Chapter 23 – "The Gamble"

It worked like a charm.

The walls fading in and out stopped, the shaking stopped, the ticking stopped, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" stopped and Wildwind healed itself instantaneously.

"Whew!" Opal breathed. "Are we in the clear now, Edmund?"

"I guess so," he guessed. "Zach, what do you think?"

Zach thought he was the luckiest Galioscian alive. "You can let go of me now, Kendall. We're okay."

Reluctantly, she loosened her grip on him. "For real?" she asked.

"As real as it gets," he confirmed.

But Adam still wanted answers.

"Damn you, Slater, are you responsible for all of this?"

"Some of it." He smiled at Lily. "But not the genius part."

"There are some loose ends," Lily announced. "Can we tie them up now or wait until later?" Loose ends really bothered her, so she was hoping the others would opt for "now".

But Kendall, who couldn't hear or see Lily, had other things on her mind and heart.

"I don't know exactly what happened here," she told Zach, "but I have a feeling it's amazing."

"Amazing," he agreed. "I'll tell you all about it later at home."

Later he would tell her that he had wanted her to leave with Erica not because she'd be safe out of Wildwind – nowhere would have been safe if the time machine went off – but because he couldn't think straight when she was around him. Later she would tell him that she had stayed because she trusted him, which had confused her because she never trusted anybody. Later they wouldn't be saying much more for the rest of the night and most of the next day.

"Slater, stop ignoring me!" Adam demanded hotly. "I want answers!"

"Oh, Adam, forget it!" Erica urged. "In time we'll know exactly what happened here, I'm sure." She hugged Kendall, winked at Zach, and left Wildwind in search of the rest of her family, whom she found quickly enough outside.

"Things seem to have quieted down in there," Jack observed to her. "But I still can't find Lily."

Having heard no objection from the others, Lily had begun listing loose ends.

"For one thing I don't understand why Zartz, Zetz and Zift didn't come back and stop us from deactivating the time machine."

"They would have if they could," Zach assured her. "But I zapped them right into a jail cell on Galios IV. Maximum security. That'll slow 'em down for a while."

"Galios IV?" Kendall asked, puzzled. "What the hell is Galios IV?"

"Time to go Kendall," Zach said. "I'll see you at home later."

"Later," she affirmed, kissing him good-bye.

"Oh, one thing I do want to mention," he mentioned as they walked to the door. "You may as well know now because it may take some getting used to." Steeling himself against her reaction to the revelation he was about to make, he searched for the right words. "I'm not exactly human."

Kendall laughed out loud as she walked out the door. "Oh, Zach! Tell me something I DON'T know!"

Lily was continuing to list loose ends. "And how could Wildwind be the time machine, Edmund? Wildwind was here before you ever came to Pine Valley!"

"The time machine slipped into Wildwind, like a hand slips into a glove," Edmund suddenly remembered. "The real Wildwind was already here. And when the time machine takes off, the real Wildwind will still be here."

"And we'll still be haunting it," Maria predicted mournfully.

"Not if I can help it," Zach said at once.

"Slater, who in blazes are you jabbering to?" Adam demanded, thoroughly exasperated. "Thin air?"

"Go away, Chandler" Zach replied. "Show's over."

Adam stalked off in a huff.

"I'm going to go find Stuart. If I have to be with somebody who makes no sense, at least it can be with somebody I love!"

"Stuart, did you hear that?" Marian cried out to him. "Adam loves you again!"

"So he does." Stuart smiled in relief, joy and because he was Stuart. "So he does!"

"Zach, why didn't the other Galiosicans recognize you like Edmund did?" Lily asked, near the end of her loose ends list. "Galiosicans always can recognize each other, right?"

"They recognized me," Zach told her matter-of-factly. "They just never suspected I was packing heat. And they never dreamed I would help you guys."

"Why did you help us?" Edmund asked him, contributing his own loose end to the discussion.

"It's my job," Zach answered. "I'm a cop."

"Glory be!" Opal breathed. "An Intergalactic Alien Cop right here in Pine Valley!"

Zach nodded. "What better place to combat Alien Invaders and disable lethal time machines?"

"Are you going to arrest Edmund?" Brooke asked tensely, recalling her soul mate's original mission, which was to destroy Pine Valley.

Zach shook his head. "Edmund is a changed man, Brooke. Love and Pine Valley have rehabilitated him. Why should I arrest him?"

"I have no idea," Lily said honestly. "But I do have another loose end. The loosest end of all!"

Everyone paid close attention to her.

"Why doesn't the red chair bother me? It's red brocade! Red! And I don't care!"

Sam thought he knew the answer to that. "Remember how I was saying that loving you took the place of all the anger I felt?"

She remembered.

"Well, maybe I've had that kind of effect on you. Maybe red doesn't make you freak out anymore because we're a couple now."

Lily wished with her entire being that was the reason. "I think it's because I'm dead, Sam," she sad sadly because that was what she truly thought.

"Which brings us to the next item on our agenda," Zach said cheerfully. "Where do you suppose the time control is?"

"Time control?" Brooke repeated. "What's a time control?"

"A navigation device that moves the time machine through time," Edmund remembered. "I wonder what I did with that!"

"Why in hades do we need it?" Opal asked. "What good would it do us to move through time?"

Lily brightened. The discussion had turned theoretical, and theoretical discussions always appealed to her.

"If we could go backward or forward in time, maybe we could insert ourselves into another timeline."

"How would we do that, Lily?" Sam asked with real interest.

"Well, since we're only spirits, we could merge with our living characters. We can't do that in this timeline because we've been incinerated. But in another timeline I think we could live again."

"How can we know we'd merge?" Maria asked her. "Why wouldn't we wind up existing side by side with our living selves?"

"Because we're not really real," Lily explained. "This is a Soap Opera. There can't be two Lily Montgomerys on "All My Children". At least not at the same time. Not even if one is a ghost."

There was a skeptical silence.

"Look, it's a gamble!" Zach finally said. "But Lily's last theory saved matter from crashing into antimatter, so I vote to go for it!"

"You don't get a vote," Maria pouted. "You're still alive."

"My point exactly," Zach replied. 'What have you got to lose? The worst that can happen is you'll wind up in another timeline keeping your living self company!"

"Actually, the worst that can happen is that we won't find another timeline where we're alive. Then we'd be in limbo forever."

Sam thought he knew exactly the right thing to say. "Lily, being in limbo with you for forever would be better than Heaven!"

"No, Sam, it would be bad," Lily disagreed. "But we may not end up in limbo! This could work!"

Opal had another thought. And not a happy one. "We don't even know where the dang time control is, so what difference does it make?"

"Your calendar watch," Maria said to Edmund. "Brooke, remember Edmund's stupid calendar watch?"

Brooke smiled. "The one with all the dials and flashing lights?"

Edmund laughed. "I remember that! Gee, I haven't worn it for years and years! But when I first came to Pine Valley, it never left my wrist!"

It took under 10 seconds for all of them to run out of the hall and into the Main Ballroom, where Zach (who, being the only one alive was the only one who could move anything) ransacked the room in search of the calendar watch/time controller.

But Edmund saw it first. It was sitting on a table right next to his Pulitzer Prize.

"Still ticking," Zach reported, bringing it to his ear.

"Which is more than we are, Darling," Marian said ruefully. "So how does this gadget work, Edmund?"

"Zach sets the date and time, pushes the button and we're off."

It sounded simple enough.

"Who goes first?" Opal wanted to know.

When nobody volunteered, she had a suggestion.

"Let's all pick the same time. I guess we'll have to go back, because we don't exist anymore. How's about Midnight at the séance, right before we were torched?"

"What will stop Zartz, Zift and Zetz from torching us again?" Maria objected.

"They were popcorn kernels," Opal recalled. "I'll grab a wet sponge and figure out something to cool their jets."

"But we might not remember the danger we were in," Lily cautioned. "We might not remember anything that happened to us so we'd let it all happen again!"

"Look, there are an infinite number of possible timelines," Zach told them. "I could pick a timeline in the future where your characters are alive because Zartz, Zift and Zetz never visited Pine Valley so they didn't interfere with the séance."

"How could you do that, Zach?" Stuart asked.

"I'm Galioscian," he reminded them all. "We're good at this time travel thing."

"I say go for it," Maddie said. "I'm tired of being dead!"

"What do you think, Edmund?" Brooke asked him because he had been so quiet during the debate.

"I think Zach's right. It's a gamble." He smiled at them all. "I agree with Maddie. Go for it!"

"I think we should take a vote," Lily proposed.

Nobody could disagree so a vote was taken.

"Everybody in favor, say 'aye'!" Zach said.

Everybody said 'aye'.

"Everybody in opposed, say 'nay'!" Zach said.

There were no 'nays'.

"The 'ayes' have it!" Zach announced.

"Let's get going right now!" Opal suggested. "There gotta be some timeline better than this!"

Will the ghosts find life in another timeline or find themselves stuck in limbo? A couple of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Reviews is welcome!