Chapter 32

Tony drove Ralph back to the airfield. He parked the classic truck and looked on as Sinjin returned in his vehicle and parked next to Tony. The mechanic looked over and stated, "Now that's a lot of money on wheels."

"But it's nice inside." Ralph told him.

"It's a 60 thousand dollar truck, Mr. H. It should be made of gold for that kind of money." he complained.

Ralph stated, "You can call me, 'Ralph'. You are not my student anymore. Matter of fact, you look older than me."

"But you will always be 'Mr. H.' to me." he told him with a smile. They climbed out of the truck as Sinjin emerged.

Sinjin looked upon the man, "You must be, Tony."

"I am." he nodded. "You are?"

"I'm Sam's father, Saint John Hawke." he held out a hand.

"So her last name is not Santini and her father doesn't own this place?" he asked to clarify.

"I do own it." he assured. "In 1984...I did not own it. I was a POW in 1984. Her great uncle, Dom owned it then."

"I remember having band practice in the hangar." he recalled his senior year. "Boy, 1984 was long time ago. Does Sam still look the same, like Mr. H. does?"

He nodded, "She was born in the year 2000. She traveled back to 1984. She just goes back and forth. She hasn't aged."

"So she will look she did back in high school." he slowly nodded. He grin crept across his face as he thought back, "Boy…I had the biggest crush on her."

Sinjin asked, "You still do?"

He pinched his fingers, "Little bit."

"Come on," he motioned for the men to follow him inside the hanger.

Inside Hangar

Once inside, Sinjin found the group had gathered around his computer as Sam streamed the videos taken of Ralph and the conspiracy theories emerged. He walked towards the large table.

"We're back." he called. "Ralph got ambushed by hobby drones. He crashed." he reported.

Ralph was still in the coveralls that Tony lent him. He assured, "I'm okay! An old friend helped me out." He motioned towards Tony.

Tony looked upon the sight. His recognized Michael Knight, Stringfellow Hawke, Bill Maxwell and Sam who was still at the computer. He stated, "Must be one hell of time machine you guys got here."

Sam looked up and grinned at him. "Oh' my god!" She rose to her feet. "I can't believe it." She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him in a welcoming embrace. "I found your Facebook account and your business page. Wow! You don't know how much I wanted to show you all this." she motioned behind her.

For Tony, the simple hug was trip through time. He took in her scent and recalled his youth. He had a hard time letting go of her. His arm lingered around her middle as she turned towards the engine and the table behind her.

She mentioned, "This is my engine. It's a warp drive engine. I was running some test, it broke containment and created a wormhole to 1984. It's stable and we've been using it to go back and forth."

He let his hand slide off Sam as he walked up to the engine and looked it over and then looked at her, "You built this?" he asked.

"I did!" she nodded. "My uncle, String is helping me."

He asked, "Can I see your blue prints?"

"Over here." she led him to the computer. She brought up the file and opened it.

Tony read over some of the information, "This engine a condensed version of a CERN."

"You know about colliders?" she asked surprised.

"One of my hobbies." he nodded. "Engines are my thing. I've been following it closely." He asked, "You have this wormhole and you guys are going back and forth to 1984 through it?"

String nodded and confirmed, "That's correct."

"So that's how come you two…" he looked to Caitlin and Dom, "were able to get Penera Bread before it was even in business." He then realized, "The coins and cash were real all along. Not a privet mintage."

Sam confessed, "We never did this before. When I went back I knew I could not use my phone to pay for stuff so I took cash out of my account and used that. I never looked at the dates."

Tony paused for just a second and then began to laugh, "Oh' man. I was wondering how you got those coins before they were released. You didn't! You just spent money from the future in the past."

"Guilty." she nodded blushing rather embarrassed.

"Why have Mr. H bring the suit here and fly around? According to his bog the aliens took it and wiped everyone's memory." he stated.

String stated, "We're trying to flush the aliens or whoever they are out. Get their attention."

Sam brought up the social media accounts on the computer. "Took off faster than we thought."

"That will get everyone's attention." Tony told her. He noticed the helicopter in the hanger. He asked, "And that? I saw that back in the 80's. Was like nothing I had seen before."

Sam went to the web page for Airwolf, "This is what my family does."

Tony read off the page, "Airwolf. Was a top secret helicopter in the 80's. You guys have jet in that thing and it reach mach one?!" He looked about.

Dom nodded, "And me, String and Cait are the original crew. Sam flies it with her mom and dad at air shows in your time."

"Oh' wow." he replied. "I'm an aviation mechanic. That's a feat."

Sam bragged, "My uncle helped design it." She motioned towards String.

Sinjin asked, "You are an aviation mechanic, Tony?"

"Yeah, when we had band practice in the hanger I saw a lot of engine work. Mr. Santini showed me how to do a little work on the engines. Sparked my interest."

KITT spoke over the speaker, "Another proof positive that my theory is correct."

"That does not sound like the thing in everyone's house." Tony mentioned as he pointed to the speaker before them.

"That's not Siri or Alexa. That is KITT." Sam told him. "He's the first A.I. and is self aware."

He cocked an eyebrow, "Like the Terminator?"

KITT took offense, "I assure you that I am far more sophisticated than an aging body builder with minimal acting skills."

Tony started to laugh, "KITT is was way funnier! We should set him up on a date with one of the chick sounding ones."

Michael Knight stood a bit baffled as Sinjin, Sam and Jo all laughed out loud. It was an obvious reference to some A.I. in the future.

Jo held out a hand, "I'm Sam's mom, Jo. You are funny!"

He shook her hand, "I see where Sam get's her good looks from." He noticed how much Sam and Jo resembled one another.

Sam curiously asked, "Whatever became of Rhonda?"

"She's a doctor." he replied.

Ralph beamed, "Rhonda becomes a medical doctor!"

He nodded, "When we were practicing in the hanger one of the mechanics cut his arm real bad. She watched as Mr. Hawke bandaged him up and Sam helped. Like a couple of medics. She got interested in that kind of stuff. She didn't think much about doing anything until that day.' He then recalled, "Oh…and that biplane that you let Sam fly…"

Sam asked, "I get to fly a biplane? I've never flown a biplane."

String stated, "You are telling us about stuff we hadn't done yet, Tony."

"So this is what it feels like to have your future revealed to you." Sam sat wide-eyed for so far it was she who had the advantage.

Tony cocked his head, "You mean Sam had not flown the biplane yet?"

She shook her head, "Nope." She then wondered, "Do you know what happened to Karl and Jose?"

"Karl went into the Air Force. I saw him at a reunion a few years back. He's a non commission officer…a Chief Master Sergeant." he reported. "Jose got married, had kids, was one of my mechanics. He had cancer. He passed away about five years ago."

Ralph gulped, "He dies of cancer?"

He slowly nodded, "1984 was a long time ago, Mr. H. I'm looking to retire in a year. I'm an old fart now."

Ralph felt awful knowing that Jose would die and knowing he would have to face the boy in school. He wondered how would he handle that situation. "Maybe we can warn him?" he suggested. "Tell him what kind of cancer he gets and prevent him from getting sick."

KITT informed, "The probability of successfully preventing an illness such as cancer is 0.0000001%. I'm afraid there are some futures we cannot change."

Ralph winced, "That just…" he pinched his lips tight as he hated the outcome.

"Sucks!" Tony stated. "We did fund raisers, he tried new chemo therapies and it was a long, hard fight for him. He fought hard, Mr. H. Just you can't save everyone." He gave a comforting smile, "Nice to see that old suit again. I always suspect it was you and Mr. Maxwell doing it. I thought you were part of some top secret government program. Aliens never entered my mind until I found your blog. It's weird how I remember and no else did. Me and the class, all four of us, we used to talk about it after school. How we thought it was you in the suit. All of us suspected it. Then one day, no one remembered it and when I brought it up they looked at me like I was nuts. I saved a bunch of newspaper clippings and it was like disappearing ink or something. I had the paper but the ink was gone."

String concluded, "They must have a way of removing the ink from the paper."

Jo suggested, "Didn't they change the ink they used for the newspapers? I recall something about toxic ink and they changed it."

Sam typed into the computer. She reported, "Yes they did. They changed the ink in 1987, went to soy based ink. Before it was lead based. Nitric acid can dissolve lead." she added as an after thought.

Bill added, "And they weren't able to wipe out everyone's memory. Tony remembers. So, whatever method they used wasn't 100%."

"Kind of like a mass hypnosis." Sinjin suggested.

"Like Men In Black." Sam suggested. "The flashy thing. But on a real large scale."

String asked, "Flashy thing? Men in black?"

Sinjin stated, "It was a movie."

Tony agreed, "The first one was the best. After that…not as much."

Sam grinned, "The talking pug was cute in the second film."

He laughed shaking his head and confessed, "I never realized just what you were talking about back in the 84. Now, I get it. You were referencing pop culture all that time." he laughed. "The whole school thought you were a little weird. Now that I get it…" he concluded, "You were probably the coolest kid in school."

"I'm twenty two." she stated not amused to be called a kid.

"You were older than me." he shook his head rather beside himself. He recalled, "I kept trying to get up the nerve to ask you to the prom but I thought you were two years younger than me and it would look weird. You were four years older than me."

She confessed, "I never went to the prom. I kind wish you had asked me. I might have said yes." She then went back to the computer before her, "Mr. H has taken down the internet." she declared. "The sites are crashing. Too many people trying to get online at once. Twitter is overloaded, Tik Tock, Instagram, Facebook, all of it." She looked to Ralph, "You did what few could do, Mr. H. You went viral and blew the whole thing up."

Ralph blushed, "You did say it could happen."

KITT informed. "I am monitoring the disruptions for any outside traffic or server disruptions that go beyond the heavy traffic. I suggest monitoring the reactions of the witnesses as well to see if any affects on the human memory is observed."

Sam stated, "Just keep me on the internet, KITT. It's getting hard to connect to sites."

"I will take proactive measures to ensure you have access, Samantha." he assured.

Tony looked to Michael Knight, "KITT was in that Trans Am you had."

He nodded, "He is."

"That was a cool car." he noted. "Is there an older version of you here?"

He nodded, "Apparently, I have a You Tube channel and I'm old and fat." he remarked not enthused with his older self.

Sinjin informed, "The channel is Knight Knacks. It's pretty good."

"I'll check it out." Tony nodded. "Still got the Trans Am?"

Michael shrugged, "I don't know what old and fat me has."

Sinjin stated, "He has a black Mustang and we networked KITT into our private cars."

Sam added, "I found the original car. It's in a junkyard. I want to get it but…kind of busy lately."

Tony came to her side and asked, "What junkyard? Maybe I can salvage the body."

She clicked on the page, "These guys."

He read off the information, grabbed a note pad from his shirt pocket and wrote down some numbers. "I'll get it back."

KITT stated, "I must say…It would be nice to have my old body back. Though, I do enjoy the freedom of the network there is nothing like driving myself."

Sam mentioned, "KITT could self drive back in the 80's."

Tony smirked, "That should take a bite out of Tesla."