Paradox (20 page)

“We will,” Zac said. “This has got to
work. You need to go somewhere else, someplace he won’t see you. If he
discovers you’re with me, it won’t work. Just stay close.”

“Will do,” Chen said. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Zac said. “And thanks for coming
after me to help. I owe you.”

Chen smiled. “I’m just surprised you
thought
I
was the one who tampered with the machine.”

Zac looked down in embarrassment. “Sorry
about that,” he said. “I didn’t think Bryce would do this.”

“It doesn’t matter right now. Let’s just
go find him.” Chen walked deeper into the crowd, disappearing into the throng
of people.

Zac stepped onto the escalator, riding it
up while turning to look below. He couldn’t see Bryce. He kept his head low so
that if Bryce was on the second floor, waiting, he wouldn’t spot Zac
immediately. Zac wanted to see
him
first.

He glided off the escalator, merging with
the people standing in line for tickets. He looked up at the movie times,
recalling all the titles of the old films.

He felt someone brush up against him. A
voice whispered into his ear. “I told you not to follow me.”

“Hi, Bryce,” Zac said without turning
around.

“You try anything, you say anything, I
will
pull the trigger,” he said. “Any minute now, your folks should be walking out
of the theater. Now, you can leave calmly, or you can watch me kill him. It’s
your choice. I don’t
want
you to have to watch it. We both know how
painful it is to watch a family member die.”

Bryce pulled him out of the ticket line
and to the side, not letting him turn around. Where was Chen? Did he see them?

“I’m not going anywhere,” Zac said. He
tried reaching down into his pocket. Maybe if he could grab ahold of Bryce, he
could use the Wand and take both of them back to the present. Then Bryce would
fail. He tried to be discrete, slowly moving his hand.

Bryce clutched his arm. “What do you think
you’re doing?” he asked. He squeezed Zac’s muscle with an iron grip. Zac winced.

Zac could hear more noise coming from
inside the theater lobby. A large group of people came walking out, laughing
and talking. A movie had just let out, and people were emptying past the box
office and into the mall.

“Looks like the movie’s over,” Bryce said,
“but the real show’s just about to start.”

Zac searched the crowd for his parents,
for himself. He wanted to yell out or to do something to get everyone’s
attention, to make it so that Bryce wouldn’t be able to act, but he couldn’t
think straight. Where was Chen?

And then Zac saw them: his parents,
walking side by side holding hands. His mom was reaching down, her other hand
holding his own.

He wished that his dad didn’t look the
same as he did in the present. Maybe if he’d looked different, Bryce wouldn’t
be able to identify him. He silently prayed that Bryce wouldn’t notice them,
that he might overlook them in the midst of all the people passing by.

He didn’t. “Well, here goes nothing,”
Bryce said. “I hope you said goodbye before you left.” He thrust Zac aside and
walked toward the family.

“Excuse me, sir. Are you Dr. Ryger?” Bryce
asked.

Zac’s dad let go of his mom’s hand and
approached Bryce. “Yes,” he said. “Do I know you?”

Bryce smiled. “Not for much longer.” He
reached into his pocket.

In a blur of motion, Chen rushed in from
the side and knocked Bryce to the ground. Dr. Ryger stumbled back in surprise.

Zac rushed in; the gun had fallen from
Bryce’s grip and had skidded across the floor. He made a dash for it before
anyone could see it and grabbed it.

Bryce struggled with Chen, turning around
and punching him. Chen tried to resist, but Bryce was stronger. He got
up,
heading toward Zac, but Chen grabbed his feet and pulled
him down, clamping his arms around them.

Zac looked up, clutching the gun. His dad
and mom stared at him in horror. He watched as his younger self began cowering
and clinging to his mother, crying and frightened.

Bryce struggled, trying to loosen his legs
from Chen’s grip. One foot slipped out, and Bryce slammed it into Chen’s face
repeatedly. Chen let go, and Bryce stumbled forward, trying to get up.

Zac had to get his parents out of here. He
rushed forward toward them, turning to see how close Bryce was. Chen was
standing now, trying to hold him off.

Mall security would be here any minute,
but Zac didn’t have time to wait. He hurried over to his dad, trying to think
of what to say, the words all jumbled in his mind. His heart raced as the
adrenaline pumped through his body. He got closer, but his dad backed away from
him. He tried to talk, but the words wouldn’t come. “Stop!” was all he could
manage.

Mass confusion and panic swelled around
him as people began to scatter, bumping into each other and screaming.

“Get the hell away!” his dad yelled at him.

Zac approached, confused. His younger self
was crying harder now.

“No,” he tried saying, “It’s okay.” He
bent down low, trying to talk to the frightened child that was him. “It’s okay.
Just listen to me.”

He heard an angry yell behind him, and
Bryce’s arm swung around Zac as he tried to grab the gun. Zac held it out,
trying to keep it from him.

Relentless, Bryce struggled with him and
kept grasping. Zac pushed against him, slipping and falling backward to the
ground.

A loud shot rang out, and Zac flinched at
the deafening sound. Bryce loosened his grip, and Zac felt himself being yanked
backward. Zac stared ahead in shock, watching as his dad hovered over his
mother. His younger self stood to the side, holding his hands over his ears and
screaming.

Zac tried to stand up but was knocked down
as his dad rushed forward, shoving him to the ground. He was filled with rage,
and he began pummeling Zac with his fist.

Zac tried to hold up his hand to defend
himself, but the blows kept coming.

His younger self began to cry, to plead
for his daddy, and Dr. Ryger loosened his grip and rushed over to the child.

Zac tried to get up, backing toward the
escalator. He had to get out of here; he had the gun, and he needed to get it
away from Bryce. He pulled out the Wand. He stumbled and scooted across the
floor, but as soon as he got up and regained his balance, his father turned
back around and slammed into him, pushing him down the escalator. The Wand fell
from his grip, and Zac tumbled and rolled down the steps, hitting his head and
bumping into people. He felt a sharp pain in his neck, and his arm was sliced
open by the edge of a step.

He could hear screaming. He felt someone
grab him tightly, lifting him up, and then a violent shaking filled his body.
The air was sucked out of his lungs, and his chest felt a pressure as if
someone was standing on top of him. And then, silence.

Zac crumpled to the ground. He opened his
eyes and was greeted by a blue light that enveloped him. He heard the familiar
humming sound of the pentagon, and sat up, confused. His whole body ached, and
he saw blood running down his arm. He set the gun down on the floor.

He looked behind himself. His dad was
there, still holding on to his shoulder and standing up. But it was his dad
from the present.

“Dad?” he asked. “What just happened? How
are you… how did I get back?”

Dr. Ryger lifted him up and carried him
out of the glass enclosure. He rested Zac against the wall. “Just rest,” he
said, consoling him.
“Just rest.”

His dad walked around the corner and came
back with a bottle of water. He handed it to Zac and sat down next to him.

Zac took a drink and breathed deeply. He
was sweating, yet he felt cold in the underground room. Nothing seemed real; he
was still in a daze and thought he might be dreaming. He could be having the
same kinds of nightmares that Bryce had. Maybe time travel affected the brain
that way. Maybe the effects put you in a dreamlike state that felt real.

His dad sighed and patted Zac’s leg. Zac
took another drink of the ice cold water and allowed it to wash down this
throat. He was definitely awake.

“You going to be okay?” his dad asked.

Zac stared at the wormhole chamber, empty
except for the pulsating, rhythmic light.

“What happened?” he asked. “Am I crazy, or
did I just see what I thought I saw?”

His dad nodded, looking to the side,
trying not to make eye contact. “Yeah,” he said, “you did.”

Zac sat in shock, unable to process what
it all meant. Tears filled his eyes, and he managed to whisper. “
I
did
it,” he said. “It was
me
.”

His dad said nothing but wrapped his arms
around his own legs, pulling them to his chest. He looked defeated, like a man
who was at the end of his rope.

“Is that how it happened?” Zac asked. “Was
it me all along?” Again, he was met with silence.

The answer was obvious, and neither of
them wanted to say it. He could still feel the gun recoiling as it went off,
could still see his mom double over, could see himself as a child crying
desperately, confused. And now, he was just as confused as before, but this
time he was overwhelmed with immense guilt. Finally, Zac made himself say the words
he dreaded most.

“I’m the one who killed her. It was
me that day, wasn’t it?” He turned to his dad, who met his gaze.

“Yes,” his dad said. “But it wasn’t on
purpose.” Tears began trickling down his cheeks. “You couldn’t have known it
would happen.”

“Is that why you blocked that date from
the system?” Zac asked. “Because it was the day she died?”

His father nodded. “I thought that I would
block it to protect you, to protect
me
from going back to try and stop
the killer. But even though I did everything I could to prevent one of us from
going back, it obviously was not meant to be blocked. Her death…” he paused.

Zac shook his head, his voice filled with
frustration. He wiped away a tear as he sat against the concrete wall. “No,” he
said. “I don’t want to hear it. Don’t you dare say that she was meant to
die.
” He looked at his dad. “Because that would mean that I
was always
meant
to kill her.
To kill my own mother.”
He began sobbing, burying his head inside his sleeve.

Dr. Ryger spoke with tenderness and put
his hand on Zac’s shoulder. “Son, don’t blame
yourself
.
This must have been how it always happened. I always wondered how her death and
my finding the Wand device were connected.”

Zac looked up. “Wait; where’s my Wand?”

“Back there,” his dad said.
“Back in the past where you dropped it.
Back where I found
it, where I will pick it up and take it with me. And then I’ll notice its
peculiar design, and I’ll analyze it and realize what it does.”

“So that’s when you discovered the Wand?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “I found it that
day, and I realized that its design would help me in my research to create a
way to travel through time. I was never able to get that one, the original
prototype, to work. That is, until you found it.”

Zac thought for a moment. “Hang on; what
do you mean?”

His dad stood up and started walking back
down the hallway toward the computers. Zac got up and followed him. He still
ached, but he was slowly slipping out of his shock.

“Here,” his dad said, pointing to the
small door recessed into the wall, the small compartment where Zac found the
Wand the first night he used it. “It wasn’t malfunctioning. It was being
activated by its original user.
You.”

Zac ran his hands across the space,
remembering the night he found it and stepped near the pentagon. He thought
about how the door had automatically opened, inviting him in. How it had taken
him back to the date of his birth.

“That means… that means the one I dropped
just now and the one I found the first day…” He struggled for a way to frame
his thoughts. “Those are the
same
?”

Dr. Ryger nodded. “Yes,” he said. “The one
you dropped back at the mall is the original. It’s the one you took from the
case, and it was lost when you were taken back to prehistoric times. That one
was destroyed.”

“But then you made me a new one, which we
activated,” Zac said, finally realizing it. “And that one is the one I left
behind at the mall. The one which becomes—”

“The original one, the one I had in this
case here. That’s why it worked for you.
You
were the original owner, so
that’s why it recognized you when you first discovered it.
Because
that same Wand would be made for you later.
It’s a circular paradox.”

Zac stood in awe as the machine hummed
louder, reverberating throughout the underground cavern. “That’s how it’s all
connected,” he said, thinking back to his dad’s note from the time capsule.
“Without mom’s death, you would never discover time travel. But without the
ability to travel through time, I would never have gone back to leave the
device on accident that day…”

“Do you see now that no matter how much
you wished to, you’d never be able to prevent her death?”

The lights flickered. Zac sat down next to
the computer, looking at the screen, but not really focusing on it. “Did you
know?” he asked.

“Know?”

“That I was the one to kill Mom?”

His dad sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Not at
first, but I started to wonder after the Wand activated itself when you used
it. I wanted to keep you from using it again, but I finally had to face that
fact that if it’s meant to happen that way, I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

Zac said nothing. How could his dad
knowingly
allow
him to kill his mom?

“I’m sorry,” his dad said, trying to get
Zac to face him. “I’ve been struggling over this since the moment you first
used the machine. I haven’t been able to eat or sleep much. I worried that
every day could be the day that it happened. I desperately wanted to find a way
to prevent it. When TEMPUS seemed to be malfunctioning, it gave me hope that I
could avoid it; I finally had a reason to shut it down.”

“But it still happened…”

“Fate had another plan,” he said.

Zac put his head down on the desk. How
could “fate” have a plan? Was there no way it could have been avoided?

Zac heard a metallic, clinking sound, and
then what sounded like gasping or choking. He lifted his head and turned to see
his dad, clutching his throat, sinking to the ground.

Wrapped around his neck was a coil of
metal, twitching and squeezing.