Stolen Time

by Keith Hughes

  John slammed his phone down and paced his office.

  “Unbelievable,” he huffed.

  He paused at the cabinet bar, poured himself a glass of Jack Daniel’s, and knocked back the potent liquid in one gulp. As the liquor seared his esophagus, a slight measure of his calm returned, although anger still seethed below the surface. He refilled the glass and drained the amber fluid. Briefly letting his control slip, he hurled the tumbler against the far wall in a surge of frustration. It shattered in a most satisfactory manner, and the small tantrum helped bring his emotions to heel again. I can get through this. Ness Relevont will regret ever being an obstacle in my path.

  A detail from Karl’s report came to mind. There were three copies of Relevont. That provided the proof he needed. Relevont had the device, and if Karl could simply capture him, John’s future was assured.

  He disliked the uncertainty of waiting for the German and his bumbling squad of bullies. As his pacing resumed, he mulled over what else he should be doing. It's time to go visit my other screwup.

  John left his office to board the executive elevator. Standing in the mahogany and brass confines of the lift, he tapped his fingers against the side of his leg as it descended. The polished doors slid aside at the third floor, and inside the PU lab was a young man staring at the empty surface of a lab table. A video camera was focused on the same spot.

  The scientist stood a good foot shorter than John, and he was wearing his typical grubby lab coat that partially covered an even more slovenly T-shirt. His medium-length hair stood in wild disarray. Two or three days' worth of stubble covered his face, and odors clung to him like an unseen shadow.

  “Dr. Dix…”

  The younger man shushed him with a wave of his hands. “It's almost time,” he said excitedly.

  Dr. Samuel Dix embodied everything John treasured yet hated about scientists. He was extremely intelligent and curious and gnawed over a new problem like a dog on a bone. That made Dr. Dix the perfect researcher because he primarily fixated on the knowledge gained through his work. Moral quandaries or ethical dilemmas did not occupy him. Not to say he did not have morals or ethics, but in the glow of discovery, those potential difficulties never took precedence. John saw it as part of his job to ensure such considerations did not inhibit his staff. Scientists taking the moral high ground were so tiring.

  But Dix could get so preoccupied with his research that he ignored the everyday minutiae of life, a trait John absolutely hated. The scientist often forgot to eat, except for the stash of Twinkies and Doritos in a desk drawer Intellisys replenished as part of their contract. Dix often forgot to shave when working, and judging from the smell, John knew he had not bathed for days, either. Even though I had a shower installed, he grumbled.

  The scientist kept glancing at his watch before returning his gaze to the table. Without warning, a shape appeared. John had a brief impression of brown fur before it burst into liquid and splashed across the lab table. Dix laughed and clapped his hands, as if that were the desired result. He turned to a large monitor sitting nearby.

  “Check out the high-speed footage.” Dix’s grin reflected his excitement.

  The lab table appeared on the screen, and the only indicator of movement was a clock in the corner, recording time in fractions of a second. The time moved slowly, but eventually, as John and Dix watched, a hamster appeared. It gave a laboriously slow whisker twitch before transforming into a quantity of liquid suspended in a hamster shape, a shift so quick that no intermediary state had been captured. The high-speed video footage showed the liquid dropping to the table's surface in a languid splash.

  Dix ran the video again, noting what time the hamster appeared and when it dissolved before pounding a finger onto a battered calculator to figure the difference. “Awesome!” he exclaimed, turning to John. “Biff's borrowed time was three hundred ninety-six milliseconds. That's over twice as long as Marty's!”

  “Biff? Marty?” John posed the questions without thinking. He regretted them as soon as they were out of his mouth.

  “Yeah, the hamsters.” Dix grinned.

  John shook his head, not following what tickled the scientist.

  Dix’s smirk grew, and he pointed at another hamster sitting in a cage, unaware of what fate would befall it. “Doc Brown over there is up next. I'm hoping he'll last a whole half of a second.”

  A half... John's brain shut down as his impatience, already hot and bubbling with his earlier frustration, boiled over. His control shattered like the glass he had thrown earlier.

  He grabbed the lapels of Dix's lab coat and pulled until they were nearly nose to nose, with Dix standing on his tiptoes. John caught a new scent in the air. Apparently, Dix had not brushed his teeth in a while, either.

  “I’m not paying for you to play around. This isn’t a game.” Dix paled at the menace in John’s clipped words. “I need this to work. Not next week, next month, or next year. Now.”

  John nostrils were filled with the putrid scent of the unwashed scientist's various odors, but his fury incinerated such petty concerns. For his part, the scientist swallowed, his head bobbing furiously in agreement. He opened his mouth to speak, but John forestalled him.

  “You're running out of time, and if you can't get this working, you might as well be a hamster. And you know what happens to them.”

  He pushed Dix away, and the scientist stumbled back a few steps, eyes wide as he looked at the wet tabletop. John ran a hand over his hair, satisfied Dix had understood his point, then straightened his tie and smoothed his wrinkled coat before considering Dix again.

  “And be assured you will be the first human trial,” he said in a normal tone, but his cold eyes underscored his utter need for quantifiable results. “Do your work well, Dr. Dix, because your life does depend on it.”

  Dix swallowed nervously, his earlier exuberance gone. Satisfied he had suitably motivated the scientist, John left the lab. He fumed as he strode along the hallway. The delays were Nestor Relevont's fault. When Karl finally caught him, or even his wife, John would enjoy taking some measure of revenge.

  Mrs. Relevont was not unattractive, although far too plain for his eye. Nonetheless, he intended to use her, body and soul. Relevont would be forced to watch what became of his wife but also act as John's first slave. The photographer will do much to bring my plan to fruition.

  John looked forward to having the Relevonts in his power, and the imagined scent of such success made him smile. He was looking forward to his real work and intended to be a hands-on dictator.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Explanations

  Monday, June 7, 2010, 7:44 p.m.

  Angie sighed, sounding conflicted. She and Ness were standing inside the doorway of their chosen lodging, surveying the small space, and he could appreciate her reluctance. The hotel staff had at least attempted to clean the motel room, which was the most he could say for it. Otherwise, the room presented as old, dingy, and aggressively underwhelming. Still, it was a little bit of sanctuary, which Ness counted as extremely welcome.

  After setting the small bag of food they had purchased at a 7-Eleven on the bed, Ness checked the bathroom. It included a window they could climb through if they needed to, a feature Ness considered them lucky to have. It's always good to have a plan B. Although this one is better than my last one. He shuddered at the reminder of his high-wire act on the balconies the last time he had been involved with Intellisys.

  Leaving the bathroom, he noticed Angie was still standing by the door. She had Thing Four's gun in one hand, lightly brushing the metal with the other.

  Ness pulled his gun from the back of his jeans and set it on the dresser with a solid thunk. “Man, this feels like last time,” he said to his image in the mirror.

  Angie came behind him and laid her gun next to his. She snaked her arms around him, wrapping him in a hug, and he twisted around to face her and leaned over for a kiss. She returned it enthusiastically, but when they separated, she gave him a serious look.r />
  “I think you'd better tell me about last time,” she said. “I only understood about half of what your double was saying.”

  Ness released her and pulled a bag of chips out of their food stash before sitting on the bed. “Have a seat,” he said, indicating the room's lone chair. “This might take some time.”

  She grabbed a package of chocolate chip cookies from the bag and sat sideways, folding her legs underneath her. Ness popped a couple of chips in his mouth, and when he had swallowed them, he launched into his tale.

  “I came back from work one day to find a package in the mail to me from Dr. Bertrand. It contained a PDA, and he had modified it to be a time machine. As part of a tutorial, I used it to jump three hours into the future. When I got there, I found my apartment had been trashed. My stuff was in tatters all over the floor.”

  Angie looked like she wanted to interrupt and ask a question, but Ness forestalled her with a hand. “Let me get through this,” he said, “then I'll answer any questions you may have.”

  Angie reluctantly agreed.

  “While I was there, I met a double who had come from farther in the future. He warned me of men from Intellisys, which was where Dr. Bertrand worked, who wanted the device. My twin said I had to keep it out of their hands. One of the limitations with the invention is you always return to the exact time and place you jumped from. If you were in danger before you jumped, whenever you go back the situation, it will be unchanged. This was what my double had done, and as it turned out, so had Dr. Bertrand. But he never came back.

  “The other issue is a limit on how long you can be in another time. Dr. Bertrand called this the ‘borrowed time.’ If you don't get back before this runs out, your molecules destabilize, and you're dead. This is what happened to Dr. Bertrand. He was dying anyway, I found out later, but his invention killed him.”

  Ness fell silent as he imagined his friend's last seconds, and he could see sympathy on Angie's face. He cleared his throat. “I went back to my home time three hours earlier and barely managed to escape before a man named Glenn and a trio of bodybuilders I nicknamed Thing One, Thing Two, and Thing Three appeared.”

  “Thing Four!” Angie said suddenly, snapping her fingers. “You said that when we were on the stairs.”

  “Yeah, apparently, they got a new one to round out the trio. Thing One didn't survive.”

  Angie raised an eyebrow, but he shook his head.

  “I didn't kill him. Glenn did. I just knocked him in the head a few times. Anyway, I escaped the building with those four chasing me, and I led them to Madison Mall. I bought a change of clothes there, the T-shirt and hoodie you saw my double wearing. I lost my pursuers after giving Thing One a lump on his head. I spent a night in a crappier motel room than this one, before following a clue Dr. Bertrand left me and traveling back to 1987.

  “I met with the younger version of the professor, and he gave me a memory card his older self had left for me. It contained a video in which he stressed the importance of keeping the device out of Intellisys's hands. I went back a little further and caught Dr. Bertrand after he dropped off the card. We talked for a time in the Bronco Diner. Do you remember it?”

  Angie nodded and gave him a warm smile. They had shared their first cup of coffee and many more afterward in that establishment.

  “I learned that the management of Intellisys planned to use his device to topple world governments and set themselves as rulers. From what my double said, this plan must now be in effect. Dr. Bertrand also said he had made a second device, and I needed to demolish both.”

  “But I’m guessing you didn't do the last part.”

  “No. I believed it too important a discovery and couldn't bring myself to destroy the greatest achievement of Dr. Bertrand's life.” Ness shook his head. “I guess I made a mistake.”

  “Go on,” Angie prompted.

  “I was almost at the end of my borrowed time and had to leave. I suspect the double arrived at the diner after I left, which would explain his clothes. Anyway, when I returned to my home time, I visited Dr. Bertrand's house. He had told me where he hid the second device, in a secret spot he had built. I didn't find the other time machine, but I did come across an unaltered PDA and a gun. I went back in time another week to retrieve the time machine, only to witness the confrontation between Dr. Bertrand, Glenn, and Paul. They were going to take his device, but he used it to escape. He never came back, effectively sealing his fate to die when his borrowed time ran out.”

  The reality of Dr. Bertrand’s death overpowered him, and the intensity of his reaction to the loss took him by surprise. He had intellectually accepted his friend’s demise, a regrettable fatality in service of the mysteries of time travel, but he was still grieving. He paused to recoup his composure, taking a deep breath, and put his loneliness for his friend away temporarily to continue his story.

  “Once the baddies left, I checked the secret spot, but the PDA still wasn't there. I realized it must be in the doctor’s lab, so I infiltrated Intellisys. Dr. Bertrand's key card got me inside the building and his lab. There, I met another double of myself.”

  “I see why you weren't floored when the other Ness appeared at our door,” Angie commented wryly.

  “Yes, I've been there before.” Ness grinned. “Anyway, my double and I knocked out Glenn, who had come to investigate, and searched the lab. Paul interrupted me, armed and apparently spoiling for a fight. We had a brief shoot-while-the-bad-guy-monologues gun battle, but I quickly ran out of ammo. Before Paul could take advantage, another copy of Glenn arrived. He had come from my time via the second device, and I assume he remembered seeing me here before we cold-cocked him. He unexpectedly executed Paul with two shots to the forehead and left me no choice but to hand over my PDA.”

  “Dr. Bertrand warned me at some point in this adventure of the fatal dangers in touching another copy of the device when traveling. Glenn ran afoul of this when he grabbed my time machine, and his molecules imploded spectacularly. Alone again, I resumed my search and found the second device in a wall safe. I made it out of Intellisys without further incident, but I deduced that the second PDA needed to be left where the Glenn of my time could find it. I planted it in the secret spot at the doctor's house and returned home.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Well, mostly. I went back one more time to catch myself before initially receiving the device and led Glenn and his gang on a chase away from my apartment so they wouldn't trash it. Then I came home. To you.”

  Ness shifted uncomfortably as Angie’s eyes narrowed. This was the subject he had always dreaded; the line he had never dared to cross. He had to step over it now, which terrified him. They were so close to the secret that Angie's stubborn expression made it clear she would not let it go. She radiated determination to root out the mystery of his guilt.

  “You sound like coming home to me was unexpected.” Her eyes held him in their sharp gaze, as if she could peel back the layers of his mind to find the truth.

  He shrugged. The dread in his heart spread outward from his chest, an ice-cold certainty that it would be the most crucial conversation of his adult life. His relationship with Angie would never be entirely the same, and the potential result of crossing the Rubicon held only dark mysteries.

  “And you called it 'my apartment,' even though we've spent the last six years there together,” Angie continued.

  He could hear the suspicion in her tone. “So...?”

  His desire to bring everything into the open warred with his fear that she would leave him once the truth had been revealed. He had not intended to go so far, to lead himself to the edge of the precipice, but she had noticed the inconsistencies in his story.

  Ness inhaled deeply. Disregarding his misgivings, he had no choice but to trust her with the truth. He knew he would only damage their relationship if he continued to cling to his secrets.

  “I've led two lives. Before the incident with the PDA, I lived by myself. I never married, and the
apartment we live in was mine alone. When I returned from Intellisys, I discovered my life had changed, and I shared it with you. With that realization came all the memories of our life together.”

  Ness paused for a shuddering breath, and Angie digested his words with an expression of growing bewilderment. Knowing he had to finish before he let her interrupt, he plowed ahead into the icy bite of the truth.

  “Remember when you asked me out at the field house?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, the first time, I messed it up. When I went back to 1987, I spent some time in my old apartment, and wrote a note to my younger self on the old blackboard in my room. Apparently, it worked.”

  “What did the note say?”

  “'When she asks, you like coffee,'” Ness quoted then nearly laughed at her look of relief. “No, I didn't have my younger self stalk you or anything.”

  “Wait, you don't like coffee?” As she assimilated his words, her voice took on an incredulous tone. “But you drink gallons of the stuff.”

  “Well, I like it now,” he said, wishing he could have avoided the entire subject. “But no, I didn't like it back then. I enjoyed being with you, and over time, I learned to appreciate coffee as well.”

  “What exactly do you remember of our time together? Of our twenty-year marriage?”

  “I remember everything. Our first kiss, late nights walking on campus, our wedding. But I also remember a reality where none of it happened, although those memories are fading a bit now.”

  She pressed her lips together and considered him briefly.

  What is she thinking?

  “And what became of me the first time?”

  “I have no idea. You graduated and were gone. I never saw you again.”

  “You must have really pissed me off,” she muttered.

  Again, Ness’s gut twisted as they approached a topic he did not wish to pursue. “Yeah, probably,” he finally admitted.

  Angie frowned, and the familiar fear rose again to clog Ness’s throat. Will she be angry about the unknown life I denied her?