Wondering Through Time

In the dim light of the time machine control room, Dr. Chadwick’s voice was a whisper as he spoke to me.

"I have to tell you, this is so much more than we ever expected."

My eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I focused on his silhouette in the chair before me. He was looking down at the readouts on a tablet he held in his right hand. His left hand gripped my shoulder, almost a warning that I should stay back.

"We've not even been gone ten minutes, and there are already changes." He looked up at me. "Changes that shouldn't be happening."

I raised an eyebrow and motioned him to continue. "Changes? What kind of changes?"

He sighed and dropped his head again. "The biggest one is--well--the museum?" He looked up again. "It's gone. Look for yourself."

I stepped forward, trying not to trip over anything in the darkness. At first I couldn't make out the screen of his tablet, but after squinting for a moment, I could see what he was showing me. The screen showed a Google street view-type image of our destination: the town center of Bakersville, with the museum in the background. In fact, it showed several of them--all with different structures where our museum had once stood for hundreds of years.

"What are those?" I asked, pointing at three small buildings in various locations around the town center. Each building had a modern sign outside, suggesting they were museums or tourist attractions of their own; but they all looked like they'd been brought in from another part of England entirely.

Chadwick shrugged and shook his head slowly as he flipped to another page on his tablet. "I don't know," he said softly as he frowned at whatever he was reading on that page. "But we don't have long to figure it out." He looked up at me again and pointed at the clock on his tablet's display: 8:59 am. "Look how fast time is moving," he said, sounding worried now as well as curious.