Further Into The Future!

Chapter 18

A few hours later, the electricity finally returned. The lights turned back on and the video on the wall returned to its normal brightness. I recognized the newswoman as the same one I saw when I was in the hospital. She seemed less happy than before, more anxious and serious.

"... and Cold Steel also promised to follow through on Hammer's plans to bring Dictatorship and Robot Capitalism to the Middle East, although he pointed out many errors in our former dictator's foreign policy in that area..."

Susan, Dan and I were cleaning up the dead robot's body. Dan was surprisingly proficient at this. He twisted off the arms and legs easily and tossed them into a trash can we dragged to the center of the floor. But when it came time to move the smashed head and chest, he was more careful.

I held a special plastic bag as he scooped up the green acid with a metal spatula. He slid this carefully into the bag, warning me constantly to make sure none of it hit my hands. I turned my head away from the bag to avoid the horrible smell.

With my head turned to the wall, I saw a video of a crowd of jubilant children tearing down posters of Hammer from a wall along a street. "CELEBRATION IN ST. LOUIS," said a caption on the bottom of the screen.

"Careful," Dan said. He had spoken to me more while I was holding that bag than in all the time I knew him before. I was astonished how knowledgeable he was about science and technology. He asked me questions about how the time machine worked that I was more than glad to answer. I spoke loudly in the hope that Susan and Jack would overhear and sprout their own interest in my accomplishment.

"So the machine runs on gasoline?" Dan asked.

"Yes. Diesel gasoline."

"How much does it consume each time you travel?"

"I'm not sure, exactly," I said. "I filled it up with about five gallons and I still have most of that left after traveling two times."

"That's amazing, Professor."

I shrugged. "It's not that amazing. Very little energy is needed because most of what the machine does is on a subatomic level."

Although the apartment was trashed, the band was practically dissolved, and we were cleaning up a dead robot, I was happy to find someone in the future I had something in common with, and Dan and I smiled and laughed during our conversation.

Dan dropped the last square of battery acid into the bag. I twisted it shut and threw it into the trashcan.

"Good riddance," I said. "To the smell, I mean, not that poor robot."

Dan frowned. "Professor, I've been thinking about something," he said.

"What is it?"

"What if when you travel to another time, something else is occupying your spot?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what if there's a pole where you arrive in the future, that wasn't there when you left. Would you just not be able to travel it all, or would it fuse with your machine? Do you have a safeguard for that?"

"I've never thought about that before," I said. But it suddenly seemed an obvious concern, and I was embarrassed I hadn't considered it. I would certainly be thinking about it the next time I used the machine, if there would be a next time.

"Well, Professor, I'm afraid that you'll never see that great time machine again," he said sadly.

"We'll see about that," I said.

He shook his head. "When the Corrupt Cops take something, you never get it back. Especially with Cold Steel ruling the country now. Maybe if Hammer were still in power you could get some official help, but there's no chance, now."