From the Pen of Greg Norgaard, Book 1: Change the Past

  *****

  Wind hummed down the long stretch of the school’s hallway. All the doors were shut and locked except for the classroom’s entrance. Tom’s door was emitting a faint but solid yellowish glow; a shadow moved through it.

  He walked gingerly over the tiled floor with the essential apparatus under his arm. It was all clear but for the dust that floated in the beam of light that shot through the door’s opening and the skeleton keyhole. There was the squeak of a man’s rubber-soled shoe and it was followed by a female voice that went out with a muffled, “No.”

  There it was again, the same voice, except this time Tom recognized the person, and that person said, “Let me go.”

  Tom let loose the explosion of determination that his friend Bass would expect. He stepped in to find Dean Jacobson holding a copper plate in his left hand and Emily Taylor by the throat in his right, a look of utter disillusioned stupefaction on his arrogant face. Emily’s body quirked sharply as Jacobson relinquished his hold. She fell against a desk. Her head shot down, smacking a chair as her body bent to settle to the floor.

  Tom channeled his pent-up frustration and sadness and anger and strength and placed it all into a clenched-up mass that resided in the deltoid muscle of his shoulder.

  Jacobson dropped the copper plate from his slippery hands and walked backward. He cleared his throat and said, “It was the agents. It’s the FBI agents, Tom. I swear to you, Thomas, please believe that they goaded me. They said if I didn’t--”

  The knot in Tom’s shoulder loosed a dense fist with a solid blow onto the jaw of Jacobson. The man’s frame became a gelatinous bag. It fell. It flattened without so much as a warning. It just dropped.

  Tom turned. He knew Emily was awake and aware for her frame shifted back and then up and then forward, all while holding her head in her hands.

  Tom asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I think so.”

  He guided her as he gently lifted her to a seat.

  As Emily adjusted her bearings and situational awareness, Tom analyzed the experiment. Everything was in place, sans the Time Shift Circuit and the copper plate. Then a dull glint off an object on the desk caught his eye . . . it was the telephone.

  Emily said, “I came in to check on some data. I’d had a dream. I’d had a really vivid dream that something was off. I saw you and your wife at my wedding.”

  “Are you even dating anyone?”

  Emily sat quiet and still. She said, “No, but it’s going to happen.”

  Tom swallowed hard. “It’s about to happen for you.”

  Emily said, “I’m not sure why I came in and...what time is it?”

  Tom said, “It’s almost five in the a.m.”

  “Why would I come in so early?”

  “I knew you’d be here. It’s what was meant to be.”

  Emily stood and wobbled a bit and said, “You did?”

  “Yes, you’re about to make a call.”

  “I--” Emily stopped. The realization began to sink in. “Oh.”

  A moment passed. Emily said, “What do I say?” Before Tom could answer she had another question. “Wait, why is Dean Jacobson stealing from us?”

  Tom walked Emily to the desk and said, “The Dean was influenced by the Scientific Investigative Division of the US government. Most likely a division of the FBI.”

  “Oh, that makes no sense to me, but okay. Is Pop okay?”

  “Your dad is fine.”

  Emily reached out for the phone. Tom managed to get the copper plate into place and the Time Shift Circuit plugged in.

  Tom said, “Our problem was the speed of the particles. It’s not that they need to go faster, it’s that they need to go slower. They never would’ve been able to reverse engineer this even with my notes.”

  Tom worked quietly over the next hour coiling the silver cable until the radius of the coils were such that the electrons would be slowed just enough to allow the call to be made in order to do what he wanted. That is, change the past.

  He arranged the Time Shift Circuit. He plugged in the time and location he needed for his call to be successful.

  The clock read what he anticipated. With a sigh he closed the door and pulled a seat next to Emily.

  Emily waited as Tom watched the separate second hand on his World War II military watch. It was then that he said: “Emily. When I’m done I will set the experiment and when the time is right, you will say: Today is Thursday the seventh, the time is six-oh-seven a.m. You must go to one-oh-one West Sycamore Street. There will be trouble.”

  Emily acknowledged. Tom set the lever. She waited for the hum and the right frequency. Tom watched and analyzed. Emily made the call. It was perfect. Tom then knew how to do it.

  Emily hung up the phone just as Jacobson wailed out from pain and Bass and Sam burst into the classroom. Bass had watery eyes and held his hands up when he saw his daughter.

  He said, “You are here!”

  Emily said, “I’m okay, Dad.”

  Bass gave his daughter a hug. Sam escorted Jacobson from the classroom as he scolded him.

  Bass gave a bear-hug to Tom. He said, “I love you, brother.”

  “I love you.”

  “Come back to us.”

  Tom stepped away and looked at Bass. He said, “I’m doing just that.”