The nerves were real. PPMC legitimately asked Dan if he felt sick. She probably would’ve taken him back if he said yes; however, his hook up instincts said he would return a wuss to Molly. Something else told Dan PPMC meant what she said: traveling through the wormhole was like Portals and Aliens, and she would take care of him. Gah, why did he love geologic time?
Dan clumsily changed into his astronaut suit and went to PPMC’s cockpit. He found her fiddling with the time machine.
“Dan! You’re here!” PPMC rotated her hands.
“I guess I am,” he nervously responded, internally screaming. A sudden jerk tossed him onto his seat’s headrest, knocking his breath out. “Whoa! What was that?”
“The black hole’s already starting to grab us,” PPMC answered. She helped Dan sit and covered his head with his helmet. “We need to make our final jump right now.”
“I thought you said this was like Portals and Aliens.” Dan wanted to fold his arms, but PPMC had already strapped him in. “Oh, who am I kidding? An AI starship wouldn’t know.”
“Are you forgetting I’m programmed with your mom’s personality?” PPMC’s hands glared. “It is like Portals and Aliens. Trust me.”
Dan shot her an arrogant look. “Kids, don’t trust a starship. Somebody always gets hurt.”
“Will you shut up and listen to me?” That was the first time PPMC sounded like a real mom. “Sorry,” she eventually added. “We’ll do this one step at a time, Dan. You do want that one-night stand, right?”
“Hook up,” he corrected, “and yes, more than anything.” He also wanted to see those prehistoric animals.
“Very well, then.” PPMC rested her hand on her light speed switch. “Black hole, here we come!”
Dan wasn’t much of a curser, but he cursed there, earning him a smack on the head from PPMC.
On their way through the blue tunnel, she said, “No cursing on my flight!”
“Does that matter now?”
A few minutes later, they dropped out of light speed. “Behold, Dan,” PPMC giggled, “the black hole.”
Dan cursed again.
The black, celestial whirlpool beneath them spun at incredible speed and blanketed an enormous section of the vicinity. Dan noticed something tunnel-like behind it.
“Oh, sweet Mamma!” he shouted. “We have to get out of here!”
“No can do, Daniel. The black hole has us.” Sure enough, gravity caught PPMC in its trap. Her lights flickered before they went out altogether. The time machine was the only source of light now.
“PPMC, the lights!” That black hole was getting closer, and Dan didn’t like it. How had he not spaghettified yet?
“Don’t freak out, Dan.” PPMC did not take her hands off the spiral. “This is supposed to happen.”
“Tell me what to do!” Hook up or not, Dan wanted to live.
“Portals and Aliens, remember? Instead of pushing the alien into the portal, though, you’re pushing me. Tell your microphone, ‘Push!’ It will send a signal to the time machine.”
“Uh, okay.” Dan understood none of the science, but he obeyed PPMC. “Push!”
Wow, it was like Portals and Aliens! At Dan’s command, the alien—in that case, PPMC—hurtled for the portal—the black hole. Regardless, the closer it got, the more nauseous Dan felt. He sweated in his helmet. “PPMC...”
“And down we go!” PPMC had no right to be that excited when Dan was the only living thing on the mission.
Like hands, the black hole snatched her bow and tugged her toward it as though it were a space monster (which it was).
Her walls caved in, and Dan gasped. “PPMC! What’s happening?”
“I’m changing my form so it’ll be easier for us to pass through the wormhole.”
“But your walls!”
“They’ll stop moving in a minute. I’m not going to crush the boy I swore to protect.”
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Swore to protect. That was another thing Becca told Dan the day she taught him hoverscooting. Argh, it was all his fault. Becca would’ve survived, but Dan let his emotions overthrow him.
His mind returned to the black hole once PPMC’s walls stopped moving. “I’m doomed!” he concluded, squeezing his eyes shut. A violent jerk turned his tummy inside out, but Dan swallowed the pending bile.
“And we’re in!” PPMC soon announced. “We’re in the black hole and heading for the wormhole.”
No way! Dan surely was dreaming, but his aching chest said otherwise. He forced his eyes open and checked his limbs.
What the heck? It worked! PPMC had turned into a spaghetti strand to slip through the wormhole, but Dan was still strapped in his seat, with all his body parts. Astonishing!
“Ha! Ha!” PPMC laughed. “Chenoa told you I could survive a black hole! Whoo-hoo!” She playfully spun in the dark tunnel, lit only by her headlights. “I feel the need for speed!”
Dan calmed her. “Now’s not the time to celebrate. We still have to make it through the wormhole.”
“Ooh, look at you, big and mighty one-night stander.”
PPMC quickly turned serious when another violent jerk flipped her upside-down. She had trouble returning to right-side up. “Gee, this gravity is powerful, but don’t worry, Daniel. I see the wormhole. Say ‘Push!’ again.”
Portals and Aliens. Portals and Aliens, Dan thought. “Push!”
The worst of the worst roller coaster ride in history began in the enormous, purplish-black, slightly translucent wormhole. Dan saw the white hole at the end of it, but PPMC spun so fast that he started to fall asleep. His head and health were not in the right place for this. “My head, PPMC.”
“Don’t throw up on me, kid. We’re almost there. The last thing you need to do is say ‘Precambrian.’”
“Pre-Pre-Precambrian.”
The hand on PPMC’s clock moved counterclockwise, indicating they were starting to travel back in time, but then it happened.
PPMC’s horn blared, and her time machine began to spark!
“For the love of—!” Dan yelled. “Shut that horn up, PPMC!”
“What the—?” PPMC sounded panicked. Her—an AI starship! “This isn’t supposed to happen! Something’s wrong.”
“Oh, of course! Of course, something goes wrong when we’re in the wormhole.”
“Dan, this is bad. This is so bad. The gravity’s too much.”
“So, now what? I get spaghettified?” Dan expected that, but it never happened.
PPMC held her finger up to him. “No. Now, shut up. It’s time to bring out the heavy artillery.” How on Earth was she so calm? “I swore to get you through the wormhole, Dan, and I intend to do just that, even if you are an idiot.”
“I’m scared!” Was Dan crying? “I want my dad!”
PPMC reached for a red button on her console. “You should’ve said goodbye to him when we left.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re stuck with me, so suck it up and trust me.” She really sounded like a mom there.
Because of the situation they were in, Dan, without thinking, let the truth slide:
“PPMC, I killed my mom!”
She paused, but then she scoffed. “Oh, please, Dan, don’t pull that. Your mom’s here with you. Listen to her, and let me do the work.” She pressed the red button. “Emergency booster engines activated!”
The backup engines pushed PPMC forward, but her time machine continued to spark. Dan looked away from it. “Ah! Mom!”
He heard her! “I’m here, Dan—in forms both big and small.”
Becca’s soothing tone helped him relax. Dan didn’t know where she was, but she was somewhere. He shivered under a sudden chill.
“Trust PPMC,” Becca said. “Your work here is done. Just try to rest. I’ll see you in the Precambrian Time, my son.” Her voice left Dan’s head, and images of the time traveling, much like his dream, replaced it: the Precambrian volcanoes, Carboniferous coal swamps, Jurassic dinos, and Eocene ancestors of horses.
The visions retreated, but Dan and PPMC were far from safe.
PPMC tinkered with her time machine for at least five minutes, but eventually, everything started working again. Her horn stopped blaring, and the time machine quit sparking. She still spun, though, and Dan’s poor tummy couldn’t handle it much longer.
“PPMC, I’m gonna hurl.”
“No, you’re not. We’re so close. Stay with me a little longer, kid.”
“Just get me out of this thing!” Dan’s head bopped his headrest. “I never want to ride a roller coaster again.”
After what felt like forever, PPMC’s spinning ceased, and her booster engines shoved her out of the wormhole into the white hole. The hand on her clock stopped at 760 Ma.
Although smaller, the white hole was as powerful as the black hole, not the wormhole.
The wormhole snatched PPMC and lugged her toward its gaping mouth.
“Oh no, you don’t,” PPMC snapped. “I’m not going to let a little gravity stop us.”
“I killed my mom,” Dan whimpered to himself. He remembered that horrid day. Dan tried to save her but killed her instead. The worst thing was—he never told Ben. The accident happened while he was under stress, like what he felt now. What if Dan murdered PPMC, too? Shoot, they needed to escape the white hole right now. It reminded Dan too much of what happened.
“PPMC, please,” he begged. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
She didn’t look at him since she was too busy trying to save them, but she did say, “I’m trying, Dan, but the gravity is too powerful.”
“Then shut it off!”
“I can’t.”
The hand on PPMC’s clock moved clockwise, counterclockwise, and clockwise again.
“Work!” PPMC demanded.
Boom!
The starship cannonballed out of the wormhole and white hole, and her clock returned to 760 Ma. Dan heard her emergency engines chugging like a broken train.
PPMC punched the light speed button and ordered, “Light speed, get us out of here!” Her booster engines saved them. She moved faster than the speed of light, but her machines beeped and flashed. Regardless, her clock’s hand never left 760 Ma.
“Dan, we’re here,” she said, exhausted. “We made it.”
Could Dan throw up now? He puffed out his cheeks.
PPMC hastily turned on the auto-pilot and removed his helmet. She left but soon returned with Junior Bucket. PPMC unstrapped Dan and handed it to him.
He stuck his head in Junior Bucket and, for three minutes straight, vomited everything (stress, grief, memories, etc.) out of his system. Afterward, Dan collapsed out of his chair into PPMC’s arm—and lost consciousness.
That was nothing like the aerotrim.
End of Act I: 3023
Current Word Count: 26,000