Fate (Wilton's Gold #3) (4 page)

“And when you returned, that history was gone. Right?”

“Right.”

“This is a dangerous, dangerous game you’re playing,” Jeff said. “There could have been a thousand reasons that Kane went and killed that guy. But now we’ll never know. I thought you said there were rules about who could visit where?”

“There were. There are. But Kane must have known, somehow, where the man would be on any given day on a crowded New York City street corner.” He shook his head, defending his work. “No way could that have shown up in the research.”

Jeff wasn’t pinning blame, though. “So, why not just go back and stop him?”

“Well, that’s the intent,” Dexter said, though he had major reservations that it was the right thing to do. “The Time Program leadership is squeamish about it though. Considering the science of it. One change was made, creating a new line of history. Would another change fix it – or only make it worse?”

Jeff was nodding. He’d finished his burger. Dexter still had a full plate in front of him, for the most part. “So where do I fit in?” he asked.

“You created the time travel rules. They want your guidance on this.”

“Will that get me out of hot water for running?”

“I suppose you’d have to negotiate that with them,” he said. Jeff nodded, then he looked past Dexter again, deep in thought. “We have something in common, you know.”

“What’s that?”

“We both have a recollection of a history that no one else has.”

Jeff turned his attention back to the front. “So you believe me now?”

He shook his head. “Maybe. Let me rephrase. We both have recollections of other histories that no one else has.”

“Oh. Big deal,” Jeff said, shaking his head and digging into his burger again.

“It is a big deal. Think about the power that puts into our hands.”

“Power?” Jeff said. “I can’t even get back to my own time. My own
home
. What kind of power do I have?”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Dexter said, particularly frustrated now since he’d had the power and hadn’t wielded it. “It’s not power I would ever want. But you’re telling me you saved the United States of America as we know it. Why would anyone believe that? I’ve told them that I witnessed a murder that had massive implications in our reality. I could’ve made up anything to tell them and there would be no way to prove me wrong. I didn’t even have to tell them anything. The histories that you and I know don’t exist in this reality.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you make it up?”

“No, Jeff,” he said. “It actually happened. I wish it hadn’t.”

“Off the top of my head, I’m not sure how my involvement helps,” Jeff said, finishing off the last of his beer.

Dexter shook his head at his friend’s nonchalance. He was far too aloof about the entire situation. He hoped he’d take it more seriously – as seriously as Dexter did – once he was able to settle in. “The science of time travel is no longer about whether it can be done,” he said, keeping it real, and attempting to get Jeff focused. It was a question he’d spent a good amount of time considering since returning from the Kane trip, and he wanted them to be on the same page. “It’s about what happens when you do it. In theory, and based on the experiences you say you had, you are the foremost expert. We need your help. I need your help.”

“Alright,” he said. “If it helps me get back to my own present time, I’m in.”

“I can’t promise you anything.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

Jeff closed the door to his hotel room behind him and felt, for the first time in a long time, a little bit of freedom. It would be short-lived, of course, as first thing in the morning he’d be right back in the grips of the U.S. Time Program, which was apparently a catastrophe-waiting-to-happen that could unfortunately be traced directly back to him. It was an honor he most certainly didn’t want, and he’d already determined that much of his time going forward would be spent planning how to distance himself from it.

What a horrible idea. He’d known all along, in his research and as he began his experiments, that playing with time travel was playing with fire. Actually, it was far worse than fire – more along the lines of playing with the sun. But he’d been able to control it by keeping the circle of people who knew about it small, and holding the opportunity for malfeasance to a minimum. Meaning no “fleet” of devices and security measures to ensure that if time travel got into the wrong hands, there was only so much those hands could do with it. He’d had one device. The software to determine the coordinates to enter into the time device had been kept on one computer. While he would admit that his intentions from the beginning hadn’t consistently been 100% pure, he had at least gone to great lengths to ensure safety and security.

Of course, the USTP would have plenty of security around the technology they’d taken from him, as well. But then they’d gone and introduced it to the public. Once the cat was out of the bag, there would be no turning back. The situation that Dexter had described to him about the businessman murdering his competition in the 1930s was just the start. There would be more problems. And they would have much greater impact.

That was also assuming that they – they being the “good guys,” whoever they were – would have any idea that anything was taking place. Dexter, Evelyn Peters and himself were all manifestations of the worst parts of his time travel hypotheses, in that they’d all experienced histories that no one else on the planet had. Each of them was up-front enough to share what had happened, something they were under no moral obligation to do. People intending from the outset to use time travel to do harm would not be so forthcoming.

Jeff realized that, as he’d been thinking, he’d wandered across the room and was staring out the window. It was not late, but being December it was dark already. He tried to remember what time of year he’d actually left when all of this had started. He remembered laying in the forest in the snow and frost in Russia after fleeing from Ekaterina, but he also remembered the dewy spring grass as he lay sprawled on General Belochkin’s lawn after absorbing the force of his tackle. Tracing the path of his travels, he ended up remembering walking into Congresswoman Rosa Rivera’s office in Queens, his friend Dexter by his side, neither of them tainted yet by alternate realities, evil intentions, or government agendas. It was the fall. It was cool – there was a chill in the air. He longed to be back there.

Remembering that he only had a limited amount of time to relax before being thrown back into a completely undesirable situation, he sat on the bed and slowly took off his shoes. A wave of relief went through his body, and he wanted nothing more than to just lie back on the mattress and forget everything. But he knew that if he did that, he’d fall immediately asleep, and more than anything, he wanted some time to think without being grilled by an FBI agent with whom he thought he’d had a good relationship. Sleep was less important.

He imagined what he might have left to him, three years into the future. His parents had passed away years ago, but at the time he’d disappeared his sister had been living in North Jersey, close to him. Beyond her, family was relegated to cousins who he rarely talked to, and his circle of friends, due to the all-encompassing nature of his work, had been small. He thought of Abby and Emeka, the other members of his time travel team, and wondered where their lives without him had taken them. Assuming his phone was bugged or he was otherwise being monitored, he wasn’t in the position to let anyone know just yet that he was alive and well, but he imagined how those close to him would react to the news.

He hadn’t been given the opportunity to ask about the other details of his life – his house, car, savings, etc. In fact, he wasn’t even sure if they’d treated his disappearance as though he’d died, or as if one day he was there, and the next he just simply wasn’t around. It was the U.S. government he was dealing with, so he didn’t put anything past them in terms of retribution or, probably worse, absolution. He thought of all the movies he’d seen about soldiers anonymously dying in classified operations, and wondered if he’d been categorized in the same manner.

He’d been able to access his bank account from Russia, which astounded him now that he knew a little bit more about his state of affairs, so at least some remnant of his existence had been preserved. He wished he had access to a computer so he could do some research, but Abby’s tablet had been taken away from him. There was little hope they’d allow him that kind of access yet. They’d want him quarantined as long as they could keep him that way.

There was definitely a cat-and-mouse game afoot, and because of it, he didn’t know who he could trust. Even Dexter, who had tried to play “good cop” with him at dinner. He may have been genuine in wanting to understand Jeff’s situation and his intentions, but while there had been ample opportunity for Jeff to tell him what he’d really found in 1849, he’d decided to keep it quiet. For now, at least.

He had a suspicion that Dexter knew more than he was letting on anyway. His line of questioning, his body language… What Jeff had told him at dinner – about Russia, about a woman who had lived 30 years twice because of time travel, about multiple versions of people in one place – was mind-blowing stuff. But nothing had seemed to surprise him. Jeff had deduced, or rather, accepted, during dinner that the Jeff that started the Time Program with Dexter was a different version of himself, following the path of a different reality than his own, although some of the history could have been the same. Though, there was no way of knowing what they might’ve had in common. In fact, it was possible that the other version of himself had never time traveled, and simply had experienced just one reality until the day he decided to run, for some reason. The fact that he had run, though, made Jeff think that he probably knew more than he allowed Dexter and the other USTP folks to believe. Dexter not being blown away by Jeff’s incredible story also made him apprehensive.

Finally, he gave in to his exhaustion, unbuckling the top button on his pants to allow room for the enormous burger he’d just eaten, and laying back onto the soft pillow. As his head sunk in, he felt the influential pull of serenity taking over. Knowing it would be only moments before sleep set in, he turned his thoughts to the present.

First and foremost, his top priority was to learn as much as he could about what had happened in the past three years – the creation of the USTP, the mysterious “other” Jeff that had put him in this predicament, and the revised history that made Agent Fisher and him complete strangers. He needed to understand the USTP, the government’s philosophy and plans for it, and its proximity to real danger. The USTP needed him for something, so as long as he played ball he’d have the opportunity to engage, learn and analyze. In the morning, he hoped he’d have the opportunity to meet some of the USTP reps – and he’d use his influence in the program and his knowledge of the science of time travel to get as much information from them as he could. In the end, getting back to his own present time took precedence over anything.

Jeff fell asleep resolved that he would do whatever it took to make that happen.

“It’s a paradox,” the gray-haired military man at one end of the table said, pounding his fist on the portfolio in front of him to accentuate his point. The medals hanging from his chest clashed together from the momentum of his fervor.

Jeff smiled. “Paradox” was the first place people who hadn’t experienced time travel went when talking about time travel. Walking into the room, he’d known that he’d have to allow the bureaucratic fog to die down before he – as the only expert in the room – would have his chance to talk.

“Explain what you mean, General,” said Dr. Andrew Bremner, chairman of the U.S. Time Program, who Jeff had met on the way into the room. Bremner, as Dexter had explained to him, had a unique and charismatic combination of scientific knowledge and political savvy. He’d described him as a good fit for the top of the organization, and Jeff had been immediately impressed – while his alleged criminal background would have warranted any manner of salutation, Bremner had shaken his hand firmly, welcomed him aboard with a smile, and promised to sit down with him for a drink sometime to talk about his travels. Apparently, Jeff’s story had already made the rounds of the higher echelon of the USTP.

“Benjamin Kane went back in time and eliminated the very reason why he needed to go back in time,” said the general. Jeff had shaken his hand as well, but people were flying at him furiously, so he wasn’t able to retain all of the names. He just remembered his hands were rough and that he’d scowled at him. Guilty until proven innocent. “Even if he’d come back like he was supposed to, there would be no reason in this present time for him to go back at all.”

“You’re assuming that I’m correct in assessing what his intentions were,” Dexter said, jumping in. There were a dozen people around the table – eleven men and one woman. Jeff had been informed by a phone call to his hotel room at 5:30 a.m. that a car would pick him up at 6:30 and take him to the USTP, where he’d be participating in a meeting with the organization’s leadership. The purpose of the meeting would be two-fold: (1) so he could tell them the truth about his experiences; and (2) so they could pick his brain on the Kane situation. They’d skipped ahead to the second part of the meeting almost immediately, which was beneficial to him, since he was able to use the time to assess the various personalities around the table.

“Well, if you’d correctly assessed his intentions before leaving, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now talking about it, would we?” the general asked.

“Alright, alright,” said Bremner. Jeff could see leadership in him. He was calming and authoritative at the same time. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The real reason we’re here this morning is to talk about Dr. Jacobs’ sudden arrival yesterday. We’ll get to the Kane situation in a bit.” He unexpectedly turned to Jeff. “Dr. Jacobs, the floor is yours.”

“Thank you,” Jeff said with confidence, even though he hadn’t anticipated giving a presentation. He thought about what Dexter had said the evening before – while he had this grand story about the Soviet Union, he could really say anything he wanted, claiming to have experienced it in an alternate reality. Despite that leeway, though, he decided to go with the truth; if nothing else, it would be easier to remember, complicated as it might be. “First, though, General, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time traveling, it’s that the concept of ‘paradox’ cannot be proven.” Jeff was actually pleased to get a divisive grunt out the man. “You see, every decision that is made on a daily basis, by every person on the planet, unfolds a new universe. You picked up – what is that? – a cheese danish this morning from the buffet table. There is possibly another universe where you chose a scone. If you were to time travel back ten minutes and throw all of the cheese danish in the trash to ensure that you would not pick a cheese danish, and then come back, it doesn’t stop the fact that in some reality you chose a cheese danish. We may not be able to comprehend that reality with our minds, but it exists. And even if the rest of us in the room didn’t know about it, you, the time traveler, would know it exists. Point-in-question, if and when Benjamin Kane shows up back here in the present time, in his mind he will know the history that took place before he decided to time travel. If it exists in his memory, it exists.”

He took a deep breath. Standing in the shower that morning, he’d decided he wanted to wow them. Not bad, he thought now, for not having had anything prepared. Some of the smartest minds in the country were sitting around the table, and so very quickly he had them hanging on his every word.

“Why don’t you tell us your story, Dr. Jacobs?” said Bremner.

Jeff nodded, then delved into it. He gave quick details on his discovery of time travel, and came clean on his team’s desire to use time travel to find treasure in the past. He talked of the FBI agents introducing him to Evelyn Peters and his trip to Russia with her younger self: jumping back and forth between the present and the past before succeeding with the assassination, and fleeing the scene only to end up three years ahead of his own time.

When he finished, Bremner said, “Dr. Jacobs, if we’re to believe your story, you’re an American hero. You deserve a ‘thank you’. Am I missing something?”

He laughed. “Admittedly, I did expect a different kind of greeting at the airport yesterday. But that’s not exactly how I’m thinking about it,” he said, then sighed. Reliving the story reminded him just how long his journey had been. “I’m really just hoping you’ll accept what I’m telling you and let me get on with my business – understanding, of course, that it’s a fantastical story that sounds like it’s the plot of some sci-fi movie.”

The man sitting next to Bremner, Dr. Arlen Schmidt, who Jeff actually thought he’d met at some point in his career, with a familiarity relative to quantum physics, leaned forward. “Jeff, do you know everyone around this table?”

Jeff looked around. “Well, I do now from meeting everyone this morning. Though, please don’t quiz me on names. My brain’s not really full recovered.” Some of them laughed. “Before this meeting, the only people I knew were Dexter and Agent Fisher. Of course, Agent Fisher says he doesn’t know me. You look familiar, though.”

“Yes,” Schmidt said. “We sat on a panel together several years ago at a conference.” That was it, Jeff thought.
Oklahoma City. Or Tulsa. Yes, Tulsa.
“But you didn’t know anyone else here before this meeting?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“That’s strange because this is the leadership team that worked directly with you to build the U.S. Time Program. Everyone at this table has been here since Day One. It’s unbelievable that you wouldn’t know all of us.”

“It actually is believable, Doctor Schmidt,” Dexter said from the other end of the table. All heads turned in his direction. “I’ve been thinking about this all night, and I think there’s a reasonable explanation. Let me clarify – ‘reasonable’ in the context of this entire discussion. Jeff, you said that there were multiple versions of the Russian woman?”

“Yes, I think at one point there were four versions of the same woman in existence at the same time because we kept bouncing back and forth between the present and the past. Well, actually, for me, the future and the past.”

He could tell Dexter was theorizing as he spoke. “So, if there were multiple versions of her, then there were probably multiple versions of you, as well.”

“Oh, I’m sure of it.” He said it matter-of-factly, as though having multiple versions of yourself running around was absolutely normal. It was time traveler stuff – they wouldn’t understand.

“What happened to them?”

“Mine, or Ekaterina’s?”

“Either.”

It was confusing, what had happened, so he tried to sort it out as he talked. “There were actually four versions of Ekaterina, I think, as I think through this. One was the little girl, who was in the house and not ever part of the situation. There was the Ekaterina I was traveling with, and there was the Ekaterina that was trying to kill us. Then there was the original Ekaterina who was in the house setting off the alarm. That one I’d traveled back to 1983 with. I think. Yes. The Soviet Ekaterina, let’s call her, was the last to arrive. She killed the one I was traveling with by sticking a syringe laced with poison in her neck, then when the other came out of the house, she shot her. At that point, she disappeared,” he slowed as he talked, “I’m assuming because she must have killed the younger version of herself. Once that version was eliminated, she herself ceased to exist.”

He heard a murmur around the table. “What?” he asked.

“Nothing. That’s just consistent with the rule that you set before you ran,” Bremner said.

“Rule?”

“That in the case of multiple versions of a person created by time travel, it is the responsibility of the youngest to eliminate the others to restore order.”

“That’s my rule?”

Bremner nodded.

He laughed. “What a joy that must be for people. Anyway, Dexter?”

“I’m trying to go through this in my head, as well,” Dexter said. “You said four versions of the Russian woman, but two that you’d actually traveled back in time with personally. Right?”

“That sounds about right.”

“Then there were at least two versions of you there, as well. Two that we know about for sure. The other version must have left somehow while you were in the midst of the situation…”

He sighed. “Or, was stuck in 1983. I don’t know if there’s any way of knowing. Unless – wait, as I was leaving, I saw a flash of light in the trees. You know what? It was right where I’d been standing on the first jump. You don’t think-”

Dexter was nodding. “I do. That version of you came back here, started the Time Program, and then ran.”

It would have been easier to understand, or believe, if they were able to take a moment to diagram it out. But Jeff
had
seen the flash of light – and while he hadn’t spent the time thinking about it, there had indeed been another version of him in the compound in 1983. Dexter was absolutely right. Which opened up a whole new line of confusion and discovery, since the other version of himself had now elected to go somewhere else in time and not return. Why?

His heart leapt. His own rule that he’d just learned. Was he the younger or older of the two of them? “Wow,” was all he could say.

“Do you need a moment?” Bremner asked. Jeff realized it had just been he and Dexter going back and forth during the last portion of the conversation.

He shook his head. “No, no, I’m okay. I’m trying to figure out how we can apply any of this to Benjamin Kane.” He wasn’t really doing that, and he probably could’ve actually used the moment that Bremner had offered. But his intention in helping them was to get himself back to his present time, and he didn’t want this crew to see how affected he was by what was going on around him. Just in case. Still, if Dexter’s theory was right, which Jeff had a feeling it was, it would mean that the other Jeff would’ve shared at least some of the memories of Evelyn Peters and the trip to 1849.

“Do you think it does?” Bremner’s question interrupted his brainstorming.

“Well, I only know Kane’s story at the 30,000-foot level,” he said. “Why doesn’t someone fill me in?”

“Hold on,” the general said. “That’s it? The two of them toss ideas across the table for three minutes and then we’re done? I have some questions.”

“Feel free,” Bremner said, gesturing to him to open the Q&A session.

Jeff braced for a grilling. What was good was that he didn’t intend to tell anything but the truth, since he knew the questions would be about his mission to Russia and not any of the work he’d done previously. Realistically, it wasn’t as bad as he’d anticipated, as the general and a few others bore down on him. He laid it out for them in several different ways, according to what made sense to each of their individual interests. Most of the conversation focused on the concept of fulfillment, which his endeavors had disproven. They wanted to know why he’d been of the belief that, to ensure the present day that included the fall of the Soviet Union, they’d had to re-do the assassination of the Russian general – when that logic flew in the face of everything he was telling them now relative to his own existence. He explained it as best as he could, including his experience of being misled by the older Russian woman, Evelyn Peters, but emphasized that his last 24 hours had been a whirlwind. He promised to document his findings for them as soon as he could, and invited them to a more thorough conversation at that time.

“One final question,” the general said, teeing up what Jeff thought would indubitably be a whopper. “If the other version of you was present in Russia while you were escaping the Soviet guards, then he came back to the present to help us start the Time Program, why didn’t he say a single word about the Russia mission?”

Jeff laughed quietly, then hoped that it didn’t come off as disrespectful. He was only now absorbing new information and trying his best to read people’s motivations at the same time as he went through this conversation, so he hadn’t had any opportunity yet to look at things from multiple perspectives. He quickly analyzed how the actions of the “other” him would affect how they treated him, and had come to an understanding that there really was nothing he could do about it. “Unfortunately, I can’t speak for the other... me,” he said. “My guess would be somewhere between him having to make sense of everything that had happened to him in the context of this reality on one end. On the other, he probably had some sort of agenda. The circumstances that followed... I suppose would lead you to believe that he was up to something. If I’m going to figure out what it was, I’ll need some time.”