The Time Change Trilogy-Complete Collection

by Alex Myers

  President Arthur didn’t speak for the longest time. He watched the people scamper about below, moving to and from their trains. Finally, he said one word, “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?” Martin asked.

  “Yes, I’ll make Frederick Douglass my vice president.”

  “Can you do it before Christmas?”

  “You don’t ask for much do you? Sure, before Christmas. Plus there’s a bonus in this for me.”

  “What would that be?”

  “Why, I would make myself bulletproof, or I should say assassination proof, because no one would want a nigger in the White House.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “The baby’s not mine.” Jack mumbled.

  He felt the tingling and tightness on his skin; it felt like a bad sunburn. The first time he time traveled, he had been unconscious; lying exposed for hours and had just assumed that it was sun exposure. The last time he time traveled, he woke up passed out in a hospital bed and was unaware of the sensation. He was in a flat, open area about the size of a football field.

  He lay on his back in tall grass. He sat up, looked around, and saw that he was in a field, not just any field, his field—his time travel field. He saw over the tops of the knee-high grass. It was the same field all right. This was where the warehouse stood in 2014.

  Standing, he noticed that the VITU handheld computing device that he had been carrying had either not made the trip or was utterly lost. Brent said that it probably wouldn’t make it, but it had been worth a try.

  There seemed to be a lot about time travel that Brent didn’t know. Everything seemed to have to do with anchors, and Brent wasn’t even sure in what time frame Jack would end up.

  Things looked deserted, which meant that it could have been any time prior to the 1950s. Then he noticed a lone radio tower at one end of the field.

  For sure not the 1850s. He hoped he hadn’t missed his target of finding his father. The sun was directly overhead, yet it was cool and slightly breezy, possibly late fall or early winter—the same time of year he had left. He took special note and etched the area in his mind because if he was going to go back to his time, it would be a one-shot affair from this field at midnight on the twenty-fourth of December. They would cut his anchor to the twenty-first century; they would sever the string and make him forever a part of this time period. He would be euthanized.

  Wearing black pants, black shoes, white shirt, and a black jacket, Jack was dressed for anything. The outfit wouldn’t turn a head from 1850 to 1940. It was also made with the latest material, had a cooling and heating effect, and it had a hardening material that stiffened when force was applied.

  Jack made it to the edge of the field when he heard the sound of men and horses approaching fast. There was something about the men’s voices that set the hair on his neck bristling.

  Two men appeared on horseback at the end of the field and did a quick once over. They wheeled around, surveying the edges of the open area. Jack took a step deeper into the cover and stood behind a tree.

  “Are you sure this is where he is supposed to be?” The larger of the riders asked. “We’ve been here for two months and every time we check there’s nothing.”

  “All I know is that this is the place it’s supposed to be and that was an electrical storm. That’s what we are supposed to watch for,” the shorter and smarter looking of the two men said. He had a scar that ran from his forehead to his chin, and it looked like the two halves of his face didn’t quite match up.

  “Dale, I told you we should not have left our post and gone into town.”

  “We’ve been watching this dang field for such a crazy spell and nothing has happened. Hell, the boss ain’t even around. Sends us our money in the mail. How in tarnation is he even going to know whether we investigate or not? Let’s just take a gander though.”

  The men looked into the woods several times, and Jack thought they were looking straight at him. After a while, they gave up and moved away. Fearing a trick, Jack held still in his hiding place for over thirty minutes. Finally, he eased out, skirted the open field, and headed north.

  Jack wasn’t back in the 1850s. First, he passed farms and by the time he got to the highway, there were houses. He came to a cross street and smiled as he read: Rigg’s Road. Broadcreek was close and Jack saw fences. The eight-foot stone fence looked like it ran for miles. This was further out than his or Murphy’s property reached, but Kazmer or Frances must have expanded the company’s holdings.

  There were giant buildings of brick and glass with several people and vehicles moving about. A gate and gatehouse were about a half a mile ahead. As he approached, from the distance, it looked like modern architecture, but there was a strangeness to it. Signs, spaced two hundred feet apart, warned of the high-voltage running along top.

  Life had been such a whirlwind for him lately. Effectively, it was only a week since he had met his sister and ended up at the Sacco plant. It was also within the week that he found out everything he thought he knew about Frances was wrong.

  It made more sense this way than the other though. He traced his lineage back to Frances, and if their child would’ve been his, he would’ve been his own great-great-grandfather. As much hocus-pocus as time travel presented, being his own great-great-grandfather was too far-fetched to be possible. But it still made him angry that he had Abner Adkins in his DNA. The thoughts of Abner and Frances being together nearly made him physically ill. He was having a hard time believing that the foundation of his entire relationship with Frances was built upon a lie.

  The reflective glass on the guard shack made it hard for Jack to tell if there was a guard, and if so, how many. As he approached the gate, an armed guard walked out.

  “Do you have business here today, sir?” He was a giant man, at least six-foot-five, three hundred pounds, and ready to bust out of his uniform. His nametag said “Drake”.

  It looked like Miles Drake standing in front of him. Was he seeing a ghost or maybe losing his mind?

  Raising his hat and putting his hand on his gun, the guard looked annoyed. “I said, what can I help you with, Mac?”

  “Name is not Mac,” Jack said. He was half trying to provoke the big man.

  “Why are you looking at me like that, Bub? Are you looking to cause some trouble?”

  “No, not at all. Drake? You wouldn’t happen to be related to Miles Drake would you?”

  “Miles Drake? That’s my uncle, why do you ask?”

  “I knew your uncle back in the day.”

  “I don’t know how that could be possible. You don’t look much older than me and my uncle was killed over thirty years ago. Bless his soul.”

  “I’m probably older than you think, but I was a lot younger then. How did your uncle die?” Jack wanted to see what this young Drake nephew would know or thought he knew.

  “At the hands of the same son of a bitch that killed my dad, Jack Riggs.” The big man spit on the ground. “And if he wasn’t dead already, it would be my duty to kill him myself.”

  Jack pursed his lips and nodded his head in agreement. “I bet you would. Is Kazmer Sevenski in?”

  With that single question, the guard must have known that Jack wasn’t common riff-raff off the street. It looked like a light bulb went off in his head, and perhaps he didn’t want to put his job in jeopardy. Drake reentered the guard shack, picked up a wooden handled phone, and punched in some numbers. He was half in and half out of the building, never taking his eyes from Jack. “What’s your name again, Bub?”

  “Jonathan Riggs. Tell him he was at my wedding and sang ‘Zivio’.”

  The guard quietly repeated the info into the phone and rolled his eyes when he came to the part about singing ‘Zivio’. “Mr. Sevenski will be right down. You’re free to walk around the gate and wait over here.”

  In about five minutes, a vehicle appeared in the distance. It looked like a cross between a golf cart and a four-wheeler and was driven by an older man. A man about Jack’s age w
as in the passenger seat.

  An older version of Kazmer was driving the small cart, and the closer he got the bigger his eyes grew.

  The last time Jack had seen him, Kaz must have been thirty-one years old. He was now fifty-five and looked seventy. As he got closer, his jaw dropped open. Jack walked away from the guard shack so he could talk to his friend in private.

  Jack never told him about the time travel, but Jack thought Kaz had sensed something. He was going to have to get Kaz away from the man that was sitting next to him in the cart.

  Kaz slammed on the brakes, almost throwing the man sitting next to him through the front windshield. They were about twenty feet away— Kaz staring Jack straight in the eye. Jack couldn’t read the expression on his old friend’s face.

  Jack glanced back at the guard shack and the giant man was half out the door, watching him. His hand was still on the butt of the gun.

  “Kaz, it’s me Jack—Jack Riggs.” Jack had completely forgotten about the guard who wanted to kill Jack Riggs. Apparently, he hadn’t heard him shout out his name.

  “No, this is not right.” Kaz looked like he was about in tears.

  “Kazmer, it’s me, I can prove it to you. I can tell you things that only you and I would know.”

  “Jack Riggs is dead. I threw dirt in his grave.”

  “I’m telling you I’m not dead. I met you at Mattie Turner’s house. You were out by the barn. You had just brought the plow back.”

  Kazmer looked genuinely frightened, and he hadn’t moved a muscle since screeching to a halt. “Stop, you don’t know nothing about this. I saw my friend Jack shot and killed.”

  “Kaz, it’s a long story, but I just need you to believe me. I can tell you anything—those long nights working on our inventions together. In the back of your gunsmith shop. Moving out here to Murphy’s place. The day we got Robbie after Mattie left.”

  “What did I find on the riverbank the day you all were out at my mom’s farm?” The man sitting next to Kazmer asked Jack.

  “Oh, my gosh, you’re Robbie Turner. We found your little dog Buddy.”

  There was a look of true wonder on the man’s face. “Dad, I don’t know how it is possible, but it’s him,” he said climbing out of the cart and standing.

  “No, there is something wrong here. I cannot stay. Get in Robbie or I shall leave you.”

  “But you’ve talked about him for over twenty years.”

  “I am going.” Then Kazmer began to drive off, never looking back.

  Robbie and Jack watched him pull away and disappear in the distance. They stood without speaking. Finally, Robbie asked, “How?”

  Jack told Robbie about the time travel, and Robbie told him about taking over the Riggs Company. It was as simple as that.

  “Why did you come back?” Robbie asked. Jack appreciated the straightforward question.

  “Three reasons: one, a massive comet is heading to Earth in 2014. I need to alert people to it.”

  “How do you plan on doing that?”

  “I was going to head over to Mount Jefferson at the University of Virginia.”

  “The McCormick Observatory? Of course, I was at the dedication about five years ago. We are all good friends with the McCormicks, have been since—”

  “Me,” Jack interjected holding up his hand and waving it.

  “Yes, since your time. I’m good friends with Cyruss’ sons Lee and Hall. Between the McCormicks and the Riggs Corporation, we are the two biggest benefactors of the University Astronomy Program. Hopefully that can grease the wheels. And here is the coup de grace, my friend Ormond Stone is the director of the program there.”

  “I was hoping you’d say something like that. I must say that is the easiest thing on the list,” Jack said.

  “What’s next?”

  “There almost no black people in my time.”

  “When is your time?” Robbie asked.

  “The end of 2014.”

  “No black people? You mean niggers or I guess Negros. And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Is that really the way you feel?” Jack asked.

  “Of course not, I’m just kidding. It’s not something that I spent a lot of time thinking about. Your wife, Miss Frances, spends full-time these days on humanitarian issues, but I don’t spend an immense amount of time thinking one way or the other about it. The Hopwoods, Hercules, and his kin all live here on the complex. His two sons, Josh and Brent, I count as two of my closest friends. I grew up with these folks. Mary, the daughter works as a researcher at our medical facility.”

  “Good, I’ll give you the names of a few black folks, absolutely brilliant men, who will be an excellent addition to your team. I’m going to seek out the help of a few people I know, Sam Clemens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Frederick Douglass to see if I can’t get them to help me.”

  “That task seems a lot more difficult, what’s the last one?”

  “It is. There are a lot of bigoted, pigheaded people out there and it’s going to be hard to get them to change.”

  “And what else?” Robbie asked.

  “Thirdly, my dad, Martin Riggs, is here and I have no idea what he’s up to. We can’t track him because things are happening in the future in real time. We’re not going to know what he’s up to until right after it happens. He’s doing something with the Democratic Party. We don’t know what he’s doing other than trying to change the timeline. My dad is not a good man and frankly, I’m worried about what he has planned.”

  Robbie was tall, handsome, and walked with a fine upright bearing. He looked as if he could be Jack’s brother.

  “Frances is not here?” Jack asked. They had walked the mile back from the gate to the main headquarters.

  “She’s in New York right now. She’s there because that’s where most of the humanitarian work gets done. She worked for the company for a while right after you died—I guess that’s how I say it right, died?”

  “That’s as good a way as any.”

  “Your grave is in a cemetery out by the airfield, if you want to see it,” Robbie said.

  “No, I’m all set. Seems a little creepy to me.”

  “We make an incredible amount of money. Do you need some?”

  “No, I have several thousand, I might need a little at some point, but I’m only here for about three weeks. My one-way ticket home is leaving on Christmas Eve,” Jack said.

  “Anxious to get back to your family and home?”

  “I kind of have a mom, but she doesn’t know she’s my mom. I’ve got a sister I just met and my dad is here. As far as a home goes, I live on a boat.”

  “Your old boat is here,” Robbie said.

  “I’m surprised. I thought Frances would’ve sold it.”

  “I asked her about it and she said she might need it someday. I guess you figured you were coming back?”

  “Is the boat seaworthy?” Jack asked.

  “Seaworthy? That boat is in pristine condition. You could eat off the decks. The thing is better maintained than any boat in Norfolk, Virginia. Miss Frances gave it to me or year ago. I really love sailing; I just don’t get a chance to get out much because I’m always working. Say…do you have a place to stay?”

  “No, I thought I would stay with your father, I didn’t think he would react like he did, but I don’t have a problem getting a hotel room.”

  “Why don’t you stay on your boat? It’s yours anyway. It’s ready to sail if you need to.”

  Jack hesitated and then agreed the boat would be a perfect solution. “Alright, that would be great. Where is it?”

  “It’s docked at Miss Frances’ house. Your old house.”

  “She still lives there?” Jack asked.

  “She stays in town sometimes with your daughter Emily and her husband, William. You’ve got two granddaughters and another grandbaby on the way. Do you want to go meet them?”

  “How could I drop by and jump into their lives only to jump out again in three weeks’ time?” Jack wonde
red if he would see Abner Adkins in their faces, too.

  “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. Miss Frances has always told me to call her Aunt Frances. Emily and I had a secret, maybe even forbidden, love affair. Probably my biggest regret was walking away from that. Hell, all I’m trying to say is that Emily is a wonderful woman, heck, I even like her husband, William.”

  The headquarters were in a four-story U-shaped building that hugged the land between Meadowlake and Silverlake. The dark green granite and glass building was perfectly at home in the Poquoson pines around it. The architecture was late twentieth century and built in the style that Jack had started twenty-four years earlier.

  They came up on the parking lot first. There was a healthy mix of both electric and internal combustion vehicles. The vehicles had a lot more wood on them and they weren’t as aerodynamic as cars from his time, but he was especially surprised at their size—most were very small.

  “Electric cars belong to people who live here on the complex and petroleum burners to those that live on the outside.”

  “What’s with the electric and small cars? Are you all trying to save energy?”

  “I guess you could say that. Petroleum production has never been able to keep up with demand. That’s why there are so many electric cars. We can power those with coal and we have plenty of that.”

  “Aren’t we, er, you, I mean the Riggs Corporation, into oil exploration?”

  “Sure we are. It’s our most profitable division.”

  “And you can find enough oil?” Jack inquired with a bit of surprise.

  “We can find it; we just can’t process it fast enough. That’s why our cars are so efficient. We have an automotive division with two models that get up to fifteen miles a gallon!”

  “That’s not very good. I can probably help you get those numbers up a little higher. You’re an engineer, right?”