Disclaimer: Please see Chapter 1 for the usual statements.
Author's note: There were 2 ways I could've gone with this story. On a lark, I took up a challenge presented to me by my beta reader. Surprising to me, the lark turned out far better than I imagined and has since taken on a life of its own. I hope all those who are reading this tale, truly enjoy it.
Time to Consider
Chapter 21
By Callisto
Warehouse District
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Norwood had put this off for as long as he could. Hemmed and hawed to be exact. Now staring at Ethan who was looking at him like he had lost his mind, Norwood took a deep breath and bluntly told Ethan the whole truth.
"The fact is that I probably shouldn't bring them back at all."
"Shouldn't? Why, what's going on?' Ethan asked with growing apprehension.
"The timeline. If I bring them back after the merge, it could have adverse effects on the timeline. Something I didn't factor in because I never intended, at this stage, to send a person through the portal."
"Wait, what does any of that have to do with your being able to bring them back?"
Heaving a deep sigh, Norwood glanced up and nodded quietly. "The thought of so many unknown factors makes me more nervous than I can tell you."
"Well get a grip on yourself. First we need to get this thing taken down, then reconstructed. Fortunately for both of us, I have access to a resident genius who could probably cut down the time we would take on our own to put your creation back together again." Ethan replied with unshakeable certainty, thinking of Daniel, Jarod's clone.
"He can't be of too much help being stuck in a time before the invention of the laptop computer. I can't see what he could do at this point," Norwood replied referring to Jarod.
Ethan, catching his reference gave Norwood a toothy grin, reminiscent of his sister's and said, "Oh, he'll be able to help us. I guarantee it."
Norwood was strangely unsettled by the predatory grin on his new friend's face but remained silent. Mentally crossing his fingers, he hoped that Ethan hadn't caught his previous reference. His hopes were dashed almost immediately.
Ethan had sprang up with a mysterious infusion of energy, removed several pre-loosened bolts and began carefully lifting a large metallic section away from its place and stacking it gingerly on top of his opposite twin. After several minutes of heavy dismantling, Ethan looked over at the scrawny scientist, who was huffing but otherwise keeping pace with his more fit companion and asked, "What is the 'merge'?"
Norwood almost dropped a valuable circuit board he had removed from the controller section of his machine in surprise. Uttering a string of deeply felt expletives just under his breath, Norwood carefully placed the board in a bubble-wrapped line box and covering it gently, closed the box while he gathered his thoughts.
"The merge is what happens when a sentient being travels through time within his or her own lifetime. It is theorized that a person can travel in time beyond his own lifetime-time frame but then that person would have to be carefully prepared. Not only mentally, to handle the differences in manners and speech but to avoid revealing any hazardous anachronisms."
"You've said a lot, without explaining a thing," Ethan replied rolling his eyes and shaking his head in wonder.
"Okay, let me try explaining it this way. I'm going to use the frog, my original specimen, as an example. My physics teacher, Professor Mielke hypothesized that where matter from two dissimilar realities can't occupy the same space at the same time, two personalities, being non-corporeal, possibly could. When I sent the frog back, I was able to send it to a time beyond its own existence, since it's non-sentient, that was why I had to inject it with a de-aging inhibitor. Your siblings went back to a time not only within their own existence but unprepared."
"So you're saying that they needed to have an age inhibitor prior to going thru the portal. They didn't so what does that mean?"
"I hadn't thought of it like that," Norwood said with creeping wonder. What if he had given them the age inhibitor? Then damage to the timeline would've been a certainty instead of an occasional fluke. Shaking himself to reality—no, that was Ethan shaking him by he shoulders. "Huh? Oh, sorry. I get ideas that float into my head and I have to think them through. If they had received the age inhibitor, then they would've wrecked havoc with the timeline. They might not have made it through to the other side of the event horizon if they had taken it. I'm sure they're already experiencing the effects—it's elegant really. Like nature, it's the way the timeline protects itself."
"Then the merge is when they went backwards in time, unprepared?"
"No. The merge, according to Mielke, probably began to take full effect after their first 72 hours on the other side of the event horizon. The people who originated in that variant time phase were merged or folded into the personalities that imposed themselves into that time," Norwood concluded. The confused and worried look on Ethan's face encouraged him to continue. "They went through my machine's event horizon, unprepared. Going back in time within their own life spans imposed changes of its own. Their bodies regressed to their youthful selves, while their personalities or minds remained the same."
"Why didn't they regress completely?"
"Because they will always remain who and what they are. Time can't regress or erase your spirit, what you've learned or what you've experienced—nothing can really. But by the same token, the versions of themselves they dropped in on, don't cease to exist either."
"Instead the two separate personalities merge into one," Ethan surmised. "Is there any way to bring them back and in doing so, separate the merged personalities?"
"That would be like trying to separate two different gaseous substances having only a fan for a tool. It's not going to happen and if by some means beyond anything I can think up would allow you to do so, then you would run the risk of killing one or both of the personalities. There's no telling if some type of permanent symbiosis was established in the merge."
"Alright, then when you're able to bring them back, will they return as adults since they are teenagers in the other time?"
Normandy Coast
En route to Portugal
Jarod was glad that he chose to have this conversation before the scientist got a chance to say anything. What he had deduced would have a dramatic effect on the rest of their lives.
"Have you noticed that we seem to know things that we otherwise shouldn't?" he asked her as they waited on a Normandy tarmac for the last leg of their journey to Lisbon.
"You mean like your father having taught you how to play Parcheesi during a time when you were locked safely away in the Centre and starting to make money for a greedy bastard I call a relative?"
"Did I say that?" he searched his memory and had no trouble in recalling their conversation on the plane. "Well, no more worse than you saying that your mother made dried cod edible last year. I think what we're experiencing is a type of combining."
"Combining? What is it that we're combining?"
Taking a deep breath he explained, "When I told you the people or personalities that were here before we dropped in from our reality simply disappeared, wasn't exactly accurate. Our altered memories are proof of that. What seems to have happened is that we're grafted on top of the personalities that were originally here. Those people aren't gone, they've become a part of us, including their memories."
"Does that mean we're going to forget everything we experienced and lived through and revert to the selves that were originally here?" she asked nervously.
"No. We'll remain as we are now. A middle-aged couple with a number of memories of events that we've never experienced. Though I suspect the longer we're like this the more integrated our younger counterparts will become with us but we'll never forget who we are. The comforting part is knowing that the version of ourselves that we're most familiar with will probably be the side of us that remains in control."
"Instead, we'll remember what else our other selves are. What if we returned? Would the effects reverse?"
"Once we integrated with the people who were here, then we'll stay this way permanently. That is unless we travel to yet another time and pick up another version of ourselves," he replied with a smile.
"Why would we stay in control? We're the alien elements in this time frame, I would suspect that the originals would eventually take over."
"We are more dominant because of our age, the depth of our experiences and the sheer amount of amassed information that we forcibly downloaded into these people. It's like searching for a needle after tossing a large haystack on top of it, then swirling things around."
"Well, I'm not complaining. It's a scary thought to have yourself disappear and still be conscious of it."
A deep sigh escaped him as he thought about her statement. "That's not exactly accurate either. They are and always were 'us' or different versions of us. What's happening is that our consciousnesses have folded into one another. Or rather we're finally seeing the results of the combining."
Parker huffed out a half-laugh and smile. "So we're now like sticky tape. Where ever we go, different versions of ourselves will adhere to our own core personalities."
Nodding slowly, Jarod agreed. "Yes, but that's only if we travel to another timeframe." After a short pause, he took a deep breath and asked a loaded question. "Do you still want to go back to your old life?"
Glancing into his concerned eyes, she replied, "A long time ago, I had to come to terms with my mother leaving me. First I thought it was through suicide. Then the truth came out and it turned out to be through the actions of a murder via her own faults and desperation. I can't explain how deeply that affected me and still does. Now I have a choice, a brighter and wiser mother than my original and I'll be damned before I leave her to return to a life that has little to offer me."
Jarod listened to what she had to say and the feeling behind her words. However, her gray gaze transfixed him as he stared with open hunger at the woman he always tried to ferret out from behind her elaborate screen of defense mechanisms. The root of her irresistible attractiveness lay in a perfect balance of the prettiness she possessed as a child and the beauty she was about to become. Youth clung stubbornly to her features in a way Jarod could never have imagined. Her face still had the features of his old childhood friend while her eyes remained wise and knowing beyond her appearance. Parker immediately caught the unguarded expression his youthful face revealed—something his original self would've kept carefully hidden and realized with a start that their merged personalities were having effects that neither could've ever anticipated. Her response was to hold his gaze for a few more seconds before gently withdrawing her own. She wanted him, as much as he wanted her but with her parents and Ethan nearby there were certain desires that had to remain just below the surface of steely control.
El Dorado Iron WorksWarehouse District
Buenos Aires, Argentina
"They will advance to the age they originally were in this timeframe. Think of time as an overly efficient, prickly machine imbued with an artificial intelligence that goes beyond our understanding and appreciation. It knows how to compensate and adjust when the unexpected happens. It's us who would be surprised by how time goes about its business."
"How badly will this affect your ability to bring them back to this timeframe?"
"Bringing them back isn't the problem, the timeline might be. All I can do is warn you that whatever way time decides to compensate for any changes bringing them back might cause, is something you and ultimately they will have to learn to live with. Where the true challenge on my side lies is in figuring out how it happened in the first place and reversing the flow of the event horizon back into this time. Then we would also have to worry about expanding the containment field so my machine doesn't experience another crippling meltdown. On top of that, have you considered that they might not want to come back at all?"
"I know this is going to sound extremely selfish and to be frank, it is, but I would rather not give them much of a choice. There are too many people on this side of the timeline who needs them. To leave them where they are would create a hole in our lives that nothing would ever fill. I'm not speaking of myself, well, maybe where my sister is concerned but the rest of Jarod's family would be equally devastated to lose him."
Norwood nodded thoughtfully. "Getting them back would help me tremendously. I could always study them. Find out what the short and long term affects of time travel are on the human body and psyche," he replied slowly, as the tacit deal he was striking with Ethan presented fresh ideas on how to take advantage of having the stowaways return. Then a completely venal expression came over Norwood's face giving Ethan the opportunity of understanding the type of hubris it took to create the kind of machine that was Norwood's. "As long as they are in the vicinity of the frog, there's a chance, a slim one mind you, but a chance that I can snatch them back without any warning. Timing is everything and the machine would have to be primed and ready to open the portal when they are in position. Your job would be to make sure they are with the frog together, at the same time."