by Michael Dodd
The only thing I need you to do is go back and see to it that the President does not confer with this time traveler. As I know you were a wealthy man in 2065, you will, no doubt, have the funds with which to make this a reality. President Wooten was old and rather sickly. On July 12, 2067, he underwent four-way bypass surgery at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. If it were possible to see to it that he did not survive that surgery, I would be eternally in your debt and both of us could then consider the world to be our oyster.
One other thing, Kenneth: The amulet that you carry on your person is much more than you have been told. Not only can you use it more than once; you can use it to go backward or forward in time. Whoever told you that you could only go back 60 years was either misleading you or ignorant. The amulet works by accessing your temporal resonance frequency. In essence, it reads your mind. The reason people who used it only went back in time 60 years is because that’s what they were told, thereby causing them to assume it, think it, and make it a reality. You said yourself that you went back 80 years. You must have been thinking 80 years.
To go back to 2067, just hold the amulet, press down with your thumb and think 2067. Make sure you get there in time to affect the President’s operation on July 12.
Good luck to you, Kenneth. I have a feeling that this is the start of a beautiful friendship, as someone once said.
Good luck,
Omni
Michael was flabbergasted! It was Omni! His Omni! The one who controlled the world in his native timeline. Gates was unaware of everything that had happened in his timeline and wholly ignorant of what the world would be like had he not come back in time and stopped World War III. “Read Kenneth’s response, Gates,” Michael asked with fear and dread building up inside him.
“Okay,” Gates answered, and began to read the reply:
Omni, my dear friend:
I was quite surprised to hear that the amulet was capable of so much more than I was told. I tested it out for myself, thinking of going back only one hour. It worked! There I was, standing in the conference room where I had been exactly one hour before. As you can imagine, that convinced me.
As a result, I have decided to do as you have asked. I don’t imagine it will be a great hardship to return to 2067, just three years ago, and see to it that the hospital staff and/or the physicians make certain “errors”, so to speak. A four-way bypass is still a very dangerous procedure if everything doesn’t go as planned: a mechanical failure; an electrical outage; incorrect lab
results…anything could happen and it would look like an accident. Just bad luck for President Wooten, I guess.
Now that I have this amulet and know how to use it, I am not worried as to whether you’ll keep your end of the bargain; I can go anywhere I want and to any time I want. However, I believe you will keep our agreement, so I will leave tomorrow morning for July 1, 2067. That will give me enough time to accomplish our goal; then, I’ll return to a time one week after I left, according to this timeline. I have to make my employees think I was gone for a week.
I’ll contact you upon my return, Omni. Good luck to the both of us.
Sincerely, your partner in crime,
Kenneth Graham.
“Dear Lord, he’s going to kill President Wooten,” Michael gasped. “If he does that, everything I did will have been washed away, including you.”
“Then we have to stop him,” Gates announced.
“Do you suppose what Omni said about the amulets being controlled by our thoughts is true? If it is, then we have the means to go back and stop him.”
“You’re right, dad.” Gates suddenly realized what he meant. “I’ve got an amulet and so do you. He said he was going back to July 1st. We could easily go back to June 30 and see that the President is safe.”
“I agree that one of us should go, Gates, but it sho uld be me. I know the President and Kenneth Graham doesn’t know me. That gives me a double advantage.”
“When did you first meet the President? Would he recognize you in July of 2067?”
Michael had to mull on that a bit. “Well,” he said, “I started talking to the President on the phone in August of 2065, shortly after I arrived. I believe it was August of 2067, about a month after his surgery that I actually came to the White House and met with him personally. So, while I hadn’t met him in August of 67’, I’d spoken to him on the phone extensively over the previous two years. That ought to be enough to get me by.”
“What should I do while you’re gone?” Gates asked.
“Well, aside from taking care of the younger version of yourself; you could see what you can do about making sure Kenneth never uses his temporal communication device again. If worst comes to worst, we’ll just turn him in to the Feds. They’d shut him down in a New York minute.”
Gates didn’t think that was such a good idea. “Yeah, but then the government of the United States would have control of a device that would allow them to communicate with the future. Imagine what damage they could do?”
“You’re right, Gates. You’ve got to come up with a way to destroy it. Perhaps some kind of virus or malware could be introduced to screw the whole thing up?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Gates said. The two were seated on the couch in the living room. Gates rose to his feet and reached into his pant pocket, withdrawing the amulet and allowing it to rest gently on the palm of his hand. He looked down at it with a reverential fear he’d never had towards it. “We’re gonna have to test it out, don’t you think?”
Michael stood and pulled out his amulet, as well, looking at it with the same deference as Gates. “Yeah,” he said, “I suppose we will.”
Gates turned the amulet over and over. “So, do you think it still makes a difference which side of this we press our thumbs to?”
Michael flipped his amulet over a few times before saying, “I have no idea, but for the sake of security, I’ll just push the side with the raised edges.”
Both men sat back down beside each other and smiled. “There’s only one thing that I don’t understand,” Gates posited, “If what Kenneth and that Omni fellow says is true, and the amulet is controlled by one’s thoughts, why did I go back in time exactly 60 years when I was ten-years old? I didn’t know anything about it. I was just playing with it.”
“I have no idea, son,” Michael said, “but our amulets are the same as the one Kenneth’s got and he said it worked for him.” He stood as though for a purpose. “Okay, there’s no time like the present,” he said, holding the amulet out in front, “What do you say I go back in time ten minutes?”
“Okay,” Gates said, “What were you doing ten minutes ago?”
“I think we were reading Kenneth’s correspondence,” Michael said. “Okay, here goes.” He closed his eyes and said, “I’m going back in time only ten minutes.” He repeated it so the amulet could hear him clearly. Then, he pressed his thumb against the raised edge of the amulet. Five seconds later, he disappeared.
When Michael opened his eyes, he was standing in the same place in the same room. At first, he assumed it didn’t work. Then, he realized that Gates was no longer sitting on the couch, and then quickly noticed Gates and…another version of himself sitting at the dining room table, reading Kenneth’s correspondence, just as they’d done ten minutes earlier. Neither the “past” Gates nor Michael noticed him at first. He decided not to interfere with their movements over the next ten minutes, so he moved to the den and hid, still able to watch the living and dining rooms.
In a few minutes, the two men got up and came into the living room, seating themselves on the couch, as before. Michael listened from the other room as they had the same conversation as before. When the other Michael stood and pressed his thumb against the amulet, disappearing before his son’s eyes, Michael stepped out of the den and announced, “It worked!”
Gates, of course, saw only his father’s disappearance. When Michael suddenly called to him from the other side of the
room, he was startled, to say the least. Once Michael explained what had happened, both were convinced the amulet could be counted on to deposit him anytime he wished.
The two sat back down on the couch and giggled like children. “Okay,” Michael said, getting serious, “Now we’ve got to make a plan.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
2640
When Cathy awoke, it took her a few moments to realize she wasn’t dreaming. Her sense of reality was temporarily discombobulated. Once her eyes seemed capable of focusing, she glanced slowly around her surroundings, unsure if she should rise or stay down and play dead. Apparently, however, Darvo’s wife, Seiko, noticed her eyes open and came to see how she was…and who she was.
“Are you alright, young lady,” Seiko asked as she knel t down before her. “You took quite a tumble. Are you feeling alright?”
The best Cathy could do was to slowly nod her head like an imbecile. “Where am I,” she asked with hesitancy, then remembering what the man had said, added, “Is this the year, 2640?”
Seiko answered; pretty sure Cathy understood what had happened. “Yes, my dear. What was the date when you left?”
“2140,” she said. “I was testing a device to see if it would allow me to travel through time.”
From the other side of the room, Cathy heard laughter. It sounded like the man she’d first met. “Well, sweetheart, your device worked. You’ve travelled 500 years into the future.” Darvo walked in and stood behind Seiko. “Was that the plan or did something go terribly wrong?”
Both of these people seemed kind and genuinely concerned about her well-being. The man displayed a playful sense of humor. Cathy began to relax a bit. She slowly sat up and honestly looked at her hosts for the first time. They were clearly a man and woman, human and “normal” looking, except that they were much smaller than the average person she’d known. Perhaps they were “little people”. “My name is Cathy Akers,” she began, hoping a routine introduction would lead to more information. “A man from my timeline managed to get ahold of a method to travel through time. He returned to sometime in my past and changed the course of the future I came from. I don’t suppose you have the ability to travel through time, do you?” Well, she’d certainly laid it all out there.
Darvo and Seiko smiled at her as if she were a five-year old child who’d just asked them where babies came from. “Child,” Seiko responded, “In our time, traveling to and fro through time is something teenagers do.”
Darvo jumped in, obviously vicariously speaking to one of his children, who must have been within earshot. “Unfortunately, some of them, like our moronic son, Cappo, misuse the privilege and get grounded to this timeline…for six months!” He then turned his head back to Cathy and smiled. “However, we’ll see if we can be of assistance to you…Cathy?”
Cathy nodded her head. This time, a little more assuredly. “Thank you very much. I’d appreciate any help you might be able to offer. I’m sorry for being an inconvenience,” she added demurely, “You’ve both been very kind.”
Seiko turned to look at her husband, hovering over her shoulder. “You see, Darvo, people of the 22nd century are not as bloodthirsty as you’ve always claimed. This young lady is very wellbehaved.” She then turned to Cathy and asked, “Are you hungry, Cathy? I’d be happy to make you something to eat.”
“To be honest, Seiko,” Cathy answered with a sigh, “I’m starving.”
‡
2140
To say that the scientists at TimeCorp were utterly stunned when Catherine Akers disappeared would be putting it mildly. That’s not to say they were stunned by the actuality of someone disappearing before their eyes, it’s just that no one in the room seriously believed that the alloy—and that’s all it really was— they’d put together would actually result in time travel. At least, they assumed Cathy had traveled through time; any other possibility would have been too gruesome to contemplate.
Mick Jagger and Helen, who were still standing at the front of the gathering, looked to the other scientists to be as dumbfounded as were they. Clearly, while they hoped for some sign that their efforts had not been in vain, no one in the room believed it would actually work.
The first one to utter a word was Gerald Cestaric. You could always count on Gerald to break the ice. “Wow!” he called out, “I don’t know what just happened, but it sure was cool!”
“Thank you, Gerald,” Helen said, then , turning to Mick, she softly spoke, “Mick, I just pray she went where she needed to go safely.”
“Amen,” Mick said. He looked like he wanted to say something, but waited while he gathered his thoughts. “If she made it back, then whatever she managed to do would have already affected us. Has anyone looked out the window lately?”
As a group, the thirty-odd scientists hustled out of the auditorium and made a beeline for the front windows. When they got there, the environment they could make out did not look any more inviting than before. The general consensus was that Cathy had either not traveled through time; not gone backwards in time, or far enough to make a difference; made it back but wasn’t able to affect any significant change, or that she just got vaporized into nothingness.
Suffice it to say, the mood dulled quite a bit. Everyone in the building, including the maintenance workers and cooks, knew their supplies were running out and that they would soon have to venture out into a world that was wholly unfamiliar to them and perhaps even dangerous. They would, perhaps, have no identities, no homes and no families or friends. The prospect was overwhelming.
“There’s a theory,” Gerald piped in, “that changes in the timeline have to work their way forward; that if someone changes something in the past, it doesn’t necessarily change instantaneously in the future. The theory suggests that time moves forward in waves, like the wind or the ocean. It may be that any changes she affected haven’t reached us yet.”
Everyone knew that Gerald, the Temporal Theorist, was the one most likely to have an answer for their concerns; nonetheless, most took it with a grain of salt: an attempt to assuage their fears and doubts. They gave him high marks for the attempt, but no cigar.
‡
2067
When Michael appeared on June 30, 2067, he was standing just outside his old apartment building in Washington, D.C. After discussing the best possible places in which he could suddenly appear without fanfare, they decided on his old apartment building. It was from here that he had contacted President Wooten in the first place. He didn’t have a key to the apartment, but he knew his neighbor would let him in; John Dalton was pretty easy to get along with.
Once inside his old apartment, Michael walked around, looking at all the personal items he’d forgotten about in the last three years. He was really here. Wow. Time travel never got boring. Now, he needed to get to work.
The President was not scheduled for surgery until July 12, so he had plenty of time to stop Kenneth from sabotaging the surgery. As he’d pointed out in his letter, Kenneth had the means and the wherewithal to cause any number of errors, bribe any number of people or eliminate any number of medical personnel in order to accomplish his goal of killing the President. It was Michael’s job to see that he failed. It was also imperative that he somehow wrest away from Kenneth the amulet, keeping him trapped in one timeline.
It was just after 3pm in this timeline. Michael looked around his apartment and found his Comp: the device he brought with him to 2065. If he remembered right, and it really wasn’t that long ago, the secret service used his name, Xylon, when referring to the mysterious caller who often communicated furtively with the President. By this time, the President, while having not met him personally for another month or so, trusted Xylon (Michael) and, if possible, always took his calls.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained”, Michael said as he punched in the White House number stored in his Comp. After the White House operator answered the phone, Michael identified himself as Xylon and asked to speak with the President. He told her it was ur
gent.
As usual, the President answered with alacrity. “This is Jack Wooten. Do I have the pleasure of speaking to the enigmatic Mr. Xylon?”
“You do indeed, Mr. President,” Michael replied, “and remember, it’s just…Xylon.”
“My people tell me you said this was urgent. May I ask what’s so important?”
Michael only knew one way to do things: straight forward and to the point. “Mr. President, as you know, I’ve come here from the year 2125. I realize that you still have doubts about me and my claim to be a time traveler. A month from now, you will have no more doubts; but, the reason I’m calling you now is to warn you of an impending assassination attempt by someone who has come back from the year 2070 to kill you.”
“The man had to travel ba ck in time only three years to take a shot at me?” the President said, tongue-incheek, “Is he upset that he missed his chance earlier or something?”
“Mr. President, I hope you have come to trust in the things I have told you thus far. There is far more work for us to do in the next few years, but right now you must trust me on this. The man is planning to sabotage your upcoming bypass surgery so that it looks like you died on the operating table.”
“Wait a minute,” the President said, “No one is supposed to know about that surgery. Hell, I don’t even know the date yet.”
“It’s June 12, Mr. President, at Walter Reed. It’s part of my history. You and I will meet in person, one month after your successful four-way bypass. It is then that I show you some futuristic technology that finally convinces you I have been telling you the truth about being from the future.”
“ Xylon, even if you are from the future, how do you know someone has come back three years in time to kill me if we meet in person one month from now? He obviously wasn’t successful.”
“The reason, Mr. President, is that I’ve already lived this timeline once before. I have returned again, only this time from the year 2070. The world is at peace and you are one of the most respected statesmen in world history. You’re still President in 2070 and into your third term. We both felt it was imperative that you remain at your post until the danger passed.”
