TIME & TIED: ESCALATION

ARC 2.2 - To the Future

PART 36b: QUESTION EVERYTHING 2

"I suppose," Luci agreed. She offered up a small smile. “Please, don't think I'm unsympathetic. I really wish there was something more we could try. But with no time machine, no information about Julie’s whereabouts, and no way for us to understand, let alone treat Carrie's condition, we HAVE to move on. If we obsess... I don’t know. Maybe we will all go nuts."

“I hope not,” Frank sighed. “Give me one more night though. To reflect. Inspiration could strike."

Luci rubbed her thumb and index finger in against her eyes, finishing by pinching the bridge of her nose. Then she reached out to close their textbook. “Sure. And if it does strike, or even if you simply want to talk - you know my number. I-I’m here for you, Frank. Yeah? You haven’t forgotten about how I feel about you, right?" she added more softly.

"I haven't," Frank assured. "Thanks, Luci." He smiled back at her, and the two of them hugged. Unfortunately, his expression held up only as long as it took for Luci to pack up her things and leave the Dijora household.

***

Frank was still frowning after dinner, as he lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Okay,” he asserted. “Tomorrow, I am going to time travel back to NOW, so that I have a time machine NOW that I can use tomorrow to time travel back to NOW.”

And ... nothing changed. He idly wondered if they needed Carrie to make something like that work. “I don’t even know when we’d need to start changing things for her, even assuming we could,” Frank groaned, rolling onto his side.

His phone rang. He grabbed for it, wondering who would be calling - and for some reason, there was no data available. “Hello?” he said, answering anyway.

"Frank Dijora?"

Frank frowned. It was an older male voice. Someone he didn't recognize. "Yeah, speaking," he confirmed.

"Frank, you need to tell the police about Julie LaMille."

Frank was instantly sitting up. "Who is this? What do you know about Julie?" None of their group had said anything, and Carrie had never been lucid enough to give a statement. Officially, Julie was simply a missing person.

"If you don't reveal the whole story about Julie, Carrie's condition will continue to deteriorate."

Frank's grip tightened. “Y-You know something about Carrie's condition too?!"

The voice sighed. “Listen, Frank - you and your friends are playing with forces you don't understand. Only by revealing Julie’s part in this can we help set time back on its proper course."

“Set time... proper course... are you from the future?"

"Immaterial. Are you even listening? I don’t want to force the issue here, but I will if I have to.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Frank protested.

“Frank, you will now scratch your nose,” the voice interrupted.

“I will now scratch my nose,” Frank agreed, doing so. “But how does that even--“ Frank froze. He looked down at his hand. Why... why had he done that?

“Again, I don’t WANT to force the issue here. But I WILL if I have to.”

Frank swallowed hard. “W-Who... Who are you?”

A pause. “Let’s call me Carrie’s Guardian Angel. After all, I did manage to save her once before, when she took a time trip out into the middle of Algonquin Park. Without coins. Did she ever mention that trip to you?”

Frank almost replied in the negative - only to have all the pieces fall into place. June, two years in the past, one of their first trips, when they’d both been trapped in the woods, and Carrie had run into the guy with the nickel who had said ‘Guard it’. Was it possible? Could this be the same guy? “Maybe,” he realized.

“Fine. So, you will set the record straight concerning Julie?”

“ONLY if you answer a few questions first,” Frank retorted, hardly believing his own audacity.

Silence. Frank tensed. Had he blown it? But then, a response: “If I do that, you will do as I ask?”

Frank cleared his throat. “Yes.”

“Then I’ll allow three questions.”

“Three?!”

“I’ll be nice and not count that as one of them.”

Frank closed his eyes. He forced himself to slow down and think. He had an opportunity here. But with a question limit, there was no point in asking anything which he might now be able to deduce.

First, this guy - Carrie had referred to him as a ‘Shady’ guy back then, and it seemed a good enough moniker - knew too much. Odds were good that Shady was another time traveller. Or knew someone who was. So, were others changing the past too? Is that why Carrie had said something to her father about the wrong timeline? Or was it changes by Julie causing the problem?

Shady’s request implied the latter. Despite being suspicious of the messenger, he had to get more information about that first.

“First question,” Frank said. “What is it Julie changed in the past, which is causing Carrie to react in our present?”

“Julie died.”

Frank nearly dropped the phone, Shady’s response had been so cavalier. “I’ll need proof,” he demanded.

“Her teenaged self died on November 9th, precisely three days before she was even born. I thought you might ask, so I checked in the library. You can look it up in the newspaper published by her home town. Though of course, they didn’t know the person was Julie. She was simply listed as a Jane Doe.” The man chuckled. “Proof that time doesn’t like it when people attempt drastic alterations to their own histories. Ironic, in a way.”

Frank forced his emotions down. Two questions left, and he now had a lot of new information. New fact: Shady couldn’t time travel at will. If he could, why bother looking things up in old newspapers? Further, his “ironic” implied that what was on the surface here contrasted with what was really happening... to the point of being a complete opposite. Could that imply that Shady was also changing history, more subtly?

Shady coughed. “Are you still there?”

“I’m trying to parse the fact that you’re saying someone I know is DEAD,” Frank sniped. He got another sigh in response.

Okay, where to go with this? Well, if this guy could effect changes like making Frank scratch his nose, surely he could convince the police without Frank’s help. So why hadn’t he?

“Second question,” Frank said. “Since you can seemingly force your will onto people, why even give me the option here?”

“Mmph,” Shady grunted. Frank got the impression he didn’t like this question. “So, there are limits. Sure, I could make you tell the police yourself the next time you see them, but depending on how they react, you might end up coming across as a robot, or coerced or something. That would be bad. Besides, free will is important! It’s the whole reason I..." His voice trailed off.

“It’s the whole reason you what?”

“Is that your last question?”

Frank grimaced. “No.” Damn. Shady was getting canny.

So, Shady could influence individuals, but he didn’t necessarily have control over how things played out? Interesting. Not to mention a stronger case for him being behind all of this in the first place.

Frank decided his last question had to be about Carrie. Shady didn’t seem to care that Julie was dead - did this ‘Guardian Angel’ truly care about Carrie, or was she a means to an end?

“Third question.” Frank paused to frame it in his mind. “How do you know for sure that Carrie will be all right, once the truth about Julie’s role in her injury comes out?”

“I don’t.”

Frank stared at his phone, but there was no immediate follow-up. He clenched his jaw. “That’s not an acceptable answer.”

More grumbling. “Carrie Waterson is having trouble rationalizing the sequence of events surrounding the awakening of her powers,” Shady said at last. “Because Julie was the trigger this time, and--"

“THIS time?” Frank interrupted. His certainty about a fixed timeline was eroding fast.

“Because Julie was the trigger,” Shady amended swiftly, “And because Julie was temporally displaced so soon afterwards, Carrie is experiencing a disconnect between present and past. My most reasonable hypothesis is that she now believes herself to be in the past too. So if we construct a present where Julie is a fugitive rather than merely missing, Carrie will be more grounded, and her disconnect can be resolved.”

“But you don’t know.”

“I said that already. There are a number of uncertainties here, including how far that-- how far your Carrie’s insanity has progressed.”

Frank bit down on his lip. “Seems like we should use time travel to prevent the shooting in the first place then.”

Shady grunted. “Okay, free information since it scares me to think that you might actually try something that STUPID.” He actually sounded worried. “You rewrite what has happened to this point? Carrie will be faced with simultaneous futures, one in which her powers are awakening, and one in which they are still dormant. The resulting temporal stress would destroy her mind. From the inside out. Likely taking this whole town along with it.”

"Oh..." Frank swallowed. “But what powers--"

"No more questions,” the man retorted. "Your turn to keep up your end of the bargain.”

Frank winced. “Fine, Shady, I-I’ll tell the police before next week.”

“Shady?” the guy yelped. “What is WITH you teenagers and your labels? And you want to wait until-- Look, Frank, you bear THIS in mind! Every MINUTE you wait is one MORE minute for your precious Carrie to slip further away. Understood?”

And the line went dead.

Frank collapsed back onto his bed. That whole conversation had been... surreal. Beyond insane. He had to write this stuff down, before he forgot. No, wait - better idea. Frank reached back for his phone, dialling another number with a shaky hand.

"Hello... Luci?" Frank said as soon as he heard the familiar voice on the other end. "There's been a new development."