Failing Upward

Chapter 20 (part 2): Less Than Zero

Peter made it back, and I made the mistake of asking him the long, sad story of his life, which meant I couldn't escape bouncing up and down in a hot truck cab with no fucking shocks, listening to him go on and on about Glenda, and how he loved her, and the foolish choice he made to give the roses to his father. I could practically hear Sherlock rolling his eyes. Oh. My. God! He told me how he wanted to change his life. You'd think he was the one on the couch and I was the psychiatrist. I absently nodded after each comment he made. Oh yeah, like I agreed and believed him. Right-t-t-t . I knew what he wanted.

It was interesting to hear him talk about how he fell in love with Glenda, got married and found my uncle buried alive in the sand. Interesting and creepy. And his regrets over Glenda sounded sincere.

Still—enough was enough; I was done listening to Peter Deal's History of the World Part Four . Almost to the airstrip, grinding the old Ford's gears to shit, and all I wanted to know was why he was so certain I could alter time. Maybe if I learned the secret, I could alter time and zap Sherlock and I the fuck out of this Easy Bake Oven truck and pop into an air-conditioned Caddy.

Best way to find out was to ask. Until I understood the mechanics, I was as deaf as Mary was to Led Zeppelin.

Problem was, Peter had trouble hearing too. I bet he listened to country music. Probably Waylon Jennings.

I only wished he had as much trouble talking. Sherlock immediately asked about his sister. Of course, since Sherlock wanted Deal to talk he wouldn't say anything other than confirming the woman I'd met was his sister. Seemed Deal would rather talk about me and my family.

"I'm no quantum physicist or bio-astronomer," he explained. "This is how I understand it—mathematicians have this word for the square root of negative number. You know what it is?"

"No."

I hated math. I just remembered numbers.

"It's called an imaginary number. Engineers use them all the time. Ask Sherlock; he knows."

I looked over at him and he rolled his eyes. Again. They might fall out of his head if he did it more.

I closed mine.

"Any objects with real mass travel less than the speed of light. Objects with zero mass travel the speed of light. Now if something had imaginary mass, the object could go faster than the speed of light. That means that object would go back in time." He nudged my shoulder. "Ever watch Star Trek ?"

"Yes. I've seen them all." Warp speed, communicators, wormholes, transporter malfunction splitting Kirk in two, good and evil...

"Nerd," Sherlock muttered. He knew what I was thinking.

"Then you've heard Spock or Scotty mention tachyon particles. Those are particles with imaginary mass."

My brain began playing the Beatles' "Revolution 9" in my head. "Ok... so?"

"That's what you become."

I laughed. Good or evil? "One giant tachyon? Is that anything like a Klingon?" I asked.

"John," Sherlock said, "You've become millions and millions of tachyons zooming through time!"

"That's it. Follow the bouncing tachyon ball. So I am an alien being," I said, laughing harder. "This is great." Andorians, Romulans, Betazoids, slutty alien women who all fuck Captain Kirk...

"No, you're part human," Deal said. "Just less human and more alien."

"Fuck. This is crazy. You're crazy."