The End of the Third Experiment...

Greetings.

So, last Thursday saw Jim Hale's adventure come to a close.  I hope that you enjoyed following it as much as I enjoyed creating it.  But now that's it done, I've come to have to make some decisions about what I'd like to do with this blog.

From a fiction point of view, it hasn't exactly been bringing in the hits like I had hoped.  And frankly, it's sort of a challenge to generate the material for an on-going page at a time novel.  Then, there's also the whole scroll-y nature of this blog set up. Apparently, we've reached an age where scrolling has become too wearisome.

Oh don't worry, I get it.  With a story of any length, it's hard to keep track of your place in a story if you have to leave and come back.  Let's face it, if anything, Twitter has proven to us that the internet is all about the short format.

Anyhow.  I'm considering taking this blog in a different directions...if I don't just shut it down entirely.

For the time being, I'll leave the current stories up and intact for anyone who still needs to catch up.  But all my future fiction efforts will be put over here on Jottify! (Click the word...or this Word.)  I'm just getting warmed up over there, but have found that I get a lot more eyeballs and comments on my work in a more community setting.

See you soon.  Cheers.

215.

The hug that Georgie gave me when I walked into the office surprised me.

“Did we win the sweepstakes?” I asked.

She slapped me playfully.  “Where have you been?”

“Do you really want to know?” I said with a laugh.  “Wasn’t it confusing enough for what little you saw?”

“You’re probably right,” she said.  “Some other time.”

“Sure,” I said. “If I ever figure it out, I’ll tell you first.  So what would you say to some lunch?”

“I’ll grab my coat.”

“I just gotta take care of one thing on the way.”

Georgie was confused again when I bought two sets of flowers.  One, I gave to her. The other I took with us. 

Hayworth did me the favor of telling me where Ted and I’s shared former love had been buried. And though I had nothing but phantom glimpses to remind me of her, I figured I should pay my respects, if not for the love I’d had for, then for the sacrifice she’d had to make.

Georgie was confused when I pulled into the cemetery, and seeing the headstone didn’t clear things up for her.

I put the flowers in front of the marker, and when I stood, Georgie locked her arm around mine.

“Who was she, Jim?”

“That’s the sad thing, Georgie-girl.  I don’t know anymore.  All I know is that without her, we wouldn’t still be here.”

I made a point of dropping by at least once a year after that to pay some respects to the girl…the girl in Room 13.

214.

Everything, as far as I knew, had been returned to normal.

Sonny explained that some things had happened out of order from what I had experienced.  Mickey didn’t know that Hayworth could jump around without the car.  So he had thought we were trapped in the warehouse, but the weird flicker I had seen had been Hayworth jumping to another time, and coming right back.

He’d gone to warn another version of himself about what I told him about Mickey having read my mind to get the plans for the machine.  So when we kidnapped him, and put him in the trunk, that had been the one thing that had changed the present…future…wherever we were.

I never saw Mickey again.  And neither Sonny nor Hayworth ever told me what they’d done with him.

The long and short of the rest of how it all works out goes something like this.  Mickey did develop his own time machine based on what he got out of me.  Like Hayworth later figured out, he shrunk it down to suit-size. He and Haggartay combined it with the light array in order to inspire awe in whoever would see them when they traveled.  And they had used that to return to the past to prey on the UFO cult that Trish had gotten duped into joining.

They tried to take me out of the game, to keep me from killing Ted in the past (trust me, none of this makes any linear sense anymore), because he was going to take out Hayworth in one timeline, if I didn’t.  Hayworth, through means not explained to me, caught wind of this and had to jump through multiple timeline hoops to make sure everything happened the way it was supposed to.

Apparently, it had now.  I killed Ted.  And everyone and everything else had been returned to where it was supposed to.

Trish and I sort of made up, and she went back to disband the cultists.

She hinted that she might want to see about joining forces again.  Not as husband and wife, of course.  But since I seemed indestructible, and time spent by herself had led to all this silliness.  She said she’d keep in touch.  I was curious to see what would happen there.

As for Haggartay, he must’ve taken his mind control helmet, and escaped somewhere into the future or past.  I couldn’t say.  No one could tell me.  And for the time being, I haven’t heard from him.

So, for the moment, there was only one thing I could see that I needed to make peace with.  That was my only priority, until the next case came in.

213.

Then, the lights went out.

“Don’t shoot for Christ’s sake,” I hissed at Trish as I grabbed her arm.  I gave her an initial tug.  Then it suddenly felt like she was dragging me.  When I noticed that she was stumbling too much to be moving that quick, I realized that Sonny must’ve grabbed the other arm.

“Down and across,” Sonny said.  “We’ve got no time to waste.”

That’s when I hit something that tumbled over and took me with it.  I knew exactly what or rather who it was.  I scrambled as fast I could to get away from him.

“Hale!” Ted shouted and I could feel his weak hands grabbing for me, but I shimmied away as quick as I could.

“What about Ted?” I yelled after Sonny.

“Hurry!  Leave him! You have to leave him!”

I took him at his word and hustled to the door leaving Ted cursing in the darkness.  I saw the light outside as Sonny and Trish filled the frame.  It was a good time and place to get one’s self shot, but no shots came out.  But then, I didn’t know what had happened to Mickey, and Ted was still floundering around to his feet in the dark.  So no one got shot on the way out the door, least of all, yours truly.

I loped across the street after them, and not until I at the door of the fancy space age car did I realize where I was and what time it was. 

“Hale, what’s wrong?” Sonny asked. “We’ve got to go?”

Trish followed with, “Jim, what are you doing?”

Sure enough, there I was.

I mean, I was there at the car.  But I was also there, walking up to the warehouse.  I could see all the forlorn anger and frustration on my face.  I knew what had happened now, and I knew what was about to happen.

I also now understood why Ted had been in such a weird ticked off state when I went in and shot him: I had just knocked him over and left him flailing in the dark.  By now, he’d have found a lightswitch, he’d be searching for a weapon, and he’d be ready to start killing.

I wanted to shout to myself to be careful, but a hand from inside the car, yanked me down and into a seat.

212.

“Get ready, Hale,” Hayworth said. “The light’s are about to go out.”

“What?  What’s he doing?  Trish! Shoot them!”

I was going to ask Hayworth what I was supposed to be getting ready for, but I was splitting my attention between Trish, the raygun, and Ted who was getting his arms under him to get off the floor.

“Say, Mickey!” said the costumed weirdo who opened his mouth for the first time. This drew Trish’s attention away from Hayworth and myself.  “I was wondering …”

“You’ll have to grab her and get out of here,” Hayworth said to me as quietly as he could. “The three of you take the car.”

“What do you want meddling worm?” the booming voice asked out of the still swirling lights.

“Awww, why do you say that?” Sonny yelled.

“Who is this guy, Jim?” Trish asked without taking her eyes or aim off of Sonny.

“Just some weirdo I picked up,” I said and took a few step toward her.

To Sonny, the booming voice said, “You tried to thwart my plans at Tribuline, but look at me now.”

A strange laughter filled the room.  It had a metallic, tinny quality that kept it from being evil as much as it was irritating.  All of us looked as though someone was sanding down our fillings with tin foil.

“Who the hell are you people? And what the hell is that?”

I knew that voice, and I was felt a small stream of ice water go down my spine.  I took a few more steps toward Trish, but she didn’t seem all that interested in shooting anyone anymore.  So, I looked back.

Ted had made it up to a knee, but his head was still down and both arms were holding him up.

“I swear,” Ted said through gritted teeth.  “As soon as everything stops spinning, I’m gonna grind every one of you into paste.”

The annoying laughter stopped.

Sonny looked out again into the source of the light and said, “Say Mickey…how’d you ever get out of that trunk?”

The lights were still on, but had stopped moving.

“Grab her, Hale!  And run! There’s not much time!”

211.

Hayworth turned and looked at me with that “wha?!?” look on his face.  For just a moment, I saw something strange.  At first, I thought maybe Trish had suddenly shot Hayworth with the raygun (that’s what I had seen in her hand, by the way).  Hayworth just kinda flickered where he was standing, like his image had blinked in and out.

Maybe it was just the light, I thought. Because when Hayworth flickered back in, his expression had changed to a smug smile and his limbs weren’t entirely in the same place.

But just then, my attention went to Trish.  She had the raygun raised and was closing in on us.

“Trish,” I said. “Doll. Sweetheart. Poopsie.”

The idiotic cooing of names had exactly the effect I wanted.  It got Trish’s and they raygun’s attention on me and away from Hayworth.

“This guy’s not from the future,” I said. “He’s from the here and now.”

“Jim, darling,” she answered. “Other than make a complete cock-up of things, what could you possibly know about what was going on?”

“You’re right. I don’t entirely know what’s going on…”

“That’s saying the least of it,” came the booming voice inside the lights.

“There,” I said pointing into the confused sparkles. “Would someone from the future need to throw out silly insults?”

She thought it over for a second.

“How’re we doing on time, Doc?” I asked Hayworth.  I had edged closer to him as I talked to Trish.

“We’re perfectly on schedule,” he said with a smile.

“On schedule for what?” Trish asked.  The booming voice of Mickey echoed it.

I looked over to the Sonny.  He was just standing there looking vaguely bemused, like he was in on something.  He looked way to casual for a life and death situation.

“Let me guess,” I said.  “There’s been something else you forgot to tell me.”

Then, a groan came from the floor behind me.  Ted Mortigan was waking up.