The Girl & the Machine (3 page)

“You said you learned how to be hot, got invited to parties and stuff, right? I learned by going back in the past, doing things over. It gave me confidence. I’d go back in time and crash parties. There were no consequences in the past, yeah? I could do what I wanted. No one would ever catch me. I started going to parties a couple of towns over, meeting girls I never would have met before. Drunk girls do a lot to boost a nerdy guy’s confidence, let me tell you.”

Franklin could tell Heather was judging him, and it made him feel as if he had to prove that he was right. “Okay, so, look. I was at this one party. It was huge. There were dozens of people there, maybe a hundred. My own prom and the party after had been…god, it was a disaster. Total swing and a miss. But at this party, I didn’t know anyone, not really. And if I made a complete fool of myself, I could just disappear into the present, yeah? So there was this one girl. Total hottie. She was quiet, like me, and by herself. By the pool. So…no consequences, right? I talked to her. She was nice. Maybe a little drunk, but who cares? I took her to the pool house, and we did it. She was reluctant, but it didn’t matter. Losing my v-card like that; shit, the next day at school, I walked like a king. And the other guys could see it, too. Things changed for me.”

Heather waited until Franklin met her eyes. “So you raped her?”

Franklin’s face registered shock. “Rape? I wouldn’t call it rape! It’s not like I ambushed her and ripped her clothes off and forced her.”

“You said she was reluctant.”

“Yeah, well, she had obviously been a virgin, too.”

“Did she say yes?”

“She didn’t say no.”

“Stop, uh-huh, I want you to think about this. You walked into the party looking to get laid. You knew you would have no consequences for whatever you did there. You met a girl, alone, and took her to a private place. I want you to really think about that night. Did you rape her?”

Franklin wasn’t sure why Heather was so stuck on that point. What did it matter? It was in the past… All he remembered of that night was the warmth of her body, the thrill of the conquest. It had been a conquest. A battle to overcome. Because…she had fought. Weakly, he thought, but maybe she’d been tired or drunk. The word “no,” had never actually been said, but then again, he hadn’t been listening, had he? He had barely even looked at her. Because when he did, when he looked down at her terror-stricken face and deadened eyes…no. He had just looked away. Easier to not look, to just feel. If she hadn’t wanted it, if she hadn’t wanted him, she should have said no. She should have fought harder. It wasn’t rape. Rape was done by criminals who jumped from dark shadows. Rape was violent. It had just been sex. He had wanted it.

But he had never really checked to make sure she had.

“Okay, fine, I’m no saint,” Franklin said, his voice rising. He found he couldn’t meet Heather’s eyes. “Maybe that played out badly.”

She didn’t answer him. The words hung between them. He could tell that she was disappointed in him, and it upset him in a way he hadn’t expected. When Heather described meeting the future version of him, it was noble. A man using his abilities for good, not just to get laid by a girl he didn’t even know.

“Were there other girls?” Heather asked. “Other girls who didn’t know you would have ‘no consequences’ for whatever you did?”

Franklin looked away. There had been. A dozen or more. He had learned—after trial and error—that the best method for him was to find the quiet girls, the ones who didn’t really seem to belong to the parties, the ones who followed him to the private places, the upstairs rooms or the dark backyards. He had learned to not look at them after he started. He had learned not to say much, to go straight to the action. And he had learned to disappear quickly after he finished, to leave them on the bed or in the damp grass, to walk out of sight and silently slip back to his own time. He had learned, he realized, to never even think the word “rape,” that it was only the word that made it true to him.

“I’m not that kind of guy anymore,” Franklin said quietly. He didn’t need to be. Being with those girls had given him the confidence he needed to be more outgoing, to join a frat, to risk meeting girls in his own timeline, to not fear rejection.

His abilities had turned him into the man he was now—confident, courageous, sure of himself and his potential.

“I haven’t been the best guy I could be, I guess,” Franklin said. “Maybe I did use my powers greedily. But you met the future version of me. Clearly I can change. Clearly
this
is the point where I stop using my ability to benefit just myself and really try to do things that are better for other people.”

Heather shot him a small smile. “I am sure that will be the outcome,” she said. She slapped her knees and stood up. “Are you ready to try?”

Franklin stared at her. “Tonight?”

Heather nodded. “Why not? It won’t take long to run just a simple trial.”

Franklin wanted to say no, but there was really no reason to. “What will it do?” he asked. The steel and chrome and wires and glass seemed heartless and menacing.

Heather took him by the hand and led him to the metal tube. Pushing a button, it opened with a hydraulic hiss. “You get in here,” she said. “The machine will read your genetic code—it will have to take a small sample of blood, but it won’t hurt—and it will use that to fuel the machine. Then you get out, stand on the platform, and go anywhere in time you want to go.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

She pushed him gently toward the open tube. He stepped inside—it fit him perfectly, like a custom-made coffin. Heather leaned on her tip-toes, her breasts pressing into his chest as she pulled down a set of tubes from the top of the metal enclosure. At one end was a long needle.

“Take your shirt off,” she said matter-of-factly.

“I—really?”

“Really.”

Franklin pulled his t-shirt off and dropped it at Heather’s feet.

“Okay, so this part may actually hurt just a little,” Heather said, holding the needle. “You should maybe shut your eyes.”

“Where are you putting that thing?” Franklin said, staring at the long, gleaming shaft of metal.

“Just trust me. It won’t hurt that much. And you’re going to thank me after.”

Something about those words…those words sounded familiar.

But he did it. He shut his eyes and turned away. In a moment, a hard, cold feeling rushed into his body, and he cried out in pain.

“Holy
shit,
” he screamed. “What was that?” He looked down at the trickle of blood sliding down his chest, at the tubing connected directly to his heart. “Ohmygod, did you stick that thing in my
heart
? Holy shit, holy shit!”

“Calm down,” Heather said, pressing her hands into his bare chest. “Calm down. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“There is a
needle
in my
heart!”

“You’re fine,” Heather said.

“You said this was going to be simple!”

She shrugged. “I lied.”

A thin line of red pulsed out of one end of the tube—his blood. Franklin shivered. Another line of something almost silvery with shimmering blue specks was pumping in through the tube, filling his heart with cold.

“What are you doing to me?” His hands went instinctively to the tube.

Heather glanced at him. “Pull that out, and you may go into cardiac arrest,” she said. When he didn’t move his hands, she added, “You could die.”

“You said this was simple; that it wouldn’t hurt!”

The look on her face dismissed his words completely. “You told me that once as well.” Franklin stared at her, unable to understand her words. “So, anyway,” Heather continued in her cool, scientific voice, “your blood is currently being scanned and the machine is fueling up.”

“Thank goodness; then I can get out of here, right?”

Heather smiled. “This liquid, here”—she tapped the other tube, the silvery-and-blue one—“is pumping cryostasis liquid into you.”

“Cryo-what?"

“Cryostasis liquid. It will actually slow down time for you. You won’t need to eat or sleep or use the bathroom. Once I shut this door, you’ll be living in your own personal loop of time, basically. Five years will feel like five seconds.”

“What?” Franklin asked, but the word came out slow.

Whhuuuuuuuuuuut?

Heather nodded to herself and checked something on a chart by the door. “It’s starting to hit your system, good. Before I close the door—before I complete the process—I want you to know that I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

Franklin stared at her.

“‘Just trust me. It won’t hurt that much. And you’re going to thank me after.’” She said the words in a cruel, mocking tone. “I will never forget when you said those words to me. You said them over me, while you were over my body, while your voice overrode my own. You didn’t even recognize me today, you asshole. And today, you
bragged
about what you did to me? That raping me made you the man you are?” She glared at him, derisiveness seeping from her body. “I was just learning how to be normal, and you yanked that away, just like you yanked my clothes off me.”

Horror filled Franklin’s chest, a hot sort of feeling drowned quickly out by the cold pumping through his body.

“You had no idea who I was. You had no idea what I was capable of. It didn’t take me that long to track you down. I didn’t want to believe that you had this impossible ability, but I watched you. You never noticed me. You never notice anyone but yourself. I watched what you did, and I realized how you could get away with it all.”

Heather put her hands on the door to the little metal coffin. Franklin struggled to move, to stop her from closing him in, but he couldn’t. She moved so
fast
, and his body was so, so
slow.

Before she closed the door, she paused, turning to face him. “At least I’ve found a way to make your power useful.” She snorted. “You thought you were some hero in the future, didn’t you? You really bought that I met future-you at that party. Nope. Just past-you. Just-asshole you. That’s who I met. There
is
no future-you.
This
is your future. All you are now is a battery. A battery to fuel
my
machine, to let
me
travel wherever I want, in the past, in the future—anywhere. And I’m not going to be like you. I’m going to be the hero you never could be.”

She slammed the door shut. The hydraulics hissed, and a wisp of smoke or steam or something clouded the glass faceplate. When it cleared, Heather’s face filled Franklin’s vision.

“You took a lot away from me that night,” she said, loudly enough for him to hear her through the glass. “But all I’m going to take from you now is your time.”

She flicked a switch, and a metal screen slid down over the faceplate.

Franklin was trapped in the darkness with nothing but time.

I
hope
you enjoyed this short story!

“The Girl & the Machine” is a part of a larger collection of science fiction short stories. You can find it and five other short stories and novellas in
The Future Collection
. Also included are sample chapters of my latest book,
The Body Electric
, and notes about the inspiration and development of each story.

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full of fun sci fi information.

B
eth Revis is
the
New York Times
bestselling author of the Across the Universe trilogy, as well as the companion novel,
The Body Electric
. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies and magazines. She currently lives in rural North Carolina with her husband and dogs.

For more information

• @bethrevis
  
• authorbethrevis