Getting It Wrong

A Wrinkle in Time Trilogy

Second Edition. November 23, 2020

Copyright ©2015 – 2016/2020 G. Younger

 

Developmental Editors: Bud Ugly

Line / Copy Editors: Bud Ugly, TheMikeBomb, Zom, and Old Rotorhead

Last One Through: Bud Ugly

 

Original Editors

Chief Editor: BlackIrish

Edited By: Askepot and hikewithapack

Proofread By: Zom and Bud Ugly

Last One Through: Jim7

 

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All characters depicted in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

 

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 – The Experiment

Chapter 2 – 16 Again

Chapter 3 – Normal

Chapter 4 – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Chapter 5 – Start of High School

Chapter 6 – Making Changes

Chapter 7 – Some Things Don’t Change (Part 1)

Chapter 8 – Some Things Don’t Change (Part 2)

Chapter 9 – Homecoming

Chapter 10 – Basketball

Chapter 11 – Basketball Troubles

Chapter 12 – Zoey

Chapter 13 – New Girlfriend

Chapter 14 – March Madness

Chapter 15 – Sharing Secrets

Chapter 16 – Sharing Secrets

Chapter 17 – Getting It Wrong

Chapter 18 – Back to the Future

Chapter 19 – No Regrets

Next Book in The Series

Notes from Author

 

 

Chapter 1 – The Experiment

Seventy Years in the Future

Life had taken its toll. Frankly, I was amazed I was still alive. I smoked, drank too much, never ate right, and didn’t get enough exercise, which led to me being overweight. My doctors said there was a long list of things wrong with me—most of them self-inflicted. My nurses said that I was just too stubborn to die, and I thought there was probably some truth to that. At least I still had enough of my marbles to realize it.

Here I was, once again sitting out on the patio of the Twilight Nursing Home. This is where they parked us when the weather was nice outside so the workers could do what they called ‘cleaning.’ I took a deep breath as I felt the warmth penetrate my aching bones. At least that part of being out here wasn’t so bad. Then I looked out over the dead grass and crappy houses behind the facility with their junk-strewn, fenceless yards, and I wondered just what I’d done to be sent to this hellhole. I closed my eyes, and soon my mind wandered to the inevitable: ‘If only I could have done things differently.’ 

I hadn’t had an easy childhood. That wasn’t totally true because I had a great childhood until I lost my parents and brother to a car accident. After that, my twin sister and I were sent to live with my aunt and uncle. Things didn’t go well for me there. The truth was, I probably shouldn’t have survived the accident. My troubled time may have been caused by survivor’s guilt. Whatever had eaten at me caused me to lash out at everyone around me, which eventually got me sent to military school.

To this day, I regretted how self-centered I’d been because it had cost me the only family I had left, my sister Zoey. She’d committed suicide after I left her to fend for herself at my aunt and uncle’s. I always suspected that if I’d been there, things would have been different.

Of course, that wasn’t my only regret. I could count three ex-wives on that list and the horrible mistakes each of them had been. If I was honest, a lot of our problems were caused by what I had been doing for a living. I’d joined the CIA out of college and was recruited into a black-ops organization. I’d seen and done things no human should have experienced and be expected to sleep at night. With my drinking, antisocial attitude, and poor impulse control, I had not been a ‘model husband.’

My first wife was Mona Winningham. We’d met while in college during our senior year. She’d chased a quarterback who had strung her and another girl along. Mona had one feature that caught every guy’s eye: she had the best ass on campus. Mona knew it, too. She wore outfits that gave frequent glimpses of those heart-shaped butt cheeks. She would have been a great girl, except she eventually proved to be a gold digger, and she wasn’t very bright about it.

After we were married, Mona told me a story about when she first started college. Her dad had opened a checking account for her to take care of incidentals. A month into her first semester, she got a call from the bank, and they asked that she come down so they could talk to her. The bank President and her dad met Mona because she had seriously overdrawn her checking account. Mona confessed that she thought that she could just write them for what she needed because there were still checks in her checkbook. Mona had been horrified when her daddy had explained how things really worked, and Miss Mona had to get a job to pay him back. She quickly found out that rich frat boys, or jocks, would take care of her. I don’t think she ever did get a job.

When I’d met Mona, she was in love with Chuck Daniels, our junior starting quarterback. The problem was Chuck was in love with Sissy Conway, and Sissy was in love with Sissy. Everyone knew what was going on, and it was the topic of many entertaining conversations during the final semester of my senior year.

The big blowup occurred at a party at my place three weeks before finals. Mona decided she had waited long enough for Chuck to pay her the attention she thought she deserved. He took her to a back bedroom, and she’d fucked his brains out if the noises were any indication. Chuck staggered out, and Sissy was seated on my living room couch, stone-faced. Someone had called her to let her know what was going on. Though I wasn’t the one who called her, I admit I hadn’t done anything to stop her from finding out. I think I’d wanted to see the show like everyone else.

Chuck started right in with ‘Sissy, it’s not what you think. You know that you’re the one I love.’

When Mona heard Sissy’s screeching and Chuck’s ridiculous rationalizations, she’d come out of the bedroom stark naked and, in an astonishing lack of clarity, attacked Sissy instead of Chuck. I admit I enjoyed the sight and made sure the party participants gave them plenty of room to have their little catfight. Mona should’ve been a porn star because she proceeded to rip Sissy’s clothes off, to the delight of all my male friends. Mona had Sissy down to her shorts when Chuck decided to break things up. He scooped up Sissy and headed for the door, while I grabbed Mona and pulled her to my bedroom to cool off.

Mona paced around my room and fretted about what happened and worked herself into a lather. Well, I was turned on, and she was out for revenge. I fucked her the rest of the night. In the morning, she was gone without even a note. Not too surprisingly, Chuck and Sissy only lasted as a couple until the beginning of his senior year, when he found someone else.

I’d joined the CIA just after graduation when Mona called me out of the blue. We hadn’t talked in nearly three months. It turned out that Chuck was smarter than I was and wore a condom since Mona had planned on trapping him and went off her birth control. She’d gotten pregnant with my baby. Her parents told her to find the baby’s daddy and marry him pronto. At first, I was pretty happy, so we got married. Unfortunately, I quickly found out that her great ass was her only redeeming feature. Mona was used to getting her way and doing exactly as she wanted. She almost drove me crazy.

Two things eventually ended our marriage. The first was Mona got an abortion because she didn’t want to mess up her body by having my baby. She claimed the pregnancy would make her ass too big. She waited until I had my first assignment and was gone for a week, and then did it without talking to me. The second was when I came back from another trip, and Mona wasn’t home. I found our credit card bills, for cards I didn’t even know we had, and found she had charged nearly $20,000 on them.

Mona had been following Chuck, who was now in the NFL, around and was stalking him. We got a quickie divorce since I agreed to pay off the debt to get rid of her. The fun part was when she got arrested for sneaking into one of the hotels Chuck was staying at, and his fiancée found her naked in their closet. Her parents agreed to send her to a shrink to keep her out of jail.

You would have thought Mona would have cured me of the marriage bug, but that was when I met the Kun sisters, Kelly and Barb. At first, I didn’t realize they were related. I was dating them both in a rather casual way, but having a great time with both of them. My world came to a stop when Kelly invited me to a family gathering. Luckily, her sister, Barb, was away for the weekend. I saw a family portrait over the fireplace, and I recognized Barb.

Like a dumbass, I admitted to dating her sister. What I didn’t realize was the sisters told each other EVERYTHING! There was a big blowup, and I didn’t see either sister for several weeks. Then Kelly showed up at my doorstep and said she missed the sex. Who was I to argue with that logic?

A week later, Barb had knocked on my door. The truth was, Barb and I had more in common than Kelly and I did, and we eventually decided to get married. I broke it off with Kelly, and she took it well, but she showed up one night for ‘one last time.’ That led to ‘one last time’ occurring whenever Barb was away or, in one case, in the other room.

To this day, I have no idea why Kelly decided she needed to tell her sister about us. I had thought it was just sex. Kelly thought we were in love and needed to tell my wife. I only wished she had asked me about it first because I knew exactly how Barb would take the news. Unfortunately, I was right, and our divorce was final six months after that sisterly confession.

My last marriage was to Nicole Wallis, who I’d met her on assignment in Germany. She was a reporter for the Associated Press. To be honest, I’m not sure why we ever got married. I was in deep with what I was doing for the CIA, and I would be gone for months at a time. Being in deep cover meant I had to do things a normal person would never dream of doing. I had to so I would fit in with the animals I gathered information on.

Coming home was always tricky. It’s not like you could just turn it off when you got back. I’ll never understand why Nicole put up with my abusive behavior, and for ten freaking years. The woman should’ve gotten a medal for what I put her through.

None of my three ex-wives could stand me to this day. I also didn’t have any friends, and what remained of my family hadn’t talked to me since I was in college. If anyone needed a chance to correct some wrongs, it was me.

Something else I wished I had done differently was how I dealt with my job while I was with the CIA. To be honest, I should never have joined. I still wasn’t sure how I got on the CIA’s radar. What was clear was that my recruitment had to have been tied to my growing up overseas. My father was a Marine stationed in Syria and attached to a security detail for the embassy in Damascus, where he met my mother. She was a Consular Officer, which was an important job. She made judgment calls about whether foreign nationals who wanted to travel to the United States were a danger to our country.

My parents met and fell in love at the embassy in Damascus. Soon after they’d met, Dad left the Marines and joined the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service. He did that so that he could follow my mom whenever she got a new posting. He was involved in embassy and personnel security, which meant that he coordinated with the Marine detachment. His familiarity with what was expected of the Marines made working with them easy.

My brother, sister, and I had amazing adventures as kids. We grew up all over the Middle East and Eastern Europe. We learned many different languages, had firsthand experience living in other places, and learned to fit into different cultures. Of course, there was always a CIA element implanted at each embassy, so the CIA would have known about me. That experience must have been why the CIA recruited me while I was in college.

I’m sure many recruits to the CIA had visions of traveling the world as an international spy like James Bond. The truth was that you didn’t stay at swanky hotels and have a hot assistant to rub your shoulders and suck your dick when you got home. Analysts spent mind-numbing hours sorting through information. Field agents were dropped into places where, if the bad guys even suspected you were with the CIA, you would be tortured and could have your head cut off. Your legacy would be your appearance in a bad internet video. Others were simply bureaucrats, dealing with paperwork, government contractors, and other agencies.

One of my personality quirks was just going along with things instead of thinking them through. I rarely thought about the consequences of my actions before I acted. Stupid, I know, and the CIA had zero tolerance for that kind of stuff. Those boys didn’t fool around when it came to life-and-death situations, but just going with the flow saved my life on numerous occasions.

I got away with it because I simply had a feel as to when to freelance my way out of a situation and when to do things by the book. Of course, it wasn’t quite as easy to do that in the real world, but most of the time, my world was a long way from reality.

I would receive a dossier that contained my legend, a false biography for deep-cover work. It included a birth certificate, a set of keys, identification card, a passport, a couple of credit cards, an ATM card, and a checkbook. It also included a wallet containing five hundred dollars, emancipation papers, and other miscellaneous papers that I would need for my new life. At various times, I was an arms dealer, computer nerd, bodyguard, errand boy; basically, any profession required to get the information my government wanted.

Then there was the dark side to the work, the nasty part that no one liked to talk about. I was trained to be the ghost our government sent in when no one else could. They called it ‘wet work.’ I called it killing people.

When they could, the CIA would use SEALs, Special Ops, or Delta Force to take out the bad guys. But if they needed an insertion where they either weren’t sure who the bad guys were; had to make it look like an accident; or for some reason, they couldn’t risk sending in a team, I was the guy. I was credited with killing sixty-four bad guys and two innocents. The bad guys never bothered me. Each one deserved it, and more.

I still had nightmares about the innocent lives I took. One was a young boy in Bogotá who walked in on me while I was going through his father’s safe. My intel said that only bad guys were in the house. When that was the case, you were in a completely different mode on a mission. If you’re about to be discovered, there was no thought involved. It was weapons free, and you took care of the situation.

If I had even suspected there was a chance an innocent was around, I would have verified my target first. We trained hard to confirm our target every time, but in a weapons free situation, where you were surrounded by enemy combatants, any hesitation could get you killed.

The young boy couldn’t have been more than ten or twelve years old. I have no idea what he was doing there. He must have thought I was his father. Who else would be in the office in the middle of the night? Without any advanced warning, he crashed through the door and yelled, ‘Surprise!’

My training kicked in, and I put two center mass and one into the bridge of his nose. The whole world had slowed down at that moment, and I knew I couldn’t take it back. There was nothing I could do for the poor kid. The only comfort I had was that he was dead before he hit the ground and hadn’t suffered.

The other innocent was a hooker in Belfast who wasn’t supposed to be there either. The guy I was going after was a nasty bastard who was selling guns to the wrong people. It had been a total fuckup from the get-go. He was supposed to be alone, but it turned out he had three bodyguards hidden away. I made my entrance through the basement and worked my way up the stairs. I didn’t detect the pressure-plate alarm on the top step until I stepped on it. Then all hell broke loose.

I was in a running gunfight while in a friendly nation, so I was completely on my own. This guy had backup only moments away, so I did my thing. When you are in the middle of it, you become a highly focused killing machine. As I’d cleared each room and worked my way upstairs, I heard a noise in a bathroom. I spotted a shadow under the door and shot three quick rounds. When I heard a body go down, I continued to clear the house until everyone was dead.

On my way out of the house, I checked the bathroom to make sure I hadn’t left any witnesses. That was when I found the woman. Like the case with the little boy, I blamed my training. It had kicked in, and I’d done what I had to without thinking. The rationalization didn’t help because I was haunted by their deaths for the rest of my life. I had a karmic debt the size of a landfill, and I felt I needed to somehow pay it back.

I took my glass of iced tea and sipped carefully while I sat in the warm afternoon sun. It seemed like I was continually dribbling these drinks down my shirt these days, so I had to be extra careful.

I could feel myself starting to drift off into a nap while I communed with the past when a shadow appeared. I opened my eyes, and through the glare of sunlight, I saw a ghost. Looking down at me were the green eyes I had fallen in love with so many years ago. I saw my one true regret in my love life, the one that got away, Nancy Ayers.

I’d met Nancy in college. I was young, stupid, on the football team, and thought I was a star and could do better than Nancy. If only things could have, what? I had been too young and full of myself to realize what Nancy represented, namely someone I could have lived with for the rest of my life and been happy.

When I looked back with the experience that I gained over time, there were moments in my past that I wanted to kick myself for because of how I’d handled them. My time with Nancy was one of my most significant moments in that regard.

Sometimes there was just something about a woman that you could feel deep in your bones. It wasn’t something you could logically explain. But there was some unseen pull that made you attracted to them.

My buddies all said I was crazy to have chased after her because she wasn’t the typical girl we all regularly found in our beds. Nancy was a good girl, the type you got serious with and married. What surprised me was, even though I’d made a complete ass out of myself, that it wasn’t my downfall. It had been a moment of drunken stupidity that had ruined there ever being a chance of a deep and meaningful relationship between us. Nancy became my friend.

How long had it been since I’d seen her last? Sixty plus years or so would be my guess. I knew I was looking at a ghost because Nancy had died. She had been on a cruise, and they reported she’d fallen overboard, and her body had never been recovered. I’d grieved for her more than I ever had when I divorced any of my wives.

What a mess I’d made of my life as I sat there all alone, just waiting to die. How sad could someone’s life have turned out?

I squinted because my eyesight was not what it used to be. Nancy looked exactly as I remembered her. I wondered if she was here to guide me to the great beyond. People talked about loved ones helping you with the transition, and she was the only person I could think of that would take that on for me. It felt as if a great weight had been lifted from my chest. I was ready. I smiled at Nancy and reached my arthritic gnarled hand to touch her cheek. I confirmed she was real and saw her smile at me.

“Hunter, do you remember me?” she asked.

“Of course I do, but you’re dead. The cruise,” I started.

“Was a ploy for me to disappear,” she said to finish my sentence.

“You’re so young. How is that possible?”

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

Where had I heard that before? I chuckled. I was pretty sure I had been the one who’d asked her that very question, and it had led to the best night of my life. Then I cringed because I remembered I had taken Nancy’s virginity that night. She touched my hand to bring me back to the moment.

“Of course,” I answered.

“I want you to come with me because we need a volunteer for an experiment. You might not survive it, but it’s important. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you,” she explained.

I shrugged.

“Sure,” was my one-word answer, which caused her to laugh.

“You don’t even want to know what I need from you. God, Hunter, you never change. No questions? You see me as I was sixty-five years ago, I tell you I want you to do something that might kill you, and you just say ‘sure’? You’re unbelievable.”

“Nancy, you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important, and I trust you. At least I used to. Plus, what have I got to lose? My life? Look around here. How much fun do you think I’m having in this place? Hell, there aren’t even any vampires. I was just about to experience the best part of the day, my afternoon nap. I can’t even get a drink in this damned place. If things go wrong, you probably will be doing me a favor.”

◊◊◊

Nancy checked me out of the Twilight Nursing Home and told them I wouldn’t be back for a couple of weeks. My gut said that I would never be back. I made a point of telling my favorite caregivers goodbye. They looked at me with confused glances. I think they somehow knew, too. I held my head high—well, at least as high as an eighty-six-year-old can—and walked out without looking back. I was pretty happy to be leaving.

We found Nancy’s transport in the parking lot. It was a two-seater mini, where the passenger sits behind the driver. I got in the passenger seat, and she punched our destination into the Nav. When she was done, she turned her chair around so she could face me. The transport began to move as soon as she locked her seat into place. I had a hard time trusting these things, but they said it was safer than letting people actually drive.

“Hunter, what I’m about to tell you will stretch your beliefs. I need you to listen to me closely.”

Nancy spent the next hour explaining the fantastic breakthroughs Nano Corp had accomplished. She’d been with them for nearly fifty years. They’d developed an anti-aging medication, which Nancy had been the third person to try. The first two had ‘experienced adverse side effects,’ which I assumed meant they died. The only problem was the medication didn’t reverse aging, it simply stopped it.

Nano Corp had two problems with their wonder drug. The first was that the medication only worked on a tiny percentage of people. She started to explain DNA markers and the like, but I stopped her. The bottom line was it was too small a pool of people to make the medication marketable. The second concern was that it couldn’t reverse aging, making it useless for the older population who had most of the money. So, there really wasn’t a profitable market for a drug like that.

Nano Corp was famous for creating cures based on DNA manipulation. They had learned how to change a person’s DNA to stop certain forms of cancer and had eliminated Alzheimer’s disease. The Alzheimer’s treatment kicked off things for Nano Corp and made them the giant they were today.

Then she freaked me out.

“We think we’ve discovered a way to time travel.”

I’d read several time-travel stories in my youth. Writers like Isaac Asimov believed any little change in the past could have profound effects. Robert A. Heinlein said that there were branches in reality. When you did something different, a new reality came into existence parallel to the old reality. Writing as John Taine, Eric Temple Bell was the first to conceptualize the idea that time was a river that embraces all of the above. His presumption was that reality had its own brand of inertia, and that the newly spawned alternative realities would tend in time to flow back together. That reality would return to the path it would have taken despite the change.

“Bullshit! That’s just a bunch of science fiction crap. There’s no way you could have ‘discovered’ time travel. If you had, the world would be more messed up than it already is. All it would take is for someone to go back and change something significant, and then where would we be?” I asked.

“That’s the problem: we aren’t sure if we have figured it out. We have been using animals to test it. We need a human trial.”

I thought she was joking, but the light bulb clicked on when I looked into her eyes. One thing I had learned in my past government work experience was to read people. She was serious, and I was the sucker they wanted to send back. Well, wasn’t that a kick in the gonads?

As I thought about it, though, I really didn’t have anything better to do. And it sounded like something a whole lot better than watching soap operas with the incontinent geriatric crowd.

◊◊◊

I was taken to a facility where they ran tests on me almost nonstop for the rest of the day. Nancy was at my side the whole time and explained what they did to me. During a lull in testing, she launched into a lengthy discourse on time travel.

“It’s not like the science fiction books talk about. We can’t actually just send you back into time. We have to send you back into your body. I guess ‘send’ is the wrong word. To be honest, we aren’t exactly sure what happens.

“The theory is you are sent back to your younger self. It’s as if your essence is sent into the past and into your younger self. We have many questions about what actually happens because, to date, we have only sent animal test subjects. We do know your physical body disappears until we bring you back. Instead of talking about what we don’t know, let me tell you what we do know.

“We have been successful in doing DNA manipulation with animals. For example, we sent a white bunny into the past and changed his DNA to have black hair. When we brought him back, his hair was black, so we know that we can alter DNA and have it fully integrated when a test subject comes back.

“One of our experiments sent a rabbit back further in time. We had been doing what we call ‘micro-jumps’ with our initial testing. We would send the rabbit back to the day before and then bring it back. One of the techs made a mistake and sent a rabbit back two years. When it came back, it was a juvenile rabbit.

“That was when we found the commercial application for our research. People want to be younger. What if we could also make them better? Say, make them resistant to hereditary diseases. You, for example, had cancer. What if we could have prevented that from ever happening? We could also change hundreds of other things by manipulating their DNA,” she said and then gave me a funny look.

“To this point, the results have been mixed,” she confessed.

“What do you mean by ‘mixed’?”

She got a tight smile and changed the subject.

“We think we’re ready for a human trial. We want to change your DNA, send you back in time, and then bring you back. The hope is the DNA will have had time to take hold. We hope to bring you back as a healthy thirty-year-old.”

“But?” I asked.

There was always a ‘but’ in something like this. I had been around long enough to realize that.

“We need to cleanse your system before we send you back. That is, remove all the toxins built up in your body, and then we’ll adjust your DNA to make you healthy. If we don’t, your current self will harm your past self. Plus, you don’t want to have cancer again. We can also make a few adjustments if you want.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I think it was every woman’s dream to make a few ‘adjustments’ on their man.

“Do I even want to know what you’re talking about?”

I was starting to get miffed because she hadn’t really answered my questions.

“Do you trust me?” she asked again.

“What the fuck! Do your worst,” I said as I finally lost my patience.

I was a complete dumbass sometimes. I’ve been accused on more than one occasion of tossing caution to the wind and just doing it. I had shown at numerous times in my life that it was not the best strategy for a mature man, but I was too old to change now.

◊◊◊

The cleansing of my system started out about how I expected. They gave me something to drink that seemed to turn my insides to water. My first wife, Mona, had the bright idea of doing a natural apple juice and olive oil cleanse when we were first married, so that really wasn’t anything new. Soon after, they started purging my system of impurities. Disgusting stuff poured out of my bowels that looked like black tar, and the odor made me gag. It smelled like death.

They then hooked me up to an IV drip with a cocktail of vitamins and nutrients they said my body was missing, and also medications to correct my many ailments. I had experienced the joys of chemotherapy when I was fifty, and this reminded me of that. In a lot of ways, the cure was worse than the cancer.

The doctors explained that many impurities would be removed either through bowel movements or through my urine. It was a good thing they warned me. My urine turned dark yellow, and then almost black, and hideous things continued to come out of my bowels.

The next phase became even more unpleasant. Like things weren’t fun enough up to this point! I was told they would be making adjustments to my DNA. All I remembered was having a seizure and passing out. When I came to, I felt like someone had beaten me from head to toe. Nancy was at my side, and she explained that I had been out for several days as they adjusted me.

“I thought we lost you,” she said.

“Are they about done using me as a guinea pig?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow, you will be sent back. If all goes well …”

Nancy didn’t finish the sentence but leaned down and kissed me.

I smiled when I finally realized the full extent of her plan. She was looking for someone to spend the rest of her days with. I was flattered she’d picked me. I just wished I had the strength to do something about it now.

Our moment was interrupted as they, the people in white lab coats, wanted to do ‘a few more tests.’ When they were finally done for the day, I noticed I felt much better. My hands were still gnarled looking, but the arthritis pain was gone. I felt sore from whatever they’d done to me, but my normal everyday aches and pains had disappeared. I also felt more alert. When I looked out the window, I could actually see again. They say getting old wasn’t for sissies. I agreed wholeheartedly.

◊◊◊

I finally got a chance to have a serious talk with Nancy about what was expected.

“Hunter, the first trip back will just be a test, a short jump, and then we’ll bring you right back. If that works, we’ll send you back to when you were thirty. The plan is to see if your DNA will take hold in your thirty-year-old self and to determine if the changes that we made here are brought back to our now. I estimate that you’ll be sent back and spend about a month in the past. If that works like we think it will, you’ll be in your thirty-year-old body. We hope it’ll be like we have found the fountain of youth. People will be renewed, and lifespans will be limitless,” Nancy said excitedly.

I could tell she felt she was on the verge of a breakthrough. Something in the back of my mind said there was more to the story. I had a unique skill set from my covert training. I wondered why I would need to be gone for a full month.

The other thing I wasn’t buying, now that I had time to think about it, was Nancy batting her eyes at me. I had very fond memories of her in college, and she’d told me I was her first love. Nancy was the one woman I really wished I had made more of an effort to have a normal adult relationship with.

Then I stopped my ruminations. If I was honest with myself, several women could fit into that category. My first girlfriend in high school came to mind. Several girls in college turned out to be wonderful women in their adult lives.

Nancy was smart, attractive, and fun to be with. Surely there had been other guys since college. Hell, there should be a guy right now with the hot body she currently had.

As I felt better, and my mind cleared, I had been going around and around, trying to figure out what was really going on. I kept coming back to the month I was supposed to stay in the past on my second jump.

“Before we go any further, you need to be honest with me. Why me? Just one simple question, and if I feel you’re being honest, I’ll let you do your worst to me.”

I could tell I had hit a nerve because her eyes had left mine. Then she sat up straighter, and I knew she was going to lie to me. I held my hand up.

“Don’t do it. I’ll walk out that door. I’ve had years of training, and I can tell that you’re going to lie to me. You’re asking me to risk my life as your lab rat, but you can’t tell me what’s really going on? I’m telling you right now, not being truthful with me is a mistake. If something goes wrong, you’ll need me to perform at my best, and leaving me in the dark would be a mistake,” I reasoned.

She looked around to make sure no one was listening to us.

“You have to stop me from taking the anti-aging medication. It has done something to me, and I’m scared. Never aging is a horrible thing. It’s almost like you are in one of those vampire books where they have to disappear every so many years because everyone around them is getting old, but they’re not. At least with the time-machine approach, you can live your life, and if you decided you want to reset your age, you can.

“Hunter, if your trip works, and I can age naturally, I could have a family, I could fall in love and grow old with someone. I’ve missed so much,” she said, and I believed her.

“What else?” I asked.

I saw her eyes harden. This was something I didn’t remember from the sweet college girl I once knew. She looked deep into my eyes, and I measured her response. I gave her a feral smile as I recognized who she really was. I had a moment of nervousness, but I could tell she needed me.

“Okay, no more games,” she said evenly in a flat monotone. “It’s true the drugs I took that have set me at this age were a mistake. They have messed with my biology so much I can never use the time travel technology. I don’t match up well enough to my younger self for the transfer to work correctly. So I need you. The one thing that I remember about you, Hunter, is that you never give up. You might be impulsive and often reckless, but you have succeeded at every task you took on. I know I can count on you.

“I don’t have time to tell you everything right now. Let’s do the test jump first, and then I promise we’ll talk about everything. Let’s just say that you’re a smart guy who has seen what can happen if bad people get too much power. This technology has the potential of being used by really evil people to nefarious ends. It can also do tremendous good. If we can mask that it’s actually time travel, the advances in health care, coupled with our knowledge of the human genome, means we can do amazing things,” she said.

I could tell that she had already drunk the Kool-Aid, and Nancy was committed to her cause. As far as causes go, this one wasn’t all that bad. However, like any cause, if you went too far, it could get ugly. I had a lot to think about.

“Okay, but after the test, we talk,” I said.

She nodded. It felt good to be back to being myself.

◊◊◊

It was finally the moment of truth. Nancy explained what they were going to do. I suddenly had a realization: I understood what she was talking about. Not in a broad sense. I mean, I understood the science behind it. I gave her a stern look and then smiled at her. They had done something to me, to my mind. I had a million questions, but there was no time right now. You better believe that Nancy and I would be having a serious talk when we were done with the test. I couldn’t help myself, though.

“Why do I understand what you’re talking about? How could I know this stuff?” I asked

Nancy put her finger to my lips to shut me up.

I saw her look around to see if anyone had paid us any attention. The look she gave me was one that told me she would explain everything to me later.

They’d put me into a large contraption that reminded me of an MRI machine, except it was big enough to get my whole body inside. They assured me I would only be gone a moment. They wanted to try the micro-jump to test things. I would go back in time only a few minutes and then be brought back.

If the test went well, they would jump me back to when I was thirty and then bring me back again. They explained everything, but somehow I already knew the theory. They were going to create a bubble around my essence and send me back into time. I would merge with my younger self, and the modified DNA was expected to override my old DNA. The theory was my new and improved self would be brought back to the present.

Once I was put into the machine, I was a little unnerved when everyone left. Over the past two weeks, I had grown accustomed to someone always being around. I was startled when a speaker screeched as it turned on.

“Hunter, we need you to lie completely still for the next few minutes,” I heard Nancy’s voice say.

I felt myself get anxious.

“We are going to begin phase one, the mapping of your body. It will be a little noisy,” she told me.

Her saying something about them mapping my body reminded me of the old Star Trek show and their transporters. I had seen what happened when they got it wrong. I could hear a faint whir as the scanner started up. Then there was a clanking noise that went on for several minutes.

“Okay, we’re ready,” was her only warning.

The noise intensified, and I started to feel light-headed. There was an intense pain that was so strong I wasn’t sure how to describe it. It was as if my body was coming apart. I heard alarms going off, and I realized something was terribly wrong.

“Get him out!” I heard Nancy scream.

The time machine made a terrible groan, and I felt like I was being roasted from the inside out. There was a bright light, and it felt like I had been struck by lightning, and then nothing.

◊◊◊

“Stop! Stop! His heart has restarted,” I heard a concerned male voice.

“Son, can you hear me?” someone else asked as he pulled one of my eyelids open and shined a light in it.

I blinked, unable to say anything. I got a similar treatment in the other eye.

“Follow my finger,” I was told.

I tracked it back and forth. I felt myself slipping back into the darkness, and then I was being pulled back to what I could only assume was the future.

“No, you don’t. Stay awake,” I was ordered as someone shook me.

Whatever had tried to pull me back stopped. I opened my eyes. Where was I? I wasn’t in the facility. It looked like an old-style emergency room. Had I really been sent back in time? If so, to when? From the look of things, it reminded me of when I was a kid. That just didn’t make any sense. The furthest back I was supposed to go was to when I was thirty.

The doctor wasn’t going to leave me alone to figure it out. He had me squeeze his hand and then checked my reflexes. They pulled a tube out of my throat, and I coughed. Dang, that hurt!

“Just relax. You seem to be okay,” I was told. “You just need some sleep.”

I felt myself falling asleep. They must have given me something.

◊◊◊

 

Chapter 2 – 16 Again

June

I woke up to find myself in a hospital room. In the bed next to me was a young boy who looked to be a teen. I took a moment to gaze at my surroundings. They looked familiar. Why would it look familiar? Then it hit me: the accident. I was sixteen when my family had been in a car accident—the one where I had lost my parents and little brother. Only my twin sister, Zoey, and I had survived.

I’d tried to suppress the memories of that time. So many things had happened all at once. I’d lost my family. Zoey and I had moved in with an aunt and uncle who really didn’t want us. We started high school in the states, and I’d been a hormonal teenager.

I continued to be embarrassed when I thought about what a total nightmare I’d been in my junior year.

I constantly got into fights. The problem was, I wasn’t a very good fighter. I got my ass kicked a lot, and I deserved every beating I took. What I was, though, was stubborn. I would just get up and come at them again. I was stuck in a serious spiral of depression and didn’t know enough to get myself out. My aunt and uncle were frequently the targets of my temper.

A psychologist said I’d tried to punish myself for surviving the accident. You know things have gone badly when they want to check you for mental illness. Nothing anyone said to me was helpful, though.

My aunt and uncle finally had enough and shipped me off to military school. There I discovered that football could be used to channel my anger. It had been either that or the cadets were really going to kill me. They actually knew how to fight.

My sister never recovered from me leaving her. She’d overdosed on my aunt’s sleeping pills three weeks after I left. No one would tell me what had actually happened, but it was something. I’d felt guilty about that all my life. I’d been a self-centered little shit, and if I was going to get a second chance, things needed to change. I was brought back to the present when a nurse checked my roommate and me.

“Are you up for some company?” she asked as she took my vitals.

“Sure.”

“I have a young lady who has been bugging the night staff to let her in. We had to promise she could see you once you woke up.”

She went to the door and motioned to someone. It was my sister, Zoey. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. I could only imagine sitting in the waiting room knowing your whole family was dead, except for your brother, and they wouldn’t let you see him. I put my arms out, and she ran and jumped in bed with me. My eyes teared up because I hurt. I remembered a few of my ribs were broken from the accident.

“Baby, don’t cry,” I said as I held her.

“Mom and Dad, and Cameron,” she said, finally got out.

“I know. We’ll get through this together. I’ll take care of you,” I said.

I cringed because no one had told me my parents and little brother were no longer with us. I was going to have to be careful about what I said. I didn’t want to draw undue attention to myself.

“No, I’ll take care of you. I’m older,” she said with a hint of a smile.

As usual, I’d forgotten about our standing argument. Zoey was older by eight minutes. I was the man, but she was older. I admitted it; she won our argument more times than not. Zoey pointed out I acted like a little boy most of the time.

“No, I’m the man. It’s my job to watch over you,” I said.

Zoey rested her head on my shoulder.

“Hunter, what are we going to do?”

“We’ll live with Uncle Dale and Aunt Marcy. It’ll be okay. I promise,” I said.

“I think Aunt Marcy hates you.”

“I’ll be nice. I bet Jennifer and Tracy won’t be happy, though.”

They were our cousins. Jennifer would be a senior and Tracy a freshman. In the first go-around, the three girls shared a bedroom while I got my own. It caused all kinds of drama. I think the sisters picked on Zoey to get even with me. Kids could be cruel sometimes.

“Hunter, will you really look out for me?” she almost pleaded.

I took a deep breath. I knew that was not in my normal nature at that age, but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t let her go through it alone this time. She needed her brother to lean on, as much as I would need her.

“Zoey, we only have each other now. I know I never said it before voluntarily, but I do love you. I mean it. You’re my big sister. If it’s in my power, I’ll always be there for you. I know I have a lot of growing up to do, and the only way I can prove it is by doing it.”

“You tease me all the time. How am I supposed to tell when you’re serious?” Zoey asked as irritation crept into her voice.

I hadn’t realized how bad things must have been. I had to bite my lip to keep the emotion from my face because I’d been such an asshole. It was sometimes hard for teenagers to relate to each other, but this was my only living family member. I had to let her know I would be there for her.

“We need a signal,” I finally said. “You have any ideas?”

She thought about it for a while.

“How about if I hold your hand?” she asked as she slipped her hand into mine.

“Do you think people will think it’s odd if we’re holding hands?”

“Let ’em. If I grab your hand or you mine, we know it’s serious. Hey, I know—if we tug an ear, we know that there will be no more teasing.”

“I can live with that,” I said.

The old sadness tried to come over me, and even though I’d had seventy years to come to terms with the loss of my parents and little brother, it still hurt to lose them. There was a way for me to deal with my hurt, though. I would make sure my sister was safe and ensure that she would become the woman she could have been. I only wanted to see her happy.

Something I noticed was that my young mind was going to take some time to get used to the mess my emotions were in. Teenage hormones are powerful things. I would have to watch myself because I’d almost made a smart comment when Zoey had suggested that we hold hands. At some point, someone was going to mouth off about it when we got to school, and I could already see the cause of my first fight.

I would also have to be careful not to reveal my true age, that is, my future self’s age. I realized I had just shown Zoey more compassion than I had for a long time. Something I’d learned in the CIA was how to blend in. It was a stretch of my skills to act like a teenager most of the time but not be so immature that I would again hurt my big sister. I felt my bottom lip quiver, which surprised me. Maybe I wouldn’t have to work as hard as I’d imagined to seem to be a teenager if my emotions could sneak up on me so easily.

Zoey must have been exhausted from sitting in the waiting room. I soon realized she was drooling on my shoulder.

My first thought was, ‘Gross!’

This was just another example that my sixteen-year-old self would be a handful to keep in check. Then I stopped to think. I was only sixteen, and her drool was gross.

◊◊◊

I’d forgotten that Shands Health Care Center in Gainesville, FL, was a teaching hospital. When my doctor entered my room, he came in with four interns in tow. He shot me a look that said he disapproved of my sister being in bed with me. I just shook my head.

“She needs to get out of your bed right now,” he said.

The noise woke Zoey up. I think the doctor was used to others bowing to his wishes by the way he tried to intimidate me. I’d dealt with enough entitled bullies to recognize that this fool was showing off for his audience. I’d worked in DC, after all. If you wanted to see an entitled bully, go see your congressman. Knowing this, I turned to his interns.

“This is a teaching moment. A brother and sister have just lost their mother and father, and their little brother, in a horrific car accident. My sister is all alone in this world, and her brother is simply trying to comfort her. How big of an …” I started, warming up to a good rant, but Zoey stopped me.

“Hunter!” Zoey chastised me. “I’ll wait outside until they’re done.”

She walked out, and my doctor turned on me.

“We can’t have minor children visiting without adult supervision. Your sister will just have to stay in the visitors lounge from now on.”

I reached for the call button and pushed it. He looked at me, confused, as my nurse came in and gave me a funny look.

“I want a different doctor.”

You would have thought I’d taken a dump in the middle of church. I was getting ready to let him have it when Zoey walked in and held my hand. She had tears running down her face. Crud! How could I let myself forget so quickly what was important? Zoey’s tears had the same effect on our nurse, who ushered everyone out, including the doctor. After a heated discussion in the hall, one of the interns came in and checked me over.

Thirty minutes later, my Uncle Dale showed up. In the first go-around, I’d stayed in the hospital for a couple of days. For some reason, I was deemed ready to be checked out today. I figured it was for the best.

◊◊◊

I woke up in my own bed and moaned to myself, ‘Houston, we have a problem!’

Well, two problems, actually. Every joint in my body ached. I felt like the old man I had been when I struggled to get out of bed. This was caused by something other than the accident. My ribs still hurt, but this felt like the arthritis I’d had in my crippled hands, but all over. Had the DNA replacement not taken this time? Could it be that my old self had brought my old aches and pains from the future? I hadn’t noticed this ache yesterday in the hospital. Maybe they had given me some industrial-strength painkillers.

The second problem was something I hadn’t experienced since my teens. I’d had a nocturnal emission, and it was a supremely copious wet dream. The first time through, I’d been a very late bloomer, so I hadn’t expected this so soon. I shuffled to the bathroom to get cleaned up, and as I dropped my shorts, I got another surprise. There was peach fuzz growing down there. I’d checked last night before bed, and I had been as bald as a newborn mouse.

I stepped into the shower and turned the water temperature up to as high as I could stand it. As my back loosened, I twisted to get the soap and washcloth. My back cracked, and it sounded like a tree branch when you had an ice storm, and it suddenly gave way. At first, I was scared I’d done something horrible, but then there was relief. I sighed, and I felt the ache in my neck, so I twisted it. I saw stars as it popped, but dang, I felt better.

After my shower, I went back to my bedroom and put on a pair of clean underwear. I remembered some of the stretching exercises from my football days. After I was done, I felt almost human. As an old man, my aches and pains had not eased up with these stretches, so I continued to be confused about the discomforts that I experienced now. I didn’t feel this achy all over the last time I’d been in this accident.

“Hunter, Zoey, time to get up!” Uncle Dale called from downstairs.

I put on my Lelouch Lamperouge t-shirt. He was the title character and leading antihero of the Sunrise anime series Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. He was dressed in his cape and looked evil. Zoey hated both my anime fetish and my t-shirt. She didn’t get the whole manga thing. I threw on a pair of sweats and tube socks and went to wake up my sister.

Zoey could’ve slept through a nuclear attack. I crept into her room and slipped into bed with her. That was another thing she hated. She wasn’t a morning person, so I could sometimes trick her into telling me something, like boys she liked.

“Come on, Baby. Give Big Boy a kiss,” I whispered in her ear.

I made it sound like Zoey was a bad girl. My big sister had never even been kissed. She was discovering boys, and in her morning haze, she sometimes admitted to it. I made little kissy noises, which resulted in her pushing me out of bed.

“Hunter!”

I scrambled out before she could cause me bodily harm. I hurried downstairs and found my uncle had burned the bacon. Before I made a disparaging remark, I had to remember he had just lost his big brother. Uncle Dale stared out the back window. I went over to the stove and moved the cast-iron skillet to the back burner.

“Uncle Dale, maybe we could go to IHOP,” I suggested.

He gave me a weak smile when he discovered the bacon smoking.

“That’s probably not a bad idea. Don’t tell your aunt. She would disapprove of us going out for breakfast,” he said. “Is your sister getting up?”

“Yeah, I got her started. I’ll go back in a few minutes and steal her blanket. Then she’ll really get up. I would suggest we not rush her.”

“Good to know,” said Uncle Dale as he looked at me fondly.

I had to remind myself that I wasn’t supposed to know my uncle very well. We had just moved to Florida, and he and his family lived in Illinois. When we lived overseas, the distances between our families made it too difficult to visit each other very often. I think it had been two years since I’d seen them.

I remembered my uncle had at least tried to be nice to me after my parents died. Maybe he and I could have a better relationship this time through. My aunt commented about being glad she didn’t have any boys when I was about five. I wasn’t supposed to overhear her comment, but I had, and I’d made things difficult for my aunt ever since. Zoey was convinced the woman hated me, and to be honest, I probably deserved some of it if she did. I would be on my best behavior and work to change her perception of me.

I got myself a glass of milk, and my uncle drank his coffee. When five minutes had passed, I got up, crept upstairs, and stole Zoey’s blanket. She was in a t-shirt, and I spied her pink underwear.

“Pink! Nice!” I teased her.

“Hunter!” she said, as she jumped out of bed to chase me.

I hadn’t expected this reaction and was caught flat-footed. Zoey grabbed my hand. I looked down and realized what that meant. Hmm, she was testing me. Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day. I would have to work on this relationship. I looked her in the eye and pulled her into a hug. She finally let go of me and kissed my cheek.

“Thank you,” Zoey said, and then went to take her shower.

◊◊◊

I was busy trying all the different syrups since I’d forgotten how much I liked IHOP as a kid, plus they didn’t have IHOP in the Middle East. They had six different flavors of syrups at our table, of which boysenberry and blueberry were my favorites. Zoey liked the butter pecan and apricot. Uncle Dale drew the line when I wanted to drink the boysenberry right out of the container. Why mess it up by putting it on pancakes?

After we’d eaten, Uncle Dale took us home. Zoey and I needed to start packing what we wanted to take with us. Uncle Dale went to the garage and packed up my dad’s tools while I went to my parents’ bedroom. My mom had some lovely jewelry she’d collected during her years abroad. My sister would want them when she was older.

I remembered that my cousins and aunt had helped themselves to my mom’s stuff before Zoey had a chance to do so. I figured, to keep the peace, I would leave the costume jewelry for them to take. My dad also had a Rolex Submariner watch I wanted for myself. I found my parents’ firebox, put the valuables in it, and then spirited them to my room.

I took our mom’s jewelry box to my sister. She looked in it and then looked up at me.

“I hid the good stuff. When you want it, let me know.”

She just nodded and continued to pack.

◊◊◊

My aunt and cousins came for the funeral and moved into our house with us while my aunt and uncle trod through the continued wreckage of my parents’ life. I’d forgotten what vultures they’d been. They went through the house like it was Christmas morning.

I must have been off sulking last time. Zoey and I watched in amazement as things were sorted. Uncle Dale rented a U-Haul truck to haul home the stuff they wanted. Our family had nicer things than our ‘new’ family. Dad had been frugal while we lived overseas. The government paid for our housing and gave us a stipend for expenses, so he could pocket most of his salary.

Mom had finally put her foot down when we were asked to go to Afghanistan as our next assignment. A month after my parents refused their posting, the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, was hit by a rocket explosion. It occurred on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks in New York that prompted a US invasion of the country.

It was a lucky break for us, but it became apparent that my parents’ refusal to take the jobs had damaged their careers with the State Department. Two years later, they’d had enough, and it was decided we would move back to the States. Mom accepted a teaching position at the University of Florida, and Dad was weighing his options. We moved into a five-bedroom home, and Mom had been able to decorate it with her idea of great furnishings. My elder self looked at the decorations and cringed. The mid-2010s was not a stellar period as far as interior design went, in my opinion. I mean, how much gray could you stand?

I had my own problems, though. My physical condition had gotten worse. After five straight days of waking up in pain, I finally told my uncle. My aunt mothered me and insisted I see my pediatrician.

At the doctor’s office, I found myself in an exam room, in one of those paper gowns and just my underwear. My aunt had insisted on being in the room with me. My sixteen-year-old self was mortified, while the old man inside me thought she was a perv.

The nurse took my measurements and blood pressure, noting the results in my chart. Then Dr. Ellis came in. My sister said he reminded her of Doctor Who, a Sci-Fi character on British TV.

With a typical doctor’s confident boom, he asked, “So, what do we have here today? Are you having issues from the accident?”

“My ribs still hurt, but besides that, I don’t seem to have any issues. What I came in for was because my joints ache constantly. It’s worse in the morning, but if I stretch, it seems to make it better.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

I blushed.

“I’ve, uhm, started having wet dreams,” I finished with a rush.

My aunt turned her head to cover up a laugh. I bet she never thought she would be dealing with that issue. Dr. Ellis just shook his head.

“Hunter, we need to give you a complete physical and do a couple of tests to rule some things out. Mrs. Jacobs, I’m going to ask you to go out to the waiting room so we can preserve the young man’s modesty.”

My aunt hurried out. I was surprised to see that she was a little embarrassed. Of course, he invited his cute nurse in, which blew his modesty angle. Dr. Ellis checked my reflexes and other general things you get done to you when he suddenly had a curious look.

“Hunter, what color is your hair?” he asked.

“Brown,” I answered.

He started running his fingers through my hair so he could see the roots.

“Jan. Am I seeing things?” he asked his nurse.

Jan started running her fingers through my hair. I was surprised when I felt an erection suddenly manifest itself. What should I have expected? A sixteen-year-old, with a cute nurse, and with her breasts in my face. As a bonus, she was touching me in a semi-erotic way. My problem was my erection wasn’t going away. Right then, I decided that I needed to get control over my body.

“It’s like he colored his hair, and it’s growing out,” she said.

“What’s going on?” I asked, suddenly no longer interested in the cleavage in my face.

“I’m not sure, but it looks like you’re becoming blond,” Dr. Ellis told me.

I felt a chill in my heart as I realized what it had to be: the DNA adjustments. WTF? I had never asked Nancy what she had changed. Maybe she preferred blonds. Was the joint pain a part of what she had done to me? Was I making a mistake by seeing a doctor?

What a mess. What other things had Nancy done to me without my knowledge? I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Freaking out in the doctor’s office was not a good plan unless I wanted to turn it into a prolonged and detailed visit.

“Hunter, based on your symptoms, I would have said you were going through a growth spurt. Boys your age tend to grow up to four inches a year for three to four years. Let’s see. You’re sixteen, right?” He continued without waiting for my response, “You’ve gotten a bit of a late start to puberty, but not terribly late. These aches are most likely just your body trying to catch up to where it should be.

“However, because of the accident, I want to be extra careful and rule some things out. You have a little gland called the pituitary at the base of your brain that causes growth. We’ll take a little blood from you today and perform some tests. I want you to come back in a couple of weeks to be checked again. If it’s a typical growth spurt, your blood will show it, and you’ll feel better shortly. I have to warn you that you’ll probably have another growth spurt again, and you might ache a little. I would usually tell you to take some aspirin and call it a day, but the hair-color change concerns me.

“Jan, set an appointment for Hunter for two weeks and get testosterone, LH, and FSH levels,” Dr. Ellis instructed his nurse.

When Jan left, Dr. Ellis wanted to talk because he and my dad had been friends growing up.

“I know you and your sister will be moving away to live with your aunt and uncle. You’re going through a tough time, and I wanted you to know that if you ever need anything, just let me know.”

He gave me a card with his contact info on it. I couldn’t think of any reason why I would need his help, but it felt good to know one of my dad’s friends had my back if I needed it. He shook my hand and went to his next patient. I walked out to the waiting room where my aunt was making arrangements for all my medical information to be sent to their doctor in Illinois.

◊◊◊

We laid my parents and little brother to rest, and I was surprised that it hurt just as much as the first time. It seemed I was acclimating to my new existence. I thought I would be able to stand back and use my experience to protect me from the pain of losing my family, but that wasn’t totally true. I guess I was dealing with this better than the last time because I couldn’t remember anything from the previous funeral. It was a bit of a black haze.

I reflected on what having this second opportunity really meant to me. Obviously, I didn’t have the chance to save my brother or parents from the car accident. I couldn’t understand what happened that I had been sent here rather than to my thirty-year-old self. In any case, I had absolutely no way to get back to my time. I could only deal with what was in front of me right now.

I knew that I could easily go nuts with an adult’s experiences and a hormonal teenager’s body. As much as I might want to, I couldn’t really be an adult. My aunt and uncle saw a sixteen-year-old boy, one who had been a bit of a pain to my aunt for the past 10 years.

If I tried to assert my independence from them, they would push back. Legally, I was not an adult either, so I wouldn’t get any help that way. As I thought about it carefully, I found that my emotional, teenaged part seemed to dominate my reactions to my life right now.

The easiest thing would be to go with that. I decided I should live my life as if I really was a sixteen-year-old instead of an eighty-six-year-old living in his body. Nancy had pointed out that I usually just went with the flow, which was my strength. I decided to embrace the chance to do it again, and the easiest way to do that was to be the teenager. I knew I could always draw on my experience if need be. That felt like a good compromise.

I was also a bit afraid of effecting large changes, like making myself rich or powerful from my foreknowledge. With my hair-color change, and God only knew what else was going on with me physically, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.

A good example was that I knew the Chicago Cubs would finally win a World Series. The reason I remembered it was because my mom was a fan. She’d talked about the over 100 years of futility and how she’d hoped to see them win in her lifetime. I guess my granddad had been a fan. My knowledge of stuff like this could earn me a considerable amount of money. But doing it too many times would draw unwanted attention. Besides, I was only sixteen and didn’t really need cash right now.

I did want things to be better for my sister and me. Regret was a powerful motivator, and the missed opportunity to truly know and love my sister was one I was going to embrace. She really was a special kid. I just never realized it until after I’d lost her. I didn’t know if I would be able to stop her from committing suicide this time. Part of the reason was I didn’t know if when your time came, it just came regardless.

What I did know was that I would make the best of the time we had. If I was going to make changes, I wanted them to matter. One thing I’d learned was I would take happiness over money any day, so if I only had so much I could change, I would focus on Zoey for now.

◊◊◊

We stayed in town long enough for me to go back to my doctor again. My new family decided to embrace that time and used it to figure out what they wanted to keep. Once that was done, we had a big estate sale. The day before the sale, I was back in Dr. Ellis’s exam room. This time both my aunt and uncle joined me with the doctor.

“Hey, Doc, how’ve you been?” Uncle Dale asked.

“Fine, Dale. What’s it been, fifteen years or more?”

“Nineteen. It was at Tom and Lisa’s wedding,” Uncle Dale said, referring to my parents.

“Well, I have news for you folks,” Dr. Ellis said, getting down to business. “First, the blood tests all came back within normal ranges for a young man going through a growth spurt. I am concerned that Hunter is growing at a slightly accelerated rate, but at this point, I don’t believe that you should be worried.

“On his previous visit, he was five-one and weighed 102 pounds. He’s grown half an inch and put on eight pounds in two weeks. At this growth rate, he’ll be six-two by this time next year. That is an astounding 13 inches of growth in one year. The average growth rate is four inches a year for teens his age who have a delayed entry into puberty.

“We expect a relatively slow start into bone growth once secondary sexual characteristics become apparent. That is clearly not the case here. Now, we don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily. Boys grow at different rates. If this holds for Hunter, it’s not unheard of. We’ve seen this before. It’s just surprising that he was not developing, and now he seems to have jumped into the puberty pond with both feet,” Dr. Ellis chuckled.

The doctor showed them my hands.

“Here are some things to expect. Hunter’s hands, feet, and head will grow first. You can already see his hands are starting to look a little disproportionate to the rest of his body. You may have noticed how boys going through puberty will look a little goofy.”

“Hey,” I protested.

“Okay, goofier than normal,” Dr. Ellis said, getting smiles from my aunt and uncle.

“How tall do you think he will get if he continues to grow?” Aunt Marcy asked.

“If his growth doesn’t slow down, he could end up a seven-footer or more, but I would guess he could end up being in the six-four to six-eight range, easily. If he doesn’t slow down his growth in the next two years, you should get concerned and see a doctor in your home town.”

When I’d graduated high school, I was only five-nine. Six-four sounded pretty good to me.

“Dear Lord, he’ll eat us out of house and home,” my uncle moaned.

I wasn’t too concerned. I figured that this was another adjustment to my DNA that Nancy made without my input. It didn’t sound like I was going to be playing cornerback if I got that big. Heck, I might need to play some basketball.

“The other thing that concerns me is the change in his hair color. I also noticed his eyes are now blue,” Dr. Ellis said.

“What?” I asked as I jumped off the table to look into the mirror above the little sink.

My eyes had changed from brown to light blue. It looked a little freaky, to be honest. What the hell had Nancy done to me? How was I going to do to explain this? I knew her plan wasn’t to send me back and relive my life as a teenager. She planned on me going back and coming home within a month.

For the DNA adjustment to have worked properly, though, I would have had to keep those adjustments during my existence from the date where I was 30 until the date when I was 86 years old. Getting rid of cancer and other problems was not visible. No one would know that those changes had been made to me, but changing my hair and eye color really could have screwed with my life.

What would have happened if I had come back while I was married to Mona? How would I have explained a sudden change in eye color? Would I have pretended to have a desire to wear colored contacts? What would the CIA have said? Nancy really should have talked to me about this.

I calmed my inner self because everyone looked my way. If I was going to have drastic changes, I guessed it was better to do them as a teenager than to grow six inches as an adult. At least I had something to partially explain my condition. I’d been in an accident, and I was starting to grow. Changes would be expected with what I had just gone through.

“What could be causing it?” Uncle Dale asked.

“If you told me he had been abducted by aliens, I might believe you,” Dr. Ellis said, which got him looks of shock in return. “I’m just kidding. One thing we can be sure of is that this boy is a normal human being. The good news is that he is very healthy. His ribs have healed almost completely. For now, I would suggest to just ride it out because the human body is an amazing thing. If his growth speeds up or continues more than two years from now, then you might want to get him in for a full round of tests.”

I would make sure that never happened. There was no need to let the cat out of the bag that I had been altered at a genetic level. I did believe there were secret government facilities I could disappear into. Hell, I worked for one of those organizations, and we had made people disappear. My plans didn’t include becoming a lab rat.

Dr. Ellis sent us off with my aunt and uncle scratching their heads. I decided my best course of action was to ignore it. If I didn’t make a big deal out of the changes, maybe they wouldn’t, either. It was probably a good thing we were leaving Florida. That way, Dr. Ellis wouldn’t be monitoring my changes. If he got worried, I would be under a lot more scrutiny.

◊◊◊

The drive from Gainesville, Florida, to Normal, Illinois, took us three tedious days with the U-Haul. I made the mistake of saying I would ride back with Uncle Dale. Aunt Marcy, my cousins, and Zoey were home in under 24 hours. Jennifer was able to help her mom drive since she was seventeen. Zoey and I hadn’t gotten our driver’s licenses yet. The plan had been to take a driver’s education class this summer and have our licenses before school started in August.

Not all of the trip was bad. It gave me a chance to get to know my uncle better. He told me some great stories about himself and my dad growing up. My dad had always been the athletic one and played point guard for his high school basketball team. Dale had played football and baseball but was never a standout. According to him, he was the brains of the family. I remember my dad telling it differently.

I had found myself an ally, so there was some good news. We were going to have to stick together since the women had us outnumbered.

◊◊◊

 

Chapter 3 – Normal

June

Normal, Illinois, is located in Central Illinois’s farm country and is just north of its sister city, Bloomington. Most people referred to the area as Bloomington-Normal. Normal is home to Illinois State University (ISU), and down the road is Illinois Wesleyan University. The area is well known as the home of State Farm Insurance, Country Financial, and Beer Nuts.

My uncle was a vice-president at State Farm, and my aunt an economics professor at ISU. Our new home was just north of the ISU campus, in a mixed student and residential housing area, and was six blocks from campus. My aunt actually walked to work every day. Since we had been here last, they’d bought the home, so neither of us had seen it. Not my present self, anyway.

The first thing I noticed was the college girls that walked down our sidewalk as we pulled up to the house. Uncle Dale gave me a smirk.

“There’s a sorority house half-a-block up the street.”

“How does Aunt Marcy like that?” I asked.

“Warn me if you see me staring, and your aunt is around,” he joked.

“Will do,” I said. “I presume it’s okay for me to stare, though?”

He laughed as we walked into the nice ranch home. I could immediately tell the girls were unhappy. How did I know? The three of them gave me looks that nearly had me run out of the house. Uncle Dale walked past them like he didn’t even notice. I would have to learn that particular skill, and soon.

“Whatever it is, I didn’t do it!” I blurted out.

Somehow, I figured, I must have done something to piss all of them off. I walked up to Zoey and took her hand. It sounded like I’d let the air out of a balloon; there was such a dramatic sigh. She squeezed my hand and led me outside. I noticed two nosy cousins followed us, so I began talking in Arabic, which was one of the advantages of growing up in the Middle East. Besides being immersed in the culture, we were taught the local languages at each embassy school we attended. It was either that, or we would have been stuck in the embassy all the time. My sister wouldn’t have stood for that when there was shopping to be done.

“Our cousins are listening,” I said to clue her in.

“They’re making all three of us sleep in the same room, and you get a single.”

“I knew being the man would have its advantages,” I teased her.

She squeezed my hand to remind me I couldn’t joke about the situation while we were holding hands.

“Besides killing me, have the gruesome twosome come up with a solution?” I asked.

“I think killing you is at the top of their list. The second option was to put you in the shed out back. Someone mentioned moving you into the garage,” Zoey said.

“Would you be willing to room with me?” I asked.

Zoey thought about it for a moment. I knew she was weighing sleeping in a room with her brother, God forbid, or sleeping with two pissed-off cousins. I was actually surprised it took her so long to decide. She looked at her two cousins, who had peeked around the corner and were nodding at her.

“You promise not to walk around naked all the time?” she said while giving me a stern look.

“No, and I hope you plan on ‘living free,’ too,” I said as I switched back to English.

“I’m serious, Hunter.”

“I promise not to run around naked all the time if you promise not to make me listen to Shawn Mendes, Justin Bieber, and Eminem, or any of that Top 40 crap every night,” I said.

“Okay, deal. I’ll move into your room,” she said.

We hugged it out, and then she messed up my hair as a show of affection. Our cousins made a hasty retreat when they saw we had settled things.

“We need to dye your hair,” Zoey said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you’re looking a little two-toned, and I think we need to go ahead and make you a blond. That is, unless you want to cut your hair short.”

No way would happen, even though my older self liked it short. My current self liked my long, shaggy hair. Plus, I would look like I was in the army if I cut it. I’d hated it when I went to military school and they gave us buzz cuts. Short hair was not really a chick-magnet look unless you went bald.

“Will you help me?” I asked.

She got a big grin. I was a little scared of what the chemicals would do to my hair. I seemed to remember my dad telling me about blue-haired old ladies, but they must have figured how not to let that happen by now.

“I don’t know if our aunt is going to let me share a room with you,” Zoey said as she returned to our original topic of conversation.

“I’ll talk to Uncle Dale. I’d like to make it to the end of summer without Jennifer and Tracy killing me.”

“I’ll protect you, little brother,” Zoey said with a big smile.

◊◊◊

Zoey was right, Aunt Marcy didn’t like the idea of us sharing a room. She was outvoted five to one, but it took our uncle to finally convince her.

Our next hurdle was decorating our room. I wanted to paint it black and paint the window, so it would be dark for sleeping. I think Zoey was just being mean when she suggested pink. Aunt Marcy stepped into the fray and made an executive decision. The walls would be an off white with a gray Berber carpet. My old self cringed at the carpet color, but that was the style, and Zoey loved it. I did get blackout blinds as a concession.

Uncle Dale took us to the mall to get ideas to finish decorating. I decided I wanted to use something that reminded me of my parents. I’d gotten a rug when we were stationed in Iraq. Uncle Dale helped me figure out how to hang it without causing any damage.

Zoey went a different route. She found a place that sold framed album covers. Uncle Dale helped her pick out old rock ones that included the Doors, Led Zeppelin, Country Joe and the Fish, and Jefferson Airplane. She also found a place that sold wall stickers. She chose a giant pink flower.

My uncle looked at her selection.

“Are you sure?”

Zoey just nodded.

“Okay,” was all our uncle said.

I liked her choices.

◊◊◊

Over the next few weeks, I continued to grow. I still ached, but I found exercise and stretching helped. My hands and feet were growing faster than the rest of me, which meant that I outgrew my shoes pretty quickly. My aunt had bought me tennis shoes two sizes too big when I moved here. Now they were starting to be snug. Zoey teased me that if I ever grew into my paws, I would be a pony.

Speaking of ponies, another portion of my body had grown. I’d gotten curious and measured my cock. It was now six inches long. I pondered one of the great mysteries of the world. What was the proper way to measure one’s member? It was nearly seven inches if I measured it underneath, but where did underneath start? I figured I would be consistent and measure from the top as I had in my past life, and I was the same size then as I was now.

Maybe it was not as impressive as seven inches, but it looked enormous on my small body. I was a little worried about what Nancy had in mind because it had been more than adequate the first time through. I really didn’t think I wanted a porn-star-sized dick to impress the ladies. The other thing I noticed was that my balls had also grown.

I was actually impressed with the look. I had a man-sized dick on a kid’s body. I was now a skinny five-foot two-inch boy, with what looked like a ten-inch penis, which seemed to get hard every time I turned around. Man, if the wind blew on it, it got hard. I found I needed to jack off at least three times a day, or my balls began to ache. I’d forgotten what it was like to become a walking hormone. I needed relief.

Being a boy, I was also oblivious that Jennifer and her friends had noticed the changes.

“Hunter, do you want to go swimming?” she asked.

She had intercepted me coming out of the bathroom, which was a whole other issue with three teenage girls in the house. I was caught off guard because my older cousin usually acted like I didn’t exist. Immediately, warning bells were going off in my head, but I wanted us to be friends. Maybe Jennifer appreciated how I had fixed the room problem and was reaching out a hand in friendship?

“That sounds good. Where are we going?”

“My friend Crystal has a pool. She said I could bring a guest.”

“Oh,” I managed, and then I had an idea. “I’ll tell Zoey.”

“No,” Jennifer said quickly. “I can only bring one person. So, are you in?”

“Yeah, sure.”

◊◊◊

Crystal only lived a block away. On the walk over, Jennifer told me about her friends.

“Crystal and Deb are my best friends, so I expect you to be nice to them. Don’t be a dork. Dave and Phil will also be there. Dave is pretty funny and always up for a good time. He also has the best weed, so we always ask him to our get-togethers. Phil’s a little quiet but cute,” she said.

I think my cousin had a crush.

When we got to Crystal’s house, we walked around back and through the gate of the privacy fence that led to the pool. I looked around and saw the back yard was dominated by enormous maple trees that surrounded a large patio and nice-sized pool. It looked like we were the last to arrive.

I was soon introduced to everyone. Crystal was blond with blue eyes, and she had a nice, curvy build. She looked good in her bikini. Deb had a killer little body with a perfect derrière. She was a brunette with brown eyes and about my height. Dave looked like a stoner, and Phil was the jock if his body was any indication. I could see why my cousin thought he was cute.

“Hey, Little Dude, have a beer,” Dave said as he pulled a bottle out of a cooler.

I read the label. It said ‘Grain Belt,’ and it was brewed in Peoria, Illinois. I used the picnic table edge to pop open the bottle and took a big swig. It must have been made with water right out of the Illinois River. I would guess they didn’t buy it for its taste, but instead for the cheap price. I looked at everyone, and they smiled at me. I then realized I had opened my beer like a professional.

“This shit sucks,” I said as I laughed.

Of course, I didn’t have much to compare it to. I’d been mostly in Muslim countries for the last couple of years, and alcohol was not allowed, except at the embassy. The Embassy Rats, as they called us kids, would steal beer on occasion. My dad made it very clear that, if we did, we had to drink it on the embassy grounds and not anywhere else. I found my buddies from the United Kingdom and German embassies had the best beer. They would have rather have drunk their own piss than drink Grain Belt.

“Yeah, but it does the trick,” Dave said. “You ready for a puff?”

He handed me the bong. It had been years since I smoked weed. Wait a minute; I had never smoked weed to this point. What the heck. I decided I needed to show my willingness to join in. Being at this party was all about my cousin liking me, so I wanted to show I could hang with her friends.

“I’ve never done this before. Someone will have to show me,” I said.

“Jen, show your cousin how it’s done,” Crystal said.

Jennifer showed me the proper technique and then handed it to me. She rooted through the baggy of pot and found a nice bud. She filled the bowl, and then I leaned over the bong as she lit it with the yellow lighter. I began to suck as soon as the flame touched the pot. The bud glowed bright red, and I heard the gurgling as the smoke started to fill the tube. When the bong was full of smoke, Jen pulled the bowl out, and the smoke shot into my lungs.

I could feel the heat from the smoke in the back of my throat. Then my lungs decided I needed to eject whatever I was using to kill myself with. I tried to hold it in, but my body had other ideas, and I began to cough. I actually saw stars, and I felt the effects of the pot almost immediately. This was good shit. Jennifer pounded my back to help me. I finally got my coughing under control.

“You okay, Little Dude?” Dave asked.

“Yeah, I’m good. I think if you added ice to the bong water, it would cool the smoke down.”

Dave’s eyes got big.

“Dude! I have to try that,” he said enthusiastically.

He went to the cooler, added ice to the bong, and then took a hit. He got a big smile on his face.

“You guys have to try this,” Dave declared.

Soon everyone had gotten incredibly high. I had only been to Crystal’s for a short while, and I was wasted. I found the beer wasn’t so terrible once you were stoned. I picked one of the big lounge chairs and kicked back to zone out.

There I lay, minding my own business, when Crystal suddenly stood over me, smiling. I reached up, took her hand, and pulled her down on top of me. I think she was stunned when I kissed her. Of course, that caused a problem that she couldn’t have missed.

“Wow, you’re full of surprises. I bet you were a bad boy back in Florida.”

I answered her as I slid my hands onto her ample butt and squeezed.

“Way to go, Little Dude!” Dave called out.

“Oops,” I said as I realized we weren’t alone.

She kissed my nose and got up. She made a pointed look at the tent in my shorts and then sashayed through the back door with Jennifer and Deb in tow.

“I hope they’re getting something to eat,” Phil said.

“I want something salty,” Dave suggested.

“I could eat a whole pizza,” I decided.

“Pizza,” they both said together.

Phil got up and went inside to make our feelings known.

“I heard your parents and little brother died. I’m sorry about that,” Dave said.

“Yeah, it sucks, but Jen and her family have really welcomed my sister and me into their home. I just keep telling myself things could be worse.”

“I can’t even imagine. What year are you going to be?”

“Junior.”

“You’re pretty cool. I hope you and I can be friends, but I would understand if you wanted to steer clear. I have a rep as a stoner,” Dave said.

“I don’t have any friends yet. I would like it if you were my friend.”

“Cool.”

Phil stuck his head out the back door and called us in. Dave and I got enough beer for the group and headed into the house. Crystal pointed us to the basement, and we found everyone else already down there. No pizza, but as stoned as we were, we completely forgot about it. The girls had made us lunch: chips and ham salad sandwiches. We were like a ravenous pack of wild dogs.

After we were done eating, the girls got nervous, which clued me in that they had something planned. Crystal seemed to be the ringleader.

“Let’s play spin-the-bottle,” she suggested.

Phil and Dave looked as nervous as the girls. I downed my beer and sat down on the floor while putting the bottle in front of me. The older teens weren’t about to let the youngest in the group get one up on them, so they all joined me. Crystal gave us the rules.

“We will rotate clockwise, and the person who it lands on, you’ll take into the laundry room with you, and get to spend ‘seven minutes in heaven.’”

“I’m not doing that with my cousin,” I complained.

“Fair enough, one of us will take her place if you spin and it lands on Jen, and Phil will replace you if it goes the other way,” Deb said.

I could see they were trying to set up Phil and Jen. Crystal went first since she was the hostess. She gave the bottle a spin, and you could hear it as it rattled on the tiled floor. I thought it would never stop, but it finally pointed to Deb. The girls looked confused. I nodded my head.

“Cool, maybe you could make out in front of us to get us in the mood,” I teased them.

Dave reached across the circle and gave me a high-five. Crystal was having none of that.

“If you land on the same sex, you have to respin,” she declared.

“Dang it, I was hoping to make out with Phil,” I said as I waggled my eyebrows with a mock leer.