Category: Mar2019

“I did it!” Billy shouted. The teenager danced around an orange rock stuck in the air. It hovered several feet off the ground and glowed brightly with heat. “Vanilla! I DID IT!” He yelled at the white-haired woman resting atop a T-rex’s tail. The giant dinosaur was stuck in time like the hot rock. Vanilla hopped off the tail and walked to Billy. She glanced at the rock; then nodded at Billy.

“Good job, now you’re ready to learn something more complicated.” Vanilla reached for the tennis ball-sized rock. Its glow dissipated by the time she wrapped her hand around it; Billy assumed she sped up time to cool it down. She held the stone up with her left hand in front of Billy. “Right now the stone is here,” Vanilla declared. Then she moved it through the air to a spot on her right, Billy’s left. “Now, in the rock’s future, it’s over here. You’ve got a pretty good handle on that since you’ve been looping it through time. The next step is to try and to loop only half of it,” she smiled; her sparkling orange eyes distracted Billy. Then he heard a soft thud on the ground to his right. He looked down at it and saw half the stone.

“Whooaaa,” Billy’s eyes went wide. He looked at Vanilla’s hand and found the other half of the rock still in her grasp. “How’d you get so strong?” Vanilla held up the whole rock in one piece and winked at Billy.

“I had someone teach me like I’m teaching you.” Vanilla lightly tossed the rock at Billy’s head.

“Ow,” the rock bounced off his forehead then stopped in time. He did not react quick enough to stop it before it bumped him. Billy plucked it out of the air. “His lessons were harsher,” Vanilla added and looked into Billy’s eyes. Their bright orange-crystalline color seemed to cloud over. “But he didn’t have as smart a student as I do.” Billy grinned as his cheeks flushed red.

“Thanks! What’s he like? Can I meet him?” Vanilla shook her head.

“That’s enough questions for now,” she pointed at the rock in his hand. “Get to work.” Billy blinked. Vanilla was gone when he opened his eyes.

“What I wouldn’t give to go back in time,” Percy crumpled the useless lottery ticket in his hand and shook his head. He tossed the tiny paper ball into the nearest garbage can and continued his way through the park.

“What for?” a woman asked. Percy turned toward the voice. A woman with long white hair in a flowing orange dress stood next to a young man in a navy-blue pinstripe suit. They looked more out of place in the park than Percy did in his mechanic’s overalls. The over-dressed pair seemed nice enough that Percy decided to answer.

“T’ win that billion dollar jackpot,” he chuckled. “The things I’d do what that money, boy I tell you.”

“But you wouldn’t win anyway,” the young man said. Then he turned to the woman for confirmation. “Right, Vanilla?” She nodded.

“Right, Billy,” She shrugged and turned to walk away. The boy’s answer irked Percy enough that he felt he had to defend himself.

“O’ course I’d win, that’s how time travel works. If I know the winning numbers I get the money,” he grumbled at their backs then turned away.

“That’s not true,” Billy said. Percy turned around. “Can I prove it to him? Pleeeeease?” he asked Vanilla. The woman rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Alright, but make it quick.” He ran to Percy. “What are the winning numbers?”

“6-17-18-42-58. Why?” Percy blinked. The moment he opened his eyes Billy showed him a lottery ticket. Percy recognized the numbers and yanked the ticket out of his hand. It had the previous day’s date; the day of the drawing. Before Percy got too excited Billy gave him a newspaper with the winning numbers shown. The new winning numbers that did not match his ticket.

“Hey, Vanilla?” Billy asked the white-haired woman walking next to him. The pair navigated their way through a bustling outdoor market on a cool, sunny morning. They walked and talked while avoiding the other patrons walking and talking in reverse. Vanilla walked around a mother forcefully shoving a serrated hunting knife into her child’s hand.

“Yes, Billy?”

“How does time work?” The world stopped moving backward; it stopped entirely. The market-goers all stood still.

“What do you mean?” she asked him.

“Stopping and restarting time I kind of get. It should just pick up where it left off. But we can rewind and even fast-forward time. We can make time loops,” he shrugged. “I don’t really get it.” Vanilla nodded.

“That’s a good question. You should know how it works so you can make the most of your abilities.” She raised her hand and wiggled her fingers at the air. A black portal opened before her. “This Earth,” she gestured at the open-air market around them. “Is probably somewhere in its mid 20th century. Come,” she walked through the portal. Billy followed. He emerged on another Earth into a vast green plain of swaying grass. The first thing Billy realized was that he was covered in shadow. He looked up and saw a time-stopped T-rex mid-step.

“This Earth is obviously much earlier in its cycle,” Vanilla said. “Each Earth has its own independent flow of time; but, it is a cycle. Rewinding or speeding up time moves it along its set course. Creating a time loop is as simple as choosing two points and replaying the section between them,” Vanilla faced Billy and grinned. “And that’s just the beginning.”

“But I thought time-loops was an S-rank skill?” Billy asked with a tilted head and confusion in his eyes. “Is there more?” Vanilla shook her head.

“It’s not about what you can do; it’s about how creative you are doing it,” she said.

“Huh?” Vanilla crouched to grab a large baseball-sized stone from the ground. She tossed the grey, jagged sphere into the air and it got caught in stopped time.

“Time-stop, right?” She asked. Billy nodded. She started time again and the stone fell into her hand. She whirled around and launched the stone upward toward the frozen T-rex. Billy watched the stone fly toward the giant beast as if traveling through a vat of molasses. It traveled no more than an inch a second, but it was on a direct path to hit the dinosaur’s knee.

“You can slow down time too?” Billy asked in awe. Vanilla shook her head.

“No, but I can stop it and start it again. Really fast.” She pointed at the stone. “Watch.” Billy looked and saw the stone stuck in the air again. “If you’re clever, you can control the local time of an object.” She held her hand out and the stone flew back to her hand. “And if you’re really inventive you can put it all together.” She threw the stone back at the dinosaur’s knee with all her might.

Billy stared wide-eyed as the stone flew through the air almost too fast to see. It stopped within an inch of the animal’s skin then reappeared in front of Vanilla and flew toward the giant lizard again. Each time it seemed to be getting faster and faster. He noticed it began to glow bright orange. After half a dozen high-speed loops he looked at Vanilla.

“What are you doing?”

“I trapped the stone in a time loop between my hand and the dinosaur. I’m speeding up the stone, but not the air around it. The friction heats up the stone and it remembers everything from the previous loops.”

“It remembers?”

“If it was a person, they would remember everything. They would realize they’re in a time loop and be conscious of the passing time. This can only remember its speed. Every time it flies through the loop it picks up more speed.” The glowing hot rock appeared in front of Vanilla again, but this time she stopped it from flying off. She looked down at the ground and crouched to retrieve a second rock. She tossed it to Billy then pointed at the floating orange stone.

“If you can make it glow like mine I’ll show something even better.”