Wade carried the briefcase reverently at arm's length as the group followed in behind him. His eyes, and those of all the other boys, were glued to it as though he were carrying the nuclear football itself. Sure, he was convinced this was an ordinary briefcase, and Wade wasn't one to let fear get to him, but the circumstances of finding the case had him as interested in its contents as any of the others were. As soon as he had lifted it, the contents shifted inside in a way that suggested the thing was almost empty. Just a few items in there, and he was intent on finding out what. Once he had walked out of range of the horrible smell, he set it down on the floor and popped open the twin latches on the case's front. He then opened the thing, slowly, while the group stared into it.
“What… what are they?” Parker asked.
Inside the case sat six objects, each of them unlike the others. With a shrug, Wade grabbed one to examine it. The rest of the gang each grabbed their own and sat around in a circle, studying the strange items. Ronnie's and Parker's, at least, were easy enough to identify. Ronnie spun a small ring in his fingers, the surface of it marked with bands of what appeared to be copper and iron running around the length of the ring. The inside of the ring had a matte finish to it, which contrasted with the smooth-shiny exterior of polished metal. Parker's seemed to be an ordinary sleek, metal watch. It shone like silver but was markedly still, neither ticking nor moving its hands.
Shaun looked around at the other four, a smile of triumph creeping up onto his face. "See, aliens!" he declared, gesturing at the strange items the others held.
"I don't know if I'd say alien," Wade began, "just some high-tech strange devices I don't think I've ever seen."
"Because it's alien!" Shaun said, excitedly investigating his device. His was a small cube of metal that featured no markings or engravings on the sides. It was unexpectedly cold to the touch, and heavier than he originally expected. As he rotated the box around in his hand, he found a small, flat button on one side of the cube. "I think mine has a button… but I don't think we should play with these things. Could be dangerous," he said.
Logan investigated his device, a cylinder of black metal about the size of a toilet paper tube. On its bottom was a pad of some brighter, brushed metal, while on its back was an empty node of some kind, as though something was supposed to be loaded into the device. That node was currently empty.
Skinny tossed his idly back and forth between his hands. It featured a small cylindrical base not unlike the shape of a large pen. That base connected to a three-inch telescoping neck of some flexible material that ended on a small outwards cone reminiscent of a satellite dish. "Mine's… a radio, maybe? Though I ain't never seen a radio this tiny," Skinny said.
Wade's object was a small, lumpy thing with the shape of a ball of clay partially squished flat. Four smaller indentations lined the top surface of thing in a slight arc. As he moved it around in his hand, he found that the lumps and ridges made it perfectly suited to fit in a squeezing fist. As he squeezed it, the hair on his arms and legs stood up on end. "Whoa," he said. "Weird."
Wade looked up at Shaun. "Yours had a button, right? Press it!"
Shaun nodded his head in protest. "Nuh-uh," he said. "No way."
“Come on now. Don’t be such a baby… what’s the worst that can happen?” Wade asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe it could kill us?!"
"Tell you what, if it kills us all I’ll give you five bucks as compensation.”
“But we’ll be dead!” Shaun protested.
“I think that was the joke,” Ronnie interjected.
Skinny approached the bickering two with his hands raised in a placating gesture. “Alright, come on now, stop it you two," Skinny said. "This bickering isn’t helping. Shaun, it looks like yours has a button right there. If you’re too scared to press it I could take it off your hands and try it myself. I think I speak for us all here… we just really wanna know what these things do.”
Shaun reflexively pulled his device in close, clutching it close to his chest. “No…. no, it’s alright. I’ll try it myself. Just stand back everyone.”
* * *
The group filed in to a wide half-circle around Shaun, who was holding his device up high above his head. He then lowered it and squinted at the button, fingers sliding over and off of it, looking for the courage to press it.
Wade leaned over to Skinny with a smirk. "What if it's some kind of alien grenade?" he whispered loud enough for the entire group to hear. Shaun's eyes widened at the thought.
Logan elbowed Wade. "Cut it out… that's not funny," Logan said.
"I thought it was," Wade replied, an antagonizing grin still wide on his face.
Shaun shook his head at Wade and once again readied himself to press the button. He took a deep breath, staring around at his friends. Adrenaline coursed through him, making his fingers tremble against the cold metal in his clammy hands. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh, trying to clear his mind. He wasn't in the forest anymore, but instead he flashed back to the winter before, swimming with the very same group of friends at the Boone Community Center's indoor pool. It was a moldy and dank thing with a heavily chlorinated scent that would sometimes linger for a full day after you'd climbed out of the pool. But sometimes, the invigorating water was the best place to be on a cold winter's day, the kind where you were trapped inside the dreary indoors. On that day at the pool, Skinny had just leapt off from the high dive, managing a successful front flip before splashing into the blue far below. Shaun was peering down the ledge now, the 20 feet seeming to stretch into hundreds. Logan was up on the platform with him. He had gripped Shaun's shoulder and told him "don't think about it, just close your eyes and make the jump before you can even be scared by it. Just leap." That's what he would do now, there in the forest. He squeezed his eyes tighter and tighter shut, feeling the tension rising in his body… and then he pushed himself to act before the fear could stop him. He pressed the button.
And with a whoosh!, Shaun disappeared instantly into empty air.
Five faces stared at the empty spot where Shaun had been with expressions somewhere between amazement and shock. Skinny even let a single "hah!" escape before panic began to set in.
"Shaun? Shaun!? Shaun, where are you?" Skinny shouted, surging forwards. The rest of the group seemed to be in a stupefied, silent shock.
Suddenly Shaun rematerialized exactly where he had been, causing Skinny to bump into the brown-haired boy and the both spilled over onto the floor.
"Did you guys see that?" Shaun asked with a look halfway between dazed and ecstatic.
"No," Parker said, "no we didn't. Did you go somewhere?"
"I was right here!" Shaun said triumphantly. "The world went fuzzy and dark as soon as I held the switch, but once I let it go, I was right back!"
"I gotta admit, I was kinda hoping for the grenade," Wade said with a smirk.
"Still not funny," Logan said, elbowing Wade in the gut once again. Wade bent over, but he slowly raised himself back up with a perplexed look.
"That didn't hurt," Wade said matter-of-factly.
"Oh, Mr. Tough Guy here can take an elbow," Logan said.
"No, I mean… That. Didn't. Hurt."
Logan stared at him, beginning to understand.
"Quick! Hit me again!"
Logan looked over to Skinny, who nodded his head. "Well, because you asked for it," he said. He slapped Wade across the face with an open palm, the clapping sound almost seeming to echo in the mountain valley.
"Didn't hurt," Wade said. "Again, harder."
Logan looked to Skinny once more. Skinny nodded again. This time Logan stepped forwards and delivered a punch straight to Wade's face, a right hook with his full bodyweight behind it. As soon as the punch connected, Logan's stomach dropped, as he felt that surely he must have gone too far. He half expected Wade to collapse and cough out a tooth or two. Instead, Logan's fist exploded with searing pain as Wade bent with the punch, staggered back a single step, and then straightened himself, all seemingly with no emotional reaction.
"Didn't hurt."
Logan cradled his fist while Wade raised his lumpy, handheld object to get a better look at it. "It didn't hurt! Did you guys see that? I didn't feel a thing."
"Absolutely nothing?" Skinny asked.
"Ab-so-lutely nothing," Wade replied.
Parker looked about the circle, surveying the strange scene unfolding. "How is any of this possible? What the hell are these things?" he asked.
The rising excitement and fascination was like a great wave, about to swallow the group whole, but it lost all momentum and broke upon Shaun's frightened shout.
"Oh my God, Ronnie, are you alright?"
Shaun ran over to Ronnie, who was seated just in front of a nearby tree. His expression was blank, with closed eyes flickering back and forth beneath their lids. His head rocked back and forth slightly and he was muttering something unintelligible to himself.
"Is he having a seizure?" Logan asked. The rest of the group filed in close.
Skinny knelt down and put a hand on Ronnie's shoulder. "Hey Ronnie boy, you all right?" he asked.
After another fitful five seconds, Ronnie's muttering and twitching stopped.
"Whoa," Ronnie said.
His eyes fluttered open. They had been an azure blue only minutes ago; now, they were stormcloud grey. He struggled to his feet with Skinny and Shaun lending a hand. He steadied himself to the tree and looked around, fascinated by seemingly everything.
“So what was that? You sure you’re good?” Skinny asked, concern clear on his face.
Ronnie smiled reassuringly. He then gestured to the banded ring he now wore on his finger.
"When I put this thing on it felt so strange and overwhelming… But trust me when I say now that I’ve never been better. This ring has somehow granted me… clarity. In everything. My thoughts are running at a thousand miles per hour, but somehow, I can keep up. I don't know… for lack of a better term, it’s granted me—“
“…super intelligence,” Shaun said, cutting him off.
“Well yes, I guess, super intelligence is one way you could—”
Shaun gestured towards Wade.
"And you, you've got some kind of pain resistance… invincibility? And me, I've got invisibility. These things are superpowers, guys, don't you see?" Excited chatter exploded across the group.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Skinny looked towards the three gadgets that remained untested: his, Parker's, and Logan's. He watched Logan heft the strange, dark cylinder, trying to divine its function.
I feel like I got scammed, here; mine's just a regular broken watch, said Parker's voice.
Skinny responded. “Now hold up, Parker, I’m sure yours isn’t just a broken watch. We haven’t even figured out what mine does either but you don’t—“
Parker's eyes widened. “Wait, what did you just say?” he asked.
“I said yours isn’t just a stupid watch," Skinny said. "I’m sure it has some other kind of cool function that we just have to—“
Parker's face split with a wide grin. “But I didn’t say that… I thought it!”
"No got-damn way," Skinny said, looking at his device. "You didn't say that?"
"I didn't," Parker said.
"I didn't hear anything," Shaun confirmed.
"And you… you thought it?" Skinny asked.
Parker nodded. Skinny’s jaw dropped. "Ok, ok-ok-ok," he said, practically stumbling on his own words, "think something else."
The group held their breaths and watched in dead silence. Parker stood there, totally unmoving, while Skinny adjusted the small satellite-dish-like end at the end of his device. He pointed it towards Parker. On some silent cue, they both busted out laughing at the same time and the two exchanged a high five.
“Mind reading! Oh yeah!” Skinny cried in triumph.
“Wait, really?” Shaun asked.
“Absolutely! Here, pick a number!”
“I got one!” Wade shouted.
Skinny pointed the device at Wade. Then, matter-of-factly, he said "nineteen thousand four hundred and thirty-six."
Wade's expression confirmed guess's accuracy. The group again exploded again into a buzz of excitement.
"But what about mine?" Parker asked. "Mine's the watch and the hands aren't even moving. I can change the time and date with this dial but that's about all I can do with it," he said.
“If I may?” Ronnie asked, extending his hand towards Parker.
“Oh, sure. I was setting it to today’s date and time but without a real watch I had to estimate a little bit. The adjustment dial's on the side…”
Ronnie examined the watch, turning it about in his hands. He brought it up near his face and stared at the crystal from close-up, rotating it to get a thorough view of the interior. "Looks like you dialed it for 4:19," Ronnie observed.
“By the light, I'd say it's half past four,” Shaun said.
Skinny looked at his own watch. “Wow, good eye Eagle Scout Shaun. 4:30 on the nose.”
Still examining the watch, Ronnie frowned. “Well, it looks like an ordinary wristwatch, but it’s significantly heavier than any watch I’ve ever held… and there is one odd thing about it. On the edge, see that small bump? If you look closely, it's actually a tiny spring. Odder still, It's held at tension by the crystal display itself… It seems like removing the crystal might trigger some kind of inside mechanism.”
“Remove the crystal? Does it just pop off?" Parker asked.
Ronnie moved it around in his hand for an appriasing minute or two. "Hmm, well, no, there's no latch that I can find. Maybe we, well, force the matter," Ronnie said.
"You mean break it?” Parker asked defensively.
“No, not break. Disassemble.”
“If we don’t even know what it does, how can you be sure you’re not breaking it?”
“You’re right, I can’t. But, if you don’t let me take it apart, what you've got here is a lovely paperweight and nothing more. If it does have some secret functionality hidden inside, maybe I can discover what it does and we can get it working. And if it breaks in the process, at least you’ve still got the paperweight option.”
Parker frowned, not particularly fond of either course. “So, what are you asking permission to do?”
“We just need to remove that crystal over the watch face and it should hopefully trigger whatever's inside. If not, we'll have better access to the components anyways and we'll go from there.”
“So you wanna break the glass cover off?”
Ronnie sighed in frustration. “Again, not break. We are simply disassembling.”
Parker weighed his options with clear, visible distress. “Can’t we at least wait until we go back home and we could get a jeweler or something to take it apart? No offense, Ronnie, but you're no expert with these things.”
Shaun shouted in protest immediately. “No! Nobody else can know about these things. They might not understand, or they might try to take them. These have to stay total secrets.”
The rest of the group all nodded and echoed "agreed" one after another.
Parker chewed the inside of his cheek, thinking. Finally, with a sigh and quite visible disapproval, he handed over the watch. “Fine. But if you ruin my superpower watch I’ll disassemble your face, you got that?”
Ronnie nodded and took the watch, placing it on a rock on the ground. He reached along the ground for a suitably-angled stone, lifted it above his head, and prepared to swing.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?" Parker protested. "You told me you were just taking off the glass!"
“I told you, the glass cover needed to go. One well placed hit here in the center should dislodge the whole assembly. No damage to the internal workings.”
Parker squeezed his hands into fists, nearly unable to watch.
Logan stepped forwards. “Here, if it’s only one hit to remove the glass, why not let Parker himself do it? It might help with the anxiety.”
Ronnie offered the rock on open palms as though it were some ceremonial dagger of great importance. “Would you prefer to do it yourself?”
Parker hesitated for just a moment in deep thought before snatching the rock. He shooed Ronnie aside. "Well, boys, I’m about to disassemble my superpower watch with this here rock. Disassemble it… into a hundred little pieces. Now everyone stand back." It seemed that the group interpreted 'stand back' to mean 'crowd in as closely as you possibly can,' but Parker hardly noticed. He sighed. "Here goes nothing…”
Parker shook his head and brought the rock down with sudden force. Upon striking the watch, a bright flash emitted with a horrible, loud screeching sound. There was a great wrenching, a momentary sensation of falling, and then all was still. The flash and sound quickly receded, leaving the group reeling from whatever traumatic event just took place. Groans and unhappy protests filled the air.
“Ow… what happened?” Shaun asked, rubbing at his temples.
“My back…” Ronnie complained, prodding for pain across his body.
“Didn't hurt… I feel fine!” Wade said with glee, brandishing the strange stone in his hand.
Logan and Parker both shouted their replies simultaneously: "Shut up!"
Skinny stretched, his face darkening with the occasional twinge of pain. “Ouch," he said, "well that certainly was unpleasant. Must be some kinda security mechanism of some sort. What happened to the watch?”
Parker looks down to the time piece dejectedly. “It’s perfectly fine… no damage to it at all. It’s still not running and is just stuck at 4:19 PM today.”
"This might sound crazy," Shaun began.
"With what's happened so far today, there's no such thing as crazy," Skinny replied.
"…but the light's changed."
"You think his watch changed the light?" Wade asked.
"No," Shaun replied. "I think it's earlier. I think it's 4:19."
"You expect us to believe your Eagle Scout Eyes somehow can tell the difference between 11 minutes of daylight?"
Skinny laughed and looked to his own watch. "Well mine still says 4:31," he said while angling his wrist towards Shaun.
Shaun wasn't discouraged. "We still remember stuff from before that flash, so clearly the time travel—"
"Assuming time travel," Wade interjected.
"So clearly the time travel didn't rewind us, so-to-speak. It makes sense that it wouldn't rewind your watch either."
"I'm still not convinced," Wade replied, crossing his arms.
It was Skinny who spoke next, and in a manner that finally settled the argument. No, it wasn't the Skinny standing before the group looking at his watch… it was instead a distant voice, drifting in on the wind, as a walking gang of boys drew their way near to the clearing: "And so get this… Brian Krenkshaw— he still wore those funny glasses at the time—he’s tryin’ to tell me that his hamster escaped…" Just around the bend out of sight, six boys—Skinny, Logan, Wade, Shaun, Parker, and Ronnie—made their way towards the clearing, looking for an alien, a spaceship, a homeless person.
"We got time travel, baby!" Skinny said, making a fist in that upturned-arm gesture of success. But the celebration was short-lived.
It was Ronnie who first ran for cover. "Get down!" he commanded in as loud a whisper as he'd dare. The rest, curious at the sudden change in demeanor, ran in behind him and ducked behind a nearby outshoot of two intertwined trees which together offered a wide breadth of cover.
Skinny looked confused. “Wait, what are we hiding for? I wanna go up to our past selves and meet ‘em! We can tell them what each of the devices do-"
“Still don’t know what mine does,” Logan interjected.
“We can save us a lotta time,” Skinny finished.
Ronnie's eyes were wide with apprehension. “Absolutely not! To do so could spell doom for us all…”
"What do you mean?" Wade asked.
"Time paradoxes," Ronnie said gravely.
Shaun nodded his head knowingly. "Like in the comics," he added.
"Time what now?" Logan asked, not understanding.
Ronnie peered over the tree to track the arrival of the incoming group before returning to cover. “Call the example extreme, but imagine if our interactions with ourselves over there resulted in the sudden death of Parker. Now, I’m not saying one of us plans to kill him, but listen to the theoretical implications. Since we’ve killed Parker in the past, he never picks up the watch and never sends us back in time, so, we, presently, don’t exist.”
Shaun nodded his head. “And if we don’t exist right here right now…”
“Exactly. Nobody is here to kill Parker. So Parker will retrieve the watch and send us back in time just as we remember. But, in sending us back in time, we’re once again here and are bound to kill Parker.”
“But once we kill him we don’t exist and don’t kill Parker," Shaun continued.
Wade waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Alright, alright, we get it. No talking to past selves.”
Ronnie bowled on. “No talking, no looking, no interaction of any sorts. To do so could mean-“
This time it was Skinny who interrupted. “Yeah, yeah, doom for us all. I’m pretty sure they’ve already split up and are probably roving this-a-ways. I advise we get moving.”
The group slinked away from the voices in silence. Together, they made their way away from the clearing, moving towards a hill that offered a surveyor's view over the area. From up there, they'd be a safe distance away from their past selves to avoid any run-ins but would still be close enough to peek down and watch them. The fascination and temptation were shared by all.
Suddenly, past-Ronnie crossed the path in front of them about 100 feet away. His eyes were down on the ground, peering for clues to the whereabouts of the day's alien. The group from 10 minutes into the future scattered wildly in random directions, ending up split in two separate groups. On the northern side of the path, Skinny and Wade were trapped alone. The other four were huddled together on the southern side.
Past-Ronnie, whose eyes were still blue, began to traipse his way up the path towards the hiding boys. Present-Ronnie, grey-eyed and ring-wearing, whispered to the others hiding near him. "You guys head south. I've got to help those two," he said, pointing across the path at Skinny and Wade. "Rendezvous at Archer's Pass."
Three broke off and headed out south, keeping low to the ground and creeping as quietly as they could. Present-Ronnie then turned back towards Skinny and Wade, who had taken shelter behind a large, gnarled tree. Present-Ronnie waved his arms frantically, trying to silently get the pair's attention. Past-Ronnie closed in closer and closer to their tree. Across the path, Wade noticed the waving and nudged Skinny, and the two watched as present-Ronnie gestured towards his head and then back to Skinny. He repeated the gesture three more times before realization dawned on Skinny. Triumphantly, Skinny squeezed his device in his hand and pointed the little satellite dish across the path towards present-Ronnie. Immediately, a new voice burst to life in his mind.
"If my memory serves me, I heard a noise so I'm about to go investigate the very tree you two are hiding behind. Listen to me exactly. On my mark, you must slowly rotate about the tree, towards your left, as silently as you can. Travel so that you go about a quarter of the tree's circumference in four seconds. Then, both, in unison, take one large step to your left. Nod if you understand."
Skinny nodded and then turned to whisper to Wade, who, after a moment, nodded as well. Past-Ronnie approached the tree.
* * *
Logan, Shaun, and Parker crept over the damp dirt of the woods, lingering low to the ground. At the front, Logan chose his steps carefully, with each footfall tested softly for anything that might crackle or snap before he shifted his weight onto that leg. The two behind him did their best to place their feet in the exact same prints he left. Together, the three moved in near total silence, their shambling dance locomotion bringing them through the woods at a slow, if inexorable pace. Suddenly, their perfect strides were broken as a nearby set of footsteps approached. The three broke formation and stumbled to the nearest shrub, ducking inside and steadying it as the new arrival walked up. Parker peered through the leaves and felt a strange sense of voyeurism, silently watching his own self approach. "I think I actually remember this part," he breathed in a near-silent whisper. "In fact, I was about to look in this very shrub until Shaun called my name out."
"But I never called your name," Shaun replied.
"Yes, you did," Parker said, still whispering. "Then I turned around and said 'yeah, yeah, I'm coming.'"
"But I definitely didn't… I never said a word until we all started grouping back together!"
"Well there's no use arguing. We'll find out soon enough, now won't we?" Logan added.
Shaun stared at the device cradled in his hands. "That, or, I think I might have an idea."
* * *
Past-Ronnie walked up to the tree that Skinny and Wade were hiding behind. He placed his hand along the bark and began to trace a circle around the trunk of the tree.
“Mark,” present-Ronnie thought, and Skinny, listening in on his device, immediately set in motion. He and Wade rotated around the tree as instructed, staying perfectly obscured by the massive trunk. Then, after four seconds of moving, both Wade and Skinny took a large step to their left as past-Ronnie made a sudden peek behind the tree. He saw nothing, shrugged, and began to wind his way backwards towards the searching group. Wade and Skinny, both still huddled with their backs to the tree, exchanged a momentary look of relief.
* * *
Past-Parker bent over a shrub, pulling apart its leaves to see if anything hid inside. He was moving down a line of shrubs, currently only three away from the one where Logan and present-Parker currently hid. As he pulled back the leaves of the one before him, the rustling sound of its leaves masked the gentle pitter-patter of footsteps. If he'd turned around in that moment, he wouldn't even have seen anything out-of-the-ordinary… after all, who would notice footprints pressing into the ground without a body above them stamping them in place?
The footprints without a body padded their way thirty paces or so up the trail. In that time, past-Parker had finished with one shrub and moved on to the next. Parker and Logan held their breath just one shrub beyond.
Shaun, invisible and now a sufficient distance up the trail, turned towards the searching boy of the past and shouted his name. "Parker!"
Past-Parker whirled around, thinking that the younger Shaun must be afraid out alone in the woods. He turned towards the way he had come, leaving the bush containing present-Parker and Logan unsearched.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’…” past-Parker said, walking back towards the rest of his group.