23

If you can pull this off, there's no disputing your accomplishment. You're about to become the Amelia Earhart of your generation (only with a better ending).

Switching to time-travel mode goes without a hitch. The Way Way Wayback Machine emits a familiar, reassuring hum. The flux navigator springs to life. There's almost nothing more welcoming than the glowing green lights winking on. You key in the command sequence to enable the time window to open.

AAOOOGGHAAA! AAOOOGGHAAA! AAOOOGGHAAA! blasts out across the prehistoric landscape. It's your one-minute warning. The orange shimmer cascades around the Land Rover. The time window stands open. Your heart thumps in time with those glorious pulses. You press the dual launch buttons.

The Cretaceous world disappears. One second, the lake and the sequoia forest lie outside your dust-streaked windshield, and the next second your time machine is surrounded by inky darkness. When your eyes adjust, you perceive purple ripples, familiar from the voyage out, only there seem to be more of them now, and they bombard you from all sides. Is this normal?

The standard readings on your flux navigator do nothing to calm your nerves. Nor does its hum. There's no sensation of motion, though you experience an unsettled feeling in the pit of your stomach. You place your hands on the steering wheel out of habit. It moves freely, as though disconnected from anything meaningful. Although that's what you expected and what you experienced on the backward journey, nonetheless it feels wrong. The chronometer above the rearview mirror counts up the return trip. Home in fifteen minutes.

Nobody says a word or even meets one another's eye. What, after all, is there to say? The trip feels like an eternity. On the way, how do you spend your time?