by Michael Dodd
“So,” Mick injected, “You’re saying that the amulet might have been less of an invention and more of a natural combination in minerals?”
“It’s certainly possible,” Helen replied. “Perhaps that’s why you need to press your thumb against it for five seconds in order for it to work? Maybe that’s the time it takes for the combination of resonant elements within the electrum based objectto align themselves with your body’s resonant frequency?”
“Well, we have every known element in storage, don’t we?” Cathy asked. “It may be just a matter of getting the right mix of elements.”
“I think that’s a very likely possibility, Cath,” Helen said with a smile of satisfaction, “Let’s get to it.” Cathy and Helen made a beeline for the lab.
‡
2070
“You realize that there are now 3 amulets, right here in 2070?” Michael said, “I’ve got one, you’ve got one, and Kenneth Graham has one, and you say they’re all the same amulet?”
Gates hadn’t considered that. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, pondering the consequences. “You came here from 2125, I came here from 2080 and Graham came here from who knows when in the future. Somehow, that put the amulets here from three different timelines.”
“I wonder if I could use yours or you could use mine.” Michael speculated out loud.
“I doubt it,” Gates said, still aware that his father didn’t know who he was. “If they are the same amulet, then they would not work for anyone who’d used them already.”
“Maybe the fact that they traveled through time with someone else makes them, sort of, rebooted, so to speak. It would be worth a try.”
“ If everything remains constant, the amulet will take you back 60 years in time. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go back to 2010 and wait until Kenneth Graham arrives. First of all, I don’t know when he got here; secondly, I’m 60 years old. I wouldn’t live long enough.”
“I’m only 30 years old in this timeline,” Michael said. “I’d have enough time to wait on him.”
“I doubt if mother…I mean Cindy would be willing for you to do that. There must be another answer.”
“Well, I suppose…wait a minute. Did you say you were 60 years old? That means you used the amulet to go back in time when you were only 10 years old. How is that possible?”
“I knew it!”
Gates and Michael looked back over their shoulders, only to see Cindy storming into the room.
“I always knew there was something weird about that amulet! You protect it like it was your own child or something!” By now, Cindy had made her way in and seated herself, with some difficulty. “So, is somebody around here going to tell me what’s going on? I heard every word the two of you just said about time travel.”
“Honey,” Michael muttered, “It’s nothing for you to worry about. Please, go and rest.”
“Michael,” Cindy said with a wry grin, “Sometimes you’re just a few cards short of a full deck.” She pointed at Gates. “Can’t you see who he is?”
Michael looked at Cindy with great confusion. He quickly glanced back at Gates to see what his wife was talking about. Still, he was at sea. “What are you talking about?” he said. Then, as if a bomb exploded in his brain, his eyes flew open wide and he looked at Mickey/Gates with more care.
“If you were 10 years old when you went back in time and you’re now 60, that would mean you used the amulet in the year 2080. That’s just 10 years from now.” Michael continued looking intently at Mickey and continued to do the math. “We’re getting ready to have a son who would be 10 years old in 2080.” Michael gasped. He looked at Mickey with fear. “Dear God! Mickey, what’s your real name? Are you Gates? Are you our son?”
Gates could no longer hold his emotions in check. He began to weep and looked over to his mother, now filled with a combination of adoration, panic and confusion. “Yes, I’m Gates,” he said. “I got a hold of the amulet one afternoon and ended up back in 2020. I wasn’t going to make myself known to you until after I’d gone back in 2080, but when I saw Kenneth Graham’s amulet, I didn’t know what to do but contact you and see what you thought. I’m sorry.”
Cindy nearly fainted. Gates and Michael had to help her to the couch so she could lie down. The look she gave Michael was enough to chill his bones. She knew now why he always seemed so out of place. She knew now he had come from the future. She also knew he was the moron who left his amulet in a place that his 10 year old son could get a hold of it. Through his negligence, he had allowed his…Her 10 year old son, to travel back 60 years in time and then have to fend for himself. How utterly terrifying!
As Cindy stared daggers at him, Michael tried to make sense of the situation. “Well, that explains how you have the amulet, and it explains how I have the amulet, but how did Kenneth Graham get it? You say, you intended to meet with us in 2080 to explain what had happened?”
“Absolutely,” Gates said, “Where I intended to give the amulet back to you.”
“Where I would then give it to Mick Jagger when we got to the year 2125. That’s how this Graham fellow must have gotten it. He must have gotten it somehow from Mick Jagger in the future.”
“Mick Jagger!” Gates and Cindy said in harmonious confusion. “You have a friend from the future named, Mick Jagger,”Cindy finished alone. “Did you get the amulet from him? I assume it’s not the Mick Jagger that sang for the Rolling Stones?”
Michael smiled at Cindy. “Yes, I got it from him. He sent me back in time to stop World War III from occurring. I was successful. No, he’s not the same Mick Jagger who sang with the Rolling Stones.” Michael’s grin became crooked. “The people of 2180 have a rather odd way of naming their children.”
Cindy tried to do the math in her head. “So, if you’re telling the truth about your biological age, you came from the year 2125. Oh, dear God, you won’t be born for another 55 years!” She began to laugh and turned to Gates. “Oh well, why should that be strange to me? I’m sitting here ready to give birth to the 60 year old man sitting beside me! How could I possibly be surprised by anything else that happens?” She turned back to Michael, and with an even more surprised look, said, “You stopped World War III?”
“I helped President Wooten out a bit,” Michael replied with ironic humility, “He’s quite an extraordinary man.”
“Do we still have Tylenol in the medicine cabinet?” Cindy asked, most facetiously. “I’m starting to get a headache.”
‡
2140
“How are we gonna test it?” Mick Jagger asked Helen, “We can’t just press our thumbs against it and hope for the best. Even if we vanish; where and when would we go? There’s no way for the rest of us to know.”
“Actually, I believe there is,” Cathy said. “With the help of Gerald’s temporal theories, Brenda’s mechanical expertise, Helen’s metallurgical knowledge and Steve Callahan’s mathematical equations, we were able to test the new amulet by various temporal measures. The only thing we’re unsure of, at this point, is how to control the direction and the amount of time traveled.”
“What do you mean, ‘the direction’? I thought we could only go backwards in time?”
“As far as we can calculate, the resonant frequencies within the new amulet could project you either way. We’re not sure, of course, but the temporal wavelengths seem to fluctuate forward and backward.”
“In order to do any good, we’ll have to go backward,” Mick said, “And to a time before Graham changed the future. Is there any way to track the temporal wavelengths so we can activate it at an optimum time?”
“We’re unsure,” Cathy said, “But we’ll keep testing.”
Gerald piped in. “We better get to it quickly. In less than a week we won’t have any food left.”
Five days later, Cathy announced that they were as ready as they were ever going to be, given the allotted time, which was almost out anyway. She asked Mick to gather all the scientists of TimeCor
p into the conference room. Mick argued that it would be best to keep the first test among the five of them. Mick lost the argument. Cathy was adamant that every scientist in the building had a stake in this test. With the food running out, she argued, if it didn’t work, they were going to have to open the doors in a few days anyway. After that, she said, all bets were off.
When the 30 or so scientists were seated in the conference room, Mick stood at the front of the assembly and tried to explain what they were about to do. It didn’t take long for him to realize that he was simply not scientifically savvy enough to explain something so complicated to a room full of scientists. He quickly turned the floor over to Cathy and Helen.
“As most of you are aware by now,” Cathy began, “we have what we think is a pretty close facsimile to the amulet that Mr. Jagger, Kenneth Graham and others used to travel back in time. As far as we can tell, the temporal flow within the object we’ve put together seems to travel forward and backward over the spacetime continuum.” She looked over at Helen, who stood beside her, and smiled. Looking back at the assembly, she continued. “I could have Helen here explain all the elements we used to create this new alloy, but that would take too long and we’re running out of time.”
Gerald, the expert in temporal physics spoke up, addressing the whole group. “Cathy’s right, everyone. Helen checked the metallurgy, Steve checked the math, I checked the temporal theories and Cathy managed to cull the whole thing into what we think is a working temporal alloy.It’s either going to work or it isn’t, but we have very little choice.”
Cathy acknowledged Gerald’s assistance with a smile and a nod. She then readdressed the room. “So, with that said, the only thing we need to do is decide who takes the first shot at it. It needs to be someone relatively young because we don’t know how long the time-traveler will need to wait until Kenneth shows up. That is, of course, assuming the time-jump is backwards and somewhere close to sixty years.”
Helen decided to add, “Our theory is that the resonance frequencies within this amalgam of alloys will align themselves with the user’s resonance frequencies and produce a synchronicity that will transport the user through time. We cannot be sure whether the time-traveler will find themselves in the future or the past. Frankly, the whole thing is a shot in the dark. We don’t want there to be any illusions as to the surety of the test.”
“Well,” Cathy said, “ As strange as it may seem, at 40 years old, I’m the youngest person in this room. According to Mick, I was actually another person in another timeline before he came back and changed the past. I suppose there’s nobody better qualified to go than me.”
On a table to their right sat a small box. Cathy walked over and opened the box, taking out the “device”, as Gerald called it, and placing it on the table beside the box. It was yellow-gold in color and larger than the amulet Mick had introduced them to. It actually looked more like a rock than a coin, probably measuring about 5 cm long and 3 cm in height. The tension in the room shot up markedly when the object came out of the box, leaving the imaginations of all in the room to run riot.
Mick Jagger was standing in the wings. He saw the look of apprehension wash over Cathy’s face as she gingerly picked up the golden rock and rested it in the palm of her right hand. “Are you sure you want to do this, Cathy?” he said, drifting across the room to her side. “We could always do more testing.”
Cathy appreciated Mick’s comforting words, but she knew better. She gave him an apprehensive smile. “We’ve done all the testing we can do,” she said, staring intently at the “device” in her hand. “Our supplies have almost run out. It’s time we found out whether this thing will work or not. If it doesn’t…well…” she trailed off. The answer was obvious.
“Cathy,” Gerald called out from his seat, “there’s no way of knowing if this will work. If it doesn’t, we’ll have to take our chances out in the new timeline. If, however, it does work, there’s no way of knowing if you’ll go backwards or forward. You could end up 500 years in the future, for all we know.”
Cathy was well aware of everything Gerald had just said. She didn’t appreciate him clouding her mind with horrific possibilities. “Thank you for the encouragement, Gerald, but the only way to test this thing is to use it.” She looked at the assemblage of scientists and friends with an assuring smile. She then glanced at Helen and Mick. There was no point in dragging this out. She looked down at the rock in her hand as if it was an object that demanded respect. She closed her eyes and then closed her hand around what they all hoped was a time portal. She squeezed with all her might, assuming the golden ingot would need to be in contact with as much skin as possible in order to align itself with her temporal resonance frequency.
Moments later, she vanished into thin air!
CHAPTER TWELVE
2070
Needless to say, Gates moved in with his parents, who, at this time, were 30 and 35 years younger than he was. While he had experienced his share of odd moments in his life—having traveled back 60 years in time when he was only 10 years old—the idea of moving in with his mother and father, who were expecting to have a baby at any moment…Him…made him more than a little apprehensive. Nevertheless, it was quite cathartic. It gave him a chance to get to know his parents in a way he would never have otherwise been afforded. Both of them were 10 years younger than when he remembered them, and he was 50 years older. Gates had no doubt that sometime in the future there would be a thriving college degree program in Temporal Psychology.
Since Gates knew the date and time of his birth, Cindy and Michael didn’t have to worry about getting to the hospital on time, they simply planned to be there when the labor pains started. That day would be tomorrow evening with his birth recorded at 8:15 pm, July 20, 2070. In the meantime, Cindy rested in bed while Michael and Gates prepared dinner and talked about what could be done to stop the implementation of LDS’s temporal delivery and retrieval system.
“Hey Dad, do you have a sharper knife? This one’s duller than my high school algebra teacher.”
Michael left the stove and opened a drawer to Gates’ right. He pulled out a small paring knife and handed it to his son. “Here you go,” he said, returning to stir the spaghetti sauce, “That oughta do it.”
Gates picked up the knife and continued cutting up the onions for the sauce and the salads. Michael turned and smiled at the back of his son as he worked. Dad, he’d called him. So that’s what my son will look like when he’s 60. Cindy thinks he looks just like me. I suppose he does. Wow. “So,” he decided to talk about something other than what he was thinking, “This Kenneth Graham came back from the future with knowledge of things that hadn’t been invented yet, right?”
“That’s right,” Gates said. He scraped the onions into a bowl and carried them over to the stove, depositing them into the simmering sauce. “Although, I get the distinct impression, probably because of Mr. Graham’s swollen ego, that this new invention hadn’t been invented in the time in which he left. He’s just too proud of himself for it to have been something he brought from the future.”
“So when does he plan to test this new device?”
“Well,” Gates replied, now cutting the onions for the salads, “He’s pretty much decided that he won’t communicate with the past, at least, not yet. He’s afraid of it affecting his own life and future.”
Michael smirked. “Isn’t concerned too much about other people’s future though, huh?”
“Not really,” Gates laughed, “I imagine he feels in control of the future. While he’s never said it out loud, I’m sure he thinks he can mold the future to make it very rosy for him and his family.”
Michael understood that kind of thinking. After all, that’s why he’d come here from the future in the first place. Sure, his goal was a much more altruistic one, but that didn’t change the fact that he was trying to manipulate the past in order to change the future. Who truly had the wisdom to decide what should be changed? Even the best of inte
ntions are susceptible to the law of unintended consequences. While his “mission” had seemed to be successful, who knew what the long term effects on the world could be? By stopping World War III, he seemed to have created a much better future for mankind; but, what if that change was only temporary? Maybe a hundred or two hundred years from now someone does something to destroy the world. Maybe in his original timeline, Omni would have died, the totalitarian regime would have been overthrown, and the people would have made a better world than the one he remembered. Of course, Mick Jagger would beg to differ, but even he didn’t know what was going to happen hundreds of years from now.
From upstairs, Michael heard Cindy call out. He wasn’t sure what she wanted, but he quickly laid down his ladle and scurried up to see if she needed anything. When he got halfway up the stairs, she cried out again. “Michael! Michael, come quick!” she yelled.
Michael double-timed it up the stairs, taking two at a time, and rushed into their bedroom. There, sitting on the edge of the bed, was Cindy. Her legs were splayed out in front of her and she was holding her abdomen, looking down with a shocked expression. “What is it, honey?” Michael anxiously asked. Then, he noticed the floor below her feet looked like someone had spilled a pail of water. You didn’t have to be Elvis Presley to figure out that her water had broken.
“I need to get to the hospital, now!” she cried, “I thought Gates said he was born July, 20. There’s no way this baby is waiting until tomorrow evening.”
Michael rushed to the head of the stairs and called out to Gates. “Gates, come up here and help me with you mother! The baby’s coming now!” He rushed back to the bedroom and helped Cindy get to a standing position. As she did, she buckled with pain and fell back on the bed. “We’ll never make it to the hospital, Michael! Go next door and get Amber! She’s a nurse.I’m going to have this baby in this bed.” She laid back and straightened herself out in the bed.