Einstein's Secret

by Irving Belateche

  With the words “go back,” I suddenly understood why Alex’s biography on Eisenhower had been so detailed and entertaining. It teemed with life because he’d gone back in time and experienced that life himself.

  “You went back to the fifties. That’s where you saw him.”

  Alex sped up. I checked the side-view mirror again. Van Doran’s car was gaining on us.

  “That’s right,” he said. “But the second time, I barely made it back here.”

  So his story was starting to make sense, but the big picture was getting foggier. “I don’t understand how he could be here, Alex. He was the guy who just hunted me down through Weldon’s house.”

  “You already know how.”

  And I did. “There are two of him. At least. Just like there are two of me, right now.”

  “One on the run and one at my place,” Alex said, “relaxing before his interview with McKenzie.”

  He raced through a stop sign and ran up behind some cars. Instead of slowing down, he swerved into the lane for oncoming traffic. The lane was currently clear, but talk about out of character. Alex wasn’t in control anymore. He was running for his life.

  I checked the side-view mirror. Van Doran was right behind us.

  Alex veered back into the right lane, but Van Doran didn’t follow. He stayed in the lane for oncoming traffic and sped up beside us.

  “What’s he do—?” I managed to blurt out before Van Doran’s car rammed into us and sent us fishtailing and skidding.

  Alex fought to keep control of the car.

  It swung around a hundred and eighty degrees before it came to a sudden stop, facing the wrong direction. The car bearing down on us slammed on its brakes, trying to avoid a head-on collision, and the cars behind it followed suit—

  Howling tires, followed by the harsh thud of one car hitting another, filled the air. And then the scene went silent.

  The accident was somewhere behind the lead car, which had thankfully missed hitting us.

  I glanced around, checking for Van Doran’s car, but didn’t see it.

  Alex was desperately trying to start our car. He fired it up on the third try, lurched forward, then skirted around the motionless cars, now scattered askew, passed the two cars that had collided, and headed back the way we came.

  When the mess passed into the rearview mirror, I finally spoke up. “How can he pull crap like that without changing history?”

  Alex was looking at the rearview mirror. “Looks like you might get a chance to ask him.”

  I glanced back. Van Doran was bearing down on us again.

  “We can’t shake him by car,” Alex said. “We’re going to have to lose him on foot.”

  He turned back onto Route 29. There was more traffic here, but Alex had four lanes to work with. “Darden Towe Park is up ahead. It’s acres and acres and we can lose him there.”

  Alex weaved around the traffic. Van Doran kept up, then Alex pulled a sharp right into the park. He raced through the parking area, past tennis courts and playing fields, until he landed on a service road.

  The road led us to the less-developed section of the park. First picnic areas shaded by woods, then hiking trails through the forest.

  We passed a sign that read Access to the Rivanna River, and Alex said, “We’re going to make a run for it. As soon I stop, get out, and head into the woods.”

  I looked back. Van Doran’s car was about forty yards behind us.

  Alex rapidly decelerated. “Keep the sun to your back and you’ll be heading east. It gets pretty wild in there, so he’ll give up pretty quickly.” He suddenly pulled over and brought the car to an abrupt stop.

  I jumped out, started toward the woods, and glanced back to see something I would never forget.

  Van Doran didn’t slow down. He was speeding up, bearing down on Alex, who was about to round the front of the car. The thud I heard was sickening—Alex’s body flew forward, and Van Doran kept going.

  As I ran for Alex, whose body was now thirty feet down the road, Van Doran’s car disappeared around the curve up ahead. He’d done what he’d come here to do.

  I knelt down next to Alex’s body. His torso was twisted ninety degrees from his pelvis. Blood was pooling around his head, and his eyes were open, glassy, and blank. I was trembling uncontrollably and had to turn away.

  How can he be dead? He’s alive. I’m visiting him right now, this weekend.

  Something had definitely gone wrong.

  And I had to fix it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Still trembling, I headed toward Alex’s car. I didn’t realize I didn’t have the keys until I was behind the wheel. So I got back out and forced myself to approach Alex’s body by purposely squinting to blur my vision. I didn’t want to take in his wrecked frame again.

  I reached into his pants pocket, and as I pulled out his keys, I also felt his iPhone in there. I took it, too, instinctually knowing I’d need it. I ran back to the car and slid in behind the wheel. By the time I’d turned the car around and was heading out of the park, my mind was awash in hopelessness. Nothing good could happen anymore. I fought to push back an unrelenting sadness. The sadness that had hung over my life after my mom had died.

  But the picture of Alex’s body, lifeless and twisted, abandoned by the side of a country road, was seared into my mind.

  I’d abandoned him. Like I’d been abandoned.

  Once I was on Route 29, I forced that image of Alex out of my mind and told myself that he was still alive. After all, wasn’t he? In the real history, the correct history, he must be.

  He had warned me not to follow up with Eddie. That’s how this nightmare had started. Or had it started with Einstein? With my own obsession?

  Trying to answer those questions now was pointless. The truth was that I had no idea what was going on.

  Should I call the police and report Alex’s death? Only if this was real; but it wasn’t. It was some strange history that was writing itself over the real history. The real history that I had to get back to.

  I have to fix this.

  I’d head to the Caves and go back to nine months from now, and everything would by hunky-dory. That’s how time travel worked.

  Didn’t it? Or was it possible that I’d go back to the future and find that Alex had been murdered?

  I couldn’t be sure, one way or the other, but going back seemed the right thing to do. I could fix things from there.

  So how was I going to get into Alex’s carrel? I looked down at the ignition and realized that I had all his keys. But the relief didn’t last but a second.

  How would I get into the Caves? I didn’t have the combination to the trap door.

  And that led back to Eddie. At this point in time, I hadn’t yet met him. That was still nine months away. Nevertheless, he was the best option.

  Then a new obstacle reared its ugly head. Alex hadn’t told me how the time-travel portal worked. How could I be sure I’d end up nine months from now, where I belonged?

  *

  About three miles from Darden Towe Park, a fire truck and an ambulance, sirens blaring and lights flashing, raced past me. There was no doubt where they were headed.

  Two miles later, three shrieking police cruisers roared by, and it was then that I realized just how stupid it had been to take Alex’s car. Too late now. I’d dump it in town, then track Eddie down.

  I kept a lookout for Van Doran’s car, but didn’t see it. Maybe he’d called it a day after killing his number one threat. After I reached the Corner and parked, I pulled out Alex’s phone and searched for Eddie’s address. Luckily, his place was only a twenty-minute walk from campus, so I no longer needed to risk driving Alex’s car.

  As I headed over to Eddie’s, I wondered about the repercussions of using Alex’s phone after his death. What would the police make of that? I convinced myself that it didn’t matter because this version of history was going to disappear.

  *

  Eddie’s house was a ranch-
style, with the rundown appearance of a rental, familiar to anyone who’s ever lived in a college town. I knocked on the door, and a blond woman in her early thirties greeted me.

  I asked for Eddie and she went to get him.

  On the walk over, I’d had a little time to figure out what I was going to say. I’d decided to hang my hat on the fact that Eddie already knew something about my bizarro world. After all, he’d been the one who’d approached me about Einstein, and it’d turned out that he’d known a lot more than he’d let on.

  But now, standing here on the threshold, I realized this wasn’t a given. Maybe he’d learned everything in the months leading up to my arrival in Charlottesville. If that were the case, convincing him to believe in my bizarro world was going to be a tough sell.

  Eddie appeared, and I introduced myself as a friend of Alex’s from grad school. Then I said I had something personal to talk to him about.

  He stepped out of the house and closed the door behind him.

  This was the moment of truth. I would just tell him what happened, in chronological order. But that’s not what came out of my mouth.

  “Alex is dead,” I said.

  Eddie grinned, as if he thought I was joking.

  But I didn’t crack a smile.

  Seconds went by as I held his stare. He lost his grin. “I’d know if Alex was dead.”

  “Go ahead and check it out.” I’d seen the police racing to the scene of the crime. If the local news was doing its job, there’d already be something posted online.

  Eddie didn’t move.

  “If I’m lying, I’ll leave.”

  “Okay, I’ll take a look.”

  He turned to go, and it dawned on me that Alex’s actual name might not be posted yet. “It’ll be a report about a fatal hit and run. In Darden Towe Park.”

  Eddie left me on the stoop. Knowing him, I was betting that he’d find out the victim’s name by hacking into the private communications of the police, fire, and local news.

  He returned two minutes later, looking shaken and pale. “How did you know? The name hasn’t been released.”

  “He was murdered—and it’s because of what’s in his carrel.”

  “What’s in his carrel?”

  It was too soon to launch into the entire time-travel saga. “I can’t tell you yet. I have to show you something first.”

  “So show me.”

  “We have to go to Alex’s house.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  It was time to take advantage of the one time-travel trope that Alex had confirmed was true. “Eddie, if you go to Alex’s house, you’ll find another version of me in there.”

  “Wow, really?” That contained a perfect blend of disdain and sarcasm. “Why don’t you get out of here?”

  I remembered that the other Eddie had been curious about why Alex wanted to keep his carrel after graduating, so I used that next. “Doesn’t Alex seem way too protective of that carrel?”

  “Yeah, and I thought that’s what we were talking about. Not some bullshit about your clone.”

  “This is leading to the carrel.”

  “How?”

  “If I explained it to you now, you’d have me locked up as a loon.”

  “You are a loon.”

  It was time for my Hail Mary pass. Time to bet on a long shot. “Listen, you know something is up. And you don’t really need me to confirm it, do you?”

  He cocked his head, and I knew I’d hit my mark.

  “What do you mean, I know something is up?”

  “You were checking out an event, or a place, or a document. I can’t tell you exactly what it was and I can’t tell you when. Maybe you were looking at it today or yesterday or last week, but here’s the thing: you noticed that some detail had changed. And you were sure it changed. You remembered it one way, but it wasn’t that way anymore. The only problem is, you can’t prove it. There’s no longer any evidence of the way you remembered it.”

  His eyes had gone wide and there was just a glint of fear in them.

  “And now you’re wondering if you were wrong,” I continued. “You’re thinking that your memory might be faulty.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s head over to Alex’s place.”

  *

  When we turned onto Alex’s block, we saw two unmarked police sedans parked in front of Alex’s house. Here was another element I hadn’t thought through. Eddie drove right past the sedans. Only a fool would voluntarily get involved in an active police investigation.

  Eddie turned onto the next block and pulled over.

  “You’re going to have to go in there without me,” I said. “The officers aren’t going to be too keen on seeing two of me.” I’d used my best weapon on him—the trails that time travel blazes into history. My fate was now in his hands.

  “I’ll check it out,” he said, and got out of the car.

  As I waited for his verdict, I couldn’t help but wonder if the reason Eddie went on to develop an interest in Einstein and time travel was because of me. I was the one who’d told him about it. Tonight.

  But that didn’t make any sense. Nine months from now, when he approached me in front of Grace Hall, I didn’t know anything about time travel. So how could I have introduced it to him?

  He introduced it to me.

  Was it another version of me? Or had history changed? Or—

  Before my head exploded with questions, I pulled out Alex’s phone to look up theories of time travel. I did hesitate for a second as I pictured a homicide detective discovering that, just after Alex’s death, someone had used his cell phone to research time travel. The detective would never in a million years guess that this was a valid clue. The clue that could break the entire case wide open.

  At first, I found only one time-travel theory that took into account the strange world I’d entered. It was the multiple timeline theory. In essence, it said that traveling into the past created a new and totally different timeline, starting at the point where you arrived back in time.

  The other timeline still existed, the one from whence you came. It still existed and went on about its business. But after digging deeper, I discovered that this model of time travel didn’t account for a new version of history blazing trails into the old version. In this model, each timeline was separate and unique.

  I was about to move on to another model when the driver’s side door whipped open and Eddie slid in. “The cops were questioning you and Alex’s roommate about the accident. The other you.” He keyed the ignition, pulled away from the curb, then turned to me. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Time travel.”

  “Time travel, huh? What about twins?”

  “You think that was my twin back there?”

  He didn’t answer. His eyes stuck to the road.

  “Just tell me that you have enough doubts about the twin theory to check out Alex’s carrel.”

  “How does the carrel fit into this?”

  “It’s a time-travel portal.”

  “You’re making the twin theory sound pretty good. What about Alex’s death? How does that fit into your sci-fi extravaganza?”

  “It’s a result of the extravaganza. And I have to fix it.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But I know Alex is alive in the future, and maybe that means I do fix it. Or did fix it. Or will fix it.”

  “How far in the future?”

  “Nine months from now. And I’m going back.” I didn’t mention that I had no idea how to program the portal.

  Eddie didn’t ask another question for a few long silent moments. I wondered if his curiosity had been piqued enough to get me into the Caves, or if he really believed that he’d just seen my twin.

  Finally, he spoke up. “I’ll take you to the Caves, but I can’t get you into Alex’s carrel.”

  I pulled out Alex’s keys, satisfied that I was on my way back to the future. “We don’t have to break in.”

  “How�
��d you get those?”

  “Alex gave them to me.”

  “He just handed the keys to time travel right over to you?”

  “He had to.” I didn’t want to explain that I’d taken them off of his dead body. “He was dying.”

  He glanced at me. “You were there?”

  “Yeah. We were being chased.”

  “Let me guess: by another time traveler.”

  It was getting to the point where my piecemeal answers were sounding more and more absurd, so when Eddie parked the car and demanded to know everything, I filled him in. As I did, I realized that we’d reversed roles. He’d been the one who’d come to me with the Clavin lead and his insane time-travel theory, and he’d been the one who’d led me into this quagmire. Now, I was returning the favor.

  But when I got to the part about Harold Weldon, Eddie interrupted my tale. “You don’t mean the Harold Weldon?”

  “I don’t know—What do you mean ‘the’ Harold Weldon?”

  “In the thirties, he was an undergrad here. It was his idea to turn the tunnels into study carrels. He founded the Cabal.”

  When we’d discovered that the man in the Princeton Club photo sporting the Oriole tie was Harold Weldon, Eddie must’ve known exactly who he was. That was why he’d been so eager to drive up to Cumberland. And that meant Eddie had lied to me. Just as Alex had.

  But I didn’t get angry at this Eddie. He wasn’t the one who’d lied to me—at least not yet. Instead, I went on and told him about the rest of my adventure, and concluded, for myself, that Weldon must’ve found the portal in the thirties. That explained how he’d made a fortune in the stock market. Time travel pretty much guaranteed a good return on investment.

  As soon as I wrapped up my crazy tale, Eddie spoke up. “If that portal really exists, I’m going with you.”

  Not only was that a huge leap from his earlier skepticism, it was also a terrible idea. Two of us traveling through time would most definitely lead to twice as many disasters. But I didn’t say so. I didn’t want to discourage him from opening up that trap door. First things first.

  *

  We entered Grace Hall and descended into the basement.

  As Eddie moved closer to opening that trap door, I weighed whether to tell Eddie the part of my tale that I’d left out. The part that might dissuade him from going through the portal. I hadn’t told him that he might’ve been shot in Weldon’s basement. I’d just said that I’d gone through the portal first.