Fortune

by Craig W. Turner

  Abby laughed. “Okay.” She reached over and clicked through the history to the coordinates for the Wilton job. “Half-hour earlier,” she said as she typed on the tablet face, then produced a screen comparing both numbers. “There you go.”

  Erica analyzed the two sets of numbers. “That’s interesting. They’re not that far off.” There were differences in the coordinates, but as Abby had suggested, they were at the tail end of the string of numbers.

  “I wouldn’t think they would be,” Abby said. “Think about the expanse of time – a half-hour really isn’t much.”

  She shut the system down and folded it up, putting it in its bag and handing it to Erica.

  “I’ll take extremely good care of this,” she said.

  “You’d better, or you’ll be making a new life for yourself in the future.”

  Erica let out a breath.

  “While you’re there, though,” Abby said, “if you wouldn’t mind snapping some pictures for me if you see anything noticeably different. That’d be pretty cool.”

  “I will, definitely,” she said.

  They turned the lights off and left the lab, locking the door behind them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Jeff clicked off his cell phone and stuffed it into his pocket before leaning back onto the rental car and taking a deep breath. While he could sense that Erica was silently laughing at him just to his side, he closed his eyes and felt the heat of the sun on his face instead.

  “She’s not done, huh?” she asked.

  Jeff had spent the better part of the last hour listening to Abby rant about not being included in this trip. Which was in addition to the 90-minute conversation she’d put him through the night before once he’d finally woken up from his time travel-induced coma. For today’s conversation, which had lasted all the way from the Perth Amboy exit on the Garden State Parkway all the way to the shore, he’d actually had to drive with the phone illegally to his left ear. What Abby had been saying about his “new friend” Erica probably wouldn’t have been well-received via speakerphone.

  He shook his head, still with his eyes closed. “No, she’s not pleased.”

  Erica gave him another moment before she spoke. “Well, I can understand why she’s not happy. Can’t you?”

  “That’s why you didn’t hear me say too much in response. She’s right. She’s getting left behind on something that she worked hard on. But she’s not understanding – or, at least she’s discounting – the risk. All I can really do is hear her out. Probably didn’t help that you made her think this was all my idea.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. But I was getting berated by a woman I’d never met. I froze.”

  “Well, you owe me.”

  “She still talking about her having to be included on the next trip?” Finally, Jeff opened his eyes and looked at her, nodding. “I didn’t tell her there wasn’t going to be a next trip,” she said. “I notice you didn’t either. I’m hoping that’s because you just didn’t want to get into it right now.”

  “You can say that.” In truth, while Erica was adamant about this being the last hurrah, Jeff wasn’t quite resigned to that idea. To him, there was a great deal to consider – first and foremost, the success of this trip. If they were able to accomplish what he felt needed to be accomplished, then he would willingly hang up his spikes and let the government in on his little science project. If not, if they came up empty and it left him either still in a hole, or worse, in a deeper hole, he’d have no choice but to press on. With or without her approval.

  Of course, he hadn’t yet discussed with Erica the hole that he was in. He’d been waiting for the right time. Which he figured would be several years into the future.

  He looked off toward the shore. They were parked a block away from the edge of the beach, and though the sand dunes impeded the view of the ocean, they could hear the soothing sound of the surf hitting the sand. “This is a private beach,” he said. “My aunt and uncle had a place down here and used to bring me and my cousins every summer for a weekend or two. I remember always wishing that we were closer to the boardwalk because that’s where all the other kids were, but for what we need to do here, the solitude is perfect.”

  “Yeah, there don’t seem to be many people around.”

  “If this were a Friday or the weekend, it’d be busier. But during the week in the fall, there’s not a lot going on. We should be able to find a spot where no one will be spying on us.”

  He opened the trunk and retrieved the time device, stuffing it into the leg pocket of his cargo pants, then pulled out his laptop bag. He’d only recently considered that there were some aspects of going into the future that would actually be easier than going into the past – particularly in that they could bring their technology. If anything, they’d merely be seen as outdated if anyone bothered to notice their equipment. Which wasn’t nearly as bad as Dexter dropping his cell phone onto the sidewalk of colonial Philadelphia.

  While he fidgeted with his bag, Erica pulled Abby’s tablet out of the trunk. She’d made him stop at a department store on the drive down to buy a more protective hard case. She was nervous about damaging Abby’s equipment, particularly given her overall attitude about their endeavor. When Erica had come out of the store having spent $45 on the case, Jeff had joked with her that if anything went wrong, they could simply go back in time to a point where the tablet was working and pretend as though nothing had happened. To which Erica had responded that, if anything happened to Abby’s tablet, they weren’t time traveling. Which made him immediately ask whether they sold a protective case they could wrap around the new protective case.

  Once they both felt prepared, they nodded in agreement to move ahead and Jeff locked the car. He led the way to the beach. As he’d predicted, there wasn’t a soul in sight – at least no one outside. There was no way of knowing whether someone was lurking in an upstairs window, but most of the “bennies” – New Yorkers who spent their weekends on the Jersey shore – were still slaving away over midweek work in high-rise offices.

  When they reached the beach, the sand was soft, and their feet sank in, slowing down the walk. Typically, a beach-goer at this point would pull off the flip-flops and barefoot it the rest of the way, but they weren’t dressed for the beach. They were dressed for landing ten years into the future in the middle of what could be a chilly night.

  After about ten minutes of silence, Jeff stopped. “Yeah, I remembered there would be this little alcove here,” he said, pointing to a small tuft of brush bordering one of the taller dunes. “I remember playing here – one of us would stand on top of the dune with the other down here, and we’d play catch with a Nerf football. The one on the hill would end up diving down the hill on his face trying to catch a ball bouncing away from him. It was a lot of fun. Well, as much fun as you could have knowing that about two miles up the beach was the boardwalk with the rides and Skeeball and funnel cakes. But, the point is that nobody can really see us here. I think this is the place.”

  He watched as Erica did a slow twirl to take in her surroundings. “Looks as good as anywhere I’ve seen,” she said. “You ready for this?”

  “As long as I don’t have to punch anyone.”

  “We’ll, let’s get to it. The longer we linger here, the better the chance someone’s going to wander by.”

  Agreed, Jeff pulled the pre-programmed device from his pocket and initiated the time travel mechanism. He extended it toward Erica, who grabbed it with her free hand while instinctively pulling Abby’s tablet closer to her body as she’d hold a newborn. Jeff, himself thinking that holding his laptop bag in his hand wasn’t enough of a guarantee of its safety, slung the back around his neck and over his shoulder. He pushed the engage button on the time device and everything around them went blurry.

  And then it was clear.

  And wet.

  When they blinked, they found themselves standing waist-high in ocean water. Erica immediately lost her balance in the tide
and Jeff reached out, grabbing her as she thrust the tablet over her head to ensure it didn’t submerge. It took a moment for both of them to stabilize themselves as the waves ripped past them, but they were able to get collected, and within a minute or two were safely laying on the wet sand, on top of what had just moments ago been the sand dunes.

  It was not terribly dramatic, but Jeff found himself disturbingly disoriented – a feeling he would almost describe as seasick from unexpectedly losing his footing and being tossed about. He leaned on his elbow and looked at Erica, the light of a bright half-moon high above reflecting off of her face. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Kind of puts things into perspective for you,” she said, her eyes closed. “We almost blew the whole thing right there. Who’d have been able to predict that the sea level would be four feet higher in ten years?”

  “Global warming?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “My understanding has always been that global warming’s effect on the sea level would be far more dramatic.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Maybe it’s surge from a recent storm. Or there’s a storm coming.”

  “If that’s the case, hopefully we can get done what we need to get done and get out of here quickly before having to find out.”

  “I need internet,” she said, standing. “Let’s go find some.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  September 22, 2025

  As they walked a few short blocks to a motel that Jeff had pinpointed and they both hoped was still in operation ten years into the future, Erica’s thoughts were lost in planning, so she was only half-listening as he announced their path in GPS fashion.

  “Right around this corner to the left, there was a convenient store, and then hopefully beyond that is the Ocean Dunes Motel,” he said.

  All she really caught was “Ocean Dunes.” She was already surfing the internet, plotting her research approach. There were ten years to evaluate to pinpoint an event that would be worth their while, and she didn’t see the need to hang out in the future for terribly long. At a maximum, they should be there 24 hours and then on their way.

  She would start, obviously, in news archives with specific keywords related to heists – fortunately, the media and only the media seemed to have carried that word forward from the 1930s – or robberies, then try to pinpoint where large stashes of cash could be held at one time. Of course, a lot of this was predicated on the assumption that, one, people still used cash and, two, the internet was still organized at least similarly to the internet they’d left ten years earlier. If not, she’d have to take time to educate herself on how things worked before hoping to find anything useful. In the end, though, this exercise was being done primarily to fulfill some intrinsic need that Jeff had, so as long as she came up with something that provided some excitement and an end goal, she figured he’d be happy.

  As it turned out, the convenience store was gone – replaced by a beach house whose windows were covered with boards – but the Ocean Dunes Motel was still there and open. Lucky shot number one. Though, now that she looked around, realizing that she was ten years into the future and that she hadn’t taken even one moment to assess her surroundings, she noticed that most of the houses had heavy plywood boards over their windows. She looked over at Jeff, who was headed straight for the neon-lit motel entrance.

  She called after him as her brief hesitation had now put him several steps in front of her. “Look at all the windows,” she said. “Don’t people come to the beach anymore?”

  He stopped and turned, glancing around. “Either the place has become a ghost town or we were right about a hurricane,” he said. “No time to waste.”

  She followed him into the hotel and they approached the front desk. Behind it was a sleepy long-haired kid who could’ve just celebrated his working-age birthday that morning. He was wearing a bright yellow polo shirt with bicycle shorts and was sitting with one leg up on the desk working on a tablet, which he set down to greet them. “Can I help you?” he asked, standing.

  “Do you have any rooms available?” Jeff asked. There had been one car in the parking lot. Probably the kid’s.

  He laughed. “I think we do. Not a lot of action with the hurricane coming.”

  “Hurricane?”

  “Yeah – Hurricane Ichabod should be here in a little while, they’re saying. But they never know. Weather people. It could hit somewhere else or go back out to sea. Most everybody skipped town, though.”

  “Well, we just need the room for one night,” Jeff said. “We’ll be out by the time it gets here.”

  “Alright,” the kid said, picking up his tablet and laying it on the counter. Erica inspected it – it looked very much like Abby’s, only with the difference that there was a gray strip along one side. “I just need your ID.”

  She watched as Jeff reached for his wallet, but immediately realize his mistake. The kid nodded to the tablet, so Jeff, having seen enough science fiction movies, reached out his thumb toward the pad and awkwardly placed it on the gray strip. The device made a beeping noise and the kid picked it up, dancing his own fingers across the screen.

  “Dr. Jacobs,” he said when Jeff’s name popped up for him to read. “You actually have a reservation. In fact, you’re the only reservation that hasn’t canceled.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Jeff said, then glanced over at Erica and gave her a confused look. Had he made a reservation 10 years in advance? While it would have been a brilliant move, she didn’t get that impression from the look on his face.

  After a moment of fiddling with the device, the kid extended the pad back to Jeff. “One more time to cover additional charges,” to which Jeff obeyed, and then, “You’re in Room 214, up these stairs to the left and down to the end. Thumbprint for the door. Since no one else is here, I gave you our best oceanview room. You might as well get a nice peek at the storm coming in. I know it’s late, but ice, vending machines, everything else are about twenty feet past your room. Thanks for staying with us. Glad to have you back.”

  “Back?” he said.

  “Sure. You’ve stayed with us before.” He looked at his tablet. “About three years ago. Doesn’t ring a bell?”

  Jeff sighed. “You know, I travel so much,” he said. “It’s all one big blur. Plane, hotel, plane, hotel. Well, thank you.”

  As he turned away, Erica stopped him. “Sorry, but can you tell us exactly when Jeff stayed with you? I know him – if he can’t figure it out, it’ll bug him all night, and I won’t get a bit of sleep listening to him wondering.”

  The kid read off the dates – a three day March stay about three years prior.

  “Ah, I remember,” Erica said. “March? Right after you cussed out your boss and walked out. The little weekend excursion?”

  Jeff mumbled something incoherent back at her, shaking his head at her game. They thanked the kid and headed up the stairs and on to the room. Once they were out of earshot, Erica couldn’t help herself, asking, “You made a reservation?”

  “I didn’t, though. I mean, I guess some version of me must have made the reservation in the future. But I, personally, didn’t. You know what I mean.” He paused, then she saw him smile. “Though once he said it, the first thing I thought was that it would’ve been a cool thing to do. Just to play the time game – make a reservation ten years out and then keep it?”

  “Yes, that’s what we’re here for... Silly time tricks,”

  “Might as well have a little fun while we’re at it.”

  Jeff placed his thumb on a white pad on the door and it unlocked. They walked into a standard motel room with, as the kid had promised, an excellent view of the Atlantic. The bright moon reflected off the rippled water. “It’s amazing that the sky is so crystal clear with a storm coming,” he said, thoughtfully staring out the sliding glass doors. “Won’t look like this in a couple hours-”

  “Jeff, did you see this?” she asked. In the center of the queen-sized bed was a s
mall tray holding a bottle of wine, a plate of assorted cheeses, and an envelope that read “With Love” in fancy script. Immediately she wondered what he was trying to pull. “What is this?”

  But his face told her that he was as confounded as she was. He slid across the room to the bed and sat down, ripping into the envelope. He read for a moment silently, then a smile crossed his face.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s from me,” he said, handing her the note. “I reserved the room and left this for us.”

  “But how-” And then she realized. The ten-years-from-now/current time’s Jeff knew they were coming and had set up the little spread for them. She read the note out loud: “Jeff and Erica – Hurricane Ichabod is on its way and due tomorrow. You don’t have much time. But I figured you could take a moment to enjoy yourselves a little, though I find that wine in the future has taken a little turn toward the grapey. It’s not as bad as that sludge we bought with Dexter in Times Square, though. Yuck! Have fun!”

  “Nice, huh?” Jeff said.

  “Well, at least your sense of humor improves with age.”

  He laughed. “The least he could’ve done, though, is give us a hint as to where to start looking.”

  “We don’t need it,” she said, pulling Abby’s tablet from her bag. “Oh, though I forgot to ask about how to get on the internet.” She looked around the room for the desk phone and saw none. “No phone?”

  “I’m assuming that’s the phone,” Jeff said, pointing at the wall where a cell phone-sized device hung next to the closet.

  “Wireless? Nice.” She touched the front desk icon on the screen and a moment later the kid’s voice came over the speaker.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, I forgot to ask about internet access. Do I need a password or anything?”

  There was a pause, then the kid asked with all sincerity, “Where are you from?”