Fortune

by Craig W. Turner

  “How could 300,000 people see an armored car disappear and there be no record of it?”

  “I don’t know. We may have to do some of this on the fly.”

  “Well, I would guess we were able to get close enough to the armored car somehow, without the drivers or guards in it. I don’t know that we have the right skills to do that.”

  She stood from the bed, stretching her legs. A bright flash of lightning illuminated the beach outside, followed by distant thunder.

  He laughed. “Look, the kid said that we checked in the day before the big event, so when we get there we’ll have some time to scope out the situation.”

  “You mean case the joint? You know that’s not my area of expertise.” She bent down and rubbed her lower leg. “Sorry, my foot’s asleep. Can I have a little more time to look from here?”

  Jeff peered outside again. No rain yet, but the wind was now howling. “Fifteen minutes?”

  “Well, it’s hard to put a time limit on, but okay, let me get to it.”

  He handed her the tablet and made his way across the room and to the sliding glass doors. Giving her solitude, he opened them and stepped out onto the balcony, first tossing the chairs inside the room and then closing the doors behind them. The wind whipped at his face strongly enough to take his breath away. The lightning, which only a few moments ago seemed so far away, was now on top of them, making him think twice about standing on the beach holding a predominantly metal device. They’d have to make quick work.

  What he enjoyed, though, was the opportunity to experience the front end of a hurricane, knowing that he didn’t have to stick around for the rest of it. Despite its intensity, the wind on his face was refreshing, and every flash of lightning sent a chill down his spine that rivaled getting to the top of the first hill on a roller coaster. He didn’t imagine he’d feel so free if he was going to be there for the entire storm – or if it was his own home that was about to be ravaged. But for the moment, it was pretty magical.

  He heard a knock on the window and turned to see Erica holding up the tablet so he could see. Another news web site had posted a photo of three armored cars being loaded with cash, with a line of people a mile long in the background. Jeff smiled and gave her a thumbs up, then waved to her to come outside with him. He watched as she retreated to the bed and ditched the tablet, then opened the door and joined him.

  “It’s hard to tell where that picture was taken,” she said. “Maybe we can use the landmarks in the photo to find out.”

  “It shouldn’t be too difficult. We’ll just need to be ready to move quickly.”

  “You mean grab the device and do it right there? In front of everyone? That seems really risky.” He realized she was yelling over the wind.

  “Maybe, but I would think the better way is to take the truck.”

  Looking over, she was laughing at him. “You’re going to steal an armored car?”

  He found himself laughing with her. “We’ll have to see. Are you ready to get out of here?”

  “Just need to put the coordinates into the program. March 22. Any particular time you want to get there?”

  “Let’s try to get there in the morning. Give us the day to get up to the city and plan. Set it up for early, like seven a.m.”

  She put her hand to her ear. “I can’t hear you,” she said, so they went inside. “You said the morning?”

  “Yes, let’s set it up for seven a.m. We’ll go to the same spot where we got here.”

  “In this?”

  “Better now than during the brunt of the storm,” he said.

  Erica went to work on the tablet while he started to gather up everything they’d brought, including throwing the wine, cheese and note from his future self into his bag. He laid the time device on the bed next to her so she could program it, then told her he was going to get a drink. She said she didn’t need anything, so he left the room and walked through wind that was still strong even beneath cover to the room that the kid had told them about. He was comforted to see the familiar red glow of a Coca-Cola machine, though when he reached it he saw signs heralding that every beverage in the machine was sugar and high fructose corn syrup free. Figuring he should at least be a little adventurous, he bought a Coke with a press of his thumb, tasted a sip that wasn’t too distant from the Coke he was used to, and headed back to the room.

  Erica was standing with her bag over her shoulder, ready to go.

  “Abby’s program really makes light work of the calculations, doesn’t it?” he asked.

  “Sure does. But the one thing I don’t understand is how we’re able to manipulate time from here with these coordinates. Jumping three years back from now should have different calculations than jumping seven years forward from our present time.”

  “C’mon, let’s go and I’ll tell you.” They did a quick sweep of the room and gathered their things, Jeff stuffing the bottle of wine in his computer bag. They left the room and immediately were pummeled by the raging wind, and pushed down the aisle of rooms and down the stairs toward the lobby. Rain was now starting to fall in heavy pellets as they reached the lobby door and pushed inside. The door slammed shut behind them.

  The kid was still there behind the desk, and stood to greet them. “Had enough?”

  “Actually, yes,” Jeff said. “We decided we don’t want to just sit here and wait this out. Probably not the smartest idea.”

  “You don’t have a car, though,” the kid said. He’d been snooping as the night went on.

  “We have a ride coming.”

  “Hope they come soon.” The kid put his tablet on the desk again for Jeff to check out, which he did. “You guys be safe,” he said, then sat down and returned to whatever he was doing.

  They went back to the door, but just before they were about to push their way out again, Erica caught his attention. “I can’t hear anything out there,” she said, “so we can finish the conversation after we make the jump. Maybe you can take me to dinner or something in New York.”

  Jeff smiled. He’d been ready to start blathering about the time device as soon as they were out of the kid’s earshot. But she was right. They weren’t going to be able to hear anything anyway, so it wasn’t the time for a scientific discussion. “That sounds great,” he said. Their first date.

  He pushed the door open and stepped out into what was now a full-fledged hurricane.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  As they walked through the wind and rain, Erica was less concerned about getting blown away or struck by lightning than she was with Jeff’s smile when she said he could take her to dinner. Though, with the noise she could’ve loudly reprimanded herself without Jeff hearing. She silently self-chastised for bringing up dinner to him in a way that sounded like she was thinking about a something more than a meal, which was clearly how he’d taken it.

  Unfortunately, there was no way to take it back, and as he now led her through Hurricane Ichabod battling the elements, she found herself looking at him with airs of both heroism and stupidity. He had feelings for her. That was clear. It was even important to her right now because she felt some degree of protection would be nice, and she trusted that he would provide it. But she refused to let herself entertain any thoughts of a relationship longer than the duration of this trip. That future wasn’t in the cards, though. And not because of Greg Barnett.

  By the time they reached the sand dunes, she felt more comfortable with the situation, convincing herself that the idea of dinner in New York was harmless. Regardless of what was going on in Jeff’s mind as it related to her, it wasn’t something either of them was going to have to deal with for very long.

  The wet sand was tricky to navigate, so Jeff took her by the hand to steady her. According to the clock, the eastern sky should’ve been brightening by now, but the thick blanket of clouds making up the western edge of the storm had eliminated all traces of dawn. It was as dark as the middle of the night, except for the sporadic flashes of lightning.

&nb
sp; Finally, they reached the site where they’d landed several hours before and Jeff pulled the time device from his bag. He illuminated it and extended it to her. As she reached out for it, a gust of wind pulled her off her feet and she stumbled backwards several steps, but was able to regroup. She reached out again for Jeff and grabbed the device. Once she was firmly in contact, he didn’t hesitate, pushing the button to send them three years into the past.

  A split second later, the storm was over and they were standing on a serene beach, looking at the sunrise that rightfully should’ve been out over the Atlantic.

  “Wow,” she said. “So that was a hurricane?” With wet clothes stuck to her body, a frigid early spring wind seemed to blow right through them and she shivered. She thought it was a good thing she’d bought the hard case for the tablet, considering how soaked she was without the waterproof protection, they’d be in dire straits.

  “Pretty glad to leave that behind.” Jeff spun around, inspecting the beach to see if anyone had noticed their arrival. He was just as wet, his hair matted to his head. If she hadn’t been so cold, she might’ve snickered. “Looks clear.”

  “What happens now?”

  “Well, unless my car is still parked up there on the street, which is unlikely, I have to rent a car.”

  “I’m going to eventually need some sleep,” she told him.

  “Why don’t we check into the hotel, as planned, and you can rest while I find a car? Does that work?”

  She nodded. “It does. I probably only need a couple hours. Just to get my energy back. It was a long night, even before the hurricane.”

  So, once again, they walked past the sand dunes and up the street to the motel. This time, the convenience store was still operating next to the hotel, but other than that and the lack of hurricane-proof boards over the windows, the neighborhood looked the same as the one they’d just left. Strangely, though she would assume it was off-season, the area was pretty jammed with vehicles and early-morning joggers.

  “Do you think I made another reservation for us?” Jeff asked with a laugh before entering the motel lobby.

  “I don’t see why you would’ve made one without the other.”

  They entered the lobby, which, again, looked exactly the same, only the “kid” behind the desk was replaced with an artificially-tanned middle-aged woman. Unlike the kid who’d been lost in his technology, the woman had been watching “Good Morning America,” and stood to greet them. “Welcome to the Ocean Dunes Motel,” she said in a thick “New Joisey” accent.

  “I have a reservation,” Jeff said, then looked at Erica and smiled. She agreed – might as well try it. “Under Jacobs.”

  They were right. “Mr. Jacobs. Staying for two days? And you guys are soaked. That water’s freezing. Must have been a short swim.”

  Erica started to come up with an explanation, but Jeff simply said “no,” which seemed like a sufficient answer.

  “What brings you to the Jersey Shore?”

  “Ah, just a little getaway from the madness.”

  The woman sat down and started typing away on a traditional computer keyboard – apparently they were still going to go with the old credit card swipe method when cash was outlawed the next day.

  “You reserved a while ago,” she said. “Good thing, too. We’re completely booked up.”

  “Any special reason?”

  “People are coming for this thing in New York tomorrow. The big cash drop-off. Or, they’re trying to escape it. We’ve had both.”

  “Aren’t there enough hotels in New York to accommodate the crowds?”

  “Apparently not.” She pulled a page off of the printer and slid it onto the counter across from him. “The room was paid for with a credit card, so you’re all set. Just need a signature here.” Jeff signed. “Two keys?”

  “Yes, please.”

  A moment later they were walking to their room, which was on the first floor this time, and with a poor ocean view. Erica didn’t care, and by the time Jeff slid the key into the door and they closed it behind them, she was ready to fall onto the bed and close her eyes.

  “I’ll be back in a little while,” Jeff said, but she was already dozing off and didn’t answer.

  When she awoke, she saw she’d slept for about three hours and that Jeff hadn’t yet returned. She went into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on her face, then made coffee in the room’s coffeemaker. Within about twenty minutes, she had a spark and was ready to go steal an armored car.

  Still refusing to abide by the standard “see no evil” rules of time travel, she booted up Abby’s tablet again and started searching. She looked for the obvious things, and found the country was not substantially at war with anyone, was surprised that the current President of the United States was a former tight end for the San Diego Chargers, and read that movie theaters across the country were being retro-fitted to accommodate a new film technology, 3-D holographic motion pictures (and that a first-run movie ticket cost $45!). Bored with this, however, and thinking that she could see these kinds of things in any sci-fi time travel movie, she decided to make it a little more personal.

  She scoped herself out – finding herself still clinging to that photo in front of the Golden Gate but no longer clinging to her belly – then looked into Jeff, finding the same stuff that she already knew. Since she’d been interrupted last time, she did a search for Dexter as well. What had happened to him had been on her mind since they’d left his house.

  First she looked through social media web sites for him and found nothing. No entries at all. She did a Google search for him and found, like her, several publications that he’d written, but none in the last several years. She worriedly began to wonder if something had happened to him, but a search for his phone number and address showed that he was indeed alive, just not living in Bryn Mawr anymore. His address was now listed as Jacksonville, Florida.

  She searched for the museum where he was the curator and found that he’d left six years earlier without explanation. She found a record of divorce in the Philadelphia newspaper from five years before, followed shortly by the sale of his Bryn Mawr home. Then he was off the map. Her mind wandered, trying to reason out what had happened to him, and the best she could do was that he tried to cope with his new circumstances for a year or so and then probably fell apart. Here was a guy with a productive career and lots of energy who just dropped off the face of the planet. She couldn’t imagine any other scenario.

  She heard the lock on the room door make a whirring sound and the door opened. Jeff walked in, carrying a handful of grocery bags. He set them down on the bed.

  “You were gone for a while,” she said.

  “Yeah, I had to do some shopping around. Right now, there are some stores that have moved to the biometrics and some that haven’t. I recently renewed two of my credit cards, but they were still a couple of years short, already expired. So, I had to find somewhere that used biometrics. Eventually, I found a car rental place, and then I realized we hadn’t eaten anything in some time, so I grabbed some groceries. Not sure what you would eat, so I picked up an assortment of everything. Then I figured it’s much colder than when we left, so we could probably use coats...” He pulled out a gray zip-up jacket for her. “Probably not your style, but hopefully it’ll keep you warm.”

  She laughed and took it from him, holding it up. “It’ll do.”

  “What’re you looking at?”

  She’d been lost in his interpretation of his fashion sense and didn’t expect the question, realizing that he was again looking over her shoulder.

  “Nothing, really. Just playing around.”

  “You looked up Dexter?” He leaned in closer before she had a chance to change the screen. “You historians confound me. You set these rules about knowing too much and not changing things, and then as soon as you get a moment you break all of them. I’ll assume you looked up yourself and me first?” He sat on the bed across from her, then kept going without letting
her answer. “Why would anyone want to see into their future like that?”

  “Why would anyone? Because no one wants to think that anything else is in control of the decisions they make, and everybody wants to know they’ll be okay, and actually hoping their lives will be better. Wouldn’t you want to know?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Well, I’m worried about Dexter,” she said. “And apparently with good reason. He’s disappeared.”

  “Dead?” It was the first time she’d seen genuine concern on his face for his friend.

  “No, it doesn’t say that anywhere. But he stopped working, writing, teaching and being married. Every trace of him is gone or hidden except for an address and phone number that I had to hunt for. I’m afraid that he couldn’t handle his new life.”

  Jeff nodded with an empathetic look on his face. Finally a glimmer of hope that he was feeling something about all of this. “You think he probably went into a state of depression and withdrew from his life?”

  She nodded.

  But instead of echoing her concern, he shrugged. “Or, he took the money he got from the Wilton job and retired. That’s a possibility, too.”

  “I’ve only known Dexter for a couple days, but that doesn’t sound like him.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s nothing we’re going to fix right now,” he said. “Here, have something to eat.”

  For the next hour, they ate cold cut sandwiches in relative silence, meticulously avoiding conversation about Dexter. Shortly after they’d finished, they were in Jeff’s rented SUV headed for New York City.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  March 18, 2022

  The question in Jeff’s mind as he drove the Garden State Parkway, and then the New Jersey Turnpike, toward the city was whether it was actually possible to go back and restore Dexter’s life for him. He’d already determined – even before talking to Erica, while he was out searching for the rental car – that he was going to try. In fact, that he would go to whatever lengths he could to do so. What challenged him was whether you could “fix” something that had been changed, with “fix” meaning putting it back to normal. Or would it be akin to doing plastic surgery on someone’s face who’d already had plastic surgery? Each time you tried, would you come up with something completely new? The question made him think of Erica’s Botox analogy, and worried him.