Ghostbullet

The index cards in her hands trembled. Vanessa stared at herself in a dirty mirror that reflected a basement with papers scattered on the floor, half completed equations on a chalk board and multiple scents of unfinished cups of coffee.

“On the screen you will be witnessing the most intricate technological advancement in history” She said to herself in the mirror. She prepared for presenting her experiment after she had achieved her goal. “I want you all to look at this toy car that will be launched through the Ghostbullet at 4,520 miles per hour.” She felt her legs quake and tried to keep her composure. She swallowed dry.

After giving that introduction, Vanessa made the motion of turning on the Ghostbullet and faked the car’s ejection, she said “Now, our daguerreotype has captured the following images” She showed the fake footage and continued “Can you see this car?” She pointed at a diaphanous silhouette that would appear behind the car. “It’s traveling back in time”

“Vanessa, honey!” Her wife Samantha called out. “Dinner is ready. Remember we have a guest.”

“One sec!” Said Vanessa putting her cards down. She looked at the basement and bit her lip before leaping over many dirty napkins and boxes filled with numerous research papers on time travel and went upstairs.

Vanessa narrowed her eyes at the sight of the intense sunlight coming from the door lite. She heard sobs, so she directed her gaze to the purple kitchen, where the still blurry man sat with his hands on his face by the table. He was a tall upright man with the same languid look of a scolded dog. He wore a military uniform which took Vanessa aback and went on looking for Samantha. Samantha tiptoed over the wooden floor trying to get the casserole out of the oven in time while also preparing tree tomato juice and about to start on the dessert when Vanessa dragged her to the mudroom.

“Sam, what did I tell you about the dangers of the military, especially during this time?” Vanessa said taking Samantha’s hands.

“Van, please!” Samantha said withdrawing her hands looking back to hide her face. “The poor man just — ” The breaking of her voice interrupted her.

“Hey, hey” Vanessa said. “Look at me” She took Samantha’s face in her hands and saw her face full of tears that moistened her cheeks. “Take one deep breath” Samantha did, closing her eyes. Vanessa yearned for her eyes to come back.

“He just lost his daughter” Samantha continued in a whisper. “His fucking daughter, Vanessa.”

“I didn’t know Sam. I’m so stupid, I’m sorry I didn’t know.” Vanessa said without letting go of her wife’s face.

“How could you know though?” Samantha removed her face from Vanessa’s hands. “All you ever do is spend your day in the basement. I only see you when you come up to eat — ” She snapped her fingers “Not even that, because when you are eating you are writing on your journal or reading a newspaper or doing whatever!”

“Sam, you must understand — ”

“I don’t want to understand!” Samantha snapped “I don’t care about your little time travel project! Gosh! When was even the last time we had sex, Vanessa.”

“Please, lower your voice” Vanessa said, embarrassed and glanced at the hall to check that the uniformed man hadn’t heard anything. She tried to hold her hands, but Samantha wouldn’t let her.

“I’m tired” Samantha said sitting down on top of a shoe stand. “I’m so tired”

“Hey, Sam” Vanessa said, crouching to look straight to her face. “It’s going to be oka — ”

The ringing of the phone echoed through the lone halls of the house.

“I’ll take that” Samantha said. She got up blowing her nose. Vanessa stood where she was and saw her wife put her hand on her forehead and ending the call with “Okay, ummm, I’ll be right there”. Vanessa swallowed dry.

“That was from work” Samantha said, hustling towards Vanessa. “A building collapsed near Merricourt Street” Vanessa stood up confused “Would you serve the food to Mr. Villenueve? The casserole is almost done, the tree tomato juice is in the freezer and tell him I’m very sorry for the dessert, that I’ll make it up to him next time.” Samantha took her coat and left closing the door behind her to then reappear again to kiss her “Love you, bye”.

At that moment Vanessa waited for the earth to open and swallow her, but it never happened. There was a stranger in her house to which she had to talk to. She bit her lip as she made her way to her doomsday. No one was in the kitchen. Vanessa called out for the uniformed man but only the beep from the oven answered her. She didn’t think much about the uniformed man’s absence because she would’ve left too if she were him. She took the casserole out of the oven and placed it next to the sink, but when she looked back at it, it was on the left side of the sink instead of the right where she thought she had placed it. She looked upwards, and a silver spoon floated in the air. She stumbled backwards and took a moment to analyze the spoon with care, maybe she incurred into insanity, maybe Samantha was right, and she had gone mad. Then, a wind of clarity shuddered her when she remembered that the only thing that could cause these types of phenomena in our reality, was the Ghostbullet’s activation. Vanessa clomped to her basement.

The uniformed man turned switches on and off, the Ghostbullet began to overheat. The thrums of the machine resonated through Vanessa’s feet, the scent of burning meat stunk in the air. She stood in shock; these alterations couldn’t only be felt inside the house but in a mile radius. That meant that the DAS would be there any minute. Afraid they were going to kill her before she achieved her goal with the Ghostbullet, she reacted. She needed to save her sister.

She threw herself on him and began to hit him in the face. “Why are you doing this?” She cried.

“Leave me alone” He yelled in her face. “Please! I need to get her back!”

“Stop!” She said, but he didn’t stop. “You won’t know how to activate it” Right after she said that the second engines of the machine thrummed. “Fuck!”

Vanessa released herself from him. She stood still looking at him cry. She couldn’t tell that different timelines were converging. They were all diaphanous. The superposition of some timelines gave them a reality in which she couldn’t have known that they were not alive. She fought with Samantha, had sex with Samantha, cried with Samantha, danced with Samantha. Everything that happened in the basement seemed to happen with Samantha in all timelines, except in this one.

In a moment of clarity, she took a baseball bat and hit the uniformed man right in the nose. As he fell, she read out loud his name tag “Vincent”. When he was left unconscious on the floor, she wanted to turn off the Ghostbullet but her hand hesitated when it touched the gritty and cold surface of the machine. The lights flickered, sparks emanated from the engines, there were scenes converging that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t recognize them as they came from the future. She felt dizzy and collapsed next to Vincent.

“She died in my arms” She said sniffing. “My baby died right in my arms, and I could do nothing” But it wasn’t her speaking. She looked at Vincent, his skin had peeled due to the radiation. He was only blood and bones.

They stood under a languid sunset that she would forget about, because it was right there, where she knew what she had to do. She programmed the Ghostbullet to aim at her mind, at her consciousness so that she would merge with the Ghostbullet herself, because if she wasn’t able to save her sister in this lifetime, maybe she still could in another. The machine would collapse due to overheating from the energy it produced. The alterations would seize.

Vanessa finished setting up the Ghostbullet. She turned the third engine on.

“Vincent” She whispered looking at him. “If I find her,” She turned the fourth engine on. “I’ll make sure I’ll safe her too”

The Ghostbullet fired. The beam disintegrated her body into particles of light.

Samantha arrived at her house; she saw the DAS patrols outside. The door was broken into, everything inside the house looked just like the basement. She remembered Vanessa and went into the kitchen, that because of the moonlight, its color looked like a drenched dark purple. There, she saw a spoon floating. She couldn’t help acknowledging a sense of nostalgia that made her fingers go numb.