Someday We'll Be Together

Chapter 19- Pretending to be Spiderman

Tyler soon noticed that the surroundings felt familiar. Since Max didn't know the rest of the way, he followed Tyler. Soon, they reached the path leading to Mrs. Lincoln's house. Following the path, they saw Mrs. Lincoln's wooden house in its familiar spot in the forest.
"When we went to 1983, we walked to this woman's door together," Tyler said.
"I've never been here before," Max replied.
"I mean with the other you. Oh, my God, we don't remember anything we did together."
They stopped in front of Mrs. Lincoln's door. Tyler turned to Max.
"This time, you knock."
"Did she do something weird to you last time you knocked?"
"Considering I'm still alive?"
Max knocked the door with his hand.
"But she did attach weird cables to your head last time," Tyler teased.
Max flinched. "I wonder what device she'll attach to my head this time."
The door was left half-open. From inside, a pair of eyes looked at them. "Yes, it's us again," Tyler said, expressing his frustration.
"You sent us to the future 25 years ago," Max proudly stated. Upon hearing this, the woman opened the door wide and looked at Tyler and Max in astonishment. Then a smile of recognition spread across her face.
"Of course, the first time travelers in history."
Mrs. Lincoln left the door open and waited for Max and Tyler to enter.
"Wait, if we've never been here before, how can you remember us?" Max asked, his head filled with confusion.
"It was before the time deviation," Tyler explained, indicating he understood Lena's explanations. "They were just the other us."
"The other me... the other you... this is getting really confusing. How many of 'us' are there in total?"
"Mrs. Lincoln," Tyler turned to the matter at hand. "We need your help."
"Where's the other one, um... "Lena," Max added, completing the woman's sentence.
"She's in trouble," Tyler said. "This isn't our home. I made a terrible mistake in the past, and this... this place is very different from the 2008 we remember."
The woman jumped in surprise. "Good Lord! The man who won all the bets. So, that's how it's explained."
"Yes, he's my father," Tyler said with embarrassment. Then he looked at Max. "Mrs. Lincoln, we came to ask if we could borrow your camera—the one you invented in this universe—since the camera we brought is unusable."
"Great Heavens! This is very dangerous. Do you know what would happen if you encounter your past selves?"
Tyler was tired of hearing this over and over again.
"Yes, yes, the universe would explode, and everything would be obliterated, blah blah blah."
"This is no joke—"
"We only invented the machine based on Max's camera for emergencies, yes."
"What? My camera?"
Mrs. Lincoln looked at Tyler with horror, thinking he could read her mind.
"You invented a version of the camera that runs on fusion energy and its password is your cat's birthday," Tyler continued.
"H-how do you know all this?" Mrs. Lincoln asked, bewildered and scared.
"Right now, the universe you're in is an alternative version of an alternative universe," Max explained, trying to sound intelligent.
"Good Lord..."
Mrs. Lincoln looked terrified as she opened her locked box on the floor and pulled out a box. She handed it to Tyler with a serious expression on her face.
"Take this, but be very careful. Whatever you do, don't let your 1983 self see your current self. The consequences would be disastrous."
"It can't be worse than this alternate universe," Tyler said as he took the box. "Thank you, Mrs. Lincoln."
"Fix whatever you've broken, but don't interfere with anything else, or you might create a worse alternate universe than this."
"See you in 25 years," Max said as they left the house. After waving goodbye to Mrs. Lincoln, they set off.

When they reached the building belonging to Kyle in the town square, they used the emergency exit at the back to enter.
They silently climbed the stairs, and when they reached the floor where the library was located, they stopped.
"What was the exact date and time you went?" Max asked.
"November 12, 1983. 12:00 p.m., an hour before the big game," Tyler remembered clearly.
Max entered the date and time into the machine's circuits and hung it around his neck. Then he opened the exit door and entered the corridor where the library was located.
When they entered the library, Tyler stopped.
"What are we going to do here?"
"You'll see," Max said. Tyler followed Max as he moved towards the back of the library. Max stopped in front of a ventilation shaft.
"Wait, we're not going to do this, are we?" Tyler asked incredulously.
"Lena and Marla stayed in the room on the top floor. Their doors were locked. We can't get there any other way," Max explained, shrugging. Then he began to unscrew the screws with the key in his pocket.
"I can't believe we're doing this," Tyler said.
"Oh, come on, it's just a ventilation shaft, not fighting gladiators in Ancient Rome. Just like an action movie," Max said, rolling his eyes. "Hey, hand me that rope."
Tyler looked at Max strangely and handed him the rope.
Max tied one end of the rope around his waist and formed a loop with the other end of the rope. After making sure the rope was securely tied, he threw it up and the loop end of the rope caught on the hook on the ceiling. Max grabbed onto the rope tightly, tucked his feet into the recesses in the wall, and started climbing.
"Max, this is madness!" Tyler yelled after him.
"It's not madness, it's the skill of using what we learned from action movies in real life."
"If you fall, you'll say to your arm or leg goodbye."
While Tyler said this, Max had already covered half the distance.
When he managed to climb up, he shouted down to the Tyler below with joy.
"Thank goodness I loved climbing in PE class."
After untying the rope from his waist, Max threw it down and it landed next to Tyler's feet. He also wound the end of the rope attached to the hook onto a pulley on the ceiling.
"Hey, I don't think I was in that climbing class you mentioned," Tyler called out.
"Come on, it'll be easier for you to climb because I'll be pulling the rope," Max said.
"For God's sake, I'm not a secret agent, Max!"
"You're not an agent, yes, because you're a coward. Come on, stop complaining and put this around your waist already."
As Tyler tied the rope around his waist, he spoke again.
"I'm afraid of heights!"
"Then don't look down! Just for two minutes, pretend you're Spiderman or something."
Tyler grabbed onto the wall's protrusions, and Max started pulling the rope hanging from the pulley. When Tyler felt himself rising, he yelled.
"I can't hold on, Max!"
"My God, could you put in a little effort? It's really hard for me to pull all your weight with the pulley."
Tyler started climbing faster out of fear as Max pulled him up.
"I can't look down!"
"Then don't! Focus upwards, focus on me. Keep going like that, Tyler!"
Shortly after, Tyler and Max faced each other. Max pulled Tyler by the arm and made him land on the ground.
"You did it."
"Wow, I did it," Tyler said, out of breath.
"Are you okay?"
Tyler nodded.
"Going down will be worse, so be prepared."
When Tyler heard this, he flinched and followed Max, who was advancing straight ahead in the ventilation shaft.
After a short while, they reached the end of the ventilation shaft, and there was a ventilation cover on the floor.
Max unscrewed the screws with the tip of his key and removed the cover in place. Lena and Marla, who heard the noises from above, were looking up at them from below. Max signaled to them to be quick and quiet. He lowered the rope and handed the other end to Tyler. Lena tied the rope around her waist and held on tightly. Max and Tyler started pulling the rope, and they successfully managed to bring Lena up into the ventilation shaft.
They lowered the rope again and this time, they pulled Marla up along with Lena.
"Wow, this was the most adventurous thing I've ever had to do in my life," Marla exclaimed excitedly.
Max looked at Tyler.
"What fun, though."
The four of them started moving forward one after the other in the ventilation shaft. When Tyler remembered that they would have to descend from where they had just climbed, he felt something strange in his stomach.
They soon reached there.
While the girls were looking down, Tyler, despite being at the back, felt like he was about to faint. Max wound the rope around the pulley and turned to the group behind him.
"Who wants to go down first?"
"We need to lower the heaviest one first. We can reach maximum strength with fewer people up there," Lena explained. Then Max turned to Tyler.
"It seems like you're going first."
"Not on earth," Tyler said. He couldn't even approach the edge.
"Come on, you don't need to do anything. We'll be holding onto you, and you'll just hold onto the rope and we'll lower you slowly."
Lena turned to Tyler and friendly tapped his shoulder.
"You can do it, Tyler, just hold onto the rope tightly."
Tyler gulped and tied the rope around his waist, then approached the edge of the opening.
"This is scarier than when you and Jerry closed the door behind me while we were in that abandoned house," Tyler said to Max.
"For God's sake, who the hell is Jerry? Anyway, just a moment ago, you trusted me and came out of here, Tyler. Lena and Marla are holding the rope, what could possibly happen to you?"
Tyler slowly let himself down. Max, Lena, and Marla started pulling the rope and loosened it a bit. As Tyler descended, he kept muttering with his eyes closed. When his feet finally touched the ground, he opened his eyes and saw that he had safely reached the ground.
"All right, Tyler. Now throw the rope back up to us," Max called out from above.
Tyler regained his composure and untied the rope from his waist, then threw it back up. Max caught the rope and handed it to Marla.
After lowering Lena and Marla, only Max remained upstairs.
"How am I going to come down?" he asked, shouting down. "Wrap the rope around the pulley up there and tie it around your waist. We'll hold onto the other end of the rope from here and slowly lower it. Same logic as climbing sports," Lena said.
Max nodded, indicating he understood, and started lowering himself down until he found the end of the rope. Then he tied the rope around his waist and waited for Lena's approval.
Lena looked back at the others and instructed everyone to hold onto the rope tightly and then slowly start letting it go. Then she turned back to Max and signaled him.
Max started lowering himself down slowly. Lena, Marla, and Tyler held onto the rope and slowly let it go. As they let go, Max descended. At that moment, he realized he wasn't progressing. However, the others kept letting go of the rope. His pants had caught on a protrusion on the wall. Then suddenly he heard his pants rip, and he fell free for about a meter.
Seeing this, Lena, Marla, and Tyler held onto the rope tightly and looked at Max.
"I'm fine! Keep lowering me," Max shouted. When his feet touched the ground, he took a deep breath.
"Oh God, I thought I was going to fall," he said.
"You just fell one meter," Tyler said.
"If you had fallen that one meter, you would have experienced the fear of my free fall from the top," Max teased.
Hearing this, Tyler didn't say anything, and they continued straight ahead through the end of the ventilation shaft. When a light from outside became visible, they reached the end and emerged from the open ventilation shaft of the library.
As they brushed off the dust, Max took the camera he had hanging around his neck.
"All right, now that we've made it here, we can go back to 1983 and fix everything."
"Are we going back here?" Lena asked.
"Yes, if we appear in the back, no one will see us. I mean, was this building even here in 1983?"
"This building was the city hall back then, and it wasn't twenty-five stories high, but the library was always there," explained Tyler. Lena nodded. Just then, the doors of the library opened, and guards began to enter from both sides. Kyle's shouts could be heard from behind.
"Get them all!"
"How did they see us?" Tyler asked in horror.
"It's your dad, Tyler. He's powerful enough to do whatever he wants whenever he wants. And considering there are cameras everywhere," Max said.
"Let's split up. We'll meet in the middle!" Lena said. Even she, who could normally keep her cool, was now very anxious. She pulled Marla by the arm, and they started running towards one end of the library, while Tyler and Max ran towards the other.
"Splitting up was not a good idea," Max said, out of breath.
At that moment, they heard Lena and Marla scream, and they looked back. The guards had caught them. They were being dragged out of the library by their arms. Lena shouted from behind as they were being taken away.
"Go, Max! You can do this without us, everything will be fixed when you come back!"
After Lena and Marla were taken away, Max looked at Tyler. They had stopped running, and the guards were coming to catch them from the other door.
Max pointed the camera at Tyler and pressed the shutter button, but nothing happened.
"God, no... Is it out of fuel?"
"It can't be. I'm sure it has fuel," Tyler said, panicked.
Max continued pressing the button.
"Then why isn't this damn thing working?"
Meanwhile, the guards were getting closer to them.
Max closed his eyes and hit the camera with his fist. Then a white light exploded, and even with his eyes closed, Max smiled when he felt the white light hurting his eyes.