Edison Gates tries to remember what he does for a living, where he lives, and who he loves, but his memory is a scrambled haze.

He only knows that wherever he is going is better than wherever he had been.

Edison looks at himself in the rear-view mirror. North of forty, he’s hollow-eyed, his skin is blotchy, his dark hair is thinning, and his lean physique lacks muscle.

“…Must have a desk job…,” he mutters.

The radio blasts Golden Earring’s “Radar Love.” He steps on the gas, trying to ignore the darkening sky ahead.

The first crack of thunder turns the song into static. A streak of lightning rattles his Subaru BRZ sports car.

The next bolt of lightning hits the BRZ. Edison’s wavy brown hair stands on end and his eyes water as everything fades to black.

Ernie Holmes’ flatbed pulls up behind Chief Anders Enberg’s cruiser.

The two men walk toward the wreck.

“The timeline has changed,” Anders says.

“Yeah, I feel it.”

Chief Enberg is a uniform popping six’ 4” with a full mane of blond hair, ice blue eyes, a slight Scandinavian accent, and a flawless, confident smile. Beefy Ernie, who struggles to find clothes that fit his frame, labors to walk.

“Did they take him into town?” Ernie asks.

“Yeah, straight to Doc Tesla. He said his wife’s name before he passed out.”

“Think he’ll be able to adjust?”

“This is his doing. He doesn’t have much of a choice,” Anders replies. “Let me check inside. Then I want you to put the car in the lake.”

“C’mon, Chief. You know what a car like this is worth?”

“Your life. You know the rules, Ernie. Nothing from another time period.”

Anders surveys Edison’s wrecked BRZ. He takes Edison’s cell phone. Checking the glove compartment and the back seat, he’s relieved to find Edison’s watch nuzzled against the accelerator.

When Edison’s eyes open, a dark-haired doctor with horn-rimmed glasses and a grim expression is monitoring his breathing with a stethoscope.

“Beating like a stampede,” he says to Anders.

A blonde-haired woman with striking Nordic features and penetrating blue eyes asks, “That’s good, isn’t it?

Edison tries to sit up.

“Easy,” Doctor George Tesla cautions. “You’re badly concussed.”

“…My car…,” Edison mutters.

“Is now part of your past,” Anders says.

“Where am I?”

“New Britain. Where did you expect to be?”

Edison considers the question. “I…I honestly don’t know. I’ve forgotten.”

“Memory loss. That’s expected,” Doc Tesla says. “I recommend you stay here for a while. I want to make sure there’s no swelling and that your memory returns.”

Edison nods, lost in the woman’s smile and intriguing silk halter blouse and flared jeans.

Noticing Edison’s interest, Anders says, “This is my wife, Astrid. We’ll see to your needs.”

The door to the examining room opens. A pixyish child confidently strides in, saying, “None the worse for wear I see.”

“Physically,” Doc Tesla replies.

Astrid smiles uneasily. “He doesn’t remember much yet. This is our daughter, Lilith, Mr. Gates.”

The young girl gives him a hard, clinical stare.

“You don’t remember who you are?”

“My name, sure. But where I was headed, what I do, no.”

“It’ll come back to him,” Anders suggests.

“It had better,” Lilith says.

“Your daughter’s a very serious young lady,” Edison notes.

Edison smiles at Lilith, who continues to frown as she appraises him.

“You broke the rules,” Lilith says.

“Sorry. I’m sure your dad will give me any tickets he feels I’ve got coming.”

“That’s right, Lilith. Let me handle things.”

“Sure. You’ve done a bang-up job so far, Chief,” Lilith counters sourly.

“Sorry, Mr. Gates,” Astrid interjects. “Lilith has been cranky all day. Why don’t we go to the playground, dear?”

Astrid grabs Lilith’s hand. She pushes it away. As they walk to the door, Lilith turns to give Edison a last withering look.

“I’ve never been scolded by an eight-year-old,” Edison cracks.

“Eight and a half,” Anders replies. “She takes being the Chief’s daughter very seriously.”

Edison stands, wobbling.

Doc Tesla moves to help him.

“I know, Doc. I’ll take it easy. Since I might be here for a few days, you mind showing me around, Chief?”

“Sure. Then I’ll take you to your hotel room.”

Edison shields his eyes from the sun as they step into the street.

The surrounding offices and stores are boxy concrete buildings, each with dozens of windows.

Several cars whiz by.

“That’s a ’67 Mustang and a ’69 Plymouth Roadrunner!”

Edison gazes at the cars parked along the street.

“Is there a car show in town?”

“No.”

“All these cars are from the sixties, and they look new.”

“They are.”

Two teenagers pass by. One is holding a transistor radio that’s barking out Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s “Suite Judy Eyes.” The boys have shoulder-length hair, bushy mustaches, and mutton chops, and are wearing colorful bandanas, bell bottoms, and tie-dye Grateful Dead t-shirts.

One of the boys flashes the peace sign at Anders.

The blood drains from Edison’s dumbfounded expression.

“Are you all right?” Anders asks.

“Is there a sixties reenactment going on?”

“No.”

A Good Humor truck rolls by, followed by an Esso oil truck.

A group of teenaged girls on the opposite side of the street dressed in peasant blouses and patchwork jeans wave at Anders.

“What is this, Chief?”

“Try to calm down. You took a hard blow to the head.”

“Hard enough to send me back to 1969? I’ve got to call somebody. Where’s my cell phone?”

“Your what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Chief,” Edison says, checking his pockets.

Edison rolls up his sleeve, noticing the watch is missing.

“You took my watch too, didn’t you? Why?”

“Let me try to explain.”

A middle-aged couple walks out of the nearby Friendly’s Restaurant, staring at Edison.

“I HAVE TO GET BACK TO MY OWN TIME!”

Edison runs up to the couple. “You!” he shouts at the man, grabbing him by the arm. “Where’s your car?”

The man points at a 1968 Pontiac LeMans.

Edison drags the man to the car. “Get in! You’re driving!”

“Wait!” Anders yells, tossing Edison his watch. “You’ll need this.”

Edison looks at the gold watch’s elevated roman numerals, wondering why he’d have such a unique instrument with extra hands displaying the month, date, and year.

“You don’t have to do anything. It’ll work on its own.”

Edison gets in the back seat behind the driver, wrapping his arm around his throat.

“GO!’

Astrid and Lilith join the gathering crowd.

“You shouldn’t have given him the watch,” Lilith says.

“It might help him remember and keep him from hurting Charlie. Besides. He’s the only one who knows how to use it.”

“I’m not so sure he does right now,” Lilith replies. “He didn’t recognize his older brother while he was kidnapping him. You gave him the very thing that could help him get away and kill all of us.”

The Pontiac pulls over a mile out of town.

“Sorry to make you walk back,” Edison says as Charlie climbs out of the car.

“I don’t mind. I can use the exercise. You gonna be all right?”

“Me? I just want to get back to where I belong. The Chief said the watch will guide me.”

“It might not be that simple.”

Edison gives Charlie a long, concerned look. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

Charlie winks at him. “Yep. And you’ll see me again someday.”

The LeMans speeds toward the outskirts of  New Britain. Edison absent-mindedly turns on the radio. The static makes him grind his teeth.

Thunder sounds and the sky ahead turns black. A bolt of lightning streaks across the sky.

Edison sits up, looking at Doc Tesla.

“Is it still 1969?”

Edison looks more closely at Doc Tesla. His hair is greying, he’s thinner, and his skin is sallow.

“I guess not,” Edison surmises.

Anders stands nearby with Astrid and Lilith.

“See what happens when you break the rules,” Lilith comments.

Edison rises from the examining table, walking past the Enbergs.  They follow Edison as he heads outside.

The brick buildings sport handmade wooden signs. Friendly’s Restaurant is now Boston Chicken. Young couples in expensive leisure clothes with styled hairdos pass by. An Oldsmobile Cutlass cruises down the block.

“This isn’t the Woodstock generation anymore, is it, Chief?”

“No.”

Edison looks at the watch. “May 24, 1984. The watch brought me here, and yet I don’t know why or who I am. Why is time batting me around like a tennis ball?”

“He’s not ready for the truth,” Lilith says.

“You’re right, I’m still riddled with questions. The biggest one is why a little brat is calling the shots.”

“Go ahead, Chief, tell him. Maybe his head will explode, and we can all go back..”

“To where? Your home? It looks like the people in this town can live in any time period they please. Those three teenagers that just passed us on the other side of the street? They were teenagers the last time I was here, twenty-five years ago. You three haven’t aged and neither have I, but Doc, he’s showing the passage of time, and I don’t know why. I’m going to keep trying to get home, or at least back to the time I think I belong in, and you can’t stop me.”

Before Anders can react, Edison snatches his gun, pointing it at the Enbergs.

Astrid holds onto Anders.

Lilith looks up at Edison defiantly, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

“Great. A malicious eight-year-old quoting George Santayana.”

“Eight and a half.”

“Give me your keys, Chief.”

Anders tosses his car keys to Edison. “That gun isn’t loaded.”

Edison tosses the gun aside. Running across the street to where the Chief’s police cruiser is parked, he gets in.

“Stop him!” Lilith yells.

Astrid holds Anders back, whispering, “The watch will stop him.”

“Suppose we get sent to a time when we don’t exist?” Lilith asks.

“Then this will mercifully be over,” Astrid replies.

“Unacceptable. We can’t let him keep traveling through time like a stoned surfer and hope he remembers who he is.”

Lilith bolts out into the middle of the street. Boldly placing her hands on her hips, she glares at Edison.

Pressing the accelerator, Edison runs her over.

The cruiser speeds off, heading toward the darkening sky outside of town.

Edison sits up, his head throbbing.

Anders, Astrid, and a young Doc Tesla are looking at him.

“You’re looking spry again, Doc.”

“I feel better than the last time I saw you.”

Edison can barely look at Anders and Astrid.

“I didn’t mean to kill her.”

“You didn’t kill her,” Astrid replies. “And she’s not our daughter.”

Edison checks his watch. “The same day, only it’s 1922. Oh, I’ve got to see this,” he says, storming past the Chief and his wife.

Tin Lizzy’s chug by on the cobblestone road. Men in wool suits and fedoras and flappers in silk dresses and chic hats nod at the trio as they pass by.

Edison turns, looking at the Enbergs.

“The Doc looks like he just got out of med school not long after looking like an old man. And you look exactly like you did in 1969 and 1984.”

“So do you,” Anders points out.

Edison looks at his watch again. Realization streaks across his features. “…I’m the cause of all of this…”

“You brought us back to the day you created that watch,” Anders says. “It allows you and everyone in this town to travel through time.”

“I can’t imagine everyone was thrilled with my invention.”

“Only the people willing to be part of your discovery stayed,” Astrid says. “There have been a lot of problems. Traveling through time aged some of the townspeople twice as quickly.  So, you created a serum that slows the aging process. The problem is it has to be taken every six months.”

“You two don’t have to take it though, do you? For some reason, time travel doesn’t affect you.”

“No. Your project has given us the opportunity to stay twenty-five forever,” Astrid says.

“You sound as if you wish it didn’t.”

“Imagine every day is the same perfect carbon copy of the day before,” Anders says. “You gave us eternal life, but life isn’t worth living without highs and lows, without surprises. I wouldn’t have made it through this experiment if I didn’t have Astrid. She makes being a police officer in a town with virtually no crime bearable.”

A middle-aged couple smiles at Edison and the Enbergs as they pass.

“Charlie? You said I would see you again.”

The two men hug, laughing.

“So, the fog has cleared. Your memory’s back.”

“Most of it at least.”

“Well get back to work, brother. Imagine the day we can travel in time to listen to Mozart, the real one, or talk with Shakespeare or dance with Marilyn Monroe. You’ll find a way to make that device of yours work, and I’ll be here, there, and anywhere you want when you need me.”

Winking, Charlie pats his brother on the back, moving on.

Edison studies Anders and Astrid. “Why are you so different?”

“Perhaps it’s being from Norway, perhaps because we changed our minds about being part of the project and tried to leave like you’ve been trying to do,” Anders says. “Only instead of the electric charge from your security system disabling our car, it went through our bodies.”

”It altered your heart rate, your brain waves, your entire physiology,” Edison remembers. “I’ve been trying to duplicate what happened to you ever since. You’ve never had to be… to be…”

“Regenerated,” Astrid says.

“I’m not sure I want to remember what this is. The serum…It works differently for everyone, doesn’t it?  Some subjects, like Charlie and me, age very slowly and look like they haven’t aged at all. Others, like Doc Tesla, reject the serum. Their bodies continue to age and wear out. I desperately wanted to help them. So, I came up with regeneration.”

“An effective but traumatic process,” Anders says.

Astrid shivers. “…Taking someone’s mind and putting it in another person’s body.”

Edison stops to think. “Where do the replacement bodies come from?”

“Another unpleasant aspect of your work,” Anders replies. “They’re supplied to you.”

“And one was a little girl…” Edison realizes.

Edison runs his fingers through his hair. “This project is a failure. It’s too dangerous. Too many people have suffered to satisfy a whim. I must have realized it. That’s why I ran away.”

Anders and Astrid exchange concerned glances.

“You left because of Holly,” Chief says.

“Holly?”

“Your wife,” Astrid says. “Holly felt your desperation. When you decided to take twice the amount of the serum, she took even more. But instead of making you immune to the effects of time travel, it drove you both insane. Holly killed herself.”

“Because of the condition of her mind was in you couldn’t regenerate her,” Anders recalls. “The thought of it broke you. You drove away screaming.”

“The force field you built stopped you from leaving town,” Astrid says. “Unfortunately, the first time you tried to leave you wrecked your car. The accident left you with amnesia, and you kept randomly traveling through time until you wound up back here.”

“I might be able to help Doc Tesla and Charlie and everyone else if I start over, but I can’t help Holly… I can still see her smile and the way she poked her head around the door when she came to answer my ad for a secretary… Her smile, her beauty, her kindness will live on in my memories…”

“Then she’ll live forever after all,” Astrid says.

“One lingering question. Where does Lilith fit into all of this?”

“You mean Larry Lampkin. He’s the government’s overseer of the project,” Anders says. “Unfortunately for Larry, the serum has had little effect on him, so he must be regenerated. The two of you have had a lot of disagreements, so you exacted a bit of revenge on him the third time he had to be regenerated, bringing him back as Lilith.”

“It’s really unnerving seeing an eight-year-old girl smoking a cigar,” Astrid says.

“Eight and a half,” Edison replies. “Well, that explains her lousy attitude, and why I didn’t hesitate to run her over. I suppose her bosses will want her to be regenerated a fourth time. I’ll get around to it when I have the time.”

Anders enters Edison’s office. Edison is looking over his notes.

“Hello, Chief. How is it living on a police officer’s salary in 1922?”

“I did it before, I’ll do it again. Any progress?”

“No. Short of striking everyone with a lightning bolt, I haven’t figured out we can travel safely through time or outside of New Britain.”

A black and white Tabby cat jumps up on Edison’s desk, scattering his papers.

“Cut it out, you nuisance.”

The cat turns, looking at Edison.

“Well, are you going to feed me or not?”

Anders shakes his head. “Did that cat just speak?”

“Recognize the voice? It’s Lilith.”

“I want fresh tuna, not that garbage you gave me last night, or I’ll leave a surprise on your pillow.”

“I sure recognize the venom,” Anders says.

“Be quiet, Lilith. Be thankful I didn’t transplant your brain into a donkey.”

Someone knocks on the office door. A smiling brunette pokes her head around the door.

“Hello, I’m Holly Morrison. I’m here to answer your ad for a secretary.”