CHAPTER TEN: June 14, 2005

We land just outside of the convention center, so surrounded by a sea of superheroes, aliens, and villains that no one notices when two people in bedraggled early 20th century clothing drop out of nowhere.

The Jump, not being made in an annual interval, was rougher than most, and for nearly a full minute, I can’t do anything but lean forward on my knees, willing the dizziness and nausea to pass. All around us, the sound of a crowd presses in.

“You okay, man?” someone asks, and—without looking up or opening my eyes—I assure him I’ll be fine; I just need a minute.

“What is this place?” Nell asks when she finally catches her breath. “I punched in 2005, I swear.”

“Yeah, I know.” I help her to her feet and look around for an entrance to the large building before us. “This is the right place. It’s called a comic convention. They were popular around this time. Everyone’s here to talk about their favorite comic books and sci-fi novels and TV shows and movies. It’s one of the great cultural gatherings of the 21st century.”

“If you say so. But what are we doing here?”

“While Dr. Wells was training me to be a Retriever, I got to know the guy pretty well. Heard all his favorite stories at least fourteen times. One of those was about how he met Elise at this convention. He had a booth here all about time travel, just to put out feelers for potential new Retrievers, and she stopped by and struck up a conversation. All we have to do is find his booth, and we’re set.”

“We’re going to meet Dr. Wells,” Nell says. “The Dr. Wells? The Dr. Wells who invented time travel?”

“That’s the man.” I smile, opting not to remind her of how she’d earlier accused him of nepotism.

“Do you think he’ll believe us?” Nell says as we weave our way through the line that wraps around the building.

“Well, we do have these,” I say, pulling my Wormhole just far enough out of my pocket that she can see it.

“Oh.”

The people around us don’t give us a second look, despite our out-of-date clothing, and why should they? Most of them are dressed just as strangely.

“Are you the Doctor?” a girl in a pirate costume calls out to me.

“Doctor who?”

Nell pulls me aside before the girl can answer. “We have a problem.”

“I’ve lost count of how many problems we have. Which one were you thinking of?”

“These people all have paper bands around their wrists. We don’t.”

I glance around. She’s right. There’s a couple different colors, but without exception, everyone is wearing one. I crane my neck to see over the crowds, and—sure enough—there’s people checking them at the door. I glance at the nearby wrist of a hairy brown creature who’s carrying a crossbow. The band doesn’t look electronic, just a scrap of ordinary paper, but if we try to breach that entrance without one, we’re going to be turned away.

“We’re going to have to find another way in,” I mutter. “Come on.”

We duck around the line and hurry toward the back of the building. There’s got to be another entrance somewhere, and sure enough, there is one, way back at the opposite end of the building. The doors are all locked, but once again, my magnetic lock-pick makes easy work of it. We take a quick glance around to make sure no one’s watching, and sneak in.

Inside, the noise assails us. It bounces off the high ceilings and reverberates through the open spaces. Everywhere are people in costumes: ninjas laughing as they play-fight with cardboard katanas, superheroes posing for photographs with elves and trolls, groups of strange-looking creatures who might have been well-known in this time but are lost to me sitting with their backs propped against the walls of the corridors, sharing lunch and chatting.

“I like this place,” Nell says as she straightens the floppy hat on her head. “And what’s that smell?”

“Donuts, I think,” I say, jerking my head toward a booth near us that’s frying up the delicacies.

“Oh, wow,” Nell says her eyes widening. “I’ve heard about those. I’ve always wanted to try one. Do you think—?”

“I don’t have any money from this era.”

Nell gazes hungrily at the booth as we pass it by, and I try to get my bearings. The vendor booths are all packed into one side of the massive conference center, and of course, that’s the busiest part. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic.

I strategically plot out the best way to cover the vendor booths, then grab Nell’s hand so we don’t get separated, and dive in. It’s a good thing I’m hanging onto her, because there’s so much going on and so many people, we’d have lost each other within the first few feet. Especially since Nell keeps stopping to look at the knickknacks and books and posters and t-shirts in the booths, whispering questions to me that I don’t have the answers for: What are those spinning top things that those kids are playing with? What’s an energy drink? Who’s Pedro and why should we vote for him? I may be a time traveler, but in these early 2000s, with the sudden popularity of the Internet, stuff like that went in and out of style so quickly, I don’t know how the people living then kept up with it.

We’ve been wandering for over an hour before I finally spot what I’m looking for. Tucked way back in a corner sits an unassuming little card table with a wobbly leg. Behind that table sits a man I recognize all too well: Dr. Wells.

On the table in front of him are a variety of flyers with bright white lettering on sleek, black pages, with titles like “UNRAVELING TIME TRAVEL,” and “DISPUTING HAWKING’S CHRONOLOGY PROTECTION CONJECTURE.” Beside it is a rather cheerier-looking sign, green and metal like one you’d see on a traffic pole in this era, that says simply, “If you’re interested in time travel, meet me here last Thursday.”

“There,” I say, tugging on Nell’s arm. She quickly sets down a yellow knit hat with cartoonishly long ears that she was looking at, and we push our way through the crowd to Dr. Wells’ table.

What we didn’t notice from across the way, though, is that he isn’t alone. Sitting beside him, wearing a Victorian-era outfit that’s every bit as convincing as our own costumes, deeply engrossed in conversation with him, is none other than Elise Morley herself.

A strange wave of vertigo washes over me, seeing her here like this. When I last saw her, she was an adult and I was a kid, and now seeing her as a kid—barely eighteen—through my adult eyes feels more surreal than anything else I’ve ever experienced in all my years of time travel. This young woman, in less than a decade, would save my life. Not only mine, but that of my father and everyone else on the Continuum.

“Dodge,” Nell hisses, jabbing me in the ribs.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” I say, leaning in across the table.

Elise pulls a pocket watch out of her jacket and starts to get up. “I ought to go. It was very nice to meet you, Mr.—”

“Dr. Wells,” the old man and I say simultaneously.

He looks up at me, startled. “Do I know you, young man?”

“No, but you will. My name is—”

I break off, meeting Elise’s eye. “Maybe you just ought to call me Mr. Silbern. And this is Nell. She hasn’t met you yet, but she’s also been very influenced by your work.”

“I see.” He looks us up and down. “And what work would that be, Mr. Silbern?”

Nell is standing closer to him, so I nudge her.

“What?” She startles.

“Show him,” I whisper.

“Oh. Right.” She very carefully lifts the Wormhole Device just barely out of her pocket so that he can see it.

Dr. Wells’ eyes widen. “Great Scott.”

“Exactly. Do you have somewhere we can talk?”

“Yes, of course. I assume if you’re here looking for me with that, that you must need my help.”

“You could say that.”

“I really should go.” Elise, frowning slightly, starts to stand up again, but I put a hand on her arm.

“Please don’t go. This has to do with you, too, Elise.”

“How do you know my name? Is this some sort of joke?” she says, looking from us to Dr. Wells. “Some setup? Punk’d or something?”

“Not quite,” I say, though I have no idea what “Punk’d” means. I clear my throat, gesturing deliberately at the time travel materials Dr. Wells has laid out on the table.

“No way.” Her voice wavers, and she looks between the three of us. “Now I know you’re messing with me. This can’t be real.”

I wrack my brain to try to think of something that will convince her, something that she’ll know for sure to be the truth. “Your great-grandmother’s maiden name was Cassandra Argent, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. It was. How did you know that?”

“Your parents died when you were younger, and you and your brother went to live with your grandparents.”

“That doesn’t prove anything. All that information is public record. You could just be some sort of stalker.”

I look to Dr. Wells for some help, but he just shrugs. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to trust us, then. Are you willing to come with us anyway? Take a chance? I’m afraid that if you choose to do so, your life may never be the same again.”

“Got that right,” Nell mutters, and I elbow her to be quiet. There’s no knowing what sort of effect we might have on the timeline here, how much we’ve stretched the rubber band of time… how close it is to snapping. If our interference causes Elise not to join Dr. Wells at PITTA, she wouldn’t have been there to save me when I was just a kid. And then where would I be? In a million pieces, hurling across the galaxy? I feel like I’m balancing a tightrope.

“Can I… Can I talk with you for a second first?” she asks me. “Privately?”

“Sure.” I turn to Nell. “We’ll be right back.”

We step around the corner into an echoing hallway that’s mostly deserted, save for a short guy in a red wrestling mask and boxing gloves who’s sharing a plate of nachos with a skinny guy with a white star on his shirt and a beanie hat.

We stand silently for a few moments, and then Elise blurts out, “Is it worth it?”

“What?”

“Time travel.” She shakes her head. “Look, I know, this is probably a joke, but just humor me. Let’s assume for a minute that it is real. Let’s assume that something like that could really happen. There’s a lot that could go wrong, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“And from what I caught of that conversation, you’re in some pretty big trouble right now because of it, am I right?”

“Yes.”

“So—again, assuming that everything you’ve told me is the truth; that this isn’t some elaborate prank—is it worth it?”

I don’t know how to answer. She’s right; time travel has made my life—my family’s life—infinitely more complicated. Yet at the same time, without it, what would I be doing with my life? Who would I be without those experiences, without seeing all I’d seen and doing all I’ve done? Without time travel, I’d have never met the man who raised me as his son or the woman who’s been a mother to me for the past decades. Cass would have never been born, and our family—as fractured and chronologically displaced as it is—would never exist.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “It is.”

The world seems at a standstill with her hesitation. I’m holding my breath, as if unable to continue in my existence until the time loop is closed, ’til I know I haven’t ruined everything by my presence here.

“Okay. I’m in,” she says, and my lungs allow me another breath.

“All worked out?” Dr. Wells asks as we return to the table. He turns to Nell and me. “Now, I assume you two are going to need a Box?”