Turning Back………………………..…………………………………….………………………….…………………Max Wagner, V

Turning Back

Max Wagner 23

I turned my wrench, tightening the final bolt before the emitter could turn on. Soon the place would be flooded with fundamental particles, the same sort of universe soup present at the beginning of all things, that would be present at the end. I reached for the familiar cold metal handle of the door behind me. My hand met its rectangular edges, and I pushed down. It didn’t move. I tried again. Again. Nothing. I pulled out my radio, but it had no signal. The massive electromagnets that kept the particles within the chamber were already powering up, disrupting any wireless signal that would attempt to reach the outside. The radio trembled in my hand. I looked down in horror. I was about to be sucked to the wall, massive magnets preparing to reel me in like an experienced fisherman. I could already feel the pull. I hastily unbuckled my belt, set down my radio, and took my phone and keys out of my pockets. Seconds later, the items started to skitter across the metal grate platform, moving faster and faster until they leaped into the air, clanging against the massive magnets embedded within the walls. I was untouched, for now, but I knew I would soon be evaporated by excited particles. I banged on the door again. No response. Bang. Bang. Bang. I knew everyone would be cleared out, that humming electricity and warning alarms would down out the banging of my fists being brought to blood on the cool metal walls. Outside, the room’s air was slowly thinned, becoming a vacuum to contain any accidents. Sound wouldn’t travel anywhere. I sat down and closed my eyes. This is how it ends. Torn apart by my own life’s work. I knew I couldn’t get out. I’d designed the machine myself, and it couldn’t be opened. That was the entire point. I felt the heat around me. The humming grew louder, louder, deafening. The emitter fired. Subatomic particles fired at lightspeed around the ring, filling it with energy. My closed eyes went from black, to a dark glow, to red, orange, yellow, white. This was it. I opened my eyes, and there was no completed machine.

I saw it deconstructed, like a reverse time-lapse, piece after piece of metal and technology removed and placed into trucks and shipped away. I saw the building around me taken apart, concrete and rebar being moved out of its place in a matter of moments. The lights in the streets disappeared, replaced by lamplit shadowy nights, cars replaced by horses replaced by men replaced by endless forest. Farther. Forests disappeared, giving way to a clouded, fiery hellscape. Farther. Dinosaurs appeared, then disappeared, creatures grew smaller, then the world was grass, then sand, then rock. Primordial seas flashed by, the breeding grounds of life. Farther. Before life. A world of fire and brimstone and death. The world stopped flashing. I stopped turning back. I exhaled. Then, nothing. I frantically sucked the air. Nothing. There was no oxygen before life, nothing to sustain me. What the hell was going on? Is this what happens at the end of one’s days? I’ve heard of a person’s life flashing before their eyes, but every life? The world’s life? I closed my eyes. Please take me back. Please, god, just let me go back to my time. I was an atheist.

I looked around. Lava bubbled, seemed to flow faster. Faster and faster, it rushed by. The sun accelerated, spinning through the sky. Seconds later, it set. I turned around, looking for the moon. Nothing. How long ago was I? I stood, my body consuming the last of the oxygen, as I sped up, up, catapulted forwards. The scenes I had seen played out in reverse. I saw a huge impact, a dark period, then a moon. Plants grew in the pools that formed around me, flourishing underneath the flashing sun. All of evolution, the beginnings of life, played out before my eyes. Too fast. I had no time to take in the sights. Once again, I saw the dinosaurs, their death, new animals, mammals, forests, tents, a town, a city, and I stopped. I was in the reactor, but this time the door was open. I leaped out, turned a corner, and burst outside. The sun was shining, cars crowded the streets, and the familiar newsstand lay on the corner. I ran

over and looked at the newest papers. May 12th, 2022. Just a day before where I should be. Forward. Cycles of light and dark, too many. A flash of clouds, of rain, of sun. May 20th, 2022. Backward. May 10th. Forward. May 13th. This was the day I died. I ran back into the building. I sprinted down corridors and twisting hallways to the control room. The machine was powering up, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It was hard-wired into the reactor to never stop at this point, as any sudden change could prove disastrous. I looked around. Other scientists looked at me with questioning eyes, no doubt wondering how I was covered in sweat. I didn’t have time to convince them. Backward. I hope this was the right time. I hope this is the night before today. I ran back to the branch in the halls, into the containment room, and finally entered the machine once more, taking a wrench that had been left outside. I tightened the last bolt now, hopefully saving myself from all this in a few hours. Would it? How did this even work? Scientists have always had theories of time travel, but who could say what was true. Could I change my past? Many had theorized about time travel, but nothing is really known. If I died, or if the other me died, what would happen? Could I ever go back? Guess I’ll figure out. Now’s as good a time as any. I guess any time is good for me. Stepping out of the machine, I heard the thud of the heavy door closing behind me. I navigated the corridors to find the unused secondary observation room, the one with cameras rather than the traditional reinforced windows. Forward. This was the next day. And there it was, proving my suspicions, my fears. I saw myself on the cameras. He was, or I was, walking the same familiar path I had earlier today, but I didn’t turn into the reactor room. It worked. I’d saved myself from entering the machine. Did I save myself? Or did I save another me? I didn’t have time to celebrate, though. I felt a hand on my shoulder and whipped my head around. I saw a futuristic mask, seemingly a liquid metal in the shape of a face. It appeared to be a man, with his body covered in another material, one that seemed to suck the light out around it, making him appear more like a hole in my vision than an object. For a moment, I just stared, taking in the sight of his flowing outfit, trying to comprehend what I was seeing. Then we moved. His hand was firm on me as time flew back to before the building was created, then across the country. He could fly as well. I guess that makes sense. It’s a common theory that time’s just another dimension, so why should space be any different? How could he do that? Could I? I didn’t have time to think about it. It was a distinctly different feeling than time traveling, which I hadn’t even realized had a feeling at all. Earlier, I’d felt like I was going up and down, forward and backward in the river of time. Now, I was being pulled to the side, yeah, definitely pulled. I wasn’t in control. I could feel his willpower moving us. Forward. It worked. While we were still traveling, all around us, buildings formed as I flung us back to the correct time. I felt his attempts again. The days slowed, the sun crawling in the sky and then stopping. I could feel his own force, his own attempts to go back, canceling my efforts. The world was still. Then we slowed, our feet touching the desert ground, and stopped. My stomach lurched as I saw what lay in front of me. The Grand Canyon, in all of its terrible glory, like a God had taken his wrath out on the Arizona desert. I'd never been here. Once again, I had no time to savor the sights. He pushed, and I fell. Back. BACK! The sun rocketed from the West to the East, looking like a streak of light across the sky more than it did a single circle. In just a second of my fall, I traversed millions of years of history. Splash. I landed in the river at the bottom of the canyon. I was alive. I looked up. Twenty feet above me, the canyon walls gave way to the ancient blue sky. Who the f*** was this guy, and what did he want? How did he get the same powers as me? What did he want with me? I didn’t want any of this. I want my wife, my kids, and maybe to help the world. I want my life. I want its issues, my short hours of sleep, my same breakfast every morning that I felt was sometimes torture, my colleagues who disagreed with me, and the times my car broke down. At the top of the canyon, the man appeared. How did he track down when I’d traveled to? He leaped down at me, arms outstretched. Back. I rose out of the ground, rising up on the heated earth. Tens of thousands of years

passed. Seconds later, he showed up. What the hell do I do? I needed to travel as he did. Could I? I don’t even know if he got his powers the same way. I had to try. Go somewhere. I couldn’t control this the same way I time travel, at least not yet. The man showed up right in front of me and grabbed me. I hadn’t moved anywhere, not even a few steps of distance. I raised my leg to kick him. I struck, and my foot connected with what felt like the hardest material possible, somehow rigid despite its fluidity. What once seemed like a flowing void condensed into a glossy black material where I made contact, and engraved on it were a few words. LZN Polymers, 2183. Could that be the year he was from? Could I maybe find some answers? I kicked off his chest again, creating some distance. Forward. I passed by millions of years, back to the present and forward even further. Tourist attractions popped up near the now deepened Grand Canyon, and I tracked the years passing on the newspapers and signs adorning them. 2000. 2050. 2100. 2150. 2183. Here I was. Without a way to know if the man could track me, I had to assume he was coming. I ran inside the nearest building, hiding under the counter. It was a futuristic restaurant, or I guess just a restaurant for this time. Surfaces of polished white surrounded me, with not a worker in sight. Small drones flew silently through the air, delivering food to hungry tourists. I stayed for a few minutes, hoping he’d lost me. Customers walked in and out, appearing not to pay. As they left, I simply heard a beep. I stood up and walked out. I hadn’t ordered anything, so hopefully, the machine wouldn’t be checking me for however everyone paid. I had to find some answers. Just as I exited the restaurant, I felt it. Maybe I’d had the feeling before and was just now realizing, or maybe it was a new development. But I knew with absolute certainty someone had timetraveled to here. To now. It felt like someone had broken something, like the feeling when you just know someone has snuck into your living room uninvited. And I could feel where they had arrived. Eastern United States. Washington, D.C. After thinking about the implications of this sense for a moment, I realized. Holy shit. He could have the same thing. Answers to what was going on, what happened to me, and why he’s chasing me must be where he went. In the capital. The only problem was getting there. Stepping further out into the blazing sun that shone down the canyon walls, I rose off the ground almost unconsciously. Looking down, the sight of my shoes levitating off the coarse sand surprised me, and I almost yelled. Good timing. I needed to go East, but what if I ran into the other guy? His visage was still branded in my mind, his flowing metal face, his ethereal darkened body. What did he want with me, and more importantly, what could I do about him? I continued to rise, above the clouds, hopefully out of sight. Staying just above the great layer of wispy vapor, I began my flight to the capital. Cities, forests, and fields passed between the great bodies of white, seeming so strangely similar to that of my native time. Not too much had changed. I arrived in the outskirts of D.C., landed lightly in an abandoned lot, and began the trek inwards. I passed the suburban houses, no doubt filled with content families enjoying the blissful amenities of the future. Roads were nearly empty; only the occasional sleekly designed car passed silently by. Kids must be in school right now since they were absent from the sidewalks. Nearing the center of the capital, I could feel that strange feeling again, someone traveling in and out of 2183. In. Out. The feeling grew stronger, deeper in my stomach and my brain, and I knew I was getting closer and closer to the point it was coming from. When it was almost deafening, I turned a corner to where I knew it must be. It was an unassuming building, just a blank rectangle of faded red bricks around a mile from the Capitol Building. Opening the door, I found an even more uninteresting interior. Newspapers lay scattered around, some collecting dust and some seemingly just placed there. I bent over and picked up one from the Seattle Times. 2180. U.S. Capital Destroyed by Nuclear Bombing. I looked out one of the windows. Not destroyed by a nuclear bomb. Then I looked back at the newspaper. On the top right, there was a checkmark written with a blue marker. Piles on piles of newspapers lay marked with the same blue

marker. I picked up another. Child Hit by Car, Dies. 2179. Weird. Doesn’t seem like the same tier of event as the first paper. Still, it had a blue checkmark on it. I guess if he has all the time in the world, he may as well use it. The persistent feeling still emanated from the next room as I looked around. Nothing new was apparent where I was, so I inched closer to the door and deeper into the building. I was wondering why there was no security or even locks here, no alarms or warnings. Then I thought. If it was another time traveler who operated out of here, he didn’t really need to bother. Whenever he heard word of an intruder, he could go back and stop them, leaving the timeline as if they had never come. If he wanted to, he could make the world be as if they had never even existed. Would that happen to me? Step by step, I drew closer to the door, placed my hand on the handle, and cracked it open. Inside, the man was appearing and disappearing, marker in hand, checking newspapers. I wonder what they said. The assassination of a world leader? Petty crime in some tiny city in the midwest? After he disappeared, I rushed into the room, positioning myself behind where he last left. He appeared again, facing away from me, and drew a checkmark on the newspaper sitting on a lectern in front of him. 2182. Mother, Two Children Killed in Heist. How long had he been gone fixing that? It likely just took him minutes. Godlike powers tend to do that. And then he spoke. “What are you doing here?” It was the first time I’d heard him. It was obviously filtered, and sounded more like a group than an individual. His deliberate words felt like they came from all around me, or from inside of me. How do I respond? “Hold on! Before you do something… what do you want with me?” “I want…,” his voice was quiet, solemn, rageful. “I want to punish you.” What the hell did he mean? “What? What did I do? Please, I can fix this.” “You could fix it for you. You can’t fix it for me.” “What does that mean?” “I can’t forget. It could never be the same.” he turned around, clicking the end of his blue marker, and a thin blade of crackling energy extended from within. The room was illuminated in flickering cyan light, like the summer sun shining through shimmering water at an aquarium. He lunged at me, and I skated backwards across the room, landing next to the back wall. He rushed forward again, arm outstretched with the knife held forward. I evaded his strike, falling forward to the left. I grabbed his leg and pulled us through time. Backwards. Before he could react, years passed, newspapers disappearing from the cluttered room around us. Before long, just after all the papers had disappeared and been replaced by cobwebs and dust, he reacted, pushing us back forwards. Our efforts counteracted, leaving us trapped in the normal flow of time. He raised his left leg and kicked my right shoulder. The impact shocked through the entire side of my body, and I felt my bones crack from the force. I kept my grip, refusing to let go. I thought for a split second, then flew us out the wall. We crashed through the bricks, his flowing armor redirecting the dust and cracked red stone. I began to fly west, over the houses and buildings of D.C., desperately trying to come up with some way to live through the day. “There’s nobody you can take me where you’ll win,” he said, simply sitting still, holding his knife of energy to my neck. “You can’t fight me.” I didn’t respond. What could I do? Then it hit me. Seattle Times. Mount Washington. I flew us to Seattle, lowering over Mount Washington. He continued to fight my efforts to bring us back, pushing harder and harder forwards. Then, I stopped pushing backwards. Without my efforts counteracting his own, we flew forwards through time until I saw what I was looking for. Lava bubbled on the slopes below, and I returned my grip onto our position in time. Instead of flying, I pushed us downwards, countering his will to stay in the air. Only gravity would move us, and it was taking us straight towards the crawling mass of molten rock.

“You’ve made your choice, then,” he stated simply. He dug the knife into my stomach. Every crackle of its blade, every tiny bit of motion, sent a jolt of electricity through me. I refused to let go. I could feel the blade cut and cauterize, sending excruciating pain through my system. I refused to let go. We fell nonetheless. A hundred feet off the ground. Fifty. Zero. He hit the lava and screamed. The sound was distorted and crackling as the technology of his suit melted away. “This will be your path, then. You will come to regret this.” His face was neutral, but as the last bits of his body melted away, he gave me a slight smile, cruel and uncaring. I could feel myself being scorched by the heat, clothes burning away slowly as I stood on the precipice of my certain death. I took a last look at where the man had once been, turned away, then turned back. I arrived back in my time, passing hundreds or thousands of years of unchanging forest before the eruption. I passed out, blood trickling out of my not-quite cauterized hole in my stomach onto the forest floor.

Three Years Later.

I woke up, got dressed, brushed my teeth, and walked down the stairs. While cracking open the eggs for my breakfast, I hit the button on the silver coffee machine in the corner of the kitchen. While it whirred, dispensing coffee into the mug placed below, I finished making the simple eggs I’d been so accustomed to my whole life. As I ate, I watched my twins walk out the door with their little backpacks, off to first grade. My son laughed as he skipped out, his little blue shoes skipping out the doorstep. My daughter turned around. “Bye Papa!” I smiled. I couldn’t wait to see them tonight. Minutes later, I walked out the door, locked it behind me, and stepped into my car. I began my usual route to work. And then, minutes after I’d left, just after I merged onto the highway, I saw it. A destroyed school bus rolled off the side of the road. Ambulances surrounded it, and kids were lined up behind the driver with cuts and bruises. Some were taken out on stretchers. Where were my kids? I couldn’t find them. Not in the line, not on stretchers. I looked down. Two body bags, with tiny lumps in the middle, unable to fill them. And I knew what I would find inside. Wishful thinking told me they could still be in the bus, or already in an ambulance, but I knew better than to hope. I could feel it. All my life, I’d been asking questions, questions about how to move forward, how to help others, and how to help myself. My career as a scientist was based around asking questions, but finally, I didn’t have a question. I had a single truth. An answer. My kids were dead. I could save them. But then I realized. I couldn’t forget. It could never be the same. And I realized what the man had told me all those years ago. I wish he’d killed me. I’d come to regret my choice. I knew what I must become. What I already was. What I’d always been. I screamed, releasing all the energy of time, space, and pain inside of me, jumping years, decades, centuries forward and back. I saw the world, saw all of history, all of time and space, and I landed. My eyes opened again. I was in a room, built of brick and full of cobweb and dust. In its center lay a lectern, and on that lectern lay a single blue pen. There was no turning back.