The Chronos Effect
Chapter Three: Second Chances
The second time around, I didn't waste time staring at myself in the bathroom mirror or wondering if I was losing my mind. I had work to do.
Amy was humming in the kitchen again. Same tune—something by Taylor Swift that had been stuck in her head all week. The smell of blueberry pancakes filled the apartment, mixing with the coffee she'd already brewed. Everything exactly the same as before, like the universe had hit a giant reset button.
But I was different now. I knew what was coming. I knew about the drunk driver leaving Murphy's Bar at 5:47 PM. I knew about the bus accident on Highway 61. I knew that Mrs. Chen's Toyota had been making strange grinding noises for two weeks, and she'd finally decided to take public transportation rather than risk breaking down on the highway.
This time, I was going to stop all of it.
"Morning, sleepyhead," Amy called when she heard me walk into the kitchen. "You were tossing and turning all night. Bad dreams?"
"You could say that." I sat down at the table and watched her flip pancakes with practiced ease. "Amy, I need to ask you something, and I need you to be completely honest with me."
She glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. "That sounds ominous."
"Your mom's car. Has it been giving her trouble lately?"
Amy paused, spatula halfway to the pan. "How did you know that?"
"Just answer me."
"Yeah, it's been making this awful grinding noise when she turns. She's been talking about taking it to the shop, but you know how she is about spending money on repairs." Amy turned around to face me fully. "Damian, how did you know about Mom's car?"
"Lucky guess. Is she planning to go anywhere today?"
"She wanted me to come over for dinner, but I was going to cancel anyway. We had plans, remember?" She slid a plate of pancakes in front of me. "Why are you asking about this?"
"Because I need you to call her. Right now. Tell her not to drive anywhere today, and definitely don't take the bus."
Amy stared at me like I'd started speaking in tongues. "The bus? Mom never takes the bus. She says public transportation is for people who can't afford cars."
"Just call her, Amy. Please."
"Not until you tell me what's going on. You're acting really strange."
I set down my fork and looked at her directly. She deserved the truth, even if she wouldn't believe it.
"I think I can see the future," I said.
"What?"
"Or maybe I'm experiencing time differently. I don't know exactly how it works, but I know things that haven't happened yet."
Amy sat down across from me, studying my face. "Okay. Like what?"
"Like the fact that you're about to tell me you lost our baby three weeks ago."
Her face went white. She gripped the edge of the table so hard her knuckles turned pale.
"How do you know that?"
"Because you told me yesterday. Except yesterday was also today, if that makes any sense."
"It doesn't make any sense at all."
"I know how it sounds. But Amy, listen to me. If your mom tries to go anywhere today, she's going to take the bus because her car is acting up. And at exactly 6 PM, a drunk driver named Robert Hendricks is going to run a red light on Highway 61 and kill her."
Amy stood up so fast her chair fell over backward. "Stop it."
"Along with three other people. Including a college student named Maria Santos who was just trying to get home to her family, and an elderly man named—"
"Stop it!" She backed away from me, shaking her head. "This is sick, Damian. This is really sick."
"It's not sick, it's true. And if we don't do something right now, it's going to happen in exactly ten hours and thirteen minutes."
"You need help. Professional help."
"Maybe I do. But first, call your mother."
Amy stared at me for a long moment, then grabbed her phone. She dialed with shaking fingers.
"Mom? It's me... No, everything's fine... Listen, this is going to sound strange, but I need you to promise me you won't leave the house today... What? No, nothing's wrong, I just have a really bad feeling... Mom, please, just humor me..."
I could hear Mrs. Chen's voice through the phone, higher pitched and questioning.
"I know you were planning to go to the grocery store, but can you order delivery instead? ... Yes, I'll pay for it... Mom, please, just this once, stay home..."
The conversation went on for another five minutes, with Amy making increasingly desperate pleas and Mrs. Chen asking increasingly worried questions. Finally, Amy managed to extract a promise that her mother wouldn't leave the house.
"There," Amy said after hanging up. "Happy? I just convinced my mother that her daughter is having some kind of breakdown, but she's staying home."
"Thank you."
"Now what? Are you going to tell me the winning lottery numbers? Predict the weather?"
I pulled out my own phone and started searching for Murphy's Bar on Google Maps. "Now we stop the drunk driver."
"The what?"
"Robert Hendricks. Thirty-four years old, drives a blue Ford pickup with Louisiana plates. He's going to start drinking at Murphy's Bar around 3 PM and leave completely wasted at 5:47."
Amy sat back down, watching me with a mixture of fascination and fear. "And you know this how?"
"Because I've lived through this day before. I watched it happen."
"That's impossible."
"A week ago, you would have been right. But a week ago, I didn't know quantum consciousness was a real thing."
"Quantum what?"
I looked up from my phone. "Dr. Vasquez thinks extreme trauma might be able to create some kind of entanglement between different moments in time. A way for consciousness to jump backward under very specific circumstances."
"You talked to your advisor about this?"
"After you died."
Amy went very still. "After I what?"
"In the original timeline, you died in a car accident. We were driving home from dinner, and the same drunk driver that kills your mother hit us instead. You died in my arms on Highway 61 while I waited for the paramedics."
She stared at me for a long time. Then she started crying.
"Amy—"
"You really believe this, don't you? You really think you traveled back in time."
"I know how it sounds."
"No, you don't." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "It sounds like the man I love is having a complete mental breakdown, and I don't know how to help him."
"You help me by letting me save people."
"By calling the police? By reporting someone who hasn't committed a crime yet?"
"By whatever it takes."
I found Murphy's Bar on my phone—a dive place in the French Quarter that opened at noon. Perfect. That gave me a few hours to figure out my approach.
"Damian, please think about what you're saying. Even if you could somehow predict the future, you can't just walk up to a stranger and accuse them of something they haven't done."
"I'm not going to accuse him of anything. I'm going to stop him from doing it."
"How?"
Good question. In the original timeline, Robert Hendricks had left Murphy's Bar completely drunk and gotten behind the wheel of his truck. In the second timeline, he'd done the exact same thing, except he'd hit the bus instead of my car. The constant seemed to be his decision to drive while intoxicated.
So I needed to make sure he didn't drive.
"I'm going to slash his tires," I said.
Amy stared at me. "You're going to what?"
"Slash his tires. If his truck won't start, he can't drive anywhere."
"That's vandalism. That's a crime."
"So is vehicular manslaughter."
"But he hasn't done that yet!"
"He will if I don't stop him."
Amy stood up again, running her hands through her hair. "This is insane. This whole conversation is insane."
"Amy, I need you to trust me."
"Trust you to commit crimes based on your psychic visions?"
"Trust me to save lives."
She looked at me for a long moment, and I could see her wrestling with the decision. Part of her thought I was crazy. But another part—the part that loved me—wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, I was telling the truth.
"If you do this," she said finally, "and nothing happens, will you agree to see a therapist?"
"If I do this and nothing happens, I'll check myself into a mental hospital."
"And if you're right?"
"Then we figure out what to do next."
She nodded slowly. "Okay. But I'm coming with you."
"Amy, no. It's too dangerous."
"If my boyfriend is about to have a psychotic break in public, I want to be there to minimize the damage."
I could see there was no point arguing with her. And honestly, I was grateful for the company. Facing down destiny was terrifying enough without doing it alone.
We spent the next hour preparing. I found a knife in the kitchen drawer—not ideal for tire slashing, but it would have to do. Amy insisted on bringing her phone to call 911 if things went wrong. I tried to eat more pancakes, but my stomach was too twisted with nerves.
At 10 AM, we drove to the French Quarter and found Murphy's Bar. It wasn't open yet, but there was a small parking lot behind the building where employees parked. We found a coffee shop across the street where we could sit and watch.
"Now what?" Amy asked, stirring sugar into her latte.
"Now we wait."
"For how long?"
"Robert Hendricks usually shows up around 3. Blue Ford pickup, Louisiana plates starting with DX7."
Amy shook her head. "I can't believe I'm doing this."
The next few hours crawled by. Amy tried to make normal conversation, asking about my thesis defense and whether I'd heard back from any of the job applications I'd sent out. But I could barely focus on anything except watching the parking lot behind Murphy's Bar.
At 2:47 PM, a blue Ford pickup pulled into the lot.
"That's him," I said, standing up so fast I knocked over my coffee cup.
Amy grabbed my arm. "Wait. How can you be sure?"
I could see the license plate from across the street: DX7-492. Exactly what I remembered.
"Because I've seen this before."
Robert Hendricks climbed out of the truck. Mid-thirties, brown hair, wearing a Saints jersey and jeans. He looked tired, beaten down by life. Just a regular guy having a bad day, about to make the worst decision of his life.
"He looks normal," Amy said.
"They usually do."
We watched him walk around to the front of the bar. A few minutes later, we saw him through the window, sitting at the bar alone, already nursing his first beer.
"Okay," I said. "Here's the plan. I'm going to walk over there and puncture his tires. You stay here and keep watch."
"What if someone sees you?"
"Then you call me and I run."
"What if you get arrested?"
"Then at least Robert Hendricks won't be driving home tonight."
Amy grabbed my hand. "Damian, what if you're wrong? What if this is all in your head?"
I looked at her—really looked at her. Her dark eyes were wide with worry, and there were stress lines around her mouth that I'd never noticed before. She was scared. Not just scared that I was losing my mind, but scared that maybe I wasn't.
"Then I'm wrong," I said. "But if I'm right, and I do nothing, people die."
She squeezed my hand. "Be careful."
I walked across the street, trying to look casual. The parking lot was mostly empty, just a few cars and trucks belonging to the bar's afternoon crowd. I made my way to Robert's blue pickup and crouched down next to the rear tire.
The knife felt heavy in my hand. Such a small thing to prevent such a big tragedy.
I pressed the blade against the tire and pushed. The rubber was tougher than I'd expected, but finally, it gave way with a soft hissing sound. Air began to leak out slowly.
One down, three to go.
I was working on the second tire when I heard footsteps behind me.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
I turned around to find Robert Hendricks standing there, holding a beer bottle and looking confused rather than angry.
"I, uh..." I stood up slowly, still holding the knife.
"Are you slashing my tires?"
There was no point denying it. "Yes."
"Why?"
It was such a simple question, but I didn't have a simple answer. How do you explain time travel to a drunk stranger in a parking lot?
"Because if I don't, you're going to kill four people tonight."
Robert blinked at me, then looked down at his beer like maybe he was drunker than he thought. "What?"
"You're going to drive home drunk, run a red light on Highway 61, and hit a bus. Four people are going to die, including a college student and a grandmother."
"Lady, you are seriously disturbed."
"My name is Damian Torres. I'm 28 years old, I study quantum physics at Tulane, and I'm trying to save your life as much as anyone else's."
Robert took a step back. "I'm calling the cops."
"Go ahead. Tell them some crazy guy is trying to prevent vehicular manslaughter by slashing tires. See how that works out."
He stared at me for a long moment, then looked down at his truck. Two tires were already flat.
"You're serious about this, aren't you?"
"Dead serious."
"And you really think I'm going to kill people?"
"I know you are. Unless I stop you."
Robert sat down heavily on the hood of a nearby car. "Man, this day just keeps getting weirder."
"Bad day?"
"Got fired this morning. Girlfriend left me last week. My dad's in the hospital with cancer." He took a long drink from his beer. "Was planning to drink enough to forget about all of it."
"I'm sorry."
"Not your fault." He looked at me curiously. "How exactly do you know what I'm going to do?"
I sat down next to him, setting the knife on the ground between us. "That's complicated."
"I got time. My truck's not going anywhere."
So I told him. Everything. About watching Amy die, about traveling back in time, about the bus accident that killed Mrs. Chen when I saved Amy instead. About quantum consciousness and temporal entanglement and the weight of trying to change fate.
Robert listened without interrupting, occasionally nodding or taking a sip of beer. When I finished, he was quiet for a long time.
"That," he said finally, "is the craziest damn story I ever heard."
"But?"
"But you did just slash my tires to prevent me from driving drunk. So either you're a very dedicated crazy person, or you're telling the truth."
"What do you think?"
He looked at me, then at his disabled truck, then back at me. "I think," he said slowly, "that maybe someone's trying to tell me something. Maybe my dad getting cancer and my girlfriend leaving and losing my job... maybe it's all connected. Maybe I was supposed to meet you today."
"Maybe."
"You really think I would have killed people?"
"I know you would have."
He finished his beer and set the bottle down carefully. "Then I guess I owe you a thank you."
"You don't owe me anything. Just... call a cab when you're ready to go home, okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."
I picked up the knife and stood to leave, then stopped. "Robert?"
"Yeah?"
"Get some help. For the drinking, I mean. Your dad's going to need you sober."
He nodded. "I've been thinking about that."
I walked back across the street, where Amy was waiting with wide eyes and a concerned expression.
"How did it go?"
"Better than expected."
"Did you finish slashing his tires?"
"Two was enough. He's not driving anywhere tonight."
Amy stared at me. "He just let you vandalize his truck?"
"It's complicated."
We drove home in relative silence, both of us processing what had just happened. It wasn't until we were back in our apartment that Amy finally asked the question I'd been dreading.
"So what now? If you're right, if you really did change things, what happens next?"
"I don't know," I said honestly. "I guess we wait and see if anyone dies on Highway 61 tonight."
"And if they don't?"
"Then we figure out what to do about the fact that I can apparently travel through time."
Amy curled up next to me on the couch, her head on my shoulder. "This is going to change everything, isn't it?"
I kissed the top of her head, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo. "Maybe. But at least we'll face it together."
At 6 PM exactly, we turned on the local news. The lead story was about a water main break downtown. No mention of any accidents on Highway 61.
Amy and I looked at each other, and I saw my own mixture of relief and terror reflected in her eyes.
I had changed things. Again.
Now I just had to hope there wouldn't be any more consequences I hadn't thought of.