Elusive Repairs

Theo searched the wall of ‘MISSING’ faces until he saw the one he was looking for. He glanced around the small corner store for prying eyes, grasped the bottom corners of the poster, and ripped it clean off. Once again, he remained unnoticed, and slipped the paper into his satchel with all the others. The edge of it poked out like a signal, and he shoved it down as best he could.

The door chimed as he fled the scene, weaving through the streets toward the very alley Oren Powell had declared as his workspace for the last three hours. Or four. Theo couldn’t remember anymore.

Sure enough, Oren was still there, still looking at his defunct watch, and still trying to fix it.

“Just accept defeat already, Rennie.”

Ren’s eyes snapped up, frown deepening. His hair, dark and unkempt, flickered in and out of its intended illusion—a short brown cut that made him look ready for baseball tryouts. Sadly, no amount of illusion magic could make him good at sports.

“My clothes aren’t affected anymore,” he motioned, as if the gray button-up he wore now was all that different from the red one it was supposed to be.

“You’re right,” Theo grimaced. “Let’s go home and run ten more tests, waste three more days, until your shirt turns red again.”

Ren dropped his wrist and gestured for Theo to hand his watch over. Rolling his eyes, he unclasped and tossed it, his own illusioned appearance fading. Irritating curls shortened into comfortable slicked dark hair with small strands purposefully left free against his forehead. If anyone’s clothes were a problem, it was the ripped t-shirt Theo threw on after waking up late this morning.

“It’s fine if you can’t fix it this time, man,” Theo tried. “That tech repair store will save your sanity.” And mine.

Ren huffed and shook his head, altering more settings with the soft glow of magic in his palm. “Have you heard from Talia?”

Theo placed his hand on the satchel’s pocket. “No. You?”

“I’m worried that’s broken, too…” Ren mumbled.

“Too bad there isn’t a tech repair store three blocks away.”

Ren was too stubborn to entertain the idea of another nerd touching his invention, so he changed the subject. “Where’d you go?”

Theo shrugged, crossing his arms. “Just… keepin’ myself busy.”

Ren looked up. Then stared at the satchel.

“What’d you steal?”

Accused without hesitation. Completely unprovoked; as if Theo had stolen anything recently. He tilted his head. “I’d call it public property, honestly.”

Ren tossed the watch back. While Theo snapped it on again, just as ‘broken’ as before, Ren pulled out a single poster. Then another. Each one displayed the same face and the same smile—a smile Ren was usually happy to see, all except for this moment, staring at it headlined with the word: ‘MISSING’.

He glanced toward the alley entrance before gathering the papers into a pile. A blue flame spread from his palm, setting them aflame. After reducing them to ash, Ren snapped, “You realize this isn’t helpful.”

“Sure it is,” Theo grinned. “Most ’a these places have enough posters. They won’t notice one is missing.”

“When her bounty is five times higher than all the others?”

“All the more reason to keep fresh eyes off of her poster.”

They would never agree, and it would never matter, because none of these people were ever going to find her.

Ren finally switched the illusion back on, hair once again brown and wavy, and his irritated eyes shaded to match. Half a second later, the shirt on his shoulders bled into crimson. He sighed and smoothed out the wrinkles, an almost-smile on his face from fixing the issue.

“Now, to that nerd store?”

Ren’s almost-smile wiped away. “I fixed it, though.”

Theo tilted his watch face toward Ren. “We’ve been gone at least four hours longer than promised, and not a single message from Lia.”

His brow furrowed, navigating the menus once again. “Maybe if I…”

Theo rolled his eyes and grabbed his wrist, pulling him out of the alleyway. His friend’s usual protests fell into resignation as they emerged from the alley.

With each crowded storefront they passed, Ren’s shoulders grew more tense. He followed hesitantly, suggesting they head home to apologize to Lia instead. But if they left Eldridge with half-working watches, Ren would kill himself trying to troubleshoot, and Lia might worry herself sick until he stopped.

“You gotta learn when to concede, man. Maybe this guy can walk you through how to fix it yourself. Win-win.”

After another handful of excuses and protests, the main event graced Theo’s eyes. Harbor Tech—the only store in all of Eldridge that may, hopefully, possibly, have magi-tech buried inside it. Ren stalled at the steps to stare through the windows, and Theo walked straight in.

A low whistle escaped him, quickly overwhelmed by the level of clutter that was achieved in such a narrow store. Ren slipped in after him, immediately noting the checkout counter to their right: vacant. Ren patted Theo on the shoulder and fed him some excuse before fleeing in the opposite direction. A wall of salvaged appliances swallowed him before Theo could retaliate. Behind cover, his friend was either running his hands over exposed circuits as if they spoke to him, or, more likely, still trying to fix these stupid watches without scrutiny.

Theo hadn’t made it more than three steps in before the ‘missing’ billboard called his name. Sure enough, from the dead center, Lia smiled back at him. He spun around to check for other customers. Employees. Ren.

He was in the clear, so he tore the poster off.

Instead of swimming through the salvaged junk for Ren, Theo decided he’d ask the repair guy about this issue himself. As Theo approached the front counter, vacant and equally cluttered, a hand wrapped around his wrist.

Theo snatched his assailant’s forearm and twisted, locking their own arm behind their back and his around their neck. A soft, surprised squeal caught in the air, and he glanced down. She was a petite girl with auburn hair, wearing a floral dress short enough to retaliate with ease. And she did.

Just as he’d taught her, she spun free. Her frown mirrored Ren’s, as if they spent too much time together or something, and she shoved the side of her fist into his chest.

“You know better than to sneak up on me, Lia,” Theo mumbled, pulling her further from the windows.

“It’s been six hours,” she spat, cheeks now competing with the temporary color of her hair. “Ren said it would only take two.”

Theo once again glanced around for anyone—still clear. “We’re fine, so go back home before Ren sees you’re here and has a heart attack.”

Speak of the devil. A pair of familiar footsteps echoed closer from a parallel aisle of salvage, and instead of waiting for Ren to round the corner, she pushed off Theo, as if he were a launching pad, and met him halfway.

“Talia? What are you—”

“Oren Powell, do you have a death wish?”

“No. But clearly you do.”

Theo leaned against a rusty metal table as the two whisper-yelled on the other side of an arcade cabinet. Except they weren’t great at whispering.

“Go home.”

“I can’t believe you came here without me.”

“Well, I couldn’t get the messages to…”

“Is that so?” She’d busted out sarcasm, and Theo said a quiet prayer for Ren. “For your sake, they better be broken. I tried to wait, Ren, I really did. What have you been doing?”

Theo poked his head around to interject, but the sight of those two, angry while wearing hair and clothes they’d never choose on a normal day, forced him to cough over a laugh and keep his comments to himself.

Lia placed her hands on Ren’s chest and grasped his red shirt; and thank goodness it was still red so it matched the tint in his cheeks. Theo removed himself before he witnessed anything unseeable, and tried to get a head start on solving their issue—well, one of their many issues. The checkout desk had no clerk, and the space behind it was so chaotic that he worried the owner might have buried himself alive.

Unchecked, this is what Ren’s room could become. Thank goodness for Lia.

He ran his hand over the counter and leaned forward, checking for loose cash. Receipts and repair tickets scattered across the station and into the floor, but no cash. Not even a stray coin.

“Can I help you?”

Theo stood straight, his gaze flicking around until it caught on a tall figure. Past the checkout, tucked in shadows like a hermit, was a man. Once he rose from a creaky chair and stepped into fluorescent lighting, Theo was suddenly certain: time travel is real.

This man was unkempt in a familiar way, with dark hair and stubble Ren wished he could grow, with the same tired eyes and resting scowl. This was Ren’s trajectory if Theo and Lia were to disappear.

Or maybe tech-nerds fit a specific stereotype that made all of them identical. Both were equally possible.

All Theo’s practiced inquiries tumbled to the floor. If this man were Ren, it’d be counterintuitive to hide Lia’s identity. It was also possible this man was not Ren and had a photographic memory of missing posters, because didn’t all geniuses have a photographic memory? Regardless, Lia needed to leave.

Instead, she marched up and slammed her watch on the counter—illusion lifted. Her hair was back to a jet-black braid, thrown over her shoulder and out of her way. The button-up on her shoulders, ‘borrowed’ from Ren’s wardrobe, hung loose around her small frame. Anyone who’d seen her poster would recognize her immediately. Including that man.

Ren was right behind her, stalled a few steps from the desk, and gently grabbed her wrist. He pulled her lightly, keeping far calmer than Theo’s racing heart. His same-person theory better be right.

“Seriously, I’ll just fix it when we—”

Lia retaliated by shutting his illusion off and tossing his watch on the counter, too. Now Theo was the only one with an illusioned appearance, which, even under his panic, made him feel ridiculous. He switched it off.

The older man quietly observed them like animals at the zoo, and his tired eyes stalled on Ren, who seemed ready to die of embarrassment over asking for tech help—even from himself.

Lia slid their watches forward, unfazed. “We need a repair.”

The older man ran his fingers along the watch like Ren would and navigated the menus like he’d been the one to program them.

“Where did you get these?” the man asked, eyes lingering on Ren. Theo also turned to wait for an answer. Instead, Lia interrupted.

“Is there actually a messaging function? It has never once worked. I waited hours for a response, but—”

“I didn’t lie,” Ren gently pulled her further away, looking everywhere besides his older self. “Let’s go. I’ll figure it out at home.”

The man stared at the watch for a long moment, quietly calculating as Lia stared him down. He found something notable in the menus and looked up to share.

“The modems switched off while trying to fix the backlog.” The man paused when Ren finally met his gaze. “Incompatible casts keep fighting the compatible ones.”

“No, I…” Ren let go of Lia and said something that made even less sense to Theo.

As the man pulled up a diagnostics screen, or something, Ren’s brow twitched. Theo completely checked out of the conversation. He couldn’t be bothered listening when he’d never understand it. Instead, he grabbed equally-tech-clueless Lia and successfully pulled her to the side.

“Does that guy remind you of someone?”

Lia’s gaze never left the two nerds. Older Ren showed younger Ren a problem he’d diagnosed in three seconds. They calmly discussed functions or settings or magic casts as if it wasn’t strange to talk about magic this openly. Ren’s guard didn’t just melt, it seeped into the floorboards to never be seen again.

Lia smiled. “I wasn’t expecting him to relax so fast. It’s cute.”

Theo wrinkled his nose. “It’s weird.”

“I’d use the words sweet, maybe wholesome, definitely handsome…” She leaned against the arcade cabinet as if she hadn’t made him nauseous.

“How about unusual, uncanny, and unsettling?”

Lia rolled her eyes. “I didn’t know you could be so dramatic.”

Ren leaned further over the counter as the man tilted the watch face to show him something. He grabbed the device and began working while the older man stood on standby.

Ren, being corrected in his area of expertise, and listening? Or was he correct by proxy?

While Theo was distracted, Lia snatched the band of his watch and pried it loose in one fluid motion. She called Ren’s name, and the moment he turned, she tossed it. He caught it with a sideways swipe and sent her a brief smile.

It wasn’t rare for him to smile at her necessarily, but he’d been in such a pissy mood all day. He wasted their afternoon avoiding this store just to waltz in and turn into someone else entirely.

“It really doesn’t creep you out?” Theo asked. Lia turned back to him, a smile lingering.

“No?” She raised a brow. “But I am annoyed. How’d you convince him to come here?”

“Convince isn’t the word I’d choose,” Theo shook his head. “He was still hell-bent on fixing those things himself. Only for him to ask his older self for help.”

Lia snorted. “Yeah. I wasn’t expecting the resemblance to be so strong.”

“Resemblance to himself?” Theo laughed, unsure of where the joke ended and sincerity began.

Lia slowly turned. “Himself?”

“Like, time travel, and…” he trailed off when Lia bit back a smile. His pride wasn’t easily wounded, but she packed a punch. “…kidding. Only kidding. The joke didn’t land.”

“Was it one?” She called his bluff. He doubled down.

“‘Course. I just mean that all nerds look the same. He’s destined to look like that when he’s older. Sorry.”

Lia slowly nodded, taking a step back with his watch still in her hand. “Yeah… I’ve heard lots of people grow up to resemble their parents.”

Theo blinked. Lia laughed.

And then she walked away.

“What?”

Theo followed her, startling Ren with a grab to the shoulder, and forcefully pulled him from the counter. Before Ren could shove him off, a question fell from Theo’s mouth.

“You have a dad?”

He never claimed it was a good question.

Ren blinked, eyes shifting to see if the man—his dad, apparently—had heard. Then he mumbled, “Isn’t it obvious?”

And it was. It stared him right in the face.

“You never mentioned that,” Theo crossed his arms, a strange level of frustrated embarrassment radiating from him.

“It’s never been relevant.” Ren said, awkward enough that Theo felt better about his own misfortune.

“Yes it has. Especially when he’s a smarter version of you.”

Ren’s brow twitched again. “Faster, actually.”

Theo opened his mouth to say something else to make Ren angry, redirect the room away from himself, when Lia shattered his plans with the use of two words.

“Hey, time traveler.” She laced her fingers with Ren’s.

“Time traveler?”

Theo couldn’t control his expressions fast enough, twisting with an embarrassment he struggled to laugh off. Ren, however, broke into a full smile—a first for today. “Don’t tell me… Time travel?”

“Even if I was wrong, this doesn’t prove that time travel’s not real.” He shredded every straw he tried to grasp. “But I gotta know. Did you actually make those watches?”

He went too far. Ren retreated with quiet and furious eyes, tugging Lia along with him. “I can make your illusion have a toupee, if you’d prefer.”

Now he’d gone too far. Before Theo could march up to Ren’s dad and request something equally ridiculous, the three of their watches synced with a soft chime. Ren’s dad offered one to Lia. She grabbed Theo’s and tossed it as Ren secured his.

“I tightened the cast restraints so no power is wasted,” Ren’s dad explained to all of them, for some reason. “And Talia’s is attuned to change her face, too.”

“It can do that?” Theo mused, tapping the watch face. It displayed the time, as well as a mass of panicked messages from Lia.

Ren had twice as many, far more aggressive, and Theo was proud of her for not killing him upon arrival. After sorting through the messages, Ren refused to look at her. Instead, he glanced at his dad. He mumbled a quiet ‘thanks.’

His dad smiled. Turns out that was the same, too. “If it detects her poster nearby, it kicks on,” he said, gaze lingering on Theo for a split second. “The shift is subtle, but it’s enough to fool most anyone.”

Ren turned to Theo and crossed his arms with a mirrored grin—this had to be a record: Most times Ren has smiled in a 24-hour period.

“Huh.” Ren said. “All the more reason to stop stealing her posters.”

“You’re stealing my posters?”

Theo scoffed, unwelcome embarrassment fleeing, and glanced down at the watch face. He composed a short message, and two chimes echoed in the quiet.

Ren huffed. Lia laughed.

‘Not happening.’