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    Chapter 4

    tab I nearly wet my pants. Seriously. Not that anyone would notice. I'm frikkin' invisble.
    tab "What the--what the heck just happened?!" I exclaim, waving my non-existant arms in the air.
    tab "A cloaking device. You're invisible," he replies. Yeah, thanks, Captain Obvious. Maybe a slightly more thorough explanation would suffice next time. He lifts my leg from the sling with was nestled in, and lowers it to the bed.
    tab "A cloaking device?" I croak, still in shock. Mr. Jacobs nods as he rolls the wheelchair closer to my bed.
    tab "Yep. Remember, I'm from the future." Yeah, right. It's like from some sort of science fiction fantasy, but it's difficult to deny after all I've seen. I wobble off the bed, and start hopping towards the wheelchair with my better foot (my left foot). It still hurt, but not as much as it would if I used my right foot. Ouch. I don't even want to think about that. I climb into the wheelchair slowly, adjusting myself to what I thought was necessary.
    tab Being invisble is weird. You have to kind of feel around, not because you can't see anything, but because you can't see yourself. Frustation broils up in me, and suddenly, I lose it.
    tab "You break my right leg, you make me turn invisible without even giving so much as a warning, you just stole this wheelchair...What's next? Are you--are you going to lead me to this other organization and get me killed?! I'm not going one more inch until you tell me what's going on!" I don't why I had just snapped like that, but I did. I guess it happens when things just happen so fast, and you can't really just slow down. Mr. Jacobs sighs, and then replies,
    tab "Fine. Have it your way. You can just wait here and be killed." He looks at me dead in the eye, and finishes, "The thing is, I already told you. Explaining things to you in full detail would take too long. It's better off that I show you." We look at eachother for a couple seconds, and then I reply with a grunt, and start moving towards the door. By the time I turn around to see if Mr. Jacobs is following me, I see he's gone.
    tab "Mr. Jacobs?" I cry. "Where'd you go?"
    tab "Right behind you." Suddenly, I remember. The cloaking devices. Duh. I lean forward and twist the door knob.
    tab The door opens no problem. The problem we face, though, is the fact about a dozen people have witnessed a door open on it's own. We try to walk through the people murmuring and calling my name, but find it quite difficult.
    tab Eventually, we're outside, in the fresh air. For a couple seconds, there is no noise. No bustling of cars. No loud talking. Only the rustling of trees can assure me that the world is still alive.
    tab "Nice, isn't it?" says the voice of Mr. Jacobs. I know he's right next to me, but that's all he seems like at the moment. A voice.
    tab "What?"
    tab "The silence. It's quite breath taking." I look out at the car filled parking lot.
    tab "Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is kinda nice."
    tab "Well, don't get used to it," he snaps suddenly. "Where we're going, things won't be as peaceful. Now, c'mon. I left the time machine at a little ditch around a mile from here, so follow me." Uh, what? I can't follow a person I can't see.
    tab "Press the red button again to become visible." Oh. Right. I press the red button, and am refreshed to see my hands again. I look around me. Mr. Jacobs is to my right, a serious look on his face. He grabs the handles of the wheel chair, and starts pushing me down the parking lot.
    tab He comes to a rusty, black car, and stops.
    tab "This is it," he says. He lifts me off the wheelchair as if I'm a small toddler, and I'm surprised to see the car unlocked as he opens the trunk. He throws my wheelchair in there, and then opens the door. He rests me on a combined to seats, acting as a small bed for me, and straps me in. Then he jumps in the drivers seat, and asks,
    tab "Are you ready?"
    tab "Don't count on it," is my simple, yet truthful reply.

    tab We drive for about two minutes down the road, and then Mr. Jacobs comes to a screeching hault. He starts to turn the car, and plows right down a giant trench. The car bounces up and down, jiggling my bones.
    tab We keep going down the trench for a couple more seconds, and the car stops at the bottom. And after the painful getting back on the wheelchair routine, Mr. Jacobs looks down, and says solemnly,
    tab "This is it. Get ready." He looks back up, and takes out a little, silver remote from his pocket, with only one button on it. He presses it, and suddenly, without any gradual reappearing like you see in the movies, a capsule pops up out of nowhere, about seven feet in height, and three feet across. It's the shape of a giant bullet. It's silver, (is that the raged color in the future?) and it's got a five foot high opening in the exact same shape as the capsule itself.
    tab It seems pretty obvious. It's the time machine.
    tab Mr. Jacobs has to duck as he walks on in. With the wheelchair shortening my height, I have no problems with this, and in no time, we're both inside. The inside looks far more complex then the outside. Wires are dangling everywhere, connecting every which-way to a socket. In the middle of this tangled mess it a little box with numbers on it. It reminds me of the Back to the Future time dialer, and probably worked the same way.
    tab Mr. Jacobs waltzes over to the box, and starts inputting numbers into the tiny screen. He steps back, and we start to wait. Wait for something to happen.
    tab "So..." I say finally. "If this time machine actually works, what should I be expecting?"
    tab "This time machine works primarily by spinning. We will be spinning at a faster rate than you've ever experienced, so you might want to brace yourself. It's Einstein's theory of changing time depending on speed, just slightly altered and more controlled."
    tab "So that's all there is to time traveling? Make a capsule spin really fast?" Mr. Jacobs shakes his head, and replies,
    tab "There's much more than that. See all these wires? Try telling me that's simple!" I can't, and even if I could, I wouldn't be able to, because then suddenly, it all begins.
    tab The capsule starts spinning, slowly at first. Then faster and faster, until I can't make out anything. I don't even see in a blur. All I see are faint flashes of colors. Then...then I faint.