by Michael Shaw
He bit his lip. “I warned you, Jon. If you go back, there may be nothing but death for you.”
“Is that a threat?”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled something out. A roll of cash. He dropped it onto the floor, swiftly turned away, and vanished into the closet. A flash of white followed.
I got up and ran toward the closet. Inside was another portal. I hit the green button. Nothing. I fell to my knees. “No.” I punched the wall and screamed. “No!”
The watch was gone. Hunter had used me again. My head spun. I was out here in the middle of nowhere. “What am I going to…” I lifted my eyes. Across the room was the other closet.
I walked toward it, picking up the roll of cash. Why did Hunter leave this? I put it in my pocket and opened the other closet door. There it was. I grabbed the glass case and smashed it onto the ground. Reaching down, I picked up the watch. “Model Six.”
I walked into the closet and set the date. January 5, 2026. “You better work,” I mumbled, remembering all the issues “Steven” had mentioned about Model Six. “You have to work.” I closed my eyes, and for what was hopefully the last time, I did it.
I pressed the button.
Part III: The Beginning
Chapter 35
It was more jarring than any jump I had ever made. Instead of a swift flash, it was a roller coaster of inflictions to my head and wrist. My body felt as though it were being tossed around. I didn’t just see one memory, either. To me, it was as though I was seeing all of them. My entire life, spliced together all at once for me to behold.
When I opened my eyes, I was on my knees. It was still dark. But the closet was closed. A couple lights shone through the slits in the doors. I peaked through. Dark figures stood inside the office. I looked down at Model Six. November 30, 2025. 11:00 pm. I closed my eyes. It went two months further back. The watch vibrated. I covered it up. Please don’t jump again. I closed my eyes, waiting for it to subside. Eventually, the vibration died down.
A voice from outside the closet caught my ear. I leaned forward again and looked through one of the slits in the door, staying as silent as I could.
A man sat on a folding metal chair. In front of him, on his knees, was a second man, bound and held by two unknown bodies. Shrouded in dusk, the men’s identities were disguised. Hidden. The only one that the light caught was the only man I could recognize. Alex Nelson’s father. But when the other figure spoke, the one sitting in the chair, I recognized him, too. My father. Looking up in the corner, I saw a small object. A video camera.
My lips parted. No, it can’t be…
“James,” my father said, “you know what has to happen next.”
“I trusted you,” James Nelson replied, eyes down on the ground.
“No. You defied my trust. How hard do you think this has been on me?”
Alex’s father rose his eyes to my father. He stared at him for several seconds.
Is this… My eyes jumped from the two of them to the camera, and then back to them. My heart sank into my gut. Is this the video?
“You’re stealing from our company,” James choked up through a gravelly throat. His face beaten and bruised. “Your own company.”
“I’m thinking of a broader network,” George Ashe menaced.
Mr. Nelson grimaced. “Everything you’re doing is illegal, George.”
It provoked no response.
“You’re going to bring your own livelihood to the ground,” Alex’s father exhaled.
“Incorrect,” my father replied. “I’m transitioning.”
“It’s embezzlement.”
“It’s resource management.”
“It’s wrong!” Mr. Nelson spat back, raising himself up just slightly.
One of the two men at his side kicked him in the back. He fell forward and hit the ground. My father’s feet sat inches from his face.
The men pulled Mr. Nelson back up to look at him.
“When are people going to stop dying for this?” Alex’s dad demanded. “When will you stop shedding blood to cover up your dealings with Eclipse?”
Eclipse. My eyes watched, wide open. Was Hunter telling the truth about my father?
He tilted his head and put a hand into his pocket.
Mr. Nelson shook with fear. Or anger. Or both.
My dad pulled out two gloves and put them on.
Don’t do it, Dad. I held my breath.
Reaching into his other pocket, he pulled a gun.
Mr. Nelson closed his eyes.
“There will come a day when blood will no longer spill.” Dad pulled the slide of the pistol back painfully slow, loading a round. “Whether today is that day,” he pointed the gun at Mr. Nelson’s face, “is up to you.”
Alex’s father looked my father in the eye.
Dad, don’t.
“You know where I stand,” Mr. Nelson said firmly.
My father slowly rose to his feet.
I shook my head. My lip shook. This can’t be happening. This isn’t what was supposed to happen.
“Look where you are, Jarod.” He put his other hand on the pistol’s handle. “I am the one who gets to stand.” With that, he pulled the trigger, sending a slug into Jarod Nelson’s head.
I closed my eyes. Disbelief. I swallowed tears.
“Clean it up,” my father said coldly. The sound of scuffling feet followed.
Model Six started vibrating again. I looked back at it. Stop. Please don’t. The vibrating increased, and I couldn’t contain it. My hand knocked against the door.
The feet stopped moving. “What was that?” said a voice I didn’t recognize.
I tried to remain as still as possible. But it was too late. The doors slid open, and on the other side was a man. To my left, my father. Behind him, another figure I didn’t recognize.
The man in front of me pulled out a pistol and held it against my face.
I cringed and closed my eyes, but the gunshot never came. Instead, I experienced another flash.
Model Six had jumped again.
Chapter 36
My arm flared; by now, I knew that feeling all too well. I closed my eyes and just let it pass. Pushed by adrenaline. Fueled by my mission to make things right. I didn’t care about the pain anymore. I didn’t even care what happened to me. I just had to change things. I had to change that January day in 2026.
When I opened my eyes, everyone was gone. No men. No dead body. Just an empty room. I stood up and lifted my wrist. December 1, 2025. It was the next day. Noon. I tapped the screen. That’s impossible. The pocket watch had never jumped forward in time.
The part of my wrist just behind my palm pulsed every second. I pulled on the watch band. The Crimson had already appeared in my wrist.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Howard and Hunter were telling the truth… With my eyes still shut, I saw my father, shooting Jarod Nelson in the face. My skin crawled. I put my head in my hands. My father is a murderer. He killed my best friend’s dad. This changed everything. I didn’t know what to do. My lips trembled as it sank in. My father was not the man I had thought he was. I opened my eyes, but the pictures remained in my vision.
I stumbled out of the closet. The sun shone in through the windows. I staggered to the wall and looked out. No cars by the building. I opened the door to the hallway. All the doors down the sides were open; all rooms were empty. Nothing but eerie quiet.
I went downstairs and left the house. A subtle wind blew through my hair. December 1, 2025… I looked around. There was just a single road. But inside myself, I really saw two. The first road was to stand back and not change the past. My father killed Mr. Nelson. My father was stealing from Luna to start Eclipse Technologies. If I were to let Hunter Calhoun and Peter Simmons kill my parents, then it would actually prevent even more bloodshed. Bloodshed that my father himself would be sure to inflict. But I chose the second road. Regardless of everything else, I chose a second path that appeared within my mind. And it fixated on one thing abo
ve else.
They are my family.
If I could change this one part of the past, then I could change more. I finally had the power to reach into history and shape it for the better. I couldn’t just sit back and watch my father die, even though I knew what he had done. And above all, my mother was in the mix, too. Innocent life, dying at the hands of those who would come for my father. I could fix it. I just have to do everything right; saving my parents doesn’t have to lead to more death. I stared down the road, determining that somehow, I had to get back to Sacramento. Coming back with this kind of knowledge gave me the ability to change my father’s mind. Once I saved him, I could explain everything that had happened. I could still fix it.
Hunter Calhoun betrayed me several times, but he also taught me something about purpose. Whether he believed it or not, in his old age he told me that every person had an endpoint toward which they were destined to travel. I still did not know how I felt about the conflict. Does free will prevail, or is every man bound to his fate? I wasn’t sure, but I was sure of one thing. I did have a purpose. The kind of purpose Hunter had talked about. I had one thing that would define my life, and I trusted wholeheartedly that this was it. My purpose was to save my parents. And I wasn’t going to fail.
I stepped forward on that single road in Yuba City with these things in mind and a watch around my wrist. Was it my will or my watch that had the power to control circumstances? In these moments, I hoped it would be both.
∞
I walked until the road ran into town. After some searching, I found a small diner and walked in. An elderly woman served coffee from behind the counter. I approached her quickly. “How far to the Aurora stop?”
She looked me up and down, a dry expression in her eyes. “Shuttles leave from that bus stop over there.” She pointed with her coffee pot toward a bus stop across the street. “The train’s a mile out.”
I used some of the money that Hunter had left me and took the Aurora back to Sacramento, fortunately with no chases this time. That stack of money was confusing to me. Why did Hunter leave me money? It was as though he knew I was going to find a way to go back. Almost like an invitation, a challenge; he wanted me to go against his younger self. I didn’t care how he thought it was going to end out, but I was determined to win.
I stepped off the train. You killed my best friend. I walked toward the nearest motel. You killed my family. I cracked my knuckles and looked at my wrist. The Crimson remained dormant for now. This time, I’m going to kill you. The watch began to vibrate. I held it down with my other hand, praying for it not to jump. It subsided for now, but I worried that Model Six would continue to be trouble.
∞
Savings Inn. Again. I stayed in a different room than the one that Hunter and I would rent sixteen years later. I thought it was possible that I would run into him here, which would be fine by me. I had a month until the night of my parents’ death, and if there were any way to intercept Hunter before that night came, I would take my opportunity.
I peered out the window; Christmas lights hung in several areas across the street. I closed the blinds and sat in the room, ready to spend a holiday alone. Ready to wait for a month. I pulled out the pistol and thought. over everything. Hunter Calhoun and Peter Simmons… I knew Hunter would be difficult to track. When I met him as “Steven Edward,” he was in his sixties, which meant that he could have gone even further back in time than the day of my parents’ death. Maybe he used the original watch design that he stole from me as a young man; he could have tweaked it so it could go further back. Or maybe his older self gave him Model Seven, which would be why he had to interact with me as an old man in order to get a pair of hands to make it for him. My head started hurting.
“Steven Edward,” I chuckled bitterly. It was all a lie. That night in Yuba City made me question everything. Hunter must have planted the card with “George Ashe and Steven Edward” on it into the pocket watch, leading me to seek him out.
I made a plan that day. Knowing Hunter Calhoun would make himself invisible, I planned to find anything I could about Peter Simmons. On top of that, I would check on my family and the house as often as possible.
The watch once again jumped around on my wrist. I grabbed it with my left hand. It sent a shock through me, and I cringed, closing my eyes. The moment my eyelids pressed down, something happened that I had not experienced for some time now. This wrist watch was more like the pocket watch than I had wanted it to be.
The cup tipped, and memories spilled into my head.
∞
I saw through the eyes of David Kemp. He sat across from Howard Miller, in that dark workplace. This must have been before they went back in time. How was I seeing this now? David hadn’t touched Model Six. Perhaps the memory was already planted in me by the pocket watch, and Model Six was just showing it to me.
Howard held a small photo. A little girl that shared his likeness. I’d seen that picture before; it was his daughter. Howard’s eyes fixed on the photo. Red and watering. David sat silently.
“Keilah,” Howard sighed with pain.
David folded his hands together.
“It means lively.” He tried to smile.
David bit his lower lip, rubbing his palms against each other.
“You know that I’m much older than you and Jacob. My experience with Jonathan Ashe occurred a long time ago.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You know that I used to work for him. But that was before I even know that he was using the company as a front for his illegal dealings.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Ashe had been slaving on a product for a long, long time. Trying to get it just right. Trying to make it perfect.”
“His time machine,” David mumbled.
“He encountered an issue, though. Someone had discovered something about him. I asked him several times to explain it to me, but he never gave a straight answer.” His hands began to shake. He stared at the picture, lip trembling. “The man in question lived in my own neighborhood. So…” He lifted his eyes to David. “Ashe told me to kill him. Make it look like an accident. It was the ‘best option,’ according to him.”
“What did you do?” David asked softly, his voice just barely sounding.
Howard inhaled unevenly. “I refused. Emphatically. That was not my job. And I couldn’t bring myself to do something so cruel.” He held the picture in front of him tenderly. “Ashe immediately, unflinchingly responded.” His lips parted, and his eyes stayed fixed on the photo. “He said, ‘You have a daughter, don’t you? I’ve seen that picture on your desk. What a gorgeous little girl.’” Howard lifted his eyes, tears welling up. “I didn’t know what to say to him. I choked.”
David broke his gaze when he saw the tears. He lowered his eyes to the floor.
“‘Someone in your neighborhood will die this week,’ he said. ‘It will be that man, or it will be your daughter. Whether it is the former or the latter is up to you.’” He put the photo in his pocket. His tears fell down the cheeks. “I said, ‘You wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t take me from the only family I have left.’ But he just looked me square in the face. Without batting an eye, he said, ‘I had family once. They were taken from me. No matter what I tried to do, I couldn’t stop it. Their corpses lay in front of me. I lost the people I loved. Why would it be any different for you?’”
David kept his eyes on the floor. He scratched at a callous in his palm.
“The fact that he would coerce me to kill with threats of killing showed that it wasn’t about that man. He could’ve gotten anyone else to do the job. Any of his people that he hired under the radar. He chose me specifically for a reason. It was about loyalty. ” His hands, resting on his lap, clenched into fists. “And he was making a point. Showing me that he wouldn’t be stopped.” He let out a shaky breath.
The room fell into a silence.
David’s eyes rose to him.
“I didn’t do it. I - I couldn’t.” Howard looked at his own hands. Palm
s, open toward himself. “And so, Jonathan Ashe kept his word.” He lowered his hands back onto his knees. “I got out of there as soon as I could. Got protection, which wasn’t cheap.” He sighed, closing his eyes. “I started a new life. Went to law school. Eventually, I became an attorney.” His eyes opened and met with David’s. “I tried to forget about Jonathan Ashe. I almost could, until I found out that things were getting worse. That he was going to release that product of his to the world. And that was when I met you and Jacob.”
They sat silently for several more seconds. The still room’s only sound was a moan from the light in the ceiling.
When the quiet became almost unbearable, Howard looked directly at David. “When we go back…”
“That is, if it works.”
“It will work,” Howard assured him. “When we go back in time, Jonathan Ashe will just be a child.” He shook his head. “He won’t even know about the things he’s going to do.”
“But we do know.” David pointed a thumb at himself. “We know what he’s done.”
“You once said that you write your own destiny.” Howard slowly rubbed the side of his chin. “Do you think it’s the same for Jonathan Ashe?”
David lowered his hand down. His gaze focused intensely on Howard. Their eyes locked.
Howard’s face spoke fear and confusion. “Do you think he could choose a different path than this?”
David leaned forward. Pressed his fingers against his forehead. “We’ve already seen what his choice was.” He held his hands out. “We’re living in the effects of that choice.”
This time, Howard was the one to lower his eyes.“There is no changing that man,” David persisted. “We have to kill him as a child. If we fail, he will grow up to be a monster.”
∞
The flash ended. My top half lurched forward. I thrust my hands down and kept myself from falling. My eyelids lifted open. I sat in the hotel room. Did time just pause? I looked down at the watch. It hadn’t. Curious, I pressed the button. It didn’t even work. I sighed. What else is wrong with this thing? It had jumped back and forward with little internal time in between, but now it couldn’t even pause time. If it had travelled forward in time, though, maybe it could do it again. I rotated the knob forward, but the display didn’t change. It turned out that the only thing this watch would let me do was pull the dial back, but I certainly didn’t want to do that. I was already a month further back in time than I needed to be. “Model Six,” I muttered. “Piece of junk.” It vibrated and sparked. I flinched.
