Fate (Wilton's Gold #3)

by Craig W. Turner

  He took a deep breath. Standing in the shower that morning, he’d decided he wanted to wow them. Not bad, he thought now, for not having had anything prepared. Some of the smartest minds in the country were sitting around the table, and so very quickly he had them hanging on his every word.

  “Why don’t you tell us your story, Dr. Jacobs?” said Bremner.

  Jeff nodded, then delved into it. He gave quick details on his discovery of time travel, and came clean on his team’s desire to use time travel to find treasure in the past. He talked of the FBI agents introducing him to Evelyn Peters and his trip to Russia with her younger self: jumping back and forth between the present and the past before succeeding with the assassination, and fleeing the scene only to end up three years ahead of his own time.

  When he finished, Bremner said, “Dr. Jacobs, if we’re to believe your story, you’re an American hero. You deserve a ‘thank you’. Am I missing something?”

  He laughed. “Admittedly, I did expect a different kind of greeting at the airport yesterday. But that’s not exactly how I’m thinking about it,” he said, then sighed. Reliving the story reminded him just how long his journey had been. “I’m really just hoping you’ll accept what I’m telling you and let me get on with my business – understanding, of course, that it’s a fantastical story that sounds like it’s the plot of some sci-fi movie.”

  The man sitting next to Bremner, Dr. Arlen Schmidt, who Jeff actually thought he’d met at some point in his career, with a familiarity relative to quantum physics, leaned forward. “Jeff, do you know everyone around this table?”

  Jeff looked around. “Well, I do now from meeting everyone this morning. Though, please don’t quiz me on names. My brain’s not really full recovered.” Some of them laughed. “Before this meeting, the only people I knew were Dexter and Agent Fisher. Of course, Agent Fisher says he doesn’t know me. You look familiar, though.”

  “Yes,” Schmidt said. “We sat on a panel together several years ago at a conference.” That was it, Jeff thought. Oklahoma City. Or Tulsa. Yes, Tulsa. “But you didn’t know anyone else here before this meeting?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “That’s strange because this is the leadership team that worked directly with you to build the U.S. Time Program. Everyone at this table has been here since Day One. It’s unbelievable that you wouldn’t know all of us.”

  “It actually is believable, Doctor Schmidt,” Dexter said from the other end of the table. All heads turned in his direction. “I’ve been thinking about this all night, and I think there’s a reasonable explanation. Let me clarify – ‘reasonable’ in the context of this entire discussion. Jeff, you said that there were multiple versions of the Russian woman?”

  “Yes, I think at one point there were four versions of the same woman in existence at the same time because we kept bouncing back and forth between the present and the past. Well, actually, for me, the future and the past.”

  He could tell Dexter was theorizing as he spoke. “So, if there were multiple versions of her, then there were probably multiple versions of you, as well.”

  “Oh, I’m sure of it.” He said it matter-of-factly, as though having multiple versions of yourself running around was absolutely normal. It was time traveler stuff – they wouldn’t understand.

  “What happened to them?”

  “Mine, or Ekaterina’s?”

  “Either.”

  It was confusing, what had happened, so he tried to sort it out as he talked. “There were actually four versions of Ekaterina, I think, as I think through this. One was the little girl, who was in the house and not ever part of the situation. There was the Ekaterina I was traveling with, and there was the Ekaterina that was trying to kill us. Then there was the original Ekaterina who was in the house setting off the alarm. That one I’d traveled back to 1983 with. I think. Yes. The Soviet Ekaterina, let’s call her, was the last to arrive. She killed the one I was traveling with by sticking a syringe laced with poison in her neck, then when the other came out of the house, she shot her. At that point, she disappeared,” he slowed as he talked, “I’m assuming because she must have killed the younger version of herself. Once that version was eliminated, she herself ceased to exist.”

  He heard a murmur around the table. “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing. That’s just consistent with the rule that you set before you ran,” Bremner said.

  “Rule?”

  “That in the case of multiple versions of a person created by time travel, it is the responsibility of the youngest to eliminate the others to restore order.”

  “That’s my rule?”

  Bremner nodded.

  He laughed. “What a joy that must be for people. Anyway, Dexter?”

  “I’m trying to go through this in my head, as well,” Dexter said. “You said four versions of the Russian woman, but two that you’d actually traveled back in time with personally. Right?”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “Then there were at least two versions of you there, as well. Two that we know about for sure. The other version must have left somehow while you were in the midst of the situation…”

  He sighed. “Or, was stuck in 1983. I don’t know if there’s any way of knowing. Unless – wait, as I was leaving, I saw a flash of light in the trees. You know what? It was right where I’d been standing on the first jump. You don’t think-”

  Dexter was nodding. “I do. That version of you came back here, started the Time Program, and then ran.”

  It would have been easier to understand, or believe, if they were able to take a moment to diagram it out. But Jeff had seen the flash of light – and while he hadn’t spent the time thinking about it, there had indeed been another version of him in the compound in 1983. Dexter was absolutely right. Which opened up a whole new line of confusion and discovery, since the other version of himself had now elected to go somewhere else in time and not return. Why?

  His heart leapt. His own rule that he’d just learned. Was he the younger or older of the two of them? “Wow,” was all he could say.

  “Do you need a moment?” Bremner asked. Jeff realized it had just been he and Dexter going back and forth during the last portion of the conversation.

  He shook his head. “No, no, I’m okay. I’m trying to figure out how we can apply any of this to Benjamin Kane.” He wasn’t really doing that, and he probably could’ve actually used the moment that Bremner had offered. But his intention in helping them was to get himself back to his present time, and he didn’t want this crew to see how affected he was by what was going on around him. Just in case. Still, if Dexter’s theory was right, which Jeff had a feeling it was, it would mean that the other Jeff would’ve shared at least some of the memories of Evelyn Peters and the trip to 1849.

  “Do you think it does?” Bremner’s question interrupted his brainstorming.

  “Well, I only know Kane’s story at the 30,000-foot level,” he said. “Why doesn’t someone fill me in?”

  “Hold on,” the general said. “That’s it? The two of them toss ideas across the table for three minutes and then we’re done? I have some questions.”

  “Feel free,” Bremner said, gesturing to him to open the Q&A session.

  Jeff braced for a grilling. What was good was that he didn’t intend to tell anything but the truth, since he knew the questions would be about his mission to Russia and not any of the work he’d done previously. Realistically, it wasn’t as bad as he’d anticipated, as the general and a few others bore down on him. He laid it out for them in several different ways, according to what made sense to each of their individual interests. Most of the conversation focused on the concept of fulfillment, which his endeavors had disproven. They wanted to know why he’d been of the belief that, to ensure the present day that included the fall of the Soviet Union, they’d had to re-do the assassination of the Russian general – when that logic flew in the face of everything he was telling t
hem now relative to his own existence. He explained it as best as he could, including his experience of being misled by the older Russian woman, Evelyn Peters, but emphasized that his last 24 hours had been a whirlwind. He promised to document his findings for them as soon as he could, and invited them to a more thorough conversation at that time.

  “One final question,” the general said, teeing up what Jeff thought would indubitably be a whopper. “If the other version of you was present in Russia while you were escaping the Soviet guards, then he came back to the present to help us start the Time Program, why didn’t he say a single word about the Russia mission?”

  Jeff laughed quietly, then hoped that it didn’t come off as disrespectful. He was only now absorbing new information and trying his best to read people’s motivations at the same time as he went through this conversation, so he hadn’t had any opportunity yet to look at things from multiple perspectives. He quickly analyzed how the actions of the “other” him would affect how they treated him, and had come to an understanding that there really was nothing he could do about it. “Unfortunately, I can’t speak for the other... me,” he said. “My guess would be somewhere between him having to make sense of everything that had happened to him in the context of this reality on one end. On the other, he probably had some sort of agenda. The circumstances that followed... I suppose would lead you to believe that he was up to something. If I’m going to figure out what it was, I’ll need some time.”

  The general started to turn the conversation to Dexter, but the door at the far end of the room opened and a tall woman with long brown hair and a sharp blue blazer and skirt entered carrying a binder. She tried to slip in unnoticed, but since there was only one other woman in the room, it was impossible. Everyone stopped to look at her as she sat, so she laughed conspicuously and said, “I apologize for my tardiness. I had an appointment already scheduled. Please, don’t let me interrupt anything.”

  “Actually,” Bremner said, “we were just about to have Mr. Murphy go through the circumstances of the Kane incident. Your timing is perfect.”

  The woman certainly didn’t fit in with the rest of the room, especially sitting next to the curmudgeonly old general, who Jeff noticed was looking at his smart phone. She was young and vibrant, and her presence was strangely comforting.

  He turned his attention away from the woman to Dexter, who was slowly shaking his head. His friend exhaled a deep sigh.

  “Dr. Bremner,” the general said, “can we have five minutes?”

  Everyone grunted approval and they agreed to a quick break. Jeff remained in his seat while several of the attendees excused themselves to the solitude of either the hallway or the restroom. He turned his attention back toward Dexter’s seat, but his friend was gone.

  Suddenly he felt a light hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see the woman who’d just entered standing beside him.

  “Dr. Jacobs,” she said. “It’s good to have you back.”

  Not knowing who she was, he realized she was yet another person he was going to have to explain himself to – he wished she’d been present for the first part of the meeting. Not ready to go into it again right away, though, he sighed. “It’s good to be back,” he said instead.

  Whatever that meant.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  For some reason, Dexter’s mind flashed back to his lunch in Manhattan with Jeff on that warm summer day, sitting on the restaurant patio while his new acquaintance Dr. Jacobs tried to talk him into joining him on a very controlled, scientifically-driven time travel mission. How he’d gotten from that lunch to fleeing from a four-star general who’d figured out that he was the only one who could provide insight into a person who no longer seemed to exist... well, of that he wasn’t quite certain. Somewhere, something had gone awry.

  He knew the kinds of questions that General Carr was going to ask him, which made him exceptionally thankful that Dr. Graham had made her entrance. Her arrival reminded him of the other issue on his plate, of course, but he’d have time to deal with that.

  Dexter wondered how far he’d be able to get without admitting that he knew quite a bit about Jeff’s story. While he hadn’t admitted it to his now-returned friend, Jeff – the old Jeff had indeed told him about the mission to Russia. But the story of taking Jeff and the Russian woman to the airport, traveling to 1849 and getting shot in the leg, was not something that he’d actually experienced. Dexter had documented Jeff’s story in a notebook that was safely tucked away in a bank deposit box for scientific purposes, but whatever changes Jeff had made on his mission to Russia had done away with the need for him to actually take the trip. What Jeff hadn’t shared with him was where he was headed with the time device when he ran. Dexter knew, of course, but only because he’d surmised. Since he hadn’t returned, there was no way to verify any of it, however.

  Jeff had caught his eye for a moment before they’d broken the meeting, looking like he wanted to connect, but Dexter needed a few moments to transition himself. The presentation he was about to make was about his own failure – both on the research side and as a watchdog. Throughout the course of the Kane situation, there had been multiple opportunities for Dexter to put a stop to any problems. Of course, he’d said from the beginning that he had no business being the “muscle” if a traveler chose to attempt to run, so he didn’t fault himself for that piece of it. But his specific role in the Time Program was to ensure that there weren’t historical conflicts like the one caused by Benjamin Kane.

  A little bit of time had passed since the Kane mission, and while Dexter was charged with coming up with a solution, he was now comfortable in knowing that his job wasn’t in jeopardy. That being said, no reliable solution had presented itself until Jeff Jacobs suddenly appeared on a plane from Russia and, now that he was back, there was the need to resurrect the entire story again. While he was glad to know his friend was safe, he’d actually hoped that he wouldn’t have to look backward and deal with it anymore. Getting hit on the head with a bottle and then hearing Kane murder someone had not been a proud moment for him.

  Now he was hiding in the bathroom in his best attempt to delay the rest of the conversation. In his reports, he hadn’t been one hundred percent forthright, and he stood at the urinal going over his words to make sure he’d be reiterating the story he’d given previously. Since Kane had changed history by murdering George Mellen, there was no way of knowing – because he hadn’t had the opportunity to do the research originally – what Mellen’s life would have yielded. He could guess, of course, since the kid on the street had told him that Mellen’s company made breakfast cereal while Kane was in the milling industry. But with portions of that history wiped away, he hadn’t gone into that level of detail with the Time Program’s leadership. He’d told them he was unaware of Kane’s motives. Since the history was gone, there was no way to prove his story right or wrong anyway.

  Should he give them any more information now than he’d already given them? He didn’t see any reason to. In fact, had he not come back and told them about Kane, they would have had no way of knowing what had actually happened – or that a guy named Benjamin Kane had even approached the Time Program. That damn oath he took. None of it really mattered toward finding a solution for the mishap, anyway. He’d researched Mellen’s murder in the city’s police records and found the documentation. That was the story he’d given them, and it was bad enough – Kane had gone back in time to murder someone on Dexter’s watch. All other things aside, their best solution was to stop him from carrying out his crime.

  Up until Jeff’s return, though, there hadn’t been consensus that simply going back to 1930 and grabbing Kane was the way to go. No one had done anything like it, and neither the science nor the practicality of it had been explored. He’d raised the question with Jeff the night before: can you change history and then fix it? Or would you cause more problems? According to Jeff, he’d done it, but it had nearly been a disaster. No one at the USTP, Dexter included, was willing t
o stick their neck out on that one. The best anyone could come up with was to put stricter protocols and stronger precautions in place so that nothing like it happened again.

  With Jeff back, though, and with his fantastical story about his mission to Russia, it would spur some new thinking. It already had in Dexter’s mind. If Jeff had been able to undo something as dramatic as a world history-altering miscue, they should be able to handle a rogue businessman and his self-serving focus.

  The door behind Dexter opened and someone joined him in the restroom. He could feel them coming up behind him and settling into the urinal next to him. He looked over to see a wall of dark green in his peripheral vision.

  It was the General Carr, of course – the last person he wanted to see. General Nelson Carr had been brought into the Time Program at a high level during its infancy, which had been a red flag for Jeff at the time. It was undeniable that the government saw military applications for Jeff’s technology, so the two of them never saw eye-to-eye. Carr had been a commanding officer in Kuwait during the Gulf War and was brought in for his leadership and sense of urgency. Dexter would admit that the USTP would not have been established so quickly without him, but he probably would’ve preferred working with someone a little more knowledgeable on the topic. Especially after Jeff was gone, and there was a leadership void on the scientific side.