SFSD-X Short Story Smackdown

2.2 What You Wish For

The world wasn't so different from what you might think.

Sure the Revolution had died with George Washington (the Hessians must have been alerted by the Planter's light and after shooting the professor, one of them shot Washington. I felt somewhat responsible.) and the United States was divided into three parts: Nueva España, Louisiane, and the United Colonies of America which was under British rule. But the biggest differences were in the details.

To my great surprise, I wasn't convicted of murdering the professor. The police searched my apartment, took a statement, tipped their little round hats and said they'd call if they had any more questions. That was it.

My friends called me up to go on pub crawls for a pint and told me to 'keep yoor pecker up, mate.' This last one didn't have anything to do with the girlfriend that I had in this reality, but to not be so depressed.

In my other life I had been a nerd with slobbish tendencies and quite single. In this life, I was still a slob and a nerd, but I had a girlfriend with a very industrial view our relationship. In and out was her motto. When she came over, I had to drop any work I was doing because she only had time for some plonk and a shag. I could provide both on the salary I was actually earning in this life. It did wonders for my morale.

But this wasn't home. This wasn't my life, and though they didn't know it, this wasn't their lives, either. Even if they were probably better off with universal health care, no guns and almost no racism.

There was too much damn tea for starters. The pizza sucked and the French-Cajun restaurants at every corner didn't make up for it. The professor's little joy-ride to the past had robbed these people of the Civil War, the Gold Rush (Spanish territory), the Great Depression (it was the Mild Economic Dip), the American Dream, Super Bowl, the Silicon Valley, Starbucks, Miller's Lite, Elvis (not sure what happened there), and fireworks on the 4th of July.

There had to be a way to bring back Murica. I had to fix the time line and to do that, I needed help. I needed a fellow American. One with big guns and zero qualms about using them to kill people.

It took me a month to transfer (shamelessly steal) the professor's personal lab equipment and research material from his home basement to my apartment. Lucky for me, his work appeared to be mostly identical as from before. I still possessed the items I had carried with me to the past: my laptop, an unopened bottle of Coke (the only Coke in the world) and a used game of Grand Theft Auto I had picked up that evening right before the professor called and told me to meet him in the park.

The TimePlanter was stored deep in my mattress where I was fairly sure the bi-weekly bouncing from Janey and myself wouldn't disturb it.

I could travel back, but I couldn't change squat without armed help.

Enter: the MatterCubicle. Not content to fuck with nature in only one way, the professor wanted to mess with matter, too. As sole assistant to the professor, I was privy to his greatest advancements in both experiments. The TimePlanter grew a sphere around itself, bending time to a certain moment in the past.

The MatterCubicle could, in theory, transform matter, such as compost into another sort and infuse it with direction and purpose. A sort of organic robotics creation. And I was going to finish his work on it.

I was laughing with maniac delight when my girlfriend walked into the living room, holding a bottle of Cajun wine.

"God's bollocks, are you going to stop that long enough for a shag, love? Or should I pop back in later tonight?"

Despite the moral support I got from her and the detailed notes the professor had left on his Irish made Mackenzie Pad (not a bad piece of tech) it took me nearly a year of working weekends and evenings to perfect his MatterCubicle.

The first thing I created was a beetle. I had almost decided on a cockroach, but didn't want to risk an indestructible insect which, if it escaped, could rain terror and famine on the world.

In went the compost, out came the bug. I trapped it. Looked like a beetle to me. Upon passing my analysis for genetic exactness, it was squished by the bottom of my shoe.

Next off – a kitten. I had to both placate and distract Janey for the next couple of weeks. Recently, she had been saying less of the things I like to hear (I'm too bloody knackered to go out, love, how about we stay in?) and more of disturbing things (Me mum's coming over for tea and want you to get cleaned up and come over to meet her. See you at three. Cheerio!).

When she walked in, I avoided whatever conversation she had prepared with the ball of fluff in my hands.

"Look what I saved from certain death," I said.

The kitten blinked, working its insidious charm.

"Oh, how positively adorable!" Janey cried. "Such a wee, little dear! Come to mommy, my sweet."

And as easy as that, I completed the final test and was off the hook for deeper commitment.

Now all I had to do was create my fellow American. The one with automatic rifles and the gung ho to use them.