Tag: time travel

CHAPTER SEVEN

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I had the surgery. It was extensive, they made little cuts all over my body and put a flexible unbreakable material under my skin. There was this old 2D movie I saw once. What was it called? The Terminator? Okay, yeah, like that more or less. And I guess that’s what they wanted all along.

The recovery wasn’t great. I mean, it was nothing abnormal or horrific or anything. Mostly it consisted of me not wanting to move a single pinky finger because every inch of me ached so much. And the doctors told me not to move an inch because the armor plates had to “settle”. Whatever that meant.

My mom brought meals in and out of my room. Each time was the same exact routine. She would pick up the plates, shake her head, and sigh heavily. “I can’t believe my daughter has a job that would require this kind of modification. I never would have allowed you to go if I knew.”

“It’s okay,” I would say. “It’s an extra precaution for all time travelers.”

Which was obviously a big lie. But I could only imagine the intense fretting my mom would have knowing that her daughter’s future fiancée was an anger issue poster child.

The first week after the operation, I regretted not opting for a virtual resort during recovery. I didn’t even know how boring life could possibly be. A mind-numbing melt into a giant goopy puddle kind of boring.

During the second week, I delved into The Beatles. I listened to each and every song John had ever produced, twice. And that was hundreds and hundreds of songs. How can someone die at forty and still have accomplished so much? And so much brilliant stuff? To be honest, as a songwriter, I felt pretty intimated trying to get inside this prolific brain of his.

Week four I had seen every documentary, read every book, and loved every song. Admittedly, I really loved the music. I did. I remember one day feeling like I was never going to be the same Emmeline ever again. A steel-plated robot who couldn’t even move. What if they had botched the surgery? What if the opposite effect took place and I was super fragile now? What if John sneezed on me and broke my arm or something? That was the day that I stumbled onto ‘Across the Universe’. And I cried. Frankly, I wept. I had no idea why.

Week five I was almost back to normal and anxious as ever to finish training and just move on with it. And by week six, I basically ignored the fact that I was still recovering and skipped into the time-altering department.

After seeing me all recovered and prancing around, the council probably realized that they had nothing else to hold me back. Finally, I got the message that I would be leaving on schedule. May 3rd. The very next day. I was both giddy and horrified. I read the notification, sank to my knees, and squealed so loudly that I think I heard my neighbor’s dog bark in reply.

I had to get ready. And not just ready in an about-to-change-history kind of way, but in an about-to-catch-a-man way. I called my hair girl, Marty, to get me an emergency appointment ASAP. I asked her to install a golden floofy hairdo onto my scalp port mod. One that would turn me into Bridgit Bardot, the European sex goddess of the late 50s.

When I sent the pictures of the messy blonde bun with long shaggy bangs, her reply was kind of hesitant. She said words like “unattractive” and “ratted” and “outdated”. Well, duh, Marty, I don’t want anything modern, that would probably scare them half to death. I wanted her to model me into John’s perfect girl.

It was going to be a while at the salon since she had to remove each piece of my artificial hair and install the new blonde ones. Ugh. Can you imagine getting this look at a fifties salon? Only having your natural birth-given hair to destroy as you did it. That sounded like a nightmare to me and I’m glad we didn’t have that inconvenience anymore.

I sat in a pleather low-back seat, overpowered by the perfume fragrances of the artificial hair. Hundreds of beautiful current-age hairstyles blinked on and off the walls. My chest tightened. I would not be walking out of there with any of those.

As Marty worked on my hair, she asked me about my mission, with her usual Southern drawl.

“So, you’re going all the way back to 1958 to date this guy?” she asked, chewing bubble gum loudly and snapping it as she talked.

“Yes and no?” Really no, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings for asking me something so dumb. “I’m just trying to alter history.”

“So, this beetle guy,” she continued. “What’s he like?”

“John Lennon? He’s um…” Wow, that was a loaded question. “He’s just this British guy. I don’t know. I haven’t met him yet.”

“Well, sure. But you must have picked up something reading all that stuff about him.” Marty flashed me a toothy grin in the reflection as she threaded another piece of blonde hair into my scalp.

“Well, he’s a genius for one. There’s no denying that,” I said. “And he’s, well he’s known for being… I don’t know how to say this. Like… feisty?” 

“Feisty?” Marty laughed, her drawl really hitting that word.

“Rebellious, I guess?” I asked, squinting. “Anti-establishment. Stay in bed and grow your hair out.” I laughed.

“Grow your hair?” Marty asked as she threaded another lock in my scalp.

“Never mind.”

Marty blew a giant bubble with her gum. Pop! “Is he cute though?”

“Um.” I scrunched my eyebrows together and doubled back. Kinda weird thinking of a historical figure like that, but I guess everything about the mission was kinda weird. “In the beginning he… I guess, sure. It’s not like here, where everyone modifies their bodies to look perfect.”

“Well, do you have anything in common with him?”

“Uh…” Gee, Marty. Thanks for instilling such great confidence in me the night before I meet him. I now, feel totally prepared to bait my feminine trap with every allure of my bland personality.

“We both like music and songwriting,” I said. “But that’s not really going to help me with convincing him to give it up.”

“Hey, well, you gave it up!” she said adding the last piece of hair. “So, there ya go!”

“Right. Yeah.” I sank a few inches in the chair. Grateful to have that last bit of hair installed because I was ready to stop talking to Marty.

I transferred the money into her IND and left. The dim red sun dipped past the horizon. Six o’clock. In just twelve hours, I would be standing in front of a burning open portal.

As soon as I walked in the door of my house and Que saw me, all hell broke loose.

“What is that?” Que rested his arm on the banister of the stairs. “Wow. Did you get your money back at least?”

“Shut up! You little micro virus!” I said through clenched teeth.

“That’s alright, Emmie,” Que said, looking at his nailbed. “It’s not like your whole mission revolves around you attracting a guy or something.”

“Do you want a set of missing teeth? Because it sounds like you want a whole mouthful of knocked-out teeth.” I pushed past him on the stairs to go worry in private. But Que followed me to my bedroom where I slumped on my protein mesh bed.

“Am I stupid for doing this?” I asked him, although I knew the answer. “I mean, how am I really going to get this guy to propose to me?”

He shrugged and leaned against the doorframe. “You could always fake a pregnancy.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“It’s the 1950’s they don’t have a good way to double-check that.”

“Yeah, when nine months goes by and no baby comes out,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“So, alright, don’t fake it. Go through with the pregnancy then.”

“Come ON,” I said flopping forward on the bed. “Isn’t there some kind of male insight you can give me or what?”

Que gave me a curt nod. “Okay. Alright. Look. If you’re unsure whether he’s into you, just wait for the ‘twist and lean’.”

“The what?” I asked with squinted eyes.

“Twist and leeeeean,” Que sang to the tune of The Beatles’ Twist and Shout. Which probably would have been a great joke if it weren’t wasted on my blank stare.

“When a guy’s all smoked for you and he twists toward you and leans in,” he explained with hand gestures. My eyes shifted awkwardly and he took an incredulous step into the room. “You don’t know what a ‘twist and lean’ is?”

“I know this isn’t going to shock you or anything, but uh,” I swept my hands out and gestured at my body. “I don’t have a lot of guys twisting and leaning at me.” 

Que stepped up to me and put his hands on his hips.

“So, let’s say this Beatles guy is sitting next to you like this…” He sat next to me on the bed all stiffly and awkward with his hands tucked between his knees. “And you start talking to him and he does this…”

Suddenly Que pulled his shoulder back until his torso was squarely facing me, then he leaned in a little too close.

“Okay, ew. Get away,” I said pushing his face out of my bubble and scooting as far over on the bed as possible.

“If he does that,” he said. “He’s a poor smitten bastard.”

“It’s 1958, Que! He’s not some hyper boner from the Virtual-gasm.”

“The twist and lean is timeless! That is a universal man beg for ‘please have sex with me’.”

“Well, I need the man beg for ‘please marry me’.”

Que gave me a deep grimace. “Fake pregnancy,” he whispered.

I threw my pillow at him. “You are no help at all!”

I ran my fingers over my new locks of hair. Each strand seemed like a blade of grass it was so thick. I didn’t feel like myself. And I didn’t look like myself anymore. How could I ever fit into the 1950s? How could I pull off this whole ridiculous mission? 

“Que,” I said quietly. “I’m scared. What happens if this guy doesn’t like me?”

Que shrugged. “Well, what’s not to like?”

I tucked my hair behind my ear and smiled. “Thanks,” I said.

“Hey, wait, I got you something,” he said. “Something to take with you on your trip. Or mission thingy. Whatever.”

 “Really? You got me something.” I eyed him suspiciously. “Alright. Let’s see it.”

He grinned and flopped onto my bed, getting his dirty shoes all over my covers, thank you so much. He activated his IND. “I know they gave you a new IND and you might not have access to everything. So, I compiled some footage of our favorite memories. That way you have at least something to remember 2109 by.”

Que began the movie, which was of the two of us on hover jets over Big Bear lake. We were trying to tag each other with lasers. A stupid game we invented as kids.

I melted. “Que. That’s so sweet.” I grabbed him and gave him the tightest hug. He was a crazy brother who said rude things, but that was somehow part of his love-ableness. And I was going to miss him something terrible.

He downloaded the videos into my IND, and I had him with me. At least in video form.

Lying in bed that night, I felt sick. A slow-burning nausea that stayed with me and grew each hour that ticked by. Finally, sometime before sunrise, I sat in bed and opened my IND, determined to get my jitters out.

I opened a blank page and made two columns. PRO and CON.

“Okay,” I sighed to myself. “Here we go.”

PRO. I get to time travel.

I mean, obviously, this was the biggest carrot they were dangling in front of my face. How can anyone pass up an opportunity like this?

CON. I might have to murder someone.

I groaned. Yeah. I mean, pretty much. There it was in black and white. Was the adventure of time travel worth taking someone else’s life? I underlined the word “might” and moved on.

PRO. Whether or not I shoot someone I’ll get to keep my job.

I really did not want to spend every day slogging to Plate Tech, counting down the hours and the days of the weeks until I go home and sleep. I re-read this pro, grimaced, and added “Probably” at the end.

CON. If I fail to get the proposal, the council will keep killing people like it’s the right thing to do.

And let’s face it, there was no way I was actually getting a proposal.

PRO. If I do get the proposal though, the council will be forced to change their policies. I would be saving hundreds of lives.

 I would be changing this world and all the alternate worlds for the better. A real, honest-to-goodness change. It would be cowardly not to go forward with it, right?

CON. If I do get the proposal, I’ll have to figure out a way to break up with him that would somehow prevent him from returning to music. And CON, if I can’t, then I’ll actually have to follow through with the marriage.

I rubbed my hands down my face. “What in the actual hell am I doing?” I groaned.

CON. He could be ugly and smelly and rude, and a cynical ass and I’ll have to pretend to like him. I’m not that good of a liar.

I drew in a slow deep breath and hesitantly added another one.

CON. His anger issue thing is a thing. 

Okay, so far, a lot of cons.

But PRO. I get to witness real actual historical things! Musical ones!

Also CON. One time in a VR hunting simulation, I shot myself in the leg to get out of shooting a mother bear.

Not really related so I deleted it.

PRO. The council has already spent millions of dollars to calculate the exact coordinate to burn the portal and you kind of can’t chicken out at this point.

Was that even a pro?

CON. That other traveler didn’t come back that one time.

My spit tasted sour. Probably from the already forming ulcer burning through my stomach. My screen shut off and I climbed under my covers, staring at the soft swirling galaxies projected on my ceiling until the edge of sunlight displayed on the artificial windows. I got up, put on my tweed skirt, and got ready to face the portal.

CHAPTER SIX

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Of course, Thorne would be in charge of shooting practice. I didn’t know why I hadn’t guessed that myself. And this guy was my partner on my non-killing mission. Sure. Yeah right. I could see right through this little game.

The apprentices stood at each section of their range. White virtual projections of human silhouettes all meandered about waiting to be shot up. Some walked casually, others sat and drank from a silhouetted coffee cup. The travelers each took their turns taking their shots. As each shot fired, the female voice of the simulator would announce their accuracy.

“Left ear. Twelve point five centimeters from target mark.”

Kablam!

“Miss. Thirty point three centimeters from target mark.”

Kablam!”

“Right shoulder. Fifty-eight centimeters from target mark.”

I made absolutely sure to sit at the last range on the furthest end of the arena. I sat with my white earmuffs, spinning my gun on the small table in front of me. Just the fact that they were making me do this spoke volumes to how they thought my mission was going to go. And there was Thorne, my soon-to-be partner, barking lectures at every single shooter that missed.

After each traveler had taken their abuse, it was my turn. A white, androgynous figure speaking into an old standing microphone appeared on my range.

The sharp shoulders guy that I had previously hit on, leaned over to his friend and laughed.

“There’s the time travel mail order bride,” he whispered. Well, I wouldn’t call it whisper. I would call it a breathy shout from a big, oafish mouth. I can’t believe I was ever attracted to that guy. What a misjudgment.

“Emmeline,” Thorne said. “Let’s see what you can do.”

“Yeah, let’s see it,” Broad Shoulders said and crossed his arms. His friend guffawed and stepped around to watch.

I tightened my jaw as I looked at them. Then I picked up the gun, aimed and fired, without the slightest hesitation. The bullet flew through the projection, right in the center of his head where his two eyes would meet. The white silhouette fell instantly to the ground on his back.

“Target mark,” the simulator announced.

“Just because I don’t want to, doesn’t mean I can’t,” I said before setting my gun on the table.

The class reacted in a sea of “whoa” and “ooh”. Broad Shoulders tightened his grip on his gun and turned back to his own range. His friend laughed even harder.

“Wow! Hole in one, Emmeline!”

It really wasn’t a big deal. I used to play VR carnival games with Que all the time as a kid. The one where you fill the clown’s mouth with a water gun. Anyway, I forced myself to get surprisingly good at aiming once my brother and I started betting our household chores against each other.

“Impressive,” Dr. Thorne nodded. “I’d like you to try that one more time, if you would please humor me, Emmeline.”

I shrugged. “Sure,” I said lackluster, picking up my handgun.

“Command center,” Dr. Thorne said activating the simulator’s settings system. “Range 42. Please add realistic overlay.”

Suddenly my white silhouette turned from blank canvas to a fully projected John Lennon. It was the same Lennon with the suit and the sweeping Beatles cut, only this time he was holding a guitar and singing silently into a microphone.

“Resume.” Dr. Thorne commanded me.

I blinked at this now presented John in front of me, bent at the knees and bobbling up and down. I became more aware of the gun in my hand. The cold grip of the handle. The heaviness. I aimed at my target.

The AI John was completely unaware of his soon-to-be demise. I tried to estimate the same bullet path, but his head was tilted back and bouncing to the rhythm of his guitar. My finger readied on the trigger but didn’t squeeze.

I couldn’t stop the thoughts. The horrible things I had read. His shooting outside his apartment in New York. Four shots in the back and the stumbling into the building. The bleeding out in the police squad car on the way to the hospital. The hypovolemic shock, the blood-stained granny glasses, and the millions of people all around the world sobbing over a man they had never met.

I raised my arm to wipe the sweat off my forehead with my sleeve. I wasn’t a true marksman. And Thorne knew it. If I couldn’t take a shot at this realistic-looking AI version of Lennon, he had all the right in the world not to pass my training. It would probably save him a lot of time not having to waste his whole summer following me to 1958.

I had to prove how much I wanted this mission. I wanted it. I wanted time travel to change. I pulled the trigger.

Kablam! John groaned and doubled over, clutching his leg.

“Left hip. Ninety point four centimeters from target mark.”

I set my gun down so loud it clanked on the metal counter. The class didn’t laugh or react or anything, they scurried back to their own gun ranges, fleeing from the wrath of Dr. Thorne. His shadow darkened my range as he drew near.

“Ninety point four into the left hip,” he said dryly. “A miss like that is worse than not even shooting at all. Now you’ve alerted the target. Wounded him enough to know he’s in danger, but not enough of a wound to stop him from escaping.”

I took a deep breath and tried to sound like I wasn’t bothered at all. “A 1950s era revolver has a six-bullet chamber. I’m sure one of those other bullets would stop him.”

“One bullet should be enough.” He wasn’t so much yelling as just stabbing you with his attitude. Some people are like that. Attitude people. “In the field, you’ll learn that assassination requires a healthy dose of both precision and subtlety.”

Dr. Thorne stalked away to another student, leaving me staring at my gun.

***

Back in the haze of the virtual train hallway, I opened the door to AI Lennon’s cabin and stormed my way inside.

“John, can I ask you a question?”

He peered at me over his book as I sat on the seat right next to him.

“Listen, if you knew you had to die. How would you want to go?” I asked.

John lifted his eyebrows high into his forehead at the question. I ignored his classic cynical expression. And matched it with my own. No time for flirting practice, I had to worry about this mess now.

“If you had a choice… would you rather be shot and have it over right away. Or would you rather say be poisoned? Like maybe someone slipped something into your tea and you just got a little flu for a few days and then died. But it was less gory, and you could say goodbye to your loved ones and everything,” I said, staring at him intensely. “Would you prefer that?”

He smirked. “I think I’d prefer to be bludgeoned over the head for several hours. Really slow and painful like.”

“C’mon! Be serious, John!”

“Serious? How do you expect me to be serious, barging in with a question like that?” he asked with a giggle.

John slipped a bookmark into his novel and set it down. I had never had a simulation where he set that darn book down. Hmm. In fact, this was the longest I had ever held a conversation with the Lennon bot.

 “Alright then,” he said. “I’d like to pass away in me sleep at eighty years old.”

“I wish you would, John.”

Dr. Greggs appeared at the door of the train car. “Emmeline, can you meet me for a minute in my office?”

I took off my VR helmet and hung it on the wall. Then I walked across the big cold floor and out the wooshy doors.

I paid for a personal transport stall to take me all the way to the department of time travel. When I stepped into Gregg’s office his lights were dimmed again. Not great. I sat in my usual chair and scrunched my jacket sleeve in my hand. What thing would I be in trouble for next? Missing the AI Lennon so bad he needed a virtual hip replacement?

“Emmeline,” Dr. Greggs sat across from me. “In your acceptance letter, there was a list of conditions expected to meet before you could travel to the past.”

“Yes…” I said suspiciously. Oh, crap. Thorne was going to fail me. Of course, he was. I knew it. I knew he hated me right from the start.

“That list also mentioned that there could be potential body modifications required for the mission.”

This was not actually about Thorne? Whew. Well, that was a relief. I guess?

“Yes, I remember. That’s not a problem.” It wasn’t. I wasn’t a body mod purificst or anything. I already had the standard twenty to thirty that kids my age have. The IND, the teeth alignment, the nutritional balancer, the fake hair, eyesight correctional, eyelash simulator, skin regulation and all the other ones you get from the doctor before you go to public school.

“For this mission, the council requires an armor body mod.”

I actually laughed. “What? Why?”

Dr. Greggs tented his fingers across his desk. “The council requires this type of mod when the historical subject is deemed as having ‘dangerous behavior’.”

“You mean the ‘Give Peace a Chance’ guy?” I asked smirking.

Greggs didn’t return my smirk, so I wiped it off my face.

“Yeah, okay,” I said quietly.

“Did you read the notes?” he asked.

“Yeah, I read them,” I said waving my hand. “But I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal.”

“Did you read about the DJ at McCartney’s birthday party?”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “That was this one little itsy, bitsy time.”

Greggs rested a fist on his cheek. “I think you know it wasn’t just one little itsy, bitsy time.”

I sighed deeply. “It wasn’t that bad.”

Dr. Greggs twisted in his seat. His IND activated and John Lennon’s deep voice filled the room.

“That’s why I’m always on about peace, you see. It’s the most violent people that go for love and peace. And I sincerely believe in love in peace. But I am absolutely a violent man who has learned not to be violent. And regrets his violence.”

The recording ended and was replaced with an awkward silence.

 I swiveled in my chair. “Well, okay, see? He regretted it.”

“Emmeline,” Dr Greggs started in a warning tone.

“Well, come on! It’s not bad enough to get an entire military grade body armor. I’m not going back to the time of the dinosaurs or something. This is bonny ol’ England in the late 1950s.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Greggs said tapping the side of his hand on his desk. “If John Lennon has recurring reports of violent behavior, that’s not something that I, as your mentor, will take lightly. If you aren’t willing to take the precaution to protect yourself an aggressive person like that, I can’t send you back.”

I huffed so heavily it blew the hair around my face. I slumped hard into my seat.

“How long is recovery from that kind of procedure?”

Dr. Greggs shrugged. “Six weeks for the armor. A day or two for the new IND.”

I raised an eyebrow. “The new IND?”

“You’ll receive a new security IND to go with the body armor,” Greggs said standing from his desk and pulling up an image on the smart wall behind him.

“What’s wrong with the one I have now?”

“Well you’ll need a camera that can run 24/7 for documentation,” he said, showing me the device that they were about to put inside me. “Not only that, but a camera that can run a constant live feed to your partner, Dr. Thorne.”

I groaned at the sound of his name. We hadn’t even stepped through the portal and this guy was already becoming a Thorne in my side. “A constant live feed with that creep? What about when I have to get dressed in the morning or something like that?”

“Well, you can always override the camera with voice command,” he said. “But if you go longer than fifteen minutes with the camera off, it will activate the tracking device.”

“What tracking device?”

“If anything were to happen to you, and the camera is off longer than it should be, your device will send a signal to your partner with your location. You’ll be able to know when your partner is actively locating you, because when his tracking software is running, your device will vibrate. That way if anything were to happen to you, you’ll know when help is on its way.”

“Nothing is going to happen to me, but I appreciate the thought.”

I didn’t appreciate it, but whatever. Obviously, they were trying to get me to quit. Scaring Greggs into giving me an extensive modification surgery and postponing the mission another six weeks. Well, I wasn’t going to quit. I was going on the mission dammit and I was not going to kill John Lennon.

CHAPTER FIVE

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Outside of a giant dome building, Greggs was waiting for me sitting at a small round table on the patio. A chair across from him was all pulled out and ready for me to sit on. He gestured to it and I complied, shielding my eyes from the sun until the sensors of the umbrella caught on and expanded for more shade.

“We’re going to be practicing today,” Greggs told me.

Okay, I nodded and then shifted my eyes. “What are we going to be practicing?”

“Lying.”

“Oh.” I dropped my hands into my lap. Ah! The gift of deceit. A talent that I did not possess in the slightest. But everyone has to start from somewhere, don’t they? I just wish that I didn’t have to start from scratch.

“Alright,” Greggs clasped his hands and faced me. “Let’s do a little role play.”

Cool. No problem. I love role play. Love it. I starred as the lead in my school’s videogram. Ten whole views. No big.

“I’ll be John’s Aunt Mimi,” he said. “And you be yourself.”

“I can do that,” I said with a little grin. “Been being myself from day one.”

“So, you saw the advert for a lodger?” Greggs asked not even changing his voice or adding in any kind of an acting oomph whatsoever.

“Yes,” I said, wiggling proudly. “I’m hoping to rent the room from you.”

“You sound American,” he said, leaning in his chair. “What are you doing here in Liverpool?”

“Oh, you know,” I said, rotating my wrist trying to think of a good lie. “I have family here. So… yeah, I came to visit my family for the summer.”

“Why don’t you stay with them if you’re visiting them?”

I stared at Greggs dumbfounded. “Uh, because their house is very moldy,” I said. “You guys have mold in 1958, right?”

Greggs gave me his iconic eye. “Your family is here in Woolton? What’s their last name?”

“Their name is …” I shifted my eyes. “Smiiiiiiiith.”

“Oh, Smith? I’m a Smith. I know all the Smiths in the area. Which ones are you related to? I’m sure John will be delighted to get to know a long-lost cousin.” He said the last little bit like a punch in the gut.

I gave him a dirty look then sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. I mean ‘The Ricardos’.”

“Do you often get Ricardos mixed up with the Smiths?” he asked with a laugh.

“Ricardo-Smith. With a hyphen. Super hermit people. You wouldn’t know them. And definitely, definitely not related to John in any way.”

“Uh-huh.” Greggs rubbed his bottom lip with the tips of his fingers probably reprimanding me in his mind.

“Well, okay,” I said, defending myself. “Like she would actually ask me those things. You’re just guessing.”

Greggs gave me a smile. “Right. Let’s do a different kind of role-play,” he said and nodded to the doors of the dome building. I grabbed my things and followed him in.

Inside was a virtual reality rink. Everything was a uniform off-white color, the floor, the ceiling. It was impossible to tell where the wall ended, and the room began. The door swooshed behind us and Greggs handed me a VR helmet.

“So what?” I asked. “Practice lying to Aunt Mimi or…”

“No,” he said, using his IND to activate the system. “The lying is only part of it. Your main mission is to woo John Lennon.”

“Yeah…”

“So, you better practice romancing him.”

“Right.”

I slipped on my VR helmet. The clean, white room blinked away, and I was in the hallway of a moving train car. A hazy smoke filled the air but still smelled as clean as the sterile VR rink. The footing underneath me swaying gently side to side and the sound from the wheels on the track were all around me. Chick-koo-Chick-koo. Chick-koo-Chick-koo.

Dr. Greggs appeared at my side and led me to the window of a passenger car. Inside, sat Lennon, with full Beatles haircut wearing a perfectly tailored black suit and a skinny tie. I raised my brow at Greggs.

“That’s not historically accurate,” I said. “This is like circa 1964 John, he’s not going to look anything like this.”

Greggs ignored my historical audit. “Go in there and talk to him.”

“It’s not accurate but okay,” I muttered under my breath and opened the door. I strode my way in, taking big confident and sexy steps as I made my way to John. I sat directly across from him on the unsupportive cushion. Lennon didn’t seem to notice as he was holding a book too close to his face. That part was probably historically accurate, but still.

I tossed my hair a little to get him to look up. He didn’t. So I flipped my hair harder and cleared my throat. He turned the page of his novel.

I know it was just a simulation, but something about his presence wanted to intimidate me right out the door. This was the lead singer of The Beatles. Thousands of girls have fainted in his presence. One had actually crawled through the sewer under Abbey Road just to hear him in the recording studio. Why did I think I could attract this guy? Why would he ever—

Greggs elbowed me in the ribs.

“Hi!” I finally blurted.

He brought those big hooded eyes up to mine, gave me a smile-less nod and returned to his book.

I looked hopelessly at Dr. Greggs, who made circles in the air with his hand, edging me to say more.

“So, how are you, twenty-four-year-old John Lennon?” I asked, again putting it out there that my unsuccess was in part due to the inaccuracy.

“Fine.”

Awkward silence apart from that loud click-clacking from the train. The muscles holding up my fake smile were burning.

“Okay, so, is that it?” I asked.

“Fine is fine. And that’s what I am,” he said without so much as flinching.

“Well, I’m just trying to have a conversation with you,” I said, keeping my stiff smile and hiding the frustration bubbling inside of me.

“Well, that was the conversation, wasn’t it?” John brought his book back to his long, hooked nose.

I blinked. “Are you seriously going to be this rude?”

“And it’s not rude to interrupt a man while he’s readin’?” he asked, throwing me that iconic scowl. “I wouldn’t get so much of a sentence read if I were polite to every weirdo who waltzed in here.”

“Oh, I’m weird? Goo goo g’joob, you son of a bitch!”

“Alright, not off to a great start,” Greggs said. The session paused itself. “Let’s try it again.”

In the blink of an eye, Lennon had reset himself. Legs crossed. Book up to the nose. But, hey, I hadn’t reset myself. My arms were tight across my chest and I had to close my eyes to keep from rolling them.

I took a deep breath in through my nose.

“Hi,” I tried again.

 Smile-less nod.

 My eyes darted around the train car as I desperately thought of something else to say. I came up with something so suddenly that a little gasp peeped out of my mouth.

“Okay, I know! Do you want to hear a joke?”

His eyes flashed up to meet mine, although his stoic expression remained.

“Why was World War I so fast?” I asked, giving him a giant opened mouthed grin. “Because they were Russian!”

Lennon stood and tucked his book under his arm. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to read in the dining car.”

“Don’t you want to know why World War II was so slow?” I yelled after him as he left the passenger car.

 “Alright, let’s take a break.” Dr. Greggs terminated the session.

The VR powered down with a bloop. I took my helmet off, sat on the ground and scrunched my fist into my cheek. What was I going to do out there in 1958? I couldn’t just terminate my session early. That means I would be killing someone. And I didn’t want to do that, even if he was a mean old fart.

“It wasn’t even accurate,” I grumbled.
“Your problem is that you get too sensitive,” Greggs offered without my having asked him. “You can’t be emotionally involved like that.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I thought you didn’t like the council’s position on things, because they’re too emotionally removed.”

“Yes, but you still have to be careful to protect yourself.” Greggs sat next to me on the white floor. “There are people and situations that you’re going to have to change and leave behind. You’re going to have to learn to emotionally remove yourself from that.”

I slapped my hands against my thighs. “Not sure if you noticed, Greggsy, but that’s not really my forte.”

Greggs gazed at his interlocked fingers for a quiet minute.

“One of my earlier travels, I was working with Marilyn Monroe. I also was introduced as a subject. Er, briefly, before the end. She befriended me quickly. She would tell me things about her life that I had never read about in the files. Things about her family that I could relate to, despite the 150-year age gap. I felt that we had a real connection. A deep friendship. And there were many times that I had to step back and imagine a glass wall between us,” he said, stopping to sigh. “One time, I was at a dinner party. And she dedicated and sang me a song.”

“What did you do?”

“I said, ‘wall of glass’, out loud. And I got up and left the room.”

“You just left?” I asked with a squeak.

“I kept that glass wall up even until the moment I—” His voice caught in his throat and he shook it off. “You have to go through with this mess, okay? You have to change things. Change the missions that come through that council. And to do that you’re going to have to distance yourself from this kid.”

“Glass wall.” I gave him a thumb’s up. “Be emotionally distant but also get him to propose to me. Got it.”

“You can do it,” he half-reassured me. “And you’ll know when you do. You’ll be able to feel it.”

My whole nose and forehead wrinkled. “What do you mean?”

Dr. Greggs got this grin on his face that I had never seen before. “When the timeline splits, you can physically feel the split happen.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “What does that feel like?”

“Like your rib cage is being tugged in two different directions.”

“Yeesh.” I clutched the center of my chest. “That doesn’t sound very fun.”

Greggs laughed and hopped to his feet. “You’ll see,” he said. “If I were you, I’d brush up on my flirting though.”

His footsteps echoed through the void as he left me alone on the floor. I looked at my helmet in my hands. Flirting had never been one of my strengths. If I couldn’t flirt with the computer, how would I handle him in real life?

“Ah, man,” I whispered to myself.

***

The next day, law class ended on time despite Thorne’s insistence that it began fifteen minutes before schedule. As all the other time travel apprentices deactivated their IND’s and got ready to leave. I had my eye set on the sharp-shouldered handsome guy who usually sat kitty-corner to me.

I awkwardly timed it so that when he got up to leave, I slid from my chair and rushed at him like a linebacker.

“Hi! Hey! How’s it goin’?” I asked, in a frantic desperate kind of way.

He stopped and kind of raised a brow. He was probably used to women throwing themselves at his feet. C’mon, Emmeline, you can do this. You can catch a man. Be confident.

“Sooooo…” I went to lean my arm against the desk, but it was too low, and it made me slump like a loose paper doll. “You’re in my law class, right?”

His brow remained at full attention as he looked around the very obvious travel law classroom. Right. Derpy, derpy duh. Okay, try again.

“Sooooo…” I crossed my arms on the table, but it kind of made me lose my footing. Instead of tripping I started swaying. As if swaying were the magical end all flirting move. See how cool and relaxed I am? I don’t trip over my own feet. No. Just imagine me swaying to a sexy saxophone jazz solo.

“Anyway,” I said. “The name’s Emmeline.”

“Okay,” he said and shifted his eyes. Acting uncomfortable and disgusted by me. Oh, my Galactica. Do you think he was actually disgusted by me? Everything about his body language said get me away from this scary clown.

“So, like,” I scratched behind my ear. “Do you want to hear a joke?”

“Uh—”

Before he could say no, I crammed my joke down his throat. “Why was World War I so fast?”

“Uh, I have to go,” he said, zipping up his temperature-controlled jacket and leaving me in his rejection dust.

Just before the door of the classroom could slam shut behind him, I called out, “Where’d you learn your manners? The AI Lennon?”

At the front of the classroom, Thorne was watching me with a grim expression. I pursed my lips and scrunched my nose.

“I’m going to have to shoot John, aren’t I?” I asked him.

Thorne stuck a hand in his suit pocket and deactivated the classroom system. “Just as it is with any mission, it’s best to prepare for the worst.”

I buried my face in my arms and groaned.

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