The Eclective: Time Collection

by The Eclective

  “Let me finish. Two—the card is valid for as many pops as you desire.”

  I sensed my pulse ratchet up a bit. Sounding really serious.

  “And three—and never forget this one, Michael. The time a popper remains in his alternate universe plus —and this is very important to understand—plus the date a popper pops ahead, is borrowed. It’s always paid back. A trade so to speak. By traveling into the future, a popper is borrowing from his future.”

  That queasy spot had suddenly turned cold. “What are you saying—that I can…” I slowly turned. “That I can walk through that door and…” My mouth was suddenly dry.

  Dinjis grinned. “Yes, Michael. Walk through that door…and pop into your future!”

  “We’re three stories up!” My hand rested on the brass doorknob. The metal was warm under my fingertips and felt moist though I realized that had to be the perspiration on my palms.

  Dinjis waited by the big clock. I’d already entered my pop date. To put myself at ease I was just going ahead one day. It was all clear in my mind now. Or so I thought. Simple, really. My pop date was the date I would travel to. That was the digital window on the left. The window on the right registered how long I remained in the future. Dinjis called this my alternate universe, AU. Everyone had one, though only poppers could access it. The smaller window at the bottom of the clock was what I owed. It was a running tally of the sum total of my time in the future or AU plus how far into the future I traveled. Dinjis explained it this way—if I popped one week into the future and remained there one day, I would owe eight days—and this would be subtracted from my lifetime clock or my default universe (DU) life span. I didn’t consider this an issue because like I’d always said—I come from good stock. What difference would a week make in the total scheme of things? Insignificant in comparison to what I had to gain.

  And I had a plan.

  In short order I would no longer have money concerns.

  Dinjis wasn’t quite finished with my education. “One more thing, Michael. The paradox.”

  “Paradox?” I asked, not liking the sound of the word.

  “The popper’s paradox is this,” he explained. “If you die in your alternate universe or AU, you will instantly be transported back to your default universe or DU, where we are now. And of equal significance, if your life’s time clock runs out while you are here in your DU, meaning if you die or are killed in your default universe, you will have no AU. It will cease to exist for you. Clear?”

  I nodded, though I didn’t see how the paradox would ever apply to me. I wasn’t planning on dying anytime soon, in either my DU or my AU.

  “Ready then?” Dinjis was asking.

  I glanced once more at the hands of the big clock. All of a sudden the room seemed to be a bed of absolute silence—except the ticking. It was like every clock in the office was on speakerphone. Tick.Tick.Tick.Tick.

  The hands of the large clock—the current time in my default universe registered 4:46 PM. When I returned they would still register 4:46 PM. A corollary rule Dinjis had called it. See, time spent in my AU would not be taken from my DU, except at the end. Fine with me. That way no one in my DU would miss me—in fact they would not even be aware I’d left.

  Still nervous as hell, who wouldn’t be, I nodded. “I won’t fall?” I couldn’t seem to set aside the minor detail I was twenty feet off the ground in my DU.

  Dinjis cleared his throat. “You’re confusing your universes—when you step outside in your AU, you won’t be this high up.”

  I inhaled and exhaled. WTF—go for it. “Let’s do it,” I said, sliding the card into the slot. I didn’t even look back as I turned the doorknob and stepped outside.

  I looked up and down Sepulveda. Nothing had changed. I frowned at the plastic card and shoved it in my pocket, feeling irritated. Had Dinjis been lying to me? I turned—holy crap. The door was gone. Momentarily panicked, I gazed up and was relieved. There was the familiar shuttered window and—I squinted at the brick in the drizzle. There was the card slot in the wall if I looked carefully at eye level. Better. I began to wipe the moisture from my eyes and froze. It’d been sunny out only minutes ago. Now it was raining. What the hell, then I recalled the forecast had called for rain tomorrow. This was tomorrow!

  “Damn!” I exclaimed. I’d really popped ahead in time one day. Inside my chest, my heart beat like a speed bag against my ribs. Unfrickingbelievable. Dinjis hadn’t been lying. I had traveled into my future! My AU, alternate universe, beckoned to me. Bennett had done it and so I had I. I laughed at the rain drops running down my neck.

  “Hello, rain,” I shouted.

  A stranger under an umbrella passed on the sidewalk, giving me an odd look. I smiled back.

  I walked to my truck. “Hello Tundra.” Sure enough, a parking ticket was shoved under one wiper. I laughed again and tore it up. What had I expected—the truck had been parked there for over a day.

  And the air smelled cleaner, fresher. Of course, the dead cat was gone, having been removed by a sanitation crew in the last twenty-four hours. Amazing.

  Okay bro, times a wasting. Let’s test my plan.

  I ducked into the drizzle and jogged to the nicest looking office on the boulevard.

  OPTIONS AND STOCK TRADES.

  Hello, shiny new Ferrari.

  Adios, poor man Michael Jenks.

  The trading room was a typical brokerage office—desks where clients could discus financial matters with brokers and advisers, a wall of quotes and ticker tapes, and multiple computer stations. I could have picked out quotes from the newspaper but I was in a hurry. All I really needed was the biggest stock news of the day. Most of the desks were vacant—as it was 4:58PM AUT, alternate universe time—the markets had closed hours earlier. I wanted to remain inconspicuous yet I needed to speak with a broker. I chose an older bespectacled man who appeared to be studying numbers data scrolling across his computer screen. At least he looked the part of success—nice suit, a lot of jewelry on his wrists—yeah, and his name, Mr. Gold, would do just fine.

  “Hi,” I said walking over.

  He glanced up. “Hello.”

  Our conversation couldn’t have gone smoother. Not a hitch. Since the rules stated I couldn’t bring anything back across except what I brought with me, I removed a pen and scribbled IntelGence on my palm. An artificial intelligence company.

  “It was up over a thirty today on takeover rumors,” Mr. Gold elaborated.

  I said thanks, and within half an hour I was back in Dinjis’s office. Though walking into the future was like riding an elevator, returning left me with a slight queasy sensation in my gut.

  I checked the digital clock. 24:52:12 seconds total elapsed AU time. Almost twenty-five hours I owed. No big deal. The second hand on the clock face was moving again in my DU.

  “How’d it go?” Dinjis asked as if I’d just returned from a job interview.

  “Wonderful.”

  I found my Tundra—sans parking ticket—and skirted around the dead feline.

  All the way back to Orange County I grinned like a Cheshire cat. If I’d seen Bennett I would have kissed him.

  I couldn’t wait until tomorrow.

  This was going to be so easy.

  Six AM came early but by seven I was showered and in the EasyTrade Center near where I lived. Within minutes I opened an account funded with two thousand bucks I’d saved for a down payment on a new truck. I found a broker eager to place my trade. Any subsequent trades would be brokered online but this being my first experience with trading stocks, I wanted to ensure this worked.

  “IntelGence?” the broker asked with a tone conveying I was either really stupid or really ignorant. From his expression, I guessed he thought both.

  “Yes.”

  “Um…never heard of that company.” He grinned and quipped, “You have a hot tip?”

  I grinned back but kept my mouth shot.

  Shrugging, he said, “Symbol is IXT.” Still gazing
at his screen he asked, “How many shares?”

  “What’s it trading at?”

  “Now, dirt cheap. Just under two bucks.”

  “How many shares can I buy?” I was getting antsy because I needed my trade to go through before the news broke.

  He punched the numbers on a calculator. “Minus commission, 987.”

  “Place the order.”

  “You just opened an account and you want me to place everything on IXT? I never heard of the stock.”

  I glanced at the clock. “Do it, at the market.”

  He mumbled something incoherent though it didn’t sound flattering, and entered the trade. Within seconds my first stock trade went through.

  He leaned back in his chair, looking smug. “You now own 987 shares of IXT at a buck ninety-eight. Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” I said and walked out.

  The entire morning on my Home Depot shift I was a wreck. Every ten minutes I would call the 800 number quote line, expecting to see a rise but all morning the stock fluctuated in a narrow range—never quite hitting two dollars a share. Shit, I cursed silently. Had I been duped? Was Dinjis in on this inside joke—let’s screw with Michael Jenks.

  By noon, I told my manager I was ill and took some sick time. Hell, I was sick. Sick to my fucking stomach.

  Driving home, the news broke. I’d never paid attention to an all business radio station before, but today it was the only thing I wanted to listen to. I nearly lost control when I heard the news flash: “IntelGence, a thinly traded tech company is up over twenty dollars a share on takeover rumors…” I tuned out the rest. The market would close in twenty-five minutes. I sped home and jumped in front of my computer. With five minutes until the end of trading, I opened my online account and typed in my password, then IXT. “Holy shit,” I gasped. Up 31.76!

  I sold all 987 for a total profit of $31,347.12, minus Dinjis’s five per cent cut.

  Mr. Michael Jenks was on his way!

  The next morning I quit Home Depot, and drove into Los Angeles. Dinjis greeted me like he’d expected my return. “How’s life?” he asked, returning to his desk.

  “Better every day.” I found myself looking for the door but didn’t see it. A momentary jolt of panic racked me until I removed the plastic card—I breathed a sigh of relief. The door was where it’d been yesterday in my DU, right beside the big clock.

  “I’m going back,” I said.

  Dinjis watched me. “Of course you are. Don’t forget the rules.”

  “Who me?” and I laughed. I punched a date two days into my AU.

  Pop. I felt strangely uneasy about seeing Mr. Gold again so I purposely avoided his desk—he appeared busy with a client anyway—and strolled over to a vacant computer monitor. Out of curiosity I typed in IXT for the latest quote and was amused to see IntelGence was trading well off its highs—down in the low twenties.

  I wanted a bigger killing though. I waited until five minute before the markets closed and ran a list of the biggest movers and shakers that day. Two stocks jumped out, both up over fifteen. Not what I was really looking for, but they would have to do. I jotted down their ticker symbols, not even bothering to see what kind of companies they were or what they did.

  I was out without Mr. Gold even noticing my presence.

  On the way back to the time door, I glanced at my watch. The second hand hadn’t moved since entering my AU. Out of curiosity I checked my cell phone. No signal. I’d ask Dinjis about this when I got the chance.

  Two days later and comfortably back in my DU, I placed the trades online at the market open from my home computer. Like clockwork, precisely five minutes before close, I sold all the shares, netting $68,943.

  I promptly drove to the Mercedes Dealership, traded in my heap, and drove a used ocean blue 450SL sports coup convertible off the lot for a cool forty-five grand in cash. Hell, I didn’t want to be greedy. My Ferrari would come in time.

  My remaining account balance stood at a little over fifty-one thousand and change.

  That night I slept dreaming of places only the wealthy visited—Bora Bora, Anguilla, Fiji—and awoke wondering where the hell those names had come from. Before Dinjis, I would have been hard pressed to take a date to Disneyland. Yet the dream message read like a ship’s foghorn—loud, clear and booming.

  Make a real killing!

  So I did.

  “Michael!” Dinjis literally leaped from his desk. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Popping,” I replied, experiencing more anticipation than in all my prior visits to my AU, hell, my entire life for that matter.

  Dinjis’s eyes gaped at the big clock. “That must be an error—you’ve entered a date ten years from today.”

  I’d thought about this a lot and had my answer prepared. This was the only way I could latch on to a mega deal—the kind of mega deal that is a life changer. I was talking not just thousands, but millions of dollars. “I’m just going to do this once,” I reassured him. “And don’t forget my life expectancy extends into the eighth decade.”

  He frowned. “Life expectancies are as fickle as time.”

  Before he could say another word, I’d slid the card in the slot and popped out on Sepulveda Blvd.

  Immediately, I noticed the changes. A few of the buildings had had façade lifts and the trees along the sidewalk were much taller. The weather was warm and clear as I made my way to the brokerage which was now located in a new office across the street.

  I didn’t see Mr. Gold so I picked out a young woman with her head down studying some documents and approached, knowing exactly what I needed.

  She looked up. I stopped in my tracks. Holy shit. The woman was beautiful, an absolute stunner. She smiled at me and only then did I see the hints of a very thin scar extending from her right eye down to the lower part of her ear. Somehow, though, the scar only added to her appeal. I couldn’t say why, perhaps it was the mystery of what had happened to her.

  She stood and proffered her hand. “I’m one of the brokers here. Can I help you with your account, sir?” For just an instant a shadow crossed her expression as she gazed at me, then it was gone.

  Sir? Damn, she couldn’t have been any older than me and actually looked younger. I cleared my throat and swallowed. Miss Broker had these fabulously huge breasts, slender athletic arms and long, long dancer legs. And that face. Whoa! So being tongue tied really does happen, I thought distractedly. ‘Yeah, umm…” Just spit it out. “I’m actually looking for some information on a couple of companies.”

  “I can assist you with that. Please have a seat.”

  I sat across from her, fully cognizant of her sweet scent and flawless complexiondash;except for the scar, she was perfect. I’d always heard about falling in love on the first sight, but falling in love on the first sight ten years into your future? Damn. I shook my head. She was the kind of girl my buddies at Home Depot would remark: Dayum, check out the twat on aisle four. (Aisle Four was our gardening section). What I’d give to have that babe planted on my face. I swallowed nervously. What that hell was the matter with me? Forget her. You don’t even know her name. I’m here to become ridiculously wealthy. I’d find plenty of women back in my default universe. Collect the beautiful like silver coins.

  She was watching me with an appraising stare. Her face. Wow! “You okay? You look kind of…discombobulated,” she was saying.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  Her smile leaped across the desk and touched something in my chest. “I’m glad. So you wanted some information. Market’s open for another couple of hours.” She tapped some keys. “Do you have an account with us?”

  “No…but I plan to open one.”

  “Today?”

  I grinned. “Soon.”

  “That’s fine.” Again she was watching me with a strange look. “Have you been in here before?”

  “No…I mean yes, but it was...ah…some time ago. I spoke with a broker named Gold.”

  She shrugge
d. “Name’s not familiar and I’ve been here for over three years.” Again that distant look in her beautiful brown eyes. “It’s just that you look kind of familiar.”

  “Like an old boyfriend perhaps?” I quipped, trying to be funny.

  “No.” She laughed. “I’m Mia Lingo.”

  “Michael Jenks.”

  “So Michael, what kind of companies are you interested in investing in?”

  I thought a moment, trying not to make my interest in her so obvious. But damn, Mia’s figure belonged in a museum of natural beauty, carved in marble. Hers was a dazzling sensuality directly out of a men’s dream catalogue. Yeah, Mia Lingo would be a looker a hundred years in the past or into the future.

  “Michael?”

  So much for not being obvious. I began, “This might sound a little strange but I’m searching for a couple of companies that you could have bought, let’s say ten years ago, really, really cheap but today are worth many times what their offering stock price was.”

  She tilted her head. “You want something that really appreciated then.”

  “Really appreciated!”

  “Like an Apple or a Microsoft in their early days.”

  “Yes!”

  She was watching me. “But Michael, you realize the appreciation is already in today’s price. Any run up is already done.”

  I almost spouted out I don’t care. Instead I smiled and said, “You can do it, right?”

  That million-dollar grin again. My heart melted a little bit more. “Of course. But ten yearsdash;can I get you the names tomorrow?”

  I beamed. “Sounds great.” And before I could stop my tongue, I blurted out, “Maybe we can have lunch.” WTF. Where did that come from?

  She didn’t say no. She didn’t say yes either, but her outright nonrefusal made me feel richer than I’d ever felt before.

  “I’ll do some research and see you around one tomorrow, after the market closes,” she offered.

  Inside, I leaped in anticipation. I’d not only traveled into my future but just floated to Cloud Nine. All with one little plastic card.

  Life couldn’t beat this with a pair of drumsticks and a bass drum.

  Mia sat across from me. She’d chosen a quaint little eatery just down from the brokerage, and with the temperature pleasant and the sun burning away the late morning overcast, we ate our mahi mahi out on the narrow veranda in the shade of a towering eucalyptus. I’d already written the names of the two companies she had provided down on a napkin—FostersSys and LinkOn.