Fortune

by Craig W. Turner

  “Not too many people know you can sit up here. It’s a little secret for us regulars.” He was trying to be charming, in spite of the serious topic on the table.

  She nodded as they sat. Each of them went about the business of preparing their food, squeezing packets of mustard onto piles of deli meat and sliding their pickles to the side for later. Jeff’s hand was still tender, sporting the wrap he’d gotten at the hospital in Philadelphia, so she helped opened his bag of chips for him. Then they finally looked up at one another.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he said, digging in. “I have a lot of reservations about this.”

  “Then destroy the device and we wash our hands of everything.” She chewed with enjoyment. While she loved being a West Coaster, they didn’t have food like this back home. She was sick of sourdough bread. It was why she gained a couple of pounds every time she came east for the show or a lecture – between the Philly cheese steaks, thin crust pizza and Southern fried chicken, she had a hard time thinking of her weight while traveling. She often said it was difficult to be a historian without an appreciation of regional food.

  “You know I’m not going to do that. This could be the most important discovery of all time. I can’t just make it all disappear.”

  “Why do the most important discoveries of all time have to be the most dangerous?”

  He sighed. He didn’t like that line at all. She watched as he ate silently. The look on his face was one of defiance. He wasn’t biting, so she turned it up a notch. “Jeff, the idea of free-for-all use of the time device is one I can’t support. You know how distressed I am about everything that’s already happened – and the only reason I’ve engaged with you is to not only try to fix things, but to try to bring some reason to what you’re trying to accomplish. Help you get beyond yourself and see what’s really happening. If your intent is to go on with this without any checks and balances, I can’t be a part of it. All I’ll be able to do is get on that plane tomorrow, go home, and hope to God you don’t do anything stupid. But you won’t hear from me again, I promise you.”

  He put down his sandwich and looked at her with a new look on his face. One she hadn’t seen before. It was a mix of hurt and confusion. Purposefully, she’d entirely skipped the conversation about what was next for the two of them and had gone right to the ultimatum of what it would take to keep her in his life. Which made a big assumption that he wanted her in his life, while also insinuating that this was a hard thing for her to say. His immediate reaction told her everything, though. She was on the right track, and was confident that this would win him over.

  “I won’t hear from you again?” he repeated. “Isn’t that kind of abrupt?”

  “It’s called soul-searching, Jeff. What you’ve accomplished is the most amazing thing I can even comprehend. But it’s also the scariest thing I can comprehend. I can’t be party to the devastation it could cause.”

  “But you wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t-”

  She held up a hand to stop him. “Well, that’s something to take into consideration now, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” He picked up his sandwich again.

  “You’re saying that as though it’s a good thing, and you can afford to do that because we’ve become friends and I seem to you like a relatively good person. What if I was a murderer? What if somewhere in the family tree you created by ensuring Lucius Fitzsimmons lived there was a horrible murderer that killed someone and destroyed another family tree? What if it was you? Or someone close to you that died at the hand of someone you put into existence? How would you feel about that?”

  “I guess I’d have to deal with the consequences. Just like Dexter. There are unintended consequences to every experiment.”

  “No, you’d destroy that thing in a heartbeat, Jeff. There are no unintended consequences to worry about when you simply play it safe.”

  “But the experiment’s already been done.”

  She smiled. “Then why keep going? Let’s do this. Let’s finish it up tomorrow and then do the right thing and let your sponsors know what’s been going on. If your goal is to be famous, you’re never going to get there by sneaking around with your knowledge. You’re going to have to tell someone.”

  Again, he chewed in silence. She could see his wheels turning. She’d successfully backed him into a moral corner, which was somewhere he probably hadn’t been in a while. “What do you think?” she asked. “Can we do this?”

  After a moment, he nodded. “I will. After we do the future job, we’ll do something.”

  “What do you mean, we’ll do something?”

  “I’m not sure yet. But we’ll do one of the two options you laid out.”

  “You mean you might destroy it?” She hadn’t expected that to be a viable option. It was the preferable one, certainly, she thought.

  “This is all coming at me very quickly right now. I need time to process everything you’re saying. If destroying it ends up being the right thing to do, then I’ll make that decision. I don’t trust the government.”

  “But you’re going to do something?”

  He nodded again. “So we’ll need to get a hold of Abby?” he asked.

  “That’s the first step. Any particular beach around here have sentimental value to you? We might as well make all of this mean something.”

  “I know a place on the Jersey shore that would be perfect. We’ll leave in the morning, do our thing, and get you home in time for your flight.”

  There was something in the moment, so she reached across the table and touched his hand, trying not to be too serious despite the serious words coming out of her mouth. “If you make the right decision, I might not take that flight,” she said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  When Erica left Jeff’s house, it hadn’t occurred to her what Abby’s reaction would be when she showed up at his lab. With his keys and in his car.

  She hadn’t talked to her on the phone – Jeff had called her before heading to bed – and she hadn’t really noticed a tone in the conversation at the time. But now that she saw the woman’s look and posture, getting out of a sharp yellow Mustang convertible, she realized that these changes in plans might not go as smoothly as she’d first imagined. She’d been so focused on winning Jeff over that she’d forgotten, or ignored, that he wasn’t the only one involved.

  So while Abby’s demeanor caught her by surprise, what came out of her mouth as she approached the front of the building didn’t.

  “So you show up and all of a sudden there’s a new team in place?” Interesting greeting from someone she hadn’t yet met.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, knowing full-well what she meant.

  Abby hopped up onto the sidewalk. “You may not know this, but we’ve been working on this project for some time. Now, you’ve isolated Jeff so that it’s just you and him that are involved? First you go back and get Dexter without us. Now this. And then, you ask for my help? I don’t know you.”

  Erica held up her hands in defense. “I can understand why you feel that way-”

  “Now, what, you’re driving his car, too? You guys an item?”

  “An item? Not that I know of. Look, we’re off on the wrong-”

  “I’m not getting bumped aside here by the boss’s girlfriend.” Abby was standing directly across from her, confrontational. It was a far cry from what Jeff had described to her.

  “I can assure you,” she said, “no one’s getting bumped aside by anyone.”

  “But you can see how it feels like we are. Doesn’t Jeff think that Emeka and I care about these missions?”

  “Abby, look,” she said, trying to calm her. Actually, more like trying to just get through the conversation since it really wasn’t of much consequence in the long run. “This is what Jeff wants to do. I think he’s squeamish about what happened in Garvey’s backyard, where you clearly had too many people to account for. I’m sure if Dexter were still involved, it’d be him asking you for h
elp and not me. But he needed a break, so it turns out that I’m here.” Alright, so she’d spun the truth a little.

  Abby looked at her sternly for another moment, then seemed to break. “I’m sorry – I don’t mean to take it out on you. I’m not good at being on the outside looking in.”

  “I don’t blame you. Who is?” She extended her hand. “I’m Erica. I’ve heard so much about you, and I do want to make sure we’re okay.”

  Abby looked at her hand for a moment – kind of irritated, kind of apologetic – then grasped it.

  “Will you help?” Erica asked her.

  Abby nodded, and Erica motioned for her to follow her to the front door. They walked into the building and up the stairs to the landing, where they waited for the elevator.

  “Jeff was starting to say something crazy happened with Dexter,” Abby said. “What happened?”

  The elevator doors opened and they stepped aside to let a bearded man in a sharp grey suit out. Erica hit the button for the second floor and turned to Abby. “We came back from 1770 to find that Dexter’s life was completely different. Our trip to 1831 – thanks to Jeff’s big mouth – ended up saving an historical building from being destroyed by fire. Dexter, being a lover of history growing up in Philadelphia, ended up working at the place, which was made into a museum in about 1950. That job derailed his entire life. Instead of Harvard, he went to Princeton. Instead of teaching at Columbia, he works at the museum. And instead of living in a bachelor pad in New Jersey, he lives in a Tudor in suburban Philadelphia with his wife of about a year.”

  The doors opened and they walked out into the hallway. “So, where you come from, Dexter did all those things? Went to Harvard? Teaches at Columbia? Lives in a bachelor pad?”

  “Yep. He’s a completely different person.”

  “Wow. To everyone else on the planet, Dexter is the curator at the museum and he’s never been anything else, but to you, Dexter was a professor at Columbia? What are the chances of that?”

  “You’re the mathematician.”

  “No, I meant that rhetorically. The simple change of keeping a building from burning down caused him to get a job at that museum. That change probably affected very few people, but it happened to be one that we know.”

  “Well, it’s probably the same probability that I would get involved with you following the Wilton job. We’re working in a tight circle here.”

  They came to the door to Jeff’s lab and Erica opened it with the key. They walked in and Abby turned on the lights. Erica pulled the time device from her bag, opened the safe with the combination that Jeff had given her, and placed it in its cradle. She closed the safe, then took a seat at the small conference table kitty-corner from Abby, who had pulled a tablet from her bag and was booting it up.

  Erica watched as her hands flew over the wireless keyboard. A moment later, she turned the tablet screen so she could see.

  “Actually, the program is pretty user-friendly. You can type a date and pinpoint your trip to the second. Now that a handful of experiments have gone perfectly, I’m confident that the system is accurate. When are you looking to go?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “No... sorry – I mean, ‘when,’ as in where do you want to end up?”

  “Let’s say ten years from tomorrow to the day. We need to get there in the dark, though; we don’t want to drop in on a crowd.”

  “Where are you going from?”

  “The Jersey shore. We figured standing on a beach would be the best bet for ensuring that there wouldn’t be any unexpected development.”

  “Probably the best bet, yes, but that’s assuming there have been no extraordinary circumstances in the next ten years.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know, a tsunami, beach erosion, war. A lot can happen in ten years.”

  “I guess that will be part of the experiment then, right?”

  “If you’re willing to take that leap. Just thought I’d mention it. You’re asking for my help. I don’t want you to go into this lightly.”

  Abby typed quickly, then hit print. Her system sent the information wirelessly to the printer across the room. Erica quickly fetched it. Alone on the printed page was a 30-plus-digit number that, without investigation, would’ve looked just like the number Jeff had on his arm the day before. “Where are you going on your second jump?”

  “Well, we don’t know yet.”

  She looked up at her. “You have to know, or else you won’t be able to get there. Not without this.”

  Erica remained silent. The question didn’t need to be asked.

  “You want to take my tablet with you.” She sighed. “I don’t know-”

  “I don’t want to put you in a position. Is there another way? Can’t we just put the software on another tablet?”

  Abby shook her head. “No. Jeff won’t for security reasons. This is the only one. You would need to take it with you.”

  “Abby-”

  “No, it’ll be worth it. I’d rather have you do this safely, rather than be possessive. If you think about it, if everything goes the way it should, the tablet will only be gone from me for a few hours. I’ll give you the accoutrements to take with you. It’d be a helluva time to forget your charger.” She wasn’t pleased, clearly. But she was being cooperative.

  “Sure would. Abby, you’re being too understanding here.” She hoped she wasn’t being over-the-top. Her sincerity was merely a means to an end.

  “No, I’m not, really. I still intend to give Jeff an earful. But there’s no sense in me taking it out on you. I just want the experiment to go well. I’ll get in on the next one.”

  Erica gulped, then composed herself as Abby went through the start-up procedures for both the tablet itself and the software. For something that should’ve been unbelievably complicated, Abby’d already done the grunt work. The software was no harder to use than most of the apps on Erica’s phone. You put in the date and time, and it spit out the coordinates to be input into the device.

  “This is amazing, Abby,” she said. “As amazing as it is that Jeff created the time travel device, it’s that amazing that you found a math system to work with it.”

  “It really wasn’t that hard,” she said, humbly shaking her head. “Everything’s based off of e=MC squared. I just had to interject another variable, ‘t,’ for time, and it works. Jeff’s the real miracle worker. You want a tough problem? One semester, I gave my students the task of figuring out what was the shortest piece of ribbon you could use to circle the entire earth at any diameter. They had to take into consideration water, land, elevation. Now that was a difficult problem.”

  “What was the answer?”

  Abby smiled. “I’ll let you know when someone gets it.”

  “Fair enough.” She looked down at the tablet screen again. “Is there a history?”

  “A history of inputs? Definitely.” Her fingers glided across the screen. “Here. Here’s a list of all the inputs.” There were about twenty entries, but as she flicked her index finger across the screen the list narrowed to ten. “For the purposes of our experiment, these are the ones we’ve actually used. At least, the ones we’ve used since I’ve been involved.”

  “That first one is the Wilton job?”

  “No, the Wilton job is the third one there. Every other entry is the return trip. For the first one, I wasn’t going to jump into anything without seeing that the technology worked, so I had Jeff demonstrate it for me.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  She laughed. “It’s funny, I put so much thought into that – thinking about how we could affect history if what Jeff was saying was actually true. It’s that age-old question: where would you go if you could time travel? I didn’t want to have any impact, but I wanted to do something cool. I’ll admit a lot of it was humoring him. I didn’t believe he could do it, even though he told me he’d gone back to see the baseball game. So, I chose Woodstock. I figured it’d be easy to get lost in a crowd of hippie
s without running into anyone that would make any difference. There would be no way to tell there was an outsider among them, so that’s what I threw at Jeff. Next thing I know, I’m wearing this flowery peasant blouse, Jimmy Hendrix is playing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ on his guitar, and I’m a believer.”

  “I really should’ve picked somewhere cool to go,” Erica said, shaking her head.

  “You did. You chose 1831.”

  “Oh yeah. Good choice, huh? So that one’s the Wilton job. Then Howard Miles? Then Garvey? Then my special trip to 1831?”

  “This is just a list Jeff asked me to keep. There’s really not much purpose to it beyond our own personal history. Proves that we did it, I guess, on some level. You can actually tab back to prior entries right on the device, too, but without knowing for certain where the coordinates lead, it’s much safer to have the tablet in front of you.”

  “So I just put the date and time in, exactly to the minute and second, hit calculate, and the program does the rest? Let me try one, just to make sure I know what I’m doing.”

  Abby nodded.

  “Let’s say,” she said, thinking with historic sensationalism, “I want to see Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. The morning of July 3, 1863.” She carefully typed in the numbers and sent the information into the program. It spit out a long number, which she scanned quickly. “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “How much do different periods of time affect the coordinates?” she asked. “Is it a big change in the numbers?”

  “Small increments of time won’t have dramatic changes in the coordinates. Like five minutes might change the coordinates thirty decimal points in.”

  “Can I try one more? Let’s say I want to go back to 1849 thirty minutes before you and steal Wilton’s gold before you can get there.”