C h a p t e r X V I I I

H e l l o M y N a m e I s K e n z i

“It’s a kind of a long story.”

“We don’t exactly have a lot of time…” The scientist said.

Jon sat down on a nearby rock, and leaned back a little. “Give me the highlights; the gist.”

“Well…” Richard scratched his head, looked up at the scientist, and then at Jon. “About sixty years in the future, our descendents will discover time-travel. This is how we got sent back in time… This is how everything that happened to us happened!”

Jon sat up fully now.

“The experiment was to create a wormhole, but something went wrong, and the Door was created. Somehow we got caught up in it, and we were sent back in time. Apparently it has some significant link between the seminary room and that valley we landed in…or it could just be coincidence, they still don’t know. Anyways, because of our interference with time, we’ve created two timelines; the normal one, and the screwed up one. We have to get Brian and Kenzi, and then restore everything in order to bring balance back to the universe…”

Richard finished, and waited for some kind of response from Jon. Jon merely sat still, a thoughtful look on his face; almost as if he was still listening to them speak.

“Does any of this make sense?” Kaitlin asked.

Jon finally stood up, walked away from them, and headed to a hut nearby the ark. He went in, and came back out a few moments later holding a small cup filled with water. He raised his hand over the water, and right before their eyes the transparent liquid turned to a deep red.

“Did you just turn that into wine…?” Richard said, looking at the cup in astonishment.

“What you’ve told me makes about as much sense as what I just did… But I’m still coming with you. Just let me get some things…”

Jon returned to the hut, and came back out holding his now worn-looking time-remote and a bunch of rolled up papers under his left arm.

“Here; it stopped working quite awhile ago, but if you are the guys who built it, I figure you’d want it back…” Jon spoke as he handed the remote to the scientist.

“Thanks. Looks like you just need another energy-matrix crystal, though.”

Jon shrugged, and followed them over to the place where they’d first arrived. Richard however, was looking suspiciously at Jon’s collection of papers.

“Jon, what are all those for?” He said, pointing to the papers.

“Oh… Record keeping.” Jon replied sheepishly.

“Record keeping? What, do you think you’re going to submit it to Fiction Press or something? We don’t have time for records!”

Jon shot Richard a look. “Dude; you do not know what it’s like having the big man upstairs giving you orders, so just chill.”

Richard shrugged as the scientist pulled out his own remote, and tucked Jon’s old one away. The scientist turned on his remote’s silver screen, and frowned.

“That’s odd…Brian just moved again.” He said.

“When did Brian get a time-remote…? And where the heck is Kenzi?!” Jon finally asked.

“Dude; so much crap has happened since you left, don’t ask…” Richard replied.

“It appears that he has traveled to Spearfish, South Dakota, some time during mid-January of 1991.” The scientist said, perplexed.

“Why would Brian go to some random city in South Dakota, at some random time?” Kaitlin asked.

“Oh crap…” Jon began. “I was born in Spearfish, in January of 1991!”

Everyone’s eyes went wide, and the scientist quickly entered in the coordinates on his time-remote. There was a bright flash of light, and the four figures were gone.


*     *


Brian looked both ways quickly, and hurried down the white corridor. He was still holding his bulky time-remote that he’d mysteriously uncovered, and had finally come up with the ultimate plan…or so he thought to himself.

He rounded a final corner, and came to a stop next to a window looking in on several babies lying asleep in hospital cradles. Below the window was a clipboard listing the names of the infants inside. Brian picked it up, and scanned down the list until finding the name he was looking for.

“There you are…” He whispered.

He picked up the pencil tied to the clipboard, erased the name written down, and then wrote in his own entry. Once finished, he set the clipboard back in its original resting place, and smiled in evilly at one particular baby.

“Ha! How do you like that, Jon?! Or should I now say Tiffany?!”

There was a sudden bright flash of light, and Brian jumped in surprise. He looked up the hallway in time to see Kaitlin, Jon, Richard, and some fourth figure appear. He quickly turned, and took off running down the hallway, nearly crashing into a nurse heading in the opposite direction.

“Hey, there goes Brian.” Kaitlin said, pointing down the hall.

“What was he doing over there…?” Jon said suspiciously, walking up to the same window. He too looked down at the clipboard, and raised it up, slowly scanning over the names. He stopped when he got to the name Tiffany Tree Top, which had been written over a poorly erased Jonathon.

“He changed your name?” Richard asked, now looking down at the chart too.

Jon stood still for a few seconds fuming, but then dropped the chart and high-tailed it down the hallway too.

“BRIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!”

“Oh great…” Kaitlin said.

The other three followed down to where the hallway curved, just in time to see Jon stop in his tracks. Brian had continued running down the next hallway, and disappeared in a bright flash of light.

“How the heck…?” Just as he was about to finish, Jon quickly reached into Richard's pocket, and pulled out the time-remote that they had originally acquired. He then took off charging down the same hallway.

“JON! Wait! This could seriously mess up the time-line…!” Before anything more could be said, Jon too disappeared in a flash of bright light.


*     *


And so the chase began.

Brian appeared, running down some dirt road with a prairie landscape before him. No sooner than he had run ten yards did Jon appear where he had been only moments before. Brian looked back briefly, and yelped at the sight of Jon’s angry face. He looked back down at his remote, and disappeared again.

This time he rematerialized during some time in the prehistoric era, as the first thing he passed was a large Tyrannosaurs Rex. The dinosaur seemed confused by his sudden appearance, but acted quickly enough to slam his foot down just as Jon appeared. Brian stopped at the sound of Jon yelling out, and looked back.

“Ha, ha! Now what?!” He shouted in victory.

There was a loud crack, and the dinosaur disappeared completely. In its place was a now much angrier Jon, who instantly took off again.

“Brian!” He yelled out.

Brian turned and ran, pushing the button on his remote once again. This time however, the air in front of him vaporized, and the very fabric of space parted, creating a tunnel through time. Brian ran right through, completely unfazed by this startling occurrence, and instantly passed from the prehistoric period to some street in the middle of a city. Jon followed too, passing through the tunnel as well.

As Brian continued to hit the button on his remote, a new tear would form thus extending the tunnel further, each time passing through some new landscape or new time period. All the while Jon followed, yelling and cursing the whole way…


*     *


It was day again, but instead of the usual orange fiery clouds, today it was just gray and dead. Kenzi was slowly walking alone down an empty and partially destroyed street, occasionally kicking a piece of rubble that she came close enough to. Her head was held low, and she wandered alone, Aero having left her to join a new master.

She had still found no food, and had no way of knowing how to get back to her time. She was trapped, and had nothing except the clothes on her back and the gun that she had received the previous night. As she continued to wander, she pulled it out of her pocket, and looked at it thoughtfully. It was loaded, and had twenty rounds.

Kenzi finally came to a stop, and dropped down to her knees. Why must she go? What did she have to continue on? She was trapped. This was the end of the line. She had been kidnapped by a psychopath, and had no way of contacting her friends. On top of that, she was now led to believe that one of them would bring about the end of the world.

She brushed a lock of hair out of her face, and looked back down at the gun. What could she do? Was this really it?

Suddenly there came a loud sizzling sound from up the street, and Kenzi was knocked back into reality. Or maybe reality itself was beginning to crumble. A few yards up the street, a section of thin air began to melt away, revealing a hole in the very fabric of time. Through it she could briefly make out the details of some mountainous landscape.

Out of nowhere, Brian came running right through this unusual opening, and passed right by her. Kenzi remained kneeling, a look of utter confusion on her face. She glanced back to see a second one of these holes appear, and Brian go running through, passing out of this existence. She slowly turned back around in time to see Jon also come passing through the first time tunnel. He waved as he passed her, but continued charging right on through the second one, cursing Brian’s name.

Suddenly her adrenaline kicked into high gear, and Kenzi stood up. The words that Other-Kenzi had spoken to her came reeling back into her mind, and she couldn’t make them go away… The two Lamanites shall unite, and for a season there shall be war. One of your friends is a Lamanite, is he not? When the time comes, you must decide whether or not you really know what side he stands on…

Pure instinct taking over completely, Kenzi slowly raised the gun, and turned around. She could see the two still running through the open tunnel, now heading into their next time period. She turned off the safety, and took off running down the very same tunnel. After passing through into the next time period, she leveled the gun, and aimed at Jon. An ounce of doubt crept into her mind, and she hesitated.

What was she doing? This was insane…! Or was it…? What if Jon really was a threat? Hadn’t she seen him murder in cold blood? And not only that, but he’d murdered Nephites… Before she knew what had happened, the gun recoiled backwards, and the bullet screamed across the tunnel through almost three different periods of time.

Almost instantly, Jon fell face forward, and came to a dead rest. Brian stopped at the sound of the gunshot, and looked from Kenzi to Jon’s figure lying on the ground. Kenzi gasped, but was even more shocked when Jon pushed himself up, and then stood to his full height. Brian turned to take off again, but stopped in his tracks when he heard Jon yell.

“Get back here you fool!” Jon then slowly turned around, and Kenzi felt the very distance between her and him shrink.

“And you! You little Harlot! You just tried to kill a prophet of God! Repeatedly you had chances to repent, lest ye die, but now…! I condemn you to hell! That ye may suffer long, and harshly!”

As the distance between them continued to shrink, Jon raised his right hand, and pointed it in Kenzi’s direction. It was like bolts of lightning erupted from his fingers, spewing forth and careening into Kenzi’s chest. The energy blasted her backwards, striking the edge of the time tunnel.

As Jon watched, it appeared as though her body struck the edge of reality, and was destroyed in a cosmic explosion. The different colors of energy collided over and over again, beginning to bring down the tunnel itself. Jon cursed, turned to continue his pursuit of Brian, and outrun the destruction.

When Kenzi hit the edge of reality, everything became increasingly white, and then it all ceased. She was floating in emptiness. Nothingness engulfed her, and she was separated from time and space. Her mind and body separated, and all things seemed omnipresent.

Then feeling began to return to her limbs. It started slowly like a tingling, but then entire parts of her body came back to life, and she realized that she was lying on her back, on some hard surface. She slowly opened her eyes, and was greeted by the blurry vision of some white room. A figure bent over her, and looked her in the eyes.

“I think she’s awake…” It was a female voice, and so familiar that Kenzi almost thought she was back with Other-Kenzi again.

She bolted upright, and quickly slid off the table she had been lying on. Other than the table, the room was completely empty. Her vision was still somewhat blurred, but she could tell that there were two figures standing in front of her. They were both women, and looked to be in their early twenties.

“Who are you?!” Kenzi demanded, slowly backing up against the wall.

“Calm down, it’s okay…” The first one spoke again, the voice still sounding familiar.

“Why can’t I see?!” Kenzi shouted, trying to wipe her eyes and back up at the same time.

“Calm down, McKenzi. It’s just the affects of the drugs wearing off. You’d gone into some kind of shock.”

Kenzi gasped. “How do you know my name…?!”

The first women stepped closer and sighed. “Because I am Dr. Catherine Smith, member of G.R.O.G. Labs, and your granddaughter…”


*     *


“Oh man, what do we do now?!” Richard shouted in frustration.
The three of them were still standing in the hospital, looking down the hallway where Jon and Brian had just disappeared.

“Well,” the scientist began, “it would seem that it is time for Plan-B.”

Kaitlin suddenly turned on him, a look of rage in her eyes. “Plan-B?! You mean this whole time, while Jon, Brian, and Kenzi were lost in time, you had a Plan-B that we could’ve used all along?!”

“Calm down. Look, this is only a back-up plan in the event we couldn’t gather you all up before the situation called for drastic measures.”

“Drastic measures, what the heck is going on?!” Richard said.

“Well, let’s just say I haven’t told you everything… Did you notice that Brian’s remote was unusually bulky?”

Richard thought back, and then realized that he had seen this strange sight. “Yeah, that was kind of weird…”

“And after Jon disappeared in the World Trade Center incident, didn’t you pick up a strange signal coming from that time-period in the Book of Mormon?”

The memory of the bizarre line on the time-disturbance chart returned to his memory, and the horror began to sink in. “Yes…we thought that it was Jon somehow messing up the time-line, but…I couldn’t figure it out… What is going on?!”

“That remote is not exactly a remote, but more of a test-subject. It gives out a specific signal in whatever time-period it’s in, which will be detectable on a time-remote. However, to prevent time-distortions from these little devices, we implanted each of them with a reality-shattering bomb in the event it ever appeared outside of the time-line.”

“Wait a minute; so he could destroy what ever time-period he’s in?!” Richard asked horrified.

“I’m afraid so. All it needs is a large source of heat, and that’ll trigger the bomb…” The scientist said.

“Oh freakin’ mother of fusion…”


*     *


“What…?!”

Kenzi’s vision was slowly returning to her, and she could now make out the details of the two figures in front of her. The one who had called herself Kenzi’s granddaughter was about a half foot taller than her, and had mostly brown hair, with hints of red in it. The second figure was also taller, but had black, wavy hair, and looked strangely like…Kaitlin.

The second scientist noticed Kenzi eyeing her, and stepped forward a little further. “My name is Dr. Julie Strang… You probably recognize me as my grandmother, Kaitlin.”

Kenzi shook her head, and slowly slid down to the floor, her back pressed up against the wall. She looked down at the floor for a moment, and then back up at the two scientists.

“What…what is going on? I don’t understand anything anymore… Just tell me everything…”

The two scientists looked at each other, and then Dr. Smith helped Kenzi to her feet. “I assume that by now Kaitlin, Richard, and Jon all know the truth, so I’ll explain…”

The three stepped out of the small white room, and stepped into a long, bland hallway. As they walked, Kenzi asked a question.

“What the heck does G.R.O.G. Labs stand for?”

“Generation technology Reform of Oscillating Gluon Labs.”

“Oscillating Gluons? What the heck is a gluon?” Kenzi asked mildly confused.

Dr. Smith raised an eyebrow. “It’s the meditating subatomic particle for the Strong Nuclear Force… Gosh, what did they teach you kids in school back then…?”

At the end of the hallway they stepped into an office-like environment, with five respective work spaces. Each one was littered with computers, tons of data sheets, and various items personalizing each station. Also, above each one was a name tag indicating who worked where. The five names were; Strang, Tree Top, Smith, Donahue, and Daw.

“Is this our future?” Kenzi asked, looking around.

Dr. Smith sighed, pulled over a chair for her to sit in, and let Kenzi sit. “This is all our futures. Each of us is a grandchild of you guys. We are the third Seminary Gang.”

Kenzi eyes went wide, and she looked rapidly between the two of them. Words failed her…

“To begin, let’s just say each of you go your respective ways, and obviously produce offspring. The second generation become friends too, and consequently so does the third…us.” Dr. Smith continued. “But this time we stayed together, and went into scientific development…specifically high-energy physics, and time-distortions.”

“A lot of advances had taken place between now and your time, so it didn’t seem so strange for five friends to go into such research.” Dr. Strang added in.

“So…this is what the third Seminary Gang did… They all became scientists, and invented time-travel?!” Kenzi said.

Both Dr. Smith and Dr. Strang shrugged. “Yeah…”

“How did you do it, and what the heck is with the Door?!” Kenzi asked, now rubbing her forehead.

“We decided to take an alternate view on time-travel, and used something less common and not really heard of…exotic matter.”

Kenzi looked back up, a hint of confusion on her face. “What?”

“Consider this...” Dr. Strang began. “What are we made of? Atoms, obviously. And what are atoms made of? Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons.”

“Imagine an atom made of something other than a collection of those three particles…” Dr. Smith said. “Imagine atoms, or even entire other structures of matter made of bizarre and mysterious particles! Some of which haven’t even been discovered in your time…”

“And what does this have to do with time-travel?” Kenzi asked, disorientated.

“Some forms of particles and exotic matter can do strange things with space and time; even leave the universe, and leap outside of time itself. We proposed that using a specific type of exotic matter, we could create a wormhole, and use it to go anywhere in time and space. After several years of intense research, and hundreds of millions of government funded money, we succeeded in creating this specified exotic matter.” Dr. Strang explained.

“So you did it? You created the wormhole, and time-travel was invented?” Kenzi said.

“Not exactly…” Dr. Smith began. “As Dr. Strang said before, this stuff can do some strange things with space and time, and we lost control of some of it. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to leave a strange mark on space-time… It created a wormhole, and that wormhole is the Door.”

“So you did create the wormhole, even if it was by accident.”

“Yes, but this wasn’t what we intended. This was something beyond our understanding. It was completely random, yet seemed to choose specific places to originate. We eventually learned to ride it using an advanced system called Remote Exotic Particle Interchangers, or REPI for short. It’s a small hand-held device that we nick-named Time-Remotes. It basically rides the mark created by the exotic matter, allowing us to in fact time-travel.” Dr. Strang finished up.

“But…the Door—this wormhole—it was doing random things?” Kenzi said.

“It was popping up in random places, and then staying there, causing distortions in time.” Dr. Smith continued. “It’s had strange effects in certain places, most notably the valley you five first landed in. That seems to be a point where the wormhole, or Door as you so elegantly put it, has been bringing things to. We never can seem to predict where it will first appear, but it always puts whatever it finds there… Obviously we couldn’t just leave it like that, so some of us went back to try and fix it.”

“Oh my gosh… You guys were that Lamanite Commander dude we saw!”

“Yeah, Dr. Donahue, Dr. Tree Top, and Dr. Daw each went back to try and fix things the Door had done. You guys were one of them, so we had Dr. Donahue pose as the Lamanite Commander, but your meddling with time caused something never before seen to occur… You created a second time-line… These two time-lines are in conflict with each other. The original one where time plays out normally, and the second one caused by irritations and events in time that never happened or weren’t supposed to happen. Time is in conflict with itself, and reality is beginning to shatter around us. We still don’t know what kind of horror to expect the future to bring because of this…”

As Dr. Smith spoke, Kenzi pondered on what she had just said. We still don’t know what kind of horror to expect the future to bring because of this… Two time-lines? Was it possible that she had traveled to an alternate reality? A reality where her great-grandchild took over the world? Dr. Smith continued to speak.

“After the irritations started to grow in size, Dr. Donahue tried to return to the lab, but rematerialized in the side of a wall. We tried to send him back, but lost contact after he reappeared. Most likely he’s dead by now.” She finished gravely.

“Holy crap…”

“When we discovered that you had taken his time-remote, and were inside the World Trade Centers during the September 11th attacks, we sent Dr. Tree Top to rescue you. I guess Jon thought he was a threat, and attacked him.”

“What happened to him?” Kenzi asked.

“You saw, didn’t you? When Jon took his remote, he had no way of transporting himself away, and continued to fall until, well…”

Kenzi gasped, and covered her mouth. “Jon killed his future grandson?!”

“We’ve already suffered major casualties, and we can’t afford to continue this on. We must restore time, and that’s where Dr. Daw comes in. He’s intercepted Kaitlin, Richard, and Jon, and should now be on his way to get Brian…”

There was a high-pitched beeping sound, and the two scientists turned around to face a blank wall on the opposite side of the room. The wall suddenly lit up, and several digits began flashing across the side. Kenzi watched as the numbers rolled off.

208919-919-114-511920518-577

96-251521-3181311-920

161251195-5-131912-135

“What’s happening?” Kenzi asked, standing up to get a better look.

“It’s Dr. Daw!” Dr. Strang said, quickly approaching the wall.

Dr. Smith read the numbers several times, and then quickly picked up a pad of paper. She wrote some things down, and then turned to face Dr. Strang, a grave look on her face.

“He tracked Brian down, but something’s come up.”

Dr. Strang turned to face her, and listened intently.

“It seems Brian managed to find one of our test-subjects, and has run off with it. In the heat of the moment, Jon took off after him, and the two have disappeared. Things are getting out of control, so he’s going with Plan-B before he can stop Brian.”

Dr. Strang gasped, and shook her head. “How did he get his hands on one of those?”

Kenzi slowly edged closer towards the two. “What’s a test-subject?”

Dr. Smith sighed, and turned to face Kenzi. “When we first began testing the REPI program, we created a series of test-time-remotes, code-named Squirrel-Project, to see if they could actually ride the Door. Although they were never intended to be reused, they’re technically much more powerful than the ones we use.”

“That explains how Brian’s been getting around so quickly…” Dr. Strang said.

“Squirrel-Project?”

“Dr. Donahue really likes animals…”

“But there’s a catch, right?” Kenzi asked. “There’s always a catch.”

“Yeah… Back then, we didn’t know what to expect, so we installed an exotic-matter bomb capable of shattering reality. We didn’t want to be littering space-time, so we installed it as a secondary protocol. However, should it safely transverse time and space, nothing would happen, and it would send out a signal for us to recover it.”

Kenzi gasped. “You let Brian get his hands on something that dangerous?!”

“We weren’t able to recover all of them, as a very select few slipped past our detection equipment.” Dr. Strang said.

“And yet Brian was lucky enough to just stumble upon one of these things?!” Kenzi shouted.

Dr. Smith chuckled. “It’s a trait we’ve noticed in Dr. Donahue, too. We like to call it Brian Luck.”

Kenzi shook her head, and looked away momentarily. “What’s the worse he could do with it?”

The two scientists shrugged, but Dr. Strang spoke. “Worst case scenario, destroy whatever time-period he’s in…”

fin


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