Time Traveler's Blues

July 27, 2018

Miami, Florida

“Hey Jake! Are you going to come inside and watch the Mars landing or what? Neil deGrasse Tyson is about to take his first step on the surface.”

Jake glanced up at the TV that he had sitting in the corner of the garage. He could see the Oden lander sitting on the dusty surface on the red planet. For the moment he ignored Ryan and soldered the last circuit onto his time machine.

Today, humanity would celebrate two great events. Though it was likely most of the world wouldn’t read or learn about his experiment for at least several centuries.

Ryan, his best friend since high school, entered the garage, carefully stepping over the tangled mess of electrical wires that ran everywhere.

“So you’re finally getting around to building yourself a girlfriend, huh?”

It never gets old, Jake thought to himself.

He pulled up his safety goggles and looked back at Ryan. “You know they’re going to be on Mars for the next two years and it’s not like the news isn’t going to be replaying this all week. Besides, relativistically speaking, he took his first step on the surface about four minutes ago.”

“Huh? Wait, they said they were broadcasting it live. Are you telling me that it’s all staged? Like the moon landing?”

Swing and a miss.

Ryan didn’t know thing one when it came to physics, or math or even basic geography. They had met in Jake’s sophomore year of high school when he had been Ryan’s science tutor. Ryan was a decent guy, a good roommate, and he always had a fridge full of moderately priced beer. In school, Ryan had been an All-State running back and got a full ride to the University of Miami only to flunk out in one semester, which was a real accomplishment, all things considered.

These days Ryan dreamed of being a tournament Halo player and spent the rest of his hours working at his Dad’s electronics shop, which was good because it meant that Jake had access to a wide variety of scrap electronics. Which meant the time machine cost on the order of $2,000 and not $200,000.

Jake set his soldering gun on the only chair that wasn't cluttered with junk. "Look, I’m not going to tell you again. We really landed on the moon,” Jake said.

“No, I know. I was just messin’,” Ryan said, no doubt recalling the time he had drunkenly tried to debate a NASA engineer on the subject.

“So what are you building, anyway?”

“It’s a time machine.”

Ryan blinked. He looked as confused as if he had been told that he had won a leprechaun lottery. “Say that again.”

“I've built a time machine.”

Ryan nodded his head. “So... why didn’t you make it a cool time machine? Like a DeLorean or something?

“Partly because DeLoreans are expensive and partly because knowing my luck I’d crash into something on my first trip. It’s one of the main hazards of time travel, not knowing what is going on at one location at any given point in time.”

Ryan wandered around the garage, staring blankly at the obsolete electronic devices that had been cannibalized to make the machine. “Still though, couldn’t you have at least built some style into it? This thing looks like a bunch of microwave ovens randomly bolted together by a drunken and disgruntled government contractor.”

He wasn’t wrong. Jake had used a lot of microwave ovens to make the proton emitters. "So it's made of forty-nine microwaves, thirteen satellite receivers and one multiphase laser that I made from over two dozen cd players, to be precise."

"So... how does it work?" Ryan asked.

Jake pulled off his safety goggles, wiped the sweat from his brow, and gestured to the dry erase board on the far side of the garage.

Ryan looked at the dry erase board and scrunched up his face. “Math. Got it.”

Jake chuckled. He grabbed the remote control and turned up the volume on the TV. Neil deGrasse Tyson had just stepped onto the Martian surface holding the American flag.

The calm voice of Dr. Tyson floated from the TV: "Once, men gathered around campfires and looked up at the distant stars and dreamed what lay beyond. Now as we stand on the edge of a new age of exploration let us look back at our Earth and dream of a world filled with peace, brotherhood, and unity. On behalf of myself, the Oden crew and the American people I bid you the fondest greetings from Mars."

Dr. Tyson planted the flag deep into the Martian soil and he and the other astronauts saluted.

“So what’re you going back in time for…to kill the baby Hitler?”

Jake found his backpack and dumped the contents onto his workbench. “No, that’s too destructive to the timeline, and God forbid Germany ended up with a dictator who was borderline competent.”

“So what then? Are you going to sex up famous history people?”

Jake laughed. “No. The time machine works like a slingshot. The multiphase beam will disrupt the planet’s local gravity well and push me back in time. However, the further back in time I go, the more the gravity well stretches and the less time I have. So if I went back to visit Cleopatra, I’d only have two minutes to find her.

“Eh, that’s like a minute and a half more than you need.”

The news broad cast switched from Mars to the studio. We now take you to the White House where President Crist is about to send a message to our astronauts. This has got to be a proud moment for the President. When he was the Governor of Florida he fought endlessly with Congress to fund the Mars mission.

Jake clicked off the TV.

“So what are you going back for?” Ryan asked.

An embarrassed warmth spread through Jake’s cheeks. “I’m…um…going back to get…um…some Crystal Pepsi.”

Ryan’s face bore the level of confusion as if he had not only been told he had won the leprechaun lottery, but that he had also been invited to the Giraffe Playboy Mansion.

“What? he exclaimed.

“Look, they don’t make it anymore, and it was my favorite soda when I was a kid,” Jake said sheepishly.

“You know, normal people write petitions and letters.”

“Yeah. Well. I tried all that and I just got friendly kiss off letters. It’s time to take real action.” Jake checked his watch. “Anyway, it’s time to get this show on the road.”

He opened a cupboard and found a candy tin that had old money that he could use. He walked over to the computer and set the date for April 2, 1993 10:39 AM. The computer crunched the numbers and calculated that he would have eight minutes and forty-two seconds in the past. He then entered the GPS coordinates for the closest Wal-Mart he could remember.

“Okay, I’m going to need you to power up the machine.”

Ryan glanced over the machine one more time and wrinkled his nose as if someone had tried to microwave a skunk. “You know I got a D-minus in physics.”

Jake waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. You just click yes on the laptop and throw the red lever over there. Trust me, I’ve been testing this for the last three weeks. Everything will be fine. You want me to bring you back anything?”

Ryan patted down his pants. “Shit, I left my wallet in my other pants. Like, if you’re going back you should just grab a couple of cartons of cigarettes. Dad says they were so much cheaper back in the day before the filthy liberals had to go and communist up the place.”

Jake shook his head. “Maybe we’ll save that for trip two.” He stepped into the center of the four pillars. “Oh, Shit! Almost forgot the tether. It’s next to the laptop.”

“What? Your Opera?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you glue it to a medical brace?”

“Dude, just throw it to me.”

Ryan tossed him his Opera smartphone and Jake secured the device around his wrist. He double-tapped the screen and synced it with the time machine.

“Good. Okay, all right. Let’s get going.”

The time machine hummed as the magnetic base plates started spinning in opposite directions.

“Okay. Now throw the red switch!”

Electricity crackled and the lights overhead dimmed. The grinding of the metallic plates grew louder.

“What’s this going to do to the electricity bill?” Ryan called out through the din.

Jake put a hand to his ear. “What’s that?”

“How much electricity is this going to use?” Ryan shouted.

“Blah, blah, blah. See you when I get back. “

Four blue lasers shot out from the central pillars creating an encompassing sphere. There came a sound like rushing water as the proton emitters fired their particle bursts. Soon, the sound was muted as a blinding pulse kicked Jake through space and time.

The kick knocked the wind from him and when he looked upward he noticed he was standing in front of Wal-Mart. Jake glanced down at his smartphone, which displayed a time of eight minutes and twenty seconds remaining before the gate would reactivate and pull him back to his own time. His spirits soared as he looked around at the older vehicles that were parked everywhere. He steadied himself, took in a deep breath, and walked toward the entryway.

Once inside, he hurried over to the newspaper stand and glanced at the date on the top copy – April 2, 1993 – he had made it!

Nostalgia was kicking his ass as he walked down the aisles. He remembered this store, he remembered his mother taking him here shopping. In fact, she had bought his first bike from this store. This had been one of the few stores to survive Hurricane Andrew the year prior. Coming back here, after the worst hurricane in his life somehow made the world seem normal. Among these cramped aisles with bins stuffed with crappy merchandise, it felt like home.

He wandered past the electronic aisles and it seemed like he was walking through an antique pawnshop. VHS players, cordless phones - HOLY SHIT! Terminator 2 on laser disk. Rows after rows of CDs bound in protective plastic casings. Jesus, cassette tapes even, and CRT TVs. Jake glanced at the high-end model and nearly laughed at the resolution. His Opera smartphone had far superior resolution and it hadn’t cost him $2,000.

Silently, he wished he had brought more money. There was just so much here on clearance that he could flip on eBay. Alas, he had only brought $20 of this era’s money with him.

He returned to his mission and found the soda aisle and there on the bottom shelf – the Holy Grail itself – Crystal fucking Pepsi! He reached down and pulled a twelve-pack into his arms and cradled it as if it were a small child.

When the moment of bliss was over, he glanced at his Opera. Only five minutes remained. He gathered up four twelve-packs, as many as he could carry, and walked toward the checkout aisle.

In reality, he could have just walked out the door, or found a quiet place in the store to jump, but each carried a higher risk of negatively impacting the space-time continuum. So he joined the line and waited. And waited and waited.

Damn it! Does nothing in this store ever move? He was only the second customer in line, but it took almost four minutes for him to get to the cashier, IN THE GODDAMN EXPRESS LANE!

With thirty seconds to go, he slapped the $20 down on the counter. “Here, four cases of Crystal Pepsi, keep the change.” He waddled as fast as he could toward the exit. No one said anything at his antics. All things considered, it was just another day at Wal-Mart, in Florida.

Jake ran out the automatic doors and turned toward the loading docks. The Opera started beeping as it counted down his few remaining seconds. Jake paused and closed his eyes as the timer reached zero, unsure of what would happen next.

He felt a cold, white light wash over him and when he opened his eyes he was surrounded by vast darkness. This wasn’t the garage. Where the hell was he?

As his eyes settled, he could see the structure he was in extending for a distance, almost like an aircraft hangar. He glanced at the time machine. This wasn’t his work. This seemed almost – professional.

A white strobe light focused its beam on him and dozens of lights popped on in rapid order. In a control tower ahead he could see some very confused looking scientists.

“Um...” He said, not all too convincingly. He followed that up with “Uh…”

“WHAT IN GOD’S NAME JUST HAPPENED!” A short, dumpy, clearly angry man bellowed. He stomped quickly up to Jake. “I send you back in time to save the world and you bring back beer.”

Jake cleared his throat. Two men in military fatigues approached the dumpy man with the snarly wireframe glasses. “It’s…uh, not actually beer. It’s… uh… Crystal Pepsi.”

The vein in the man’s forehead began to bulge and he turned a peculiar shade of pink. He knocked the cases of Crystal Pepsi out of Jake’s left hand. The cases broke and cans scattered everywhere. He grabbed another case and flung it over his shoulders and kicked the final one. It landed with a horrible fizz-gushing sound.

“Hey!” Jake protested.

But the man reached over to one of the soldiers, grabbed his gun, and pointed it between Jake’s eyes.

“Ah! Not in the face!” Jake screamed as he covered his eyes, his masculinity all but abandoning him.

“Whoa, Mr. President, let’s figure this out and try to see what went wrong,” Ryan called out.

Jake opened his eyes and was surprised to see Ryan in front of him wearing a lab coat and intelligent-person glasses.

“Is this a joke, Boy? You had one job. How could you fuck it up so badly?” The President bellowed.

“Okay, I don’t know who you are, but this is my time machine, and I’d like to know what you all are doing here.”

“Where do you get off? Give me one reason why I shouldn’t blow your slackass brains all over this facility.”

“Mr. President, please,” Ryan said with a calming voice. “I think I can figure this out.”

“You’ve got five minutes,” The President said. He motioned for his guards to follow him and began angrily kicking cans of Crystal Pepsi out of his way.

Jake cringed. “What is his problem? And who the hell is he? He doesn’t look like any President I’ve ever seen. Or voted for.”

Ryan looked back to Jake. “President Cheney is just a little stressed. Having the world die during your administration is a lot for a sane person to handle. And the president was a little less than sane before that. So, who is the President in your timeline?

Jake glanced at the spilled cans that were scattered everywhere. “Um, Charlie Crist.”

“I see. Did you build the time machine for him?

“What? No. I built it so I could go back in time and buy Crystal Pepsi. I don’t see why the big deal about this is. And what the hell happened to you? You look like a pharmacist in that lab coat.”

Ryan held up his hand. “Do you remember the following events happening in your timeline? The Oklahoma City bombing?

“Yes.”

“The Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa homerun duel?”

“You know me, I’m not much of a sports guy.”

Ryan wouldn’t be deterred, “Yes or no?”

“Eh…kinda,” Jake said.

“The Monica Lewinsky Scandal?”

“You don’t forget about the blue stained dress.”

“The contested 2000 election, Bush becoming president, 9/11?

Jake furrowed his brow. “No…I remember the election…I remember all the reporters, but no, Gore won and what was the other thing?

“Interesting. And you say you went back in time just to get Crystal Pepsi?”

“Yes. I went back to April 2, 1993. It was a pretty straight forward deal. Didn’t really interact with anyone, paid for it and I find myself here and not the garage.”

“I see. That would confirm my theory that it’s impossible not to alter the space time continuum and its effects on the cosmic web and the multi-worlds theory of quantum mechanics.”

Jake's eyes bulged as if he was just informed that he had won the leprechaun lottery, at the Giraffe Playboy Mansion while skinny dipping for pool noodles. “H-how?” He rubbed his eyes as he hoped that none of this was true. He needed to reset. “How do you know about the multi-worlds theory of quantum mechanics?”

Ryan smiled and punched Jake in the arm. “From you, you were my science tutor after all and MIT of course.”

“You were the biggest idiot I ever knew. How did you go to MIT?”

“Yeah, well just for a year, before the world went kaflooey.”

“So what happened exactly? How did the world go kaflooey?”

“Oh, well. George W. Bush became president and al-Qaeda terrorists flew planes into the Pentagon and World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001. We invaded Afghanistan and then President Bush choked to death on a pretzel on January 13, 2002. Ms. Congeniality over there became president. As time went on President Cheney became convinced that Pakistan was harboring Osama bin Laden. Of course, tensions flared and one thing led to another and a joint coalition of American and Indian troops invaded Pakistan on March 20, 2003.

“Most of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were evacuated from the country prior to the invasion. Since they couldn’t get the weapons onto American soil they detonated the entire Pakistani nuclear arsenal on the Greenland Ice sheet. Causing a catastrophic sea rise that flooded every coastal city worldwide. Worse, the bombs were jacketed with Cobalt 59, which leached toxic radiation into the ocean and sky which eventually fell as rain all over the world. We’re all that’s left of the United States. We estimate that less than 100,000 people around the world survived.”

Jake tried to fathom what he was just told. “I see. So we built this time machine to stop it.”

“It was your idea. You spearheaded what was left of The Remnant as a last-ditch effort to stop the crisis.”

Jake felt his stomach start to turn. He felt he was about to be sick. He reached down and picked up one of the discarded cans of Crystal Pepsi and popped the lid. Maybe this would help calm his nerves and help him think of what to do next.

President Cheney stomped over and slapped the can from Jake’s hands. “All right, Ryan. You better have an answer.”

Ryan turned to the President. “I do. So as you know, my theory postulated that even the tiniest actions can change history in huge ways over long periods of time. Our colleague essentially bought four cases of Crystal Pepsi in 1993. This meant that the four people who would have bought these cases might have purchased something else. Say something caffeinated. It changes the course of their day. Maybe they do well at work and get promoted where they wouldn’t have before. Maybe they don’t meet the person they would have accidentally knocked up and meet someone else. As you can see this one event changed all social interactions, which over the course of seven years was enough to swing a narrow presidential election and the course of the world is irrevocably altered. The choice is simple. We just do something as inconsequential and attempt to restore balance. I say we send him back to 1993 and have him buy some other type of soda and restore the timeline to where it was.”

“Wait, if he goes back to 1993, isn’t there a chance that we won’t be elected in 2000?” President Cheney asked.

“Yes, Mr. President, though I think you must agree given our present circumstances that that is a chance we should take.”

President Cheney grunted. “No dice. I’m not putting that tree-hugging hippie in the White House. I think, rather than try to warn our agencies of the impending nuclear attack, we should go back and try to save President Bush. Dropping this guy in the White House should put the Secret Service detail on alert. That should give them enough time to save the President.”

Jake blanched. “But, if you drop me into the White House, won’t they think I’m a terrorist and shoot me or something.”

The president’s lip curled. “Now that’s a risk I’m willing to take. Reset the machine.”

Ryan put hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s the best I could do. Don’t make any threatening moves. Remember that little things make big things happen.” He gave Jake a thumbs up and stepped out of the machine. “Be safe. We’ll see you in ten minutes.”

A white flash enveloped Jake and the next thing he knew he was standing in a very nice bathroom. All told, his second journey back through time had been a lot smoother than the first. The value of using quality parts…

Jake glanced around the bathroom. It was mid-20th century style with modern lighting and amenities. He walked over to the window and pulled back the curtains. He could see the White House lawn and Washington Monument. Both were well lit. Jake swallowed hard as he realized that he was in the residence, which was a particularly bad place to be if he didn’t want to get shot.

He glanced at his Opera – he still had nine minutes. Running out through the residence would likely put the White House on lockdown and he would save the president. But he also had a strange device on his wrist that was counting down numbers. There was no way the Secret Service would think it was anything other than a bomb. Even if they didn’t shoot him, if they took the tether he would either be stuck in this timeline or his body would de-atomize as the gravity well collapsed around him. Both were seriously bad things.

Jake’s head swam. If only he could have taken one of those cans of Crystal Pepsi it would have grounded him and settled his increasingly upset stomach. He slumped against the door and held his head in his hands.

In the adjacent room, a TV clicked on. He listened as whoever it was cycled through the channels until it reached MTV.

Did President Bush have kids? Jake honestly couldn’t remember. He had paid so little attention to the 2000 election until reporters had ended up camping on his family’s lawn. But when it was over, Gore was president and Bush had gone back to Texas to become the MLB commissioner. And everything worked out for everyone. But now?

The endless parade of commercials ended. "Last time on Real World Versus Road Rules Extreme Challenge."

Jake grimaced. He wasn’t anywhere close to the president. He listened to the banal stupidity of MTV reality television as he watched the counter on his Opera count down. Still seven minutes left. He was briefly entertaining the possibility of running into a hail of secret service bullets to save him from the inhumane torment when there came a knock on a door in the adjacent room.

There was a quick cycling of channels to Fox News. "Next with more fair and balanced coverage. The administration remains confident that they are closing in on Osama bin Laden. Sources in the Pentagon believe that he will be unable to escape into neighboring Pakistan and Vice President Cheney voiced confidence that Pakistan would deliver bin Laden to coalition forces should he attempt to flee there."

A door opened and a voice called through it. “Mr. President, the motorcade called ahead. The First Lady will be arriving in about ten minutes.”

“Thanks Wedge.”

“Yes, sir.”

The door closed and the channel flipped back to MTV. Those jokers on team red have another think coming if they think they can beat us two weeks in a row—

Jake rolled his eyes. God, how much more? He glanced at the Opera. Five minutes! Fuck!

He got to his feet and very carefully turned the doorknob and peeked out into the room. President Bush laughed to himself and picked up a bag of pretzels and opened it. One by one he popped the pretzels into his mouth.

Jake glanced from the Opera to the President and back to the Opera. No, he should wait. There was still too much time. He opened the door further just in case he needed to run into the room and he instantly regretted it, because now he could see as well as hear the most inane television show ever broadcast by man.

Why do we have to have Emily on our team? All she do is complain and suck and complain and suck.

“Oh, God,” Jake said aloud.

President Bush glanced right and left and back toward the bathroom. “Wedge was that y—”

The President stopped as he began choking. A sound like a wretch came from the next room. He started pounding on his chest.

Jake glanced at his Opera, there was still three minutes left. He turned to run into the next room but ducked back as he feared being shot by the Secret Service. Then he reversed course as he feared being shot by President Cheney. “I’m coming Mr. President!” Jake called out.

President Bush’s face was beginning to turn blue and his eyes bulged as he saw Jake running toward him. The president fell down to his knees and Jake ran behind him to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

It wasn’t easy, and it had been a long time since health class and the President was taller than him. He pumped his hands deep into the President’s belly and pulled him upright.

Nothing.

Again! A little higher this time!

Still nothing.

Jake couldn’t continue to hold the President aloft and reluctantly dropped him. The President motioned to his back. With deep swats, Jake pounded on his back, hoping to dislodge the pretzel.

There was a stern knock on the door. “Mr. President?”

Jake gave the president three more thwacks on the back. But nothing came of it and the President was losing consciousness.

One more time.

He reached under the president’s arms, pulled him up, and gave him one more heave to the chest. Nothing.

C’mon damn it.

Jake’s back muscles strained as he lifted higher.

The knock came again. “Mr. President!”

Jake bit his lip as he turned his head toward the door. He tripped over the edge of the couch and both he and the president crashed hard into the television. Through the cacophony, he heard the pretzel dislodge and the President take deep coughs.

The door opened and the lights came on. Jake’s eyes opened wide. He bounded up and raced for the adjacent bathroom.

“Hey!” Wedge shouted.

Jake slammed the door, locked it, and laid down and braced his feet in front of it just in case they decided to fire center mass.

“I’ve got a two-twelve in the residence! Repeat two-twelve in the residency. The secret service was fast. He could hear the clomping of at least four agents swarm into the room. “Get the President out of here, now! Suspect ran to the bathroom.”

Jake glanced at his Opera as Secret Service began banging on the door. Ten seconds left.

At least two agents rammed the door and it barely held against their weight.

“Get back! Get back. I’ve--- uh, got a bomb.”

The agents stopped. The Opera beeped repeatedly. “Get away from the door!”

A bright light ripped open space and time and Jake found himself falling through it.

Jake found himself staring at the ceiling of his garage. Hallelujah! His back muscles protested as he slowly got to his feet and saw Ryan making out with a very topless girl. “Whoa!”

The girl shrieked and Ryan let out a surprised yell. The girl quickly pulled her blouse over her chest and Jake did his best to look away. Finally, after the girl had put her top back on, he turned around.

“Hey,” Jake said, in his best casual voice.

“Hey,” Ryan said, in his best I’m-trying-not-to-yell-voice.

“Hey,” The girl said, in her best what-the-hell-is-your-problem-you-giant-idiot-voice.

“So…” Jake said trailing off.

Ryan turned to the girl. “So hey, why don’t we just go inside and find a nice quiet Jake-free corner of the house.”

“I don’t know. I think I’m done.”

Ryan picked up her hand, held it, and kissed it. But he still retained a bit of a disappointed glint in his eyes. “Okay. So hey, there’s a bottle of Jack Daniels in the freezer, why don’t you grab that and we can have a few last drinks okay?”

She cast one more annoyed glare in Jake’s direction. “Okay.” She turned and quickly left the garage. Ryan walked over to the garage door and watched her disappear into the house. He quickly smiled at her, turned, and slammed the door.

“Dude! What the hell! In all my life I never thought I’d be cock blocked by time travel. Seriously, weren’t you supposed to be gone for like ten minutes? What the hell are you doing back here already?”

Jake held up his hands. “I can explain all of this. Just give me like a minute to catch my breath.”

“Dude, think on your own time. The world’s coming to an end.”

“Wait, what!” Over the hum of the electric lights and the spinning of the magnetic plates of the time machine, he could hear the sounds of air raid sirens going off in the distance. “Oh, Jesus Hewlett Packard Christ!” He ran over to the TV and turned it on.

“And if President Xi thinks he can fuck with me he’s got another thing coming. My bombs are the hugest! Believe me. I’m going to nuke him so hard China will glow for the next 10,000 years. It will be beautiful. Trust me.”

Jake did a bulge-eyed squint at the TV and his mouth dropped open. “Wait. Is that the idiot from The Apprentice? What the hell is he doing being President of the United States?”

“He said he was going to Make America Great Again and things went downhill from there. Don’t you remember? You started building the time machine the night he got elected.”

“Who in their right mind would have voted for this moron?”

“Well, Florida was the deciding state.”

Of course it was.

Jake rubbed his eyes. “Why can’t anything be simple?”

“Seriously man, why don’t you remember any of this?” Ryan asked.

Jake glanced back at Ryan. “What do you know about the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics?”

Ryan shrugged his shoulders and gave Jake a deadpan look as if he’d been asked to shove an angry hornet’s nest down his pants.

Jake sighed.

“So you know that Ashton Kutcher movie where he keeps going back in time and tries to make life better for his friends and keeps screwing up everything but doesn’t remember it?”

“Oh, The Butterfly Effect!”

“Yes, it’s like that basically but—”

“That was a good movie.”

Jake groaned and rubbed his face with the palm of his hands. Despite the world having been destroyed, he was really starting to miss smart Ryan.

The girl had returned with the bottle of Jack Daniels. She set three shot glasses out and filled each with Jack Daniels. Just as Jake was about to reach for his, Ryan grabbed it and did two shots in quick succession.

Jake gave him a wry look and Ryan opened his eyes wide and tilted his head toward the girl. As soon as Ryan had set the glass down, Jake snatched it up and held it out to the girl.

“Um, can you give me a quick shot…um…I’m sorry I don’t know your name.”

The girl blanched. “What do you mean you don’t know my name? I’ve lived here for a year.”

“Katy, it’s okay. It’s just the butterfly effect.”

She looked puzzled, “Wait, you’re not talking about that movie are you? Cause that was hella dumb.”

Jake threw up his hands, shot be damned, and went over to his computer. The TV was saying something about six minutes to first impact. He ran a quick diagnostic. It would take at least five minutes for the capacitors to charge enough to make a jump and he’d only be able to get a few minutes on the other side of 1999. It would have to do. He wasn’t going to spend his last six minutes alive debating the merits of Ashton Kutcher’s acting career.

He finalized the start-up sequence, synced to his Opera, and pulled out all the safeties for a full automatic push.

The lights began to flicker as the time machine drew more and more power.

“So you’re telling me you didn’t like That 70s Show? Why were we dating again? Ryan said in a playful tone.

Jake clapped his hands together. “Okay, so I think I know what went wrong last time. So, I’m going to give it one more go, to save the world and all that fun stuff.”

“Do you know why it didn’t work last time?” Katy asked.

“Yes, yes I do.”

There was silence as Katy looked at him waiting for an answer. “So are you going to tell us?”

Jake glanced over to Ryan and back to Katy. “What? Like right now?”

Katy shrugged her shoulders as if to say ‘duh’.

“Well…um…look…it’s very technical.”

“Yeah, it’s all vnery technical,” Ryan said with a slight slur in his voice.

“So…the multiphase emitter locked with the time circuits and produced a feedback loop causing distortions in the planet’s gravity well, which caused a brief time dilation as such that I didn’t go back in time.” Jake eagerly glanced at Katy hoping that she bought his story.

“You just made that up. And wait a second.” Katy eyed him over as if something was missing. “Weren’t you wearing your Green Day shirt when you left?”

“Uh….”

“Oh, yeah. You totally were,” Ryan added.

Jake looked down at his Nirvana t-shirt. He looked back up at Ryan and Katy and tried to feign a smile. “Look it’s very simple.” Without another word, Jake snatched the Jack Daniel’s bottle and took a deep, deep pull.

His Opera started to beep. A different high-pitched whine emanated from the TV that wasn’t from this timeline’s unfortunate President. He turned toward the TV and saw only color test patterns. The bombs must have already started falling on New York and other cities.

A swirl of white electric light crackled from the time machine. Without waiting on another word from his companions, he jumped through the gate. The gate opened five feet in the air and almost catapulted him on top of a surprised Wal-Mart shopper. He crash-landed into a cosmetic shelf and sent dozens of tubes of lipstick and lip gloss spilling to the floor.

The customer screamed and took off running. Jake groaned and looked up to the gaggle of confused shoppers that started to surround him. His Opera beeped and displayed the date – August 19, 1998. He only had four minutes.

Jake grabbed the whiskey bottle and slowly pushed himself up. Smart Ryan had said that even the tiniest of events would irrevocably alter events given enough time. He knew he wasn’t far enough back in time for a little thing to re-tilt the election to Al Gore and send him home. But maybe a big disruption could do it.

He downed what was left of the whiskey and flipped the bottle aside. He let out a guttural scream and silently prayed that no one was carrying a gun. Without another word, he stripped down to his boxers and charged at the mass of assembled shoppers. He sprinted down the aisle toward sporting goods where he grabbed a golf club.

“No more tyranny. Bring back Crystal Pepsi!” He shouted. “No more tyranny! Bring back Crystal Pepsi.”

“Yeah! Bring it back,” someone in automotive called back.

Jake continued chanting his brash slogan while dashing between the shopping carts of increasingly annoyed customers. He bolted over to the soda aisle and knocked down two-liters of RC and Coke products.

“No more cheap substitutes! Real Crystal Pepsi now!” Jake lined up the golf club with a fallen two-liter of sprite and thwacked it as hard as he could. The bottle burst open and the fizz propelled it somewhere into men’s wear.

“Hole in one! Tiger Woods says real golfers drink Crystal Pepsi!” Jake lined up his second shot on a poor, unsuspecting bottle of Cherry 7 Up and sent it bouncing down the aisle.

“Hey! Hold it right there!” A police officer called as he sprinted toward Jake.

Jake let out a high-pitched squeal and took off running. He sprinted through the deli meats and cheese section, where he barely missed colliding with an eighty-year-old woman. He was nearly corralled by a big trucker-slash-biker guy near the frozen pizza section when he ducked back into the employees-only area. The police officer burst through the doors right on his tail.

In a way, he felt like he was being chased by a T-1000. If only a machine from the future would save him.

His Opera began to beep, counting down the last few seconds. With his vision growing swimmy from the whiskey he missed a pallet jack and tripped over it, sending him falling to the ground. The time portal swallowed Jake up and the next thing he knew he was back in his garage again.

He struggled over the sounds of his own rapid breathing to hear if there were any air raid sirens going off. Everything seemed normal as far as he could tell. With the whiskey heavy in his head and his mind reeling from the day’s events, Jake rolled off the time machine, curled up on the floor, and fell right to sleep.

He awoke sometime later with really bad cottonmouth. Slowly, he pulled himself up and walked out of the garage. He breathed in a deep sigh of relief that the neighborhood was largely the same as he left it. There were sounds of grass being mowed, kids playing, and dogs barking. Even the sunset seemed particularly beautiful tonight. He entered the house, walked into the laundry room, and found clean shorts and a red polo shirt. In the other room he heard the TV and the well-measured voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Jake walked into the next room. “Hey Ryan. Still watching the Mars land…ing.” On the screen was Dr. Tyson, but the spaceship was computer generated and he appeared to be giving some lecture on a science topic.

“What about Mars? No, check it out. Netflix just added the second season of Cosmos.”

Dr. Tyson continued: One of the problems you run into with time travel is the grandfather paradox. If you were to go back in time and kill your own grandfather, how would your father be born? How could you? And how could you build a time machine to kill your grandfather? One possibility is the creation of a parallel universe where your actions would affect only that universe, but where the universe and time you traveled from remained unaffected. As incredible as it sounds this theory is supported by Einstein’s laws of general relativity.

Ryan turned around and looked up at Jake. “Hey speaking of time travel, how did it go? Did you bring back any Snapple Rain?”

“Snapple what now?” Jake replied.

“Snapple Rain. You said it was your favorite beverage and since they didn’t make it anymore your only choice was to go back in time and get some.”

Jake bit his lip. “No, I said I was going back for Crystal Pepsi.”

“Why would you need a time machine for that? You got a whole bunch in the fridge."

Jake’s mind broke, as if he was just told that he had won the leprechaun lottery at the Giraffe Playboy Mansion, while skinny dipping for pool noodles in a vat of diabetes-preventing Quaker Oatmeal. Finally, words dribbled out of his mouth. “This timeline has Crystal Pepsi?”

Ryan looked as if he was going to say something else but shook his head. “No, yeah, some competitive eating guy got it brought back a couple of years ago.”

Could my luck really be that good?

“This is going to sounds like a weird question, but who is the President of the United States?” Jake asked.

“Hillary Clinton.”

“Oh,” Jake said in a slightly disappointed tone of voice.

Still, a fridge full of Crystal Pepsi and Jake was watching a show about science. Two out of three wasn’t bad.

He walked to the fridge and opened it. There on the top shelf was over a dozen individual twenty-ounce bottles of Crystal Pepsi. He picked up one and held it against his forehead. The cold was refreshing. He cracked the bottle open and proceeded to drink over half of it in one swig.

Never in his whole life had he tasted something so divine. This Crystal Pepsi tasted as if it were distilled from angel tears that had been shed upon witnessing the immaculate grandeur of all of creation and its majesty, that through an endless multitude of parallel universes where chaos theory ruled and infinity equaled one, the creator had a grand purpose for all of it and everything made sense.

He took another drink.

Perfect.