39 The time machine everyone forgo (1/2)

Ceres was shocked when An Ning told her what happened. She and An Ma entered the maze after receiving An Ning's phone call. The Amazon territory was well equipped with wifi and the internet, thanks to Enxuo who spent twenty years interweaving technology within the landscape of the peninsula. The line didn't even crackle when An Ning dialed her father's number and asked to speak to her mother.

Ceres entered her former prison and looked around the familiar cave, at the small bed, the book shelf, the tiny kitchen, the bathroom that Enxuo meticulously built to make life better for her. Over the course of time, they realized that Enxuo was able to enter and exit the cave while Ceres can't even take one step outside without being blasted by an invisible force. One of Yu Yan's tricks, openly mocking Ceres' loss of freedom.

Looking around, Ceres was brought to a painful realization that she had actually spent most of her life here, the entire arc of her youth in fact, alone with only her mother's loyal servant to keep her company. Deep down, she knew she had put some of the blame for her incarceration on Hippolyta. If only her mother didn't leave, if only she had taken Ceres with them, if only she had never met An Ma....The if onlys went on and on.

Over the course of the long years, she never once was curious to again look at the machine Hippolyta had built as a lark. That machine took her parents from her. Probably killed them without her knowledge. So, she pushed the thought of it aside, didn't even look at it until everything associated with it was forgotten with the passing of time.

”Enxuo didn't even know about it,” Ceres said. ”He probably assumed it was one of mother's experiments. She was always doing something, you know. She was very curious and her thirst for knowledge was endless.”

”Are you sure about what you saw?” An Ma asked. ”It could have just been a mirage or something. A trick of the mirror perhaps.”

”She looked exactly like An Ning,” Richard said. ”And the man beside her looked as if he had seen a ghost when he saw her.”

”I don't understand any of it,” An Ning said. ”Mom, you said grandma used the machine and since she and grandpa disappeared, we can assume that it worked. But how was it possible that they were able to see us and us to see them? Did she build another time machine wherever she is?”

The four of them looked at each other stunned.

”Could it be she's trying to reach us?” An Ning asked, frowning. ”They can't go home without the machine. Grandmother must have built another one then. But they're stuck because it's obvious it doesn't work. Why is that?”

”I wonder if the time machine works like a double-sided door,” Richard said. ”The one here is one side of the door and the other one over there is another side of the door.”

”You enter here and you exit there,” An Ning said, following his thought. ”It could work both ways but given that why isn't it working then?”

”It probably works like a key,” An Ma suggested. ”And the key doesn't fit so that's why they can't go home.”

”How did they look when you saw them?” asked Ceres.

”They both looked fit and healthy. Grandmother was wearing some kind of a red robe. Very elaborate and expensive. And grandfather had on this heavy black gown like those things you see in pictures worn by ancient emperors.”

Ceres looked at her open-mouthed.

”Are you telling me that your grandmother and grandfather are out somewhere trapped in ancient times? What the hell are they doing there? They were supposed to visit the year 1785!”

”What happened in 1785?” An Ma asked curiously.

”Don't ask,” Ceres sighed, remembering a similar conversation between her parents.

”So they jumped years?” An Ning asked. ”Something must have gone wrong then.”

”The problem facing us now is, how can we bring them back?” asked Richard.

”If it's a question of being like a key as dad suggested then we have to synchronize both doors so the key could fit,” An Ning said, frowning deep in thought. ”But how do we synchronize the doors? The timeline maybe?”

”We have no idea what the timeline is though,” Richard pointed out. ”They were both dressed in clothes worn during ancient times but we don't know which era. It could go as far back as 500 B.C.”

An Ning looked at him then suddenly spun on her heels and walked over to a large table with a flower vase on top. She pulled open the drawers and found paints and brushes which Ceres had collected trying to pass the time learning how to paint. She was never really good at it though. And she totally abandoned it in favor of reading books on banking instead.

An Ning picked up a drawing notebook and started to draw on it. Richard walked over and looked at the drawing.

”He had on a gown called longpao if I'm not mistaken. Black with a yellow trim embroidered with some kind of an animal probably a dragon around the shoulders. There was also a gold belt around his waist,” Richard said, nodding at what he saw.

An Ning's fingers flew over the blank space and slowly filled it up with lines and curves and circles. The tall figure of a man with a smooth and good looking face slowly emerged, elegantly dressed in a long black robe with his hair hidden under a cap. An Ning added the details Richard mentioned until the drawing was completed.

She then started on a new page by drawing the figure of a woman, as tall as the man, but with her face made even more beautiful with makeup. On her head was an elaborate headpiece which sets off her lustrous ink black hair. Encasing the woman's tall and slim body was a robe the color of red blush.

An Ning showed both drawings to her parents when they were done.

”I'll have both Matt and Sam work on this to narrow down the timeline. Then we can input each year in the gauge until we find the correct one.”

”How do we know it's the correct timeline then?” An Ma asked.

”I have a haunch grandmother has been trying to contact us before this to let us know where they were. If that's the case, then they must be in a workshop somewhere working on their machine. I assume that now that they've made contact with us, they'll be waiting for us to figure out where they were and do our part.”

Ceres took the drawing of Hippolyta and looked at it with teary eyes.