With great pride, Dr. Harry Bellis looked over the bubble-like, erect tomb. It was the size of a regular man, and had wires and tubes snaking from it to various computers and outlets. Twenty years' of work had gone into this, off-and-on. Beginning as a challenge, a passing hobby, it had slowly developed into a single-minded obsession. Meanwhile, Harry Bellis' genius had not gone unnoticed and he shortly found himself Professor of Dilateral Temporal Physics at the University of Thought.

He remembered giving his students sheets upon sheets of equations. They had helped him with theory, but had never known what was done with their results. Students never do. They're content with filling in the formula, working out the equation, and stating answers. In that way, they were just like computers. Incredibly clever, incredibly sophisticated computers, mind you, but computers nonetheless.

He was the one who had dreamt up formula after formula, theory after theory. Rejecting this one, modifying that one. And then - bingo! - the answer stared him in the face.

A student of his had made a series of very stupid, very careless mistakes. Except that the answer, the final answer, was correct. It was different from all the other answers, to be sure. Quite different. But it made more sense than the others. Then, when Dr. Bellis had recalculated, intentionally making the same mistakes, the answer fit perfectly. Once again, serendipity served as the brightest light of science.

But theory is theory. He needed a working model. And that was what took him most of the twenty years. Ordering this part, this computer, this program. Oh no, he'd say, just running low on lab equipment. Why? Well, I'm preparing a special kind of lab, you see.

As time went by, he began taking more and more days off. They became more and more suspicious. They wanted to know what he was up to. He couldn't tell them, of course. He'd quickly find himself the laughing stock of the entire scientific community. So, instead, he found himself politely but firmly kicked out of the university.

But none of that mattered anymore. Here it was, right in front of him, justifying every hardship he had encountered. It had all been worth it.

Dr. Harry Bellis smiled proudly as he looked over his invention: the bubble-like, erect tomb--that was a time machine.

The door of the bar opened. Inside, people played pool, people played video games, people sat on stools and tried to get lucky. But, most of all, people got drunk. Which was perfect. Drunks tell no tales, thought Dr. Bellis. Usually because they don't remember them, but even if they do, who'd believe a drunk?

Dr. Bellis quickly spotted a man sitting on a table in a far corner with a beer mug in his hand. He was singing a love song to what he believed to be a waitress--beautiful beyond description despite her dirty, ill-kept hair. The less inebriatred might have noted that the object of his song was an old mop that some tired janitor had rested against the wall.

Pausing his off-key crooning, the singer downed another mug of beer. His head followed the mug on its journey back to the table. At least, Bellis thought, his snoring's less tormenting on the ears than his singing.

No. He wouldn't do. Bellis had this all planned--ever since he had decided his time machine was ready for testing. He would have liked to carry on with that time-honored tradition among scientists and use himself as the guinea pig, but Dr. Bellis liked life more than time-honored tradition. And, if something went wrong, he wanted to be around to try to fix it.

If his had been a conventional time machine--see a million, outdated science-fiction movies--then all he'd have to do was send something through time; anything, really, an apple, a book, maybe even a rat or a monkey. But he needed a human being. And he couldn't let any word of this escape until he was ready to publish. That meant he needed a human being who wouldn't be able to leak anything to the scientific community--or worse yet, the media. Children were out--even runaways; too risky. The very elderly and the mentally retarded were out, too. Their minds might have deteriorated too significantly for Bellis' time machine to work on them. Besides, people might ask questions.

He'd finally decided on a drinker--preferably a heavy drinker. But someone who still had their wits about them.

On a stool near-by, a woman sat lightly caressing a glass of some green-colored liquid. She seemed promising. He approached her and said, "Excuse me. My name is Harry Bellis, and I was wondering if . . ."

"I'm seeing someone. Sorry," she said, turning away.

Laughing, he said, "No, you don't understand. What I was going to say was . . ."

She interrupted again, saying, "Look, buddy, I said I wasn't interested."

She turned around to look at the bartender, who was more muscle than man. He looked like he could've been Hercules' personal trainer. That is, if Hercules' ego could stand being near someone so much more muscular than himself.

Dr. Bellis backed away, flashing a genial smile to Bartender Muscles. A man was watching with apparent interest from a table near the center of the room. Bellis decided to try again.

"Sorry, Buddy," the man said, "I'm as straight as an arrow. Straighter, even." He paused thoughtfully. "What's straighter than an arrow, by the way?"

Bellis, ignoring this, said, "Look, I need someone to help me. There's a hundred dollars in it, and should take only an hour or two. "

After sipping from his beer, the man said, "All right. You got me interested. What's the deal?"

He was more sober than Bellis would have liked, but he said, "Not here. That table at the back."

Reluctantly, the man followed Bellis to the table.

"Well?" the man asked, when he had taken a seat.

"This may sound strange to you, but I have invented a time machine."

The man laughed. "Really, a time machine? Wow, that's great buddy." And he rose from his seat with a patronizing smile.

Bellis quickly placed a fifty dollar bill on the table. "I'll give you fifty right now if you just listen."

"O. K.," the man said, reseating himself. "Fine, go ahead."

"This machine," Bellis whispered, "Isn't your regular, science-fictional time machine. That's ridiculous. Highly ridiculous, I'd say, and I'm very surprised that otherwise intelligent, sane writers would put such a thing . . ."

The man interrupted. "Get to the point. What's your time machine do?" And then, "No, wait. Let me guess: You can pull things--objects? people?--out of the past, right?"

"Wrong."

"All right. You can, uhm--"

"If you'll be quiet, I'll tell you. Let's put it like this: Imagine that your life is a movie. Every frame of that movie represents a second in your life. From the moment you open your eyes, you start watching the movie. Following me?"

"No," said the other man, "because you can affect the events in this so-called movie. You affect the people and the objects around you. You're not just watching, you're participating."

Bellis sighed heavily. "I know that. Let's carry this a bit further. Let's say it's one of those new audience-sensitive movies. All right?"

"Well, still, it's not the same because. . ."

"Look, I'm just trying to make this easy for you to understand. Humour me and let's say that you're life is like a movie, okay? There's you watching it from behind the screen of your eyes. You can affect things, fine, but that's not important."

He continued. "Now, what if you could rewind the tape? You'd be rewinding your life, you see. And that's how to think of it. My time machine is just a big, hugely expensive, remote control. With it, you can pick any time in your past and rewind to it."

The other man shook his head forcefully. "Now wait a minute. Say you've built this remote control, fine, I'll give you that. Say you rewind your life until you're a kid again. Who cares? You're just a kid, like you were before, and you don't know nothing about no time machine, get it?"

Dr. Bellis sorted out the last few sentences in his mind. He said, "No, because when you rewind a movie, you, the viewer, are still the same person. You know what's going to happen . . ."

The man interrupted, "So you mean that you keep your brain? You rewind to when you were a kid, 'cept you still have the brain of a thirty-year old?"

"Don't say brain, say mind . . . Yes, in a manner of speaking. You, er . . . 'share,' let's say, the mind of your younger version. There's plenty of room. He'll--that is, you'll--never know you're there. So you can sit back and observe and . . ."

"Well, where's the use in that?"

"What? Oh. There's lots of uses. Start with nostalgia. You can see your long-dead puppy again, right? But there's more than that. My machine is going to revolutionize the world. Say you're witness to a crime, but you were so frightened, so unnerved, that you didn't really get a good look at the criminal. Or maybe you just have a bad memory. No problem, we send you back to that time and you observe. We bring you back, and you point out the criminal. What do you think of that?"

"Well, I guess that's got it's uses, but . . ." The man cut himself off in mid-sentence, and looked up excitedly. "Hey, what about sending someone into, I dunno, Hitler's brain, say, and making him commit suicide or something."

"Hitler did commit suicide."

"I mean before the war."

The Doctor shook his head. "You can't. Your mind fits in your brain. Try to make it fit into someone else's brain and you and he end up dead. It just doesn't work. It's like trying to force a square-shaped object into a rod-shaped hole. No. If your mind somehow--an accident say; a disaster--went into someone else's brain, both of you would die. Very quickly. And probably very painfully."

The man looked at the mug of beer in his hand. His watch read half-past midnight. "Well," he said, rising from his seat, and pocketing the fifty dollars, "it's been interesting. We should do it again some time."

"Hey," said the Doctor, also rising. "Don't you want the rest?"

The man smiled. "If it means that I'm the first one to try your machine, then no."

"Why not?"

"Cause my life is worth more than fifty bucks."

"A hundred?"

"That's not funny."

"Listen, forget what I said about death. I can almost one-hundred percent guarantee you that the machine is safe. Trust me."

The man smiled and began to move away.

Bellis coaxed, "And you'll be the first man to travel through time. That'll make you famous. And rich."

That stopped him. "Really?"

"Of course."

The man thought for a second, and then sat back down. "All I have to do is go back to me as a kid?"

"Or whatever age you care to choose."

"And then what?"

"And that's it. You'll be there for, uhm, let's make it five minutes for the first trip. Then I'll bring you back, and you tell me what you saw."

"That's it?"

"That's all."

Dr. Harry Bellis clicked on the time machine. The various connected computers hummed to life. Screens flickered on and lists of information began to flow across them.

"Step inside, Dick." They had become acquainted in the taxi on the way to Bellis' home.

Dick slid open the trnsparent door and stepped inside the time machine. It's like stepping into a grave, he thought, as the door slid shut. A transparent grave; transparent on all sides, and one that was standing erect, but the eerie feeling was still there. He slid open the door again and stepped out.

"Changed my mind, Doc," he said, heading for the stairs.

"What do you mean you changed your mind?" asked the Doctor, astounded. "I thought we had an agreement!"

"It's not worth it. Too dangerous."

With great reluctance, the Doctor said, "Look, there's something I haven't told you. When you go back, you don't really just have to observe."

"Oh yeah?"

With a sigh, the Doctor continued. "There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to . . . whisper . . . to your younger self. Whisper instructions and thoughts and such-like. Maybe not every whisper will get through, of course, but - "

Suddenly, Dick's eyes opened wide. "You're saying I can change my life?" he asked excitedly.

"Well, yes, it's theoretically possible. Certain complications are obvious, of course. That's why . . ."

Suspiciously, Dick said, "What do you mean?"

"Well," said the Doctor thoughtfully, "you wouldn't be allowed to go back to your nineteen-year-old self, for example, and buy stock in Quantum Automaton before they released their butler-robot series."

Dick nodded, disappointed. "I knew it was too good to be true."

Quickly, the doctor said, "But you can change little things and make your life a little happier. Say you flunked a test in high school. I don't see the harm in going back and whispering to yourself a few of the answers."

Dick shook his head and laughed.

The Doctor said, "You're not going to start talking to me about chaos theory, are you?"

"What?"

"Nothing." A pause. "Why'd you shake your head, then?"

With a smile, Dick said, "I was just going to say that I knew more then than I do now. At least about stuff that would show up on a test."

Dr. Bellis nodded his head. "The example's still good. Surely, there must be something small in your life you'd like to change. Perhaps an embarrassment you'd like to avoid?"

"Like what?"

"Something small. For example, on your first date with a young lady, missing her lips and hitting her nose instead. Go back, and direct yourself."

Dick sucked in some air thoughtfully. Exhaling loudly, he said, "Sorry, Doc, I can't think of anything. Nothing small, at least. Big changes, I could name a thousand. Never marrying my first wife, for example. Nothing small, though."

"Nothing?" asked the Doctor desperately.

"Well..." but Dick seemed reluctant.

"What?"

"No, it's just that, when I was in the sixth grade, the school bully challenged me to a fight in the yard. They formed a circle around us--the kids did--and started yelling for us to fight." He stopped.

"Well?"

"I ran away. I guess it's silly, but it haunted me for a long time."

"No, that's perfect. You want to go back and make yourself fight him?"

"Her."

"Sorry?"

"The school bully was a girl. But she was huge."

"Fine, then, you want to go back and fight her?"

"Just stand up to her, maybe. They back off in most cases, I've learned."

"So you'll go through with it, then?"

Dick nodded his head and moved toward the time machine.

"Dick," said the Doctor.

"Yeah?"

"Step on as many butterflies as you like," said the Doctor with a grin.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just remember: Once you're in the time machine, think about that time with the school bully, okay?"

Dick nodded his head once more, and slipped into the time machine.

Richard Forward looked defiant. "I don't have to prove myself to you," he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

Teresa the Terrible (ne Teresa Mannette) smiled. It was an ugly, terrifying smile; much like Teresa herself. She was large--the largest in her whole grade--but that wasn't so strange once you realized she'd failed that grade a few times. She had on an old army shirt and more earrings than you could count on the fingers of both hands. And those were just the ones you could see.

"Told ya he was chicken," Teresa said in a deep voice to the surrounding children.

"I'm not chicken," said Richard, even though he was already planning an escape route. He backed away slowly, ready to break into a run at any moment.

STOP.

The word seemed to come from inside. Inside his own head.

He kept backing away.

STOP.

He stopped. Hearing voices was definitely something new for him, and he wasn't sure what they'd do to you if you didn't follow their orders.

FACE HER. TELL HER YOU'RE NOT AFRAID OF HER.

Richard thought, half-hopping that the voice could hear him, Is that such a good idea? What with her being twice my size and all?

DON'T BE AFRAID. STAND UP TO HER.

Richard absorbed the situation rather quickly. On one side, he had the very tangible Teresa the Terrible, with her very tangible fists and feet and elbows and knees. On the other, he had a voice. A disgruntled voice seemed a better option than facing off with the Terrible. Besides, he might be hallucinating the voice. Teresa, on the other hand, was definitely no hallucination.

He ran.

Dr. Bellis thumbed a glowing blue button. The time machine exploded.

His arms shot up to shield his face as hot, burning metals and plastics blew this way and that. Automatic fire extinguishers came on and the fire subsided.

But the damage was done; the time machine destroyed. It would take him years to rebuild. If he had the patience to start all over, that is. And he didn't know what had gone wrong. Nothing should have gone wrong. It would be silly to rebuild before he solved the problem; even supposing that he could find it. Dr. Bellis sat down and buried his face in his hands.

One consoling thought--not very consoling at that: Dick's mind was probably still intact; floating somewhere in space-time. What remained of his body, unfortunately, could comfortably fit in a small plastic bag.

Ah well, casualties of science, that was all. It was to be expected. The important thing was that he was unharmed. Sooner or later, he'd rebuild the time machine. The human race would not be deprived of this invention; the greatest invention of man.

Suddenly he remembered his old Temporal Physics professor--the one who had inspired him to pursue study in that field--and he laughed. He laughed because the old man--despite being a brilliant thinker and an incredible mathematician--had focused his theories of time travel in the occult and the mystical. Time travel, had said the old man in one of their many after- class discussions, is an impossibility. The Universe, he explained, ,would allow no such thing--it creates too many paradoxes. Bellis, then, had agreed politely.

And yet, now, with the time machine having exploded with no evident cause, Bellis got the feeling that maybe the old guy was on to something. But that was silly. The Universe was not out to get you, whether you were working on time travel or not.

Strange how a desperate person will look anywhere for an answer.

Dr. Bellis suddenly froze in place. His smile dropped like a collapsing bridge. A sound. Had someone come to investigate? And why not? Surely someone would come to look into this accident; this disaster.

A moment, and he heard it again; more clear, more distinct this time. And then a third time. A voice.

DOC?

The voice seemed to come from inside. Inside his own head.

He'd been right about one thing anyway. Death came very quickly; and very painfully.

This is the first of the "editor's extras"--stories I have selected as gifts to Anotherealm's readers. Each will appear on some occasion special to me. This one celebrates the new year and my first full year as editor of Anotherealm. As such I thought it only appropriate that the story deal with travel through time. And now, it's time (hint, hint) for your response. Post comments to our BBS, please.