With that out of the way, you can hardly wait to take Brett out for a spin, all the way back to the age of dinosaurs. Thankfully, temporal physics proves that there's no possibility of messing with anything in the present, no matter what you do tens of millions of years ago in the past. To put it bluntly, the "butterfly effect" is a myth—just something science-fiction writers dreamed up.
With the time-travel apparatus taking up so much space in the back of the Land Rover, you had to remove the rear seats, converting it into a two-seater. You need to be creative in cramming food and supplies into every available nook and cranny. Extra gas cans and a couple of spare tires go on the roof, together with a tank of propane in case the wood in the Cretaceous is too damp for a cook fire. Since there'll be no stopping at a convenience store if you forget your sunglasses, you must make trade-offs as to what's absolutely necessary for seven, eight, or nine days of roughing it in dinosaur territory. What do you bring?.
You always strive to make the best decision, even when it's unclear whether to take bold action or to exercise caution. That's not a bad way at all to face the unknown. Not surprisingly, your best friend brings his new rifle.
Tucked in your bag will be a few of your favorite inspirational quotes written by…
You're hoping they'll come in handy for the comedy you'd like to film. Plus a joke every now and then is a good way to ease tension.
It takes you the better part of the evening, but eventually, you and Brett have sorted through the sea of equipment strewn all over the garage floor and crammed a small portion of it into the Way Way Wayback Machine. Just in time, too!
"Whew," you say. "Ten minutes to midnight." That's when the time window opens.
"My cell phone says twelve minutes before midnight." He looks worried.
"Hey, it doesn't matter. We have an entire half-hour window. I've told you that."
"I know, I know. But this is our last chance at it for months and months." Brett runs a hand through his hair.
That's true. Time travel to the Late Cretaceous—67 million years ago—depends on complex calculations of time and space. You've only identified three launch windows this year, and two of those already happened before you got the Way Way Wayback Machine up and running.
"You think I'd be late? Me?" That produces a smile. It feels good to be able to joke about this. And anyway, a unique orange shimmer will surround the time machine, thereby alerting you when the time window is open. "Let's get the camera rolling."
What final preparations do you make for your historic departure?
For someone who's about to make history, you look a little wild-haired and rumpled, but who cares? What's important is that your time machine is well provisioned with many notebooks, pens, and pencils. Its lights, humming noise, and readouts all reassure you that everything is as ready as possible for the scientific expedition of the century.
You've rigged the Land Rover to play a loud one-minute warning before the time window opens. It blasts through the garage and probably wakes up half of your suburban neighborhood.
Brett's a wide-eyed bundle of nerves—who can blame him? On impulse, you grab the silly duckbill-dinosaur cap that he gave you and put it on. The hat makes Brett smile.
As you settle into the driver's seat and buckle up, your pulse is racing. With a trembling hand, you run through the preflight procedures. The flux navigator's green lights glow steadily. The time machine keeps humming. All systems are go. Brett confirms it. You press the launch button, and…
The Garage Disappears
One second, the garage is right outside the windshield, and the next second your time machine is surrounded by an inky darkness broken up by purple ripples. All is dead quiet save for the humming of your equipment. There's no sensation of motion, though you experience an unsettled feeling in the pit of your stomach. Is this an effect of surfing the timestream or simply your own nervous anticipation? The chronometer on the console between the seats counts down the six-minute trip. You place your hands on the steering wheel out of habit. It moves freely, as though it isn't connected to anything meaningful. Although that's what you expected, because you're using autopilot for the voyage out, it still feels wrong. Now there's five minutes and thirty seconds to go. You make good use of your time.
Instead of laughing, he says, "I'd feel better if you focused more on the readouts and less on me."
You turn to them, but the numbers whirl by incomprehensibly. You rub your eyes. "Everything's fine. I'll look at the data later." The rest of the trip passes in tense silence.
The final seconds elapse. Brilliant sunlight floods the Way Way Wayback Machine. The back of the Land Rover drops alarmingly, slamming your head into the headrest. Your vehicle settles at a troubling slant.
An agonizing shriek reverberates through the vehicle. You twist around to see a grayish blue leathery wing filling the rear window. You stick your head out the side window. That wing is big enough to wrap around the side and the back of the Land Rover, and part of it is badly mangled beneath the Way Way Wayback Machine's rear wheels. The creature's other wing is free.
Your eyes follow its stilt-like legs up to its compact torso, and up some more to its long, thick neck, white and as wrinkled as an old man's skin…and up yet farther to the beak pointed at you like a yellow sword. Above that, two round black eyes filled with pain and desperation fix on you.
"A pterosaur!" you exclaim.
Pterosaur