FEBRUARY 4TH, 2023 – 10:45 A.M.
The resounding crack echoed off the nearby brick walls as Luke suddenly appeared behind the grocery store. There were a few closed loading zones, some dumpsters, and a couple parked cars, but as he had predicted, the area was empty. He slipped the time machine into the backpack over his shoulder and began walking toward the front of the store.
He eventually found a sidewalk that curved around the corner, revealing a parking lot full of vehicles and bustling people. It was a Saturday morning, he remembered, so many would be visiting to acquire their weekly store of groceries.
It was surreal to be back here. At the time of Sebastian’s disappearance, he had been helping a friend build a shed in their backyard; it wasn’t until a half hour after it happened that he had gotten the call and rushed over. He had found Evelyn sitting at the front of the store, tears streaming down her face as she talked to several police officers while a dozen others locked down the store and parking lot.
But right now, it was calm and peaceful, another normal winter day for the people of Abingdon, Maryland. Luke felt out of place in his short-sleeved shirt and jeans, and the constant chilled breeze was amplifying the waves of nervous tension coursing through his body. He finally arrived at the front of the store, catching a few odd looks from the passersby wearing coats.
A wave of heat welcomed him as he passed through the automatic glass doors, his heart pounding furiously. He passed by various fixtures of chocolates and flowers advertising Valentine’s Day, navigating the store until he arrived at the grocery section, where thirteen aisles were lined up parallel.
Luke knew exactly where he was going: aisle eight, for spices and sauces, where his son was last seen. It wasn’t a long walk from here, and he quickened his pace as his heart beat faster and faster, passing the aisles at a brisk pace.
Aisle eight was empty, as expected. Luke stood here for a few seconds, his hands trembling with anticipation, trying to decide what to do next. He remembered from the tapes that Evelyn and the kidnapper were the only people who would be coming through the aisle as it happened. He would need to stay away from here until the proper moment came.
He turned around, looking for a discrete spot to hide. There was a section just behind him filled with dozens of flower bouquets, taking up a large square spot on the floor. He made his way around, picking a spot behind it where he could peer through the leaves and watch what would happen.
The minutes passed agonizingly slowly as Luke waited to see his son again. Heart pounding, sweat beading on his forehead, body trembling, he stood peering through the flowers, barely able to wait any longer. It was a bombshell that had been dropped on his life. A little over an hour ago, he was cooking breakfast for Evelyn. Now, he was about to see Sebastian for the first time in two years.
Luke’s heart skipped a beat, a heavy breath escaping him as Evelyn finally turned around the corner in the distance, casually glancing up and down the shelves of containers. Sebastian was resting peacefully in a bundle of blankets on the upper shelf of her half-full shopping cart, his tiny tuft of black hair escaping through the thin bars. Luke was transfixed as she moved down the aisle, his mind racing, knowing he was running out of time.
But, he was suddenly struck with the realization that the kidnapper had come down the aisle in the same direction as Evelyn, at the opposite end of where he was now. He was out of time, there was no way he could get there fast enough, which meant…
A man rounded the corner behind Evelyn, steady and composed in his motion, wearing jeans and a black sweater. He was tall, his hair dark and his skin pale. Luke watched, frozen in place, as Evelyn took a few steps away from the cart, just as she had in the security footage, and bent over to read the labels on containers closer to the floor. The man approached them and, in a single, silent motion, lifted Sebastian out of the cart, blankets and all, and continued moving. He quietly glided past Evelyn, his footsteps making no noise, continuing straight toward Luke before turning left out of the aisle.
Luke stood frozen for another moment while he decided what to do as the man continued away from him, walking smoothly past the aisles.
“Sebastian!?” came Evelyn’s cry, yanking at his heart and spurring him into motion.
Luke set off in the other direction, walking swiftly to the spot where the man would disappear. He remembered, while reviewing the footage, that the man had taken a circuitous route to avoid being spotted with a baby by other shoppers, so Luke could get there first if he took the most direct path.
He struggled to ignore the panicked shouts of his wife from across the store. Aware he couldn’t seem suspicious to the cameras, he walked at a normal pace away from the groceries, passing a deli market and a bakery before arriving at the corner of two walking lanes, just outside of the restrooms, finding the exact spot on the floor where none of the cameras overhead could see.
The kidnapper had not made it here yet. Luke took a few deep breaths while he decided what to do. He still couldn’t act too conspicuously, so now he was unsure what to do. A few chairs were outside the restrooms, so he walked over and took a seat there, staring hard at the blind spot, his heart beating loudly in his ears as he waited for the moment no one had seen.
Around the corner came the man, carrying Sebastian in his blankets in one arm, swiftly approaching the spot just ahead of Luke. He could not help staring as the man approached, and after a few seconds, the man spotted him as well, making eye contact.
Luke sat frozen as the kidnapper slowed down, his stomach dropping as the man’s brow furrowed with recognition. The kidnapper arrived at the spot, standing still and staring hard at Luke, who looked back at him with terror.
“Luke Demetriou,” the man said, his voice cold and deep. “I expected you.”
Paralyzing fear coursed down Luke’s spine. He was up against another time traveler, with no plan and no recourse. In his other hand, the kidnapper pointed a small silver gun, smaller than any he had ever seen, at him. Its barrel couldn’t have been more than a half inch long.
“I have something for you,” the man said, smoothly reaching into his pocket with a few fingers without pointing the gun away. He removed a small slip of paper and placed it on the ground at his own feet.
Luke couldn’t breathe as the man reached behind his back, and after a moment, revealed a time machine identical to the one he had in his backpack. He thumbed the yellow button, then the red.
The man looked Luke hard in the eyes, a vague sneer in his expression as the timer ticked down, and then he was gone.
The puff of wind blew the note in Luke’s direction as he felt the tension release, tears spilling out of his eyes as he heard Evelyn’s crazed screams from elsewhere in the building. He took a moment to breathe, trying to calm himself after the fear of the interaction before picking up the note and reading it.
January 1st, 7500, at 1:00 P.M. Coordinates are 23.0958, 11.5278. Your son is here. Come now.
Luke was overwhelmed as another volley of tears streamed down his face, his body shaking under the extreme terror that encompassed him. He didn’t have a choice. The man had gone to this location with Sebastian and was expecting him to show up.
He felt defeated. The man had anticipated him being here; he clearly knew so much more than Luke did. He was incompetent and naive, and had fallen into what should have been an obvious trap. But these small bits of logic that formed in his mind were vastly overrun by the ocean of pain that begged him to go to this time and location. Sometime, somewhere, deep in the distant future, Sebastian needed him.
Luke stood slowly, heading into the restroom and entering a stall. He removed the time machine from his backpack, hands shaking, struggling to enter the correct time and location on the small buttons.
After a few moments, the correct information was entered. He closed his eyes, collecting his thoughts and trying to calm himself before this confrontation. He was hopelessly inexperienced and overwhelmingly terrified, but he had no choice. His son needed him, so he would go.
Luke pressed the red button.
JANUARY 1ST, 7500 – 1:00 P.M.
Luke appeared in a dark and barren landscape. The ground beneath his feet was black and charred, and the sky overhead was covered by unnaturally turbulent clouds. The air was cold and bitter, making it exceptionally difficult to breathe. In every direction, as far as he could see, the horizon was totally flat.
Two men stood in front of him, and with a start Luke realized they were both the kidnapper, identical copies standing aside each other. The one to the left had his arm outstretched, pointing the tiny silver pistol at Luke. The one to the right was still holding Sebastian under one arm, his pistol at his side. Each bore the same cold expression, their dark eyes each staring deeply into Luke’s own.
“Drop the time machine,” the one holding Sebastian said, his voice strangely muffled by the tainted air. Luke complied, and it made a strange mechanical noise as it clinked against the ashen ground.
“Luke,” the man said. “I believe this is the first time you’ve met me.”
Luke’s throat felt constricted. There was nothing he could say or do.
“My name is Joseph,” the time traveler said without emotion. “I don’t know if you are aware of the basics of time travel yet, but allow me a moment to explain why you should not try anything clever with your machine.”
Joseph paused for a moment, looking Luke up and down with disapproval before continuing.
“There is no way to interrupt what’s happening right now,” he said, clearing his throat. “The resulting paradox-cancel would favor me. I have a copy of myself standing here, with full knowledge of everything that happens. And I am ready to kill the child on a moment’s notice. If you do anything that I do not instruct you to do, the child will die, and you will be gravely injured. Not killed, because I have seen you in the future. But I will gladly make it hurt. So your best choice is to stand there and do nothing but talk. Do you follow?”
Luke’s heart was beating furiously as he took the information in, but the overwhelming terror still rendered him unable to speak.
“Well, I hope you do,” Joseph said patronizingly. “For your son’s sake.”
Another silent few moments passed as Luke trembled helplessly before the two men.
“Okay, let’s get to the point,” the time traveler said, a hint of disappointment in his voice. “Tell me your code and the child lives. That’s all I need from you right now.”
Joseph lifted his own silver pistol and pointed it at Sebastian’s head, and the threat finally registered in Luke’s clogged mind.
“Please,” Luke choked, falling to his knees as he watched the man threaten his son’s life.
“The code,” Joseph said, his voice more firm. “Explain it to me now.”
Luke couldn’t find the words as he stared at his son in the other man’s arm, his mind collapsing from the impossible stress.
“Now!” Joseph yelled, pressing the end of the gun against Sebastian’s forehead, causing the baby to stir. “Tell me now!”
“Okay!” Luke yelled, finally able to speak. “Okay, wait, please… just wait…”
The man raised his eyebrows and stared hard at Luke as a few breathless moments passed. Sebastian began to cry, piercing the air and crushing Luke’s heart.
“It’s…” he whispered, his mind completely broken, his body shaking uncontrollably. It took him a moment to recall the motions, but after a few seconds, he lifted his hands and grabbed his left wrist, then his right.
“That’s it?” Joseph said as Luke let his hands fall. “Nothing else?”
Luke shook his head, tears streaming down his face.
“Thank you,” the man said. “I will verify that this is true, then return your son to you.”
Luke’s heart skipped yet another beat as Joseph slipped the gun in his pocket, revealed the time machine again, and pressed the yellow button. The future Joseph also revealed his own time machine, and in perfect synchrony, they pressed the red buttons.
With two loud overlapping cracks, Sebastian was gone.
Luke rested alone in the dim hellscape, barely able to breathe, his time machine upside-down at his feet. He had no idea what to do or where to go. Would Joseph return here? He was unsure, but waiting was probably the best course of action.
He sat heavy in the ash as tears continued to spill from his eyes, waiting desperately for anything to happen. His mind tried to process everything that had happened in the last few minutes, the intolerable stress continuing to course through his body as he wept.
Luke was hopelessly outmatched. There was still so much he didn’t know, and Joseph clearly was far more capable and deadly. He needed to learn more if he didn’t want to be so easily overwhelmed, but he just felt so small. The world was so much bigger than he knew. He was sitting here, five thousand years in the future, utterly defeated by a momentary exchange with another time traveler.
With the despair was anger as well, his blood boiling at the thought of Joseph so emotionlessly pointing a gun at his son. The man was a monster, fully prepared to kill a child if necessary.
Many minutes passed, but Joseph still hadn’t returned. Luke began to wonder if he actually was going to return the child at all. More tears escaped him at the thought; Joseph might just continue to use his son as collateral, to force him to do his bidding, without ever actually returning him.
And Luke would indeed do as he was asked; he truly would do anything to keep his son alive.
Luke slowly got to his feet, ash smeared all over his clothes. He bent over to pick up the time machine, deciding his best option now was to simply return to Evelyn, tell her what happened, and wait for Oliver to come.
Inputting the time and coordinates, Luke pressed the red button, and after a moment, the apocalypse world returned to emptiness.
JUNE 14TH, 2025 – 4:00 A.M.
Oliver Griswald appeared in Edgewood, Maryland, just down the road from the house where everything would begin. It was four in the morning, too early for anyone to wake and see what he was up to. He started down the sidewalk, placing his time machine into his duffel bag next to the rest of his equipment. He wore a heavy black coat lined with bulletproof materials from the distant future, as well as thick cargo pants and steel-toed boots. It wasn’t too dark right now; the moon just above the horizon was nearly full, and the light pollution from Baltimore illuminated the sky with a dull yellow.
He had come here because something wasn’t sitting right with him about how the circumstances would end in a few hours. He’d already seen it happen a couple times, as he was sure the others had, but he was missing too many details to be satisfied with his understanding of the event.
The time traveler walked in front of the house and stopped to consider it. Inside, Luke and Evelyn Demetriou were sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware of how horrible their lives were about to become. Luke was one of his best friends, and if he could choose to stop all of this, he would do it in a heartbeat. The poor man would go through so much suffering, so much more than the other time travelers would. It was such a shame Luke had so much to lose, at least compared to the rest of them.
But there was no time for such retrospection. Oliver had come here with a purpose, a mission that he would dutifully execute, as he always did. This was a particularly important one he had set for himself. He wondered how many other travelers had thought to do this, for it seemed like it should be obvious.
Oliver turned and crossed the street, marching up the lawn of the house opposite Luke’s and stopping in its garden. He kneeled over, reaching into his duffel bag and pulling out a small camera. He fumbled with its controls for a moment before activating it successfully and propping it in a bush, out of sight, aiming at the house. A small red light on its side flashed every few seconds.
He repeated this process with seven other cameras, placing each at specific points around the house, even going into the forest behind Luke’s home to conceal a few. It would hopefully be enough to reveal whatever crucial moments he might still be unaware of.
Oliver walked out into the street and moved down the block until he arrived at the point where he had first appeared. He slipped the time machine from his bag, adjusted the target time to be twenty-four hours from now, and pushed the red button.
JUNE 15TH, 2025 – 4:00 A.M.
It was as though Oliver hadn’t moved at all. A loud crack sounded, but everything looked mostly the same. The sky was clear, a dull yellow mixed with black, and the moon still shone brightly from its position in the sky. He could not perceive the slight differences in the sky on his own, so he double-checked the machine to be sure he was at the right point in time before starting down the dark road.
What was once a small and comfortable home was now a smoking crater in the ground, with yellow caution tape surrounding the perimeter of the property. The neighboring houses were also damaged, the chimney of one having collapsed and spilled bricks all on their lawn and sidewalk. Glass, wood, brick, and cement debris littered the entire area, crunching beneath Oliver’s boots as he walked.
He went around to each of the eight points where he had left the cameras, collecting each and deactivating them. They hadn’t moved or been touched, as far as he was aware, but he supposed he couldn’t know for sure until he checked the footage. Nothing was ever certain where time travel was involved.
He paused to consider the thought. As far as he knew, some other traveler might have come along, collected his cameras, and wiped the footage, replacing it with something they had faked. These cameras had special encryption built into them, so he could be reasonably sure it wasn’t cracked, but when clever use of a time machine nets you infinite time for a computer to grind through a passcode, nothing is truly secure.
But generally, if you can be fairly sure of something, it’s reasonable to go along with it and swallow your suspicions. Oliver had a good sense for when he was being deceived, and he trusted his instincts.
Once he had gathered the last camera, he walked off into the dark forest behind the neighborhood and pulled out his time machine again. He slipped a notepad and a small penlight out of his pocket, flipping through several pages of coordinates he had saved before finding the pair that correlated to his hideout.
With the correct time and coordinates entered, Oliver stood and activated the machine, and after three seconds, he disappeared.
APRIL 11TH, 2037 – 3:47 P.M.
The time traveler appeared at a remote corner of the country of Iceland, stormy clouds rippling overhead as he walked up a gravel path to a sturdy house firmly planted on a cliff over the ocean. Oliver would never tell anyone about this place, not even Luke, so he knew for certain that no enemies of his would ever show up at this place, at any time.
The wooden door creaked as he opened it, revealing a pleasant living room with plush couches, a television, and tall windows facing the Norwegian Sea. The gray light filled the otherwise comfortable room, making it feel a little empty. This was all Oliver had, and all he would ever have. It was home.
He walked into the kitchen, opened a small refrigerator and pulled out leftover fried rice on a plate. He put it in a microwave oven over the stove in the corner, and after a few moments, his steaming food was ready to eat.
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He opened a door toward the end of the kitchen, duffel bag over one shoulder and afternoon meal in hand, and descended a concrete staircase, finally arriving in his basement. An array of technology covered the wall; screens, keyboards, cameras, tools, and various small trinkets rested atop a long desk, all perfectly organized and aligned. A worn leather office chair rested in front of it.
Oliver sat down, rolling up to his desk and placing his plate on its surface. He bent over and pulled each of the eight cameras from the duffel bag, slipping a memory card out of each of them until they all rested on the desk in a row. Thumbing the button on a computer box to the side, the screens all came alive, displaying various documents, camera views, and maps.
He inserted each memory card into the computer, collecting each video file onto his hard drive in between mouthfuls of fried rice. Once they were safely moved over, he placed each memory card back into their respective cameras before carrying them over to a drawer in the corner. Inside were dozens of other cameras of all shapes and sizes from various time periods, and he organized them inside with the rest.
Oliver sat down again, halfway done his food, and opened each video file, moving each display to a different screen. He synchronized each of them, fast-forwarded until the local time read 8:47 A.M., and sat back to watch.
Eight views of a small and peaceful house were presented by wide-angle lenses in high definition. These cameras were made sometime within the past few years, which relative to the time period he was born, were much higher quality than he had been used to before becoming a time traveler. Of course, there were plenty of details he could still miss, perhaps due to having a slightly bad angle, or because something happened in another spectrum of light, but he could always hide more cameras if something didn’t seem right.
After one minute, the first pop came from the forest.
Seconds later, Luke Demetriou emerged, wandering toward the front of the house, an unsure look on his blood-smeared face.
He arrived at his own front porch, and after two seconds, the black-garbed person appeared behind him with another loud pop.
Oliver paused the synchronized stream of footage for a moment and peered at the screens that had a clear view of the soldier. He was still unsure who this was; he had suspected it was Joseph Zellerman for a long time, but now that he had a clearer view of them from multiple angles, he could tell the unknown person was far too short. There was no skin or hair visible, and their build was average beneath the bulky armored plates, but Zellerman was a taller and lankier man.
He sat back, crossing his arms. Any of the rest of them could have been that height. It could even be Oliver himself, as far as he knew. At least one potential person was eliminated, but he was still dissatisfied. He started up the synchronized videos again and leaned back, taking another bite of his food and watching them closely.
They stood for a few moments, staring at Luke, who looked back at them with apparent terror.
The third crack came, which would be the first time machine appearing on its own, atop Luke’s dining room table.
The soldier took off, running inside, shoving Luke as they passed him before pausing in the entrance. After another breath, they dashed toward the dining room table. Only one camera had the correct angle to witness this, and he watched as the soldier picked up the time machine that had just appeared and vanished, taking one of the dining chairs with him by accident. The Luke outside then hurried into the house and disappeared up the stairs.
Oliver nodded to himself. He hadn’t witnessed this on his own, but it was nice to have direct confirmation that that’s what had happened. That should’ve been the moment Luke escaped with Evelyn to their hotel in Alaska.
Now that the door was wide open, the view he was watching could reveal the second time machine appearing on the table. He briefly paused everything so he could zoom this camera in, giving him a clear view of the area just inside the front door. The original Luke was still standing there, dumbstruck, his hand on his head.
At 8:51, the second time machine appeared on the table in the same spot as the previous with its own loud crack, as expected. Oliver supposed this second machine must have been sent intentionally by Luke at some point, since that ended up being the machine he still uses. He took the final bite of his meal and placed the empty plate on the table.
At the same moment, Oliver himself appeared on the front lawn, wearing a camouflage-style armored suit with the time machine fixed in a square over his chest, its blank bottom facing outward. He wielded a heavy rifle in both arms, spinning around to orient himself before pointing his weapon at Joseph Zellerman, who had also suddenly appeared, wearing a black sweater and jeans, holding a baby under one arm and his time machine in the other.
A flicker of motion caught his eye from the video playing behind the house; he would rewind and review this later on.
“Stop!” Oliver heard himself yell through the camera. “Don’t---”
But Joseph was already smiling, a wicked look darkening his face as a gunshot rang out across all the videos. Oliver grimaced as he watched himself fall, blood pouring out from a chink in his armor under his right shoulder. He absently touched the scar that it had left behind, the muscle flashing with a gentle pain to remind him of its permanent damage.
Immediately after the gunshot, a time travel crack rang out from somewhere he could not discern. This must be the invisible party vanishing after taking the shot, who Oliver supposed must be Zellerman coming back to save himself. He made a mental note to inspect the first few hours of the video for his appearance and the position he would take, should he have stayed visible at any point.
Joseph, still holding Luke’s son, adjusted his time machine and then disappeared, the injured Oliver doing the same. Their part was played, and they would go make their own decisions based on what they had caused and observed. Nothing was happening out front for the next few seconds as he watched, then the final gunshot rang out from the house. Evelyn should now be dead.
The next minute finally ticked by and with it the last Luke appeared on the front lawn, immediately sprinting inside. This one would save the original Luke by transporting him somewhere unknown and teaching him the basics before taking him to the hotel.
Nothing further should be happening out front. Two more cracks came from inside the house, and he knew these should be the newest Luke disappearing with the first, and the Luke upstairs escaping with Evelyn. It all happened as he knew it should, so he rewound a few minutes and set his eyes on the videos displaying the back of the house.
On three cameras, an unknown man appeared with an older Evelyn Demetriou.
Oliver raised his eyebrows, slightly taken aback that he hadn’t seen this person yet. He was taller than Evelyn, with black hair down to his neck and a tan complexion. He wore just a green short-sleeved shirt and jeans. There was a pistol in his left hand and a time machine in his right.
The man said something quietly to Evelyn, too quietly for the cameras to hear, and she looked back at him, a sad look on her face. Oliver watched with confusion as she replied, also too quiet to hear, before turning and running at the house, throwing open the back door.
Only one camera could see through the back door, and Oliver leaned forward to stare at the screen as the unknown man lifted a handgun, pointed it at the back of Evelyn’s head, and pulled the trigger.
Oliver paused it for a moment, leaning back in his chair again and thinking furiously. He had again suspected that Joseph would’ve been the one to kill her, given he had kidnapped her child already. Perhaps he also was the man in the black armor at the beginning of the event? Oliver felt as though he was on the verge of something important.
He resumed the videos, watching the only screens with a view of the back of the house, transfixed. Through the back door he could see the original Luke scream and collapse, crawling across the floor to hug Evelyn’s lifeless body and getting blood all over himself. The unknown man slipped the pistol into his belt before brandishing his time machine and starting to enter coordinates.
But to Oliver’s surprise, at 8:52, a new Luke appeared right next to the man, time machine in hand, equipped in his own armored suit, and immediately tackled him, dropping both to the ground and sending the unknown man’s time machine skittering away.
Luke got atop the unknown man and punched him hard in the jaw, over and over, a furious expression burning in his eyes as the man twisted under him, desperately reaching for the machine that was too far.
This new Luke then stood, activated his time machine, grabbed the unknown man’s shoulder, and suddenly, he and the unknown man were gone.
Oliver’s eyes were wide as he watched this. A time machine was sitting there, on the ground, for free, and no one had noticed it.
He was then unsurprised to see himself appear, wearing his current attire, just in front of where the time machine was resting. He watched as the duplicate in the video glanced around, a baffled look on his face, then leaned over, picked up the machine, put it in his duffel bag, and after a few seconds, vanished.
Oliver sat back and crossed his arms. These cameras were definitely an excellent idea. So much had happened behind the house that he was unaware of.
He rewound the footage, watching everything transpire again, taking careful note of the unknown man’s appearance. Black hair, tan skin, average build, green shirt, jeans. The video didn’t have the definition to discern his eye color, though. Luke appeared just after Evelyn’s death, tackling the man and disappearing with him, and seconds later, Oliver would steal the extra time machine.
The back of the house was now empty, so Oliver rewound again to watch everything happen at once, just to make sure nothing else caught his eye.
The chaos ended at the house with Oliver’s last disappearance. After a few minutes without anything happening, exactly at 9:00, one final Joseph arrived, standing alone on the front lawn.
Oliver had never seen this moment, and watched curiously as Joseph entered the house and closed the door behind him. Several minutes passed until the door finally opened again and he exited the building.
This last Joseph stretched his arms over his head and yawned just as the first police car rounded the corner of the neighborhood, just barely in view down the road on one camera. He was holding a remote in one hand, and he fumbled with it for a moment before turning and tossing it into the house behind him. He then activated his time machine and vanished.
A few seconds passed, and finally the house exploded, a violent eruption blowing a crater into the ground and smoke all down the neighborhood, blocking all the cameras’ views for several minutes.
Eventually the smoke dissipated, and the hole looked exactly as he had seen it earlier. Dozens of police cars arrived at the scene, along with a few SWAT trucks, but this was where the interesting parts of the day ended, and Oliver finally stopped the video.
Oliver knew what he was doing next. It wasn’t the crucial detail he was looking for, but whatever had happened behind the house was complex enough that it could be an explanation. He had a theory for what the Target at the CIA was, one he wasn’t totally sure of yet, but what he had seen today made him feel as though it was significantly more likely to be true.
He collected his time machine from his duffel bag, stood up from his desk and pushed the chair back. After flipping through his notepad for the correct coordinates, he entered them into the time machine and zoomed in to position the target exactly over where he had seen the time machine land. As he adjusted the time, he could actually see the slight change in the topological representation of the ground where the forgotten time machine was; a small orange square appeared just slightly imposed over the surrounding flat terrain.
Oliver took a deep breath. This should be easy, but it was difficult to stifle the anxiety of the unknown when it came to time travel. The local time on the machine said it was 4:21 P.M., so he would be sure to come back one minute later. He pressed the red button.
JUNE 14TH, 2025 – 8:53 A.M.
Oliver appeared behind Luke’s house, feeling nervous that he hadn’t brought any armor, but was of course confident in what he had seen in the video. It truly was strange standing here again, knowing that he was unseen by anyone except himself through the cameras in the woods.
At his feet, the time machine glinted with the morning sun, lit by a beam escaping between the leaves of the forest. He bent over and picked it up. Nothing seemed strange about it; it was the same flawless, perfect machine as the one he was holding in his other hand.
Oliver shook his head slightly. He slipped the extra machine into his duffel bag, entered the coordinates to his hideout into his own machine, and activated it.
APRIL 11TH, 2037 – 4:22 P.M.
Oliver appeared outside his home again, the same stormy clouds drifting slowly overhead as he walked the path up to his door. He went inside, made his way down to the basement, and took a seat at his desk before removing the extra time machine and placing it next to his empty plate.
He contemplated it as he sat, wondering what he should do next. There was already somewhere he had to be, but now he had to consider what to do with this new machine.
Free time machines were incredibly rare; all the travelers kept careful track of their own at all times, and Oliver had never actually seen anyone lose one like this. Whoever that man was, wherever he went with that rendition of Luke, would probably end up stranded there with no machine. It was totally possible that he had just witnessed the death of a time traveler.
That was something he also had never seen before. Time travel did not preclude one from the inevitability of death, but since there were so many different loops that travelers would go through, it was impossible to know during which one a traveler would die. Now, he had seen Evelyn die, and this new man was likely killed by Luke in revenge.
Oliver considered the new time machine on his desk for a good while before standing and breathing deeply. He decided to simply keep the machine with him; perhaps a purpose for it would present itself soon. He didn’t want to risk leaving it here, lest the timeline decide a traveler should discover this location and steal it.
He picked it up off the desk and put it into his duffel bag, removing his original machine and placing it in front of him. They truly were identical, as far as he could tell, but he still preferred to keep things as simple as possible with regards to how each machine traveled through the loops.
Luke had instructed him that now was the time to go speak to his younger self. He’d taken a quick detour, one he was very glad he had taken, but he figured he might as well go take care of it now. He would review the few hours of the beginning of the video for the invisible shooter’s appearance another time.
He looked through his notepad for the coordinates to the hotel in Alaska where Luke was hiding his wife. After entering it into the time machine, and sliding the target time to around twelve years ago, he stepped back and pressed the red button.
JUNE 14TH, 2025 – 5:59 A.M.
Oliver appeared outside the hotel in Fairbanks, Alaska. The sun was low in the sky, and it was bitter and cold, though his thick clothing kept him comfortable. A few cars were out here in the parking lot, one of which had a heavy blue blanket wrapped around a tire. He watched it curiously for a moment before heading inside, slipping his time machine into his duffel bag next to the other.
Only one person was sitting here in the breakfast area, browsing new articles on their cell phone with their empty plates in front of them. Oliver nodded to the receptionist, who smiled in return as he walked past. He found the staircase, making his way up two floors and down a couple halls before arriving at Luke’s room and knocking on the door.
“Come in,” a muffled voice called after a moment.
Oliver looked through his bag for a moment before finding the spare keycard Luke had given him, then opened the door and walked in. His younger counterpart and Evelyn were sitting on the bed together, arms around each other, their faces bright red from tears streaming down their faces as they looked up at him. Luke’s clothes were smeared with what looked like ash, staining his pants and shirt.
Oliver was bewildered, but did not forget to perform the code gesture: he scratched behind his left ear, then after a second, twisted his head to the right to crack his neck.
“What’s wrong?” he asked gently, coming into the room a little further. Luke hadn’t told him what would happen when he first arrived, so he was genuinely confused. The current Luke on the bed looked up at him, his expression changing to one of suspicion.
“Who are you?” Luke asked, his voice hardening a little.
“I’m Oliver Griswald,” he said slowly. “You’re Luke Demetriou. Could you do the code to prove it please?”
“You first,” Luke said, staring hard at him.
He blinked and stared back. Luke’s free hand started to creep toward his time machine, which sat next to him on the bed, wild fear in his eyes. He held Evelyn tighter, a terrified expression on her own tear-streaked face.
Oliver was utterly perplexed. Luke hadn’t told him anything went wrong, but this seemed like a pretty serious misunderstanding.
“Hey,” he said gently, putting his hands up. “I’m not going to hurt you. There’s some kind of miscommunication here.”
The couple seemed unconvinced, but Luke was no longer leaning toward his machine.
“Why don’t you know the code?” Luke said, his voice shaking. “He said you’d know the code.”
“I do,” Oliver said. “I did it already. What, are you thinking of a different code?”
“Do it again then,” Luke said.
Oliver hesitated. Was there a chance this was some kind of trick? The Luke he knew had said it was always the code they had done. It seemed unlikely that these two here were not the real Luke and Evelyn, but there was no way to be sure. After a moment of thought, a different connection formed in Oliver’s mind, and a grave feeling filled the pit of his stomach.
“Luke,” he said slowly. “Did you tell someone your code?”
Luke’s eyes immediately showed fear, and Oliver knew the answer. This was very bad news. He discretely slipped his left hand into his duffel bag, lightly brushing a pistol he kept strapped to the side, ready to make a move before the two on the couch could.
“Okay, okay,” he said quickly. “Let me think for a moment.”
There had to be a way for them to prove their trust to each other. They seemed innocent enough, and he knew them well enough to be reasonably certain it was them, but the travelers he knew were exceptional actors. His mind whirred through different options and their eventual outcomes, calculating how each occurrence may have already affected their past or future. Luke was visibly growing more uncertain with every second, but finally Oliver had an idea.
“Alright,” he said slowly. “Do you have a pen and paper with you?”
Luke looked at him quizzically, the nervous energy more apparent than ever before. “I have a phone,” he said quietly.
“Sure, sure,” Oliver said. “I want you to think of a new code gesture, nothing like the one you seem to already know. Then, write it down somewhere in your phone, and put it facedown on the floor. I will perform it, then check that it’s what you’ve already written down. That way we can both be sure neither of us already knew what it was, and that you truly just came up with it right now.”
Luke looked like someone had asked him to do a backflip. “Evelyn, does that make sense to you?”
She nodded, apparently to Luke’s surprise. “If you end up meeting him sometime in his past, and tell him the gesture, then he should already know it. It makes sense to me.”
Oliver looked both of them over as they exchanged unsure expressions. He pitied them, as he pitied everyone who was forced to be a part of this temporal knot. They would understand everything eventually, but he knew they had only been part of this for a few relative hours now.
The couple fell silent and Luke looked away absently. After a moment, he looked back at Oliver. “Okay, I thought of a new one.”
“Write it down then,” Oliver instructed.
Luke slipped his phone from his pocket, tapped it a few times, then placed it face-down on the floor.
“Ready?” he said, and Luke nodded.
Oliver repeated what he did as he first walked in; he scratched behind his left ear, and a moment later, twisted his head to the right, though this time his neck didn’t crack.
“Was that it?” Evelyn asked, and Luke nodded, relief washing over both of their faces. Oliver took a few steps forward and bent over, picked up the phone, and found the exact instructions for the code written down on the screen. He breathed a sigh of relief himself, removing his hand from the duffel bag and tossing the phone back to Luke.
“Alright, Luke,” Oliver said, urgency now in his voice. He looked around the room and took a seat at a couch in the corner facing them, clasping his hands together. “Tell me exactly who you told the code to, and why.”
Luke swallowed and looked away. After a few moments, he looked back, tears rimming his eyelids.
“A few years ago, our son Sebastian was kidnapped,” he began softly. “I tried to go back and save him while we waited for you to get here. We thought that, if I went back, then I could have been the original kidnapper, and everything would be fine. But when I got there, it was actually another guy.”
Chills ran up Oliver’s spine as he listened. He could already guess who it was, but he let Luke finish.
“I caught him right before he disappeared with Sebastian. He gave me a note for a time and place five thousand years from now. When I got there, he said his name was Joseph, and he demanded that I tell him the code if I wanted my son to live. So I did.”
“And he didn’t give him back to you, did he?”
Luke looked down at the floor, hiding his eyes. “No.”
“Okay, Luke, this is really bad,” Oliver said sharply. “Joseph Zellerman is a very capable and very dangerous traveler. Before I got here, how many people had you seen perform the original code?”
“Just one,” Luke said nervously. “It was myself, from the future.”
“You’re certain it was only one?”
“Yeah.”
Oliver thought for a moment, remembering the videos he’d just watched. “Well, this person took you out of your house as everything happened, right? Did they use the time machine separately from you or were they touching you for every trip?”
Luke looked bewildered, staying silent for a moment. “Well… I guess I technically saw myself two different times. But it seemed like he went straight from that desert place to here.”
“So, potentially two other people have used the code,” Oliver repeated, leaning back and running his hand through his hair. “Can you do your old code gesture for me? I want to know if I’ve ever seen someone use it.”
Luke nodded and wringed his wrists, one after the other, convincing enough as a nervous reaction. Oliver furrowed his eyebrows as he thought for a moment, but nothing came to mind. Maybe a few people had done that naturally in conversation, but he didn’t think he ever saw someone do that when first meeting him.
“Hmm. What exactly did this other person tell you at either location?” he asked.
Luke spent a few moments recounting a story of meeting himself in the desert, learning basic mechanics of time travel, then meeting the same person at this hotel and inventing a code gesture, a little under an hour ago.
“Well, I think that’s good news,” Oliver said as Luke fell silent. “That’s really good news. I don’t think Joseph knew you would change your code so quickly after getting into this madness. I can’t remember any point in my past where someone tried to use your old gesture on me. I think we’re safe.”
“So what does that mean then?” Luke said warily. “I know what Joseph looks like now. How could he trick me with the old code?”
“Well,” Oliver said, taking a deep breath. “Time travelers have access to the future, obviously. The infinite future, as you’ve seen, though after a certain point it stops mattering due to whatever apocalypse you saw in the year 7500. But before that apocalypse, the future of humanity has access to an incredible wealth of technology, the most useful of which for us is disguises. You can change your face, your body shape, and your voice with incredible realism. Combined with good acting, a disguise can be totally indistinguishable from the real person. That’s why we use codes.”
“Right,” Luke said. “The future version of me mentioned that. So do you think we’ll see someone in the future trying to use my old code then?”
“Perhaps,” Oliver replied. “We would have a significant advantage if that happened, too. Maybe this was actually a blunder on Joseph’s part after all.”
“You think so?”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Oliver said simply.
There was a brief pause in the air as the three shared their momentary relief.
“Well,” Oliver said, “I didn’t expect something serious so soon, but I think it’s safe to keep this in the back of our minds and let it go for now. Luke, we’ve got somewhere to be.”
Luke was obviously discomforted as Oliver stood and stretched. He gave Evelyn a worried glance before standing slowly and slinging his backpack over his shoulder, the time machine inside weighing it down. “Where are we going?”
“We have to go talk to someone important. There’s information we need. I assume you told yourself about the Target?”
“Yeah,” Luke said nervously.
“Right, so there’s someone who might know something about it. He’s actually the director of the CIA. We’re going to go see what he knows.”
“We’re— what?” Luke exclaimed, clearly bewildered.
“I’ll explain on the way,” Oliver said as he pulled out his notepad and flicked through a few pages for his destination. “Make sure you write this time down, by the way, so you don’t leave your wife waiting too long.”
Luke looked back at her, and she smiled tightly. He took out his phone and tapped at it for a moment before slipping it back into his pocket.
“Ready?” Oliver asked, and Luke nodded. Oliver revealed his own time machine, inputting the time and coordinates, then reaching out to touch Luke as he pushed the red button.
“I love you,” Luke said to Evelyn, who was clearly very afraid. Oliver felt such sympathy for this couple. The time they spent together always seemed so fleeting to him; he would like to find love someday, if ever he was allowed to retire from time travel, but for now he was glad he didn’t have any kind of personal collateral like Luke did. The emotions seemed unbearable.
“I love you, too,” Evelyn said, and then they were elsewhere.