Two students waiting near the front gates anxiously shuffled through the clamped papers on the clipboard as they moved their eyes simultaneously fixated on the road to look for incoming students.
“You see them?”
“No. You?”
Their work was soon interrupted by another member of the disciplinary committee jogging their way from inside the campus’s security room.
“Caleb! Dev! How many more to go?” A loud voice came from behind. It was none other than Halley.
Caleb reconfirmed by messily flipping through the sheets and signalled that three were yet to make it.
“Phew! Those are probably Suiren and Melissa. They’ll be here any minute, but what about the other student?”
“Hmm… Lucio Mendoza. Haven’t seen him as well.” Caleb said listlessly.
“I see. I’ll have to check the footage again. See ya!”
Just as she dashed off back inside the school, distant trudges of feet was heard from the far left.
“Made it..!” Melissa triumphed as she lifted her hands up in the air.
The two boys standing at the entrance immediately knew these two didn’t even finish the marathon seeing as how they came from the exact same direction as they started.
Suiren noticed their sagging eyes and chuckled nervously, “Haha… are we the last ones?”
“Actually, no. There’s still one more person.”
“Huh? And who is that?”
“Lucio Mendoza.”
A Suiren pondered who it could be, glancing left and right at the street, when suddenly she was startled by a blaring voice running straight towards her.
“Suiren! We’ve got a situation!” Halley came running and clasped onto Suiren’s shoulders.
“Halley?! What’s the matter now?”
“Come look at this right this second!!” She promptly dragged Suiren off into the campus. Mel followed along slightly confused and Caleb decided to sneak in along with them, leaving Dev to carry on the work alone.
Inside the security room Halley pointed to the monitor screen, it seemed to be the first checkpoint. At every checkpoint, the organisers left a badge to collect with a number corresponding to the corresponding checkpoint. In the live broadcast footage, there was still one left in the basket.
“Maybe they just forgot to take it?” Mel added casually.
“We placed it in the middle of the road, how could they not notice it and take it? I even made a huge sign board pointing towards it.”
“But still I don’t see what the problem is? Do you think they snuck out and left the school?” Suiren claimed.
“Wait, there’s more…” She grabbed a seat in front of the monitor whilst the others crowded themselves around her. “If I rewind this…” As she dragged the toggle, all their jaws dropped simultaneously.
“Who is this nut job jumping off fences?!” Suiren screamed, not being able to comprehend what just happened.
“Maybe he wanted a quick ticket to heaven.” Caleb joked in the most malicious manner.
“Caleb, you and your sense of humour can see yourselves out.” Mel glanced at him with annoyance.
“Guys, not now!” Suiren cautioned them and turned back to the screen to figure out where exactly that place is.
“We should find him soon. Considering the fact that he decided to jump off the fence would mean that he was needed elsewhere. Either he’s experienced in navigating the woods or just didn’t think because of the urgency of the matter. Regardless, he’s our responsibility even though it sounds ludicrous…”
“I’m going to find him.” She lifted herself up in determination. “Now, Halley, can you alert his classmates or friends, so we can give him a call?”
“Sure thing.” Halley responded rapidly as she dashed off to his classroom.
Suiren took off right after Halley to head to the forest road again. She was quickly caught by the voice of her friend, “Hey! Wait for me! You’re not thinking of going on your own are you??”
“Mel, you hate the woods. You can’t take one step in there on your own.”
“But..! But that doesn’t mean I can’t accompany you till the road. Besides, Caleb is here too!”
“Caleb, who?”
“You..!!” Mel reached for his throat only to give up and restrain herself from potential murder.
“Fine. You can come!” Suiren grabbed her friend by the hand and marched on. “But we gotta hurry!”
A hurried girl went past the crowd to reach the second floor. She aggressively slid open the glass door and screamed, “Anybody here close with Lucio?!”
“You mean the redhead with the glasses?” A random kid pointed out.
“Yes!” She continued, “Lucio Mendoza?!”
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The entire class turned around in unison to one person at the back of the class snoozing away pretending to read inside his book. “Huh?! Why’s everyone staring? Do I look that good today?”
One of the guys next to him with heavy concern goes, “Bro… I think Lucio didn’t make it…” He gulped.
“Our condolences…” Another almost shed tears.
Aiden was dumbfounded and immediately stood up and yelled, “Why?! What happened to him?!”
Halley and Aiden met up at the security room, to prove to him that Lucio is missing. Upon seeing the footage, Aiden started to collectively lose all of his marbles.
“Oh my god, oh my god! He’s as good as dead in there! That dumbass and his horrible sense of direction will land him straight into a ditch!!” He clasped his head in cataclysmic horror.
“Calm down! Your friend will be fine!” Halley tried her best to calm him down.
“Buddy! You don’t get it. He will not make it! He’s gonna come back as a dead body!! Ahh!!” He started to weep in hysteria.
“Oh my god! Really?!” Halley was starting to join him in his wallows as well.
Caleb, who was there the entire time seemed a little too much at peace with people screaming and crying all around him. “Lucio… hmmm…”
It finally hit him. “Oh! Lucio! Isn’t he the first ranker in our grade?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Aiden screamed, wiping away tears.
“I mean… dude is supposed to be smart, right?”
“His academic expertise has no relation to his utter lack of common sense!”
Back in the woods, Lucio found himself completely captivated by the glorious machine in front of him. The overwhelming feeling that he never knew could exist finally did. He gripped his head trying to contain his overflowing enthusiasm and excitement and as he did he found the situation to be a little sketchy. It felt too good to be true and the naivety that he possessed wasn’t something he could place his trust in just yet.
“So you’re a Time Machine. For real?”
“Indeed I am, Lucio.”
“WOW!” As he finally reconfirmed his standpoint, the real question finally zoomed past his head. “Wait… how do you know my name..?”
“Because we’ve met before.”
He gasped upon the realisation. “Could it be that we’ve met but in the future from now? That could mean that I would be successful enough to bear witness to a revolutionary piece of futuristic tech!”
He paced around the room with a giddy feeling, it’s the happiest he’s ever been in a while. He wanted to know more and more as he talked with Lyney.
“So? Where can you take me? Anywhere at all? Is it restricted only to travelling to the past or can we see the future as well? Before that, how do you work? What laws do you follow to break the space-time continuum to jump timelines like this?”
“Beep~! Beep~! I’m sorry, but I couldn’t catch anything you said. Please slow down.”
“HOW DO YOU WORK, LYNEY!”
“I can travel to any time, future or the past contained in the natural order of time dubbed, World Line number 0. It is my duty to transport passengers to their desired time in World line 0 if, and only if, the World government issued an official directive allowing them to traverse time. My first mission was to come here with no further information given.”
Lucio absorbed every detail Lyney uttered, they were so alien to him but he was able to connect the dots as the AI talked. He analysed everything in his head. “World line 0..? I’m assuming it means the current time line we all live in. This must mean that it is progressing in the natural order as it was determined to be…”
“That is correct. All things are theorised to be predetermined by the Law of natural order. Everything from the Big Bang to the first microorganism and the extinction of dinosaurs to the dominance of mankind. All of this that has happened will be, and forever be part of the natural order which under any circumstances must never be tampered with.”
“Then..? You have rebelled against the natural order because you came here to the past. By travelling to the past you have changed the course of the world line..?”
“Beep~! That is true. It was hypothesised that World Line 0 deviates off course when one tries to travel back in time. Various academics came in support of the statement, therefore placing bans on the publication of time machines.”
“Then how are you here?”
“Only my creator can answer that.”
“I see… So you are dangerous? You should never be in this time line and yet you are. And if you’re here, then you disrupted the natural order, meaning now there is more than one World Line?”
“Maybe so.”
“Then… what happens if you travel to the future instead? What will happen to the natural order if you go to a time that is yet to be determined..?”
“There is never a time that is yet to be determined is what my creators believed. They said that wherever I go, I will always change the order whether intended or not. By travelling to the future I change the future to come and by travelling to the past I also change the future that is to come.”
Lucio went silent for a minute for even the AI took notice of his stillness with its sensors.
“Has this overwhelmed you, Lucio? Even though I am an AI, I can still sense the trouble in humans by reading their brain activity.”
“You can read by brain waves, amazing!” Lucio continued, “But, your creators sent you here for a reason right?”
The robot answered accordingly but without any proper instructions it had no purpose whatsoever.
Lucio glanced at the blue tinted see-through touchscreens with floating buttons all around them. Clanks and switches he had no idea what he could do with and a huge monitor screen projecting a perfectly clear and expressive little AI.
“Maybe they wanted change. They wanted to change the future?”
“I’m not aware of their plans, so I cannot comment further. But there can be some truth to what you say, Lucio.”
Lucio finally realised that the robot in front of him was more intelligent than the robots he had come to witness. It is able to communicate and understand and conclude on its own but still remains confined to the instructions of its creators.
“Lyney? Do you want to change the future?”
“I will comply with whatever you decide to do with me as long as they are confined to my rule book.”
“Huh? Why me? I’m just a random dude that found you here by mistake!”
“Like I said, I’ve met you before along with Suiren.”
“Huh? Suiren? Who’s that..?” He pondered as he ran his hands through the metallic surfaces of the time machine’s interior.
He looked back up at Lyney, who also followed his trail and said, “Does that mean you can take me somewhere?”
“Indeed.”
“What about the World government? What if they use another Time Machine to come catch us?”
“The World government doesn’t exist here. Also they can’t find us because I was the only Time Machine to exist.”
“You’re basically a relic! You seriously need to be in proper hands, not with me!”
“I trust you, Lucio. My creators, including you, despised the World government. I’m better off in your hands instead.”
“Man! What did my future-self do to gain a robot's trust like that?” Lucio was suddenly proud of himself.
“You will learn soon enough.”
Before Lyney could even finish its sentence, a sound of a minute clack was heard near the monitors. Lucio felt the cold metal at the back of his hand as he leaned closer without looking only to push it up on accident.
A great surge of energy enveloped Lucio’s body, the feeling of a great power crushing his spine sent him to the ground throwing him off balance. Until he fell unconscious.