Flight, then Fright 9

The calm before the storm was an incomplete phrase because it did not talk about what happened AFTER the storm. There was also another calm after the storm, one that enveloped me in its warmth, installed some level of amnesia to temporarily forget all my worries and tiredness and the events that just took place, and then put me to sleep.

I didn't know when the woman entered the room, or that she had been watching me sleep for some time. I only awoke two hours later and saw her seated in the room, looking at what was the new reality of phones in this future: bands worn on the hand which projected an interactive hologram. A part of me wasn't so attracted to this quantum leap in technological advancements, and I could still see myself sticking to a cellphone if I was in these times naturally.

"You're awake. I doubt you slept much last night," she said matter-of-factly, putting the screen away and staring at me intently.

"How long have you been there," I asked, confusion giving way to unexplained apprehension.

"Hmm, I'd say thirty minutes. We had to do some cleanup, dumping their bodies in the destruction site before handling the submarine and making sure that any record of those three even coming within a thousand meters of this place goes poof. Cleaning up is usually the busiest, most tasking part of the whole shebang."

"Not that I'd know," I said before yawning and stretching. The cracks told me I was very tired, and rightfully so. The sleep wasn't just for the wake keep I imposed upon myself the previous night; the experiences I'd had in this time and place were too daunting, and right now. there was nothing I wished more than to go home.

"You're tired of this place, or rather this time, aren't you?"

"Is it that obvious?" I turned to see her smile. It was a rare thing to see such a serious woman smile, but she did have a beautiful; a rather infectious smile. I smiled back and she laughed.

"Well, I think the scientists are on to something. You can follow me and see it now. If their theories are correct, you could be going back to your time before the end of today. In fact, maybe within the next hour."

"That fast?" I asked, knowing that even in my time, science did not execute such tasks that fast. Knowing how the whole time travel sequence worked was one thing, but harnessing that phenomenon with an actual machine that could send me back was another. Could they really create-

"A time machine. Yes. The materials and technology to build one are already present at this time, the one thing missing was the how. With your pilot's account, weather reports from that day, and several other pieces of information at our disposal, I think we've pieced together the sequence of events that were in place to facilitate your time leap."

I walked with her to the lab, the one place I'd never been on the island. It was large and had a skylight, and there I saw my private jet being put back together.

"Reverse engineering and putting your plane back were quite a piece of work for our engineers on the job. Even had us looking for manuals online and whatnot. All in all, not something we all would like to go through, working through these older models."

"If it took you all that just to take it apart and put it together then how the hell am I supposed to trust you guys and fly in this thing again? Are you even sure you really put it together right?" I asked skeptically, wanting to avoid a tragedy going back. Being alive in this hellhole was quite preferable to dying in a plane crash.

The professor laughed it off, turning his back to me to observe what the engineers were doing. "Perhaps I should not have told you this, seeing how it has given you the jitters already. Don't worry, it's just like revisiting your high school physics problems now. You know that stuff, it's just a bit confusing because it's been a while. Rest assured that my men fixed it up good."

"So what was the secret to time travel?"

"The weather warm conditions that day was a secret. The sky was warming, a storm was brewing, and the plane was flying right in the opposite S-N of the earth's gravitational field. Add that to the aluminum alloy that the plane was and of which is a perfect material for the makeup of the time machine and the fact that the plane was crossing a time zone boundary and you have the perfect conditions for time travel."

I just nodded my head. "I can remember all of that, but I have no idea what it means. Can I be on my way now?"

"Surely. We've simulated the conditions here, so we'll ask the pilot to rev up the plane and get ready. When you teleport, you'll land back at the London Airport in your time, though I imagine that you'll have a lot of questions to answer. How will you handle it?"

I climbed the steps into the plane. "By saying nothing. I don't think that the people in my time are ready for time travel technology, judging by how they've handled the tech at their disposal. I can imagine them coming to steal tech from the future for wars, so I think I'll keep it to myself."

The professor laughed. "If you live to this time, you can always come to see us here. "

"I'll keep that in mind," I said before shutting the door.

*****

THE END.

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