Chapter 3

The 3D TV visualiser.

Lisa knew for a fact that one year was 365 days in a year -366 if it was a leap year- 12 months, yet in those twelve moths they've had more Christmases, Thanksgivings, Easters and in some cases Birthdays then should be possible since they should happen 'once' a year. In the case of Birthdays, they had them yet never aged a single year older. What the heck was going on?

The rational part of her mind worked frantically to find a solution, but there was no use, it was simply impossible. The only one who might have a clue was Professor Frink, Springfield's most intelligent resident, a scientist and inventor who has come up with many wacky inventions in his time and discovered many things. He wasn't as smart as say Steven Hawking, who would be ideal but being nine and ten years old with only their weekly allowance and only able to travel by bicycle you took what you could get.

She and Bart now stood outside Frinks house, a single story bungalow with a large radio antenna dish on top. Lisa knocked on the door and waited for an answer, but no one came. She knocked again, still no one. Again, still no answer. As she was about to knock the fourth time the door was wrenched open by...Bart?

"Sorry, I'm not interested in converting to Hinduism" he said jokingly

"Buddhism" Lisa corrected "How did you get in?"

Bart leaned against the door and looked at his fingernails modestly as if this was something he did every day and knowing Bart it probably was.

"Elementary my dear Elisa" he said putting on a very unconvincing English accent. "I climbed through an open window"

Annoyed at her brothers bad habit of breaking and entering she entered the house and Bart closed the door behind them.

"Professor Frink!" she called out, but no reply came again. "Professor?" Surely he was still in, he had no reason to leave and anyway, earlier he said he was working on an 'ultimate top secret invention' and didn't want to be disturbed. But this was an emergency after all.

A light flash came from under a door, the one which lead to Frinks basement. That must be where he is she reasoned. She gently opened the door and peered down the stairs.

"You know, before I met you my only love was for the things I built and the science I discovered. But now that I've met you I'm just a changed man." Was the professor with someone down there? Lisa wondered as she slowly started to descend the stairs.

"Oh, I'm glad you feel the same way. Bur-hey!" he said.

"Has he finally cracked?" Bart said, neither of them could hear another person down there, just the professors voice.

"Umm, oh, Totty, yes I have done this before, but not with a woman" Okay this was getting a little creepy Lisa decided and slowly took each step down to the basement floor.

Professor Frink was standing by himself in the middle of the room with his arms wrapped around what appeared to be an invisible figure, his tongue was sticking out and wiggling around. What was he doing? Lisa took note that the professor was hooked up to a number of different machines with cables that snaked out to join onto several things he was wearing. A large helmet with a tinted visor that was lightly glowing, two pairs of gloves, a pair of boots and even weirder what appeared to be a big metal diaper over his groin and butt region that was lightly humming.

Lisa had very little understanding what the Professor was doing but it appeared he was in some kind of virtual reality or something of the sort.

"No, no, no, it's doing it wrong!" said the Profess said suddenly. "The stupid groinal attachment is doing it all wrong!" and he released his grip on his imaginary partner.

"Professor?" Lisa asked curiously and at the sound of her voice stopped what he was doing.

"Veronica?" he asked "Your voice has changed."

"It's me!" she called "Lisa Simpson"

"Lisa Simpson? Where the heck are you in this simulation? I didn't program you in." Frink said

"I'm standing right beside you" she said grabbing his arm and shook it "What are you doing?" The Professor jumped in panic and pushed her away. "I thought I told you I was busy!" he yelled as he reached up and ripped off the helmet. He was a tall, lanky man with a thin face, thick glasses, short unkempt hair and buck teeth, he wore a white lab coat and a shirt with a bowtie. He also didn't look happy, "how am I supposed to work on my intercourse simulator with all these interruptions!"

"You're what?" Bart asked and both he and Lisa's faces clouded in confusion.

"Oh, errm" the Professor mumbled as if he'd said the wrong thing "I mean my virtual reality simulator" before adding under his breath "and intercourse simulator." The Professor then began ripping off his strange gloves and Lisa decided to explain why they were there.

"Sorry to bother you Professor" she said as the Professor turned away to place the gloves on the table and she moved around so he had to look at her. "But we've discovered something a little disturbing."

The Professor slammed his hands onto the table and looked at Lisa in a blind panic "Oh, please don't mention this to anyone!"

"Mention what?" Lisa said raising an eyebrow.

"You didn't mean this strange stuff?" Frink held out his hands to indicate the strange devices he had on his person, and the look Lisa gave him –one of cluelessness- made him relax a little "well don't mention it to anyone, this is top secret stuff."

He turned away from both Lisa and Bart and removed the strange metal diaper he was wearing. Lisa then heard a sharp zipping noise before he put the thing on the table. "Oh" the Professor said as if suddenly understood something "that's why it felt so weird, I was wearing the females attachment."

"What the heck is that thing?" Bart said as he picked up the helmet and Lisa noticed Professor Frink gently pushing the 'groinal attachment' further along the table out of his reach.

"That is one of my latest invention" the Professor said proudly adjusting his bow tie "it is a 3D VR simulator. You can use it as either part of a games system which has yet to be invented, or use it to project yourself into a TV program by utilising the electrical cable or aerial signals and transforming them into 3D pictures, so you can move around actually inside the program."

"Cool!" Bart said raising it above his head and was about to put it on when the Professor reached out and plucked it from him "Ahh! But I haven't worked out all the bugs from it yet. There is a serious problem that affects the views viewing pleasure" and he placed it down on the table. Lisa was about to ask what the problem was when she suddenly remembered why they were here.

"Professor, we need to ask you something." Lisa said and before the Professor could respond she leapt right into it. "Over the past few decades we've noticed that Bart nor myself nor anyone in the whole of Springfield has aged a day older since the late 1980's."

The Professor suddenly became very quiet and stared off into space for a few moments as he pressed his fingers together "So..." he began mysteriously "You've noticed."

"You mean you've noticed it too?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

"Oh yes, I learned it from the very start" he said turning to look at Lisa "1989, the year the world stopped aging." The Professor approached a computer in the corner of the room and logged onto it.

"Why didn't you say anything to anyone if you discovered it?" Lisa asked.

"I tried" the Professor shrugged "Oh I tried, but they didn't want to..." he held up his hands either side of his head and made quotation marks with his fore and middle fingers "'believe the ramblings of someone who also believed internet sex was the next big thing.' Bur-hey Errm ummm" he stumbled again and moved on before Lisa could ask any questions "They wouldn't listen to me even though I had proof, and NASA had proof as well. It's been locked away from the public eye, but you can't stop people noticing forever."

"Noticing what?" Lisa asked as the Professor sat down at a computer brought something up on the screen. It appeared to be a virtual model of the solar system, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto appeared to be missing from the model probably because its no longer considered a planet. It's planetary status was downgraded to 'minor planet' years ago, Lisa guessed.

"This is as the solar system was in 1989, specifically December 17th, now if I push the simulation on." A small section on the top left hand corner of the screen told the current date, and as the Professor pushed it along its date advanced passed December and the New Year all the way around until it came to just 364 days ahead.

"Now, see what happens when I put the simulation forward just one more day" December 16th 1990 and... surely that was a mistake Lisa thought because all the planets, all the moons and all the stars had suddenly jumped right back to where they were on Decemer 17th 1989 precisely one year ago.

"This is no mistake" the Professor said running it again, this time moving further one year ahead to 1991 and again they jumped back to where the planets were on December 17th 1989 the day after December 16th 1991, and the next year the same thing happened, and again, and again, and again. "The planets jump back to where they were exactly on the same day of that year, and since then not one of us has aged a day over what we were in 1989, yet the world has moved on."

"But that's just impossible!" Lisa said in astonishment before realising how it made sense, if they didn't age and the planets keep jumping back on that exact date then it could only mean one thing, time was looping over on itself though Lisa was clueless to explain it.

"The whole solar system, maybe even our whole universe is locked in some kind of time loop." The Professor explained.

"Just like in 'Groundhog day'?" Lisa asked recalling a film staring Bill Murray about a man trapped living the same day over and over again. "Only we're looping over a year, not a day."

"Not exactly, bur-hey! Except the world does move on, otherwise we'd have George W. Bush as president forever."

"We must be thankful for small mercies." Lisa added.

Professor Frink then turned to Lisa "and curiously people can still die, Maud Flanders is proof of that, otherwise they'd come back to life when the loop started again."

"But What about today?" Lisa asked "Only recently have I or Bart aged a day older since 1989, I've always been eight, today I'm really nine and months before Bart turned 11."

"I imagine whatever caused our 'floating timeline' is slowly dissolving, allowing time to advance though at a much slower rate than normal, but gradually getting faster and faster."

"Is that good?" Lisa asked.

"If it settles out at a normal rate, yes" the Professor said closing the computer program.

"But what caused time loop in the first place?" Lisa asked, and the moment the words were out of her mouth she gasped when something in the lab went BANG!

A few second earlier

While Lisa and the Professor had their geek out Bart was distracted by all the neat looking but crazy stuff the Professor had around his lab.

In a trash can Bart could see what looked like a gun, and several other odd looking machines. Curiously he dipped his hands in and picked up the devices. One was labelled 'death ray'. "Cool" Bart said and pulled on the trigger, a long lance of red light fired from the end of the weapon and a red spot appeared on the wall. He placed his hand into the laser beam and could feel it was warm, but Bart didn't feel any deader. Attached was a label held on by a long piece of string. He turned the card over and it read 'Defect: Doesn't cause death'

A shrugging Bart put the useless laser beam aside and picked up another weird looking gun like device, labelled 'De-big-ulator' whatever that meant. Bart was about to pull the trigger when he noticed the label dangling from its trigger, it read 'Warning: Causes death to reduced organic matter' Not being a person who takes warnings Bart pulled the trigger and pointed it at Lisa and Frink as a joke, but nothing happened. A flashing light on the side of the gun read 'Battery low' Bart moaned and tossed it back in the trash.

The next device interesting him the most. It was a small looking box that was labelled 'VR3D TV cable attachment, prototype' the underside had three prongs so it could plug into something.

Bart glanced over at the bench towards the desk with the VR simulator on it and could see a space on the top of the helmet with a socket for a three plugged attachment. Bart noticed a label on the box thing he was holding that read "Defect: Unwanted side effects." It wasn't a warning so Bart took even less notice of it.

As Professor Frink and Lisa were busy at his computer talking about planets or something Bart crossed over to the 3D TV helmet and plugged in the attachment. While the Professor wasn't looking he jammed the helmet onto his head and turned it on.

At first nothing happened, until he thought Why isn't this thing turning on? Then as if the machine read his mind there was a flash on the visor and his entire vision went totally black. Green lettered words then scrolled across the screen 'Please select a channel.'

Cool! Bart thought It's working! But how does he select a channel? He wanted to watch Itchy and Scratchy.

With another flash on the visor the picture resolved itself into a strange looking environment. One that looked like it had been drawn with pen and ink, just like a cartoon. It all looked so real, like he'd just stepped into the cartoon like in 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'.

He was standing in a long street populated by animal/human like creatures, cats, birds, horses, dogs, mice and so on. One in particular walked right past him, a tall black cat.

"Scratchy?" he said out loud. The cat stopped and looked around, could he hear him? The car turned and looked directly at him! He walked towards him.

"Do I know you?" Scratchy asked in a high pitched, annoying voice and Bart's jaw dropped open.

"You can see me?" he asked dumbfounded

"Of course I can see you." Scratchy said, scratching the back of his head in confusion.

"This is too weird for words" Bart said and tried to reach forward with his hands to touch the tall, black cat. But he couldn't, he could move his arms but they didn't respond in this world. Oh right, he'd forgotten to put the gloves and stuff on, that's probably what they were for.

"Sorry, I don't think we've met" the cat said holding out his right hand "I'm Scratchy"

Bart struggled "I can't raise my arms" he said. The only thing he was able to do was rotate his head and blink, but apart from that he was stuck right here, unable to interact. But this was fantastic all the same, he was standing here talking to Scratchy of all people. Could he go into any TV show he wanted?

He thought for a moment and suddenly thought of James Bond because he knew that was on today. Then with a mighty flash he was actually there, in Golden Eye! It was the scene where Bond drove a tank though the streets, Bart just stood in the street and watched the massive, green tank roll past. This was cool, but it was lame that he couldn't move and follow the action he thought as several police cars stormed past him and drove off into the distance chasing Bond in the tank.

Bart thought and appeared in several other TV shows Family Guy, South Park, Star Wars, Star Trek, Jaws, Back to the Future, The Terminator. Which was odd because most of these shows weren't even on today and he should know as he practically studied the weekly TV guide. But either way this was the best TV gizmo Bart had ever seen in the world! Suddenly a thought crossed his mind, why don't I remove the helmet and put the gloves and boots on so I can move around and interact? Why didn't he think of this earlier? He wondered and reached up to remove the helmet.

I won't share this with Lisa he thought She'd waste it on that dumb Malibu Stacy cartoon or that dumber Sci-Fi show Doctor Who. Then responding to his thoughts the scene of the Terminator vanished and the picture around him slowly resolved into another TV show.

The picture around him settled on a domed room with a tall ceiling which appeared to be held up by six buttresses. In the middle of this room was a cylindrical, mushroom shaped console of some sort with a glass tube running through the centre, inside it was some smaller glass tubes and the entire room hummed with a strange noise that sounded half mechanical, half organic.

A large bell started to ring in the background and whatever else he could see was overshadowed by something he didn't really want to see at all.

Standing near the console was a man, staring into space deep in thought. He wore a tight blue pin stripped suit with a red tie and red trainers, his hair was spiky and unkempt. Bart knew who this guy was, it was that 'Doctor Whoever he was' This stupid machine had switched over to the channel which showed Doctor Who.

"No" came the Brits voice as he ran over to the console and began adjusting the controls on it.

"Aw, man" Bart uttered, and the Doctor Who guy stopped what he was doing and spun around to face him. His eyes grew wide almost in shock at what he was seeing.

"What?" he asked looking around Bart as if an explanation for Bart's appearance would show itself. "WHAT?" he repeated.

The large bell somewhere in this room rang even louder.

"WHAT!" Doctor Who's face was a mask of utter horror. A loud ringing came from the console and Doctor Who went over to it and pulled a screen mounted on a rotating dais around the console towards him. The room lurched and tilted sharply "Dimensional instability? That's impossible!" the Doctor guy said looking at Bart "and Bart Simpson in my TARDIS that's even more impossible!"

How did this guy know his name? A part of Bart's brain wondered, but the rest of him was too preoccupied trying to remove the helmet, he didn't want to watch this stupid show and with a mighty heave the helmet came away from his head, and the moment it did the tall bank of computers this helmet was attached to suddenly blew outwards, spraying the surrounding area with wires and circuit boards!

This explosion had not gone unheard by Lisa and Professor Frink however, who now spun around to see what was going on. Bart did not feel nor look the least bit guilty as he tried to place the helmet back on the table but the Professor rushed forward and snatched it away from him.

"What in the name of Einstein's hair were you doing with this? And with the defective 3D TV real imagiliser plugged into it!" Professor Frink said as he looked at the slightly burning computer "Thankfully you haven't caused any permanent damage, nothing a little gum and paper clips won't solve, ber-hey!"

"Bart" it was Lisa "What were you doing?"

Bart shrugged "Watching Itchy and Scratchy and the stupid thing jammed on the wrong channel" Bart explained "so I took it off."

"That's one of the defects I had with this attachment." Fink explained "It blows out the computer whenever you take the helmet off."

Lisa looked disapprovingly at Bart who looked like he couldn't care less, sometimes she feels like she could just strangle her older brother. She rubbed her arms, she had only just noticed a slight chill in the air which was strange because just a moment ago it had been quite warm down here, especially with a computer now slowly burning in the corner.

The Professor wrenched a box attachment from the helmet and tossed it to one side and placed the helmet down on the bench.

A slight breeze began to fill the room and the sound of whirling wind came despite them being inside a sealed basement. All the doors and windows were closed so what was making it? Professor Frink and Bart were both having the same thoughts as they looked around for the source of this.

The breeze began to pick up and developed into what felt like a hurricane wind, and the small fire in the burning computer blew out. By the way everything was being blown around, like wires, the Professors coat, Bart's hair and loose papers and books, which flew open and began flipping through all their pages, and so on Lisa could tell the winds source came from the dead centre of this room, but what was causing it? A malfunctioning air conditioning system?

"Professor, what's going on?" Lisa cried as the wind began to blow harder.

A noise started fading in, it was quiet at first but started growing louder and louder until an audible screech rising and falling in volume could be heard.

"What the hecks going on?" Bart asked as the screech started to become a series of wheezes and groans.

Lisa knew that sound, she'd heard it millions of times before from the TV, the audio must be left on the 3D TV helmet thing she decided because that was the sound the Doctor's time machine the TARDIS made when it came into land. What happened next she couldn't believe at all. It couldn't be real, could it? She must be dreaming!

Her eyes grew wide as, fading into reality, its light on the top fading then flaring up in a bright blue light before fading again and repeating the cycle was a blue police box, like the one on Doctor Who. The groaning noises began to get louder and louder as the box began to solidify. When it had fully faded in and looked as real as the bench and banks of computers around it, the machine gave two final wheezes and groans and with a loud 'ka-chud' that echoed around the room the place fell silent and the gale wind dropped allowing the papers and books to just flop to the ground.

Lisa's mouth dropped open and her eyes grew even wider. She couldn't believe it, she must be dreaming. She took a step forward and reached out with her hand until she could almost touch it, she pressed her hand onto the surface of the wooden police box and felt a slight vibration, she snatched her hand back immediately as if afraid it would snap her hand away. Then she gently replaced her hand and could feel the slight vibration of the TARDIS exterior and the very real, rough, wooden surface of the box. Everything about it was exact to the TV show, even the fonts of the letters on the police box signs, the shape and size of the windows even the writing on the door.

Suddenly the door she was pressing her hands onto quickly opened inward and from within stepped a man. A thin man dressed in a blue pin stripped suit and red tie wearing and a pair of red plimsolls, she looked up at his face, it was slightly angular in an attractive sort of way and his nose was long-ish and straight. His brown hair was spiky and messy and his brown eyes were large and wide yet friendly. He smiled a beaming grin and said "'ello, I'm the Doctor!"

Then Lisa fainted.

To Be Continued...

Authors notes: Wow it's been a long time since I updated this story so I hope I didn't disappoint :D

I considered cutting the 'intercourse simulation' gag from the chapter, but in the end I decided it was the funniest gag of the chapter, plus I thought it would be alright as long as I worded it in such a way were older people knew what I was talking about, but younger readers wouldn't ;)

Doctor Who fans will notice I've made Bart make the common newbie error of calling the Doctor, Doctor Who.

And for those Simpson fans, the date mentioned where the time loop starts is the actual date the first full length episode of the Simpsons was aired. (I don't count the shorts.)

Hope everyone enjoys the new chapter

-Cheers