“Not unless he would have been studying his own family for decades,” Belle said. “And then had the resources that Bonnie and Duster and the institute put together over a full century of work after we left.”
Zane was starting to catch on, but nodded that Belle go on.
“We need to assume the dictator has all his immediate family in history now covered,” Belle said, “but we can also assume that there is only so far he can go back in time in any crystal without ending up in the crystal cavern above and risking exposure.”
She drew a line on the family tree around 2220. “I want to assume that it was the expansion of people who knew about the institute of Step Three that caused him to discover the crystals.”
Zane nodded. “So he might have gotten the crystals he ended up using from the institute instead of the mine above.”
“Exactly,” Belle said. “Those crystal rooms for travel are huge and hold thousands of crystals and all it would take would be one person not happy with the institute in 2220 to replace a real crystal with a dummy crystal and take out the real one.”
“I tried to sneak back in time by simply using a crystal clear to the back of one room,” Zane said. “It didn’t work, but I sure thought it did.”
“Exactly,” Belle said.
“And they wouldn’t need to have a mathematics genius,” Zane said. “All they would have to do would be to smuggle out a crystal and one box from the back of one room and a few crystals.”
“Exactly,” Belle said. “Replace a real box with a fake one, then use the time travel device for some personal gain and have it eventually fall into the wrong hands. The dictator’s hands after he became president.”
“Security can always be breached,” Zane said, nodding. “That makes a ton more sense than finding and then breaching this mine above us.”
“It does,” Belle said.
“So what are you thinking?” Zane asked.
She looked away from her computer terminal and smiled at him and it was the first real smile she had given him since discovering they were actually safe in 3166.
“We don’t know who will be the thief,” Belle said, “but we can go back to almost the start of the institute and make sure that Bonnie and Duster and Director Parks are alert and can catch the person.”
“That will stop a lot of the dictator’s timelines,” Zane said, “but not all of them.”
“I know,” Belle said. “So let’s assume the dictator can’t go back any farther than one hundred years, since Bonnie and Duster designed those devices in the institute to hold at that.”
She drew a hundred year line across the dictator’s family tree.
Zane liked the look of that line. In fact, he liked it more than he wanted to admit.
“To kill any plant or tree completely,” Belle said, “we need to kill it at its roots. If we do that, combined with making sure that Bonnie and Duster and Director Parks increase security, I think we take the dictator out of all the timelines.”
She circled on the screen one name right at the bottom of the family tree.
Zane stared at the name. Albion Jones.
“If we don’t allow Albion Jones to marry miss Edda Seavy in Moscow, Idaho, in June of 1902, this tree dies.”
Belle killed the connection between the two people on the tree showing that they got married and had seven children and the entire family tree vanished.
Zane stared at that and then kissed Belle, long and hard.
And she kissed him back.
Maybe, just maybe, they had a way out of all this.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
July 18th, 2020
Boise, Idaho
STOPPING THE MARRIAGE between Albion Jones and Edda Seavy had turned out to be very, very easy for two people with more than enough time to spend.
Albion was from the Twin Falls area of Idaho in the southern part of the state, while Edda was a local farm girl from a town called Palouse near Moscow in the northern part of the state.
With some research, Belle and Zane had discovered that Albion had sent out applications for three schools and been accepted to all three, picking the engineering department at the new University of Idaho land grant college in the farm community of Moscow, Idaho, over a similar acceptance to an engineering school in Corvallis, Oregon.
That was where he met Edda.
So Zane came up with the idea of just going back and living in Twin Falls as young Albion grew up and seeing what they could change in his life. It had seemed simple and easy because Zane honestly didn’t much like the idea of hurting anyone and doubted that either of them could do that.
“We would have to be a married couple,” Belle had said.
“I like the sounds of that,” Zane had said and Belle had kissed him for that, which he had enjoyed as well.
They had returned in time to 1890. Moving as a young married couple to Twin Falls, Idaho, they had gotten into the small rural community there. Even though they had brought more than enough money from the future, they pretended to be just regular folk.
Belle had hated the clothes of the time, but they had taken enough modern underwear and supplies to help them make the transition to living in the past.
Over the next twelve years, Zane had taken a job as a mail carrier, which he honestly liked. He liked the people and the job gave him time to learn about the time and to think.
Belle had become a teacher, which she said she enjoyed as well. They both had become friends with the Jones family and watched young Albion come up through school.
Belle, when she had Albion in her class, talked up the Oregon schools and Zane had ended up delivering the Jones’ mail.
There just was no way of telling that such a young family and a nice young man could be a distant and critical relative to the worst criminal in all time. Albion and his family were very nice, down-to-earth people who wanted their oldest son to do well.
The entire time Zane and Belle were there in Twin Falls, both of them were on high alert to any signs of anyone else from the future being around the young man. Zane was very glad they saw nothing.
Albion wanted to attend the Oregon school by the time he applied for college, but had still sent out applications to the same three schools as he originally had done.
Zane made sure that the acceptance from the University of Idaho in Moscow never arrived at the Jones’ home.
And then he and Belle made sure that the Jones family had enough money to get Albion to Oregon by sponsoring a fake college scholarship that Albion won.
Zane delivered that letter as well.
Zane and Belle stayed in Twin Falls and in their jobs until Albion Jones graduated from college, married a childhood sweetheart from Twin Falls, and settled down.
Belle had very, very much enjoyed their time living as a married couple in the past and told Zane that a few times the last year they were there.
Zane had to admit, he had enjoyed it as well, and one night he mentioned that they should think of doing this in their real time.
Belle had loved the sound of that. And he had been rewarded in wonderful ways that night in their featherbed for his suggestion.
Then, after Albion was settled in safely in his new life, Belle and Zane had said goodbye to their friends in Twin Falls and headed back to the mine.
They had planned on going to the war room in 2299 to see what their actions had done.
But when Zane unplugged one wire from the box in the crystal cavern, things got very, very strange.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
June 16th, 2020
Boise, Idaho
FOR A MOMENT, Belle found herself touching the wooden box in the crystal cavern, then a shimmering started like heat waves rolling over a desert.
But there was no heat, just shimmering, as if her eyes were playing a trick on her and everything around her was shifting.
She then found herself beside Zane touching the box that was in the alcove in the hidden cave in 3166.
> But the shimmering continued.
She then found herself touching the wooden box with Bonnie and Duster in the crystal cavern again.
And then, finally, she found herself touching the wooden box in the Step One crystal room in the institute.
And then finally she found herself sitting drinking a Diet Coke in the living room cavern of the institute.
Then slowly the shimmering stopped, vanishing as if nothing had happened.
Zane sat beside her, also sipping on a Diet Coke.
She knew the date was June 16th, 2020.
The date that Bonnie and Duster and Dawn and Madison and Parks had told Belle and Zane about the dictator for the first time.
It was in this very meeting.
But how was this possible?
Belle remembered how she had been recruited for the institute, but without any mention of the dictator. And how she had gone with Zane into the past and then into the future.
And then she remembered the last week of learning everything about the institute and getting to know and care for Zane.
But she also remembered clearly living with Zane now for years in the past, and living in a secret chamber under the old cavern, and going into the massive crystal cavern and everything.
She remembered both timelines completely.
How was that possible?
She glanced at Zane who was sitting beside her, blinking.
He looked completely stunned and younger than the face she had grown used to looking at and kissing in Twin Falls, Idaho.
Bonnie and Duster both sprang to their feet and both were smiling so hard, they both looked like they might hurt themselves. They hugged each other and then danced, actually danced, swinging each other around and around.
Clearly they remembered both timelines as well for some reason.
“Holy shit!” Duster said, finally stopping and staring at Belle and Zane. “You two did it!”
Belle felt too shocked to even stand up, and beside her Zane clearly looked shocked as well.
Dawn and Madison and Director Parks just sat in their chairs looking stunned at the outburst from Bonnie and Duster.
“Bonnie and I remember as well,” Duster said, “because we were touching the wooden box when all four of us went back.”
“Did we just have another major timeline shift?” Madison asked. “And I was left out again?”
“A monster,” Bonnie said, laughing. “Bigger than you can ever imagine.”
“I’m remembering two different timelines,” Zane said after Duster finally calmed down enough to sit back down.
Both Duster and Bonnie nodded and just kept smiling like children given a huge piece of candy.
Belle managed to somehow take a deep breath. She really was with Zane and she really was in the living room a week after she and Zane had jumped to establish her in Step Two.
She remembered falling for Zane in the front room of the institute just a week before, and she remembered their first trip into the past where they almost froze walking out to Warm Springs Avenue and back.
And it seemed that the last week they were still just getting to know each other, being careful about what they said and so on.
But she also remembered the years living with him as a married couple in the small rural farming town of Twin Falls, Idaho, and falling in love with him, and so much more.
“Only the four of us will ever remember the dictator,” Duster said.
“Thankfully,” Bonnie said, nodding.
“We need a few huge drinks and a long explanation,” Duster said, “and how you completely stopped the dictator in all timelines.”
“The dictator!” Director Parks shouted. “What dictator? What the hell is going on here?”
Belle laughed, slowly letting this new reality sink in.
“You have some security issues in the institute in the future, Director Parks,” Zane said, smiling.
Belle laughed. “Major ones.”
Director Parks opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Duster looked shocked. “That’s how the dictator got his crystals? From here, right under our noses?”
“And we think someone also took a machine,” Belle said. “As President of the United States, the dictator just ended up with them, more than likely not knowing where they came from, but eventually figuring out how they worked.”
“So how did you stop the dictator?” Bonnie asked.
“Would someone please tell us what dictator?” Dawn and Madison asked at the same time.
Duster waved his hand. “We’ll explain the thousands of years of battles that just ended.”
“Thousands of years?” Director Parks asked. Belle could see the shock and puzzlement in his face.
“Boy, you weren’t kidding about major timeline shift,” Madison said.
“I want to know how you two did it,” Duster said, staring at Belle and then at Zane.
“My memory tells me I just didn’t deliver a piece of mail,” Zane said.
And with that, Belle could only laugh at the shocked looks on everyone’s face.
Zane reached over and took her hand and then looked at her directly. “You remember what we were talking about in Twin Falls the year before we left?”
She smiled. “I sure do.”
“So would you marry me?” he asked. “I think this time is about as real as it’s going to get.”
“After all those years of living in sin with me,” she said, “I think it is about time you asked.”
“I take that as a yes?” he said, laughing.
“Yes,” she said.
Then she kissed him.
And he kissed her back.
She didn’t care at all that the founders of the institute were just sitting there staring at them, three stunned, the other two smiling and laughing.
She planned on spending an eternity with Zane, and since they already had been all over a dozen centuries and had saved millions of lives in millions of timelines, they deserved a little time for a honeymoon.
And if their honeymoon lasted a few lifetimes, that was fine with her as well.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith published far more than a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres.
At the moment he produces novels in four major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, and a superhero series starring Poker Boy.
His monthly magazine, Smith’s Monthly, which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month.
During his career, Dean also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, he wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies.
He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of almost a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown.
Dean also worked as a fiction editor off and on, starting at Pulphouse Publishing, then at VB Tech Journal, then Pocket Books, and now at WMG Publishing, where he and Kristine Kathryn Rusch serve as series editors for the acclaimed Fiction River anthology series.
For more information about Dean’s books and ongoing projects, please go to www.deanwesleysmith.com, www.smithsmonthly.com or www.fictionriver.com.
Look for These Other Titles from Dean Wesley Smith
The Thunder Mountain Series
Thunder Mountain
Monumental Summit
Avalanche Creek
The Edwards Mansion
Lake
Roosevelt
Warm Springs
The Seeders Universe Series
Dust and Kisses
Against Time
Sector Justice
Morning Song
The High Edge
Sign up for the WMG Publishing newsletter to receive updates about new releases, bonus content and more at wmgpublishing.com
Table of Contents
Dedication
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PART TWO
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PART THREE
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
PART FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
PART FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
About the Author
Look for These Other Titles from Dean Wesley Smith
Copyright Information
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