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“Huh…” Tilly began, looking up at the sky with that machine in her hand.
It had just begun to rain. Right at the same time, it did yesterday. She and the boys should know; they sat there and timed it.
They timed it every single day.
“It seems like we’re in a time loop.”
It had been about 3 days, to be exact, since the rain appeared at that exact hour. That exact minute. That exact second. It had been 3 days of them constantly noting every single action and event that happened each day. The first day— June 4th— was fine, the second was confusing, and the third… Well, they’re standing there now, and today, it’s dreadful.
They all stared up at the sky in shock. Despite the water hitting their faces, they did not flinch.
“What are we supposed to do?” Remy asked, barely above a whisper.
“I don’t know,” Tilly answered honestly.
“Guys, c’mon, there’s no way this isn’t just a nightmare. It has to be a bad dream. It can’t be anything else!” Cricket said suddenly, quite confidently, with that smile of assurance he always had. His lip trembled slightly when he said it, though.
“Sharing dreams is so rare, though,” Remy stressed. “Actually, I’m not even sure if they can happen.”
“Well, maybe we’re the first ones to do it! Til’, you and Andromeda tried to read each other’s minds before. Why’s this any different?”
“I…” Tilly considered her words, noticing the fear in his eyes, but she couldn’t help but break down into a panic instead. “Because this isn’t a dream! We stole this machine from Big Tech, and I know we went to bed Friday night, so I know that day was real!”
Remy and Cricket finally flinched, this time at her outburst. Neither of them said a word. They all stood in silence for a few moments as the rain began to get worse. Thankfully, they’d brought rain jackets and umbrellas this time. It was kind of hard not to, what with knowing it would happen at exactly this hour, and they really needed some kind of protection. Both so they wouldn’t get sick again, and also so Cricket’s hearing aids wouldn’t malfunction from the intense rain.
“Maybe if we go to Big Tech, they can help us?” Remy offered.
“We can’t go back to Big Tech! They’ll know we stole their stuff, and who knows what they’ll do! For all we know, they’ll send us back in time as punishment!” Cricket said, and then he suddenly grabbed Remy by the shoulders and shook him dramatically. “What if they send us to the 1300s and we get the Black Plague, Remy!? What if!?”
“Okay, okay! Maybe not Big Tech!” Remy exclaimed, taking a step back to regain his balance.
“No, actually,” Tilly began. “Cricket, I know you don’t wanna go, but Remy’s right. This might be our only shot at getting out of this mess. It’s not like we have any idea on how to get out of this, and none of us are exactly knowledgeable on time travel either.”
“Ugh… Fine,” Cricket huffed, crossing his arms. “But if they send us to the Titanic, we’re all going down together, okay?”
—
The kids all stared up at Big Tech’s front doors, taking in just how daunting they looked, and just how hesitant they were. The last few raindrops slipped off the frog umbrella Tilly held above their heads as they all cuddled up to each other.
“Oh,” Remy finally said, looking down at his phone. “Huh, I guess it is 4:16 now.”
“It should be. That’s when the rain is supposed to stop,” Cricket added.
“Well, that means we’ve been standing here for about 10 minutes,” Tilly said. “We should… probably go in now.”
“Yeah, bite the bullet and all,” Remy said.
They all took each other's hands and wandered in like lost ducklings without a mother.
—
After some redirection and interactions with the preset hologram of Gwendolyn Zapp in the lobby, they were finally able to speak to her in person. Tilly, of course, found herself standing in front of her boys, who hid behind her.
“Ms. Zapp,” Tilly began, only to get interrupted as Gwendolyn scrambled around the room with a face shield on, focused on gathering parts for whatever she was building.
Gwendolyn lifted the face shield off her face and looked down at the three. “Ah, Ms. Green! It’s been a while. What’s happening?”
“Um… So, this is all kind of complicated. I mean, maybe not for you,” Tilly laughed awkwardly. “You’ve dealt with space trips, rogue farmbots and self-driving cars, zombie pumpkins, everything. I’m sure there’s nothing you can’t handle.”
“I mean, unless I accidentally erase my mind again like I did last time!” Gwendolyn laughed. “But yes, I can handle quite a lot. Lay it on me!”
“We stole your time machine!” Remy suddenly exclaimed.
“And we’re stuck in a time loop! Please don’t send us back in time and leave us for dead for stealing your stuff!” Cricket exclaimed as well, speaking incredibly fast with that last part.
“So you all are stuck in a timeloop, huh?” Gwendolyn asked with a hum, rubbing her chin with her finger. “How exciting! I wonder, how many times have you come and spoken to me about this?”
“Only this time, ma’am,” Tilly admitted. “It’s our third loop. We’ve kind of been too scared to come here. We didn’t know what would happen, or how you’d react.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you all have caused mayhem here,” Gwendolyn laughed.
“Is there any way you can help us?” Remy asked.
Gwendolyn hummed again before taking the time machine out of Tilly’s hands and placing it on a stand nearby. The stand lit up and began scanning the object. The large computer that covered the wall booted up as it did so. Gwendolyn grabbed a spinning chair and sat in it by the desk where the keyboard was set.
“I’d say the best course of action would be to send you three into the future, in a time where this new machine I’m working on is finally done, and you can use it to send yourselves back home,” she said, pointing back at the array of machine parts and blueprints that sat on the floor behind them. “It’s a time rewinder I began working on once we found out our time machine went missing this morning. It should cancel out the time loop.”
Gwendolyn pulled up a few tabs, and various documents showed timelines aplenty that made the kids’ heads spin. She centered in on the line in the very middle of the screen, the one connected to their current timeline perfectly, and clicked on it
“So, this line… this is the future?” Tilly asked.
“Not really,” Gwendolyn said, zooming in a ton and pointing out that the timeline branched off the smallest bit. From afar, it looked seamless, but up close, there was a very small 90-degree angle branching off. “This is just the most likely future timeline. Maybe the future will be like this! We don’t know, since the future doesn’t exist; it’s what you make it. However, this is as accurate as this machine can get to what it’ll likely be like, registering many different factors, as well as everyone’s thoughts, emotions, and future plans.”
“So, how far are you sending us into the future?” Cricket asked.
“Only a few weeks! This machine shouldn’t take any longer than that. If it does, I don’t know what I’d do with myself!”
The kids all looked at each other nervously.
“All I need to do is set this time machine to the correct date, hand it to you, press its button, and boom! We’ll have you shot off to June 18th, 2021.”
“And you’re sure this’ll work?” Cricket said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“It should!”
They all looked at each other again. It’s not like they had any other options.
They all took each other's hands again as Tilly was handed the time machine, now set to June 18th, 2021.
“Bon Voyage!” Gwendolyn said with a wave as she pressed the button on the time machine.
The kids squeezed their eyes shut and huddled up together, preparing for the stereotypical bright light or time travel portal experience they saw in movies, but that… didn’t happen. Not at all, in fact.
They simply opened their eyes, looked around, and…
Gwendolyn was gone.
The place looked abandoned, too.
—
It took a few minutes to navigate through the darkened hallways of the dilapidated Big Tech facility. Once they reached the front doors, which were hung open and not tightly sealed shut, they took a few steps out and…
Yeah, something wasn’t right.
“Everything looks so… different,” Remy began. “Not, like, futuristic different, just different.”
“Yeah, I know that road wasn’t there, and those buildings are completely new,” Cricket added, pointing out at the different landscapes and additional buildings out in the distance.
Remy tossed the now rotted and falling apart umbrella to the ground. It seemed like any object not physically on their body had aged. Their clothes had no wear and tear. Remy’s glasses were completely fine as well. So were Cricket’s hearing aids. Tilly looked back down at the time machine in her hand and noticed it was covered in dust, aging as well. She blew it away and looked at the run-down, glitchy screen.
“What’s it say?” Cricket and Remy asked in unison.
“I… Um… Nothing,” Tilly said, a hint of dread in her voice. “I mean, it’s trying to say somethin’, but the screen keeps glitching out and I can’t read a date.”
“Well,” Remy began, wringing his hands together. “We’re definitely not only two weeks into the future. I know with our technological advances and all, we could, theoretically, build those houses and that roadway in a short time period. Those buildings, though, and that road… They look like they’ve aged.”
They all went silent for a while.
“Whatever we do,” Tilly began. “We can not interact with anyone. We can’t let anyone see us, either. Not unless we’re disguised. We could mess up the timeline… or, whatever timeline we’re in.”
“Right,” Cricket sighed. “But what are we supposed to do? Ms. Zapp’s not here, and it’s not like we can go anywhere else!”
“She has to be somewhere, right?” Remy asked, rubbing his arms anxiously. “I mean, if she’s not, then we’re kinda stuck here, a-and we can’t be stuck here!”
“Okay, okay, we need to calm down,” Tilly said, guiding them to breathe with her. “We just… Um… I guess we just have to look around for her. Hope for the best. We just have to be smart about it.”
“You said we’d need disguises, right? What if we went to a costume store? Assuming ones nearby,” Remy offered.
“No, we couldn’t go in there unless they’re closed. We’d be seen.”
“Maybe we can find some old clothes people have thrown away in alleyways or something,” Cricket added.
Remy and Tilly shared a look. They both pointed at him
“That could work,” they said in unison.
—
They walked out of that alleyway in outfits that looked… strangely familiar. At least, to Cricket and Tilly, they did. With his button-up with blocks of color, blue jeans, and side-swept hair, and her puffy purple jacket, brown, knee-length shorts, and her wavy hair. Remy wore something of a similar aesthetic, with a beige sweater, light blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up, and a checkered bucket hat.
“Okay, so, where are we headed?” Remy asked, brushing off his sweater and looking at the others.
“Well, we’ve got a whole city to explore,” Tilly hummed. “She’s bound to be here somewhere.”
“So, are we gonna split up?” Cricket asked.
“Nooo, no, no. That’s far too dangerous if the city’s changed as much as we think it has,” Tilly said.
“Tilly,” Remy began, placing a hand on her shoulder. “As much as I agree, I kind of think Cricket’s idea will be more productive. I don’t want to split up, but we only have about 4 hours ‘til the sun sets to find her…”
Tilly looked at the two and sighed, then looked down at the machine in the crossbody bag she’d found.
“I… I don’t know. What if we never find each other again?”
Cricket hummed for a moment and then lit up. “Actually, y’know the one place that wouldn’t change? That hasn’t for the past 30-something years?”
Tilly and Remy looked at each other in confusion before it suddenly hit them. “Times Circle!”
“Exactly! We can split up and meet back there when the sun begins to set!”
They all took Cricket’s outstretched pinky, which he held out for a promise.
They all promised, with every fiber of their being.
—
Remy went west, Tilly went east, and Cricket went north. The southern part of the city was where Big Tech was held, and it wasn’t like they hadn’t been there already.
Cricket rounded the 39th corner since he’d started walking, and he huffed from the exhaustion of walking for so long. He’d turned his hearing aids off a while ago, having grown tired of the loud, constant noises from the crowds in the streets.
His eyes landed on a bus stop that looked worn down with old age. He smiled a little at the fact that the said bus stop was familiar, unlike so many other things in the city so far. He let the fond memories of waiting there with his friends after Community Center hours wash over him and give him some relief from the stress of today.
Someone was waiting at the bus stop, though. An older man who looked to be somewhere in his 30s, though Cricket was never particularly good at guessing ages.
Cricket couldn’t help but notice that the man at that bus stop looked a little… familiar, actually.
Maybe a bit too familiar, with his widow's peak, shoulder-length brown hair, blue eyes, and hearing aid. Half of his bangs were dyed light blue. He was a bigger man, but stood only a few inches taller than him, maybe around 5’3”, and wore half-moon glasses and a light blue coat over a black T-shirt. A yellow lanyard dangled from his neck, and a brown backpack hung off his shoulder.
He honestly looked like a mixture of himself and Dad, now that Cricket thought about it.
Cricket watched as the man scrolled through his phone before looking down the other end of the sidewalk. In a split second, he glanced in Cricket’s general direction, and Cricket swore his heart stopped momentarily. He froze as the man did a double-take and looked back at him, and it seemed like the man froze too.
Something in Cricket told him to start running, so he did. He turned and barreled down the street he’d just left. Beads of sweat began dripping down his face as he breathed hard and fast. His feet hit the ground as quickly as he could manage, and he’d turned a few corners before he decided to look behind him.
Cricket glanced over his shoulder and noticed the man sign “Wait!” and “Stop!”; two of the signs Cricket had been able to memorize, with Tilly beginning to teach him sign language lately, since the audiologist said it was possible he’d lose more of his hearing over time.
Cricket skidded to a halt when he realized this guy knew exactly what signs he’d be able to understand.
Oh, no… This can’t be real.
Despite his disbelief, he turned on his hearing aids, somehow curious and eager to hear him and speak with him, despite being wholly terrified as well.
As the man caught up to him, out of breath, he signed something to himself that Cricket couldn’t exactly understand. It must’ve been a statement of relief, though, considering the relieved and exasperated expression he wore on his face.
“Okay,” the man began, leaning over to hold his knees as he caught his breath, letting his backpack fall to the sidewalk off his shoulder. “Let’s maybe not do that again, yeah?”
Cricket stood there in shock. Now that the man was closer, he noticed the lanyard he wore— which looked to be a teachers lanyard— had a fish pattern on it. Barracudas, to be specific. He also noticed a wedding ring on his finger.
“Cricket Green, it’s a pleasure to— um… Dang, this is kind of weird to go through. I’m not really sure how to start this.”
“You’re future me, aren’t you? I mean, there’s no way you’re not…” Cricket said, softly, unsure how to even process everything.
“I… Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry that this is how we meet. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“Well, you did! I mean, who runs full speed like that?! Especially at some kid?”
“Um, your future self?”
“Oh, don’t give me that excuse,” Cricket huffed, crossing his arms. “You’re old enough to know that would’ve freaked anyone out! How old are you, anyway?”
“39.”
“I–” Cricket paused. “Oh, I didn’t think we were that far into the future. How many years even is that?”
“Well, I’m 39, and you’re 10, so do the math.”
Cricket looked down at his hands and began counting on his fingers. He mentally acknowledged his future self’s patience with him. “29 years? We’re 29 years in the future?!”
“Yep. Good job on the math skills, by the way,” his future self complimented.
“Math skills don’t matter right now! I have to find the others and tell them about this!”
“Umm… About the 29 years part or the you meeting me part?”
“All of it!” Cricket said, ready to turn and run off again.
“You can’t!” His future self said, reaching out to grab his arm, but hesitating and drawing back. The movement caught Cricket’s attention, and he paused.
“What do you mean I can’t? And what was all of that for?”
His future self sighed. “Okay, so, it’s kind of all hard to explain. There are a lot of things I can’t say, but just know that you can’t tell them you met me. As for the whole movement thing, we can’t interact with each other outside of talking. So no hugs, high-fives, no punches to my arm if you get mad at me.”
“What happens if we do?”
“Can’t say. Just know you can’t do it for your own safety.”
“Dang! Can you say anything?!”
“Sure! I can say a lot of things, but any of my knowledge regarding time travel isn’t stuff I can give you. If I told you I did or didn’t know something, you’d go off and start researching it or talking about it when you got back home, and that could affect so much. So much that I don’t want changed.”
“I… Okay. Okay, fine. I won’t say anythin’. Can you at least help us out, though? I’m sure you remember everything. We’re kind of stuck here and can’t find Ms. Zapp.”
“Right,” his future self said, staring off for a moment to think about how to phrase everything without causing any problems. “Here just—... just follow me, okay?”
—
So Cricket did. Granted, he was starting to really hate those weird time travel laws now that they’d walked so far. He’d do anything to sit on his older self’s shoulders and give his aching feet a break. What made the whole thing worse was that they’d walked all the way back to Big Tech. Right where he’d started.
“Um, Me? I need you to know we’ve already been here. There’s absolutely nothing, no one, nada, zilch.”
“You may say that, but what’s the smarter idea right now? Listening to yourself, or listening to your future self?”
“Honestly, probably myself, considering you scared the corn out of me not 20 minutes prior.”
“Okay, smart tail,” his older self said with an eyeroll. “I’d forgotten how much of an attitude I had. Just head inside, okay? There’s something in there you missed.”
“I thought you couldn’t tell me things you knew about?”
“I can give you hints. That’s about it, though,” he said, smiling at Cricket as he swung his lanyard around his finger and walked inside of the abandoned Big Tech facility.
Cricket groaned and followed.
—
They wandered through the Big Tech facility with Cricket’s future self using his phone as a flashlight. Something that couldn’t have been done before, since Remy’s phone had aged with time when they arrived. Now, Cricket noticed the finer details. The way the lights hung off of the ceiling, the barricades on some rooms’ doors, the rooms that were opened and had clearly been raided, or at the very least, trashed.
They reached the room that Cricket, Remy, and Tilly had walked out of, and in the corner of it sat a small object covered with a sheet.
“Take this,” his future self said, handing him the phone. “You can take it, just don’t touch my hand.”
Cricket took the phone and followed him, shining the light where he needed it. He watched his older self pull the sheet off of the small object, and Cricket let out a short gasp.
“This–” his older self began, pointing at the completely finished time-rewinder. It looked to be in great condition, too. “–Is the one thing I can tell you about. The one thing I have to tell you about.”
“How did…?”
“Gwendolyn finishes it, if it weren’t obvious by the fact that we still exist 29 years later,” his older self laughed a little. He and Cricket both watched as he picked up the machine and turned it on. The little screen on it booted up and showed the current date. June 4th, 2050.
“She finishes it in the amount of time she says she does, too. That all being said, you’re gonna need to take care of it, okay?”
“I’m gonna need to take care of it?”
“Mhm. It can’t go back in time with you. When you go home, you’ll get there on June 18th, the day she finishes it. I don’t really know how to explain it all, nor do I really know how all of it works. That being said, she won’t remember everything, and she’ll eventually pass on, so you’ll have to protect it when this place becomes abandoned.”
“But… if we get there on June 18th, won’t we have been missing for two weeks?”
“Yeah. You will.”
“Oh…” Cricket paused, processing the information.
“But there’s no need to worry about that, okay? Trust me,” his older self said, giving him a reassuring smile. “When you take this back to Remy and Tilly, set it to June 18th, 2021.”
“And you’re sure it’ll work?”
“We’re still here, aren’t we?”
“I… Hm. I guess you’re right,” Cricket said, with a small, awkward laugh, staring down at the time-rewinder in his hands.
They stayed silent for quite a while until his future self glanced out of the hole that had formed in the wall due to years of erosion.
“The sun's starting to set.”
“I know…” Cricket said. “I should, um, go ahead and meet up with them.”
“Before you do,” his future self began. He knelt down with a small groan, despite only being a few inches taller than him, and held out his pinky.
“Pinky-promise me, you won’t tell anyone? Not Mom, not Dad, not Tilly or Remy or anyone else.”
Cricket rubbed his arm and swallowed nervously as he stared at the outstretched finger.
“I-I…. I don’t know. I want to say I can, but we both know I can’t,” he said, laughing a little awkwardly.
“I know it’s hard.”
Cricket glanced at him, hopeful. “Have you ever told anybody?”
His future self gave him a knowing look. A soft smile as he creased his brows.
“…Sorry. Right. You can’t tell me that,” Cricket mumbled.
“Right.”
Cricket wrung his hands together.
“What’s Mom’s mantra always been?
“‘If it’s not okay, it will be eventually’.”
“And has she been wrong so far? For you, I mean.”
“No, she hasn’t.”
“Well, there you go.”
They both went silent momentarily.
“Remember, you can’t touch my finger. Just pretend you're doing a pinky-swear in the air.”
Cricket glanced at the outstretched finger once more and slowly moved his own hand close to it. He didn’t touch his hand, but they both curled their pinkies like they were doing a proper pinky-swear.
“You know, you’re everything I think I want to be,” Cricket said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Smart, funny, kind.”
“Well, I’m flattered,” his older self smiled. “I’d argue you’re all of that already. However, you also live with the man and woman that made me like this, so you should probably listen to them a little more if you wanna boost those good qualities.”
He pretended to elbow Cricket’s shoulder in the air, and Cricket let out a playful groan and an eye roll.
They both stood silent momentarily, smiling at each other.
“Run on home, now.”
“Okay.”
“Love you."
Cricket nodded, then turned towards the door and waved goodbye to him. “Love you, too.”
—
It wasn’t too much of a hassle to get home. Cricket did exactly as instructed once they all met up in Times Circle, and just like the first time travel event, they were back home in the blink of an eye.
Their families had hugged them and kissed them as tightly and as much as they possibly could. Missing posters had been up for a while now, it seemed, and they received relieved messages from their friends who’d been on the lookout for them as well.
Gwendolyn seemed pretty confident in the whole process, warmly welcoming them when they arrived back like nothing strange had happened.
The one catch to the whole event was that she’d have to erase their memories, and her own as well, and so she did.
Or, at least, they thought she did. Maybe it worked on her, but as they all lay in the living room of the Remington’s manor, currently in the midst of a sleepover they’d begged for desperately, they discussed everything.
“I… Um, so… do any of you… y’know. Remember it all?” Remy asked, lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling as he gently patted his hands on his chest to fidget.
Tilly and Cricket looked at Remy, and then each other.
“Yeah,” Tilly said softly. “Yeah, I do.”
“Me too,” Cricket responded.
They all paused, and then Remy turned onto his side to look at them.
“We have to promise, vow, pinky-swear, to never, and I mean never, tell anyone about this. Okay?” He asked.
They all took each other's fingers and promised.
They all promised, with every fiber of their being.
—
“Guys, you won’t believe it, but I saw some kid today that looked exactly like me about 29 years ago,” Cricket said as he walked into Remy’s office. He always felt this twinge of pride in his chest for his buddy whenever he saw the plaque on his desk, which read, “Mayor”.
“Dude, come on, the time travel jokes are getting old,” Remy laughed, pulling his braids back into a ponytail. He wore his typical light purple button-up with his blazer hanging off the back of his chair. “Y’know, we said we’d never talk about it again.”
“Ah, ah, no,” Tilly said with a smug grin as she walked in right behind her brother. She wore a leather jacket beneath her magenta collared shirt, and her hair was tied back into a bun. The other half of her bang was dyed purple to match Cricket’s. She wagged a finger as she spoke. “We said we’d never tell anyone about it, not that we’d never tell each other about it.”
Both siblings sat in the chairs just across Remy's desk.
"Putting aside all of the time-travel talk," Tilly began. She placed a hand on Cricket's shoulder. "Happy Birthday, Brother. We got together with Gabs and made a dinner reservation to celebrate. Mom, Dad, and Andromeda are coming, and the kids are, too."
Cricket smiled warmly. "Well, thank y'all."