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Power up Prompt, Level 3. @BRADLEYRAMSEY

A loud alarm blares, I pull out of my own thoughts to find the pitch detector flashing “stall warning”. I have to get my head in the game because this ‘game’ is a literal killer.

Radio static pops, my military liaison’s voice sounds panicked.

“Air-Spec One, this is Sea-Tac joint operations base. Do you read? Is everything ok up there?”

I thumb a yellow button. My mic goes hot.

“This is Professor Blankenship. I can hear you. That alarm was intentional. I was testing the plane’s flight parameters.”

“Air-Spec One, this is an open channel on a classified mission. No names please.”

“You want to find another Ph.D that can fly a plane? Respect my title.”

There’s an extended silence on the other end. The air hisses past the cockpit windows blending with the crackle from the radio. The delay gets long enough I’m mentally seeing the pink slip coming. The radio crackles back to life.

“Fine. The captain has assigned you a new call sign—Doctor BS-one. Do NOT descend below 15 thousand feet. Maintain a circular flight path inside a 2-mile radius around the anomaly. Live telemetry connection is online.”

I stab the disconnect button with enough force to send a needle of pain through the swollen nerve in my carpal tunnel. A string of highly inventive curses on National Guard captains flies out of my mouth.

The radio speaker buzzes again. “Doctor BS-one, the captain heard that. She appreciates your opinions on her mother’s daily hygiene and sexual proclivities. Do you have anything relevant to report?”

My cheeks sting. I make sure to note the yellow altitude warning button is a slightly different shade from the yellow radio disconnect button. I poke the correct one this time.

I bank left and look down the wing of my rented DC-9. All I can see is a ragged ass crater with something big and sizzly in the middle. All that’s left of a hundred scientists and a time crystal research project out of science fiction stories. The Hope diamond of physics…100 feet down in a crater ripped out of the bedrock.

There’s so much energy coming off it, my hair is crackling with static, even at this distance.

Did I mention that they have tried sending soldiers and scientists into the blast zone before? None of them came back. When they went in and disappeared—the big shiny got bigger and shinier.

I might be mouthy, but I want this assignment…I need it.

I’m in the middle of a forced sabbatical from Lawrence Livermore. On their end, I’m educated, but expendable. On my end, this could be the job that gets me in the history books. In a good way, this time.

Alarm lights flicker again and chirp but immediately cut off. A flash of reflected light bounces off the clouds to my right. The air seems to…tremble?

“...the hell…”

The altimeter is spinning like a broomstick caught in a tornado. Everything else looks normal. Even the compass, that should be spastic with this much static saturating the atmosphere is steady. I’m looking for explanations with shaking hands—tapping dials, flipping switches, grunting wordlessly—dreading the radio pop.

Sure enough, “Doctor BS-one, status! We’re showing your altitude is dropping rapidly.”

“I don’t know!” Even I can hear the panic in my voice. “I didn’t touch my controls. My gauge is going haywire.”

“We let you fly that museum piece because there are no advanced electronics. Playtime is over, Doctor. You’re at 15,500 feet and dropping. Pull up now!”

My hands are sliding all over the flight yoke from sweat but I’m pulling back hard. The altimeter mocks my efforts and continues to spin—sometimes clockwise, sometimes counter-clockwise. Looking out the window is worse. The clouds are thin and wispy one moment, then dark and ominous the next.

“Doctor BS-one, if you don’t pull up immedi…”

Silence.

Calm.

The altimeter sticks, rock solid at 14800 feet.

My cell phone chimes. The screen brightens, surrounded by meaningless dials. An incoming text message pops up, “Hey Dad! Leaving the party now. See you in 20 minutes.”

It’s from Tomas.

Tomas has been dead for eight months.

A stranger’s hand reaches for the phone. My hand but I can’t feel it. I can’t feel the cool, smooth edges of the phone. I can’t feel the glass wrapping the digital keyboard. I can’t feel the words that my hand types.

“Tommy?” (send) “Where have you been?” (send)

Three dots…

Cycling…

“WYM? Are you more wasted than I thought? I was at Doctor Jameson’s promotion bash with you and Mom.”

Three dots…

“It’s a good thing you left before you said any more to the Director. You should have seen his face! LMAO!”

Three dots…

A photo, Tomas smiling evilly holding up half a cake in his free hand, car windows streaked with rain behind him. Everything bathed in the red glow of the dashboard lights. His dark curls are dotted with glittering raindrops. The icing on the cake spells out “CONGRATS , Dr…” The rest is cut off by a neat knife cut.

Three dots…

“Open the garage door, Dad. It’s pouring out here!”

I drop the phone like it’s white hot, muttering, “It can’t be…it can’t be…it can’t..” While searching frantically for the button that opens the garage door.

From eight months away.

The twin chunks of ice at the ends of my arms bump against the flight yoke. I pull back.

Will that open the garage door?

The altimeter unsticks and climbs to 15,000 feet. The radio pops.

“IMMEDIATELY!. Do you copy, Doctor BS-one? Respond!”

Dials and switches swim in front of me. The flight yoke slips out of my grasp. I hold my hands in front of my face. The pale digits tremble but I feel nothing.

At the edge of consciousness, the flight controller’s voice drones, “You are dropping again! Respond, Doctor. Telemetry is all over the board. Time stamps make no sense. We need human verification. Doct…”

The phone chimes again. I fish for it on the cockpit floor. Vertigo hits when my shoulder pushes the yoke down and the plane dives. A distant memory buzzes “altitude lock” at the base of my skull. I pull a lever. A click under the floor and the yoke is locked in position.

My eyes follow the faint glow from the missed notification.

“Hey. WYA? The cake is ruined. I left the keys in the car and had to go back for them. U didn’t go home?”

My fingers are shaking so hard, I can’t type words. The voice call icon in green grabs my attention at the top of the screen.

I miss the first two jabs, the third connects the call. I hear the ringtone in the earpiece.

Then that perfect seventeen year old voice, the one that already thinks it’s my equal, hits me like a slap.

“Bro! You left me hanging. Where are you?”

I can feel the tears burning red lines down my cheeks. My throat closes up. My lips move but only gasps escape.

“Dad? You there?”

I close my eyes and will my heartbeat to slow. I need my game face. I need to be Dad.

“Yeah, buddy, I’m here.” My voice gets steadier with each word. “It’s good to hear your voice. Sorry about the door. A work thing came up. I never made it home.”

“Bruh, you flamed out of a work party…to go take care of something at work. Low-key loco. Is everything OK? You sound stressed.”

A hysterical laugh bursts out of my chest. I choke it off. I vaguely register that the altimeter is dropping again—slowly.

“Yeah, buddy. I am stressed, damn stressed. You wouldn’t even believe. I’ll try to leave it at work this time though, I promise.”

“Ok, I’ll see you in the morning. I’m crashing out. Night!” The click that isn’t a click when he disconnects seems to echo in my head.

An alarm tone punches the silence away. Flashing red lights strobe across the panel. Instinct guides my hands to the controls. The locking pin disengages automatically with a crisp snap.

My head feels like a block of wood but the fake bravado I had donned for Tommy holds. I seize on it like a buoy in dark, surging waters. I take another look at my phone. Sure enough, it reads out the date that Tommy died. The clock shows half an hour past when the EMT pulled the sheet over his face.

The scientist in me whispers, “You are there, really there, in that time. The space is all wrong though. If you leave this space—you leave this time. You can’t have both. You can’t go back home. You know this. Can you live with it?”

I pull up on the flight yoke just short of triggering the stall warning again. Crossing 15,000 feet feels like tossing that handful of dirt on the casket again.

The captain’s voice is screaming in my ears, the sounds are incoherent. I flick on my mic again.

“Sea-Tac, this is Doctor BS-one. I’m returning to base. Full report on arrival. BS-one out.”

I yank the earphone jack out of its port and toss them on the floor.

There will be others that will want to come here. They will be looking for answers from the past, or for vengeance, or for closure. The price is that I will be their guide.

Tommy will get a phone call every time.