Story 2: Missing (Part 2)

Read "The Seven Buildings" before you read this.

About a month after Sam left to go to his time, Tyler was sitting in his room with James and Alice.

“I am getting bored of playing Hangman,” James said.

“We have only played six games so far,” Alice said.

“Only?”

“Let’s play Pictionary instead,” Tyler suggested with a grin. He knew that James hated playing Pictionary and would rather play Hangman.

“No!” James said. “Let’s play tag.”

Tyler shrugged. Normally they wouldn’t be allowed to play Tag indoors but their parents were on a business trip, so they could do whatever they wanted to do. He was fine with playing any of the games but Alice and James couldn’t agree on one to play.

Alice shook her head. “Why don’t we just continue playing Hangman?”

“No,” James said. “Hangman is boring.”

“How can you not like hangman?”

Tyler tried to think of a game both James and Alice liked. He couldn’t think of any. Before he could suggest just talking about something random, somebody appeared in his room.

“Sam!” all of them shouted simultaneously.

Sam looked paler than usual. His expression was a mix of shock and fear.

“What happened?” James asked.

Tyler pulled Sam onto the bed so he could sit down.

“Are your parents home?” Sam asked, ignoring James’s question.

“No, all of them had to go on a business trip,” Alice said.

“They left you home alone?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Tyler said. “We are all thirteen, so our parents trust us to be able to stay home alone.”

“All your parents had to leave on a business trip together?” Sam asked. He looked slightly calmer now.

“It was the same business trip,” Tyler answered. He waited a few moments before asking the same question James had asked. “What happened?”

“This is going to take a long time to explain,” Sam said.

“You can tell us,” Tyler said. “We have three days until our parents come back.”

“You know about the people from the organization,” Sam said.

It wasn’t a question but Tyler nodded anyway.

“In the future, they find it kind of suspicious that all seven buildings that can possibly be used to make mind control devices were destroyed within a few days of each other.”

“Why are those buildings the only ones that can be used to make the mind control devices on?” James asked.

“They are made out of a special material,” Sam replied. “It looks like the material they used to make most buildings but it is actually different. The buildings are the only places where that material exists.”

“Why is the material necessary to make the mind control devices?” James asked.

Sam shrugged. “I have no idea. I haven’t actually made a mind control device before.”

“So, they found it suspicious,” Tyler said. “But they couldn’t have known it was you.”

“I think one of them saw me when I was destroying one of the buildings,” Sam said. “They then looked for me and found out later that I was alive in the future.”

“Which couldn’t have been possible unless time travel existed,” Tyler realized.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “But they lived in the time when I was alive so they would have known if time travel existed.”

“And it didn’t exist,” Alice said.

Sam nodded. “So, they tried to capture me so I could tell them about the time travel technology. Of course, they failed, because I time-traveled to this time.”

“Kind of ironic,” Tyler said. “They try to capture you because you have time travel and forget that you can just time travel away if they try to capture you.”

“Or teleport,” Sam added.

“Does teleportation exist in your time?” Tyler asked. “Like for all people, not just you.”

“It does,” Sam said.

“What are we going to do?” James and Alice asked simultaneously. They both looked excited.

“You both finally agreed on something,” Tyler said.

Sam gave him a blank look.

“They couldn’t decide on what game to play before you came,” Tyler explained.

Sam smiled slightly. “You guys are probably not going to do anything because it is too dangerous-”

He was cut off by James saying,” Everybody says that.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly dangerous but it’s kind of dangerous,” Sam said.

“So, we can help you,” Alice said.

“No you can’t,” Sam said.

“Why don’t you first tell us what you are going to do?” Tyler asked.

“I’m just going to make it so that I time-traveled out of the building, instead of running out of the building and then time traveling, so the person from the organization doesn’t see me,” Sam said.

“So you are going to tell yourself to do that?”

Sam nodded.

“Do you even know which building the person saw you destroying?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “The seventh one.”

“So you don’t require anybody else to help you to do it,” Tyler said.

Sam nodded. Tyler was relieved that he didn’t have to do anything dangerous. He was just fine with doing dangerous stuff, but he didn’t want to get captured by someone from an organization trying to mind control everybody. James and Alice on the other hand wanted to join Sam but agreed that no one else was needed to do what Sam was doing.

“You have to tell us once you are done,” James said.

“I will,” Sam said. He then disappeared.

They all waited for a few minutes.

“Wouldn’t Sam just come back one second after he left because he can time travel to whatever time he wants?” Tyler asked.

James shrugged, but he looked worried. “Does that mean Sam for some reason can’t come back?”

Nobody answered. After a few minutes, Tyler looked around the room. He noticed a piece of paper on the bed and picked it up. It said:

If I don’t come back, there is a time machine in your closet.

You can use it to go to the time I went to too tell myself to time travel out of the building

- Sam

Tyler ran over to his closet. James and Alice looked at the paper before following Tyler into the closet. Inside the closet, there was a device. It was pretty small and Tyler wouldn't have noticed it unless he was looking for it. He picked it up.

The device had a note taped onto it. It said:

Press the green button

Tyler looked at Alice and James. “How do we make it so it takes all of us back in time?”

“I think it is programmed to do that,” James said.

Tyler pressed the green button.