THIS TIME

A short fan-fiction by Joseph Houk

really didn't care to watch Reform School Girls 3 or whatever was on. When I got up to my bedroom, I saw that green light again, coming from across the hallway and under Cassie's door! Curiosity got the best of me, especially when I saw her room door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open, and saw her, passed out on her desk and fast asleep. She didn't LOOK that tired when I saw her a few minutes ago, I thought. I shrugged it off and decided maybe I should just get in bed and go to sleep. I also swore off eating extra spicy pork rinds after that. Time went on and Cassie graduated from Oklahoma, interned at MIT in Boston, then got that cushy job at TerCon in 2003 and moved to Dallas with Bethany. After graduating from JTHS a few years later, and despite mom's objections, I signed up for the Army. Two years after playing in the sandbox that was Iraq, I got into Texas A&M on the GI bill in the fall of 2008. By that time, she and Bethany had moved into that cushy place in the north part of the Metroplex, and she'd met that Matt guy. And, I had completely forgotten about any of the stuff with the green flashes. As part of my Aggie Outreach Project back in 2010, I'd been working with a group that helped homeless and disabled veterans in the Houston area. I remember taking Cassie to meet one of the guys, who shared his story with her. I didn't think much of it, since I had to be back to College Station on Monday, but next weekend when I did a run back to Tyler to pick up some stuff for Cassie, she asked me about a guy named "Jake Holland." I suddenly thought it was funny, because Jake Holland was the director of the charity. But the guy we had visited the previous weekend? Couldn't remember his name. This actually bothered me a bit, because I had been the one to get him hooked up with Gary's Guys, the charity Jake ran in honor of his buddy who'd died in Viet Nam. And I really got into Jake's charity. Not just because of all the good work we'd done for vets in the Houston area, but because of some of the people I met. Like Geri. Geri Shepardini was blunt and forthright and a fellow Aggie, though she was three years older than me. Now, I didn't meet her until after Jake had hired me on as a social work intern in the summer of 2011. He had me in charge of arranging housing for vets through the charity. I met up with Geri at a fundraiser that fall, and we hit it off perfectly. I remember bringing her with to meet my family at Cassie's 30th birthday party. She had her older boyfriend Philip along, and there was a big to-do when Cass got into an argument with mom about her sleeping with Philip. Of course, she then let slip that she'd actually seen Allen again; this nearly set dad off, too. I was actually kinda scared that Geri would never want to see me again after that, but she said it was nothing compared to all the crap she had to do at the Houston Metro fire and rescue dispatch center. Cass left a message on my voicemail a few weeks after with a very cryptic message. "I just wanted to let you know that you owe me. BIG TIME. And you'll never know why." I kept the message, wondering exactly what she meant by it. On a lark, I decided to look up Allen on the Texas state sex offender registry again. When I was at A&M, I had done

The first time I remember seeing the lights were when I was a toddler. I don't remember much about it, because I was only about a year old at the time. What I remember is waking up from a nap and seeing a greenish light on the wall on the opposite side of the room. I got up, walked toward it, and saw my momma, laying on the bed and looking sad. I waved at her and tried to say something which wasn't much back at the time, of course but the light suddenly disappeared. As the years went by, I'd forgotten about that weird green light, until 1998 when I was 11. It was the Friday of the last full week of school, and my older sister, Cassie, was graduating from high school the next day. Cassie was an ultra-smart girl who had just sunk everything into studying and getting good grades ever since her little "incident" with that ass-wipe Allen three years earlier. She was always a pretty smart gal though she could be a huge pain in the butt at times but after the whole thing at Six Flags, she just went headfirst into her studies. I can't blame her, in retrospect. She had her friend, Bethany, but that was it. And after the court hearings and the stat-rape charge that got slapped on that Jefferson idiot well, I only heard whispers about it, mostly because none of my friends wanted to say anything about it directly to me. Mostly, I think, because they were afraid I'd go off on them. Anyways, that evening I was going to take advantage of the fact that I didn't have to get up in the morning, and sat down in the den of my parents' place in Tyler which is where the TV with all the cable channels was located. It was also where my dad kept his stash of extra spicy pork rinds, on top of the mini-fridge by the pool table. I can't remember exactly what movies I watched, but I was sitting there, munching on the pork rinds and relaxing when I saw that green glow coming from the kitchen. This time, though, I didn't think it was something positive. I heard some footsteps, and then a click and a FZZZT sound, like someone unplugging an old TV set while it was still on. I muted the TV and crept down to the kitchen. I saw this figure walking around in the dark, looking at something in their hand. I decided to try to gain the element of surprise by turning on the light and saying "WHO GOES THERE?" Turned out it was Cassie! It was funny, because I thought she was upstairs trying to fill out her college applications. I asked her the obvious question you got a guy in your room or something? She busted me, though, when she found out I was watching late-night Cinemax movies. I begged her not to tell mom Dad, I wasn't worried about, but mom? She'd kill me, and then she'd ground me for a year! I remember her response: she covered my mouth with her hand and told me, "I promise not to tell mom if you'll just shut up and stay in here for the next half-hour, no questions asked, deal?" I nodded my head and jumped back on the couch, burying my head under the pillow I'd brought down from my room. After a few minutes, I lifted my head to see if she'd come back down the stairs. I didn't hear anything, so I decided to shut off the TV and get back to my bedroom. At that point, I

a search for him as part of our coursework in using investigatory tools. What I found wasn't pretty he was registration compliant, but his last known address was a homeless shelter. I only felt a little sorry for him back then; I thought it was his own stupid fault for not knowing that he was banging a minor, even if it was my sister. I never told Cassie anything about it until it came up during the argument and it didn't matter much now. When I brought up his name now, though, I got a different entry: it said that the registration was "terminated." I found this strange, because I remembered seeing his previous entry, and he was supposed to be lifetime compliant. The next night, when Geri came over to watch some TV at my place, I told her I had a question for her. She said she had a question for me first: did I know someone by the name of Joan Arquette. The name didn't ring a bell, so I asked her why. She told me she'd been attending a French language class at Harris County Community College as part of her training for dispatch, and that the teacher's assistant was named Joan. She was a native French speaker from Orly, but she admitted she was a little overwhelmed by the Cajun dialect they were studying. They'd gotten to talking, and she mentioned the little "incident" back in February with my family. Joan mentioned she knew a "Cassie Wells". I was ready to blow it off until she mentioned that Joan had specifically mentioned her boyfriend, Philip. When I asked her what she remembered about him, she said, "He tried hitting on her the first time they met." "Ouch," I winced. "I bet Cassie wasn't too thrilled with that." "No, she wasn't. It also explains why Philip was so apologetic when you introduced us." She shrugged. "So what was it that you were going to ask me about?" I told her about what I'd found about Allan. "That's odd," she replied. "Usually, if a SO registration is listed as being terminated, it means that the individual has either had their case dropped or they're dead." We looked at each other, both with a raised eyebrow. A commercial came on for pistachios. Geri got up and headed for the kitchen. "This episode of Sister Wives is a dud. I'm gonna go get a Coke, you want one?" I shook my head. "Nah, I'm good. I'll see what else is on," I said as I flipped through the channels. I saw something promising on Comedy Central, but it turned out to be a promo for a new show and not the actual show. I kept flipping through the channels until I came to Game Show Network, where they were airing an old episode of The $25,000 Pyramid. The contestant was in the final round, where the celebrity gives the suggestions while the contestant is trying to guess the common theme. I'd seen it a few times growing up, as it was one of those game shows that repeated during the mid-afternoon on some stations. This time, though, I thought I recognized the female contestant. Nipsey Russell was giving her clues, but she just ran out of time after I had tuned in. Dick Clark came over to console her, and the more I looked, the more I thought, that looks like Cassie. Her nametag said "Sandi" on it, so I didn't think much of it. Cute blonde chicks were common on old game shows, especially those on GSN. I was just about to flip the channel when she said something that made me stop:

Nipsey Russell: "I'm sorry we had so much trouble with the cocktail party clues." Sandi: "Aww, that's okay, sweetie!" I looked right at the screen as she said it. My God, that is something Cassie would say and exactly the same way she would say it! This woman on the screen didn't look anything like her, though. She had this weird looking pendant hanging from her neck, and she had on this Madonna-like outfit. I called Geri in to look, and she caught it just as the final credits came up indicating MCMLXXXIII Dick Clark Productions. Geri didn't notice anything, and pointed out that the date meant the show was taped the year after Cassie was born. I didn't think much of it that night, but when I got into bed after Geri headed home, it started to gnaw at me. Jake had started his charity, Gary's Guys, back in 2005. Cassie had moved to her new place in Dallas by that time. That was also the same year he'd met that one friend of hers from Ireland... What was her name again? Maggie? There was just something not quite right about all this. The only thing that kept me from suspecting anything was that pendant I'd seen on the contestant. Wait a minute. That pendant! CASSIE had been wearing that thing back when she caught me watching cable the night before her graduation! I got up and did a search on the internet for episodes of The $25,000 Pyramid. It took him a while, but I found a week in March of 1983 where Nipsey had been on the show. Unfortunately, I couldn't track down any videos of the show, so there was no way that I could verify it. I did put a post on an Aggie Alum message board where you could post requests for pretty much anything (as long as it wasn't sex or anything illegal). I asked anyone had any clips or tapes from the episodes I was looking for of the show. I didn't get any responses, so I forgot about it. I figured at some time, I could ask Cassie about it. Right before Labor Day, I got a phone message from Dad that Mom's cancer was spreading. I couldn't get off to get over to Tyler, but I told him I'd try to get over there as soon as I could. On Friday, I told Dad that I was going to come home for the weekend, but he said that her first round of chemo had gone okay. "Besides, Cassie stopped over to see your mom," he added. That almost clinched it for me. I wanted to talk to her about what I'd found out about Allen, and ask her if she still had that pendant. So, I hopped in my truck and headed up US 59/69 to Tyler. By the time I got there, though, she was already gone and back in Dallas. Since I was already there, I went in to see mom. She was sleeping, so I was going to just let her snooze off and talk to dad but something stopped me. I noticed there was a spot on the floor next to the bed that looked like mom (or someone) had spilled something. I was about to say something to dad when I noticed something about the room. I had seen it this way before. I stepped in and walked over to the corner, and looked back at mom. It was just as I remembered when I was a toddler momma laying on the bed, looking sad.

I quietly stepped out, and asked Dad when Cassie had left. "About an hour ago or so," was what he told me. I asked him if Cassie had said or done anything while she was here. "She had this herbal tea that she wanted momma to try, but I discouraged her from doing it. Your mom wants to fight this on her own." I nodded, and asked if I needed to find somewhere else to bed down for the night, since mom was in my old bedroom. "Well, as long as you don't mind it, you could always have Cassie's bedroom. She didn't feel like staying around after she'd apparently gotten into it with your mother, and we'd already made it up for her." I was fine with that. After cleaning up and watching a little TV on the old set that was in her bedroom, I started wondering if there was anything in my sister's room that might either allay my suspicions about her. At that point, I was starting to wonder if she'd discovered some new technology or some such thing that would explain all the weird things I'd been experiencing as of late. I didn't find much after poking around her closet or her desk. The only thing of any note that I found was something from TerCon looked like her ID badge. I shrugged and figured she'd forgotten it before she left for the Metroplex. I tossed it onto the nightstand next to the bed, putting my cell phone on top of it. I made a mental note to call her when I got up in the morning, to let her know she'd forgotten it at the house. I crawled back in bed and watched a bit of Back to the Future on TBS. Marty was freaking out because Doc had built a time machine out of a DeLorean. I always thought that was such a silly thing; I had pointed out to Cassie once when we were watching it that it wasn't practical. Why not make it out of a VW Beetle or something? If you were driving a car that wouldn't look out of place for a good chunk of the past, you'd be able to blend in a little better. Or even a Model T Ford. I decided against watching the rest of the movie, opting instead to try getting some sleep. I don't really remember falling asleep, but I do remember seeing that greenish glow out of the corner of my eye. I opened one eye and saw a figure rummaging around on Cassie's desk. I'd seen that figure enough times in the past to realize it was probably her, and when I reached over and turned on the light, she froze. "PATRICK!" she said suddenly, realizing she had nearly shouted it out. "What the hell are you doing in my room?" "I came down after work last night to check on mom," I said, my eyes slowly adjusting to the light. She was holding a small flashlight, "I thought you'd gone back to Dallas, and so did Dad." I looked up at her as I propped myself up on one elbow and that's when I saw it. The pendant. It was the exact same one she wore in high school. And the exact same one that gal on Pyramid wore. I didn't notice right away that she was asking me a question, until I saw a pair of fingers snapping in front of my face. "Hello, Earth to Patrick, eyes up here," she said. "Have you seen my ID badge, perv?"

It took me a second to realize what I'd done she thought I was staring at her cleavage or something. "Ew, no! I mean, uh, I was just" I reached over by my phone and grabbed her badge. "You left it here. I found it lying on your desk." She was about to take it from my hand when I pulled it away. "Just a second, Cass." She looked at me with genuine frustration. "Look, Pat-prick," she said, using her favorite little pejorative towards me. "I need that for work. I came all the way back here to get it, so hand it over." "No, you look," I said, sitting up in the bed. "I gotta ask you something, and you've got to come clean with me." She was even more annoyed, but decided to humor me. "Okay, what?" She stood there, her hands on her hips, and that pendant hanging from her neck. I pointed at it. "Is..." I couldn't believe what I was about to ask her. "Is that a time machine or something?" Her face suddenly turned blank. "What?" "That pendant. A time machine," I said. "I've seen you wearing that thing before." I explained to her about the dj vu I'd experienced when I'd seen mom earlier that night, and about the episode of Pyramid I'd seen, and how it was just weird that she'd fallen asleep so fast after talking to her the night before her graduation. "The only thing about all this that didn't make sense was about Allen," I finished. Her look at me had been blank the entire time, until I mentioned Allen. "Allen?" she asked. "Yeah." I explained to her what I'd found, and what Geri had said the status meant: "Either he had his SO status stricken from the record or he was dead." She suddenly scrunched her face up in confusion. "He's not dead," she said. "I'm obviously not seeing him anymore, but" She suddenly felt like she'd said way too much. "Look, it's none of your business about what happened to him, okay? But I do need my ID badge. Hand it over," she said, trying to reach for it. "No!" I said, holding it away from her. "I asked you a question! Is it a time machine?" I paused. "It's the only explanation that makes sense." She looked at me, and stood in silence for a good while. "You know, I never thought I'd be able to tell any of you," she said after what seemed an eternity. "Least of all you." She looked at me, her hands almost in a defensive posture. "I didn't expect you to get involved with Gary's daughter or anything like that." Now it was my turn to be confused. "What do you mean? Geri's dad is named Tom, not Gary. Gary was her mom's ex-boyfriend who died in 'Nam." She suddenly got a look on her face, and all of a sudden I remembered something. "Jake," I said, the memories suddenly flooding back. "I introduced you to Jake. He told you about how Brandy had left him, and how Jasmine had killed herself after Gary's funeral. And you thought it was so sad how Jake had ended up homeless and disabled, and you wanted to do something for him." I pointed to the pendant. "And you did. Somehow, you convinced Brandy not to leave Jake, and then convinced Geri's

mom not to kill herself, and " I paused as I realized what I had just said. "You're the reason why Geri is even alive," I said. She very cautiously nodded. "I didn't know," she said. "Look, are you two happy together?" I nodded. "Good." She paused again, as she realized what she had to say next. "No one else can know about this, okay? Especially mom and dad. And definitely not Geri, or Jake or Brandy or anyone else." I nodded, somewhat dumbfounded. "This explains the green flashes, though?" She tilted her head a bit at that comment, and then suddenly chuckled. "Yeah, it does," she said finally. She looked around, and peeked outside for a moment. "Okay, look." She took the pendant in her hand, opened it, and pressed a few buttons. Suddenly, a greenish light came out of a little lens on the front of the pendant, and formed a little "window" in mid-air. "This little thing aims a laser at an element I discovered at work about seven years ago. The angle and intensity of the laser shows how far back or forward the window goes." She pointed out to what looked like an empty room. "I set this thing for about 40 years in the past, back when they had just finished building the house. No one had even looked at the place back then, and I knew that I could go back to that time, get into the house, then step back to now and see if I could find where I left my ID badge." She snapped the pendant closed, and the window disappeared with it. "I used it a few years ago during my 10-year class reunion to go back to the night before graduation, to write that speech I gave." She paused for a moment. "You know that the line I added in the speech that Natasha Bedingfield used in her song a few years later?" I shrugged. "She actually wrote it first. I had to convince a few of my classmates to not sue her for copyright infringement." She looked right at me. "I also used it yesterday to try to convince mom to take some meds from the future." She sighed. "It didn't work." "That explains the stain on the carpet next to her bed," I said. "It also explains why I had that moment of dj vu when I saw her like that." She nodded. "You're not mad about that, are you?" She asked. "I don't get what you're saying." "That I had medication that could cure mom's cancer, and she refused to take it because I couldn't convince her about the time machine." "If you couldn't convince her about the time machine, how is it that you still have it? Or that Dad didn't say anything about it?" She slowly pulled something else out of her purse a metal stick, about six or seven inches in length. It looked like a mini-Maglite. "You've seen Men In Black, right?" She fidgeted a bit with the stick. "I had to use this on them." I looked at her, and suddenly realized what she was saying. "Wait you're not gonna zap me back to high school or something over this, are you?" She looked at me, then looked outside again, then looked around the room.

"I don't think so," she said. "As long as you keep this a secret and I do mean secret then I won't have to use it. Got that?" I nodded. "Cass, there's just one thing you need to realize. I already suspected that you had the ability to time travel for a while now." She was surprised at this revelation. "I told you about everything I'd already found out. Heck, I even started to wonder when Geri mentioned Joan." "JOAN?" "Yeah, Joan Arquette. She's a French tutor at Harris County CC. Geri mentioned about how our little 'meet the parents' went, and Joan mentioned that she knew you." I explained that it was also the same time I'd seen her on that old game show. "Yeah, I sucked on Pyramid," she admitted. "Joan is another story." She looked at the clock on the wall. "And for another time. Look, you know what? I can come back in the morning and get the badge. I just need to know you're not going to tell anyone, okay?" I nodded. She nervously looked outside again, and apparently saw something out in the yard. "What?" I asked. She smiled. "A little sign of affirmation," she said. I looked out the window and all I saw was a stray dog wandering around in the yard. "Okay, you've really got me now," I told her. "Don't worry about it," she said. "I'll talk to you more in the morning." The next morning, I woke up to music playing. When I opened one eye and looked over on the nightstand, I saw an old iPod sitting in a stand, playing "Our Lips Are Sealed" by the Go-Go's. I wasn't quite sure if that was a subtle hint or not, but I reached over and turned it off. It took me a while, since I couldn't remember how to turn the bulky thing off. I looked around Cassie's room. Nothing unusual there. The furniture was the same as it had been for years. I turned and saw that her ID badge was gone, though. She must have snuck back in and grabbed it when I was asleep. There was a knock on the door. "Patrick? Y'all up?" Dad opened the door slowly, seeing that I was awake. I waved at him groggily. "How'd you sleep last night?" "I kept feeling like I was in a girl's bedroom," I said jokingly. "Hey, Cassie left her" "ID badge here from work? Yeah, she called earlier this morning. She said you were going to drop it off over at the Starbucks over on the 323 Loop." He smiled. "She didn't want to drive all the way back into the city, I guess." I nodded at this little revelation. "Did she say what time she'd be there?" Dad said about 9 or so. The clock on Cassie's dresser said 8:30, so I told him I should get going, then. After a quick clean-up in the bathroom, I headed over to the Starbucks that Cassie had mentioned. I saw Cassie's little Miata parked in front of the door, so I knew she was already there. When I got out of my truck, it suddenly dawned on me

that she had probably bought the Miata new back in the 1990's and drove it through a time portal. Heh, maybe I could convince her to get me a '65 Mustang or something for my birthday, I thought to myself as I went in. Cassie was seated in a corner of the shop with someone else I immediately recognized him as her boyfriend Philip. I waved and went over to them. "I see you already got your ID card," I told her after giving Philip a nod hello. "Yeah, I just waited until you were asleep, then snuck back in there." She smiled. "I figured I'd call dad and tell him I was going to come back to get it from you, as a cover story." "I'm assuming that Phil here is in on the whole thing?" He nodded at me. "By the way, it wasn't my idea," he said. I looked at him, then at Cassie. "The song on the iPod," she said. "I forgot I still had that thing. I just decided to cue it up to the song and have that old stand with the built-in alarm go off to serenade you awake." She stole a glance at Philip, who was rolling his eyes. I decided not to ask about that. "So how many people know about this, anyways?" "Definitely not mom and dad," she said. "Other than Philip, Beth, Matt and Nicki, only a few other people know. And Patrick this isn't just a little secret. This is more national security secret literally. That was where I got that little stick." My eyebrows must have shot over my head on that. "You work for the government?" Both of them shook their heads. "No, I only consult for them on occasion," she said. "I was gonna show Philip around Tyler a bit before we headed down to New Orleans for a little vacation. Before we head out, though, I want you to know two things." "What?" "First of all I tried to help mom with some medication from the future. It didn't go well. Dad gave me a little talk about letting her fight this herself." "Yeah, he gave me that same talk," I told her. "I just don't want you to be mad and think I didn't try to help her, okay?" I gave a half-nod to her in comprehension. "I can tell you how hard this is for Cassie at times," Philip added. "She's managed to help out some people, but there are a lot of people she couldn't help. And some who were too stubborn at first, but took her help eventually." He gave her a look with a smile. "You know how I get when it's someone I care about," she said, poking him teasingly. The banter was interrupted by my iPhone. It was Geri; she was wondering how my mom was doing. I gave her a little rundown, told her I was on my way back to Houston and told her I'd see her that night. "I better get on my way," I said, switching off the phone. I thought for a moment. "Do you know how much longer we have with mom?" Cassie looked down for a moment. "I've never looked it up," she said finally. "I was slightly more concerned when dad showed up with his Harley a

couple of years ago, and never thought about it." She closed her eyes. "She was listed as already having passed away by the time dad goes, so I really don't know what to say." "I'd say not to worry about it," Philip interjected. "My dad always said that when it was your time to go, it was your time. Y'all could whine and sob and make a fuss about it, but life is still gonna go on around you." "Gee, Cass, looks like you got a boyfriend who's smarter than you," I teased. This got me a punch on the arm in response. They got up to leave and I went to get in line for some coffee. Then I realized something. "Wait, you said there were two things?" She stopped and looked at me for a moment. "Oh, yeah forget about a Mustang. It won't fit through the window." She smiled and walked out the door as Philip held it for her. "I tried it once didn't work." I stood there dumbfounded. How in the world did she know? My iPhone went off again this time a text message: I have my ways. Besides, you had a picture of a '65 Mustang on the wall of your room. I looked out at her as she was getting into her car. She was smiling as they pulled out and drove away. It was going to be hard having a sister with a time machine, I realized.
Updated Dec. 8, 2012 Times Like This 2007, 2012 by Thomas Overbeck. All rights reserved.