Author's disclaimer: UGHHHHHHH!


Chapter 10:

Hey little nuts and bolts

How do you do?

My name is Cornelius.

Fine. Thank you.

Just a little twist here

And a little twist there.

Double check Double check

Do each job with care.

Cornelius sang in his head as he worked. It was a small ditty he had made on the spot a few months back, and he had been proud of it. Even tried to teach the frogs how to sing the words. It was unexpected when they refused, called it immature, uninspired…lacking musicality. What did that even mean, he had asked. And the frogs just shook their heads as if he would never understand.

"Stupid frogs, what do they know about music?" He stopped to think, then just shook his head as well.

He looked down at his new invention. Tiny compared to the others, but this would revolutionize video technology. It would be the thinnest video camera in the world! Not only that, but it could render images into the third dimension! Oh, he was so excited, been excited since the theory of it all fell into place just mere weeks ago.

Cornelius placed the red lens cover on top and stared at it for a few more minutes.

"I think that's it," he pondered. "Just have to check it now."

Picking up a remote, he pressed a few buttons until the red sticker lit up to indicate it was on.

"Testing. Testing. One. Two. Three." He adjusted a few more buttons on the camera. "First test of the holographer. This is Cornelius Robinson."

"Okay, hopefully, the dimensional video matrices were able to stabilize the construct."

His image appeared from the red dot on the camera. "Testing…---esting, one, two,thr---,"

"Good, good. The first problem is solved at least. Though…" He bit his lip, disappointed. "There seems to be a lot of static, and the visual quality is still not on par with the high definition systems."

Just then, the watch on his wrist began to beep furiously, emitting a high-pitched noise that Cornelius had installed to break him out of his reveries.

"Five o' clock already? Geez, where does the time fly by?" He smiled as he looked at the pictures on his desk. Everyday, he looked at the photos of his family, thanking whatever or whoever was ruling the universe for all that he had.

"Can't wait to find out what's for dinner." He whistled then pressed the green button on his desk to call his receptionist. "Arlene, I'll be heading home now. Have a nice day."

"Yes, Mister Robinson, and a nice day to you as well," she replied.

"Will do!" And he proceeded to jump into the travel tube. His feet landed, a few seconds later, in the parking garage, where his hover car was waiting.


"Your father is kind of…late," Franny said as she looked at the clock. "He was supposed to be here hours ago."

"Don't worry about it, mom." Wilbur didn't look up from the game in his hand. "He's probably at the edge of another breakthrough or something."

"I hope you're right." She moved to the window and peered at the sky, hoping for any sign that her husband's car had flown safely home. It was only when the grandfather clock struck eight times that Franny saw the light coming her way.

"He's here," she said as she sighed a breath of relief.

Relief then annoyance flooded through her.

"Your dad should at least have called to tell us he was going to be late." She kept her eyes on the two beams of light, her hands at her hips, thinking of how she was going to berate him this time.

But the car did not fly over the house and into the garage as she had expected. It dropped to the ground on the front lawn.

"That's odd." She saw the car's top open, and she rushed out to see what was going on.

"Hey honey…I'm home."

"Cornelius? What's going on?" In the darkness, she couldn't see, not until she was close enough to touch him, that his arm was in a sling and his forehead was bandaged.

"What happened to you?" She looked over and recognized the driver. "Arlene? How are you?"

"Could be better Mrs. Robinson."

"Don't worry Franny." He comforted her with his good arm. "Just a small malfunction in the hover car. Nothing too serious."

"This definitely doesn't look like it's nothing."

"I'm just glad I'm not dead." He smiled, but he read through her eyes that she didn't believe him one bit.

"Thank you for bringing my bumbling husband home, Arlene."

"My pleasure. Just do me a favor and keep him home for a few days. I know he's going to be itching to come back to work as soon as possible."

"Will do!"

"What!" he exclaimed. "No. As I said, this is nothing. Just a scratch! It won't be a bother!"

"Come on, young man." Franny pulled tugged at his ear until he followed. "Off to bed with you."

"But…But! I can still work! I need to finish my invention!"

She didn't let go even as they entered the door and up the stairs.

He kept howling along the way, screaming about the indecency, the humility, the unfairness of it all!

"What are you? Five years old?" she asked without stopping to look back.

All in jest, of course. He had a smile on his lips as he felt her love for him, her worry as visible as the moonlight. Her fingers pulled his ear tightly but so tenderly. His hand wrapped around her offending wrist and felt the softness of her skin. Cornelius felt relief that he was able to see her again, to touch her, and hold her. His heart, which had raced as his car lost balance, as he maneuvered it through oncoming traffic, as it lost altitude, was beating furiously now against his chest. He couldn't forget that the last thought he had before he crashed and lost consciousness had been the mind-numbing realization that he would never see Franny and Wilbur again.

"Are you listening to me, Cornelius Robinson?" She stopped at the foot of the bed and pushed him over the covers. Her arms rested on her hips. It truly was a simple animalistic behavior to gain dominance by increasing size. "You're going to rest now, and we'll talk about what happened in the morning."

"Don't I get a say in this?" He pouted.

"No, you don't. Now, relax and go to sleep." Her voice softened as she placed the blankets over him and removed the glasses from his face. Franny ran her fingers across his hair, down into his neck, and against his cheek.

Cornelius acquiesced. "Okay Fran. I'll take it easy for a few days."

"Good." She rose up and turned off the light. As she walked through the door, she looked back at him. "I'll make your favorite for breakfast tomorrow okay?"

With the pain in his arm, it took Cornelius a while to fall asleep. That wasn't all of it. In the back of his head, there was something scratching, trying to claw its way to the surface. Something from long ago. The thought was nagging him.

"Have I forgotten something?"


A week had gone by since the accident, and Franny had been babying him. It was nice, Cornelius could admit, being pampered. She made sure that he got out of bed as little as possible. The problem was that his head raced with so many ideas, he was bursting at the seams with the desire to invent, to create, to do something with his hands. Inventors needed to invent. That was a simple fact of life.

So, he had ignored her protests and gone back to work, testing out all the theories he had been coming up with during his convalescence. It was marvelous! Maybe that accident had been a godsend because he was able to finish the holographer in record time.

Today, his breakfast was a dish of bacon and eggs. Fried so beautifully, they would have tempted even the most stout-hearted vegetarian. It lay untouched, however. All of his attention was on the letter in his hand.

Electrical lines cut: Sabotage

He read that line over and over again.

Sabotage

"Hey dad? Are you okay?"

Cornelius didn't look up to acknowledge him.

"Dad?"

"Not now Wilbur…"

Wilbur…how had he forgotten all those years ago? Was it that long ago the dark haired boy had come to warn him? It was true that his life had been one blessing after another: first his marriage with Franny, then Wilbur's birth, and really after that his life was busy just trying to keep Wilbur from one absurd mess after another. Even with that, he shouldn't have forgotten…maybe, he hadn't really wanted to believe it. Deep down, he had to deny it all or go insane with the fear of the future itself.

"Dad…we have to go or we'll be late."

"Huh?" Cornelius looked at the clock. "Yikes! We gotta get you to school now or mom's going to kill us!"

The energy was gone then. The way he smiled, his apparent joie de vivre, all of it had disappeared. Cornelius could remember that it had been like this once. He had been an empty shell, and now he was one, once again.

"Dad? Is something bothering you?"

"Hmm? Oh! It's nothing, just got another idea I want to try out at the lab." He smiled again. He didn't want to, but he could remember the way Wilbur had been: sullen, dark… He didn't want his son to be like that Wilbur of long ago, but it seemed that this was their fate all along.

"Come on then, old man!" Wilbur slung his bag over his shoulder and stepped out into the brightness of the sun. "I'll race you to the car!"


Smoke ran up into the sky. A dark cloud that disappeared to a place Cornelius did not know where. The mathematical equations ran in his head. The velocity of the smoke was increasing. Each billow of warm air accelerated in straight, laminar flow until the equilibrium broke and turbulence made the tendrils dance so tenderly in beautiful arabesques.

He knew his mind was blank with shock. He knew it but was helpless to escape it. No, strike that. This was his escape from harsh reality.

His fingers were numb. Cold.

"Norepinephrine coursing through my veins causing peripheral vasculature to clamp down in a normal fight or flight response." He thought, detached.

Cornelius's fingers wrapped itself, digging into the soft flesh he clutched to his chest, as if afraid to let go.

"I'm okay dad. Really." The voice broke through, muffled.

This was true fear clutching at his heart. And hatred. He felt them both as he gritted his teeth and embraced the boy harder. Wilbur hugged him back.

Cornelius traced the dark cloud, down towards the ground where a smoldering heap lay. Only moments before...this car too had malfunctioned and dropped from the sky.

No mistaking it.

Sabotage

But this time, his son was involved.

"Unforgivable." He thought…and he didn't know if that thought was for the one responsible for all of this or for his own irresponsibility.


Cornelius hadn't left his office in weeks now for fear that someone else would get involved. Trapped in that lifeless box, his hands had itched to invent, but nothing came to mind. The dread. The hopelessness. Those filled his every waking hour.

If he remembered correctly, today was the day he was going to die. Fear. Agony. He was drained. His arms hung, lifeless against his side. He had done his best to keep from giving up, but those words had shaken him to his foundation until he broke.

"I hate you!" Those words had come through the phone straight from his own son's mouth. He might as well had died then, but he hadn't. Instead, he had been dragged through the last vestige of his life like torture.

Cornelius knew Wilbur hadn't meant it. That all of that had been frustration. He knew his son loved him, but why then, he didn't understand, could it hurt him so much.

He raised his hand in front of his face.

"What will it be like to die? Will it be painful?" Wilbur had told him he had been burnt so badly he was unrecognizable. So yes, he decided.

"After all that pain, will there be nothing? Will there be just darkness?" He could destroy that logic so easily. Darkness denoted that he would still have eyes. There would be no darkness, he decided.

"I never understood how there could just be nothing? Will I just disappear into nonexistence? Maybe there's a heaven?" The man prided himself on his vast intellect, but intellect denoted an actual functioning brain.

"Even if the soul did exist, it cannot think. Its job is to only exist." His beautiful brain would fry, each cell screaming as intracellular fluid burst through and evaporated. Thank goodness there are no pain sensors in the brain...if only the rest of his body were so lucky.

"How morbid."

Time was fleeting. The anxiety of waiting made him wish that the killer would be a little more considerate and kill him sooner.

A flash of light!

Cornelius stood up in an instant, surprised to see the green time machine flying inside his office.

"Is this it?" He thought.

The two men inside were unfamiliar to him. The top popped open, and the man in the passenger side jumped out.

The man was shorter than he was, though that didn't really surprise Cornelius, since he was taller than most men. It was, however, the color clash on the man's attire that drew his eye. A dizzying use of purples and greens in a cut that was not fashionable even for the most esoteric of fringe social circles.

"They're from the future?"

"The great Cornelius Robinson!" The man grinned. His round face seemed menacing, and it wasn't helped by the strange green tint in his eyes. "I've wanted to meet with you…talk with you for so long."

"You could have asked for an appointment with Ms Arlene downstairs. She would have been able to place you into my schedule." He wanted to stall for time, to put off the inevitable. Enough time that he could accept all of this was actually happening.

"Oh I know. But you see, they say that it would be humanizing your victim. Makes it harder to kill." He pulled out what seemed to Cornelius like a strange pistol. "And I do have the greatest admiration and respect for you and your work. So I do regret having to do this…just a little bit."

He chuckled and pointed the gun at Cornelius's chest. Cornelius could no longer breathe in enough air. Even his body was craving desperately for life.

"If things had gone differently, this wouldn't have been necessary. But it seems, my good man, that you're a really hard rat to kill." He laughed softly. "And the higher ups can't afford for you to live."

"Why? What have I done?" Cornelius asked. He was fine now. He wasn't shaking anymore. So this is acceptance, he thought. His inquisitive mind was now taking over.

"Think of it this way…" His voice softened to try and console him. "If you could go back in time and avert a great disaster…wouldn't you take the chance as well?"

"Disaster?" Cornelius whispered.

"Goodbye, Doctor Robinson." And a flash of light filled Cornelius's senses. Like a film in slow motion, he closed his eyes awaiting the pain that would rip through him…and was surrounded by the distinct sound of thunder.


Author's note:

Dear Everyone,

So sorry guys this took forever! So sorry! Been extremely busy with school that I'm a week behind all my required reading and studying. First couple of exams are coming up so you can tell that I won't be working on this for a little while. I'll apologize for that in advance. Part one of this whole thing ends with the next chapter and then I'm hoping to finish part 2 by the time spring break ends, though I doubt it myself. I just hope I can finish by the time May rolls around because if I don't, this thing will never get done with all the work I have to do for this summer and next semester.

On a bright note, I've been reading a few books during my free time so I don't go insane, mainly Orson Scott Card's Ender series and also "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein. Now I'm between "Letters from the Earth" by Mark Twain and "Paper Towns" by John Green. If you guys have any suggestions about good reading material, please feel free to comment. (hint: I will disown anyone that even whispers or thinks about Twilight.)

Until the next time we meet.

J