Time Chasers #3

Chapter One

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO . . .

The arch of electricity curved over the top of the machine as the metal apparatus came to life, crackling and sizzling like a bug zapper.

Ernest Becker watched it through the glass window from the nearby observation room. He had waited for this moment his entire life, and so he tried to ignore the fact that the compression suit meant to monitor his vital signs was starting to itch. He wished he’d chosen a comfier outfit for traversing the space-time continuum.

But there was no turning back now.

A knock at the door pulled his attention away from the impressive electrical display.

Ernest felt his heart clench upon seeing it was Cassandra Harlow who had joined him in the small room. His mind swirled as he tried to sort out everything he wanted to say to her, but she took the decision out of his hands by speaking first.

“Are you sure about this?” Cassandra asked. Ernest could hear the tiniest shake to her voice.

“If everything goes according to plan, you won’t even notice I’m gone.” Ernest smiled. “You trust me, don’t you?” He took her hand in his. Her eyes twinkled under the lights of the time machine.

“You’re sure you don’t want a team to go with you?” Cassandra pressed. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

“I can’t risk losing anybody else,” Ernest said. “It’s my machine. If anyone should go, it should be me.”

Cassandra crossed her arms. An uneasiness filled the silent space between them.

“You want anything while I’m out?” Ernest asked with a raised brow. “Whatever you want. Cleopatra’s necklace? Amelia Earhart’s goggles? One of Queen Victoria’s crowns?”

Cassandra smirked. “Leave it to you to make the first manned mission through time sound like you’re going Christmas shopping.”

“You’re right. Who am I kidding? Guess I’ll have to settle for a Super Bowl ring from 1978.”

“Now that you mention it, I suppose I wouldn’t mind one of Marie Curie’s beakers.”

“Say no more. I bet she won’t even notice it’s gone,” Ernest said with a grin.

Cassandra sucked in a sharp breath and stepped back by the door. “Ernest . . . all I want is for you to get back in one piece.”

“Cassandra . . . ,” Ernest started. He turned toward the window, resting his gaze upon the time machine.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been wanting to tell you something for a while now . . .” He trailed off again, his breath fogging up the glass.

“What is it, Ernest?” Cassandra asked.

Ernest bit the inside of his lip. Risking his life by traveling through time felt less scary than trying to get out the words that had been building up for so long.

Is now the right time? What if . . . I don’t make it home?

No. I’ll make it home. And we’ll have the rest of our lives to figure this out.

“How about this? I promise to tell you when I get back,” he said with a gentle smile. “And it will definitely be worth it.”

Cassandra raised a curious eyebrow, but before she could respond, a buzz came from her hip. She glanced down at the message and then back up to Ernest.

“That’s Director Martinez. He says it’s time.”

Cassandra opened the door and motioned toward the hall. Ernest took one last deep breath as their hands brushed against each other’s on the threshold.

Stepping into the time machine bay, Ernest suddenly felt claustrophobic. A hundred faces looked back at his. A whole array of Area 51 employees had come to watch the historic occasion. Their expressions ranged from excited to petrified, a perfect amalgamation of Ernest’s own feelings.

Slowly but surely, a wave of applause overtook the crowd. Ernest couldn’t help but feel humbled by the outpouring of admiration from the nation’s top scientific minds.

Director Martinez intercepted the two of them.

“Everything is set and ready to go; the same parameters as the last fifty test runs,” Director Martinez said. “Now, don’t you go forgetting about us during all of your incredible travels!”

Ernest ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, don’t worry, Director Martinez. I could never forget about you.”

The director gave a hearty chuckle and took his place at the control station. Ernest stepped into position in front of the large pod. His heart began to beat wildly against his temporal transporter device that hung against his chest. Much like his suit’s itchiness, he questioned why he’d made the important time dial quite so heavy.

He peered around the back wall at the numerous time machine prototypes lined up in the bay. The first few were in shambles, shattered pieces of titanium that couldn’t hold up against the powerful portals they created. The more recent prototypes had been successful in transporting androids, plant life, and even mice through time. Each represented one step closer to this moment—the moment when Ernest’s life’s work would finally all be worth it.

Director Martinez and the members of Ernest’s Continuum Navigation team hovered over the control panel. In synchronicity, they revved up the power feeding to the center machine. All that was left was for Ernest to step inside, set his coordinates on the interior time machine dashboard, and let the portal do the rest.

The voltage swelled into the metallic dome. Electricity zapped faster and faster until the rhythm morphed into one continuous thrumming sound.

Ernest looked over his shoulder one last time. Cassandra mouthed the words he had been searching for all this time:

I love you.

The doors closed behind him with a resounding clang.

He looked down at his temporal transporter and twisted the dial, aligning the clock on his chest to the coordinates set into the dashboard.

Within an instant, the time portal swirled to life inside the machine. It was even more beautiful than he ever could’ve imagined—a churning spiral of vivid colors and shimmering silver dust. Ernest felt his hands ball up into fists by his side. He steadied his nerves, stepped into the spinning mass of particles, and felt his own atoms disassemble as his body was thrust into the space-time continuum.

*****

Cassandra held her breath, waiting for Ernest’s safe return. All the oxygen in the room felt like it had been sucked out through the portal with him.

She blinked her eyes and squeezed them hard, hoping that when she opened them, Ernest would be standing there with his gleaming smile as brilliant as ever.

The question built up in her throat like a punch. “Shouldn’t he be back by now?”

Director Martinez curled his fingers around his chin.

Steam drifted and swirled in the place where the time machine had been sitting. When the vapor finally cleared, there was nothing.

No Super Bowl ring.

No Marie Curie souvenirs.

No time machine.

No Ernest.

Alarms exploded from the control panel.

“What’s happening?” Cassandra shouted. “What’s wrong?”

Director Martinez and the rest of the Continuum Navigation team spread out across the control panel in a flurry of typing fingers and dizzying scrolling.

“His tracking signal . . . ,” Director Martinez said. “It—it just disappeared!”

Cassandra pushed her way through to the control panel. “What about his vitals? Can we still get a read on those?”

She peered down at the blinking coordinates dancing in a chaotic whirl across the screen. The numbers showing

Ernest’s heart rate and blood pressure values fizzled out before her very eyes.

Director Martinez’s typing slowed until eventually, his hands grew completely still.

“Cassandra . . . ,” Director Martinez said. “We knew this was a possibility. Ernest knew the risk he was taking.”

“No!” Cassandra cried. “There’s got to be a way to get him back!”

Tears stung at her eyes as she fiddled with the trackpad, desperately trying to lock back onto Ernest’s time signature. But it was no use. The calculations jumbled together on the space--time map. It was as if he’d disappeared from existence entirely.

She pushed her way through the crowd toward the row of time machines against the back wall. She slapped her palms against the metal doors of the prototype machine next to where Ernest’s pod had stood moments ago.

“Let me in!” she shouted. “I’m going after him!”

Director Martinez pulled gently on her shoulders, trying to peel her away.

“I’m so sorry, Cassandra. There’s nothing we can do now,” Director Martinez said, shaking his head.

“He’s lost.”


Chapter Two

PRESENT DAY . . .

Viv Harlow had only been an intern at Area 51 for a little over a week, and already the life she used to live—life as a normal twelve-year-old—felt like a distant memory.

Eight days ago, she and her best friends managed to rescue hundreds of Area 51 employees from an attempted alien abduction. Viv had taken that . . . well, not in stride, but it seemed easier to accept literal aliens than the scene that had just played out before her.

Viv stared down at the shards of broken glass glistening like a million stars by her feet. She rubbed at her eyes, hoping that what she’d just seen was all a bad dream. All the unicorns, mermaids, and werewolves she’d spent the whole night wrangling back into the Forbidden Zone were one thing. Just another day at Area 51. But seeing a man appear out of thin air, tell her that he was her long-lost father, and then vanish again was something Viv couldn’t bring herself to believe.

After all, she had been awake since 3:00 a.m., and the possibility that her mind was playing tricks on her was an alluring thought.

This can’t be happening. This can’t be real!

But one look at her mom, and Viv knew she wasn’t dreaming.

“Mom?” Viv said. “That man . . . you called him Ernest. That was Ernest Becker, wasn’t it? The man from the old photograph?”

Her mother looked like she’d been turned to stone. The tray of vials Cassandra had dropped when the man appeared sat in a shattered heap on the ground. Viv swallowed down the lump in her throat.

“He said he was my dad,” Viv said. “Is that true?”

Still no answer.

“Mom? Mom?!” Her frustration grew by the second. “Mom, answer me!”

Finally, Cassandra’s eyes blinked in rapid succession, and she took a deep breath.

“Follow me.”

Her mom swept the shattered glass on the ground across the floor with her heel, gripped Viv’s wrist, and yanked her daughter down the corridor.

“Mom?!” Viv said. “What’s going on? Please! Talk to me!”

They made it a few steps before Viv managed to wrestle her arm away.

“Mom, stop!” Viv said. “Enough secrets!”

Her mother turned to her with tears in her eyes. A tiny smile broke through as she spoke. “You trust me, don’t you, Viv?”

The question made Viv’s head pound. So much had happened in the past week; so many secrets had come to light that made Viv wonder if she even knew her mother at all.

Viv’s entire world had flipped upside down when the horde of Roswellian aliens had escaped, and it turned out that her mom’s “boring office job” at Area 51 was anything but boring. It was during that invasion when Viv had found out she had been born with alien DNA . . . and hidden alien powers. But the truly earth-shattering part was that it was her mom’s experimentation with alien DNA while unknowingly pregnant that gave Viv her powers in the first place. And even worse, her mom had no idea what she had done to her own daughter.

Viv had tried so hard to force her powers down where no one could ever see them. How could she trust her mom to accept her after everything Cassandra had done? But ultimately it hadn’t mattered. Last night, while corralling hundreds of dangerous creatures running rampant through the halls of Area 51, Viv had been forced to use her powers in public. She and her friends had managed to save the day again . . . but not without Viv’s worst fear coming true: her mom finding out about her alien abilities.

Sure, her mom seemed to be supportive, offering to help run some tests to “figure this out.” But did that mean figuring out how to help control her powers for Viv’s benefit or because her mom was scared of Viv’s abilities? They hadn’t even had the chance to take her pulse before they were interrupted by Ernest Becker’s appearance.

Which brought Viv to the real reason she wasn’t sure if she could trust her mom: For Viv’s entire life, no matter how hard she tried, she could never get her mom to reveal anything about her father. Not his name, what he did for a living. Not even whether he was alive or dead.

So Viv stood completely still.

Her mother sighed. “Whether you trust me or not, we don’t have much time. I promise, I’ll explain everything soon. But right now, we need to move.”

Viv tried to protest, but the fatigue made it tough. They hustled around corner after corner, whizzing by the other employees arriving for the day. Instead of the normal hellos and good mornings, Viv’s mom kept her head down—a woman on a mission. After a few minutes, the two arrived at a large steel door cordoned off with caution tape.

Viv watched as her mom pressed her palm into the scanner. The familiar voice of Area 51’s automated security system spilled out into the hallway.

“Identity confirmed: Director Cassandra Harlow. ACCESS DENIED.”

“Denied? You’ve got to be kidding me,” Viv’s mom said.

She punched a long numerical code into the door, but the message was still the same.

“ACCESS DENIED.”

“Back up,” Cassandra said, reaching into her interior blazer pocket.

Viv shuffled a few paces and watched as her mom pulled out her plasma pistol. She shot straight at the door.

ZAP!

The blast blew a hole right through the door’s latching device, melting the metal and the caution tape like an ice sculpture on a hot Nevada day.

“MOM?!” Viv shouted. “What are you doing?!”

Sirens wailed from inside the sealed-off room.

“Come on, Viv,” Cassandra said. “We’ve gotta keep moving.”

Her mom reached in and disabled the alarm system. She pushed the doors open manually and pulled Viv inside before flipping on the lights.

In comparison to the rest of the Area 51 compound, this room looked . . . old. Instead of touchscreens and holograms, everything was controlled by buttons and dials. There was even more dust in here than there was in the old filing room.

Whoa. What is this place?

Cassandra punched a few digits into her high--tech watch.

“Desmond? Sabrina? I need you to come back to the base right away. It’s an emergency,” Cassandra said into the watch. “Call Nicolás and Al, too. Meet me in the old Continuum Navigation wing. I’ll explain everything once you get here.”

Viv hoped that her friends’ parents would bring them along, too. Viv had faced down aliens, cryptids, even dinosaurs with Charlotte, Elijah, and Ray at her side. But she needed them now more than ever.

Hold on a second . . . Continuum Navigation?

Viv examined the room more closely. On the back wall, a lineup of strange, dilapidated machines of various sizes sat in a row, each larger and more complex than the last. Wires and plugs fed into them all like some kind of mad scientist’s experiments, and cobwebs had proliferated into every corner of the room. The entire place gave Viv the heebie-jeebies.

“Mom?” Viv said. “Where are we?”

“An abandoned section of the base,” she explained. “The director before me, Director Martinez, closed it down over a decade ago. He deemed it too dangerous for any further experiments after—”

“After what?”

“After . . . Ernest Becker went missing.”

Viv felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

“Went missing?” Viv said. “What do you mean? But we just saw him? Went missing where?”

“Went missing . . . in time.”

In time?

The machines against the wall . . . the Continuum Navigation wing . . . the way Ernest Becker was flickering in and out . . . The pieces finally fell into place in Viv’s mind.

“Those are time machines, aren’t they?”

Cassandra pulled a plastic sheet off a large table near the middle of the room.

“If I can just get this system up and running, it should be exactly how we left it . . .”

In one swift motion, Viv’s mom assembled an array of plugs, flipped the switches on the fuse box, and brought the machines to life.

“Yes! Now, since I know he was at this moment in time”—she glanced down at her watch—“exactly sixteen minutes and twelve seconds ago, using that, plus the coordinates of his initial launch, I should be able to pinpoint his location.”

Cassandra typed a myriad of numbers into the retro screen’s display and pressed Enter. The locator icon spun around in a huge elliptical loop.

Finally, a ring of points lit up on the map like a Christmas tree.

“There you are,” Cassandra said. “I’ve got you now.”

A voice from the back of the room nearly startled them both out of their pants.

“Director Harlow?”

It was Al Mond, Ray’s dad. Behind him, his son cradled Meekee, his tiny alien best friend, in his arms. Charlotte Frank and her parents entered carefully, avoiding the melted patch in the door. Elijah Padilla and his dad stepped in just a few paces behind.

“Thank goodness you all got here so quickly,” Cassandra said.

“We’d barely left the parking lot,” Lieutenant Nicolás Padilla said. “What the heck happened to the door?”

“The door isn’t important right now. But what is important is that . . . Ernest is alive, and he was just on the base,” Cassandra replied.

A shockwave of gasps rippled on the faces of every parent in the room.

“What?! Are you kid—” Desmond Frank said before being cut off.

“Al, I need you to take the kids to the observation room and hold them there. Don’t let them out of your sight,” Director Harlow said, motioning toward a side door against the left wall of the room.

Without a second of doubt, Mr. Mond snapped to attention, draping his arm over Ray’s and Viv’s shoulders.

“Let’s go, kids. You heard the boss,” Mr. Mond said.

“Wait!” Viv said. “Let us help!”

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Director Harlow said. “This is far too dangerous.”

Cassandra turned her attention to the remaining parents.

“The rest of you—I want you here manning the controls.”

Mr. Mond motioned toward his left.

“Manning the controls for what?” Viv asked. “Please, we can help!”

“Vivian, enough! I don’t have time to argue with you; I need to you go with Mr. Mond,” her mom said. “Now!”

Viv recoiled. She knew her mom had a reputation of being demanding with her employees at work, but Viv had never heard her snap like that.

Especially not directed at me . . .

Mr. Mond opened the door to the small observation room and shuffled the four kids inside. Viv wanted to fight back, to stay by her mom’s side no matter what, but one look at the steely look in her eyes and she knew there was no changing her mother’s mind.

The door closed behind them with a heavy clack, leaving Viv feeling utterly useless.

*****

Director Harlow turned back to face her team, the most trusted group of scientists and engineers Area 51 had to offer. Desmond, Sabrina, and Nicolás looked back at her with curious expressions and crossed arms.

“Ernest is alive, and I’m going after him,” Cassandra said.

Desmond ruffled the back of his hair. Nicolás shifted his weight.

“I say this with all due respect, but are you out of your mind?” Sabrina said. “We were all there that day. You heard what Director Martinez said. I’m sorry, but he’s gone, Cassandra.”

“Look at this,” Director Harlow said, brushing even more dust off the screen. “See this ellipse here? It’s Ernest’s signal.”

“What? How did you possibly pick that up?” Desmond said.

“He was here. In the base. He showed up right after you all left.”

Desmond and Sabrina swapped uncertain looks.

“We always assumed the problem must be with his temporal transporter,” Cassandra said. “It’s supposed to allow us to track him even while it allows his atoms to disassemble and reassemble within the time machine’s time portals. We’ve never been able to latch back onto his signal, so we all reasoned that the device must have malfunctioned after his first jump.”

“Right,” Desmond said. “Because we were never able to track his coordinates.”

“Exactly. But now that I have an exact time location point from when he just appeared, I was able to lock back onto his time signature and pull up his coordinates,” Cassandra continued. “We couldn’t trace his temporal transporter back then because he’s been circling the same points in time over and over again too fast to pick up on his signal!”

“Cassandra . . . ,” Sabrina said. “That’s a good theory, but he’s been gone well over a decade. How can you be sur—”

“I know what I saw,” she said. “He’s alive. Viv saw him, too.”

She wrote furiously on the whiteboard, calculating the arc of Ernest’s coordinates.

“Now that we have an exact time and location for him, I can use that to lock onto his time signature and start following him through time to try to catch up to him!”

Desmond placed a gentle hand on Cassandra’s shoulder.

“I’m not even sure those machines still work, Director,” Desmond said.

“We don’t have time to run any tests. According to my initial calculations, the strength of his time signature will downgrade exponentially if we don’t follow it within an hour of his appearance in person. And then it’ll be too late to lock onto his signal and his points in time. This might be my only chance to get him back,” Cassandra said. “I need to know if you’re all with me or not.”

Sabrina, Desmond, and Nicolás let out a collective breath. They didn’t look happy, yet slowly but surely, they all nodded in agreement.

“Then it’s decided,” Cassandra said. “I need you all here tracking my coordinates and my vitals.”

“At least let one of us go with you, in case whatever happened to Ernest happens again,” Desmond said.

“Under no circumstances are any of you to enter those time machines. Is that clear?” Cassandra’s voice was like ice.

“He was our friend, too. We could help track him down,” Nicolás chimed in.

“He is your friend. He’s not dead yet,” Cassandra said. “You can help from here.”

“But what happens if you’re lost, too?” Sabrina asked. “What will happen to Viv?”

Cassandra steeled her nerves and wiped a drop of sweat away from her forehead. That particular version of failure had only crossed her mind briefly, but now that someone else was suggesting the possibility, it suddenly felt like a plausible outcome.

No. No, I can do it. I’ll figure it out. I could never leave Viv all alone.

“If Ernest can find a way to make it back, then so can I.”