6: The Fifth Dimension Project

V: An Alternative Realty

1      7:15 PM: Bringing Sam in for Questioning

Captain Pierce of the local Bridger police force walks up to Sargeant Ulten, “I have just received orders from the DA’s office to bring Sam Marshall in for questioning. Go and bring him in.”

“Yes sir, but may I ask why? What is he suspected of doing?”

“That, I expect, is above our pay grade Sargeant. Just go to his house and pick him up.”

“If he’s not home?”

“Just wait outside until you receive further instructions.”

“Sir if I may speak freely. Did you see his speech? He is trying to calm things, to convince us to let cooler heads prevail. Sir, he is trying to stop the civil war that seems to be gathering strength. It seems suspect to me that someone in power wants him off the streets the same day that fighting is spreading across the nation.”

“Just do your job and go pick him up.”

“Yes sir.”

Sam is finishing his second shot of whiskey and turning off the news to get ready to drive to the Physics Building when he sees the police car drive up. He watches. The officer gets out of the car. This isn’t good, he turns and heads out the back door. Starts running.

The officer notes that Sam isn’t home. Heads back to his car to wait.

2      7:30 PM: Accessing the Lab

The janitor slowly wheels his cart down the hallway. He goes into each room and empties the garbage. As he moves down the hall, he squeezes a tube about every 10 feet that leaves a single drop of fluid on the floor. He stops right in front of the guard blocking the door to Marhan and Nora’s lab and looks at him, his eyes questioning what he should do. “I can’t let you in here the guard says.” 

“I’m supposed to empty the garbage.”

“Not tonight. Tomorrow night, this whole lab will be garbage. You can empty it then.”

The janitor nods, then continues to make his way down the hall. He leaves his cart outside a bathroom, goes in, starts to clean it.   

A white mouse appears from the same direction the janitor did when he started down the hall. It runs down the hall, stopping here and there to sniff, as though it is following a scent trail. Winnie appears in the hall, “Now where did he go?”  She walks up to the guard, wrinkles her nose, asks, “I was putting some mice in place for an experiment but one got away. Did you see a mouse run past you?” 

The guard points to the janitorial cart. “He went under there.”

Winnie looks at the cart. “My back is killing me. I am constantly bending down to search for one mouse or another that has gotten away. Would you mind helping me for a moment?”  Winnie looks at the guard with her big pleading eyes.

He stares at her; he doesn’t say a word, but he clearly doesn’t want to help. She wrinkles her nose again, hoping to work a little of her mouse whisperer magic. He turns away. She holds a cloth in front of him. “I have this cloth with chloroform on it. Just bend down and get this cloth within a few inches of the mouse. That will quiet him down, and it would help me out so much. Maybe we could go out after your shift and enjoy a drink together. I’ll bet a big handsome man like you would be fun to spend time with.”

She wrinkles her nose at him one more time. The guard sees her this time, but still can’t bring himself to help. He offers, “How about I just step on the rodent?”

Winnie’s face turns from pleading to angry. “I thought I could get a little help, but no,” she says as she walks away. Then she turns to the guard. “What good would a squished mouse be in an experiment!”  She puts her right hand on her back for emphasis and makes pain noises as she continues down the hall.

The guard sees that he did not get the reaction he was hoping for, and he is now intrigued with this mousy haired dynamo. “Okay, okay.”  He walks up and takes the cloth from Winnie, walks with Winnie down the hall, tells her that the shift change is at midnight. “Maybe since it will be so late, we could just go over to my place for a nightcap.” 

She smiles at him, rests her right hand on his left bicep. “Ooohh, you are so strong.”

He smiles at her, seems a bit mesmerized by her, bends down, looks under the cart.

Winnie carefully pulls a syringe out of her pocket while the guard is bending down. As soon as he looks away, she jabs him in the shoulder. He slides himself out from under the cart, “What did you just do?” he asks as the sedative begins to take effect. A few seconds later he is out. “Carlos, the guard is unconscious.”

Carlos steps out of the bathroom. Reaches in the cart for a roll of duct tape he hid there. “Impressive for such a gentle soul.”

“He threatened to stomp Timey,” Winnie snarls as she reaches down and Timey runs up her arm.

Carlos looks at her, smiles and says, “I’ll take care of the guard, you go get the others.”

Winnie heads back up the hall to tell Marhan, Nora and Wilna that the coast is clear.

Carlos drags the guard into the bathroom strips him, and duct tapes his mouth, hands, and ankles. Someone will find him in the morning.

3      8:00 PM: Getting Sam Started

Carlos is still in the bathroom putting on the guard’s clothes as the group comes down the hall. Nora peers into the bathroom, thanks Carlos for assisting them. Carlos turns to her, “I was maybe a little worried, that this will get me in trouble again, but I have seen what you can do, and what you have done for me. I believe that you will change things to make them better and I will be alright.”

Nora smiles. “That’s the plan.”  He emerges from the bathroom, she grabs his hand, says, “Thank you for trusting me. I’ll let you know how this goes.”  Carlos now stands outside the lab door. Nora steps inside with the rest of them.

Marhan sweeps for bugs. “Nothing.”

Wilna looks questioningly at Nora, “Where’s Sam?”

“He’ll be here. He knows where we are. Let’s just get set up.”

Marhan brought a large box with him and is busy making some adjustments to the equipment when Nora walks over to him, gives him a questioning look. “With our lab closed, I borrowed space in a different lab and worked with a team of engineers to build some additional equipment,” he says as he pulls a new helmet out of the box and shows Nora the new wiring harness. “We have a backup now, or we could send back two people now if we needed to, for a rescue mission, or who knows what.”

In 10 minutes, they were ready to go, but still no Sam.

“Can we call him?” Wilna asks.

“No, they bugged his phone, so he’s using burner phones and I don’t know the numbers he’s using. He either calls me or we talk in the mornings at the coffee shop where we first met.

Sam arrives sweating and panting a minute later. “Sorry, the police arrived to arrest me as I was getting ready to leave. I couldn’t take my car. I had to run here.”

Nora smells a faint odor of alcohol on him. Pulls him aside. “Have you been drinking?”

“Just two shots. Needed to clear my head, couldn’t sleep last night. Was hungover all day. Just a little hair-of-the-dog.”

“Are you fucking kidding me!” she screams at him while pushing him against a wall. Everyone turns to look. “We are risking everything doing this. Please tell me that your head is clear enough to think.”

“I’m okay,” Sam says while raising his arms in surrender. Sam turns to everyone in the room. “I’m sorry everyone, but my head is clear. I’ll be okay.”  Nora relents; Sam walks around at the lab in awe of all the equipment. “Where is the quantum computer?”

“In the basement of the computer science building. I access it remotely,” Nora replies.

Wilna walks up to him, unsure if he remembers her from after the protest.

“Wilna, right?”  Sam asks.

“That’s right.” she starts, “The quantum computer powers this project, along with Nora’s code and Marhan’s helmet and all the other apparatus that you see around us that Marhan and a team of engineers built. It looks like Nora is ready for you,” and she points Sam over toward the table.

They all gather around as Nora instructs Sam. “We have three hours 45 minutes until the guards change shifts. As I’ve told you previously, we need you to think of key moments in your past that if you are able to change them, will change your younger self’s understanding of Nichols and will keep your younger self from working for him, or to stop working for him before he locks up the nomination and gets elected.”

Sam nods his head. “I have a few key moments from my past in mind.”

Marhan now takes over the instructions. “Think of these key moments in chronological order. Focus on the oldest moment first, then as you complete each moment, move to the next one forward in time.”

“We have hours, not days,” Nora adds, “So please try to focus on just a narrow slice of each moment, so we can move you through quickly, but of course, stay with your younger self long enough to have an impact.”

Marhan motions to Sam to lay on the table, he jumps up and sits there as they continue talking.

“I have as much on the line here as you two do.”  Sam replies, “If this is possible. I’ll make it happen.”

The door to the lab opens. Carlos looks apologetically at Nora, “The professors insisted on coming in.”

“It’s alright Carlos,” Nora responds. “Good evening professors,” Nora says to Professors Levin and Wilster.

Professor Wilster approaches the table. “You must be Sam Marshall, I’m Joanna Wilster, this is Mark Levin.”

“Good evening to you both, what can I do for you?” Sam asks in his usual charming manner.

Joanna steps forward and starts to speak. “Mark and I have spent the last few hours researching your history with Nichols. It strikes us that one use of this technology would be for you to go back and edit yourself the day you gave the press conference that got you thrown out of the White House.”

“That’s not my intention.”

“Why not? That’s the easiest solution. You only have to change one small piece of history to accomplish it. It puts you back in the halls of power, stops you from running and hiding.”

“That’s not what I want. I was trying to change Nichols, thought I had changed Nichols. I was fooled by him,” Sam says emphatically as he sat there feeling embarrassed.

“Why should we believe you? What skin do you have in this, this…” Joanna looks around the lab at all the equipment, raises her arms emphatically, “process,” she adds for want of a better word.

Sam hops off the table, takes a few steps away from the group, then turns around and starts, “You’re right. That would be the easiest solution for me, but if you researched my history, you’ll have seen that what happened is not consistent with what I espoused. I was always searching for policies that helped people. I was never a provocateur; I never supported the policies Nichols is putting into effect, and I certainly do not support the war that I’m sure he is instigating.”

“I also have personal reasons for fixing things. I lost Sarah, the love of my life, when I started working for Nichols. I thought I was going to be able to show her that I could change Nichols, that my success in doing so would bring us back together, but she was right. I couldn’t change him.”

“So you see, I want to change what I did to put Nichols in power for the whole world, but also for myself. Going back and continuing to serve in Nichols’ administration would never bring Sarah back,” he gets choked up as he’s speaking, “and I want to bring Sarah back,” Sam says as he wipes a tear from his eye.

The room is quiet. Joanna gives the floor to Mark. “Sam, what is your sense of what happens if this does work? Does our country go back to being a normal functioning democracy, or are we just setting the stage for another authoritarian to rise?”

“This country didn’t hire an authoritarian president; it hired the image of a strong executive that will improve peoples’ lives that I sold them. So, I am confident that if we are able to reset the past, America will go back to what it was, a messy, tumultuous, but well-functioning democracy. If I am unable to stop Nichols, however, I really do fear for the future of this country. We can see already that the hate he spawns is metastasizing into pitched battles. He foments division, peaceful protests against his policies are met with violent counter protests. Hate has a constituency if you give it life.”

“If this doesn’t work, I’ll be leaving right afterwards to try and rally the country to fight back, to try and stop the spread of civil war. I’ve already drafted my first speech, ‘There is no Freedom without Justice.’  Hopefully you’ll never have to hear me present it.”

Mark nods his head, looks over at Joanna, then says, “Okay then, let’s get Sam back on the table.”

Joanna adds, “Mark and I shouldn’t be here. If we are caught with you the whole university might be sanctioned for what you are doing. It was good meeting you Sam,” she says as she shakes Sam’s hand.

Mark then steps up, looks at all of them. “You are the brightest, bravest group of young scientists I have ever had the pleasure to work with. Make us proud.”  And with that he turns away and starts toward the door.

Joanna reaches out her hand to Nora and pulls her aside. She holds both of Nora’s hands as they stand face-to-face. “The first time we met, you asked if I read you, and I told you I did. What I read then, what I see now, is a brilliant forceful woman who can make the difficult decisions it may take in the next few hours to do what is needed for this process to succeed. Let your guts and your smarts guide you.”  Joanna smiles, in a moment of levity says, “We’ll work on your mindfulness skills when this is done,” then hugs Nora, and joins Mark as they head out the door.

Nora gives Sam a piercing look, “Well you seem to have gotten past them without them noticing. I hope you can do this.”

“I can,” Sam says as he hops back up on the table, and Marhan starts working the helmet onto his head. Sam stops him. “If this works, what happens? I mean will I wake up here, will I still know all of you?”

They all look to Marhan to answer. “If this works, we will be unwinding the reality of the past two plus years.”  He stops speaking, looks over at Nora, “Have you told Sam about the Fifth-Dimension pulse?”

Nora shakes her head no. Sam looks confused.

“Okay,” Marhan restarts, “Let’s just say that a lot of things are going to change. Our limited experience indicates that your physical body will not be here when the session is over. You will likely be wherever you would have been if you hadn’t worked for Nichols, or at least stopped working for him before you got him elected. We are redefining humanity’s understanding of metaphysics. What that means for the details of the unwinding of reality of the past few years, I cannot even begin to guess. When you step back from the fifth dimension, you, all of us, will awaken in a different, hopefully more peaceful world.”

Sam wants to discuss this further, but the stress he sees in the faces of everyone gathered around the table makes it clear that they don’t have the time. “Perhaps someday we will be able to talk about this in retrospect.”  Then with some hesitance in his voice, Sam adds, “Some of what I need to show you is,” but he can’t quite find the right words, “Well you’ll see.”

With that, Sam starts to lie down, but Nora grabs him. Hugs him tight for a moment, before letting go. “You were a good running partner,” she says while tearing up and staring into his eyes for a moment.

Sam lies back while continuing to look at Nora, but then Marhan starts to buckle the helmet onto his head and their eyes turn away from each other. Marhan sees the looks they give to each other; he feels distress building in the pit of his stomach. Nora goes to the computer and begins working through the protocols. Marhan follows her.

4      8:15: Trying to Find Sam

“Captain Pierce. Are you there Sir?” Sargeant Ulten asks into the radio.

“Pierce here, go ahead Sargeant.”

“I’ve been sitting outside his house for most of an hour. Sam Marshall is not home Sir. Any further instructions?”

There’s static on the radio for a few seconds while the captain thinks. Then, “Give me a minute Sargeant.”

The captain turns to his assistant. “Can you get me the name of that female scientist that Sam Marshall was pictured with?”

The assistant looks online and finds an article with a picture of the two of them. Her name is Nora DeLuca. Here’s her address.”

The captain reads this information off to the Sargeant. “Okay, I’ll go see if he is at her house.”

5      8:15: Sam and the Poli-Sci Groupie

When the fragments formed into a picture, we could see through Sam’s eyes that he was lecturing a small audience of college age men and women. The audience was rapt as Sam discussed his views on making college more affordable for everyone. He offered a grab bag of ideas and threw it open to questions. One woman in the front row didn’t ask any questions, but Sam’s eyes kept returning to her and she never took her eyes off Sam.

“She’s one of them, a policy-sci groupie.” Nora blurts out. “Sam told me that a lot of young women threw themselves at him, and that it had an effect on the ideas he focused on and how he presented them.”

“Are you trying to tell us that conservative women are looser than liberal women?”  Wilna asks.

“Maybe,” Nora replies. “Or, maybe more of them just showed up to Sam’s talks. He is rather handsome,” she says as she looks over at him on the table. Marhan hears this, gives Sam’s body a side glance that shows the stress he is feeling.

After the question-and-answer session, people started filtering out. Some went up to talk further with Sam one-on-one, but the woman in the front row didn’t move. She waited until everyone was gone before she went up to talk to Sam. “I like your thoughts on having professors teach more and getting government out of education. Hi, I’m Anna,” she purred as she looked him up and down. “I’d like to hear your ideas on how we keep minorities out of our colleges.”

“Anna, that isn’t a policy I could support. It’s best for our nation if everyone has a chance to earn a college education.”

“I’m just teasing you Sam,” Anna giggled and started playing with Sam’s tie. “Besides, I agree with your point, everyone should have a chance to earn an education, but affirmative action makes the playing field unequal. If we got rid of that, the playing field would be more equal.”

Sam sensed where this was heading, so he decided to concede the point. He didn’t outright agree, he just nodded and shrugged, didn’t otherwise respond.

“Would you like to go back to my place for a drink and to talk some more?”  Anna asked.

“That sounds like fun,” Sam replied.

Wilna looks over at Sam, taps Nora on the shoulder. “Look, his supposedly sleeping body is getting a hardon.”

Marhan hears this, jerks his head around to look at Sam, and sure enough it was obvious that he was getting aroused in both the past and the present. He tries being scientific about it. “We already saw with Wilna that events from the past can affect test subjects in the present. This is just another form of the past-present connection.”

“Wilna didn’t move, if a test is like being in REM sleep, how is Sam, uh moving?” Nora asks.

“That’s easy,” Wilna responds, “I’m sure that you’ve heard of, even experienced wet dreams. It seems like Sam may be on the verge of having one.”

They all look over at Sam, suddenly feeling uncomfortable for invading his private moments.

Anna grabbed hold of Sam’s hand as she led him to her apartment. As they walked, she posed more ideas to challenge Sam. “Isn’t all this support diversity stuff just nonsense?”

The picture on the screen was suddenly distorted. Sam looked over at Anna, who stretched as though he was looking at her in a funhouse mirror, then turned into a series of waves as she shrunk to a cat sized person, then was herself again.

“What just happened?”  Nora asks in an agitated tone.

“Not sure, but maybe those were quantum foam distortions.  You know, the gyrations in time and space that Professor Warner told us were possible,” Marhan responds.

“Is this because of the alcohol?” Nora asks.

“Not sure. Might not be causal, but it’s correlated with Sam’s alcohol use. Let’s just hope it calms down, or we are going to be in for a wild ride.”

“Diversity has its costs and its benefits, so we have to be careful in taking so strong a stand,” Sam responded.

“Wouldn’t college students be better off if teaching were focused on math, science and American history?”

“It is important for students to have a good set of skills and a solid understanding of their history, but there is so much more to the world for them to be exposed to.”

Anna giggled softly at each of Sam’s answers. “You are so determined to straddle the fence.”  The giggles echoed in Sam’s mind while Chesire Cat like smiles popped on and off the computer screen.

“I see it more as searching for answers that do the most to improve people’s lives.”

Sam hesitated when they got to her door. “Look, you seem great, but maybe we shouldn’t do this.”  And, for a moment they started to view Anna from more of a distance as older Sam started trying to pull away.

“Come on Sam keep pulling back,” Nora coaches him through the computer screen.

Anna grabbed his right arm with her left hand and put her right hand on his crotch. “Are you sure you want to walk away?”

The image suddenly jerked back behind Sam’s eyes. Sam leaned in and started kissing her. It was clear now that young Sam had control. The screen colors began to brighten as both Sams got more excited. Anna’s door was suddenly decorated with dancing flowers in bright animated colors.

“I’m not letting him fuck her.”  Nora yells. They all look at her. “No, it’s not that I’m jealous, but I don’t want to watch it, and this is how Sam’s ideas mutated into ones that attracted Nichols, and why he didn’t see the danger that Nichols posed. Women like Anna made him comfortable with right-wing thinking, and he got seduced into thinking those ideas weren’t dangerous.”

Marhan jumps in, “We have to let this play out. This already looks nuts without you interfering. Remember, present day Sam is trying to change his younger self. We can’t just jump in before Sam has a chance to do this.”

Winnie goes over to Sam and starts humming in the way she does to calm agitated mice. The rest of them look at the screen. Sam stopped kissing Anna for a moment, looked around, the scene returned to normal.

“What is it?” Anna asked.

“Uh, nothing, thought I heard something. Huh,” Sam said somewhat confused before Anna pulled him back in, and the scene electrified again.

“It’s not enough Winnie,” Nora blurts out as she stands up. “Young Sam is hornier than your average mouse.”

“Please sit down and let this play out,” Marhan pleads.

“Fuck that!” Nora gets up, goes over to the table with Winnie, stands there for a moment, thinking. “I’ve got an idea. Winnie, help me get his pants down.”

Marhan sees this, panics, “What are you doing?”

 Nora holds up a hand, signaling to Marhan to just wait. She goes over to the small fridge in the lab, while muttering, “What a waste of perfectly good yogurt.”  She grabs a quart of yogurt out of the fridge, tears off the plastic top, grabs a scissors from her desk, and cuts a dick sized circle out of the aluminum foil seal on the top of the container. She looks up at Winnie. “Grab his dick and hold it straight up.”  Winnie does this. She looks at Sam lying there. “Sorry Sam, I can’t let you fuck her,” and she takes the quart container and slams it down over his privates.

Marhan sees this, nods, laughs.

Sam had squirmed a bit when Winnie grabbed him, but the shock of cold yogurt on his privates sent him flying backwards. Older Sam hit the ground and then started using his feet to propel himself backwards, trying to escape the shock that encased his privates. Younger Sam stayed with Anna, but he had lost control. Anna could only see his older counterpart. The scene turned a cool blue, ice formed on Anna and around her image. She stood looking confused and concerned at Sam on the floor crawling away. Sam was shocked, his hands covered his crotch. The scene took on the look of a kaleidoscope with Sam in the middle retreating as snowflakes and ice crystals revolved around him. Anna tried approaching him, but he kept moving away. Finally, her gaze turned steely, became fully encased in ice. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”  She yelled, then turned opened and slammed her door. Ice shattered everywhere.

“You did it!” Wilna yells over to Winnie and Nora, “Anna is gone.”

Nora looks at Sam, grits her teeth. “That’ll keep you from wanting to fuck right-wing loons,” and she smacks him hard in the face.

Wilna and Marhan turn to the screen to see Sam’s head get jerked hard to the right and his neck stretch like a cartoon character and crackle like ice as the scene starts to dissolve.

Nora pulls the yogurt container off Sam. It makes a slurping sound as it separated from him. She looks up at Winnie, they both laugh. “Good thing it was Greek yogurt, eh,” Nora says, as she throws the yogurt in the trash, and grabs a towel.

6      8:45 PM: The Search for Sam Continues

“Are you there Sir?” Sargent Ulten asks into the radio.

“Captain Pierce here, go ahead Sargeant.”

“No sign of Sam Marshall or Nora DeLuca at her house. Do you want me to wait outside here for them to return, or to proceed elsewhere?”

“Is her car there Sargeant, and was Sam’s car at his house?”

“His car was there, hers is not.”

“It’s Friday night, perhaps they are out having dinner. Does your computer show what she drives?”

Yes Sir.”

“Okay, look for her car in lots near restaurants, but also stop at the other scientist’s house. Hang on a minute.”

“His name is Marhan Bakshi, here’s his address. Perhaps they are all together.”

“I’ll check it out, and get back to you.”

7      8:50 PM: Sam Meets Sarah

Nora and Winnie head back to the computer. Wilna gives them an update.

“Sam is giving another lecture, and there is a different woman in the room who seems interested in him, but she isn’t giving him bedroom eyes, she keeps challenging him,” Wilna notes.

This catches Nora’s attention. “Can you point her out to me?” she asks. Wilna does. “That’s Sarah, at least she fits the description Sam gave to me.” Nora gives them a quick summary of Sam and Sarah’s history, and says, “I wonder if Sam brought us here, because this is the night they met.”

At the end of his lecture, the woman came up and introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Sarah. You’re very capable, but your approach bothers me. You really seem to want to explore every policy avenue. This may be useful as an intellectual exercise, but not all policy ideas have an equal basis in being able to help people. You need to sort through them, and focus on presenting ones that are more likely to be effectuated, and can be more valuable if implemented.”

“At this point in my thinking, I’m focused more on ideas as the basis for coalition building. Coalitions are important in politics, and I am trying to figure out which set of ideas will enable one to build the largest coalition.”

“But the ideas that drive your coalition-building should be workable, should be the best set for improving lives,” Sarah replied.

Sam was intrigued by this woman. “Would you like to continue this discussion over a drink,” Sam asked, as the screen brightened.

“Hold tight, here we go again,” Wilna says.

Sarah hesitated, but then nodded yes and said, “Sure, why not,” and with that the scene began to fragment.

The next scene began to take shape. “Go out for a pass,” Sam’s voice said, before we saw him toss a stuffed elephant to Sarah over a room full of boxes.

“Be careful with that, it’s my favorite little buddy,” Sarah said as she hugged the animal and smiled.

“An elephant, why is that one your favorite?” Sam asked. Sam’s voice sounded jubilant and this was reflected in Sarah’s face, which glowed with a glitter like sheen.

“In real life these creatures have characteristics I value including that they form strong family units.”

With that she leaned in to give Sam a kiss, elephants began dancing above Sarah’s head and the scene started to fragment.

“This is wild,” Wilna notes. “You two have to do more experiments using buzzed subjects.”

“It looked like they were moving in together,” Marhan notes trying to stay focused.

“Yes, they lived together for a short while before …” The next scene began forming before Nora could finish.

“Governor Nichols thinks your speechwriting could be an asset to his campaign,” Mike Williams was saying as the scene formed. Animated devil horns formed on Mike’s head, his nose and chin sharpened and a pitchfork appeared in his hand as he talked.

“Seems like Sam is having some fun. We could all enjoy a good laugh at Sam’s psychedelics if this wasn’t so serious,” Nora says quietly, as though she didn’t want to encourage Sam.

“I’d like that. I have a lot of policy ideas that I think could help the governor get some traction with the electorate.”

The scene dissolved and a new scene formed that showed Sarah sitting, crying. “He’s just using you Sam.”  The walls and furniture drooped; the colors dulled.

“He’s not. He can’t run on my ideas and then just flip-flop once he gets elected.”

Sarah looked at him. Her eyes were red, her expression a mix of sadness and frustration. Then frustration took the fore. “You know we’re not going to survive this campaign. In the end, you are going to have to choose.”  Sarah fades to the background, as though she is moving into a tunnel, her voice echoes as if from a distant point. The scene begins to fragment.

“Whoa, more space distortions.”  Marhan says, then asks somewhat distractedly, why is Sam showing us these scenes?” while scene fragments flash by on the computer.

“I think that he’s trying to remind his younger self what he had and what he gave up,” Nora responds. “Amazingly we are getting the story he is trying to tell, distortions and all.”

A voice signals the beginning of a new scene. “Sam, we’re up a few points in the polls.” Nichols’ voice is heard saying as the fragments form into a picture. The Governor is sitting with Sam and Mike Williams. “I think it’s time for me to flesh out my immigration policy. The ideas I’ve presented with Mike’s help, on immigration thus far haven’t really jelled with the electorate. Any ideas?” 

“I have some ideas,” Sam started, then the image pulled back, away from Sam. The colors darkened, rows of roughly dressed hunched black clad figures were drifting across between Sam, Nichols and Williams. “Before I write a new speech, I need assurance, governor, that if you present my ideas, and you win on my ideas, that you will stick to them once elected.”

The governor and Mike looked at Sam for a moment; they weren’t used to his raising concerns like this. Mike started to jump in saying, “How dare you impugn the governor’s integrity.”  The devil garb reappeared on Williams.

The governor put his hand on Mike’s back and said, “It’s okay Mike, Sam has a right to concern himself with the conduct of my administration once elected, as he will have an important role in it.”  Then he continued, “I will stick to the ideas that got me elected to the extent possible as that will be where the voters are, but I will have to deal with Congress and most importantly I will have to react to events. Events drive so much of what an administration can accomplish.”  Nichols’ face morphed into the shape of a butt, with him talking through his vertical smile.

A shudder seemed to go through Sam and the images again reset behind Sam’s eyes, and the image reset to normal. “He apologized to Nichols, “I’m sorry sir, I have a lot riding not just on the success of your campaign, but also on the performance of your administration once you win.”

As the scene starts to dissolve, Wilna notes, “Older Sam forced a challenge to Nichols, but unless the challenge gets him fired, it’s not going to change things enough.”

“But younger Sam won’t let that challenge go that far,” Marhan adds.

“Exactly,” Wilna says, then thinking out loud, says, “I wonder if he’s going to show us the speech?”

Marhan and Nora look at each other. “We should try to pull it up,” Marhan says.

“Already on it,” Nora responds. “If we do hear Nichols presenting a new version of the speech, what are we looking for?”

“It should be less appealing than his first version,” Wilna jumps in. “Maybe more conservative, maybe more liberal. Just less broadly appealing.”

Nichols was speaking as a new scene began to form. He was giving Sam’s new immigration speech. Nora read the old speech as she listened to the new one. Marhan and Wilna leaned in to read along. “Holy shit, the speech is changing on screen,” Nora exclaims. They looked at each other.

“We’re changing reality.”  Marhan looks at Nora and Wilna. History is malleable, and we are changing it,” he says a little unsteadily.

“But there was no pulse,” Nora looks at the two of them, “No Fifth-Dimension Pulse.”

“That must mean that the changes he managed to put in place were too small to have any effect,” Wilna adds quietly.

“So much for the Butterfly Effect,” Marhan adds sounding disappointed.

Wilna comments. “Sam is not having a strong enough impact on his younger self. What do we do?”

Marhan is having trouble focusing on what to do next. The scientist in him was nervously ecstatic. “We just changed history.”  Then he starts hyperventilating. “What right do we have to do this?”

Nora stands up, grabs his shoulders. “Marhan, keep it together. A civil war is raging outside. We’re trying to make the world a better place.”

Marhan’s emotions change suddenly from shaken to angry. “Better for who? Better for you and Sam, not better for me,” and Marhan turns his back on Nora and toward the computer screen. The scene had dissolved.

Nora steps back. Where did that come from? She had been worried that their research partnership would be put at risk if they dated, but now she sensed that it might end even if they didn’t. There was no time for this. She focuses back in.

8      9:10 PM: Sarah Moves Out

Sarah’s voice came through as a new scene began to form. The space was filled with boxes, moving men were walking through carrying boxes. “You made your choice. I’m leaving.”

Sam pleaded, “Sarah, please don’t, I love you.”

Sarah bit her lip, held back her tears, turned to talk to one of the movers. Tears began to drip down the walls of the apartment. “This is amazing. Sam’s every emotion gets displayed on the screen,” Wilna comments.

“At least when older Sam is in charge,” Marhan adds.

Nora bursts out, “I have an idea.”  Can we reduce the energy we are applying and stop the scene from progressing? Just apply enough energy to keep the door open, but don’t let Sam’s thoughts progress. I want you to send me back. Put me in Sarah’s body. Let me talk to Sam.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Marhan says looking at Nora.

“Even if you can inhabit Sarah’s body, what makes you think that can accomplish more than Sam is able to accomplish with his younger self?” Wilna breaks in.

“Sam and his younger self are in conflict. Sarah and I aren’t. We both want the same thing. Maybe Sarah would even let me talk to Sam.”

“Is this even possible?” Wilna asks turning to face Marhan.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if Nora can inhabit Sarah’s body.”

Nora smiles. “This is exactly the rescue mission Marhan planned for,” she says as she wraps her right arm around Marhan’s left arm and put her left hand on his forearm.”  She looks at him. “We can do this.”

Marhan steels himself and takes control. “Winnie, slide Sam over on the table and make room for Nora next to him.”  Then he goes over and affixes the new helmet on Nora’s head, while carefully combing her hair away from her eyes with his fingers. “I don’t know how long we are going to be able to keep you in Sarah’s body, if this works at all. Just plan out a few things to say that hopefully will bring older Sam to the forefront.”

“I will,” Nora responds, and with that Wilna starts the protocol.

Marhan runs over to the computer. The screen flickers, but they can’t see the scene through Nora or Sarah’s eyes. “What just happened?” Wilna asks.

“I don’t know,” but then as Sam moved his head, they caught a glimpse of Nora’s disembodied spirit in the room. Sam didn’t notice her. She didn’t stand out from the bright lights and tearing walls. “She’s almost invisible. Even if she can communicate with Sam or Sarah, she would just freak them out. This isn’t going to work. Let’s bring her back.”

And with that they stop Nora’s portion of the session. She sits up, is excited. “I was in the room. I could see all around me, but with my ghostlike form, I didn’t dare speak.”  She jumps down from the table, “Don’t let this scene progress, I’ve got another idea.”  She looks back and forth at Marhan and Wilna as she grabs her phone. “I’m going to try and find a number for Sarah, and call her.”

“What will that accomplish?” Marhan asks.

“I’m not sure, but I’m not ready to give up.”  She finds her number, pushes videochat.

Sarah answers. “Hello?”

“Hi Sarah, my name is Nora, you don’t know me, but please don’t hang up. I’m here with two of my colleagues, Wilna and Marhan,” she shows them on the chat so they can wave and say hi to Sarah. “There’s someone else here too, Sam.” 

“I don’t want to talk to him. Goodbye.”

“No! Please don’t hang up!  You don’t understand!  Please bear with me while I explain what we are doing. Let me show you Sam.”  She walks over to the table and shows her Sam. “He is in a state of relaxation induced by traveling back to inhabit his younger self. He is trying to change his role in getting Nichols elected.”

“Is this some kind of a crank call? But then Sarah, thinks for a moment. “Wait, are you the time travelers? I’ve read about you.”

“Yes, but it’s not exactly time travel,” Marhan pipes in. Nora looks at him as though to say, ‘This is not the time for scientific explanations.’  Marhan stops.

“Sarah, I’m going to show you the computer screen. Can you tell me what you see?”

“I see me, and some other folks. Wait, that’s Sam’s and my apartment. There are boxes. Is this the day I moved out?”

“Yes. We put the scene in suspended animation while we try and figure out what to do next.”

“Where’s Sam?” 

“We are seeing the scene through his eyes so you can’t see Sam unless he looks in a mirror.”

“What are you trying to do?”

“Sam is trying to get his younger self to stop supporting Nichols so that he loses the election. Current Sam has been able to get his younger self to make small changes in his relationship with Nichols, but nothing significant enough to change the outcome of the election.”

“You’re trying to change history?”

“Yes, but right now, I just want to try and talk to young Sam to see if he will listen to me. I tried going back into the room with you, him and the movers, but I ended up as a ghostly image that no one noticed. If you were here, we would send your current self back to try and talk to him. I want to try and enter your body and talk with him through you. I might be able to do it if you are willing.”

“This is a lot to absorb. You want to enter my body and you want me to help you change the past.”

“Yes, but we have very little time. We don’t have time to explain right now, you just have to trust us.”

“Every journalistic fiber in my body tells me this is wrong, but the war that has begun outside my door makes me willing to take drastic action. What do you need me to do?”

Nora looks straight at Sarah on the videochat. “Sam really loves you and misses you. He wants that family that you two dreamed of having.”  Nora walks back over to the table. “I’m putting earphones in so that I can hear you and I’m going to lie next to Sam on the table, and you are going to tell me how much you love and miss Sam. Get quiet and comfortable. We need you to feel as much peace as possible while you tell me about Sam.” 

Wilna affixes the helmet to Nora’s head and quietly tells Sarah she should start talking. Marhan uses Bluetooth to capture the videochat on the computer screen so that Wilna and him can coach Sarah while she talks to Nora. Marhan asks, “Can you tell us about how you met?”

“Sure, he was giving a lecture and I was in the audience asking questions…”

Wilna and Marhan quietly go through the protocols while Sarah speaks. They see the flash and suddenly Nora is in. Sarah keeps talking as though nothing has happened. Marhan speaks up, “Sarah, I don’t think it worked. Nora is somewhere in the room, but if you can’t feel her,” then Marhan points at the screen. “There she is!”

She was once again a ghostly image that was only visible on screen because Sam was looking her way. With the scene in a state of suspended animation, he couldn’t notice her. Marhan applied more energy to the scene, but only to Nora. She starts moving toward him and Sarah. “Sarah, Nora is coming at you from behind. I think she is going to try and get inside your head.”  Marhan continues.

“Sarah could see Nora’s image closing in on her. “Oh my god, this is scary.”  Suddenly Sarah’s image on the computer and the phone jerks with a shock. “I can feel her. Nora is in my head.”

“This is amazing,” Marhan exclaims. “We have accomplished a mind meld.”

Wilna grabs his arm. “Focus Marhan, save the excitement for later.”

“Of course. Sarah, we are going to apply more energy to Sam to allow the scene to progress. Please let Nora speak to Sam.”

“Okay, wow!  Wow!  I am in her head too.”

Sarah walks over to Sam. Nora starts to speak, “Sam, this is Nora, you…”

“Ma’am, does this table go with you or does it stay here?” One of the movers asked. With that Sarah was jerked back to her own reality and the connection was lost. The scene quickly dissolves.

Wilna and Winnie sit Nora up on the table. Nora slides her legs off, grabs her phone, looks at Sarah on the screen, and says, “I could feel you. When I was in your head, I could feel how much you love him, how much pain you are in.”

“I could feel you too. You also have feelings for Sam. Have you ever slept with him?”

“No!  I’ve thought about it, but no. We are just friends. I’ll answer whatever questions you have for me at another time, but we have too much work to do, and we have to see where Sam is taking us next, but I promise that we will sit down and talk when this is all over.”  With that she heads over to the computer.

9      9:40 PM: Sam at the Lincoln Memorial

Nora keeps Sarah on speaker and points the phone at the computer screen so she could see where Sam was taking them next.

Lots of background noise made itself known as the picture began to form. Sam was staring up at a wall with words inscribed in it.

“Does anyone recognize what he is looking at?” Marhan asks.

“He’s at the Lincoln Memorial,” Sarah chimes in. “He often goes there when he is feeling angst. He finds inspiration in Lincoln’s words and being in his presence helps him find his way forward. In a way, it’s his holy place.”

Sam headed out to the steps and sat down. He started rocking back and forth. They could see his elbows bent in front of him, his hands must have been on his head. “I’ve seen him do this before Sarah chimed in, he must be feeling a lot of stress. Whoa, what is that!”

The view of Sam had split. It was no longer through his eyes, but from both sides of him, looking at him. Pulling on him. The scene starting melting all around him.

Nora looked at Sam’s blood pressure and pulse, then ran over to him. In a comforting voice, she said to Sarah, “He’s alright. We haven’t seen this before, but he’s alright. The melting may be due to his drinking before he got here.”

“Sam doesn’t drink,” Sarah responds.

“He didn’t used to maybe,” Nora began, “but, I’m sorry to say, you and Nichols destroyed his world and he has taken solace in drink.”

“This must be the bidirectional quantum entanglement that Professor Warner predicted might occur,” Marhan yells, as he starts feeling excitement.

Sarah offers a weak, “I’m so sorry Sam.”

The two views of Sam started swirling around him. Suddenly, one view jerked back inside him. “Leave me alone,” Sam tried to say quietly. The melting stopped momentarily.

The other view now jerked back inside, pushing the first one out. “No, you need to listen. Stop supporting Nichols, he’s no good. He’s going to flip back…” The world began to melt again as older Sam reasserted control.

The views swirled, jerked again. “Who are you? Stop speaking through me!  Just leave me alone!” he screamed as he stood up.

A lot of people turned to look. A woman who was nearby came closer. The space distorted, she was massively hovering over him. “Sir, are you alright?”

Sam looked up, jumped. Younger Sam forced his way back in, they were looking through his eyes, the scene reset to normal. “Yes mam, sorry, just working on some lines for a play.”

The woman looked at him carefully. “I recognize you.”

Sam looked around. People were staring. Some folks had pulled out their phones to take videos. He started hurrying away.

The views split, swirled again, then one forced its way inside. “You know I’m right. Your own conscience has been nagging you. I know, I remember.”

The view jerked. “You’re not right. I’m going to continue supporting him.”  Sam yelled as he walked away.

And with that, the scene started to dissolve.

“That was amazing!  That little episode might just get him fired!”  Wilna says excitedly still staring at the screen.

“Wow!  Maybe that’s what older Sam was thinking when he induced that psychological battle in a public space.” Nora says excitedly, then turned to Sarah, stood up, walked over to Sam, points the phone at him and adds. “That was the first time we’ve seen anything like that, but Sam is fine.”

“It’s good to see that Sam has that much fight in him after all he’s been through, but it won’t be enough to get him fired.” Sarah chimes in, “They need him too badly. Sam was the best there was at political consulting and speechwriting. There was simply no one else of Sam’s caliber that Nichols could turn to.”

Marhan is speechless. He looks over at Nora as she returns to her seat. She smiles, “Yes, I can see the scientific papers we can write on quantum entanglement and the effects of mixing alcohol and quantum foam, but we have to finish this first.”

10  10:15 PM: Sargeant Ulten has a Hunch

“Are you there Sir?” Sargent Ulten asks into the radio.

“Captain Pierce here, go ahead Sargeant.”

“No sign of any of them at Marhan Bakshi’s place, nor did I see either DeLuca’s or Bakshi’s cars in any parking lots in town. Do you want me to wait outside here for them to return, or to proceed elsewhere?”

“Is his car there Sargeant?”

“None of their cars are here.”

“I’ll keep searching areas around town Sir, unless you have other thoughts?”

“No new instructions Sargeant. Proceed with your search.”

Sargeant Ulten stops for a cup of coffee at a local convenience store, tries to puzzle out where they might all be. He sits in the car, relaxing while the dispatch radio hums with static and blurts out the occasional alert. Nothing deadly, just college students getting into mischief. He smiles. Things are never too hectic in this small town. The coffee begins to make him more alert. He thinks to himself, I wonder if they would be up there? He puts the car in drive, starts driving to campus.

11  10:30 PM: Sam at the Foreign Policy Roundtable

“Where is he now?” Nora asks as she, Wilna and Winnie crowd around the screen.

“He’s on stage engaged in a foreign policy roundtable. I recognize the other two panelists; they are both aligned on the right. Is that right Sarah?”  Marhan asks while staying focused on the discussion.

“Yes, I know both of them. They are right-wing zealots. Both are a lot more in sync with the real Nichols than Sam ever was.”

The question was about supporting NATO countries that do not pay at least two percent for their own defense. One of the panelists took a strident approach, saying that NATO should not stand with countries that are unwilling to pay to defend themselves, even two percent is not enough. As he spoke, this panelist slowly morphed into a sitting worm with his eyeglasses and facial hair intact.

This was stronger than the stance Sam had been feeding to Nichols. Sam’s approach tempered this stridency, with an ability-to-pay scale based on the per capita income of each country. Looking through Sam’s eyes we could sense his discomfort. His body seemed to be jerking around, as though he was fighting some inner force. The scene suddenly shifted outside of Sam as the battle for his soul continued. Marhan stated, “It looks like another quantum entanglement is beginning.”  

The moderator looked over at Sam, noticed something was wrong and interrupted the discussion. “Sam, are you okay?”

The view jerked back behind his eyes, Sam stopped squirming and smiled. The scene reverted to normal. “Sorry just not feeling like myself right now.”  He sat quietly for a moment and the discussion was about to restart, when the view jerked again and he breathed fire and blurted out, “We cannot throw NATO members to the Russian Bear without at least an ability-to-pay scale, and even that may be too harsh for some members. The goal of NATO is security for us and our allies. We work together to maintain the world order we have built and the United States has led since World War II2. If some of our allies cannot will not pay what some deem as their fair share,” he said while glaring at the other roundtable guests, who were now both big fat worms, “so be it. The alliance and the world order it protects is more important.”

Everyone sat eyes fixed, staring at the computer. That little speech made it clear that older Sam was in control, but then just as quickly, Sam’s body jerked, their view reset behind Sam’s eyes, the scene normalized and younger Sam reasserted his view. “I’m sorry, I misspoke, an ability-to-pay scale is what we should be aiming for.”

Sam jerked his head around. It seemed as though he was looking for the source of what came out of his mouth.

The moderator again looked over at Sam, “Are you sure that you are all right?”

“Yes, I’m back in control,” younger Sam replied. But then jerked around and looked behind him. “Is someone directing a speaker at me?”  Then said, “Sorry, I know that sounds crazy, I’m all right.”

The discussion turned to tax policy and Sam was asked his view of how taxes should be balanced between poorer and wealthier individuals. Governor Nichols had been stumping for a flatter tax profile that had lower income individuals paying more. Sam began by spouting the Governor’s position, but then his body jerked, as the entanglement battle reengaged, and he quickly spit out that, “A flatter tax profile would lead to more income inequality, and fewer resources being directed towards the poor.”  The other guests turned into cartoon fat cats, smoking big stogies sitting in large plush chairs. As Sam said this, young Sam literally started grabbing at his mouth on stage trying to stop it from talking. A string of animated musical notes emanated from his lips. Then he stood up, and jerked his body around to look behind him. “That wasn’t me speaking.”

They all looked at him. Sam was at a loss. His body jerked again, and they were once again looking through his eyes at a normalized scene. He apologized. “Sorry, I of course support the Governor, and our future president’s, flatter tax profile proposal. I’m just feeling of two minds today,” Sam said while forcing a laugh. The other panelists nodded uncomfortably, and the discussion continued with no more outbursts by older Sam.

Nora looks up at the clock. “11:00 pm,” she says somewhat distractedly. This isn’t working and we’re running out of time,” Nora says in frustration as she pounds her fists on her thighs. “Sam is not having a big enough effect on his younger self.”

“We’re also running out of time in a different sense,” Wilna comments. She shows everyone the screen from her laptop. “That roundtable took place on March 1st. Super Tuesday is only a week away. If Nichols sweeps Super Tuesday, he’ll lock up the nomination.”

“What more can we do?”  Marhan asks, turning around to everyone.

Nora steps out to talk to Carlos. “Hi Carlos, can you buy us more time if we need it?”

Carlos looks over at her. “You know, this uniform, it comes with a taser. I’ve had them used on me, but I never got to try using one before. I think you will have plenty of time.”

Nora smiles, says “Thank you.”  She steps back in, looks over at Winnie. “Winnie, where’s Timey?”

“He’s in my pocket,” Winnie says as she gives Nora a quizzical look.

“Can you put him under Sam’s shirt. Older Sam may not be able to get his younger self fired, but maybe we can make him look like he’s lost it.”

“If he gets fired, we lose any control we have,” Marhan blurts out.

“We don’t have enough control now; we have to try something else!” Nora blurts out, unable to hide how frantic she feels. “Winnie, do it!”

Winnie walks up to Sam and puts Timey under his shirt. Sam, who had settled back in up on stage as the conversation continued, was suddenly laughing as quietly as possible, while grabbing at his belly. “I guess he’s ticklish,” Wilna chimes in.

“Yes, very!”  Sarah adds.

He tried to hold it in, to keep it together, but he kept squirming. Suddenly, he let out a loud “Woohoohoo,” as Timey crawled from his belly to his chest then onto his shoulders. All eyes were now on Sam. He looked at the other panelists. “I think it’s best I go,” he snorted all while grabbing for the imaginary source of his discomfort. Sam hurried off stage with another snort and a “Woohoohoo.”

The scene dissolves. Marhan is dumbstruck, “I didn’t know we could do that. The connection between our older and younger selves keeps showing itself to be stronger than I would have thought possible.”

“The more important question is,” Sarah starts, “did you manage to get him fired?”

“If we didn’t get him fired,” Marhan starts, “we have to consider that these quantum entanglements we have been observing may eventually result in a quantum superposition, and we won’t know who is in control, until we open the box.”  Marhan finished for want of a better expression.

“What does that mean?” Sarah asks.

  Nora turns to face Sarah, “It means that at some point these battles between Sam’s older and younger selves will settle down and there will be a winner, but we won’t know who until we see the outcome.”

12  11:05 PM: Sargent Ulten spots Nora’s car

“What’s she doing here?” the Sargeant says to himself as he runs Nora’s plate to make certain he has the right car. The Mouse Breeding Center van also strikes him as out of place. He gets out of his car and heads to the building. The first door he tries is locked. He starts around. He notices that there are lights on up on the second floor. He continues around the building. All the doors are locked. “Whoever is up there has a key.”

He heads back to his car, pulls out his lock jimmying set, heads back to the first door, works on the lock until it pops and he gets inside. He still isn’t expecting anything other than some physicists who are burning the midnight oil. He opens the door at the end of the second-floor hallway, Carlos snaps to attention when he sees the cop. Oh shit.

Good evening, Sir,” Carlos says respectfully, while sliding his hand onto the taser. “May I help you?”  Carlos looks at his watch, “I wasn’t expecting to be relieved for another 45 minutes.”

It’s okay, I’ve been asked to find Sam Marshall. He hangs out with Nora, the scientist, you haven’t seen him around, have you?”  As the Sargeant says this, he notices light coming from under the door. “Is this the time travel lab?”  Wait, this has to be that lab, otherwise why else would it have a guard.

The Sargeant goes to reach for his revolver, but Carlos is faster with the taser. Sargeant Ulten hits the floor and continues spasming. Carlos grabs the Sargeant’s pistol and turns off the taser. “Sorry Sir, I can’t let you in there.”

He grabs the Sargeant’s handcuffs, flips him over while he is still recovering and handcuffs his arms behind his back. He then races down the hall to grab the duct tape, tapes the Sargeant’s legs. Helps the Sargeant sit up. “What’s going on in there?”

“I don’t know, but I know they need more time.”

“You do realize that you just assaulted a police officer.”

“I know, Sir. I am sorry about that.”

Carlos opens the door, looks for Nora. She sees him. He motions her over. “We may have a problem.”

She steps into the hall, sees the officer sitting on the floor. “Oh Shit!”

“I had the same reaction.”

Nora turns to the cop, “I’m sorry, Sir. But we need a little more time. The DA is planning to tear our lab apart tomorrow and we have some experiments we need to finish before we can let that happen.”

A voice comes across the Sargeant’s radio, “Sargeant Ulten, have you found Sam Marshall yet?”

He looks up at Nora. She holds out her hand for Carlos to give her the pistol. She trains it on the Sargeant. “Just say, no, not yet.”

“You don’t want to be pointing that at an officer of the law ma’am.”

“Just do what I said!” Nora screams at him to let him know that she is serious.

Carlos clicks the button on the radio microphone on the Sargent’s chest, “Not yet, Sir.”

Nora motions to Carlos to step into the lab. Calls Winnie. “You two need to get out of here. We will do the best we can to protect you, but you need to go now.”

Carlos and Winnie exit the lab and head down the hall.

Nora steps back inside. “We need to block the door.”

“The police captain didn’t think that Sargeant Ulten sounded like himself in the call. He called to the dispatcher. “Can you please give me Sargeant Ulten’s position.”

“It looks like he’s in the Physics Building on campus.”

“Huh?” He thinks for a moment, then requests, “Please give me an update on his position in five minutes.”

Winnie says to Carlos as they leave the building. “I’m not leaving, they might need us.”

“Yes,” Carlos says, “there is probably nothing to gain from leaving. The Sargeant saw my face. I am screwed. Did you have something specific in mind that we could do to help?”

Winnie smiles, “Follow me to the van. I brought a few things, just in case we needed a contingency plan.”

13  11:15 PM: Sam Between Worlds

A new scene begins to form. Sam is walking through the cherry blossoms on a spring day in Washington, DC. The colors are cartoonish, the trees are dancing. The image dissolves, then Sam is listening to Nichols speak; Nichols morphs into a monster, blasts a bellowing growl at the audience. Sam is looking into Sarah’s eyes; the eyes begin to swirl, she grows in size, she becomes cartoonishly angry. Sam sees the mountain lion he had faced; it grows to gigantic size, roars in his face. He is on a mountain top; the world starts shaking, he tries to hold on as the world falls away, he is in freefall. He lands in a classroom. He is a young boy, his history teacher is expounding on the importance of politics; his teacher morphs into a large snake that grabs Sam with his forked tongue. These images from Sam’s life kept flashing on the screen, barely resolving, mutating into grotesque horrors, then switching. Wherever Sam was, their views of him were swirling around him. This was a full quantum entanglement. In between some of the vignettes, were moments of darkness, all the researchers could see was swirling masses in darkness. The room is pure white; Sam is looking at Nora’s smiling face, leans into kiss her, she kisses him, then punches his shoulders sending him tumbling into a vortex. Wilna and Marhan turn to look at her, Nora flinches, says “I’m sorry, I kissed him, but I didn’t send him into a vortex.” 

Sam keeps tumbling, the vortex keeps deepening, narrowing. “What is this Wilna asks distractedly?”

“Not sure,” Marhan notes as they all sit mesmerized, “but it is starting to look like Sam has fallen into a wormhole.”

“Did I do this to him? Nora asks, the stress apparent in her voice.

The screen blacks out, they all gasp, stare wide-eyed. Then they are in a room, looking at a being, maybe some version of Sam, from the back as he sits at a desk in the middle of the room. But it’s not like any room they’ve ever seen. The windows are large and small ovals, seemingly randomly placed into curvaceous walls. The view through the windows is equally odd, houses of all shapes and sizes are popped up on a bright green landscape mixed with colorful plants. “I think we’re in Whoville,” Sarah comments.

The sound of her voice causes the being at the desk to swing around and look at them. They gasp; it gasps. It’s not human.  It looks like a full-grown male Who. It screams a loud piercing scream. They all scream in response. The screen goes black.

Marhan jumps up, “That was an alien, we made contact!”  They are all stunned.

“Was Dr. Suess an alien?”  Wilna queries. They look at her. “I mean, Sarah’s right, that could have been Whoville.”

“Where is Sam?”  Sarah yells through the phone. Which brings them all back to their present reality. Colors started to reform on the screen. Sam, human Sam, was sitting at a table in a room by himself. He was older. The walls were posterized green and grey. Sam was staring at a pistol on the table.

“What is this?” a frightened Sarah yells out.

“It might be the future,” Marhan states distractedly, then catches himself, “I mean, it might be one possible future.”

Sarah starts to cry, “Oh Sam. No, no, no. This can’t be.”

Sam kept staring blankly forward. He reached for the pistol. Then, there was just darkness. Sarah screams.

“What just happened?” Wilna asks.

Nora and Marhan look at each other. Nora turns to look at Wilna, at Sarah. “We don’t know what just happened. Sam’s stats are okay, though his pulse and blood pressure are both elevated.” 

Nora looks back at Marhan, “What do you think happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Marhan starts, then hesitates. “I think we got a momentary glimpse of a possible future for Sam. The current blackness could be because the door has been open for three hours at this point. We haven’t previously had the door open for this long.” 

“Might he be at the other end of a wormhole?”  Nora queries quietly looking at Marhan.

“I don’t think so. The room, the gun both look like they are from our world. Professor Warner theorized that the longer the door remains open, the more likely it is that a session subject, Sam in this case, gets stuck between our world and the fifth dimension. Sam might be stuck. It could also be the alcohol; we just can’t say.”

“Is this the issue he raised where he said we might have to draw energy from the brain to bring the subject back and close the door,” Nora asks.

“Yes, but it is just a theory,” Marhan starts, “that he thinks has a miniscule chance of being correct, but suddenly it is a serious concern.”

Sarah chimes in, “What does it mean to draw energy from the brain?”

“We would have to reverse the pulses to sort of suck the door closed,” Nora responds. “But I don’t think we could do it. I haven’t written code to cover that possibility.”  She looks directly as Sarah, “I’m sorry Sarah, but we can’t pull him back, but we will work to find a solution.”

“Did he kill himself?”  Sarah asks.

“I don’t think so, he still has a blood pressure and a pulse. I don’t think that would be the case if he shot himself.”  What Nora thought, but didn’t dare say was that he might also be bleeding on the table. She looks over again, she doesn’t see blood.

“It’s just black. Where is he?”  Marhan asks, while making hand gestures at the screen, showing his stress.

“Nora puts her hand on his. “That’s not helping. We have to remain calm.”

“What would it mean if Sam is stuck between two worlds?”  Sarah asks.

Nora turns again to look at Sarah, “I think it means that if we stop the session, he won’t wake up. He wouldn’t necessarily die, but he would possibly remain in some kind of suspended animation, stuck between worlds.”  She turned to Marhan. “We can’t end the session, what can we do?”

“For my first test,” Wilna chimes in, “you increased the intensity of pulses to send me far back in time.  The other option was to increase the frequency of the pulses. Have you tried that in any tests?”

The blood pressure cuff reenergizes. After a few seconds, it shows that both his systolic and diastolic pressure have increased again. They look at each other. They now understand that he might in fact die if they can’t bring him back.

Nora gives Marhan a moment, then asks, “What do you think that would do? Might it shock his brain and bring Sam back?” 

Marhan seems frozen. “We are in so far over our heads. This is reality fighting back. What made us think we could do this.”  Then he just sat there staring.

Marhan and Sam were now both in shock. Nora waved her hand in front of his face; no reaction. So, she did the only thing she could think of, she turns their chairs to face each other, leans over to his chair, put her arms around Marhan and kisses him on the lips. She looks into his eyes. He looks back at her. She kisses him again. This time, he engages and kisses her back. When they pull back to look at each other, Nora starts, “We need you Marhan. I need you, and Sam needs you. You can do this.”

Marhan snaps back. “Good idea Wilna. Increasing the frequency of the pulses could shock Sam back to this world.”  He looks at Nora with a smile, “Maybe it’ll work as our kiss to him.”

Nora smiles, turns to Sarah. “We don’t know if this is going to work, but it’s our best shot right now.”

“Oh, Sam!” Sarah cries. Then says, “Do what you have to do.”

“We need to shock his brain, so we have to increase the frequency of the pulses all at once, not slowly.”

Nora is at the computer. “How much.”

Marhan thinks. “My first inclination is to double it, but I’m thinking we have to go bigger. It has to be a BIG shock. Can you bring the frequency up by a factor of 10?”

“You sure?”

“Of course not, but I think it’s our best shot.”

“Okay then. Give me a minute to adjust the program.”  Nora types furiously, making the necessary changes to her code. With her finger poised about the enter key she looks at Marhan and Wilna, then over at Sam, and finally to Sarah. “Ready.”

She hits enter. Nothing happens. They look at the screen. The pulse frequency hadn’t changed.

“Are you sure you made all the changes?”

“I thought I did.” 

Marhan touches her shoulder. “You’ll find the problem. You’ve got this.”

Nora starts searching back through her code. After a minute, “I found it. At least let’s hope so.”  She poises her finger above the enter key again. “Here goes.”  She closes her eyes and presses it.

They stare at the screen. Nothing. Just blackness. “Damn it!”  Marhan yells. “Maybe the only thing we can do is to try and bring him back.” 

“Wait!”  Wilna yells, and point at the screen. “The pulse frequency has increased and his pulse is starting to come down.”  Just then the blood pressure cuff starts inflating again. They all wait, staring, waiting for the new blood pressure data to appear on the screen.

“It’s coming down!”

Just then images began appearing on the screen. A new scene forms.

“Let’s hope it’s stable,” Marhan says with more than a hint of nerves in his voice.

14  11:20 PM: The captain heads to the Physics Building

“Sir, Sargent Ulten has not moved in the past five minutes.”

“Thank you, Mabel.”  He turns to his assistant. “I’m going to head over the Physics Building on campus to investigate.”

15  11:40 PM: Sam in his Office

The scene opened with Sam’s eyes staring at a computer screen. He was working on a speech. They could see that he was writing, then deleting what he wrote, then trying different phrasings, then stopping, tearing at his hair. Then he got up and paced around the room.

The view swirled around him as younger and older Sam battled for dominance.

“Damn it!  This looks like a rough draft of a Nichols speech,” Nora curses. “I guess we haven’t yet succeeded at getting him fired.” 

They could see what he had written on the screen. “This is the last speech he is writing for Nichols before Super Tuesday.”  Wilna says, looking at the speech Nichols gave on her laptop.

“We have to change this speech,” Nora says with urgency in her voice.

“After what we just went through, and with the battle we are witnessing. Sam is trying. How, how can we do more than we are already doing?”  Marhan asks incredulously. “What we are learning is that changing history is difficult, that making important changes may be impossible. Young Sam simply has a metaphysical edge that older Sam may not be able to defeat. The system is already wired in with history as it is. This is the time paradox that physicists have discussed. Maybe, except for changing who a mouse mates with, and getting rid of ghosts, we simply can’t alter the metaphysics of reality. Maybe we should just bring him back while we still can.” 

“I’m not giving up,” Nora yells in frustration. “Look at this scene. Sam is clearly struggling. We have to help him fix this, for us, for Sam, for the whole world.”  She turns to Sarah, “What do you think?”

“I’d say let’s get someone in there that he trusts to talk with him, but this happened in the past.”  Sarah notes feeling helpless.

“That’s it!”  Nora looks at Sarah for a moment then turns to Marhan. “Send me back.”

“We tried that, no one could see you.”

“That room was bright and filled with people. It wasn’t the right place for a ghostly vision to appear. Sam is working by himself. I think it will work this time.”  Nora says pointing at the screen. “Just place my disembodied spirit in the room with Sam.”

Marhan turns to Nora, his face showing concern, “Are you sure you want to do this? We made it work once, but what if it doesn’t work this time. We could lose you.”

Nora looks at Marhan, smiles softly, “You’re not going to lose me. Just pull me back if this doesn’t work, but it’s going to work. It has to, for all of us here, and for the whole world. It just has to.”

Marhan looks at her, he is struggling under the incredible pressure of the situation, but then steels himself. “Alright, Wilna please get Nora set up, I’ll start running through the protocols as soon as she is ready.”  Then Marhan grabs Nora’s arm as she turns to walk to the table, stands up, kisses her, they kiss each other. His heart is throbbing as he looks at her, “You can get through to him.”

Captain Pierce sees the light on the second floor. He enters the building, takes out his revolver. Walks quietly up the stairs. Looks through the window on the hallway door. Sees his Sargeant bound up and sitting on the floor. He opens the hall door; a spray shoots down on him. He looks up to see what is happening and “Whoa, whoa,” slips on the marbles covering the floor. Then “Oof!”  he is down on his back, gets the wind knocked out of him. At this moment Winnie releases a horde of mice who race over to the captain, climb all over him and start sniffing around at the scent.

He struggles to get his wind back, starts brushing mice off; they keep coming. After a short time, he forces himself to his feet, brushes the last of the mice off him, walks down the hall.

Carlos and Winnie are laying down out of sight in a dark side hallway. “Well, that bought them a few minutes,” Carlos notes, “we should go now.”

“Not yet.”  Winnie blows a silent whistle, the mice stop sniffing around and run to her, she has cages at the ready.

Carlos looks at Winnie. “You are a Pied Piper, you are amazing.”

She smiles at him, “You’re not so bad yourself.”

They look into other’s eyes, reach for each other and start kissing.

Nora gives Marhan one last hug, “We got this.”  And she turns to walk to the table.

“As she does, Sarah, yells out from the phone link, “Nora!”  Nora turns to look at Sarah. “Tell him that I still love him.” 

Nora nods. “You bet I will.”

As Nora lies down, she looks at Sam as she scrunches up against him. She follows his arm down and feels for his hand, thinking, “Maybe a physical connection will enhance our mental connection once we are in the room together.”

Marhan begins the protocol and soon enough Nora goes through the door into the Fifth Dimension. But where? They look around, but their only guide is what Sam’s eyes notice, and as of yet, they hadn’t noticed anything.

“Is she okay?” Wilna asks hesitantly.

“She should be fine,” Marhan said with more reassurance than he feels. “The worse that will happen is that we will just bring her back.”

Moments later, the screen flickers. “It’s like a ghost just entered the room,” Wilna notes, “But where is our girl?”

Sam is being pulled on from both sides. He starts typing again, then stops. He is struggling with what to write next, and looks around distractedly for a moment as if he is ready to give up. He adjusts how he is sitting and looks left. He jumps up. “Who, umm what, are you?”  he says as he backs away as far as he can.

Nora looks down at herself. She is barely visible. “You know me. Perhaps you should turn off lights and close the blinds, you’ll be able to see me better.”

Sam does as he is instructed, still stunned at what he was seeing. Nora was still ghostly, but her image is now clearer.

Now that he could see for sure that she was human in form at least, he asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m Nora. We become friends, trail running partners, two years into the future. I’ve come back to warn you about the impact of this speech you are writing. This is the speech that locks up the nomination for Nichols and he eventually goes on to win the presidency.”

Young Sam looks at her, smiles, he is very proud. “You mean we win.”

“Yes, but the world loses. Nichols quickly turns back to his tyrannical self, imposes harsh policies and puts the military on the streets to maintain order. You blame yourself for this, and leave his administration, but it is too late. He has too much control and now his is pushing the country into civil war.”

“But he wouldn’t do that. He can’t just campaign on policies that I set for him and then support other policies once in office.”

“Yes, he can and he does. For a while now, I believe you have been fighting the feeling that this is true.”  Nora starts gliding around the room, making herself appear mystical to hopefully drive the words in deeper as she speaks. “You have been fighting your older self. He is inside you. I am holding his hand; you may be able to feel me.”

Sam looks at his hand, “I thought I felt something press against my hand a few minutes ago.” 

The captain makes his way down the hall. Rips the tape off the Sargeant’s mouth. “This crew of scientists got the jump on you?”

The Sargeant looks, “They’re tougher than I would have guessed.”  Then looking at the captain who has been sprayed with mouse attracting scent, he continues, “They got you too. I heard them moving furniture. The door is blocked. They really want to finish what they are working on.”

“That’s not going to happen,” the captain says as he unlocks the handcuffs on the Sargeant and pulls out a knife to cut the tape off his legs.

“Sir, maybe we should give them the time they need.”

“That’s not our call Sargeant.”

They pick the lock and start slamming their bodies against the door.

Sam can hear something in the distance: BOOM!  BOOM!  “What’s that noise?”

“That just means that we are running out of time. You are running out of time. We sent your older self here to get you to change before it is too late. Before you impose Nichols on all of us. He is why you are struggling so much with this speech. Thus far you, young Sam, have been fighting back these feelings, but now it is time for you to let them pour forth. Your older self needs to win this battle, or we all lose, especially you. For not only does the world turn on you, you will lose Sarah forever. She still loves you, but to win her back you have to let go of this idea that Nichols has changed, or will ever change.”

“Sarah still loves me.”  Sam gasps as a look of sadness pours over his face. “I miss her so much. What do I do?”

“You have to stop fighting the need to change. Just let your older self in to write the speech.”  The quantum entanglement begins to resolve. One of Sam’s selves finds his way behind his eyes, the other fades out.

At that moment there is a knock on Sam’s door. A colleague steps in. “Hi Sam, everything okay? Not used to seeing you in the dark.”

Sam looks around, eyes bulging; he’s looking a little crazed. Nora is gone. “Umm, yeah, I’m fine, just struggling a bit with this speech and needed a quiet moment. You know, to close my eyes, relax a bit.”

“You don’t look relaxed. You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“Ha ha. Naa, nothing like that. The sound of you knocking just shocked me.”

“Anyway, we’re all going out for a beer. You’ve really been pushing yourself. Why don’t you join us?”

“Okay, maybe I will. Let me see if I can make more progress first.”

Wilna helps Nora take off the helmet. Nora sits up. “Did it work? Did I have an effect?”

“We can’t say for sure. The quantum entanglement resolved; we don’t know which cat ended up in the box, but Sam is suddenly typing furiously,” Marhan yells over from behind the computer.

The officers finally force their way in.

Nora looks over at them as she and Wilna race to get behind Marhan. The officers push their way through the furniture. Captain Pierce and Sargeant Ulten now stand facing Nora and Wilna. Marhan is busy trying to shut down Sam’s session, but it is suddenly frozen. The officers look around at the lab, at these two young women standing in front of them, realize they aren’t a threat, at least not in the usual sense of thieves or college pranksters that they usually deal with. The danger these scientists pose is one of ideas that could challenge, or destroy, the administration. They see Sam Marshall laid out on a table with a helmet on and wires attaching him to a powerful system. Captain Pierce hesitates for a moment while he takes it all in, then says, “Sir, please step away from that computer. You are all under arrest.”  He takes a pair of handcuffs off his belt, says, “Sargeant, read them their rights.”  He steps forward to cuff Nora.

As he does Marhan yells, “We need a few minutes, Sam is stuck.”  The officers look at him. They are soldiers, they have their orders. Captain Pierce walks up behind Marhan, sees the computer screen is frozen. “If we stop this session now, Sam will die.” Marhan swivels his chair to face the captain with a piecing look. “Are your orders to kill Sam Marshall? Look at his health stats, his pulse and blood pressure are increasing.”

“What happens if you just shut it down?” Captain Pierce asks.

“Sam is stuck between our world and the fifth dimension right now. If we stop the session, he’ll be lost between worlds.”

Nora steps up beside the captain. “I know this is a lot to absorb, but you have to trust us.”

“What are you trying to get Sam to do?”  the Sargeant asks.

Nora looks over at him, and in a flat monotone, says, “Stop a civil war.”

“I’m sorry ma’am, I have my orders.”

Wilna steps between Captain Pierce and Nora. “Captain Pierce, we’ve met once before when I came to the office to give my husband, Detective Jeremy Davies a ride home.”

“You’re his wife, … I’m sorry I’m at a loss for your name.”

“Wilna, Dr. Wilna Davies.”

“How did you get involved in this?”

“These are my friends. You need to trust them. They need more time.”

Captain Pierce stares at Wilna, Jeremy is a colleague, he has to give her deference. Then looks to Seargent Ulten and the others, and with resignation in his voice says, “Just shut it down as quickly as you can.”

Marhan calls to Nora, she steps beside him, he stands up relinquishing the chair. “I’m thinking that we create a frequency shock like we did earlier. Do you agree, can you do that again?”

“Yes, and sure,” Nora says as she sits and takes charge of the computer. Two minutes later, “Okay, everything is set.”  She increases the frequency by a factor of 10. The frequency stats shift upward, but his health stats keep trending upward. It’s not working.

“Maybe we should try the lowering the intensity, but not too much or we could leave him stuck and kill him,” Marhan says after a moment’s thought.

They had forgotten that Sarah was still on the phone until a weak pleading, “Please don’t kill him,” emanates from it.

 “No,” Nora says as she stands up remembering back to the mouse experiments and the ethics officer, “I know what to do. Sarah, we’re not going to let him die.”  She doesn’t wear jewelry, and neither does Marhan.  She’s not going to ask Wilna for her wedding ring and she doesn’t have time to try and explain her need for gemstones to the police. She walks away from the computer, to the table where Sam lay; the captain walks alongside her. She unplugs the helmet she had used from the wiring harness.

The captain asks, “Ma’am, what are you doing?”

Nora looks at him, and says matter-of-factly, “I’m paying for his passage back.”  The fifth dimension is everywhere; she doesn’t know where to look as she speaks, so she looks upward, and in loud voice says, “This helmet is priceless, it is hopefully enough to free Sam back into our world,” as she it places it on Sam’s chest.

She steps back putting her arm in front of the captain to move him away from the table. Marhan yells, “Sam is typing.”  A Fifth-Dimension pulse passes through Sam’s office, and the screen goes black.

The captain grabs Nora’s arm in order to cuff her. She turns to him and says, “You’re too late captain. It is done.” The captain cuffs one of Nora’s arms, starts looking around him, unsure of what Nora means, unsure of what, if anything, is going to happen. Seconds later, a Fifth-Dimension pulse passes through the lab, through the streets outside, through the world.

The lab is back to normal. Nora alone is standing behind Marhan, he is still at the computer, a handcuff dangles from one of her wrists. They both look over at the table, then back at the now blank computer screen.

The handcuffs dangling from Nora’s arm grab their attention. They look at each other, We did something here tonight, but what?

They walk over to the empty table. Marhan notices, “We’re missing a helmet.”  Looks around, “where did the new helmet go.”  They look at each other, both start, “What did we do?” 

Marhan reaches for his school pack, pulls out a Swiss Army knife, holds out his hand, Nora’s places her hand palm up in his. Marhan starts trying to free her from the handcuff.

“I had no idea you carry one of those.”

“Be prepared, it’s my motto.”

“Were you a boy scout?”

“That’s random.”

“No it’s not. That’s the Boy Scout motto.”

“Uh, Indian boy,” Marhan says while pointing at himself.

Nora looks at her watch. “We should go,” she says, “Tomorrow is soon enough to start trying to figure out what we did here tonight.”

Marhan starts looking for the helmet again.

Nora doesn’t know what happened to it, but she senses that it was taken in payment, but payment for who or what, she has no idea, says, “Come on Marhan it’s midnight, I’m tired, we’ll look for it in the morning.”

At the door they glance back once again, hesitate for a moment, turn off the light.

“Marhan the prepared, I like it,” Nora says as she intertwines their arms.

                            *

Carlos and Winnie are outside standing next to her van in locked in a tight embrace when the Fifth-Dimension pulse passes through. They are still together afterward. They look around. The world feels peaceful.

IV: The Future as Past

Two Years Nine Months Earlier: Three days before Super Tuesday

1      The Beginning and the End

It’s a breezy March evening in DC. The sun is going down, the last rays of light are filtering between the rows of buildings. Sam is in a hurry. He steps out of a building’s shadow and sees Sarah on the sidewalk, the sun behind her backlighting her shape, she is walking toward him. Upon noticing him, Sarah stops for a moment, debates changing direction; it’s too late. She walks toward him. They stop.

Sarah looks at Sam and forces a smile, “Hi Sam, how are you?”

He smiles, and takes Sarah in; she is tall and thin with straight brown hair and is irresistible in his eyes. “Sarah, good to see you. I miss you.”  She just stands there, a mix of emotions bubbling up inside her. “Can we just talk?”  Sam continues.

“No.”  Her tone becomes unyielding. “What’s that you’re carrying?” she asks, while pointing to the papers in his hand.

Sam holds the papers in front of him, “This is not what you think.”

Sarah, looks at the papers, looks at Sam, for the moment unsure whether to walk away or stay.

Sam continues, “Just watch Nichols’ speech tonight. You’ll be pleased. We can talk afterward.”

Sarah continues to look at Sam for a few more seconds, then walks away without saying another word.

That evening Sam arrives late with the speech. Hands it to Nichols just as he is about to go on stage without it.

Mike Williams is furious. “Why couldn’t you get it here sooner. I’m supposed to approve of it beforehand.”

Sam responds, “Sorry Mike, but I was having a lot of trouble with this speech. I kept confusing my voice and Nichols’ voice. But I finally sorted it out. This speech is all Nichols. I’m going to head out into the audience to see how it is received.”

Mike is unsure what to make of what Sam said, but the Governor is starting to speak, so Mike just stands and listens.

Sarah drags herself in front of the TV and sits down to watch Nichols speak. For the first few minutes, it’s the typical compassionate conservative speech Sam always writes to smooth over Nichols’ vileness and make him appeal to the masses. Nichols is getting into his rhythm; people are cheering every time he stops talking. She notices, oddly, that the speech is scrolling on a screen behind Nichols’ head as he speaks. About 5 minutes in, when she is about to get up and turn it off, the speech changes.

“… I will cozy up to dictators. I will use my powers to invoke policies that few want, and will insulate myself from the people. I will round up immigrants by the millions and deport them. I will instigate trade wars with our allies, which will plunge the country into a deep recession. I will suspend the Constitution,” he says while smiling and pounding the lectern, “and invoke the Insurrection Act and you will live with a military presence roaming your streets.” He says as he points out into the crowd. “I will instigate a civil war…”

The audience gasps. At this point, Nichols is hitting his stride, for once, he feels like he is saying what he wants to say, instead of the words Sam usually puts into his mouth. Because of this, he hasn’t clued in that anything is wrong, but the gasp makes him hesitate. Mike Williams rushes onto stage, and puts his hand over the mic. Slowly the realization that what he has been saying won’t sell dawns on Nichols’ face, then he turns and sees the words staring at him from the screen behind him. He is speechless. This will be played over and over on the internet. He will be a meme, a fool. No amount of damage control can fix this. Mike escorts him off stage still looking dumbfounded, still staring up at the screen.

Epilogue:  After the Fifth-Dimension pulse

1      Déjà vu day: 1 day after the pulse

“Good Evening!  This is Jonathan Krumpet,”

“and this is Andrea Dixon at the anchor desk for NBS Evening News.” 

“Andrea, we have had numerous reports of déjà vu today from all around the country. People showing up at the wrong place, swearing that they are supposed to be there, and then realizing they have it wrong, turning and going. The oddest case was when Governor Nichols, who was in the District for a Red State Governors conference, showed up at the White House.”

“And here’s the oddest part of it Jonathan,” Andrea starts, “the tapes suggest that the guards at the White House weren’t sure that he wasn’t supposed to be there. Now was it that the guards were being respectful, or was it that they too were experiencing a moment of déjà vu?”

“The governor and his senior aide, Mike Williams, made it all the way to the front door of the White House, before things got sorted out. This video shows the current Chief of Staff denying entry to the governor. He didn’t have a meeting scheduled with President Moorne, and Andrea, it looks like the Chief of Staff was not having any déjà vu moments.”

“That’s right Jonathan, he wasn’t experiencing any déjà vu. The video shows the governor looking confused after being told to leave. He looks a lot like he did after his speech in the lead up to Super Tuesday some years back. The one that destroyed his presidential ambitions.”

“Maybe the governor experienced déjà vu back then as well Andrea; or maybe he had a dream last night that he was actually president.”  He says while turning to Andrea and smiling.

Andrea smiles, “His dream, our nightmare.”

2      Georgetown University Campus, Washington, DC: 6 months after the pulse

Sam is hurrying across the campus. Two people, who look strangely familiar, are walking toward him hand-in-hand. They spot Sam at the same time Sam sees them. They all feel a sense of Déjà vu. They stop. All three continue to stare for a few seconds, then all start, “Do I know you?”

Sam says, “Maybe we’ve met somewhere? Where are you two from?”

Nora responds, “Montana Institute of Technology in Bridger.”

“Huh,” Sam says, “I’ve never been there, but I bet the trail running is great.”

Nora smiles.

Marhan asks, “Where are you from?”

“I live in the city. I’m a Professor of Government here,” Sam says as he motions to the university around him. “You?”

“I’m Marhan, a physics professor, and,” moving his hand in the direction of Nora, he continues, “This is Nora. She is a quantum computer science professor. We came here to give a talk.”  They shake hands.

“I’m Sam,” the shock of Nora’s name makes him shudder. “Nora, Nora, why do I seem to know your name, to know you?”  Sam tries to piece together the needed memories but can’t, at least not fast enough.

“Perhaps you’ve seen us on TV,” Nora proposes.

“Yes, you are the time travelers, aren’t you. What you do it amazing.”  Sam hesitates, “But that’s not it. I did feel some connection when I saw you two on tv, but nothing like this. Sorry, I just can’t remember. I’d love to stay and chat, and figure out how, if, we know each other, but I have to run and pick up my daughter from daycare. Maybe we’ll run into each other again someday.”  Sam looks over at Marhan, him and Nora give each other one last long look, then Sam waves goodbye as he turns and walks quickly away.

Marhan and Nora look at Sam, look at each other. Was it him?

3      Democratic Republic of Congo: 6 months after the pulse

Professor Markus Willoby is lost. “Jorna, I think it’s time we stopped to eat and to ask for directions.”  They pull up in front of an establishment in the small village of Oleko.

“I will grab the maps.”

“Thank you, Jorna.”

“Good afternoon, sir,” Professor Willoby says to the proprietor. “We’ll have 2 beers, and do you sell a spicy chicken dish?”

The proprietor puts his fingertips to his lips and throws a kiss, “The best, sir. You will love it.”

“That sounds great, we’ll have two of those.”

There is a pair of comfy chairs over in the back. The professor points at them. As they make their way there, he smiles at Jorna, “Give our arses a break after bouncing around on dirt roads all day.” They sit back, sinking into the chairs cushions and closing their eyes for a few minutes. The beers and food arrive and are set on end tables that frame the outside of the chairs. Between the chairs is a crate filled with newspapers and magazines. “We’ve been out digging for fossils for so long we are out of touch with the world. Let’s see what is in here.”  Jorna pulls out an old copy of African Life, the professor reaches in and digs up an old Wall Street Journal.

“This thing is so old it’s nearly fossilized,” the professor smiles as he grabs the paper and sets it in front of him.

Jorna takes his first bite of chicken. “Mmmm, this is good.” He said loud enough for the proprietor to hear. When he turns to look at them, Jorna gives him a thumbs up.

The proprietor smiles. “I know. Is good, is very good.”

The professor takes a bite, and smiles and nods in agreement, then he turns the paper so that the front page, above the fold is facing him. “Is this some kind of a joke?” the professor says to himself while taking a second bite. He thinks, is this like when the Chicago Daily Tribune published “Dewey Defeats Truman” as its headline. Did the Journal make up copies for both outcomes, and send the copies of the outcome that didn’t occur off to Africa, figuring that they’d make money off them and Africans wouldn’t know the difference. It just doesn’t make sense that they would print two versions of the paper, not with today’s technology. The professor was still trying to puzzle this out when the proprietor stopped over to see if they need anything else. He turns the paper to show the proprietor, asks “What do you make of this?”

“I don’t know. One day he was president, then he never was.”

“So, this headline isn’t wrong?”

“No, it wasn’t, not for about two years, then it was wrong, it was always wrong.”

“How could that be?”

“I do not know. We are just a small outpost deep in the heart of Africa. I have no idea what happened in America, why or how it happened.”

The professor thanks the proprietor for his insights. He turns to Jorna, “We may need to leave the mystery of the fossils behind for a little while and drive to a bigger village, one with cell service. There is a different mystery we need to investigate. With that the professor lets the newspaper drop to the floor at his feet, takes another bite of chicken and a swig of beer.

The headline reads “NICHOLS WINS!”