Time Slip

I get so tired on these overnight shifts. I have been basically a slave for years now. First as an undergraduate student, now as a research assistant and a TA. The overnight shifts are the worst. I am babysitting a nano reactor that produces chronoton particles. I feel more like a security guard at a power plant than a doctoral candidate. I keep track of saturation levels and flow of the particles into the storage containment. I cannot believe Steven Hawkins ever had to do such grunt work. That is the last thing I remember before waking up 200 miles away and 4 days back in time.

I am disoriented and confused. How did I get in another state? I was looking at the levels in the storage tank and now here I am. I look at my watch and the date is different. My clothes look unkempt and I look like I haven't washed or shaved in a week. I check for a wallet and find one with an id. I see the picture matches who I am and I have a credit card and some money. I don't have my cell phone and I cannot remember much from that night. I must be going mad!

It takes me several hours to get myself together. I use what money I have on me to get a cheap hotel and some food. I am exhausted and starving at the same time. It is like having a severe case of jet lag. I try calling a few people from the university, but no one answers. So, I turn on the news, and it is like Deja vu. I remember everything that I am seeing from the news feed I am tuned into. I am so tired, I need some rest. I go to bed and the next thing I know, I wake up several hours later but not in the seedy hotel room I rented, but my own bed. I am flipping out here. I am wearing my pajamas. I stumble out of bed into the bathroom . I wash my face and strip off my clothes and jump into the shower. I get out still dazed and confused, I look at the clock and shit, I am so late for my class at the university that I am supposed to teach. The professor is going to kill me. I dress and get on my bike. I race over to the university and into the science building. As I enter the lecture hall from the rear, I look down and someone is already teaching the class and it is half over. I just sit down and wait for the berating I am going to get. I am so screwed! The class seems to pass quicker than usual. I go down to the associate professor and just as I am about to speak, she turns around and drops all of her papers and just lets out a scream before fainting. I am so confused right now.

I get the professor to her office and bring her around. I speak and she recoils in fear. I ask what is wrong, is she okay? She stutters; you are dead! Dead I think, no I don't think so. I say no I am not dead. I am very much alive professor. I have a bottel of water I offer her and she gulps it down while looking a sickly shade of pale. I ask what is wrong. Then it dawns on me. Oh shit, something must have happened at the lab. I tell her to stay put I will be back soon. I walk quickly out of the building and head over to the research lab. I get within 200 meters and I see it, the building is a smoldering husk and it is cordoned off with yellow tape and there are people in hazmat suits walking around all over the place. I realize that something has gone seriously wrong and I may be in deep shit.

I start back to my bike and then I blackout for a moment. The next thing I know, I am sitting in the outer office of the professor who was running the cronoton research project. I look at my watch to check the time, and I pull up the date. It is approximately 1 year and 23 days earlier than it was a few moments ago. I am confused as shit. I am wearing the same clothes the day I went for the interview. As I am about to get up and leave, the receptionist calls me for the interview. I cannot believe this, I go into the office and she tells me that the professor will be with me shortly. I look at my watch and remember that I was 5 minuets late for the interview. I am early, oh crap this cannot be happening. I get up and start out the way I came in only to hear myself outside. I am so going mental right now. I try the office side door and it is unlocked. I slip out as my other self is coming in. This is confusing, I have to get a grip.

The next thing I know I am sitting in an interview in a police station. I feel like I have to pee a gallon. The temperature is irregularly hot. The bright fluorescent lights hurt my eyes. Then I hear a slap on the table, I look up and a guy with a badge and gun says hey, are you paying attention. I am confused and out of sorts. I ask if I can use the bathroom. He looks pissed at me and frowns with a vindictive scowl. He says, you have been here for hours and you are not making any sense. I finally ask again, can I go piss. With some reluctance, the door opens and a smartly dressed woman who has an air of authority says sure, let's take a break. I waddel out to the bathroom and relieve myself. The next thing I know I am back at my apartment. It is late afternoon. I look at the wall satilite wall clock and it is 4 days past the time that I had my night shift at the reasearch facility. I sit down and think to myself, I am so done with this. I need to clear my head. I begin packing a bag and find my stash of emergency money. I decide that I need to be as inconspicous as possible. I am going to wait until the sun sets a little and slip down to the train station. I start to pack my lap top and phone then it dawns on me, they can easily be tracted. I turn on the tv and look at the news. I sit quietly as I can and wait to see the full cycle before they begin to replay the news on the quarter hour. I get the local stuff and the weather, but no real mention about the lab being destroyed.

I black out again and the next thing I know I am on a train halfway to Canada. I do not even know how I got here. I look around and it is dark outside. I can see the lights of houses as the train speeds towards whatever destination I had planned. Then it dawns on me, I was going to a family lake cabin owned by my great aunt that will not be in use right now. I try to focus but I feel a little light headed. I open my bag to see if I brought anyting to eat. I hit the jackpot. Apparently, my past self-thought to bring snacks. I eat and drink a bottle of lukewarm water as I contemplate what is happening to me. The train moves on and I feel woozy again and bam, I am gone. I wake up in the cabin with a small fire going in the fireplace. I am laying on a bearskin rug, and I have on different clothes. I look at my watch, and it is several hours from when I checked my watch last time. I am terrified and confused at the same time. I sit up and wonder what is happening to me? I begin to try to remember everything that has happened up to this point. I am confused and hungry, my watch says it should be approaching dawn. I decide to go out and clear my head. I walk out of the cabin into the first light of predawn. I find a tree and relieve myself. I then sit down on a big rock not 50 meters from the lake. I can hear the water splashing and feel a breeze from off of the lake. It elicits a memory from 4 years ago when I was here with my family and there was a girl I was fond of but didn't tell her. Suddenly, I am back there and it is broad daylight. I look down and see that girl sunning herself by the lake. I am dressed differently but I don't feel any less confused. I go down towards her trying to get my bearings. I stumble and almost fall over her. She looks up and giggles at me. I say hello and the rest is pretty much a blur. I know that I told her how I felt. Then as suddenly as I was with her, I am going. I am back in the cabin and I look at the time on my watch. The time and date are just a few hours from when I woke up. I am so confused right now.

I still am no closer to figuring out what is going on, but I have begun to formulate a theory. I am studying particle physics after all. I deduce that somehow; I am having time slips. I know it sounds crazy even to say it out loud. The ability to time travel seems insane. It is then that it all comes to a head. I feel myself beginning to move again, but this time it is as if something is pulling me. It feels like I am being drawn to a magnet. The next thing I know, I appear in a strange looking room filled with all kinds of weird panels. They look like some kind of weird speakers and they are point at the chair I am sitting in from all directions. I am still a little disoriented but not confused this time. I have perfect clarity of mind. My first thougt is, shit have been abducted by aliens. From the bright lights beyond my new location, a calming voice says relax, you have not been abtucted as if they could read the expression on my face. Then with a dry raspy voice, I ask then where am I and who may I ask are you. A woman in a rather weird looking silver suit holding a ominous looking device approaches me. I hear another voice from beyond the lights that says he is fluctuating again. The woman speaks again and asks me to please calm down. I retort, yeah that is something aliens would say just before they vivisect you. I hear a pleasant giggle come from her suit. She then removes her helmet and I see that it is the woman from the police station. I get the feeling that I am not in Kansas anymore.

The next thing that happens is the woman comes towards me with the meter and ask if I would allow her to place something on me. I look nervous but at this point I am game for anything. She pulls out something that looks like an oversized wristwatch and hands it to me. I look it over a few moments and decide that it should be safe. I put it on my right wrist and it locks into place. I am kind of taken aback but she assures me that it is not all that dangerous. She even shows me how to remove it should I feel overwhelmed, she just pleads with me to not get too far from it. Over the next several hours I am taken from the area where they caught me. Oh SNAP, I didn't even think about it until now. The room was a static cromoton collecter. Now it makes sense I thought as I was being given the 50 cent tour. I had a million questions but few answers were forth coming. All the woman would tell me is that I was bouncing around the temperal time line like a pingpong ball and that they had one hell of a time corraling me. I felt a bit smug and a bit peeved. So I am cattel now huh was my thought. The woman gave me her title and supposed last name. She explained to me that there had been an accident or not at the lab where I was working. I had been exposed to a massive release of cronotons that set off all kinds of alarms all over the United States. It did not take a scientist which I hoped to be one day to figure out why the lab now existed and who had me. I just ask one question of the delightful doctor, are you going to kill me? With a raised eyebrow, she staried directly at me with her dark blue eyes and said frankly, I don't think we could even if we wanted to and if we did try, all of might be in deep Guano.

Over the next several days, I was subject to several experiments and questioned by many different individuals from medical doctors to engineers. Even one weird looking woman who I recognized from the cover of an obscure magazine no one, but lonely nerds would ever pick up. She is the top authority on theoretical physics and bioethics. Now I am her guinea pig. In the final wind up, I get called into a meeting and it is explained to me in short order that I am the first human in known modern history to successfully time travel. I look at the scientist, doctors and people in uniforms with one question, successfully? So have you tried this before? The room is silent and cold for a moment then one General, I think that is what he is said that leave it to say yes and keep it at that. So now I am intrigued and terrified all at the same time. So the next and most important question I have is when can I leave. There is a pregnant pause and the air in the room grown thick, but the woman who first dealt with me says, we are evaluating that possibility. So to be clear, I now can just pop in and out of time lines. I only seem to have the ability to go backwards or back to the current time line where time is progressing. I am not comfortable with being a lab rat but I play along for the moment. Suddenly I feel the urge to go to the bathroom. So I ask if I can be excused. Once in the toilet, I decide it is time for some me time. So I pop off the little anchor, do my business and exit the bathroom. I then think really hard about a place I want to be and boom I am gone again.