TIME & TIED: AWARENESS

ARC 1.3 - Of Her Impact

PART 15a: WITH KALEIDOSCOPE EYES 1

Luci Primrose woke up and reached over to her night table, flipping on a light. The sunlight had not yet begun to filter though her tiny basement window, however the clock indicated that morning had arrived.

Stretching to help shake off the lingering sensations of sleep, the young asian girl threw back her covers and retrieved her page-a-day Mensa calendar. Tearing off the next sheet, she scanned over the new puzzle, reflected on it briefly, then picked up a pencil and scribbled in an answer. After which she looked at the date itself.

"Saturday. The end of September," Luci murmured aloud. She smiled. “Means I should be able to talk with Frank about the time machine today,” she concluded.

***

"Jewels, I'm starting to worry about you. Seriously."

"I'm not crazy,” the brunette snapped. She paused to glance around the library foyer, to see if she had attracted the attention of anyone standing nearby, before lowering her voice. "Frank Dijora must have a time machine," she insisted. "It fits the facts. But I can deal with this, as long as I kick things up another notch."

“It’s not your conclusion, but rather the obsession which is worrying me," Clarke clarified. "Is whatever Frank and Carrie are doing really so important?"

Julie stared up at him as if he'd suddenly grown a third eye. “More than anyone else, you know how I've spent a couple of years building up my status at school. At this point, Carrie’s actions reflect on me, and I'm not about to let a damn geek mess all of that up to the point where I cannot attain my future goal. Time travel or not!"

"But why, Jewels? What goal is this important to you?"

Julie set her jaw. "Come on, Phil," she said, starting to walk away. "We need to figure out what we're up against."

Clarke followed after her. "Okay, okay," he said, recognizing the signs that he’d pushed her as far as he could. For now. "Though I must confess I'm not sure how we figure that out in the library."

"Either Frank or Carrie – or both – will travel into the distant past in our near future, as evidenced by the fact that we found an ancient version of Carrie's hairband," Julie explained. She reached the stairs and started to descend. “Ergo, there might be records of their activities in said past. And if we can find irregularities in old newspaper headlines, their actions back then could provide a clue as to their future motives here.”

Clarke frowned. “What makes you think they have any specific motivation?"

“What makes you think they don’t? At the least, Carrie’s being evasive, implying their goals somehow clash with mine. I must obtain further information, or I cannot accurately predict what they'll do next."

"And you're sure they’re working together?"

"In some capacity, obviously," Julie said. She paused, waiting until a library patron had walked past them. “The real question is whether Carrie’s a willing participant or an ignorant pawn - perhaps Frank's time machine comes equipped with a mind control device. Regardless, I cannot presently trust her. Fortunately, with my transmitter now in place," she concluded, fishing the small receiver device out of her pocket, "I'll at least know where Carrie is at all times.”

"She's here in the library," Clarke said.

Julie looked closer at her receiver. "No, she seems to be at Frank's house. I’ll have to ask about that later.”

"No, she's here in the library," Clarke reiterated, placing a hand on Julie's shoulder to halt her advance. "I'm pretty sure that's her up there in the records area."

Julie shifted her gaze to the room ahead of them. "You're right!" she gasped. She grabbed Clarke's hand, pulling them back into a row of nearby bookshelves before they were seen. "And was that Frank in there with her? How could they beat me here? And what's Carrie's hairband doing back at Frank's house?!"

"There could be two of her again," Clarke offered.

"Good point," Julie acknowledged. "Perhaps I should call Frank's place to--" She stopped speaking as the signal from the transmitter vanished off her screen. It was now totally blank, as she had previously deactivated the sixty year old device they’d obtained last Thursday.

“Hm. Low battery?”

“No,” Julie said, shaking the receiver. "Damn it, the thing’s brand new, how can it be... of course.” Julie smacked her palm against her forehead. "How stupid can I be? If Frank really has a time machine, he has access to the future. He must have learned about the tracking device!”

She let out a quiet curse. "No wonder they seem to be two steps ahead of me. They’re probably in the library now to destroy certain records before anybody can find them.”

"Jewels... stay calm..."

“Perhaps it’s even Frank's future self who invented the time machine," Julie reasoned, ignoring Clarke's plea. “Leaving it back here in our present. But, in changing his past, he may not yet realize how much he’s revealed to me. If I’m careful, I can still recover from this!”

"Jewels..."

Julie snapped her gaze over to Clarke. "Phil, do me a favour? Stay here and let me know what Carrie and Frank do? I have to go back home and adjust my timelines."

"But don't you think you've been working too hard already?" Clarke protested.

His words fell on deaf ears, as Julie had already spun on her heel and was heading back towards the stairs. He watched her retreating form with sadness in his eyes.

***

Luci drummed her fingers absently on the tabletop. Would Frank be in the library already? In order to avoid running into him there, how long should she stay at the cafe?

"Everything all right?" asked Theresa, interrupting the young teenager’s thoughts.

Luci blinked up at the waitress and smiled faintly. “Yes, the sandwiches are fine, thanks."

Theresa nodded. “Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you then.”

Luci started to nod, but instead asked, “Don't you get tired of talking to people, day in and day out?"

Theresa laughed lightly. "No, not really," she admitted. “This job is an interesting study into human nature. For instance, many people have similar problems, and yet I find each individual is also unique in their own way."

Luci tilted her head to the side. "Unique how?”

"It depends. For you, the first thing that leaps out at me is your eyes," Theresa admitted. "They show such... intensity. And intelligence. Plus it's like they're both green and blue at same time. Quite a remarkable effect, really."

"I've been told that's genetic," Luci acknowledged. “Though with me being adopted, I don’t know for sure."

Theresa nodded. "A first for me, anyway. Of course, maybe I'll eventually become jaded and cynical... but when I stop seeing customers as individuals, it might be time to move on to another line of work." She smiled. "Speaking of which, I'd better get back to it. Let me know when you're ready for the bill."

This time Luci nodded, and Theresa moved off. The waitress was an observer, Luci reflected - a trait the young girl could readily identify with.

***

"You know Frank, I've been thinking," Carrie remarked as she plunked down another large book full of old news accounts. "Why can't we go into the future to figure out what the outcome of all your time experiments will be? After all, we're looking for records of what happened in 1955 to help Beth. We should be able to apply that same principle to ourselves."

"The time machine only travels into the past," Frank reminded her, without even looking up from his own book. He wondered idly what it was Carrie had against silence. At least she wasn’t grumbling about the 1950s outfit any more, as they’d dropped by her house for a change of clothes before coming to the library.

"Correction, it travels to whatever time period you have coins for," Carrie rebuffed. "We should be able to travel as far forward as December 31st of this year.”

Frank did look up at that. "True," he conceded. "But, okay, say I go a month into the future to do as you say. That means there is now no need for me to do any testing. It invokes a time paradox, whereby I'll have the results without ever doing the experiments.”

Carrie shrugged. "Having the results doesn't mean you can't perform the experiments. In fact, we'd be prepared for the outcomes, and at the same time, we could put the information we’ll have got to better use.”

Naturally, her tone implied that ‘better use’ meant dealing with her missing mother. “Carrie, knowing beforehand might mean we do something which nullifies an experiment, or results in there being a completely different set of results,” Frank protested. "We can't trust data for tests we haven't seen!”

“Sure we can, your future’s unchangeable, right?”

“Data obtained that way could still be faulty.”

"You have no sense of adventure,” Carrie argued.

"You have no sense of responsibility," Frank fired back.

"You have no sense of fun!"

"You have no sense of paradox!"

"You... shut up!" Carrie said, giving Frank’s shoulder a shove. He fell off his library stool. "You have no sense of balance," she declared triumphantly.

Frank closed his eyes and counted to five. “Is there some reason you always have to get your way?” he asked.

“I don’t always have to get my... um..."

Frank reopened his eyes and looked back up at her. She was frowning, her lips drawn in. Could it be she was actually reflecting on her actions? He stood back up, deciding to press the advantage.