By 11 a.m., he, Dexter and Dr. Graham were booked on a flight to West Palm Beach, where Kane’s other residence – besides his penthouse overlooking Central Park – was located. Everyone agreed that learning his personal history was key to developing a solution, though with each step they took Jeff felt more and more like fixing a time travel snafu simply because they wanted to was opening an enormous can of worms. With everything he’d been through, he felt he was well aware of the dangers of time travel, and the concept that whoever’s in charge of it has the power to inflict irreversible damage. Right now, the “good guys” seemed to have the technology, but “good” was relative and could change quickly. George Mellen’s murder was part of this reality’s history, and it was sticky as to why singling out that instance in history to change would justify changing any others. Just because Dexter knew about it, and because it had been caused by time travel, didn’t necessarily make it right.
Of course, Jeff had been through this, and had been forced to weigh the assassination of General Belochkin in a similar manner. In a very pro-West way, ending what would have been a reign of terror before it started seemed prudent - especially having been given the opportunity. If Kane’s murder of Mellen was a noble target, it would be very easy to pinpoint other moments in history that could alter things in the name of “good.” Again, whoever was in control could define what was “good” however they desired. It wasn’t what he’d envisioned back in his lab while inventing time travel.
He hadn’t yet figured out how to approach it, but he felt that it was in his power to bring some order to the potential chaos that he’d unwittingly created.
Jeff heard footsteps approaching and looked up to find Dr. Graham approaching from his left. She was carrying a Starbucks coffee and what looked like a yogurt parfait – after they’d made it through security, she’d mentioned that she needed to get “some food in her system” and had darted off as soon as they got to the gate. She was an interesting sort to Jeff, though the extent of their relationship so far was their stunted conversation in the board room and the ride to the airport. They’d talked mainly about her morning conversation with Kane, and since Jeff had sat in the passenger seat of the SUV, he hadn’t even had the chance to study her body language to see where she fit into all of this. Of course, she was the psychologist, so he figured she’d probably analyzed him up and down already.
She stopped about two feet from him and set her Starbucks on the seat. “Alright, it’s been long enough,” she said, motioning with her hands for him to stand up. He did, and she immediately threw her arms around him. She hugged him with a tight squeeze, and his hands reluctantly and confusedly settled on her lower back. “I’d given up. I thought you were dead. I was sure of it.”
“I’m not,” he said, grunting from the strength of her embrace. He thought the USTP must have been a close-knit group.
“I was going crazy. It took four hours for me to get a moment alone with you.” She pulled back from the hug and pressed her lips against his. Her right hand slid to the back of his neck and pulled him to her.
He didn’t know what to do. While he didn’t pull away, he didn’t engage in the kiss with her either.
After a moment, she pulled back. “What’s wrong?” She looked behind her. “Dexter? Is he back?”
Jeff stared at her blankly. He was speechless.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. Now her face had a look of concern – not concern about the science of their situation, but the concern of a lover who was about to have her heart broken. Jeff realized immediately what was happening.
“Oh, man,” he said. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
He shook his head slowly. “I’m not the Jeff Jacobs you knew. I’m a different version of him. The man you, I assume by all this, were dating, went back in time and didn’t return. I came from a different time and place.”
He could tell from the look on her face that her head was spinning. They were still embraced, so she pulled away and stood a foot from him. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I don’t know you,” he said. “In fact, the only way I even know your name is because someone said it in the meeting. When did you join the Time Program?”
“I would think you’d remember recruiting me...”
He shook his head, again looking around at the travelers walking past him, hoping they weren’t talking too loudly. “No, see, that’s it. I never experienced that. I’m going to assume you came on board two-and-a-half, three years ago?”
“About that.”
“Let’s sit, so you can eat,” he said, motioning her to the seat next to him. They sat, but she laid her Starbucks on the ground at her feet. When she was settled and looking at him, still with the confusion on her face, he said, “I’m assuming I don’t have to explain to you the pitfalls of time travel, one of which is multiple versions of people.”
She shook her head pensively. “Yes, I guess that can happen if we’re not careful.”
“Well, there’s really no way to be careful,” he said, “but that’s a bigger conversation. The short of it is that if you time travel to a place where you already exist, or if you time travel to a place more than once, there will be multiple versions of yourself there. Well, I did that. One version of me left the present time to go to 1983 Russia. Stop me if you’ve heard all this already, but my mission was sabotaged, and I ended up three years in the future in a reality where the Soviet Union hadn’t fallen. With the help of a Russian scientist, I was able to jump back to 1983 to fix the damage – but while I was there, there were now two versions of me. Technically, there were three versions, as there was a boy in America that was me, as well, but we didn’t run into him. You following?”
She nodded. He didn’t think she was getting it, but he’d give her the benefit of the doubt. He noticed Dexter come out of the restroom and head their way. “Quickly, before I go on,” he said. “You seemed to be nervous that Dexter might see us. Did he know we were together?”
She shook her head as if waking up. The change in conversation must have been a shock to her system. “Um, not officially, but he might have guessed somewhere along the way. The relationship would have been frowned upon by the USTP.”
“I would imagine,” he said. “Okay, good. Anyway, there were two versions of me there in Russia in 1983 at the same time. Unfortunately, the actions of the second me derailed those of the first me. The other one, seeing the chaos that ensued, jumped back in time to his present, leaving me there. That Jeff then started the Time Program.” He paused as Dexter returned and took a seat next to them. “And he’s the one who recruited you.” He left out the part about their relationship.
“And what happened to you?”
“I was nearly killed by Soviet guards. The only way I escaped was by launching myself back through time to this present time.”
“This isn’t your present time?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m actually from three years ago.”
She paused, shaking her head. She was clearly confused, and how could she not be? But, she collected herself with a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “That must be pretty hard for you,” she said.
“Well, thanks to my pal here, who’s got me on a pretty tight schedule,” he motioned to Dexter with a smile, “I haven’t had any time to think about it.”
“Yes, but your home, your bank accounts, your family, your friends...” The look of confusion had been replaced with earnest concern. She must have really had feelings for the other Jeff. Little did she know that – if he had to wager a guess – the other Jeff was traveling obsessively through time to chase some woman whose name he’d found in a discarded cell phone.
“I guess I’ll get to that when I get to it,” he said. He stuck out his hand. “In any case, I’m Jeff Jacobs. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She laughed, though it wasn’t a hopeful one. “Victoria Graham,” she said.
“I’ve
been meaning to ask you about that,” Dexter said, leaning in to the conversation. “If you went back to 1983 and as a result changed the first Jeff’s plans – which were to send you to this present time – how are you still doing what you’re doing? If you never went to the present day Soviet Union, how could you have fulfilled your mission?”
“I’m working on that, but here’s my general theory,” Jeff said. “There are two perspectives you need to consider when you look at time travel – the user, or the traveler, and everyone else, who we’ll call ‘history.’ Having experienced all of this, the memories are in my mind. Which means that the possible realities actually exist. As long as the chance for new realities to exist isn’t closed off – which would mean someone dies – those various universes are still out there. Even if they seem unlikely. I came from a possible reality. Just because the younger me changed his actions that caused that possible reality doesn’t mean that the reality no longer exists. Otherwise, once time travel began to be used, everything would unravel because every reality, every universe, is dependent on decisions and actions from preceding universes. That make sense?”
Dexter laughed. “No. But I wish I’d had you here before I gave my talk at Johns Hopkins the other day. Geez. I think I was way off.”
Jeff shrugged. “Remember, it’s a theory. These are all theories.”
“That all must do a number on your mind,” Victoria said. “Being the only one with those memories.”
“You have no idea. The time traveler is in a very unique position. And a very powerful position, if he decides to be dishonest about what’s happened. In the wrong hands, it can cause a lot of problems.” He echoed his conversation with Dexter from the night before.
“I would imagine,” she said.
“Dexter knows. He didn’t have to come back and tell everyone about Benjamin Kane. He could’ve just come back and assimilated himself into life. No one would have been the wiser.”
“Probably would have been the better choice,” Dexter said. “Wish I would’ve thought about that at the time... I’m kidding!” He defended himself from the look on Victoria’s face, and they laughed for a moment together before Dexter got serious again. “We could’ve used you, Jeff. After you left, all we could do was build off of your work. There was no creativity anymore. No one looking at the repercussions of time travel.”
“Who took my place?”
“Dr. Schmidt,” Dexter said. “You met him this morning. Under the leadership of Bremner, of course.”
“He good? Schmidt?”
Victoria was shaking her head. “He’s fine in his own right,” she said. “And in his defense, picking up where you left off, especially after the circumstances of your departure, was no easy task. He’s probably getting caught up to where you were about now, so the entire program has really been about the missions the past several months. Very little research. Very little breakthrough. If any.”
A voice came over the loudspeaker announcing that their flight would begin boarding momentarily. A nice perk of working in high level positions in the government was the ability to book a flight that was leaving within the hour.
“You know, since the beginning of the time travel experiments there was a comfort I derived from knowing I was overseeing everything that was happening,” Jeff said. “There was a fail-safe because I could control how far the experiments went. It’s disconcerting that, for the last year-and-a-half, I haven’t been around to watch.”
“And that someone else was in charge,” Dexter said.
Jeff shook his head as they stood and collected their luggage. They’d stopped at a department store on the way to the airport so that he could get a suitcase and some clothes – enough to last him for a few days. “No, it’s not about someone else being in charge. It’s about me not being in charge. Difficult to explain.”
“No, it makes sense,” Victoria said.
“Well, we’ll see what kind of control they’re willing to give me back,” Jeff said. Dexter laughed. “What?”
“I don’t know that everyone’s bought into the notion that you and the other Jeff are two different people yet,” Dexter said. “I think they’ll need to build up their level of trust first.”
“If they want Benjamin Kane stopped, they don’t have much of a choice.”
They pulled their bags to the gate and got in line to board the plane.
“Speaking of Kane,” Dexter said, “what are we going to find when we get to Florida?”
Jeff looked back at him. “I’m guessing we’ll find a man who knows nothing about anything.”
CHAPTER TEN
Benjamin Kane’s home in West Palm Beach was one of those estates you’d see featured on HGTV – the kind that would force you to vegetate in front of cable television in amazement on a Saturday morning, putting off doing something to improve your own less-substantial house. With Dexter driving the rental car, they’d entered Kane’s gated community past a Hispanic security guard with an exceedingly deep voice, and after a few turns had pulled in front of an enormous white building with pillars guarding the front door and nothing but water behind the house.
To Dexter, the house was fascinating even beyond its impressive size and luxury. As part of the interview process for Kane’s mission back to Depression-era New York City, he’d visited him at his condo on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and although he hadn’t been to Kane’s home in Florida, he’d known it existed... But that house had been in Tampa, and it wasn’t of quite the same stature based on what he remembered from a Google search. Apparently, killing off your family business’ competition necessitated a move from the Gulf Coast to a larger home on Florida’s East Coast. Driving around the neighborhood with Jeff and Victoria quietly taking in their lavish surroundings, he’d tried to contemplate why the outcomes were different, but he quickly realized that he wouldn’t be able to come up with an answer. With no way to access the details of Kane’s former life, the point was moot.
Kane was expecting them. Victoria had spoken with him in the morning, and then after the briefing at the USTP they’d pressed for arrangements to meet with him as soon as they possibly could. Which turned out to be late afternoon, the earliest they could get there. Dexter hadn’t seen the need for such a rush, but Bremner had forced the issue. The USTP wanted this situation wrapped up as soon as possible, presumably so they could move on with the program.
Prior to Jeff’s “return,” and based on the failed Kane mission, Dexter had recommended a number of protocols for efficiency and safety. First and foremost, he’d suggested that each traveler be accompanied by two USTP representatives – him and someone who was actually professionally trained to handle a volatile situation should one arise. In addition, he wanted the researchers to determine if there was a way they could bring information with them on the mission – if there was indeed a way to capture any history that was in peril of being lost. The program was currently giving thought to his first request, though most were wary of trying to coordinate three people in case something happened that necessitated a speedy return. With Jeff’s departure, the program’s scientists were not quite as strong as when he’d been there, though, so his second request had seen little movement.
Dexter parked the car and the three of them walked up the stairs onto the front porch, the pillars towering above them. The windows were blocked by cherry wood shutters keeping out the Florida sun, which was already making Dexter start to sweat as soon as they’d left the air-conditioned car. He was just getting used to the colder temperatures up north. There had been some rain while they were landing, but it had cleared out and the sun was bright.
Victoria reached out and pushed the doorbell, which spurred a resounding chime inside the house. They stepped back and waited. “So, what kind of guy is Kane? Successful businessman, sure, but is he a good guy?”
Dexter laughed. “Well, he’s a murderer for starters. While that should be enough to condemn someone, I’d say no, he really wasn’t a good guy. Everyth
ing I learned about him was that he was pretty ruthless – kind of a get-to-the-top-by-any-means-necessary guy. In person, he was indifferent. I mean, he was fine. He was polite. He was impressive. But he wasn’t endearing by any stretch of the imagination.”
“I don’t know that I’d expect endearing, but he sounded very genteel on the phone,” Victoria said quietly, giving them a look to remind them whose doorbell they were ringing.
“I’m sure he did,” Dexter said.
The door opened and a young brunette in purple nursing scrubs greeted them. She showed them inside and closed the door behind them. “Mr. Kane has been expecting you,” she said.
They hadn’t expected a nurse to come to the door. “Is he okay?” Dexter asked.
“Oh yes, as ever,” she said with a sad smile. “I come see him four times a week. I’ll probably add a fifth day for the duration.”
“The duration?” Victoria asked.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “Mr. Kane referred to you as his friends, which he often does with business associates. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if he really does have a prior relationship with people who come to see him. Mr. Kane is dying; he wouldn’t mind my telling you.”
“Cancer?” Dexter asked before he could stop the word from leaving his mouth.
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “I’m sorry, do you know Mr. Kane? I’m confused as to what how much you might know or not know.”
Fate (Wilton's Gold #3) Page 7
