The Changes We Make

“Finally!” Jared shouted from underneath the machine. Rolling out from under the contraption, he wiped the debris and oil from his hands down the work overalls and gave his assistant the thumbs up. Jon flipped the switch and the room filled with the whirring and buzzing of machinery. The dial indicators rotated wildly as the noise rose up, increasingly chaotic, until…

Pop. With a final crash, the warning light exploded, shattering into thousands of shards. Jared and Jon, having huddled together in a corner, shielded their eyes. They looked up just in time to see the lights flicker out. With a sigh, Jon felt his way over to the corner; and grabbing the two flashlights stored in the corner, shuffled back to Jared in what was beginning to feel irritatingly routine. 

“Here you go,” Jon huffed, handing Jared the second flashlight. Nodding in thanks, Jared took it and began surveying the damage. “At least it's not as bad as yesterday,” he mused. Jon rolled his eyes and tiptoed his way over to the broom closet. “Leave it,” Jared called. “It’s too late to clean this all up tonight. We can do it in the morning. Let’s just head home”

“Fine, but Doris can have your head for leaving the lab a mess.” They both laughed as images of the kindhearted janitor once again berating the pair. Grabbing his keys, Jon managed to make it to the door. “Alright then, I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“See ya.” Jared waved back. With the propped door now providing a bit more visibility, he tried to make his own way over to the pair of desks to grab his own keys when he noticed a faint blue light shining from underneath the door. “What the hell?” Gripping the flightlight tightly, he scooted past the glass until he was face to face with his own contraption. He grabbed the door handle and quietly, slowly nudged it open. Inside, rather than finding the empty darkness that was supposed to accompany a non-functioning time machine, Jared could only stand there with his jaw hanging open. Inside the machine, all of the lights and sensors were on, calibrating position and tracking time. Every single tiny electronic appeared to be functioning. “Oh my god” Jared whispered in disbelief. 

“It works! It freaking works!” he cried in joy. He turned to call for Jon before realizing his assistant had already left for the night. Turning back to the machine, he couldn’t help but step inside, too tempted to finally try out his life’s work. The flashing lights and ticking monitors filled him with a childish sensation of utter bliss. He couldn’t help but be astounded that his dream finally appeared to be reality. He absolutely had to test it out! He turned to the main computer and typed in the time coordinates for 100 years in the future - it was the time he and Jon had decided would be their first destination. His finger hovered over the start button. With a final deep breath, he pushed down. And nothing. Nothing changed. A quick glance at the monitors revealed a different time, but there was no jump, no lurch, no blinding light indicating a huge defiance of the principles of nature. Disappointed, Jared hung his head. Just another failure after all. He was so upset that upon exciting his machine, he almost didn’t register that he was no longer in his lab. The bright light of the sun shocked him out of his depressed stupor, and he looked around in complete amazement. Before him lay a futuristic world, exactly like the old cartoons had predicted - flying cars coasted above his head, children playing on real hoverboards to his left, and a giant holographic advertisement for the latest pocket teleporter. He did it! A real and true time machine!

He ran over the group of children. If he had really just invented time travel, it was possible this whole society had him to thank - sparking the new revolution of technological development! He would have been famous and had to have gone down in history. One of the kids noticed him coming over and called out to their friends, who all began pointing at his machine and laughing. That slowed Jared down a minute. “What are you laughing at?”

“Your time machine. It’s so old.” That set the kids off on a new round of laughter. Jared, already quite irritated with these kids, decided to fire back. “Do you even know who invented the time machine?”

“Nope,” the kid replied. Jared froze. That was definitely not the reaction he expected. What the hell went wrong? He was supposed to have gone down in history, a name everyone knew like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but no one even knew who he was? Then a girl from the group spoke up, “You’re an idiot, Eliah. We just studied this in class. It was some guy named Richard Gearing.”

“No, you’re the idiot Mical.” Another boy from the crowd spoke up. “It was Jared something or other who made the first one, but he never made it public, so Gearing got all the credit.” The new information spun in Jared’s head. Never made public? Someone else got all the credit? He backed up, away from the children who had now begun to argue in earnest, and turned away. Running back, he jumped into his machine and pressed the reverse button. A few seconds later and he was stumbling out and into the counter, back in his own lab. Breathing hard, he tried to control his rising panic. “How in the world could this have happened? What am I going to do?” Jared took a couple of deep breaths to regain his composure. He started to think - something must have happened to prevent him from going public. But what could it be? Jared started to pace. There must be something he could do to correct this timeline. There was no way on Earth he was going to go done in history as the idiot who didn’t even get credit for creating time travel! Freaking time travel! He kept pacing back and forth until it hit him - he would just publish tonight. If he didn’t wait, then there was no way this Richard whatever would be able to get his designs. And even if he did, the committee would have already heard from Jared!

Decision made, he started to make his way over to his computer when a sudden thought struck him. What if the very act of just making his decision changed the future? He glanced at the time machine, now too curious as the potential effects of his new actions. He turned back to his computer, but once more couldn’t resist the temptation. Hopping back into the machine, he reset the coordinates for the same time and pressed the button. He got back out, and everything looked the same. “So much for my decision changing, though I suppose it does prove actions speak louder than words,” Jared mused. It was then that he noticed the kids. Instead of the derisive laughter that accompanied them last time, there was now only silence. Instead of amusement on their faces, their expression now only held fear. He walked over them, but for every step he took, they seemed to skitter back. Eventually, the boy he recognized as Eliah stepped forward.

“Is that a time machine?” he asked. Jared just nodded, now too confused for any other response. “Those are illegal, you know. They are really dangerous.” Mical now spoke up too. “Yeah, we just learned about it in class - the guy who invented them tried to bring it to the government, but they thought it was too dangerous, so they all got banned. They even executed the guy who made them because they were so bad.” Jared, for a split second, could only feel shock. Then anger welled up in him. Again! The future screwed him over! This was getting ridiculous. He immediately marched back over to his machine and came right back to his lab. He slammed his fist on the counter. How was he going to fix this? He stood there, hunched over the counter for a few minutes, until it finally struck him. He would just bring Jon on as a full partner! Jon was always better at getting approval and convincing people. Now satisfied, he quickly reentered the machine, and once again, returned to the same time. This time, without hesitation, he strode over to the kids and demanded “Who invented time travel?”

Mical spoke up this time, “there was this man named Jon....” Before she could say another word, Jared screamed. He ran back to the machine, and found himself in the lab. But this time, he saw Jon standing there. “I forgot my notes…” Jon trailed off, seeing the now murderous expression on Jared’s face. He tried to take a few steps back, when Jared flew at him fists raised. He began to beat his assistant, spouting nonsense like “it’s all your fault” and “you took my glory!” When the security finally showed up to haul Jared to prison and Jon to the hospital, neither of the two scientists could fully explain what was going on. They decided to shut down the lab, and put all of the material under confidential. One of the officers did a final sweep of the room, and unbeknownst to the others, pocketed some of the notes and an extra key to the room. On his way out, he waved goodbye to his buddies.

“See you tomorrow, Richard!”