TIME & TIED: AWARENESS

ARC 1.1 - Of The Device

PART 2a: TIME OUT 1

Both of them fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs.

Ending up on top, Carrie took advantage of the situation, pinning her opponent's arms down to the ground. She idly wondered if she had actually learned something through flirting with that wrestler a few months back... then again, this guy wasn't putting up much of a fight.

"I said, who the hell are you?” Carrie reiterated. “And what are you doing out here?"

"Euh... I'm j-just... s-studying tree frogs," came the stammered response to Carrie's second question.

But that voice, and her now close-up view of what had only been a shadowy outline before... it answered Carrie's first question as well. There was only one person who sounded like that, and who had this particular shade of brown hair and glasses. Not to mention the fashion challenged button up shirt and pants.

"Frank Dijora," Carrie said in irritation. "Don't you ever give up on that pathetic excuse?"

"Euh... e-excuse?" He seemed unwilling to meet her gaze.

"Yes, you've used tree frogs as an excuse for snooping in the ravine the last three times I saw..." Carrie's voice trailed off as she realized that not only was she was pinning a school geek to the ground face-up in the ravine out back of her house, but that she was doing so in a cropped top and moderately short skirt. There was a reason Frank's attention wasn't on her face.

Carrie quickly jumped up and backed away, but not before slapping Frank soundly across the face. Oh, how utterly, utterly humiliating!

"Ow!" came Frank's anticipated response as he reached up to rub his cheek. "Hey, what was that for? You identified me, you know I'm no prowler..."

"Don't play innocent! I saw where you were looking!"

"Well, you're the one who jumped on top of me."

"I did NOT!" Carrie said angrily. "That is... well, you shouldn't have run away like that!" She could feel her cheeks burning. "And if you breathe a WORD of this at school, so help me I'll skin you alive!"

"As if anyone would believe me anyway," Frank mumbled. "Though really, Carrie, I’m only in the ravine to study tree frogs," he continued, stumbling to his feet and adjusting his glasses. “I read that they croak at night, and I never thought I'd be bothering anyone. Also, since I've only recently developed my frog interest, I never used this research as any 'excuse' prior to now, so I don't know what you're going on about."

Carrie narrowed her eyes. "All right then, explain your little device over there," she stated, gesturing back towards where she figured the black box was. "I suppose you use it to shock the frogs, which you then take back to your laboratory to perform further experiments on?"

Frank brushed off his pants. "No. In fact I stumbled across that device about a minute before you pounced on me. It's not mine."

Carrie sniffed haughtily. "Yeah, right. I'm supposed to take your word?"

"I don't care whether you do or not. But I don't have a motive to lie, do I?"

"People have been lying to me and playing with my mind for the last hour or so. I don't see why it should be ANY different with you!” Carrie snapped. But her anger against Frank was quickly running its course, with her more recent troubles and confusions reasserting themselves in her mind.

Her former adversary simply shrugged back. "Look, I came here looking for frogs, not some bizarre looking clock and not you, Carrie. So if we’re through here, I'll be going.”

"Fi-- wait, clock? What clock? You mean that device?"

"Yeah. It had eight digits displaying today's date, I assumed it was a timepiece of some sort."

A clock. Of course, Carrie realized, that's what the numbers meant! But it didn't explain the electric shock, or her having a clone, or the cancellation of Julie's party.

"A clock," Carrie repeated aloud. She looked back towards the device. "I don't suppose you remarked on anything else, did you?"

"I hardly had the time," Frank responded dryly. "Why?"

"I..." Carrie paused. "Nothing." She didn’t need his help. She moved back through the brush, trying to pick out the outline of that box thing again in the dark... there it was, over by that clumping of dirt she'd fallen into not so long ago.

“I’m guessing that the device isn't yours either?" Frank asked, following after her.

Carrie didn't answer. She was too busy looking over the CD player/cash register/slot machine, noticing that the digital readout had changed. Worse than that, if one assumed that it read Month/Day/Year, things were very, very wrong... it indicated that today’s date was, in fact, two years in the past.

"Frank... did you do anything to this box?" Carrie inquired, feeling a knot growing in her stomach.

Frank crouched down next to Carrie. "Like what?"

"Did you change these numbers?"

Frank blinked down at the readout, adjusteding his glasses again. "No, same as before. Today's date."

"That's not the date," Carrie stated, feeling the knot in her stomach tightening. “It’s not showing the correct year. Or day, for that matter. Only the month is right.”

"What are you talking about, Carrie? What year do you think it is?" he asked, his tone mildly amused.

Before she even knew what she was doing, Carrie had turned and grabbed hold of two fistfuls of Frank's shirt. She glared at him, eye to eye. "Don't you screw with me, Frank Dijora," the blonde snapped. "If you're screwing with me, by heaven you'll wish you'd never been born!"

"C-Carrie...!" Frank gurgled out in reply. "It’s no joke! That’s honestly the date!" He repeated it aloud, dispelling any notion that she was misinterpreting things.

The worst thing was that it made sense. Because the date he gave was the very day that her crystal swan had been broken. The last present her mother had ever given her. You didn't merely forget the day you lost something precious like that.

She'd been trying not to think about it. After all, she'd sworn revenge on whoever had done it, and then had never been able to find the one responsible. Could it be... she'd sworn revenge on herself...?? No, no, the repercussions of being lost two years in the past were bad enough, without adding that into the mix! This had NOT been the sort of time travel she’d envisioned earlier that evening!

Carrie released Frank's shirt and started shaking. She hadn't cried about her mother in over two years - or, what, half an hour ago depending on your point of view? - but now, for some reason, she couldn't stop a tear from trickling down her face. Which just upset her even more, what with Frank being here... and that made her cry more.

God, this had to be a dream. This wasn't really happening. She refused to believe that this was happening!!

***

Frank found he could only stare. What could he do? He didn't know Carrie Waterson all that well. Oh sure, they had been in some of the same junior high classes, but given his predisposition for the library and Carrie's for the gym they had never really interacted.

Of course, she did have something of a reputation coming into high school... there had been rumours from guys who’d been past first base with her. Still, Frank generally chalked that up to locker room bragging, as the few times he'd seen Carrie with anyone it had been obvious who was in control. Things wouldn’t go any further than she allowed.

Yet here was Carrie, practically sobbing in his lap. He'd never heard of her breaking down like this before. Certainly not over some simple confusion regarding the date!

Yet... now that he looked more closely at her, wasn't her hair longer than he remembered? And wasn't she a bit more... well, okay, Carrie had always been one of the early bloomers, but when she’d been on top of him, she’d seemed more... oh what on earth was he doing, sizing up her attributes when she obviously needed help of some sort! Or did she? "Carrie, how old are you right now?" Frank ventured.

"Sixteen," Carrie choked out. Then she blinked and apparently tried to reign in her emotions as she wiped her eyes.

Frank frowned. He couldn't remember exactly how old Carrie was, but he knew there wasn't that much of a difference in their ages. "You really have traveled in time then," he concluded.

Unless this was some bizarre ruse to ridicule him within his first month of high school. But given Carrie's reactions, and the fact that he hadn't told anyone of his plans for being in the ravine, that would be pretty far fetched. "Was it this device that did that to you?"

"Brilliant, Frank," Carrie retorted, some haughtiness creeping back into her tone as she fumbled through her shoulder purse, pulling out a tissue. "I see now why you won the academic achievement medal last year."

"Yes, well, that won't actually be for another year then," Frank responded automatically, turning his gaze over to the apparent 'time machine'. It looked very unassuming. "What exactly happened?"

Carrie blew her nose. "Why do you care? I hope you realize who would win in a battle of my word against yours over what you've seen from me tonight!"

"Carrie, I'm trying to help you here," Frank answered patiently. "My dad’s an engineer. I've played around with the inner workings of clocks and other electronic devices before. Maybe I can do something to this machine and get it to return you home." At least, it would be an interesting challenge.

"Oh." There was a pause as Carrie apparently weighed the pros and cons of that idea. "It... it worked like a slot machine," she finally admitted. "I put in a quarter, pulled the lever, got some electrical shock and then the next thing I knew the world had turned upside down. I think there's a panel in the top of the device, but I couldn't get it open. Do you really think you can help?"

She started twirling a strand of hair in her fingers while batting her eyelids, the effect somewhat diminished by the fact that her eyes looked to be a bit red from crying. It was hard to tell in the dark.

“Maybe,” Frank said. He examined the device more closely and could now see the circular outline of a panel on the top himself. He pushed on it but nothing happened.

"Yeah, like THAT will work," Carrie remarked behind him. "What are you going to try next, pulling the lever?"

Frank resisted the urge to say something in reply, instead hefting the machine - which proved to be lighter than expected - to turn it around in his hands. He couldn't feel any obvious places where the sides of the box had been screwed or welded in place, which was odd in and of itself.

So how to look inside? He gathered from Carrie's attitude that pulling the lever wasn't going to help. Yet that seemed to be the only potential connection to the inner workings of the device. Maybe if he looked at it a bit counter-intuitively? After all, there were two ways to handle a lever.

Setting the device back down, Frank grasped the arm on the device (he heard Carrie snicker) but instead of pulling, he gently pushed it away, towards the back. There was some resistance, so he pushed it a little harder... and a bit harder... belatedly wondering if too much force would cause the thing to snap off in his han--

The lever abruptly fell back, with the result that the circular section on the top popped up. Frank grinned. "Oh ye of little faith," he remarked aloud, leaning over to peer into the box. He couldn’t see anything. "But I need more light," he continued. "Can I take this back to my lab?"

"What, can't fix it here with one hand tied behind your back?" Carrie grumbled. Frank simply turned and looked at her until Carrie heaved a sigh of resignation. "Yes, fine, but can we hurry up about it? It IS getting late, and I'd like to get back to the proper year before breakfast."