“You have a time machine?” Arthur Wilbur looked more CPA than angel investor: five-six, wire-rimmed glasses, bow tie, tweed jacket.
Dina, arms crossed over her gray M.I.T. sweatshirt, said, “I can’t discuss anything until you sign the NDA.”
Without reading, Wilbur scribbled his signature and handed the sheet to Dina’s partner, Jarrod.
Jarrod scanned the document. “Excellent.” He smiled, a gap between his front teeth, and stuck the paper in a filing cabinet. “We do have a time machine. Please follow us.”
The pair led Wilbur from the cramped office down an unpainted hallway.
“No security?” Wilbur craned his neck, looking for cameras.
Dina shook her head. “We put all our capital into the device.”
The three exited the hallway into an open loft, fifty-feet square.
“And here it is.” Dina stood next to a metal platform, caressing it like a game show model.
In the center of a metal platform stood a glass cylinder, meter and a half tall, sixty centimeters in diameter. Dull white floor. Open door in its side. Colorful wires: purple, green, orange, snaked from its wide base, three times the width of the chamber. A pair of hoses connected to the conical brass top.
On the left: a panel as tall as Wilbur filled with dials, switches, readouts, and blinking lights. To the right: four folding tables covered with computer towers and monitors.
“That’s our research.” Dina pointed to half-a-dozen bookshelves filled with journals.
Wilbur grabbed a notebook. Jarrod swallowed hard, wondering if this egg could make sense of the numbers, Greek letters, and sketches.
Wilbur re-shelved the book. “How about a demonstration?”
“Of course.” Dina handed him a sheet of paper and envelope. “Write something only you would know.”
Wilbur scrawled the name of the first girl he kissed. Dina took the envelope, laid it in the center of the cylinder, and locked the chamber.
The green LED readout atop the panel flashed: 98
Dina sat at one of the tables, typing, glancing between a pair of forty-inch monitors.
“We’re going to send it forward a little over a minute and a half.” Jarrod stood at the control panel, flipping switches.
Fog, sublimating carbon dioxide from the dry ice hidden in the platform, filled the chamber.
“What’s that?” Wilbur asked.
“Field density is increasing,” Dina said. “It’s a side effect of the charged particles.”
Once the envelope was obscured, Jarrod turned a dial. The floor of the chamber lowered one inch. An identical floor rotated into place. When the fog cleared, the envelope appeared to have vanished.
Wilbur raised an eyebrow.
Green numbers counted down: 45…44…43…
At twenty seconds, the fog returned. Jarrod spun the dial in the opposite direction. The “process” that sent the envelope into the future reversed. When the air cleared, the envelope lay in its original position. Dina retrieved it from the chamber.
Wilbur tore open the envelope, and recognized his handwriting. “Ninety-eight seconds? Can you go further?”
“The power requirements increase with the cube of the distance traveled in time,” Jarrod said. “Same goes for mass.”
Dina said, “We need more power, which means more money. Last month our electric bill was mid-five figures.”
Wilbur scratched his chin. “You can send things forward. What about back?”
“We’re close.” Dina held her thumb and finger a millimeter apart. “But we need capital.”
“How much?” Wilbur asked.
Dina and Jarrod looked at each other. Sick of peanut grifts, their plan was to ask for five million. But this mark seemed eager to bite.
“Ten million.” Dina watched Wilbur’s reaction.
The investor didn’t blink.
Dina’s heart pounded. She never felt as alive as when bumping a rube. “That’s to move heavier objects forward. Fifteen million to go back.”
Wilbur glanced at the chamber, panel, computers. “I’ll need to speak with my associates. They may wish to see with their own eyes.”
Jarrod frowned. Each demonstration increased the risk of being found out. “We thought you were the decision maker.”
“Perhaps I can decide,” Wilbur said. “Tell me how this works.”
“Do you have a PhD in theoretical physics?” Jarrod asked.
“Or a basic understanding of quantum teleportation?” Dina said.
“Fair enough.” Wilbur shrugged.
Jarrod sensed he should apply pressure. “We have a potential investor visiting later this week. She represents foreign interests. Dina and I would like backing from Americans, but we’ll do what’s necessary.”
“Anyone else with knowledge of this project?”
“Just us,” Jarrod said. “None of our colleagues, no one at the university, have a hint.”
“Secrecy is a must,” Dina added. “We worry about other scientists, but also the government. If the Feds knew what we were up to, they’d swoop in with some bullshit excuse about National Security, shut us down, and steal our research.”
Wilbur smiled at that. “I’m pleased with your discretion.” He reached under his jacket, pulling the silenced semi-automatic from his shoulder holster.
Jarrod raised his hands, confusion on his face. Wilbur fired three times into his chest. Jarrod’s shirt erupted in a sea of red.
Dina screamed, turned, and made it two steps before bullets pierced her lungs and kidneys. She fell to the ground, gurgling sounds coming from her mouth.
Always thorough, Wilbur added a headshot to each.
He returned to his car, retrieving a tire iron and two cans of gasoline. With one swing, the time chamber shattered into a thousand shards. He gathered up the notebooks of research, doused them with gas, and lit a match. Flames engulfed the room.
By the time Wilbur drove away, smoke billowed from the windows of the building.
He phoned his superior. “I finished with the pair in Cambridge. They achieved minor forward displacement. Nothing backward. No chance they could have disrupted our operations.”
“Any idea what method they were using?”
“You want answers to questions like that? Send a tech, not an enforcer.”
“Touché.” His boss sighed. “You free for lunch?”
Wilbur glanced at the chronoscope on his wrist. “Yeah, give me twenty subjective minutes. How does Prunier in Paris 1925 sound?”
James Blakey lives in the Shenandoah Valley where he writes mostly full-time. He’s a three-time finalist for the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Derringer Award, winning in 2019 for his story, “The Bicycle Thief.’ He leads critique groups in Harrisonburg, Charlottesville, and Shenandoah County. His paranormal thriller SUPERSTITION will be published by City Owl Press in 2024. Find him at JamesBlakeyWrites.com.
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