Ken walked down the busy hallway of the complex to waiting room 341.
He’d come to a tough decision for himself and for his sister and Josiah.
He was going to quit, Pure and simple. He’d had enough of time traveling and wanted to start summer school in July as soon as possible. His future was essential to him and he wanted to something to do other then time travel every summer. He sighed to himself and went into the room.
It was a circler room with a counter for group sign-ins and outs.
In one area there was a room for uniforms and gadgets. The clothes for exploring time were the same color as the employee’s uniforms. The colors of the shoes were red and yellow with blue lacing. The khaki shorts were brown where as the pants were tan with a green line down the side. The shirts were long to short sleeved with a green and blue color. In the right room with the insignia of time was where the time watches were stashed and guarded for later use.
The room also had two large monitors with video screens for time rings arrivals and leavings.
He first went to the uniforms room, unchanged into his normal clothes and went right over to the counter to sign out.
He really didn’t want to do this. Deep down, he thought he only wanted an ordinary life with no time traveling and no dangers. Instead, he was quitting for no reason other then to stop all the running, spearing, animal attacks, and hazards that he had seen fact-to-face over the months he’d been with the others.
He sighed once more and after he was done, left the room.
“I hope my sister and Josiah understand this,” he muttered under his breath as he made his way to find his sister and friend.
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“Oh, I understand,” snapped Shelly angrily. “You just don’t wanna be part the group no more, is that it?”
Ken had just explained to his sister and Josiah that he was quitting. And he was right. She did not understand at all.
“That’s not true!” ken protested back. “I like being part of the team. It’s just that I….I can’t handle time traveling like you and Josiah can.”
Shelly didn’t seem to want to listen to this excuse from her brother. She had heard this before from him and didn’t understand how he could be so egotistical about quitting the team.
“Oh, boo hoo,” Shelly mocked sarcastically shaking her head. “So you can’t handle a little time traveling, Big deal. You don’t see me complaining about it or quitting!”
“You and Josiah can handle things without me, can’t you?” Ken asked almost hurt by his sister’s words. “You’re better off with someone who is a better member to the team then I am.”
Josiah waved his hands trying to brake up the argument. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he said. “You don’t have to quit, Ken. I know you’ve had some accident in the past and future, but you can’t quit just because of that.”
But Ken just shook his head. “Look, Josiah, who are we kidding?”
He turned away from them and sat down on a bench. “I’m not a time traveler. I’m a normal kid. I wanna be normal for once in my life. I’m not built for exploring through time and space like you guys, I never was.”
Josiah was confused. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I…can’t explain,” he croaked.
Shelly glared. “Oh, that’s just great,” she said furiously. “First you turn in your watch and uniform and now you’re ditching us?”
Ken couldn’t meet his sister’s or Josiah’s eyes. “It’s my decision!” he yelled angrily, getting up and turning away. “I quit! I don’t wanna be I time traveler anymore!”
For a moment, Shelly and Josiah watched Ken depart out of the doors of the institute without another word. “Fine!” Shelly yelled after him, her voice braking “But I won’t give up on being a traveler of time. I’ll continue to work at this corporation with Josiah, whether you’re my brother or not!”
With that, Shelly turned and walked away down the hall in tears leaving Josiah all alone in the hall.
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Josiah walked down the empty hallway of the second floor of the corporation building alone for hours. His team was crumbling and worse, he didn’t know what to say to either of them.
Shelly had dedicated herself to time travel ever since she heard news about the prototype watches on TV. Back then, she couldn’t wait to join the time watch corporation. She had even encouraged her brother to join as well and the two had successfully made it in.
Josiah had come along after that and soon the three became quick friends and a team.
Had it not been for Josiah’s quick thinking over the two months they time traveled back to the past, the group may have not have survived anything time dished out.
So, for the next two weeks, Josiah time traveled by himself.
It was lonesome. But he soon got over it. He met new people and got a chance to visit his favorite eras. In the old west he had to be careful of outlaws and thugs who tried to steal his items from his back-pack.
In Camelot he was almost burned at the stake for being black and dressing strangely. He got out alive by using deception and the gadgets from his bag but never went back to medieval times again after that.
The 1950’s seemed less friendly then 1880’s as blacks were not allowed in community theaters or restaurants. Once, he got into a fight with a white teenager who had called him a Negro in front of his friends at a local drug store. The fight didn’t last long because the police force showed up and Josiah had to make a run for it. His watch wasn’t smashed up but he had to be careful from then on. He couldn’t risk the time watch damaged by fist-fights in the past. It was not worth that.
Another week past and still Shelly and Ken refused to talk with each other.
Josiah had to give up on the two of them. If they wanted to act like brats, that was fine with him. It was no longer his problem.
He time traveled with Shelly when he got the chance but it wasn’t the same without ken.
Then on Wednesday, news arrived on TV in the lounge room.
News that could help the old team join back together again.
It was reported and shown on live video that a secret vast underground world was found under the ground near a collapsed ice chamber in a tunnel near a clearing in a dense forest not far from a campsite. And found from within were perfectly preserved dinosaur bones. The scientists and diggers didn’t know how they got there but wanted to study and explore more of the prehistoric world. They discovered that volcanic emissions and waterfalls were once there and active. but no longer. The waterfalls and magma were now gone and the air had become old and decayed with deceased and crumbled cycad trees and plants. The ice ceiling was no more and the once beautiful Jurassic tropical forest that was so alive with animals was now as dead as a wasteland.
The diggers and the scientists could not understand how this world could have survived the great extinction of the dinosaurs. The meteorite that had hit the earth 65, million years ago in the late cretaceous had wiped out everything on earth including the dinosaurs.
The underground world was about as old as the ice age and that was impossible for them to believe. Mammals and dinosaurs didn’t coexist with each other back in the ice age.
When the news lady had finished her report, Josiah excitedly ran off to find Shelly. He knew she would love to hear about this and the preserved dinosaur bones and travel back to the ice age to see the animals herself. But there was just one dilemma he had to take care of first.
He had to get ken and her back to talking to each other again. Only then could the team time travel back to the past and find the underground world of the dinosaurs.
If this world did exist in the past back in the ice age, he wanted the entire team to be there with him.
He only hoped that he wasn’t too late. Because if he was wrong, then nobody was going to the ice age.