coat and bookbag and slamming her locker door shut. She felt confused, frustrated, and even a little scared. “Goddamn time travel,” the blonde cheerleader concluded, striding to the nearest hallway door and kicking at the crash bar with her heel to open it. “Why can’t I have a normal life?”

Moments after Carrie’s departure, a nearby door clicked open and a young asian girl poked her head out. She glanced up and down the vacant hallway before closing the door again. “I think we’re in the clear, Tim,” Luci whispered. “That noise had to be the last people evacuating. My guess is that no one expected people to duck into the yearbook room. That’s why no one came to get us.”

The blonde boy shifted uncertainly from his position under the table. “You think?” he asked. “I mean, that lockdown can’t have been a drill, not with people sending messages about a car crash and a gun. Maybe we should stay a bit longer? After all, we’ve sent something to our parents to tell them we’re okay, and it’s not like we’ve got nothing to do…” He gestured at the notebook open on the floor.

Luci grinned. “I’m glad you find Linquist’s language as fascinating as I do. But you said you had some reference books at home - so if the coast IS clear? We could make better headway there. It would probably put your parents more at ease too.”

Tim considered, then nodded, gathering up the pages of notes he and Luci had been making since lunchtime that day. Shortly after, Linquist’s logbook in hand, the young girl followed Tim out of the room.

Carrie paced back and forth at the tree line of the park, glancing in mounting annoyance at her watch. “An hour,” she muttered. “On top of the time it took to get to the note, so where the hell…” She paused as she caught sight of someone motioning to her down in the ravine. Stomping a little closer, she was able to recognize Glen’s coat, so she hurried down to meet him. Finally.

“Don’t you shush me!” Carrie said, noticing that Glen had a finger pressed up to his lips. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, buddy!” Nevertheless, she did keep her voice down.

Glen simply sighed, leading Carrie back deeper amid the tree trunks before speaking. “Is it true then?” he asked. “Was the person who crashed the van into the school looking for me?”

“She wasn’t only looking for you,” Carrie shot back, “this ‘Mindy’ girl waved a gun around and went out of her way to tell me you were a fugitive from the future. What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

Glen looked genuinely shocked. “Mindy? It was Mindylenopia? Oh, I’m so sorry, Carrie. I had hoped to have a little more time before explaining the nature of my mission, but if she’s forcing my hand…”

“Mission?!” Carrie felt a cold hand grabbing at her heart. Somehow, she’d still held out hope that this was all some sort of cosmic misunderstanding. That Glen would be as confused as her about the situation. No such luck. “You mean you really ARE from the future?”

“If you are indeed the ultimate temporal weapon.”

Carrie took a step back, stumbled on a root, and fell to the ground. “Oh God. Oh God, y-you knew about… the whole time?! B-But… does this mean you’ve never cared about me as a p-person?!?” Insanely, that felt like the thing which mattered the most. “I mean, on that first date, when you said you’d be honest with me, and that you merely sensed some extraordinary ability - was it all lies to get close to this weapon that I’m supposed to become?!”

“Oh, Carrie, no,” Glen said, kneeling down beside her. “I do care about you. And that is how I felt about you at first… about future you. The reason I never said anything to you about your destiny was because, well, your friend Chartreuse seemed to be providing you with something of a power basis. And there was no reason for me to start your training right away.”

“You were… sent back to train me?” Within her spinning thoughts, something clicked. “Of course. The reason you didn’t trip my headache that day in the drama room, out of time - is because you were somehow already a time anomaly. That’s also why, whenever I centred on you in a vision, my senses inevitably pulled me forwards into the future… because that’s where you originated.”

Which was what had also led her to see Mindy, that time at the dance. Her jaw clenched at the memory. “But if you’ve come back for me, who’s this Mindy? Is your sister an agent for the other side??”

“Actually, if this is the Mindylenopia I know, she’s an agent from our side gone bad,” Glen explained ruefully. “And she’s not my sister. For the record, Temporals don’t use ‘last names’ - those imply a certain ancestry. I’m more properly known as Glinephanis. I selected the name Glen Oaks shortly after my arrival in your time. It was the name of some memorial gardens in a nearby town. She must have learned of my name at the hotel here, then given herself a similar last name, to play with your mind.”

Carrie wished the pounding in her temples would cease. It wasn’t a temporal headache any more, but it was almost as bad. “So… the Chronologic Patrol?”

Glen frowned. “Chrono what? Carrie, there is no such thing.”

“Oh gawwwwwwwwwd,” Carrie moaned, lowering her head down to between her legs. “I can’t take this. Not now. I was all set to have a nice, relaxing evening… instead, I’ve got a girl from the future trying to kill a trainer I didn’t even know I had, and possibly me as well! Assuming you’re not lying, being some fugitive yourself, out to kill me in my sleep!”

“I assure you, I’m here to help,” Glen said. “Is there anything you’d like me to do to prove my sincerity?”

“Yes! No… I don’t know!” Carrie said, grabbing two fistfuls of her hair. “How could you even… wait, yes! If you really came from the future, you must have a time machine! Tell me, where is it?”

Glen stood back up. “I didn’t come here via a time machine, Carrie.”

“No? If not, how in hell could you end up in my present?!”

He smiled. “Carrie… you sent me here. Your future self did. Using your abilities.”

Mindylenopia forced herself to stop and take in a few deep breaths before approaching the house. She had to stop rushing things - she’d made it back. The hard part was over. There was more time now, time to work carefully, time to be cunning. Time to control the people she was talking to with more finesse.

Time to come up with a better cover story.

She wasn’t used to having that time. In retrospect, her improvised crashing of the van had done little aside from paint a target on her back. But for all she’d known, “Glen Oaks” had already recruited past-Carrie as his personal temporal guardian! She’d had to gamble that while at school, they wouldn’t be together. Hadn’t she?

Well, they were probably together by now.

Mindy continued her advance towards the house. Having time or not, after a half hour of observation here, with no sign of either Glen or Carrie, she had to DO something. “This world better appreciate what I’m going through for them,” Mindy muttered as she adjusted the zipper on the jacket she’d ‘borrowed’.

She rang the bell. An older man answered the door and looked down at her. “Yes?” Hank Waterson said tentatively. Mindy simply smiled.

Hopefully you’re enjoying this. Maybe even enough for the weekly vote? Or better yet, some sort of remark? Views are actually down since publishing twice per week. Bad form?

Previously: Last year, Julie was mentally influenced to shoot Carrie. Carrie recently had a future vision at the dance. Megan beat Corry for leadership at school, right before a van crashed into their library.

3.14a: THE CONSPIRACY UNFOLDS 1

Chartreuse had just finished the table of observations for the physics experiment she and Lee were conducting when the sound of screeching tires and a loud crash from outside caused her pencil to slip from her fingers.

Lee, along with a few other students, quickly moved to positions where they could look out the second floor window. “Holy geez,” Lee said after a moment. “It’s kinda hard to tell from this angle, but it looks like some crazy driver crashed right into the school library!”

“Whoa,” Chartreuse gasped. “That must be, like, why I got bad vibes from the place this morning.” A number of other students in the classroom exchanged glances. Frank and Clarke immediately registered Julie’s absence, and before the teacher could stop them, they dashed out of the room.

“Julie, get my sister to safety!” Corry called out.

Julie noticed that Corry had elected to pull Megan away, as the younger girl had apparently passed out from shock. Did Corry think keeping their new rival safe might reverse the junior’s coup? Julie shook her head - she could think about it later, right now they had more immediate concerns.

“On it,” Julie responded, taking hold of the arm of Corry’s wide-eyed sister. She deftly maneuvered the two of them back, further away from the crazy redhead with the gun.

Even as she did, the crazy redhead’s attention was drawn to the man who was now slowly advancing upon her. The school principal raised his hands and froze at her attention. “Stay calm,” Hunt said. “Put the gun down. We don’t want any trouble.”

“Then you’ll hand over Glen Oaks,” the girl retorted. Her gaze was fully upon him now as she spoke very deliberately. “Tell me, where can I find Glen?”

“He… he’s a student here. He would be in class now,” the principal responded.

“What class? Where?” she pressed.

“I… I’m not sure…” Julie noticed that the principal’s eyes seemed to be glazing over, as they locked with those of the redheaded intruder. Julie’s own eyes narrowed. Something about this struck a chord inside her. An unpleasant chord.

But it was hard to get a bead on things, as she was still leading Laurie back into the book stacks, with other students shouting around them, either trying to hide, or run for the exit.

“WHERE?” the gun toting girl repeated.

“I… really… don’t… know,” Mr. Hunt replied, his voice shifting into a rather eerie monotone. “I can… look it up…”

The redhead let out a sigh of frustration. “Never mind. How about Carrie Waterson, where is she?”

“Right there.” Mr. Hunt lifted his finger to point. Julie snapped her gaze over in the direction the principal was indicating, in time to see her blonde classmate dashing out of the library doors, one hand pushing hard into her temple.

“Stop! Carrie!” the girl with the gun cried out. She began sprinting after her. “I have to warn you about Glen!”

Corry, who had been hauling Megan towards the same door, froze as the armed redhead ran right past. Julie registered that fact even as her gaze shifted back towards the principal. He seemed to be blinking in confusion at the latest development, only now turning to look towards the main library doors.

“Damn it,” Hunt cursed, moving back for the library office. “Did I just tell her…? Mr. Price!” he called out. “Tell the main office to announce that students are to remain in their classes when–”

The bell rang signifying the end of the school day. Frowning, Julie watched as Hunt disappeared into the small office with the librarian. She then swept her gaze back across the scene, ending at the shattered picture windows, which were now letting the wind blow in among the book stacks. Most of the students were gone. The van was simply sitting there with the driver behind the wheel. The driver.

Julie took a step forwards, only to have a hand clutch at her shoulder from behind. She twisted her neck around, seeing Laurie’s frightened face. “G-G-Golly, Julie,” Corry’s sister stammered. “W-What’s going on??”

“I don’t know,” Julie replied, clenching her jaw. “But I’m going to find out, okay?” She clasped Laurie’s hand. “Duck down, and stay quiet. Wait for me or Corry to come back here for you.”

She was going to get some answers.

‘Why is it time travellers enjoy pointing guns at me?’ Carrie wondered as she charged down the hallway. ‘I mean, don’t they have some better technology available to them yet? Something less lethal, maybe? That’d be nice…’

She heard the library doors get bashed open behind her. “Carrie, stop! Listen to me!”

“Pass,” Carrie mumbled under her breath.

It didn’t help that it was getting hard to think at all, what with the temporal pressure hammering at her temples. That van should not have crashed into the library. More to the point, this redheaded girl was not supposed to be in their time. Of that, Carrie was certain. Yet at the same time, she recognized her pursuer as the one who had been in her vision at the dance last month.

Carrie swallowed. That’s right. In her vision, this same girl had been standing in front of her, and the redhead with the hazel eyes had raised a hand, holding that knife… oh, hold on. Knife, not gun. So why the gun now? And what was her connection to Glen?

Before those thoughts could manage a foothold, the bell rang, signifying the end of classes. Students began to pour out of the classrooms. “Perfect,” Carrie moaned, feeling the vice around her temples tightening. She closed her eyes, squeezing out tears of pain.

No way could she think about whys. Not now. She had to lead that crazy girl in the red dress somewhere NOT IN THE HALLS, somewhere SAFE, somewhere she’d STOP damaging their timeline. And that place wasn’t out into the parking lot, with all the parents, no, that was liable to make things even worse. So where?

‘All right, track star,’ Carrie thought. ‘Time for some fancy action.’ With a quick look over her shoulder to make sure the gun toting maniac was still in pursuit, she summoned up a burst of speed, sprinting into the (thankfully) deserted school auditorium, down near the stage podium.

In one fluid movement, Carrie yanked open the loose door she knew about down on the lower right corner of the stage. She boosted herself through it feet first, landing between the rows of extra chairs stored there. She immediately reached up to slide the door shut behind her, then lay quietly, trying to keep herself from breathing too hard. The chair leg poking against her bottom really didn’t help matters.

The sound of running footsteps in the auditorium turned into walking footsteps, then there was nothing. “Carrie?” came the redhead’s voice.

A pause, and then Carrie heard her pursuer ascend the steps onto the stage itself. “Carrie, I’m fairly certain that you didn’t time jump, and thus are simply hiding in here. It’s not my intention to harm you. Come on out so that we can talk.”

Carrie remained where she was. She heard the sound of a brief search, interrupted only by some sort of muffled announcement over the public address system. Then more silence. Her headache was ebbing. That felt like a good sign.

Right when Carrie thought it might be safe to move though, she heard the girl’s voice again. “All right, Carrie, have it your way,” the redhead declared. “But in case you can hear me – I, Mindylenopia Oaks, member of the Chronologic Patrol, am here for Glen Oaks. My brother is a dangerous fugitive from the future. You must not trust him! I will be in touch.”

A pause, then running footsteps, then the auditorium door, and then silence. Still, Carrie waited twice as long as she had the last time before finally edging the stage door aside. When nothing happened, she pulled herself back into the auditorium.

There was no one there. What’s more, the throbbing in her head had regressed to a point where it was almost bearable. Letting out a sigh of relief, Carrie headed cautiously for the hallway, rubbing absently at the sore spot where the chair had been jabbing her. Wishing she had any idea as to her next move.

The van driver still seemed partially dazed as Julie pulled open his door. She noticed that while he had a bump on his head, his seat belt had managed to protect him from serious harm. “Vat’s goin’ on?” the driver murmured, turning his head to regard the brown haired student. “Vere am I?”

“I’ll ask the questions here,” Julie asserted. “Who are you, who was the redhead, and why is she after my friends?!”

“I… I be Lars,” the driver stated blearily. “Vat redhead you mean?”

“Your passenger,” Julie said, peering a little more closely at him. Did he have a concussion or something? “You know, the one with the gun.”

“Gun?!” Lars said. He turned to regard the empty seat next to him, then finally made an effort to sit up. “She’s gone! Mindy’s gone!”

“Mindy?” Julie said, jumping on the name. “Is that the person you were driving here?”

Lars reached up to press a hand to the bump on his head as he replied. “I tink… yes, she tell me to drive her into this town, and her name, it sounded like Mindy.”

“Sounded like? You’re not sure? You’d never met her before today?”

“No, I… oh my goodness! My van is in library?!?”

“Focus please, just a couple more questions,” Julie said, snapping her fingers to retain his attention. “Did Mindy say anything to you when you were driving? About what she was doing or why she came here?”

“No, I… we came to town, we stopped first at hotel, she go in, then come out and say Glen is at school. So we come to school. I mention school probably over soon, so she tell me to keep on driving towards window.”

Julie blinked. “So you did?”

“I… I did. Somehow it make sense at the time…”

Julie felt a chill run up her spine. It made sense at the time. She remembered thinking the exact same thing before shooting Carrie last year. After that man had spent time talking to her on the phone. Influencing her with his voice. There had to be a connection.

“Who introduced Mindy to you?" Julie pressed. “And did Mindy mention anyone else she was working with??”

“We meet by bridge… I… I don’t think she say,” Lars replied, throwing up his hands. “Who you be anyway? Student?” He only now seemed to realize Julie’s age.

“Irrelevant,” Julie said, trying to sound as authoritative as possible. “Tell me, was it Mindy herself who convinced you to listen to her? How did she do it?!” Lars simply opened and closed his mouth, a baffled expression on his face.

“Jewels,” came a quiet voice from behind her. “The police are on their way and teachers are trying to get everyone into lockdown. We need to get out of here.”

-Some of this makes sense, right? If not, please let me know.

-Hello to new blog follower professorumbraum! If you were also the person reading the entire archive on the weekend, you made last week’s views look normal instead of rather sad, thank you.

Previously: A mystery girl appeared in front of a jogger. Julie got her friends to pit Joe and Tommy against each other, in order to focus on Megan’s plans.

PART 3.13b: UNDER ATTACK 2

Julie nodded back at Carrie. “Thank you. See, as soon as Chartreuse said that Megan Falls was involved, I knew that this school was in trouble. Deep trouble. That girl not only works in the shadows, she tries to make people believe her opinions without a plan in mind. Without consideration of immediate consequences.”

She straightened her posture. “Ironically, Megan’s unpredictability means she probably has the best shot at Corry. So our first step HAD to be clearing the board of Joe and Tommy. To better get a bead on her. THAT’S why I sent you both on your missions this morning.”

Julie looked towards Frank. “It only occurs to me now that you were pretty reluctant about messing with Joe’s head. I guess all I can do at this point is ask for your forgiveness.”

“Yeah, well… in retrospect, the guy WAS taking things a bit far,” Frank admitted, thinking back to the image he’d seen. “So as long as you’re more forthcoming with us next time, sure, I can forgive you."

Julie then turned to Carrie, but the blonde was already waving her off. “Don’t sweat it. I was only miffed at your attitude. I rather enjoyed playing off Tommy’s paranoia, he’s kind of a jerk.”

“All right,” Julie said, letting out a sigh of relief. “Thing is, Megan’s too canny to be fooled like those two. In fact, I discovered that she’s been recorded as absent from school today. Given that, I asked Phil to scout around a bit at lunch, to see if he could find out where she really is.” She eyed the drama room door. “Since he hasn’t joined us yet, I can only assume that he’s had no luck so far.”

She looked at each of them in turn. “And while I grant that this may be partly my ego, if Megan takes charge of the balance of power in this school? Chaos is sure to follow! Do you understand now? And will you help me help Corry?”

“Okay Julie,” Chartreuse chirped. “Except, what exactly should we do, aside from look around too? I mean, like, what is it you’ve, you know, learned about Megan’s plans so far?”

Julie brushed some of her long hair off her shoulder as she moved to lean back against a nearby wall. “As a matter of fact,” she said, letting out a frustrated sigh, “as of this point in time, I’ve learned nothing at all about her plans.”

Lunch period ended. The image of Tommy, serving tea to the chess club while clad in a full length green dress, only appeared in printouts - given how the school’s server mysteriously went down. But, true or not, seeing how he could be manipulated was enough to discredit the boy in the eyes of many of his supporters.

Similarly, the sight of Joe walking through the halls with a bloody nose, wearing nothing but his boxers, was not seen by many either - he was quickly taken to the main office. However, as with the dress picture, word soon spread, and it became apparent that Joe had also lost leadership credibility in the eyes of the school.

The quick interventions of the faculty aside, Tommy and Joe had cancelled each other out - as Julie had engineered. She tapped her fingers against her desk. Yet here it was, last period, and she STILL wasn’t sure what Megan was up to!

Carrie, Frank, Chartreuse and Phil had all come up empty. Granted, they hadn’t actually tried to invoke Carrie’s powers again - but Julie was coming to understand Carrie’s argument for why it might not be in their best interests to do that. Not if it fixed the outcome, and it was one in Megan’s favour.

Julie left the mechanics of her physics lab in the hands of her partner, busy racking her brains for what it was she could have missed. It wasn’t until Laurie Veniti was paged to the library fifteen minutes before the end of the school day that Julie realized what a blind idiot she’d been. Whispering to her lab partner that she’d handle the writeup for them, and to please cover for her, Julie slipped out of the room. Only to bump into Corry, who was doing the exact same thing down the hallway.

“Fancy running into you like this,” Julie said as the two of them headed for the stairwell. “Is my ‘rampant paranoia’ catching?”

Corry opened his mouth to fire off some response, then simply grimaced. “Okay, I deserved that,” he admitted. “The more I’ve thought about what you said this morning, the more I’ve realized how good the timing was for a major attack. You were right. I was wrong. I have been overconfident. Were you the one who rerouted Joe and Tommy?”

“Damn right,” Julie responded. “Though… I had some help.”

“I see,” the redhead replied as they reached the stairs. “And I can only assume this last plan is the work of Megan Falls. Do you know what she’s been getting my sister mixed up with?”

“Afraid not,” Julie sighed. “I SHOULD have been tailing Laurie all day. I’m out of practice.”

“No more so than me,” Corry grumped. “You know, if we get through this intact, maybe I should start treating you as more of a equal again. You know my blind spots, and can help to keep me on my toes.” Julie blinked over at him in surprise, but said nothing.

The two teenagers arrived on the ground floor and approached the library. They quickly spotted Carrie, who was trying to peer covertly through the glass doors of the main entrance. She looked over at them as they approached.

“Oh! Uh. I… I was in drama class with Laurie when she was paged away,” Carrie explained. “It wasn’t until right after she left that I remembered what Chartreuse said this morning about evil library vibes, and given Julie’s talk at lunch, I… I thought Laurie might have been walking into a trap.” She gestured vaguely. “But, hey, maybe not? It doesn’t look like there’s anything nefarious going on in there.”

“Knowing Megan, it’s probably too devious to look nefarious,” Corry asserted. “Thanks, I’ll take it from here."

Corry marched past his two classmates, shoving the library doors open and striding inside. He was able to pick out his twin sister almost immediately, standing over by the bookshelves. Next to Laurie was a shorter girl with shoulder length jet black hair. Megan.

“Okay, stop right there!” Corry said as he ran up to them. His run was brought up short as he noticed Principal Hunt, formerly hidden from view, standing amongst the bookshelves beside the two teenage girls. “Or, ah, not,” Corry amended, stumbling.

A trace of a smile flickered over Mr. Hunt’s face, as if some suspicion of his had been verified, before he turned back to regard Megan. “So see to it that there is no more of this unauthorized use of the public address system,” he concluded. “Whatever you had to tell Laurie, it could have waited until the end of the school day.”

“Yes, sir,” the junior girl replied meekly. “Never again.”

“Very well then,” the principal concluded. “One detention for you. As well as for Mr. Veniti, Ms. LaMille and Ms. Waterson for cutting class.” Corry flinched at the news, then glanced over his shoulder. He hadn’t even heard Julie and Carrie follow him in.

The smile tugged at the corner of the principal’s lips again as he turned to regard them all. “And, ladies and gentlemen? Let’s have no more of this tomfoolery for at LEAST the rest of the month, hmmm?” With that, Mr. Hunt walked off, apparently to talk with the head librarian.

“Well, that sucked,” Carrie mumbled. “Is it me, or is Hunt himself getting more devious lately too?”

Corry barely heard her, more concerned with whatever Megan had been up to with his sister. “Laurie?” he inquired, turning to meet her gaze for the first time. He braced himself, not certain what sort of expression he would see on her face.

The pure rapture that Laurie had on display still managed to catch him completely off guard.

“Corry?” his sister breathed. “Corry, I… I’ve been published! Megan got me published, isn’t that the most WONDERFUL news you’ve ever heard in your whole LIFE?”

Corry felt his throat seize up.

“H-How?” came Julie’s voice.

Laurie held up a small bound paperback. “A drawing I made for art class last year! Megan got a copy and wrote a short story based on it and submitted it to a regional contest put on by this short story publisher looking for best illustrated work and he liked it and all winners were basically being printed in this little book and oh golly it actually WON so I’ve had a picture published and my name is actually in print here right next to Megan’s!” She clasped the book back against her body.

“Yes, it’s thrilling isn’t it?” Megan put in, firing off a sweet smile in Corry’s direction. She brought her fist up to her heart. “Kind of gets you. Right. Here.”

Corry’s eyes linked with Megan’s. Her eyes narrowed, her smile widening. And she had him, and they both knew it. Owing to what Megan had done for Laurie here, Corry was not only indebted to her, but any move that he now made against the girl might well end up hurting Laurie emotionally. He had been outflanked by an act of pure generosity.

“Risky move, Megan," Julie piped up, her voice providing Corry with the excuse to look away. “After all, what if Corry had been dethroned earlier today? He’d have no social strings for you to pull on.”

Megan shrugged, her hand moving to idly finger the cross she wore on her necklace. “Well, no fun playing the game if you’re sure of the outcome each time,” she said. “But I had faith in you, Julie. After all, who do you think got Kim to tip you off in the first place?”

The brunette took a physical step back. “You– Damn you.”

“Okay, well, not to break up the happy fun times here,” Carrie broke in. “But maybe we should let the tension bleed out by heading back to class? I’d say the school’s had as much excitement as it can handle for today.”

Carrie was immediately proven wrong, as someone nearby let out a scream. The five students all turned, barely in time to see the van with the license plate reading ‘LARS 02’ jump the curb outside and crash through the library’s large picture windows, the vehicle coming to rest in the reference section. A girl with short red hair swiftly kicked open the passenger door, held up a gun, and hollered, “All right, where the hell is ‘Glen Oaks’ at?!?”

Owing to all the screaming and shouting that followed, only Corry heard Carrie’s horrified reaction: “Oh my God. That’s HER.”

The first domino falls… do you see how the rest of them have been set up yet? A reminder, you can Vote for T&T.

Previously: Julie got Carrie and Chartreuse to identify threats against Corry. Luci discovered that Linquist’s book wasn’t coded, it was in another language.

PART 3.13a: UNDER ATTACK 1

“Frank, something’s come up I’m gonna be busy all this lunch but we can still meet after school okay?”

Frank shifted his attention from his computer monitor over towards his girlfriend, trying to parse Luci’s rushed dialogue. The bell had only just rung, signifying the end of the seventy five minute period, along with morning classes. “Uhhhh, sure,” he agreed. Luci flashed him a smile, then grabbed her things and hurried out of the room.

Actually, he had noticed Luci becoming increasingly jittery as the period had dragged on. He would have followed up on it, were it not for the text messages Julie had been sporadically sending him. Completing the log off of his computer, Frank looked over in Julie’s direction. She met his gaze with a little shrug, as if to say ‘You know what’s needed now, it’s up to you whether you act.’

In other words, putting the ball in his court. He turned away from her, so she couldn’t read his expression. He didn’t want this ball. He’d rather not have become involved in the game. However, he had apparently been drafted, and if what Julie had said was true, backing out now would not only be hurtful to her, it could have repercussions throughout the school.

Fine. So he’d at least try. For the sake of the school. Stifling a sigh, Frank made his way over to Joe’s computer, even as all the other students filed out of the room. “So, you told Mr. Burke you’d be, um, doing some extra coding over lunch?” Frank asked his business club associate. He tried to keep his tone nonchalant.

“Yeah,” Joe replied. “Still have one whole module to code.”

“Right." Frank glanced towards Mr. Burke, but the teacher wasn’t paying any attention to them. Even so, he lowered his voice. “So this, uh, doesn’t have anything to do with striking out at Corry then?”

Joe’s head snapped over to meet Frank’s gaze. “Why?” he demanded. “What have you heard?”

“Oh! Nothing… nothing really. That is, I heard that Tommy was planning a strike against Corry, so given what you were saying back at the dance, I was wondering if you were as well.” Inwardly, Frank cursed himself. Get a grip, Dijora, or he’s going to catch on. Channel your inner improv geek.

Fortunately, Joe didn’t seem to notice any lack of finesse, more concerned with the message itself. “Tommy is, eh?” he said, frowning. “Interesting. But I doubt his plan has any intelligence, not like–"

“Not like yours?” Frank pressed as Joe stopped short. “Come on, Joe, we’ve known each other for how long now? Coat check, business club, occasional chess games? If you really are going to do something, don’t I rate a little advanced preview of your infinite wisdom?”

Joe paused for an indeterminate amount of time before turning away and clicking through directories with his mouse. Frank thought he had been given the brush off, until Joe pulled up an image on the screen and looked back at him. “What do you think?” his friend inquired, watching closely for Frank’s reaction.

Frank had to do a double take. The picture showed Julie and Corry, in a hallway of their school… not only locked in an embrace, but kissing passionately. “Holy geez,” Frank choked out. “When did they ever…???”

“Make out? Beats me,” Joe retorted with a satisfied smirk. “Maybe never. I got into the school yearbook archives and stole some candid photo shots. Damn fine photo editing work, if I do say so myself. And once I broadcast Corry’s love for Julie across our whole school network, he’ll lose all respect among his peers! Her remaining support will likely blow up at them as well. Leaving me in a position to step in.”

Frank shook his head. “But if you faked that photo…“

“Fake, real, people don’t care about that,” Joe said dismissively. “They care about the sensation. All I need to do is send this out precisely at noon, claiming I got it from an anonymous source.”

“Huh. That’s brilliant," Frank yielded, only belatedly remembering Julie’s instructions. “You’re forgetting Tommy though,” he continued. “With both of you making moves to take out Corry today, you’ll end up in Tommy’s crosshairs. He won’t see you as an ally either, not with how you’ve included Julie in your vendetta. Going after the two most well known seniors at once? Tommy will see you as a potential threat to his own supremacy.”

There was an extended silence. “Cripes, you may be right,” Joe granted. “That said, I figured he might try something some day. I already have a doctored image that can be used to take Tommy down a peg as well!”

Frank shook his head. “Fool me twice, shame on you. You can’t use an image trick for Tommy if you once used it on Corry. People will become suspicious. All you’re doing here by going after Corry first is handing the school over to his main henchman.”

Joe looked from Frank to his computer and back. “You’re right. Damn it, you’re right!” He slammed his hand down on the computer table. Mr. Burke looked up from his desk in surprise.

“Frustrating bug,” Frank said, smiling apologetically at the teacher. Mr. Burke raised an eyebrow before returning to his grading.

“Okay, wait a minute,” Joe muttered. “If Tommy’s already in the process of taking out Corry - then all I need to do is to take out Tommy! Right? I’ll have one-upped the guy who one-upped Corry! That should give me enough support to do whatever I want! Except… damn, the image I have for him won’t let me get at Julie…”

“Well, you can deal with her any way you like once you’re on top of the social ladder,” Frank offered. Inwardly, he was relieved beyond belief that the very plan he’d been asked to feed to Joe had basically been proposed by Joe himself.

“Good point,” Joe responded grudgingly. “Yeah, I’m sure I can come up with something else there. All right, thanks buddy. I owe you one.”

“Uh, well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Frank said, smiling weakly. However Joe barely noticed, having already resumed typing on his keyboard. So, murmuring a good luck and a goodbye, Frank beat a hasty retreat out of the computer lab - and down to the drama room. Where he hoped Julie would be able to explain herself a little better.

“So he’s not going to broadcast that doctored image?"

“I don’t think so. Not yours, at least. He was focused on Tommy when I left,” Frank replied. So much for explanations, he thought ruefully. He’d been subjected to the third degree from Julie about Joe’s plans ever since his arrival.

“Okay then,” Julie said, rubbing her hands together. She finally turned away from him, to face Carrie again. “And you’re sure Tommy’s goons are going after Joe, not Corry?”

“Right,” the blonde said, frowning. “In fact, you seem to have done a damn good job of setting those two against each other. Since when was THAT the plan?”

“Irrelevant," the brunette asserted. “The point is, with them off the board, we can finally focus on the real threat.”

“Okay, no, stop, back up,” Frank protested. “What goons? What threat? Julie, what have you been doing here?”

“I think she’s been, like, working to save Corry’s butt from people plotting against him,” volunteered Chartreuse.

Frank glanced over at the fourth occupant of the room. Chartreuse had been silent since his arrival. “Julie’s been what?” he asked. “Why?”

Chartreuse simply shrugged. It was Julie who spoke up. “Because I’m concerned about Corry,” she asserted, crossing her arms. “Moreover, I bet that he will appreciate that I’m becoming able to handle myself again, without him always needing to butt in on my behalf.”

“Enough Julie. That is an outright lie," Carrie said, jabbing out her index finger.

Julie bristled. “I beg your pardon?!”

“Don’t give me that look!” Carrie countered. “Any fool can see you’re not concerned. You’re enjoying the hell out of this! I haven’t seen you this animated at school in months! If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were hoping that, by acting on Corry’s behalf, people will start to see you more as his equal again!”

The brunette flinched. “Carrie, stop, can’t you see? I’m trying to do the right thing here! Not for me, but for the school! How can you possibly have a problem with that??”

“Julie, I know you,” Carrie retorted. “Let’s review. Strike one was you making me tap into my abilities. Granted, when I saw Tommy down the hall from Corry, discussing a plan to sic some of his more disreputable friends on the guy at lunch, I was with you on stopping that. Acceding to your second request, going to Tommy before lunch to shift his attention away from Corry and onto Joe. Since he was not only going after Corry, but apparently you too.

“Now, in my mind, that closes the books on the entire situation. Instead, I discover that you’ve been talking to Frank! And have got this whole pit those people against each other plan! Being silent about that was strike two. And now, strike three - you’re not telling us everything about your real motivations!”

“No, Carrie, think! Chartreuse got an impression too,” Julie reminded them. “It’s Megan Falls who’s the REAL problem here!”

“But YOU never TOLD us that!" Carrie said, now almost shouting. “Besides, Chartreuse said that Megan was going after Corry. Corry, not you! You’re in the clear, Julie. Why does it matter if the cocky redhead gets knocked off his pedestal, by Megan or anyone else?”

“Uhm, yeah, hi again,” Frank interrupted, reaching out to wave his hand in between the two glaring females. “Still not totally following here… Megan who?”

“Megan Falls,” Chartreuse chirped. “Junior student, one grade back. Very musical, she, like, helped to do a lot of fundraising in the band last year. She’s the one I got a weird impression of, while trying to tap into Corry’s location via Carrie this morning.”

“Oh. That Megan,” Frank replied blankly.

Julie turned away from everybody and took in a deep breath. “Fine. Okay. Maybe I should have been more up front with you. But mark my words, we cannot underestimate Megan. While she began as simply one of my many followers, and a way to get the Catholics on my side within the school, her file in my archives kept growing. That girl is not only devious, she’s random and hard to predict! Win, lose, doesn’t seem to matter to her, she prefers to play the odds. Trust me, we cannot let her take Corry down!”

“But WHY, Julie?” Carrie asked, slamming her palm into the wall. “Why the hell not?!?”

“Because!” Julie said, turning back and slamming her own palm against the teacher’s desk. “Because in the battle between the devil we know and the devil we don’t, I choose the side of the devil we know! Because despite all his faults, Corry is at least orderly, and not really that bad of a guy in a pinch! And finally - you’re right! Okay? It DOES pain me to think that some young upstart might pull off the victory against Corry that everyone thinks I never managed to achieve! That’s why, Carrie! Are you happy now?!”

For a moment, no one spoke. “No,” Carrie said at last, in a more calm tone of voice. “I’m not happy. But I am a little more understanding, now that you’re acknowledging the truth."

Julie stared at the blonde. And then her other hand joined her first, the brunette leaning on the desk. “Oh my God,” she realized. “I’ve been manipulating you. All of you. For my own ends. Doc Golden told me to be careful of reverting to old habits.” She bit down hard on her lower lip. “I’m sorry. Truly. I knew I was being impulsive… but it… it felt so RIGHT!"

“Julie, we’re not simply your followers here,” Carrie said, her tone becoming more sympathetic. “We’re your friends. But we won’t be for long, not unless you give us the whole story and let us decide for ourselves whether your ideas are worth pursuing.”

“But I… she…” Julie stopped and reached up to press a hand against her temples. “All right,” she decided. “All right. So let me explain the rest of my thinking. Please?”

Frank exchanged a quick glance with the others. He shrugged along with Chartreuse, and Carrie gestured at Julie. “Go ahead,” the blonde yielded.

Previously: Chartreuse has a thing for Carrie since the school dance. Luci couldn’t crack Linquist’s code. The principal is worried about the school factions.

PART 3.12b: POWER STRUGGLE 2

Carrie waited for Mrs. Haye to turn back towards the blackboard before glancing down at the piece of paper she and Julie had been passing back and forth for the last twenty minutes. It was funny - their English teacher was always on the alert for phones, but apparently not for the low tech alternatives.

Pursing her lips, Carrie reviewed what had been written so far.

‘C, think there is trouble. Can we use powers to help? J.’

To which she had scribbled, ‘Am not a magic wand! Define trouble. C.’

Response, ‘Person plotting. Need info on future. Please? J.’

‘Reservations. Anything I see seems unchangeable. C.’

‘Exception this once, maybe? J.’

‘DOES. NOT. WORK. THAT. WAY.’

‘Sorry, C. Maybe use machine instead? J.’

‘Discussion over.’

And then the last line: ‘PLEASE, C? Need a friend here. J.’

Carrie shifted her attention over towards Julie’s desk. To the casual observer, Julie appeared to be engrossed in her note taking - but Carrie noticed a certain rigidity in her posture. Then, even as she watched, Julie glanced her way and fired off a quick look of desperation. Carrie immediately turned away, back to her own english notes.

‘Need a friend here'. A friend. The words floated through her head, causing Carrie to hold her pencil a little tighter. WAS this a friendly request? Or was Julie trying to use Carrie for her abilities?

Julie should get the benefit of the doubt. Yes, once again, Julie wasn’t the issue. Carrie’s own temporal powers were the real hang up here, like always. She HAD to get over that.

Mrs. Haye started into the last set of examples. Carrie knew that if she was going to send a reply, she had to do it now, before the class started back into a discussion of that boring Shakespearean play. Letting out a quick breath of air, she dashed off one final line: ‘Help me corner Pinkie after class. We’ll talk. C.’ This way, if Julie couldn’t figure out that Pinkie referred to Chartreuse, well, that was her own damn fault.

Julie hustled both Chartreuse and Carrie into the nearby custodial supply closet right after English class. “Okay, uh, what’s this, like, about?" Chartreuse wondered.

“I’m not positive myself,” Carrie admitted. “But Julie seems to think she’s in some sort of trouble today.”

“No, not think, now I’m sure I am,” Julie told them. “Because the more I’ve considered it, the more the timing fits. Particularly given Corry’s overly complacent attitude since the dance. He’s become a target, and while I’m indirectly involved, I haven’t been keeping myself in the loop at school. So I need more information.”

“You know, I did sense some kind of destructive force when I was walking by the library this morning,” Chartreuse agreed. “But I thought it was, like, aftereffects of the bran muffin I ate this morning.”

“Look, Julie, if you’re hoping to stop the future - you don’t want my help,” Carrie said, placing her hands on her hips. “We haven’t done much experimenting that way yet, but thus far, anything I’ve seen? It’s happened. Cafe fire, Tim at the dance, and at a recent session, the grade on my history report. In fact, if we try to change things? We could end up causing the event ourselves."

Julie couldn’t hold back an exasperated sigh. “But Carrie, I can’t simply sit back and allow Corry–”

“Which is why I suggested Chartreuse here,” the blonde interrupted. “Her more ambiguous impressions would be of greater use.”

The pink haired girl blinked back at Carrie. “What? But those need meditation, or direct contact. Besides, you don’t need to look into the future here, you’ve been getting wicked accurate at, you know, pegging what people are doing in the present! You could simply centre yourself in the school and, like, see if anything looks out of whack.”

“Well gee Chartreuse, I could, but I neglected to memorize where every molecule of the building is supposed to be in the river of time.”

“You don’t need to be so specific. If we–”

“Okay, know what?” Julie broke in again. “We don’t have time for this. Classes resume soon. Carrie, Corry’s probably still at his locker - couldn’t you take ten seconds to see if there’s anything obvious around power trip boy that he’s missing? And Chartreuse, when she does that, is there some way you could interface to pick up your impressions second hand?”

The two girls exchanged a glance. “I have kinda wondered about interfacing with you,” Chartreuse whispered. “We came close to something back at the dance! It’s just, since then there never seemed to, you know, be a real good way to, um, suggest it?” She swallowed.

Carrie ran her fingers back through her hair. “Yeah, look, I don’t think a janitor’s closet is the best place for our first interface.”

Chartreuse’s hopeful look crashed into sadness. And there it was again, the same thing Julie had noticed on their time trip into the past. Something about Chartreuse’s reactions to Carrie’s indifference seemed… personal. Almost like unrequited… no, seriously? Julie made a mental note to see if anyone else had noticed.

“Carrie, please,” Julie insisted. “If… if my suspicions aren’t verified here and now, I swear I won’t bother either of you for the rest of the day! At least try, okay? For me, if not for Corry?”

Chartreuse canted her head to the side. “Wow Julie! Are you begging us to do this for you?”

Julie cast her a withering glance. “I’m requesting. Don’t exaggerate my case, Pinkie Pie.” She assumed Carrie’s nickname had been a reference to that show.

“All right,” Carrie cut in quickly. “All right, Julie. We’ll try. But whether it works or not, no more about this today! That’s the deal.”

Julie nodded. “You have my word.”

Chartreuse extended her hands, and after a nod, Carrie took them. Julie watched as both girls closed their eyes. She shifted her weight back and forth uneasily as ten seconds passed, then twenty, then forty. Finally, after just over a minute, Chartreuse snatched one hand away from Carrie’s with a gasp and looked down at it. A couple of seconds later, Carrie reopened her eyes.

“Wow,” Carrie murmured, frowning. “Julie, my apologies. You were right. Someone’s after Corry today.”

“What is it then?” Julie pressed. “What did you see Joe Drew doing?”

“I… wait, Joe?” Carrie protested. “The guy I got a bead on was Tommy Kvish.”

“No, no, the impressions I had were of Megan Falls!” Chartreuse protested, looking back up from her palm. The three girls stared at each other for another long moment in the supply closet, blinking in confusion.

“Well, damn,” Julie said to break the silence.

“M-M-Mr. Burke?” Tim stammered. “My computer won’t boot.”

The computer science teacher approached the blonde boy’s workstation and flipped the power switch himself a couple of times. “Yup, you’re right,” he affirmed. “I’ll notify the school tech. Paul’s away today, so use his computer, over by Luci.”

Luci glanced up briefly as her name was mentioned before returning her attention to the notebook in front of her. Her notebook, filled with the strings of Linquist’s letters that refused to make sense, no matter how she played with them. If only she could let go… but she couldn’t. At least she’d been able to reign her emotions back in last weekend, before everyone had returned from their time trip. Otherwise it would have been pretty embarrassing.

“Hey Luci, what’re you up to?” Frank asked.

As he sat down on her right, the young girl quickly slipped her notebook out of her lap and around to the far side of the computer. She couldn’t admit to her boyfriend that she had become as obsessed with Linquist’s book as he seemed to have become with Glen. “Nothing much,” she said, smiling. “Random coding thought.” It wasn’t a total lie.

The bell rang for class to begin. “Now remember,” Mr. Burke stated, “today is another work period, but the printouts of your assignments are due on my desk by end of day tomorrow. If you finish early, try the bonus question. I’ll continue to circulate for help as needed.”

Luci listened to the teacher with half an ear as she pulled up her coding folder on the desktop. She started doing a bit of debugging, but her heart wasn’t in it, and soon her eyes had wandered back to the open notebook on her left. As focused as she was on the contents, it took a minute or so before she realized that Tim was staring over at the notebook too. “What??” she demanded.

Tim flushed red and turned back to his computer. “N-N-Nothing,” he stammered in reply. “D-Didn’t know you were studying some derivative of l-latin."

“I’m not," Luci snapped back. “It’s… wait, this looks like latin?!”

Tim looked back up at her, then again down at the notebook. He frowned, then shrugged. “Okay, no… it did at first, a bit… but this is a language I don’t recognize.”

Luci barely heard him, eyes riveted back on the page. The characters began to swim before her eyes. A language. A language. It wasn’t shorthand. It wasn’t a cipher to be decoded. No, Linquist had gone and developed his own damn LANGUAGE! She didn’t need a better code breaker. She needed a linguistics expert.

“Tim,” Luci croaked, her mouth dry. “You’re taking a latin course, right?”

“Y-Yeah," he admitted. “Why?"

Luci tore her eyes away from her notebook long enough to meet his gaze. “Are you busy today at lunch?" she breathed. In fact, Luci was so shocked by this latest development that she didn’t even notice Julie’s messages to Frank on his computer.

This is the conclusion of the part from last Tuesday! Click PREVIOUS if you missed it. Click VOTE FOR T&T if you’re willing to, er, vote.

3.11: SEE KINGS

“We’re practicing for a play,” Carrie said, quickly repeating her earlier explanation in the face of Glen’s bemused expression.

The redhead raised an eyebrow at her. “Pretty fast rehearsal, given how you and Frank were in the cafeteria with Luci not five minutes ago. Besides Carrie, aren’t you the only other one here taking drama? And wasn’t Chartreuse absent this morning?”

“Yes, she’s quite ill,” Carrie agreed, swiftly changing tactics. “Yet apparently she still wanted to come in to try out this extra credit play for English class. We saw her in the room unconscious, so we’re leaving now to bring her to the nurse’s office.”

“I see,” Glen said. “Well, don’t let me hold you up then. Though moving through the hallway after the bell is liable to, well, be a major headache. Might I suggest you pop through the back door access to the stage? Where there’s less congestion?"

Carrie exchanged a quick glance with her time traveling classmates. “Makes sense,” Frank admitted grudgingly. He moved to grab the time machine, which he had fortunately decided to conceal under a blanket. He made sure Glen didn’t spot it.

“What major headache are you referring to there?” Julie demanded.

Glen shrugged. “Lots of people shouting and moving about as they get to class?”

Carrie saw Julie peer closer at the redhead, but his expression remained neutral. As Clarke had already retrieved Chartreuse and was heading for the back door access, along with Frank and the blanket, Julie fell into step behind them.

“Right then, thanks Glen!” Carrie called out as she brought up the rear. “And we’re still on for, ah, this Friday, right?”

“I don’t get it,” Frank said. “We’ve been sitting in this pizza parlour for almost an hour now, yet you haven’t sensed us being here as causing any sort of temporal change. Not even when other customers came in. Why in the school hallway, but not here?”

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that myself,” Carrie admitted as she toyed with her pop can. The two of them had taken up positions on the stools by the window of the establishment. It was only a block away from the middle school they’d once attended. A very light rain was falling; they both knew it wouldn’t last.

“I think it has to do with the fact that we’re now playing a very passive role in our own history,” she decided. “Not crossing our paths as we did at school, or planning to blow up buildings that we know still exist in our present, or anything like that. Of course, if my father chances to stop by here, that could all change. So don’t let your guard down.”

“I won’t,” Frank retorted. “Though I will remind you that it was your idea to be out in public this way.”

Carrie gestured vaguely. “I was thirsty. Besides, we’d likely attract more unwanted attention by hiding out in the bushes - in here, we blend in.” She took a sip of her drink. “We can head out when the rain stops. Supposedly Soh’s necklace was lost after school.”

“Thing is, had me and Clarke proposed coming in here to buy something, you would have shot down that plan,” Frank pointed out.

Carrie glared. “You making any kind of point there?”

“Merely that we should probably get a better idea of what sets off your headaches, and what doesn’t.”

With effort, Carrie quashed the snarky response that came to her head. Because he had a point, damn it. “Yeah, but no,” she said, looking back out the window. “We will not be playing guess and check with my head. Me staying sane, it’s kind of in all our best interests.”

“I didn’t mean provoking a headache. Not really,” he clarified. “Thing is, not every trip into the past has resulted in changes to time. Remember Luci’s trip last year, going back to when she started high school? That fulfilled a destiny instead. So is it equally possible that we were always destined to come back to this pizza place and order something?”

She reflected on that. “It’s possible,” Carrie granted. “It’s also possible that we weren’t always destined to do it, but that once we arrived in the past, and once I’d dealt with the initial headache… that’s when this event became inevitable. There’s really no way to know. All I can say for sure is that the me in this time frame never experienced a problem.”

“Which is it’s own issue,” Frank continued. “Since you carried on a conversation with Glen that you hadn’t been previously aware of. Why didn’t HE give either of you a headache?”

Carrie’s grip tightened on her soda can. “Glen was one person. Unlike the four students in the hall.”

“But he’s closer to you than those freshmen were.”

“Not really.”

“No? You even said you were going out with him again on Friday.”

She smacked the can on the counter, then turned back to face him. “Fine, yeah, on Friday we DID see each other. It’s when Glen told me about Lee’s focus problem. What, is the issue of me dating Glen the real point you’re making here?!”

Frank raised his palms up. “Whoa, what? No. Defensive much?”

“No! Yes. Shut up,” Carrie said, warring with her emotions. He’d touched a nerve there, and they both knew it.

Frank hesitated at her gaze, but pressed on. “Listen Carrie, people from the future are after you. And after a month, Glen is still living all alone in a hotel. We’ve seen no sign of his parents, we know so little about his past, and sometimes he makes those cryptic remarks, like about the headache. It seems at least plausible that he’s trying to–”

“Frank, if Glen were from the future, acting to change our present around us, I’d feel it,” Carrie fired back, pointing at her temples.

“Would you?”

Her hand fell back to her side. Her gaze drifted back towards the window. “I… I want to believe I would. But fine. You could be right. Maybe I have the blinders on because I want to experience a normal relationship. But worrying that I can potentially wipe us all out of existence, it takes a toll, okay?” She took in a deep breath. “Glen makes me happy. And I think I’m allowed to feel that way! Or was I absent the day you and Luci bought the monopoly on touchy feely goodness?”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Frank flinch. Then he turned away too. “No, you really weren’t,” he said. “Seeing as she’s spent more time in the past two weeks with that book of Linquist’s than she has with me. I’ve tried what I can to break through, which works for a time, but she always ends up back in her room, trying to break that infernal code. I think maybe I was too inattentive towards her over the summer. We’ve been drifting apart, and now I’m not sure what to do.”

“Oh. Uh, that’s… too bad.” Great, now she felt bad for bringing up relationships at all. Carrie downed the rest of her pop, to avoid having to speak. Outside, the rain stopped falling.

“Headaches aside,” she said at last. “Corry has the right idea. If Glen has a secret, I won’t learn it by distancing myself. Besides, if it’s my destiny to make my own past life miserable, so be it.” Before Frank could say anything back, Carrie jumped off her stool. “Come on then, let’s find a good place to scout out the school grounds before their classes get out.”

Clarke looked up as Julie entered the secret room beneath the LaMille mansion. “Anything happening upstairs?” he inquired.

“Random dusting. Neither Jeeves nor Mimi will notice the smelling salts are missing.” The brunette knelt down next to Clarke and the unconscious pink-haired girl on the floor. “Any change with her?”

“Nope,” the tall blonde admitted. “So let’s hope this will wake her up.” Taking the vial from Julie, he opened it and began to wave it back and forth in front of Chartreuse’s face. “Still nothing,” he murmured after a moment. “Baffling! She really doesn’t seem hurt. There’s nothing stronger than this around your place, is there Jewels?”

Clarke turned to look back at Julie, only to find that her attention had been diverted. “Jewels!” he repeated, clearing his throat purposefully for good measure.

The brunette slowly turned away from the black box on the floor. The one Frank had handed over to them when they’d parted ways. “I… I wasn’t going to do anything to it,” she said quietly. “I don’t even know how to program it yet, not really.”

“That’s good,” Clarke remarked. “Since that sort of betrayal would likely cut you off from the few friends you have left.”

Julie frowned. “You say friends, yet I got the sense that Carrie wouldn’t have left that thing with us today if you hadn’t been here to keep an eye on it.”

Clarke reached out to touch Julie’s shoulder. “Can you really blame her?” he responded softly.

Julie clenched her hands into fists for a moment. “No,” she granted. “I meant what I said to everyone though. I want to start helping, to try and get past my first memories of time travel.”

“And I’m sure the others will see that. You’re on this trip already, right?”

Julie nodded - even as her gaze drifted back towards the time machine. “Still… to think that we have the means right there to affect our own pasts… it’s incredible, isn’t it Phil? I mean, it would be so easy to just drop back a week or two… to stop Sue from acting the way she did at the dance…”

“Jewels!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t,” Julie said quickly. “Really I wouldn’t, not without consulting with Carrie. But I can’t help thinking it, can I? That’s the way my mind works! Devious as ever, right?” She finally turned her back on the machine, firing off a weak smile. “At least now, I’m trying to use my powers for good?”

Clarke frowned, about make a reply when there came a groan from the floor. Both teenagers turned quickly to regard their pink haired companion. She had apparently come to her senses enough to bring a hand to her forehead and begin mumbling to herself. Being the closer of the two, Clarke leaned in to try and hear what she was saying.

“What? What is it?” Julie inquired after a moment.

Clarke looked up at her in confusion. “Something about Carrie tracking ‘like, the wrong sister’.”

Faye grabbed her things and hurried out of the high school as fast as she could. It was partly to ensure that she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone, seeing as she’d only screw up any conversation she was in. But also because today, she was supposed to see that her younger sisters got home safely. A task which had been a lot easier last year, when their schools were closer together.

She HAD pointed this out to their mother. For all the good it did – mom never listened to her. Faye considered dragging her feet to prove the point, but she cared too much about her siblings. Plus Lee had offered to do it in her stead, and her brother had enough on his plate already. She had said she would do it, so she would do it right.

Faye headed for the middle school to get Sing first. After all, Soh would have better adult supervision until she got there, not to mention more awareness of her surroundings. “If Sing’s reading in the library again instead of waiting outside, I’m gonna smack her upside the head,” Faye muttered.

However, as she approached, Faye saw her sister waiting in the proper place. Still reading, mind. Then to her chagrin, she saw a boy come out of the school and grab Sing’s book away from her. Faye broke into a run.

“G-Gary? Give that back!” Sing cried out in protest.

“Nyah, make me,” Gary taunted. Sing made a grab for her book, but he held it just out of her reach and laughed. “Poor Singsong, can’t read no more now! Whatcha gonna do?”

Sing glared, then bent her knees slightly and jumped, managing to grab hold of her book with both hands. She yanked it back down towards herself.

Caught off guard, Gary wasn’t able to pull the volume away from Sing again until she had almost managed to clasp it to her chest. As a result, his subsequent jerk refused to dislodge the tome, and instead completely pulled her off balance. The two of them stumbled back, falling into the dirt, which was wet from the recent rain. They began to roll around, wrestling for control of Sing’s precious book. A teacher standing in the area hurried to break things up; Faye got there first.

“All right dumbass, what the hell are you doing to my sister?!” Faye shouted, grabbing Gary by the scruff of his jacket and yanking him up.

The grade schooler’s eyes opened wide at the sight of Faye’s angry gaze. “N-N-Nothin',” he stammered. “J-J-Jes playin'.” He realized belatedly that he was still holding Sing’s book, and he quickly tossed it back into the lap of the long haired girl, who was now lying in the mud. Sing didn’t even notice at first; she was trying to wipe off her glasses.

Faye’s eyes narrowed. “If I hear my sister complaining about you again, the only game you’ll be playing will be find the missing teeth, capiche?”

Gary nodded wordlessly, beating a hasty retreat as soon as Faye released her hold on him. The older sibling then turned to look at her sister. “You okay, Sing?”

“I think so. I… ohhh, my book’s all dirty now!” Sing said sadly, holding it up by one corner.

Faye rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you’re fine. And I got that detective story you wanted from Azure today, you can read that instead.” She reached down to help her sister back to her feet.

“Ooh, really? The one Lee couldn’t find in the library??”

“The same. Now come on, let’s report this incident to Mr. Inactivity over there.” With Sing on her feet, Faye motioned at the teacher who had stopped his approach in favour of eyeing the situation warily.

“Walkie-talkies, we should equip ourselves with walkie-talkies,” Julie muttered. She peered out her bedroom window - it was nearing the time when Carrie and Frank were due to return. “It worked in ‘Back to the Future’, and that way we won’t have this whole don’t-call-me-we’ll-call-you mess with cell phone duplicates on the communication grid.”

Chartreuse had finally come completely to her senses about fifteen minutes ago. Yet by the time she’d explained to Julie and Clarke about how she’d been experiencing a vision of Lee comforting a brunette called ‘Sing’ not a blonde called ‘Soh’, it had really been too late to do anything about Carrie’s mistake. On the bright side, Chartreuse had been able to provide them with the reason she’d been knocked out for so long.

“It was, like, my brain couldn’t quite cope with the time strain,” Chartreuse had explained. “It’s normally attuned to the future, so when our past became this future instead, my mind had to, you know, completely reorient myself. It was real weird! I was kind of aware of you guys, but couldn’t physically do anything. But hey, at least I’ve been able to, like, independently verify Glen’s story about Lee’s inattentiveness?”

Julie wondered whether Carrie would want to time jump again, to earlier in the day, to track the proper King sister. Part of her hoped that would be the case, yet Julie wasn’t sure if that desire was due to humanitarian reasons, merely to make another time jump, or if there was some thirst for information gathering reasserting itself.

A hand waved up at her from the sidewalk. Julie recognized it as belonging to Carrie and waved back. She then crept back downstairs and to the back door, quietly letting both Carrie and Frank into the mansion. “Jeeves is still reading in the sitting room,” she whispered. “And Mimi left. We can use the pantry access rather than the bathroom chute.”

The others nodded, and Julie led them back through the kitchen, towards the third access point for Linquist’s hidden laboratory. She’d discovered it while exploring the opposite end of the darkened passage, the direction that didn’t lead to the china cabinet.

Kneeling down on the floor of the pantry, Julie reached around behind the cans of tuna to press the knothole that opened the piece of wall paneling. It swung out, and the three teenagers crawled down into the corridor, following the sloped passage down until they reached the secret room where Clarke and Chartreuse were waiting for them.

“So?” Clarke asked, standing up as they entered.

“So, success,” Frank said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a small necklace with a couple of charms dangling off of it.

“Wait, what?” Julie asked.

“But, that’s, like, totally impossible!” Chartreuse gasped. “I mean, I was sure that from what I half heard you say in the school, you’d be following the wrong person!”

“Wrong person, right school,” Carrie affirmed. “Hey, glad to see that you’re up and about again!”

Chartreuse smiled sadly. “Yeah, but I doubt I’ll be able to time travel with you any more. It seems to mess with my head.”

“Oh?” Carrie frowned. “That’s a problem. Unless I can interrupt your present self while I’m out of my time - which, no, is it’s own problem. Why, how long until you regained consciousness?”

“Less than an hour ago,” Clarke offered. “And even then only with smelling salts.” Carrie’s frown became a grimace.

“But seriously, how did you two manage to get the necklace if it wasn’t Soh’s?" Julie demanded, looking to Frank.

“Lucky break,” he answered, placing the piece of jewellery onto the lab table. “Even though we were looking for a blonde at the school, our attention was drawn to a fight – broken up by Faye. It clicked for me that she was Lee’s oldest sister, and we put the pieces together that she had been defending another sibling. It then occurred to Carrie that the fight could have caused the brunette girl’s necklace to fall apart.”

“So me and Frank did a quick search, and managed to turn it up in the mud before it could get buried or cut down by a lawnmower or anything,” Carrie concluded. She pointed at the object. “Looks like the catch is loose and it simply slipped off. Bad luck and poor workmanship more than anything deliberate.”

“Well, good! I’m glad we could do something for Lee,” Clarke said. “We should return it to him and his family as soon as we’re back in the present - does anyone have his address?”

Everyone exchanged glances. Then shrugs. “This is embarrassing for me,” Julie admitted. “Former Information Queen of the school, and yet I don’t know the address of someone on student council.”

“Wait, Lee’s on the council?!” Frank asked.

Julie nodded. “Yeah. Heading the committees who do publicity stuff for assemblies and dances. They also put up the posters to keep people recycling. Not a high profile job, but he prefers it that way. We can phone him though, I’ve got his number.”

“The more I think about it, the more I’m realizing how much Lee distances himself from people, even while staying in plain sight,” Clarke observed. “He has nicknames for everybody, doesn’t he?”

“Truth,” Julie affirmed, folding her arms across her chest. “Maybe we should reach out to him? Pull him into our group? He was immune to future guy’s mental control, after all. Could be useful.”

“No!” Everyone turned to look at Carrie. She swallowed. “That is, he obviously has other things to worry about, like his family and Corry’s band. And we don’t him to think we’re using him, on account of that mental thing. For now, let’s keep our group the size it is, okay?” She attempted a smile, before picking up the necklace and pocketing it.

Julie saw Chartreuse reach out to touch Carrie, then think better of it, and simply lean in instead. “Carrie, it’s not like Lee’s gonna hate you for what happened last year, you know,” the pink haired girl murmured. “I mean, you told me about it, and I don’t hate you. In fact, I… I think maybe I REALLY don’t hate you? If you know what I mean?”

Carrie barely looked at the other girl. “Not now Chartreuse, please.”

Chartreuse shrank back. “Right.” And Julie found her gaze flicking back and forth between Chartreuse and Carrie, spotting the signs of an issue there. An issue of… no. She had to be misinterpreting that.

“Carrie, want to help me reset this thing for the trip back?” Frank offered, having popped open the time machine. The blonde nodded, crouching down next to him.

Chartreuse turned to face Julie instead, and managing to sound as chipper as ever, remarked, “Well, go figure on how something as simple as a necklace can, you know, affect an entire family’s emotional well being so drastically, huh?”

Julie smiled back wryly. “Yeah. But know what? You’d be surprised what the simple tearing of a piece of paper can do to a family under the right circumstances.”

“Let’s not think about such things,” Clarke said quickly. “After all, it’s not like anyone in our group is facing that sort of tenuous situation right now. Okay?”

Their trip back to the present was uneventful, although once again, Chartreuse ended up unconscious for a couple of hours afterwards. Yet there was one event that the time travellers never became aware of.

Ten minutes before their arrival, the young asian girl down in the basement of the LaMille mansion had realized her coding plans were coming up empty. Prompting the teenager to let out a scream of frustration, hurl the red book she was holding into a corner of the room, and collapse onto the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.

• The site is now 2 years old! And starting next week, posts will be half as long and twice as frequent. See the Commentary this Sunday for the reasoning.
• That was the end of ARC 2 in Book 3. Unrelated, I got another 2016 nickel today. Coin total is now 8.
• Consider the usual Vote for T&T; four votes usually keeps us on the bottom of the TWF Fantasy Page, and I still get the occasional referral from there.

3.10: HELP WANTED

“Lee, I’m talking to you.”

Lee jerked his gaze over towards Ms. Readman. “And I heard every word,” he assured her. “Unfortunately, my brain interpreted it as Spanish. Could you run it by me again?” A student sitting nearby let out a quiet laugh.

“Perspective drawing, Lee,” the art teacher said patiently, moving closer and indicating his empty page. “Are you having trouble understanding the assignment?”

“No, no, not at all,” Lee replied quickly. “Just spaced out for a moment, some things on my mind. I’ll get right to this.”

“Thank you, Lee, that would be appreciated,” Ms. Readman said wryly.  “Though do let me know if you’re having problems with your perspective?”

Lee nodded and watched his teacher continue her walk around the room. Letting out an almost inaudible sigh, he retrieved his ruler and began to mark down the requisite lines. A short distance away, Glen Oaks observed his classmate, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Like, ohmigod!” Chartreuse breathed. “This is, you know, so totally cool! And Jeeves doesn’t even know about this place??”

“Obviously not,” Carrie said.

“Chartreuse, could you keep moving? We’re stuck in the passage,” Frank remarked.

“I’m still trying to tidy up and catalog the last of the stuff left in here," Julie remarked. “But I haven’t been able to open that safe.”

“Maybe we should blast the thing open,” Luci suggested. She dropped her bag onto the lab table and then attempted to boost herself up as well, succeeding with a hand from Frank. “After all,” she continued, “it could contain information about this infernal code Linquist’s set up.”

Frank watched as Luci pulled out the scientist’s red logbook, along with her laptop and a number of notes she’d been accumulating. “I really wish you hadn’t brought that,” he admitted. “You’re becoming more than obsessed. Even your cat is starting to give you weird looks.”

“It’s all right, I know I’m close to a breakthrough now,” Luci assured him. “I’ve coded up a program to run an entire substitution cipher on what seem to be the key passages. In fact, by the time you return from your time trip, I bet I’ll have it all worked out.”

“That could be in as little as five minutes,” Frank objected.

“Or as much as an hour if we don’t get going soon,” Carrie countered. “Now, shall we go back over the plan?” She looked around the room expectantly.

“Seemed pretty clear to me,” Julie spoke up. “We go back into last week, watch for where Lee’s younger sister lost her necklace, and retrieve it for her. Thereby fixing up the King family situation in time for Thanksgiving dinner tonight, which will help restore Lee’s focus in class next week.”

“Oh, and I know Lee will appreciate it!” Chartreuse chimed in, clasping her hands together. “After all, if we don’t fix it soon, I think he’ll be spacing out for WEEKS, right through until American Thanksgiving!”

“How did you figure out that his sister’s necklace was the problem anyway, Carrie?” Clarke wondered.

“Glen told me,” the blonde admitted. “Apparently he overheard Lee telling Tim about it after one of Corry’s band rehearsals.”

Frank crossed his arms. “Yeah, hey, anyone else suspicious about how fast Corry let Glen take over as Sue’s replacement there?” he wondered.

Julie shook her head. “Not really. Corry’s been looking for an angle on the guy for a while,” she reminded. “By keeping Glen close, he can start to observe that much better.”

“Back to the plan, please,” Carrie objected. “I’m already concerned about multiple people time tripping with me, so I’d appreciate our heading out before I lose my nerve.”

“Carrie, it isn’t too late to change your mind,” Frank offered. “You could try doing one of your – what do you call them? – mental time searches into the past instead.”

Carrie waved him off. “No, I really can’t. Even setting aside the fact that I haven’t had time to get comfortable with that aspect of my power, I’ve never met Lee’s younger sisters. So I wouldn’t know how to centre on them in the first place.”

“Even so, you don’t have to actually participate in the trip. You could leave it up to the rest of us,” Clarke offered.

Again Carrie shook her head. “If we’re dedicated to the trip, I’m coming along. That way, if anything goes wrong, any headaches will hopefully centre first on the me who is out of time synch.”

“It’s all right Carrie, I’ll, you know, be there to monitor your condition,” Chartreuse assured her. She reached out towards Carrie’s hand, second guessed her own intentions, then entwined the fingers of both hands together instead.

“Meanwhile, I’ll stay cooped up here at the mansion with you both, coordinating things and keeping Jeeves from seeing us,” Julie said, a mite wistfully.

“As I assist Frank with the locket search,” Clarke agreed.

“Meanwhile, I keep the home fires burning in the present,” Luci muttered quietly as she started scrawling a new set of notes. “Are you going or not?"

“Yes," Frank said. He bent down next to the time machine - which Carrie had placed on the floor - in order to complete final adjustments.  “Someone suggest to me the best time of day for arrival?”

“Lunch. Say noon," Carrie stated. “Since while it’s true that Chartreuse was sick last Tuesday, which should displace us away from the school, Julie had also left the school grounds to eat that day. And I’d prefer having that extra insurance.” She looked around. “Remember, once we appear somewhere south of the school, we make for the ravine. Don’t talk to anyone!"

“Right.” Frank finished up, then closed the lid of the machine. “Is everyone ready?”

“We don’t all have to grab that thing’s handle, do we?” Chartreuse asked, stopping herself before leaning in next to Carrie. “It’ll be, like, awkward. Can’t I hold someone else’s hand instead?”

“Chartreuse, we’ve always made sure everyone traveling was in contact with the handle,” Frank countered. “Even when we had bicycles and all our gear coming back from Illinois last November. After all, you may not get transported otherwise.”

“May not? Meaning I might. You’ve never, you know, tried it?”

“Why screw up a perfectly good system?”

“Because some day you may need to transport, like, twenty people or something?” Chartreuse hypothesized. “I mean, we’re already up to five.  Six if Luci needs to come along some day.”

There was a pause. “Chartreuse has a point,” Clarke admitted. “The previous maximum was four, and it WAS kinda awkward with the bikes and everything.”

“But in the end, all the inanimate items got transported, right?” Julie mused. Clarke nodded in reply.

“Physical items, such as the clothes on our backs, may be treated differently from actual organic matter,” Frank protested.

“Well, I offer to be your guinea pig then,” Chartreuse decided. “I mean, the worst that can happen is I won’t be, you know, transported, right?”

“Unless you get lost somewhere in history,” Luci said idly, continuing her work atop the lab table.

Another glance was exchanged between the students sitting on the floor. “Look, this is ridiculous,” Frank decided. “We’ll test next time. Maybe with a small animal, or insects or something. For now, everyone make sure to hold onto the handle. Right Carrie?” He turned to look at the blonde, who had been silent ever since her initial objection.

“No,” Carrie replied. Then she looked up, and blinked as she realized everyone was staring at her. “Sorry, I mean no, I don’t think that Chartreuse would be lost in time," she clarified. “Don’t ask me why I think that but I do. Though as to her ‘piggybacking’ on one of us… that, I don’t know. And she’s right, it would be helpful to know if that’s possible.”

Frank pressed a hand to his forehead. “Yes, but not NOW, correct?”

Carrie pursed her lips. “Perhaps not,” she conceded.

“But what if, on our return trip, I end up being chased by a horde of guys?” Chartreuse objected. “And I end up trapped in a dead end in front of a wooden barrier, and the only way for me to get away is to, like, reach through a knothole and grab Carr– touch one of you as you pull this handle??” Everyone turned to stare at her.

“I don’t think that’s likely,” Julie observed.

“It’s not impossible,” Chartreuse retorted defiantly.

Frank sighed. “Fine Chartreuse, if Carrie thinks it’s safe enough, and it will make you happy, you don’t have to touch the handle. But don’t complain if you get left behind!”

“Check,” Chartreuse said, giving Frank a thumbs up. Everyone reached out for the handle of the time machine, Chartreuse grasping Carrie by the shoulder instead. Frank dropped in a coin for their current year.

“We pull on three,” Frank said. “All right? One…. two…. three!”

Despite the fact that it had been almost a year since he had last used the device, the feeling of being sucked into a void still felt familiar to Frank. In the wink of an eye, the basement lab was gone, replaced by a new scene… that of a hallway in the high school. “Damn!” Frank cursed, as he shook off the aftereffects of the time displacement. “How did we end up here?!”

“Someone screwed up the geometry?” Carrie replied. As the only other seasoned time traveler of the five, she was the only other person still conscious - Julie, Clarke and Chartreuse lay on the floor, out cold.

“Impossible!” Frank countered. “According to everything we know, the device should have brought us to a point an equal distance away from the positions of our past selves! And as two of us were a fair distance from the school, there’s no way–”

“There is, if it–” Carrie began, before freezing and raising a hand to her temples, wincing in pain. “Oh no,” she muttered. “Oh no, no, not good…”

“Temporal change?” Frank questioned.

“What do you think?” Carrie snapped.

“Quick,” Frank said. “Let’s get everyone into that classroom!” They had apparently lucked out in terms of their arrival - the art wing didn’t see much traffic during lunch. But it wasn’t always deserted, the four students who turned the nearby corner testifying to that.

“We’re practicing for a play,” Carrie called out to them as the freshmen arrivals exchanged a confused glance. “Death of three salesmen.” The head cheerleader quickly dragged Chartreuse back into the drama room, Frank doing the same with Clarke, and both of them returning for Julie and the time machine respectively.

“Hey, Faye! I have that book you wanted!” came the voice of Azure Vermilion. Faye turned from where she was leaning back against the tree by the football field.

“And you bring it to me now, when I’m nowhere near my locker?”

“Oh. I wasn’t really thinking about that,” Azure admitted. “Should I bring it back later?”

“No, I’ll take it,” Faye sighed. “Lunch is close to being over, and once I have it, my sister will get off my back.”

“Okay. Hey, which of your younger sisters wanted this again?” Azure continued as she handed over the book.

Faye stared. “Sing,” she said, accepting the tome. “Soh’s barely in grade school, you really think she’s old enough to get into a detective story like this?”

“I guess not,” Azure admitted. She grinned. “Not that I’ve met either of them in person, Lee’s your only sibling I’ve seen. Heck, I’m not even sure where you all live, considering how you didn’t want me to bring the book around directly, but maybe some time later this month we could–”

“Are you trying to indulge me in conversation for a reason?” Faye snapped.

“Um, not really,” the blue haired girl admitted. “I only thought–”

“Don’t think so much,” Faye interrupted again. “I admit, I feel a bit of a bond between the two of us, because our parents share a bizarre sense of humour when it comes to naming their children. So hanging with you is more tolerable than it would be with any other Grade Nine student. But right now, I want to be alone. Understand?”

Azure opened her mouth to respond, but seeing the look on Faye’s face, apparently decided instead to nod and head back towards the school instead. It wasn’t until Azure was out of sight that the tall girl let out a sigh, and smacked the book soundly against her forehead a couple of times. ‘Way to make friends and influence people, genius,’ she reflected.

“It’s because Chartreuse wasn’t touching the handle!” Frank asserted. “We never should have let her experiment!”

Frank, Carrie, Julie and Clarke now stood staring down at the prone form of the pink haired girl, who was laid out on the floor of the otherwise empty drama classroom. Unlike Clarke and Julie, who had regained consciousness fairly rapidly, their resident mystic was still out cold.

Julie raised her hand. “I don’t think Chartreuse is still unconscious because of that.”

“Oh? Why not?” Carrie asked. Frank noticed that her mood had improved slightly. Getting away from the other students had seemingly eliminated her headache.

“Because I wasn’t touching that handle for the trip either,” Julie admitted. “When everyone else was pulling at once, I hesitated, and lost my grip. But I’d been holding Phil’s other hand. And I’m here, and I’m awake.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Frank protested, throwing his hands up in the air. “Is it because Chartreuse was sick on this day in the… wait a moment. Julie, neither you nor her were touching the handle?”

“Seems so,” Phil affirmed.

Frank leaned back against the teacher’s desk. “Huh. That could at least explain why we’re at the school. If neither girl was in direct contact with the time machine, perhaps they weren’t factored into the device’s spatial algorithm? We’d need to do more testing to be sure, but…”

“But maybe you have to be physically touching the handle in order to be used in the geographic triangulation!” Carrie finished. She smiled. “If it’s true, it will certainly solve a lot of mathematical mapping headaches! We’ll simply have to figure out where ONE person was, and then get everyone else to latch onto them.”

“Still doesn’t explain Chartreuse’s condition though,” Clarke reminded them.

“Well, she doesn’t have a fever,” Carrie observed, having bent down to feel the forehead of the other girl. “And she’s breathing fine, she’s just… out.”

“Change of plan then,” Frank decided. “We obviously can’t leave Chartreuse in the school, in case she’s discovered. But Clarke, you may be the only one strong enough to carry her. Can you and Julie get her back to the mansion, while me and Carrie get a bead on Lee’s sister instead?”

“I can do a piggyback,” Clarke agreed. “And Julie can get us in without tipping off Jeeves. But what about the two of you?”

“Yeah, I’m not thrilled with the idea of strolling the streets of the past with you, Frank,” Carrie said. “No offence, but if I end up doubled over in temporal pain, you’ll be less useful to me than Chartreuse.”

“Then I could go it alone," Frank allowed. “But didn’t we figure it was better NOT to have anyone by themselves?”

Carrie sighed. She slapped lightly at Chartreuse’s cheeks. There was no reaction. “Fine, fine, okay. Clarke, give me that burner phone that you were going to use to communicate with us. I’ll go with Frank instead.”

Clarke fished in his pocket and handed it over. “Should we phone you if Chartreuse’s condition improves?”

Carrie grimaced. “No. We stick to the original plan of minimal communication. These phones are essentially double versions of themselves in this past timeline, even if the originals ARE stowed away in the lab and turned off. That worries me. Emergencies only.”

“Right,” Clarke agreed.

“New problem,” Julie observed. “Chartreuse is the one who was going to elaborate on what Lee’s sister looked like. Given how it was her own sister Azure who knew Faye, and thus the rest of Lee’s family.”

Their eyes drifted back to the unconscious girl. “Well, damn. Uh, I don’t suppose you’d have any information, Julie?” Frank said hopefully. “Rumour was, last year you had a file folder for everyone in the school.”

Julie shook her head. “Honestly? I never paid close attention to Lee, since he never ended up being a direct factor in any of my plans. Nor did I ever feel a need to blackmail him. He has more than one younger sister, of that I’m sure, but beyond that…” She shrugged.

“Lee does tend to keep to himself,” Clarke agreed. “Sometimes I’ve wondered why.”

“Well, his sister was ‘Soh’, right?” Carrie asked. “How many blonde girls who go to the middle school down the road would answer to a name like that?”

Frank winced. “Setting aside how walking up and asking young girls for their names could be misinterpreted,” he countered, “Don’t you think Lee would have spoken to our past selves already if he heard we were poking around? Which didn’t originally happen in our timeline. This was meant to be spy and retrieve, not some sort of inquisition.”

“Well, what DO you suggest?” Carrie said in exasperation.

“And was Lee’s sister with the necklace even named Soh?” Julie protested. “I thought Chartreuse had said something about Soh being in grade school, not middle school.”

“Grade school? The sister who lost the necklace was definitely in middle school,” Carrie countered.

“Looks like our plan has fallen apart,” Clarke decided. “Maybe we should simply abort, return to the present, and try this again, going to some other time.”

Frank made a face. “But that’s a waste of two coins!”

“Plus I’m not sure we want to leave now, pulling Chartreuse through time again until we learn what’s wrong with her,” Carrie said. She ran her fingers back through her hair. “Damn it! Okay, look. Me and Frank can still stake out the middle school. If we spot Soh, awesome, if not… we’ll re-evaluate at that point. We did build in a time buffer here. Chartreuse has around three hours to come to her senses. Still, don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

“That works,” Frank agreed. “Right now, it’s only…” His eyes widened, and he pointed over at the clock on the wall. “Oh no, look at the time, it’s–"

The school bell rang, signifying the end of lunch. And almost immediately, the door to the drama room opened and Glen Oaks walked into the room.

“Hey, Singsong, whatcha doin'?”

Lee’s second youngest sister jumped at the sound of the voice, accidentally tugging on a strand of her own hair. “Ow! Oh, um, not much, Gary,” Sing said, untangling her fingers from her long brown hair while simultaneously trying to hide the book she held in her other hand.

Her grade six classmate smirked at her. “Readin' again, huh?  Didn’t hear the bell go?”

“Oh n-no, of course I heard it,” Sing lied. When HAD all these people started entering the school? She cast a glance towards the clock in the hallway.

Gary snorted. “Yeah, right,” he said, continuing past her down the hall. “Bet a bookworm like you don’t care about nothing ‘cept your books.”

Sing watched him go, the hand that had been twirling her hair now reaching up to finger the charm dangling off of her necklace. The one she’d received from her father for her birthday. “You’re wrong there,” the member of the King family murmured quietly. “You’re so wrong.”

The brunette girl put her book away and followed Gary towards their classroom, squeezing the charm between her fingers. Not knowing that before the day was done, she would be devastated by it’s loss.

Yes, time travel resumes in a time travel serial! Shocked? … No? … I know you’re out there, I can hear you breathing. Well okay, I can’t, but I might notice your click if you were to Vote for T&T on TWF.

3.09: TONE DOWN

“Carrie! Carrie!!”

She began to turn at the sound of her name, yet was not fast enough to avoid being blindsided by the fast moving splash of colour that was Chartreuse.

“Carrie!” the pink haired girl repeated desperately, grabbing onto Carrie’s arm to keep her from falling over. “Thank goodness I spotted you! Listen, Corry doesn’t, like, believe me when I say someone’s out to kill him. We’ve got to use your powers so we can, you know, stop this terrible thing from happening.”

Carrie coughed. “Ahem. My what? What are you saying, Chartreuse?” she asked, inclining her head towards the person standing next to her.

Chartreuse turned to look at Carrie’s red-headed companion. “Oh, hi Glen. Uhmmmm, I need to use Carrie’s powers of persuasion. Mind if I borrow your date for a little while?”

“Chartreuuuuuuse…”

Glen laughed. “It’s okay Carrie, I don’t mind. I could use a dance break, and was planning on watching Corry’s performance anyway. You go tend to the serious matters your friend is referring to.”

“I’m sure they’re not that serious,” Carrie protested. It didn’t matter - Chartreuse had already muttered a quick thanks and was pushing her towards the hallway.

Sighing, Carrie allowed herself to be led into the nearest unlocked classroom before confronting the pink haired girl.

“REALLY, Chartreuse?” Carrie said irritably. “What is so important that you felt it necessary to pull me away from the first truly enjoyable date I’ve had in months?”

“It’s like I said. I sensed something when I was with Laurie earlier, but it didn’t, like, hit me until I touched Corry’s hand,” Chartreuse explained in a rush. “It was one of my, you know, wham bang powerful impressions that told me he’d be dead before the night was out. And I bet it’s somehow related to the musical sets he’s gonna do!”

She leaned in. “But I can’t see more than that without meditating, and I never know how long it’ll take to pick up something, whereas Corry’s starting in less than five minutes. So since you’re so much more powerful than me, you could look ahead–”

“Whoa, STOP,” Carrie interrupted. “Dial that back. I’m at a dance here. With Glen. This is NOT temporal session time. And even if it WERE, we’d started to work on mental shielding, not running up and down my timeline. Think about it, I still have no idea whether something from the future will become fixed as soon as I see it. What if I see something horrible, and then we can’t change it?”

“But we have to do something,” Chartreuse insisted. “Please, Carrie, can’t you at least help me work out the cause? Or get a list of suspects? Or a time frame? Something?? I swear, I’m not overdramatizing here. Well, okay, so Corry may not DIE, but I know Laurie’s brother will get badly hurt - unless we do something.”

Carrie groaned and pressed a couple fingers to her forehead. She contemplated Chartreuse’s request, the pleading look on her friend’s face, and in particular, how the two of them would feel should something disastrous actually happen to Corry now.

“Okay. Okay! I’ll try a few tiny image jumps forward,” Carrie yielded. “But you leave me and Glen alone for the rest of the night after this, understood?”

“Of course. Unless your help is needed again,” Chartreuse said brightly. Carrie opened her mouth to protest, but then decided it probably wouldn’t do any good. She simply sighed as she sat, cross legged on the floor of the classroom, and closed her eyes.

‘Thank goodness,’ Chartreuse thought, going down on her knees in front of the seated blonde. ‘We can fix this, I know we can! Still, I gotta take it easy on her…’

“All right, Carrie,” Chartreuse began, grasping the blonde by the hands. “I realize we’re not at my place with the crystals, but try to relax and–”

“I’m there,” Carrie murmured, eyes closed. “In the time stream.”

Chartreuse resisted the urge to flinch. ‘Damn, that was fast. I can see why it worries her.' “Er, okay,” she continued. “See if you can centre in on Corry? Visualize that he’s standing there in front of you.”

Carrie nodded. “It’s not difficult, I’ve mentioned former time travellers are always a bit out of synch. He’s… yes, I’ve got it. He’s out in the cafeteria. They’re making preparations for their first number.”

“Do you sense any danger?”

“I don’t think so?” Carrie muttered. “The crowd is chattering, talking about his chances. I don’t know if I want to wade into it, my astral self has ended up back by the coat check. Oh, wait, Joe Drew is scowling at me! No, wait, it’s through me - towards the stage. Towards Corry.”

“Don’t forget, spirit body. Totally insubstantial, no one can see or do anything to you.”

“I know, I know. It troubles me, that’s all. Do you think I ended up back here because Joe’s planned something?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it was a subconscious attempt to avoid the crowd.” Chartreuse tightened her grip slightly. She had rather hoped to be able to sense something through Carrie, but so far, there was nothing.

Was that because there was nothing to sense? Or because it didn’t work that way? How else could they interface? Her gaze started to wander, and she pulled it back to Carrie’s face.

“Okay, Corry’s announcing the first song. Now what?”

Chartreuse sighed. They needed more. “Are you up to trying a skip into the future? To establish a time frame? Please be honest. My prior attitude aside, I don’t want to push you beyond what you can, you know, handle.”

Carrie bit down on her lower lip. “I don’t know,” she admitted after a moment’s thought. “After all, I don’t want to physically time travel. Only project. But maybe if I simply imagine that I’m stretching forwards, moving faster than the water currents?”

Julie allowed Clarke to lead her towards the cafeteria. “No deafening, pulsating beat,” the tall boy said to her, as he tugged at his necktie. “My guess is we’ve arrived just in time for Corry’s bit.”

“Um,” was all Julie could think to reply. After numerous wardrobe changes, she had finally selected a low key shirt and sweater ensemble with a long skirt. As they entered the cafeteria, only a couple of people picked up on her presence; Corry’s imminent performance was helping to divert attention.

‘Interesting,’ Julie mused. ‘A year ago, this sort of neglect would have infuriated me. Now I’m simply relieved.’

As the quartet of students started to play up by the stage, Clarke guided her back against the wall. “They’re quite good,” he reflected. “Tim’s looking a little out of sorts though. I hope Corry’s been treating him decently.”

“Clarke!” came a hushed cry. Both Clarke and Julie turned as the younger Veniti twin ran up, dressed like a red candle. “Clarke, we need your help! Chartreuse thinks Corry’s life is in danger!”

Clarke blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Chartreuse got this feeling that Corry was going to die or get hurt,” Laurie explained. “And she thought Carrie could help and so went to find her but now they’ve both disappeared and so you’re tall maybe you can see them since I’m not sure what’s going to happen any more and I’m so worried for my brother and by the way that’s a lovely tie you’re wearing and golly it’s such a pity that I’m not seeing it under better circumstances…”

The redhead was obviously distressed, Julie realized. She normally did a better job of controlling her run-on sentences these days, particularly in front of Clarke. The guy she’d once liked. Or still liked? Julie didn’t like to reflect on that too much.

“Whoa, okay Laurie, calm down,” Clarke was saying. “You’re saying you need to find Chartreuse and Carrie?” Laurie nodded wordlessly, eyes wide and full of concern. Clarke turned his attention to Julie. “Jewels, will you be okay here for a couple minutes while I try to track down Laurie’s companions?”

Julie nodded. “It’s fine, Phil, no one’s paying attention to me. And if someone tries to start something, I’ll simply go back outside.”

Clarke looked at her for another moment before returning her nod.  “Okay. Now, Laurie, given Chartreuse’s preference for coloured outfits, I’m pretty sure I could spot her if she were in here,” he said. “Maybe she went to the washroom, or out for a breath of air? What was she wearing?”

Julie watched the two of them depart the cafeteria, then shrank back against the wall.

“Breathe, Carrie, breathe!” Chartreuse shouted desperately. “You’re not really drowning! Focus back in on Corry! Focus!!”

Carrie sucked in a great, heaving breath, her fingernails digging into Chartreuse’s palms. The pink haired girl ignored the pain, all of her attention on the blonde cheerleader who was now twitching in front of her.

“Okay Carrie, never mind Corry,” Chartreuse decided. “Come back to me, all right? Focus on me. On the present.” The fear that she was losing her friend was starting to tug at her heart.

Carrie didn’t reply, the twitching ceasing as her eyes snapped wide open. At least those eyes were blue, Chartreuse noted, and not golden. But they were focussed on nothing.

“Okay, bad idea, I’m sorry for pushing you into it,” the mystic continued, trying to suppress her rising panic. “I wasn’t, like, thinking straight. We can simply look into the usual suspects here, yeah? So come on, come back to me now, PLEASE Carrie…!”

“Char… treuse…?”

Chartreuse felt the tightness in her chest release. “Carrie! Carrie, are you all right?”

“Am… fine,” Carrie murmured. “It’s… whoa, headrush.”

Carrie’s grip relaxed enough to allow Chartreuse to pull one of her hands away. She waved it in front of Carrie’s eyes. There was no reaction. “Carrie, what’s going on? Where are you?”

“Am… in future,” Carrie murmured. “Astral me. About ten… no, five minutes. Had to resist the pull to bring all of me. Th-Thank you for anchoring me in the present, Chartreuse.”

“No prob - are you SURE you’re okay?” Chartreuse knew her own heartbeat was still racing.

“Well, I’m… reorienting.” Carrie’s vacant eyes drifted closed once more. “Okay, Corry’s still performing. New song. I’m closer to him this time, near the front. Tommy is elbowing his way up here through the crowd, he’s… he’s going to throw something! But… it’s a tomato. That’s not life threatening… maybe there’s… something else. Oh, Joe!”

Carrie’s head whipped to the side. “Yes, Joe has left the coat check and he’s heading towards Corry! Or, no… it’s towards Julie. She’s edging away from him, so they’re both headed towards Corry. Damn!” Carrie mouth twitched. “Too many people. Too many, I don’t know so many of them, I’m not in the present, everything’s a jumble…”

“Stay calm,” Chartreuse soothed. Should they abort? “You’re only there for Corry. What’s, like, happening to him?”

“Corry,” Carrie murmured. “He’s singing. He’s… wait, Tim’s jumping up. He’s shoved his keyboard at Corry! Ow, audio feedback… something sparked… the crowd is reacting… Corry’s on the floor? Someone’s on top of him, everyone’s staring… now Glen is up here too.” Carrie shivered. “It’s like that time I saw him in the cafe, he’s staring at me. Are we sure I’m– OH!!!”

“What?” Chartreuse asked, gripping both of Carrie’s hands again as the blonde cried out.

“Where the hell am I? Who’s this girl in red?!” Carrie choked out. “Chartreuse, I’m… I’m in the wrong time again!!”

“Okay, Carrie, come back, time to come back,” Chartreuse declared. “Session over, we know enough, you have to return to the present!”

“Such piercing hazel eyes… she’s raising her hand… she’s…”

“Carrie, ohmigod, don’t let the forces take you. CARRIE!”

“I’m out!” Carrie screamed, flinching backwards.

However, as Chartreuse was still grasping onto the blonde’s hands, the sudden movement served only to jerk her off balance. With a little yelp of astonishment, she fell forwards into Carrie, both girls collapsing back onto the floor of the classroom. Chartreuse faceplanting into the blonde cheerleader’s body.

And Chartreuse found that her first instinct wasn’t to roll away. Rather, it was to grab harder for Carrie, to press her ear against Carrie’s front, to better hear her friend’s heartbeat. Still there. So fast. Mirroring her own, beating away, racing, because of this shared experience. Between the two girls with powers.

She had only felt this sort of close connection with someone once before.

Last time, the feeling had been instantaneous. This time, it had crept up on her. Because the blonde did look so pretty, in that dress with it’s plunging neckline. More to the point, Carrie wasn’t as shallow as Tope had been, the cheerleader did care about people. In fact, even after learning about Chartreuse being bisexual, Carrie had kept it quiet, and hadn’t called off any of their sessions.

Both of their hearts were racing now. Almost in synch. So maybe it was time to accept what that meant, it was time to take their relationship to the next level…

“Unhh,” Carrie groaned.

Chartreuse knew she couldn’t have pushed herself up and away any faster, not even if she’d been lying on a bed of hot coals.

“C-Carrie?” she choked out. What the hell was she thinking? She’d almost nuzzled in against Carrie’s neck. Carrie was her friend. That was it. Only her very close friend…

“Chartreuse?”

“C-Carrie?” Chartreuse repeated. She swallowed, trying to bury the flood of emotions welling up inside. “Ah, so, are you, like, you know, okay?”

“I’ll manage,” Carrie said. Her chest was heaving - don’t look there, idiot! - as she sat back up. Thankfully, as their eyes met again, Carrie didn’t seem to notice Chartreuse’s discomfort.

“I just saw…” Carrie looped some hair around her finger and tugged. “I don’t know what I saw. Either way, I’ve had enough of this for tonight, okay?”

Chartreuse nodded vigorously. “Yes, um, we’ve certainly discovered enough here.”

“Hello? Someone in here?” came a new voice.

The two girls on the floor turned as the classroom door opened and Clarke poked his head inside. “Ah! I thought I heard voices. Laurie thought she’d lost you.” Clarke turned to look back into the hallway. “They’re in here.”

There was the sound of running feet, and then the freckled girl poked her head in next to Clarke. “Chartreuse, thank goodness,” Laurie said, not trying to disguise her relief. “Are you two okay? What happened? Have you figured out what’s wrong with my brother?”

“With your bro… right!” Chartreuse jumped to her feet. “It’s Tim. Tim’s going to snap and throw his keyboard at the guy, that starts a chain reaction in their equipment. We’ve got to get in there, fast!”

“Tim?” Clarke said, shocked. “What are you talking about?”

“No time, hurry,” Chartreuse said, charging past the two of them and out into the hall. As much to get away from Carrie’s perfume as to get back to the cafeteria.

Julie took another step closer to the student quartet. Since they really were quite good, and she wanted to hear them better – okay, no. She knew the primary reason for her approach was to distance herself from Joe Drew. He’d been giving her irritated looks ever since Clarke had moved off with Laurie. Hoping to ignore the scrutiny, Julie soon found that more difficult once Joe left the vicinity of the coat check in order to move closer to her position. Causing her to move further away.

So why was she moving towards the band? Why not outside? Heck, why react at all? Was it because Corry Veniti was one of the few people (aside from Clarke) who bothered to stand up for her on those occasions when she was being mistreated? If so, Julie knew this was a poor decision - Corry was busy right now. Besides, Joe wasn’t much of a threat on his own.

She made the decision to stand her ground. It was at that moment that Julie happened to glance beyond Corry - catching sight of the look in Sue’s eye.

And Julie knew Sue from when they had been allies. She knew that look, knew it meant trouble. Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later, during a drum solo, when Sue used the opportunity to let go of her guitar and reach for something back in the shadows, next to the stage.

Tim apparently noticed her action as well, and when he saw what she was grabbing, he stood up, reaching out towards her. But his leg buckled, sending him crashing into his own keyboard, palms first. The keyboard stand gave out, pitching forwards, sending the equipment towards Corry.

That’s when Chartreuse charged through Julie’s field of vision, reaching out in vain for the toppling instrument. Feedback erupted from the nearby speakers as it hit the floor at Corry’s feet. Then Clarke was there, catching Tim, and everyone’s attention was on what was happening with them - so it seemed like no one but Julie saw what Sue was about to do.

“Watch out!” Julie shouted, sprinting forwards. She threw herself at Corry, catching him around the waist, using her momentum to jerk him off his feet. The microphone Corry had been holding in his hands jarred loose and fell to the floor. An exposed wire created a small spark in the fresh pool of water. Water that had been thrown by Sue, who had not been able to check her swing. A few more sparks were seen, but Lee quickly reached his foot out to kick the power bar near the drums, killing all the electronics.

Julie breathed a sigh of relief. The brunette then discovered that, somehow, she had managed to land largely on top of Corry. One arm was caught underneath him, the other encircling his waist, and her sweater was pressed up tightly against his silk shirt. She quickly pulled back with an apology on her lips, but her voice got caught in her throat when she saw the bemused look on the redhead’s face.

“Julie… what the hell?” he questioned.

“Noooo!” came a cry of frustration from above them. Freeing her arm, Julie rolled away from Corry, looking up to see the brown haired guitarist. Sue was now being restrained by both Lee and Clarke. Carrie and Chartreuse had replaced Clarke at Tim’s side. Glen was there too.

“No, no, don’t you see?” Sue wailed. “I attacked him for you, Julie! Corry’s never been as good as you were. He never should have beaten you out the way he did! So I pretended to go along with him until I had this chance, this opportunity to shake him up a bit, to let him feel once again the wrath of Julie LaMille! So… so why did you save him, Julie? Aren’t you proud of me?!”

Julie blinked up at her former ally. “I… am going to be sick,” she realized, lurching to her feet and clapping a hand against her mouth. With a burning sensation at the back of her throat, she dashed for the nearest exit.

By departing, Julie didn’t hear the increasing chatter of the student body. Or how it was soon dispelled by the sound of an irate chemistry teacher, clearing his throat at the DJ’s independent electronics setup. “This dance,” Larry Fisk stated authoritatively, “is…”

“Going to continue shortly with more great songs from DJ Tuneup,” Mrs. Willis, the music teacher interrupted, grabbing the mike away from her colleague. “So please calm down and return to enjoying yourselves! I’m sure we all agree that it would be a shame to see this event come to an early end.”

Frank let out a low whistle. “I can’t believe it. Sue, out to get Corry. Who could have guessed?”

He and Luci had pulled back from the crowd of teenagers, to stand by the wall. With the DJ back in control, the dance was gradually getting back up to full swing. Carrie and Clarke had run out of the room after Julie, Chartreuse had gone over to talk with Laurie, and all the members of Corry’s band had been taken to the office to talk with Principal Hunt.

“I could have worked it out,” Luci decided, looking towards the stage. “If my mind hadn’t been wandering so much this week. After all, Sue’s looked distracted lately. Possible family troubles. And she lost her grandmother back around the same time as she ‘lost’ Julie… so it could be a case of displaced emotion? Not to excuse her actions, but that might be why she went a bit nuts.”

“Your whole school’s a bit nuts,” Glen remarked, approaching the both of them. “From what I’ve heard, some people are siding with Sue and her assault on your friend!”

“For real?” Frank raised his eyebrow. “I guess Corry doesn’t have the same support in his ranks that he once did.”

“On the bright side though,” Glen continued, “If Sue is out, there will be a vacancy in my fellow redhead’s band. So I can offer up my own guitar playing skills instead.”

Frank’s eyebrow twitched. “Uh, Glen? That’s not exactly a bright side.”

“No?” Glen shrugged. “It’s just, I’d hate to see Corry’s band dissolve on account of this. Wouldn’t you?”

“Hey, Carrie!” Luci shouted, waving. Frank turned, seeing that Carrie had entered the cafeteria again. Luci lowered her voice again once the blonde girl had paced over to join them. “How’s Julie faring?”

“She’ll be all right,” Carrie sighed. “Her stomach’s settled anyway. Clarke’s gone with her to the office, to give a statement to Mr. Hunt along with the band, though I think that’s mostly a formality. It’s pretty clear that she had no direct involvement in tonight’s activities.”

Carrie linked arms with Glen, leaning some of her weight onto him. “Still,” she admitted. “Now I feel guilty for insisting to Julie that she come. It’s not like she’ll have had a very good time.”

“It is a good thing she was here though,” Frank pointed out. “Or Corry could have been hurt.”

“That’s right,” Glen agreed. “Of course, one must still take care when using one’s powers of… persuasion. I imagine the results can be misleading, until the user has sufficient experience.”

Carrie turned to look into Glen’s face, and Frank wasn’t sure if it was her expression, or something in Glen’s tone that he found troubling. The redhead simply looked back at his date with a quiet smile. “Oh, whatever,” Carrie said aloud. “Come on, Glen. Let’s dance again?”

“I would be honoured,” he replied.

Frank and Luci exchanged a quick glance themselves as the new transfer student took the head cheerleader out for a spin around the dance floor. Meanwhile, a short distance away, Chartreuse turned away from Laurie, watching the pair herself while biting down on her lower lip.

(So, how much of that did you anticipate? If any? I suppose you’d at least anticipate another click request to vote for T&T at ‘Top Web Fiction’…)

3.08: TUNE UP

The band hit the final chord as Corry finished singing. He turned to smile at them. “Great work, guys. Thanks for agreeing to the extra practice. We’ll knock ‘em dead tomorrow night.”

Tim smiled back from where he sat behind the keyboard. Lee hit the cymbals and gave Corry a thumbs up. Sue adjusted the strap of her bass guitar.

“What was the significance of that song anyway?” Sue inquired. “Flying to the moon, it’s a little sappier than our normal fare."

“Request from my sister,” Corry shrugged. “Reminds her of some animated TV show she likes. Actually, maybe we should wrap up today with something different?”

“Which one?" Lee inquired, spinning a drumstick in his hand.

“That one which is also a popular theme song," Corry said. “Remember? It goes like this…”

Glen smiled as Carrie’s father opened the door. “Hello, Mr. Waterson. I’m here to pick up Carrie.”

Hank Waterson stepped aside. “She’s still getting ready, but do come in. I’ve been hoping to get the chance to meet you.”

“I figured.” Glen entered the house, knotting his tie a little tighter. Inwardly, he cursed whatever human had invented the things, and wondered who had made this school dance a semi-formal affair. At least a nice shirt sufficed, no need for him to have a jacket. “I hope to make a favourable impression,” the redhead continued. “As my intentions are completely honourable, and I’ll try to have your daughter home by whatever time you specify."

“I’m glad to hear it.” Carrie’s father closed the front door again. “I gathered as much from her, but there were a few things that she was unable to tell me. For instance, you seem to have no family in town. What is the story with your parents?”

“Oh, they’ve now purchased a house over in that new development to the north,” Glen replied, gesturing vaguely. “But mom’s still wrapping up with business out east, and as such they’ve arranged to have me stay at the Clayton Hotel for a few more weeks.”

Hank Waterson’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re staying at the hotel?”

“Ah, yes.” Glen supposed that Carrie hadn’t mentioned that detail. Made sense, in retrospect. “It’s not a big deal, really. The room has a small fridge and hotplate, and the maid service tidies daily. My parents wanted me to be here for the full semester, you see, and this was the best way to do that.”

“I see,” Mr. Waterson said slowly. “And what business is it that your parents are involved in?”

“My mother is a scientist - that’s what’s keeping her out of town, at the lab - while my father is a pilot, so he’s all over the place,” Glen said easily. “I’m hoping to go into the field of sciences myself someday. It certainly seems profitable enough.”

Mr. Waterson seemed to size him up. “Yet Carrie tells me you’re a long distance runner.”

“Yeah, well, I run, I act, I skate, I paint… everyone needs hobbies,” Glen said. Time to spin a question back, perhaps. “A person should be well rounded, don’t you think?”

Before Hank Waterson could answer, Carrie’s voice came from upstairs. “Is that Glen down there? Don’t you dare give him the third degree, Dad! Tell him I’ll be down in another few seconds!"

Glen half smiled. “You heard her - so, any final rules I should know about, before your daughter comes charging down and admonishes you for giving them to me?"

Hank eyed Glen again, then shook his head. “Nothing that isn’t common sense,” he decided. “And you seem to be the sort of boy who knows what I mean by that. In fact, I’ll level with you, a part of me is glad to see Carrie making new friends like this. She’s seemed a bit more withdrawn from her peers ever since she was hospitalized last year.”

“Ah, when she was shot?” Glen said. “I heard about that. Nasty business.”

“It was,” Mr. Waterson affirmed. He then leaned in closer to Glen’s face to speak more quietly. “An incident which has helped me to realize that, should you or anyone else lay an inappropriate finger on my daughter’s body, I will be forced into drastic action. Understood?”

“Naturally,” Glen affirmed, maintaining his composure. “Indeed, I would have been disappointed not to hear such concern from her only surviving parent.”

A frown tugged at Hank Waterson’s features, but before he could say anything more, Carrie appeared at the top of the stairs. “Glen! Glad to see you.” She lifted the skirt of her long purple dress slightly in order to avoid tripping during her descent. “I trust my father hasn’t been bothering you?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” Glen said, turning to face her. “And may I say, you look radiant in that outfit.”

“Why thank you,” Carrie said, pinkening mildly in the cheeks.

Her father cleared his throat. “Carrie, remember our deal. You’re home by eleven thirty.”

The blonde rolled her eyes. “Yes, Dad.” She grabbed her jacket out of the closet. “Come on, Glen, we don’t want to arrive at the dance TOO fashionably late.”

Glen nodded in reply and the two teenagers left the house, Carrie’s father watching them from the front door until they reached the sidewalk. Glen glanced back as the front door closed. “So, you made a deal with your Dad?”

“Yeah, he’s letting me wear the dress with the plunging neckline on condition that I come home right after the dance ends at eleven,” Carrie admitted. “Probably realized that I was going to wear this thing no matter what, and tricked me into that compromise.”

“Ah. Clever man. Something that runs in the family, I see.”

“Ha! He wasn’t so devious back before my brush with death. I swear, last year, he didn’t care at all! It’s only been during the last several months that he’s taken an interest.”

“Must be a real pain then, huh?”

Carrie pursed her lips. “No,” she murmured. “It’s nice. We need to be home on time.” She reached out to take Glen’s arm. “But never mind about my Dad, let’s get to this dance! I want to make sure Julie has someone to talk to when she turns up.”

“Uh oh.” Chartreuse looked down. “It’s, like, that bad, huh?”

“Oh, I didn’t say anything!” Laurie protested.

“That’s the thing, normally you have so much to say,” Chartreuse pointed out. She fanned out her skirt, staring down at the multiple splashes of colour that adorned it. “I, you know, thought it would compliment the sparkly sequins I added to my blouse. No such luck?”

“It… kinda works? It must be the lighting in the room. Don’t worry Chartreuse, I’m sure lots of people will ask you to dance!” Laurie Veniti adjusted the big, puffy shoulders of her own long, red dress. “Now me, I probably shouldn’t have gone with this choice of colour which is so similar to my hair because I probably look exactly like a tomato or a big red candle or something and the dress is too formal anyway plus so many people here are already in couples so I doubt I’ll be asked to dance by anyone!” She sighed.

“Laurie, stay calm. You look fine,” Chartreuse countered. “Anyway, worst comes to worst, we can always dance with each other.” Which didn’t mean she fancied her friend in that way, but Laurie was probably the only girl she could dance with and not spark gossip.

Chartreuse looked out across the dance floor. The music had started under half an hour ago, yet there were only a few people out there. Semi-formal dances seemed to be less popular these days - student council should have picked her suggestion of a Hawaiian theme. “So, when is your brother’s band going to be, you know, performing?”

Laurie’s brow furrowed in thought. “Golly, it’ll be at least another half hour, because I remember Corry saying something about Lee not being able to make it until after eight. But I know they’re doing two sets, whenever the DJ wants a break!”

Chartreuse’s gaze settled on where Corry and his group had set up their equipment, near the stage. It looked like Sue was double checking the electronics. Which is when Chartreuse realized she was getting a vibe. Why was she getting a vibe? “Remind me how the four of them, like, hooked up? It was second semester of last year, right?”

“Yeah. Partly on account of me,” Laurie agreed. “See, Corry had practically given up on the band idea after the mess with Julie. But last March I pushed for him to give it another go, particularly after Clarke talked to me, saying that Tim was trying to come out of his shell, and that he was a pianist. Knowing how hard it can be to put yourself out there, I had my brother hear Tim play, then Corry finally held guitarist auditions. Sue had the best one. And Lee got personally invited in, after Corry heard him drumming after school at around the same time.”

“Sweet. Nice that they’ve come such a long way in, like, a relatively short amount of time.”

“Corry really wanted to do this performance too,” Laurie continued. “In fact, he’s pushed for more and more rehearsals since school resumed… to the point where it kinda worries me that the other members resent him for that.” She followed Chartreuse’s gaze over to the band setup, then back again. “You’ve got that look. Why?”

“A feeling.” Chartreuse shook her head. No point causing her friend to worry. “Probably nothing. Yeah, it’s nothing Laurie, never mind. Come on, let’s head closer to the door. I think the guy there is, you know, trying to get your attention!”

It wasn’t a standard code, since rearranging the words - if you called them words - hadn’t helped. Luci hadn’t had any success reading the first letter of every word either. Or with ROT13. But perhaps if she… the young girl’s thoughts were interrupted by a pinch in her side. “Yipe! Hey, what was that for?”

“Well, I only asked you twice if I could take your jacket for you,” Frank pointed out with a grin.

“Oh. Sorry.” Luci felt her cheeks warm as she shrugged it off. “Guess I got lost in thought.” She looked down at her outfit. “Gods, I hate that this is a semi-formal affair! I don’t have any clothes like that, and even though Carrie offered to help me shop, I didn’t want to do that either.”

“Luci, don’t worry, those are nice pants and you look just fine in that blouse. It’s a nice shade of blue. Anyway, it’s not like I’m wearing a tie.”

“But you have a proper jacket. Which you can simply toss on a chair. Why can men can get away with that stuff, while we’re supposed to be all dressy?” Luci grumbled. “High heels should be against the law.”

Frank adjusted his glasses. “Well, I see some other girls around who aren’t in heels either. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Luci sighed. “Says the guy who won’t get laughed at behind his back for his outfit. Girls are the worst.”

Frank stared, then reached out to take Luci’s hand, gently squeezing it. “Okay, what’s bothering you? It’s not simply the dress code here, you’ve been in a bit of a mood all week. Are you still upset with me? Is this a test to see if I’m actually paying enough attention to you?”

“What? Oh, no, it’s not that,” Luci assured.

“Then what’s the problem?”

Luci shifted her weight back and forth. “It’s that logbook of Linquist’s,” she admitted. “The one Julie found. I’ve been working on cracking the code, to figure out exactly what sort of stuff that nutcase was doing, but I’ve had no luck! It vexes me. And because I was working on that, I didn’t go shopping, and so now I’m going to look like an social idiot, and it’s all that Linquist’s fault again!”

“Ah. Um, that last is a bit of a stretch - are you sure you’re not simply looking for more reasons to hate the guy?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I wish they’d picked Chartreuse’s suggestion of a Hawaiian theme,” Luci groused.

Frank lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’d prefer to be wearing a grass skirt? I mean, not that I’d be complaining, but…”

“But, ugh, point made,” Luci realized, looking back down at her legs. “Fine, point to you, it could be worse, let’s enjoy what we have.” She attempted a smile.

Frank grinned back. “Okay then. I’ll just check our coats, be right back.” He moved off towards the coat check area.

Luci spent a couple of seconds admiring the decorations, but she couldn’t help it, her mind was soon spinning with more ideas, more possibilities for that book. Perhaps a Caesar cipher…

“How’s business, Joe?” Frank inquired as he set the jackets down on the table. The late September dance was usually better for snacks, as compared to the coat check part, which was better in February. Regardless, their booth was a way for the business club to make a bit of money, splitting the proceeds with Students’ Council.

“Slow but steady,” Joe Drew replied. “Actually, we haven’t missed your expertise back here at all. I’d be worried for your job.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Frank said dryly. His fellow senior tore off a couple of numbered ticket stubs, exchanging them for his quarters. “But I have to say, I prefer Luci’s company to yours.”

“I can understand that,” Joe granted. The blonde boy leaned in a little closer. “By the way, I’ve heard Julie might turn up later tonight. Can you believe that girl? I bet a brawl will break out, and Mr. Fisk will cancel all future dances forever!”

“Oh, come on Joe… I think she’s learned how to behave herself,” Frank said, hoping he sounded reassuring.

“Hrmph,” Joe retorted, drawing back. His eyes shifted to the stage. “I suppose that, deep down, it’s all that idiot Corry’s fault. Guy should have dealt with her last year. I mean, he exposed what Julie did! How she manipulated folks like me! So why did he turn around and start acting all nicey nice to her?!”

“Yeah, uh, I suppose there’s stuff we don’t know about the situation,” Frank offered. He began to wonder how to best extract himself from the conversation.

Joe shook his head. “I know as much as I need to. Julie probably paid him off, so Corry’s even worse than she is!”

Before Frank could think of a good reply, a couple came up behind him to place a coat on the table. “Service, please,” the boy stated.

“Coming right up,” Joe said, finally handing off Frank and Luci’s coats to his co-worker before moving to deal with the newcomers. Frank took the opportunity to escape back to Luci’s side.

Carrie tried to decipher the noise Glen made upon their arrival. Failing that, she spoke up. “What? Is this so different from dances at your last school?”

Glen shook his head, still eyeing the decorations. “The faculty there didn’t believe in dances. So you’ll have to forgive me if I tread on your toes, dancing’s a skill I never really developed.”

“Ooh, amazing, something you’re not good at,” Carrie teased. She smiled. “We’ll manage, just don’t make a habit of toe crunching.”

“Scuze me, comin’ through!”

Carrie recognized Lee’s voice, and she turned to see him dashing though the front doors, dodging nimbly around the nearest couple. “Whoop, sorry ‘bout that, gotta hook up with the power cad, pardon me, scuze me…”

“Glory be, now his gang’s all here.”

This time, it was the sheer bitterness in the tone that made Carrie look for the source. Which turned out to be a light haired boy leaning against the wall. He was glowering at the crowd in general, but when he saw that Carrie was observing him in particular, he turned and shuffled towards the cafeteria/dance floor.

“Wonder what that guy’s problem is,” Glen mused aloud.

“That’s Tommy,” Carrie explained. “Looks like he’s still upset that Corry picked Sue to play bass guitar in the band, over him.” She tugged idly on a strand of her hair. “See, Sue was a side switcher - with Corry in Grade Nine, but then she joined me and Julie. Only to return to Corry last November, after Julie’s secrets got exposed. Meanwhile, Tommy’s been on Corry’s side since grade school.”

Glen grimaced. “So this is some kinda loyalty thing?”

Carrie nodded. “Yeah. I mean, Corry wasn’t wrong to choose Sue for his band, in that she IS the better guitarist. But it might have been the last straw for Tommy. It was the people who were closest to Corry who were blindsided the most, you see. When he cracked down on any attacks against Julie. Speaking of, you WILL look out for her here, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Glen rolled his eyes. “School politics. How irritating. Stop me if I ask again.”

“Why? Is that another thing that you didn’t see much of at your last school?”

“Not over such petty issues,” Glen countered, shaking his head. “Where I come from, it’s all about world domination.”

Carrie blinked. “Pardon me?”

He winked at her. “Kidding. So, shall we go and have a dance or two?”

Kidding? Or were they back to him keeping her off balance? Carrie pursed her lips. Every so often, he said something to make her wonder if she should be more suspicious. Except, she’d recently realized that Glen didn’t trigger any temporal headaches. Implying that no changes were occurring to her timeline. No, this was on her, not him - she had to stop overthinking this.

“Yes, dancing. Watch the feet,” she warned, hooking her arm around his as they headed for the doorway.

“I d-d-don’t know if I can d-do this,” Tim said, peering around the door frame at all the people out on the dance floor. “I d-d-didn’t think there would be so many p-people here. N-Not given the theme, and what happened last year!”

“Tim, first of all, breathe. Second, you can’t cut out on me now!” Corry crossed his arms. “Not after all the hard work we’ve put in.”

“W-W-W-Well…”

“Yo, dudes and dudette,” Lee said, breezing past Tim at the door to emerge into the far hallway. For once, his worn suit jacket was actually appropriate to the occasion, even if the T-Shirt he wore underneath it was not. “Have I missed anything?”

“No, but you are five minutes late,” Corry said, irritably. “What’s more, that’s becoming a habit for you this month.”

“Hey, cut me some slack, jack,” Lee protested. “I told you when I came on board that family matters and schoolwork would have to take precedence over this band.”

“All right, come on, everybody calm down,” Sue put in. “There’s still plenty of time to tune up and decide on the songs for our first set. We’ll knock ‘em dead, no worries.”

“Right, good, I like that philosophy,” Corry said, pointing at her. “Now, I’ve already seen to the drums, the keyboard and the electronics… so Sue, let’s go get the guitars and do one final check. The DJ told me we’re on after another couple songs.” The two of them hurried off to the music room, leaving Tim and Lee behind.

“I’m n-not so sure about this,” Tim murmured to Lee, after checking to see that Corry was out of earshot. “What if I mess up notes? What if we g-get heckled off the stage?”

“Don’t even think about it, tiny T,” Lee soothed. “Mrs. Willis said we sounded great, and the school crowd ain’t that hostile.” He glanced towards the cafeteria. “Well, okay, some of ‘em are, but it’s only towards the power cad. We’re clear.”

“I g-guess,” Tim said uncertainly. He took a few slow breaths. “I’ll feel SO much better after tonight. When Corry isn’t so obsessive.”

Lee rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, uh, I wouldn’t totally count on that though?” he warned. “I figure the better this goes, the more the guy will want to perform. If you can’t handle his scheduling, you’re gonna have to learn to stand up to him. Like I do sometimes.”

“Oh,” Tim said sullenly. He shuffled his feet. “How about you stand up for me too?”

Lee shook his head. “Sorry, T. I would, but I don’t really want the guy on my case any more than he is already. Besides, you’ll eventually have to learn to do it yourself.”

“I g-guess.” Tim sighed. “Know what? It’s gotten to the point where I wish Corry would disappear. Only for a little while.”

Lee frowned. It looked to Tim as if he wanted to say something further, but before he could, Laurie Veniti peered out of the cafeteria. “Corry?” she said, timidly.

“Hey, double V. He’s on his way,” Lee offered, turning towards Corry’s twin. As if on cue, Corry and Sue appeared at the far end of the hallway with their guitars, walking towards them.

“Great!” Chartreuse said brightly, stepping out from behind Laurie. “Because the two of us wanted to, like, wish the whole group the best of luck on your little, you know, debut.” She offered an encouraging smile to all the members, before reaching out a hand towards Corry as he strode up.

“Sure, thanks,” Corry said absentmindedly, reaching out to shake Chartreuse’s outstretched palm as he passed. He was brought up short, however, when Chartreuse didn’t release him. Instead, she grabbed hold with both of her hands. He turned to fire an irritated look at her, only to flinch back upon seeing Chartreuse’s horrified gaze.

“Ohmigod,” the pink haired mystic gasped out. She shifted her attention from Corry’s hand up to his face. “You, like, totally can’t go out there!” Chartreuse declared. “If you do… you’ll die!”

(Return for Corry’s fate next week. A reminder that a vote at TWF is appreciated.)

3.07: THE MANSION

“She’s not in the bathroom,” Carrie said as she emerged. “However, this was on the floor.” She held up a bottle of aspirin.

“Where could she be then?” Clarke said, a tinge of panic creeping into his voice. He cupped his hand to his mouth. “Julie? JULIE??”

“Calm down,” Luci soothed. “We’ll find her. Whatever happened, she can’t have gone far.”

“Maybe Jeeves or Mimi saw something?” Frank hypothesized.

Clarke shook his head. “They’re not here. Jeeves is out servicing the car, and Mimi doesn’t spend much time around the house any more, outside of meal times. She’s not keen on the whole fractured family situation.”

“Then let’s check the external security system,” Luci reasoned. “That will tell us whether Julie left, and whether anyone else came.”

Clarke brought them to the security room, where a quick verification confirmed that there had been no activity outside of the mansion. “So where could Julie be?” Clarke said desperately. “And why did we hear her scream?!”

“Is she afraid of spiders, maybe?” Carrie mused.

“Unless…”

“Unless?” Frank said, turning to Luci.

The small girl pursed her lips. “Unless it’s not a matter of where she is, so much as WHEN she is."

“You think she was timenapped?” Clarke asked, eyes widening.

“We were here to set a fixed date for starting travel,” Frank agreed. “Yet for someone to take Julie, the time machine would need at least a few minutes to recharge, right?”

“Okay, so it stands to reason that if someone’s trying that, Julie’s still around, but maybe knocked out,” Carrie decided. “We need to split up and search the house, fast.”

“Whoa! Split up?” Frank protested. “But what if someone’s trying to pick us off one by one?”

Carrie rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll check upstairs with Clarke while you two horror movie maniacs scour the basement. Good enough?”

Frank seemed about to reply to her when Luci broke in. “Sounds good,” she agreed, grabbing Frank’s arm. “Let’s do that.”

Carrie nodded and headed for the back stairs with Clarke, even as Frank turned to look at Luci in surprise. “We’re going to take orders from her?”

“Come on, Frank,” Luci said. “Let’s have a talk in the basement.”

Luci tried to figure out exactly how to say what she wanted to say as they descended the stairs. She finally decided to go the direct route, as usual. “Frank,” she began as they reached the lower landing. “Why are you still freaking out about Carrie’s powers?”

He blinked. “Pardon?”

“The earlier comment about things flying through the air?” Luci said pointedly, even as she walked down the hall, opening the nearest door. “The flinching when Carrie talked about losing her mind? I thought we’d agreed that the remark to her father last weekend would be the last reference you’d make to Stephen King’s character.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Frank apologized. “Still, the fact that we discovered that the fire at the cafe occurred when Carrie was there… well, it’s kind of a freaky coincidence, don’t you think? Like, maybe, subconsciously–”

“No!” Luci countered. “Don’t go there! Our Carrie is not some fictional character with mental issues and telekinesis, Frank. She’s our friend.”

“I know.” Frank peered inside a room where a file cabinet had been tipped over. “But we all saw what Carrie was capable of last year. And you know I’m not keen on the horror genre. So if you didn’t want me to act this way around her, why did you show me that movie in the first place?”

For a moment, Luci found herself at loss for words. Because she realized that Frank wasn’t wrong - some part of her had wanted him to act this way. What she ultimately said was, “Well, geez, Frank, why do you think I showed it to you?!”

“Luci, I’m not a mind reader.”

“Who says you have to be a mind reader??”

He gave her a look of confusion. So Luci clasped her hands in front of her chest and fluttered her eyelashes. “Oh, Carrie,” the young girl swooned. “Don’t go out with Glen, he might be bad news! Don’t worry, I’ll tail him for you, I’ll keep an eye on him, I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything inappropriate!”

Frank’s eyebrows rose. “This is about me shadowing Glen?”

“Oh for goodness sakes, Frank, don’t you remember ANYTHING about our previous conversations?” Luci said in exasperation. Honestly, Frank was a wonderful guy, but how could anyone that smart also be so dense and unaware?!

Their basement searching ceased completely as Luci’s boyfriend peered more closely at her. “You mean… you really are jealous?”

“Oh, then you were listening. Amazing.”

“And so… you showed me the movie so that I’d be scared of Carrie, and run to you for support?”

So he’d been listening, but not understanding. “I showed you the movie so that you’d remember that someone like Carrie is capable of taking care of herself! So that you’d come to me, not for support, but because… because I’m important too. Even if I’m not the one with powers or a destiny.”

“What? But, of course you’re important, Luci! Why would you think otherwise?”

“Because, I don’t know, it’s like our relationship was stuck in second gear all summer,” Luci said. She found she couldn’t look at Frank directly any more. Was she perhaps in the wrong? “I thought coming back to school would reignite things, but instead you’re more interested in Carrie’s life than you are in mine.”

There was a pause. “I’m sorry, Luci, I never meant to give you that impression,” he said softly. “If you thought I was ignoring you, why didn’t you say something?”

“Oh, what the hell was I supposed to say?” Luci felt tears shimmering behind her eyelids. “A girl can’t simply tell a guy to dote on her, otherwise she’ll know he’s doing it because she told him to, not because she’s actually worth it.”

“You are worth it.”

“See? Now you’re only saying it because I told you to.”

“I’m not.” Frank reached out to tilt Luci’s head back in his direction. “I’m really not. I’m sorry, Luci. I guess it’s just, you’ve always seemed so independent. Heck, ever since you stopped holding back at school, your marks have been in the top five percent for our grade level, even above mine. So it never occurred to me that you might be feeling insecure.”

“Don’t say that! I’m not insecure!” Luci swallowed. “But okay, I guess for your birthday at the start of the month, I still had to go up on tiptoe in order to kiss you, and I… I’m two years too young for our grade, and wonder if maybe you’re getting tired of that age difference. I know I am."

“Oh Luci, Luci, dear sweet Luci, no!”

“No? You’ve never found yourself holding back because of my age? Hell, would you even still be going out with me, if you hadn’t seen how good I’d look at twenty one?” She knew he couldn’t have forgotten about the time when she had been artificially aged, prompting Professor Linquist to grab her off the street for experimentation. After all, it had been that Luci who had first made her feelings clear to Frank.

“Oh, Luci," Frank said, brushing a tear from her cheek. “I would still go out with you even if you broke out with a terrible case of acne. This isn’t about physical appearance. It’s not even about intellect. I love you, Luci, because of who you are. You know I do.”

Luci looked up into his eyes, and she saw the sincerity in them, and she felt like a total idiot. She leaned in towards him, her arms moving around him and her cheek resting on his chest as she let out a small sigh. “I… I know,” she admitted. “So maybe I need to hear it more often? Is that okay?”

His arms encircled her back. “Of course it is,” he said softly, hugging her close. “Of course it is, my lovely Luci. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel at all neglected. I’ll make it up to you somehow… in fact, guess what! I got Joe to handle the business club’s snack table for the upcoming school dance. And rather than simply assume, I should ask - Luci, will you be my date for the evening?”

“Oh, Frank!” Luci said happily, looking up, then hugging him tightly. “Of course! Thank you!” They remained that way for a short time, before she finally pulled back.

“Actually Frank, you know what else didn’t help with this whole mess?” Luci admitted. “Carrie complaining to me at the start of the school year about how much her chest was interfering with her cheerleading, and her other athletic pursuits. I mean, really? All I could think about during her WHOLE rant was ‘So when am I due for a boost in MY cup size?’. Damn it, I’ve seen Grade Nines who are more developed than me!”

Frank swallowed. “Oh. Um. Well, you know, I’ve never meant to imply you were devoid of physical attributes…?"

Luci eyed his expression. “Never mind. Maybe that’s a topic I should be discussing with Chartreuse instead. We should get back to looking for Julie.”

“Yes, please,” Frank said, visibly relieved. “Lead the way."

Julie moaned as consciousness returned. She blinked her eyes open, saw nothing but darkness, and felt a jolt of panic. It subsided as her eyes began to adjust, identifying a partially furnished, albeit windowless room. She sat up, reaching her hands out to confirm that she was in a small alcove in the wall.

She suppressed the urge to sneeze at the dust tickling at her nose. “Mimi’s really let this room go,” Julie murmured. Was she even still in the mansion?

She thought back. She had been in the washroom, getting the aspirin bottle from the cabinet behind the mirror - and had slipped on a wet patch on the floor. Left behind when she’d splashed water onto her face after bandaging her hand.

Julie held her palm up to her face, peering at the bandage. Her hand still hurt. Right. Because to try and stay upright, she had seized the metal ring on the wall where they hung hand towels. And twisted it. And then, inexplicably, the floor had given out, and she’d fallen… which meant she was… where?

Julie struggled to her feet, trying to peer through the darkness. She stepped outside of the wall alcove. A cobweb or string dangled against her face, and she pulled at it, to get it out of the way. An overhead bulb clicked on. Julie blinked the spots out of her eyes, then let out a low whistle as her location became more clear.

This was a laboratory. Abandoned, to be sure, but it contained cabinets, counters, a sink - and fluorescent lighting overhead, which was still switched off. Julie fumbled her way across the room, towards the only door, where she found the main light switch.

“Where in heck did all this come from?" Julie murmured, once she was in a position to do a full scan of the room. “How is this room inside my house?" She had thoroughly explored the mansion after moving in. True, the basement floor plan allowed for a room of this size, but the only place it could have been was behind a completely walled off area. Walled off…

Julie walked back over to the alcove, and looked up. It seemed that she had landed at the bottom of some sort of overhead chute. Pursing her lips, Julie did some mental calculations, and realized this laboratory could indeed be part of her basement. With access from above.

She made a quick circuit of the room, noting that there were still a handful of instruments in the drawers as well as chemicals in the cabinets. If it weren’t for the dust, implying the room hadn’t been used in years, she might have thought that someone was in the mansion spying on her.

A flash of red caught her attention as she looked more closely at a large safe. Something had been shoved into the narrow space in between said safe, and the adjoining counter. Grabbing a nearby metre stick and fishing in the opening produced a spiral notebook. Julie blew the dust off of it, scanning over the cover.

“Observations and experiments,” she read. “As recorded by Professor Linquist… Professor Linquist?!” Julie looked up. “Of course. He owned this place before we moved in! This lab must have been some secret work area of his!"

The brunette began to riffle through the book, but it seemed to be written in some sort of scientific code. “The others need to see this,” Julie decided. “Heck, they’re probably wondering what’s happened to me. So how do I get out of here?”

She tried the door, finding it to be unlocked. It opened inwards, revealing a wall of concrete blocks - except there was a narrow passage there, which could fit a single person. The passage extended in both directions. “Left or right?” Julie whispered. She peered into the darkness. No way to know. “Right. Let’s see where this goes."

“Okay, well, I don’t think she’s up here,” Carrie concluded. “Unless she’s in that locked records room, or Jeeves’ room, or is actively being moved to avoid us or something.”

“We can still try those rooms before giving up,” Clarke insisted.

Carrie shook her head. “At this point, if people were stealing Julie through time, I think they’d be gone. There has to be another reason for…“ She froze. “Damn. Oh, DAMN!”

“What?”

Carrie took off towards the stairway. “We’re up here. Frank and Luci are in the basement. I left the time machine on the main level, UNGUARDED. What if that was the plan? What if it was JULIE’S plan? To hide, and throw us off long enough to take a time trip!”

Clarke frowned. “Carrie, she’s not that reckless, and surely Frank still has the coins…”

However, the blonde girl was already out of earshot. So, with a resigned sigh, Clarke followed her down. He reentered the sitting room to see her staring down at the time machine, on the floor, exactly where they had left it. “See? You need to give Julie more credit.”

“Okay. But it’s SO stupid of me to keep leaving the damn thing where others can get it,” she said, grimacing. “I mean, this is twice in two days. Um, kinda. Look, I think I’d better take it back to my place. I’ll sleep better knowing that it’s still under my bed."

“Fine,” Clarke granted. “Now can we get back to searching? Because I swear, Julie wouldn’t have run off like this voluntarily!"

“Scratch the basement," Frank offered, as he and Luci reentered the room behind him. “But there were a couple of locked areas. Storage, maybe?”

“I also wonder if we missed a section - there seemed to be less floor space than I would have expected,” Luci observed.

“No, it’s fine, there’s a section around the back of the stairs which is all foundation,” Clarke assured. “There’s no rooms in that area.”

As he spoke, there came a click and a series of creaks. Then the tall china cabinet against one wall of the room began to rattle as it slid sideways across the carpet. Clarke lifted his eyebrows, as Carrie grabbed for the time machine and Frank stepped slightly in front of Luci.

Everyone watched as Julie emerged from a dark passage, her clothes dusty, with cobwebs caught in her hair. “Actually,” Julie said, letting out a cough. “It would seem that there is a room down there after all.”

“Jewels!” Clarke gasped, running towards her, stopping short from actually grasping her by the shoulders. “What happened to you??”

Julie turned to look at the tunnel behind her. “My best guess,” she ventured, “is that I triggered something by twisting the towel ring in the bathroom while the medicine cabinet was open. It sent me down to this lab where… well, Phil, why don’t you go grab a flashlight so that we can all see for ourselves?”

“Careful, there’s some stairs here,” Julie warned. There was only enough space for them to move single file, so she led the way. Clarke brought up the rear, shining his light forwards.

“I’ll be damned,” Carrie muttered, inching along behind Julie. It was extra awkward, because she hadn’t wanted to leave the time machine behind again - but now she had to walk sideways, with it at her hip. “Like everyone else, I’d heard the rumours about there being secret passages in this place. But I thought you’d discounted that possibility.”

“Seems I wasn’t thorough enough,” Julie admitted. “In the end, most of my searching was done downstairs, around that closed off section. So while I’m sure that there’s no way into it from down there, it didn’t occur to me to check for access from places on the main landing.”

“A china cabinet isn’t the most obvious choice for a passage anyway,” Frank commented. “I’d have gone for a bookshelf.”

“Well, we keep china in it, I’m not sure what Linquist used it for.”

“Linquist?!” came Luci’s voice. “You think that quack was doing illegal experiments down here??”

“I don’t know… maybe you can tell me. He left some logbook of experiments behind.” Less than a minute later, they had all filed into the hidden basement room.

“You know what?” Carrie said, looking around. “This would be an excellent place for us to use for storage, time travel meetings, that kind of thing. It’s in the mansion, out of the way - even Jeeves doesn’t know about it, right?”

“Right,” Julie confirmed. “And I can tidy it up a little for us, and catalog the stuff Linquist left behind.”

“Hold it!” Luci objected. “Have you forgotten how crazy that guy was?! What if he left booby traps behind?”

“He wasn’t always crazy,” Carrie countered. “And I doubt he would have sold this place to a wealthy family like the LaMilles if he’d left anything in here that would take their heads off. That would mean a major lawsuit.”

“Even when he wasn’t crazy, he still wasn’t normal,” Luci shot back. “Remember, Linquist believed that aliens left their children at orphanages in the hopes that they would some day be brought inconspicuously into society. A familiar story for you, right Carrie?"

“My mother was an unwitting time traveler, not an alien,” Carrie said dismissively. “And Linquist had nothing to do with her appearance or disappearance, they happened years before he went off on this tangent.”

“Yet people in the future must have associated with Linquist at SOME point,” Luci countered. “Remember, this guy also also owned equipment for sensing the temporal flux in my DNA. He couldn’t have picked that up at the corner drugstore!"

“Ugh. Point,” Carrie finally yielded. “We should be careful.”

“On the topic of using this place though,” Frank broke in. “It’s not a bad idea."

“And I’ve decided to clean the lab up no matter what," Julie put in.

“In which case, I can make sure to be around whenever Julie’s investigating," Clarke offered.

Luci let out a sigh. “Oh, very well. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She held up Linquist’s red notebook. “Can I keep this, at least? To see if I can figure out what this guy spent his time experimenting on down here? I’m sure there’s some connection between that guy and time travel that we’ve missed.”

“No problem,” Julie agreed. “It’s in code though.”

“I can help you work on it, if you want,” Frank offered. Luci smiled back at him.

“Then it’s settled,” Clarke concluded. “Me and Julie will fix this place up over the week, so you could bring coins and technical drawings or whatever down here by, say, this Friday evening.”

“Except that’s the night of the school dance,” Frank reminded the taller boy. “Aren’t you going to be there with Julie?”

Clarke looked sidelong at the brunette. “Well, no. Unless she changes her mind…”

“Oh, Julie, you should come!” Carrie said. “The first dance of the school year? It’s a good opportunity to get you back into social circles!”

Julie shook her head. “On the contrary, my presence would only serve to remind people of what happened between me and Corry at the first dance LAST year. When I not only screwed you and him over, but Laurie Veniti too.”

“No way - or if it does remind them, it’ll only serve to show them how much better of a person you are now,” Carrie insisted. “Come on, you really have been keeping a lot to yourself lately. A dance will do you good. The four of us will stand up for you. I’ll make sure Glen does as well!”

“Glen? You think he’ll be there?” Frank asked.

Carrie pursed her lips. “Yeah. Since he, uh, kinda asked me out - more specifically, to honour him by being his date - and after our cafe meeting became something of a fiasco the other week, I didn’t really want to say no, sooo…” She shrugged.

“Carrie’s right, Julie, you might as well come along,” Luci chimed in. “If you feel uncomfortable, you can always leave early.”

Julie looked around at them. “But…” Her eyes landed on Clarke. “Oh, all right. Phil, we’ll go. If nothing else, we can see Corry’s music group in their first major performance. They’re supposed to be performing when the DJ goes on break.”

“That’s great!” Clarke said, smiling back. “See Jewels? I told you that some people would want you there! You’re simply blowing things out of proportion. After all, since you and Corry aren’t actively fighting any more, what’s the worst thing that could possibly happen?"

As it turned out, Clarke was surprised.

• Another Commentary Post is coming this Sunday.
• Again a vote for T&T at TWF is always appreciated, the votes expire weekly.

3.06: MENTAL STRAIN

Julie stared in silence at the shadows on her bedroom ceiling. For some reason, she was reminded of those Rorschach inkblot tests, the ones psychologists used to help check a person’s sanity.

How sane was she?

The regular counselling sessions with Dr. Golden had helped her to deal with emotional issues like love and trust, it was true. But she couldn’t explain to a regular psychologist about the attempt to kill their unborn self, by time traveling back to the week of their birth. Speaking of that to anyone, aside from the other time travellers, was liable to get her locked up. Or worse, put Carrie in additional danger. No, Julie would have to keep it to herself.

Maybe forever.

“They’re all here now,” Clarke said from the doorway.

Julie sat up. “All right then. Let’s talk time trips.” She swung her legs off the bed, stood, and headed past him, out the door.

“Jewels, are you sure you’re up for it?” Clarke asked, falling into step behind her. “They only called us this morning about the meeting. If it’s too fast–”

“Don’t worry,” Julie said, cutting him off. “I’m not about to wrestle the machine away from Carrie in order to finish what I started last year.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Catching Clarke’s tone, Julie paused on the stairwell to look back up at him. “Right.” She smiled, trying to project a confidence she didn’t feel. “Look, Phil, it’s fine. Really. If Carrie, Frank and Luci want to discuss resuming time travel, I’m good with that! Sure, it might bring up memories, but me and Doc Golden, we did talk about suicide. I’m more grounded now. What I do, it’s for me, not to please people like my parents, yeah?”

“Yeah. Still…”

“More to the point - I need this,” Julie continued. “It’s been ten months since those events, and a part of me is starting to doubt whether it all truly happened.” Her lips pursed. “And I… well, I’d rather not simply dismiss the sacrifices you all made to save me.”

Clarke looked at her for a long moment before smiling back. “Okay then,” he replied. “Let’s see what’s up.”

Her visitors, Carrie, Frank and Luci, all rose from their chairs as she entered the LaMille sitting room. “Julie,” Carrie began. “Hi… look, I want you to know right up front that if you feel at all uncomfortable with what we’re talking about, you have only to tell us and we’ll head out of here with no bad feelings.”

“Noted. Let’s get to it,” she countered.

Carrie nodded, glancing over to Frank and Luci. Frank shrugged. Even Luci looked hesitant. Julie set her jaw. “Look, guys, I may be a little frayed around the edges, but I’m still Julie LaMille. If you’re going to walk on eggshells around me, I’m going to damn well throw you out. Did you interrupt my Sunday morning to talk time travel, or didn’t you?”

“We’re thinking of using your house here as a base of operations,” Luci spoke up. “For storing the coins, and as a jumping off point for time trips, rather than Frank’s home. Or Carrie’s.”

“My parents and Carrie’s father already think something’s up after last year,” Frank added. “So that’s not ideal, particularly if I reappear in my kitchen. But your place isn’t that far from Willowdale Park, and so with either that park or the point of departure being some sort of geographic failsafe, your home is pretty convenient.”

“The mansion is big, mostly empty, and me accidentally turning up in here at any point in the last couple years wouldn’t really be remarked on,” Carrie added.

Julie shifted her gaze to the small black box, currently lying on the floor beside a chair. “You ARE thinking of making more trips then.”

“We have a few present day coins,” Frank admitted. “And if we don’t start soon, that is before January, we’ll be stuck in the present again. So yeah.”

“Carrie thinks that actually doing some time travel might help her to understand more about what she is and isn’t capable of doing on her own too,” Luci added.

“In fact, I took my first trip of the year yesterday,” Carrie stated. “Back to my birthday.” She rubbed her temples. “It was… educational. I think the time has finally come for me to put up or shut up as far as these temporal powers go.”

“Your powers,” Julie remarked, leaning back against the wall. “Then you’re thinking of invoking them too?”

Carrie began to pace. “I have to,” she sighed. “Chartreuse has convinced me that the only real way to ensure that what happened last year at the hospital never happens again, is to achieve some sort of balance with whatever’s inside me. To get a sense of what that even looks like, I’m gonna need to take more time trips. With and without the machine.”

“Incidentally, Carrie’s powers are another reason to bring the two of you in on this now,” Luci said, nodding towards Clarke, who had thus far remained silent. “We’re the five originals. The only ones - aside from Corry - who remember what Carrie is capable of. Thus the only ones who might notice, should things start to run off the rails.”

“Chartreuse would notice too,” Carrie murmured.

“Except she doesn’t REALLY remember last November,” Frank countered. “You had to tell her.”

“She would notice.”

“Look, my point was that Lee, Tim and Laurie wouldn’t, despite also once knowing about the machine,” Luci said.

“I think you’re straying from the point,” Clarke broke in at last. “You’re saying you want to use Julie’s house as a base of operations? What about the surveillance cameras on the property? What about Jeeves, who lives here too?”

“As Carrie said, the place is big, we should be able to avoid Jeeves,” Frank countered. “And the surveillance on the property will work in our favour. We merely need to learn enough to circumvent it, after which it will pick up on any outsider who’s trying to get at the time machine.”

“Like I did, when it was unguarded at your place,” Julie observed.

Frank winced. “Um. Kinda, sorta.”

Julie crossed her arms over her chest. “So, does this mean I’ll get to do more time travel?”

“Not at all,” Frank assured. “We’ll only need your permission to come and go from the house, from this point going forwards. Along with information about the surveillance and such, in case we arrive in some room with an active camera.”

“Because the time machine centres on the DNA of those taking the trip, remember?” Carrie agreed. “So, if we happen to arrive before we leave, we could potentially be here without coming through the front door. Don’t be freaked out by our comings and goings, that’s all.”

“Well, what about your point of arrival in another time period?” Julie challenged. “I’ve spent so much time in the mansion these last three years that any time trip I take is likely to keep me here. I could be an asset to you that way.”

Carrie exchanged a glance with Frank and Luci. “Julie… are you saying you WANT to go on another time trip?”

“I do,” Julie said, without hesitation. “I won’t make it a condition of using the place, but what’s wrong with me coming along?”

Julie surveyed the expressions of the others. Carrie looked surprised, Frank confused, Luci remained inscrutable and Clarke… he simply looked worried. “Jewels… I’m not sure you realize what you’re asking.”

“Oh, come on Phil,” Julie countered, giving him a playful punch in the arm. “All summer you were telling me I needed to get out more. A trip in space, a trip in time, what’s the difference?” She looked at the others. “Besides, I swear, I’m not going to use the opportunity to try anything self-destructive!”

“I don’t know, Julie,” Carrie said, her expression starting to mirror Clarke’s. “Time travel can be dangerous. And we might not limit ourselves to the past, we could also travel as far forwards as December.”

“Though last time we tried a future trip, we almost got run over,” Luci recalled.

“I don’t care,” Julie asserted. “I want to time travel.”

“But why?” Frank protested. “What’s your motivation?”

Julie clenched and unclenched her hands. “Seriously? Don’t you guys get it? I’ve only been on two time trips. And the second one doesn’t count, since it was only Clarke taking me into the cafe to establish an alibi for the shooting. No, whenever I think of time travel, it always brings to mind that first trip, with the gun, and the h-homeless woman and… and m-my p-parents…”

Damn it. Julie forced herself to draw in a long breath, digging her fingernails into her palms. She had to keep control here, or they’d never let her go anywhere. “So, yeah. I hate that. I hate it, I hate it, and yet I can’t stop thinking about it! What’s more, something which has really been starting to eat away at me through my counselling sessions is the realization that, had our situations been reversed, I… I probably wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help any of you!”

She stood straighter, shifting her gaze around the room, to each of them in turn. “So, know what? I vowed that if the opportunity presented itself where I could help you time trippers in return for what you did, I’d take it! More, that I’d go on another trip through time, one I could potentially look back on with pride, not distaste or horror! So, yes, obviously you can use the mansion, but I want - I’d LIKE more than that. Everybody, I want to time travel again!”

“Jewels, careful!” Clarke shouted out, reaching out to grab her arm. She looked down. One of her nails had broken through the skin of her palm, releasing a small trickle of blood. She swallowed.

“Whoopsie. Ah, I’ll just get a bandaid. Talk amongst yourselves,” Julie said, before hurrying out of the room.

Clarke watched her go before turning back to look at the others.  “You know, I wish you’d talked this over with me first,” he sighed.

“I guess we should have,” Carrie admitted, her eyes still on the doorway. “Julie’s never quite seemed that… passionate about anything though. Not recently anyway. She’s been quite subdued at school.”

“Her former followers, which is to say half the school, are out to get her when Corry’s back is turned,” Clarke countered. “The other half, Corry’s original camp, give her the silent treatment - wouldn’t you be subdued? Don’t forget, her family situation has been kept out of the public eye. Heck, even though WE have the information, well… have you ever truly forgiven Julie yourself, Carrie?”

“Of course! She pulled that trigger only because she was being influenced by a crazy man from the future.”

“Not merely the shooting. Julie did some other cruel things to you.”

He saw Carrie shift her weight back and forth uncomfortably. She had to be recalling the betrayal which had involved drugs in her locker and two weeks of detention. “Yeah. I know she was under some personal pressures then too,” Carrie yielded. “I do TRY not to hold such things against her.”

“So, if you’ve forgiven her, why don’t you spend more time with her?" Clarke asked pointedly.

Carrie shrugged. “I… I guess I never thought about it. I’ve had more than a few issues of my own to deal with these last few months, you know!”

“Okay Clarke, let’s get your input now,” Luci broke in. Having resumed her seat, she leaned forwards in her chair. “Quickly, before Julie returns. Do you think she can handle a time trip?”

“I… maybe?” Clarke said. “I must admit, I didn’t know she felt this strongly about the subject myself. But I see where she’s coming from - a part of her wants to forget about that trip. However, if she does that, she’ll lose this connection she has to all of you. And I don’t think Julie wants to do that, not now that she’s finally beginning to understand concepts like love, friendship and self sacrifice.”

“We’ve made a bit of a mess of things today then,” Frank realized, also resuming his seat. “Perhaps we should call the whole thing off.”

Clarke reached back to rub the back of his neck. “Perhaps? But you don’t want to do that permanently, or you could break Julie’s heart. Outward appearances aside, she is in a fragile state. You can’t set her up this way, and then drop her. Her feelings, when she expresses them these days, they tend to go all out.”

“What would you suggest then?” Carrie asked.

“Continue to involve her,” Clarke decided, after a moment’s thought. “In that respect, using this place as a base isn’t a bad idea. Even a time trip has possibilities. But not solo. And not now. You have to make sure not to bring her along too fast, and don’t take her condition for granted. Julie isn’t the same person she was last year.”

“Who am I supposed to be then?” Julie asked as she reentered the room.

Clarke flinched, not having heard her approach. “I was telling them how far you’ve come in terms of your therapy,” he said quickly. “Since the last time you time traveled.”

“Oh!” Julie nodded. “Is it okay for me to go on the next trip then?”

“Actually,” Luci said. “We’ll need to hold off on trips for a while yet. We don’t have that many present day coins. The issue today was more having a fixed point in time when we all knew what was going on. Right?”

“Right,” Frank agreed. “We’ll need to keep an eye out for more coins minted in our current year before taking any trips.”

Clarke took a half step back, firing off a quick smile to them from behind Julie.

Julie pursed her lips. “Why wait? If this is now a fixed point in time, someone could simply time travel back TO now, from some point later, once there are already more coins in our possession. At which point our future selves can simply hand the money over to our present day selves.”

“Huh,” Frank mused. He glanced to Carrie.

The blonde shook her head. “Sorry, we can’t, because we won’t,” she rejected. “It’s not that it’s a bad idea, and it’s hard for me to explain exactly, but since we apparently haven’t done that, we’re not going to. It’s like… our present is their past. Puts the onus on us. Who knows what will happen in two months time? Maybe we’ll forget, maybe the machine will break down…”

“Couldn’t you foresee those sorts of events though?” Clarke wondered.

Carrie began to look uneasy. “Maybe. Chartreuse thinks so. But I’m reluctant to test it.”

“You know what though? We might be able to generate more coins via causal loops,” Frank realized. “Carrie has done it before with information. Telling herself something, then going back in time and saying it again, when she was the only source. She even generated an apple out of nowhere last September. Couldn’t we do the same thing with coins?”

Carrie began to rub her temples again. “Yeah, that’s… not the best plan. For one, I’m still not clear about how I managed the apple. For another, the very act of using the machine would burn up the coin we get, meaning it can’t be used elsewhere anyway.”

“So use two coins,” Luci countered. “We’ll put them onto a table in the morning. That evening, someone can use one one coin to travel back in time five minutes, picking up both coins. Then use one of THOSE to travel back a further five minutes, again picking up both coins. We keep repeating the process, getting an extra coin each time until finally–”

“My head explodes,” Carrie interrupted, shifting from having her fingers on her temples to pressing her palms there. “Gods, entertaining that thought physically HURTS! Much more than the usual background static! Damn it Luci, that’s not how time travel works… if it’s my destiny to pick up the coins thirty minutes ago, I won’t be able to pick them up five minutes ago. They’ll be gone! Besides, I think temporal random variance would have a thing or two to say about the attempt.”

“It IS an interesting new paradox though,” Frank reflected. “If we use a coin to time travel, and then on that trip we take the coin away before it’s used, could we actually go on the trip?”

“Frank… not helping with the headache,” Carrie said, gritting her teeth.

Frank frowned. “You’re not about to make things fly through the air, are you?"

“Shall I get an aspirin?” Julie asked.

“I doubt aspirin would do much,” Carrie sighed, after shooting Frank a look. “I have had pains like this before. I think when my powers awoke, they imbued me with some sort of temporal conscience. That’s part of the reason I’ve avoided discussing time travel philosophy with people this year.”

“Really?” Luci asked. “I thought the issue was that you had trouble making sense out of it.”

“That too,” Carrie yielded. “Though I have tried to do more research. Being tied to a destiny and all.”

“Well, if time trickery is out, you could simply get more money,” Julie decided. “Given that some percentage of all money out there has current year coins, more money leads to more useful coins. In fact, by knowing the future, you can win money at anything from lottery numbers to betting on sporting events.”

Carrie began to rock back and forth. “Wait.”

Frank snapped his fingers. “Or there’s the stock market! With the time machine we could invest today in something that we know will rise substantially over the next week and–”

“SHUT UP!” Carrie shrieked, collapsing back onto the couch.

Everyone turned to stare. The blonde took a few slow breaths, her eyes closed and her palms against her head. It took at least ten seconds, but finally one blue eye reopened. “For crying out loud people, were you SERIOUSLY trying to make my head explode there?!?”

“Carrie, a lottery wouldn’t need to involve you at all,” Luci pointed out. “We’d make the trip ourselv–”

“STOP!” Carrie drew in her next breath through clenched teeth. “Look. News flash. Apparently it doesn’t matter whether you do it, whether I do it, or whether the neighbour’s cat does it. Playing with the normal flow of time that way? It’s like an ice pick right here!” She jabbed her finger at the side of her head. “Though, Gods, TALK has never done this to me before… why now, all of a sudden?!"

“We’ve never talked about it seriously before,” Frank speculated. “This is the first time we’ve brought it up with an intent to actually follow through.”

“Lovely,” Carrie said, dropping her head between her knees. “You know what? I’d better have some damn good mental shields in place before these time machine devices actually get invented! If not, idle chatter like that is liable to make me lose my friggin’ mind and go on a homicidal rampage as a preemptive strike.”

Frank visibly flinched, but only Clarke and Luci noticed.

“You know,” Clarke offered. “You’re all missing the obvious. If it’s merely more money you need… Julie already has money. Quite a bit. She can withdraw a bunch of rolled coins and search for more of the type you need.”

Luci frowned. “Seriously? I figured Julie’s parents would have cut her off.”

Julie nodded slowly. “True, they did, but I have my own account,” she admitted. “I’m not stupid, I made sure there was one they couldn’t touch. Plus there’s still a few electronic tidbits lying around, which I bought to help with taking over the school, and they have value. Even without access to my parents' funds, I’m probably better off than ninety percent of this town’s population.”

“Plus you could always travel back a year or two and sneak out extra funds then,” Frank mused. His gaze jerked back to Carrie. “Or would that be another temporal violation?”

“It’s hard to tell, I’m still throbbing from the lottery remarks,” Carrie grumbled without looking up.

“There may have been a couple of times when funds went missing,” Julie granted. “Though I’d have to think about it. In the meantime, I can withdraw $100 in coins… but sifting through them will take time.”

“We are in no rush,” Clarke assured.

“That’s actually a really good plan,” Frank agreed. “It wouldn’t involve wasting what few coins we have now on any attempts to get more.”

“Great,” Carrie said. “Because I think my head has had more than enough of talking about time travel for today.”

“You sure you don’t want some aspirin?” Julie asked. Carrie gestured vaguely in response. “I’ll get some,” the brunette decided, hurrying from the room.

Clarke watched her go before turning back to the others. “Thanks guys,” he said sincerely. “Helping this way, it will mean a lot to Julie. While keeping her safely in the present.”

“Least we can do, after neglecting her this long,” Frank reflected. “Somehow I never thought we’d be of much help during Julie’s therapy.”

“A person always needs friends,” Clarke countered. “And it’s not like she can spill our whole story to her psychologist.”

“Here’s the last big question then,” Luci stated. “Is it truly safe for us to leave the time machine here? Where Julie can access it?”

Clarke furrowed his brow. “Um. That is a good question,” he acknowledged. He thought about it. “Maybe not, but if we–”

He was interrupted by the sound of a loud scream from down the hall. Julie’s scream.

• In case you missed it, I posted up some statistics for the month last Sunday. It got more response than anticipated.
• Consider voting for Time & Tied again at WebFictionGuide! Votes expire after 7 days, so... yeah, visibility helps.

3.05: TOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

“Okay, wait, stop, hold the phone!” Carrie shouted, clawing herself back up using the bedsheets. “First things first. You’re telling me this Tope Diamond wasn’t some jewellery, but rather a person?!”

“Yeah, who knew?” Chartreuse replied. “She was heir to the Diamond diamond fortune. Of course, her mother Mother Diamond’s diamonds weren’t from the Dullsville Diamond Mine. They were mining coal instead.”

Carrie stared blankly at her house guest.

“Never mind,” Chartreuse decided. “Here’s the thing. Some people wanted to kidnap Tope and ransom her back for Diamond diamonds. Hence we Vermilions were, you know, asked to help in taking Tope someplace safe.”

“All right,” Carrie said slowly. “Assuming I followed that, when did this turn into a love story?”

Chartreuse blushed. “Right after my eyes locked with Tope’s.”

“Right after your eyes locked with Tope’s,” Carrie repeated back. “Chartreuse, this IS a girl we’re talking about here, right?”

“Yes. But when I was fourteen, I was, like, bisexual. In fact, I’m pretty sure I still am.” Chartreuse swallowed. “I guess that’s never come up. I don’t advertise. Does it bother you? Do you want me to go?”

Carrie thought about it for a moment. “No, you can date whoever you like. Though I can’t help but notice that this Tope Diamond does bear some resemblance to me.”

“Yeah. My sister’s remarked on that,” Chartreuse admitted. “Which is partly why she’s teasing me lately, what with you coming over. But of course, Tope’s hair was, like, longer, her skin was paler and she, you know, smiled more.”

“Ah,” Carrie said. “Just so long as this Tope doesn’t have odd temporal powers too. Because if you were writing me in, I’d have to stop listening.”

“No, no, Tope only had power over my heart,” the pink haired girl said, following the comment with another dreamy sigh.

Carrie’s eyebrow twitched. “Chartreuse, is this Tope about to convince you to use your powers and save the day?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Chartreuse accused. “I’ll have you know that I did NOT, like, use my powers during the trip. What happened next was Mom rode with the agents up front, Dad and Azure followed in our car, and I, you know, went with Tope in the camper unit itself.”

"So you can, like, see the future, and stuff?" Tope said, wide eyed.  “Ohmigod, that is so cool, you know?”

Chartreuse shrugged as she finished dying the last few locks of her hair. "I can, but I'm not doing it any more," she said. “It's what I said, and I'm sticking by it. My Mom can consult her spiritual advisors to help in choosing a route for us instead." She put her bottle of 'Quik-Dye' back in her backpack. "Now, I have to ask... has anyone ever told you that you have the most beautiful blue eyes in the world?"

Tope blushed. "Usually just, like, guys who, you know, want my money or my virginity or stuff. So I just tell them, 'yeah, right, as if!' and they, you know, totally get the picture." She paused. "When you say it though, it feels different. Did you totally, like, mean that?"

“Of course I did," the taupe haired girl said softly. "There's something about you, your look, your voice, your perfume - it's making my senses go crazy! I... I can't believe I'm about to say this, Tope, but I've wanted to be close to you ever since the moment I saw you. Would you allow me to kiss you?"

“What? Me, kissed by a girl??” Tope squeaked. "Ewww! That's like... like... well, okay, I guess I don't know what that's like. Hmmm. Gee, now you've got me totally curious. Very well, Chartreuse. You may kiss me!"

Chartreuse could feel her heart hammering in her chest as she moved in closer to that long flowing hair, those blue eyes, those luscious red lips... instinctively, she moved her arms out to encircle Tope's waist. Tope Diamond looked up at her then with another shy smile, draping her own arms over Chartreuse's shoulders, her perfume intoxicating her lover's senses as their eyes closed and...

“Um, but you, like, totally don’t need to hear that part of the story,” Chartreuse realized, cutting herself off with a cough.

“Chartreuse, were you two about to make out??” Carrie said, wide-eyed.

“We just, like, became distracted. Now, outside…”

“Oh my God, you did! You made out!”

“We got distracted!”

“When you were fourteen, you made out with a girl you’d just met? That’s… that’s… what the hell is that about?!”

The pink haired girl flushed. “Carrie, don’t fixate. Youth is for experimentation. Besides, must I, like, get into some the guys you’ve, you know, made out with? On a first date, no less?”

The blonde paused. She supposed she had gone to some questionable lengths in her first few years of high school, to get favours done for herself or for Julie. “Ugh. Fine.”

“So we got distracted,” Chartreuse repeated stubbornly. “As such we, you know, totally didn’t realize the battle was going on until the door kinda blew in.”

"Ohmigod! What was that?" Chartreuse gasped, poking her head out from around the drapes surrounding the camper bed.

"Oh, that was, like, sooooo good...! Do it again...!"

"No, shhhhhh, something's happened! The camper’s not moving and the door is gone!" hissed the taupe haired girl.

Tope's head appeared next to Chartreuse's, a hand raking her long blonde hair back out of her eyes. "Whoa," she murmured. "The Peeping Toms in this area totally don't fool around, yeah?”

"Stay here.” Chartreuse ducked back behind the drapes for a couple of seconds, then jumped out, finishing buttoning up her blouse. "I'll check it out." She reached back into her backpack, pulling out a medium sized relaxation crystal.

The taupe haired mystic crept cautiously towards the door. Moments before reaching it, a man in a grey pinstripe suit stepped in, wielding a tommy gun and smoking a cigar. "All right, me and my boys, we're taking over now, see?" the man said with a thick Brooklyn accent. "So if youse want to just toss that crystal aside and get your hands up, we can be through here nice and peaceful-like."

Chartreuse blinked at the man, glanced down at the crystal in her hand, then proceeded to toss it at him with all the strength she could muster. Caught by surprise, it smacked him in the middle of his forehead and he went down like a sack of wet rocks. The taupe haired girl quickly grabbed the gangster's gun and scrambled past him to glance out the camper's doorway.

The stretch of road they were on was currently deserted - with some notable exceptions. To the right, Chartreuse saw an attack squad of ninjas surrounding her father. Straight ahead, a number of old west gunslingers were facing off against her mother. And to the left, a bunch of Scotsmen with bagpipes were advancing on her sister. Agents Queue and Eh were on the ground unconscious.

"Are you ready to die?" one of the ninjas was saying, his words not quite syncing up with his lips.

"I'm sorry to say that I'm not ready just yet," Hugh Vermilion replied. Then with a yell of 'Aiiiiiiieeeee!' he leapt up into the air and took out a handful of his assailants with a seemingly impossible horizontal spin kick.

"Draw!" one of the cowboys shouted out.

"No!" Amber Vermilion retorted defiantly.

"Fine," the gunslinger said, whipping out his own gun.  Yet even as he did so, a beam of light rose from the small hilt Amber had in her hand. The amber beam neatly deflected the incoming bullet away, and she continued to deftly manipulate her light sword in order to avoid the other bullets which followed.

"About time you decided to help!" Azure shouted accusingly at her sister, drawing Chartreuse's attention to her.

"Ach, there be none who can help ye now, young 'un!" said one of the kilted men. "We'll deafen ye an' take our prize!"

"Oh brother," Azure sighed. She pulled out the small pendant she wore around her neck and shouted out, "Release!" The small key expanded to form a long staff, which Azure then spun about in her hands while she simultaneously withdrew a card from her pocket, tossing it in front of her. "Fight Card!" Azure called out. The magic circle of Clow Reed appeared around her as she tapped the staff on the card. "Release and--"

“Oh, no, wait a minute,” Chartreuse said, furrowing her brow. “I’m getting Azure’s card powers mixed up with one of those classic Japanese anime shows Laurie likes to watch.”

“Chartreuse, I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of other wires crossing here too.”

“Maybe I should, you know, skip the fight scene, it was all a little hazy,” Chartreuse decided. “Is that okay, Carrie?”

“Fine by me,” the blonde said, rolling her eyes. “In fact, I never thought I’d say this, but I preferred the love story.”

“Yeah… Tope totally catches one’s eye, doesn’t she?” Chartreuse sighed, clasping her hands.

“That’s not what I… look, never mind. Are we nearly done here?” Carrie inquired. “Because I feel another massive headache coming on.”

“Actually, yes, almost,” Chartreuse said. “Because, see, this is where things get particularly poignant. For it was while we were defeating our many enemies on the one side of the camper, that a group of midgets in trenchcoats broke in through the other side and successfully kidnapped Tope Diamond! My one true love had been taken from me! So I resolved to use my powers again, in order to locate Tope and get her back.”

"Are you sure you can do this? After all, an accurate read of her near future will require particular knowledge of Tope," Hugh Vermilion reminded his daughter. "Did you get some in the time you were together?"

“Yeah. More than you think," Chartreuse muttered, trying to dispel the afterimages of Tope's gentle caresses. She set the last stone in front of her and closed her eyes.

“Remember not to push yourself too hard dear,” Amber reminded. "The forces have a way of drawing you in, if you let your guard down."

"Yes, mom," Chartreuse sighed, already sinking into the deep meditative state required as she focused on Tope and where the beautiful blonde was going to be taken. "Ohm, ohm, oh my... spirits from beyond, show me what is to come!"

Almost immediately her eyes snapped open, unseeing, as her spirit form left her and centred in on Tope's immediate future. She saw a warehouse. Chartreuse flickered through the wall to verify, and sure enough, there was Tope, being tied up to a chair.

"You total idiots!" Tope was saying, her voice somewhat distorted due to the vision. "You were, like, only supposed to threaten to take me, not, you know, actually do it! I mean, do you have any clue what you interrupted?! There was, like, this really hot girl and we were totally working our way towards a..."

Sixty-nine, that was the number listed on the warehouse. Dullsville Warehouse No. 69. Chartreuse had the information she needed, and a part of her warned that it was time to return to the present. Yet what was Tope saying, had she been a part of the original conspiracy? Surely not! Still, the idea made Chartreuse hesitate long enough for the vision to pull her onwards, further into the future.

"Okay, I, like, admit it, I totally screwed up," Tope said, her head bowed. "I'm sorry, Mom. I just wanted, well, a little adventure in my life. It was so totally dull here in Dullsville! I never, like, thought things would go so, you know, wacky."

'No, Tope, say it isn't so!' Chartreuse thought. 'You set this whole life threatening affair in motion?!' She tried to get a clearer read on where she was now, but the light reflections from the diamonds Mother Diamond was wearing were interfering with her sight. She couldn't tune into the conversation properly while trying to orient herself either, so she strained her ears to hear what was being said instead.

"...totally learned my lesson," came Tope's voice again. "I won't, you know, bother the government any more. Anyway, people out in the world are so, like, weird! It's a good thing I didn't, you know, get attached to any of them. Well, except the one."

Chartreuse felt her heart jump. 'Which one? Me?' she wondered. The vision began to melt away. 'No, no, I have to know more!' Chartreuse thought desperately. And there was more. The lure was there, the path to the final outcome of this sequence of events... and since Tope was apparently going to be rescued, what was the harm in looking?

She was in a church. Chartreuse's breath caught in her throat. A twentysomething Tope Diamond stood before her, absolutely radiant in her white wedding dress. "I, like, do," Tope said quietly before turning to smile happily at the person standing beside her. Chartreuse shifted her gaze in that direction as well. Knowing full well that this information would be too much for her, yet she was unable to stop herself.

The man wearing the black tuxedo and dark sunglasses looked back at Tope. "Eh?" he said.

Chartreuse fell over the cliff.

 

"SNAP OUT OF IT ALREADY!" Azure's voice screamed.

Chartreuse felt like she'd been pulled back into her body by an elastic band. She blinked her eyes a few times, only to realize she couldn't see. "Ohmigod, I'm, like, blind!" Chartreuse gasped out.

"Chartreuse?!?" Azure yanked the two jokers off of her sister's eyes.

"Ow! Oh, that's, you know, totally better," Chartreuse said. She glanced around only to find that she was seated in the middle of the coffee table back at their home, surrounded by several houses made of cards, arranged in a pentagram shape.

A lock of her hair was swinging in front of her face. Chartreuse reached out to grab it. "Say, when did I, like, dye my hair orange-violet-silver-fushia-green-taupe-candycane-cyan?"

"I did it! Oh thank goodness, I did it and it worked!" Azure said, reaching out to grab Chartreuse in a bear hug.

Chartreuse patted her sister uncertainly. "Um, yeah!" she agreed. "Though I think, I've, you know, missed something. What happened with, like, Tope Diamond?"

Azure pulled back. “Oh, that? I was able to get a reading of the past from the fedora that one gangster was wearing," she explained. "It was left behind in the camper. Seems he'd been recruited for the mission exactly one week ago by this con, Venient Plotwist. Mom got the location of Venient's warehouse from one of his recent victims, then Dad organized a strike force to retrieve Tope."

"Oh," Chartreuse said, nonplussed. "Then I was, like, no help at all. I totally messed up."

"Ayup," Azure affirmed. "That's what you get for mixing business with pleasure."

Chartreuse coughed. "Um, pleasure? Like, what pleasure?"

Azure rolled her eyes. "Sis, please. It’s taken me five days to restore your consciousness to the state it was in back in the past, before you zonked out. And the vibes between you and Tope were so strong that at first, I couldn't even isolate the two of you! Even now, I think there’s been some leakage... I mean, have you noticed you're talking like some valley girl here?”

"Like, what?" Chartreuse said in surprise. "Oh, that's, you know, totally ridiculous." She paused, reaching up to hold her throat. "Like, no way. I mean, like, no way. No, I said, like... ohmigod, I totally can't stop!"

"I am genuinely sorry," Azure said sadly. "But it was either that, or have my sister become a table centrepiece for the rest of her life."

Chartreuse tapped her throat again gently before letting out a sigh. "It's, like, okay. It wasn't, you know, your fault," she murmured. "Though, wait, did you say it's been five days?!"

Azure nodded. "We've explained your disappearance by saying you're off with Mom at Aunt Fluffy's funeral. It's kinda tragic, she died saving this kid. Seems a tree was going to fall on him, but she pushed him out of the way."

"My vision," Chartreuse realized. "Oh, wow. You mean, if I'd tried to stop it, some innocent child would be, you know, dead instead? I never saw that part!"

"I guess. All I care about is that you're back!” Azure said, giving Chartreuse another quick hug before moving to retrieve some of the playing cards on the table. "I mean, without you, who would I have to annoy?"

"I'm, like, touched," the orange-violet-silver-fushia-green-taupe-candycane-cyan haired girl said. She paused to pull at a lock of her hair again. "Though seriously, what is it with all these shades??"

"Oh, I wasn't sure if your frequent hair colour changes would impair my abilities to home in on your past self," Azure said. “So I redyed it. I mean, if you WERE going to be a centrepiece, this way we'd at least have a colourful one."

Chartreuse frowned. "You know, I'd totally have a good retort for that, if it weren't for one thing."

“Oh? What?"

“The fact that this experience has, you know, turned my stomach inside out," Chartreuse said, lurching off the coffee table and sprinting for the nearest bathroom.

Carrie stared at her companion in silence for a short while.

“So, that’s it?” Carrie said at last.

“Yup,” Chartreuse confirmed back. “Understand now?”

Carrie passed a hand in front of her eyes. “Chartreuse,” she began. “Couldn’t you have summed up that WHOLE STORY by simply telling me, ‘I once had a vision of my aunt’s death, but it turned out that she was saving someone else in the process, so it’s good that I didn’t try to prevent it’??”

“Of course not! You, like, miss all the nuances that way!”

Carrie threw herself back onto her bed with a groan. “Chartreuse,” she repeated with exaggerated patience. “I have been lying here all weekend, unable to keep down any food, with my insides feeling like they’re stuck in a vice, all because there is some part of me that now feels like it can twist free and display home movies of death and destruction in my mind. Movies that I can’t control, and that I can’t shut off.

“The ONE HOPE I’ve been trying to hold onto, is that if I experience another vision, I can FORCE myself into doing something to change the outcome. And yet now you’re telling me that, by making such a change, I could cause events to be even worse than they otherwise would be?!”

There was another protracted silence.

“You didn’t understand then,” Chartreuse concluded.

“I understand that you have a weird family.”

“No, listen,” Chartreuse insisted. “You experienced an unsettling vision of the future. I get that. But now that you’ve, you know, worked through any physical discomfort, it’s time for us to deal with the mental side of things. Because even though you can’t always control your powers, you can’t let them control you either. If you do, you won’t see something you could have seen, like me with Tope’s kidnappers. Or you’ll, like, push yourself until you see something you’re not meant to see, as I did with Tope’s wedding.”

“Gee, thanks Chartreuse. What other option IS there, aside from me being in control, or my powers being in control?!”

“Isn’t that obvious?” the mystic replied. “Find the balance. Life goes on, Carrie. You can’t obsess over everything these weird forces throw at you, or you’ll never be able to enjoy yourself. Trust me, I know. All too well.”

The pink haired girl smiled sadly, then began to back away, towards the bedroom door. “Anyway, I’ve probably overstayed my welcome. So I’m gonna, you know, head back home. But I hope you feel a bit better? I am looking forward to our next session! See you in school tomorrow, okay?”

With that, Chartreuse slipped back out of Carrie’s bedroom.

Carrie listened as her guest headed downstairs, said goodbye to her father, and then left the house. She continued to lie quietly on her bed for several long minutes before finally standing and moving to look at herself in the mirror.

“Find the balance?”

Carrie dragged her hair back off her forehead and pursed her lips. “Because I have been letting my fears of the future get the best of me,” she realized. “Worse, I’ve been doing it for months. No wonder it feels like my head is trapped in a washing machine stuck on spin. Thank you, Chartreuse.”

She turned away from her reflection. It was very clear what she had to do now. Namely get Frank to explain to her about setting the time machine, so that she could travel back to her last birthday. To have that talk with herself about Chartreuse. If nothing else, it would be one less future event for her to be concerned about.

Wait, hadn’t Frank already been by this weekend? Carrie marched out onto the upstairs landing. “Hey, Dad?” she called out.

“Yes, Carrie?” she heard him call from the bottom of the stairs. “Are you feeling better?”

“I think so. What’s been happening this weekend, anyone leaving messages for me?”

“Someone named Glen called for you twice,” her father said. “And Frank and Luci dropped by. Actually, Frank seemed more nervous than usual, and when he heard you were ill, he asked me if any knives had been flying through the air. I’m not sure what he meant by that.”

Carrie’s eyebrow twitched. “It means my first call today will be to Luci instead,” she decided, before spinning on her heel and heading back into her room. It was time to get their time travel group back together.

• End Arc 3.1 - next Arc begins next week!
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3.04: THE VISIONARIES

“Luci! Guess what I got today!” Frank said as he opened the door for his girlfriend.

“The popcorn?” the young asian guessed, entering the Dijora house and looking at him in amusement. “I mean, that was our arrangement, you get the popcorn, I get the movie…”

“Yes, yes, but look what I received in the way of change,” Frank said, fumbling in his pocket for the money. He held six coins out for inspection.

Luci stared. “They… overcharged you?”

“The dates,” Frank said patiently. “Look at the dates.”

Comprehension dawned. “Oh! Two more from the current year."

“Yup,” Frank affirmed as he pocketed them. “It’s weird, for whatever reason, we haven’t had as many recently minted coins in circulation this year. I don’t know why, but it could be a problem for when we resume time trips.”

“When? Not if? But Carrie hasn’t authorized more time trips.”

“Well, no,” Frank admitted. “But she can’t hold out indefinitely, can she? In particular, now that she’s gone out with Glen, we may want to use the time machine to investigate…”

“OKAY, stopping that train of thought before it leaves the station,” Luci interrupted. “No Glen tonight. Movie tonight. Yes?”

“Yes, right,” Frank agreed. “What did you find?” Luci smirked as she held up the casing. Frank’s eyebrow went up as he read it. “Stephen King’s ‘Carrie’?,” he questioned. Luci nodded.

Sunday afternoon found Chartreuse ringing the doorbell at the Waterson residence. Carrie’s father answered it for her moments later. “Um, hi!” she began. “Is Carrie in? I think we, like, have something that we need to talk about.”

Hank Waterson shook his head. “She is here, but she’s not feeling very well. Could you come back another day?”

Chartreuse pursed her lips. “I could. Except I think I know what her problem is, why she’s been so, you know, withdrawn all weekend. And I think I can help.”

“Really?” Hank said. “What’s wrong? I know she doesn’t have a fever, but it seems to be more than an upset stomach…”

“It’s related to our weekly sessions,” Chartreuse hedged. “Can I please talk to her?”

“She refuses to speak with anyone. Insisting only aggravates her - I had to turn away both Frank and Luci when they came by. In fact, it’s all I can do to get her to say anything to me.”

“Carrie doesn’t have to speak to me, only listen,” Chartreuse pleaded. “Please, Mr. Waterson? I know what I’m talking about.”

“Well… all right. Come in,” Hank Waterson decided, moving aside. “I do hate to see my daughter like this and I’m at a bit of a loss as to a solution. You sure she won’t mind seeing you?”

“Go away!” Carrie shouted through her bedroom door.

“Carrie, hear me out!” Chartreuse protested. “You’re upset because of the fire at the cafe, right?”

No reply. Chartreuse knew she was right. The pink haired girl motioned with her hands for Carrie’s father to depart.

He looked at his daughter’s door, then back at her. “Call me if she starts throwing things,” Mr. Waterson said at last, before heading back downstairs.

“Look, I understand some of what you’re going through,” Chartreuse continued, once she was alone. “I’d like to tell you a story about the time my abilities caused trouble in my life too. Can’t I, like, say it to your face?”

Nothing.

“Fine, I’ll talk through the door,” Chartreuse continued stubbornly. “It all started three years ago, when I was fourteen. I’d received a disturbing vision. It was a vision of death…”

"There has to be something we can do!" Chartreuse said desperately, nibbling on a lock of her violet coloured hair. "I don't want Fluffy to die! Not like that!!"

Her mother sat down on the bed next to her. "I'm sorry, Chartreuse," she said softly. "We can warn her, but I'm not sure she'd understand us. Fluffy's always enjoyed playing in traffic, it was just a matter of time."

"But... but it's not right!" Chartreuse objected. "Can't she be kept in her house? Can't we prevent things that way?"

"She'd find a way out," Mrs. Vermilion sighed. "You know her, she's sneaky that way. There are some things you can stop, Chartreuse, and other things that are inevitable. You have to let this one go, dear. Fluffy's death is meant to happen."

"But Mom, she's your own sister-in-law!" the violet haired girl sobbed. "If this is what it means to see the future, I don't want to see it any more!"

"Chartreuse, she may have married your uncle, but me and Fluffy weren't that close," her mother insisted. "Now, please, try to work through this. You can take all the time you need."

“Hold it!” Carrie interrupted. The lock clicked, and the door of her bedroom opened a crack. “Are you telling me Fluffy was your aunt?!”

“Yes,” Chartreuse sighed. “It was so horrible. She died when a tree fell on her.”

Carrie glared at Chartreuse with one eye. “You’re making this up.”

“I am not!” Chartreuse said indignantly. “Our other aunt, Emerald, was quite broken up about it! I think maybe my Mom was too, but of course since she can see, like, astral projections, she could still talk to Fluffy after her sister-in-law’s death.”

“But… if a tree fell on Fluffy, what did playing in traffic have to do with anything?”

“If Fluffy hadn’t been in the road, the tree would have, you know, missed her,” Chartreuse said patiently. “Now, are you going to keep asking questions, or can I continue my story?”

Carrie hesitated, which Chartreuse took to be a yes.

"All right, Chartreuse," Mr. Vermilion said, entering the room. "I'm sorry, but we can't afford to give you any more time to grieve."

"But Dad, it's been less than an hour!” the orange haired girl wailed. "Can't I at least--"

“Stop! You said your hair was violet a minute ago,” Carrie interrupted again.

“Did I?”

“You did! How can it be orange less than an hour later?”

“Maybe you, like, misheard me through the door. Can I come into your bedroom already?”

Carrie glared at Chartreuse again before finally opening the door wide enough to allow the other girl inside. “Thank you,” Chartreuse said. “Ooh, you have a nice room here, Carrie. Nice pyjamas too.”

“Don’t try and change the subject,” Carrie said, closing the door and moving to lie back down on her bed. “Now, skip to the part where your story has something to do with the fire I was in.”

“Oh… were you actually in the cafe when your vision occurred?” Chartreuse said. “I didn’t realize. Maybe this isn’t the most appropriate story after all.”

Carrie sat back up. “I knew it! You’ve been making it up.”

“No way!!” Chartreuse objected. “You want to know what, like, happened next?”

“Okay,” Carrie retorted. “What happened next?”

"Honey, I'm sorry," Mr. Vermilion said. "But we may need you to use your abilities--"

"I'm not ever using them again!" Chartreuse countered. "I'm renouncing my powers! I don't wanna know anything more about what might be happening around me!"

"But the Prime Minister of Canada has a very important job for us to do," her father insisted. "Won't you at least listen to what he has to say?"

The orange haired girl eyed him. “Well... all right, I'll listen. But I won't do anything I don’t want to!”

"That's my girl," Mr. Vermilion said with a smile. He reached out to twist the bedknob on his daughter's bed, which caused the mirror on the vanity to rotate 90 degrees. The two of them jumped into the tunnel now visible behind the mirror, sliding down a chute and falling into the couch at the bottom. Mrs. Vermilion looked over and smiled at them as she reached out and clicked on a small remote. A large wall screen lit up with an image of Jean Chretien.

"'Allos!" the Prime Minister said. "As I was saying, I am having a very important jobs for you Vermoothians!"

“CHARTREUSE!!!”

“Oh, what now?”

Carrie pressed a hand to her forehead. “You expect me to believe ANY of that actually took place?!?”

Chartreuse sighed. “Fine, I didn’t give in quite that easily, but I’m, like, embellishing a bit in the interests of time. Do you really want me to go into every little detail?”

“That’s… not my problem! What about all that other stuff? With the bedknob, the chute and Chretien?!”

“Oh, that! See, I was going through this secret agent phase, which is partly why I kept re-dying my hair. My parents were nice enough to humour me by doing some, you know, remodelling. As to Chretien, we, like, have a filter set up so that all communications coming in from the Houses of Parliament look and sound like Chretien, no matter who the Prime Minister actually is. Jean was my dad’s favourite prime minister, you know, even if the guy could never pronounce our family name properly.”

Carrie stared. “Chartreuse. This is a stretch. Even for you.”

“Well, whether you believe it or not, that doesn’t change what, like, happened!” Chartreuse said petulantly. “Now, are you going to listen to me, or are you going to interrupt every five seconds?”

“Fine, fine.  Continue the story,” Carrie sighed.

The image of Jean Chretien cleared his throat. "So's if you Verminions could handles dat little problem for me, da government would be grateful. Until da next times!" His image clicked off the monitor.

"I can't believe that guy won even one election," eleven year old Azure muttered from her own seat on the couch. Her father shot her a look of annoyance.

“That's beside the point,” Mrs. Vermilion stated. “Now then Hugh, how do you figure we should handle things?"

Mr. Vermilion stood. "Well Amber, the best way to protect this Tope Diamond while it's en route would be to choose what seems to be the safest path, and then have Chartreuse tell us if she foresees any impending danger. If she does, we can change our plans and try another reading."

"Good!" Azure said, standing up. "Then you don't need MY ability!"

"Wait, I'm not helping out here!" Chartreuse protested, also rising. "Have you forgotten that I was only here to listen? My powers are still renounced!"

Azure blinked over at her sister. "Really? You finally came to your senses? What caused the sudden turnaround?"

"It's personal," Chartreuse said, crossing her arms.

“Don't be an idiot," Azure countered. "If you don't tell me, I'll simply go scrying into your past and find out for myself!"

Chartreuse turned her back on the blue haired girl.

Rolling her eyes, Azure pulled a deck of cards out of a pocket of her jeans. She closed her eyes, murmuring a quick incantation as she shuffled, before dealing eight cards out onto the coffee table. She then flipped over the next card, the ace of spades. "A vision and a death," Azure mumbled, after a cursory examination.

She proceeded to cut the deck and turn over the top card, which listed upon it the rules for playing draw poker. Her eyes went wide. "Oh no, Auntie Em! Uncle Henry! And their little dog too!"

"Emerald and her family will be fine, Azure," her mother soothed. "The imminent death Chartreuse foresaw was Aunt Fluffy's."

"Oh, right. I knew that," Azure said, gathering her cards back up.

Chartreuse stamped her foot on the floor. "How can you all take that news so casually?!" she said angrily. "This is a human life we're talking about! And you haven't even given me an hour to deal with that yet!"

"Chartreuse, people die every day," her mother soothed. "I know, because I've seen a lot of them after it happened. We're not being cruel, dear, it's simply that we accept death as being a part of life."

"Besides," her father chimed in. "Even if you don't actively use your abilities, you'll still get flashes and pick up random impressions from people. Isn't that right, dear?"

"It is," Amber Vermilion confirmed.

"I don't care!" the orange haired girl said. “I’ll be a hermit if I have to! I don't care about my powers, I don't care about this Tope Diamond, and I will not be bribed with a peach sundae, so Mom, put that money back in your purse!"

Amber replaced the bills, abashed.

"You go, girl!" Azure said. "Don't be fooled by the old 'just this one time, it's so important to the general population' trick either. I cannot BELIEVE we keep falling for that..."

"This IS important to the general population though," Hugh Vermilion pointed out. "After all, most people have never heard of the Tope Diamond's existence. But they will, unless we can get it safely to the required destination!"

"Would it be so bad if they did find out?" Chartreuse challenged.

"We can't know that until we see this Diamond for ourselves," her father replied. "There's no school tomorrow, so how about we all travel to Dullsville to check it out? A day trip. A family outing!"

"Oh no, this is how it starts," Azure moaned.

"It will also give you more time to come to grips with what you've seen, dear," Chartreuse's mother added. "I mean, you don't want to make any hasty decisions tonight.”

"Don't listen to them, sis, don't listen!"

"We can always have peach sundaes for dinner tonight too," Hugh finished. "Though if we spend much more time arguing, I won't have a chance to get to the stores before they close."

The orange haired girl shifted her weight back and forth uncertainly. "Well... all right, I'll go, but I still won't use my powers," she decided.

"You traitor!" Azure shouted. "You know I can't stay here all by myself!"

"Oh come on, sweetie, it'll be fun," Amber said, reaching out to hug her youngest daughter. "We'll have some blueberry ice cream tonight as well, how about that?"

Azure made a face. “FINE,” she decided. "I'll be bribed, but I won't like it."

“I can skip ahead now, right? I mean, you’re not, like, interested in the dinner itself are you?”

“Chartreuse, I’m not really interested in any of this,” Carrie mumbled. “You’ve gone from the ludicrous to the bizarre, and none of it has any bearing on what’s happened to me.”

“Not that you can see, but wait for it. There is totally a point here,” Chartreuse insisted.

“What, that peach ice cream heals all wounds?”

Chartreuse winced. “Peach sundaes, and can I help that I like them so much? Anyway, they’re, like, not important to the story. Let’s pick up again as we were waiting outside the Diamond Mine in Dullsville the following afternoon. Or that’s what I’m calling the town, anyway. National security, you know how it is.”

Chartreuse fidgeted absently with the ribbons in her fushia hair as she looked around. "Maybe no one'll show," she said.

"We should be so lucky," Azure mumbled.

"Oh, look, here comes someone now!" Amber said brightly.

The Vermilions watched as a camper pulled into the mine site and parked in front of them. Two men wearing dark sunglasses got out, trying to look inconspicuous despite the overcast day. One of them glanced casually about the area as the other stepped forwards. "The strawberries are not yet in season," he remarked.

"Oh, was there a recognition code?" Hugh said, looking troubled.

"No, but this is a good place to pick them in July. My name is Agent Queue."

"Cue as in pool?"

"I don't swim. Queue, for Vowels."

“Ah, four vowels,” Hugh realized.

"Yes, Vowels couldn't make it. Here's my associate Eh, part of the vowel movement."

“Then it's a Queue & Eh session?" Hugh verified.

"How's it going, Eh?" Amber inquired.

"Eh?" the second agent said, turning to them.

"Hearing problem, he takes my cues," Queue noted.

"I thank Queue," Eh said.

"Now, you?" asked Queue.

"Me? Hugh."

"Hugh, with who?"

"My wife Amber."

"Amber's a nice hue," Queue remarked.

“Say what? Amber is Hugh?"

"We are not Hugh, Eh," Amber assured him. "He is Hugh, and these are my daughters Chartreuse and Azure."

"Missed Queue's cue, eh, Eh?" Hugh said.

"Eh," Eh shrugged.

Queue pulled out a sheet. "I'll denote your party the Hue Continuum," he decided. "For simplicity."

"What??"

"Azure, as you're aware, we receive code names," Amber reminded her daughter.

"But why Queue's Hue, I like when you and Hugh pick too!"

"Two won't do, blue," Queue remarked. "Too bad for you."

“Well, sofa Queue!” the blue haired girl retorted.

"Eh?”

"Never mind,” Queue said, waving off his partner. "That language was too colourful. Chartreuse, do you have anything to add?"

"She's beautiful," the fushia haired girl breathed.

Everyone turned to see who it was Chartreuse was referring to. By the door of the camper, there now stood a girl of about fifteen years of age. She wore a small frilly pink dress, white stockings, white shoes, and in her blonde hair there was a violet hairband. Chartreuse's breath caught in her throat as she pictured how that long hair might shimmer in the sun, were there any sun around. However, Chartreuse’s eyes were soon drawn to the enigmatic blonde's blue eyes and shy smile.

"Hello," the strange girl said with a little wave. "I'm, like, Tope Diamond."

Chartreuse sighed happily at the memory.  “And, you know what? It was right then that I knew I wanted this girl to be my wife,” she said dreamily.

Carrie fell off her bed.

• I did a Commentary Post last Sunday, if you missed it. Story continues next week!
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3.03: CARRIE ON

“I called the cafe," Chartreuse said, re-entering her bedroom. “And there’s, like, nothing out of the ordinary happening there. Certainly no fires.”

“I don’t care. I know what I saw, Chartreuse!” Carrie finished off her glass of water. “There was smoke billowing out of the back and flames spreading into the dining area. I didn’t simply imagine it!”

“I’m not suggesting you did,” Chartreuse assured. “But is it possible you were no longer seeing the present, but some other time period?”

Carrie shook her head. “I don’t see how. It’s not like I made an effort to leave the present.” She frowned. “Though now that you mention it, I didn’t notice Frank and Luci any more…”

“Cosmic forces can be kinda unpredictable," Chartreuse admitted. “I mean, I know your abilities are fundamentally different from mine, but there’s probably similar rules that apply. I remember one time I wanted to learn the outcome of a football game at school, but when I tried to do a vision quest forwards I saw–”

“Chartreuse, I’m here so that I can gain control over my powers,” Carrie snapped, cutting her off. “I’d rather not have you tell me they can’t be controlled, all right?!”

Chartreuse stopped. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m just telling you what I, you know, have discovered though my own experiences.”

Carrie pressed a hand to her forehead. “I know. I know, I… I’m the one who should be sorry, it’s… look, maybe we should call it a day. All right? We’ll pick things up again some time next week.”

“If you think that’s best?”

“I’m not sure what I think. All I know is I’m no longer in the mood to deal with this right now!” Carrie rose and marched for the bedroom door, only to stop and turn back. “Chartreuse, you were watching me the whole time I was in that vision, right? My eyes, they… they didn’t turn golden at any point, did they?”

“Not that I saw, no.”

The blonde let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Good. Good, okay. So, see you in school tomorrow then?”

Chartreuse nodded. “Of course. Here, let me at least come with you to the front door.”

The next few days passed without incident – unless you counted Glen’s continuing attempts at getting closer to Carrie. She discovered that even Phil Clarke had started taking notice of it, when he asked her about it over lunch that Friday. Carrie had decided to spend the time with him and Julie, to give Frank and Luci some time for themselves.

“Then you’re sure it was Glen who left those flowers on your desk this morning?” the tall blonde inquired.

“Only origami flowers," Carrie clarified. “But yes, who else?”

“The origami looked pretty,” Julie acknowledged, fingering the flower brooch she was wearing. “And it takes time to do something like that. Glen must really like you."

“I’ve been getting those vibes, believe me,” Carrie sighed.

“But you don’t like him?” Clarke wondered.

Carrie paused. “It’s not that,” she admitted. “I mean, I don’t dislike him, he’s courteous and everything. There’s just something about him…"

“I bet he’s trying too hard," Julie offered. “You never did like guys who came on too strong.”

“Maybe,” Carrie acknowledged. “But then, he backs off on request, and it’s not like he’s ever invaded my personal space or anything. More to the point, it’s not like I’m seeing anyone else."

“So you don’t want to reject him, but you don’t want to go out with him either?” Clarke said, looking confused.

Carrie grimaced. “I guess? Sounds stupid, doesn’t it. Glen’s been pretty quiet about his past and about his family though, I think that’s part of the problem. I’ll be talking with Corry later today, hopefully he’ll have come up with some data.”

“Maybe Glen simply has family issues,” Julie murmured, looking back down at her salad.

Carrie flinched. “Oh, gods! I’m sorry Julie, I was speaking without thinking. H-How has your family situation been?”

Julie offered up a wan smile. “No worries, Carrie. Jeeves has been like a father, and he’s great at handling all the legal stuff. My parents have backed off, and my counselling sessions are down to once a month now.” She sighed. “And while it’s hard, reinventing my very understanding of myself and my goals, let’s face it, life’s never been easy for me.”

She continued on before Carrie could speak. “I’d rather talk about something else, okay? For instance, aside from Glen, what else have you been up to? We didn’t get to speak much over the summer, I was trying to make up those couple credits I lost due to - you know.”

Talk then shifted to a trip which Carrie’s father had arranged for both Watersons during the previous month.

Carrie tried not to give Glen any more thought until she encountered Corry at the end of the school day. “So?” Carrie said pointedly, when he didn’t look up. “What’s the story, do I rate a few facts?”

“You mean with respect to Glen Oaks?” Corry inquired, finally turning away from his locker.

“No, the Easter Bunny. Of course Glen!”

Corry made a face. “Funny you should ask that," he said. “Because as much as it pains me to admit this, you may well know more about the guy than I do.”

That brought Carrie up short. “What?”

“The information I get is all conflicting," Corry explained. “He’s from Calgary, or Halifax. His parents are both doctors, or they’re artists. He’s allergic to strawberries, or they’re his favourite food. About the only thing my sources can agree on is that Glen has the hots for you. He hasn’t even tried to hit on anyone else. Which indicates to me that this is one seriously disturbed individual!”

“I see. That’s it?” Carrie said dryly, allowing Corry’s last remark to slide for the moment.

“Aside from the standard stuff, yeah. He’s seventeen, a good runner, he’s got a permanent room in the Clayton Hotel until such a time as his parents finalize their house deal and get here – though again goodness knows exactly when or where that is – am I telling you anything you don’t already know?”

“No, you’re being utterly useless, thank you.”

“Anytime for you, Carrie. Though hey, if you ever do take this guy up on an offer and learn something useful, I might reward you for it. Okay?”

“Right. Whatever,” Carrie said, waving at Corry over her shoulder as she continued on her way down the hall. She wasn’t about to start dating the guy simply to get some future favour from Corry! Hell, she’d never entertained thoughts of being in a serious relationship in her life!

Carrie froze mid-step. That wasn’t the problem here… was it? ‘Oh no. Is my problem with Glen?’ she wondered. ‘Or is it with… me?'

“Okay Frank, this is the point when I start getting jealous.”

“Shhhhh, Luci, he’ll hear you!” Frank whispered. He poked his head out from behind the bushes to glance down the sidewalk.

“Frank, this is the third day in a row that you’ve followed Glen home from school,” Luci continued in a quieter tone, toying with her phone, not bothering to look herself. “Do you really think you’ll learn anything about him that Corry Veniti can’t?”

“I don’t know. But you’ve seen how interested he is in Carrie! We can’t simply ignore that!”

“Can’t we?” Luci muttered.

“No, think about it, Luci!” Frank insisted. He moved ahead a few paces to another hiding spot before continuing. “We have here a transfer student with a clouded past who shows up out of nowhere and starts hitting on a girl who holds within her the temporal power to destroy a solar system. Why, they even have the same course schedules! How is that mere coincidence?? The whole world could be in danger again!”

“Or, how about this? The guy is a normal teenage male with an eye for female beauty who appreciates Carrie’s various ‘assets’,” Luci quipped, adding air quotes. “I mean, it’s not like Glen’s done anything shifty. We should be cautious, sure, but we can’t make a preemptive strike against everyone new in town."

“But…”

“Plus schedules are schedules. Laurie’s classes are identical to Carrie’s too. And she also admires Carrie,” Luci continued. “Do you think Laurie Veniti poses a threat?”

“Well, no, but…”

“No, because we’ve had time to get to know her. AND Carrie told me over the weekend that her hesitation might not be about Glen. It might be a mix of fear over who she really is, coupled with an inability to put old commitment issues behind her. You DO remember why Lee refers to Carrie as the ‘track tease’, yes? It’s not merely for the running.”

“Okay, valid points, all of them,” Frank yielded. “Still, if Carrie eventually DOES go out with Glen, we should know more about him, right?”

“IF. This gets back to my jealousy. You’re not Carrie’s father, Frank. Not unless there’s been some severe temporal warping going on! So until Carrie asks for help, let’s let the girl live her life.”

Frank sighed, then glanced out towards the redhead once more. “Okay, look, he’s going into the cafe today. Nowhere near his hotel. Let’s at least see what he’s up to there! Okay?”

“Fine,” Luci said, rolling her eyes. “But this weekend, I’ll pick the movie. No more James Bond for you.”

“So. I heard you’re finally going out with him,” Frank said. “Carrie, is that wise?”

“We’re going to the central cafe after school today,” Carrie answered, twirling the cafeteria’s spaghetti around her fork. “Barely a date. Why? It’s not like you’ve seen him do anything suspicious during your little investigations this past week, have you?”

“Well, not as such…”

“Fine. Then this encounter will give me the chance to finally make up my mind about him,” Carrie concluded. She brought the noodles to her mouth.

“But what’s the rush? If he really likes you, he can wait,” Frank insisted.

At first, Carrie could only lift an eyebrow, her mouth full of pasta. “The RUSH?” she said after swallowing. “Frank, it’s the cafe. We’re not making out behind the bleachers.”

“Frank, sweetie, I love you to pieces, but give it a rest already,” Luci sighed, having swallowed her own bite of sandwich. “There is NO evidence that Glen is anything more than what he claims to be, yeah?” She turned to Carrie. “So go. Enjoy yourself. And if Glen does anything uncomfortable, walk away!”

The young girl smiled, then pursed her lips. “Though, okay, maybe fish for more information from him too. Because… yeah. Just in case?”

“Um, okay,” Carrie agreed. “Will do.”

Glen swung the door of the cafe open and held it there for Carrie as she entered. “We can sit at the counter, if you like,” he offered. “This is meant to be informal, after all.”

“Right,” Carrie agreed, moving to take a seat on one of the stools. Glen sat next to her as a waitress approached. Her nametag read ‘Lita’; Carrie supposed Theresa had the day off.

“Can I take your orders?” the server asked brightly.

“Um, strawberry shake for me,” Carrie replied.

“That’s it? Whatever you want, it’s on me,” Glen assured her.

“Yeah, a shake’s fine. I’m not really hungry yet.”

“Make it two then,” Glen concluded. Lita nodded and headed off.

There was a momentary silence. “So, a strawberry shake. You’re not allergic to strawberries?”

Glen fired off a smile. “Of course not. Where did you hear that?”

“Oh, well, you know, around,” Carrie said, reaching up to twist a few strands of hair about her finger.

“You shouldn’t listen to rumours,” Glen admonished. “Particularly with respect to me, since I’ve been spreading disinformation around the school.”

Carrie blinked. “What? Why?”

Glen leaned his elbow on the counter. “Because I figure to really know a person, you should come out and speak with them, one on one. Word of mouth is not to be trusted! Heck, if I went by the rumours, I would have to believe that you’re a self-centred individual who enjoys using guys and tossing them aside like last week’s laundry. But that’s not the case, is it?”

Carrie felt her cheeks growing warm. “No!” She turned her interest to the nearby napkin holder. “Not lately, anyway.”

“There you are then. Too often, rumours get way out of hand - for instance, I find it hard to believe that ANY girl could have slept with the entire football team.”

“WHAT?! I’ve never even… who said THAT?!”

“Nobody. I didn’t say that was a rumour about you. Could you please let go of my shirt?”

“Oh, uh… yeah, sorry,” Carrie said, releasing her grip on Glen and sinking back into her stool. He was doing this deliberately, right? Was he trying to be funny, or was it to keep her off balance? She studied the countertop.

Glen smoothed out the wrinkles in his shirt. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re beautiful when you’re indignant?”

Having no idea how to reply to that at ALL, Carrie was thankful that Lita chose that moment to deliver their shakes. After thanking the waitress, she sipped in silence, trying to figure out how to turn the conversation around. “I think I see a problem with your philosophy.”

“Oh? What might that be?”

“If you assume that everyone you speak to is merely passing on rumours, you’ll never tell anyone the truth. Which means you get a legit reputation for being a liar.”

“Aha, but one can be honest about certain things, and it’s the people who’d trust the liar reputation that I’d want to keep off balance,” Glen countered. “Still, I see your point. So how about this? I’ll answer any ONE question you have completely, utterly, one hundred percent honestly. Fire away.”

Carrie blinked at Glen in surprise before regarding her shake again. Only one question? Okay – then should she ask about where he came from? About his relatives? His most important memory? “All right,” she said, turning back. “Why me? Why have you set your sights on me?”

“Oh.” For the first time since Carrie had met him, Glen finally seemed unsettled. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to know about my favourite sports celebrity or something instead?”

“No,” Carrie said. “Me. Why me, Glen? The truth!”

Glen shifted his attention to behind the counter. “Fine. Here it is. The first time I saw you, I sensed something. Not love at first sight or anything so trite, but I sensed that you possessed some sort of… extraordinary ability. That was enough to get my attention.”

He turned to regard her again, leaning his cheek against his palm. “From there, I realized you’re a bit of a… paradox. Athletic but still studious. Reserved yet outspoken. Atypical, yet not someone who stands out. Rumours and history aside, I can’t believe you don’t have a steady boyfriend here. So I thought, what the heck, I’ll try my luck.” He raised an eyebrow. “Plus, I can’t deny it, you have a sizeable chest. Which also counts in your favour.”

“You were doing so well.”

“Hey, I said I’d be one hundred percent honest. Feel free to smack me for– okay then. Feel better now?”

“Much,” Carrie said, shaking out her hand. He was still trying to keep her off balance. She took another sip from her shake, contemplating the first part of his answer. “You say you sensed an ability in me,” she said. “What ability, exactly?”

“Aha, well, that’s a second question, isn’t it?” Glen remarked.  “Though I must confess, I’m still trying to figure things out here. And it’ll probably take me more than one date to do it accurately.”

“So you’re hoping that I let you…” Carrie’s voice trailed off. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Something wasn’t right here. It was like deja vu. Something was… Carrie leapt out of her seat. “Out! Everyone, get out of here!!” she shouted.

As heads turned towards her, there was an explosion in the kitchen. Smoke began billowing out from the back room, along with a few licks of flame. People screamed as customers began to run for the doors.

“Okay, everyone stay calm, let’s exit in an orderly fashion!” Glen called out, standing up next to Carrie. A cook stumbled out of the back, coughing, his face streaked with soot.

It was in the middle of the chaos that Carrie went numb. As she looked around her, all she could think was how she’d seen this before. In that vision she’d had with Chartreuse over a week ago. Except now, it was actually happening. What she’d seen was actually coming true! No, no, how could it possibly be so REAL?!

“Carrie, come on!” Glen called out. The curtains near the kitchen had caught fire. Yet still, Carrie couldn’t move. Was she going to start seeing these sorts of things regularly? How could she possibly deal with that?!

Glen marched back toward her. “Carrie, if you don’t move right now, I’m going to carry your ass out myself!” he shouted.

His words finally broke through. Carrie began to run for the door. She and Glen were the last two to exit, the sound of approaching fire engines reaching their ears as they collapsed onto the ground outside. Carrie knew she hadn’t inhaled that much smoke, yet she felt sick to her stomach. Because she’d had a vision of the future. A terrible vision - that had come true.

“Well, ten out of ten for foresight, minus a few points on reflexes,” Glen said, coughing next to her. “Are you all right, Carrie?”

“I need to go home now.”

Glen blinked. “Hey, I know this hasn’t been the best way to end our first informal date, but…”

“It’s not you,” Carrie interrupted, fighting to keep the sensations of nausea and panic in check. “But I have to go home now! I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” She stumbled to her feet and began to run away, back to the safety of her house, as fast as she could go.

“Can we take another stab at this sometime in the future??” she heard Glen call out after her. Carrie didn’t reply.

She managed to make it home before she threw up. She told her father she didn’t want dinner, and went to bed early.

She then stayed in her room all day Saturday. Ignoring attempts at communication. Fearing that another vision would happen. And worrying about what to do if it did.

On Sunday, she had a more persistent visitor.

• GOLLY - got my first 2016 coin today, a quarter as change at a Canadian Tire. The time frame is about right.
• Consider voting for Time & Tied at WebFictionGuide. I tend not to bother when it's only me.
• More next week, with some of my favourite bits of writing ever, featuring said "persistent visitor"!

3.02: NEW ARRIVAL

“Welcome back to school!” the teacher announced. “I am Mrs. Haye, and this is senior English.” She came around her desk. “Now, many of you already know each other, seeing as our scheduling algorithm tries to synch you up based on your homeroom from last year. But it’s been a whole summer, and I don’t know all of you! So, as I call out your names, please tell me about something that interests you.”

Carrie Waterson tuned out the glorified roll call, choosing instead to look around the room. She noted that everybody who knew of the existence of the time machine remained in her homeroom, which was kind of nice. Though none of them had made any time trips since last year. Well, as long as Carrie ignored whatever the hell had happened - would be happening? - back on her birthday.

When the first present day minted coins had started to appear in late June, allowing for a round trip return to their present, Carrie had shut down the idea of time travel. She’d been keeping the machine under her bed since last December, wanting to be able to escape with it, if anyone came after her. Like, someone from the future, wanting to tap into her lurking demonic temporal powers.

The very thought of those powers caused Carrie to shudder involuntarily. This despite her mounting familiarity, due to the sessions she’d ended up doing with Chartreuse over the summer.

Mrs. Haye finally reached ‘W’, so Carrie gave her name, remarking on her athletic skills. She started to zone out again, only to have a knock at the classroom door pull her back. “Oh yes!” Mrs. Haye said. “And I would like you all to welcome Glen Oaks. He is a new student from out of town who will be joining our homeroom.” She gestured for the boy with the short red hair to enter. He did, smiling amiably at everyone in the room, though Carrie fancied his gaze rested a little longer on her.

“Glen, there are still a few desks free, so if you’ll take a seat I can pass around the course syllabus,” Mrs. Haye said.

Glen nodded, then headed straight for the empty desk next to Carrie. He turned and smiled at her again as he sat. She offered him a quick smile back, even as something about him struck her as being a bit unsettling. Why? What was it? She resisted the temptation to stare, lest he get the wrong idea.

‘I’m overreacting. Can’t blame him for taking an interest in me, after all. Merely shows I’ve still got it,’ Carrie mused to herself. Mrs. Haye began to talk about senior level English.

“You know Luci, it’s not too late for you to switch into Physics,” Frank Dijora remarked, as he joined both Carrie and Luci at the lunch table. “That would give us an afternoon class together.”

“Hey, I like Drama,” Luci Primrose protested. “Besides, you could always switch out of Business and into Biology with me.”

“Touche,” Frank observed. “I guess we’ll have to live with mornings.”

“If you ask me, the both of you could stand to have some time apart at school,” Carrie Waterson interjected, resting her chin on her hand. “After all, didn’t Frank’s marks slip last year, after you two started going out?”

“They did not!” Frank objected. “That is… I should have studied a little harder for June exams, I misjudged the difficulty level.”

“Uh huh, suuuure. And what were you two doing instead of studying? I bet I can guess…”

“Carrie!” Luci hissed, glancing to see if they were being overheard.

“You were inventing some new thingamajig, right? What did you think I was going to say?” Carrie finished innocently.

“Carrie, enough,” Frank sighed.

“All right, all right,” the blonde laughed, raising her hands in surrender. “Apologies. But you’ve been dating since, what, last December? It’s not like your relationship is some big secret here.”

“That’s still no reason to turn it into a newspaper headline,” Luci grumbled.

Frank leaned in a little closer to the young girl. “Carrie can’t help it, she’s jealous I picked you over her,” he whispered. At that, Luci smothered a laugh.

Carrie reached out to flick her fingers at the back of Frank’s head. “My hearing is still excellent, you know. So let’s not pretend that I ever asked for our friendship to turn into anything more, okay?”

“Fine, fine,” Frank remarked, still grinning.

“Anyway, I’m happy for the two of you,” Carrie finished, reaching out to pick up the apple from her cafeteria tray. “Plus, I could still get any guy I wanted. Were I to actually try.” She took a bite.

“Like that new guy in our English class, for example,” Luci noted. “Glen. He seemed to be taking an interest in you.”

Carrie nearly choked before managing to swallow. “So that wasn’t my imagination?”

“He tried to hide it, but I noticed,” Luci remarked.

Carrie frowned. “You would, you see everything. He’s in my history class too… I’m not quite sure what to make of him.”

“Well, here’s your chance to find out,” Frank said. “He’s coming this way.”

Carrie turned as Glen approached. The redhead waved in greeting. “Hello! Is this seat taken?” he inquired, indicating the one next to Luci and opposite Carrie. When Carrie shook her head no, he sat down.

“I hope I’m not intruding,” Glen continued. “Still trying to find my way around. You’re all in my homeroom, right?”

“Right,” Frank confirmed. “I’m Frank, that’s Luci and that’s Carrie.”

Glen smiled. “Of course. Actually, I’m a little surprised to find Carrie here with the two of you."

Luci arced an eyebrow. “Oh? Why?”

“Because - forgive me for being blunt - Carrie, you strike me as being more a athletic type. Less intellectually inclined.”

“Are you saying I’m a dumb blonde?!” Carrie said, narrowing her eyes.

“And I’m not athletic?” Luci chimed in, equally annoyed.

“Oh, no, I don’t mean that!” Glen corrected. “Just that Carrie’s athletic talents appeared superior, compared to Luci’s. Was that incorrect?”

“Well, no,” the blonde admitted guardedly. “But that doesn’t mean I can only hang around with jocks, does it?”

“Certainly not. I’m sorry, I’m getting off on the wrong foot here, aren’t I,” Glen sighed. “I fear my higher reasoning has left me, it does that on occasion when I am confronted with such overwhelming feminine beauty.”

“Oh brother,” Luci mumbled under her breath.

“I’m not excluding you from that remark, Luci," Glen assured. “For while you seem to have skipped a grade or two, and present as more cute than beautiful, you also strike me as a most captivating young woman. You are bound to make someone very happy some day.”

Luci opened her mouth to respond, only to look over towards Frank, seeming flustered. “Ahem,” Frank offered. “Not to be rude myself here, Glen, but is it your intention to hit on every girl in the cafeteria?”

“No, merely the most beautiful and intellectually stimulating ones,” Glen assured him with a grin. “Which is why I chose to sit with Carrie, who I now realize is the best of both worlds. But if I am intruding on your group, you have only to say the word, and I will go.”

“You’re not intruding,” Carrie said quickly, before Frank could speak up. “But when we know so little about you, can you blame us for being skeptical as to your motives?”

“Understood,” Glen said. “I shall more formally introduce myself. My name is Glen Oaks, I’m seventeen, and I’m here now because my parents are planning on taking up residence in the area. I enjoy skating, acting and I am an excellent long distance runner.”

“You run?" Carrie asked.

“Indeed. Perhaps we should have a race sometime.”

“Perhaps,” Carrie agreed, her curiosity spiking again. “You say you like acting too, are you taking Drama?”

“Last period,” Glen confirmed. “Right after Art.”

Carrie blinked. “We have identical schedules then."

“Is that so? Well, what a happy coincidence. I suppose we’ll be seeing a lot of each other this term.”

“Yes, it does seem that way,” Carrie agreed, not quite sure how she felt about that.

She still wasn’t sure at the end of the lunch period forty five minutes later. Glen had managed to sidestep a lot of the questions asked of him, while learning more about the rest of them in the process. It reminded Carrie a lot of the way Julie LaMille and Corry Veniti interacted with people.

Which gave her an idea.

“Corry! Hey, Corry!”

The redhead turned towards Carrie, arcing an eyebrow. “Something I can do for you, Waterson?” he asked.

“Actually, yes,” Carrie said, as she reached his locker. “I’d like information on the new student in our homeroom, Glen Oaks.”

“Okay then. He’s a new student in our homeroom,” Corry said. “Oh, and he also has red hair. You really should pay better attention.”

“Corry, come on. You know what I mean.”

Corry crossed his arms. “Sure I do. Just like YOU know I’m not inclined to help out all of Julie’s old associates, simply because she’s no longer the active force around the school.”

“Hah! I’m a little more than THAT to you,” Carrie countered. “Not to mention how you’ve spent months helping out Julie herself!"

“Julie actually NEEDS the help,” Corry said pointedly. “Heck, it’s partly my fault she does, after I turned so many against her.” His gaze turned wistful. “There’s a part of me that misses the rivalry too… but that’s neither here nor there.”

He lowered his voice. “You know how I feel about you, Waterson. That doesn’t change simply because of what you may or may not become in the future. So why should I do anything for you? For that matter, what help can I possibly be to someone who has the power within her to destroy the world?”

Carrie winced. “Corry, please. I’m trying to put that behind me. Moreover, I haven’t asked you for any special treatment since those events – and all I want here is a bit of information! Is that so hard?”

Corry paused, sizing her up. “I’ll think about it,” he yielded. “After all, I was going to look into Glen myself. Come back in a few days, and I’ll decide then whether what I have will cost you."

Carrie nodded, deciding that was probably the best she was going to get from the male Veniti twin. She proceeded down the hall towards her own locker.

That evening found Carrie Waterson knocking on the door of the Vermilion residence. She and Chartreuse had decided to continue their temporal sessions despite the end of the summer. After all, despite how much Carrie wanted to simply banish the strange forces raging inside her, she knew they weren’t going anywhere. And keeping those powers in check was the only way to avoid another incident like the one last November, which had nearly cost the lives of… well, everyone on the planet.

Actually, Chartreuse had accepted Carrie’s explanation of those events with remarkable poise, despite the later memory wipe. Maybe the pink haired mystic would have put the pieces together herself, given enough time? Carrie sighed. It was more likely she wanted to rationalize getting Chartreuse involved, after that conversation with herself last March.

Carrie reached up to knock again, but before she could, a young girl with short blue hair opened the door. Carrie offered up a tentative smile. “Hello Azure, is your sister here?” she inquired.

Azure peered at Carrie, then turned and shouted, “Chartreuse, your girlfriend is here to see you!” She stepped back, allowing Carrie to enter the house. “Go easy on her tonight, okay? She was all dizzy the morning after you two bunnies had your session last week.”

Carrie frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, like I don’t know what you two do in my sister’s bedroom for hours at a time. I’m fourteen, I read about these things.”

“Azure, I know it’s a strain for you, but pull your head out of the gutter when you’re, you know, talking with my friends, okay?” Chartreuse sighed, coming down the stairs. “Sorry Carrie, I was just in the washroom.”

“She’s all pretty for you now,” Azure noted. “Be sure to compliment her new perfume.”

“Azure…”

“I’m going, I’m going,” the blue haired girl said. “Just don’t be too loud, I have homework to complete. On the first day! Seriously, what’s the deal with high school anyway?!”

Chartreuse sighed and shook her head as her sister went upstairs. “Really sorry about that,” she said, closing the front door. “Honestly, just when I think she can’t get any more annoying, her hormones explode all over the place.”

“Sounds messy,” Carrie remarked.

“I’m hoping it’s just a phase,” Chartreuse said. “Anyway, my sister’s not the reason you, like, came here. Let’s get upstairs. I have everything we’ll need laid out on my bed.” She paused. “Which, come to think, is not at all as dirty as it sounds.”

Carrie seated herself across from Chartreuse. “Okay,” the pink haired girl said, passing a cleansing crystal around Carrie’s head. “Remember what we’ve been talking about. Relax, and let the sensations, like, come to you.”

“They already have,” Carrie murmured, as all of time coalesced around her. The best description Carrie could give for the phenomenon was that it was like she was standing in the middle of a swiftly flowing river, being gradually pulled along by the current as the seconds ticked by. The separate drops of water, they represented the millions of people and other objects moving through time. By looking upstream, Carrie could see the events of the past. By looking downstream, Carrie could see different branching paths of the future. The metaphor wasn’t perfect, but it was serviceable.

Carrie now knew that she had the ability within her to travel this time stream under her own power, not to mention affect it in other ways, but usually she was more than content to simply let the current pull her along.

“Oh,” came Chartreuse’s voice, reminding Carrie of where she really was. “You know, it never ceases to amaze me how easily you do that lately.”

“Yeah, I find it quite unsettling myself,” Carrie murmured. “What now, Chartreuse?”

“Well, as I recall, we were working on finding individuals who aren’t in physical proximity to you. Want to, like, try for anything in the past or the future yet?”

“No, let’s stick with the present for now. I’m going to see if I can locate Frank again. It’s easier to pick up former time travellers, they feel a little out of synch with the rest of the world.”

“All right,” Chartreuse agreed. She reached out to take Carrie’s hands. “Visualize him then. Imagine that he’s standing right in front of you. Then, once you have that image, see where it takes you.”

Carrie nodded, taking in a deep breath, concentrating on Frank and on where he might be in the torrent of water rushing around her. “He’s… he’s with Luci,” Carrie realized as a picture of the girl swam up before her eyes. “That will make it easier. They’re not at his house though… or her’s… it’s… the cafe. They’re at the central cafe.”

The scene practically leapt out of the water at her then, and it was like she was standing in the cafe herself - except her body had no substance. A spirit body, as Chartreuse called it. Able to see things, but invisible to them, and incapable of interaction.

“Carrie, what’s happening?” Chartreuse’s voice inquired, sounding like it was coming from the bottom of a well.

“I’m now here too,” Carrie replied, forcing down a feeling of panic. “In the cafe. There’s a lot of people around. It’s so much more chaotic than any of my previous experiences!”

“Stay calm,” Chartreuse said. “Just centre in on Frank and Luci, you’re not there for anyone else.”

“Right… right, okay,” Carrie said, taking in a few deep breaths. “They’re in a corner booth together. They’re… aw, they’re sharing a basket of fries. That’s so sweet.” She paused. “Luci would kill me if she knew I was eavesdropping like this.”

“You’re not really eavesdropping, it’s a public place.”

“I guess. But they can’t see me. And last week when I centred on Frank, he was inventing stuff in his basement.”

“Look, Carrie, if you’re this concerned about spying on them, just don’t, like, centre in on them in future.”

“Well how the heck am I supposed to know when they’re together?” Carrie grumbled. “But whatever. Now that I’m here, do you have any recommendations?”

“How about this – pick out someone else there that you could, you know, shift your attention to instead,” Chartreuse proposed. “You don’t have to take it in all at once, just scan the room.”

“Okay,” Carrie called back, turning her spirit form to do a slow pan.  “It’s mostly kids from school. Looks like Theresa’s the one waiting tables, like usual. Oh, wait a minute…” She hesitated.

“What?” Chartreuse asked.

“It’s him,” Carrie said at last. “Glen Oaks, that new boy in our homeroom. It… it’s weird, it feels like he’s looking directly at me. He can’t see me, can he?”

“I doubt it, my mom’s the only one I know of who can see spirit forms,” Chartreuse replied. “Maybe he’s looking at something behind you.”

“There’s a wall behind me. I don’t think that… OH!!!” Carrie shrieked. “NO, NO, GET ME OUT, GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!”

All at once, Chartreuse was kneeling in front of her, shaking her shoulders. She was back in the bedroom. “Carrie! Carrie, calm down, it’s all right!!” the pink haired girl was saying. “You’re all right, you’re safe now, you understand?” Carrie nodded wordlessly, struggling to regain her breath. “Thank goodness,” Chartreuse breathed. “What, like, happened?”

Carrie felt a shiver run down her spine. “I… I saw… oh god, I was in the cafe, and suddenly I saw… fire. The place has caught on fire, Chartreuse!”

• More next week! Consider voting for Time & Tied at WebFictionGuide. We made it to 3 votes last week, and visibility is my only hope.
• Feel free to speculate on this "New Arrival", or anything else, in the comments.

3.01: TALKING TO HERSELF

As soon as Carrie Waterson saw herself standing at the entrance to the restaurant, all thoughts of her trip to the washroom vanished. She now wanted to run over and smack herself in the face. Or run, and run, and keep on running. Instead, she stood there, heart racing. Fight, flight, or freeze… and Carrie’s hands clenched into fists, as she realized that she had picked the stupidest of those three stress options.

Here she was, a high school teenager, being hunted by people from the future. Yielding them the initiative? Not a good idea! On the bright side, the other Carrie over there - no, Elizabeth, Carrie quickly corrected herself, I’m the right one, I’m in my proper time, I get to be Carrie, she gets our middle name - looked to be about the same age as she was. But was that a trick?

Even as Carrie stared, Elizabeth beckoned her over. Present day Carrie took a step, then another - and by the time she reached the front door, she was almost charging through after her blonde double.

“Hey.”

That was all Elizabeth had time to say, before Carrie had pulled back her fist and punched herself in the gut. “I’m not going to be you!” she asserted, as Elizabeth doubled over. She brought her hands up to slam down on Elizabeth’s back, but Elizabeth rammed forwards into her before Carrie could complete the manoeuvre, knocking them both down onto the pavement in front of the restaurant.

Carrie now wished she hadn’t worn a dress to her party, but she hadn’t exactly expected to be fighting anyone today. Least of all herself. Elizabeth, by contrast, was in a more practical T-shirt and jeans. She was also now on top, so Carrie tried to grab her and roll, to flip them both over. Except Elizabeth threw her weight back onto Carrie’s legs, pinning her down instead. Which did allow Carrie to sit up - and she still had her arms free. She tried to clap both hands together on either side of Elizabeth’s head.

Elizabeth also raised her arms, managing to block one palm, so Carrie only had the satisfaction of smacking her other self, an act which slightly dislodged her adversary’s hairband. And now Elizabeth was holding onto the arm that she had blocked, and so Carrie was left pounding her lone fist into Elizabeth’s shoulder.

“I’m not going to be you!” she repeated, a tear stinging at her eye.

“That might be for the best,” Elizabeth wheezed, as she caught her breath. “I’m getting a little beat up.”

“Don’t you even joke about it!”

Elizabeth finally managed to catch hold of Carrie’s other arm. “I know. I shouldn’t. I’m sorry.”

“My birthday,” Carrie said, feeling the fight go out of her as all her limbs were restrained. “You had to come back to ruin my BIRTHDAY?”

“Not ruin. I hope not ruin. I only wanted to point something out.”

“You couldn’t have left a NOTE?”

“No,” Elizabeth said, having the decency to look apologetic. “I couldn’t. We would ignore a note. Or second guess it. I had to tell myself - you - this thing in person.”

Carrie blinked her tear away. “Fine. What?”

“You mind if we discuss this somewhere other than laid out on the ground in front of a public restaurant? All it takes is one guy with a camera phone, and next thing we know, our picture is up on some selfcest website.”

Carrie flinched. “Self WHAT?”

Elizabeth released her arms, and when no attack was immediately forthcoming, pushed herself back off Carrie’s legs too. “I’d say be careful about the time travel research you’ll do this summer,” she sighed. “But sometimes I’m way too curious for my own good.”

The air on this particular evening in late March was cool and crisp, more so than usual. Though most of the snow had already melted, there was still a pile of it off in the corner of the parking lot, where it had been shoved by snowplows throughout the winter. The two Carries walked in that direction, moving far enough so as to be in the shadows. They didn’t need to go too far, as the only light in the area came from the street lamps and the restaurant windows.

Carrie rubbed her arms with her palms. Not only was she in a dress, she didn’t have her jacket. She also still needed to use the washroom. “So?”

“So,” Elizabeth repeated back. “Low key affair this year, no big party at Julie’s - instead, who’s in there, celebrating your seventeenth birthday with you?”

Carrie looked back towards the building. “Frank and Luci. Julie and Clarke. And Chartreuse.”

“And Chartreuse.”

Carrie turned to her double. “Is this meant to be an echo fest?!”

“Chartreuse is the only friend in there who doesn’t know about the time machine,” Elizabeth pointed out.

“Yeah? So?” Carrie countered. “Are you telling me I should be swapping Chartreuse out for Corry, who does know? Because even though he helped me out with what happened last semester, and continues to stand up for Julie, he’s still a jerk.”

“No. I’m telling you maybe you should talk to Chartreuse.”

Carrie rubbed her arms again. “I can’t bring her back into this,” she murmured. “Not her, not anyone. You know that.”

“All I know is that Chartreuse, Laurie, Tim and Lee had never been temporally displaced, unlike the others currently eating with you in there,” Elizabeth countered. “But you - we - shouldn’t feel guilty about our time travel memory wipe having messed with those memories. We weren’t exactly in our right mind at the time.”

“It’s not only guilt!” Carrie countered. “If you’re really me, you MUST know that!”

Elizabeth slumped a little. “I guess I do. But are Chartreuse and the others really better off this way? Thinking that all those meetings were merely for helping Frank with a science project, researching the LaMilles, or taking down the man with funny mental powers who wanted to kill us?”

“Am I even having this conversation?! Elizabeth, if - no WHEN more people come back from the future, everyone who knows about my hidden powers is going to be in danger! I can’t help that for Frank and the rest, but those four you named? They’re free and clear. Why do I even have to explain this to you??”

Elizabeth pursed her lips. “Okay, yeah. But Chartreuse is different.”

“Because she wanted to come to my little party, after finding out about it from Luci? We’re not that close!”

“Maybe you should be.”

“Seriously?! You still haven’t told me WHY!”

“Think, Carrie! Chartreuse has powers too!”

Carrie found she was forced to think about that. Her toes curled inside her shoes, and she blew on her hands to warm them up. “What, you think Chartreuse already suspects?”

“I think you should to talk to her.”

“WHY? Her powers aren’t like my powers. Chartreuse gets impressions from people, and sees the future. I destroy solar systems.”

“We don’t destroy–"

“I destroy solar systems!” Carrie interrupted, louder. “You know this!”

“Fine, if we’re not trained properly, yeah we do!” Elizabeth retorted, raising her voice to match. “All the more reason to get our head out of the sand in the coming year, and start doing something about it!”

“And do WHAT about it?!”

“Talk to Chartreuse!”

“Why, because you did and it’s worked out OH so well for you??”

“Or maybe because I didn’t, and I regret it, since talking to her might have set me on a much better path!”

The two girls were nearly nose to nose at this point, glaring at each other, postures rigid and fists clenched. Neither version of Carrie was willing to give ground. Meaning it was perhaps fortunate that their argument was interrupted by a scream from behind the restaurant.

Both Carries turned their heads. “Oh hell,” Elizabeth said, wincing. “I forgot about this part.”

“Part? What part??” Carrie demanded.

“Someone just tried to run off with my time machine.”

“You left our time machine out in the open?” Carrie accused her.

Elizabeth shook her head, cursing her own stupidity. “No. I shoved it behind some cardboard boxes out back of the restaurant. Dealing with you while having that damn black box shoved under my arm felt stupid.”

“Yeah, this has really demonstrated your intelligence.”

“Oh, shut up.” Elizabeth hated that her past self had a point, when she was supposed to be the (marginally) older, more mature one. It’s not like the time machine would have screamed ‘time machine’ at anyone either, it looked more like a portable slot machine.

She met Carrie’s expectant gaze with silence. Carrie put her hands on her hips. “So, are you going to STOP this theft?”

“I already have.” The scream had reminded Elizabeth of how the next few minutes would play out. Sure enough, she’d barely finished speaking when her other self came around the corner of the building. One time machine under each arm.

Carrie didn’t look too pleased by this development.

“Hi Carrie. Elizabeth,” their third incarnation said with a hesitant smile, nodding at each of them as she reached their position. She was dressed identically to Elizabeth, which only made sense.

“Hi Buffy,” Carrie said dryly.

Buffy’s nose crinkled. She eyed Elizabeth. “I think I’m funny, but really, I’m not.”

“Would you prefer Betty?” Carrie snarked.

“Hell no,” Buffy and Elizabeth retorted as one. Elizabeth hadn’t read much in the way of the Archie comics, but she knew enough to not want to be linked to a nice blonde girl-next-door persona by name. Besides, if they were going to pick another name derived from “Elizabeth”, Buffy had better pop culture connections.

Carrie’s smirk became a frown. She pointed at what Buffy was carrying. “I take it one of those is mine, the other is Elizabeth’s?”

“Logical, yeah?” Buffy remarked, looking thoughtful. She thrust her hip out to the side, motioning for Elizabeth to retrieve that particular time machine. Elizabeth obliged her future self.

“So,” Elizabeth sighed. “Now I have to take this machine, Carrie’s, back to our home, leaving it under the bed. After which I take the older device which is there now, back in time to about three minutes ago. Whereby I can retrieve my own machine - that being the one Buffy has here - becoming Buffy and returning this present day machine back to Carrie’s room, using myself, now.”

“That’s making my head hurt,” Carrie groused. “Literally.”

She wasn’t kidding. The permanent dull ache in Elizabeth’s own head, the one which had become a sort of ‘background noise’ ever since the awakening of her temporal powers? It had increased over the last few moments to a level that was… not more painful exactly, but impossible for her to ignore. But then, hadn’t that been part of the point behind this trip? Seeing what she could accomplish with time travel?

“Just go,” Buffy suggested. “Close out the loop.”

“Yeah,” Elizabeth agreed, after pressing the heel of her hand briefly to her temples. “You two keep talking here.”

She began to jog off, her athletic strides quickly taking her away from her doubles. She only heard Buffy ask, “So where were we in our talk?” and Carrie’s retort of “I was wondering if you were here trying to change my past” before she was out of earshot.

It occurred to Elizabeth after a few minutes of running that getting home in five minutes versus forty-five minutes really wouldn’t make much of a difference in terms of the eventual outcome. Except in terms of how tired and sweaty she’d be. So she slowed to a walk, muttering “Where’s a convenient skateboard and automobile tow when you need one?”

Elizabeth hefted the time machine at her side. Hopefully she’d be able to set Carrie’s version of the thing properly. Frank had been more focussed on demonstrating how the machine could be set to return back to their present, versus a second trip here to her birthday. Actually, it was a pity she had to use Carrie’s machine at all; the one she currently held had to be set for the right day and time already!

Her walk stopped altogether.

Why couldn’t she simply take this machine?

Her headache flared up larger, making her grimace. “ASIDE from you,” she addressed it, bringing her hand back to her head. “I mean, come on, it wouldn’t be my first paradox.”

Way back before her power “awakening”, she had dropped off an apple at Frank’s place, then later picked it up, only to time travel back, and then drop it off. Bootstrap paradox. And this was no different. She had now given herself a time machine - which she could use to time travel back, and then hand it off to herself.

In fact, this sequence was actually more sensible than the apple had been, seeing as it had the potential to be perfectly temporally consistent - an identical time machine existed in this present, under Carrie’s bed.

So what if she didn’t swap them?

Her headache was becoming an incessant pounding, but now that she had this idea, her curiosity wouldn’t let her drop it. The point behind this trip hadn’t really been to talk about Chartreuse - it had been more to see what she could do with time travel. And she remembered the conversation on her birthday, more or less, so that wasn’t changing anything - it had to be this subtle paradox which had been poking at her subconscious through the summer. Right?

So could she do it?

Elizabeth fished her spare coin out of her pocket. When time travelling, you always carried a spare coin from the present - there was random variance to the time machine, meaning that you could land a day, or even a month off of your intended target. It was rare, but annoying.

She looked up and down the street, then retreated back into the shadows of a nearby house that had no lights on. Once there, she fell to her knees, set the time machine down onto the ground in front of her… and dropped the coin in.

NOW she had a migraine.

But at this point, it would either work, or it wouldn’t, right? Before she could stop herself, she’d reached out and yanked down on the lever.

The sensation of the temporal void sucking at her was familiar.

The sensation of the ice pick sliding into the side of her head was new, and hurt like nothing she’d ever felt before. It was even worse than the time she’d been shot.

She screamed. Loudly.

But then the headache was gone, reduced to the normal dull ache, and as her scream died out, Elizabeth realized that she was no longer where she had been. She was still kneeling, but out in back of the restaurant. There was a man a very short distance away, holding onto her own time machine, the one she hadn’t just used. He was looking in her direction, his eyes wide. A cigarette fell from between his lips.

As soon as he realized that she was looking back at him, he dropped the device back down onto the cardboard boxes where she’d formerly concealed it, and sprinted for the back door of the restaurant. Obviously eager to get away from the screaming blonde girl who had appeared from out of nowhere. Had he been rooting through the trash while on a smoke break? Elizabeth (Buffy?) supposed it didn’t matter.

She shakily pushed herself back to her feet, then picked up the now ‘impossible’ time machine sitting before her. With it braced at one hip, she went to get her own machine back, managing to pick it up too. Once she had them both in hand, she marched back around the corner of the building, heading towards the shadowy figures of her prior selves.

Carrie didn’t look too pleased by this development.

“Hi Carrie. Elizabeth,” their third incarnation said with a hesitant smile, nodding at each of them as she reached their position. She was able to distinguish them because she was dressed the same as Elizabeth.

“Hi Buffy,” Carrie said dryly.

She crinkled her nose, and eyed Elizabeth. “I think I’m funny, but really, I’m not.”

“I was wondering if you were here trying to change my past,” Carrie retorted.

Buffy didn’t immediately respond to her. In fact, Carrie briefly wondered if “Buffy” was back to being “Elizabeth” now, but decided that way madness lay. Her body double ultimately sighed. “You know I can’t answer that. If I say I did talk to Chartreuse, you won’t. If I say I didn’t talk to Chartreuse, you will.”

“Who says?”

“The whole ‘I’m not going to be you’ rant as you beat me up earlier?”

“Oh.” Carrie rubbed her arms again, trying to stay warm. “Meaning you’re going to leave me with the illusion of free will, even as I do what is presumably written in stone for you?”

“Effectively,” Buffy admitted. “Sorry about that.” She glanced down at the time machine she was holding. “Though, here’s the thing. Some stuff that SEEMS to be written in stone? Can be reinterpreted.”

“How in hell do you reinterpret being a temporal weapon?” Carrie shot back.

A pained look settled on Buffy’s face. “Yeah. That is our question, isn’t it?”

Carrie slumped. “Yeah,” she agreed. “More to the point, I guess we both know that there’s a future ‘us’ out there, who is part of some upcoming war… and who is not liking that, from her perspective, we’re the ones disrupting her past. Possibly her very reason for existing.”

“And she’s gonna come for us,” Buffy continued, voicing the thoughts they’d been having for months. “She has to. The question is, will we be ready for her?”

“HOW? How does one even prepare for a battle with oneself?!”

“I don’t know,” Buffy admitted. “Just… talk to Chartreuse.”

Carrie stared. “You really think she can help? Or could have helped?”

“I think… we need all the friends you can get.”

Carrie sighed. “This is so messed up.” She let out a long breath, then bowed her legs in a bit. “Worse, I still REALLY need to use the washroom.”

Buffy smiled, gesturing back at the restaurant. “Go then.”

Carrie frowned. “For serious?”

“I’ve said my bit, we’re done here.”

Carrie hesitated, feeling like there was something more she should say - but nothing came to mind. “Fine. Time travel safely,” she concluded, before running back to the warmth and relief of the nearby building.

The time travelling Carrie, aka Elizabeth, aka Buffy, walked around the side of the building and sat down. She knew she couldn’t leave yet. Because Carrie now knew why she’d had those residual effects after talking to herself on this day. And while she had no idea if remaining in this time period would help to spread the effect out a little more, she had decided that leaving too fast would be irresponsible.

Her headache flared up a couple minutes later. She swallowed. She tried to remember what had happened back then, on her birthday. Her birthday. Yeah, she couldn’t have picked the day after? It had to have been the day itself, the night she’d been out with friends? “I can be such a jerk,” Carrie whispered. Hell, she might very well be her own worst enemy - literally.

The headache became an incessant pounding.

One of the problems with time was how it tended to mute one’s memories. On her birthday, she hadn’t remembered it getting any worse than this. She now recalled collapsing to the floor at the sink in the restaurant bathroom. She also recalled twisting her palms into her temples, choking back sobs until the feeling subsided. But it had only been a severe headache.

Except it hadn’t been - she knew now it would get worse. Ice pick worse.

NOW she had a migraine. Carrie braced herself.

Yet whether it was the knowing that it would happen, or the fact that she was spatially removed from the trigger event… for whatever reason, it didn’t feel like an ice pick to the skull, and so she managed to keep from screaming. Still hurt like the devil though.

Then, nothing. Background noise. Life as normal.

With a shaky hand, Carrie reached into the pocket of her jacket for the tools that would allow her to reset the time machine. “Shielding,” she murmured aloud. “My next session with Chartreuse, we’ve gotta talk mental shielding.”

Less than five minutes later, only one Carrie remained in the present. She would not use the time machine again for several months, not until her senior year of high school.

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PART 47: RESPITE

“Ten seconds. Sorry guys, I guess Carrie’s gonna, like, fry us after all,” Chartreuse said glumly. The three teenagers were all sitting on their hands now, Shady standing far enough away from the wall to shoot them - probably even if they all moved at once.

“I should have jumped him,” Lee murmured. “Damn it, I’m not going to get to say goodbye to my sisters.”

“You’re a real bastard, you know that?” Corry shouted at their captor.

“I will die for our cause,” was his only reply.

Chartreuse wondered if it would be better to have her eyes open or closed when the bomb detonated. Which was when a gust of wind blew through the area, as if a freight train were rushing by, and then Carrie was standing there with them. The blonde with the golden eyes raised her palm to the bomb timer.

“Or not," Carrie remarked.

“NO!” Shady shrieked.

The gun fired, even as Carrie’s other palm went up facing him. Chartreuse could now see the bullet moving through the air towards the blonde with all the speed of a paper airplane. Which was clearly impossible. As impossible as Carrie sidestepping it, yet she was doing that too.

And then Carrie flicked her index and middle fingers off her thumb, and Shady’s head snapped back. The fingers of his gun hand twitched again, but this time his weapon fired at the ceiling - because Lee was there, pushing his arm up. Corry joined him, and it occurred to Chartreuse that maybe she should get off her ass too.

She didn’t go for Shady. Lee and Corry were subduing him. Instead, she stepped over to Carrie, who now had both palms facing the bomb. The timer seemed to be oscillating back and forth between five and four seconds. Sweat was pouring down Carrie’s face as if she were running a marathon.

“What kind… of fail-safe… IS this…?"

“How can I help?” Chartreuse asked.

Carrie grimaced. “Catch me.”

And the timer clicked down, to three seconds, then two… where it froze, even as Carrie crumpled towards the floor. Chartreuse let out a gasp, supporting the blonde and guiding her carefully down into a prone position.

“Okay. That’ll hold for a while,” Carrie murmured weakly. “Only one more thing to take care of.” She looked up at Chartreuse. “Farewell, everyone.”

The blonde closed her eyes, and a wave of energy seemed to spread out from her position. It passed through everyone in the room, then out through the walls and up through the ceiling until it had encompassed the entire building… the entire town…

Carrie was released from hospital a week later, having been treated for a case of severe exhaustion. Her eyes were their normal blue colour as she trudged through the new fallen snow, following the path in the ravine behind her house that went up into the park. She continued over to the swing set, brushing it off and then sitting down.

“Kinda hoped you’d be here," she murmured to the boy in the swing next to her.

“Was it hope?” Frank wondered. “Or your powers?"

Carrie shuddered. “Please, Frank, PLEASE, no talking about my powers. Somehow, I managed to suppress them, but I can still feel them as this dull ache inside me. Even now, I’m not sure if I was controlling them, or if they were controlling me. Trying to use them again… would be dangerous. Hell, I thought I’d die after what I did.”

“Right, okay, no powers talk then,” Frank reassured. “Better question, will you coming back to school tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Carrie said. “Have I missed much?”

“You mean in terms of what teachers like Fisk think is important, or in terms of what’s actually important?”

Carrie smirked. “The latter, naturally.”

Frank grinned back at her. “The social situation is completely warped. Julie’s been the target of a lot of hostility since the flyer, not to mention her disappearance, and yet she refuses to let the information about her parental situation become common knowledge. So she’s not getting much in the way of sympathy. But guess who’s started looking out for her welfare - Corry Veniti.”

“What? No!” Carrie laughed. “Oh, boy. That must be confusing the daylights out of everybody.” She kicked her legs a little to start the swing moving. “How is Julie holding up?”

“She’s started her counselling," Frank said. “Tim’s alibi plan, putting her in the cafe when you were shot, has her in the clear for that. The information about Holly Rhodes, we gave to Jeeves. He was able to track the domestic down, and armed with the information, he has started acting as Julie’s de facto father. He seems to really care about her. And while Julie’s parents are putting up a bit of a fight, they’ve stopped short of any direct action, probably to avoid the potential publicity.”

“I think they’d lose a custody battle anyway," Carrie said, making a face. “Good. I mean, Julie may have done some terrible things to people, but it must have been a special kind of hell for her growing up.”

“Speaking of parents,” Frank said slowly. “Dare I ask about you and your father…?”

Carrie let the swing stop its motion. “Unh. Yeah. Me and dad are doing all right,” she replied after a moment. “He doesn’t remember being frozen, of course. Seeing as that last blast of mine somehow wiped all my temporal actions from the memories of everyone in the vicinity of the hospital building - time travellers excluded.”

She extended her leg, pointing the toe of her boot. “Dad still knows I was shot, of course, and I think that has him trying to make up for lost time. He offered to take me to a hockey game next weekend."

She lowered her foot. “Hockey. Sheesh. At the same time, he’s trying.” She bit her lip. “In fact, I think maybe he’s been trying for a long while. Which is… nice.” A small smile graced her face.

There was an extended silence. “By the way, me and Luci are dating,” Frank blurted.

Carrie turned her swing sideways. “Seriously?” He nodded, and her grin grew wider. “It’s about damn time. You want some dating advice then, as one friend to another?”

Frank became busy staring at a spot in the sky. It was hard to say if his red cheeks were due to the cold. “Um, yes? But maybe not right now? That is, I… we’re puzzling through it together for the moment.”

“Well, good for you. Don’t screw up the Christmas gift.”

His eyes widened. “Oh no, Christmas!”

Carrie fought back the urge to laugh. “Calm down. You two will be fine together. Here, change of subject. Elephant in the room, actually.” She took in a deep breath, turning away again. “What became of the time traveler who wanted me dead?”

“What? Oh, well, Shady was arrested of course,” Frank assured. “Blowing up buildings being against the law. In fact, the police on scene ended up thinking they were there because of him, not you. He’s also become the lead suspect for shooting you in the first place - which he did, in a roundabout way - so I wager he’ll be going to prison. The only surprise is that is he didn’t manage to talk his way out of it using his future ability.”

Carrie rubbed her nose. “Yeah, uh, along the lines of messing with people’s memories… I think was able to block Shady’s personal history for how to do his - what did Lee call it? Jedi trick? - but I’m not positive whether my tampering was permanent.”

She let out a long breath, visible in the cool air. “Damn this power of temporal paradox that I have. Or whatever you want to call it. It’s going to be an attractive weapon for everyone who knows about it.”

“Don’t worry. We’re not going to tell anyone,” Frank assured her. “We won’t be using the time machine again either - namely because, in a few weeks’ time we’ll have no coins to return us to the present.”

“The future, Frank. They know in the future. And they’ve now tried to get at me once, so I’m going to need to keep my guard up.”

He stared, then frowned. “You mean… this isn’t the end of it."

“No,” Carrie sighed. “No, I fear this is only the beginning.” She jumped up off of the swing. “But, hell with it. Until anything else happens, I’ve got a life to live in the present.” With that, she reached out and smacked Frank lightly in the back of his head.

“Ouch! Hey, what the heck was that for?!” Frank protested.

“Retribution. You hit me in the hospital.”

Frank crossed his arms. “You told me I was allowed to hit you. You even encouraged it, in this very park!”

Carrie pursed her lips. “Oh, right.” She shrugged, then winked at him. “Fine, then consider it my way of telling you everything is back to normal.”

“Except I’m not taking it lying down this time,” Frank countered, springing up off his own swing, and extending his gloved hands as if to tickle her.

Carrie let out a little yelp of astonishment, before athletically sidestepping him. “Catch me if you can!” she declared, breaking into a sprint. Frank could only shake his head in resignation as the smiling blonde teenager disappeared back down into the ravine.

END... FOR NOW

See the accompanying Commentary Post for ARC 2.4 or Funny Arc 2.4 Outtakes.

More was written back in the early 2000s, but I'm going back to "Epsilon Project" for a bit. You can vote on that.

UPDATE: Book 3 is now running, the above link is active.

PART 46: OUT OF TIME

Lee joined the others at the hospital. He’d already been tracking Shady in the vicinity, so it had been easy enough to hook up with the group after hearing from Clarke about the latest development.

“So, you’re saying future guy is gonna make a play for the track tease again, and that this act is what will make her explode?” he confirmed.

Chartreuse nodded vigorously, then frowned. “Okay, we aren’t totally sure,” she admitted. “But probably.”

“The new problem,” Corry mused, “Is whether we should try to stop this Shady - or merely warn him that Carrie knows he’s coming.”

“Warn him?” Lee asked, doing a double take. “Why?”

“To let him try something that would be more effective.”

“WHAT? Are you, like, SERIOUS?”

Corry reached up to pull the pink haired girl’s fingers off his shirt. “Chartreuse, Carrie seems bent on killing everybody no matter what,” Corry countered. “How does that old saying go, ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one’?”

“Corry,” Laurie said quietly. “Didn’t you tell me two days ago that you would never, ever do something that would kill a person? Was that a lie, for my benefit?”

“Laurie, no! But we’ve been told Carrie isn’t really a person, she’s more of a…" Corry’s voice trailed off as he saw his sister’s expression. He gulped. “Okay. Thanks for the conscience check, sis. My bad. So, we stop Shady then. The question is how?"

“Maybe the track tease knows a way,” Lee suggested. “She seems to know about everything else going on.”

“You think she’d tell us?” Chartreuse wondered.

Lee shrugged. “Can’t hurt to ask.”

“You might be surprised,” Laurie said, wincing.

Lee pulled on the lapels of his jacket. “I’ll go anyway. She hasn’t vented at me yet, so maybe I’ll get lucky.”

He turned away from the group and proceeded down the hallway. Hospital staff had been working for the last half hour to remove patients from the area; it was now mostly deserted.

About two paces from the door to Carrie’s room, Lee stopped. He turned, a puzzled expression on his face. Then he walked all the way back. “Hey, why was I going to that room again?” he inquired.

The others exchanged a glance. “You were, you know, going to ask Carrie if she knew more about the crazy guy from the future who’s out to kill her,” Chartreuse reminded him.

“Oh yeah,” Lee said. “Sorry, memory glitch.” Again, he went back down the hall to Carrie’s room. Again he paused about two steps away, and then returned, mind spinning. “Hey, why was I going to that room again?” he repeated.

“Never mind,” Corry said, waving his hand dismissively.

“She is getting more powerful, isn’t she,” Laurie said, shivering.

“Hey!” came a new voice. A security guard approached them in the opposite direction from Carrie’s room. “What are you kids still doing here? Get downstairs, all of you. This whole floor’s being evacuated.”

“Um, right, we’re on our way!” Lee assured him.

“Oh no,” Chartreuse moaned. “I hope that Luci and Frank devised a more cunning plan. At this point, that may be all we’ve got left."

Out in his backyard, Frank flipped open the time machine and inspected the pocketwatch inside. “Great timing,” he said. “We’re back a minute before we even left.”

Luci nodded beside him, belatedly realizing she had a bit of soot on her face. Yet as she attempted to wipe it off with her fingers, she only succeeded in smearing it even more. She sighed.

“Anyway, so I have the name Holly Rhodes,” she concluded. “As the only female domestic listed for exactly three years, beginning ten years ago, dismissed for no given reason. There was an address listed. Think it’s enough?”

“Hopefully,” Frank said, eyeing her.

“We’d better get to the hospital then,” Luci concluded. “To tell the others and help them deal with the Shady situation.” She stood and started walking off, only to see Frank wasn’t following. “Something else?”

He blinked. “No. Yes. Just, ah, thinking about what you must have gone through there to help Carrie and Julie out. Not only on that trip itself, but in dealing with a missing day for that long.” He cleared his throat. “You really are amazing, Luci.”

Luci shrugged. “It had already happened. I couldn’t avoid it.”

“That doesn’t negate the sacrifice.” He coughed. “So, I was thinking, if we survive, you want to get a soda together tomorrow? At the cafe? Maybe even… make it a regular thing?”

“Regular thing? What do you…” Luci stopped, seeing his expression. She felt her knees go weak. “Now? NOW of all times you bring this up?”

“Well if we DON’T survive, I’d hate for you to have thought that… that I didn’t care.”

“Frank, if you’re only saying this because you think we might die, you better realize that I am SO holding you to any promise you make here!”

He smiled. “I would expect nothing less of you. Sodas then?”

Luci felt like her heart was going to burst out of her chest. She ran back to him, throwing her arms around his neck. He grabbed her back, pulling her close. “Heck yeah, sodas,” she said in delight.

She savoured the moment, the hug, the way Frank’s arms were running up and down her back, the safety of his embrace, for as long as she could. Ultimately, she sighed. “And I think that’s our extra minute gone.”

“Mmm hmm. Apocalypse prevention time?”

“Apocalypse prevention time,” she agreed. “Let’s get to it.”

“Clarke,” Tim said quietly.

Clarke looked up from his magazine. He’d been hoping that the distraction might help his subconscious come up with some sort of plan. “What is it, Tim?” he asked, smiling encouragingly at his friend.

“W-Well… I was just thinking,” Tim began. “The police think Julie shot Carrie. We don’t want them to think that. Right?” Clarke nodded. “So, why not give Julie an alibi?"

Clarke frowned. “I’m not sure lying to the police is the best plan.”

“Oh, I don’t mean lie,” Tim protested. “I mean, well - time machine alibi.”

Clarke stared. Then he sat bolt upright. “Of course. We can take Julie back to the evening of November the twelfth, and be somewhere in public during the shooting. With an alibi on her birthday, the police would have to close the investigation. Great thinking, Tim!”

“Y-You think so?” Tim said with a partial smile.

“Definitely,” Clarke said, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “Let’s see if Julie can handle another trip, then I’ll give Frank another call.”

“I don’t like this,” Chartreuse murmured, looking around the hospital lobby. Several police officers had now arrived. Granted, they seemed to be ignoring the teens, more interested in what was happening upstairs with Carrie than the earlier investigations at school surrounding Julie.

“Well, look on the bright side,” Corry remarked. “With all this added security, Shady will find it almost impossible to get upstairs.”

Chartreuse frowned. “Except I’m sensing from a lot of people here that they’re going to die. Only they don’t know it, so I can’t put my finger on when or how.”

“Y-You think Shady’s going to shoot his way up to her?” Laurie gasped.

Chartreuse slowly shook her head. “No? It’s not… I can’t figure it out,” she said, frustrated. “I’d try for a vision, but interfacing with Carrie has really tapped me out.”

“You know, we’re missing something,” Lee realized. “To save Carrie, you might have to be close to her - but do you have to be close in order to destroy her?”

Corry blinked. “No, of course not,” he agreed. “In fact, you’d be foolish to do it that way. She’d see you coming.”

“Plus I’ve seen future cult guy in this hospital before,” Lee continued. “He could have been scouting the place out. After all, say you wanted to destroy someone that you couldn’t approach directly, yet you still knew where they’d be - how would you do it?”

“More specifically, how would you do it if you didn’t care about any additional casualties?” Corry finished.

“Oh no,” Chartreuse said, feeling her blood run cold. “That’s it. That fits with what I’m sensing.”

“Do you know where it would be?" Corry said, grabbing Lee’s arm.

“Basement,” Lee said. “Bombs are always in the basement."

“Luci?” Clarke said in surprise. “Where’s Frank?”

“By now? He’ll be at the hospital,” Luci said, marching into the LaMille house with the time machine. “Your alibi plan is great, but we’re short on time. Since Frank is maybe the only one Carrie will listen to any more, I told him to keep going.”

She continued into the sitting room, stopping only once she’d reached the couch where both Tim and Julie were sitting.

“Luci?” Julie murmured, looking a bit dazed as she tilted her head up. “Do you have soot on your face?”

“I do,” Luci admitted. “And it’s your fault. But that’s a long story, and you need an alibi. So we have a time trip to take.”

The rest would be up to Frank.

A police officer questioned Frank’s arrival at the hospital, but the teenager managed to fake stomach cramps in order to gain access. Inside it was a bit of a madhouse… officers milling about, circulating around doctors and orderlies who were attempting to deal with both any incoming patients, and the ones being shuffled around inside the building due to the impromptu quarantine on Carrie’s floor.

“We can’t get close,” Frank heard someone say. “People tend to come back with no memory of their assigned task to negotiate. When they come back at all.”

‘That could be a problem for me,’ Frank realized. He soon discovered the stairwell was under guard, and that there was an officer in both elevators as well. ‘Assuming I even get up there…'

“Frank!”

He turned in time to see Laurie Veniti push her way past a couple of people to reach his side. “Thank goodness you’re here,” she whispered. “Chartreuse, Lee and my brother think that the time fanatic set an explosive charge somewhere in the basement. They’ve gone to check it out, it might be connected to Carrie’s plan for ending the world.”

“Laurie,” Frank said, taking her by the shoulders. “I’m glad to see you. I have to get up to Carrie’s room.” He pointed. “Can you distract that police officer over there? The one guarding the stairwell?”

Laurie shrank back at first, but then she clenched her jaw. “Golly, I’ll try,” she asserted. “I’ll babble at that cop so much he’ll have no choice but to escort me elsewhere.”

She turned to move in that direction - only to pause and look back at him one last time. “Frank… you be careful, all right?” she requested. “I… I really don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“Of course,” Frank said. He smiled at Laurie reassuringly, attempting to project a confidence he didn’t really feel.

“See anything?” Chartreuse called out.

“Yeah, the need for better lighting,” Lee remarked. “I can’t believe there’s so much stuff down here.”

“Hold on guys, I think I’ve found something,” came Corry’s voice. “There’s a digital readout connected to a bunch of wires and… oh hell!”

Chartreuse hurried towards where she’d heard his voice. As she turned the corner, she heard the voice say “Stop moving” - and then she couldn’t move. Her eyes went wide.

Shady was standing there, next to Corry, who was partly bent over what could only be the bomb, given all the wiring with what Chartreuse decided were high explosives underneath. “Stop moving,” Shady said again.

“Thinking no,” Lee retorted, stepping past Chartreuse.

Shady pulled out a gun, and directed the barrel directly at her. “Stop or your friend dies.”

Lee stopped. Which is when it occurred to Chartreuse that the guy hadn’t said ‘don’t talk’. “Stop him, Lee,” she pleaded. “Or EVERYONE dies.”

“I can also shoot Lee,” Shady pointed out. “And I’d say bleeding out is more painful than vaporization.”

“Maybe I die lifting the whammy you’ve put on my friends,” Lee observed.

“Or maybe you use the next five minutes and forty seconds of your lives thinking of a better plan,” Shady reasoned.

Chartreuse couldn’t see the timer from where she was, so she could only assume that was a reference to the countdown to detonation.

“I hate stalemates,” Corry interjected. “Though it does seem like you’re running out of time to get clear yourself, buddy.”

“Yeah,” Shady granted, sounding annoyed. “The timer’s been giving me problems. Cruddy present day merchandise. Seems like I may die down here with the rest of you.” He shrugged. “Oh well. It’s not like I could ever go home again. My future currency was stolen.”

He waggled his gun. “Lee, go sit against the wall. Pink hair, you join him. Redhead, you too.”

Chartreuse found her feet pacing over towards Lee. “It won’t work,” she blurted out. “Carrie, like, knows what you’re doing. She… she can stop you.”

“Then she’d better try,” Shady said. He grinned. “Because at this point, I have nothing to lose. I’m perfectly willing to die, knowing that I brought down our greatest temporal adversary.”

The three teenagers exchanged horrified looks, as behind Shady, the clock on the bomb ticked down past five minutes.

Frank stared into the hospital room. A golden-eyed blonde stared back at him. “You should not have come,” Carrie said at last.

Frank eyed all the frozen people surrounding them. “I get the impression you could have stopped me,” he observed. “Why didn’t you?”

“There was no point,” Carrie admitted. She turned away from him. “You’re going to be dead in exactly four minutes and twenty six seconds either way.”

Frank felt a chill run through him. “What?”

“There is a bomb in the basement that will go off then,” Carrie explained. She sounded fatigued. “When it detonates, I will channel its destructive energy through me, into the rivers of time. The future will explode, and the past will implode right along with it. Should make for a fun little light show… a pity that no one will be alive to see it.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’ve never been more serious in my life,” Carrie said calmly. She turned back. “That fool with the explosives, he has no understanding of the true powers at my command.” She grinned. “Since focussing in on the bomb, I’ve been messing with him, making his timer run fast, slow, even backwards one time.”

Her expression shifted, becoming more wistful. “My only regret is that I’ll never get to experience a normal teenage life. No mother, no boyfriend, no one who could possibly understand the real me–”

“So we’re back to Selfish Carrie then.”

Her lips thinned. “Pardon?”

Frank decided it was all or nothing. “I mean, you have to be pretty full of yourself now, yeah? To not notice what PAINS the rest have been going through to FIX it all for you? I can see now that it didn’t matter. Sorry we were giving a damn.”

“You think YOU’RE in pain?” she shouted back. “My life never should have been! Right now, Julie’s past, Julie’s future, they hinge on me, a girl who should never have been born in the first place.” She pointed at her head. “And no matter what you do, with her or anybody else, I will still FEEL that inside me. A dull, throbbing ache that will never go away!”

Carrie slumped. “It was always meant to come to this. Destruction is my very reason for existence. It’s simply happening sooner than expected.”

“This from the girl who believes in temporal theories allowing free will.”

“I didn’t KNOW,” Carrie screamed back. “I was too naive, too stupid to understand the role I had to play!”

“So you’re giving up.” Frank found that it wasn’t hard to sound disgusted. “Carrie Waterson is giving up, and blowing up the universe.”

“Don’t exaggerate, Frank. I’m not destroying the universe, the effect will be localized to our solar system.”

“Oh, pardon me, big difference. What would your mother have to say about all this, I wonder?”

Carrie lifted her arm, pointing at him. “Oh no. Don’t you dare, don’t you DARE bring her into this.”

“Why not? It occurs to me that if you have all of time at your disposal now, you might have looked her up.”

Carrie was next to him in two strides, arm raised as if to strike him. “My MOTHER…” She stood still, then brought her arm down. “Was a time traveler,” she admitted. “Brought back from the future, she was left at an orphanage when she was very young. Adopted, and brought inconspicuously into society, she eventually met and married my father. They then had me. In this timeline. Which is, in a nutshell, the reason why I’ve become what I am. My hands are tied.”

A tear trickled from Carrie’s eye, but Frank forced down his instinct to apologize. He had to keep pushing her. Hell, maybe every time she’d pushed at him, he should have been pushing back. “So?” he demanded.

“So?” She reached up to wipe off her cheek. “Given that the decades long presence of my mother had always been a strain on the new timeline, my existence made the problem worse. She had to disappear. I know that now. We can never co-exist again. Which leaves me, a motherless girl, out of time and out of place.” Her hands clenched. “Is it any wonder I’m feeling a little… OUT OF MY MIND?”

“Who says she had to disappear?”

“I… I don’t know.” Carrie swallowed. “I can’t see where or when she disappeared to.”

“And now Carrie Waterson has lost her curiosity.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t curious.”

“Oh no, you’re just blowing up the solar system instead of investigating…”

“I can’t help it, Frank,” Carrie choked out. “I’m sorry, but this explosive force, this pain inside me, it’s too damn strong to resist.”

That was getting closer to the Carrie who had opened up to him in the park, weeks ago. The Carrie that he cared about, in spite of everything. “If it’s inside you, it’s only as strong as you make it,” Frank insisted. “So here’s the real question. Do you want to destroy everything now? Rendering everyone’s actions on your behalf completely meaningless?”

“Stop.”

“Or will you push on, letting me and the rest of your FRIENDS help you through this?”

“Stop it, Frank…”

“Do you WANT answers to the questions that remain unanswered?”

“Frank don’t DO this to me.”

“Damn it, Carrie, will you DESTROY or will you ACCEPT OUR HELP?”

Her body shook, her scream was incoherent, and her palm came flying at his face. But he had half expected that reaction.

He ducked.

Then he sprang back up, his own palm out, and scarcely believing that he was doing it, he slapped it hard against the cheek of the girl who could destroy them all. “DO YOU WANT TO CHOOSE US OR NOT, CARRIE?”

“I DO!” she shrieked back.

Her look became one of astonishment, though whether it was at being struck, or at her own words, it was hard for Frank to say. But for a second, when she blinked, her eyes flickered back and forth between gold and their more normal blue.

“I… I choose the unending pain,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Frank apologized at last. “But on behalf of the world, thank you.” He shook out his hand, then extended it towards her. “Thank you, Carrie.”

“Problem though.”

Frank frowned. His hand fell back to his side. “What?”

“Bomb in the basement, exploding in about twenty seconds, still taking out this whole building and everyone in it.”

“Oh… uh…”

Carrie cracked her knuckles. “So, here’s perhaps the last thing I will ever do. Show ‘Shady’ what a temporal weapon is REALLY capable of.” She flashed her fellow time traveller a sad smile.

“Thank you, Frank. For everything. And goodbye.” No sooner had she said it, then she seemed to wink out of existence, leaving a gust of wind in her wake.

PART 45: FULL CIRCLE

“Uhhhnnn,” groaned Clarke, gradually regaining his senses. He looked around to find that they were in the somewhat familiar environs of Willowdale park.

Corry was struggling to his feet, Frank was looking over the time machine, and Julie, still unconscious, was lying next to him. The bikes and the rest of their gear was in a heap nearby. “Uh, hey, when are we?" he asked uncertainly.

“One day late," Frank replied. “Either bad luck or I wasn’t able to properly recalibrate the chips. Should be an easy fix though, and we can always write off the missing day as us searching for Julie.” He looked up. “On the bright side, I guess this confirms some kind of geographic failsafe if we have no doubles around.”

Clarke nodded, looking back down at the young brunette girl. “I’m going to take Julie home then.”

“You do that,” Frank agreed. “I’ll get the time machine and our other supplies stowed away, then go to the hospital to check on Carrie.”

“And I’ll head right there,” Corry remarked. He shrugged at the other two as they stared at him. “What? I’m rather hoping to learn that our four day trek into the past wasn’t all for naught.”

“All right then, I’ll see you shortly,” Frank concluded. The three of them turned to go their separate ways. Completely oblivious to the fact that the world would soon be ending.

“Carrie… ohh, Carrie,” Chartreuse choked out. She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head to clear it before opening them again. Luci was now crouching down next to her.

“Um, Chartreuse… is this what you were trying to do?” Luci whispered.

Their friend was now sitting up in bed. Carrie’s eyes were glowing yellow, and her blonde hair was rippling out behind her in waves. A remarkable feat considering the lack of any wind.

“No,” Chartreuse answered. “She’s… she’s hurting, Luci, but I don’t understand it. I’m not sure any of us can.”

The two girls watched as Carrie scanned the room. Her golden eyes alighted upon the man sitting next to her, who had been momentarily stunned into silence.

“Carrie?” Hank Waterson now said. “Carrie, is it you? Are you all right now? What–”

“Freeze,” Carrie said calmly, reaching out to touch her father in the middle of his forehead.

He froze. Literally. It was as if he were a mannequin, suspended in time. Carrie then turned to face her classmates.

“Whoa, Carrie… Carrie, you, like, don’t want to do anything rash,” Chartreuse said, nervously. She managed to struggle to her feet with Luci’s help.

“I’m not going to do anything rash,” Carrie replied, her voice far too calm. “I am merely going to make all the hurting go away. For everyone, forever.”

“Kinda sounds rash.”

“How will you do that, exactly?” Luci murmured.

Carrie paused. “Still working that out,” she admitted. “Perhaps I can shift everything a few milliseconds into the past.” The blonde extended her palm out towards a small glass sitting next to her bed. The glass shattered into a hundred pieces as it tried to coexist with itself, the water spilling everywhere - the same way Carrie had done it less than two weeks earlier.

Both girls jumped. “Or perhaps I can come up with something else,” Carrie countered.

“Carrie, you totally don’t want to do this,” Chartreuse pleaded. “We can fix up this present for you. For Julie too. I know we can.”

Carrie laughed hollowly. “You really think so? Because for the past few weeks, I have been trying to cope with knowing that in the first timeline, the original one - I never even existed. Do you know what that feels like? Being aware of a timeline where you had never been born?”

Chartreuse shook her head, not sure how else to respond.

“Not only that,” Carrie continued, “but this timeline where I AM alive has been coming apart ever since Julie pulled that trigger. We can’t even change that, because if I was never shot, I sense that my powers would now awaken regardless, and pull me apart.”

So, Shady hadn’t been lying about that then? Damn.

Carrie shook her head. “This must end,” she finished, dispassionately. “I will end it. It is, after all, the only reason for my even being here.”

“Carrie, wait,” Luci insisted. “Give us a chance to restore things first. Okay? To fix the present, make it better for everyone - including you and Julie! You won’t need to destroy our timeline then, right? Right?”

Carrie stared at the younger girl. She didn’t agree. On the other hand, she didn’t disagree either.

Which was when they heard an unexpected voice coming from the doorway. “Holy… what the hell is going on here?” Corry Veniti demanded.

“Y-You’re back!”

Clarke blinked in surprise at the person who had opened the door of the LaMille mansion. “Tim?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“L-Lee called me,” Tim explained shakily. “Luci asked him to, when she and Chartreuse left to go to the hospital. To have someone else here. But even so, me and Laurie, we didn’t get here in time.”

“In time? In time for what?”

“To stop their t-t-temporal refugee from escaping.”

Not sure exactly how to take that, Clarke decided to ignore it for the moment. “Can you help me get Julie into the house?” he requested. The brunette was now semi-conscious, and standing upright, but she was using him as a support post.

“Allow me to assist also,” Jeeves said, approaching from behind Tim. Between the three of them, they were able to get Julie inside. Laurie gasped as they came into the sitting room.

“CLARKE! Then, my brother? Is he back too, is he okay, why isn’t he here with you??”

“He went to the hospital to check on Carrie,” Clarke explained.

Laurie proceeded to dance nervously back and forth from foot to foot as they lay Julie down and covered her with a blanket. Apparently torn between wondering how she could help them, and wanting to ask more about what had happened.

“Go to Corry,” Clarke suggested once Julie had been settled in. “I’ll stay with Tim.”

Laurie looked to Tim, who nodded, and then with a grateful smile, she dashed out of the house, nearly forgetting to grab her jacket in the process.

“Now, what’s this about a temporal refugee?” Clarke asked, looking to Tim.

“S-Some guy from the future,” Tim explained. “Lee didn’t seem too clear on it himself, but apparently this ‘Shady’ was responsible for Carrie being shot. She’s now gained mystical time powers.”

“Wait, back up - this guy is the one who blackmailed Julie into doing the shooting?”

Tim shook his head. “Not blackmailed. Lee said the Shady guy can do mind tricks like some J-Jedi,” he clarified. “And Lee is the only one who’s immune.”

Clarke fumbled to sit in a chair. “And given Julie’s mental state that day… easy target. Damn. How could you let this guy get AWAY?”

“I’m afraid that was my fault, sir,” Jeeves spoke up. “I untied him when Mister Lee’s back was turned. In retrospect, I’m not certain why, but he must have said something to me.”

“Lee headed out to look for Shady once Laurie and I got here,” Tim noted. “I should maybe call to tell him that J-Julie’s back…?”

“Yeah, do that,” Clarke agreed. He sighed. “We’re not out of the woods yet, huh?”

“Frank? Frank!”

“Luci?” he said in surprise. He watched as she ran down the road, then barely managed to avoid falling down as she charged full tilt into him, throwing her arms around his body.

“Frank, thank god you’re here and still alive,” Luci said. Not sure what else to do, he gave her a quick hug back. The small girl finally pulled away, only to reach up and give his cheek a smack. “Now that’s for making me worry you were gone forever,” she accused.

“Ouch,” Frank protested. “Geez Luci, maybe you have been hanging around Carrie too long. But what’s been going on? My mom was on me about skipping school today, saying something about police coming by? She almost wouldn’t let me leave the house again!”

“It’s all become very complicated,” Luci sighed. “That’s why, when I learned from Corry that you’d returned, I knew that I had to find you. You see, Carrie’s conscious, but Chartreuse believes she’s going to destroy the Earth with her time powers unless we can make everyone around here forget about how Julie shot her.”

Frank blinked. “Run that by me again, please?”

“I’ll explain on the way back to your lab,” Luci said. “The time machine, I hope it can handle one more trip?”

“Yeah - maybe more than that, we got the circuits back from Julie. It needs a bit of fine tuning though, and there’s maybe another hour before it’s recharged. Why?”

Luci gave him a quick summary of the day.

“But if we can force Shady to explain when he tipped off the police,” she explained, “we can go back and try to stop him then. To undo this. I’m not sure what that means for our present, but with Julie back now, her parents should remember her and the house - and with no police questions, her life is liable to fix itself! I mean, her family will simply be happy to have her home after she was gone for more than a week, right?”

Frank pursed his lips. “No. Unfortunately, Julie’s family situation is a lot more complicated than we first suspected…” He began to explain quickly about his own trip into the past.

“I’m here,” Laurie said breathlessly as she charged out of the elevator. “I’m here, what’s going on, where’s my brother?”

“Hold on, little sis, I’m right here,” Corry said, raising a hand. He was standing a short way down the hall, along with Chartreuse. She hurried up to him. “Please, Laurie, don’t go any further than this point.”

After giving him a quick hug, Laurie looked past him, down the hall. A few doctors were speaking in hushed tones and glancing almost fearfully towards a familiar door.

“Why, Corry? What… what’s happening there?” Laurie asked.

“We’re not exactly sure,” Chartreuse admitted, stepping forwards. “But Carrie is awake, and she’s hurting, and she kinda, like, wants to destroy all of time. After Corry showed up, she told us to ‘Get out’. Luci’s got a plan though, she’s gone to find Frank.”

“Oh. Golly,” Laurie said quietly.

Chartreuse’s look became thoughtful. “Though… you know, you may know Carrie better than we do. You’re a cheerleader on her squad. Maybe she’d be willing to talk to–”

“Hell no,” Corry interjected. “Even the doctors don’t want to go in that room now. It’s far too dangerous.”

“Hush, Corry,” Chartreuse asserted. “You had your turn with Julie. Carrie talk is more of a Laurie thing.”

Laurie swallowed. “But w-what would I even say to her?”

“That you care about her, despite everything,” Chartreuse suggested. “That we’re trying to, you know, help her. That she needs to give us a chance. To give us more time.”

“What would THAT accomplish?” Corry scoffed.

Chartreuse shrugged. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”

Laurie stared at both her brother and her mystical friend. She turned again to look down the hall. Towards the girl who was better than her. At school, at athletics, at popularity, at practically everything… including, perhaps, at taking things a bit too far. And Laurie started walking.

“Laurie, no! OW, Chartreuse that’s my FOOT.”

Laurie didn’t look back. Not even after peering into Carrie’s room, and seeing the doctor and another orderly frozen to the spot. In the same manner of Carrie’s father, who was sitting by her bed. Though the redhead did let out a gasp when Carrie turned to face her. The blonde’s eyes were yellow-gold, and her hair and hospital robe were fluttering around her in some nonexistent wind.

“Why did you come here?” Carrie demanded.

Laurie felt her throat go dry. “W-Well, y’see… Steve’s done a pretty lousy subbing job for you at cheerleading, so I was kinda looking forward to you coming back.”

“The school will soon cease to exist,” Carrie stated. “Everything will cease to exist.”

“Oh,” Laurie said, nonplussed. “Well, he hasn’t done THAT bad of a job, really.”

“Laurie Veniti,” Carrie said, a dangerous edge on her voice. “I have no desire to talk with you or anyone else who knows about the existence of time travel. You should leave, unless you want to end up like them.” She gestured at the frozen individuals.

“It’s hard,” Laurie said, the words tumbling from her lips before she could even think about them. “Okay? I know it’s hard, realizing that you’re stuck in this box, seemingly unable to do any better no matter how much you try, always comparing yourself to others who seem to have it so much better than you… but you know what I’m realizing, Carrie? Maybe we’re all struggling. Even the people who seem to have it together. And maybe that’s okay, because when we push at the edges of our boxes, we grow, and we become more than what others tell us we’re supposed to be.”

Laurie took a step closer. “I know what Lee and the rest of them have told me, Carrie, but you’re more than some weapon. You are. To me, and to so many others. And so I want you to know that I forgive you for what happened back at the dance, and I want you back at school running new routines for us, and I think that’s gonna be REAL hard if everything will no longer exist, so… so please reconsider? For me?”

Carrie seemed surprised. Her gaze dropped to the floor. “I am sorry,” she said quietly. “I can’t, not now. Now that I know how it’s all going to end. Shady is putting us on a road that has no turns.”

“But…“

“LEAVE NOW,” Carrie commanded. Her gaze came up, her face twisted in pain and sadness, her eyes glowing, and energy seemed to crackle around them in the air. With a little shriek, Laurie ran back out of the room.

She hightailed it all the way back to the elevator, where her brother grabbed hold of her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” she apologized, struggling to catch her breath as she clutched at him. “I… I don’t think Carrie’s going to listen to me or to anyone else.”

“It’s all right,” Corry said, hugging her. “It’s all right, Laurie. I’m sure you did what you could.”

“Did Carrie say anything, like, useful?” Chartreuse said hopefully.

Laurie shook her head. “No, only that everything will no longer exist because Shady’s putting us on a road with no turns.”

Chartreuse sighed, and the three of them turned to look back down the hall. Then the pink haired girl tilted her head to the side. “Putting. As in, still present tense?”

Laurie nodded. And Chartreuse jerked her gaze back towards Corry.

“He’s GONE?” Luci said.

“So I’m told,” Clarke answered from the other end of the phone line. “Jeeves is very sorry. Lee is trying to find this Shady even now.”

“And I thought things couldn’t get any worse,” Luci muttered. “Now how are we supposed to figure out when he spoke with the police?”

“Clarke,” piped up Frank, listening in through speaker phone. “How influential are the LaMilles? If they wanted to, could they throw their daughter’s attempted murder case out of court, that sort of thing?”

“Possibly,” came the dubious answer. “But even if they were willing to do it, Julie’s life would only become an even bigger hell, given how she’d owe them.”

“Except her parents might not do anything if we threatened to expose what they’ve already done to Julie. That’s not the sort of thing the LaMilles would want to be made public.”

“Whoa, hold on, Frank,” Luci objected. “You’re saying we resort to blackmail? That’s a big can of worms there.”

“Yeah, plus Julie HERSELF said she doesn’t want this to go public,” Clarke added. “Besides, her parents were always very careful. We have no proof.”

“Always?” Frank said, frustrated. “For sixteen years, no one ever saw or heard ANYTHING? That’s really hard to believe, given their tendency to employ hired help.“

There was the sound of Clarke drumming his fingers on something. “Well, we saw nothing,” Clarke reminded him. “And I’m pretty sure Jeeves and Mimi didn’t either. But maybe, if we look further back in time…"

“We’ll have to at some point. That’s the sort of proof Julie will need,” Luci realized. “In order to get into proper counselling, over her parents’ likely objections or suggestions.”

“I’ll check with Jewels and give you a call back,” Clarke decided.

“Okay,” Luci agreed. “We’ll be at Frank’s, making final adjustments on the time machine. Oh, also give us a call if you hear any more about the location of our fugitive from the future.”

“Will do,” Clarke agreed.

Frank took the call from Clarke less than a half hour later. Luci closed up the time machine as he hung up. She turned. “What’s the word?”

“You want the good news or the bad news?”

“We could use some good news about now.”

Frank nodded. “Julie managed to recall a time, back before she was ten, when a servant came back unexpectedly and caught her parents chewing her out. The woman, who had worked with them for three years prior to that event, was dismissed soon after - though Julie recalls her being a sympathetic individual. If we track her down, she could be our evidence.”

“Okay. And the bad news?”

“Two flavours,” he sighed. “First, Julie’s too shaken up right now to remember any more, and then when Clarke went to check the records being stored in the mansion himself? The ones detailing the servants for that period of time were missing. Jeeves recalls a small fire some time last year, shortly after the LaMilles transferred those very same records to the house for storage.”

“How convenient,” Luci said dryly.

“My thoughts exactly. Second problem, Chartreuse called Clarke with an update. Something Carrie said makes our resident mystic think Shady is going to make another attempt on Carrie’s life. Which could render all of our efforts to restore this timeline to a sense of normalcy rather moot.”

Luci resisted the urge to bang her head down on the table. “Joy. Okay, one problem at a time. When was this small fire? Maybe we can time travel back to before it took place, and obtain the information then.”

“And how do you propose we get into the LaMille mansion to retrieve it?” Frank countered. “The Julie from our past would never let us stroll in and search. The only one of us who might have a chance is Clarke, except tampering with his past connections to Julie could cause us much bigger problems now.”

“That’s true, but there must be some way,” Luci insisted. “Maybe we could go back in time a year, to a day when we were all in Grade 10, and tell a past version of ourselves that if they ever get the chance to visit the mansion…” Luci stopped. She felt lightheaded. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“It fits. Oh my God. My second day of high school. It fits!”

“What fits? Luci, what are you talking about?”

Luci took a deep breath, as the missing piece that had puzzled her for over a year snapped into place. “It’s my missing day, Frank. The second day of high school has always been a complete blank to me. All I know is that it had something to do with me getting involved with Julie and Corry, not to mention seriously ticking Carrie off somehow. I’ve always wondered if there was more to it than simple amnesia.”

“What? Are we heading into ‘Butterfly Effect’ territory here? Because that movie series was not–”

“It’s more,” Luci interrupted. “Consider that while I might have grown a little since then, it’s negligible, and after Linquist I’m only ballpark my real age anyway.”

She took a deep breath. “You say the only place we can get these records is in the past? Fine. None of you knew me at the start of last year. That makes me a wild card. So, we’re about to use the time machine to travel back to that September, at which point I can take the place of my younger self for a day. My second day of high school. A note you leave in my locker is all it will take.”

He stared. “Luci, that’s crazy.”

“Maybe,” she admitted. “Thing is? If I’m right, it’s already happened anyway.”

(Option: Go With Luci, Full Circle, Back to Part 25)

PART 44: TURNING POINT

***PAST: ILLINOIS

“Great. No LaMilles listed in the phone book,” Frank stated, throwing the volume aside. “Why did phone books ever exist, if important people weren’t listed in them?”

“The LaMilles were pretty rich even at this point in the past,” Clarke observed. “They could’ve asked to be unlisted - or maybe they only came here because it’s their winter home? Or property they were hoping to flip?”

“The point being, we have no idea where Julie could be," Frank moaned, pressing a hand to his forehead. “What’s worse, now we’re not only fighting to keep Julie’s suicide plans from succeeding, we’re probably also fighting the time streams, as they try to kill her off again.”

Clarke stared. “Frank… are you saying that Julie died in that car accident? Before we came back?”

Frank winced, then nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking I need to revise my initial time travel theories,” he admitted. “Because while that news article you found would scan the same whether we were here or not, if Shady was acting to change his past - our present - it follows that our presence here could have changed Julie’s past - now our present.”

“You mean Julie’s future,” Clarke noted.

Frank grimaced. “I guess, relatively speaking. But it means our REAL present could be in trouble too.”

“Julie’s at the hospital.”

Frank turned at Corry’s interjection. “What?”

The redhead turned towards the other two teens. “It’s time for us to go on the offensive.”

Clarke sighed. “Corry, now is not the time to–”

“You’re wrong,” he asserted. “It’s now or never. Think about it. Julie has been reduced to a defensive game here, and if we let her fortify that position, we’re sunk."

“But why the hospital?" Frank asked.

Corry lifted up three fingers, then curled one up. “First, when that girl has a goal in mind, she needs to know all of the related variables. The layout of the hospital, the staff on duty, et cetera. Even if she accomplished all of that before our arrival, she might want to observe our actions there.”

He curled up his second finger. “Second, I believe that our presence is going to make Julie act sooner, rather than later. She’ll bribe a doctor somehow, or switch around crucial medications, and then lead us on a merry chase as far away from the scene as possible. That chase likely starts at the hospital.”

“And third?” Clarke wondered.

“Third,” Corry said, curling his last finger before letting his hand fall open, “where else is she going to go? Like me, she has no allies here, no provisions, and for that matter, the hospital is where her double seemed to be headed. Though that was almost a half hour ago, so I suggest we get a move on.”

“And do what? Grab her when we see her? That didn’t work,” Frank protested. “We obviously need a better plan.”

“Maybe not,” Corry asserted. “In particular, because I’m now going to tell you what Julie did in front of me that day in January. I’ll warn you now, if you believe what I’m about to say, you won’t ever look at her the same way again.” He eyed Clarke. “But between her hating us forever, and her being dead? I think we want the former. Don’t you?”

“False labour indeed,” the woman grumbled. “It felt real enough. What do these small town doctors know anyway?”

“Now, now,” soothed her husband. “I made sure he was qualified, and you wanted the smaller town, to surround the event with a certain anonymity. Give it another couple of days; we can induce if we have to.”

“Peachy," she groused back, sitting herself down. “Well, I’m not budging from this spot for at least a half an hour. I need to recover my wits. Plus I may go into real labour sometime in the next few minutes.”

“Whatever you think is best,” the man consented, taking a seat next to his wife.

Mere metres away, around the nearest corner, a girl with wide, staring eyes was breathing heavily. Because those were her parents. Out there, in the hospital waiting area.

Julie could scarcely believe her luck - this must be why they hadn’t been at the house. She could end it all, right here, right now. This late in the evening, there were very few hospital employees around. She still had the gun, tucked away in a jacket pocket. She could easily get off one shot before anyone could stop her.

Except.

Those were her parents.

It wasn’t her mother’s fault that her daughter had turned out to be a huge disappointment. And the very thought of raising a gun to the woman who had given birth to her was making Julie sick to her stomach. Worse, what if it was for nothing? What if the doctors here were able to save the unborn child? To save Julie’s life? Did they have that ability in a hospital this size?

She became very aware of her heartbeat.

Julie swallowed. No. She had to act now. She had to risk it, before her future classmates could stop her. After all, no one would be expecting this, right? And she could shoot, and shoot, and shoot… until she ceased to even be here. The doctors, they would try to save her mother first, right?

Julie reached into the pocket of her borrowed clothing, trying to ignore her case of the shakes. Her fingers touched the gun. The safety clicked off. She began to walk around the corner. Somehow, it felt like she was moving through water. Like everything around her was happening in slow motion.

Like time itself was holding its breath.

There were running footsteps.

She began to draw the gun out.

A hand seized her wrist.

“We have to talk,” came the unmistakable voice of Corry Veniti.

Julie tried to twist out of his grip, to yank the gun out and point it at him instead, but his grip tightened, preventing the movement. She wanted to scream.

“No,” he said firmly. “Give me ten minutes, Julie. Then, if you still want to kill me - I’ll probably deserve it."

She refused to look at him. Her eyes darted about the waiting area as she searched wildly for some escape. Screaming still felt like an option, yet calling attention to herself was the last thing she wanted to do. At least she didn’t see any sign of Phil or Frank. Only her parents. And even now, she saw they were ignoring her.

“I pick where we talk,” Julie choked out.

Corry nodded, but maintained his grip. The two of them proceeded down the nearest hall. Julie passed up the first obvious choice for a room, choosing the next empty one. They entered, Corry leaving the door partly open.

“I’m going to release your arm now,” the redhead told her. “Bear in mind that if you shoot me before the ten minutes are up, it’s bound to affect your plans, and may even be something I accounted for in mine.”

Julie nodded slowly. He released her, and she immediately moved a few steps away. Hand on the gun. Waiting. Staring. At least half a minute ticked by.

“Okay,” Corry began at last. “Now… what goddamn fool stunt do you think you’re trying to pull?!”

Julie flinched. Any doubts she’d harboured as to whether this was truly the Corry she knew were now gone.

“I mean, I know you’ve had some complex plots in the past, but my God, killing yourself THIS way?” he snapped. “It’s the most twisted thing I’ve ever heard of.”

“Why does it matter to YOU how I kill myself?” she retorted.

“How could it NOT matter, Julie?” Corry asserted. “This isn’t what I wanted when I led my campaign against you. I wanted you brought down a peg, not taken off the ladder completely! Consider, if you do this, and we remember you? We feel guilty. And if we don’t remember… I lose all the experience I gained from having you as my adversary.”

He clenched his jaw. “Because as much as I hate to admit it, you pushed me to new heights, Julie. You broadened my universe. In no small way when you tried to kill yourself two years ago on the gym balcony. I didn’t think anyone could go that far! And since I wouldn’t let you act on it then - I’ll be damned before I let you do it now!”

The memory came to her, unbidden.

<< Her movement was quick. Blood began to well up from the cut on her arm. Corry was next to her in an instant, grabbing her wrists and holding them apart as she lifted her gaze back up towards him. >>

She pulled herself away from the image. That had been a gamble. This was all too real. “So here we are again,” she whispered. “The two of us, locked in a stalemate. Me with the weapon.”

“And me - with backup.”

Corry stepped to the side as Frank entered the room. Julie immediately yanked out her gun, pointing it at the brown haired boy. “How did you find us?!” she shrieked.

Frank swallowed, his eyes on the gun barrel. “H-Hid, and followed Corry. Look, Julie, n-no one has to die here.”

“Frank’s right,” Corry chimed in, Julie readjusting her target to the one who was speaking. “More to the point,” he added, “no one has died yet. Don’t cross that line, Julie.”

Julie shook her head. “No, no… I shot Carrie!”

<< Carrie stumbled back a step, reflexively bringing her hand up to her side. Her eyes dropped down to the redness that was now starting to stain her shirt. “Then again, maybe we can negotiate," she gurgled out, before collapsing down onto the floor. >>

“Carrie’s alive,” Frank asserted.

“I also shot you.”

“You missed me.”

“And then I killed that homeless woman.”

Frank hesitated.

“That was an accident,” Corry yielded. “No way did you intend for that to happen.”

“Julie, we can still fix things,” Frank insisted. “It’s not as bad as you think it is.”

<< Her father tore again, and again. >>

“No, no, NO,” Julie said, pressing the palm of her free hand against her temples. “I have to die, I know I have to die…”

“Why do you have to die?”

Julie spun to point her gun over at Phil, the latest arrival. Then she shifted it back to Corry, then Frank, then again to Phil. The three of them were too far apart. But she could get at least one of them.

“Why do you have to die, Jewels?” Phil repeated softly.

“B-Because I do,” Julie said hoarsely.

<< Her father tore again, and again. >>

<< The document she'd signed with the principal that morning was soon scattered on the floor like so much confetti. >>

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Julie said, not only pushing that memory aside, but grinding it beneath her heel and burying it. She had to focus on the present. Past. Whatever.

Frank spoke again. “Julie, don’t you see? We’re on your side here. And it’s not only the three of us." He pulled an envelope out of his pocket, extending it towards her with a shaky hand.

“Nuh uh. You open it,” she asserted, waggling her gun.

He did so. Nothing exploded out of it. Instead, Frank removed a sheet of paper, and extended that instead. “From Luci,” he said.

Julie eyed him. She cautiously reached out to take the page, keeping her gun trained his way so that the others couldn’t make a move to disarm her without unpleasant consequences. She unfolded the paper, and risked a quick glance down.

To Julie’s surprise, the message she held simply read: ‘Sorry we had to send the guys. Come back safe, okay Julie? We miss you.’ It had been signed not only by Luci, but also Laurie and Chartreuse. Exactly how many people knew about the time machine now??

Julie snapped her gaze back up. All that had happened was that Corry and Frank had taken a step back, leaving Phil in front. “Carrie didn’t sign,” she observed.

“That’s because she needs you back most of all,” Phil said softly. “Jewels, please - don’t do this. Don’t let them get to you this way."

“Who?”

<< The culmination of six - seven? eight? - years of effort. So many setbacks. But now - they had to understand. They had to see that she was capable, that she was worthy of being their child, that she deserved their love and attention...

<< "What damn fool stunt are you trying to pull?" >>

“You know, Jewels. It’s time to stop letting them control you.”

“No one controls me,” Julie snapped. She dropped Luci’s letter, hoping two hands on the gun would provide a better grip. “Phil, in all the time we’ve been at school together, when have I ever, EVER let anyone else tell me what to do?"

“I’m not talking about at school.”

<< “Juvenile delinquent," her father spat out. "Well, you've forced the two of us to use your birthday as an excuse to come back here to handle things. I hope you're happy."

<< Her mother sighed and pressed a hand to her temples. "Dear, you deal with this today, all right? It’s going to give me a headache, I’m sure of it.” >>

The gun began to shake dangerously in her hands. “Phil… don’t do this to me… don’t make me choose…”

“I have to,” he said sadly. “Don’t you see, Jewels? I have to. Because if you go through with this, and you die - they’ve won. I can’t let them do that.”

<< "Leave it to a girl to take things too literally."

<< He tore the document in half. >>

“It was my fault…”

“No.”

“I didn’t do it right…”

“They never gave you a chance!”

<< The document she'd signed with the principal that morning was soon scattered on the floor like so much confetti.

<< A single tear splashed down. Then the glass covering the image cracked as the picture was thrown forcibly against the wall. >>

“I love them,” Julie whispered. “Why don’t they love me, Phil? Why??”

“I don’t know, Jewels.” Phil took another step forwards. “I don’t know. But I want to help you understand. To help us both understand.”

<< "This is going to give me a headache."

<< “Juvenile delinquent.”

<< "She's your *daughter*, after all."

<< ... scattered on the floor like so much confetti. >>

“No… No, I can’t!!!” Julie said, desperately trying to cling to the only reality that had ever made sense. Without it, what did she have left?

“It’s okay, Jewels,” Phil soothed. “I know you’re hurting. But please. You’re stronger than this, I know you are. We all know it. And we all care about you so very, very much.”

The tall blonde took another two steps forward. Julie blinked the tears out of her eyes and cocked her gun back up, now pointing it directly at his chest, point blank range. “I should kill you now for speaking ill of my parents.”

“But you won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because of what I see now. The brooch. Even after everything you’ve been through, after exchanging the rest of your clothing… you kept my birthday present.”

Julie’s eyes fell back down to her chest. The silver brooch in the shape of a rose seemed to smile back up at her. “It w-was pretty.”

“As are you.”

Julie slowly brought her gaze back up.

<< He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small neatly wrapped package. >>

<< "Here’s something to remember me by. Happy birthday.” >>

<< "Happy birthday.” >>

“Oh PHIL,” The gun clattered to the floor as the brunette flung herself at him, pulling him to her, burying her face in his chest, blinded by tears. He was really there this time. It wasn’t her imagination. “They tore it up, Phil,” she choked out. “They tore up my whole agreement!”

“There, there, Jewels,” Phil said softly, hugging her back. “It’ll be all right. Everything’s going to be all right now.”

He held her tightly as she sobbed uncontrollably.

Seeing his opportunity, Corry quickly dodged around Clarke and Julie to retrieve the gun from the floor. Opening the chamber, he removed the bullets, then allowed himself a long sigh of relief.

Frank moved up next to the redhead and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks Corry,” he murmured. “Hardly the most well organized approach, but your plan sure got the job done.”

Corry allowed himself a relieved smile. “Yeah, well, it seemed to me that, deep down, Julie didn’t really want anybody to die. With me to remind her of that, you to remind her that we all cared, and Clarke to follow up with his more personal connection… that felt like our best shot.” He looked at the gun, then tucked it away. “Ugh, BAD way to phrase that. Anyway, with the right counselling, I hope Julie can pull through.”

“She’s in pretty good hands already,” Frank observed, looking towards Clarke. “At this point, I figure we let her calm down a bit more, then ask what she did with the missing microchips. Once I have those, it shouldn’t be too difficult for me to repair the time machine.”

“Right then,” Corry said, dusting off his hands. “Mission accomplished. Good to know that we’re finally through the worst of it!”

***PRESENT: ONTARIO

There was nothing but blackness all around. She was floating in it, surrounded by feelings of loss and loneliness. It was completely overwhelming. Chartreuse wondered how anyone could possibly deal with this.

“Hello?” Chartreuse called out into the void. “Carrie?”

Lee and Jeeves had remained with their captive back at the LaMille mansion, while Chartreuse had returned to the hospital with Luci. After all, the pink haired girl reasoned, there had to be some way to get through to the blonde cheerleader. Now that they knew about the problem. I mean, sure, Carrie held within her the power to destroy the world - but she was still their friend. Right?

Once in the hospital room, Chartreuse had laid out a series of meditation crystals around the bed. Then, holding a small healing orb in her hand, she had worked to form a connection with the unconscious girl for the second time today.

It had apparently succeeded, in as much as it had brought her here. Wherever here was. “Carrie?” Chartreuse called out again.

The sound of someone singing floated towards her from out of the darkness. The voice sounded as hollow and empty as their surroundings.

“I once wished to travel through time. To have such a power seemed really sublime. But I never imagined the problems I’d face. So now I’m lost in time and also in space.”

Chartreuse looked, but saw nothing. “Carrie, is that you?”

“I can speak of tomorrow but not yesterday, for when history changes your past goes away,” the singing voice continued quietly.

Chartreuse shivered, as she recognized the song Corry had sung at the dance. But the familiar tune was a bit off key, and there was an eerie tone of finality to the vocals.

“I see now that these forces can’t be understood, I’d return things to normal if only I could, but the ramifications have damaged my brain… it won’t be long now before I’ve gone insane…”

“Carrie, if that’s you, please stop this,” Chartreuse pleaded. She tried to push forwards, into the darkness. There was a shadowy outline there. It resembled Carrie, but it was facing away, so it was hard to tell for sure.

“Where are we, Carrie?” Chartreuse asked. “What’s going on?”

The singing stopped. Then the voice murmured, “You should not have come back, Chartreuse.”

Chartreuse stared. “Back?” she asked. “Have I been here before…?”

“Ah, that’s right. I removed that memory. Thing is, you should not have saved me then. Part of me was looking forward to death. Now, now this pain within me, it has become too great to bear…”

“Carrie, don’t give up,” Chartreuse interrupted. “If the problem with timelines is whatever’s happened to Julie in the past - like, we’ll do whatever we can to fix it for you. Surely you’ve realized that by now.”

The shadowy figure of Carrie seemed to think about that. “No, the ripples from the past are subsiding,” was her eventual reply. “Those who travelled back, and caused the waveforms to appear - the waves which were amplified at this time by my premature awakening - they will have been collapsed. There is no longer a… Schrodinger’s Julie. She has survived.”

“Oh… good?”

“But what of the future?” Carrie challenged. “Julie will be wanted for attempted murder. She will face severe punishment from her parents. One of many things that should not be occurring to her. One of many things that have come about, because of me. Me… the girl who who didn’t even exist, in the original timeline.” She laughed.

And something about that laugh was off, and somehow, Chartreuse knew that Carrie was broken.

“That’s the real problem, you see,” the blonde concluded. ”How it’s all about me. This story has always been all about me.”

Chartreuse swallowed hard. “Carrie, please stop. You’re scaring me.”

“None of this should have happened, I know in my gut,” Carrie’s voice sang again. “Yet our future is hist’ry, and I’ve lost what’s what. We must now beware, time is not playing fair, I would solve this crime it’s just I’m… outta time… outta time… outta time…”

Carrie’s silhouette spun, her palm thrust out towards Chartreuse. With a cry, both of surprise and pain, the mystic felt her spiritual self being hurled backwards. She collided with her own body, then somehow continued moving, her physical self propelled back into the far wall of the hospital room. The pink haired girl hit hard, then slid down onto the floor with a groan, struggling to remain conscious.

Carrie Waterson sat up in her hospital bed, her formerly blue eyes now blazing brightly with golden fire.

PART 41: RESCUE EFFORTS

The wind blew through the empty field, bending the long grass back. A few clouds floated by overhead as the sun approached its highest point in the sky. There was no one around for kilometers - miles, even.

Which is when, in the wink of an eye, three individuals appeared, along with a bunch of equipment. There was a brown haired boy with glasses, a tall blonde, and a redhead. Only the first of them was conscious. As such, only he was able to cry out in horror before all of them plummeted metres – feet, even – from the air down towards the ground.

***PAST: ILLINOIS

Clarke pressed a hand to his forehead. “Corry, that language isn’t going to improve the situation.”

“Falling bloody well HURT,” the redhead fumed. “Damn it Dijora, you didn’t say we’d arrive in free fall. Good thing I DIDN’T let my sister go on this trip, she’s liable to have ended up with a broken leg for gods' sake!”

“Clarke’s right, calm down," Frank said, taking deep breaths to try and steady his own nerves.

They were all regaining their bearings in the middle of the empty field where they’d fallen. “Obviously there was a little spatial problem with altitude that we didn’t account for,” Frank reasoned. “But the long grass cushioned us, and I get the impression no one sustained any injures above some bad bruises.”

“This from the guy who didn’t half land on a BIKE,” Corry fumed. He flexed his arm, then rubbed his shoulder. “Little altitude problem, my ass… I’ve half a mind to force you to take me back home right now.”

“You mean back home to Miami?” Clarke asked. “Since that is where you’re living at this time, right?”

That remark finally shut Corry up, as he turned to regard the black box which had facilitated their arrival. Frank picked it up, turning it so that Corry could see the digital readout.

“A week before Julie’s birth,” Frank observed. “Alternately, four days before she gets hit by an ambulance and dies. Let’s hope it’s enough time to track her down and prevent that."

“Son of a bitch,” Corry muttered at last. “It really has happened, hasn’t it. We’ve traveled through time.”

Frank nodded. “We have.”

Clarke turned away from the both of them, starting to sift through the rest of their supplies.

Corry rubbed his chin. “Damn. I’m not sure I truly believed it until now. Even after getting that letter."

“You thought you were lying to yourself?” Frank wondered.

“No, no,” Corry said, shaking his head. “Bringing up my history with Julie convinced me I was serious. It’s more that, writing the letter out myself, right after receiving it? Sort of took the edge off. Made it feel like it could be a prank.” He tugged his earlobe. “Why couldn’t we simply bring the original back in time with us again?”

“Because until you wrote it out, there was no original,” Frank reminded. “If the letter we have with us now had been the same one we received, it would have been created from nothing. And we couldn’t risk adding that kind of paradox, not on top of all the other temporal problems we’re dealing with at the moment.”

“Oh yeah, right,” Corry said, irritation creeping back into his tone. “Just like Tim had to obtain fresh copies of the required documentation on his end. I don’t know, it still sounds like a big waste of time to me.” He sighed. “And what was that other note Luci gave to you?”

“I don’t know,” Frank admitted, glancing towards his backpack. “I’m supposed to give it to Julie.” He frowned, remembering that conversation.

“I don’t understand,” Frank protested. “What’s the point of this?”

“The point,” Luci said, tapping the envelope edge first on his chest, “is that without Laurie going along, you’ve become an all male team.”

“So?”

The asian girl shifted to tapping the envelope on his forehead. “Think, Frank. Julie might be a little intimidated by that.”

“Julie? She’s in charge of half our school, Luci. Nothing intimidates that girl.”

“WAS in charge,” Luci reminded. She reached out for his arm, using it to pull out his palm before slapping the sealed letter down into it. “Humour me. Call it a feeling. Give this message to Julie.”

“Oh well,” Corry said, scattering Frank’s thoughts. “On the bright side, I can’t feel my writers' cramp any more - due to the pain in my shoulder!”

“You know, Corry,” Clarke said, moving close to them once more. “Me and Frank are here to save someone’s life. Someone who is very important to me. If you’re only tagging along because you didn’t want your sister to be here, maybe you should wait in a hostel somewhere for the next few days. We can circle back to pick you up again before we go.”

“Hmph,” Corry grumbled. “Thanks, but no thanks. At this point, I’m not letting either of you out of my sight.” He raised his hands defensively off Clarke’s expression. “Look, I AM here to help, okay? After all, as much as I dislike Julie, I know things. Plus the thought of her being in this twisted little suicide plan you’ve described… I can’t let that go. No one should end up like that. No one.”

“So, Clarke, how did our supplies fare?” Frank asked of the taller boy, hoping to change the subject.

“We got lucky,” Clarke replied, turning to him. “A dislodged chain and a couple bent spokes, nothing I can’t fix. The compass is also fine, and between that and the maps we have, we should be able to find shelter in a nearby town before sundown.” Clarke shifted his gaze to the black box. “What about the time machine, Frank?”

“Good question,” he realized, reaching out to grab the lever and pop the lid off. On the bright side, there was no smoke. On the down side…  “Clarke, get me the small toolkit out of my pack,” he requested worriedly, putting the machine down and crouching over it.

“Uh oh,” Corry said as Clarke complied. “Another little ‘calculation problem’?”

Frank didn’t reply right away, instead spending the next several minutes carefully poking around the wiring. When he finally looked up, he suspected his face was pale. “I’m sorry. I should have known,” Frank apologized. “I should have realized.”

“Realized what?” Clarke prompted. “What do you mean?”

Frank took in a deep breath. “Remember how we figured on the time machine only being good for two, maybe three trips? Well, a sixteen year trip alters the recharge time, and puts more strain on the whole assembly which in turn…”

“Cut to the chase,” Corry interrupted. “What’s the situation?”

Frank swallowed. “The time machine is broken again," Frank stated. “And I don’t have the right materials to fix it here. So even assuming we rescue Julie… there is no way for us to return.”

***PRESENT: ONTARIO

Luci sensed Laurie’s presence behind her even before the redheaded girl sat down next to her in the school library. She chose not to acknowledge the arrival. Not even after Laurie had cleared her throat twice.

“Okay,” Laurie said at last. “You want to be alone all lunch then.” She rose.

“Wait,” Luci sighed, reaching out for Laurie’s arm and missing. She looked up from the empty spot on the table where she’d been staring for the last half hour. “Stay.”

Laurie twisted her fingers together. “But if you’re upset…”

“Better you talk to me than Chartreuse,” Luci said, returning her attention to the tabletop. “I’m guessing she sent you over.”

“Chartreuse did figure the two of us had something in common right now, what with it being both my brother and my longtime crush on the trip with Frank,” Laurie admitted. She hesitated, then sat back down. “That’s what’s on your mind, right? Whether they’re okay?”

“What’s on my mind,” Luci began slowly, “Is that we’ve failed. Again. We doubled down on our bets, and we failed. AGAIN.” She reached up to grab her twin tails in her hands, yanking hard on her hair. “HOW? What did I miss? Why is this still happening? How do you normal people LIVE with the agony of knowing you can fail so SPECTACULARLY?”

“Whoa! C-Calm down, Luci,” Laurie pleaded, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “Sure, it’s Monday, but it was going to take the guys a few days to reach Julie in the past.”

“Yes. In the PAST,” Luci reiterated. She turned to fully face the redhead. “Laurie, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but if they were coming back… they would be here already. They left Sunday night. They were going to return on the same day, so that Frank could call the police if he had to. Except now it’s Monday! Over twelve hours later.” Luci clenched a fist. “They’re not coming back, Laurie, and it’s all my fault. I never should have let them leave.”

The redhead swallowed. “Maybe they set that machine wrong? They could come back tonight instead.”

“I don’t think so,” Luci countered. She pulled the creased paper out of her pocket, shoving it back at her companion.

Laurie unfolded the sheet. “It’s that article Clarke talked about,” she realized. “Describing Julie’s accident with the ambulance. So?”

“So don’t you see?” Luci said. “If the others had been successful, we would know right away. That article would never have been WRITTEN sixteen years ago. No, something has gone wrong.” She squeezed her eyes shut.  “Something has gone very, very wrong, and for all my supposed intellect, I can’t figure out what. Let alone what to do about it.”

There was another long pause. “You will,” Laurie decided.

“What?”

“You will figure it out,” Laurie concluded. “You’re smart, Luci, you’ll figure it all out. So don’t give up hope. Okay?”

“Laurie…”

“Please?” Laurie said more insistently. “Please, Luci? Because if this is beyond you, I don’t know where else to turn, and I… I want to stop thinking about it. Okay?”

As she continued, her voice started to become more desperate. “I have to think it will work out, so I want to stop thinking about it, but all I can see is Chartreuse wondering about what they might be doing, and you being so worried and upset, and Chartreuse also being worried not only about them but about you, and about me, and I only want Frank and Clarke and Corry to be okay, so please can’t we all go and have some french fries for lunch and not think about this for the next little while, please, please, PLEASE Luci can we stop thinking about this now??” The redhead began to choke on her words.

Luci looked up again. She was momentarily taken aback by the tears shimmering in the corners of Laurie’s eyes, instinctively reaching out to touch Laurie’s arm in imitation of the redhead’s earlier gesture.

“I…” Luci stopped, not sure what she could possibly say that was reassuring. Maybe an apology would be enough. “All right,” she decided. “I’m not giving up. Let’s go get some fries.”

The two of them met up with Chartreuse by the library doors. Their resident mystic had been fidgeting with some multicoloured crystals, but upon seeing Luci and Laurie approach, she quickly put them away and offered up a halfhearted smile. The three of them proceeded towards the cafeteria.

Before they could arrive, Tim rushed up to meet them. “L-Luci. L-Laurie. Chartreuse,” he said quickly, trying not to stumble over his own words, having become short of breath once more. “Thank g-goodness. We, we’ve got to get out of here!”

“Why, Tim?” Chartreuse prompted.

“P-P-Police,” Tim forced out. He took in a long breath. “I saw them going into the main office, and they were s-saying something about an anonymous t-tip concerning the attack on C-Carrie. They w-wanted to question Frank, p-plus any students who were close to Julie.”

The three girls exchanged a quick glance. “Perfect,” Luci murmured. “Just perfect.”

As expected, it wasn’t long before the disappearances of Frank, Clarke and Corry were remarked upon. The three time travellers had covered for themselves the previous night by leaving messages stating that the three boys were sleeping over at each others’ houses - just in case. But now?

Chartreuse figured it wouldn’t be long before an investigation traced their missing friends' whereabouts back to the same group of students who had met at Frank’s the previous day.

Thus, after Tim’s warning, the group had all fled to the local cafe. Skipping their afternoon classes. From there, there’d come up with a plan.

Tim had agreed to take Laurie to the library. Extra research couldn’t hurt, plus in all the excitement of Sunday, they hadn’t ever clued Lee in as to what was happening. As such, and assuming he was working there later on, he might be the only one left who could afford to be seen out in the open. Meanwhile, Chartreuse and Luci had elected to go to the hospital.

“It’s all about Carrie, after all,” Chartreuse concluded as she looked at the floor indicators inside the hospital elevator.

“Hm?” Luci said.

The elevator doors opened and the two girls stepped out onto the floor which housed Carrie’s room. “It’s all about Carrie,” Chartreuse repeated. “I mean, you know, she found the machine, she does paradoxes, she’s supposedly in trouble because of changes to the past… like, why her, anyway? There’s gotta be some answers with Carrie.”

“The thought did occur to me,” Luci admitted. “Unfortunately, unless Shady calls again, we’ve got no one around to ask. Carrie herself is in no condition to talk. Or at least no condition to make sense when she does talk.”

The two girls reached Carrie’s room, Luci giving a tentative knock on the open door. Mr. Waterson looked up from his bedside vigil and offered back a tired smile through his two week old beard. No police, Chartreuse noted. Good sign!

“Hello there, Luci and… Chartreuse, is it?” Carrie’s dad asked.

Chartreuse nodded back. “Totally. We thought we’d stop in right after school to, you know, see how Carrie was doing,” she said.

The older Waterson turned back to his daughter. “No improvement, I’m afraid,” he said sadly. “Still unresponsive, with the occasional period of incoherent babbling.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Luci said. “But it means she’s not getting any worse, right?”

Mr. Waterson rubbed his neck. “Yeah. But considering they still don’t know what the trouble is, it’s hard to take comfort in that. Though the police are still following some leads on the shooting - they were by earlier, and said that Carrie’s friend Julie might have had something to do with it. That maybe she’s run off somewhere now to hide out. Can you believe that? I don’t suppose either of you know anything about it?”

Crud. Chartreuse looked to Luci, who winced. “No,” Luci said slowly, almost painfully. “We can’t help you there.”

“Oh well,” Carrie’s father sighed. “Still, it’s fortunate you came by. I don’t want to leave Carrie alone, but I need to use the restroom… please stay with her until I get back, all right?”

“Of course,” Chartreuse assured him, stepping into the room.

Mr. Waterson gave his daughter’s hand a final squeeze before standing up and releasing his hold upon her. “I’ll be right back,” he said. The pink haired girl took his place in the chair, reaching out to take hold of Carrie’s hand herself.

“Chartreuse… do you think YOU can reach her? Mystically?” Luci asked, once Mr. Waterson had departed.

Chartreuse bit her lip. “Whenever I’m here, I always hope I’ll get an impression or something from her. But still nothing.”

“Can you force it?”

Chartreuse turned and blinked at the younger girl. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Supposedly, she has powers. You have powers. Maybe you can… interface? I know, I’m grasping at straws here, but straws seem to be all we have left.”

Chartreuse looked back down at the blonde cheerleader. She was reminded of her classmate’s condition during the vision quests she’d done the previous week. There would come a point this week when Carrie would start twitching, convulsing, gasping for air, and then… then Chartreuse had pulled away, not wanting to know more. Unable to bear seeing more.

But Luci was right. They had to know more. For instance, was there some way of pinpointing exactly when Carrie’s condition would deteriorate? Would that give them another avenue to follow? “Carrie’s an Aries, right?”

“I don’t know,” Luci admitted.

Julie had thrown a birthday party for Carrie the past two years. “Pretty sure she’s an Aries,” Chartreuse concluded.

She reached back into her backpack, pulling out a small, smooth grey stone. She placed it into Carrie’s hand, wrapping the blonde’s fingers around it. Luci watched in silence as Chartreuse leaned over the bed, closing her hands over Carrie’s before shutting her eyes and concentrating.

“Ohm, ohm, oh my,” Chartreuse murmured quietly. “Spirits… tell me more about Carrie’s condition.” She swallowed. “Please.”

“Chartreuse!” Luci shouted. The asian girl was right up in her face, and Chartreuse flinched away out of reflex. Only to discover that Luci was holding her by the shoulders, having apparently yanked her away from Carrie’s body.

“Wow, what?” Chartreuse said, trying to regain her balance.

“I don’t know. You tell me,” Luci stated. “What was all that counting about?”

“Counting?” Chartreuse said in confusion. Wait, when had Luci moved close enough to grab her anyway?

“For the last minute and a half, you’ve been standing over Carrie with your eyes glazed over, counting backwards from 208 in one second decrements,” Luci stated. “It was REALLY starting to freak me out. When you wouldn’t answer me, I decided I didn’t want to let you hit zero.”

Chartreuse furrowed her brow, thinking back. She’d been leaning over Carrie, then… what? What had she even been thinking about? “I have no memory of counting,” Chartreuse admitted. “Are you sure?”

“Chartreuse - why would I lie about something like this??”

“I don’t know.” Chartreuse looked back towards the blonde lying comatose on the bed. “Carrie didn’t move or anything, did she?”

“No,” Luci replied. “In fact, the both of you were essentially motionless. Are you sure you don’t know what you were counting down to? Because it’s now about sixty seconds away.”

“No idea,” Chartreuse replied, reaching out to retrieve her stone from Carrie’s hand. Yet, no, that wasn’t exactly true… Chartreuse could now feel an overwhelming sense of impending doom. Somehow, Carrie’s deterioration was imminent. Yet how did she know that? And what was going to be the cause?

“Excuse me,” came a male voice. Chartreuse turned to see a hospital orderly. “I have to take another blood sample,” the man stated.

Luci moved aside with a sigh. “So, we’re back at square one then?” she asked.

Chartreuse was only half listening. Her attention was zeroing in on the thirtysomething orderly with the longish, dark hair as he readied his needle.

Lightning quick, her arm flashed out to grab him by the wrist and twist his arm away from the bed. He gasped and turned to her, a look of shock on his face.

As soon as their eyes locked, Chartreuse knew.

And Shady knew that she knew.

“Luci, get help,” Chartreuse ordered.

The man jerked himself out of Chartreuse’s grasp and sprang for the door. She launched herself after him, too late to grab hold, knocking the wind out of herself as she fell on the ground.

Quickly stumbling to her feet, Chartreuse dashed into the hallway in pursuit of the fake orderly. The one who had been about to kill Carrie Waterson.

***PAST: ILLINOIS

Some sixteen years before the attempt on Carrie’s life, two adults had been having a small difference of opinion. “I tell you, the baby’s coming,” the woman snapped.

“All I asked was ‘are you sure’,” the man countered, helping his wife put on her coat. “Because I don’t think your water broke.”

“Nnnnngh… look DEAR, if I need to have the child YOU want, YOU are going to drive me to the damn hospital when I damn well tell you to do it. Understood?!”

“Okay, okay,” her husband soothed. “Calm down, we’re off to the hospital.” He quickly moved to help his pregnant wife out the front door, locking it behind them.

Seconds later, a vortex opened in their home. It deposited a black box and an unconscious girl with long, naturally curly brown hair, which was still damp from a recent rainstorm. Their future daughter.

PART 36: QUESTION EVERYTHING

Clarke stood staring out the classroom window for several minutes. At last, he turned to face Frank again. “I see why you wanted to tell me that in person,” he remarked. The two of them had agreed to meet that morning before classes started.

“You believe me then?” Frank asked.

Clarke considered the question, and ultimately shrugged. “You have no reason to lie,” he said. “It also helps explain why I couldn’t reach Julie last night. I didn’t really buy her parents’ excuse that she was asleep.”

Frank nodded. “So, what do you think then? Is there any chance that Julie was, I don’t know, coerced or possessed or something?”

“That,” Clarke said slowly, “is a very good question.”

He thought for another long moment. What should he say? Julie had asked him - PLEADED with him - to keep quiet about her family situation. He couldn’t betray that. Not when Julie was no longer here to give permission.

“I can tell you this much,” Clarke yielded. “Julie had a lot riding on this talk with her parents last night. If it went badly… I’m not sure what mental state she’d have been in. However, Julie hasn’t even been thinking about Carrie since the two of them split, over a month ago. There was no reason to shoot her. Unless Carrie has done something to annoy Julie lately…?”

“Not as far as I know,” Frank said. “I mean, she did indirectly help Corry with research for his flyer.”

“Julie would have targeted Corry for that, and even then, non lethally,” Clarke countered. He tapped his foot on the ground. “No, I’m as puzzled by Julie’s actions as you are.”

Frank ran a hand back through his hair. “I see. Damn. I… I guess I thought this conversation was worth a shot. Thanks anyway.”

“You know, I’m glad you didn’t blame Julie out of spite,” Clarke added. “Most wouldn’t be half as kind right now.”

“Well, while I can’t forgive Julie for some of the things she’s apparently done - this doesn’t add up. And since you’ve always been advocating on her behalf, I figured that had to mean something.”

“Thank you.” A thought struck Clarke, and he leaned back against the wall. “Though, hold up a sec, you said that after Julie shot Carrie, she took your time machine to try and undo everything. Right?”

“By erasing her own existence, that’s correct,” Frank confirmed. “I am sorry, Clarke.”

“Thing is, I still remember her,” Clarke continued. “You still remember her. Carrie’s still in the hospital. If Julie wanted to wipe herself out, it didn’t work.”

“Which does fit with my timeline theory,” Frank noted. “It’s impossible for anyone to affect their prior self that way.”

“So if she can’t do it, why hasn’t she come back?” Clarke questioned.

Frank shrugged. “Maybe she hasn’t realized the problem yet. Or had no money to return. Or our machine’s random variance meant she’s stuck in the wrong time period. We have no way of knowing what happened.”

Clarke slowly shook his head. “But we HAVE to know, Frank. We’re in Julie’s future here. We should know what happened with her time traveling right away.”

“Er… okay, good point,” Frank yielded. “Well, it could be that the machine broke down… so she decided to take up residence in the past… and is currently living a new life somewhere else?”

“Even if that’s so, we should STILL be able to find out,” Clarke insisted. “Right? I mean, in historical records, newspapers, that sort of thing? Maybe Julie even left a message for us somewhere!”

“I… I suppose that’s logical,” Frank granted.

“That’s what I’m going to do then,” Clarke decided. “I’m going to research, and track Julie down. I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”

“Not a bad idea,” Frank admitted. “Okay… you can also talk with Luci, Chartreuse or Tim. They’re the other ones who know about the time machine.”

“Tim??”

“Sort of a long story. Chartreuse related. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to tell it to you himself.”

“He probably would,” Clarke agreed. “Okay. One more thing - could we maybe keep on keeping Julie’s name out of this? While I look? Things are bad enough for her already.”

“I…” The first bell rang, warning students to head to their homeroom classes. “Yeah, okay,” Frank agreed. “Talk to you this evening then?”

“Right, until then,” Clarke confirmed. With that, the two teenagers headed off to their first class.

Hank Waterson dropped his daughter’s hand and rose to his feet as the nurse entered the room. “She’s still unconscious. Why is she still unconscious?” he demanded of the man. “Is there something wrong? She’s been in recovery for over two days now!”

“Mr. Waterson, please, shouting at me is not going to do anyone any good,” the nurse said, moving to check on the instruments by Carrie’s bed.

“I’m not shouting!” Hank paused before sinking back down into the chair next to her bed. “Fine, maybe I’m raising my voice. The thing is, I’m starting to feel like you all know something I don’t.”

The nurse finished taking his reading and marked something down on a clipboard. “I assure you, Mr. Waterson, we are being quite transparent. Your daughter’s wounds have been treated and there’s every chance she will make a complete physical recovery.” He made some additional notes.

“Then why is she still asleep?” Hank protested. “Is she in some sort of coma? Are you giving her too much morphine??”

The nurse shook his head. “As far as we can tell, this deep sleep is exactly what it looks like. As to why she’s not waking up… I grant, that is a good question.”

“Is the fact that I don’t have a genetic history on her mother’s side of the family important? Is there anything there that might allow for Carrie’s current condition?”

The nurse sighed. “Possible, but unlikely. Mr. Waterson, why don’t you go home and get some sleep? I’m sure it’s simply a matter of time until…”

“TIME!”

The nurse physically recoiled as Carrie’s eyes snapped open. Hank barely registered the man’s shocked expression, attention already back on his daughter. “Carrie,” he said happily, grasping her hand again. “Carrie, it’s me, it’s your father! A-Are you all right?”

Carrie sat bolt upright on the hospital bed, her eyes wide, yet unfocussed. “Time,” she repeated. “Time, time… I can see it, oh God, why can I see the flow of time…”

Hank exchanged a brief glance with the hospital official. Now the man merely looked nervous. “Carrie, stay calm,” Hank continued slowly. “Lie back, you’ve been through a somewhat traumatic…”

Carrie’s unseeing gaze snapped over to him, bringing him up short.

“It’s all wrong,” Carrie continued. She started to shake. “This is the wrong timeline. You… you’ve got to fix it. Please, you’ve got to fix this for me.” Her heart machine began to beep faster.

“I’m going to get someone,” the nurse decided, hurrying away.

Hank Waterson squeezed Carrie’s hand a little harder. “Okay hon, don’t worry, whatever it is, I’ll fix it. First, please lie back down.”

“No, no, no,” Carrie said, shaking her head. Tears began to well up in her eyes. “It hurts, it hurts, you’ve got to fix it now, please, PLEASE someone’s got to fix it NOW.”

“Okay,” her father soothed, not sure what she meant, but hating to see his daughter in such pain. “We can give you stronger painkillers. Don’t worry, the doctors have assured me you’ll make a full…”

“No, no, it huuuuuuuuurts,” Carrie sobbed, yanking her hand free from her father’s grasp and pressing both palms against her temples. She began to rock back and forth. “Change it back, you’ve got to change time baaaaaaaack… please pleeeeeease someone change time baaa-aaa-aaack…”

“Change what time back?” her father asked. “Like Daylight Savings? Does your head hurt, dear, is that the problem?”

“Huuuuuurts,” Carrie sobbed. “They can’t change the past, they can’t change…” She threw back her head and began laughing hysterically.

“Carrie… Carrie, honey, what’s wrong? What’s so funny? How can I help you?” Hank asked desperately.

She didn’t even seem to hear him, she merely kept on laughing. He started to stand up, to try and get that nurse to come back.

Her hands had grabbed him by the lapels of his shirt before he realized it. Carrie now silently stared up at her father, tear streaks on her cheeks and a haunted look in her eyes. She spoke again. “There IS no NOW. But she’s NOT supposed to be DEAD. WE… MUST… CHANGE… TIME… BACK.”

And the glass of water next to Carrie’s bed inexplicably shattered into a hundred pieces. With its contents no longer confined, the liquid unceremoniously spilled out all over the tabletop and down onto the floor.

Hank Waterson jumped at the noise, and with his attention diverted, it took him a few seconds to realize that his daughter had fallen unconscious once more, her fingers still twisted in against his shirt.

“Dear God,” Hank whispered, gently lowering her body back down onto the hospital bed. “What… what was all that about?”

“It’s a mystery,” Frank decided.

“No, it’s not,” Luci countered. She reached out to point to the equations. “See, this chemical acts like a catalyst, that’s why we were able to observe the change.”

Frank blinked. “Oh, right. Uh, I knew that.”

“Yes, you did,” Luci agreed. “What’s wrong, Frank? You’ve never been this inattentive about your science homework before.”

He was unable to hold back a sigh. “I’m sorry, Luci. I suppose I can’t get my mind off of the whole time travel mess.”

Luci rested a hand on his shoulder. “Frank, there’s nothing more we can do about that. It’s been over a week since the shooting. Time to start thinking about living our normal lives again.”

Frank could scarcely believe she’d suggested it. “HOW?” he protested. “You know Carrie’s condition! The few times she’s been conscious, she’s been raving about time and disrupted timelines. And her physical state remains poor due to the apparent mental strain she’s under. Now, there’s got to be some connection between that and our time trips.”

“There probably is,” Luci acknowledged, her grip on him tightening. “But we have no way of knowing what it might be. Nor do we have the time machine, so telling anyone about our trips is liable to get us locked up in some psychiatric ward.”

“Along with Carrie, you mean,” Frank said dejectedly.

“No, Frank, I don’t mean that,” she asserted, pulling her hand away. “Carrie’s not there yet.”

“She probably will be soon.” Frank slammed his own hand down onto his sitting room table. “Damn it, Luci, if only I hadn’t left the time machine out. Hadn’t let Julie get her hands on it! If we had it now, we’d be in a position to DO something.”

“And maybe we wouldn’t. And maybe you’d be dead. Besides, you warned me Julie was headed for the basement, I’M the one who let her activate the damn thing. So it’s my fault than anything!”

“Don’t be silly, you…” Frank stopped as he looked over and finally registered the pain in Luci’s expression. “You’re feeling guilty too,” he realized.

“This surprises you? Don’t forget, I also suspected everything was too perfect with Julie. Yet I wasn’t able to determine what was really going on! Now look where we are because of it.”

“But Luci, you couldn’t have predicted this,” Frank protested. “No one could have predicted this!”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Luci’s expression became a wry smile. “For instance, Chartreuse thinks she could have. And Clarke’s upset he hasn’t found anything on Julie yet, and Tim wonders if he should have been more involved, and trust me, Frank, there’s enough guilt to go around our little group already. Too much, if you ask me. Which is why I wanted to work on chemistry. Why I wanted to avoid thinking about it for a change.”

Frank looked back down at the science questions. “I see your point.” He swallowed. “But I don’t think I can do this. Not yet. I’m sorry, Luci - could we give it another go tomorrow?”

“I suppose,” Luci agreed. She offered up a small smile. “Please, don’t think I’m unsympathetic. I really wish there was something more we could try. But with no time machine, no information about Julie’s whereabouts, and no way for us to understand, let alone treat Carrie’s condition, we HAVE to move on. If we obsess… I don’t know. Maybe we will all go nuts.”

“I hope not,” Frank sighed. “Give me one more night though. To reflect. Inspiration could strike.”

Luci rubbed her thumb and index finger in against her eyes, finishing by pinching the bridge of her nose. Then she reached out to close their textbook. “Sure. And if it does strike, or even if you simply want to talk - you know my number. I-I’m here for you, Frank. Yeah? You haven’t forgotten about how I feel about you, right?” she added more softly.

“I haven’t,” Frank assured. “Thanks, Luci.” He smiled back at her, and the two of them hugged. Unfortunately, his expression held up only as long as it took for Luci to pack up her things and leave the Dijora household.

Frank was still frowning after dinner, as he lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Okay,” he asserted. “Tomorrow, I am going to time travel back to NOW, so that I have a time machine NOW that I can use tomorrow to time travel back to NOW.”

And … nothing changed. He idly wondered if they needed Carrie to make something like that work. “I don’t even know when we’d need to start changing things for her, even assuming we could,” Frank groaned, rolling onto his side.

His phone rang. He grabbed for it, wondering who would be calling - and for some reason, there was no data available. “Hello?” he said, answering anyway.

“Frank Dijora?”

Frank frowned. It was an older male voice. Someone he didn’t recognize. “Yeah, speaking,” he confirmed.

“Frank, you need to tell the police about Julie LaMille.”

Frank was instantly sitting up. “Who is this? What do you know about Julie?” None of their group had said anything, and Carrie had never been lucid enough to give a statement. Officially, Julie was simply a missing person.

“If you don’t reveal the whole story about Julie, Carrie’s condition will continue to deteriorate.”

Frank’s grip tightened. “Y-You know something about Carrie’s condition too?!”

The voice sighed. “Listen, Frank - you and your friends are playing with forces you don’t understand. Only by revealing Julie’s part in this can we help set time back on its proper course.”

“Set time… proper course… are you from the future?”

“Immaterial. Are you even listening? I don’t want to force the issue here, but I will if I have to.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Frank protested.

“Frank, you will now scratch your nose,” the voice interrupted.

“I will now scratch my nose,” Frank agreed, doing so. “But how does that even–“ Frank froze. He looked down at his hand. Why… why had he done that?

“Again, I don’t WANT to force the issue here. But I WILL if I have to.”

Frank swallowed hard. “W-Who… Who are you?”

A pause. “Let’s call me Carrie’s Guardian Angel. After all, I did manage to save her once before, when she took a time trip out into the middle of Algonquin Park. Without coins. Did she ever mention that trip to you?”

Frank almost replied in the negative - only to have all the pieces fall into place. June, two years in the past, one of their first trips, when they’d both been trapped in the woods, and Carrie had run into the guy with the nickel who had said ‘Guard it’. Was it possible? Could this be the same guy? “Maybe,” he realized.

“Fine. So, you will set the record straight concerning Julie?”

“ONLY if you answer a few questions first,” Frank retorted, hardly believing his own audacity.

Silence. Frank tensed. Had he blown it? But then, a response: “If I do that, you will do as I ask?”

Frank cleared his throat. “Yes.”

“Then I’ll allow three questions.”

“Three?!”

“I’ll be nice and not count that as one of them.”

Frank closed his eyes. He forced himself to slow down and think. He had an opportunity here. But with a question limit, there was no point in asking anything which he might now be able to deduce.

First, this guy - Carrie had referred to him as a ‘Shady’ guy back then, and it seemed a good enough moniker - knew too much. Odds were good that Shady was another time traveller. Or knew someone who was. So, were others changing the past too? Is that why Carrie had said something to her father about the wrong timeline? Or was it changes by Julie causing the problem?

Shady’s request implied the latter. Despite being suspicious of the messenger, he had to get more information about that first.

“First question,” Frank said. “What is it Julie changed in the past, which is causing Carrie to react in our present?”

“Julie died.”

Frank nearly dropped the phone, Shady’s response had been so cavalier. “I’ll need proof,” he demanded.

“Her teenaged self died on November 9th, precisely three days before she was even born. I thought you might ask, so I checked in the library. You can look it up in the newspaper published by her home town. Though of course, they didn’t know the person was Julie. She was simply listed as a Jane Doe.” The man chuckled. “Proof that time doesn’t like it when people attempt drastic alterations to their own histories. Ironic, in a way.”

Frank forced his emotions down. Two questions left, and he now had a lot of new information. New fact: Shady couldn’t time travel at will. If he could, why bother looking things up in old newspapers? Further, his “ironic” implied that what was on the surface here contrasted with what was really happening… to the point of being a complete opposite. Could that imply that Shady was also changing history, more subtly?

Shady coughed. “Are you still there?”

“I’m trying to parse the fact that you’re saying someone I know is DEAD,” Frank sniped. He got another sigh in response.

Okay, where to go with this? Well, if this guy could effect changes like making Frank scratch his nose, surely he could convince the police without Frank’s help. So why hadn’t he?

“Second question,” Frank said. “Since you can seemingly force your will onto people, why even give me the option here?”

“Mmph,” Shady grunted. Frank got the impression he didn’t like this question. “So, there are limits. Sure, I could make you tell the police yourself the next time you see them, but depending on how they react, you might end up coming across as a robot, or coerced or something. That would be bad. Besides, free will is important! It’s the whole reason I…” His voice trailed off.

“It’s the whole reason you what?”

“Is that your last question?”

Frank grimaced. “No.” Damn. Shady was getting canny.

So, Shady could influence individuals, but he didn’t necessarily have control over how things played out? Interesting. Not to mention a stronger case for him being behind all of this in the first place.

Frank decided his last question had to be about Carrie. Shady didn’t seem to care that Julie was dead - did this ‘Guardian Angel’ truly care about Carrie, or was she a means to an end?

“Third question.” Frank paused to frame it in his mind. “How do you know for sure that Carrie will be all right, once the truth about Julie’s role in her injury comes out?”

“I don’t.”

Frank stared at his phone, but there was no immediate follow-up. He clenched his jaw. “That’s not an acceptable answer.”

More grumbling. “Carrie Waterson is having trouble rationalizing the sequence of events surrounding the awakening of her powers,” Shady said at last. “Because Julie was the trigger this time, and–”

“THIS time?” Frank interrupted. His certainty about a fixed timeline was eroding fast.

“Because Julie was the trigger,” Shady amended swiftly, “And because Julie was temporally displaced so soon afterwards, Carrie is experiencing a disconnect between present and past. My most reasonable hypothesis is that she now believes herself to be in the past too. So if we construct a present where Julie is a fugitive rather than merely missing, Carrie will be more grounded, and her disconnect can be resolved.”

“But you don’t know.”

“I said that already. There are a number of uncertainties here, including how far that– how far your Carrie’s insanity has progressed.”

Frank bit down on his lip. “Seems like we should use time travel to prevent the shooting in the first place then.”

Shady grunted. “Okay, free information since it scares me to think that you might actually try something that STUPID.” He actually sounded worried. “You rewrite what has happened to this point? Carrie will be faced with simultaneous futures, one in which her powers are awakening, and one in which they are still dormant. The resulting temporal stress would destroy her mind. From the inside out. Likely taking this whole town along with it.”

“Oh…” Frank swallowed. “But what powers–”

“No more questions,” the man retorted. “Your turn to keep up your end of the bargain.”

Frank winced. “Fine, Shady, I-I’ll tell the police before next week.”

“Shady?” the guy yelped. “What is WITH you teenagers and your labels? And you want to wait until– Look, Frank, you bear THIS in mind! Every MINUTE you wait is one MORE minute for your precious Carrie to slip further away. Understood?”

And the line went dead.

Frank collapsed back onto his bed. That whole conversation had been… surreal. Beyond insane. He had to write this stuff down, before he forgot. No, wait - better idea. Frank reached back for his phone, dialling another number with a shaky hand.

“Hello… Luci?” Frank said as soon as he heard the familiar voice on the other end. “There’s been a new development.”

See the accompanying Commentary Post for ARC 2.2

PART 34: SHOTS FIRED

Julie stared up the driveway to her house. Despite her earlier assurances to Clarke, she realized she was feeling more than a bit anxious. “I’m being silly,” she chastised herself. “Probably unsettled because of those storm clouds moving in.” Taking in a deep breath, she approached the front door and entered the mansion.

“I’m home,” Julie called out. “You’ll never guess what happened to me today.” Her father came around the nearest corner, heading for the front door. “Hi Dad,” Julie greeted. “Jeeves and Mimi already get the evening off?”

Her father didn’t immediately reply. Instead, he glanced outside, closed the front door, and allowed his gaze to fall upon Julie. He looked upset, but then, that was normal when it was only the two of them. Finally, he spoke. “So what in the hell have you been up to?”

Julie swallowed. “Wh-What do you mean?”

“Jeeves has been informing us of your principal’s calls to the house,” he clarified, crossing his arms. “Damn it girl, can’t you ever stay out of trouble at school? We’re running out of places to send you.”

“What did you expect, dear?” came a new voice. Julie’s mother entered the hall, idly filing her nails. “She’s your daughter, after all.”

“Juvenile delinquent,” her father spat out. “Well, you’ve forced the two of us to use your birthday as an excuse to come back here to handle things. I hope you’re happy.”

“N-Not exactly,” Julie said, her confidence eroding fast. “And it’s been over two years since you last heard from any school administration.”

“Meaning you haven’t been caught until now," her mother observed, blowing on her fingertips.

Julie swallowed. “I guess,” she yielded. She had done some rather terrible things. “But… but it’s fine now. I got everything resolved with the principal today.”

Her father turned. “Did you hear that, dear?” he remarked. “She got everything resolved. Everything. There was no need for us to come home after all, our daughter somehow accounted for every last little detail.”

“Your daughter,” Julie’s mother reminded. She finally put the nail file away and came closer, directing a look towards Julie for the first time. “But you’re right. It’s good that we came. She can’t have any idea just how complicated things are in the real world, after all.”

“No, I… I d-do,” Julie stammered. “I’ve been reading and learning and… and today, today I was running the whole school,” she blurted. “Look!” Julie fumbled within her sweater, pulling out the precious agreement. However, she was developing a case of the shakes, and it slipped through her fingers before she could hand it to her father.

He reached down and scooped it up off the floor before she had time to retrieve it, letting out a sigh of exasperation in the process. Julie bowed her head, biting her lip as he scanned over the paper.

This was it then, the moment of truth. The culmination of six - seven? eight? - years of effort. So many setbacks. But now - they had to understand. They had to see that she was capable, that she was worthy of being their child, that she deserved their love and attention…

“What damn fool stunt are you trying to pull?”

Julie snapped her gaze back up. “W-w-w-what?”

“Honey, have a look at this,” her father remarked, handing over the paper. “She actually believes she was running the school today because the principal signed some agreement. Assuming it’s not forged.”

“Lovely. Something even more troublesome than usual to clear up,” said Julie’s mother dryly, scanning the paper herself.

“N-No, it’s true,” Julie assured them. “Mr. Hunt asked me about every decision today. I also kept other students from committing any violent acts. I was handling it, I was handling it all!”

Her mother sighed and pressed a hand to her temples. “Dear, you deal with this today, all right? It’s going to give me a headache, I’m sure of it. I’ll see you back in the kitchen.” She returned Julie’s signed agreement to her husband and flashed him a smile, before spinning on her heel and stalking back down the hall.

Julie’s father returned the smile before resuming his severe expression. “Now see what you’ve done to your mother?” he accused of Julie. “I hope you have a VERY good explanation as to why you did something so idiotic.”

Julie felt herself getting lightheaded. Was this even really happening? “I did it for you,” she said quietly. “Don’t you remember? When I was young, you used to tell Mom that if I’d been a son, I would have been able to run an organization before even graduating from high school. So, even though I’m not a son, I… I did it. I ran the high school. So doesn’t that document prove to you that I’m every bit as good as a son would be?”

“What?” Her father shook his head. “Leave it to a girl to take things too literally,” he concluded. “I mean honestly, what WAS going through that empty head of yours?”

“I… I…” Julie swallowed, no longer sure what to say.

“Let me show you how important this little piece of paper is,” her father concluded. With that, he tore the document in half.

Julie felt like she was being torn in two. “Dad, no!” she choked out, reaching out towards him. Her father simply stepped back, out of reach, and then he tore again, and again.

Julie fell to her knees. The document she’d signed with the principal that morning was soon scattered on the floor like so much confetti. A tear ran down her cheek. “No…”

“I will deal with this situation now,” her father concluded. “Pray that it’s not as bad as it sounds. You will go to your room. Make sure I don’t see your face again tonight.” With that, he turned and walked away.

Julie was left behind, a crumpled mess on the floor.

The ‘play room’ was a shambles. Her maps had been torn from the walls, file cabinets had been tipped over, electronic gadgets had been thrown against the floor, a couple of legs had even been snapped off of the central table.

In the middle of the room stood Julie, breathing hard.

Interestingly, she didn’t feel angry. Or sad. If anything, she felt numb. And not the happy, lightheaded numbness from earlier today, it was… well, nothing. Emptiness. Complete and utter void.

Julie sank back down to the ground. Destroying this room, it had felt like the right thing to do. Perhaps she should start a fire too, to burn up all of the useless information she’d accumulated. But no, such a blaze could prove dangerous. Dangerous.

The thought of her doing something dangerous struck Julie as funny, so she laughed. Later, she stopped. Then she fell back onto the ground in a completely prone position.

“All for nothing. All of it,” the brunette whispered. She wondered if that was funny or not. Should she giggle? She couldn’t decide. Instead, she let her head fall to the side.

An item caught her eye, and she realized that during her destructive rampage, it must have fallen out of the lower drawer of the file cabinets. Julie crawled over towards it, then looked down upon the smiling faces of her mother and father. She traced her finger over the glass. A tear splashed down.

Then the glass covering the image cracked as the picture was thrown forcibly against the wall. “Should have stayed in that cabinet,” Julie shrieked at the object, hands clenching into fists. “We were both better off!”

She curled up into a ball on the floor for a while.

Gradually, she became conscious of something poking her in the side. It was starting to get annoying, so Julie decided to see what it was. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small neatly wrapped package. That’s right, Clarke had given it to her earlier that day.

“Happy birthday to me,” Julie murmured. She decided to stop staring at the package long enough to sit back up and remove the wrapping paper.

Inside she found a silver brooch in the shape of a rose. “So pretty,” Julie gasped. She pinned it onto her sweater. “He really shouldn’t have though,” she said sadly. “He’s too good to me…”

“You’re not half as bad as you think you are.”

Julie spun. “Phil?” she breathed. When did he get here?

“You are SO strong, Julie. Stronger than I realized.”

How could he be standing there behind her?! It didn’t matter. Julie stumbled to her feet. “Phil,” she repeated.

“This conversation isn’t over yet, okay?” Clarke continued. “In the meantime, here’s something to remember me by.”

Julie reached out for him, but the image of Clarke faded from view before she made contact. She stumbled and fell against the wall. “Wow. Now you’re hallucinating, you idiot,” she breathed. Her fingers traced over the silver brooch. Well, at least he was going to call her.

“He’ll call, that’s right,” Julie gasped, head snapping back up. What had she done with her phone?! She’d left it upstairs before sneaking down here, so as not to damage it, or get it confiscated. She was making so many bad decisions today! “I’ve got to make sure I can answer the phone,” she gasped.

Julie sprinted out of her play room, back upstairs. She didn’t know if talking to Phil Clarke would do any good. She didn’t even know if the phone had already rung that night - was it even night yet? It seemed to be raining outside. She found her phone. Less than two hours had passed. Clarke hadn’t phoned yet. Should she phone him? No. Too needy.

She waited, her finger over the button to accept the next call. Her hands were shaking. She made them stop. It was fine. He would call. He had to call. Please, he had to call. He had to know she was waiting for him now. Right? Please?

When the phone rang, Julie hit answer before seeing who it was. “Phil?” she breathed. “Phil, are you there?”

“Julie LaMille?”

It wasn’t him. It was an older male voice. Someone she didn’t recognize.

“Julie, don’t hang up,” the voice continued. “Okay?”

Julie bit her lip. “O-kay?” she said tentatively.

“You are going to do something for me now. Listen carefully. You are going to sneak out of your house, and meet me at the corner of Parkside and Erb. You will receive further instructions there. Do you understand?”

“I will receive further instructions at Parkside and Erb,” Julie acknowledged, feeling a curious fog in her brain. “What… what instructions? What’s going on?”

“You are not ready for answers yet. All in good… time.”

“I am not ready for answers yet. All in good time,” Julie repeated back.

“You will receive further instructions at Parkside and Erb.”

“I will receive further instructions at Parkside and Erb.”

“You will go there now.”

“I will go there now,” Julie confirmed, feeling her body swaying from side to side.

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

Julie obediently hung up the phone and went to find her jacket. Her parents didn’t notice when she left.

“Oh, shoot,” Luci muttered.

Chartreuse glanced over at her companion. “What’s wrong?”

“I took some music out of my bag to look over while waiting at Frank’s, and I never put it back in,” Luci sighed. “You go on ahead, I’m going to run back and get it.”

“You can always, like, look on with someone else,” Chartreuse pointed out.

“Yeah, but my music has all my little pencil markings on it,” Luci noted. “Anyway, it’s not raining that hard now, and it’ll only take me, what, ten extra minutes? I’ll meet back up with you at practice.”

Chartreuse shrugged.  “Okay, see you there then.”

Frank set the pencil back down. “So that’s the equation you come up with,” he concluded. “Understand?”

Carrie leaned against her hand. “No,” she admitted, eyeing the page. “What’s the x mean?”

“That’s the length of the ladder.”

“Uh huh. Remind me, why do we use x?”

Frank shrugged. “Why not x? Doesn’t matter. We have to solve for something.”

Carrie drummed the fingers of her free hand against the table. “If you ask me, using x is a stupid system. It always makes me think of multiplication.”

“Well, you can pick another letter if it makes you happy,” Frank said with a smile. The doorbell rang, diverting his attention. “One of the others must have forgotten something,” he remarked, glancing at the clock. “Be right back.”

“Okay,” Carrie decided. “While you do that, I’m going to trig this thing up again using h.”

“You do that,” Frank said as he walked out of the sitting room. The grin on his face faded as he opened the front door. “Julie?” Frank greeted.

“Carrie still here?” the brunette asked blankly.

“Er, well, yeah… Julie, your hair’s dripping wet, don’t you have an umbrella?”

“I must see Carrie,” Julie said. She pushed her way past Frank and advanced into the hall.

“Um, come in? Julie, what’s going on?” Frank wondered, closing the door and hurrying after her. Julie stopped at the entryway to the sitting room.

“Julie!” Carrie said, standing up as she caught sight of the visitor.

“Carrie Waterson,” Julie responded evenly.

The two girls stared at each other across the room. Frank hesitated, not sure whether to intercede or not.

“Look Julie,” Carrie said at last. “I hope you’re not coming to me with any thoughts of restarting our friendship. Because honestly, I think you got exactly what you deserved today. Heck, now that I’ve started to get my life back together, I couldn’t care less about you. So, know what? It’s probably in both of our best interests for you to turn around, and walk back out through that front door.”

Julie didn’t bat an eyelash. “Shut up,” she said calmly. She drew the gun out from underneath her jacket, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

Carrie stumbled back a step, reflexively bringing her hand up to her side. Her eyes dropped down to the redness that was starting to stain her shirt. “Then again, maybe we can negotiate,” she gurgled out, before collapsing down onto the floor.

“CARRIE!” Frank’s voice screamed. She heard him running into the room, and then he was pulling her back up into something of a seated position, leaning her against the table. “Carrie, are you all right? Speak to me!”

“I… I seem to be bleeding,” Carrie murmured, pulling up her shirt to see. She tried to apply pressure to the wound. The gunshot wound. Wow. They hadn’t covered this yet in health class…

“What? What happened?” someone gasped - Julie gasped?

“What HAPPENED? YOU JUST SHOT CARRIE, DAMN YOU!”

“Frank, don’t upset the crazy person,” Carrie suggested. Okay, talking hurt now. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“N-n-no,” Julie whimpered. Carrie reopened her eyes, in time to see that her former friend was now staring at the gun as if she was seeing it for the first time. That didn’t make much sense. However, when Carrie saw Frank rising to his feet out of the corner of her eye, Julie quickly cocked the weapon back up at him. “D-D-Don’t move,” Julie warned.

Unlike before, the gun was now wobbling all over the place. Then again, Carrie decided it was equally possible that her vision was wobbling all over the place. Should she call 911? Wow, yeah, someone should definitely do that…

As if reading her mind, Frank said, “Julie, let me get my phone out. Carrie needs medical attention.”

“This is not how my birthday was supposed to go,” Julie gasped. With that, Carrie decided that both of them were shaking. “This is NOT how my birthday was supposed to go. This IS NOT how…”

“Julie, put that gun down, so we can straighten all of this out,” Frank suggested.

“NO,” Julie shrieked. Her head snapped from side to side. “I’ll fix this,” she declared. “I’ll fix it all. Where’s your time machine?”

“Wh-What?”

“I KNOW you have one! Carrie told me all about it, you MUST have fixed it by now, so WHERE IS IT?”

The brunette was not longer whimpering but practically screaming, while holding the gun in both hands. Even that wasn’t helping to keep it steady. Heck, Julie’s whole form was starting to look blurry. Wait, no, Carrie realized everything was getting blurry…

“D-Downstairs,” Frank said.

“Downstairs,” Julie repeated. She swallowed. “I know how to make everything better. I never should have been born.”

“Julie…”

“NO!” Julie shrieked again. “I can’t LIVE like this any more.”

She fired the gun a second time. Frank stumbled back as the bullet slammed into the carpeting somewhere by his feet, and Julie took the opportunity to run out of the room.

It was as Carrie heard the new voice calling out from the front of the house that she discovered her unfocussed gaze was drifting up towards the ceiling.

“Frank??”

That was Luci’s voice! “In here,” Frank called out to her.

“Frank, I came in because I thought I heard a… holy geez!” Luci gasped out as she rounded the corner and spotted both him and Carrie.

“Julie’s gone crazy and she’s after the time machine,” Frank explained to her, fumbling with his phone. “See if you can tell what she’s doing as I call Carrie an ambulance, but BE CAREFUL. Julie got herself a gun from somewhere.”

Luci nodded wordlessly, and ducked back out of the room.

Frank finished dialling 911, requesting aid for a gunshot wound, and giving them his address. He winced, as he now recalled that their time machine was sitting out in plain view, on his lab bench.

“Frank?” he heard Carrie rasp. “Frank, it’s getting cold. Did your parents not pay the heating bill?”

Frank pulled the phone away from his mouth. “Yes, Carrie,” he replied, tears stinging at his eyes. “But we’ll get it fixed, so you make sure you stay conscious until then, okay? You promise me you’ll stay conscious!”

“Okay,” Carrie agreed quietly. “Okay, yeah… I’ll… try… that……”

“You won’t just try, you WILL,” Frank pleaded. He saw movement by the entranceway, and whirled towards the source.

“It’s me,” Luci said, raising her hands.

“Julie…?”

“She’s… gone,” Luci admitted quietly. “I saw her grab about half of our notes, take a coin for a particular year from your collection and then she activated the time machine. I’m not even sure what time period she selected.”

Frank ran a hand back through his hair. “From what she said, I’ve got a pretty good guess,” he admitted. “But… without the machine, we can’t follow her.”

“Right.” Luci swallowed. “So… so what do we do?”

Sirens began to wail outside. “I wish I knew,” Frank replied. “I really wish I knew.”

PART 32: FREQUENT FLYERS

Frank fell hard against the pavement. As he collected his wits, he realized that his fall hadn’t been because he’d been hit by the van bearing down on them. It was because he’d been pushed from behind by Carrie.

She’d shoved him out of the way - but wasn’t next to him now. Hearing the squealing of tires, Frank twisted his head around, expecting the worst. “Carrie?” he called out. The van had stopped right past where they’d all been standing. “Carrie!” Frank repeated.

“No need to shout, geez,” came Carrie’s voice. Frank was forced to turn again, now seeing that Carrie - no, TWO Carries - were lying a short distance away, in the grass by the sidewalk. Along with the time machine.

“Thank goodness," Frank sighed. “And Luci? LUCI?!"

“Present,” came Luci’s voice. “Nice to be remembered.”

Frank now registered that she was lying rigidly on the pavement. She must have reacted fast enough to flatten herself down onto the ground, leaving the van to pass overtop of her. She seemed none the worse for wear; maybe breathing a bit harder than usual.

“I would have shoved you as well, Luci," one of the Carries said, also sounding winded. “But you seemed to be reacting fast enough.”

The shorter girl pushed herself up from the pavement. “Yeah, well, I’d have pulled Frank down with me, but you were already ramming into his back.”

“Meanwhile, I had to tackle my younger self out of the way,” the second Carrie piped up. “I’m thinking I should get a thank you there?” She looked pointedly at her double.

The first Carrie brushed some hair back off her face. “Uh, yeah. Thanks,” she managed. A ‘hmph’ was her only reply. Frank wondered idly if meeting oneself was something a person could ever get used to.

“Vat yu crazy kids doin'?” a new voice said. It was the owner of the van, who had now exited his vehicle and peered beneath it, obviously concerned that there might still be someone else there. “Any body hurt?”

Carrie - their version from the past, Frank decided, based on her clothes - waved her hand sheepishly. “No, we’re fine. Sorry, didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

“Won’t happen again. Please, drive on,” the other present day(?) Carrie added. She helped her counterpart to her feet. Frank also stood up, brushing off his hands.

The man blinked. “Vat you mean? Everything hokay then?”

The teenagers exchanged a quick glance, then replied all at once, saying phases such as “sure”, “oh yeah”, “great” and “no problem”.

“But yu know, is bad idea to play in road,” stated the driver. “Be more careful in future.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be more careful while in the future,” Luci quipped.

The van driver stared at them for another moment before shaking his head. “Crazy kids,” the driver repeated. He got back into his van and drove off, Frank idly noticing the licence plate read ‘LARS 02’. He then looked around to get his bearings. They were on his street, near his house.

“So anyway, welcome to November 12th,” present (yet technically future?) Carrie said. “Now let’s hurry up and get inside. You need to tend to your scrapes and bruises, plus it’s about to pour rain.”

They all headed off to Frank’s place. None of them paid any attention to the thirty-something male sitting in the parked car nearby, as he scribbled on a notepad.

“5:44,” Frank said. He closed the pocket watch and moved to put it back in the machine. “You past versions got that? That’s the time you all appeared here, so that’s the time when Carrie will have to save herself today after you all go back.”

“You were expecting us then,” the second Frank realized. “That… makes sense. Good to know we’ll make a safe return trip.” He rubbed his forehead. “Though I’m having trouble understanding how we can be here simultaneously. I mean, it makes sense if we go into the past, making that the present, but now that our present is the future instead…?”

In Frank’s sitting room there were now two Franks, two Carries, two Lucis, one Chartreuse and one Tim. Past Luci cleared her throat. “Try thinking about why the pocket watch actually worked instead,” she offered. “That’s the part that’s blowing my mind.”

“This is going to be, like, a real weird conversation,” Chartreuse realized. “How do I even refer to you guys? Frank One and Frank Two?”

“The first time around we used middle names," Carrie said absentmindedly. “That is, the time we did this when I was you,” she clarified, indicating her past counterpart. “I believe the explanation I gave was that it could become a useful standard for any other encounters? Any of us out of our present time can auto-revert to their middle name.”

“That makes sense,” Carrie’s prior self agreed. “I don’t mind being called Elizabeth.”

“But, Carrie, you’re messing with causality now!” the time displaced Frank protested. “How does that idea even have an origin?”

“You know what? Screw it,” Luci decided. “This means I’m Isabella. I’m putting that out there now, lest Carrie manage to create a new middle name for me.”

Frank rubbed his forehead. “But… fine. So I’m, uh, Bernard."

Elizabeth lifted an eyebrow. “Bernard?”

“My grandfather’s name,” Bernard explained with a shrug.

“I like Elizabeth,” Chartreuse observed. “Carrie, can I, like, call you Betty or Beth too?”

“No,” Elizabeth said, making a face. “Elizabeth.”

“Things are confusing enough already," Isabella sighed in agreement.

“I’m already lost,” Tim admitted, speaking up for the first time. “I mean, why are we here anyway, since you past guys said nothing came of this after you got back?”

“Because while nothing came of it when I was Isabella," Luci explained, “that doesn’t mean that talking now won’t trigger a revelation a little ways along in our present, which our counterparts wouldn’t have known, having already returned to the past."

“Besides, we already had this discussion, so we have to have it again,” Frank asserted.

“Oh." Tim lowered his head down between his legs. “So do you really need ME here?"

Chartreuse reached over to pat Tim on the back. “Aw, hey, don’t sweat it. See it as, like, a whole new sort of experience. Besides, the discussion can’t go that long. Frank’s parents have to come home at some point, plus me and Luci have, you know, band practice later tonight."

Bernard let out a breath. “Then in the interests of expediting matters… our arrival here in the future was obviously expected, so our reason for coming must also be known. What’ve you got?"

Carrie smiled. “That’s my cue!” she said, producing three identical flyers and handing them out to the three time travellers.

Bernard looked down at the sheet in his hand. There was a picture of Julie on top. She looked a little younger, and was wearing what looked to be some sort of school uniform, like from a private school. Indeed, as Bernard began to read he realized that’s exactly what her clothing represented. “This is information on Julie’s past,” he said, shocked.

“Corry figured all this out?” Isabella asked, looking back up.

“He both figured it out, and then printed up something like 500 copies of that to spread around the school," Luci confirmed to her prior self.

“Oh, this is PRICELESS,” Elizabeth said, letting out a laugh as she scanned over the sheet in her hands. “This stuff must have made Julie livid! Damn, it might have been worth the wait after all.”

There was a brief silence, after which Elizabeth found that everyone was staring at her. Even her future self. She brushed some hair back off her shoulder. “What?” she said haughtily. “Have we forgotten what Julie DID to me? She’s hardly the heroine in our school soap opera.”

“Don’t try to fill the vacancy,” Isabella muttered.

Bernard cleared his throat. “Look, Carrie’s… er, Elizabeth’s grudge notwithstanding, Julie’s reaction IS the main reason for having this talk,” he pointed out. “What do we have on that?”

Carrie took a step towards the middle of the room. “You need context first. So, here’s what I remember myself saying. Which was confirmed when Corry talked with me, so don’t you start into one of your time loop discussions, Bernard,” she added quickly, shaking a finger at him. Bernard raised his hands in deference to her.

Carrie started her explanation.

“Corry has actually spent years trying to learn more about Julie,” Carrie began. “Ever since Grade Nine. More recently, he was able to track down a girl named Tracy Irving - you can see her referenced there at the bottom of the flyers. Now, this Tracy used to be close to Julie, back when Julie was attending a private boarding school in England.”

“Wait, close to Julie? Close how?” Isabella wondered.

“A friend,” Carrie shrugged. “I guess the same way I was. Basically, we’re not the first school to have faced Julie’s quest for domination.”

“England? But Julie doesn’t speak with an accent,” Bernard mused.

“She’s not FROM there, her parents sent her away. Rich, remember?” Carrie countered. “Point is, Julie recruited Tracy to assist her in controlling her old boarding school.” She began to pace back and forth. “But after a few months, Tracy was put off by Julie’s methods. Their friendship died. And that didn’t slow Julie down much… but what DID set her back was the actions Tracy took afterwards. When Tracy decided that Julie had to be dealt with. And asked to rejoin her.”

“Wait - was TRACY the wizard’s apprentice in Julie’s loyalty story to us?” Elizabeth asked. Carrie shrugged. Elizabeth frowned. “I feel slighted.”

“You know,” Chartreuse broke in, “I’m getting the impression that this Tracy has, like, a fair bit in common with Corry. They both sound… kinda ruthless.”

“Could be how they finally found each other,” Carrie acknowledged. “The internet is funny that way. Anyway, long story short, Tracy begged forgiveness of Julie, she was let back in, and she formed some counter alliance within Julie’s ranks. If you look at paragraph three of that printout, you’ll see how Julie’s methods have included coercion, bribery, even blackmail. Except people also join her voluntarily, so you never know who’s with her for what reason. And Julie makes a point of not revealing that information - or it was like that until Tracy. And now Corry.”

“Julie has some serious issues she should deal with,” Bernard said.

“Wait, I… I’m getting lost again,” Tim sighed. “Why did Julie even accept this Tracy back? She never accepted you back, Carrie.”

“Younger Julie. Sloppier. Learned her lesson, and then took it out on me,” Elizabeth decided.

“Or maybe Julie underestimated this Tracy,” Luci proposed. “Blind to the fact that she could ever lose.”

“Wait.” Chartreuse tapped her fingers against her temples. “Corry obviously didn’t get HIS information from, you know, infiltrating Julie. So unless Carrie provided him with a LOT more stuff than Julie thought was possible, how did Corry, like, come up with the flyer? Because based on how people reacted today, I don’t think the info was, you know, faked.”

“Extrapolation,” Carrie said, before Elizabeth had a chance to speak. “Corry combined what Tracy told him with what he already knew about our school. After all, Julie’s methods haven’t changed outright. Corry was able to draw as many parallels as he could, and quiz me endlessly on some of the gaps. Then he got Tracy to send him that old picture, and BOOM. Despite the flyer not naming names, Corry’s put Julie’s ranks into chaos. He got the whole school wondering who the real Julie LaMille is.”

Bernard spoke in the silence that followed. “Context aside, what of Julie’s reaction?” he pressed. “That’s part of why we’re here. Is she about to lose her mind and start attacking people?”

“No,” Frank answered himself slowly. “Her reaction wasn’t what any of us expected.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I’m betting Julie simply denied everything, and made people doubt this Tracy person ever existed outside Corry’s imagination. Yeah?”

The five people in their proper time exchanged a glance. “No,” Frank repeated. “That’s just it. She not only confirmed what was in the flyer, she pointed out an ERROR Corry had made. It seems he had overestimated the number of her voluntary followers.”

The three time travellers stared back. “But that’s CRAZY,” Isabella protested. “If even half of what I’ve seen written on this flyer is true, practically every student is going to eventually turn against her.”

“Was Julie hoping for leniency?” Bernard guessed.

“We have no idea,” Carrie said with a shrug.

“Actually, I even heard Julie, like, voluntarily scheduled herself in for counselling sessions tomorrow,” Chartreuse added. “Something that had been recommended by the principal.”

There was a moment of silence. “Well, I guess we’re done with this time trip then,” Elizabeth concluded. “I got to see what was going to happen, you got to see travel to the future, turns out everyone will live happily ever after, the end. At the risk of sounding unoriginal, when do we go back?”

Isabella crossed her arms. “No. NO. I don’t like it,” she said bluntly. “It’s too perfect.”

“I agree, unsurprisingly enough,” Luci said. “However, Elizabeth does have a point. Wasn’t this the outcome we were hoping for? A nice, non-apocalyptic, non-gun wielding conclusion to everything? Hey, here it is, and we didn’t have to lift a finger to create it.”

“In fact, if you three try to lift a finger, this could turn into a disaster,” Frank pointed out. “And I don’t mean at the school. Consider the following: You change something. Because of that, Carrie is unable to save herself from the van at 5:44. It would at minimum change this conversation, and in the worst case, an injured Elizabeth could make for a nasty time… loop? Paradox? I don’t even know. Thus it’s in all our best interests to act like your trip never happened. I know I’m going to. Er, going to have that is.”

The three time travellers again exchanged a glance. “I’m right,” Bernard realized. “We can’t do anything to disrupt this future from happening. The timeline needs to unfold this way.”

“Lovely,” Isabella said, smacking her palm to her forehead. “Honestly Carrie, it’s always something with you! I guess that means we won’t be able to tell past Chartreuse and Tim about any of this either.”

“What? Luci, I’m hurt,” Chartreuse protested. “Seeing as nothing’s going to come of this, why can’t I, like, know earlier?”

“You really think you can fake your way sitting through that explanation, when you would already know it?” Frank asked.

Chartreuse paused. “Welllll…”

“Chartreuse, if we leave it like this, it gets us out of the discussion in a non-weird way,” Tim pleaded. “Please, right now that’s what I’m hoping for the most.”

“Okay then,” Chartreuse sighed. “I guess I can accept it. Though it means I’m now, you know, in on a secrecy conspiracy against myself.” She brightened. “Which, come to think, is kinda neat.”

“Did I at least take one of these flyers with me to study?” Isabella questioned. Her counterpart nodded, and Isabella pocketed the information.

“We’ll clear out of your way now,” Bernard decided. “I only hope that this future turns out to be as good as it looks.”

“You worry too much,” Elizabeth said airily. “Let’s not look the gift horse in the mouth, okay?”

Five minutes later, after the time machine had been reset, Elizabeth, Bernard and Isabella pulled the handle to head back into the past.

“That’s cleared some of the clutter out of here,” Carrie observed, dusting off her hands.

Frank walked over to the sitting room window. “It was certainly a bizarre experience, meeting oneself that way,” he reflected, watching large droplets of rain splatter against the glass. At least it wasn’t cold enough for snow yet.

“It was pretty amazing I’d say,” Chartreuse noted. “You know, I think I’d like to try a time trip myself next. If that’s okay with you guys, of course.”

“I’m just glad it’s over with,” Tim sighed. “Not only the time travel but also the mess with Julie. Maybe life can get back to normal now.”

Chartreuse turned her gaze upon him. “Aw, Tim, I’m so sorry you, like, didn’t enjoy any of this. I hope you can forgive me and that we can still, you know, be friends?”

Tim hesitated only briefly before smiling back at Chartreuse. “I-I’d like that,” he admitted. “And it’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, Chartreuse! I mean, I did agree to come here. It’s only… it’s a lot to take in. It’s easier for me to handle social stuff when it’s just me and Clarke, I guess.”

“Time travel is overwhelming no matter who you are,” Frank remarked. He turned away from the window. “Before you all go, the logical question we need to ask now is - is there anything further to say about Julie’s reaction?”

No one spoke. Then Luci let out a sigh of resignation. “It doesn’t look like it, much as I wish that weren’t the case,” she said. “I mean, we all saw Julie today. She should have been angry, and she wasn’t. She was smiling. Smiling in a weird, contented way, like she got what she wanted. My past self was right, it’s too perfect. We’re missing a piece of the puzzle.”

“It was her birthday,” Chartreuse pointed out. “Maybe Julie decided to, like, accept that the skeletons were out, in order to restart her life at sweet sixteen.”

“Maybe,” Luci said, unconvinced. “I guess I was holding out too much hope that, upon seeing our previous conversation from this side, something else would be triggered.”

“Yeah, well, I got nothing,” Carrie declared. “So we might as well wrap this meeting up.”

Chartreuse looked over at the clock. “Probably best. Me and Luci have, like, less than a half hour until band rehearsal. We’d better get a move on.”

“I don’t want to overstay my welcome either,” Tim said, standing up. “I bet your parents will be back soon.”

Frank pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. “All right then. Thanks for coming,” he concluded. “Also, Tim, Chartreuse, now that you know about the time machine, I see no reason to exclude you from any new incidents that come up. All we would ask is that you continue to keep the secret.”

“Of course,” Chartreuse agreed. “As long as you consider letting me time trip.”

“I’ll keep the secret,” Tim added. “But don’t feel you have to call me in. Keeping me updated through Chartreuse is fine.”

“Fair enough,” Frank said.

Everyone proceeded out of the sitting room.

“Oh yeah, Frank, there was an actual math question I wanted to ask you about,” Carrie remembered, snapping her fingers. “Can you spare a few more minutes?”

“Sure,” Frank agreed. “It’ll be nice to do something mundane for a change.”

Carrie pulled her notebook from her bag while the others retrieved their belongings and headed out the front door. With only a brief backwards glance, Luci joined Chartreuse under her umbrella in her walk towards the high school. His own umbrella open, Tim followed for a short distance before turning away to head for his own place of residence. Meanwhile, Carrie and Frank adjourned back to the Dijora sitting room.

At that moment, none of them felt particularly concerned about the future.

Ten minutes later, the gun went off.

PART 31: PAST MEETS FUTURE

Julie twisted the Rubik’s cube around. Perhaps if she… no, the colours weren’t going to line up that way either. Frustrated, she threw the object across the room, where it bounced off one of her filing cabinets. She glared at it, knowing full well that she wasn’t really upset with the puzzle cube.

“Damn you, Corry,” she seethed. “You have more stamina than I thought. I played the tape incriminating your sister at the dance. I set you up by putting those prescription pills in Carrie’s locker. I opened myself up to attack, and despite that - you wait. You. WAIT. This is driving me NUTS! I thought for sure, on Halloween…”

Julie raked a hand back through her hair and leaned back against the wall. “I can’t lose to you if you do nothing, Corry. What the hell is wrong, idiot? You know you want to deal with me. You’ve wanted it for two years, so COME AT ME already!”

There was a knock at the basement door to her ‘play room’, making Julie jump. “Who’s there?” she hollered.

“Me," came the voice of Jeeves, the family butler. “Clarke’s called you again.”

She’d stopped taking cell phone calls; he’d resorted to the land line. “Then you should have told him I didn’t want to talk."

“Indeed I did. But following that we had another call from your high school.”

“Then you tell Mr. Hunt he knows my price. I’m not budging an inch,” Julie asserted, even as she slid down the wall onto the ground.

“On the contrary, this time the principal recommended a good counsellor for you,” Jeeves responded. “And frankly Miss LaMille, I’m starting to think that a wise course of action. I would hate to see a repeat of whatever happened three years ago, before you came to this town.”

Julie began to rock her body back and forth. “It won’t happen,” she called back. She swallowed. “I’ll do things right this time,” she finished, too quietly for him to hear.

“Very well,” Jeeves concluded after a moment. “But your parents ARE still due to arrive next week. For your birthday. Ultimately, I believe the decision on counselling will be up to them?”

Julie didn’t answer. Her eyes merely tracked back to the lower drawer of that one particular filing cabinet. “You’ll see. I’ll do things right this time,” she repeated softly.

Mrs. Dijora smiled as she opened the door. “Why Carrie, how nice to see you again!”

Carrie flashed Frank’s mother a quick grin. “Thanks, likewise! Frank in?”

Mrs. Dijora nodded. “He’s downstairs with Luci.”

“Great,” Carrie said, stepping inside. “Euhhh, I can come in, right?” she asked belatedly. Mrs. Dijora simply nodded again, looking mildly amused as Carrie hurried past her to open the basement door. The blonde took the stairs down two at a time, the individuals in Frank’s lab turning to look as she reached the bottom.

“Don’t you ever knock?” Luci wondered.

“I knocked on the front door,” Carrie retorted. “Look, I’m actually glad you’re both here. We’ve got a new date we can time travel to as a test. Once you’re finished with your final checks or whatever.”

Frank adjusted his glasses. “Oh? What date might that be?”

Carrie took in a deep breath. “November 12th. Four days into the future.”

Frank stared back at her for a moment, then he turned to Luci. “Is there something going on here that I don’t know about?”

Luci pursed her lips. “Hard to say, really.”

Carrie lifted an eyebrow. “Okay, I know I’VE missed any connection between me and the– between me and Luci.”

“She suggested that same date to me yesterday,” Frank explained.

“Oh, she did, did she?” Carrie said, folding her arms.

“As I said to Luci then, even if it is possible, given how the device can apparently travel to any time during our current year… I’m not sanguine about travel to the future,” Frank continued. “It will substantially compound the number of unknown variables involved.”

Carrie shrugged. “Your fancy words are outvoted two to one,” she pointed out. “Though I would like to know exactly what Luci’s interest is with that date.”

Luci shrugged as well. “The same as yours?”

“You mean Corry?” Carrie pressed. Luci nodded. “So how did YOU know he’d be doing something then?”

Luci hesitated only briefly. “That would take a bit of explanation," she admitted. She boosted herself up to sit on the edge of the lab table, bringing her closer to Carrie’s height. “And while I’ve considered saying something before, it’s only now that the time machine is a factor again that it’s relevant. Thing is, Carrie, you cannot reveal what I’m about to say to Corry.”

Carrie sniffed. “No deal. At least, not if this relates to Julie, since the guy grills me on her every other day. I’m starting to think he’s got psychological problems."

“It doesn’t directly relate to Julie,” Luci assured. “It relates to Chartreuse. However, I cannot say anything more without an assurance of your complete confidence.”

Carrie frowned, and looked at Frank, who shrugged. “Look, I’ll keep quiet either way," he pointed out. “Again, more concerned with the actual travel into the future.”

Carrie fought briefly against her curiosity, but it was a losing proposition. “Okay, Luci,” she agreed. “Nothing to Corry. I’m pretty sure he’ll ease off me after the 12th anyway."

Luci eyed her for a moment, then nodded. “Okay then.” She took in a breath. “For the last month or more, Chartreuse, Tim and I have been working together. Trying to keep tensions from escalating too high at school between the Julie and Corry factions.”

“Seriously? You’re doing a lousy job then," Carrie blurted out. “Julie was accused of stealing that potted plant from Mrs. Latour’s desk the other week, Corry was blamed for messing up Julie’s law case files…”

“It’s not easy,” Luci interrupted. “People are ready to go off at the drop of a hat.” She leaned forwards. “That said, we’ve been pretty sure that Corry’s had something on the back burner. Chartreuse finally got the date of November 12th from Laurie earlier this week.”

“Hrmph. Okay, you’re up on me then,” Carrie grumbled. “Corry only gave me that date today. It makes sense though, that being Julie’s birthday,” she added. Luci nodded slowly.

“Wait, hold on,” Frank protested. “Why would Corry take action against Julie on her birthday?”

“When else?” Carrie retorted. “Corry doesn’t have experience with the long game, not like Julie. When she didn’t do anything after I switched teams, Corry was shocked. Since then, he’s questioned me about her motivations. Obsessively. Now, if you know Julie, you can see she’s been gradually fraying around the edges too - but in the end? No way was he going to outlast her. The date makes perfect sense, now that I know.”

“What DID Corry come up with on Julie’s motives?” Luci wondered.

“Can’t talk about it,” Carrie shot back automatically. She then rubbed the back of her neck. “Mainly because I don’t know. Corry and I don’t go much beyond speaking terms. He only gave me the November 12th date because, once I realized he wasn’t going to wait forever, I asked him to be nice enough to give me a few days heads up.”

“But… then what is Corry about to do?” Frank asked.

“Obviously, we don’t know,” Luci said. “Which is why I proposed going ahead to November 12th, to see something that might help clear things up for the 2DEGS."

Frank blinked. “For the… what?”

Luci blushed. “Uh, the 2DEGS. It’s, well, how Chartreuse refers to our little group of three,” she admitted a bit sheepishly. “See, she, me and Tim, we all have two degrees of separation from… look, it doesn’t matter,” she decided as Frank and Carrie’s stares become more incredulous. “Point is, I’ve always wanted to try a trip to the future too, to verify that it could be done. The time machine is functional again, so why not use it for a good cause like this?”

“Exactly!” Carrie shifted her gaze back to Frank. “Besides, aren’t you curious about the Julie-Corry feud? I say let’s go for it. I mean, for crying out loud, aren’t you at least pleased that I’m suggesting THIS instead of a trip back to deal with you-know-what?”

Carrie had decided that there would be time enough for her mother once the school situation had been dealt with.

Frank sighed. “Well, as you said, it appears I’m outvoted.”

“Excellent,” Carrie said, rubbing her hands in delight.

“There’s just one more thing,” Luci said. “I decided to tell you all that for a reason. Basically, before we go anywhere…” She took in a deep breath. “I want to tell Chartreuse and Tim about our time travelling.”

Both Carrie and Frank turned back to Luci. “What?” they chorused.

The next evening, Tim was shown into the Dijora sitting room. Chartreuse was already there. She smiled brightly at him. “Glad you could make it.”

Tim smiled back weakly.

“I’m so glad we’re getting to meet more of Frank’s classmates,” Mrs. Dijora said, clasping her hands together. “My son said he’d be upstairs shortly, can I get either of you anything while you wait? Juice maybe?”

“I’m okay, thanks,” Chartreuse said. “Tim?”

Tim simply shook his head. Mrs. Dijora nodded and left the room, after which Tim heard her calling downstairs to her son. He turned to Chartreuse. “So why would Luci ask to meet us HERE?” he wondered.

“Dunno,” Chartreuse confessed. “But I would, you know, guess it has something to do with Corry and our upcoming doomsday.” Tim nodded in resignation and took a seat. “Not a bad looking house here,” Chartreuse continued conversationally. “It’s probably got, like, good fung shui.”

Tim shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Yeah, neither would I,” Chartreuse concurred. “Not my area of expertise.”

She winked and smiled again, and Tim found he couldn’t help but smile back. For all her faults, Chartreuse did have a way of helping a person feel more at ease. Still, Tim found it difficult to get comfortable, particularly when not only Luci and Frank, but also Carrie walked into the room. All wearing sombre expressions.

“We’re clear,” Frank remarked, looking down the hall. “Dad’s out like usual these days and Mom’s gone upstairs for the moment.”

“So what’s, like, up?” Chartreuse asked. “Do you all have some new…” Her voice trailed off as Luci motioned for quiet.

“We’re about to let the two of you in on a big secret,” Luci began. “And while I trust you’ll both keep this quiet, there have been some reservations expressed.” Tim saw the younger girl glance at Carrie. “So let me be perfectly clear. What I am about to reveal, you are NOT speak of to anyone else. It doesn’t go beyond the five of us. Okay?”

Tim and Chartreuse looked at each other, surprised. “Okay, sure,” Chartreuse agreed.

“Not even to Clarke?” Tim asked.

“Especially not to him,” Carrie insisted.

Luci fully turned towards the blonde cheerleader. “Well… we are pretty sure he suspects anyway, via Julie,” she pointed out.

“All the more reason not to give Julie any more information,” Carrie challenged. “Clarke is not part of this agreement.”

“We’d prefer you didn’t mention it to him,” Frank offered up. “But we’ll take any other names under advisement, as we did when Luci suggested the both of you.” Carrie sighed in exasperation, but said nothing more.

Tim nodded. “O-Okay then,” he said, biting his lip. “The five of us.”

Luci spoke up again. “Tim, remember how you saw two Carries at the school dance? That’s something that never got properly explained. And Chartreuse, you’ve asked me about that other person caught by Professor Linquist - the one who looked similar to me, yet older. Again, I couldn’t go into any detail.”

The young asian girl began to pace. “This secret will explain everything. My hope is that it will also lead you to believe any information that comes out of what we’re about to do. Plus, Chartreuse, there’s something you’ve been hiding from us in the last week.” Chartreuse flinched. “Please take this action of mine as a gesture of faith towards revealing your own secret.”

“I… I’m not really hiding a secret,” Chartreuse protested. “There’s only this, like, event that I foresaw over a month ago, and I’ve recently had the feeling that it may be, you know, close at hand. If it happens. I could be wrong about the whole thing.”

“Oh, get ON with this already,” Carrie groaned. “Luci, if you’re going to tell them, do it before Frank’s mom comes back down.”

Luci rolled her eyes. “Okay, bottom line. Chartreuse, Tim… the three of us here have access to a time machine.” She let the comment sit there for a moment before adding, “And we’re planning on using it to travel forwards three days in order to see what happens to Julie at school.”

“What?” Tim said, bewildered.

“Cool,” said Chartreuse, without missing a beat. She leaned forwards. “How did you, like, get ahold of something like that?”

Carrie, Frank and Luci all answered the question at once.

“Government agents,” Carrie said.

“Came from the future,” Frank said.

“Through alien technology,” Luci said.

The three of them turned to look at each other. “We’re not sure of its origins,” Frank finally admitted.

“You have got to be kidding us,” Tim murmured.

“We wouldn’t kid about this sort of thing,” Luci assured him.

Frank stepped forwards. “In fact, there was one key argument in favour of revealing the time machine to you now. With the three of us traveling to the future, if something unexpected happens, and we can’t get back… well, it seemed wise to have someone in our own time who knew what was going on.”

“Can we actually see this time machine thing then?” Chartreuse asked eagerly.

Frank nodded. “It’s downstairs. Come on, we might as well explain to you what we’ve figured out so far.”

“Not that you’ll understand most of it,” Carrie added under her breath. Still, she was loud enough that Tim heard her remark. And, based on his understanding of things to this point, he was inclined to agree.

Chartreuse peered closely at the black box on Frank’s lab table, even as he began to explain something about coins. “You know,” she piped up when he paused. “I kinda thought a time machine would be, like, bigger. Aren’t you supposed to be able to ride in them?”

“Wait, let me see if I understand,” Tim said uneasily. “You drop a coin in that thing, pull the lever, and end up in the same year as when the coin was minted?”

Frank nodded. “Exactly. We can rig the month and day internally, even set the time now thanks to some new integrated circuits of Luci’s. There IS random variance, but so far we’ve only been more than a day off target once or twice.”

“Except when we ARE off by more, it can be for a month,” Carrie grumbled.

“Then what’s the pocket watch for?” Chartreuse wondered, pointing at it through the open top of the device.

“Oh, that’s my idea,” Carrie said, smiling as she leaned against the table next to Chartreuse. “It belongs to my family, and it’s going to display the actual time of arrival.”

“Maybe,” Luci yielded. “Thing is, we tried a digital readout, but it risks an overheating problem. This mechanical stopwatch doesn’t seem to affect the internal workings that way - and for whatever reason, it’s hands twitch when the machine is charged. Carrie has a ‘feeling’, so we mounted it inside.”

“Cool,” Chartreuse reiterated, deciding to ignore the skepticism in Luci’s tone. “How long have you guys been, you know, working on this thing then?”

“I found the machine back in September,” Carrie revealed.

“I did most of the initial work that month,” Frank added. “Though have been collecting coins for a few years.”

“And I helped tinker all through October,” Luci finished. “Not always successfully. Which is why you saw me as a twenty year old that day, Chartreuse.”

“This really doesn’t seem that safe then,” Tim put in. “You don’t know where it’s f-from, don’t know what it’s capable of, it’s got r-random variance, yet you’re actively USING it?”

“Some of us have a personal stake,” Carrie noted, crossing her arms.

“Plus we haven’t had any major problems,” Frank assured. “And it’s in using it that we discover more about it.”

“So, like, how many trips have you made?” Chartreuse wondered.

“I haven’t been keeping track,” Frank admitted. “Initially we made a few little test trips. That said, right now, we only have a half dozen or so present day coins left. I’ve seen fewer of them since they first started circulating, at the beginning of summer.”

Luci cleared her throat. “Respectfully - the questions could become endless, and they aren’t important right now. Chartreuse, Tim, I simply felt that you deserved to know.”

“THANK you,” Carrie sighed. “With that dealt with, let’s travel to the future before the future becomes the past. You’ve already set the device properly, right Frank?”

Frank nodded. “For after school on the 12th. That way we can learn about things through the aftermath, avoiding details.”

“Wait,” Luci objected. “Before we go - Chartreuse, that vision you mentioned…?”

Chartreuse felt her mood crash. “My visions aren’t always accurate, Luci,” she protested. “I mean, maybe you heard that in September, I forecasted that we’d finally have a winning football team? That never happened.”

“I doubt you put much effort into that reading,” Luci observed.

“Circumstances have, you know, changed over the last month too,” Chartreuse continued desperately. “I mean, my own detention with Carrie after the drugs might have, like, cancelled out what I saw.”

“Regardless, Chartreuse - if you know something about the future we’re going into, we could use that advantage.”

“Oh no, look, no, you don’t want this knowledge,” Chartreuse said, adopting her most serious posture. “You really don’t.”

“Maybe not. But I think we need to have it,” Luci said.

“Luci, if she doesn’t want to tell us, fine,” Carrie broke back in, with obvious exasperation. “Is this really so important?”

“It might be,” Frank put in, now looking a little more closely at Chartreuse. “Because this sounds significant. Like, drugs in a locker significant.” Carrie pursed her lips at that.

“Chartreuse,” Frank ventured, “we’ll be flying more blind than usual. If you somehow have insight into anything that’s coming… it really could be invaluable.”

Chartreuse shifted her weight back and forth. “Ooooh…” She exhaled, and decided to say it all in a rush. “ISawSomeoneWeKnowFromSchoolFiringAGun!”

No one spoke at first. Until Luci fired off the logical question, “Who?”

“I don’t know,” Chartreuse said sullenly, shaking her head.

“When?” Tim gasped out.

“I don’t know. Soon.”

“Did anyone get hit?” Frank wondered.

“I don’t know.”

“You really don’t know much at all,” Carrie muttered, barely audibly.

Chartreuse spun to face the blonde. “THAT’S why I didn’t want to say anything! You don’t know what it was like to see even that much, Carrie. I mean, if you’d, like, seen someone you knew shooting a gun, could you ever look them in the eye again without thinking about that? I didn’t WANT to know more.” Never mind that even that much had overloaded her vision.

Carrie seemed surprised at Chartreuse’s reaction, causing the pink haired girl to bow her head. “I-I’m sorry, Carrie. I didn’t mean to, you know, snap at you like that.”

“No. It’s fine, I think I had that coming to me,” Carrie yielded after a second. She turned to Luci. “Before I say something else I shouldn’t, can we please GO already?”

The younger girl reluctantly pulled her gaze away from Chartreuse. “Okay. Yeah. I think all the secrets are out now,” she finished.

Except there was too much tension in the air for Chartreuse. “We five do make an odd group, don’t we?” she offered up to them. “Guess I’ll have to, like, change the name of the 2DEGS, huh? How about, er, the time trippers?” Everyone blinked at her.

“That makes it sound like we do temporal drugs,” Tim objected. Carrie snickered, and to Chartreuse’s relief, the others joined in.

“Okay,” Frank concluded, after he finished chuckling. “So, any technical details should be answerable in the steadily growing pile of notes me and Luci have been making.” He gestured towards them. “Chartreuse, Tim, feel free to glance over those while we’re gone.”

“Though we may be back before we leave,” Luci remarked.

Carrie plunked a present day nickel into the time machine device. “We won’t get BACK unless we GO,” she reminded, grabbing the handle.

With another nod, Frank grabbed for their backpack of supplies and moved to take hold of the handle too, right after Luci. On a count of three, they pulled, and Frank felt the temporal void sucking him in. The next thing he noticed were the bright headlights of a van bearing down on him, doing at least 30 kph.

By the time this fact fully registered with him, Frank barely had enough time left to process being in the middle of the road. He realized then that he wouldn’t even be able to cry out.

There was nothing he could do now, except get hit.

PART 30: SEARCH AND RESCUE

Luci dropped her pencil to flex her fingers slightly. She glanced down at the floor but Taimu had wandered off somewhere else. Noticing the clock, she realized her parents might be back soon. Her foster parents - they had left a note upstairs indicating that they were out looking for her. As to her real parents, who knew? Maybe they really had been aliens.

Luci grimaced. Geez, what was she thinking? “Let’s get through the rest of this," she decided. The twenty year old scanned back over what she had written. “Though it looks like I’ll need to backtrack first.” She resumed her writing.

‘‘However, something I didn’t know at the time: When I didn’t show up for dinner, my parents contacted the Dijoras and the Vermilions. Then later in the evening, the police. A search was started, which as of Sunday morning, included Frank, Carrie and Chartreuse, all out looking for me.’’

“We’re getting nowhere,” Carrie stated.

Chartreuse ventured a smile at the blonde. “Not true. We, like, know that Luci made it to the store, and that nothing happened at the store. So whatever happened, happened after."

“Brilliant,” Carrie said dryly. “Peered in your crystal ball this morning, I see.”

“Carrie…” Frank said.

Carrie sighed in exasperation. “Okay, I’m sorry, but come on. Wandering the streets is not helping us at this point. We need a plan of attack. For instance, wouldn’t it be great if we could travel back in time a day to see what happened in person?”

Frank coughed. “Too bad we don’t have access to a working time machine," he said, looking pointedly between Carrie and Chartreuse. “Oh, um, offering to help us look around was very nice of you, by the way. It’s appreciated,” he added to the more heavyset girl.

Chartreuse adjusted one of the bows in her pink hair. “Hey, least I can do, you know? Luci’s my friend too. Still, I fear Carrie’s right. This doesn’t seem to be, you know, helping. Maybe we should, like, directly question people around here?”

She reached out to tap the shoulder of a man passing by. “Excuse me, sir, do you know anything about…”

The words froze on Chartreuse’s lips as her hand made contact with him. A wave of emotion blasted through her, making her snap her hand back with a gasp. She stumbled and might have fallen if Frank hadn’t caught her.

The wide-eyed white haired man turned. “What? Are you saying something?” he inquired.

“No. Nothing. Carry on,” Chartreuse gasped, trying to regulate her breathing. He blinked at her a few times, glanced at Frank and Carrie, then shrugged then continued on his way.

“Okay, what was THAT little drama about?” Carrie inquired, after the pedestrian had moved off a little ways.

“That guy, the one I tapped, who came out of the library – he knows something about what happened to Luci,” Chartreuse explained breathlessly. “I got this sensation that somehow, he, like, knows where Luci is.”

“What? Where is she??” Frank asked.

“I don’t know. This was an impression thing, you know, not a vision thing,” Chartreuse said, still trying to regain her equilibrium. “Don’t ask him though. Something’s off. It’s as if he knows WHERE she is but not WHAT she is, if that makes any sense.”

Carrie peered closer at Chartreuse. “Oh yeah. Lots of sense happening here.”

“You have to believe me! I mean, remember back when I, like, knew about the drugs in your locker?” Chartreuse reminded. Carrie flinched back.

“Okay, it’s our only real lead so far,” Frank concluded, looking up to see the man turning the corner. “Come on, quick, before we lose him.”

‘‘So they followed him, out towards the wooded area north of town,’’ Luci continued. ‘‘They lost him there, trying too hard to be unseen I suspect, and at that point split up to relocate him. Just my luck that Carrie was the one to stumble upon his cabin.’’

“You can allow me to have a direct look at your brain.” He turned the scalpel around in his hands. “Alas, at this point, that’s the only way for me to be certain.”

Which was when Luci heard a door behind her burst open and a familiar voice shout out, “Freeze!”

The man was instantly on his guard, crouching slightly. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“I’m… the one telling you to freeze,” Carrie’s voice said. “Luci, is that you?”

“Oh please, tell me you have backup,” Luci groaned, her eyes fixated upon the twitchiness of her abductor. She watched as he circled around towards the right, sensing that Carrie was moving in from the opposite direction. Soon they were both in her peripheral vision.

“Luci?! What has he DONE to you?” Carrie gasped as she finally got a good look at the asian’s eighteen year old body.

“Waiiiiit, wait, wait,” the man said. “Are you another of THEM? Come to take this one back to the mother ship?”

Carrie quirked up an eyebrow. “Um. Yes, in fact, I am one of them.”

“Carrie!” Luci hissed. What the hell was she hoping to accomplish by provoking an insane person? The blonde merely waved her off, intent on her original target. The crazy man.

“I should have known,” he said, growing visibly agitated, beginning to wave his scalpel around in the air. “I won’t let you win. I’ll kill you all!”

“But wait,” Carrie continued. “I am not here for this girl. I am defecting! That’s why I’m here now, to warn you - there’s thirty of the others tracking you down at this very moment. You’ve got to get away, before it’s too late.”

His mouth twitched. “You’re lying.”

“Yeah, they’re counting on you thinking that. It means they’ll finally be rid of your interference.”

His eyes flicked back and forth. “I… I can take them.”

“Yeah, they’re counting on you thinking that too. Geez, get going while the going is good! Here, I’ll help you gather up your notes.” She moved backwards.

“Hey… DON’T you TOUCH those!”

With both Carrie and her captor now out of view, Luci only heard him running, a loud THWACKing sound, and the noise of someone falling onto the floor. Then, heavy breathing. Luci squeezed her eyes shut. “Damn it Carrie, why don’t you think before you act?” she whimpered.

“Because if I did, he might have your brain in a jar by now,” Carrie panted. Luci blinked her eyes back open as she felt her classmate start to undo the ropes keeping her in the chair.

“Carrie! What… what just happened?”

Carrie finally caught her breath. “Fortunately, our friend here had a lot of notes, which make for ‘heavy’ reading. But what did he do to you, Luci? You look older than me!”

“This wasn’t his doing,” Luci explained as Carrie undid the last of the ropes, allowing her to rise to her feet. “It started before I saw him. This has something to do with the time machine.”

She could now see the rest of the room, including the apparent owner of the residence face down on the floor, a heavily bound book by his head. There were a number of papers scattered about.

“The time machine? You’re from the future?” Carrie said in confusion.

“No.” Luci took some tentative steps towards the prone figure as she fought to regain her sense of equilibrium. “It’s from when I touched those wires yesterday. In fact, I’m still tingling… this guy seemed to think my DNA was in flux.” As she said that, Luci stumbled and fell, but she was close enough now to reach out and grab a few of the loose sheets.

“Well, I hate to tell you this Luci, but this guy is a first class NUT. We’d better get out of here before he wakes up. I’ll call in the police and let them deal with him.”

Luci shivered slightly as she saw what had to be a lot of her vital statistics listed on one of the sheets she was holding. She wondered what had happened while she’d been unconscious. Still, it was the name at the top which quickly caught her attention.

“Report by Professor Linquist,” she said slowly. “I know that name.”

“Linquist?” Carrie frowned. “Yeah, wait a second. That’s the guy who lived in the LaMille mansion. Before they came to town.”

“I think you’re right. Wasn’t he supposed to be a reputable scientist?”

Carrie shrugged. “He might have won a local award or two, but the guy was a mysterious loner, meaning only slightly less whacked than he appears now. I mean, deciding to sell your mansion, in order to live out of a cabin in the woods? Hardly an upwards career move.”

Luci stared at the page. “But…” Then she froze as her stomach lurched. Oh no. Collapsing onto all fours, the buzzing noise returned.

Luci squeezed her eyes shut, gasping for breath, crying out in pain and confusion as her surroundings shrank and her body experienced another time jump forwards.

When the feeling passed, the first thing Luci became aware of was Carrie shaking her shoulder and calling out, “Luci? Gods, Luci! What the hell happened? Are you all right?”

“The tingling. It’s finally stopped,” Luci realized.

“Okay, that actually sounds bad. Come on, we’re going to see Frank,” Carrie decided. She must have taken off her jacket, as she now draped it over Luci’s shoulders. “I’ll carry you if I have to. Though… maybe not, you’ve gained some weight with your age. But still, come on already!”

“We have to gather up all the papers about me first,” Luci insisted. “I don’t want anyone else to have this information.”

She grabbed for her ID and personal effects, then any sheets which seemed to relate to her in any way. Carrie helped her scan through the pages.

“Why are you helping me here anyway?” it occurred to Luci to ask, wishing the pounding in her head would subside the way the tingling had.

“Because you’re another of Frank’s friends,” Carrie answered. Papers dealt with, she helped Luci back to her feet, grunting a bit with the effort. “Also, I’ve learned it’s not good when bad things happen to semi-decent people. Now, pull yourself together and let’s get a move on! Oh, by the way, Chartreuse is around here too. We’ll have to pass you off as your own long lost cousin, okay?”

Luci stared at Carrie, trying to wrap her head around that response, before nodding and allowing herself to be led out the door. Carrie filled her in as they headed out of the woods.

‘‘In retrospect, Carrie’s actions were nice. In a Carrie-esque way. Is it possible some of my prior opinions of her were coloured by her associations with Julie? And her apparent grudge against me, which came out of nowhere after that as-yet-unexplained missing second day of high school?’’

Luci nibbled briefly on the end of her pencil. She shook her head. ‘‘Anyway. Carrie sent a message to Frank. We all got back together, and then, to let me regain some more of my strength, Carrie and Chartreuse went off to handle talking to the police. This left me alone with Frank… all alone, with him sixteen, and me four years older than that.’’

Her grip tightened. ‘’That’s when everything went horribly, horribly wrong.’’

“Okay, let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Frank said. “Both you and Luci were kidnapped by this Linquist guy, but you managed to escape?”

“Not quite,” Luci admitted. “That was Carrie’s story for the benefit of Chartreuse.”

Frank grinned. “It had the flavour of one of her stories. Is this why you wanted me to wait here with you?”

“Yes. You see… Frank…” She took a deep breath. “I am Luci.”

Frank nodded. “A future Luci.”

“No. There was an accident with the time machine yesterday,” Luci explained. “When I touched those wires it did something to me, something that’s caused me to age rapidly a total of three times now.” Frank frowned and took a step closer, looking Luci up and down more carefully. She blushed mildly at the scrutiny. “Frank, I wouldn’t lie to you about this, honest.”

Frank coughed, stepping back again. “Sorry. But that’s kind of crazy - what do you think could have caused this?”

“It might have something to do with a genetics trigger in the machine,” Luci said tentatively, holding up the pages she’d retrieved. “That Professor Linquist, he’d picked up on the fact that there was a temporal signature fluctuating inside me.”

“Really?” Frank took the pages from Luci and scanned the top sheet. “Then do you think there might be a way we can use this information to change you back?”

Luci stared. “Change me… back?”

Frank looked back up. “Well, sure. You don’t want to stay in the body you have now, do you?”

Luci licked her lips. “I… I don’t know. Why… what’s wrong with the body I have now?” she murmured.

“Well… nothing I guess,” Frank admitted. “It’s just not you, right?”

“On the contrary, there’s every possibility that this is how I’m going to look in six or seven years.”

“In six years, sure,” Frank agreed. “But inside you’re still fourteen. Er, aren’t you?”

Luci looked down at herself. “Inside… I’m not sure how old I am,” she said softly. She turned away. “Frank, I’ve always been an outcast. Too smart for people my age, and too young for people of comparable intellect.”

She brushed some of her long, black hair back off her shoulder. “So this, it could be a blessing. My chance to fit in. The tingling inside me has stopped, so I don’t think I’ll get any older. So… so why can’t I continue my life from here as if I’m twenty?”

“Luci…”

She spun back towards him. “I mean, the time machine could have just matched my physical age to my mental age, right Frank? RIGHT? Maybe that’s what it did. Because look at me. LOOK at me! In this body, I can be taken seriously. No more condescending remarks from older people, no more students whispering about me behind my back. I can start living life anew.”