Borrowed Time

by Keith Hughes

  Everything else looked as he expected, except for the yellow Post-It note on the PDA itself. It read “Turn me on” in the same shaky script on the outside of the package. A sudden mental image of Tracy with the sticker affixed to her uniform made him chuckle before he recalled she had revved her hormones into gear all by herself.

  The unit fit Ness’s hand perfectly. On the top, a power button protruded slightly. The volume rocker was on the side, right where his fingers gripped it. He removed the yellow note and pressed the power button. Nothing happened, and he gave a small grunt of confusion.

  When he used the rocker switch on the side, a volume display appeared. Not knowing what else to do, he tapped the center of the screen. Immediately, the dark screen resolved into motion. At first, he couldn’t tell what it showed. The camera angle shifted, and Ness recognized the face of Dr. Francis Bertrand, his former college professor turned mentor and friend.

  He suddenly recognized the shaky script on the box and note as the professor’s, though it had altered almost beyond recognition. The camera focused on his friend, and Ness had no doubt something was dreadfully wrong. Sweat covered Dr. Bertrand’s pale face. His breathing appeared labored, and a slight wheeze was audible.

  “Nestor, I am sorry to lay this at your feet, but I have nowhere else to go.” The doctor’s usually easy Louisiana drawl sounded strained. Concern for his friend suppressed Ness’s grimace at hearing his full first name.

  “The good news is I made a breakthrough, one that you, above all others in my life, will appreciate. But in my naivete, I did not consider what may be used for good can also further the aims of evil in this world. This is the crux we find ourselves upon.” The older man’s cough sounded wet, unhealthy.

  “I must hurry. I am on borrowed time, and I do not have the luxury of prattling on like an old man. My breakthrough is in your hand, and I ask you to keep it from those who would twist this technology for their own ends. I have no doubt Intellisys will come after the PDA, and if they gain access, everyone faces a dire future. I must end this so I can mail it to you, Nestor. There is an application on this unit called Borrowed Time. Open it and take the tutorial. Once you have, the implications of my discovery will be obvious.”

  The doctor paused to take a ragged gulp of air, and a tear streaked his face. “I so wanted to explore the limits of this device with you, but instead, you are fated to do so alone. However, I have left another recording I think will help you. When you are safe, return where we began and pay me a visit. Farewell, Nestor… and good luck.”

  The video ended, and Ness poked at the prompt to close the player. He found the icon for the Borrowed Time application, which showed a clock face dissolving on one side. He tapped it, and the display shifted to a prompt asking if he wanted to view the tutorial. After another tap, Dr. Bertrand’s voice once again came from the unit. It reverberated with the soft Southern tones Ness had known for so many years.

  “You hold in your hand the pinnacle of science, perhaps the most important breakthrough of our time. For in this unassuming device is contained the world’s first… time machine.”

  CHAPTER THREE: Searching for Scapegoats

  Tuesday, September 09, 2008 6:12 p.m.

  Anger burned like a fire in Paul Robbins’s soul, a raging tempest he barely kept under control. As he stalked into his office, Paul only just managed to stop himself from slamming the door. The juvenile act might have provided a degree of satisfaction, but it would do nothing to expunge the cause of his fury. He had been impatiently awaiting the meeting for days, and now that the time had finally arrived, his frustration threatened to overflow.

  When he ran his fingers through his hair, Paul forced himself to stop. It would not do to appear unkempt, or even worse, unhinged. He slid aside a paneled door, which blended perfectly with the rest of the wall, to access a small bathroom. Standing before the sink, he studied his reflection in the mirror. He snatched up a comb that lay on a shelf and corrected the damage his fingers had wrought. Once that chore was complete, he looked himself over. The mirror was filled by his oversized, muscular frame, and he was inwardly pleased with the intimidating image he projected. The exclamation points of his appearance were the pitch-black irises. He enjoyed the way those dark orbs unsettled most people, and he knew it would be a factor in his upcoming meeting.

  As the director of security at Intellisys, a research firm based in the swank Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, he had a broad mandate to tamp out any potential threats to the company’s image or its secrets. Of course, that freedom was limited by the same regard for Intellisys’s public standing. For the first time in his tenure at the company, he faced a situation that was possibly out of his control. In large part, he blamed his boss’s delay in making him aware of the problem, which had allowed the issue to move beyond Intellisys’s four walls. John Fletcher, the company’s CEO, had dropped the Bertrand issue into Paul’s lap then boarded a plane for his vacation. And while Fletcher had baked on the beach in Florida, the situation had worsened by the hour.

  Finally, the subject of Paul’s angry ruminations entered his office. The fact that his boss was visiting Paul’s office instead of the other way around reflected the security director’s intimidation factor.

  Disgusted by Fletcher’s fresh tan, Paul swept his hand toward one of the guest chairs, a grand gesture meant to appeal to the CEO’s ego. Paul suppressed a smirk as John obediently sat in the indicated chair. Taking his own place behind the desk, he regarded his so-called boss quietly. As intended, the silent scrutiny only increased his guest’s discomfort.

  “The Bertrand situation is almost out of control,” Paul rumbled.

  John frowned. “I gave you a simple task: take one small device from a doddering old scientist. How hard could it have been?”

  “You failed to mention one crucial fact before leaving for your week of screwing beach bunnies. Dr. Bertrand already had a working prototype!” Only as Paul finished did he realize he was standing and that his voice had risen to a shout. Even with the desk between them, Paul loomed over the CEO. Purposefully filling his lungs to calm himself, Paul resumed his seat. “I took a man to Bertrand’s house one evening a few days ago. When we confronted him, instead of handing the device over to us, he used it and simply vanished.”

  John’s brow furrowed. “Vanished? What do you mean?”

  Paul rose again and went around to perch on the front of the desk, directly in front of John. The move forced the CEO to look up to meet Paul’s eyes.

  “He was standing in his home office, all aquiver with indignation and stubbornness. Then he pulled an electronic gadget out of his pocket, tapped the screen, and disappeared.”

  John’s mouth gaped. Regardless of his anger, Paul derived a bit of pleasure from seeing the man so flummoxed. His habit of always taking advantage of any opponent’s weakness took precedence. He refused to hold back just because he was addressing his boss.

  “Bertrand’s use of his technology could have been prevented had I only known a working prototype was in play. I would have gone in with a tranquilizer dart instead of trying to reason with him.” Paul leaned back a little, looking down at the sputtering executive. “This failure is on you, not me.”

  Paul moved behind his desk and sat again. He laid his hands, fingers interlocked, upon its surface and waited for Fletcher to regain some semblance of composure.

  “I… I can see I put you in a difficult position,” the CEO finally admitted. He wriggled, struggling to sit tall in his chair.

  “I need to know the truth.” Paul’s quiet tone would accept no argument. “What was Dr. Bertrand working on?”

  “Time travel.”

  Paul raised an eyebrow in response, the only expression of surprise he allowed himself. He had considered many different possibilities over the last few days, but the prospect of time travel had not occurred to him. If forced to guess, Paul would have put money on the doctor’s discovery being some form of te
leportation.

  “We have to find him!” John demanded. His stern tone failed to intimidate Paul, as an edge of petulance crept in.

  “We already have. In fact, he returned to his lab two days ago.”

  John Fletcher sat back with a relieved grin on his face. “Oh, I thought we had a problem.”

  Instead of answering, Paul tapped a button on his laptop computer. The screen flared to life, showing a video playback window. Paul pressed the play button and spun the machine around, examining Fletcher’s reactions to the recording. Having watched it many times over the last couple of days, he was no longer shocked by the unusual demise of Dr. Bertrand.

  On the screen, a shaky-looking Bertrand sat behind his desk, handing a wrapped box to his secretary, who then left the lab. The scientist leaned back in his chair briefly, his eyes closed. A sheen of moisture appeared on his forehead, as if he had broken into a sudden sweat. An unexpected gout of clear liquid flowed from his mouth, and the doctor’s eyes registered shock. Fluid seemed to run from every pore on his body. Every cell, muscle, bone, and organ turned as clear as glass, like a gelatin mold of Bertrand’s form. It shattered as his entire body liquefied, and he fell with a splash to become a puddle oozing out from behind the desk.

  When John Fletcher shut his eyes in horror, Paul turned his computer back around and closed its lid.

  “As you can see, Dr. Bertrand will trouble us no more, but we still have a problem.”

  Fletcher regarded him without comprehension, his eyes still shocked.

  “The box,” Paul said. “We tried to intercept the package before it was given to the post office, but unfortunately, we were too late. However, I have men positioned to retrieve it from the man Bertrand sent it to, a Nestor Relevont.”

  “I must have the device.” John’s intensity came on suddenly, although he shrank slightly when he looked at Paul again. “I mean, we must have it. It is a vital company asset.”

  “It should be in our control in a matter of minutes. It should have been delivered today.”

  “And your men?”

  “Are professionals,” Paul stated flatly. The crew he used to do his dirty work was a closely held secret, especially Glenn, their leader and Paul’s personal fix-it man. He had no intention of telling John anything about them.

  “Of course, of course.” John rose and straightened his tie. He ran a hand through his already-perfect hair, and Paul smirked at the CEO’s use of grooming to assuage his ruffled confidence. “What are you doing with the recipient, this Relevont fellow?”

  “As we’ve agreed in the past, details of such… incidental activities are on a need-to-know basis.” Paul gave him a reproachful look for broaching the subject.

  “Ah, yes. I remember. Plausible deniability and such.” Still clucking to himself, John left the office.

  Once all sounds of the CEO had faded, Paul rose and moved to his office window, where he stood looking out but seeing nothing. He had every faith in Glenn, but still he worried. A man with a time machine could be formidable.

  Which raises the question—what does John want with one?

  He had nothing to do until he heard from Glenn and his bully boys, so he might as well put the time to good use. He needed answers, especially regarding his boss’s desperate desire for a time machine. At the same time, Paul would develop some tactical uses for such a device.

  After all, any given technology only achieves its utmost potential when converted into a weapon.

  The most important aspect of any such munition could be defined by who had control of it. Whatever Fletcher’s plans might be, Paul had an absolute determination to be in command of such a volatile resource. When it came to the warfare of time travel, he would be its Napoleon.

  CHAPTER FOUR: A Small Step Forward

  Tuesday, September 09, 2008 6:21 p.m.

  “I know this is an unbelievable assertion.” Dr. Bertrand’s voice held a light tone. “But not one I am making unfounded. Nor do you have to take it on faith. By the end of this tutorial, this little device will prove its worth to you.”

  Dr. Bertrand had never been a practical joker. That truth prevented Ness from setting the device aside. Only the serious tone of the first video made the doctor’s assertion even slightly believable. The device did not appear to house anything particularly mind-blowing. The exterior of the PDA had no extra controls or other features to give away the secret. The burnished case made it appear more like something an executive would use to keep a corporate schedule on track, not a time machine.

  “All right, Doc,” Ness muttered, sitting at the table. “Show me.”

  “First, I need to make clear one of the major limitations of this form of time travel. The act of moving through time is accomplished by retuning the frequencies of the molecules of your body to another point in space-time. This method does successfully take one to another time, but it introduces an instability.

  “This places a limit on how long a traveler can stay in another time, a concept I call ‘borrowed time.’ For a short jump of a day or even less, this limit is about twenty-four hours. But the farther you jump forward or backward, the shorter the amount of borrowed time. A traveler must return to where he began, what I call the ‘home time,’ or his molecules will destabilize with fatal results. The limit appears to be the birth of the traveler. If one were to travel back to this event, the borrowed time would expire almost instantly.”

  This is sounding less fun all the time, Ness grumbled. How many other ways can this thing kill me?

  “The other important rule is to only touch the time machine you used to travel. Touching another version of the device existing in another time than your home time causes a sudden inter-spatial shift event, or to put it more succinctly, your body would implode.”

  “I’m sorry I asked,” Ness muttered.

  “But enough of the fine print. It’s time to take your first trip into time! If you look at the screen, you will see the current date and time at the top. This is your home time, and it will remain static during your travels. Below is a counter showing how long your body needs to recover before attempting your next trip. For long trips, the recovery time is greater, but for a small trip, it can be negligible. Most likely, it currently shows zeros. This number will change to be the countdown of your borrowed time during your visit to another ‘when.’

  “There is a date selector where you can set your target month, day, or year. Below, you can choose what time you wish to arrive. As you can see, both are prefilled with the current values to allow for easy modification. For the purposes of this tutorial, you will be taking a three-hour trip into the future. Add three hours to the current time, and when you are ready, press the launch button. A confirmation screen will appear. Tap ‘Yes,’ and you’ll be sailing through time.

  “When you’re traveling, the button you used to launch yourself into time shifts into your method to return. Once you have recovered from the effects, which can be a trifle disquieting, to be honest, look around a bit before returning to your home time. Just like that, you will become one of the first time travelers!”

  Ness chuckled at his friend’s enthusiastic tone as he changed the time to 9:32 p.m. His thumb moved toward the large red button when the doctor’s voice stopped him.

  “It is important you find somewhere safe, a space you can be sure will be unoccupied when you arrive, where you won’t startle anyone with your sudden appearance. Also, make sure you keep a firm grip on the time machine itself. This requires skin contact, and dropping it partway through time transition would create an unfortunate result. Good luck and have fun!”

  Ness stood and stepped into an open area near the table. He glanced at a clock mounted on the wall. After making sure he had a good hold on the device, he finished his thumb’s journey and tapped the launch button.

  The second hand on the wall clock no longer traversed the dial, the first indication of anything changing. All the color seeped out of the s
cene, leaving everything pale and undefined. As his sight finally faded to black, Ness’s body came apart molecule by molecule. He experienced the distinct sensation of being poured through a funnel, of moving from one place to another.

  Suddenly, the world snapped into focus again. He found himself coughing, bent over at the waist, trying to simultaneously gulp in oxygen and ignore the mother of all tickles in his throat, lest he vomit on his carpet. As he gained control of his cough, Ness recognized small bits of upholstery stuffing at his feet. Pulling himself upright, he stared at how drastically his apartment had changed.

  The clock read half-past nine o’clock. Beyond the glass door to his balcony, lights from other buildings in the distance pierced the pitch-black night sky. Ness couldn’t deny the evidence; he had come forward in time.

  Still, he hadn’t expected the scene that greeted him. His gutted couch sat like a corpse, its interior creating waves of stuffing across this living room. His landscapes had been removed from the wall and tossed aside. The glass in at least one of the frames had been broken. The smaller frames, a collection of photographs he had taken of himself at various locations, were strewn about the floor instead of in their usual place atop his faux mantel.

  Ness ran to the spare bedroom that served as his darkroom. Supplies had been pulled out of cabinets, their doors left gaping. He sighed with relief—the enlarger still sat safely on its stand in the middle of the room. At least something he owned remained intact.

  “Can you come out here?” A voice came from the living room. “We need to talk.”