Disclaimer: Jonny Quest belongs to Hanna Barbera and Turner
Productions. Charles Wallace Murry & Meg Murry belongs to Madeleine L’Engle. I am not affliated with the mentioned companies in any way. The JQ and "Wrinkle in Time" Trilogy characters here are used without permission of the owners. No cash is made from this.
February 25, 1998
The Ripple Effect
Part One
by Ina-chan
“What do you mean I don’t exist anymore?” Jonny murmured weakly as Hadji and Jessie helped him up to a sitting position
“What is this tesser you are talking about?” Hadji asked
“Where are we?” Jessie demanded
The little boy raised his hands as if to ward off physical attack, “One question at a time please.”
“Where are we?” Jonny asked clearly
“Outside of time,” The boy replied simply
The three teen-agers looked at each other uncertainly.
“What is a ‘tesser’?” Hadji inquired
“The act of traveling through a tesseract.”
Jessie frowned, “What the heck is a tesseract.”
“The fifth dimension.”
Once again, his response was met with a moment silence.
Jonny raised his arms in surrender, “OKAY! Time-out! What did you say? FIFTH dimension? This is too weird for school!”
Charles Wallace paced around them seriously, “Think of it this way... What is the 1st dimension.”
“It’s a line,” Jessie replied
“The second dimension...”
“The line is squared,” Hadji replied, “An image stuck flat in a surface. Like a flat square.”
“Is that your Mom?” Jessie whispered the obvious
“The third...”
“That’s us,” Jonny reasoned
“The flat square, squared again... a cube,” Jessie added
“And the fourth is the cube squared again,” Charles Wallace
“But that doesn’t exist,” Jessie argued, “That geometrically impossible.”
“But it does,” Charles Wallace insisted, “Think of Einstein.”
“He believed that time is the fourth dimension,” Hadji stated
“So mathematically speaking, if you square the fourth dimension, you get that tesser-whatsit,” Jonny derived
“Tesseract,” Charles Wallace corrected, “What is it that Euclid said about plane geometry?”
“A line is the shortest distance between two points,” Hadji stated
“With the tesseract, that’s totally untrue. The fifth dimension folds the line, so you can actually jump from one point to another without the constraints of time.”
Hadji bowed his head, lost in his own thoughts as Jessie and Jonny gaped back at the boy in bewilderment.
“Is this kid for real?” Jessie whispered
“Well... if you think about it. It does make sense... sort of,” Jonny whispered back.
Jessie just looked at him strangely.
Jonny turned back to the boy, “Okay, what about me not existing?”
Charles Wallace patiently sat down on the ground and crossed his legs Indian-style, “The Earth is a shadowed planet.”
The three teen-agers blinked blankly.
“For centuries, mankind fought against or within the influence of the Darkness. For centuries, mankind won and fell in its battles against it. It would seem that it has chosen a new battle ground,” Charles Wallace explained solemnly
“I don’t understand. What does this have anything to do with me not existing?” Jonny asked again
The child’s brow furrowed in thought, “I don’t really know. The future is a mere mirage of a vision, an ever shifting fluid of possibilities. We are only granted the powers to revisit the past to foresee the future... unfortunately it would seem that the Darkness has become aggressive and decided to change it.”
Jonny shook his head, still not understanding, “But what does that have to do with me?”
“Only time can explain,” Charles Wallace replied simply
“He’s even more vague than you,” Jessie whispered to her silent Indian best friend
Jonny ground his teeth in frustration so used another tactic, “What happened to my Dad? And Race?”
Charles Wallace bowed his head, “I’m sorry. I didn’t tesser in time to save them.”
“WHAT?!?!?” The blonde and the redhead cried out in alarm
The little boy had a start in the outburst, “Oh, they’re still alive! It’s just that... they got caught in the time stream and lead different lives now.”
“This... is tooo weird,” Jessie murmured as she slumped her shoulders in defeat
“So you are saying,” Hadji spoke suddenly, “That this... Darkness... somehow managed to change something in the past in effect, changed everything as we know it?”
The boy nodded.
“Well, I don’t believe you,” Jessie said stubbornly, “How can a little kid like yourself know all these things?”
The boy made a deep adult-like sigh almost to himself, “This is one side of human nature that I’ve always hated.” Straightening up, he looked at his three companions, “Would it be better for you if I was the same age as you?”
Jessie looked at him strangely, “You’re one weird kid.”
Without another word, the little boy was engulfed by a blinding light. When the three time-misplaced teen-agers can see again, the six-year old figure was replaced by a an older version of the little boy, around twice the original age. Though he still looked younger than the three teens, his transformation was enough to convince the three that this was no ordinary person.
“Who are you?” Jessie asked uncertainly
“I told you already,” Charles Wallace replied patiently
“But who are you really?” Jessie queried not so patiently
“Just think of me as your guide then,” The mysterious blonde sighed again.
“How old are you really?” Hadji asked absently
“What is age?” Charles Wallace shrugged nonchalantly
“Definitely spookier than you Hadj,” Jonny whispered to his friend
Charles Wallace looked at Jonny, “If you think you’ve recovered enough, we better get on our way. I don’t know how much longer I can keep you shielded from the time stream.”
“On our way?” Jessie echoed, “You mean ‘tesser’ again?”
Charles Wallace nodded.
“I still don’t get it,” Jonny murmured
“I think I do,” Hadji spoke suddenly again, “Think of time as a sheet of cloth and two points as two places in time. If the tesseract is a fold between the points, one can then step from one point--- or should I say one place to another in the wink of an eye.”
“A wrinkle in time,” Jessie mumbled
Charles Wallace smiled, “Excellent. Shall we now go on our way?”
“But you can’t travel back in time at will,” Jonny protested, “Even with my Dad’s Questworld program, we still had a hard time...”
“You can’t travel back at will or in the flesh,” Charles Wallace interrupted, “Time is very fragile. We are given special permission because our objective is to prevent that change. We also only have one shot to do so. All or nothing.”
“As much as I think this whole time travel thing is exciting and all,” Jessie cutted in, “Old experiences on the subject really doesn’t make a big impression on me. Isn’t there any other way to stop this ‘Darkness’?”
Charles Wallace shook his head, “Pun not intended, but the shield I put on Jonny is only temporary and we don’t have much time. When Jonny disappears, the two of you will get caught in the time stream and will start lead your own alternate lives, just like your fathers.”
Jonny looked at the other blonde boy thoughtfully, “What exactly happened?”
“Your mother died,” Charles Wallace replied promptly
Jonny frowned angrily, “I already know that.”
“No,” Charles Wallace shook his head sadly, “Your mother died before she married your father.”
The three gaped at him in silent shock.
“This created the ripple effect,” Charles Wallace confirmed, “Jonny, you were never born.”
“My dad was never assigned to protect you,” Jessie continued
“You never went to Calcutta,” Hadji added
“We have to stop that from happening,” Jessie whispered
Jonny swallowed a painful lump forming in his throat, “When... how does my mom die?”
“I don’t know,” Charles Wallace calmly replied
“WHAT?!?!?”
Charles Wallace flinched, “In essence, outside the time stream, as long as Jonny still exists... the event hasn’t happened yet. It’s our job to find out and stop the ‘Darkness’ before it strikes.”
Jonny glared at him, “But if you don’t know, how do we get there?”
Charles Wallace stood up and held out his hands, “Come, link hands and don’t let go.”
“What’s this going to do?” Jessie inquired as she took her best friends’ hands in her own
“So you won’t get lost.”
“Lost?” Hadji called out in alarm, “Lost during what?”
Charles Wallace closed his eyes as currents of air started to swirl and move around them, “When we ride the wi---”
That was all they heard as the strong gale rose above his voice. Before anyone can even blink, the four teen-agers vanished... gone with the wind...
(To be Continued)
© Ina-chan, 1998