A future Halloween’s tale

Chapter 4
Waiting for the technician (or someone like him)

Chapter Description: Time to look under the hood.

A technician was called in to run a diagnostic on the two units. He pulled out his diagnostic device which looked like an old smartphone from early in the last century and got to work.

Henry was ushered over to a clothing booth where his outfit and diapers were recycled into a smaller set more fitting of his younger frame. He went to Alice who was sitting on a chair next to the transporter.

“How are you faring?” he asked her.

“Oh, Henry! I wanted to go as Alice in Wonderland, not be Alice! This whole thing sucks!”

“Hopefully, they’ll figure something out. It might spoil our evening, but we should be returned to our correct ages within a few hours.”

The technician finished his diagnostic and came over to the two children. “Well, can’t say I’ve seen that malfunction happen before. I mean, I’ve had electrical cascading occur in the past, but it never reverted the travelers into children! Hopefully, our quantum mainframe can reconstruct the events and come up with a fix. You two should enjoy your party in the meantime.”

“Enjoy the party!?” said an indignant Alice, “How can we do that? It’s a party for grown-ups, we’d be the only kids there!” she punctuated her statement with her arms crossed and a pouty lip.

“Hmm,” muttered the technician, “maybe you can go Trick or Treating instead? All you’d need is a couple of candy bags.”

“Why the very idea!” said an angry Henry while stomping his foot, “We’re adults, not kids. How are we supposed to enjoy that?”

“Seems to me that you’re already acting like children. Might as well enjoy it for a few hours until we can sort out the malfunction. You’re perfectly welcome to sit here in the transport area staring at the walls and not have any fun. I guess that would work too.”

With that, the technician left the room.