The two stopped in front of their house to see their dad's car being towed into the driveway. Alex sighed. Jimmy's jaw dropped when he saw it was wrecked.
"Perfect." Alex said.
"Just perfect." Jimmy said. They walked into their house to find their dad talking to his boss, Chad.
"How could you lend me your car without telling me there was a blind spot?" Chad said.
"Now, now Chad. I've driven that car for years and I've never noticed a blind spot before. Hi Alex. Hi Jimmy." Jimmy and Alex's dad, Michael, said. The teens put their stuff in their room and walked back into the den.
"Oh, it's there. How else do you explain that wreck out there?"
"Chad, can I assume that your insurance is going to pay for the damage?"
"My insurance? It's your car. Your insurance should pay. And who's gonna pay for my dry cleaning is what I wanna know. Look at this. I spilled beer all over me when that car smashed into me. Who's gonna pay for this?" Alex and Jimmy rolled their eyes. "And did you get my reports done?"
"Well, no, I haven't. Not, uh, not yet-" Chad pulled Michael by his tie. "Since they weren't due 'til-" Chad knocked on Michael's head.
"Hello! Is anybody in there?" Chad said. Michael laughed. "Think Nuñez. I gotta have time to retype it. Do you realize what would happen if I turned in my reports in your handwriting? I'd get fired, and you wouldn't want that would you?" Michael hesitated. "Would you?"
"Of course not, Chad. I wouldn't want that to happen. I'll finish up those reports and run 'em by you first thing tomorrow."
"Not too early. I sleep in on Saturday. Hey Nuñez, your shoes untied." Michael looked down. Chad flicked his nose. "Don't be so gullible, Nuñez. You got the place fixed up nice though." Chad went into the refrigerator. "I have your car towed over here and all you have for me is light beer?" Chad walked out the kitchen and stopped when he saw Alex and Jimmy. "What are you looking at buttheads?" The two didn't respond. "Say hi to your mom for me." Chad left and Jimmy held Alex back. The two looked back at their dad.
"I know what you guys are gonna say and you're right. You're right. But Chad is my supervisor and I'm just not good with confrontation."
"The car. Dad, he wreaked it." Alex said, before Jimmy could speak. "We needed that car tomorrow. Do you know how important that was to me, dad? Do you have any clue?"
"I know Alex. And all I can say is I'm sorry."
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Alex and Jimmy sat on one side of the table while their older brother, Jay, and younger brother, Matthew, sat on the other side.
"I'm telling you guys, you're better off without the aggravations of playing in that band." Michael said. He offered them a bowl of chips. They shook their heads.
"Exactly. Last thing you two need is stress." said Jay. He looked back at the TV. He and his father laughed at the joke. Alex rolled her eyes.
"Kids, we're gonna have to eat this cake by ourselves. Your Uncle Joey didn't make parole." said their mother, Emily. "It would be nice if you all dropped him a line."
"Uncle Jailbird Joey?" Jimmy asked.
"He's your brother, mom." Jay said.
"Yeah. It's a major embarrassment having an uncle who's in prison." Matthew said.
"God damn it. I'm late for work." Jay said, standing up.
"Jay, watch your mouth. And kiss your mother before you go." Emily said. Jay kissed his mother and walked over to his dad. He kissed his dad on his head and patted him on the back.
"Later dad. Whoo. Time to change that oil." Jay said. Michael laughed.
"Yo, Alex. I'm not your answering service, but while you were out pouting over the car, Paige Michalchuk called you twice." Alex looked at her watch.
"I don't like her, Alex. It doesn't make sense that she calls you so much."
"Mom, it's not like she's my girlfriend. She's just my friend who hangs out with me a lot." Alex said.
"Mom, it's OK if she calls Alex. Probably about guy trouble." Matthew smirked at Alex. He and Jay already knew about Alex dating Paige. Alex gave him a threatening look.
"That's another thing. Girls calling boys. I don't like it. It's terrible. Girls chasing boys. Why, when I was your age I never chased a boy, or called a boy, or sat in a parked car with a boy."
"Then how is Alex supposed to meet anyone?" Jimmy said. Alex's eyes widened. She nudged Jimmy in the ribs.
"It'll just happen." Emily patted Alex's hand. "Like with me and your father."
"That was so stupid. Grandpa hit him with the car." Alex said. Not that Alex needed that to happen to find the love of her life. She'd already found her.
"It was meant to be. If it hadn't happened, none of you would have been born and Jimmy would probably still be in the orphanage."
"Yeah, well-"
"I still don't understand why dad as in the middle of the street?" Jimmy said.
"What was it dear? Bird watching?" Emily asked.
"What, Emily?"
"Anyway, your grandfather hit him with the car and brought him in the house. He was so helpless, like a little lost puppy. And my heart went out to him."
"Yeah. We know the story. You felt sorry for him and you decided to go with him to the 'Fish Under the Sea' dance." Matthew said.
"No, no, no. It was the 'Enchantment Under the Sea' dance." Big difference, the kids thought. "Our first date. It was the night of the terrible storm, remember Michael?" There was no answer. "Me and your father kissed for the first time on that dance floor. That was when I realized I was gonna spend the rest of my life with him." Michael laughed at the TV. Matthew, Alex, and Jimmy looked at their dad and then looked at their mom as if she were crazy.
------------------------------
Alex was asleep on her bed and Jimmy was on his own bed across the room listening to music. Alex jumped awake when she heard the phone rang. Alex picked up the phone.
"Hello?" Alex said sleepily.
"Alex, you didn't fall asleep did you?" Alex heard Snake say.
"No. No, of course not. Don't be silly."
"Good. Listen, I left my camcorder at the lab. Can you and Jimmy stop by and get it?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure. On our way." Alex hung up the phone and sat up. She threw a pillow at Jimmy.
"What?" Jimmy said, taking out his earphones.
"Let's go. We have to meet Snake." Alex grabbed her black hoodie and tossed Jimmy his vest. They put them on and grabbed their skateboards. They crawled out their window and walked out the gate to their front yard. They skateboarded down to Snake's lab and grabbed his camcorder. They then went to the mall and walked through the parking lot.
"Hey Einstein." Alex said, petting the dog.
"Where's Snake?" Jimmy asked. The truck in front of them opened slowly, making a hissing sound. A Mitsubishi Eclypse backed out of the truck, down the ramp, in front of Jimmy and Alex. The door of the car opened and out came Snake with a pen in his mouth and a notepad in his hand.
"Snake?" Alex said.
"Jimmy. Alex, you made it. This is it. The experiment I've been waitin for my whole life." Snake said.
"Well, it's a Mitsubishi Eclypse, right?" Jimmy asked.
"Sure is." Alex said, walking toward it.
"All in good time. Roll tape." Snake said, pushing Alex towards Jimmy. Jimmy turned on the camera and pointed it at Snake.
"Hello, I'm Dr. Archibald Simpson. I'm standing in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall. It's Saturday morning, October 26th, 2006, 1:18 a.m." Alex checked her watch. "This is temporal experiment number 1. Come on, Einie. Get in there." Snake led his dog, Einstein, into the Eclypse. He put the seatbelt on the dog and closed the door. Jimmy followed his every move. "Please note that Einstein's watch is in exact synchronization with my control watch. Got it?"
"Yeah, Snake." Alex and Jimmy said.
"Good. Have a good trip Einstein." Snake pulled out a remote control.
"You got that thing hooked up to the… car?" Jimmy said.
"Watch this."
"OK. Yeah." Jimmy said, he and Alex looking back at the car. Snake then began to control the car with the remote control. It backed up and turned. "Jesus." Jimmy turned the camera to Snake.
"No, not me. The car." Jimmy turned back to the car, which had stopped. The car backed up a little more. Snake moved Alex and Jimmy so that they were straight ahead of the car. "If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit." He put the car in neutral and began to push the toggle forward. The car wheels squealed under the pressure. Smoke came from under the tires. Snake looked at Jimmy and Alex. Jimmy looked at him without moving the camera. Alex's gaze was fixed on the car. The car was at 65 miles per hour when Snake took it out of neutral. The car began to move forward. Alex and Jimmy began to move out of the way of the car when Snake pulled them back. "Watch this. Watch this." The two continued to watch in fear and awe. The car hit 88 miles per hours and light surrounded and it disappeared before it hit them. Two trails of fire left between Jimmy and Snake's feet. The three turned. The car was really gone. "What did I tell you? Eighty-eight miles per hour!" Snake shouted. The license plate of the car in the middle of the trails of fire. "The temporal displacement occurred exactly at 1:20 a.m. and zero seconds." Alex bent down to pick up the license plate. When she did, she dropped it. It was hot.
"Jesus Christ, Snake. You disintegrated Einstein." Alex said.
"Calm down, Alex. I didn't disintegrate anything. The molecular structure of both Einstein and the car are completely intact."
"Then where the hell are they?"
"No, the question is 'When in the hell are they?' You see, Einstein has just become the world's first time traveler. I sent him into the future. One minute into the future to be exact. At precisely 1:21 a.m. and zero seconds, we shall catch up with him and the time machine."
"Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Snake. Are you telling us you built a time machine… out of a Mitsubishi Eclypse?" Alex asked, as she and Jimmy walked over to him.
"The way I see it, if you're going to build a time machine into a car, do it in style. Besides, the stainless steel construction made the flux dispersal-" Snake's watch beeped. "Look out." He tackled Alex and Jimmy out of the way of the now arriving Mitsubishi Eclypse and Einstein. The three looked at each other as the car stopped. Snake started to walk over to it. It was frozen all over. Smoke came out of it, causing Snake and the two teens to stop. Snake looked at Jimmy and Alex. They shrugged. He continued to walk over to it and tried to open the door. He immediately let go of the handle and held on to his hand.
"What? Is it hot?" Alex asked.
"No, cold. Damn cold." Snake said, using his foot to open the door. "Ah-hah. Einstein, you little devil. Einstein's clock is exactly one minute behind mine and still ticking!" He unbuckled Einstein and then let him out the car.
"He's alright." Jimmy said.
"He's fine. He's completely unaware of what happened. As far as he's concerned, the trip was instantaneous. That's why his watch is exactly one minute behind mine. He skipped over that minute and arrived instantly at this moment in time. Come here. I'll show you how it works." Alex and Jimmy walked over to the car. Snake sat in the front seat. "First, you turn on the time circuits." He pushed a lever. "This readout tells you where you're going, this one tells you where you are, this one tells you where you were. You input your destination time in the keypad. Say you wanna see the signing of the Declaration of Independence." He punched in 7-4-1776. The first readout read Jul 04 1776. "Or witness the birth of Christ." He punched in 12-25-0000. The readout read Dec 25 0000. "Here's a red letter date in history." He typed in 11-5-1976. "November 5th, 1976. Yes, of course November 5th, 1976." Snake laughed.
"What happened?" Alex asked.
"That was the day I invented time travel. I remember it vividly. I was standing on my toilet, hanging a clock. The porcelain was wet. I slipped and hit my head on the sink. When I came to, I had a revelation. A vision. A picture in my head. Picture of this." Snake pointed to three tubes connected together with light going through it. "This is what makes time travel possible. The flux capacitor."
"Flux capacitor?" Jimmy and Alex said.
"It's taken me thirty years and my family fortune to realize the vision of that day. My God, has it been that long? Things have certainly changed around here." Snake got out the car and Jimmy videotaped the inside of it. "I remember when this was all farm land. As far as the eye could see. Old man Peabody owned all of this. He had this crazy idea of breeding pine trees."
"This is- This is heavy, Snake. This is great. Does it run on regular unleaded gas or-" Alex began.
"Unfortunately, no. It requires a little bit of a kick. Plutonium." Jimmy walked over to Alex and recorded Snake.
"Um, plutonium."
"Wait a minute. Plutonium? Are you telling us this sucker is nuclear?" Jimmy said, pointing to the car and putting down the camera.
"Hey, hey, hey. Keep rolling." Snake said, turning to them. Jimmy picked up the camera again and passed it to Alex. Alex recorded him. "No, this sucker's electrical. I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity I need.
"You don't just walk into a store and buy plutonium." Jimmy said.
"Did you rip that off?" Alex asked.
"Of course. From a bunch of Lybian nationalists. They wanted me to build them a bomb. So, I took their plutonium and gave them a bomb casing full of pinball machine parts. Come on. Let's get you two radiation suits."
------------------------------
Snake opened the case of plutonium and put a tube of plutonium in the Eclypse. He took off his headgear. "It's safe now. Everything is lead lined. Don't lose those tapes." He put the larger container back into the box. "I need that as a record. Whoa, I need my luggage. Who knows if they have cotton underwear in the future?" He picked up his briefcase of stuff and put it in the Eclypse. "I'm allergic to all synthetics."
"The future?" Jimmy said.
"That's where you're going?" Alex said.
"That's right. Twenty-five years into the future. I've always dreamed of seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind."
"Why not?"
"I'll also get to see who wins the next 25 World Series."
"Snake?" Jimmy said.
"Huh?"
"Look us up in the future, when you get there."
"Indeed I will. Roll 'em." Alex turned on the camera and pointed it at Snake. Snake opened the door and cleared his throat. "I, Dr. Archibald Simpson, am about to embark on an historic journey. What am I thinking? I almost forgot to bring extra plutonium. How did I ever expect to get back? One pellet, one trip." Einstein began to bark. "What is it Einie?" Einstein looked out the front window of the truck. Snake looked in the same direction. He saw another truck coming toward. Snake's mouth dropped. "Oh my God. They found me. I don't know how, but they found me. Run for it, kids."
"What? Who?" Alex asked.
"Who do you think? The Libyans!" Alex and Jimmy looked behind them to see the same thing Snake saw.
"Holy shit!" Alex said, ducking down. Jimmy ran into the Eclypse and ducked in the passenger seat. A very good idea at the time for the Lybians began to shoot at them. Alex ducked by the Eclypse's driver seat door.
"I'll draw their fire." Snake said. Alex didn't know what he was talking about. Snake pulled out a pistol only to find it was empty. He began to walk to the end of the truck, but the Lybians stopped right in front of him. The one sticking his head out of the sunroof pointed his gun at Snake. Snake dropped the gun. Alex and Jimmy could only watch in terror. The Lybian shot Snake in the chest multiple times. Snake fell to the ground. Jimmy could only hope his sister didn't do anything stupid.
"No! Bastards!" Alex shouted. Shit, Jimmy thought. The Lybians turned to Alex who regretted what she had just done. She began to run toward the front of the truck. The Lybians shot at her. "Shit, why did I do that?" she said to herself. The shooter shouted something in Arabic and the driver began to drive. Alex ran to the other side of the truck to be met by the Lybians. She closed her eyes, waiting for them to shoot. The shooter pressed the trigger but nothing happened. The gun just clicked. Alex opened her eyes. She ran to the Eclypse and got in the driver's seat.
"Go!" the shooter shouted to the driver. Alex started the car. The Lybian van wouldn't start though. Alex looked at Snake's limp body as she closed the door.
"Come on, Alex. Let's go." Jimmy said, bringing her out of her thoughts. She put the car in drive and began to drive. That's when the Lybian shooter's gun began to work and the Lybian driver began to chase them. Alex then accidentally turned the time circuits on. Neither she nor Jimmy noticed. The shooter began to shoot the car and Alex turned the car. The van continued to chase them and Alex kept dodging them.
"Come on. Move, damn it." Alex muttered. She turned, causing the car's speed to decrease. She looked into her rear view mirror and noticed the shooter had pulled out a bazooka.
"Holy shit." she and Jimmy said.
"Let's see if these bastards can do ninety." Alex said to Jimmy. He nodded. Alex went into second gear and quickly got to eighty-eight miles per hour. Right before hitting some type of stand. Light surrounded them and then they disappeared.