TIME & TIED: AWARENESS

ARC 1.1 - Of The Device

PART 4a: FLIGHT ATTENDANCE 1

Carrie looked skeptically at Frank’s excited expression. "You've figured out how the time machine works," she repeated back

"Yes!" Frank continued eagerly. "My goodness, it's so obvious... you say people don't check the dates on coins. What if the machine DOES? Remember how I said it wasn’t until my second coin that the machine gave the option of jumping the century mark? That second coin, I saw it was from the 1990s! That silver box in the device, what if it has some way of identifying when a coin was minted?”

He reached out to grasp her hand, so she flinched away from him. “Think, Carrie,” he insisted, “when you dropped your first quarter into the time machine, was it from two years previous to your present? From the year of my present?”

“Did I not JUST say people don't check dates on coins??” Carrie retorted in annoyance. She frowned. "Though, it certainly could have been. As I was wondering if the quarter would be a waste of money, I noticed it had one of those silly minted designs on it, from a recent year. But it was dark, so I’m not sure..."

“Okay, working theory! As long as I have a quarter from my present with me, and you have one somewhere in your purse at my lab, we’re home free!” Frank broke open his roll of quarters and started to look through them.

"But... that's a really stupid way to build a time machine," Carrie objected. "In order to travel into the future, you’d have to have money that hasn't been minted yet. It's... uh, not scientific," she concluded, deciding to reuse his earlier objection.

"Actually, travel to the future has never been the problem, we do that naturally," Frank responded, his attention now on the coins. “There’s even some mathematical sense behind this manner of travel. I mean, theoretically, the machine has got a four dimensional grid - what better way to pinpoint the year aspect than with the money minted and used at the destination time? The only thing you have to do is remember to bring along a quarter from your departure era... like this one!" Frank held up a coin triumphantly.

"Yeah, okay, so you're saying it's a fluke that we're here? Not at all related to the time machine reading my thoughts about my mother?" She didn’t like it. Her reasoning had been MUCH more elegant.

“Right. There’s randomness built in, so I figure the machine must have chosen one of the two quarters I fed in to land us here. Though you may be right in some sense, since my theory doesn't take into account the physical plane - the other three dimensions on said grid.” He shrugged. "Remember, my initial inspection assumed that the machine contained time circuits. I wasn't aware of any spatial alteration occurring during temporal displacement." He started picking through the quarters again.

"Right, sure," Carrie affirmed, abandoning comprehension for the moment in favour of what she hoped was a distracting smile. "So, what about that drink?"

Frank didn't even look up. “Hold on, I want to finish checking these dates... hey, this one could take us back to 1972!"

Carrie stared in surprise, her expression morphing back into annoyance. She was being ignored in favour of COINS? Of all the guys in the world to have as a time traveling partner, how had she wound up with him? She raised her foot.

"Ow!! Geez Carrie, I think I preferred it when you were just slapping... hey, where are you going?"

***

A little over 90 minutes later, both Carrie and Frank were standing near one of the entrances to the terminal's departures area.

"I'm still not sure this is a good idea," Frank reiterated. He cast an eye towards the position of Carrie's feet as he continued. “There’s a lot of things that could go wrong."

“Shut up, Frank," Carrie said tersely. Honestly, she was starting to understand why she’d never hung out with geeks. Subtle finesse was completely lost on them. At least Frank had finally gotten around to buying a drink. And now she was now going to save her mother. So things were going to be all right.

Carrie glanced at the clock. As she remembered it, their family dinner had gone a bit later than expected, so her father had simply driven by the airport, dropping mama off. For the last time. Carrie shivered involuntarily once again. That had to change.

It would change. Her mother had just walked in.

Carrie stumbled forwards a few feet, away from Frank. "Ma-- Mrs. Waterson?" she called out. The woman with short blonde hair, wearing a business suit and carrying a suitcase, turned in her direction. At the attention, Carrie's knees felt weak and her throat felt dry. It really was her... oh God...

"Do I know you?" her mother inquired with a trace of annoyance in her tone.

"Yes! I mean... n-no... I-I'm..." I'm your daughter... "I'm from the firm. Your firm. The firm sent me, I'm an intern." Carrie realized she wasn't vocalizing too well, but being presented with her mother, ALIVE... she could swear the hammering in her chest was audible throughout the terminal.

In some sense, she was three years old again... mama looked exactly as she did in the pictures Carrie had. Was there a chance her mother would be able to figure out that Carrie was, in fact, her daughter? Who had come back to save her life? Wait, she’d said something! Questioning why Carrie was here?

"There's bad weather in Bermuda," Carrie blurted.

Her mother blinked in surprise. "What ARE you going on about, girl? I doubt they'd call the documentary that, it's dealing mostly with historical facts."

Carrie realized belatedly that her mother had asked about more specific news pertaining to the assignment. "No, I mean there is bad weather in Bermuda. You'll have to delay and get Florida checked out in the plane. The plane checked out in Florida!" Oh God, she was muffing this! Now her mother was looking at her funny.

“Are you sure I don’t know you?" Mrs. Waterson continued.

Carrie's heart got caught somewhere in her throat. There it was. Recognition. On some level, her mother KNEW! Maybe Carrie could drop the pretence and just explain what was going to happ-- "You're the intern Bob hired, aren't you. Is he still gunning for this assignment? Look, you tell him I don't have time for his stupid gags, I have a plane to catch." She turned away.

"N-no!" Carrie gasped out, reaching for her mother's arm. "This is no joke! Please listen to me, mama--" she stopped and clapped her outstretched hand back onto her mouth. That had torn it. Though, at least her mother had turned back.

"What did you call me?"

"I..." Well, she might as well say it now. "M-mama. I'm... t-this will sound crazy b-but... I-I'm your daughter..."

Her mother stared. "You're my daughter," she repeated. "Right. My daughter is three years old, kid.”

"I- I've grown up, mama," Carrie continued, feeling tears welling up in her eyes yet again, damn it all. "And I've come through time to tell you that y-you can't go on this plane trip or else you'll d-die!"

So much for the well thought out plan. It was like the mere presence of her mother had turned her into a gibbering preschooler again.

***

Elaine Waterson peered more closely at the person claiming to be her "daughter". She supposed there was some passing similarity between them. But time travel? Dying on this trip? Nonsense. She would be up for promotion after this job, if it went well... it HAD to be that jerk Bob, trying to mess things up for her. Time to make her intentions towards her co-worker quite clear.

“Okay, girlie. You go back and tell Bob to stop screwing around in my affairs like this,” she declared. "In fact, you tell him that if he persists in pestering me like this, then by heaven he may wish he'd never been born!"

Elaine turned to walk away again.

She had no way of knowing that, to the sixteen year old, it was like a knife had been plunged directly into her heart. Behind the blonde woman, Carrie’s vision blurred as she tried to choke in a breath. Taking a step forward, the teenager wondered if she was about to grab onto her mama's leg and sob, or grab onto her mama's shoulders and shake her until she listened. Before she could do either, someone else blocked the way.