To The Moon

Into The Past

He leaves them downstairs to play, and heads upstairs to see what his impatient partner wants. He finds all three girls at different spots at the bed looking over Johnny. He steps into the room so they notice he's there. Dr. Rosalene steps away from the foot of the bed and looks over at Neil.
Dr. Rosalene- "What the cactus where you doing?!"
Dr. Watts- "Burning ants with a magnifying glass."
Dr. Rosalene- "Using moonlight?"
Dr. Watts- "...Okay, I was taking a nap then! God it's so hard to be a smartass now days..."
Dr. Rosalene- "You're pretty good at being half of it. Your helmet's on the couch. Get it on, we're going in."
Dr. Rosalene sits at the machine preparing it, when Neil notices Johnny is wearing a helmet. He decides to talk to both the doctor and Lily before going in.
Doctor- "Go on. I'll watch over his physical conditions through the procedure."
He then walks to Lily on the other side of the bed.
Lily- "By the way, I'm curious... how does it work? Do you just write him another life like a novel?"
Dr. Watts- "What? No, I'm not novelist. We can't just write out an entire life manually. There's way too many dimensions."
Lily- "Then... how do you do it?"
Dr. Rosalene- "It's mainly the machine that does the... 'doing'."
Dr. Watts- "Naturally, since we aren't paid enough to get our hands dirty."
Dr. Rosalene- "In a nutshell, our job is to travel through his memories to as early as possible. And when we do, we would then transfer his registered desire of going to the moon..."
Dr. Watts- "...To the reconstruction of the world and himself at that early state! And with the help of a wiki of data and his own, the machine would then simulate a rerun."
Dr. Rosalene- "Except this time, he'll have the motivation of his registered desire with him all his life."
Lily- "So you'd be depending on him fulfilling his own wish by simply having the desire to? How can that be? Everyone has ambition for things, but most don't accomplish them."
Dr. Rosalene- "That's because in the real world, ambitions fluctuate... and fade. People start things with a passion, but eventually they lose that initial drive and slow down. But imagine if you locked onto that initial push your entire life never wavering... it's more powerful than it seems."
Dr. Watts- "That being said, no ambitions gonna help a dead man. I'd better go get started."
Lily- "Oh, of course. Sorry."
He turns away from lily, takes a few steps, and looks at Dr. Rosalene who is starting to look even more impatient than before.
Dr. Rosalene- "Your helmet's on the couch. Chop chop!"
He lets out a big, "Hmph", and sits down on the couch. He takes the helmet sitting next to him, sits it on his lap looking at it, smiles confidently, and puts the helmet on.
Dr. Rosalene- "Alright, here we go."
Both of their helmets emit a yellow light from them, while a short while after, Johnny's helmet emits a green light from it. The sound of the machine is quiet, high pitched whining sound starting up, syncing the two doctor's helmets to Johnny's. And with that, they appear inside the bedroom, with no one else there. The machine, the doctor, Lily, Johnny, they're all gone.
Dr. Rosalene- "This should be the last accessible memory. Disable speech for all except Johnny."
Dr. Watts- "Done, let's get 'im."
They leave the house, and start the search outside. Everything is the same, just the way they've seen it before. Dr. Rosalene leads the way to the right side of the house, and finds Johnny sitting at the bench at the cliff side, and Lily standing behind him on the bridge. She then approaches them.
Dr. Rosalene- "Johnny?"
Lily turns surprised, and moves off the bridge behind the bench. John gets up, and turns to see who's calling him name.
John- "What a pleasant surprise... we don't get many visitors around here."
Dr. Rosalene- "My name is Dr. Eva Rosalene, and this is--..."
Dr. Watts- "Dr. Von Matterhorn... Dr. Lorenzo Von Matterhorn."
She turns and looks at him irritated.
Dr. Rosalene- "... Dr. Neil Watts."
He shoots her a dirty look for ruining his fun, and they both turn to look at John.
Dr. Rosalene- "Are you familiar with the Sigmund Agency of Life Generation?"
John- "Oh, are you two from the agency? How convenient; I've just been thinking of calling you."
He takes a few steps towards them.
John- "Lily, get us some tea please."
She doesn't respond.
John- "...Lily?"
Dr. Watts- "Actually, you've already called us."
He looks to Lily confused, when suddenly, she disappears. Frightened by this, he looks to the two doctors, and starts taking steps back towards the cliff.
Dr. Rosalene- "...We're here to fulfill our contract from the relative future."
He takes a few more steps back.
Dr. Watts- "Careful there. If you slip off the cliff, we're gonna have to reload this memory."
Talking to him through telepathy.
Dr. Rosalene- ["Watch it Neil, show some respect."]
Dr. Watts- ["Eh, it's just a program y'know."]
Dr. Rosalene- ["I know, but this is his last accessible memory, and we need its co-operation."]
Dr. Watts- ["Worse comes to worse, we can just reboot it."]
Dr. Rosalene- ["Why would you waste time like that?"]
John- "You..."
They both look towards him.
John- "...You are here to take me to the moon aren't you?"
Dr. Rosalene- "Yes, John."
He takes a second to think about things, turns around, and stares off into the vast ocean. The stars, the ocean breeze and the moon shining brightly, it all seemed too real to him, but he had come to the conclusion that it was all over, this battle called life was finally over.
John- "...I suppose I had a good run."
Dr. Watts- "Not good enough, it seems."
John- "So, can you do it?
He turns to look at the two of them.
John- "Can you take me to the moon?"
Dr. Rosalene- "We can't, but you might be able to."
Dr. Watts- "Why do you want to go there?"
John- "I don't know."
Neil thinks, confused by his answer while Eva takes a few steps towards John.
Dr. Rosalene- "It's fine, you can tell us. It's essential for helping us to get you to go there."
Dr. Watts- "Do you want the fame, the money? You've got to have a motive."
John- "I'm sorry, but I really don't know. I just... do."
Dr. Watts- ["I can already tell that this is gonna be a pain in the ass."]
Eva takes a few more steps towards John.
Dr. Rosalene- "Nevertheless, here's what we will do... we need to get to your childhood, but it is too distant to do so in one memory hop. Thus, we will need to traverse through your memories with gradual backward leaps."
Dr. Watts- "Which you've given us permission to do in the relative future."
Dr. Rosalene- "Once we lay down the waypoints in your childhood memories for direct access, we will return here. That's when you'll need to help us influence the childhood you to become an astronaut."
Dr. Watts- "...Or to get on a giant catapult."
Dr. Rosalene- "The point is, you'll need to have more to say than just 'I don't know'."
John- "As long as you can take me to the moon, I will cooperate in any way possible."
Dr. Rosalene- "Good... Now, in order to leap to a memory... we need an item that is of importance to you. Do you have a memento of some sort to get us started?"
He walks over to the bench, picks something up, and places a blue and yellow paper rabbit on the ground in front of Eva.
Dr. Rosalene- "That'll do."
She turns and looks at Neil.
Dr. Rosalene- "Well, shall we?"
Dr. Watts- "Ladies first."
Eva walks over and picks up the paper rabbit.
Dr. Rosalene- "We'll need to prepare this memento first..."
She takes a small handheld device out of her lab coat pocket, and scans the small paper rabbit. She then puts the scanner back into her pocket, and looks at Neil for the go.
John- "Wait, what about my privacy?"
Dr. Rosalene- "We'll try not to violate what we can avoid. But in most cases... it can't be helped."
And with that, Eva put her hand into her pocket, pressed a small button on the scanner, and they were gone, and once more, Johnny was alone.

To Be Continued...