Lost in time

Chapter 7

The moment Mischief presses the button, the power goes out. They rush to find light, but when Mischief looks out the window, she notices that as far as they can see the power is out.

“Someone, please tell me we didn’t do that!”

Rushing over to the window, all four of them look at the total darkness that has fallen over the rest of the city that they can see.

“Nope, couldn’t have been us. I didn’t use a power source that is connected to the apartment’s power.” Magenta confirms.

“I think we should check, just in case.” Mayhem looks at the machine and all of them turn to look.

“No, it can’t be. There was no such power outage when dad disappeared.” Magenta shakes her head.

***

Sharing so much of his information with the government changes the entire game. The way they are talking, they are taking over his project, and that was not part of Max’s plan.

“I'm sorry, Director, but that is an offer we can’t accept.” He wonders how they could even think that he would just hand it over like that!

“I would suggest you think carefully. This is a project that could place our delicate economy in a good or very bad situation. It might even be viewed as a threat to national security.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Just stating a fact. Let us know before the end of business tomorrow.” The director greeted Sophia, thanking her for her time, and they leave.

“I told you we shouldn’t have gotten them involved!” Sophia shouts at him.

He sighs. If he doesn’t take their offer, he stands the chance of losing it completely.

“If we accept their offer, we will get the resources we need to complete the project. We need those resources, Sophia!”

She puts her hands on her hips, lifting one eyebrow.

“Fine. I know we could have found the power source on our own, but how long would it take? This way we will have all the possible options at our disposal.”

“While handing over our project to the government and losing all say in it.” She sighs.

“What’s done is done. If we don’t accept it, they will shut us down and take it from us in any case.”

He knows he just made the biggest mistake of his life, but he has to take the chance. They walk up to his office and he sends the email to the director telling them they accept the offer, on the condition that the machine isn’t moved. Explaining that moving it will damage it to such an extent that it won’t be fixed again.

“You know they aren’t going to believe that.”

“If they don’t, I will destroy the research, and they will have nothing to work with.”

“You are playing a dangerous game, brother.”

“Fine, I found another power source I want to try. If you are interested.” She waves her hands through the air, shouting over her shoulder.

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?!”

He rushes after her. Taking his seat behind the computer system, he starts up the machine. Everyone is standing with bated breath. Everything looks great and the readings are stable, exciting to him.

The points on the wheel start lighting up, and he hears the electricity crackling. Nerves start eating at him. He sends up a little prayer that this time a portal will open when they notice the swirl of energy in the middle of the wheel.

“It’s working!” Someone shouts.

Something goes wrong on the readings and the energy field forms the start of a black hole and a chair goes flying into the energy field, disintegrating on impact.

“SHUT IT DOWN!” Sophia shouts and Max types as fast as he can, but again the field pulls a box containing the new power source material in it, and the moment it hits the energy field, sparks fly and everything goes dark.

“Whoops.” Someone says before the generators kick in.

They look at the damage caused to the wheel. It’s almost destroyed.

“They are going to think we did this on purpose, you know.” Sophia looks at Max.

“Then we will just have to get it fixed before they realize it.”

***

Blowing the power of the entire city wasn’t part of the plan, and unfortunately, they need the director’s help in hiding the project as the reason for the blackout. The government used this opportunity to have the machine moved to one of their labs where the power supply would be protected and the machine wouldn’t cause any more damage to the city’s grid.

***

They hid the machine as fast as possible and watched the news for anything that can link them to the power outage. The newspapers speculate over the next couple of days, and it is blamed on a power station being sabotaged by the government.

When nothing refers to them, Magenta opens the machine, looking at it. Luckily, nothing was damaged, meaning it couldn’t have been their machine. She has to find somewhere to keep it safe from prying eyes. Keeping it in the apartment is not safe.

***

“Hello, girls!” The old man sounds excited to see them and is happy to see that they survived the power outage.

Of course, it’s the most important thing they talk about, and he wonders why they are so interested in power surges in the city and how often they happen. Trying to pry without asking them directly, he finds out that their oldest sister needs somewhere to work on a machine their father built, but that they are scared it might get them into trouble.

It took time to build a relationship of trust with them, and he doesn’t want them to stop coming to see him, so he suggests that she move it to his shop. He takes them through to the back of his shop for the first time since meeting them. If he wants them to trust him, he will have to show them some trust.

They walk through his little apartment at the back of the shop, and he unlocks the warehouse door for the first time in many years. When they step through the door, they are surprised by the vast space that clearly hasn’t been used in a long, long time.

“We will have to talk to our sister first.”

***

Max watches the wheel is loaded onto the truck, and it feels as if a part of him is being ripped out of his heart. He swallows hard when Sophia steps in beside him.

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah, do you have the contract?”

“Yeah.” They watch the truck pulling out of the gates and climb into his car to follow the truck to the new home for their project.

Everything else has been set up within a week, and all that remains is to move the actual wheel into place. It’s the most delicate part of the move, and his nerves are shot. It’s also the last part of their time machine that is leaving the lab that they have been working in for years.

When they pull up to the government facility, he and Sophia check-in, and he drives past the truck to the warehouse. Sophia demanded to be part of every piece of the move and wanted to be inside the warehouse when the wheel was brought in.

He parks his car and before he has even switched it off, she is out of her seat and on her way inside.

“Sophia!” He runs after her and is stopped when the truck pulls in front of him, to turn and reverse the wheel into the warehouse.

She hasn’t been the friendliest person since the move started, and although he can understand how she feels, he would appreciate it if she realized that he feels the same, but this was the only option.

He finds her busy handing out orders in the warehouse and decides to play it safe by taking his seat behind his computer station. Each station that is set up is connected to one point of the wheel where their old system ran everything on one station.

The director was true to his word. Anything and everything they required was supplied within the hour, and this gave Sophia the freedom to make the changes she has always wanted.

She lifts her eyebrow when she sits at her station next to him.

“Ready?”

“No, are you?”

“No, but I guess this is it.”

The wheel is lifted off the truck and moved to its new home. All the workstations have someone behind the screens to confirm the moment the wheel is perfectly in place and all the power points are online. If any of them aren’t working, it could mean that the wheel was damaged in the move or isn’t sitting right in the station.

The wheel is lowered and they hear the clip of the safety hooks, being their cue to start the process of testing the power points. They run them down from fourteen, each calling out whether they have a connection or not.

“So far, so good.” She takes a deep breath after the first five clear.

The next three clear and then on station number six they run into a problem.

“Of course, something has to go wrong!” She runs to station six, while Max starts running a systems check from station fourteen back to station six to make sure there aren’t any system problems.

“It’s hardware.” He shouts and one of their scientists checks the wheel.

The clamp-on station six hasn’t connected, and they guide the crane into place for it to clamp. The tension in the room is on the edge of a blade as the count down carries on from station five.

“Station two, locked and activated,” Max confirms it, and Sophia takes her seat.

She checks her station.

“Station one, locked and activated. All stations are online.” She announces, and you can feel everyone taking a breath for the first time since the wheel arrived.

Shouts of joy erupting.

“Well, done.” Max hears the director’s voice coming closer, and he rolls his eyes.

This is the last thing he needs today! He knew they would be here; he was just hoping to keep them away from Sophia for a little while.

***

It took a couple of days to convince Magenta, but then she met the old man, and the girls convinced her that he was a good person, she agreed to move their machine to his warehouse.

Her sisters have sworn him to secrecy, and he looks excited when she pulls the truck into the warehouse and they pick the wheel off the back, placing it in the stand that he built for it.

“Thank you, uncle Jack.” She stands looking at the machine her father built.

She was the one who eventually opened up to him and told him about wanting to find her father. After he helped the girls save money to buy the broach for their mother’s birthday and saw her happiness when the girls gave it to her, she came to meet him.

According to their mom, she will be working as his shop assistant, but it will give her time to work on the machine and a reason to come to his shop every day. He had arranged with his lawyers to leave the shop for the girls when he passes and finally felt as if he had achieved what he wanted in life.

The only missing piece of his puzzle has fallen into place, and he looks at the girls excitedly starting to set up the machine. Working together as a team, each of them takes their place and works on their part.

He has never seen anything like it and understands why their father would have done a thing as mad as traveling through time to save them. If they were his children, he would have done the same.

“Okay, we are connected.” Magenta takes a deep breath.

“That was fast.” He looks surprised.

“Yup. We’ve been waiting to do this for a while.”

He helped them find a power source and hopes it is strong enough to do what they need.

They have been working for two days straight, and it’s time.

Mischief looks at the green go button and waits for Magenta’s instruction.