TRY, TRY AGAIN, by John Gregory Betancourt

Success would come with the flip of a switch.

It was a matter of life and death for Dr. Keith O’Conner. Not his life, but the life of his son. That’s why he had invented time travel…the transmission of electrically charged impulses back through the years to a human brain…his brain, to be precise. He would plant a warning thought in his own head on the day his son had died.

Just in time to save little Jacob.

It had been bad enough when he had lost his wife to cancer. But to lose little Jake so shortly thereafter, and in such a pointless way, chasing a ball into the street…

The idea of saving his son consumed him. He had worked tirelessly for twenty years to complete the time-travel machine. He had endured professional ridicule, the loss of his job at Boeing, and more hardships and setbacks than he could count. He would do anything, make any sacrifice, to bring back his son. His wife, Sally, would have wanted it this way.

And now it was done.

Standing back, he surveyed the mechanism that filled the basement of his house, a tangled maze of wires and circuit-boards connecting nearly fifty thousand begged, bought, or scavenged parts. He might be an old man now, but it had been worth it. He would make certain Jakey never died.

He fitted the crude metal helmet over his head, set the controls, and activated the machinery. An electric current made his scalp tingle.

“Come on…come on…” he whispered, concentrating.

“Grow any hair yet?” Jake asked.

“Not funny, kiddo.” Keith glared at his son. Jacob, at twenty-six, reminded Keith of himself at that age: long brown hair, quirky smile, intense brown eyes. But where had he gotten that sense of humor?

Jake feigned remorse. “Sorry, Dad. Did it work or not?”

“I don’t know.” Keith swallowed hard and glanced nervously at the basement stairs. “Go check.”

Jacob sprinted up the steps two at a time. Keith found himself holding his breath. Would his wife be up there now? Had his warning about her not-yet-discovered cancer—and instruction on how to cure it—made it back in time to prevent her death? The thought of saving her had kept him going these last twenty-odd years. If he could only get that message safely back through time…

His son came down the stairs slowly, a dejected look on his face.

“Sorry, Dad. Not this time.”

Keith sighed. Every great inventor had an off day. Sally, his beautiful wife, would be cured if it was the last thing he did.

“Check the settings,” he said. “We’ll try again.”

“Right-o.”

The second try…that would be the successful one. They were close, and he knew it.

* * * *

It took half an hour to review every setting. He and his son adjusted variance compensators, checked and rechecked figures, and at last nodded to each other. This time it would work. It had to.

Keith fitted the helmet over his head, took a deep breath, and flipped the switch. He concentrated on sending the cure for cancer back to his own brain twenty years in the past. Again came a faint electric tingling, but nothing more.

“Well?” Sally asked. “Did it work?”

“I don’t know,” he said, pulling off the helmet. “I don’t think so. Nothing feels different.”

“Poor dear.” She touched his shoulder. “I know how much it means to you.”

He sighed and patted her liver-spotted hand, then looked beyond her at the circle of disappointed faces. The six staff members of the research division at O’Conner Pharmaceuticals all looked grimly resigned. Even the few of them who half understood the principles of time-transmission hadn’t really believed it would work; they had only humored him because he signed the paychecks. His reputation might have been built on a breakthrough cure for cancer, but when he started chasing time-travel, he knew he had lost their respect. Only Sally had believed, as she had always believed in him.

“Let’s see,” Sally said. “Maybe it did work and we just don’t know it yet.”

She motioned at the nearest wall-active, said, “News 4,” and the program flickered on.

“…Eighty-six thousand reported dead this month in South Africa…” droned the announcer’s voice, as pictures of plague victims flashed past.

The researchers at O’Conner Pharmaceuticals had just come up with the vaccine this week; his plants were hurrying to manufacture enough serum to cure the four million infected men, women, and children throughout the world.

But that wouldn’t help the two million already dead. Only sending the cure back in time could save them.

“Off!” Keith barked. The wall returned to normal. “All right, the cure didn’t make it back,” he said. “What happened?”

“I’ll check the settings,” Dr. Benhurst said. He motioned to the other researchers. “Places, everyone. Let’s find out where we went wrong.”

The third try…that would be the successful one, Keith knew. They were close. So many people would be saved, if only he sent the cure back fifteen years in time.

* * * *

By the time they got to the fiftieth try, His Imperial Majesty Keith I, Emperor of the United Earth, was almost ready to give up.

His life was an open record of achievements. He had cured all major diseases, imposed world peace, and amassed a six-trillion-dollar fortune, which he used for the greater good of all mankind. His companies helped the poor, fed the starving, employed the unemployable. At his orders, human colonists had begun to settle the planets and moons throughout the solar system. Truly, a new age had dawned for mankind.

If only his time-travel experiments had worked, life would be perfect.

As his temporal transmission throne rose slowly from the isolation chamber in the center of the Silver Palace’s experimental medical unit, he had plenty of time to think about what might have gone wrong. The calculations? No, they were correct, to the last decimal! The transducer array? In perfect order! The potential Boltron particle accelerator? Hmm…

Then the shielding swung back like an eggshell pulling into itself, and dozens of staff members clustered around, monitoring his vital signs and the equipment functions.

“Well?” he asked.

“Sorry, Father,” said Prince Jacob, who headed the time-analysis team personally. “No change that we can detect.”

The emperor shook his head, and his elegantly coifed silver hair—so recognizable on every stamp and every coin in the world—flipped forward over his eyes. He casually brushed it back. Age had begun to creep up on him; his hands trembled.

“Check the settings!” he called. “Check everything! We will try again in one hour. The recipe for immortality must go back! Think of what I might accomplish if I get it young enough to make a difference! For the good of mankind, if I can be young forever, and forever inventing, there is no telling what I might accomplish!”

“Yes, sir!” said his son, beaming with pride.

“Keith,” said Empress Sally, taking his arm and helping him from the throne. “May I have a word in private, please?”

She looked radiant in her platinum-and-diamond tiara and the simple white lace dress and evening gloves she favored. But the lines around her eyes and the white hair showed her age. Of course, that would disappear with the cure for old age, and they would be young together forever.

He beamed at her. “Of course.”

They strolled out into the Silver Palace’s halls, past countless bustling servants, who stopped and bowed, and out into one of the countless gardens. As they settled into the deeply cushioned red velvet chairs, surrounded by strolling peacocks and the raucous calls of tame monkeys, servants appeared with trays of fruit drinks and delicate appetizers. The emperor waved them away.

“You have tried to send back the immortality formula fifty times now,” Sally said, taking his hand. “I don’t need you to be young forever, Keith. I love you just the way you are. Let it go.”

“But—”

“No.” She said it firmly. “It’s time to move on. Take the aging cure now and stay your present age. Fifty-six isn’t old. We’ll have forever together. That’s what matters to me.”

He sighed, but patted her hand. Yes, she was right. He had wasted too much effort on time-travel experiments. Never mind that it had been for her…it had always been for her.

He smiled, then kissed gently her hand.

“For you…anything.” He rose and offered her his arm. She accepted, and together they went out to rule the world.

Over the months and years and centuries that followed, he never gave another thought to his failed time travel experiments.