Fortune

by Craig W. Turner

  “Great,” Jeff said. “It is very comforting that the solution you suggested was one you didn’t believe had a chance of working.” He paused as Dexter smiled mischievously. “I told her the truth, and that I needed her. I think the fact that it was your suggestion carried some weight. She had some stipulations – like that she wanted to go to 1831 to Meeks’ shop. She also didn’t want four of us going because she thought it would be too difficult to get everyone back...”

  “I would agree with that.”

  “She wanted all three of us to know full well how to use the device and have all the coordinates be common knowledge. Nothing that wasn’t reasonable. She didn’t tell me until we were in 1831 that she wanted us to go right from there, without Emeka and Abby, but all things considered, I can’t blame her. From the look on her face, I’m pretty sure she didn’t think we could actually travel through time until she saw and felt it work for herself.”

  “Makes sense. And was I right? Could you have done it without her?”

  Jeff shrugged. “I doubt it. Maybe I could’ve muddled along and maybe I could’ve somehow ended up on that porch to hit Garvey, but I probably never would’ve felt confident enough to do it without her telling me I needed to.”

  Dexter smiled. “You would’ve just left me there?”

  “No, I would’ve figured something out – I’m just not sure my go-to plan would have been punching a guy.” He finished chewing, then laughed. “Although, you wouldn’t have had to stay there long.” He went to put his hands around his own neck, but his joke was halted by the pain in his wrist. “You know your phone thing worked?”

  “What phone thing?”

  “Where you buried your phone. I rung up my friend-finder app and it showed your phone sitting comfortably in Philadelphia, right where that jail was – the Old Stone Prison. It was really awesome.”

  “Old Stone Jail,” Dexter said, correcting him. “Not quite sure what you’re talking about.”

  Jeff took out his phone to show him. He pulled up Dexter’s location and was surprised to see it come up immediately on top of his own. “Well, that’s weird,” he said. “It says you’re right…” He looked up to see Dexter showing him his phone.

  “Right here?” he asked.

  “You weren’t in prison, so you never buried your phone,” Jeff said, realizing what had happened as he spoke. “Amazing. So I can’t even ask you how you did it because you don’t know.”

  Dexter laid his phone on the table. “No, but I can tell you what I was going to try to do, which was coat it in candle wax to protect it and then bury it. Must’ve worked, huh?”

  “It did. But I guess the point is moot.” There was another conversation he wanted to get to before Erica found them. “You ready for another trip?” he asked. He’d been wondering where his friend stood on that.

  Dexter shook his head. “No, I’m done,” he said.

  “Honestly?”

  “Yeah. I was thinking about it laying there in bed last night, and there are really two things that are stuck in my brain. One – it’s damn scary to know what would’ve happened had you not been able to reach me. Hanged, Jeff. On a noose in the middle of the city. I don’t know about you, but that’s not a fate I envision for myself. We’re putting ourselves in harm’s way, trusting our lives to a computer that may or may not work as planned every time we need it to. Is it cool? Yes. Is it revolutionary? Yes. Is it worth it? Me and my neck think it’s not.”

  Jeff had anticipated that answer, so he tried to look as casual as possible receiving it, shoveling a forkful of hash browns into his mouth. “And the other thing?”

  “I’m finding myself in Erica’s corner,” he said, shaking his head while picking at his food. “We can’t play God. It’s not right. We’re screwing around with the way things are supposed to be. I haven’t had a chance to look yet, but I guarantee there had to be some fallout from what you did to Garvey. Had to be.”

  “What if there wasn’t? Would you feel differently?”

  He watched Dexter’s face as he thought. Finally, he shook his head and picked up his fork. “No, not really. We’re playing with fire.”

  Jeff wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. I think we’re close.”

  “Close to what?”

  “Close to where we need to be to make our success known.”

  He put his fork down again. “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Jeff, out of all of the technologies that man has created to destroy himself, this is probably the most dangerous. Put this in the wrong hands... Hell, put this in the right hands and it has catastrophic implications. If anyone can just go back in time and change things-”

  “What would it do?”

  Dexter shrugged. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it. It can’t be good, though.” He stuffed a scoop of eggs in his mouth and chewed slowly, obviously trying to change the subject by not saying another word.

  “What’s to say someone already hasn’t found this technology and is using it?” He pushed him.

  “That’s exactly my point. We would never know.”

  “So where’s the harm in that?” Jeff felt it was a ridiculous thing to ask, but he wanted Dexter to give him a legitimate reason why he didn’t want to continue on with him.

  Instead, he glared at him. “Honestly? Do I really have to answer that for you? Or should I call your new girlfriend to address the question?”

  “Girlfriend?” Erica’s voice came from the side. The growing tension of the conversation had eliminated any sense of their surroundings. They looked up to see her standing beside the table with a tray. “May I?” she asked, a knowing grin on her face.

  The table only had two chairs, so Jeff jumped up and pulled one over from the next table. Erica sat between them.

  “You didn’t mention a girlfriend,” she said, pulling the foil off the top of her yogurt.

  “That’s because I don’t have one. Dexter’s being melodramatic.” He noticed Erica looking down at the brace on his wrist. When she caught him looking at her, she made a sympathetic face. “It’s only sprained,” he said.

  “So what’d you find?” Dexter asked, ignoring Jeff’s comment.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re pretty sure that you went back to your room last night and went right online. What did you find?”

  Erica laughed. “You guys know me too well already. That’s exactly what I did. It turns out that there really wasn’t any uproar over the attack on Major Garvey. Mainly because, by the time the soldiers got to him, there was no one left standing there – just Garvey bleeding on the porch.” Jeff held up his good hand to high-five Dexter, who ignored him, annoyed. “Interestingly, Garvey never recovered and left his commission two years earlier than when we knew he did before. No mystery about the jewels as there was before. They were dispersed to the soldiers as instructed – I’ll be curious to see what the show I filmed a couple days ago is about without the story of the gemstones being available. Garvey died back in England about six years later after being trampled by a horse he’d fallen off of on his estate.”

  “You know what’s interesting to me,” Jeff said, “is that before we did this, we had no idea what happened to Garvey. Now all of a sudden, it’s all right there for you?”

  “Actually, I called an old friend first thing this morning. Expert on Colonial America. She filled me in.”

  “She knew that things had changed?” Jeff asked.

  Erica shook her head. “No, she knew Garvey’s history as she’d learned it. That’s the only history there is.”

  “Ah, I keep forgetting that.” He laughed, and both historians scowled at him.

  “Is that Rosalynn Darby?” Dexter asked.

  Erica smiled and nodded.

  He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly.

  “What?” Jeff said.

  “I really can’t stand that woman.”

  “Why’
s that?” Erica said, surprised.

  “She spoke immediately after me at a conference once and basically refuted everything I’d just said. We actually got into a shouting match outside the auditorium after the event was over. Haven’t had much use for her since then.”

  “We studied together at Stanford. She’s always been a good friend.” She laughed. “It’s hard for me to imagine her in a shouting match.”

  Dexter smiled, but his disdain was clear. “Well, I don’t mean to insult your friend, but I believe there’s a big difference between spending your life dedicated to studying history and taking it up as a hobby because you’re bored and have money.” He stabbed a sausage link with his fork and bit off one end.

  “Anything about the records office and the lantern?” Jeff asked, sliding into the tangential conversation.

  “Ah, now this one’s a little more interesting,” she said, accepting the change of topic. Immediately, Jeff noticed her enthusiasm, which he thought was out-of-place for someone who’d been condemning him the day before. Or 180 years before. “Turns out our altruistic friend here actually saved Mr. Meeks’ shop with his brilliant suggestion. In fact, the building still exists today and is a historical archive and museum.”

  “So we could go there right now and see it?” Jeff asked.

  “Honestly?” Dexter asked, looking at him as though he were an idiot.

  Erica nodded. “It’s a national landmark, with a collection of over 15,000 pieces from Colonial America, including a selection of the stones from the attempted Garvey heist in addition to the archived records collected and kept by Thomas Meeks. In fact, my friend said that she’s done a great deal of research there.”

  “That’s unbelievable.” Jeff said. He slapped Dexter’s arm. “Isn’t that unbelievable?”

  “I agree,” Erica said. “But I haven’t even told you the truly unbelievable part yet. Guess who the curator of the museum is?”

  “I don’t know. Gotta be your friend, this Rosalynn lady?”

  “Why would you-” Dexter started to say.

  She shook her head, looking at Jeff. “Actually, it’s your friend.”

  “What do you mean?”

  With a grand gesture, she introduced the museum’s curator, sitting across the table from Jeff, then sat back smugly.

  “No way.”

  “I don’t understand why this is surprising you,” Dexter said. “You’ve been there a hundred times.”

  “What are you talking about? I’ve never been there. It didn’t even exist. You’re the one that I would think would be surprised. You leave a Columbia professor and come back the curator of this museum in Philadelphia?”

  Dexter shook his head. “Columbia? I haven’t been to Columbia in years. I did a lecture there once, but that had to be ten, twelve years ago.”

  “So you know you’re the curator of this museum?” Jeff asked slowly. “How is that?”

  “Jeff, yes, of course. I’ve only been doing it for the last ten years.”

  “Wait a minute,” Erica said, almost beside herself with excitement. The smugness was completely gone, replaced with childlike fascination. “You have no recollection of working at Columbia?”

  “Should I?” Jeff could tell the tone in his friend’s voice was starting to raise toward aggravation.

  “Oh my goodness.” Erica slapped the table loudly, catching the attention of the other diners in the room. She looked at Jeff. “You see what happened here, don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. Though that was more denial than anything. He actually was pretty sure.

  She leaned forward again toward Dexter. “Where’d you go to college?”

  “Princeton.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Jeff said. “You went to Harvard.”

  “Jeff, I’m pretty sure I went to Princeton. What are you telling me? That where you come from I have a different life?”

  “The lantern,” Erica said. “The lantern. Dexter wasn’t with us when that happened, which means that everything changed around him.”

  “But he was out of my sight for about thirty seconds.”

  “No, he was out of your sight for 200 years back and forth, with a layover in 1831 – plus thirty seconds.” The look on her face was somewhere between giddy and I-told-you-so. “When you stopped Meeks from burning down his office-”

  “You guys still haven’t answered me,” Dexter said, interrupting. “Where you come from... In your brains... Meeks’ office burned down, I graduated from Harvard, and I’m a professor at Columbia?”

  Jeff nodded. “Well, part-time, but yes.”

  “And you think things changed because the shop didn’t burn down?”

  “How’d you get the job at the Museum?” Erica asked. Jeff thought she was going to jump out of her chair, she asked the question with such energy.

  “I took a job with the Museum during high school and worked my way up while I was in college.”

  She laughed. “Well, yeah – and if the Museum wasn’t there, you wouldn’t have done that. This is awesome.”

  “Why is it awesome?” Dexter asked.

  “Because now I’m not the only one sitting here thinking about ‘what ifs.’ You guys have done it to yourselves now.”

  “Well, that’s nice,” Dexter said, then stood up from the table, picked up his phone, and stormed out the front doors of the hotel.

  Erica watched him leave before looking back at Jeff. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be glib about it. You can’t say that I didn’t warn you, though.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me? How did I turn out? The same. Nothing different. Still got my show. Still at Stanford.”

  “And me?”

  “Nothing but a sprained wrist. You’re not in our world, Jeff, so there really wasn’t anything that happened that would’ve dramatically changed your life.” She took a bite of oatmeal and thought for a moment. “I guess you can say fate would’ve led Dexter to his new lot in life, but that’s probably romanticizing it. The truth is that he’s a historian who grew up in Philadelphia where there are a lot of options to get involved in the field. Now, thanks to you, there was one more – and an attractive one at that. It’s not too much of a stretch that he would end up there.”

  “I never would’ve thought it could’ve gotten so personal.”

  “Personal?”

  “You know – that some distant event two centuries ago could affect one of our lives; it’s not like there were dozens of us involved. Just the three of us.”

  “Hello? Jeff? I’m sitting right here. Me. Remember? Lucius Fitzsimmons’ great-great-great-great granddaughter?” She poked him in the arm, but he suddenly wasn’t in a fun mood. “All joking aside, I’ve been where he is right now. My advice for you is to try to handle it a little better than you did last time.”

  “I honestly don’t know what to say. If anything.”

  “Well, we should go get him,” she said. “But before we do, I have an idea I want to run past you.”

  “An idea?” She was all over the place here. She wasn’t even going to give him a moment to process what had just happened.

  “An idea where we can continue your experiments without changing the past.”

  “Well, we don’t have Dexter. He just told me he’s out.”

  She shook her head. “We don’t need him. Or the others. Just you and me.”

  “What is it?”

  “We go to the future.”

  “We do what?”

  Jeff’s phone vibrated on the table. He picked it up and looked – Dexter’s name with a 610 area code, which looked odd to him. He clicked it on and answered, “Hello?”

  “I’d like to go home now,” Dexter said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “Nice house,” Jeff said.

  He was looking out the front window of their car at Dexter’s home in Bryn Mawr in suburban Philadelphia. “It’s a step up from your other place.”

  Erica watched as
Dexter got out of the car without a word, relieved to be home. He closed the door behind him and started walking toward the front door of the house as if he had no intention of providing them any closure. Jeff jumped out of the driver’s side of the car and followed him, then Erica joined them. Dexter stopped about ten paces from the front porch.

  The house was a good-sized Tudor – at least three bedrooms, maybe four. The brown trim of the house contrasted against the white, reflecting the sun from a cloudless sky. The landscaping was detailed and picturesque. Very professional. Not anything that Erica could’ve imagined that Dexter, from what she knew of him, would’ve done himself. The grass was wonderfully manicured and a series of statues that she recognized as Greek gods and goddesses lined the walkway up to the front door. A shiny white late model Jeep Cherokee sat in the driveway.

  “That’s it?” Jeff asked. “We just drop you off at home and get on our way?”

  “Are you looking for some kind of emotional reaction? This is my life, Jeff. I don’t have to get used to it. You do.”

  Erica leaned on the hood of the car, wanting to say something but knowing better than to interject between the two friends. On the silent twenty-minute ride to Dexter’s house, she couldn’t tell who was having the bigger issue with what had happened. She empathized with Dexter, certainly, sharing with him the drama of realizing what Jeff’s experiments had done to them. She hadn’t believed it either when she’d found out about herself. There was nothing onto which she could grasp. All she could do was take Jeff’s word as to what had happened. Now Dexter found himself in the same predicament.

  Jeff, for the first time since she’d been involved with him, seemed to have wavered in his confidence. Like the heavyweight champion who gets cut for the first time so everyone can see he’s human. But she guessed that once they were on the road and Dexter was out of his face, he’d be back on his horse. That’s where she figured her role was. She could stay out of this conversation.

  “I can’t just leave you here,” he said.

  Dexter laughed. “This is my home, Jeff. Where else are you going to leave me? All I want to do is go inside and go to bed with nobody bothering me. You go back to New York and I’ll catch up with you in a day or so. Don’t worry about me. I’m okay. You need to make sure you’re okay.”