Time Travel

Mark burst into the third-floor apartment, as he always does, tossed his backpack onto the supposed dining room table, like he always does, and plopped down in the middle of the couch, like he always does. The wood frame of the couch squeaked with the force. It was an old piece of furniture which, at its prime, was slightly more off-white than the carpet, which was just as slightly more off-white than the walls. It was a cheap, poorly appointed apartment that reflected the priorities of its two, twentysomething, bachelor residents.

Dale spun around in the computer chair to face the couch. "Did you get it?" he asked.

Mark smiled, reaching into his left pants pocket. "Had it sent to the office." After some trouble reconciling the poorness of his posture and the tightness of his jeans, he was finally able to draw a slick, black-and-silver phone from his pocket.

"Awesome," Dale said, rolling the chair closer until the carpet wouldn't allow it.

Mark spun it around in his fingers a few times, before handing to Dale. Dale admired every inch of it, examining it like a rare specimen.

"Any problems getting it activated?" Dale asked, turning the on the screen and swiping a finger across to unlock it.

"No," Mark said. "Pretty simple, this time."

Dale stared at the screen, wide-eyed. "This is so damn cool," he said. He flipped through a few pages of the installed apps.

"Yeah," Mark said. "Wifi and 3G internet, GPS for maps, video calling. It's the future, man."

"Totally," Dale said. "If I could go back in time and show this to my twelve-year-old self, he/I would go nuts."

"Hey, yeah," Mark said. "We should do that."

"Yeah," Dale chuckled, "sure."

"No, look," Mark said, walking over and taking the phone. He flipped a through a few pages of apps and pointed at an icon labeled, "Time Machine."

"Oh, hey," Dale said, "this one has Time Machine data backup service?"

"No," Mark said. "It's an actual time machine."

Dale looked at Mark for fourteen seconds. "...What?"

"Yeah, just... here. Hang on."

Mark pressed the icon to launch the app. The screen filled with text. "Just skip through these warnings.... and.... here, see?"

On the screen was was a simple, plain-text readout of the current date and time, and below it was a dial to select a new date and time.

"What year was it when you were twelve?" Mark asked.

"What, are you serious?" Dale asked, incredulous.

Mark didn't reply. He was busy with math. "Er... 1995, right?" He spun the numbers until the date was changed to 1995. "Sweet, here we go..."

"Wait, wait, hang on." Dale said. "What the crap are you talking about?"

Mark looked confused. "What?"

"Time machine?" Dale said.

"Yeah," Mark said. "Why not?"

Dale thought about it, then shrugged. "Whatever."

"Alright, then," Mark said. "Here we go, for real." He pressed the big red button on the screen.

Then they were falling.

They landed on a tar and gravel roof. Dale on his stomach, Mark on his back.

"Ow," Dale said, his face pressed against the roof.

Mark sat up. "What was that? What happened."

Dale spun around, wiped away the pebbles stuck to his face, then stood up. "Where are we?"

Mark got up as well, then walked to the edge of the roof. "This is our street," he said, looking down at the ground. "This is our corner. This is where are apartment is."

"Or will be," Dale said. "Our apartment building is, what, ten years old? There used to be a pizza place here."

"We are now on top of said pizza place," Mark said, leaning awkwardly over the edge, looking at a sign that said "Rizzato's."

"So we're in 1995?" Dale asked.

"Looks like," Mark replied.

"Crazy."

"We probably should have done that from a ground-floor location," Mark said. "It's lucky there was a building here before, otherwise we would have fallen three stories instead of one."

"Yeah," Dale said. "That's what I'm focusing on now."

The two argued for a bit about the mechanics of time travel, the nature of existence, the possible rules of causality and the ramifications of altering the space-time continuum. Deciding that they couldn't undo the entirety of existence with a ninety-nine-cent app, they decided they would probably be fine if they kept their visit brief and didn't kill anybody likely to become important.

"You probably should have read those warning screens," Dale said as the two walked toward Dale's childhood home. "It might have said something about butterfly effects and whether they exist."

"Come on," Mark said. "Nobody reads those things, so when they made the program they had to have known people would skip through it all. If it were dangerous, they'd make you take a quiz or get a license or something."

Dale had been wondering if his mother, in 1995, would be able to see him, fifteen years older, and recognize that he was her son, who, to her, was only twelve. It was a bizarre hypothetical, and frankly it hurt his head more than the time-paradox stuff. He decided it would be best to avoid his 1995 mother altogether, so when the two arrived at his 1995 home they snuck through the back door and into the basement, where a twelve-year-old Dale was playing video games.

"Hey," adult Dale said.

Younger Dale paused the game and looked over. "Hey," he said. "Who are you guys?"

Dale knew that he couldn't rightly just say he was from the future, the younger version of himself wouldn't believe him. He'd have to ease him into it, and find some way to convince the younger him that he wasn't lying by using knowledge only he, fifteen years later, would know. During the walk, when he wasn't thinking about whether his mom would have recognized him, he was thinking about that.

"Well," Dale said to himself. "It's hard to say, exactly, but basically--"

"--He's you from the future and I'm his-slash-your friend from the future," Mark said. "Hey, is that Super Nintendo?"

Young Dale looked at the two for a moment. "Me, from the future?"

Adult Dale cringed. "Yeah," he said. "Sorta."

Young Dale furrowed his brow for a second. "Well if that's true... what girl do I like right now?"

"Ah, jeez," Mark said. "I didn't think you'd be quizzing yourself. We should have prepared for this for a bit. I know I don't remember anything about the girls that I--"

"Becca Layton," adult Dale said, to his younger version's surprise.

"Wait," Mark said. "Becca Layton... isn't she that girl on Facebook you're always--"

"Shh--er--ah--shubbaduh," adult Dale interrupted.

Young Dale was convinced. "So do I ever have a chance with her?"

Mark was just as curious.

Adult Dale stammered for a bit, "Er, I don't think.. uh, spoiler alert. Yeah, that. I'm not here to; that is, I don't want to change the way things unfold."

"Isn't that what we're here for?" Mark asked, holding up the cell phone.

"Well, yeah, but that's... for that, we can be mysterious and then leave. I can't tell him how my actual life turns out."

"Whatever, space cadet," Mark said, handing adult Dale the phone. "Just blow his mind with the thing so we can get out of here. I'm having legitimate concerns now about this thing's battery life. I didn't bring a charger, and there aren't going to be any made for about a decade."

"Right, that." Dale took the phone, switched the screen on, and walked over to his younger self.

"Basically," he started, "I came back in time because this phone just came out and I knew it would rock your world."

Dale flipped through the pages of apps.

"Cool," young Dale said. "Touch screen."

"I know!" older Dale said. "Touchscreen stuff barely existed back... now, Mark."

Mark nodded. He was checking out the Super Nintendo games on the shelf. "SWAT Kats, awesome."

Older Dale continued with the demonstration, "and, obviously, you can make calls with it. Here, I'll call and order a pizza." Dale tried to dial a number, but there was no service.

"Oh, right," he said. "Cellular systems were analog until a few years from now, and I don't even know if Mark's carrier even exists yet."

"Lion King?" Mark said. "You had The Lion King for SNES?"

"Hey," young Dale said. "That game is cool. Right?"

Older Dale looked away, then back at the phone. "Anyway, well you can get on the internet using wifi--- wait, 802.11 wireless networking doesn't exist until, like, 2002. Crap."

"Very impressive tech demo so far," Mark said. "Hey, you don't have any Final Fantasy games here."

"Final what?" young Dale asked. Mark's eyes widened.

"--Anyway," adult Dale interjected. "Well, it's got GPS, at least, so the phone can actually tell you exactly where you are..."

Dale launched the navigation app, but nothing happened.

"Aw, hell," Dale said. "GPS doesn't go online for civilian use for another three or four years."

"What's GPS mean?" young Dale asked.

Older Dale just looked at him. "Well the communication systems might not exactly be available to show off, but you can at least see how it plays music and movies. Mark, did you put any media on here?"

Mark shook his head. "I was going to sync it with my home PC."

Older Dale's head dropped. "Alright, so this thing can't exactly do anything right now, but you should still be impressed. Look how small it is, and this thing's got more processing power than... crap, I don't even have a computer yet in 1995."

Mark was reading the back of the Homeward Bound VHS cassette case. "When does the PlayStation come out?"

"I don't... I don't remember," older Dale said. "This is very distressing. Look, kid. Look at this thing! It's so small. Be impressed!"

"Yeah, it's cool I guess."

Older Dale's eyes narrowed. "You guess? This thing can hold, like.. several thousand songs."

"For what?"

"For... for songs. For listening to!"

"Who needs to listen to that many songs?"

"That's not the point! Look at this thing, it is a technical marvel!"

"If you say so," the kid said. "I like my Nintendo."

"Yeah, well... wait until the Wii comes out. Huge disappointment."

Younger Dale laughed. "The wee comes out of what?"

Older Dale took a long, deliberate breath. "I hate you, me."

Younger Dale shrugged.

Older Dale turned to Mark. "Well, this has been terrifically stupid." He handed Mark the phone. "Let's go back now."

"Finally," Mark said.

He flipped through the pages to find the Time Machine app and launched it. Dale looked around. "We should probably go outside, though. I don't even know who owns this house now."

"Err..." Mark said. "This sucks."

"Well, not now, I mean," Dale said. "I mean, I don't know who owns this house in our time. Our now. Not now-now."

Mark wasn't responding. He was staring at the phone's screen.

"What is it?" Dale asked.

"I read the warning screen this time," he said.

"Yeah? What? Crap. Did we screw up the future?"

"Nnnno," Mark said. "It's not about that. It says, 'Warning: Time travel feature requires wifi internet connection and GPS location detection. Do not travel to a time without these services'."

"Oh," Dale said. "Yeah, that sucks."