Be Careful What You Ask For
Chapter 26
XXVI
Michael had asked the portal to take him to where Alex was, and the portal had taken him to Nashville. Michael had wound up walking down a country road for about a half a mile before he found Alex's ranch. Determined to be the master of the portal and not let it get the best of him, he made his command much more specific this time…
"Take me face to face with Kyle Valenti."
Michael stepped out of the portal and was immediately lifted off the ground by a force that felt like a charging rhinoceros. When he had got his breath back, he looked up and saw that someone was leaning over him.
"Where did you come from," the still-hazy figure asked. "I didn't see you. I was aiming for the quarterback."
"Ooooooh," Michael moaned. "Now I remember why I really needed Max back! He can heal broken bones!"
The hazy figure laughed. "You don't have any broken bones. I checked. Just got the wind knocked out of you. You should be okay in a few minutes. Where did you come from? I just looked up, and there you were between me and the quarterback.
"Kyle?" Michael managed to ask, as his vision began to clear.
"Okay, you know me, so who are you?"
"Michael Guerin."
"Don't remember you," Kyle said. "Should I?"
"Probably not. Aren't you a little old to be playing professional football, Kyle?"
Kyle laughed. "I gave up professional football twelve years ago. Got a serious knee injury. It healed, but my game never did after that. Now I'm a trainer. Maybe I can't hit as hard as I used to, but…"
"Yeah," Michael said, "I was asking myself if that was the best you could do."
"Yeah, sure you were," Kyle grinned. "Looked more like you were asking yourself if you were going to live!"
Michael grinned, too. "Okay, I admit… you still hit pretty hard, Kyle."
"So tell me again… where did we meet?"
"Roswell High… but you won't remember me," Michael replied.
"You're right about that. I don't. Were you in my class?"
"Yeah. So were Alex Whitman, Liz Parker, and Maria DeLuca."
"That's funny. I remember all of them, but I still don't remember you."
"You know, Kyle, as much as I enjoy just lying here on the ground looking up at you like this," Michael said with a touch of sarcasm, "could we just go somewhere and talk after you're finished here?"
Kyle thought about it a moment. He didn't remember Michael, but he did remember Alex, Liz, and Maria… and this guy did say he knew them…
"Yeah, okay, I guess we could. Just give me a few minutes to wrap things up here. The practice is over really."
Kyle helped Michael up and over to the benches. A few minutes later, he headed to the lockers to shower and change then met Michael back at the benches.
"There's a great Chinese restaurant over here on Second Street and Elm. You like Chinese?"
"Sounds fine," Michael said.
"You want to go with me or do you have transportation," Kyle asked.
"We better go in your car, I guess," Michael said. Then he stopped and thought a moment.
"On second thought, Kyle, I'll take my transportation. And you can go with me."
"Oh, well, I don't know about leaving my car here…"
"What's this place called?"
"The Dragon Empress."
Michael grinned slightly and called for the portal. Suddenly, Kyle was faced with something that looked eerily like a wall of smooth water or perhaps a liquid mirror standing upright in front of him.
"What the… What the hell is that?"
"That's my transportation," Michael said. "Portal, take my friend and me to the front door of the Dragon Empress Chinese Restaurant on Second Street and Elm." Michael gave Kyle a gentle push into the portal and followed him through. They stepped out at the front door of the restaurant. Kyle watched the portal disappear with his mouth still hanging open.
"Okay, I want to know how that just happened," he said when he got his voice back. "What was that thing? How does it work?"
"All in good time, Kyle," Michael said with a smile. "I figured this would help me establish credibility for what I have to tell you. You might not believe me."
"What? You think I'm not a trusting guy?"
"You said it, Kyle, not me."
Kyle nodded. "I can be hard to convince. If you'd told me about that… that… whatever it was, I wouldn't have believed you."
"Well, there you are. Credibility, see? Now that that's established, we can proceed to the really important stuff."
"What's that," Kyle asked.
"Dinner," Michael said, opening the door and showing Kyle in. "I just realized that I'm hungry and haven't eaten all day."
**********
"So you knew Liz and Maria… and Alex," Kyle said to Michael, as they both returned from the buffet with egg rolls, snow peas, and other traditional Chinese favorites on their plates.
"Yeah."
"Pretty well?"
"Yeah."
"That's odd that I can't remember you. How well did you know me?"
"Very well," Michael said.
Michael told Kyle a few of the things he remembered about him from high school. "That does bring up an issue, though," he said "that I'm not clear on."
"What's that," Kyle asked.
"Tess. I heard you two were going together."
"Yeah… everyone knew that. If you knew me in high school, you should've known it, too."
"Yeah, I did know it. The trouble is, I don't understand it."
"Oh, common, guy! What's to understand? Good lookin' girl… football jock. What? You think she wouldn't be interested in me?"
"No, no! It's not that! I think I'd better explain a few things to you. Let me just finish this Egg Drop soup." Michael took a bottle of Tabasco out of his pocket and poured half of it into his soup. Then he finished off the soup and proceeded to tell Kyle about the time screw-up and his former life on Antar. Kyle sat looking at Michael with a bemused sort of look.
"Okay, Michael, when I think of time changing, I think of, like, Daylight Savings Time, you know, not rivers going wrong and stuff. How does one screw up time, anyway? I didn't even know you could do that!"
"Well, it's not easy," Michael said "but it can happen. I could be here all day trying to explain how, because I don't understand it so well myself. Let's save that talk for another time, okay? What I need to know is… how happy are you with your life, Kyle?"
"Very," Kyle answered.
"But if you could be married to Jeliya and have a great life on Antar… with your children and friends… wouldn't that be better?"
"I don't remember any of that. I'm not really sure I even believe it, if you really want to know the truth. You've got that fancy gizmo that can transport you across town in a flash, and I'm impressed… and I don't know who but an alien would pour half a bottle of Tabasco in Egg Drop soup, but you're asking me to believe that my whole life –as I remember it- has all been just a dream or something."
"No, not a dream," Michael said. "It's real… not a dream at all. You could go on living this life the way it is if you choose to, and it will be real… but there is another life out there that you could return to… I hope we all can… one that you've forgotten. Well, maybe forgotten isn't exactly accurate. Technically, it's more like it never existed for you. But it did exist in time, and you may be able to return to it. But you have to want to."
"No offense, Michael, but why would I want to do that… I mean… even if I believed that I could… or that that life really did once exist? I've got everything I ever wanted here. I got to play in the pros for three years before my knee got hurt. Now I make some pretty serious money as a trainer. People know me… They respect me… Okay, maybe my one marriage didn't work out, but we were young. It just wasn't meant to be. And it's not like I don't have girls interested in me. I date… all the time! I have a great life, Michael. Tell me why I should give it up!"
"Maybe because you could do better," a voice behind Kyle said. Kyle jumped and turned around to see who it was. A young lady standing behind him smiled and winked at Michael.
"Liz? Liz Parker?" Kyle exclaimed, "Where did you come from? I haven't seen you since… since Roswell! You look great!"
"Thanks, Kyle… Michael!" Michael seemed to be almost as stunned as Kyle by Liz's unexpected appearance.
"I thought you might need a little help," Liz said to Michael. "Kyle can be pretty bullheaded."
"Oh thanks, Liz," Kyle said. "Does the whole world know it?"
Liz smiled and ran a hand over Kyle's head, mussing his hair up. "[b]I[/b] know it. I went out with you a few times."
Kyle grinned. "Okay, yeah, I can be, sometimes, a bit bullheaded, I guess. But that's just because I know what I want… and I was a jock. It was part of our contract: section 1b, part 7 of the jock agreement… 'All jocks are entitled to whatever they want.'"
Liz gave Kyle a little whack on the back of the head.
"Obviously you never read my contract, Liz," Kyle said, straightening his hair with his fingers.
"Obviously you never read mine, Kyle."
"What contract do science preppies get, Liz?"
"Science preppie contract, section 3a, part 1c and amendments… 'Girls aspiring to be head of molecular biology research at Harvard are specifically exempt from section 1b, part 7 of the jock clause.'"
"I never heard of that," Kyle said.
"Neither did I," Michael said. "I never knew these contracts existed."
Kyle and Liz both laughed. "I was joking, Michael," Liz said with a smile.
"I wasn't," Kyle said. Liz whacked him again on the back of the head.
"You always were the rebel, Liz," Kyle said, straightening his hair again.
"Yeah, it kept me out of trouble, Kyle… with jocks like you. That and the Pater Nostrum contract."
"Okay, what's the Pater Nostrum contract?"
"It says that at any time on
any date any daughter can consider the entire jock contract null and void and
use her power of adjudication to return home forthwith."
"Power of adjudication?"
Liz showed Kyle a quarter.
"Oh! That's a tough contract!"
"Talk to my Dad about it."
Kyle laughed and nodded. "How did you get here, Liz? I didn't know you were in town."
"I wasn't. Michael told me that the portal had been mine in the other time, and I decided to try it and found out that I can still use it here, too."
"I've created a portal monster," Michael said. "Have you eaten, Liz?"
"Yeah, thanks. I'm not hungry. I just came to give you a little support."
"Well, I seem to need it. Kyle doesn't want any other life but the one he knows."
"Hey. It's a great life," Kyle said. "Why fix it if it ain't broken? You know what I mean? I like my life!"
"What would convince you, Kyle," Liz asked.
"Nothing, Liz. I really, really like my life just as it is right now, right here. I don't see any reason to risk all of this searching for some unseen idyllic Eden."
"Then there's nothing we can do to convince you?"
Kyle shook his head. "Sorry, Liz. I like my life."
"What does that mean," Michael asked Liz. "You're the one who went to the future, Liz. If Kyle doesn't want to return, what's gonna happen?"
"There'll be no Kyle in your world. But all that is assuming, of course, that any of us will be there," Liz said. "We don't know that for a certainty, you know. You still have to change what happened. If you're successful in that and Kyle doesn't wish to return, he'll remain where he is. He won't exist in your branch of time."
"And Jeliya?"
"She'll marry someone else, I imagine."
"You'd give up your children, Kyle?" Michael asked.
"No, of course not! But you said, yourself, they don't exist. What you're talking about is some pie in the sky… It's not real. It's something you want to create. And I'm happy here where I am."
"Okay, Kyle," Liz said. "We wish you were going to be there, but if this is what you really want, I understand."
"Thanks," Kyle said. "If I ever change my mind, I'll look you up, Michael."
"It doesn't work that way, Kyle," Michael said. "I guess this is good bye."
Kyle nodded.
Michael placed a couple of bills on the table in front of Kyle to pay his part of the check. Then he shook Kyle's hand and walked out with Liz. Once outside, he called the portal, and they both stepped through together.
"Well, you're back home, Liz. I'll leave you and go see what I can do with Jim. But I doubt Jim's gonna want to go if Kyle's not going to be there."
Liz nodded. "I'm afraid you're right, Michael… But try anyway. Maybe if Jim would go, Kyle might change his mind."
Both of them knew that the likelihood of convincing Jim Valenti, under the circumstances, was not good. But Michael called the portal again. Then he waved at Liz and stepped through.
tbc