Arnesto Modesto: The World's Most Ineffectual Time Traveler

by Darren Johnson

  “Can we help you with something?” Kabir asked Arnesto.

  Arnesto pointed at himself with his thumbs and said, “I came here to see if any of you whiny, little amateurs want to take on the greatest Squid Wars player who ever lived.”

  “Ooooooohhh!” the testers shouted.

  “Let’s do it,” Kabir said. They both sat down in front of the television and grabbed a controller as the other testers gathered round.

  Arnesto felt confident. It was the second game he had tested in his past life, and he was one of only a few people who could beat the punishing single-player mode. However, not having played it in over a century, he was feeling a little rusty.

  Arnesto controlled Icer, a glacier squid, against Kabir’s Whiplash, a whiplash squid. Whiplash was on the ropes so Kabir bailed and was now a tiny human diver, swimming defenseless. Arnesto chased him around the level, but Kabir found an undamaged bush-club squid named Clubber and jumped on. Arnesto groaned.

  Now Kabir was on the offensive as Arnesto looked for a replacement squid of his own. They traded blows for a while, then both Arnesto and Kabir gasped when they saw an unused fire squid named Pyrotooth. With a quick freeze blast from Icer, Clubber was rendered immobile for a second. Arnesto’s diver bailed from Icer and swam his little heart out toward Pyrotooth, but Clubber defrosted and fired an ink shot killing Arnesto’s diver and giving Kabir the round.

  “Drink the ink,” Kabir said, taunting Arnesto.

  “Ooooooohhh!”

  “This game is awesome, I hope it does well,” Kabir said. Arnesto knew it wouldn’t. For some reason, it never caught on, despite good reviews. It didn’t help that the company gave it almost no advertising. At least its memory would live on as Arnesto and Kabir would break it out from time to time, years down the line.

  After several more rounds, the score was tied three apiece, and Arnesto had the clear advantage in the seventh round. His squid was about to deliver the fatal blow when the game crashed. Arnesto remembered there having been a recurring split-screen crash bug that persisted right up until the game shipped a few months from then, but he couldn’t recall any details that might help them fix it.

  This was annoying, but for Arnesto, it was offset by the fact that he was getting to know these guys again. Better, they were getting to know him. It had been one thing to be in the trenches, finding bugs alongside them; it was another to be a programmer and one of those who caused the bugs. Bonding over Squid Wars helped quite a bit. He only needed more time, but it wasn’t going to happen this evening.

  As Kabir reached for the reset button, Hiromi burst into the room and announced, “There’s a huge car chase happening in LA right now. They say O.J.’s making a run for it.” The other testers ran after Hiromi to watch the television in the kitchen.

  Arnesto puffed his cheeks and exhaled in disapproval. The “trial of the century” had failed to hold his interest in his previous life. It would be even worse this time around. How long had the chase lasted? If it ended soon, they might be able to go back to playing. He put his controller down and sauntered into the kitchen. Everyone watched as the white Ford Bronco ambled down the highway with around a dozen police cars in pursuit. From what he remembered, Arnesto could tell it wasn’t going to end for a while and decided to head home. His bonding with the testers would have to wait.

  “You’re leaving?” asked a surprised Hiromi as he caught Arnesto heading out the door.

  Arnesto smiled, happy that someone cared about his departure. “I’ll catch the miniseries,” he said. He would have several to choose from.

  Road Rage

  Silicon Valley, California

  Thursday, April 13, 1995

  Morning

  The Unabomber had been caught soon after Arnesto’s tip. However, Arnesto felt uneasy. Unless he had missed it, there had been no mention of the capture of McVeigh, the would-be Oklahoma City bomber. Of course, McVeigh wasn’t yet big news; if he had been captured, it’s possible he had been brought in quietly. Maybe the FBI confiscated his truck bomb and wanted to keep a lid on it to prevent copycats. Still, the two-year anniversary of the end of the Waco Siege was quickly approaching. It probably wouldn’t hurt to check.

  Arnesto called the FBI from a public place on a burner, the new, disposable cell phone of choice for drug dealers and time travelers.

  “Agent Whiteside, please,” he said to the woman who answered.

  “I’m sorry, Agent Whiteside is out on assignment. Would you like to leave a message? I’ll make sure he gets it.”

  “Is there any way you can transfer me? He’d really want to talk to me personally.” Especially under the circumstances.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  “Alright, I’d like to speak to whomever is in charge of the McVeigh case,” he said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Timothy McVeigh.” He spelled out the last name.

  After a long pause, the woman on the other end of the line said, “I’m sorry, I can’t find a reference to a McVeigh. Would you like to talk to someone in investigations?”

  Why were these things always so difficult? “Actually, could you transfer me to someone at the Oklahoma City office? Thanks.”

  Once transferred, he spoke briefly with the male agent who answered the phone. From the conversation, Arnesto felt that either the FBI never looked into McVeigh, or looked into him, found nothing, and terminated any inquiries. It was also possible they were watching him and staying tight-lipped about it, but that seemed unlikely.

  But if they had no interest in McVeigh before Arnesto’s call, they certainly did by the time he told them about the yellow Ryder truck filled with explosives coming from Kansas to their very doorstep in a few days’ time.

  Unfortunately, that was all he could remember. When they started asking Arnesto questions about himself, he hung up, then destroyed the burner and threw it away.

  He felt relieved. Surely, they wouldn’t need his help anymore. But as he looked at the people around him, his relief evaporated. What if they didn’t believe him? There had never been an attack like Oklahoma City before. It would remain the deadliest act of domestic terrorism for decades to come. Even if they didn’t believe him, they had to check it out. But what if they came up empty? What if there was some breakdown in communication somewhere? Argh. Still, what could he do at this point? There wasn’t any sane reason to travel to Oklahoma himself.

  Right.

  He grumbled, drove home, and started packing.

  Katrina insisted on driving him to the airport.

  “I’m sorry about the timing of this,” he said.

  “Not at all! These people need your help,” she smiled. “Go. Help them integrate your network code or whatever.” He had told her that he was flying out to one of their partner companies to help with a last-minute crunch. She believed him.

  “I was supposed to help you with our wedding plans this weekend.”

  “I know, and you’ve been a big help so far. Huge, in fact. But I can handle the rest myself,” she said. “This is a free out. You should take it.”

  The first time they got married, she chided him for not helping enough. This time, he exhausted himself trying to help and she didn’t even want it. It was a hit to his pride, but he had far graver concerns.

  During the flight to Oklahoma City, he reminisced about Waco. There weren’t nearly as many deaths this time around; maybe McVeigh wouldn’t seek retribution? But then he remembered their conversation. McVeigh had seemed so bitter even before Waco had turned tragic. No matter. If there was even the slightest chance of history repeating itself, Arnesto had to try to stop him. He was sorry he had bought those bumper stickers and had shredded them at the first opportunity.

  He tossed and turned in his hotel bed all that night. When the alarm went off at five o’clock, he awoke with a fright and jumped out of bed. He ate his bag of airline peanuts and some other junk food he had purchased from the snack machine the night before, then got
himself together and checked out of the hotel.

  He drove past the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and was delighted to see it was still there, though he was concerned with how easily he drove by it. After his warning, shouldn’t they have set up roadblocks or brought in tanks or something?

  Before long, he was on I-35 North. He traveled about an hour north without seeing any yellow Ryder trucks coming the other way. This made sense as most do-it-yourselfers probably wouldn’t have been up at that hour.

  He found a good stakeout point at a gas station alongside I-35 South. From there, he could see a little ways north without McVeigh noticing him in return. Around the corner from the gas station entrance, away from foot traffic he kept at least one eye on the road, trying to look busy for appearances. He looked over his road map, flipped through the car manual, and even had a few pretend conversations on his phone. More than once he was tempted to get back on the road and move to the next gas station to the north, but decided to wait until someone at his location got suspicious of his presence.

  Before anyone noticed him, he noticed someone else.

  Something yellow was headed his direction on I-35 South. As he put his phone down, he watched as a single-occupancy, yellow Ryder truck grew in size then disappeared under the overpass. Arnesto only caught a glimpse of the driver, but he looked clean-cut and possibly young. It wasn’t definite, but it was likely his man.

  Arnesto started up the car and pursued. It didn’t take long to catch up; the Ryder was going two miles under the speed limit. Arnesto looked to see if the truck was sagging under the weight of all the explosives that might be inside, but he couldn’t tell. His heart racing, he steeled himself as he began to overtake the truck. As he approached the front, he let up on the accelerator to bleed off a tiny bit of speed.

  Closer, closer, any second now… It felt like slow motion as he passed the cabin of the truck, peering inside as he did.

  He hated being right all the time.

  There was no doubt in his mind. It was McVeigh. He restored his previous pressure to the gas pedal, reclaiming the tiny amount of speed he had given up and increasing the distance between them until finally pulling into the right lane about one hundred yards in front of the Ryder. So far, so good. McVeigh had neither tried to run him off the road nor started firing at him. Given McVeigh’s outstanding skill as a sharpshooter, this was not out of the question. However, in all likelihood, McVeigh probably hadn’t given Arnesto any thought at all. If nothing else, he would have been distracted by the black-and-white coming up behind him.

  Arnesto, feeling he was a safe enough distance in front of McVeigh, pulled out his phone to call 911. Instead, seeing the police lights were meant for him, he put it down.

  You’ve got to be kidding me... Wait, maybe this is a good thing. He pulled over and got his license and registration ready. Though he had never been pulled over in this lifetime, his former self had received a few tickets, so he knew the routine. He made every attempt to ignore the Ryder as it passed, heading toward its obliteration; one suspicious glance from him could alert McVeigh. What is taking this cop so long? Come on, come on!

  Arnesto rolled down his window. He knew better than to get out of the car, but it was tempting. Instead, he held his arms out the window with papers in hand and tried motioning the officer to approach.

  At last, the officer got out of his car and sauntered over. “Are you in some kind of a hurry?”

  “Listen, there’s a yellow Ryder truck up ahead that’s filled with explosives.” Arnesto half expected to be interrupted at this point, but since he wasn’t, he continued, “Here’s my cell phone, I was about to call 911. You need to stop that truck before it reaches the city.”

  “Hold on. How do you know it’s filled with explosives?” the officer asked.

  “I… saw it,” Arnesto said. It was mostly a lie, though it’s possible his former self saw a recreation on some crime show at some point. “We left the same hotel in Kansas early this morning. I was returning my key to the front office when I caught a glimpse of him putting something in the back. He turned and saw me and quickly shut the back door like he was hiding something. I didn’t think much of it, but something about the way he acted seemed odd, so I chased him down and was about to call the police when you pulled me over.” These were all lies.

  “And what did you see exactly?”

  “It looked like some big containers full of liquid toward the front. He and another guy were moving some large bags of something from a pickup into the Ryder, too. I think it was fertilizer.”

  “What makes you think it was a bomb?”

  Arnesto wasn’t sure how to answer this. “Who rents a Ryder to transport stuff like that? I can tell you, there was no furniture in that truck. If nothing else, you’ve got him on illegally transporting dangerous goods, right?” The officer seemed to be debating whether to believe this preposterous story. “Look, give me a ticket, that’s fine. I will happily take a ticket and slow down. I’m not in a rush anymore, but you are. Please, call this in. Ask someone to check with the FBI.”

  That seemed to strike a nerve. “Wait right here, don’t move,” the officer said. He hustled back to his squad car and got in.

  Arnesto sat back in his seat, still holding his license and registration. He looked in the rear view mirror and could tell the officer was talking over the radio, though he couldn’t hear what he was saying. Thirty seconds passed. Come on, hurry up! Arnesto looked down the interstate, but the Ryder was long gone.

  Finally, the flashing lights disappeared from the rear view mirror as the police car took off, accelerating with considerable speed. Arnesto smiled wide as he watched the black-and-white roar down the highway.

  “Yes! Go get him, copper!” Arnesto yelled. He rubbed both his hands through his hair as he exhaled. He shoved the registration back into the glove box and put his license back in his money clip, which he then put back in his pocket. He breathed one more heavy sigh of relief, then started the car.

  He stuck to the speed limit at first, but then went a little faster. He was hungry. After about fifteen minutes, he noticed there were a couple vehicles pulled over to the side of the road. As he approached, he saw the flashing lights from a police car pulled way over to the side. There was no Ryder truck present. With a sinking feeling in his gut, he slowed down and pulled off the road ahead of the civilian vehicles.

  Only then did he see somebody attempting CPR on the lifeless, bloodied police officer thirty feet past the squad car.

  “Motherfucker!” he yelled. With a death grip on the steering wheel and gritted teeth, he pushed down hard on the accelerator. This was it. This would be the day he would wind up on the news.

  He was going to ram the truck off the goddamned road.

  Sure, he would have a lot of explaining to do. Maybe they would go easy on him, seeing as how it was a truck bomb. Or maybe the truck would explode and he would be vaporized. That would suck, especially with so much more to do, so many more lives to save. What would his family think? Was he having second thoughts? No! Catch up to the truck, do the PIT maneuver you see the cops doing on television, then drive the hell out of there as the truck fishtails, flips over a few times, and explodes. Oh, God.

  His rental car screamed down the interstate. It was the fastest he had ever driven, at least in this lifetime. Or maybe both, he wasn’t sure. Take that, former me. The miles were flying by, but the road signs reminded him that the distance to the city was shrinking in a hurry. Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Where is the truck?!

  Suddenly, brake lights. Everybody was slowing down. An accident? It must have been big; there were several police cars, but where were the vehicles involved? There weren’t any; it was a roadblock.

  At the speed he was travelling, Arnesto had to hit the brakes hard to come to a safe stop. People were merging into the right lane, but he had learned to drive in Massachusetts, where etiquette is frowned upon, so he took the opportunity to get farther ahead in the left l
ane. In so doing, he caught sight of a yellow truck peeking out in front of a semi way up ahead.

  Now what? If they somehow let McVeigh through, Arnesto would be unable to catch up to him in time. But clearly, they were here for McVeigh. Should he get out and run ahead to the police to warn them, hoping they wouldn’t shoot him as he did so?

  He never had time to decide.

  The police ahead all ran off to the right side of the road. Arnesto could just make them out as they chased McVeigh, who had taken off running himself. Police officers and federal agents alike were waiting for him, however. McVeigh, desperate to escape, chose to ignore the orders to halt. Still running, he drew his gun at an officer in the way. Arnesto heard the hail of gunfire that came next.

  As a result of his twenty-nine gunshot wounds, McVeigh was dead.

  Agents handcuffed McVeigh’s lifeless wrists, holstered their weapons, and walked back to their vehicles. Two people were dead, but at least it was over.

  Still, something didn’t feel right. Arnesto had a sobering thought: hadn’t McVeigh been caught without resistance right after the bombing? Why did he run this time when he knew his chances were slim at best? Just as an agent climbed into the driver’s seat of the Ryder, Arnesto knew the answer.

  Oh no.

  In that moment, the two-minute fuse McVeigh had lit before fleeing ran out.

  The explosion sent officers and truck parts hurtling through the air while the shock wave blasted through vehicle windows, sending broken glass everywhere. In an instant, everything seemed to be on fire.

  Arnesto, dazed with loud ringing in his ears, tried to assess the situation. The cars around him, protected from the blast due to distance, were now crossing the center divide to leave the scene on I-35 North. Arnesto followed their example, checking the map for an alternative route back into the city.

  One carwash and a flight later, Arnesto was back home watching the news. Although he had saved more than one hundred and fifty lives, all he could think about were the seventeen who had perished.