Temporal Adventures

Chapter 01: Wrong Delivery

The lid on the cardboard box shut, and a roll of clear tape screeched as it sealed the container securely closed. A shipping label was stuck to the top of the box, and a scientist in a white lab coat began writing an address on it.

The lab was cramped, but not for lack of dimension. Work tables dominated the space, covered by a blanket of electronic components, spools and loose bits of wire, and all the tools necessary to work with them. The cluttered workspace of people more busy creating than cleaning left barely any room to move around and only a narrow pathway to the doors.

"You can't be serious," a balding man in gold wireframe glasses said as he burst through the double doors leading into the lab.

The first man stopped writing on the address label and looked up. Unlike his rounded coworker, he had a slender build and the intellectual look of someone who might be thrilled if accidentally locked inside a library.

"What are you talking about, Bill?" he asked, resting an arm on top of the box.

Bill used a handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his smooth scalp before pushing his glasses back up to a better position on his wide nose. Nervousness hovered around him in a cloud.

"Perry, we've been working on this project for the last five years, and I know you're the senior researcher, but are you seriously going to send that through the mail?" Bill asked while pointing at the box under Perry's arm.

"It's very well cushioned," Perry assured him. "I could drop it from the top of this building, and it wouldn't damage anything."

"You know what I mean," Bill insisted. "It's dangerous. In the wrong hands, This thing could cause untold amounts of harm."

"What would you suggest, an armed escort?" Perry questioned.

"How about an armored car and a battalion of Marines?" Bill offered.

"It's not going to end the world," Perry said dismissively.

"It might!" Bill yelled.

"This thing is the prototype," Perry explained. "The power cell is only good for a few uses before the whole thing shuts down. Stop worrying. Even if it somehow got used by the wrong people, it wouldn't last long enough to do any real harm."

"I still don't like it," Bill reiterated.

"It'll be fine," Perry assured him. As he lifted his arm off the box, he failed to notice how the edge of his sleeve brushed across the wet ink of the label, smearing the address. "We don't have anything to worry about."

Perry set the box on a cart for the afternoon mail pickup and headed for the door.

"Relax," Perry suggested, switching off the light. "I'll buy you lunch."

***

The seemingly unimportant cardboard box was delivered by a uniformed postal worker to the front porch of the Jenkins house. The postal worker returned quickly to the mail truck parked at the curb, not knowing how a misrouted package was about to turn the lives of the Jenkins family upside down. As the small postal truck pulled into the lane, a bright yellow school bus approached.

The bus slowed to a stop, and red warning lights flickered from the stop sign that swung out from its flank, halting traffic. Children came clamoring down the steps and out the moment the front door of the bus hissed open. The children laughed and talked loudly, excited to be away from school, even with the homework they carried in their heavy backpacks.

From the opposite direction, Cassie and Sean Jenkins drove toward their house. They'd taken the side streets rather than the main thoroughfare to avoid being stopped by the bus. They pulled into the driveway an instant before the bus retracted its sign and drove away, it's diesel engine roaring loudly.