Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 05:04:47 PDT
From: "Lars M. Culverine" <nardwik@hotmail.com>
Subject: Kidnapping Through the Stream of Time 2

KIDNAPPING THROUGH THE STREAM OF TIME
by Lars M. Culverine (c) 1998

CHAPTER 2.
The Trip Back

The cloud of dust was still descending in the place where the
crushed piece of ceiling vault hit the ground as I turned back 
to the boy and looked in his eyes with a speaking, extremely serious
expression:

"You believe me now?" I asked. The boy nodded.

"I'm glad," I breathed out with a noticeable relief. "But, what now?"
I spread my hands, gesticulating. "The history has changed. We have
to do something with it!"

"Do what?" asked the boy.

"I don't know. I saved your life, that's true. But this will cause 
to change all the history, you see? You wouldn't lived by this time. 
Not even tomorrow. And everybody would have believed you were dead. 
And... the history should have continued according to it. But now... 
Now everything has changed. And everything is *going to* be changed, 
unless we would do anything with it. The only hope to preserve the history
might be if everybody would think you had really died here on this place, 
you understand?"

The boy shivered: "Yes I do, but..." then he paled white: "What...
what are you gonna do to me?" I laughed with relief: "Oh, no, I'm not
going to do anything to you! We just have to think out something 
to make everybody sure that something terrible happened to you in here.
I don't know what, well maybe something like as if we would let a lot
of false spots removing the true ones at the same time..."

Michael's eyes highlighted in joy: "Wow, that's like in the crime
story!"

"You're right," I nodded, smiling, "now we only need to find out
what to do and how..."

I looked around the place... There! I couldn't believe my fortune... 

I spotted a pair of fifty-gallon kegs labelled with: KEROSENE.
Lucky boy, I smiled broadly. No matter if those kegs were full
or empty, the idea was there.

"Well, I think I already know what to do," I stated, smiling,
"please listen to me very carefully, Michael, ok?"

"Ok," the boy smiled.

"Um... so you are a full orphan, right?" Michael nodded.

"And you really have nobody to go to, no uncle, auntie, grandpa,
no friends of your mommy, no sibblings, nobody?" The boy shook
his head no.

"So if I would take you with me back to our times, will anybody
stay here who will miss you?"

Michael's face and eyes flashed with joy and then burst in happiness: 
"You would... you would do? You would really like to take me with you?" 
And he stared at me with such an endless joy and with such a sincere 
hopeful plead in his eyes that I shivered.

I said: "Not that I would like to, now I even have to take you with me, 
because history would have almost likely changed if I wouldn't do that. 
This looks like the only solution possible. I have to take you with me."

The boy almost shrieked out with pleasure but I had to quieten him
a bit: "Do you understand, what would this mean to you? If I take you
with me then you will never, never and ever be able to return.
You will have to leave everything, like your friends and all."

Michael stunned, surprised. But I continued.

"And when we come back into my times, everything is going to look 
different than you were used to. You will not recognize anyone. 
Most people you have known may not be alive, gosh, we will travel 
the seventy-one years into the future!"

"And could we get everything back anyhow? I mean completely?"

I doubted for a second. But then I realized what all would have
happened if I did it that way: "I think we could, but... the way
I would have to go back in time to before I first appeared in here.
Then I would have to do lots of things to return everything back
and this also means that I would have to look at you as you were
being killed by the fallen ceiling vault and I wouldn't be
allowed to help you!"

The boy kind of dragged his heels, uncertain, embarassed, he was
thinking for a long while and finally he said: "I would die here
if you wouldn't saved me so I wouldn't be here anyway. And if you
let me go, then ev'rything changes and..."

He suddenly turned to me, startled: "If... if everything changes,
could it happen that you'd be never born?"

"Yes, that's true." I nodded seriously.

"But you couldn't save me here then!" He exclaimed and I nodded again.

"And what would then happen to me? And to you? If you're gonna return
now and let me leave..."

"...then my existence could dissolve on the way back. And maybe
after I will disappear from here without you, it also could happen 
that you would have dissolved, too. This is called the time-space 
continuity corruption."

Michael popped his eyes: "What?!"

"Come and look," I incited the boy, "our time machine is equipped
by lots of stuff that are able to compute such things."

I set the board computer to overcome to the changed stream of time
simulation mode. I confirmed all those diagraphs along with the
difficult calculation curves to advance to the final calculation
that I have made in the lab.

"See?" I pointed to the monitor. "This is it!"

Michael tried desperately to read out and to understand the results 
of the tests that now were beaming on the screen but it was all much 
too difficult for him.

"The pur-su-ed ob-ject... it's like me?" he asked. I nodded.

"And the person non-be-lon-ging to ac-actual time-space... oh lordy,
I can't even read it out! What does it mean?"

I smiled: "This means that if I take you with me, if I remove 
all spots of mine and of the time machine and if I add some new spots
here for everybody to think that you died on the place, then nothing
changes for anybody in your time and the history is likely to preserve."

The boy stared in awe and then he fell heavily onto the chair: 
"Wow! This is too much for me!"

"Do you understand it at least a bit? It's far too difficult even
for an adult!"

Michael turned to me and blurted out: "Well... yes, maybe," and then
he added, "hmmm, well I'd like to get outta the orphy anyway. And I'm
sure I ain't get nothing but those new boots or clothes for my birthday."

I lifted my eyebrows in surprise. I would almost forgotten! 

"Well yes, it's your birthday today, isn't it? It's the 16th of August! 
It requires some celebration ceremony, what do you say?"

The boy nodded cheerfully.

"And I've already got an excellent idea for your birthday present! 
I'm going to take you back with me and you will have a look into the future! 
We're going to celebrate it, you will prolongue your vacation for a life-time 
and you will see things you have never even dreamt about! Agreed?"

Now only the boy realized what all he can accomplish and fulfill
to himself. In a second he checked all pros and cons of it and he
exclaimed in a high-pitched falsetto voice excited by enormous
wave of joy: "Yes, yes!! I'm gonna go with you! I can, can I,
please, tell me I can, please!" he pleaded.

"Of course you can," I quieted him, "but first we have to make
everybody think you have stayed here dead. May I borrow your cap, please?"

After a short pause of hesitation he took off his worn-out cap
and handed it to me with a huge question-mark engraved in his face.
I turned it over, bottom up. This was exactly I was seeking out:
a name-label and the fixed leaf with inventory code and address
of the owner which wasn't anybody else than the Municipal Institute
for the Children Care.

I grabbed it and slightly tore the nobody-know-how-many-times
washed and now-just-scarcely-definable cloth in several places.

"Whatcha doin'?" Michael exclaimed, surprised.

"You will see," I said and pressed the torn-off hood in between the pile
of ruins that was originally created by the fallen ceiling vault just 
a while before. Then I filled it partly up with some mess and garbage 
from around and rolled the two kegs as close as possible to the pile.
Then I returned to the cabin where I opened the "trunk" under the seat
in there and reached for the big rescue-kit.

Michael observed me rather curiously, still having not any slightest idea,
what I was up to.

I pulled out the self-destruction remote-controlled set - consisting
of more pieces of plastic and a CB-based remote controller - and a huge
bottle of alternate fuel supply. I opened the valve and poured a generous 
amout of fuel into each of the kegs, adding a piece of plastic on them. 
After I have finished I checked whether any spot of mine has 
left there, I dusted my hands and returned into the cabin again, putting
the empty bottle onto its place.

"Well, that's it," I declared. "See the kegs?"

"Uh-huh."

"Do you know what's a KEROSENE?" I asked.

The boy shook his head no. I explained: "It's a fuel for
airplanes, you see? It a highly explosive stuff."

"What does that mean 'hi-ly ex-explosive?" the boy asked.

"That means that this kerosene goes boom very easily and very often," 
I answered in a slight smirk.

Little Michael giggled but I continued: "Don't laugh! It's a very 
dangerous liquid. But this is exactly what do we need it for. 
Now listen carefully: the label on the kegs reads: KEROSENE.
This means that this kerosene MUST HAVE BEEN in there before. Now,
the grey stuff that I've just sticked on the kegs, it's a plastic 
explosive - it's just something like dynamite. And what I'm holding now 
(I showed him the detonator) it's something like a time bomb, with this 
I can make the plastic go boom whenever I want to. And guess what happens 
when it goes boom?" I asked and turned to little Michael.

"Uh... I dunno," he answered.

"The explosion would cause all around to blow up and tear into
small pieces. And when some people come over here, what would they find? 
A mess, pieces of kegs labelled KEROSENE, and -- which is very important -- 
YOUR cap laying nearby. What would they think then?"

Michael stayed embarassed for a moment but then his face cleared,
his eyes widened and he blurted: "They would think that I went boom 
togetha' with the kegs, that nuffin' left o'me but the cap!"

"Yeah! Exactly!" I praized, "you're smart! And besides," I continued 
carefully, "it was YOU who helped me with thinking out the idea."

"Whuddya mean?"

"Well, do you think it is everything? Didn't we forget about something?"

"Like what 'bout?"

"Like to make them think what made the kegs go boom when you were here 
and why did you actually come over here?"

The boy shrugged, having no particular idea.

"Well, how about that MATCHES and the LIT CIGARETTE of yours?" I pointed 
to the pile of mess from the ceiling, under which the proofs of Michael's 
"misconduct" of smoking were now buried.

Michael's eyes widened, his face paled white again. He swallowed heavily:
"You... you SAW me smokin' in here?"

I nodded, smiling broadly and added seriously: "Oh, it's ok, I won't tell
anybody! And besides, soon there will be nobody to tell, anyway.
But please, forget about smoking next time, will you?"

"Ok," the boy nodded and flagged his head, feeling obviously a bit guilty. 
Just like me, I had to admit, smiling. "That's it!" I said appreciatively 
and continued: "Bad things can often be helpful, though. Now we acquired 
a possible REASON: a little boy enters the abandoned factory to have a smoke 
and after he had thrown off the lit match or the cigarette or whatever else 
flammable this close to the kerosene kegs, it caused a mighty explosion 
that tore the surroundings into pieces including the boy."

The boy shivered a bit: "Huh, that's spooky! 'ts not good to listen 
how I could'a' died!"

Suddenly the boy was struck by another idea: "Um... and how're ya
gonna make it to fire the pla-pla... stuff so that we weren't hurt 
when everything around goes boom?"

"Well, like I said, this is like a time-bomb. I can set it's clock 
to go boom some minutes after the time machine would transport us
from here to our times."

"And what if som' pieces of this time-bomb and of that pla-stuff
would've left here?"

"This won't happen because they're self-destructive. That means
that every piece of it that would left after the explosion is to
dissolve right there otherwise it could possibly corrupt the
time-space continuity I told you about before."

"Why?"

"Because these are made in MY times and DO NOT belong to YOUR
times, that's why."

"How come you know all this?"

"Well it's not me, it's all the machine here. It had helped me 
to compute all this," I pointed.

"Clever one," Michael praized.

"You're right. A very clever one. But now we have to fasten our
seatbelts, because the machine will start to rotate very fast. 
We have to reach maximum speed to penetrate the time-space gate. 
Now just sit down here to feel comfortable, I'm going to help you 
with the belts now."

Michael sat down onto the next chair and I fastened his belt securely. 
As I was doing it, I almost shivered from excitement:
'It's about to turn out well! I'm sure it will! It must!' 
Then I fastened myself, restoring afterwards the pre-set time circuits 
for the return travel and turned on generators...


<End Chapter Two>