Story 2: The Time Machine (Part 4 )

 Read "Instructions", "Missing" and "The Seven Buildings" before you read this.

“He left his time machine,” Tyler said.

“Maybe the note will explain why he did that,” James said as he picked up the paper.

Tyler looked at the paper. It had an explanation on how to go to the time Sam was in using the time machine. Tyler looked at the note for more, but it had nothing else.

“Let’s follow the instructions on the note,” Alice said.

“Wait, why did Sam leave his time machine here?” James said.

Alice stared at him. “To make sure the organization doesn’t get it of course.”

“If he had just time traveled away, he wouldn’t have been able to destroy the organization's time machine,” Tyler added at James’s confused expression.

“Oh,” James said. “Let’s follow the instructions then.”

Tyler picked up the time machine and followed the instructions on the note. He felt like he had messed up several times but James and Aliced assured him that he had followed the instructions correctly. Finally he pressed the green button.

The scene around Tyler changed. He was in front of a door.

“Um… where is Sam?” James asked.

“Maybe behind the door?” Alice replied. She then tried turning the door knob.

“There are probably security measures preventing-” Tyler stopped talking when the door opened. He had assumed the door would be locked and there would be a fingerprint scanner or something that prevented people from opening it.

Behind the door was an empty room. Sam was sitting in one corner of it.

“Don’t let the door close,” Sam said as he got up.

Tyler placed his foot in the way of the door, so that it wouldn’t close. Why did Sam ask him to do that, if they were all going to time travel out of the room anyway? Then he noticed something weird about the door. There wasn’t a door knob. That meant that you could only open the door from one side.

“There is no door knob,” Tyler said.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “You can only open the door from the outside.”

“How did you get their time machine, if the door was locked for the whole time you were here?” Alice asked.

“Um… I didn’t get the time machine. We still need to get it.”

So that’s why Sam asked us to hold the door open. We still have to go outside this room to get the time machine, Tyler thought.

“Do you know where the time machine is?” James asked.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “It’s in a room like this one, but the room has security cameras.”

“So, how are we going to get in without them seeing us?” James asked.

“Using invisibility, of course.”

“Invisibility exists in the future?” Tyler asked.

“Technically. I created a device that can make anyone invisible, but I haven’t told anyone about it.”

“Do you have that device with you?” Tyler asked.

“No, but I added a feature to the time machine that allows it to do that.”

“Okay, so let’s get the time machine,” James said.

Tyler handed Sam the time machine they used to get to the room. Sam clicked a few buttons on it and Tyler couldn’t see James, Alice, or Sam.

“I think we have a problem,” Tyler said. “How are we going to follow you to the room, if we can’t see you?''

“I forgot about that,” Sam said as he turned all of them visible again. “Maybe I should just send all of you back to your time and get the time machine-”

“No, we are coming with you,” Alice said.

“It’s much safer the other way,” Sam said.

Tyler didn’t exactly want to go to get the time machine. He already felt like someone was going to enter the room and see them all in there.

“How about you get the time machine and we wait in this room so that if anything goes wrong we can help?” Tyler suggested.

“They might walk by and notice you are in there,” Sam said.

“If they walk by they will notice that you aren’t there,” Tyler replied.

“Ok, just try to stay out of sight of the door.”

Tyler nodded and Sam disappeared.

About one minute later someone walked in front of the door and opened it.

The person turned to face Tyler, James, and Alice. “Who are you and where is Sam?” the person asked angrily.

Then Tyler felt a hand on his shoulder and the scene around him changed. To the person it would look like all three of them disappeared.

Tyler reappeared inside his room. James and Alice were standing next to him. Tyler then noticed a note on his desk it said:

I got the time machine and went back to the future

- Sam