The Didymus Contingency

by Jeremy Robinson

  While David sipped on a soda and scribbled notes on a napkin, Tom finished off his eighth bottle of Heineken. One of the time-modified watches rested on the table between them. Tom blinked his heavy eyes and focused them on the watch. He wondered how it worked, but knew he was too mentally diminished to even consider figuring it out. That’s why he let David take a whack—that, and David was better at math.

  David chuckled lightly.

  “Well?” asked Tom with a slurred voice, “Where’d it go?”

  “Let’s just say some paleontologist is going to be very confused when he digs up a Neanderthal sitting on our chair,” David said, grinning ear to ear.

  “My God, we might have changed the course of human history!” Tom blurted sarcastically, “Imagine! Chairs invented earlier, leading to the idea of having a throne, upon which a king is crowned and a monarchy is born centuries earlier then we currently know! By my calculations the time change shift hits us in three… two… one…”

  Tom finished his countdown with an impressive belch that went unnoticed save for the rotund cowboy at the next table over who raised his chicken leg to Tom and nodded his head as if to say, “Nice one.”

  David shook his head. Tom was a silly drunk if you stayed on his good side. “While I don’t think our chair will have any effect on the time stream, we do need to be more careful in the future,” David said.

  “So puh-artna,” Tom said with a drunken smile. “Tell me how our little invention works.”

  “You’re not going to remember a word of this in the morning,” David said, thoroughly amused.

  “C’mon buddy, humor me…” Tom replied as he blinked his eyes, trying to clear the cobwebs.

  David picked up the watch and held it up in front of Tom’s face. Tom focused on the watch as best he could. David worked the buttons with skill and spoke as he did so, “Look here. This sets the date, not today’s date mind you, the date you wish to travel to. We even included settings for B.C. and A.D. Here is the time of day, again, the exact time you wish to travel to—not our time. And look at this! Anywhere in the world you want to go to. After picking the year and time you can enter global coordinates, which are then automatically adjusted for continental shift. Just push this button and poof, you disappear…to another time…another place…another way of life, in the blink of an eye.”

  “Okay,” Tom said. “So then the real question is...if the watch...which was on the chair...which belongs to the new king...created the time...warp? Wormhole? What are we calling it anyway? Forget it. Not important... Why didn’t the watch disappear too?”

  “I thought about that. It’s elementary, but I think the watch might have to be attached to whatever it’s sending back in time,” David explained.

  “Huh, I still can’t believe this works.”

  “Believe it,” David said, “It’s about time you believed in something.”

  David’s comment sank in slowly and got twisted in the process by Tom’s tanked brain. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  David spoke quickly, “I didn’t mean what you think. I—”

  “You what?” Tom said, his voice growing angry, “Want me to believe in your God? Your Jonas…”

  Tom squinted his eyes, attempting to free his mind of the alcohol’s effects, and said, “Your Jesus? It was my lucky day. That’s what he said, you know, my lucky day! My lucky day…”

  Tom spoke through gritted teeth, “Megan dedicated her life to ‘saving people.’” Tom’s nostrils raised and his lips turned down. “Saving people... She called it that. She died for being a Christian. She died... She died because she believed in an ass of a God who could care less about those who served him.”

  David looked around the room. They were beginning to get an audience.

  “Here God! I want to serve you so I can die too!” Tom shouted toward the ceiling. He looked back at David. “I hold Jesus... Jesus is responsible for her death. She’s dead. It’s his fault. How could I ever believe in him? If he were who everyone says he is, why did he let Megan die?”

  David spoke slowly and softly. “Sometimes bad things happen to good people and we can’t see why. But the greater good—”

  “Greater good? David, my wife was gunned down in front of me and died at my feet! Right at my feet. And the blood... What good could possibly come of that?!” Tom fumed as his mind raced. “You weren’t there, David. If...if you believed in Megan’s God, you died. They killed you. Fffft, that was it. If you didn’t…if you didn’t, you lived. It was that simple…that easy. Be glad you weren’t there. You’d be dead too.”

  “She died for what she believed in, Tom,” was all David could say.

  “Why do you think...? What… Yeah, you know, you’re right. She died for what she believed in: nothing. She died for nothing… Megan died for nothing.”

  Tom wound up and punched the tabletop with all his might, getting the attention of everyone in the restaurant. Tom’s chest heaved with each passion-filled breath. He thought of Megan and how he wished he could save her—go back and save her—but he knew he couldn’t. Time would be changed forever and the time travel device he invented would cease to exist, trapping Tom in an unbreakable cycle of self-defeat. But there was something he could do. Something that wouldn’t change time, but would prove once and for all that Megan died for nothing and that David’s naïve beliefs were ill founded. At least David could be saved from a life of worthless devotion to a dead god.

  Tom shoved away from the table and pounded toward the door.

  “Tom, wait,” David urged, not sure what was happening. He fumbled with his wallet, attempting to pay for their meal before leaving. Tom had plenty of time to make his escape.

  David careened out of the restaurant unsure of Tom’s plans. Would he find Tom crying over the loss of his wife? Would he encounter a swift fist to his jaw? Would Tom pass out and wake up with a headache?

  The Land Rover skidded to a dusty stop in front of David, nearly crushing his feet. Tom was behind the wheel. David approached the already rolled down window. “What are you doing?”

  Tom looked at David, his eyes clear and said, “If you could go back in time…and witness any event…from beginning to end, where would you go?”

  David was exasperated and didn’t want to spend time on silly questions, “Tom, I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do,” Tom informed him.

  “Tom...”

  “I’m going to prove it to you once and for all. I’m going to prove it to the world. My wife is dead and so is your God, dead and buried,” said Tom, “Don’t worry. I won’t change anything. I won’t get involved.”

  “You’re drunk!” David shouted, “You can’t drive!”

  “You can’t stop me, David.”

  “Give me the keys.”

  “Goodbye, David.”

  “Give me the keys, now.”

  “See you around.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Tom was finished with the conversation and slammed his foot on the gas. The SUV peeled off, leaving David to choke on a cloud of dust. David coughed as he chased after Tom, yelling, “Wait! What are you going to do?”

  David stopped running in the middle of the road and caught his breath. He mentally sifted through all the possibilities Tom’s drunken mind could be considering. He thought about what Tom had said. Where would he go? What event would he witness?

  David opened his palm, looked at the heavy metallic watch and found the answer. They had unlocked the door to the past and Tom was going to step through and face the man he blamed for his pain.

  David’s face contorted into sheer panic and he said aloud, “No… Oh no, Tom…”

  He smashed through the doors of Peggy’s Porker Palace. “Help! Somebody help me! I need a ride!” David shouted. A room full of slovenly, bibbed truckers stared at David, annoyed by the disturbance to their feast. David met their eyes and knew he was going nowhere fast.

  * * * * *

  A dark blu
e Chevy pickup with bull horns tied to the front stopped amid a cloud of dirt only ten feet from the inconspicuous shed in the middle of nowhere. David flung the door open and jumped out.

  “Thanks,” he said to Betty, the waitress who had used her smoke break to drive the frantic David to God-knows-where for God-knows-what. Betty leaned out the window and spat, “Sure this is where you wanna be? Ain’t nothin out here.”

  David smiled and nodded his head, anxious for the woman to leave, “Yes, I’m positive. Thank you again for the ride.”

  “All right,” Betty said with one eyebrow perched high on her forehead, “It’s your walk back.”

  David watched as Betty spun her tires, sending the truck into a quick one-eighty spin. She disappeared into the darkness, speeding through the night, country music blaring. As soon as she was out of sight, David ran into the shack like a child whose bladder was overflowing. The green laser dropped from the ceiling and scanned David’s head.

  Once David reached the parking level floor, Fred greeted him. “Salutations, Dr. Goodman. What are you two doing here this late?”

  “When did Dr. Greenbaum arrive?” David asked.

  “He came through not twenty minutes ago. Didn’t quite seem himself though. Nearly ran me over.”

  “Maybe I’m not too late,” said David to himself.

  “To late for what?” asked Fred.

  Waaooh! An alarm sounded throughout the complex, so shockingly loud that David and Fred had to cover their ears. Red lights flashed on every wall. Just as quickly, the noise of the alarm disappeared, but the light remained. David knew he was too late.

  David entered the control center and was met by raw chaos. Scientists were running in every direction attempting to make sense of what had happened. Armed guards lined the walls and aisles watching for anything out of the ordinary, which was everything as far as David could see. Sally was at the center of it all, giving orders to every soul in the room like a general in the trenches.

  Her eyes caught David’s and he saw an expression on her face he determined that second to never forget: relief. Sally rushed to David and said, “Someone used it! Someone went back! I don’t know how this could happen. Only you, Tom and I had… Where’s Tom?”

  David dodged the question, “Are the other watches still there?”

  “One is missing,” Sally replied.

  Spencer, a timid scientist with thick glasses and a slight hunch, approached Sally with his head down and waited for her to acknowledge his presence. “What is it?” Sally barked.

  “Uh, well, closer inspection of the data sheets from the time of incursion shows two additional time-space distortions,” explained Spencer.

  “Meaning?” Sally asked.

  “Meaning two or three people—” David said.

  “Or objects,” Spencer added.

  “—traveled through time in that room at roughly the same time,” David finished.

  “How is that possible?” Sally asked, “All but two of the watches are accounted for and you still have yours, right?”

  David removed the watch from his pocket and held it up for Sally. “Which means someone or something transported into the room and then back out after the first watch went missing.”

  “Is anything else from the room missing?” Sally asked Spencer.

  “We already compiled an inventory. Absolutely nothing, other than the one watch and the unfortunate chair, is missing,” Spencer said with unusual confidence.

  “What about added?” David asked. “Was anything added? Maybe our future selves sent something else back?”

  “We would have found that during the inventory,” Spencer said. “Nothing inside the room has changed. But…”

  David’s impatience grew. “What?”

  “Perhaps the monitoring equipment is flawed?” Spencer said, looking a little uncomfortable at suggesting such a thing. “This is, after all, the first time we’ve monitored space-time distortions. What if what we’re seeing is, for lack of a better term, ripples?”

  “Like aftershocks?” David asked.

  Spencer smiled with relief. “Exactly! What if the second and third distortions we detected were simply aftershocks, or ripples, created by the first?”

  “It’s possible,” David said. “That might make sense, but we should keep an eye out for the phenomenon in the future, just in case it repeats.”

  “Good,” Sally said, the subject put to rest for the moment.

  David patted Spencer on the shoulder and said, “Good work, Spence.”

  “Thanks, David. See you in the past,” Spencer said as he hustled away.

  See you in the past?

  “David, what are your thoughts?” Sally asked.

  David’s mind left his thoughts about Spencer’s odd comment and focused on their predicament “My best guess,” David said, “is that it’s either a side effect from the all the time distortions created in the last day or our future selves adding or subtracting from what they sent back. If it wasn’t from an internal source, then there’s nothing we can do about it anyway. I suggest we focus our efforts primarily on the problem at hand.”

  “Agreed, but I want another inventory done, just in case something was missed,” Sally said as they entered Receiving Room Alpha, which was swarming with guards.

  David scurried to the eight remaining watches, resting on a table. He picked one up and glanced over it. “Good, they’re identical. I still might be able to catch him,” he said without thinking.

  “Catch who?” Sally demanded, “And how on God’s green Earth can we find were ‘he’ went?”

  David put the watch down and pulled out the one from his pocket. He strapped the watch to his wrist and looked up at Sally, “Because I know where and when he went. And since the watches are identical and most likely function similarly, I’m sure he could have—”

  “David, for the last time…who?”

  David paused. Should he tell her? Would she still trust him after knowing the truth? David’s honesty won out, “Dr. Greenbaum… Tom went back.”

  Sally cocked her head sideways, apparently confused. “What? Why would he?” she asked.

  “It’s a long story,” David said, “I don’t have time to explain and I’m going to need a few things.”

  David began mentally preparing for the ordeal, which he knew was his to face alone. It had been years since he held a conversation in his native Hebrew tongue, let alone his school-learned Greek and Aramaic. Thank God they were required learning throughout his years at private Israeli schools. He feared Tom would be even worse off. He began making a mental list of items he would need: Authentic clothing could be created. Money: gold and silver in moderation would probably do. Some padded sandals…and a disguise for the watch.

  David decided he would take a test trip into the past. He thought it would be best if he witnessed first hand the event that drove his partner and best friend to risk changing the past to prove a point. He had to see it for himself. He had to understand. His mind was made up.

  He was going to Zambia.

  —FOUR—

  The Fall

  1985

  2:02 P.M.

  Zambia, Africa

  An unfamiliar cracking noise filled the jungle, causing birds to jet away to the safety of the sky. Light flashed through the thick foliage like a frantic photo shoot. A shard of light split open, just above the ground, and spilled David out. He appeared, stumbled a few feet and leaned on a moss-covered tree for support. Boom! With a clap like thunder, the light vanished. Glowing blue sparkles twinkled to the wet ground around David, signifying the completion of the event.

  David struggled to take another step, but fell to the ground and vomited into a patch of ferns. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea? For all he knew, time travel was only safe for inanimate objects. David pulled himself back to his feet and looked at his surroundings—lush jungle as far as the eye could see. This had to be Zambia, but were his coordinates correct? A thought occurred to
David and a smile came to his sickly face, it had worked! He had traveled through time and space! He—crack! A gunshot pierced the air in the distance and David remembered what he had come to see.

  He carefully made his way through the dense wilderness toward the sounds of gunfire. He crept low to the ground while attempting to avoid the many snakes, spiders, and larger predators that he couldn’t see but thought must be lurking nearby. A metallic click froze David in his tracks.

  “Tuhn arownd,” came a deep voice. “Slohly.”

  David did as he was told and came face to face with four men he thought must be from a local tribe. Their dress was half-modern, half-tribal and one of them wore a Yankees baseball cap… David’s memory was triggered. He remembered the night Tom broke down and told David the entire story. Four men, in tribal clothes with rifles…and one of them, Tom called him the Yankee fan, because he wore a Yankees hat. These were Megan’s killers! These were the men Tom was going to kill mere minutes from now! David’s mind raced with thoughts and theories about what his presence would do to this past and his future.

  He thought about transporting himself back to the future right before their eyes, saving his own life, but perhaps distracting or frightening these men enough so that the events of the past never occur. David cringed at the thought that he might be changing the past just he feared Tom would.

  David winced as he felt cold steel press against his forehead. “Who ah you?” the Yankee fan demanded, “Ah you wit de missionaries?”

  “No,” David replied. He wondered if that was his ticket out of this. “I have nothing to do with the missionaries.”

  The Yankee fan leaned in close and inspected David’s face. “Do we know you? I tink we do.”

  “No.” David answered. “I’m a scientist.”

  David’s answer seemed to cause the men some confusion. It was not an answer they had anticipated. The Yankee fan noticed David’s LightTech badge still attached to his outer shirt. He lifted it up and looked at the picture, then back at David. He looked up and down David’s body, taking in his ornate tie, his pressed shirt and polished shoes. They seemed to dissuade any suspicion that David was lying. The four men held a quick discussion in their native tongue and then the Yankee fan said, “You ah fortunate, Mr. Scienteest. You do nah balieve as dey do, so you weel live... But we tink we will see you again. Yes we will.”