Cause and Effect

Shattering the midafternoon silence of a quiet, sub-suburban neighborhood was the infernal screeching of a green Jeep pulling a true drift around a street corner. Its tires burning and its engine surpassing redline, the truck screamed down the street, taking aim on a driveway with two minivans (a black Honda and a blue Kia) parked in it. A split second before smashing into the curb, the driver slammed on the brakes. Sparks, dirt, and grass filled the air underneath the Jeep. It skidded across the driveway, brake pads practically melting, before it slammed into the mailbox. The mailbox - a nice-looking old wood creation with a real red flag on it - went flying through the air, did four cartwheels, and landed eighteen feet away in a heap.

Completely ignoring what he'd just done, a young man , probably about sixteen, jammed the column shifter into Park, failed at three attempts to remove his keys from the ignition, and left his door open as he leapt from his car and took off at top speed toward a gate next to the house. If it weren't for the circumstances, this guy would make an excellent hurdle jumper, because he also cleared the gate by almost a foot when he jumped that. He moved four feet for every stride he made.

The guy, named Matt, had now taken aim at a very tall, skinny guy who was playing Burnout Legends on his PSP, not caring what was going on around him.

"JEFF!" Matt roared as he bounded over a corner of the pool.

Bewildered, Jeff whipped around to see Matt three feet away from him, and by then, it was too late to do anything to avoid a spectacular collision. There was a very loud sound, a mixture of a thud, a crash, and a grunt. Jeff went spinning sideways through the air, landing near the edge of the pool in perfect belly-flop fashion. Matt lost control of all his limbs momentarily, instead flying through the air, slamming into a sapling and flipping over it, landing very hard on his rear. By the way his backside felt, Matt just broke his coccyx. He ignored the explosive pain back there and hobbled over to Jeff, who was watching his PSP sink toward the bottom of the pool.

"What in the name of Christ did you do that for?" Jeff demanded.

Matt didn't answer him; he merely pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from his pocket and thrusted it into Jeff's fist.

He looked at it. "What's this?" he snapped.

"R-r-read. It." Matt gasped.

Jeff gave him a very evil look, then opened the piece of paper and started reading.

Matt, I am very angry with you right now for what you said during P.E. today. Everyone you were talking to has been asking me if we had sex in the movie theater. I can't believe you would make people think that. I thought you were different from other guys, but your not. Your just like every other guy wanting to brag about what you do with your gf. Unless you set this straight I won't kiss you again. I think James walks by us in the morning, you could set it straight then, or do it at P.E. It is up to you, though. I want you to know before you start assuming: that I still love you.

Katie


Both eyebrows raised and most of his anger gone, Jeff looked up at Matt, a very patronizing look on his face.

"You peeled all the way over here, nearly killed me, and destroyed my PSP over this?" Jeff demanded, waving the note in Matt's face.

Matt looked wearily at him. "C'mon man...you have that time machine thingy working, can't you help me out?"

Jeff glared at him. "How the hell could a time machine help you with your relationship problems? That's what counselors are for."

"I just want to change it to where I wasn't so damn cocky this morning."

"And why should I help you?"

There was a silence, punctuated only by Matt's groans. "Because your machine is the only thing that can help me right now," he said.

There was another pause, again, Matt's groaning and wincing was the only thing that broke the silence. After thirty seconds, Jeff finally nodded and jerked his head toward a shed styled in the same way as the mailbox. Matt heaved himself after Jeff, muttering things like "Ow" and "damn" every time he took a step.

The inside of the shed was pretty much split in two layers, with a couple of forlorned wooden tables doing that splitting. The lower half was nothing but PC towers, stuffed in right next to each other with no room to spare. The upper half mainly consisted of tangled wires, battered keyboards, and monitors of all kinds. On the monitors, various complicated equations scrolled quietly. The only two things not computer-related things in the room were a UAC poster on the door and the Time Machine itself.

It was actually a soda freezer that had been stripped of all its refrigeration parts and jammed with wires. It hummed lowly as millions of volts of electricity coursed through the thick cables into the giant capacitor at the top. All pain and bad memories forgotten, Matt stared at the machine with silent awe. Jeff punched him in the arm.

"What time are we going back to?" he said.

"What? Oh, ten o' clock this morning."

Jeff began punching numbers on the only keyboard in the room that resembled being new. He pressed Enter five times, then punched in a few equations. Once he was done, Matt made to enter the machine, but Jeff stopped him.

"There are a few things I need to go over with you before you set out. Change ONLY what you came here to change, NOTHING else! Live the rest of the day EXACTLY as you did before! EXACTLY! It's bad enough you're going to change it now!"

Matt interrupted him. "Wait, how is it bad that I'm going to change this?"

"Because no matter how much we hypothesize toward a so-called 'good' ending, there's always the possibility that something will go awry! If this doesn't go the way we want it to, and then you go off and change something else, then God knows what could happen! If you made one point higher on that Free Enterprise test, the U.S. could leave the U.N. and kick it out of the country! If you make one point lower, Russia could revert back to the Communist party and destroy the world! Can't you see why time travel is such a sketchy subject? There's too many things that depend on tiny things, and if you change or destroy just one of those little things, life as we know it could change forever!"

Matt said nothing, but merely nodded and stepped into the machine. Jeff punched in a few more equations on another keyboard and pressed Enter. The machine roared to life. On a third keyboard, Jeff pressed Enter.

There was a tremendous BANG and a blinding wave of white light. Matt had disappeared from the Machine. On three of the monitors, tremendous amounts of data filled the screens.

"And he's gone," Jeff said. "Let's hope he does this right."

Five minutes later, Matt was catching up with three of his friends as they walked from the gymnasium to the football field's walking track. He wasn't sure he liked time traveling; it felt as though it killed him for a split second. But, now he had something to change. As before, one of his friends brought up the issue of his going out with Katie. Matt kept his mouth shut. Luckily, they didn't pursue the subject, instead talking about their investments in airsoft guns.


Back in the future, Jeff was leaning against the wall of the shed, paying violently close attention to everything different that happened. It seemed as though Matt was doing a good job so far. The only thing different was that it started pouring rain. But he could not breathe a sigh of relief yet. There were six hours, forty-four minutes, and nine seconds left for Matt to screw the world up in; Jeff hoped with every fiber of his being that he wouldn't.

There was a sudden knock on the door. Jeff opened it to find Katie, Matt's girlfriend, standing in what was fast becoming a tropical downpour. She looked as though she'd been crying. Jeff motioned her in, narrowing his eyes at the deluge outside.

"I-I need y-your help," Katie hiccuped.

"With what?" Jeff said, raising his voice to be heard over a tremendous thunderclap.

"I w-want to change the way I-I wrote that-that letter," she sobbed. "I didn't mean to write it t-that way."

"Well, even if I wanted to help you, I couldn't. Your boyfriend's already out, trying to change the way he acted to his friends about what made you write the letter in such a way."

"W-what?"

"Matt went out to change what he said to his friends this morning. So far, he's done a good job. The only thing really different so far has been this thunderstorm."

There was a pause. Only the sound of rain could be heard. Then Katie said, "But can't I go out, too?"

"Sorry, no," Jeff said. "Only one person can go back at a time. That's the way it works."

Katie started crying again. "B-but you have to! I need to change the way I wrote that letter!"

"I CAN'T!" Jeff yelled, finally losing control at her ignorance. "ONLY ONE PERSON CAN GO BACK AT A TIME! HE WENT BACK TO MAKE YOU NOT HAVE TO WRITE THAT LETTER THAT WAY! DON'T YOU GET IT?"

Katie fell silent. Jeff turned back to his computers and the machine. He could not believe one person could be so ignorant. This was whom he could "finally have intelligent conversations" with? Unbelievable. Another huge clap of thunder roared through the sky. He didn't worry about it; it was just a thunderstorm.

Meanwhile, back in the Past, Matt had just turned in his Free Enterprise test for the second time. He’d tried with all his might to answer every question exactly as he had before. Outside, the rain was pouring from the sky as if it were one solid mass. A waterfall ran down the window. He wasn’t worried about the storm; it was probably just a result of his success. He’d had a perfect lunch with Katie. Too bad he didn’t have any classes with her. A tremendous thunderclap shook the windows. If this rain didn’t let up soon, everyone would have to start gathering animals by the pair.

Another success to the day. He’d made an 88, the exact same grade as before. One less thing to worry about. He laid his head in his arms and tried to take a nap, but the thundering sound of the rain prevented anything more than eye-rest. He really didn’t want to go out in this storm, but his car was on the opposite side of the school (at least he thought it was), so he had no other choice. The bell suddenly rang, and Matt heaved his backpack onto his back. The umpteenth thunderbolt of the day caused the entire school to shake. Matt sighed. On the one hand, he was worried about Jeff’s statement before he went through the Machine, but on the other, he merely thought Jeff was a pessimist, as all scientists seemed to be. It seemed as though everything about the day (except the storm, which just seemed to get worse and worse) had gone off without a hitch.

When Matt stepped outside, he was drenched to the bone within seconds. It was impossible to see farther than ten feet. He was surprised he was even able to find Katie. She was running full-tilt to her car, her waterlogged clothes clinging to her body. Matt took off after her, but she was already at her car. A white truck tore by, its exhaust note drowning out the sound of the rain and thunder, dousing the area in water. Katie was just about to get in the car when she noticed the front-left tire had been sheared open. Naturally, it seemed, she went to check it out.

There was another deafening engine sound, this time from a police car tearing after the truck. Matt had reached the back of the car and had begun to say Katie’s name when it happened. The police car suddenly skidded to the right, toward Katie’s car. Matt dove after her to try to push her out of the way, but he was too late. The cruiser careened across the empty parking spot to their left, smashed Katie against her own car, spun around, was rear-ended by a second car, then howled into a nearby ditch. The upper half of Katie’s body landed headfirst on the drenched pavement with a crunch and did not move. Matt hit the ground hard and slid through the sickening pulp that was his girlfriend’s legs.

“No…no…” Matt gasped, looking behind him to see his girlfriend lying on the ground, smashed in half. Sobbing, he crawled over to her body and held it in his arms, refusing to let it go. A crowd of shocked people surrounded him.

In the Future, Jeff had moved Katie to his bedroom and had gone to fetch a perfectly made mug of hot chocolate.

“Here we go,” Jeff said cheerily as he walked in, “just the way you—”

He dropped the mug, which shattered into a million pieces on the floor and sent hot chocolate flying everywhere. Katie’s upper half was lying on the floor in a pool of blood and intestine. There was nothing Jeff could do. She was already dead. He couldn’t believe it. He had known that there would be trade-offs to Matt’s history change, but he’d never dreamed of anything such as this. Had this truly been the outcome to replacing the wrong with a right? Was the mishap that Matt changed been the one thing keeping Katie alive? It was insane. Jeff knew what he had to do. There was nothing else he could do. He had to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. He had to destroy the Machine, once and for all.

Jeff bounded down the stairs. He never thought that he would find the need to destroy his life’s work. But how?

Matt stood in the rain almost zombie-like as he watched the paramedics load the body bag that contained the love of his life into an ambulance. But he wasn’t the only one. The police officer who lost control and hit Katie was still sitting in his car, not saying a word as another medic tended to a cut across his forehead. Another officer was sitting next to him, a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. Matt couldn’t think of what it must be like, to be responsible for such a horrible death. Then he realized that it was his girlfriend that had been so forcibly taken from him, and a silent rage took over him. He ran toward the police car as fast as he could. Once there, he grabbed the EMT by his neck, threw him aside, punched the officer in the face as hard as he could, then stole his pistol. Matt blasted the officer at point-blank range, shooting right through his neck. Several nearby people screamed. Stunned, the other officer drew his pistol and fired at Matt, hitting him in the diaphragm. Matt groaned and grabbed the door for support, then gave the other cop three in the chest. The other officer fell out of the car and under the water of the overflowing ditch. Matt dropped the gun and fell into the water as well. Just before it went dark, he knew that Katie’s death had been avenged.

The backyard was completely flooded, so Jeff never saw it coming. He leaped over a piece of pool furniture and ended up plunging into the pool itself. Gasping for air, he swam toward the edge of the pool. He pulled the door open so hard it fell off one hinge. There had to be some way he could destroy the Machine without destroying himself. A Destination overload would do the trick. Frantically, he pounded dates into the terminals, maybe 30 or so in all. Then, he pounded equations into the operation software and hit the Enter button. The Machine whirred to life, but promptly started to whine and spark. Smoke gushed from a wire connection. One of the monitors exploded. Jeff bounded for the door, but then his limbs started to shake uncontrollably. He fell to the ground and cracked his skull on the floor, knocking him unconscious. The Machine’s glass door shattered. The terminals caught fire.

BOOM.