There was another long, heavy silence as all eyes were lowered on the table top.
I inhaled a breath, realizing I had said too much. But it had to be said. I had to get it all out one last time.
“Now, about those questions,” I said. “I do have some.”
CHAPTER 8
The scientists sat in an uneasy stillness, waiting for my questions.
“If I go back to 1968, will I be the age I am now, seventy-six years old, or will I be twenty-six years old, the age I was then?”
Walter Sieg, the Swiss physicist, spoke up. “Theoretically, you will be seventy-six years old.”
“Theoretically?” I asked, amused.
He shrugged. “None of our models reveal there will be any change in age, but of course you will continue aging in 1968. You will leave here at seventy-six years old and you will arrive in the past at seventy-six years old. The real challenge for us is to make sure you land within weeks of your target date of June 5, 1968. We will program you to land sometime in late May: the 23rd, 24th or 25th. That will give you plenty of time to rest and recover and then complete your mission.”
“If I successfully go back to 1968, and if I manage to save my family and they survive, won’t that change the world as we know it? My daughters’ lives could possibly change the entire course of the world, couldn’t they? Theoretically, they or my husband could do something that could even destroy the world. I mean, I know it sounds overly dramatic, but it is possible, isn’t it?”
Alex drummed an impatient single finger on the table. “Yeah, well, it’s the age-old time travel question, isn’t it? I’ve heard this question so many times that, frankly, it just bores me. I mean, who cares if three—forgive me here—if three nobodies live instead of die and live out the rest of their lives? It’s simple, isn’t it?”
“Not to me, Alex,” I said. “It’s not simple, and it is not theoretical. It is not just an experiment or a video game where you and your scientist friends will gain points and win the game. They were my family.”
Cyrano spoke up, but Alex held up his hand to stop him. “I’m sorry, Charlotte, I didn’t mean to offend you. All I’m saying is that if you successfully return to 1968 and can save your daughters and husband, they will undoubtedly change the world. Of course. There’s no way around it. They will grow and make choices that will affect their lives and many people’s lives, and yes, they will change the course of events of this world. The questions are, one, will they be quality changes, and, two, so what?”
“So what?” I asked.
“Yes, being your daughters, and assuming you’ll raise them to be good and ethical citizens of the world, they might change the world for the better, don’t you think? Look around, Charlotte. Is the world so mature and enlightened? Listen to the news every day. We’re a race of whining babies, slinging sand at each other in a sand box. Let’s face it, and you know this better than most of us, the world is a fucked up and volatile place. Instead of making this world worse, maybe your daughters will improve it—especially if you can successfully convince your younger self who you are, where you came from and why you came. You, Charlotte, are a quality person who will have a lot of quality power over your younger self, your husband and your daughters.”
I sat entranced, impressed by Alex’s words. I hadn’t thought of this. I looked at Alex as if I were seeing him for the first time; that young, confident warrior face and cool intelligent eyes. He suddenly reminded me of a boy I knew back in the early 1960s, who got into drugs in San Francisco and died from an overdose.
I paused. “So there will be two of me back there, in1968? The 76-year-old me and the 26-year-old me?”
Alex slowly nodded. “Yes. And there’s more, Charlotte.”
Cyrano stood and held up a hand to stop Alex. “There is one important aspect about all this that we haven’t spoken of since our first conversation many months ago. Now is the time we must share this with you.”
I felt sweat trickling down my back. “Okay, fine, I’m ready.”
Cyrano folded his hands and looked at his colleagues solemnly before his eyes came to rest uneasily on me.
“Although we have struggled to solve this last problem—an important problem—we have run into barriers and, for now, we have abandoned it, focusing all our energies on the business of what we can realistically achieve. Well, let me just come out with it. If we succeed in sending you back to 1968, we don’t have the skill, the technology nor the knowledge to bring you home, that is forward, to this time. You will have to finish your life, whatever your natural lifespan may be, back in 1968.”
I shut my eyes and took in a breath. “I see. So, I will be another kind of Laika.”
“I beg your pardon,” Cyrano said. “I’m afraid I don’t know who Laika is.”
I opened my eyes, casting them around the table. “I’m sure your resident historian, Dieter Krauss, knows who Laika was, don’t you Dieter?”
Dieter nodded, with some pride. He straightened in his chair.
“Laika was the first dog in space, and the first creature to orbit the Earth. Laika was launched by the Russians on a one-way trip on board Sputnik 2 in November 1957, and she died in orbit about a week after the launch.”
Every head was down, eyes staring into laptops.
CHAPTER 9
I sat up straighter, hoping to display courage. “It’s okay, really,” I said. “I’ll make the best of my two lives: the young woman and the old woman. I suspected this some time ago, but I’d still hoped I would be coming back home to the present. Now that I’m not, I will have to prepare mentally for that: the old me and the young me, living in the same time. And if I’m successful in my mission, I’ll have to keep my distance from my family. It’s a lot to take in, and it’s weird and perplexing.”
Cyrano leveled his earnest eyes on me. “Do you still want to go through with it?”
“Of course I do,” I said without any hesitation. “Don’t all of you?”
They lifted their heads, nodding, but avoiding my eyes.
“I have another obvious question. You have all worked so hard on sending me back in time, but why not just send one of you? Why go to all the trouble, heart condition and all, of sending me?”
Kim raised her eyes to me. “I believe we answered that question some time ago, Charlotte. We all volunteered to time travel. We wanted to, especially Alex. Yes, we all wanted to very much, but we learned over the course of much trial and error and experimentation that we lacked the one crucial element that you possess naturally and fundamentally: Intention. That terrible event in 1968 has owned you and defined you. Losing your family in that fire is embedded in your being and so tattooed on your soul that in conjunction with our technological help, we have every reasonable confidence that you have the best chance of any other candidate of having a successful time travel experience. Finally, you lived in 1968. You recall the look and the feel and the smells. These are all the many reasons we strongly believe you will successfully time travel to the past.”
I leaned back and let that sink in, as another question formed. “But the cat and dog went back in time. They presumably had no intention.”
The corners of Cyrano’s mouth lifted in a smile, but it was Alex who spoke up.
“You are quite perceptive, Charlotte. All of us here are first and foremost committed to this project because we want to make the world a better place. By going back in time and fixing some of the, let’s say, flaws of the past, perhaps we can improve the present and the future. If we have the means and skills, why not?”
Cyrano took over. “What Alex is getting at is what you and I discussed some weeks ago. We need realistic and measurable goals. The cat and dog had no intention and, therefore, they also had no measurable or definable location on the grid. They traveled willy-nilly. In other words, we could send them back in time, but without an intention we had no idea where they landed: perhaps in the Atlantic Ocean in 1850; or an alley in London in 1776; or in Antarctica 2000 y
ears ago. You see, Charlotte, intention is the key. It is the invaluable device, albeit somewhat mystical, that must be present, so we can target and then measure our success.”
I waited, staring and thinking. I examined all their faces and saw conviction and agreement.
“Okay, then. I have two final questions. First, can you tell me, in layman’s terms, because I don’t know much about physics or quantum mechanics, or time travel, how you discovered the key to time travel?”
Cyrano looked at Alex. “I will let Alex explain that.”
Alex stood, went behind his chair and placed his hands on the back, inclining toward me. His eyes were cool and direct.
“To put it in laywoman’s terms,” he said, with a smart little smile, “I hacked into the universal computer system.”
I stared, not comprehending.
“By accident, really, I found that codes, like computer codes, are a fundamental aspect of nature. Mathematical structures of super-symmetric representation suggested to me that we are living in a very sophisticated computer. Behind the scenes of the binary-code world we live in, there are many more modified and specialized minor codes operating, camouflaged under a bunch of misleadingly clunky old binary facades.”
“I’m sorry, you’ve lost me,” I said.
“Okay, simply put, Charlotte, I found a kind of back door into the entire universal computer system that allowed me to manipulate movement and space/time through certain mathematical formulas, codes and space/time models, with the help and focus of the power of intention. Think of your desktop computer. You can move folders and files around, right?”
I nodded.
“That’s what we plan to do with you. We will move you from the 2018 folder on a kind of desktop to the 1968 folder on another part of that desktop.”
The room was quiet. They were all waiting for my reaction. I simply didn’t know what to say.
Walter Sieg spoke. “Charlotte, reality is not what we think it is or what our senses report back to us. It’s strange and wild, and contradictory. True reality is hidden beneath everyday experience, and its inner workings are even weirder than the idea that something can come from nothing and return to nothing.”
I nodded, but I didn’t really understand, and a part of me didn’t care. If they could send me back in time, then fine. That’s all that mattered.
Alex nodded toward Kim. “With Dr. Stein’s help, you now know what intention is, Charlotte, and you have practiced and learned how to apply your intention. That will be of prime importance as you guide yourself back to 1968, with the help of our computer codes and formulas, of course. We call it a merging of space/time and mind/body, if you will. Does that help answer your question?”
I looked at him blankly. “Thank you, Alex. I’m afraid I’m not a very technical person… at least not in that way.”
Alex shrugged and sat back down.
I continued. “My last question is this. If I can’t return to the present from the past, then how will all of you know if your time travel experiment was a success? How will you measure it? You won’t know if I survived, or if I landed in 1968, or 1779, or died.”
Cyrano brightened. “Great question, Charlotte. An excellent question. This is much easier to explain than all that quantum stuff. The answer is both simple and challenging. This will all be riding on your very capable shoulders. What you must do is convince your younger self the truth of what we’ve done here—that we have successfully sent you back in time. Then you must further convince your younger self that when she is seventy-six years old in 2018, she must come to us here at TEMPUS and tell us everything that transpired in the last fifty years.”
The words hung in the air as I struggled to process all the information. I saw several nodding heads, as if Cyrano’s answer were straightforward and self-evident.
I swallowed. “That seems very speculative and tenuous,” I said.
Cyrano nodded, spreading his hands in agreement. “It’s the best we can do at this time, Charlotte, and the best we can hope for.”
“And what if my younger self doesn’t believe me? Because I can tell you that I know myself, that 26-year-old self, very well, and I would not believe the crazy ramblings of some 76-year-old woman who told me she was my older self who just happened to drop in from the future. I would run from her and call the police. Look, if I can get back there, I know I can save my family from the fire, but I’m not so sure I can convince my younger self that time travel is real and that you people exist and are anxiously waiting for her to appear before you in 2018.”
No one was smiling. No one was looking at me.
Cyrano got up. “Charlotte… maybe you’ll have to contact your husband. Maybe he’ll believe you even if your younger self doesn’t. Maybe he’ll convince his wife. At the very least, you should be able to convince him to leave the house with your daughters on the night of the fire.”
“Yes, I will do that as a last resort, of course. But the further reason I want to return to 1968 is to change 26-year-old Charlotte. If she only hears about Paul saving my daughters, she won’t have the experience—that personal and necessary experience that will change her, because she nearly lost her family. I need her to want to change her life, and convince her that if she doesn’t change, her life will be wasted, family or no family. You see, I want her to come out of this whole thing a wiser and better person.”
Cyrano looked toward the ceiling as if seeking an answer. “It’s a lot to ask of yourself, Charlotte.”
I felt that my head was about to explode. “Yes, I suppose it is, but I’ve had a lot of sleepless nights thinking about it. It’s okay. It’s fine. I’ll find a way to make it work, one way or the other. I just want to get on with all this. When do I go?”
CHAPTER 10
I had a little over a month to prepare. The target date for my time traveling back to 1968 was set for Friday, May 25, 2018 at 3 a.m. Predawn was the most favorable time for time travel.
I’d already taken care of my finances. I’d updated my will, giving generously to charities such as the American Red Cross, Doctors without Borders and Amnesty International. I also left money to women I knew who were divorced and struggling to raise their kids, as well as to students I’d met who were heavily in debt. It gave me a good, uplifting feeling. If I didn’t survive my time travel ordeal, at least I could feel I’d done something good with my life, no matter how small.
I sold my condo and my car, arranging to transfer ownership after I had left, and gave all my good clothes and shoes to Goodwill, along with furniture and household objects that still had value. A friend had said I’d feel a strange satisfaction and uneasy peace when I tossed out old clothes, dishes, furniture, magazines, books and newspapers. She was right.
It felt as though a part of me was dying, and I suppose that was true. I was dying—perhaps literally, perhaps only to this time. But, yes, it would be a death, one way or the other.
I still couldn’t entirely get used to the idea of time traveling, and there were still times when I felt foolish and silly for even considering it. How did I really feel about death and dying? Kim Stein had asked me about this some weeks ago. I said, “I feel like a part of me died a long time ago.”
The hardest part of tossing out years of accumulated stuff was going through my closets. I had not yet dealt with the photo album of my family, a 3-ring binder with three plastic sleeves per page that had somehow survived the fire. There were three photos in it.
On the morning of Wednesday, May 23, I knew I could no longer procrastinate. I wilted a little in depression when I removed the old album from the back shelf of the closet and took it into the kitchen. I sat on one of the two stools still at the kitchen counter, not moving for a time. It took strength and courage to open the thing, as the old familiar dread filled me up. But I finally opened it and ventured a look at the first page—the only page with photos
A sharp pain cut my heart, I slammed the album shut and instinctively grabbed at my chest. �
�Throw the thing in the garbage like you should have done years ago,” I said aloud.
Outside, I removed the top lid of the green garbage can. I was just about to drop the album inside when I stopped. On impulse, I quickly opened it and ripped one plastic sleeve containing a single faded color photo of the four of us and, without looking, I slipped it into my back jeans pocket.
I decided to take it with me, back to 1968. I don’t know why. It was a sentimental family photo, taken during our last winter together. Paul, the girls and I were standing outside the house in the snow, all bundled up in red and white ski hats and heavy coats. Paul held the girls aloft, one in each arm, showing off his strength in a playful way. He’d told the girls he was as strong as Superman. They’d laughed and told him he was silly.
Three-year-old Lacey had chocolate brown hair, was fussy, curious and liked coloring books. Five-year-old Lyn had blonde curls, loved her Giggles doll with the orange dress, and seldom missed the children’s show Captain Kangaroo. I’d often thought how much the girls would have loved Sesame Street.
With tentative eyes, I studied Paul. Dear Paul had been the prime homemaker. Long before it was common for men to do so, he had cooked and cleaned and taken care of the girls. When his job grew more demanding, he hired Florence Ambrose, the matronly housekeeper and babysitter, who was a godsend.
I stared at the photo, trying to understand the woman I had been then. Our next-door neighbor, Doris Scully, had snapped it. At that time, she was the age I am now. She had no kids of her own and her husband was dead. She’d been a dear, sweet and lonely woman.
After she’d snapped the photo, the girls and Paul had built a snowman and then Doris had invited them over for hot chocolate. I heard all about it later because I had left them to go to work. What a stupid woman I had been.
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