Second Chance War - 35 Back to Reality

Thomas awoke strapped to a cold and unforgiving metal gurney. The first sounds he heard upon waking to the sight of the white tiled ceiling above was the excited and hushed whispers of the three doctors who had just not too long ago sent him into the battlefield. They were discussing the nature of what they deemed as the experiment two days ago. It was at that moment that Thomas realized that everything had happened two days ago, Monte Cassino, the experiment that led to Monte Cassino, all of it. He pretended to listen in and what he heard gave him quite the shock.

“So we’ve agreed on what we think is the most likely cause of these jumps into the alternate timeline?” Doctor Katz was the first to chime up.

“Absolutely, it makes sense. Well as much sense as this whole thing can bring anyways.” Doctor Elaine was the second and she agreed with Doctor Katz.

“Well, I’m just an expert in computers, as I’ve taken to calling the machine. I haven’t the foggiest idea of what you’re all going on about.” Doctor Turing sounded really confused about it all.

“Alan, listen. The main point of all of this is that when Thomas enters this state of phasing. He’s literally phasing back into his own timeline. It may be at the behest of Kincaide, but that’s what we’ve agreed is happening. Now as far as Kincaide himself is concerned, we think that every time Thomas phases into his original timeline, for a brief moment Kincaide is also there. The window we think is appropriate given what we know is that Thomas would have one to two hours tops to find and kill Kincaide. Killing Kincaide would sort out this mess almost immediately.” Doctor Elaine paused for a moment, a cherry red smile appearing upon her fair face.

“Captain Conlin, I think it’s about time you stopped pretending to be asleep, don’t you?”

The question jolted Thomas, he had the most surprised look upon his face. He tried to deepen his breathing in order to appear he was asleep, but it seems he had been caught by the good doctor.

“Can someone please get me off this table? It’s cold, and between the four of us, I think I’ve had enough fo the cold for a little bit.” It was at this moment that Thomas remembered that they couldn’t possibly know it was cold and raining on the battlefield. Wait, Thomas just realized that he also had no clothes on, where did they go?

“We had to get you out of those rags you were wearing, you were positively soaked,” Doctor Elaine explained before he could ask. “Also, no need to be embarrassed, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” She laughed at his misfortune and Thomas remembered that she previously spent fourteen hours putting him back together before.

“Not to worry, you will be off that table soon, we are just waiting on some test results first.” Alan was quick to chime in and ease his discomfort.

“Test results?” Thomas was confused, he was not aware of any tests, maybe they had done something to him while he was under.

“Yes, when we received the only printout, that’s what I am calling the page received from the machine hooked up to the computer I made, Doctor Katz here noticed some….peculiarities,” Alan informed. Thomas was even more confused at the familiar terminology, the words were foreign, but they were not. Most likely to do with Kincaide, he had no time to wrap his head around it, he tossed the thoughts and feelings aside. Doctor Katz then interjected, explaining his findings.

“Yes, I have found quite a few irregularities. First of all, your Cerebellum lit up like a Christmas tree just before you started time phasing, which seems to suggest that eventually, you may be able to control your phasing. We do not know much about the human brain, we have not made too many advanced studies, but in here, I can do anything I wish as long as it gets results and doesn’t kill you. So I tinkered a bit, and well ahead of our time, if my studies ever find the light, I have discovered that the Cerebellum, is related closely to the automatic control of the motor functions, it also has an as of yet unknown correlation with the perception of time. I do not have enough information to form a theory, but perhaps the Cerebellum is utilizing the perception of time and your motor functions to form a gateway back to your original timeline at random intervals. This is what I have surmised, and as soon as we get the paperwork back from the experiment I did yesterday, we will have our answer.”

Thomas found the whole explanation to be informative and useful. Doctor Katz had explained it in such a way that even he might understand it because he definitely did not have a medical background. As he was explaining something a whirring sound in the corner of the room caught Thomas’s attention and he craned his head to the left as far as the restraint would let him. He caught a glimpse of the room he was in as he did so. By medical standards it certainly was cozy, there was a couch on the side of the room he was looking at, it had a small carpeted area underneath it. Next to the couch was a desk with a basic office chair, the desk itself looked like it had been heavily reinforced. On and underneath the desk were various machines all hooked up to a big fat box with words scrolling across it. All of this was set against a regular wall, while the floor itself was made of wood. It looked like a regular doctor’s office.

“It’s ready!” Doctor Katz exclaimed, and he walked over to the machine with great strides. He took the piece of paper and started to examine it. Doctor Katz immediately frowned, Thomas could already see the wheels churning in his head. He turned to Thomas and shook his head.

“It is just as we suspected, and maybe a little more. The results…” his voice trailed off before he steeled his jaw and looked at Thomas resolutely. “You must be ready for the most painful time of your life, this all rides on you, and when we finish, you will be a man of two times, able to freely control the fate and destiny of two worlds. Well, at the very least, able to move between this time and your original time at will. You have no choice anymore Thomas, we had hoped it wouldn’t come down to this.” Doctor Katz turned to the other two doctors and nodded his head.

“We could only do this. Time to inform the Major General, we are moving forward with Operation Time Leap.”