If you turn the key, you turn the clock. If you turn the clock, you save me.
"Really!" Nick yelled at the shed's wall. "I don't need this right now, lady, or whoever you are. Seriously. Who is that? This is a bad time to be hearing things."
"Bro. You're hearing things?" said a thirteen-year-old boy standing in the doorway. It was Xanthus Kobayashi. Half Japanese, half African-American, he wore clothes that spoke of a goth trying out for Medieval Times.
"I'm not hearing things, Xanthus," Nick corrected, hoping to stop a bad rumor before it started. He couldn't trust Xanthus to not blow things out of proportion.
"Are you still …" Xanthus struggled with words. "You know—I mean—Jermaine."
Nick frowned.
"You haven't been kind of intense since they—"
"Left him to die!" Nick said flatly. "I'm fine." He really wanted to change the subject.
Xanthus shrugged. He adjusted a pair of black goggles sitting on his head. "Hey. I'm not saying it's a problem. You are attempting to invent the greatest machine of the 22nd century. I expect you to be a little unstable. In fact, as Nick and Company's brand manager, it gives the company real street cred that our CEO is a little bananas. Your followers will eat that up."
Nick crouched down to his machine to see if there were any exposed wires. Last time he had been careless with some of the electrical wiring. Let's just say mistakes had been made, and Nick's vision went blurry for a week. Everything tasted like burnt bagels for a week. Apparently you can electrocute the senses right out of yourself. Nick couldn't make that kind of mistake again, not today. The machine - Nick flipped to his back and found a stray yellow wire.
"I'm almost done with our website's 'about' page," Xanthus said as he kneeled down, bringing the faint smell of sweaty bed sheets and desert scrub brush commonly associated with refugee camps. Nick didn't care. It wasn't like body spray was an option for Xanthus, who once had to trade a Christmas gift for food rations. "What's the name of this thing again?"
"Hand me the electrical tape," Nick pointed to the table. "No. The black one."
"The name?" Xanthus repeated, handing Nick the tape.
Nick bit a small tear in the tape, and tore the rest with his hands. "Viachron. It stores sunlight and re-projects it back out."
"I still can't believe you created this."
A small tremor of guilt hit Nick. He attempted to sound casual with his next words, "'Created' is such an interesting word, Xanthus. What does that even mean?"
Xanthus stopped playing with the antique cell phone and gave Nick his full attention.
"Yeah. So I, uh—didn't… you know, build it exactly," Nick didn't struggle with his words because he wanted people to think he was some great inventor. He knew he wasn't. He struggled because the Viachron didn't technically belong to him.
"I, um, kind of modified someone else's machine." Nick felt a tremor of guilt roll over him. "It's Grand's."
"Woah," Xanthus dropped the antique cell phone. "Your granddad's? This is his machine?"
Nick tried to stifle a smile.
"He told you to guard it with your life," Xanthus shook his head. "No one is supposed to mess with it."
Nick twisted his body around. "It was just sitting here, doing nothing. He's been gone for two years now. Im sure he's forgotten about it."
"I heard him tell you to never touch it. He was all like: 'The Viachron is an ancient and powerful magical device, laddie. It is most important to the Lyons family, and if tampered with, may destroy the very fabric of the universe."
"I, uh … I mean, really? Magical device? Magic isn't real. I'm not eight years old. And you know… " Nick searched for some kind of an excuse. He had practiced plenty of them before in a mirror, but when it came to actually having to explain what he'd done to someone other than himself, his mouth dried up. "I just made some modifications."
"Bro. You jammed a telescope into it." Xanthus pointed to a part where the back end of a telescope had been crudely attached to the Viachron's brass casing. "Is that a hovercar battery?"
"Dad hasn't touched his Validate in years. It just sits there in his little hover museum."
"Well…" Nick could tell Xanthus was struggling to find something positive to say about dismantling other people's expensive machines and vehicles to build his machine. "Either your family will banish you from Grand's shed for the rest of eternity, or they'll thank you when you've made billions of dollars and are some hot shot living the good life on the lunar moon."
"We," Nick corrected, pointing at both of them. "We're all going to live the good life on the moon. The whole team. Actually, where is our team? They're late!" Nick snapped. He wasn't usually this grumpy, but he hadn't slept for forty-eight hours, had drunk his weight in chocolate syrup and Pepto-Bismol. Today was the day.
"No idea," Xanthus scooped the antique cell phone off the ground and flipped it open. "But I don't know if everyone is cool with the great Nick and Co plan. Your brother is starting to lose faith."
"Tim never had it," Nick scooted out from under Grand's machine. "Tim has no loyalty but to himself. He gave up on our project years ago. I can't even get him to run a simple errand. I sent him to the neighbor's to get a wrench, and where is he now? That was over three hours ago."
"Oh. That I do know. He's down in the canyon," Xanthus said, continuing to pick through the box old 21st century smart phones.
"He's where?" Nick lifted his watch. It read: "1:20 pm."
"The canyon?" Xanthus repeated himself, but with a question in his voice this time.
"It's after one," Nick went bug-eyed, panic filling him up. "Tim went to Hiker's canyon after one? Xanthus. Death hour has begun."
"So… " then Xanthus's bugged-eyes matched Nick's. "She's on patrol, isn't she?"
"Rocky will break him in two," Nick shook his head. "I told him never to go to the canyon without back up, especially at death hour."
Nick and Xanthus bolted out of the door and raced down the wooden steps leading to Hiker's Canyon.
If you turn the key, you turn the clock. If you turn the clock, you save me.