San Antonio, Texas
May, 2021
A trio of high-school seniors – Lionelo 'Leo' Hargrove, Mason Reeves, and Henry Pietersen – worked in perfect synchronicity as they moved around the old wooden barn that they had been lent for the important science project they had at hand. The space was lit by a warm old lightbulb that hung from a thick black wire that was attached to the roof, as well as several white-light lamps that the boys had brought in to enhance the visibility in the building. They had promised Gustab Aphelion that they would pay a percentage of the electricity bills until their work was complete, seeing as they'd also had to bring in several fans to keep the ardent Texas heat at bay.
May is a hectic month for every high-schooler on Earth, in between exams, final projects, and the stress of meeting expectations; but it is especially crazy for those about to graduate – which was exactly the case for the people in the barn. The burden was perhaps even greater for them, given that their school would be entering a state-wide science fair that would be taking place in mid-June. Everyone in their school had been forced to participate in an internal contest where three projects would be chosen for the bigger event, which would award a full scholarship at Stanford University to whichever team presented the best project.
While Mason and Henry adjusted some screws on the hexagonal magnetic platform, which was essential to their project, Leo turned to a fourth person in the room, holding back a display of frustration as he commanded, "Astra – pass me my notebook, I need to double-check the numbers."
A young girl of seventeen sat atop a stack of oat hay bales, her stolid forest-coloured eyes alternating their attention between the scene in the middle of the room and the game of Solitaire she was playing on her phone, and her right leg bouncing up and down as a voice inside her head taunted her, calling her useless and stupid for not being able to quite understand what the three boys were doing.
She started at the unexpected use of her name and she quickly rifled through a backpack that sat beside her, pulling out a grey college-ruled notebook that she had become very familiar with over the past eight months – even if she didn't comprehend its contents at all. Leo took the item from her and returned to his two friends.
Unlike her male teammates, Astraea Aphelion isn't at all scientific-minded, and she certainly doesn't share her companions' ambitions to earn the coveted scholarship. The only reason why she was stuck working with them is because she doesn't exactly have any friends at school, which meant that she'd been arbitrarily assigned a team and, much to her luck, theirs had been the only one with a vacant spot.
Astra would've been content with a Kindergarten-level project such as a volcano; or, perhaps, if more effort was required, she would've been interested in creating an A.I. system resemblant of Iron-Man's JARVIS; or perhaps in hypothesising a new way to power cars. However, the boys had come up with a much wilder idea – one that Astra was certain would not work out at all.
They had chosen to build a time-machine.
Despite the brunette's constant reminders that time-travel isn't real; Leo, Mason and Henry had taken it upon themselves to perform astounding amounts of research, and they claimed to have worked out all the mathematics necessary to carry out the project. Astra remained sceptical even now that they had the whole machine finished and ready for testing; but she'd long given up on trying to reason with her teammates (and on trying to help, seeing as she really doesn't have a mind for science), so she'd resigned to simply watching them work under the agreement that she would serve as a guinea pig once the tests began.
A half-hour went by and Solitaire grew old, so, seeing as her teammates remained hyperfocused on their tasks, the girl figured that she would run inside the farmhouse – which is, coincidentally, where she lives with her uncle Gustab and his family – and get some snacks for everyone.
She greeted her aunt Kelly, who sat at the kitchen table while going over some documents that Astra assumed were related to her uncle's law-firm, and then she opened the pantry to retrieve a box of Oreos. Next, she got a plastic pitcher and hurried to prepare some lemonade. Five minutes later, she returned to the barn and placed everything atop a work table, grinning a little at the thought that she'd finally done something useful.
"Don't ya' have somethin' healthier than Oreos?" Mason questioned while eyeing the tray with disgust.
Astra rolled her eyes, "Get the food yourself, then."
"Need I remind you that we're doin' all the work, girly?" the stout boy spat. "The least you can do is bring us some proper nourishment."
The girl huffed in frustration and clenched her jaw, but she didn't argue further, conceding that he was right. So she placed the pitcher and the plastic cups she'd brought onto the table, and grabbed the tray before returning to the house.
As she walked slowly and reluctantly – trying not to mind the heat that seeped through the thin grey hoodie that she was wearing – she began to nibble on her bottom lip as she thought over the possible dangers that awaited her once her teammates decided that the supposed time-machine was ready to begin testing. Assuming that it worked, she had no idea what to expect. Does time work like described in 'Avengers: Endgame'? Does it work like described in 'Back To The Future'? Does it work like described in 'Supernatural'?
Then she shook her head, choosing to ground herself in her scepticism as she gripped onto the thought that there is no way that time-travel is real. And with that, she picked up her pace and entered the farmhouse, sending her aunt a tight-lipped smile as she went back to the kitchen and searched the fridge for something healthier than Oreos.
It was about 15:00 when Leo finally announced that the machine was ready for its first test and Astra's heart got caught in her throat. While she maintained that time-travel is impossible, she was worried that her teammates' creation would somehow end up disintegrating her, or giving her a deadly electric shock, or causing her brain to explode.
She didn't voice any of these concerns, however, and she set her phone down before hesitantly stepping onto the metallic platform.
"All right, you are set to be sent ten seconds in the past, ten metres away from the door to this very barn," Leo stated. "As soon as you reappear outside, you are to return here and we will collect any data that the computer throws."
"Awesome," the girl grumbled under her breath.
"Are you ready?" Henry asked as he readied to pull the lever on the panel beside the platform.
Astra scoffed, "Will it make a difference if I say 'no'?"
"No," Mason promptly answered with an annoyed eye-roll.
The brunette shot him a glare before addressing Henry once more, "Get it over with, then."
A bright white light distorted Astra's reality for a second, and then, to her great surprise, she found herself ten metres away from the door to her uncle's barn, with nothing but a slight headache as a side-effect to the experiment.
Her eyes widened in shock and her mouth fell agape. Then she reached up to touch her hair, fearing that she'd gone bald, but she found that her dark brown locks were still arranged into a slightly messy braid. She ran her tongue over her teeth, and sighed in relief when she found that everything was in order. She looked down at her clothes, and grinned in satisfaction when she found that there were no scorch marks there. A second later, she collected herself and sprinted back inside the building, knowing that her teammates would be expecting her
"Yes! We did it!" The three boys cheered and exchanged hugs and high-fives as soon as Astra re-entered the barn, and she found herself smiling a little as well.
A whole week went by afterwards in which the trio continued to test the machine every afternoon after school, pushing the settings further and further away from the present each time; and when Saturday rolled around again, they determined that they would take things up another level.
"Pack a bag n' bring that horse of yours around, Astra. We're sending you to Austin five days ago," Leo claimed.
"No way!" Astra immediately protested, her heart skipping a beat in fear. "You're not risking Dal's life!"
"It's perfectly safe, as you've already seen, girly," Mason responded, rolling his eyes as was custom when addressing her.
She sighed shakily and averted her eyes from the expectant gazes of her three companions. It is true that the machine had proven to be safe so far, and it is true that she needed to pull her weight, after they'd done all the heavy work… but nothing scares her more than losing Dallas.
"I give you my word that he'll be all right," Leo pressed in a kinder tone.
"Okay, fine," she finally relented, letting out a long exhale. Then she pointed a menacing finger at the blond boy (which really didn't intimidate anyone given the girl's petite frame), "But if anything happens to him, I'll kill all three of you, then bring you back to life with the stupid machine, and kill you again, and so on for the rest of eternity."
Leo chuckled, while Mason rolled his eyes once more, and Henry tensed up in unease. "You've got yourself a deal, now go on," the blond responded.
Astra bit down on her bottom lip and gulped before reluctantly leaving the barn and slowly making her way towards the farmhouse. It was vacant this time, seeing as her uncle and aunt were away on some business trip, so there was no one to stop and greet as she dragged her feet while making her way upstairs to her bedroom. Her gaze ran over it for a few moments, stopping longingly on the twin-sized bed in the middle, before she shook her head, as if to get rid of the thoughts of everything that could go wrong during this trip; and she went to get her school backpack from her closet.
She emptied the contents on the floor and then moved to pack some essentials she would need if she wished to survive five days wandering through the Texan landscape. She packed clean underwear for each day, a change of clothes, a PJ set, a blanket, basic toiletries, her tablet, and a solar charger that her uncle had gotten her when he'd taken her and her cousins camping over the past autumn; then she grabbed her sleeping bag and her small camping tent (which fits two people because the individual ones made her feel claustrophobic) from the closet; she retrieved a small handgun she'd bought once without anyone knowing; and then she made her way downstairs to the kitchen so that she could pack some food and water.
Once she was set, she went towards the large paddock in which the horses at the property live. She stood beside the white wooden gate and let out a distinctive whistle that Dallas knew well. Only three seconds passed before the cremello Thoroughbred gelding could be seen galloping over a small hill and sprinting towards his human.
"Hey, buddy," Astra greeted with a small smile while one of her hands reached up to caress the horse's forehead in a tender manner. "Turns out you'll be time-travelling with me," she informed him with a snort.
As can be expected, the horse didn't respond. His light blue eyes simply regarded the girl in a curious manner, then he eagerly stepped past the gate when she opened it, and he followed her towards the tack-room. She didn't take long to groom and saddle him – opting to use his usual cross-country set, except that she chose to leave the bridle and use a neck-rope instead, seeing as competition rules don't apply to what the pair were about to do – and then she secured her camping tent and sleeping bag behind the saddle.
Finally, she led Dallas towards the barn and gave her teammates a wary side-eye as she moved to get the horse to stand on the platform.
"Good luck, Astra. Stay safe," Leo told her with a small, encouraging grin.
"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled.
Henry was about to pull the lever, when Astra stopped him in a panic and she leaped off the platform. She gave the startled trio a sheepish look as she hurried to grab her phone, which she'd left atop the hay bales, and she gasped when she tripped over some cables while getting onto the platform once more.
"Clumsy b*tch," she heard Mason mutter, which earned him a murderous glare.
"Stop it," Leo scolded his friend before turning to address Astra, "Ready?"
"I guess," she breathed out. And with that, Henry finally sent her to the outskirts of Austin, five days in the past.
A blinding white light replaced the girl and her horse atop the platform, and then it vanished along with the pair.
The remaining three exchanged high-fives and cheered once more, all of them feeling extremely proud of what they had accomplished. This project was bound to change their lives!
Once they were done celebrating, they moved to gather the data from the computer, and it wasn't long before Leo spotted something troubling. More than troubling. It was bad. It was mortifying. It was unthinkable!
"Henry?" he called in a slightly shaky voice.
"Yeah?" the dark-skinned boy replied, not yet picking up on the concern in his friend's tone as he remained smiling.
"Did you double check the numbers?"
Henry's heart skipped a beat as he responded, "Of course I did!" and he nudged the blond out of the way so that he could understand what had him so worried.
His dark eyes scanned the screen once. And twice. And thrice. Until it was no longer deniable. "Oh, sh*t!" he exclaimed while running his hands over his curly black hair. "She must've altered something when she tripped over the cables!"
"Clumsy b*tch," Mason repeated in a grumble, earning deadly glares from his two companions.
The three of them were completely and absolutely screwed.