MAKING TIME (Error: Not Saved Chapter Two)

CHAPTER TWO: MAKING TIME

It was night by the time he got home, after bumping shoulders with top research scientists and janitors alike on the packed monorails. Hiro heaved open the door to the garage with one hand and entered, sniffing the air acrid with motor oil. The place looked and felt like home, but something was off. Or maybe it was just Hiro, undecided like an off-kilter top.

With a trembly sort of sigh he sat down on his roller chair and spun it around. Again he tugged out the scanner and ran his hands across the ridged surface. 

Was he really going to do this? 

The time he'd spent with those dear to him should have helped him accept his loss. He'd said goodbye to Tadashi a hundred times. Everything he'd learnt--was he just going to rewrite it all?

Hiro stopped the chair with his feet and started spinning the other way, a confused scowl etched into his face. It felt wrong. And yet at the same time it felt irrevocably right.

Because he'd wished a thousand times that Tadashi would come back. If he had a genie and three wishes, he knew, none of the other wishes would matter. Just that one. 

The very fact that Tadashi had died was wrong. Like a cosmic mistake. A typo in the great story of the universe. Hiro imagined the narrative as it should have played out: Tadashi attending school with him in the fall, Tadashi helping them to stop Callaghan, Tadashi with the six of them laughing and talking and alive. Even the thought alone made Hiro catch his breath.

He didn't believe in genies, but in his hand now he had a lamp just as good. He wasn't going to throw this chance away. 

So he killed the little voice in his head that said "no," and got to work.

~~~

Hiro worked so long and so hard that he only raised his head when the sun striking off his tools got in his eyes. The time travel program had been successfully downloaded, though it was mystifyingly complex. The scanner had not failed him--the plans were flawless, almost as good as blueprints. But that meant the machine would also take an intimidatingly long time to build. 

With a start, he realised morning had come, and he also realised that if he didn't hurry he wouldn't make it to school on time, again. 

Characteristically, he decided to forget it. He could take one day off. What did it matter? He was changing time. The melodrama of his project had started to get to him. Rewriting the course of history. Turning back the once-irreversible hands of the clock. Yet most true and important was still the thought of seeing Tadashi again.

And again he started to work, as eagerly as befit his task. The sweat that dripped down his face, though, stemmed from more than just plain enthusiasm. Once again, as he had two years ago trying to stop Callaghan, Hiro had a mission he was determined to finish, and it showed in the almost manic way in which he drew up plans and printed parts. He stopped briefly to grab an energy bar at lunchtime, chewing on it as he waited for plates to be sanded. The work flowed pleasantly, rhythmically, and he felt the familiar fire of creation in his bones, but deeper than that lay a passion that both thrilled and frightened him.

Hiro looked to the future, and predicted he would finish the task within the week. Then would come the moment he'd waited for for two numbingly long years. Of course there was the issue that he'd have a functioning time machine in his garage built from stolen schematics. If anyone found out, he'd be in deep water. Perhaps he'd throw a cloth over it. If it came to it, disguise it as a photo booth. Or perhaps the TARDIS. Hiro felt sure he could actually turn it into a working photo booth--

But no matter. All that was immaterial. Within the month he would have his brother back. He didn't need anything else.

Then as the sun began to lower in the sky, a knock sounded on the corrugated metal of the garage door. It startled Hiro out of his creative reverie, and he got up from his seat, stiff and oddly nervous. Before he could call "who's there?" Go Go's voice rang out from behind the door. 

"Open up, nerd."

Hiro froze up for a second. Should he attempt to hide his work? He hadn't got very far along--there was no way she'd be able to guess what he was doing. Still, as a precaution (funny, he'd never been one for precautions)--he closed his tabs and swept the printed parts into a big box before opening the door.

"Hey, Go Go."

"Hey." She parked her bike in the corner and swung herself up onto a table, cutting straight to the chase. "Why weren't you at school today?"

"Um, I just got caught up working on something and decided I could afford a day off." His voice cracked, and Hiro winced. How come he could lie to a stranger so smoothly and completely lose it when attempting to deceive someone he knew? His statement had even been true, technically. "You know how it is."

Go Go nodded. "Okay," she said, though seeming unsatisfied. "What's this you were working on, then?"

Argh. "Just another robot?" he offered weakly. He could see from the suspicious glint in her eyes that she wasn't convinced.

"You didn't answer any of our texts or phone calls," she accused. "Wasabi burnt half of his battery."

"You guys need to chill," Hiro assured her, itching to get back to his work. "I'm fine. I'll be there tomorrow, I promise."

But he wasn't. Nor was he the next day. Or the day after that. Chronos II, as he liked to call it in his mind (cheesily, he had to admit), had an unbreakable grip on him. He worked late into the night and all the way into the morning. His face seemed to have settled into a permanent expression of intense concentration. His fingers hurt from days of furious fixing and typing, but he soon learned to ignore the pain--or, better yet, wear it as a badge of pride.

Hiro supposed he should be thankful that Aunt Cass had a busy week at the cafe. Probably he should also be thankful that his friends dropped by to check in every day, but really it annoyed him. He felt terrible that it annoyed him, yet he couldn't possibly constantly attempt to hide his work every time he heard footsteps.

Never mind; once Tadashi was home they'd both have plenty of time to spend with their friends. Of course he'd have to explain how Tadashi was suddenly...not-dead. 

He'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

So he continued his work. Days Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Seven. Hiro should have finished by Seven, but some unexpected bumps came up, and he reset his schedule for Nine.

Naturally Go Go figured it out on Day Eight. Naturally she would be the one to figure it out.

Foggy with lack of sleep, Hiro had somehow forgotten to close his tabs this time, and her eagle-sharp eyes instantly picked out the title in the bottom corner.

"Chronos II?" Her exclamation snapped Hiro out of his trance, and he rushed forward to regain control of the computer. Then her voice lowered. "Hiro, what's this?"

"A robot," he muttered, avoiding her piercing gaze, afraid it was all over.

"No it's not, bonehead. You're building a time machine." Her words struck sharp, barbed, certain. "And--" One could practically see the gears turning in her head. "And you stole the plans." A crack came into her voice, which made Hiro look up. "Hiro, why?"

Again he looked away, unable to meet her condemning eyes. "You know why."

"No, I--" she started and then stopped again, stricken. "Yes. Yes, I do."

For an eternity an awful silence hung in the room.

Then she burst out again, breaking the calm, her perplexed anger like a swirling storm. "Hiro, you need to stop. You can't do this. I won't let you."

Hiro flinched, instinctive, but then set his jaw firmly. "I'm sorry, Go Go, but you can't stop me."

"You can't do this," she repeated, so tense it was dangerous. Yet Hiro too looked like a rope ready to snap any minute--a rope that was the only thing holding back a devastating force. "It's too dangerous. And stupid. You--you just can't."

Hiro looked at her. Of course he'd never thought for a moment that she would understand. "I have to, Go Go. Don't you get it? Tadashi--you knew him, Go Go. You knew what he was like."

He could see her nodding, still furious but nodding. "He was so good, Go Go. The best person I've ever known. He didn't deserve to die. And I need him. We all need him."

Hiro was struggling now. "Now I have the chance to bring him back, Go Go. And no matter what happens I'm going to take it. I don't care if you don't understand. I have to do this. I have to." He blinked the hot tears out of his eyes and waited for her response.

She made none except shaking her head and turning to leave.

"You're not going to tell anyone, are you?" he called after her, hoping against hope.

Go Go turned back, one hand on the door, her dark jagged hair shadowing her face so he couldn't see her eyes. Hiro waited, half afraid of her answer. 

"No, I'm not going to tell."