Breaking Time Read online

  One Luke held out a fist. The other held out a flat hand.

  “Paper covers rock,” said the second one. “I win.”

  “Best two out of three?”

  “We haven’t got all day,” said Simeon. “Simulator use is charged by the hour…”

  “Right. Sorry.” The winning Luke closed his eyes, focused, and traveled back in time. Several minutes.

  Everything became a red blur, suddenly shifting back to the scene where his first self was rubbing his bee sting.

  “Ow! That hurt!” he said.

  “WAIT!” shouted the newly-arriving Luke.

  “Um… hi. Future self?” asked the recently-stung Luke.

  “Don’t go back in time to prevent yourself from getting stung. It won’t work. Well, sorta. He won’t get stung, but it won’t change you, and then there’ll be two of us.”

  “Oh,” said the first Luke.

  “Yeah. I’m gonna go now before I create any more paradox duplicates.” He suddenly remembered. “Oh! And in a few minutes, go back in time to now, and repeat everything I just said, okay?”

  “O…kay.”

  “That should prevent us from doubling.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The other Luke shrugged. “That’s why this is a simulation. To figure this stuff out! Okay… well, good luck!” And he focused on returning to the present moment. Everything, for him, shifted into a blue blur – and he returned to his own present.

  Now, dear reader, if you don’t think all that’s confusing, guess what happened next. Luke returned to his own time, but found his other self still there. Well, sort of. This time, his other self still had a bee sting. So it was his other-other self. They got rid of the first duplicate and created a new one.

  Both Lukes sighed. This was going to be a problem.

  “And there he is!” said Uncle Charlie.

  “Why didn’t it work?” one asked.

  “We’re still interfering with our own timeline,” said the other Luke. “We’re still changing our own past.”

  “But… I told you to—”

  “I know! And I did. I waited a few minutes, went back in time – and saw me and you there! I left as fast as I could. So I called stop. And then we waited to see if you’d show up. And here you are.”

  The other Luke sighed.

  “Oy vey,” said Dawn.

  “Tell me about it,” said Ray.

  “Is there any way out of this?” asked one of the Lukes.

  Simeon shrugged with a completely baffled look on his face. “You could try preventing yourself from ever stepping into the simulator? Maybe?”

  It was worth a try.

  “Wait, who gets to go,” said the other Luke.

  “I do.”

  “Why you?”

  “Because I’m the original.”

  “No you’re not,” said the other Luke.

  “Yes I am.”

  “No you’re not. I’ve been here the whole time. You’re the one who suddenly appeared from another timeline. I should be the one to go.”

  “No, I was the one who started this whole mess. I’m the original Luke. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.”

  “I’m getting a headache again,” said Ray.

  “Fine. There’s only one way to settle this.”

  The other Luke nodded.

  “One, two, three, go!”

  One Luke held out a fist. The other used “paper” again.

  “Aw man!” said the first.

  “Yeah, you picked rock last time, too.”

  The winning Luke closed his eyes, focused himself farther into the past and – nothing. He tried again. Still nothing.

  “Come on, come on.”

  “I think we found your limit,” said Simeon. “Seems you can travel back a few minutes without any problems. How far back were trying to go now?”

  “Ten minutes,” he said.

  “Try less.”

  He concentrated. “Come on, you can do this,” he told himself. Still nothing. He finally gave up and sighed. “That was nine minutes. Let’s try for eight.”

  Still nothing.

  “Seven.”

  Dammit! Still nothing.

  “Okay, six,” he said.

  Almost… but no.

  “Five?”

  Everything turned red and blurred out. He appeared five minutes in the past. The good news: he only saw one of himself. They were still waiting to see if another Luke would show up.

  “And there he is!” said Uncle Charlie.

  “Nope, wrong me. Sorry. Bye!” Luke quickly returned back to five minutes in the future, immediately after he just left.

  Everything was still normal. Well, relatively speaking. Still just one other Luke, also with a bee sting. But at least there wasn’t a third now. This proved their theory. They only create duplicates when they interfered with their own timeline, preventing the original Luke from continuing his original-timeline actions.

  “This may be how the universe prevents paradoxes,” said Simeon. “It creates new timelines layered on top of old timelines. And as soon as a time traveler creates a new timeline, he can’t go back to his old one. He can only travel along this new line.”

  “Interesting,” said the other Luke, “so if you went back in time to kill your grandfather, you’d change history – your dad would’ve never been born, and as far as the rest of the world knew, you were never born either. But you, from the previous timeline, would still exist – and would then be trapped on this new timeline you created, in a world where nobody’s ever heard of you.”

  “Fascinating,” said Simeon. “I wonder what else we can do.”

  “Uh, just a thought,” said Charlie, “how about we let Dawn and Ray go ahead for a bit. Let’s not risk creating any more time duplicates.”

  “Agreed,” both Lukes said. They practiced rock-paper-scissors in the corner, trying to out-smart the other.

  “Mind if I go first?” Dawn asked Ray.

  “Go right ahead,” he said.

  She stepped forward. “Okay, I’m a shape-shifter, so—”

  Simeon tapped a button. Suddenly the room rapidly stretched apart, swiftly sending her away from the others. She stood in the middle of empty white space.

  “Yeah, I was totally ready by the way, thanks.” She looked around the blank white space in every direction. She couldn’t see the others from her perspective. She couldn’t see anything but white. “Okay, so now what?”

  A cute little furry alien creature – something resembling a koala with a large bushy tail with a black tip – emerged from the void. He crawled towards her, making a cute little cooing noise.

  “Aww, how cute,” said Dawn, kneeling down to pet it. It started purring. She laughed.

  But then she realized the purpose of this simulation wasn’t for her to pet small furry animals. It was to test her shape-changing abilities. How did she do it before? Clear mental image, strong associated emotion. Got it. Now let’s see if she can turn into this cute little creature.

  She had the clear picture. She was looking at it. Now she just needed to feel… what? Cute and cuddly? Soft and furry? Maybe she just needed to feel like “it” – whatever this creature was. Could she do that? Just imagine what it’d feel like to be the animal she wanted to become?

  Sure enough, it worked. Her body began shrinking rapidly. Matching gray fur sprouted up all over her body. A large bushy tail appeared, growing out from her lower backside. Her hands and feet became cute little furry paws. Her ears enlarged out the sides of her furry little creature head.

  And suddenly, within just a few short seconds, she was another one of these creatures, crawling on the floor, making that cute little cooing sound. Unfortunately, her clothes didn’t transform with her. In her animal form, she didn’t mind – didn’t even notice – that she was naked.

  In her animal form, she still had all of her human thoughts. She tried speaking, but only made that cooing noise again. So she couldn�
��t talk. She was limited by her animal form. Somehow her consciousness, her brain, survived intact though. That was good. The realization that she might turn herself into an animal – and then forget she was human – terrified her.

  She was an actress. She loved playing different roles. Shape-shifting into other creatures was really no different. In this moment, right now, she was this koala-type thingy. And she enjoyed the part. Everything felt natural in this form. She could wiggle her tail with nothing more than a fleeting intention to. Her body’s new size and shape had its own unique center of balance – but it took her no time to adjust to it.

  But as fun as this was, she needed to return to her human form. So she concentrated on that. Looking, being, and feeling normal. A person. Blonde girl. Early 20s. The same face in the mirror she saw when she got up that morning.

  And quickly, her body morphed and transformed back into her familiar self. Buck naked. Yikes. She quickly grabbed her clothes and covered herself. “Sorry,” she said, knowing the others could see her from the control room. She re-dressed herself. “Let me see if I can get them to change with me.”

  She concentrated really hard. Focused on something simple. A hamster. She had a pet hamster when she was a little girl. She loved and played with that thing all the time. So it was easy for her to remember. Easy for her to visualize.

  That wasn’t the real test. She wanted to morph her clothes with her.

  Her body began to change. She quickly grew smaller and smaller, and more and more hamster-like.

  Unfortunately, the clothes did not change with her, hard as she might try. She immediately returned to human form and put her clothes back on, again. “Well that didn’t work.” She thought about something else to try. “I wonder if I can do other human appearances, too.”

  All it took was a clear thought and the intention to change. Almost instantly, her physical features shifted. She made herself look older – much older. Like 90 years old. A wrinkly old, gray-haired grandma. Since her body was approximately the same size, she remained fully clothed. Then she tried making herself younger. Much younger.

  Her age rapidly reversed. 50s. Mid 30s. Early 20s. Teens.

  She stopped around 14 years old. She even had a few zits. She was a cute teenager, sure, but also kinda gangly and awkward too. She was much more beautiful as an adult. Satisfied that she could change her appearance at will fairly easily, she immediately returned to her normal age and appearance.

  “One last thing, real quick,” she said.

  She changed her hair color from blonde to brown to red to green to blue to pink and back to blonde.

  “Awesome. Yeah, okay, I’m good now. You can stop the simulation.”

  The room suddenly rushed back together, rejoining her with the others.

  “Very impressive,” said Simeon. “According to the data we collected, your powers are unlike anything I’ve ever seen! It’s linked to your DNA. It actually rearranged itself according to your thoughts and emotions, simultaneously activating all of your cells to reboot and update, so to say, rapidly transforming you into the desired outcome. And it seems the less significant the change, the faster and easier the transformation.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that too,” she said.

  “And even more fascinating, you maintained your same mass the entire time, regardless of your size. Even when you were a small animal, you had the same weight you do now. Your molecules were just more tightly packed together. I expect the reverse will be true for going large. You can probably make yourself a towering giant, but you’ll still have the same weight. I’d be careful doing that. Since your molecules will be farther apart, you’re more vulnerable to getting hurt.”

  “Interesting. Okay, got it,” she said. “Anything else?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like you. Did you get your powers through the Altar of Destiny?”

  “Huh? Oh, no. I got it after Mastermind injected some chemical into me.”

  Uncle Charlie became uneasy. “That means he has the formula for creating as many shape-shifters as he wants.” He looked at Dawn. “The question is, does he know it yet?”

  “I’m guessing not,” said Ray. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have seen a bunch of new mutants back at the pyramid. Just regular-looking people with shape-shifting powers.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Charlie.

  “There’s just one thing I don’t get,” said one of the Lukes.

  “Yes?” asked Simeon.

  “When I was in the sphere, I was able to travel in time more than 5 minutes.”

  “Yeah!” said the other Luke.

  “I don’t know,” said Simeon. “Perhaps something’s blocking you.”

  Ray laughed. “Perhaps the universe is trying to prevent you from messing up your timeline any further!”

  “Hah, hah. Very funny,” said one of the Lukes.

  “Maybe I should go back in time and try again,” said the other Luke.

  “No!” collectively shouted all the others.

  “Alright, Ray, you’re next,” said Simeon. “Ready to test your powers?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  The simulation started for Ray. From some unknown distance, the others watched and observed. Simeon, at the control panel, quickly entered several commands. Objects appeared near Ray. Large ones, small ones, heavy ones, light ones. Ray moved them all with his mind.

  “He’s getting pretty good at this,” said Dawn, observing.

  “No kidding,” said Luke. “Hey, you think we should come up with alternate names now that we’re super heroes? I was thinking of Time-Man or The Paradox.”

  Dawn didn’t seem to like either of those very much. “What else ya got?”

  “Um, well, I was also thinking of maybe Quantum Boy,” said the other Luke.

  She shook her head.

  “What about you? Any ideas for your new name?”

  “Actually,” she said smiling, “when I was a little girl, I always wanted to be a super hero. But all us girls really had was Wonder Woman. You ever notice that? There’s so many cool guy super heroes. But not that many female ones, ya know?”

  “That’s not true,” said one of the Lukes. “What about Supergirl, Starfire, Batgirl…”

  The other Luke continued, “Ms. Marvel, Rogue, The Invisible Woman…”

  “I guess so. But they’re not as famous as like Batman or Superman, Spider-Man or that big green muscular guy.”

  “The Incredible Hulk,” they both said.

  “Yeah, him. Anyway, to answer your question, I have no idea.” She started to think of a suitable name. Something that alluded to her power, but was still catchy and sexy. “Hmm. Maybe The Changeling. Or Shifter. Or Chameleon Girl. Hmm. I dunno. Oh, I know! Mysterious Girl – ‘cause you never know what I might be disguised as, who I could be…”

  “Nah, sounds too close to Mystique, a character from the X-Men canon.”

  “I dunno. I’ll think of something later. Why do we need a fake name, anyway?”

  “Because it’s cool!” said one Luke. “That, and it protects our identities, and our loved ones. But mostly because it’s cool.”

  “We never used secret identities,” said Uncle Charlie.

  “Exactly!” the other Luke said. “If they had… If… Maybe Mom and Dad would still be here if they did.”

  Charlie slowly nodded. “And Mastermind might not have come after you. Either of you.” He shook his head.

  This two-Lukes thing would have to get fixed soon. But one problem at a time.

  “Not that we knew he’d go insane and turn evil at first,” Charlie continued. He lowered his voice. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s a reason every super hero has a secret identity…”

  “Well, not every super hero,” corrected one Luke.

  “Yeah,” said the other. “Iron Man told the world. But I think that was a stupid move.”

  Ray continued practicing his super power. All the while, the simulator measured exactly ho
w big, how heavy, and how far away he could telekinetically move things. And how long he could hold things up in the air against gravity.

  “Fascinating,” said Simeon, reading the simulator results. “What power did you say he had?”

  “Telekinesis,” said Dawn.

  “No,” said Simeon, shaking his head. “That’s not right. He’s actually manipulating and bending gravitational forces.”

  “No way!” exclaimed one Luke. “You think he can use that to make himself fly, too?” The other Luke wandered over to the control panel by Simeon. He looked over all the buttons and active measurements and statistics.

  Simeon shrugged. “Only one way to find out.” He held down a different button and spoke aloud. “Mr. Cartwright, try levitating yourself up into the air.”

  They all watched Ray on the large video screen wall. He tried lifting himself up, like he was a random object. But it didn’t work. So then he tried pushing against the ground.

  Instantly he levitated, floating right off the ground. “Whoa!” he said. He started tumbling uncontrollably, struggling to find his center of balance. Finally he got the hang of it. And before they knew it, he was comfortably floating several feet off the ground, stable and effortlessly. “Yeah,” he said. “I think I got it!”

  Simeon ended the simulation. The room seemed to shrink and snap back together. They were again in the small enclosed space. At least it appeared small. Who knew how big this place actually was. Clearly the technology was far more advanced than anything Luke (either one) or any of the others could understand.

  “That was kinda fun,” said Ray. “But um, can we get something to eat? I’m starving.” It occurred to him that they never really had dinner.

  “Me too,” said Dawn. “I feel like I haven’t eaten all day.”

  “All night, you mean,” said Uncle Charlie.

  “Shit,” said Ray, pulling out his cell phone. The battery was almost dead. It had been searching for a signal this whole time. “He’s right. Look at the time. It’s almost morning.”

  Dawn checked her own cell phone. “That can’t be right.” She was feeling a bit tired. But they were all pretty much running on adrenaline right now.

  “I’m not tired,” said one Luke.

  Charlie chuckled. “That’s because the healing chamber back at the pyramid revitalized you. It did for me too. But poor Ray and Dawn here just pulled an all-nighter.”