by Jason Ford
The thugs were gaining on him. What the hell, he thought and sprinted toward the truck. The passenger door flew open, and Keith jumped inside. The door slammed and locked automatically. He turned to face his rescuer and did a double take at the guy in the Darth Vader mask. “Did Halloween come early this year or something?”
Before the masked figure could answer, there was a pounding on the driver side door.
The Darth Vader figure reached into the center console and pulled out a rubber-banded stack of hundreds. He rolled down the window long enough to shove the bills out the window. Keith was about to ask him what the hell he was doing when the strange person pointed something at him. There was a short hiss of air, a stinging pain in his arm, and he sank into a dreamless oblivion.
•••
Keith took the Darth Vader mask off and started the truck. His younger self would be asleep for the next twelve hours. The truck drove itself north along Beach Boulevard until he got to the 91 freeway. He got on the ramp heading east and then continued to the exit for Interstate 15.
Dawn was just starting to break as Keith pulled into his driveway. He got the wheelbarrow out of the shed and carted the still-sleeping younger version of himself into the house. Two recliners were set up next to each other with a table in between them. He booted up the memory transfer program, put young Keith in a recliner, taped a Neuroband around his head, another around his own, and looked at the computer screen.
Who is the memory keeper? the screen prompted. Use fingerprint reader to verify identity.
Keith pressed his thumb against the fingerprint reader.
Keith Beckett. DOB: 06-21-1974.
The next question flashed up on the screen.
Who is the one that is getting overwritten? Please use the fingerprint reader to verify identity.
Keith grabbed his younger self’s hand and pressed his thumb against the reader.
Keith Beckett. DOB: 06-21-1974.
Old Keith emptied his pockets and placed everything on the table.
Proceed? Y/N
Keith pressed Y and looked to his right at his younger self. In a few minutes, he was unconscious.
•••
Keith woke up as the sun was getting low in the sky. He looked his left and saw an old man in a Hawaiian shirt. With a shock, he realized he was looking at himself. Quickly, he took the Neuroband off and looked at the computer screen. Displayed were a series of questions that he could answer either orally or by the keyboard.
What date did you come from?
“July 28, 2061.”
When did your father die?
“March 1, 1987.”
When did your mother die?
“February 6, 2029.”
Who was the fiftieth president of the United States?
“Bernice Foster Wallenstein.”
What years did she serve and what happened afterward?
“She served from 2044 until 2052. The United States joined the United Earth Federation in 2053.”
Memory testing completed. Please find a receptacle for recharging before powering down.
Keith went out to the shed and found the wheelbarrow and five ten-gallon containers of kerosene. The cord and a half of red oak that he had delivered a month ago was still there, as was the grating for the trench.
He wrapped his shell of a former body in a cloth tarp and carried it over to the trench in the wheelbarrow. Using ropes, he lowered the body into the bottom of the trench, resting on the charred wood and ashes of José, and the Callahan family. Threading the same ends of the ropes through the grating, he lowered it on top of the body, where it caught on the rebar struts. He took a container of kerosene and poured it into the trench. He chucked wood in until it reached a foot from the top. Then, he poured another gallon of kerosene and lit a match. The stench of the burning red oak covered up the smell of the charring.
Keith called his work, telling his boss he was quitting. The next call was to the mechanic who had his car. He would be paid for the work, and he could keep the car.
After throwing more wood and kerosene on the fire to keep it going, he started working on swapping the old picture for a new one in his passport. An hour later, he was done.
He was up the rest of the night tending to the fire. In the morning, he started mixing concrete to fill the hole. He finally filled it the rest of the way with dirt after the concrete hardened.
NINE
August 1992
Keith was absentmindedly picking through the mail and watching the news channel when that lowdown, lying, cheating Charles Foster appeared on coverage of the National Convention. His wife was grinning stupidly beside him. There was Foster’s running mate, William Howell, and his wife. Keith wondered if they had met each other at a Halloween party.
He kept looking at the letter he received from the woman in Alabama. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to come forward, she wrote, but the fact that, without any proof, her case would be dead in the water. Keith had mailed her everything she would need to assist her case.
He had been working on a DNA test using his tablet and a reader that could render a result in a few minutes, using either a cheek swab or a hair sample. For some reason, Martha Beckett had kept hair clippings from not only Keith’s childhood, but her own, as well as his father’s. Keith had the neatly labeled Ziploc bags. He placed a single hair of each on a corresponding slide labeled “Father,” “Mother,” and “Offspring” and slid them into the appropriate slot in the reader.
The tablet had data from tissue samples of everyone alive between 1940 and 2040. After a few minutes of whirring and clicking, the reader flashed a green light, and the tablet displayed the results.
Father: James Beckett.
Mother: Martha Beckett.
Offspring: Keith Beckett.
The probability of paternity: 99.999999%.
Within a week, the woman in Alabama had sent hair and saliva back. She had also sent an envelope labeled “unknown male hair sample.” He had a sneaking suspicion she did know, but he ran the test and made a copy to mail the results back and keep one for his own records. Included was a note:
This is so you can bring a lawsuit. In order to be admissible in court, there would need to be witnesses to the procedure. Good luck. If you need more help, don’t hesitate to call.
Keith Beckett.
The TV cut in with the lottery results.
Keith got all the numbers. This time, he was going to use the money to change history. This was also the last time he could play the lottery. Winning too many times would produce unforeseen consequences in the future.
After claiming his prize of $290 million after taxes, he decided to pay off his mother’s house and give her $10 million.
With all the excitement of the last few months, a week in Washington seemed to be a good idea. After checking into his hotel, dinner, and a good night’s sleep, he was up bright and early the next morning. Walking through the National Mall, he saw the familiar memorials of Lincoln and Jefferson, the Washington Monument, the Capitol building, the White House. The Marine Corps War Memorial was still there. But the Vietnam Veterans memorial he remembered was gone. What the hell is going on?
Keith walked into the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Inside were the familiar 1903 Wright flyer and the orange Bell X-1 that broke the sound barrier, but all the space capsules from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs were gone. In their place was a massive capsule with DSA/RSA/NASA stenciled on it.
Keith walked over to the wall next to the capsule and read how Germany had put the first man in space in 1948, landed the first man on the moon in 1959, and started the first lunar base jointly with the Americans and Russians in 1970. The displayed model was the international Mars One, which was the first manned expedition to Mars in 1984. The room started spinning and Keith blacked out.
When he came to, two EMTs were standing over him asking if he was okay. He walked out of the museum in a daze. He went back to his hotel and colla
psed on the bed.
Keith woke up the next morning and accessed his datapad. All the historical biographies that he remembered had changed. He took out his time-shield, placed the datapad on top of it, and activated it. The old biographies popped up with no problem, so the datapad must be timeline-dependent. He decided to rent a car and take a road trip back to Barstow along I-40. He found a map of the East Coast and planned to drive down to Wilmington, North Carolina in the morning, stay there for a few days, and then make the three-day trek to Barstow.
The drive to Wilmington was pleasant enough, if a bit humid. The sun was setting by the time he pulled into his hotel. He was first in line the next morning to go see the battleship USS North Carolina. After three hours of wandering around, he bought a few souvenirs and got back in his car. Once he checked out of his hotel, got a bit of lunch, hit the interstate, and stopped to fill up, Keith was on the road for three hours before the billboard caught his eye. Giotti’s Italian Ristorante. The best Italian this side of the Atlantic. Exit 192. He got within a few miles of the exit and saw another sign. Giotti’s Italian: Exit 192. Right at the light. Straight ahead 4 miles.
Lucky for Keith, his hotel was on the way to the restaurant. He dropped off his bags at the room, stopped at a Walmart for some snacks and other items, and pulled into the parking lot of Giotti’s Italian Ristorante.
He loved Italian food, and as he walked in the door, the authentic smell got his mouth watering. A framed picture of the family that owned the place graced the wall—a man and a woman, three boys, and a girl. Someone cleared their throat. Keith looked over to see the very same girl looking at him and asking if he wanted to be seated.
Keith nodded, not being able to speak. He hadn’t seen very many blonde Italian women before. She’s got blue eyes. I wonder if she’s single. What am I thinking? She lives here, and I’m in California.
“My name is Samantha, but everybody calls me Sam. Can I get you started with a drink?”
“Mountain Dew, please.”
As she went to the hostess station to get his drink, one of her brothers stuck his head out of the kitchen. “Hey, Sam, when are you gonna find a stronzo to marry?”
“The right one will come along, Sal. I just know it.”
When she got back with his drink, Keith asked, “So, what would you recommend?”
“I love the chicken parm with angel hair pasta.”
“Sounds good, I’ll have that.”
As he gazed at the photos of celebrities lining the walls—was that Al Pacino with the owner?—Sam came back with his food. She waited for him to take his first bite, and as he did, he thought, This is literally the best Italian I’ve ever had.
Keith gave her two thumbs up while he was still chewing, and she walked away smiling. As she was clearing his plates away after the meal, she asked where he was from. “California,” he said. In her eyes, he saw her heart sink a little bit.
On the guest copy of the receipt, she wrote, Call me anytime and left her phone number. Keith wrote his down on the merchant copy and included a generous tip. He approached Sam at the hostess station.
“I’m leaving for Little Rock early in the morning, so is it okay if I call you while I’m heading home?”
“Of course it is! Can I have your address?”
He wrote it down for her.
Sam gave him a takeout menu and wrote her home address on it.
“Maybe we can write to each other when you get home?”
“I would like that very much.”
At 5:30 the next morning, Keith was already on the interstate, with breakfast in him, a large cup of coffee next to him, and a cooler full of snacks and Mountain Dew. Twelve hours, four bathroom breaks, and a full tank of gas later, he pulled into the Extended Stay on Kanis Road in Little Rock, Arkansas. After dropping his bag off and grabbing a quick shower, he called Sam. She was happy to hear he was okay and told him there would be a letter waiting for him when he got home.
He walked across the street to Mooyah Burgers, getting a to-go order. After eating, he crashed until five in the morning. An hour later, he was on his way toward Amarillo, listening to his George Strait collection. He crossed the border into New Mexico and decided that after he got to Albuquerque, he would take a day trip to the Four Corners. He got to the Microtel off the interstate, but not before stopping at Jack in the Box for something to eat.
Keith called Sam when he got in. After he told her about going to the Four Corners monument in the morning, she told him to send pictures.
“I will,” he said. “And when you get a chance, you’re more than welcome to come to visit me in Barstow.”
“I’ll have to think about that,” she replied.
He was up at the crack of dawn the next morning to make the four-hour drive to the Four Corners monument. He walked around all the stalls of the Navajo vendors selling necklaces and talked to them at length, then took a bunch of pictures, including five or six of himself at the Four Corners in different directions. He got back in his car with a gift for Sam and made the long drive back to Albuquerque.
He couldn’t wait to get home and relax in his own bed. By the time he hit the outskirts of Barstow, he was ready to return the car and get back home. The week of unopened mail had been delivered that morning. He thumbed through it as fast as he could to find Samantha’s letter. Funny that she should send it in a large envelope. Inside was her letter, of course, but also several large pictures of her and her family on vacation in Italy.
She had put a sticky note on one in particular: Thought you might like to have this one for framing. It was of Sam in a blue formal dress, holding flowers, the camera capturing her big smile.
This one’s definitely going up on the wall. Keith called her and let her know he had gotten home safely, and that his letter would be in the mail tomorrow along with lots of pictures. She was delighted to hear from him, telling him that she missed hearing his voice and that talking to him was always the high point of her day. He picked up his copy of World History of the Twentieth Century and started to read.
TEN
Excerpts from World History of the Twentieth Century c. 2000:
“The attempted coup by the Bolsheviks in 1917 was quickly tamped out by the loyal forces of Tsar Nicholas II. However, due to the losses suffered during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and the anti-Semitic policies of the time, the tsar chose to abdicate in favor of a free democratic government. He was granted passage, along with his wife and children, to Great Britain, where his first cousin, King George V, made him the Duke of Romanov, where he lived to the end of his days.”
Wasn’t he the one that was assassinated by the commies? Keith wondered.
“Von Hindenburg kept Germany together until his death in 1938, whereupon Franz von Papen assumed the office. The National Socialist Party disbanded after being defeated multiple times during the 1932 and 1936 elections.”
So, Hitler really was the one that held it all together!
“Former members of the National Socialist Party went on to lucrative careers, except for Martin Bormann, who was executed for murder in 1924. Joséph Goebbels retired from the University of Heidelberg in 1976 as a tenured Professor of Literary History. He died later that same year. Hermann Goering was one of the charter members of Lufthansa, which he retired from in 1960. He died in Bariloche, Argentina, in 1970.”
Wonder if he moved to Argentina to get away from his wife.
“Heinrich Himmler retired as professor of Agronomy at Munich Technical University in 1970. He died at Oktoberfest 1979 after being struck by a drunk driver.”
Why are these so different than what I remember? Almost every one of these people either died at the end of the war or right after the Nuremberg Trials. Keith flipped over to the section on Asia and Europe. No Holocaust. No Long March. Russia and China both had democratically elected governments. And not just that fake democracy that they claimed, either! A slowly dawning realization was creeping up the back of his neck and giving him
goosebumps. It can’t be all good. There must be a few things that were bad.
Communism still existed but in small, isolated pockets of the world. Vietnam had declared independence from France in 1954, and France chose to let them go. Vietnam then turned quasi-communist/socialist, but it wasn’t the hard-line communism of the 1970s. Without the influences of Mao and Stalin, there was none of the brutality of earlier regimes.
Oh, yeah, what happened to Mao?
“Mao Zedong and Li Zhen were captured after the 1927 Autumn Harvest Uprising and summarily executed.”
He quickly turned to “US Politics in the Twentieth Century” and skimmed through the presidential elections from the 1930s onward.
“FDR lost the election in 1940 to Wendell Willkie, who opposed FDR’s New Deal, wanted to keep America out of any foreign conflicts, and to grow the economy out of the Great Depression. Of course, Pearl Harbor changed all that, but with no war in Europe, the US was able to commit all the manpower that would have gone into the fighting in Europe to the Pacific region. The Great Pacific War involved the US, Australia, China, and Russia against the Empire of Japan and occupied Korea. It was over by Christmas 1943, with the Korean peninsula a free democratic society. Willkie’s death in October 1944, one month before the November election and six months after the death of Vice President McNary, allowed Joseph Martin of Massachusetts, the Speaker of the House, to fill in for second-shortest term ever by a US president.”
Politics is as interesting as watching paint dry.
Keith flipped over to the science and technology section. Seeing the display in the museum about Germany getting to space and getting to the moon first always gave him a sinking feeling in his gut. He shook his head. I never thought that taking three people out of two and a half billion would make such a profound impact.
ELEVEN
November 1992