The hot, yellow-white light of midday gave way to softer, orange-hued sunbeams as dusk settled in over the valley. The gang walked with a very excited air, eagerly talking and joking amongst themselves. Skinny and Wade led the group, with Ronnie and Logan trailing a short distance behind the rest of the boys.

After their near run-ins with past versions of the gang, the boys had all rendezvoused at Archer's Pass and waited until a loud, crackling bang echoed over the valley. At that point, Shaun crept out, invisibly, and confirmed that the group of boys near the body had gone back in time, eliminating the risk of future encounters.

Now on their way home, laughter mingled with their footsteps and the chirping of birds overhead.

“But what I don’t get, then, is why didn’t Shaun calling out my name cause one of them time-paradoxes?” Parker asked.

Skinny scratched at his chin, thinking. “And you said you remembered hearing your name called before we traveled back in time?”

Parker nodded. “Absolutely! That’s why I turned around in the first place.”

Skinny called to the back of the group. “Hey Ronnie! What’s your thoughts on all this?” The two were trailing so far behind, they didn't even seem to hear Skinny's question. “Ronnie! Logan! What’re you two doing?”

The group stopped walking, giving Logan and Ronnie a chance to catch up.

Ronnie handed the device back to Logan and addressed the group at large. “I think we’ve made a breakthrough in discovering the purpose of Logan’s device.”

“So what’s it do?” Wade asked.

“Well, we don’t know quite yet, but I’ve identified this port up top to be some kind of electrical terminal, and it looks like it might just fit standard AA batteries. Once we get an external power source in we might be able to figure out what it does,” Ronnie said.

“Well, does anyone have some batteries? Even dead ones?” Skinny asked, patting at his pockets. Shaun slipped his backpack over his shoulders and began rummaging through it.

“Why would anyone be carrying dead batteries?” Parker asked.

One at a time, the members of the gang shook their heads no.

“Well, it was worth askin’," Skinny said. "I guess the mystery’ll remain until you get home and get yourself some batteries, Logan. Think your folks would mind if we stopped by on the way home so we could find out?”

Parker eyed Skinny and began to shake his head in a gesture that said no, bad idea.

"Come to think of it," Shaun began, "I don't think I've ever met your folks, and would love to meet 'em."

Logan looked down at his feet, a sour expression on his face. "That's probably not so great an idea. They don't much prefer having guests over," he said.

"Well, you have to tell us what it does!" Wade said.

"I'll tell you what, then," Skinny began. "I promised my mamma I’ll help with chores tomorrow morning, but I say we all meet back up by ‘round four at my place. We can talk about all these…” Skinny trailed off, not sure what to call them.

“Thingies,” Wade offered.

“Gadgets!” said Parker.

"Devices?" asked Ronnie.

“Artifacts,” said Shaun.

Skinny shook his head. “Well, we'll talk about whatever they are, and we'll figure out what we’re gonna do with ‘em.”

* * *

Out on East Ridge Drive, crickets chirped and insects buzzed in the balmy summer night's air. The wind picked up slightly, and a moisture hung in the air heralding a not-so-distant rainstorm. A firefly took wing, pulsing its soft light on and off, looking for a mate to match its own glow. It saw one ahead, a bright light that called to it and drew it in with all the urgency its insect brain could muster. It flew closer and closer still, spiraling inwards towards the light, drawing close enough to feel the radiant heat and finally make its introduction—

Logan Kessler watched the bug zapper light up bright blue for an instant before the burnt husk of a hapless bug dropped to the porch. Through the grimy, screen-covered window, his view wasn't particularly great, but there wasn't a whole lot else to do while idly washing dishes. The ravenous bug zapper would have to suffice. He scrubbed at an old, stained steel pot with a stiff sponge and silently reflected back over the day's events. Well, at least, until an incoming set of footsteps interrupted his reveries. His mother, Lisa, walked into the kitchen with an empty plate in one hand and a plate of food in the other. She placed the empty one in the sink, adding to the pile, and then set the other down on the counter.

"Leave this for your father," she said. "He'll want it when he gets back home."

"Where is Dad?" Logan asked.

Lisa's face wrinkled with both disgust and a transparent weariness. "Out," she said, the one syllable tumbling from her lips like a dropped platter.

"When's he coming back?" Logan asked, not actually expecting an answer. His mother only shrugged.

"Wish I knew," Lisa said, sighing as she walked out of the room.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Logan let his eyes trace over the kitchen. Dusty china sets collected dust on even dustier shelves of old, unpolished wood. Family photos were pressed to the fridge with magnets of every shape and size, though the photos of smiling faces in colorful places felt more like fairy tales than truth. At the center of the fridge, a photo of a seven-year-old Logan stood proudly next to a clipping of a report card. In the photo, Logan was holding a small guppy no bigger than two inches. His smile was infectious, eyes wide with pride and glee. Logan hadn't felt a rush like that, or even happiness like that, in, well, years, so far as he could tell… except for today, out there in the woods. That had been something exciting. That had been something new. That had been the break from his depressing home life that he had long needed.

He folded up the dish towel and placed the pots and plates in their respective cabinets. With a spritz from a blue bottle, he gave one final wipe-down to the counter, covered Dad's plate with foil, and then he practically raced towards his room in the back of the house. He locked the door behind him.

Next, he bent down over his laundry hamper and reached in under the pile of clothes. Groping about blindly, he took a moment to find his prize, but eventually he removed the large sock from the hamper's bottom. He turned it inside-out, spilling the black cylinder onto the carpeted floor of his room. A battery now sat in the back of the device, slotting in perfectly to its rear terminal. Logan examined the thing, rolling it around in his hand.

"Now, what do you do," he whispered to himself.

A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance as the pitter-patter of rain picked up in intensity against the room's window. Before long, it was a bonafide storm outside, but Logan hardly noticed the rattle of rain. His room was an island against the turbulence outside, and even the rest of his room faded away and shrank down until it was just him and the device, whatever it truly was.

He fingered a small button on the device's cylinder. Ronnie had found it, subtle thing that it was, but it hadn't seemed to do anything without the battery. Once Logan had loaded in the battery earlier that night, he expected the function to suddenly be obvious. It turned out he was sorely mistaken. Pressing the button now, Logan frowned as the device released its impotent fwush sound. The pathetic noise and lack of effect had been frustrating him all night long. Did I get the only dud in that damn briefcase?

Logan's room exploded in an instantaneous flash of white light and an massive bang rattled his ears. Well, that's it, I've exploded myself with the damn thing, Logan thought. His heart was pounding in his chest. Wait, my heart… so I'm still alive? At about this point, Logan realized he could still hear the roar of rain on his bedroom window. His eyes strained in the dark and began to make out the darkened-yet-familiar confines of his bedroom. Just a lightning strike that knocked out power, he thought to himself. His heart raced and he shook with adrenaline. Better find some light.

Feeling around with his hands. he stumbled his way over to his desk and removed a flashlight from the top drawer. He propped it upwards towards the roof and pressed the button, but it stubbornly refused to light. He then walked across his room towards where the device sat near his hamper… a pack of batteries sat nearby. Unscrewing the rear cap to the flashlight, Logan managed to insert four fresh ones and sealed the cap. He then pressed the button on the flashlight and a narrow, unfocused glare of yellow illuminated a small portion of his ceiling. Some flashlight, he thought. His window lit up bright white as another nearby lightning blast struck. The thunder rattled the window, but this strike was clearly further away.

He propped the flashlight towards the ceiling using some books on his desk and, satisfied with the balance, he returned to his work. Logan sat down and looked at his device and the few scattered batteries nearby. He picked up a battery and noticed the flat, metal node on the battery's bottom. He then glanced back over to his device. The back had a slot, sure, and they had already installed a battery there. But the bottom of the device also featured a flat, metal node of brushed metal.

“An electrode of sorts?” Logan asked to himself, running a finger along the bottom plate. He then pressed the node to his arm and held his finger poised over the button. He held it there for a full five seconds, vacillating internally. He then pulled it away. "Too dangerous alone," he whispered. He instead listened to the rain and stared at his device, remembering the glee in Shaun's eyes when he had gone invisible. And how triumphantly Skinny had laughed when he realized he could read people's minds. And that look when Wade realized he was invincible… His hand still ached from that punch.

"Screw the dangers," Logan said, grabbing the device and pressing it again to his arm. He closed his eyes, also imagining back to a certain high dive platform with Shaun. Practice what you preach, damn it, he thought to himself. His finger tightened on the button's surface, just below the threshold of toggling it downwards.

Just then, his flashlight's mounting book stack slipped as the light itself toppled forwards. A book fell to the floor as the light rolled along the desk, striking a lamp, and then the both fell to the floor with a crashing sound of glass breaking. His room was dark once again.

Logan didn't get up to go tend to the broken light. He didn't even flinch at the sound. He merely sat there panting in the darkness, collecting his composure. He pressed the button.

This time, it was no pathetic fwush sound that issued from the device; the sound was something more akin to a hiss, and with it came the steady glow of a deep, purple light.

Logan slowly raised the device to his face, curiosity forming deep lines. His heart rate beat steadily. The actual device itself seemed unchanged, but the battery sticking out the rear terminal was now glowing a fierce purple from within. Metal, glowing? he marveled. He removed it, finding that it was somehow now hot to the touch: too hot to hold in one place, in fact. He passed it back and forth between his hands, as though in a game of hot potato. "Curious," he said to himself.

A light shone under his doorframe as he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. He quickly stashed the glowing battery in his pocket and slid the device under his bed. He then bolted upright and ran to the door, opening it before his mother could realize it had been locked. She stood out there in the hallway, flashlight in hand, evidently startled that Logan had opened the door just as she had been reaching for it.

"Are you alright? I heard a bang all the way from my room," Lisa said.

"The thunder?" Logan asked.

"No, the whole city heard that one, and obviously that knocked out the power. I mean a smaller, glass-breaky kind of noise." She crossed her arms worriedly before frowning at how that pointed the light at the wall next to her instead of her son. She then uncrossed her arms and pointed the light at Logan, tracing the spotlight up and across his limbs tracing for injuries. "What happened?"

"It's nothing," Logan said. "I just dropped my flashlight. Thing sucked anyways."

Lisa sighed in relief. "I heard the bang and knew the lights were off so maybe you hit your head or something, I don't know… maybe the window caved in."

"I'm fine," Logan said reassuringly. "Don't worry so much about me."

“Well someone's gotta worry about you," she said. "And I can see you’re fine now, but I couldn’t rightly tell from across half the house… just please hold on to things a little bit tighter? It doesn’t take much more than a small bang to get an old woman like myself scared…”

With those words, she trudged back down the hall towards her bedroom. Logan removed the glowing battery from his pocket and his whole room began to glow with its dim, puple light. "I was scared," he said quietly. Was, he thought, seizing on the word. The purple glow lit up his eyes as the wheels within began to turn.