Futuristic Four: Fast Forward

How's That For Real?

Location: Robinson Household, Todayland

Tadashi couldn't shake how familiar Franny was. Sure he'd seen her on TV before, either with her husband or advertising for one of her musical frog shows. Sure she was older than when he'd seen her, but he felt like he had seen her before and not from some form of media.

"Are you sure you didn't mess around with the time machine?" Franny was talking to Wilbur.

"I haven't touched the time machine since I was thirteen and how could I anyway? Dad keeps it locked up in the time lab. He's upped security there since the last time." Wilbur argued. His dad even went as far as power-proofing it. (Or as he liked to say "Wilbur proofing it).

"I seriously thought we were done with the time travelling." Franny groaned.

"Me too." Wilbur mumbled.

*

Despite them being actual strangers to each other, just knowing someone coming back from the dead, for lack of a better term, was strange to take in. The Robinson clan did welcome him into their family. According to them, they were technically family.

"Cass is going to flip." Laszlo had commented.

Franny had left to call her husband. Surely his genius mind could tell them what to do with this delicate situation. Of all days. It was her brother's and sister-in-law's baby shower. Of course, a relative coming back from the dead was a reason to celebrate, but it was also a lot to take in for anyone. Cass probably was in no state for news like this. She may be able to handle the news, but this wasn't the kind of news you'd here everyday or even during your lifetime. But overall, who knew what it could do with her and her current condition.

"Fran?" she heard her husband's voice on the other end.

"Hi honey. Think you could leave work a little early?"

"But the party isn't for a few hours."

"I know. But something came up. Something...time related." she couldn't go into full details on the phone. There was no guarantee their line was safe. For starters, having several supers in their family meant the government was usually on their doorstep and since Cornelius was a renowned scientist, rival companies or reporters and such could be watching them. They did have a tight security system. Didn't mean they were one hundred percent safe.

"I'll be on my way." his response made her wonder if he already knew or had suspicions on their time traveler.

*
Location: R.I Industries, Todayland

Time travel couldn't affect his family again.

Cornelius couldn't allow that to happen. Due to the timeline being restored a few years ago, certain memories began overlapping another for him. There'd be two seperate memories that occurred at the same time. Even when he tried himself on the memory scanner afterwards, he found they were causing the machine to malfunction.

Luckily, no damage was done. It just couldn't choose which memory to show at that date.

They were mostly minor changes and the fact that this future, his present, still happened made was proof of that.

But when he saw Wilbur disappear into non-existence and that bright, happy future turn into an apocalyptic mining district it was like he failed. That making the time machine was a mistake and he never should have made that machine in the first place. But despite all that, he just couldn't destroy it.

So instead, he locked it away and kept it on the highest security possible.

Whatever this time problem was, it wasn't his machine at work. This was something and someone else entirely.