Allo! I've had this in a drawer for a long time and I've finally decided to finish it. Enjoy!
The Trouble with Time Travel
Cornelius Lewis Robinson. Sometimes it still seems like a big name; too big for one orphanage brat with nothing of his own but big dreams. Of course he hadn't been that kid for a long time now, almost too long in fact.
After all, all of the conditions are right for the time machine to be stolen except two, her of course, and his own adult self. There's never really a slow season, not at Robinsons Inc, and he wouldn't want it that way, but he's never before found himself on seats edge waiting for a business associate to call him away from his family.
Not until now. Not until he and his son are supposed to have an amazing adventure together and the only thing holding it up is his own presence.
"Dad's on a business trip till tomorrow. You have till then to fix it."
"Someone's home early!"
Everyone in his crazy upside down family had been convinced all those years ago, sometime in the future, that he had indeed been on a business trip. Could they be wrong?
All the way home, through dinner, and late into the night he muddles over the 'what if's and 'might be's. It's when he reviewing his own theories on time travel in hopes of sparking some neurons that it strikes him like a blow to the gut.
"That's it!" A thrill of fear races down his spine in unison with that of discovery. "That's the problem. She's the missing link. Of course! But, if the time machine is never stolen… if the time machine is never stolen then… then we never- and she can't- and Wilber-" His already pale complexion blanches white. "No."
Methodically he closes his notes, gathers them into a neat pile and stretches the kinks out of his back. Leaking through the glass dome of his workshop observatory the first rays of sunlight illuminate his face with a ruddy glow, belaying the shadows under his eyes and the slight droop in his posture.
Risk ready and for the first time in thirty years, absolutely refusing to allow for failure, Cornelius Robinson heads for the garage to do what he should have done a long time ago. Invent Doris.
Well? What do you think?