It’s Not Every Day You Get a Phone Call From Yourself

“It’s not every day you get a phone call from yourself.”

Through blurry vision, I can barely read my own name on my phone’s screen, and still half in my dreams, I fancy that I had mumbled something profound. When I answer the call, I’m confronted with a voice that is unmistakably my own.

“Wait, listen…” Loud static fills the speakers, cutting off the words right before the call drops.

So I wait, and I listen, but I don’t hear anything, which is weird, right? Because obviously, this is a prank. Someone went to the trouble to clone my voice using AI, trying to freak me out. Next, they’re going to make some loud spooky noise to try to scare me so bad I run screaming from the room. I’ll show whoever set this up that it won’t work. I’m going to wait right here for them to make their next move and then laugh in their face.

But the followup never comes. Any chance they had to take me by surprise is long gone. Maybe this isn’t a prank after all?

Just as I begin to relax, a sharp knock at the door causes me to jolt. “Evan, are you awake?” comes Liana’s voice from the other side of the door. “I need my phone back.”

Her phone? Why is her phone in my bedroom? Hold on, this isn’t my bedroom—it’s hers. I was so focused on foiling the prank that I didn’t even notice. But why am I here? I came over to work on our group project and then… Oh shit, did I fall asleep in her room?

Without waiting for an answer from me, she opens the door, stomps up to where I was lying, grabs the phone from my hand, and stomps back out, leaving me behind with a dumbfounded look on my face.

As I jump up to follow her, I check the clock on her nightstand. It’s past eight, which means we’re gonna miss homeroom unless we leave now. I haven’t eaten breakfast, but I don’t have time to cook anything. I’m thinking about stopping at a convenience store on the way when my phone starts buzzing in my pocket. My real phone this time.

I’m greeted by Mila’s voice when I pick up. “Hey Evan. Are you home?”

“Yeah,” I lie. If I tell her I stayed over at Liana’s place, she’ll tease me even worse than Ms. Ellison. “Did you stay at the lab all night again?”

“We’re on the cusp of a huge breakthrough,” she replies without a hint of guilt in her voice. “Anyway, I think I left one of my notebooks on the counter. Can you bring it to me on your way to school? Oh, and maybe one of the bentos from the fridge. Help yourself to one, by the way.”

It’s hardly the first time she’s asked me to bring something to her lab, and getting paid with a bento is a sweet deal, given my current predicament. “Sure. I got you.”

“Oh, what do you got?” she asks.

I turn the corner to the entryway and nearly run headfirst into Liana and her mother. Crap, if Mila hears their voices, she’s going to ask questions. “I gotta go, Sis. See you soon.”

“Evan,” Ms. Ellison says, “I’ll give you a ride to school.”

“Thanks, Ms. Ellison, but I gotta swing by Mila’s lab on the way.” Without waiting for a reply, I sprint out the door, and Liana runs after me.

“I don’t mind,” Ms. Ellison calls after us. “And call me Melanie.”

⁂

“He’s been pulled half an hour into the past. Or maybe not. The readings show he’s existing in three different times simultaneously. This is bad. We need to shut the process down soon or he’ll be trapped forever.”

“How do we do that?” Liana asks.

Mila points to a panel on the side of the large computer. “We need to enter the shutdown code, but it’s too dangerous to get close with chronoenergy swirling around the mainframe.”

There doesn’t seem to be anything near the computer from my point of view, so I walk up to the panel. “I’ll do it,” I tell them, but none of them react.

“Tell me the code,” Liana demands.

“No, that’s suicide,” Mila says.

“Look, the energy’s getting smaller. I can jump over it. I know I can.”

Mila bites her lower lip but then nods. “Eight, siix, seeeeev…” Her words slow as she speaks until she stops completely. None of the others move, as if they were stuck in time. It’s up to me. Luckily, those three numbers are enough. I confidently punch them into the terminal, but then I pause.

“Wait, listen,” I repeat to myself. What if the code isn’t what I think it is? If I’ve really been sent half an hour into the past, it’s about the same time I got the call that woke me up. Maybe my future self had called me to warn me that I would enter the wrong code.

“…ven, six,” I hear Mila finish. The code’s 8676? What a dumb code. Doesn’t matter. I just need to type it in.

But with my finger hovering over the button, Liana crashes into me, and we’re both sent flying in opposite directions, like magnets repelling each other.

Mila picks Liana up off the floor. “Are you OK? I warned you about the chronoenergy.”

“I’m fine. More importantly, the code.”

Liana takes a step back toward the computer, but Mila grabs her. “It’s too late now. We need to evacuate.”

“Damn!” I shout.

“Evan, what are you doing here?” The calm Mila looks up from her papers with surprise on her face. “I was going to call you in a few minutes…”

I ignore her. There’s not enough time to explain. I’ve only got a few seconds to call my past self and give him the code. If he can just put it in before Liana reaches the computer, he can shut down whatever it is that’s happening.

I whip out my phone and speed-dial Liana. As soon as I hear the call pick up, I start talking. “Eight, six, seven…”