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Futures 8: Elle, Night, Molly
June 6, 2037
“Where is she, Night?” Elle said, intense.
“Elle, I don’t know.” Night answered. “Al, does Tío remember what happened on June 6, 2037 when he lived it the first time, as Al?”
“Of course,” said Al. “Molly came back on schedule. He wouldn’t have allowed us to go ahead if the mission had failed.”
“Do you remember your meeting with Molly in 2012?”
“Perfectly,” Al answered.
“What were her exact words when she left?”
“She told the gate, ‘Authenticate.’ The gate answered, ’Molly Johnson. Authenticated by voice and facial recognition. Target?’ She answered, ‘Target preset 2.’ Then it went black, as usual. Before she stepped through, Molly told me, ‘We will see each other again, Al.’”
“What are we doing, Night?” said Elle.
“Molly was sent somewhere other than here. I’ll figure out where, then I’ll send one or more of you to rescue her.”
“Hurry, Night! She could be embedded in rock inside some mountain!”
“No, Elle. That can’t happen. The time-gate can’t materialize in space already occupied by something else.”
“Well, she could have been sent to outer space, and be gasping out her last breaths.”
“That, unfortunately, is possible,” said Night.
“Well, then, hurry, for God’s sake!. How can you be so calm?”
“You know what I am, Elle. Panic is not in my nature. I know that’s frustrating, but the truth is, panic will not help.”
“OK, OK, you’re right,” said Elle. “Panic is not helpful. But haste is!”
“Actually, Elle,” said Night, infuriatingly placid. “Haste is not helpful, either. We have a time machine. Once I know where Molly went, I will send you there and then, to that very moment. You will arrive seconds after Molly.”
Elle looked ready to explode. “OK, OK, fair enough. But I’m dying! Find her!”
…
“I’ve got her, Elle. Fortunately, I have an exact record of Target preset 2 still. It is not in fact fully stable. It’s only quasi-stable. My fault, Elle—I should have seen that wasn’t good enough. It won’t happen again.”
“So, You’re saying that the time-line Molly is on is not this one, but another close to it.”
“That’s it,” Night said.
“But,” said Al, “Can you identify that other one?”
“I think so,” said Night.
“What’s there?”
“I can’t say in detail. But because it’s close to our time-line, it will look a lot like this. Molly will have stepped out of her time-gate into a building at this location in Dallas on June 6, 2037. But the recent history of that time-line may be different from ours. I don’t know what she’ll encounter.”
“Send me there!” Elle asked.
“Yes, Elle. When the time-gate opens, go through. I’m turning off safeguards—you won’t need to authenticate. Grab Molly and pull her back through the gate—it’ll be open behind you when you step out. I’ll shut it down as soon as the two of you come through.”
The time-gate went black. Elle stepped through.
June-6, 2037, Molly’s time-line.
“We will see each other again, Al,” said Molly, and stepped through the time-gate into the time travel lab.
Except it wasn’t. It looked like the same room, and the time-gate she had just stepped through was there behind her, now inactive and clear. Everything else was different.
There were desks here, and men. Big men, with guns, wearing uniforms. They were as startled as she was.
“Who are you!” a man behind her yelled. “You don’t look American to me. Got any ID?” He grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her back.
“Hey, that hurts! Let me go.” she yelled back at him.
The time-gate alarm sounded. Molly’s captor was momentarily distracted. She stamped hard on his instep. His grip loosened—Molly twisted away.
Behind him Elle came through—tall, pale with fear and fury, a halo of flaming hair standing out around her face, eyes flashing. She clawed Molly’s assailant’s right cheek with one hand and (purely by luck) executed a perfect elbow strike to his left temple. He staggered, stunned.
Every man in the room stepped back. Some of them fumbled at their guns. Elle didn’t wait. She dragged Molly back through the gate.
Immediately the gate went from black to clear. Then the frame dissolved away into nothing.
June 6, 2037
“Are you all right?” they said in perfect unison, then laughed at each other.
A few seconds later Al said, “I hate to break this up,…”
“But you have two parents and a sentient supercomputer here that would dearly love to know what happened” Anne added.
“Jeez, Elle,” said Molly, still holding her tight. “You’re terrifying! Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
“Terror. Adrenaline is amazing!”
That was the signal for general chatter. They were still going an hour later, although it had only taken five minutes to fill each other in on the most important facts.
“Do you two still want to celebrate tonight?” Anne asked. “We’d understand if you don’t’ feel up to it after that.”
“Oh, yeah, for sure!” Elle answered.
“Would you dance with me Molly?
It’s Saturday Night.
There’s a chill in the air,
Do you think that you might?
Wanna dance with me, Molly?”
Molly bowed to Elle, “My girl!”
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Afterword
The cover image is a phase portrait of
A phase portrait is a visualization of a complex function introduced by Elias Wegert in Visual Complex Functions: An Introduction with Phase Portraits.
The portrait is rotated 30° clockwise. A semi-transparent image of Night (see Futures 4: Night) is superimposed.
The Lost Boy
This song doesn’t really fit the story. But I decided to use it, anyway, because it fits Molly.
i enjoyed so uniqe style
Love this! 💯
I liked how Night pointed out that neither panic nor haste was a good idea in the situation, and that was fortunate that Elle was able to make sure that Molly got back through the gate! 🙏