TIME & TIED: ESCALATION

ARC 2.3 - To the Past

PART 37a: GEOGRAPHY & GEOMETRY 1

Hank Waterson stared down at the prone form of his daughter, lying on the hospital bed. For once, Carrie seemed conscious, but her eyes were blank. She didn't seem to be aware of her surroundings.

"Carrie?" Hank whispered to her, again taking her by the hand. "Carrie, it will be all right, do you hear me? I've got the doctors doing everything that they can. So stay strong, honey, we'll get through this. And then... then maybe we'll go to a hockey game? Or anywhere you like. Okay? Please, you've got to stay with me."

Hank squeezed his eyes shut to try and hold back the tears. 'I can't lose her now, not like this,' he pleaded silently. 'Please, someone... find a way to help my daughter...'

The teenagers in Frank’s basement couldn’t hear Mr. Waterson’s plea. But they were working on a plan.

***

“Right then," Frank said, placing his palms upon the lab table. He looked out at the faces of Luci, Tim, Chartreuse and Clarke. "Let's get this meeting underway."

He turned to Chartreuse. "Do you have any further news concerning Carrie's condition?"

Chartreuse shook her head. "I did another vision quest last night but got, you know, the same results," she reported. "Namely that Carrie won’t get any worse until after this weekend. It could be as early as Monday that she, well..." The pink haired girl bit her lip.

“So, if this doesn’t come together, I’m revealing the truth about Julie being her shooter tomorrow. Sunday night," Frank decided. He glanced at Clarke. "You realize we'll have no choice."

Clarke nodded. "I... I understand," he said. "It is nice that you're still giving Julie every chance."

Frank rubbed the back of his neck. “Honestly? I nearly told the police the morning after Shady called. Luci talked me into waiting through the weekend, as I’d originally intended.”

"I simply don't trust this Shady guy who called Frank," Luci piped up. "He seems to have his own agenda, and doesn't care about the rest of us at all. Besides, we have our own future divining rod.” She smiled over at Chartreuse.

"W-what is it that you're proposing then?” Tim wondered.

"We're coming to that," Frank replied. "First of all, Clarke, were you able to verify at least part of Shady's story?"

Clarke nodded. “Yeah. It wasn't hard to track down the article, once I knew what to look for." He produced a sheet of paper. "I made this copy for the rest of you." The others crowded around to have a look.

"Mysterious girl hit by ambulance?" Chartreuse read in horror. "That's, like, terrible! Though... you’d think she’d have been close enough to receive medical help?"

“I guess Julie's wounds were too severe," Clarke said, swallowing. “Besides, no identity, no insurance, and not the biggest hospital in her hometown."

Frank eyed the article. “The state of Illinois? Hold on, Julie's American?"

Clarke nodded. "That's where she was born, anyway. When Jeeves told me, I was as surprised as the rest of you. Not sure how long she stayed there, as her parents moved around quite a bit."

"I-Is there any chance that this article isn't about Julie?" Tim asked. “Maybe this ’Shady’ lied.”

“There's always a chance," Clarke admitted. “It doesn’t give her name. But... it seems unlikely."

"Long curly brown hair, wearing a dark green sweater... sounds like Julie on the day she left our time," Luci agreed.

The five of them stood staring at the article for a moment. "Okay then," Frank said at last, pushing the paper aside. "Here's the plan. A bunch of us travel back in time, save Julie, and return to the present with her. If Carrie's condition is a result of some ability to sense Julie's untimely death in the past or present or whatever - problem solved."

"Uh, wait,” Chartreuse objected, raising her hand. "Julie, you know, took the time machine. So how can we travel back?"

“Consider Clarke’s logic about our present being her future,” Frank countered. “And recognize that Julie can't still be using the time machine if she's no longer alive." Chartreuse still stared at him in confusion. “Basically think of it this way," he decided. "Have you ever seen Back to the Future, part three? If so, picture us as being in 1955, having to go back to 1885 to prevent the Doc's death."

"Oooooooh,” Chartreuse said, comprehension dawning. "You mean we just have to figure out where Julie left the time machine in the past. Knowing that, we can track it down in the present.”

"Exactly," Luci confirmed. "That time machine must now exist somewhere in our world. The idea occurred to me and Frank, after we realized how Shady seemed to think it was possible - if inadvisable - for us to go back and mess with the day Carrie got shot."

"B-But Julie didn't leave us a note telling us where to look,” Tim objected.

"True," Frank admitted. "Which is why we requested that you do that additional research yesterday, Tim..."

Tim face-palmed. “OH. Of course.” His gaze fell to the floor. "I... I wasn't able to turn up anything though. No w-weird occurrences in early November of that year, no indications of unknown scientific devices in public records, no discussions out on the Internet about the device... I'm s-sorry, I don't think I even have the beginnings of a lead to follow up on.”

Frank exchanged a glance with Luci. “I suppose it was too much to hope that it would be that easy."

"I'll keep searching though, if it w-will help save lives,” Tim assured. "All w-weekend if need be.”

"I'm sure you've been doing your best," Clarke said, resting a hand on Tim's shoulder. "And having exhausted the Julie angle, I can help you now. If you like." Tim nodded eagerly back at his friend.

***

Luci walked around the lab bench to stand by Frank. “Setting that aside for the moment then," she remarked, "we have one additional problem. Temporal-spatial relocation. Which is particularly bad if we want to end up in Illinois."

Frank winced. "Oh, DARN. I knew this plan was coming together too well... how are we supposed to end up in the United States?"

Chartreuse waved her hand frantically in the air again. “Wait, what's that about temporary specials?"

“Time-space relocation," Luci reiterated. "See, whenever we use the time machine, we don't stay in the same place. Sometimes we travel a few blocks away, sometimes we wind up at the school - Frank and Carrie have even been on trips taking them out of town."

"So, if you're not careful, you could end up in the m-middle of the P-Pacific Ocean?" Tim said, eyes widening.

"Quite true," Luci confirmed. "However, Frank has a working theory relating to the machine’s destination. We’ve checked it out in retrospect, and it's held up for every single trip."

"I should have realized it after Luci was abducted,” Frank admitted. “Once we discovered that the readings Linquist had on her were somehow related to the electronics in the time machine’s activation handle. But it took Shady’s mention of Algonquin Park for things to really click. Now, granted, we don’t have the machine to test this theory out..."

"Still, the answer is so obvious, I'm sure it's correct," Luci interjected. "I mean, I feel pretty stupid for having missed it in the first place."

"Care to, you know, clue us in then?" Chartreuse pressed.

Frank nodded. "Okay. Consider, the time machine needs to pinpoint its destination location in four dimensions, three in space and one in time." He went over to the nearby chalkboard. "That last is taken care of with the year of the coin used to power the device. The other three... those are actually the trickier ones."

"The earth spins," Luci elaborated. “And moves around the sun. The point we're at right now, spatially, is different from the one we were at even five seconds ago."

"Right," Frank confirmed. He drew a line across the chalkboard, giving it a very sharp crest on the left and a long runoff to the right. "Now, this represents the ravine running through our town. Here's Carrie's house." He marked an 'x' on the left of the board, near the top of the sharp crest.

"A lot of her trips remained near her house, or took her into Willowdale Park, on the other side of the ravine." Frank shaded in the small area just under the crest and marked in 'park'. "When I traveled with her, there were a number of times that we also ended up in the park. The explanation for that lies in the position of my house, about two blocks away from the ravine, but on the opposite side." He marked in a second 'x'.

"Okay, so... the park's kinda halfway between your houses," Chartreuse observed.

"Then it's locating based on where you live?" Clarke mused.

Luci shook her head. "Not where we live. Where we ARE. Tim, Chartreuse, you remember the trip that me, Frank and Carrie took to the future? We ended up on the street outside, near our meeting place. The time before that, when the three of us traveled to the school dance, we ended up less than a block away from the school building."

“And then there was my second trip with Carrie,” Frank added, tossing aside his chalk. “On a day when past me was visiting relatives in Sudbury. I asked Carrie’s father, and he says it’s possible he and Carrie had spent that day in Ottawa." He raised his two index fingers, and slowly brought them together. "With Sudbury and Ottawa, the midpoint is..."

"Algonquin Park," Clarke finished.

Frank nodded, pointing at the blonde boy. "Bingo. Everything fits. Even a trip we took to an airport. It also explains why recent trips are occurring in town. No one’s left here in the last couple of months."

“B-But how is this possible?" Tim protested. “Like, what if you travel to a time where you aren’t, um, there? Can you only travel back and forth within your own lifetime?”