Fate (Wilton's Gold #3) (12 page)

“Alright. So we’ll do the time you say you left. Anyway, tomorrow morning will be spent running you through the program. In the afternoon – and we wouldn’t normally do this on the same day, just so you know – you’ll meet with Dr. Graham for the psych evaluation.”

“How long does that last?”

“Usually as long as it needs to. For you…”

“With a woman I supposedly was dating?” Jeff said. “Good lord. Clear my schedule.”

The waiter returned and took their orders. Jeff ordered a lobster tail, and Dexter chose mussels over linguine, which the waiter deemed “an excellent choice.” He informed them that their appetizer would be ready shortly, then left again.

“I would think that if a psych exam even needed any additional time to process, that would be a red flag that the trip isn’t the best idea,” Jeff said, picking the conversation back up.

“Perhaps you can make that recommendation,” he said. “Anyway, after that you’ll go through a series of physical tests and some defense training.”

“Why?”

“We can’t have someone having a heart attack or panic attack in the middle of a mission, and you would need to be prepared in case something went wrong.”

“Did Kane receive defense training?”

“As much as anyone else, yes.”

“Wow,” Jeff said. “I can’t see the guy we visited being able to hold his own if there was a situation. Heck, I can’t even see him passing a physical. How did he?”

“Well, he wasn’t in quite as bad a shape as we saw.” He sipped his wine.

“Yeah, but still… A terminal cancer patient? That’s just asking for trouble. You had a part in approving that mission?”

Dexter nodded. “Yes, but not the physical tests. That’s not my area.”

“Whose is it?”

“The military folks handle that aspect and make the assessment. There’s a gentleman named Captain Lowenstein who’s administered all of the exams.”

“Interesting,” Jeff said. “So the bottom line is that, if you have enough cash, you can get through the program.”

He was probably right, but Dexter didn’t like the insinuation since he felt his own character was being called into question along with everyone else’s. He actually hadn’t thought about how Benjamin Kane had made it through the tests to be accepted into the program. Sure, he’d had the wherewithal to overtake him and steel his weapon, but the guy wasn’t in great shape. That he could’ve passed the exam was a stretch. Which meant that Bremner, as head of the program, would have had to make the call to override a negative recommendation. Jeff’s line of thinking actually made him wonder if that had been the case. Though he wasn’t going to admit it to him then. “I don’t think it’s quite that simple,” was all he said.

Jeff shook his head. “It doesn’t matter right now. I’m sorry – I interrupted you. Go ahead.”

Dexter took a second to remember where he was. “Oh yes, then you’ll be trained on the device. This is where I see the opportunity.”

Jeff laughed as the waiter brought a plate of oysters and set it between them. “What do you want to do? Just grab the device and run out the door with it?”

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

“You’re going to have to explain it then,” Jeff said, sucking an oyster from its shell after dipping it in cocktail sauce.

Dexter didn’t touch the plate. “The USTP was built on an open field...”

“Never work,” Jeff said, shaking his head. “There’s no way you’d have the time to get the coordinates entered into the device before someone notices. And that’s not the type of thing you want to rush. Typing something in wrong could send you decades off course.”

“No, you haven’t seen the new devices yet,” he said.

Still, Jeff disagreed with him. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You have a better plan?”

Jeff laughed loud enough to catch the attention of all the other tables. “This doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

Dexter couldn’t help but laugh with him. “Alright,” he said, “let me rephrase that. You’re the time travel master. What would you do?”

“Well, I’d take the time device and run out the front door.”

“How?” Now Dexter grabbed a shell and slurped down an oyster.

Jeff motioned with his head toward the doors leading into the restaurant. “Don’t look, but our tails just arrived.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw them at the hotel,” he said. “Oh yeah, they’re coming out here. Looks like this conversation is over.” He changed gears quickly. “So, I saw on Sportscenter the Redskins are vying for the playoffs. What happened there? When did they get good?”

Dexter watched as two suited men were ushered onto the patio and took the table next to them. Both men kept their jackets on, he presumed to keep their weapons concealed. A waiter came over and began the process of taking their order. “Yeah, well, before last season the Redskins signed Alton Webster, the running back – you probably remember him from the Raiders – for some astronomical amount of money. He rushed for like 1,900 yards last year and it looks like he might get 2,000 this year.”

“Oh,” Jeff said, as if they’d been making small talk for the past hour, “so they’re players now, huh? Did you turn into a ‘Skins fan when you moved down here?”

He smiled. “No, my heart will always be with the Eagles.” He took a deep breath to rid himself of the frustration of the unfinished conversation, and then started back in with Jeff. At least they still had plenty to talk about. “These oysters are fantastic,” he said.

“Fantastic,” Jeff said, taking another one from the plate.

December 13, 2015

Jeff sat at a computer terminal, a set of headphones encompassing his ears with the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” playing loudly enough that it would be uncomfortable after very long. He’d been told at the outset that the music was intended to distract the user to ensure that he or she would answer honestly. He could only imagine that some multi-million dollar government grant had funded the study that yielded that brainstorm.

He was alone in a room that contained only the computer station and the desk it was on, his chair, and a low, teal faux leather couch. It was an uncomfortable enough room that he was secretly hoping the second half of his day – the psych exam – wouldn’t be spent sitting on that couch. Covering one wall was a one-way glass, though he couldn’t imagine who would want to watch him sit there and answer questions. Knowing himself, he envisioned that this part of the process hadn’t been one that he’d devised.

The questions on the screen in front of him were reasonable enough, though he’d now been at it for over an hour. They started with inquiries about his family, his friends and confidants, his business associates, and finally his personal relationships. Those were followed by questions seeking information about his business interests, assets, retirement funds, bank accounts, etc. They weren’t looking for specific details, as it was unlikely that someone would have all of that information in their head, but a general sense of the connections the person had. Even as Jeff input his responses, he figured the government would have all of the information they were seeking anyway, so his entries were more to evaluate his truthfulness.

The questions themselves stirred emotion in him. After all, most of his connections had been severed three years before. As he answered, he tried to give details of what life would have been like for him when he left, which to him was just over a week ago. But trying to account for a life that had been taken away from him was an exercise in frustration. Each detail they asked for reminded him of some aspect of his life he either hadn’t had the chance to address, or, worse, wasn’t even on his radar.

From a microphone on the other side of the mirror, Dexter had broken in following that set of inputs and asked if he needed a break. Jeff had shaken his head and waved him off, though he did ask for something to drink. An intern brought him a tall glass of orange juice, which he’d immediately finished, and left a blueberry muffin that he hadn’t requested. He ate it anyway.

The next set of questions addressed his interests and hobbies. How did he spend his leisure time? What types of literature did he read, movies did he watch, music did he listen to? Political affiliations? Though he tried his hardest not to, for each question he couldn’t help but analyze what they were trying to get at by asking. Where would there be connections to assess and analyze just by them knowing that he was a Guns ‘n Roses fan? That he was the one person in the world that couldn’t sit through
Titanic
? He resigned himself to the fact that there were smarter people than him on the mathematics side of the process, and they’d somehow determined these questions were of significant importance.

After finishing this sequence, the screen in front of him filled with colors and faded to a general menu screen he hadn’t seen before. It listed eight categories of questions, with the first four listed as “COMPLETE.” As he read the categories he had yet to finish, he lamented that he had another hour and a half of sitting at the terminal in front of him, and for the first time he started to consider whether he could do what he needed to do without having to actually go through the rest of the process. But he’d committed, and was determined to see it through. Besides, after thinking all night about what he wanted to list as his destination and announcing it upon his arrival, he’d set himself on a path. While his choice would mean nothing to anyone else, Dexter and Victoria knew enough that any deviation by him would appear awkward and raise a red flag.

The heavy door to his right jostled and then opened, catching his attention. Dexter entered the room, leaving the door open behind him. “How’s it going?” Dexter asked.

“What’s with this room?” Jeff asked, laying his headphones on the desk in front of him. “You have these billionaires come and sit in this terrible little room? They’ve got to be used to their yachts and penthouse suites. Don’t they have trouble with this?”

Dexter laughed. “Not really. Doesn’t this have kind of a science fiction feel to it? The mystery of the mirror? The basic nature of the desk and the old IBM PS/2?”

“Well, thank goodness it’s not that old,” Jeff said. “But you could use an upgrade.”

“The room is supposed to be a little uncomfortable,” Dexter said, leaning on the desk. “Just like the music, it keeps people honest.”

“You want honesty? I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.”

“Ah, you don’t have that much more to go. You’re halfway there.” Dexter stood again and walked toward the door. “There’s someone I want you to meet,” he said. “The person who designed the PCS system.”

A shadow appeared in the doorway, followed by a slender brunette with long hair down her back and dressed in a well-fitted navy skirt suit. It was Abby!

“Oh my God,” Jeff said, looking up at Dexter. “Can I get up?” Dexter laughed, so Jeff got up and hugged her.

Abby Smith was the genius mathematician Jeff had recruited to help him devise the coordinate system which had enabled precise time travel in the first place some five years before. She’d been the first person he’d taken on a time travel mission besides himself – she’d asked to go to Woodstock, where they’d had a wonderful time blending in with the masses. Again, it had really only been a week or so since he’d seen her, but the crazy mess that had been his life as of late made it seem like ages.

“I heard you were back,” she said once they unlocked their embrace. “It’s good to see you.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have your tablet,” he said. Strangely, it occurred to him just at that moment that he’d never returned her tablet with the time travel coordinates processor on it, and remembered that Fisher had taken it from him when he’d arrived from Russia. The bastard had never given it back.

She smiled. “As you can imagine, it’s okay,” she said. “I don’t know if you’ve seen the time devices now, but the program is built right in. There’s no more need to transpose the numbers.”

“Thank goodness,” he said. “That was next on my list, you know.”

“I know it was. You did it.”

“I- oh.” He nodded and smiled. The other Jeff. So she was aware.

He looked her up and down. She looked great. Memories of recruiting her to be on his team flooded back to him, and for a moment he felt a feeling of security in finding something from his old life to grasp onto. “So, what’s going on with you? Tell me everything.”

Dexter jumped in. “Well, there’s not time right now. We can do that later. I actually asked Abby to come in to explain to you a little about the analysis we’ll be doing. Why you’re being asked these questions. What we’re going to do with the information.”

Jeff nodded. “Fair enough. Is this something you’d do for every participant in the program?”

“If they ask.”

“Okay,” he said, then looked at Abby. “Do you want to start or can I ask a question?”

“Go ahead.”

He leaned on the desk. “I get most of why you’re asking what you’re asking, but why the questions about movies, hobbies, all of that? Seems superfluous.”

“Well, a lot of it is,” she said, “depending on where you’re traveling.” She paused for a minute, glancing at her watch. “But the hobbies are particularly important in understanding connections beyond the familial links. We’re going to wave a red flag if the person’s foremost pastime is attending Civil War reenactments and their choice of destination is the Battle of Antietam.”

“I would think a military battle would be off-limits altogether,” Jeff said. “Seems a little too dangerous.”

“It depends on the specifics,” Dexter said.

“Yeah, and the person’s checkbook,” Jeff said. He waited for either of them to bite on the comment, which they didn’t, so he gave in. “Do people still even use checks?”

“Not really,” Dexter said.

“Anyway,” Abby said, bringing the conversation back, “each of the categories of questions you’ve answered and will answer have a specific point they’re trying to get to. The genealogical data is the easiest extrapolation, of course. Business contacts and professional relationships are critical, but many of the travelers are going further back in time than their relationships extend.”

“How does that affect the calculations?”

Abby smiled. “I know you, and I know your next question is about Benjamin Kane, so I’ll save you having to ask. In truth, the further a person goes back in time, the less relevant the business components are. Sure, there will be cases like Kane’s with a history of family business, but realistically, there just isn’t a big pool of people who can trace their business dealings back any great length of time. Industry really only sprouted in the United States 150 or 160 years ago, and only the most resilient of companies have any ancestry from then.”

“So did the system do its job in Kane’s situation?”

“Well, there’s no way of knowing,” she said. “Because in this reality, there is no Kane. Or, rather, Kane didn’t come to the USTP. But let’s say that in theory he did, using Dexter’s retelling of the story as a guide. The probability that Kane could predict the exact moment that George Mellen would be buying his newspaper was infinitesimal. Like any other technological pursuit in history, if someone wants to find a way to beat it, they’ll be able to find a way. Short of telling Kane that he couldn’t take the mission, a position we probably didn’t have the data to support, there would be no precautions we would take to anticipate Kane’s actions.”

Dexter jumped in. “I don’t know if even I agree completely with that,” he said.

“Well, from the
mathematical
perspective, I’m betting Kane was as safe a candidate as any we’ve had.” Her insinuation that the psych exam in Dexter’s other reality might not have been as effective as it could have been was not lost on Jeff.

“Alright, I don’t want to spend my break fighting that battle,” Jeff said. “So, the further back you go, the less of a risk you are?”

“Not exactly,” Abby said, straightening her posture by standing at ease. She always had been all business. “See, while business relationships become less important when you go further back in time, familial relationships begin to carry a higher risk.”

“Why’s that?”

“Simply stated, because there would be more family lines that can be impacted. If you go back to World War II, you run the risk of running into, say, your grandfather and grandmother. If you go back to World War I, you run a greater risk because you’ll have the chance of running into two great grandfathers and two great grandmothers. I’m giving you the simplest examples, of course, but they grow exponentially. Twenty to twenty-five years before that, you run the risk of running into eight direct ancestors. That’s why the genealogical link is the most critical to the algorithms. The two greatest risks are that someone will try to contact an ancestor to benefit the future of the family line or try to find a competitor to alter their course to their own benefit. That one, as we saw, is a little tougher to predict and track.”

“I guess so,” Jeff said slowly. “So after I take these tests, the machine’s going to spit out a score for me – what did you call it?”

“PCS – a potential conflict score.”

“Yes, PCS. So I get one of these scores, and then what? Based on that score I can either go on the trip or not?”

“Well, that combined with the results of Dr. Graham’s psychological exam and your physical tests,” Abby said.

“But what if my score is bad? They told me nobody’s been refused entry to the program. What’s the worst score anyone has gotten?”

Dexter and Abby looked at each other. “The gentleman who wanted to go on a steamboat on the Mississippi in the late 1800s had a conflict score of 24%,” Dexter said. “If I remember correctly.”

“What drove that?”

“Ancestors living in the area,” Abby said.

“And no problems?”

Dexter shook his head. “Nope. In and out. One of my favorite trips, actually.”

“We’ve got to get you back to work,” Abby said. “We can explain more later if necessary while the results are being compiled.” She left the room.

Jeff nodded and sat down at the terminal again.

“Anything to drink? Snack?” Dexter asked.

He shook his head no, then Dexter left, closing the heavy door behind him. Jeff slipped his headphones on to the sounds of Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” which he found ironically appropriate for the situation. He hummed along as the screen illuminated again with the next category: HISTORY.

Dexter’s voice was suddenly in his ear. “Jeff, you there?”

He gave the mirror a thumbs-up.

“Great. For the next category, you’re going to be asked some general questions about the era you’ll be visiting to test your knowledge. As you can imagine, we need to make sure that the participant isn’t too knowledgeable about the intricacies of the destination because it increases the risk. Enjoy.”