Black to the Past

Chapter 33

Michael, Jalen, and Meredith pulled into the private drive behind Professor Harold and parked next to his car. Wilson pulled up directly next to them and parked. The kids all sat still for a moment. Wilson looked at the kids in the other car then back at Halle.
    "In case I never see you again," he took her chin in his right hand and pulled her face towards his. "Okay?"
    Halle nodded. She accepted the kiss as one of friendship, promise, and hope. They liked each other. They were kids with their whole lives ahead of them and yet they were putting their lives into the hands of a stranger.
    Jalen was watching the pair and wishing he could do the same with Meredith. But she was in the back seat, he was up front with Michael and he just wanted to get this over with. Hopping out of the car, he opened the door for Meredith. It was the least he could do to display his interest in her. Together the five of them would need to decide which two would time travel first. It had to be a time in the not so distant past.
    Jalen couldn't pinpoint a time in his mind that he'd like to go back to.
    "Come along. I don't want to keep you children out later than you need to be," the professor said ushering them towards the overtly large home. The solarium could be seen from a mile away. It was the tallest building in a residential area for miles. All growing up, kids often wanted their parents to turn into the driveway if for nothing else than to sate their curiosity at the large building.
    The Professor led them through a set of glass doors. It was the largest solarium attached to a house, any of the kids had ever seen. Wilson was in awe of the room and the classic furniture. He'd pictured an older man, who'd claimed to be a professor would be living in a home full of clutter. This solarium housed a pool with three lap lanes. There was seating and a hot tub in one corner of the room. The room was warm but not uncomfortably so.
    The walk past the pool led to another set of glass doors but these had locks similar to that which would be on a regular house. The Professor unlocked the door and they stepped into a large mud room. He kept his shoes on, so the kids did too.
    "Did you all eat after school," the professor asked.
    "I didn't," Jalen was the first to admit.
    The professor looked around at the kids and they were all shaking their heads no. "Good. The machine is a bit difficult to tolerate with food on your stomach. You can eat after you return. Follow me. We'll review things while we walk. It's a bit of a ways away still."
    The kids were all looking around the house. It was well furnished. Expensive furniture was in the kitchen and the living area. Professor Harold led them down a flight of stairs. Halle was beginning to get scared again.
    "Where are you taking us?"
    "You didn't think it would be in plain site, did you, dear?"
    "Well, no, but," Halle was more leery now than ever. After the first flight of stairs and a long corridor the professor opened a door that led to another flight of stairs in a downward spiral.
"This is a really cool building," Michael said talking for the first time since they'd all reconvened.
"I thought the same thing when I bought it in 1981. At that time, I didn't know what I'd purchased. The door that I just opened was sealed behind a plastered wall."
"How did you find it then?" Meredith wanted to know.
"Funny thing, it was still the time of  the cold war. I wanted to build a bomb shelter. I knew from the plans of the house that I had plenty of room to dig and have the bomb shelter built and when I measured the basement something didn't add up. I measured and measured and although I'd been told that the measurements of the basement were the same measurements of the house the basement was still several hundred square feet off. So I started knocking against the walls. It took me about a week to realize that there was a hollow in the wall. I started tearing away the plaster right where the door was. It shocked the hell out of me. Took me another week to decide to investigate what was behind the door.
At first I opened the door and aired it out for 24 hours. Wanted to make sure no demons or monsters had been sealed down there. I left the house and stayed in a hotel," he remembered, chuckling to himself as he remembered his fear. "When I came back and everything was the same way I'd left it I tested the steps. It felt sturdy. With lighting I learned that the stairs had been made with reinforced steel and wouldn't be budging for a good long time. When I reached the bottom of the stairs I saw a light switch. There was great lighting down here, and to my surprise, well, see for yourself."
The professor turned the lights on and the kids stood around their jaws dropped open in awe.
"It looks like a satellite," Jalen said speaking first. He circled the machine. It was definitely made out of the same materials as a satellite. There was an open door but he didn't dare step in .
"Let me tell you a story," the professor started. "In 1957, October 4, 1957 to be more precise - the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I. It was the world's first artificial satellite."
"Why are you calling it an artificial satellite," Meredith asked.
"Because my dear, the moon, is a real satellite," the professor explained.
    "Wow, I guess you really do learn something new everyday," Meredith laughed loosening up now that they were in front of a real contraption.
    "The Sputnik," Jalen said trying to get back to the story.
    "Yes, the Sputnik. The Soviet Union put it into orbit thus starting the space age and I might add the space race between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. The Soviet Union put into orbit a beach ball, basically. It orbited the earth in a little less than 100 minutes. The U.S. sanctioned the building of a satellite launched by a rocket. The purpose was to measure the radiation environment in the Earth's orbit. Those scientists, they really accomplished something, I'll tell you. They were celebrated for their successful American satellite launch. But they had actually accomplished something much much bigger than that," the professor said on a laugh.
    "This looks like a satellite," Jalen said re-emphasizing what he'd said before.
    "Yes, it does, and in part it is. What you see before you is part satellite. What those gentlemen actually made, while the Soviet Union was rushing to make the first artificial satellite, was a time machine."
    Professor Harold let that soak into the kids minds for a moment. Jalen was still circling the machine which was large enough to hold half a dozen people. Wilson and Halle were still staring at the machine in awe while Michael and Meredith decided to take a closer look at the inside.
    The professor continued with his education lesson, "while the Soviets were busy sending a beach ball into space, our men over here in America were building a time capsule. They wanted to see if they could transport anything through space and time. Well, at that point they could only go into the future. The past didn't have the technology to handle what they had created - so, into the future they went."
    "Wait! What?!" Halle stopped him, getting confused. "Are you saying that back in the '50's they came into the future?"
    "That is exactly what I am saying young lady."
    "How does that work," Halle asked him.
    "The how and the why of it, I don't know, I didn't make the thing. But it works. I've tried to understand it. All the research is in those file cabinets over there. From what I can understand of it, this here machine has a drum vacuum inside of it, there's some type of GPS mechanism, there's a connection to a set of satellites that are already in space and a computer."
    "They had computers back then," Meredith asked incredulously.
    "Remember I said they went into the future first. That is what enabled them to come back into the past. From the journals I've read they went into the future but couldn't get back. There wasn't a known way to travel back. They marveled at the technology that they saw. That is why in some artwork it appears as if someone is holding an iPhone. If you've researched time travel that's one of the first things you'll notice in your search. Cellular phones is actually what enabled the scientists to come back to their own time. It was quite brilliant by the way. The journals are fascinating to read. But we don't have time for all of that now. Do you trust me now?"
    The kids all stopped looking at the machine and looked at the professor.
    "I know that this is a lot of information. It took a lot for you to trust me. Do you now?"
    The group looked at one another then nodded their heads in unison.
    The professor sighed as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders. At the same time he looked to have aged at least ten years. "You don't know how long I've been waiting for you all," he told them. "We have work to do. But first you need to understand how this works. In order to prove it, have you decided which one of you will go back just a few weeks?"
    "I don't get it. How will we not run into ourselves," Halle still wanted to know the answer to the question she had asked Wilson.
    "This isn't the movies or a science fiction novel. You are leaving. You are. When your body leaves all of you is gone. Unless you have a twin, there is no one in this time who will be you. You can't possibly run into yourself because you will still be yourself."
    "Another reason why the End Game theory was flawed," Jalen said out loud.
    "You'll have to tell Brooke," Michael said joking with him.
    "Is that the young lady who followed you into the library and outside in the car," Professor Harold asked.
    "How did you-," Halle started when the professor cut her off.
    "You're not stupid children. You're all smart and very important to the future, including Brooke. I wondered when I would hear about her or meet her. I'm happy to know she's around. For now, we'll let her keep her secret. She's probably at the mall anyway," the professor added with a chuckle.
    "I'm going back," Halle said firmly.
    "I'm going with her," Wilson added resolved to keep her safe and to stay by her side.
    "I figured you might," Professor Harold said gravely. "You know what day and time you're going back to?"
    "Yes," Halle said firmly.
    Halle wanted to know what her father had been up to lately. She wanted to know if he was having an affair on her mother whom up until just a few weeks ago, he was so much in love with. Halle desperately needed to understand why her father had hurt her mother, it was as if he'd wanted her to hate him.
    "So, how does it work," Jalen wanted to understand before his friends hopped in and put their lives at risk.
    "Time travel is complicated and I don't understand all the ins and outs," the professor began.
    "And you expect us to do it anyway," Meredith asked.
    "Listen. I've gone back in time myself. Many times. I've also been to the future. The machine works. I want to go back one last time and stay there. I need to stay there. I have to go back to where I left off in life. You'll understand what I mean as you get older. But I can't get there by myself and I need all of you. I'm sending them back during their own time first so that they can trust that if they don't come back they'll still be alive with their family and friends," the professor reasoned with them.
    "Will we be there," Michael wanted to know.
    "It's tricky. Because they'd go back in time, yes you'll still be wherever you were during that time period. So, you wouldn't know that they were from the future. And, by the way, that's something you wouldn't be able to explain to them. The time continuum theory is a difficult concept to grasp and you can't ever try explaining it to anyone else unless you know for a certainty that the future depends on it."
    "I don't understand why we matter so much," Michael wanted to understand.
    "It'll all be explained in time. A few rules. The machine is operated using the smart phone that's inside. It must remain charged at all times and never ever reset it. There is no lock on it. Do not set one. Do not put the phone down or let it out of your sight. It stays plugged in within the machine. That is crucial. You must return to the second you left. That's important. Whenever you use the time machine record the time to the second inside the phone. Set it," the professor reiterated.
    "What happens if you don't come back to that second," Jalen asked.
    "You run the risk of your family wondering if you were kidnapped or worse. In that case you'll have a lot of explaining to do when you get back, which you won't be able to explain. Lastly you can stay back in time as long as you need to, because you'll be coming back to the second you left. But in the future, you can only remain gone for 23 hours tops! If you are gone longer than an entire day, you will mess up the space-time continuum and will have aged astronomically when you return," the professor warned.
    "Take  a seat inside Halle and Wilson. Let me show you how to operate this thing."
    "This is a smart phone," Halle asked as she stared at the 10" screen of what appeared to be a combination of the best that Apple and Samsung had ever put out!
    "Yes, technology from the future is far more advanced than you can ever imagine."
    The professor showed them the basics of using the phone to direct time.
    "Will we feel anything," Wilson asked.
    "It's better not to have a full stomach. You will feel out of sorts. You will feel as if the earth moved up under you, around you, and through you. It's a vacuum. But you will remain whole and intact. Any other questions?"
    "When we get back will you know how long we've stayed for?" Halle asked.
    "No. I won't," the professor answered her honestly. "Because you are to return to the second that you left. Do you understand me?"
    "Yes, sir," Wilson said.
    "Okay, punch in a date," the professor said with a nod to Halle. 
    Halle punched in a date three weeks prior to today when her father had been gone out all night and hadn't returned until the morning looking worse for wear. He and her mother had fought all morning. It was the beginning of the end of the happy family life Halle had known.
    The professor left out of the time machine, sealing the door behind himself. Jalen, Michael, and Meredith all stared longingly at the machine. They wouldn't know the difference because Wilson and Halle would never really leave in their minds.