Playing with Chronos

“Michaela, we have known each other since we were children, and you’ve always been my best friend. I trust you with my life, and I know it’s kind of short notice, but… I would love it if you would be my maid of honour,” Zoe announced with a massive beam on her face. Michaela’s grip on her friend’s hands tightened and she let out a delighted squeal.

“Of course!” she exclaimed, standing up and bustling past the café table to embrace her friend.

“That’s not all…” Zoe said in a quiet and grim voice, making Michaela freeze.

“What is it?” she whispered. Michaela sat down and stared unblinkingly at her best friend’s concerned face.

“As my maid of honour, I need your help with something…”

“Anything!” Michaela insisted with a short nod. Zoe breathed in deeply before reaching into her handbag and pulling out the silver device no bigger than her wallet. It was lined with a keypad and extra buttons, and the screen was dull. The gadget could have passed as many different technologies, but Michaela gasped as it sunk in what it was.

“I need you to help me make my wedding day perfect,” Zoe whispered, gripping tightly onto the silver rectangle.

“What did you do to buy that? Sell a kidney?” Michaela hissed with a furrowed brow.

“Look, I need you to go back in time with me and help me figure out what I need to alter to make my big day perfect. I’ll change things for you too, I promise,” Zoe explained as Michaela continued to gawk at the Chronos 300. “You’ve grown up with me for as long as I can remember, so we can use your memories to find the right points in time. I really need your help.” Michaela was hesitant about travelling in time and changing her past, but the concept was intriguing and she was always willing to give the shirt off her back for her best friends.

“How much do you want to change?”

“Just a few small things, I promise,” Zoe answered quickly. She had agreed to the terms that she couldn’t change any large events as the consequences could be dire.

“It’s safe, right?” Michaela asked with sceptically raised eyebrows and Zoe furiously nodded her head.

“Yes, and we’ll remember everything that happened the first time, and the second time,” she answered. All Zoe would effectively do was alter a few events and tweak some people’s personalities so her wedding would run as smoothly as she had always dreamed it would. No doubt there would be beneficial flow on effects after the wedding as well.

“Okay, I’m in,” Michaela agreed and Zoe shuffled her seat closer to Michaela.

“First things first, before the others arrive… Put your hand on the machine and I’ll boot it up.”

“We’re going now?” Michaela gasped. She still grabbed onto the time travelling device, not wanting to miss out.

“Yes! Now, do you remember the first time you got picked on by the other girls?” Zoe asked tentatively. She knew that Michaela was still bitter towards the other women who were arriving at the café soon, but at least she was trying to make things right.

“Yeah, I do…”

“Okay, think about that moment, and I’ll think of my version of it,” Zoe instructed as she punched the approximate month and year that she wanted to travel to. It was during their high school years, the only time their friendship had faltered a little, though Zoe had managed to keep all of her friends throughout the tough time.

“I’ve got the memory,” Michaela confirmed and Zoe nodded, taking a short moment to find her own. Then she hit the largest silver button with an hourglass engraved on it and both of the women kept their focus on the memory. They were shaken from their concentration when the world around them froze. Zoe and Michaela watched on in awe as the colours and lines of the café melted into one another and became a hazy swirl that added more blue and green. Eventually their world stopped spinning and the scene before them came into focus. A clear blue sky was above their heads and the lawn before them in front of their high school’s building was littered with navy blue uniformed teenagers on their lunch break. After looking around, Zoe finally pointed at a bench.

“There,” she stated as a teenage boy ran through them both. The two women looked at each other in stunned silence, noticing that they were transparent.

“You’re going to have to explain to me exactly how this works,” Michaela demanded, confused by the concept of time travelling. It was something she had never seriously looked into, since she knew it would be out of her price range. To her, it was better to not tempt herself with such things.

“Okay, so the Chronos 300 locks onto our memories and, with a bit of guidance like an estimated date, is able to locate that point in time. Then we are transported there, as it uses our unique energy signals to track us in the past, which it detects when you touch it,” Zoe said, repeating what she had been told before purchasing the time travel device.

“Sure, but why are we… invisible?” Michaela wondered, unable to find a better word for their current state.

“Because we’re not supposed to technically be here! It’s a part of the programming that we can’t actually interact with anything directly. We can only give commands through the Chronos, and, well, zap people.”

“Zap people?”

“I’ll demonstrate in a moment,” Zoe hissed before striding over to where a younger version of her was sitting. “What was I thinking with that haircut? Fringes have never worked for me…” Teenage Zoe was sitting on the edge of the bench, fiddling with her blonde hair as the other two girls chatted, occasionally screwing up their faces.

“We should just tell her we don’t want to hang out with her anymore,” the redhead, Aubree, said and Michaela’s eyes widened.

“I don’t really like her… She’s just quiet and bland,” the other blonde, London, added.

“They’re talking about me, aren’t they?” Michaela said with a frown. Even though she had grown to not be hurt by her childhood, hearing what had been said behind her back was still stirring up emotions inside her, especially since Zoe was sitting there doing nothing.

“Yes, but I’m going to fix it,” Zoe insisted as she started pressing the keypad on the Chronos 300. She typed in the command ‘friendlier towards’ and then watched as a younger Michaela bounced down the steps, heading for the bench.

“At least you didn’t have hair that short… It looks awful on me,” Michaela remarked, making Zoe smile.

“It was a trend at the time,” she shrugged, dismissing the awful bob on the awkward teen. Zoe pointed the device at the adolescent Michaela and pressed another button to register her at the end of the command. Hesitantly, Zoe then aimed the Chronos at London and Aubree, wondering if it was even possible for it to work. After a deep breath, Zoe hit the button with a lightening bolt imprinted on it. A short silver pulse was emitted from the device and disintegrated into London. Zoe repeated it and the command was sent to Aubree as well.

“Michaela is my friend, I want to hang out with her,” the younger Zoe insisted, and the current Zoe bit her lip. As she recalled, both Aubree and London had pushed her into ditching Michaela as a friend, though Zoe still occasionally visited her house after school. Now, all Zoe wanted was for her other two friends to have a changed opinion.

“I guess she’s not that bad…” Aubree mumbled after a pause, her blue eyes lowered as she realised she had offended her friend.

“I suppose she could tag along sometimes…” London agreed. Adolescent Zoe grinned wildly and the younger version of Michaela joined the group of girls.

“Hi,” she smiled with a hint of nervousness. Michaela glanced across at Zoe, remembering that this was the moment that she had been rejected by the girls and then gone to spend the rest of her lunch break sitting alone under a tree.

“Hey, we were just talking about how cool Mr Wright’s science experiment was,” Aubree said, inviting teen Michaela into the conversation instead of shunning her like Michaela thought she would.

“It worked…” Michaela breathed in awe. “That’s amazing, Zoe.”

“And now there won’t be any drama between my bridesmaids,” Zoe grinned, so glad to see that her long-time friend was being included with her newer ones, even it was in the past.

“Can’t say the groomsmen will behave, though,” Michaela said with a roll of her eyes at the thought of Blake causing his usual mischief despite being the best man.

“Let’s go back,” Zoe said before holding out the device for her best friend to grab a hold of. Once they were both touching it, she pressed the ‘return’ button which had a circular arrow etched on it. The scene of happily chatting girls faded, turning into a mix of blues and greens once more. Zoe and Michaela’s heads spun as they were transported back into the café, returning them at the exact moment that they left. There was only enough time for Zoe to tuck the Chronos 300 back into her handbag before the other bridesmaids showed. Aubree was first in the door, and after given Zoe a massive hug she turned to embrace Michaela as well. Michaela was stunned, knowing that even years after high school she barely got a nod of acknowledgement from the redhead. London also gave Michaela a quick squeeze before sitting down at their table and striking up a polite conversation about how her job at the zoo was going and if any new research had been done lately on the tigers, her favourite endangered species. Kim, a college friend of both Zoe and Michaela, was the last bridesmaid to show for the meeting, and Zoe watched on as Michaela relaxed into conversation instead of hiding behind Kim. Even though Zoe knew that Michaela would always know what Aubree and London did in the other past, she hoped that this would be a fresh start.