The Door to Nowhere

Underground bunker, location unknown, 1972

"We're running out of time!"

People hurried around the windowless room, chairs squeaking and voices shouting. Workspaces were abandoned, papers and charts scattered amidst the clunky machines all displaying the same word: EVACUATE.

Technicians in blue overalls swept important documents into trash bags and loaded them onto a truck waiting outside the steel double doors. Over the intercom, a woman's gravelly voice yelled that they would push the button in one minute. One minute, she repeated, as if they hadn't heard her the first time. Everyone grabbed the last of their belongings and followed the truck out past the steel doors toward the safe point.

Once everyone was out of the bunker, there was one man left. His walkie talkie squawked from his jeans pocket.

"Okay, Red, we're a go!"

The man called Red depressed the button on the side of the walkie. "Copy that."

He flipped the safety on a red button and pushed it. That's why they called him Red--because he was the guy in charge of pushing the red button. Of course, it had been a joke at the time. No one had ever thought they'd actually need to use it.

Immediately, a countdown started, green numbers blinking backwards on the strip of black underneath the button. One more minute to clear out and get to safety.

Red ran to the safe and punched in the 14-digit code. He scanned his left hand, and the door popped open. He grabbed a small black box from inside and shut the door.

This was the last step in the evac plan. Push the button first, then grab the box, because at least if someone tried to steal it now, they'd have less of a chance of escaping with it alive.

But that also meant Red had less of a chance.

A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as he turned and found himself face-to-face with a hooded stranger. He automatically clutched the box tight to his chest.

"Give it to me," the stranger hissed, their teeth clacking like computer keys.

"Never," Red said with more conviction than he felt. "All I need to do is pull this string, and the box will disappear forever. You'll never find it."

The stranger hesitated. "You wouldn't dare."

Red raised an eyebrow. "Do you really want to test that theory?"

The stranger lunged for the box. Twenty seconds left.

Red ducked under the hooded foreigner's arm and pushed them forward. Behind him, he heard a satisfying thump, knowing the stranger had fallen. He shoved work stations out of his way in his haste to reach the steel doors. He pressed another button, this one black, and the doors slowly rolled forward on their hinges.

No time to be scared; there were only ten seconds left, and Red didn't plan to waste them being terrified out of his wits.

Ahead, he could see a glowing, multicolored light. The safe point.

Someone was waiting for him, urgently gesturing for him to come. He broke into a sprint and dashed up the tunnel.

"Is that it?" the woman with the gravelly voice yelled.

Red nodded. "Six seconds," he shouted back.

He tossed the box to the woman. She leapt into the swirling vortex of color behind her, following the workers who had gone before her.

Red spared one last glance back at the doors, which had nearly closed. So much hard work...all about to be blown to bits.

Three seconds now. The doors would close and lock at exactly the one-second mark. In the last few moments before he stepped into the vortex, a whirl of black fabric suddenly squeezed through the space between the doors.

Red knew the stranger was too late. He allowed himself a brief smile and salute to the hooded figure before he stepped through, the vortex closing behind him. The last thing he heard was the stranger's screech of disbelief and fury, and then nothing at all.

...

Massachusetts, U.S.A., Present Day

Melody Silver had never thought much of the steel-plated door, rusty from age, that stood in the center of her small town. This deep into the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, nothing interesting ever happened. This was further proven by the fact that the lonely door was the most interesting thing about the place.

"Come on, Mel! We're going to be late!"

Melody drew her eyes away from the door. A few tourists were snapping selfies in front of it or reading the informational plaque deeming it "a piece of town history and mystery." Some days, Mel and her little brother Teddy would watch the tourists and make up stories about where they came from and why they were so enthralled by a door that led to nowhere.

Teddy rushed past her and out the front door, then did a cartwheel on the lawn. He'd gotten the lucky gene in the family--no asthma, no allergies, no phobias, even. That boy was a bundle of bravery and adrenaline. Melody, on the other hand, had it all--including an allergy to ice cream, which was the absolute worst misfortune of them all.

She ran out to where her purple bike was waiting on the curb. Teddy, already pedaling around the driveway on his bright green mountain bike, urged her on. "Come on come on come on!"

Mel strapped on her helmet. "Okay, I'm coming! Just remember, let me do the talking, all right?"

Teddy rolled his eyes and set off down the street toward the arcade.

Mel took a couple puffs of her inhaler before pedaling after him. The rules at the arcade were simple: no eating or drinking while playing, no bullying, and no unaccompanied minors.

Mel and Teddy nearly always broke that last rule.

Grayson, the bespectacled man behind the counter, had owned the arcade for as long as Mel and Teddy could remember.

"Afternoon, kiddos," he greeted them.

"Hi, Grayson," they chorused.

"Parents coming in today?" he asked as he rang up two all-day tickets.

"Nope. Our friend came in earlier with one of her parents. We're meeting them here."

Grayson nodded and handed them their tickets with a smile. "Sounds good. Have fun, kiddos."

"Thanks!"

Mel and Teddy raced for the line of Mario Kart games at the back of the arcade. They didn't notice the date Grayson had stamped on each of their tickets: 1972.

...

Two hours later, Mel stood in the bathroom, splashing water on her flushed cheeks. She loved playing arcade games because she always felt the adrenaline rush of a workout, minus the negative effects regular workouts had on her--like asthma attacks.

As she retied her ponytail, someone knocked on the door.

"Just a second!" she called through the bobby pin between her teeth.

The knocking became urgent, almost frantic. Someone must really need to use the bathroom, she thought, sticking the bobby pin in her hair.

She opened the door, expecting to see a parent with a baby or a little kid hopping around outside. But there was no one.

In fact, there was no one in the arcade.

Melody slowly turned to shut the light off in the bathroom. She gasped when she saw the inside.

It was half-built, and most of the floor tiles were missing. The sink and toilet were there, but the baby-changing table and the pretty photos Grayson's daughter had taken during a nature retreat were gone.

Mel's trepidation grew. The absence of light made the arcade seem much darker--especially since all the games were unplugged. No neon lights, no flashing signs.

"It hasn't opened yet," said a gruff, familiar voice.

Mel shrieked and whirled around. To her left stood a shadow, which stepped forward and revealed itself as...Grayson?

He chuckled at her stunned expression. "This may come as a surprise to you, but I was young and handsome once."

Mel opened and closed her mouth a few times before she managed, "That's not exactly why I'm surprised."

Grayson's expression lost its levity as he nodded. "Right. I suppose I shouldn't waste time joking around. Melody Silver, we need your help."

Mel narrowed her eyes. "What are you talking about? Who's we? Why are you so young? And why is the arcade...not the arcade?"

Grayson's eyes twinkled, but he didn't smile as he let out a sigh. "So many questions, just like your grandmother. That's good, in our line of work. But I'm afraid we're running out of time."

We're running out of time. Something about the phrase stuck in Mel's mind, opening a path of memories she'd never known she had.

As soon as the evac alarm sounded, the woman knew they had finally run out of time. It was ironic, really, considering their profession.

"Sienna, what's our status?" she asked, leaning over a woman with red-brown hair.

Sienna listened intently to the tinny voice in her headphones. "We have an intruder. Someone cloaked and unidentified. They've already broken into the decoy safe...." She looked up at her supervisor, her face ashen. "Grayson, they're after the key."

The woman nodded and straightened. "Then we proceed with the evacuation as planned. Inform Red that if there's any time for him to prove that he's my fastest quantum physicist, now's the time."

Sienna swallowed and nodded at the command. Grayson picked up the intercom microphone, her no-nonsense tone making everyone pick up the pace. "One minute until we push the button, people, so keep it moving! One minute!"

Soon enough, there was one man left in the bunker. Grayson watched him from just outside the steel doors as she grabbed her walkie talkie.

"Okay, Red, we're a go!"

"Copy that."

She nodded in grim satisfaction. Red was one of her best. She could trust him to get the key in time.

Grayson briskly walked to the pulsing oval of light suspended in the middle of the tunnel. The safe point. She and Red were the last ones underground.

She couldn't resist turning back one last time, waiting for Red. As much as she separated personal relationships from work, Red was her best friend. Though, before she'd gotten married, he'd tried multiple times to be something more.

A few seconds later, he ran out of the steel doors, which began to close on oiled hinges. He clutched a small object in his hands.

Grayson couldn't resist a frantic wave. "Is that it?"

Red nodded. "Six seconds!"

He tossed the box to her. She caught it nimbly and jumped into the stream of time without hesitation.

"I don't understand," said Melody, once she had recovered from the unfamiliar bout of memories. "I thought you were Grayson? And what happened to everyone who went through that..."

"Time vortex?" Grayson supplied helpfully. "So her theory worked," he added, mostly to himself. "Her memories live on in the child with the time gene."

Mel wasn't a petulant child, but she found herself wanting to stamp her foot in frustration.

"I used to be called Red," Grayson continued, his tone both wistful and full of regret. "Grayson was my supervisor. She didn't make it out of the vortex." He regarded Melody over his glasses. "She was your grandmother. Your father had just been born when she...was lost."

His eyes grew shiny, and Mel quickly got distracted watching a ladybug crawl on the carpeted floor. When he had collected himself, he continued, "The time stream--and her memories--live on in your very DNA. But the gene is passed down every other generation, and only to one child."

Mel's eyes widened. "So Teddy doesn't have it...this gene?"

Grayson smiled. "No. Teddy doesn't have anything, remember? No allergies, no asthma, no phobias. Only a talent for eating a whole pizza by himself and beating all the best scores at my arcade."

Mel grinned, but it quickly faded as she remembered that she was trapped in an almost-unfamiliar place with a much younger Grayson.

She peered out the window at the storm clouds gathering above. "Where are we?"

Grayson joined her at the window. "I think the better question is when are we."

Mel froze. "Are you saying...did we time travel?"

He gave a solemn nod. "All the way back to 1972, when I started building this arcade. Obviously, you weren't born yet, so you don't have a younger counterpart."

Mel regarded him curiously. "Why am I here?"

"The door," he said simply.

"The door?" Mel repeated. "You mean the one that leads to nowhere? The one that tourists come to see?"

"The very same." Grayson moved toward the front doors, which were missing their glass panes. "I chose this spot to build my arcade because it was close enough to the door without being suspicious."

Mel nearly tripped over a can of paint as she followed him into the humid air. "But why would you want to be near the door? And who would find it suspicious?"

Grayson answered her second question first. "Enemies. People who want to steal our time formula." He walked briskly, and Mel struggled to keep up. "Quantum physics is barely understood now, so you can imagine what it was like in the 70s. We had finally solved the key to time travel...but then they found us."

Mel noticed the darkness in his tone. "They?"

"A Time Warper," he answered gravely. "Someone who wants to misuse the secrets of time travel to commit heinous deeds." He rubbed a hand over his stubbled face. "We had to evacuate only a few weeks after we solved the formula. We escaped through the time stream, but...there were flaws in our calculations. Not all of us made it. I was one of the few who was dropped off in the same year. I don't know where--or when--everyone else went."

By now, Mel knew they were heading in the direction of the infamous door. "Not that this makes any sense to me, but how does this relate to a door?"

Grayson offered her a fleeting smile. "Because you're the only one who can recover the key inside it."

...

The guidelines were simple: Open the door, trust her mysterious genes to enter her into the time stream, find the black box that held the key, get out. Only then would Mel be returned to her proper timeline. As Teddy would say, No pressure, Mel Bell.

The door was different from the rust-covered one Mel knew. It still looked new and shiny, and the plaque hadn't been erected yet. There were no tourists snapping photos, no curious folks stopping for a peek.

"Take a deep breath before you go in; the air might taste a little stale in there," Grayson warned. "This door was the only thing left from our lab. Everything else was, well, blown up. Gotta destroy the evidence, right?"

Mel was barely listening, but she nodded anyways. She was a smart girl, but this was too much even for her.

"Once you find the key and get out, I don't know how much time you'll have before you're taken back to your own time stream," he warned. "So best to hand it to me as soon as you come back."

Mel nodded again. "Will I see you back in our time?"

Grayson smiled, and in it Melody saw the kind, elderly man she knew. What she didn't notice was that it was tinged with sadness. "Yes, Melody. I'll see you in the future."

...

The inside of the time vortex was strange. Shapes of all colors and sizes bent and refracted light that shouldn't have existed; luminous blobs of living organisms floated past Mel's body.

She pinwheeled her arms, trying to steer herself forward. It was difficult to move, like trudging through mud.

There was no one else in the time stream with her, not as far as she could see. But there, ahead of her, was a black blob.

The box, she thought as she struggled to steer herself toward it.

Her hand closed on the box, feeling silky beneath her fingers. She turned around and aimed for the light at the end of the time tunnel.

What felt like seconds later but had really taken hours, Mel emerged, coughing and sputtering, from the door. Grayson was there instantly, catching her before she could fall.

"You did it," he said, beaming proudly at her.

Mel wiped time goop from her skin and clothes. "Come on, open it before I'm sent back!"

Grayson held his breath as he opened the box for the first time.

Resting within was a tightly wound scroll--the last surviving copy.

Mel only had time to protest, "You're telling me the key to time travel is a piece of paper?" before her own time stream called to her, and she was swept back to the present.

"Not just a piece of paper," Grayson said softly as he unfurled the scroll. "The formula to time travel."

...

Mel opened her eyes in time to see Teddy beat her, once again, at Mario Kart. He let out a whoop of triumph before running off to the water fountain.

Mel sulked in defeat, staring at the screen that displayed her 2nd-place score. Her gaze paused on the ticket leaning against the console. Before her eyes, the date changed from 1972 to 2022.

She blinked. How was that possible? She must've imagined it. She rubbed her eyes, the image of the shifting dates seared in her mind.

There was something nagging at the back of her memory. Was it an image from an arcade game? A picture she'd seen scrolling through Instagram the other day?

She glanced toward the counter, where Grayson was dutifully wiping down broken equipment with an antibacterial wipe.

Red, Mel Silver thought with a smile. Something about the color red.