Once their identities were in place, they had decided to travel, as if on an extended vacation, to ease into their new lives and get their heads on straight. They weren’t a couple, so there was no reason for them to remain together, but they shared a past, shared monumental secrets, and were fond of each other, so why wouldn’t they? Who else did they have? Alissa Henderson and Cliff Webb were newborns, and the only people in the world who knew anything about them were Alissa Henderson and Cliff Webb.
The problem was that now that Blake realized he was in love, being around Jenna only made these feelings grow stronger. So much so that his struggle to hide these same feelings was becoming painful.
Not that she wasn’t suffering herself. Mostly she was cheerful and upbeat, but there were times when she would break into tears, mourning the loss of her old life, and the loss of Nathan Wexler. But this was happening less and less as she began to come to terms with her new life.
Wexler hadn’t died, after all. He was alive and well and happy. He was doing what he was born to do, with her by his side. She was now the odd woman out, but he had never stopped loving her, and the only reason she couldn’t have him was because she already had him. He was sleeping with another woman, yes—but he wasn’t cheating on her.
It was Knight who had cheated. Cheated nature by creating a second copy of her in the first place.
But what was a curse for Jenna was a godsend for Blake. After Camp David, he had expected to be adrift and alone, not spending time with a woman who had come to mean so much to him.
Blake had chosen an Alaskan cruise to begin their journey, managing to book two cabins only four rooms apart from each other.
“Have you ever seen a more incredible view?” asked Jenna, standing with him on the port side of the cruise ship, gazing out over the balcony. A magnificent blue-green ocean extended for about fifty yards before ending at a twenty-story wall of gleaming blue ice.
Blake smiled. How many times had a similar question been asked in a romantic movie? This exact situation was beyond cliché. The male part of the duo would stare longingly at his female companion, not the scenery, and declare how spectacular the view really was. And yet Blake found himself wanting to repeat this tired cliché, despite knowing it would be a huge mistake.
“Nature always helps me get my head on straight,” he replied instead. “I’m glad you like it. You get next choice of travel destination.”
She sighed. “The problem I’m having is that there are too many choices. I’ve never planned a vacation when I’ve had unlimited time and unlimited money.”
“Well, yeah,” said Blake wryly, “who wouldn’t complain about that?”
Jenna laughed. “Okay,” she said, “maybe it isn’t that much of a hardship.” She paused in thought. “I guess I’m in the mood to avoid civilization for a while longer,” she continued. “How do you feel about the Serengeti?”
“Not a bad choice,” said Blake. “I haven’t been on Safari in years. But I’ll bet you that I have an idea you’ll like even better. One that you’ll find more meaningful.”
“So you think you know what I’ll like more than I do?”
“In this case, yes,” he replied with a grin.
“Okay, you’re on. You’ve got yourself a bet.”
He leaned closer, as if he was conveying the secret to existence itself. “The Galapagos Islands,” he whispered.
Jenna’s eyes widened. “How did you do that?” she said in delight. “Maybe you do know me better than I do. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“It isn’t an obvious destination,” he said. “But I knew you’d love having the chance to retrace Charles Darwin’s steps as he made the observations that changed the world.”
“It’s perfect,” she said excitedly. “Thank you.”
Blake nodded, but quickly turned away, not wanting her to see what he knew was so clearly written in his eyes.
Jenna sighed. “When I told you and the team what happened in the guesthouse,” she said. “I left something out. Your duplicate did go on a suicide mission, and he did lie to me so I’d be safe. But what I didn’t tell you was that, just before he left . . . ” She paused, as if unsure she was making the right decision to continue.
“Go on,” urged Blake.
Her look of indecision remained. “Well,” she began again finally, “in short . . . he told me he was . . . in love with me.”
Blake’s face whitened. What?
His double must have had the same epiphany he had experienced at Camp David. When he had thought she was dead, killed inside a pickup truck, his own true feelings had ripped free of their shackles. So why wouldn’t the same happen to his double when he saw her being marched off by a would-be rapist?
But while this explained how his double had come to realize his true feelings, it didn’t explain why he would ever share them with Jenna. What a horrible thing to do to her. Especially knowing she was in love with another man. How could he have burdened her like that?
“I’m so sorry, Jenna. The other me should never have told you. But I promise I won’t let this interfere with our friendship, or our time together. I know you’re in love with Nathan, and I know you just lost him. So don’t worry about my feelings for you. I know that you can’t return them.”
Jenna looked both happy and miserable at the same time. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” she said timidly. “Because I lied to you.”
Blake blinked in confusion. “I don’t understand. Lied about what?”
She took a deep breath and then let it out. “In truth, you never did tell me that you loved me. You’re too good of a man to do that. But I’ve been getting this strange vibe that it might be true. And my feelings for you have been getting awfully . . . warm. So I threw it out there to see what you would say.”
“You mean to see if I’d confirm it,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Which I just did.”
Jenna gritted her teeth guiltily. “It was horrible of me to do. I know that. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I was feeling so close to you just now that I had to know. If I asked you directly, you’d deny it. So I tricked you.” She tried to force a smile. “But you can’t say I didn’t learn this kind of maneuver from the best.”
Blake knew he should be angry, but he found himself feeling relieved instead—and suddenly hopeful. “When you say your feelings for me have been getting awfully warm,” he said, “what do you mean by that?”
“I mean I’m not in love with you,” she said, “but I’m beginning to think I’m headed in that direction. I’m still not over Nathan, and I’m sorting out a lot of emotions. So I can’t return your feelings now. Maybe not for a while. But you’re an amazing man. I have a feeling that once I’m able to let go of my past, I’ll catch up with you. If you can be patient, I have a feeling we can be more than friends.”
Blake felt like fireworks were going off inside his head, but fought to stay low-key. “Take all the time you need,” he said as calmly as he could. “We can let this evolve the way it evolves.”
Jenna laughed. “Maybe this will happen on the Galapagos Islands,” she said. “A lot of things seem to evolve there.”
Blake nodded, but didn’t trust himself to respond. They both fell silent, staring at the glistening combination of ocean and ice for several minutes, alone with their thoughts.
“Not to change the subject,” said Jenna with a contented smile, “but I wanted to ask you if you’d be willing to train me.”
“Train you how?”
“Basic stuff. Some hand-to-hand, some weapons training, and a lot of instruction on tactical and strategic thinking. I’ll never be nearly as skilled as you, but if we’re going on missions together, I want to be prepared.”
“Of course I’ll train you,” said Blake. “But I like the idea of me being the muscle and you being the brains. You know, I’d be the guy in the field, and you’d be the guy in the truck, talking into my ear.”
“No deal,” said
Jenna. “We’ve been in danger zones together before. If it makes sense to include me on a mission, I won’t shy away. And we both know you have plenty of brains to go along with your brawn. As for me, I’m getting to be more of a badass all the time.”
Blake laughed. “Are you kidding? You’re a total badass.”
“Then it’s settled,” said Jenna happily.
“Great,” said Blake. “While we’re at it, let me bring up something else. I wasn’t going to for a while, but we seem to be going in a lot of unexpected directions suddenly.”
“Of course,” she said. “What is it?”
“At some point, we have to decide on what we do going forward. We’re here for Q5 as necessary, but there may not be that many missions required. We can only travel the world for so long before we get tired of it, or bored to death.”
“Okay,” said Jenna. “So what did you have in mind?”
“What if we opened up a private detective shop? We could limit the number of cases since we don’t need the money. It would keep our minds active in between assignments. I know this is my dream, not yours, but you’d make a great detective. I’ve seen how your mind works. And this experience will serve you well on any missions we take on.”
“As Cliff Webb, you don’t have a PI license. And I never had one.”
“Consider that a minor technicality,” said Blake impishly. “You and I have fake passports and fake histories. And we have friends in high places, including President Janney. So we can get any credentials we want. Well, we couldn’t get a license to perform open-heart surgery,” he amended with a smile, “but I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t end well anyway.”
“Didn’t you say that PIs spend most of their first year in business catching spouses in the act of cheating?”
“What are you saying, Jenna, that you aren’t thrilled about the idea of filming other people having wild sex?”
Jenna laughed. “It wouldn’t be my first choice.”
“Or your hundredth,” said Blake with a smile. “But we wouldn’t have to do that. Cargill can plant a history for Cliff Webb that paints him as the best of the best. And I spoke with the president recently. He said he’d be happy to pull strings so it leaks out that I’m the guy you go to with challenging cases. We can work on them together, picking and choosing the cases we like.”
Jenna considered. “I think it would be fun, but only every once in a while. I’ll let you handle most of them solo. Turns out I have another idea for how to spend the bulk of my time.”
“How?”
“Jenna back at Q5 is working on the optimal strategy for rolling out a worldwide time travel suppressor, once Nathan perfects it. She’s trying to figure out the best way to manage a world with time travel in it. Well, she can use all the help she can get. And I’m just the woman for the job.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” said Blake. “And you know what they say: God helps those who help themselves.”
She laughed. “I don’t think me helping my duplicate is what they had in mind.”
“Was this something you intended to do from the start?” asked Blake.
“I thought about it, but I didn’t decide until just now. I was afraid having her share some of her workload with me would be too painful. It would require me to interact with her too much, each time knowing she was living my life. Each time a reminder of what I had given up. But suddenly, I have reason to hope I can have a great life of my own. Not the one I thought I’d have when I was single, but a great life.”
“And by single,” said Blake in amusement, “you don’t mean not in a relationship.”
“I’m glad you caught that,” she said playfully. “No, by single, I mean when I was the only me in existence.”
“Ah, the good old days. We were young. Reckless. But now we’ve finally multiplied.”
Jenna laughed. “I think we have a plan. Let’s say another two or three months of travel, and then we’ll settle down somewhere and begin our new lives.”
“Settle down in separate residences?” asked Blake.
Jenna sighed. “I honestly don’t know. I can’t say for sure how fast my feelings for you will evolve. But judging by how things are going,” she added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if one residence would do the trick.”
Author’s Notes
Table of Contents
1) From the Author
2) Time Frame: What’s real and what isn’t
3) Author bio and list of books
1) From the Author: Thanks for reading Time Frame. I hope that you enjoyed it. Since a large number of ratings, good or bad, can be instrumental in the success of a novel, I would be grateful if you would rate Time Frame on its Amazon page, throwing up as many stars as you think it deserves.
Click here to rate Time Frame
Please feel free to visit my website, where you can get on a mailing list to be notified of new releases, Friend me on Facebook at Douglas E. Richards Author here, or write to me at [email protected].
2) Time Frame: What’s real and what isn’t
As you may know, in addition to trying to tell the most compelling stories I possibly can, I strive to introduce concepts and accurate information that I hope will prove fascinating, thought-provoking, and even controversial. Time Frame is a work of fiction and contains considerable speculation, so I encourage you to explore these topics further to arrive at your own view of the subject matter.
With this said, I’ll get right to it: what’s real in Time Frame and what isn’t. I’ve listed the categories I’ll be covering in order of their appearance, so if you aren’t interested in an early category and want to skip ahead to one that might interest you more, I encourage you to do so.
Kim Jong-un—a scary choice of character
Kettles, selling my home, and refrigerators
Tabby’s Star
Smart contact lenses
The decision to drop the bomb
Outtakes
Sperm is cheap
The fifth dimension
Sonic weapons and vomit-inducing smells
Supercoiled DNA and the dead space inside atoms
Oxytocin
Kim Jong-un—a scary choice of character
Many writers protect their fiction from becoming obsolete by not using actual people as characters, instead drawing characters that are clearly meant to serve as stand-ins for real life figures. Rather than using Kim Kardashian in your novel, you create Cat Chrysanthemum, who looks and acts exactly like Kim, and who has built the same reality show empire. Most readers know the archetype, and if the real Kim goes to jail for cheating on her taxes, or shaves her head bald and becomes a Buddhist monk, this doesn’t impact the novel.
Which brings me to another Kim. Kim Jong-un.
As you know, I chose to use the real North Korean dictator as a character, despite the perils of featuring someone who is alive, prominent on the world stage, and prone to making headlines. I felt compelled to do this for two principal reasons. One, the real Kim is already so much stranger than fiction that it would be hard for a fictional stand-in to compare. Two, I had introduced the idea of using time travel to duplicate and kidnap Kim Jong-un in Split Second, written in 2015, and had long planned to make this happen in a sequel.
But back in 2015, Kim was relatively (key word here) well-behaved, at least compared to the version of him that emerged after I began this novel, after I had written key early scenes about Cargill’s plans to remove him as a threat.
As I was writing about Kim, his bad behavior intensified by the day. As I was describing a future world in which Kim had become far more dangerous than ever, he was becoming far more dangerous than ever—for real. Everything intensified, escalated: the saber-rattling, the heated rhetoric, his WMD capabilities, global tensions, and so on.
I thought I was introducing readers to information about Kim and the North Korean situation they might not know, like the fact that China might pretend to honor sanctions while being Kim’s benefactor b
ehind the scenes, or that America feared he would massacre the large population next door if he was ever attacked—only to see this information become a mainstay of television and print news. Still, while this reduced the novelty of the information, it did increase the veracity of the book.
As I sit to write this note (November 2017), world events have yet to contradict anything I’ve written about Kim and the future history of the world. But who knows what might be ahead? Who knows how long this might be true? Kim could be removed from power. Assassinated for real. Or other actual events could occur that overtake my novel—events that are too troubling to even speculate about.
I thought long and hard about erasing Kim Jong-un from the novel. I wondered if, given the current escalation and tension, it was appropriate to have him as a character. I also wondered if I could live with the growing likelihood that portions of my novel might become obsolete before I even finished. In the end, I decided not to change the scenes pertaining to North Korea and Kim, believing them to be too integral to the novel to remove.
If events have changed by the time you read this novel, such that the history I paint no longer holds up, I apologize, and hope you were able to see past this. On the other hand, if, by the time you read Time Frame, this dangerous tyrant is somehow brought to justice—via time travel or otherwise :)—I will be celebrating my heart out, delighted that my narrative is no longer valid.
Finally, I should mention that there really are credible sources who speculate that Kim is more cunning than he seems, and that he purposely set out to mimic his grandfather. Much of the background on Kim that I used in the book, including this chilling speculation, came from a long article in Vanity Fair, written in 2015 by Mark Bowden. If you Google, “Understanding Kim Jong-un, The World’s Most Enigmatic and Unpredictable Dictator,” you can find it. If you Google, “Inside the luxury world of Kim Jong-un,” you will find an article that appeared in The Telegraph, also in 2015, that gives a sense of how much money he wastes on palaces and luxuries while his country remains among the poorest in the world.
Time Frame (Split Second Book 2) Page 39