The Time Pendulum by C. J. Atticus
Copyright © 2021 C. J. Atticus
In Trapped in Time, Noah Greenly at age 12 wakes up to discover all his tech-stuff has de-evolved: computer becomes a notebook, DVD player a LP turntable, solar calculator a slide rule. His cellphone has completely vanished. And what’s worse, he has a new school bully, Dalt Hardiman, determined to dunk his head in a toilet. But after seeing Noah in two places at once―cafeteria and homeroom―Dalt steals Noah’s time journals for the secret.
Soon, scientists vanish―Tesla, Jules Verne, Edison, Bill Gates―along with their collaborative invention the computer. Noah traces the first missing link to Mark Twain who never wrote a word. Noah must restore Twain’s destiny, thus resetting history. So begins Noah’s cat and mouse chase through time to retrieve his journals and uncover Dalt’s nefarious plans. If Noah fails, he might return to 2020 and find the only available history is pictured on cave walls.
The Time Pendulum #1Trapped in Time - Words 66,000Chapter 1 – Strange Arrived in the Night Noah Greenly awoke that morning expecting to have a normal birthday. Open a few normal presents, find a new shirt or video game. Eat some normal cake, maybe chocolate on chocolate. Spend time with his normal dad. But there’d been nothing normal about his dad since a week ago when they moved into this town. The man had begun acting so weird that Noah suspected his father of being an alien―a full-fledged, outer space traveling, planet hopping, altered-to-appear human, extra-terrestrial. What other reason could there be to explain his behavior? Take, for instance, their trip into town. While driving to the supermarket, his father smiled constantly, kept grabbing Noah’s knee and shaking it, and rocked as if itching to say something urgent. That just wasn’t normal for his usually worried-about-his-new-job dad. In the store, as Noah pushed the cart down the produce aisle, his dad danced. In front of people! He actually walked along snapping his fingers, swayed his hips and hummed to music that didn’t play. That wasn’t normal either. His dad had no rhythm. Then he spoke a language Noah’d never heard; said “rad” to the butcher when picking up a package of pork spareribs; said “radical” to the floral clerk when grabbing a bunch of helium-filled blue balloons; said “tubular” to the bakery lady when picking up a custom birthday cake, which, by the way, had been decorated with an edible image of a diesel locomotive―a train. Noah outgrew trains years ago. Only his real human father would remember that. But there was one surefire test that’d prove whether or not his dad belonged at Area 51, an alien prison. The singing― After a splendid barbeque sparerib cookout, Noah sat on one side of the patio picnic table with his father on the other and that silly little-kid cake between them. His dad’s all-knowing smirk suggested to Noah that he knew what he’d been doing. “♫ . . . Happy birthday to you . . . ♫” “Dad.” “♫ . . . Happy birthday to you . . . ♫” “Dad?” “♫ . . . Happy birthday to . . . ♫” “Dad, you’re murdering the cat.” “Quiet!” “And we don’t own a cat.” “♫ . . . To Nooo . . . ♫ . . . Can’t you let me enjoy you being my little boy for just one more day?” “I’m not six.” Noah pointed at the twelve lit candles. “And don’t you dare get mushy.” “Do you want me to start over?” Instantly speechless, Noah shook his head, and forcefully, too. “♫ . . . To Noooaaahhh . . . Happy birthday to yooouuuuUUUU! . . . ♫” Noah heard a dog howling in the early evening distance. Strange because they lived in a Nevada subdivision with backyards filled with yellow desert and thorny cactuses. Okay. His dad’s singing still sounded like he’d been walking around with a five-inch-long rusty nail stuck up into his foot. But it was his voice, which meant all this time his dad had been acting cutesy. On purpose! That didn’t make him an alien. It made him the universe’s most embarrassing parent. Noah blew out the candles. “Now for the moment I’ve been waiting for,” said his excited dad, rubbing his hands together as if he just won a robust round of Slap Jack. “Could be a lifetime supply of dinosaur underwear.” “Yeah, and I’ll run away from home.” Noah’d noticed the wrapped gift hidden under the picnic table; nice sized with yellow Happy Birthday paper and purple bow, roughly two-feet-square, about eight inches thick. Oh, he hoped his six months of hints were about to payoff; he expected a brand new, state-of-the-art― “Ta-da!” His dad lifted the present and stretched it over the smoldering cake, delighted at the process, even held his breath in anticipation. Hungrily, Noah grabbed it, found it heavy, and immediately dug his fingers under the loose paper edges, ripping and shoving the tattered slivers and bow to the concrete. “Are you serious?” blurted Noah, eyes ablaze at the box’s colorful and crystal-clear graphics. “Laptop. 17-inch screen edged with LED light bars. 8TB hard drive. Internet ready. Windows 14. Dad, this is fantastic. How did you know?” “Gee, let me think. Couldn’t have been the magazine picture taped to the refrigerator, or the one on my bathroom mirror, or the one . . .” “Okay. Okay.” Now embarrassment attacked Noah. His cheeks burned red. Noah had been wanting desperately to turn older. There were so many things he’d get to do; at twelve receive his own computer, which just happened; at thirteen select his own hairstyle; at fourteen start high school; at fifteen apply for his learner’s driving permit; at sixteen buy his first car―hopefully a Porsche. Maybe his dad, who had seemed bound and determined to keep him a preschooler, finally noticed him growing up. “Son, just set your old hand-me-down desktop on the floor. I’ll recycle it later.” Noah’s heart pounded, overwhelmed by the best gift―ever! The things he could do with it flooded his thoughts; search the internet, type emails, store music, play ga― Yes, at the bottom of the list. Video Card. “Can I go hook it up? Can I?” “Nothing’s stopping you. Enjoy.” “Yippie!” Noah gathered the box into his arms, clutched it against his chest, and darted for the sliding glass door. Once inside the house, he dashed through the kitchen more thrilled than last year in their old home when he discovered it’d snowed on Christmas Eve. Sure was swell of his dad to give him a laptop. The best dad ever. In seconds, Noah raced down the hall, up the stairs, and into his room, practically shoving the old desktop computer off his desk and down against the wall, old worthless thing anyway, downloads took a miserable 15 to 25 Mbps. But he meticulously unpacked his new laptop. Using a straightedge screwdriver, he carved through the security seal, opened the side flap, and pulled out the new computer, shoving the empty box to the floor alongside the desktop. Next, he removed the foam packing material, sniffed the anti-skid rubber mat for its newness before flattening it on the desk, and set the device squarely in place. Finally, he plugged in the modem and power cord, flicking “on.” As he raised the laptop screen, his new glorious machine came alive. The cool blue glow under the keyboard made the buttons appear to float in water. The side edge LEDs warmed and crawled with a rainbow of colors; red to yellow, green to blue, purple to burgundy, and back to red. In seconds, “Welcome” appeared mid-screen. Totally content, Noah rested his head against his chair back as he settled in to explore his new laptop. He read through the manual, watched the tutorials, and synced with all his download accounts; books, music, email, Favorite lists on YouTube, and online science activities with the Smithsonian. All this took several hours, but he enjoyed every momentous second. He even received his first on-screen email popup―his dad’s. Noah clicked on “open.” “’Looked in on you. You were too enthralled to disturb. Took your slice of cake downstairs to the frig. Save it for breakfast. Love, Dad.’” Oops. A sudden realization hit Noah and he slapped hands over his eyes. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.” He never thanked his dad for this neat gift, didn’t even cut the cake with him. Noah felt so ashamed. He’d also abandoned the man to clean up his party mess, possibly even the barbeque grill he promised to scrub. He should go apologize a million times, vow to do every chore in the house. But the clock neared midnight and his dad would be asleep. Noah planned to make everything right by fixing him breakfast. After setting the clock, Noah crawled into bed fully clothed, which would save him time in the morning. Then, almost in an instant, after he shut his eyes, the alarm squawked―6:00 a.m. He yawned and stretched, a satisfying one, too, with arms splayed over his pillow, which pulled his shirttail free of the pants belt line. He relaxed every muscle again and settled his head into the warm pillow, enjoying the comfort. No, he did not plan to fall back asleep, though a few winks couldn’t hurt. But just as he closed his eyes, he heard every dog in the neighborhood raise their voices to bark. “What the―” Irritated at being disturbed, Noah kicked away the covers, climbed onto his knees, and knocked aside the curtains, ready to do a little screaming of his own. He pushed up the window sash. “Qui―!” But he stopped himself. The barking came not only from his cul-de-sac but also beyond the houses and into the other streets. Echoes and echoes of agitated howling dogs, perhaps the whole neighborhood’s, filled the September air. The horizon remained pitch black, while a thin ribbon of orange haze separated a navy-blue sky with stars still visible high overhead. With such a calm morning, Noah wondered what had upset all those animals. “Dad, you awake?” He glanced over his shoulder, dad’s room just next door. “You need to hear this.” Then Noah heard the rumbling. His first thought? Earthquake. Being a science wiz, he had already researched the topography. This area of Boulder City did indeed experience earthquakes, mostly low magnitude, 2.9 to 3.8 on the Richter Scale. The last big one, a 7.1, occurred in 1915. Most lasted only a few seconds, but this rumbling continued, a steady moan of low-pitched sounds. It could be a landslide with heavy boulders rolling down a mountainside. Fault lines did run throughout the area, also under Lake Mead to the east. But to create this much calamity, an entire mountain range, such as the Sierra Mountains to the west, would have to be crumbling. Perhaps the San Andreas Fault that ran through California further west had finally given way. “Hey, Dad. You need to come in here.” The rumbling sound increased, grew louder, more obvious. Noah now felt vibrations reaching into his room; bed rattled, pull cord on his nightstand lamp swayed. All the dogs out in the close and far neighborhoods seemed to bark louder, angrier. “What’s going on?” The early sky remained clear, no dust or smoke, perhaps no collapsed buildings or out-of-control fires raging in the city. Just a steady rumble coming from the mountain range. The waves of sound seemed to be aiming directly toward Noah’s house. But no sunlight yet, just more darkness, more mystery. Then― POW! One giant wave arrived from the mountains. Though invisible, it left a shimmy in its wake, like heat radiation that rose above hot pavement. This wave appeared to roll through a distant streetlight, cross various streets, plummet over a house, and enter Noah’s cul-de-sac, charging specifically for Noah’s home. And when it struck . . . The wave entered Noah’s window like a powerful wind, fluttered the curtains, almost knocked him flat. And it kept on coming, raced into the room, spread across the floor, and smashed into the opposite wall, careening on through the entire house. The suddenness caused his entire bed, plus all his room’s belongings, the desk, dresser, even the bookcase, to rise into the air a full inch and drop back down, made an awful thud on the wooden floor. Noah’s first instinct― “Dad!”
The Time Pendulum #2Mining Time - Words 58,000Chapter 1 – Step Out of Time A blood-curdling scream erupted off to Noah's right, across the dirt street perhaps thirty feet away. It came from an older woman standing on a front porch outside the Hannibal Mercantile store where rocking chairs lined tall windows and a brass spittoon guarded the door. Her trembling, flattened hands covered her mouth and her terrified eyes blazed white. Noah guested she was upset that her woven basket, which lay upturned at her feet, sent her purchase of flour and sugar cascading down the half dozen wood steps toward the sidewalk below. She acted as if she'd seen a ghost. In broad daylight! She kept screaming. Over and over. Full volume, too. Powerful lungs for someone her age. The sound waves blasted past Noah like a gunshot and bounced about the town square; to the brick bank, past the jail, on to the blacksmith stable at the end of the street, then back to the two-story motel across from the saloon, and finally to a pair of sweaty brown horses pulling a wagon piled high with cut wheat. They turned their heads to look at her. She even startled men and women who stepped out of buildings and stores to aim their curiosity. It was as if a gigantic alarm clock woke the entire town. Noah wondered what made this woman so distressed. It couldn't be him, a boy of twelve, a seventh grader, a science whiz with a 132 IQ who also owned his own time machine. For this timeseeing trip, his best friend Beaver dressed him in authentic moccasins, well-worn tan work pants, a chained pocket watch, and a double-pouch leather saddlebag, all matching this time period. No way could he be mistaken as a kid from the future. See, during his first trip here a week ago when he came to meet his favorite author Mark Twain, he'd been branded a witch by two woodsman who saw him step out of his Time Pendulum vortex. Noah had landed on a Mississippi riverbank, fallen into the water, and pulled to dry land by young Sam Clemens, also twelve, destined to grow-up and become Mark Twain. The frightened woodsmen raced their horses into Hannibal and brought back the sheriff and deputy who branded both he and Sam as witches. How ridiculous was that? This all happened because Noah had transposed the digits of his destination date from 1874 to 1847, thus meeting Twain as a boy rather than the adult future writer. It was Sam's clever hornswoggling of the lawman that helped them escape and avoid arrest, Sam racing him to meet his outbound vortex for home. But when Noah finally returned to 2020, he discovered history had been changed. Every one of his Mark Twain books was erased from history. Though he had made sure Sam did not see his vortex, it was not he who'd done the damage. He learned from Beaver that Dalt Hardiman, his middle-school nemesis, had used his newly built time machine to travel back and somehow stop Sam from becoming a writer, the reason for doing so still unknown. Noah also learned that meeting young Sam was no accident. Beaver explained Noah and Sam were destined to meet, thanks to the River of Time linking their fates from the start of history. Noah had returned to Hannibal moments ago through his time vortex so he could stop Dalt and restore Mark Twain's rightful destiny. But first, he must find young Sam Clemens. He hoped the boy hadn't— What a minute. Vortex. Vortex? Of course. This woman saw his time vortex, the swirling bluish energy through which he traveled, Beaver's Wormhole, the one he stepped out of smack-dab in the middle of the Hannibal town square. In the middle! Her ghost was him. “Witch!” screamed the old woman as she pointed a quivering finger at Noah, eyes still blazed white. Noah did the only thing a time-traveler could do. He ran. He turned toward the blacksmith’s stable down the street with every intention of running past it, but took one step and sunk his right foot deep into fresh horse manure. Disgusting. Why would anyone leave― And in the street? He remembered. Cars were decades away. These people only had horses. No time to scrap his shoe against the sidewalk edge. Running directly toward him came a burly man with a scruffy beard and a brandished rifle. The man reached; a hero determined to capture the witch. Noah ducked as the man’s huge hand swept overhead. He pivoted and took off at full throttle. Clutching his valuable saddlebag and its contents under an arm like a quarterback protecting the football, Noah beelined it right down the middle of the street. People were coming at him from all directions: two men from the saloon holding beer glasses, a man from the barbershop wearing a white bib, a man with thick eyeglasses from a lawyer’s office, a woman from a bakery wielding an umbrella, and the sheriff from the jail with 10-gallon hat, sidearms, everything; a complete cowboy. This man had attempted to arrest him during his first timeseeing trip. Blindsided from the left, a man managed to grab Noah with strong arms, trapping his arms at his sides. But Noah wiggled his way to freedom, kicked the man’s shin and left him hopping on one foot while clutching his leg. Noah continued to run, leaving that man behind and vowing revenge. Up ahead, more manure. Noah managed to leap in time and protected his left shoe as he sailed over the disgusting heap of sh― “I―” After impacting the dusty street, he dug in his heels, gained speed, determined to avoid capture, and followed the road that led out of town toward a forest. He’d find seclusion there. He hoped. Up ahead, more you-know-what. He jumped. “Hate―” Landing surefooted again, he maintained course, the end of town not far ahead. But a group of men appeared to his left, blocking his pathway. He veered right and aimed for the bank where two ladies crowded the entrance. As he neared, they screamed. One lady raised her arms and sent her wad of cash flowing into the summer breeze. Noah punched through that money, nearly knocking the ladies down. Inside he searched for a back door, an exit, a way to escape this craziness and those men chasing him. But no back door existed. So, he zigzagged through waiting patrons, sped around the autograph desk, nearly crashed into a teller carrying a tray of coins, and whipped back toward the front door. As he punched through the entrance and the panicked ladies, he caught a glimpse of his chasers crashing into that teller, the coins splashing through the air. Back outside and into the dirt street, Noah again leaped over that same pile of― “Manure!” When he touched down this time, the deputy had emerged from the jail and in pursuit through the street. So, Noah veered left this time, aimed for the nearby saloon, the entrance crammed with curious men. He punched through them as if they were paper. And he kept on running through the cluster of round wooden tables and chairs, zigzagging left and right, sideswiping men watching the action, up to the bar where the barkeeper with a grizzly mustache retrieved a rifle from under the counter, past a saloon girl wearing a feather encrusted hat, and back toward the front entrance―no back door either. As quick as before, he was back racing through the street toward the blacksmith stable. But more angry townsfolk were now swarming the street. Noah knew his time was running out. Sooner or later one of these men― He veered again, this time toward the motel. But he made it only a few yards when an angry mob attempted to surround him, corral him, capture him for the town lawman. He turned blindly and ran face and chest-first into the bulging stomach of a horse that pulled the wheat filled wagon. The horse reared onto its hind legs and whinnied in terror, jabbing at the air with its front hooves, the wheat pouring out the wagon and onto the dusty road. Another pile of― In that moment of dizziness, Noah bounced backward and into the arms of many men who rapidly took control of him, clawed at him as they grabbed his arms and neck to ensure he could not escape, which he couldn’t, though he kept tugging his arms and kicking at the legs surrounding him, all in vain. Now held in place, Noah saw the sheriff and deputy approaching through the street and the swarm of onlookers squeezing together for a closer look. Each lawman hosted the same sneer he’d see on their faces during his last encounter with them on the Mississippi riverbank, with Sam at his side. These men meant business. “Ain’t no point in fightin’, boy,” said the sheriff with a smug grin. “I'm lockin' you up.” The Time Pendulum #3Race to Save Time - 57,000Chapter 1 – A New Threat Noah Greenly stared at the most terrifying sight that history had ever shown this twelve-year-old time traveler. It occurred a few hundred yards away, out among the parched sand dunes under a blistering hazy-orange sun. This was Yucca Flat territory, a desert wasteland home to rattlesnakes and bird-murdering tarantulas. But what he saw and its potential meaning was out of this world. “Do you see that?” he asked of the friends beside him. He stood in front of a train tunnel where minutes ago he watched a forty-foot silver missile with its rocket engine fully engaged punch through that tunnel. It took off out over the desert, crashed among the dunes, and exploded in a grand fireball. It now lay sad and split open with its innards aflame while a column of black smoke drifted skyward. The nosecone was what caught Noah’s concern. At the bottom of that fire, there sizzled an ember that radiated a red glow more intense than the fire itself―ruby red. “There. See it? The red glow?” Noah knew his science. Fire was basically yellow, orange, and the cooler portion black, like sunspots which also appeared black on the sun’s molten orange surface. To get green, blue, pink, or even red fire, like in fireworks, salts and chlorides were added. But there were no fireworks here in the desert. And he was a long way from any sunspots. “The nosecone. Look.” Before leaking fuel ignited the engine and launched that rocket, Noah had taken a hatchet, split open the nosecone outer casing, and mangled a satellite inside, the payload. He’d found sensitive instruments, copper panels, wires, gizmos, and metal support rods, plus maneuvering thrusters which burned ammonia gas as fuel. But no part of this machine would burn red. So, something else was inside that satellite. “I don’t see anything,” answered Beaver, Noah’s best friend who stood at Noah’s left side. Beaver was forty-four-years old here in 2052, thirty-two years away from the seventh grade when he and Noah attended school together in Boulder City, back in 2020 when they were both twelve-years-old. It was also the same time Noah discovered a time machine built by his grandfather and hidden in his basement. After Noah went on his time travel adventures and deemed missing by his brokenhearted father, Beaver grew up to buy their old home. He discovered the time chamber and had been helping Noah repair the damage inflicted on history. Noah’d also traveled here to confront the one person who had caused the most damage to the past. “Are you blind? It’s right there.” “No, I’m not,” answered Beaver. “But what I do see is a time traveler who should be celebrating. Why today, Noah, you survived drowning in a toilet, helped blow up a mad scientist’s lair, foiled the diabolical plot of a monster, and got kissed by a girl. That’s a full day.” Yes, all that was good. Noah especially enjoyed being kissed by a girl, Ginger Clarice Cole, the red-haired twelve-year-old from his 2020 school bus. She had traveled into this future moment in 2052 to be here with him. She stood to his right with an arm around his waist, her thank you for his protecting her while inside that mad scientist’s lair. “Ginger, you see the red, don’t you?” “Well, now that you mention it, I think I see it.” “You think? Look at the sparks. They’re red too.” He wondered why he was the only one to notice. Maybe the desert heat had gotten to him, gave him mirages, played with his mind, infected everyone. No, he dismissed that notion. The red was real. And the mysterious meaning of it was what he feared. This all started when he and Ginger arrived in Yucca Flat. They’d snuck aboard a freight train bound for this tunnel gouged out of the hilly rock. Noah’s 2020 school bully, Dalt Hardiman now age forty-five, had hidden a time machine that he built; he’d stolen five of Noah’s six journals―one recaptured by Ginger―that contained the secrets of time travel. Dalt was busy taking over the world by changing history, and Noah and Ginger were on a mission to stop the man. They were members of Time Miners, a secret organization led by the adult Ginger of this 2052 time period that repaired damages to history. Noah found his books here in Yucca Flat and was planning to destroy Dalt’s time machine when he and Ginger were captured by Dalt’s military-style assault team. When Beaver arrived with his team of defenders, a skirmish broke out. During that firefight, Dalt grabbed Noah’s remaining four books and escaped into a time vortex that someone had sent specifically for him. And that vortex was red. Noah knew the science of vortexes too. Halions, an energetic particle siphoned from the solar wind, initiated time Wormholes and turned the swirling eddies blue. Dalt’s vortexes were purple made of halions mixed with plasma residue, like that found in the aurora borealis. But for a vortex to be red, like the one that helped Dalt escape, meant some other exotic particle helped to generate that vortex. It also meant Dalt had discovered an entirely new form of energy, and that was just plain dangerous. Dalt could further alter history and, even worse, time itself. For all Noah knew, he, Ginger, and Beaver could be standing in a completely different universe. That meant he might never be reunited with his father, his ultimate goal in all this. “We need to bring Hermie Shellhammer here,” Noah suggested. “He’s the expert who built that satellite. He’ll know what’s burning.” “I hate to breakup this mutual admiration society,” said John, standing to Beaver’s left. “But I need to address a problem more urgent.” John Duc Pow was the combat training instructor from Time Miners that led Beaver’s resistant assault team. The name was a handle; John Duck or Get Pow-ed, punched. He was a bearded grizzly Irishman with orange/red eyebrows and piercing green maniacal eyes, and he enjoyed busting up the enemy. Almost singlehandedly, he took on Dalt’s men. But when it became known that the rocket fuel was about to explode inside Dalt’s hideout, the fighting stopped and everyone rushed to find safety. Dalt escaped through a red vortex. His dozen assault goons escaped into their purple vortexes. But John and his men were forced to run through the train tunnel; their vortex emitters had ceased functioning, drained of halion energy by a hidden deactivating radiation, another secret weapon of Dalt’s. John was still ticked off about that too. “This heat is grueling. I need to get my men to safety.” His dozen team members were scouring the sand for their dropped rifles and helmets. The oppressive heat was rapidly zapping their strength. “Water and cool air are what we all need.” “Noah,” interrupted Ginger. “Why is that red glare so important?” “Excuse me.” John added irritation to his voice. “We’ll address your concerns in a minute,” Beaver said. “Go on, Noah, tell us what you think.” “Well, I’m a tinkerer. I like to understand how things work. I believe the red color is coming from a new form of energy that Dalt went into the future and stole, then brought it back for Hermie to build into that satellite. Plus, we have no idea what it is and what its capabilities are.” “And that makes it dangerous?” Ginger asked. “Yes, but that’s not the only thing that’s bad,” Noah answered. “What else is there?” “This energy source, this new power, is in the hands of a madman.”
The Time Pendulum #2Mining Time - Words 58,000Chapter 1 – Step Out of Time A blood-curdling scream erupted off to Noah's right, across the dirt street perhaps thirty feet away. It came from an older woman standing on a front porch outside the Hannibal Mercantile store where rocking chairs lined tall windows and a brass spittoon guarded the door. Her trembling, flattened hands covered her mouth and her terrified eyes blazed white. Noah guested she was upset that her woven basket, which lay upturned at her feet, sent her purchase of flour and sugar cascading down the half dozen wood steps toward the sidewalk below. She acted as if she'd seen a ghost. In broad daylight! She kept screaming. Over and over. Full volume, too. Powerful lungs for someone her age. The sound waves blasted past Noah like a gunshot and bounced about the town square; to the brick bank, past the jail, on to the blacksmith stable at the end of the street, then back to the two-story motel across from the saloon, and finally to a pair of sweaty brown horses pulling a wagon piled high with cut wheat. They turned their heads to look at her. She even startled men and women who stepped out of buildings and stores to aim their curiosity. It was as if a gigantic alarm clock woke the entire town. Noah wondered what made this woman so distressed. It couldn't be him, a boy of twelve, a seventh grader, a science whiz with a 132 IQ who also owned his own time machine. For this timeseeing trip, his best friend Beaver dressed him in authentic moccasins, well-worn tan work pants, a chained pocket watch, and a double-pouch leather saddlebag, all matching this time period. No way could he be mistaken as a kid from the future. See, during his first trip here a week ago when he came to meet his favorite author Mark Twain, he'd been branded a witch by two woodsman who saw him step out of his Time Pendulum vortex. Noah had landed on a Mississippi riverbank, fallen into the water, and pulled to dry land by young Sam Clemens, also twelve, destined to grow-up and become Mark Twain. The frightened woodsmen raced their horses into Hannibal and brought back the sheriff and deputy who branded both he and Sam as witches. How ridiculous was that? This all happened because Noah had transposed the digits of his destination date from 1874 to 1847, thus meeting Twain as a boy rather than the adult future writer. It was Sam's clever hornswoggling of the lawman that helped them escape and avoid arrest, Sam racing him to meet his outbound vortex for home. But when Noah finally returned to 2020, he discovered history had been changed. Every one of his Mark Twain books was erased from history. Though he had made sure Sam did not see his vortex, it was not he who'd done the damage. He learned from Beaver that Dalt Hardiman, his middle-school nemesis, had used his newly built time machine to travel back and somehow stop Sam from becoming a writer, the reason for doing so still unknown. Noah also learned that meeting young Sam was no accident. Beaver explained Noah and Sam were destined to meet, thanks to the River of Time linking their fates from the start of history. Noah had returned to Hannibal moments ago through his time vortex so he could stop Dalt and restore Mark Twain's rightful destiny. But first, he must find young Sam Clemens. He hoped the boy hadn't— What a minute. Vortex. Vortex? Of course. This woman saw his time vortex, the swirling bluish energy through which he traveled, Beaver's Wormhole, the one he stepped out of smack-dab in the middle of the Hannibal town square. In the middle! Her ghost was him. “Witch!” screamed the old woman as she pointed a quivering finger at Noah, eyes still blazed white. Noah did the only thing a time-traveler could do. He ran. He turned toward the blacksmith’s stable down the street with every intention of running past it, but took one step and sunk his right foot deep into fresh horse manure. Disgusting. Why would anyone leave― And in the street? He remembered. Cars were decades away. These people only had horses. No time to scrap his shoe against the sidewalk edge. Running directly toward him came a burly man with a scruffy beard and a brandished rifle. The man reached; a hero determined to capture the witch. Noah ducked as the man’s huge hand swept overhead. He pivoted and took off at full throttle. Clutching his valuable saddlebag and its contents under an arm like a quarterback protecting the football, Noah beelined it right down the middle of the street. People were coming at him from all directions: two men from the saloon holding beer glasses, a man from the barbershop wearing a white bib, a man with thick eyeglasses from a lawyer’s office, a woman from a bakery wielding an umbrella, and the sheriff from the jail with 10-gallon hat, sidearms, everything; a complete cowboy. This man had attempted to arrest him during his first timeseeing trip. Blindsided from the left, a man managed to grab Noah with strong arms, trapping his arms at his sides. But Noah wiggled his way to freedom, kicked the man’s shin and left him hopping on one foot while clutching his leg. Noah continued to run, leaving that man behind and vowing revenge. Up ahead, more manure. Noah managed to leap in time and protected his left shoe as he sailed over the disgusting heap of sh― “I―” After impacting the dusty street, he dug in his heels, gained speed, determined to avoid capture, and followed the road that led out of town toward a forest. He’d find seclusion there. He hoped. Up ahead, more you-know-what. He jumped. “Hate―” Landing surefooted again, he maintained course, the end of town not far ahead. But a group of men appeared to his left, blocking his pathway. He veered right and aimed for the bank where two ladies crowded the entrance. As he neared, they screamed. One lady raised her arms and sent her wad of cash flowing into the summer breeze. Noah punched through that money, nearly knocking the ladies down. Inside he searched for a back door, an exit, a way to escape this craziness and those men chasing him. But no back door existed. So, he zigzagged through waiting patrons, sped around the autograph desk, nearly crashed into a teller carrying a tray of coins, and whipped back toward the front door. As he punched through the entrance and the panicked ladies, he caught a glimpse of his chasers crashing into that teller, the coins splashing through the air. Back outside and into the dirt street, Noah again leaped over that same pile of― “Manure!” When he touched down this time, the deputy had emerged from the jail and in pursuit through the street. So, Noah veered left this time, aimed for the nearby saloon, the entrance crammed with curious men. He punched through them as if they were paper. And he kept on running through the cluster of round wooden tables and chairs, zigzagging left and right, sideswiping men watching the action, up to the bar where the barkeeper with a grizzly mustache retrieved a rifle from under the counter, past a saloon girl wearing a feather encrusted hat, and back toward the front entrance―no back door either. As quick as before, he was back racing through the street toward the blacksmith stable. But more angry townsfolk were now swarming the street. Noah knew his time was running out. Sooner or later one of these men― He veered again, this time toward the motel. But he made it only a few yards when an angry mob attempted to surround him, corral him, capture him for the town lawman. He turned blindly and ran face and chest-first into the bulging stomach of a horse that pulled the wheat filled wagon. The horse reared onto its hind legs and whinnied in terror, jabbing at the air with its front hooves, the wheat pouring out the wagon and onto the dusty road. Another pile of― In that moment of dizziness, Noah bounced backward and into the arms of many men who rapidly took control of him, clawed at him as they grabbed his arms and neck to ensure he could not escape, which he couldn’t, though he kept tugging his arms and kicking at the legs surrounding him, all in vain. Now held in place, Noah saw the sheriff and deputy approaching through the street and the swarm of onlookers squeezing together for a closer look. Each lawman hosted the same sneer he’d see on their faces during his last encounter with them on the Mississippi riverbank, with Sam at his side. These men meant business. “Ain’t no point in fightin’, boy,” said the sheriff with a smug grin. “I'm lockin' you up.” The Time Pendulum #3Race to Save Time - 57,000Chapter 1 – A New Threat Noah Greenly stared at the most terrifying sight that history had ever shown this twelve-year-old time traveler. It occurred a few hundred yards away, out among the parched sand dunes under a blistering hazy-orange sun. This was Yucca Flat territory, a desert wasteland home to rattlesnakes and bird-murdering tarantulas. But what he saw and its potential meaning was out of this world. “Do you see that?” he asked of the friends beside him. He stood in front of a train tunnel where minutes ago he watched a forty-foot silver missile with its rocket engine fully engaged punch through that tunnel. It took off out over the desert, crashed among the dunes, and exploded in a grand fireball. It now lay sad and split open with its innards aflame while a column of black smoke drifted skyward. The nosecone was what caught Noah’s concern. At the bottom of that fire, there sizzled an ember that radiated a red glow more intense than the fire itself―ruby red. “There. See it? The red glow?” Noah knew his science. Fire was basically yellow, orange, and the cooler portion black, like sunspots which also appeared black on the sun’s molten orange surface. To get green, blue, pink, or even red fire, like in fireworks, salts and chlorides were added. But there were no fireworks here in the desert. And he was a long way from any sunspots. “The nosecone. Look.” Before leaking fuel ignited the engine and launched that rocket, Noah had taken a hatchet, split open the nosecone outer casing, and mangled a satellite inside, the payload. He’d found sensitive instruments, copper panels, wires, gizmos, and metal support rods, plus maneuvering thrusters which burned ammonia gas as fuel. But no part of this machine would burn red. So, something else was inside that satellite. “I don’t see anything,” answered Beaver, Noah’s best friend who stood at Noah’s left side. Beaver was forty-four-years old here in 2052, thirty-two years away from the seventh grade when he and Noah attended school together in Boulder City, back in 2020 when they were both twelve-years-old. It was also the same time Noah discovered a time machine built by his grandfather and hidden in his basement. After Noah went on his time travel adventures and deemed missing by his brokenhearted father, Beaver grew up to buy their old home. He discovered the time chamber and had been helping Noah repair the damage inflicted on history. Noah’d also traveled here to confront the one person who had caused the most damage to the past. “Are you blind? It’s right there.” “No, I’m not,” answered Beaver. “But what I do see is a time traveler who should be celebrating. Why today, Noah, you survived drowning in a toilet, helped blow up a mad scientist’s lair, foiled the diabolical plot of a monster, and got kissed by a girl. That’s a full day.” Yes, all that was good. Noah especially enjoyed being kissed by a girl, Ginger Clarice Cole, the red-haired twelve-year-old from his 2020 school bus. She had traveled into this future moment in 2052 to be here with him. She stood to his right with an arm around his waist, her thank you for his protecting her while inside that mad scientist’s lair. “Ginger, you see the red, don’t you?” “Well, now that you mention it, I think I see it.” “You think? Look at the sparks. They’re red too.” He wondered why he was the only one to notice. Maybe the desert heat had gotten to him, gave him mirages, played with his mind, infected everyone. No, he dismissed that notion. The red was real. And the mysterious meaning of it was what he feared. This all started when he and Ginger arrived in Yucca Flat. They’d snuck aboard a freight train bound for this tunnel gouged out of the hilly rock. Noah’s 2020 school bully, Dalt Hardiman now age forty-five, had hidden a time machine that he built; he’d stolen five of Noah’s six journals―one recaptured by Ginger―that contained the secrets of time travel. Dalt was busy taking over the world by changing history, and Noah and Ginger were on a mission to stop the man. They were members of Time Miners, a secret organization led by the adult Ginger of this 2052 time period that repaired damages to history. Noah found his books here in Yucca Flat and was planning to destroy Dalt’s time machine when he and Ginger were captured by Dalt’s military-style assault team. When Beaver arrived with his team of defenders, a skirmish broke out. During that firefight, Dalt grabbed Noah’s remaining four books and escaped into a time vortex that someone had sent specifically for him. And that vortex was red. Noah knew the science of vortexes too. Halions, an energetic particle siphoned from the solar wind, initiated time Wormholes and turned the swirling eddies blue. Dalt’s vortexes were purple made of halions mixed with plasma residue, like that found in the aurora borealis. But for a vortex to be red, like the one that helped Dalt escape, meant some other exotic particle helped to generate that vortex. It also meant Dalt had discovered an entirely new form of energy, and that was just plain dangerous. Dalt could further alter history and, even worse, time itself. For all Noah knew, he, Ginger, and Beaver could be standing in a completely different universe. That meant he might never be reunited with his father, his ultimate goal in all this. “We need to bring Hermie Shellhammer here,” Noah suggested. “He’s the expert who built that satellite. He’ll know what’s burning.” “I hate to breakup this mutual admiration society,” said John, standing to Beaver’s left. “But I need to address a problem more urgent.” John Duc Pow was the combat training instructor from Time Miners that led Beaver’s resistant assault team. The name was a handle; John Duck or Get Pow-ed, punched. He was a bearded grizzly Irishman with orange/red eyebrows and piercing green maniacal eyes, and he enjoyed busting up the enemy. Almost singlehandedly, he took on Dalt’s men. But when it became known that the rocket fuel was about to explode inside Dalt’s hideout, the fighting stopped and everyone rushed to find safety. Dalt escaped through a red vortex. His dozen assault goons escaped into their purple vortexes. But John and his men were forced to run through the train tunnel; their vortex emitters had ceased functioning, drained of halion energy by a hidden deactivating radiation, another secret weapon of Dalt’s. John was still ticked off about that too. “This heat is grueling. I need to get my men to safety.” His dozen team members were scouring the sand for their dropped rifles and helmets. The oppressive heat was rapidly zapping their strength. “Water and cool air are what we all need.” “Noah,” interrupted Ginger. “Why is that red glare so important?” “Excuse me.” John added irritation to his voice. “We’ll address your concerns in a minute,” Beaver said. “Go on, Noah, tell us what you think.” “Well, I’m a tinkerer. I like to understand how things work. I believe the red color is coming from a new form of energy that Dalt went into the future and stole, then brought it back for Hermie to build into that satellite. Plus, we have no idea what it is and what its capabilities are.” “And that makes it dangerous?” Ginger asked. “Yes, but that’s not the only thing that’s bad,” Noah answered. “What else is there?” “This energy source, this new power, is in the hands of a madman.”