Fifteen year old Mike Byrne whiled away a boring day by investigating the basement of his family's new house. The house had belonged to his Father's Uncle Tim. Uncle Tim, an engineer and a physicist, passed away three months ago and left the house to Mike's parents. The basement was still full of small engine and engine parts. It was cluttered with tools of all sizes, blueprints, drawings on sketch pads, and notebooks full of mathematical computations. Mike looked for anything that might still work to toy around with. He moved a box of gears out from against the wall under the stairs to rummage through it. As he did, he noticed a crack that ran vertically from the stairs to the floor. Upon closer examination the crack was part of a hidden door. Mike used a small screwdriver to pry open the door. It was dark in the little closet, but Mike could make out some sort of machine. It looked like the workings of a giant clock with blue light bulbs sticking out in seemingly random places. There was a metal box on the floor by the machine. Mike opened the box and found a diary and what looked like a large digital watch. The watch had the correct time: Fri. June 24: 2:30 p.m. Beneath the time of day, there was what appeared to be a setting for a stop watch set at 00:00:00. Mike opened the diary to the last entry dated only one day before his uncle's death.

"Machine is WORKING!!!
Latest test a complete success!!!
Power source seems unlimited!
What to do now??? Can't let it be used by government or other possibly dangerous agents.
MUST BE CAREFUL!!!"

Uncle Tim would die in his sleep that night of a heart attack. Mike picked up the watch. There were two buttons directly over the face. Mike pushed the one on the right. He jumped back as the machine lurched into life. The gears were spinning madly and the light bulbs pulsed pale blue light. The machine was noisy for a second then the sound quickly into perfect silence.

Mike could not believe the machine could be so quiet with all those gears spinning. He tried to guess what the machine's purpose was, but nothing else was happening in the basement. He looked at the watch; the time has stopped and the "stopwatch" had started when he pressed the button. Mike put the watch on his wrist and looked around the basement to try to discover the machine's purpose. As he moved around the basement, he noticed that he could not hear anything. He could not hear the sounds of his feet moving on the floor or the sound of some of the boxes scraping the floor as he dragged them out of the way. Had he gone deaf, or was the machine somehow absorbing the sound? Mike looked at the time on the watch as he backed further away from the machine to see if distance made any difference. As he did, he bumped into a small table. He turned to catch the table before it fell, but the table was suspended at an 80-degree angle to the floor. He picked up the table. It felt weightless. He let go of the table, but it remained suspended in mid air. What was going on? He looked at the watch again. It had been two and a half minutes since he started it. He pressed the button on the left. The small table fell to the floor and toppled over. The machine gave a quick roar and slowed to a stop. Mike had the answer: the machine had stopped time! He replaced the diary, closed up the secret closet and piled some boxes in front of it. He then went to the first floor of the house.

Mike's mother was vacuuming the living room carpet. She was the only one besides Mike who was home. Mike walked up behind her carefully so she would not notice him, and he pressed the "on" button. His mother seemed to quickly slow down then froze with her body slightly bent over the vacuum cleaner. He did not hear the machine in the basement. That was good. He walked in front of her and waved his hand in front of her face. She remained frozen with a blank look on he face as she stared down at the carpet. Mike reached up and removed the hair clip that pinned his mother's hair to the back of her head and clipped it on her nose. He then walked back about ten feet behind her and pressed the "off" button. His mother resumed her vacuuming for a moment then quickly reached up to grab whatever was on her nose as her hair fell down about her face.

"What the....?" She looked around and saw Mike standing behind her. "How did you do that?" She asked in a very puzzled voice.

"What are you talking about?" Asked Mike. "I just came from the basement, and you put your clippy on your nose."

"I most certainly did not," she shot back still confused.

"O.K., Mom, whatever you say." Mike rolled his eyes for a second then turned to conceal his broad grin and walked out the front door leaving his confused mom to re-pin her hair.

Mike wondered if the device would work outside. He was about to press the "on" button when he saw a young lady jogging down the sidewalk. She was probably in her mid 20's, tall and well built. Mike had seen her jogging a few times before. She had long reddish blond hair held back in a pony tail, and she wore a pair of neon green jogging shorts and a tank top over a sports bra. She was athletically built with no signs of body fat and small round breasts. Mike waited for her to reach the front of his house and pressed the button. It did work outside. He walked over to the fetching young jogger.

"Well, well, well...." He tried to speak but made no sound; apparently sound does not travel when time is frozen. He circled the woman wondering what deviltry he could do. He lifted her off the ground about a foot and left her suspended there. He then removed her shorts revealing a pair of lavender cotton panties cut a little high on the thighs and darkened with sweat around the waistband. He then took her body across the street, turned her in the opposite direction, and planted her feet on the sidewalk. He then freed a long strand of sweaty hair from her pony tail and placed it in front of her face. He turned to walk away and then turned back, grabbed the waistband at the rear of her panties, and gave the young woman a wedgie, firmly wedging her panties up her crack. He walked back to his front porch, hid the shorts behind a potted plant and restarted time.

The young lady jogged about five more strides before she stopped and look around a little disoriented. She could have sworn she had been jogging on the other side of the street and in the opposite direction. She brushed the loose strand of hair out of her face and reached back to fix her wedgie. As she did she felt for her shorts. She looked down to find she was not wearing any. She looked around to see if anyone was watching and saw Mike across the street. He smiled and waved to her. She turned red, gave a nervous smile, and ran down the street in the direction she had come with her panties still wedged up her ass. "Oh, yes," thought Mike "This is going to be fun!"

Mike walked down the street to test the watch's range and see what other mischief he could create. He walked down to the edge of the block when he heard toe sounds of loud bass blaring down the street. It was Davy Swain and Greg Selber, two boys from Mike's high school. Even though they were both born and raised in the suburbs, they dressed like hip-hoppers and listened to "gangsta" rap. They slowly pulled up by Mike in Davy's '96 Ford Escort hatchback. The car was made into a low-rider tricked out with all the trim, rims and other unnecessary claptrap. The car pulled up to a stop sign and sat there while another car made its way through the intersection. Mike stopped time.

He walked to Davy's car and shook his head at the two pathetic white boys. He opened both doors wide. Greg happened to be leaning against the passenger door and was not wearing a seat belt. Mike then popped the hood, lifted it up and set the bar in place to hold it up. He unlatched the hatch and opened it all way. He then reached in the car and turned the windshield wipers, heater, and hazard lights on and put the car in park. He walked back to the sidewalk and restarted time.

Greg fell out of the car and landed on his shoulder with his feet still in the car. Davy looked around frantically. His mouth hung open and he sat there not knowing what to do. Greg got up and looked a t the car. "What the fuck?!"

Davy turned off the engine, and got out. He looked at the hood. "How the hell did that happen?!"

Both boys just stood there slack jawed staring at the car. Mike walked up and asked what was going on.

"The fuckin' car just went nuts, bro!" Yelled Davy. Greg just stood there staring the car up and down.

"Well," said Mike, "maybe all that bass was too loud, and the vibrations shook the car open."

Mike left the boys to scratch their heads and close the car back up. He had a little more fun that afternoon. A man who was berating his young son for missing a fly ball in a little league game from which they had just returned suddenly found his mouth full of grass clippings, and as he spit them out, he tripped over his feet that had somehow gotten crossed up. As another unfortunate coincidence, he fell face first into a pile of dog shit. A lady in her early 30's heading for her car found herself wearing nothing but her bra and panties. She quickly looked around to see if any of her neighbors were outside. She did not see Mike hiding in the neighbor's bushes and trying not to laugh. She quickly ran to her front door to find she had locked herself out. She looked in the window to see her clothes and purse in a heap inside the front door. She decided to hide in the back yard until her husband came home. Two young teenage girls walking away from an ice cream truck suddenly found their ice cream sandwiches squished down the back of their underwear. They stopped dead in their tracks and looked at each other totally befuddled. They looked around and saw an innocent looking Mike walking down the sidewalk some ten yards behind them. They did not want to stick their hands down their pants in front of a total stranger, so they gingerly walked off down the sidewalk frantically whispering to each other trying to figure out what happened. And lastly, a man washing his car found his water hose stuck up his shorts giving himself an impromptu enema. He danced around a couple of steps, yanked the hose free and stared at it wondering what had happened.

Mike was having the time of his life. He had walked about five blocks from his house and the watch still worked. Walking back to his house, he realized he had to be very careful. If he was careless, people might notice him disappearing and appearing if he was not in the exact place when he stopped and started time. He also realized that if strange things kept happening when he was around, people would become suspicious. Despite these concerns, he knew the possibilities of this invention were endless. If the range was far enough, he could walk into a bank and clean out the cash drawers, take food from restaurants, merchandise from the stores, gain access to sporting events and concerts, etc. The world could be his! A myriad of possibilities swirled through his head as he walked up to his house. He stopped and stared at the car in his driveway. It had not been there when he left, but he knew whose it was. His sister Maggie was home from college. That was not an unwelcome event in and of itself, but Mike remembered she was bringing her bitch of a roommate Michelle home with her. Mike was really going to have some fun now.