Fate (Wilton's Gold #3) (14 page)

Jeff got out of his seat and went up to the screens. Dexter rose and followed him. “What are these here?” he asked, pointing to the three lower screens, where frequency graphs stretched from left to right.

“System performance,” Bremner said, coming up behind them. “Those just let us know the system is working the way it should.”

Jeff turned back to Bremner. “If something comes up red or yellow, who analyzes that data? Who makes the final call as to whether it’s passable?”

“Well, the team then takes control of the data,” Bremner said. “We would run it through the various analyses that are part of the program – historical, psychological-”

They heard a tone come from an intercom they hadn’t noticed next to the main doors. “Dr. Bremner,” a woman’s voice said. “Is Dr. Jacobs with you?”

“Yes, he is,” Bremner called across the room.

“Can you let him know that he needs to be downstairs in psych eval in four minutes?”

“I will, thank you.”

The line buzzed and the voice was gone.

“We’d better get you down there,” Dexter said. “Dr. Graham isn’t the most patient person.”

Bremner laughed. “You can say that again.”

“And who has final say if there’s disagreement?” Jeff asked.

“Well, nothing’s come up so far that’s warranted further review,” Dexter said, then looked at Bremner. “But according to the protocol, that decision would be made by you, yes?”

Bremner nodded. “According to USTP protocol, yes,” he said. “Though I doubt that it would come to that. I trust my team enough to reach a decision on their own.”

“One more question,” Jeff said, “and thank you for the explanation. I appreciate it. I’m assuming that when you’re analyzing relationships, you’re really looking at current, present-day relationships, yes?”

“Well, it’s a rolling cycle,” Bremner said. “After every three trillion relationships, the first one is already twenty-four hours old. The servers have been running for approximately 24 months, so ‘present day’ is kind of a moving target.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” Jeff said. “But for the Time Program, you’re not just assessing current relationships, but past ones as well – relative, of course, to the time and destination being proposed for time travel. Yes?” Dexter watched Jeff’s body language. What was he getting at?

“That’s right.”

“So given both of those capabilities, in theory, you could also assess threats in the past. You could set the parameters for, say, terrorism, and follow a path of relationships in the past that would lead right up to the present. In fact, it probably behooves you to do so, since you read about some of these terrorist attacks that took ten years to plan. Two years of data is probably insufficient, right?”

Dexter’s heart leapt. Mainly because he didn’t know how Bremner would react to being challenged. The challenge wasn’t in Jeff’s tone, but his thought process. But, Jeff had invented time travel, and experienced it, so he probably knew better than anyone the questions to ask.

Instead, Bremner smiled. “Your assessment is correct,” he said. “But that amount of data is incomprehensible. It’s easy enough for us to plug you into the system and analyze the relationships specific to you. But a general search like we’re doing with present day data would chew up the system. Maybe someday. But it’s not in the cards now.”

Jeff stuck out his hand and Bremner took it. “Thanks so much for the tour,” he said.

“It’s my pleasure, Dr. Jacobs,” he said. “It’s good to have you back. I’ve been craving some worthwhile scientific debate. We’ll schedule some time to chat more after you finish your program.”

“It’s good to be back,” he said, “to the extent that I am. Yes, let’s.”

After a quick wave to Abby, they left the control room and Dexter led Jeff hurriedly down a series of corridors until they came to a set of elevators that would take them back to ground level. Dexter pushed the button and, as they waited he asked, “What was that all about?”

“Think about it, Dexter.”

“I’m not getting it,” he said. “You think something’s amiss.” The elevator door opened and they got in. “Well, what is it?”

Jeff was silent as they rose. After a moment, the door opened and they exited into the USTP lobby. Jeff turned to him. “Sorry, I didn’t feel comfortable talking in the elevator. Dexter, they’re analyzing the present and the past to find and assess threats. They’ve got a fleet of a dozen time devices and any change they make to history happens right around us. You’re the only one who knows about Kane. I’m the only one who knows about Russia. And Bremner knows something he’s not telling us.”

“Look, Jeff,” Dexter said, pointing in the direction where they should be walking. “I’m as unhappy about all of this as you are. But that’s a conspiracy theory.”

They started across the atrium. “Dexter, how could that machine not have connected Benjamin Kane with George Mellen?” he asked. He spoke quietly. “You said that Mellen was a ‘regular visitor’ to 5
th
Avenue, which means he either lived or worked close by. They were direct competitors in business…”

“I don’t know, Jeff,” he said. “There’s no way to go back and find out.”

“Well, to be safe, let’s play our cards close to the vest,” Jeff said. “It appears they could eliminate either of us at any moment and the other one would have no idea it happened.”

“If playing your cards close to your vest is your plan, then you better be up for a challenge,” he said. “You’re about to spend a few hours with one of the top psychologists in the country.”

“Yeah, one who already thinks she knows everything about me,” Jeff said as they pushed through yet another set of double doors.

Jeff quietly closed the door behind him, suddenly realizing that he felt as though he was reporting to the principal’s office for some kind of reprimand. Not that he’d ever actually had to do that in all his years of school, but when Victoria greeted him with a simple “You’re late,” he knew it had to be the same feeling.

He hadn’t known what to expect when approaching her office, imagining the dark wood and coziness of a professional psychiatrist’s office, with big leather chairs and a couch for the patient. Now inside the room, he understood his imagination had gotten the best of him, as he was reminded this was still a government office. While it would be decked out with overpriced decor, it wouldn’t have the ambiance of a private doctor’s office. Instead, it more resembled a board room, with a long table surrounded by the best-of-the-best in swivel chairs. At one end of the room was teleconferencing equipment; at the other stood a whiteboard that filled the entire length of the wall. It was clean. The wall across from him – which is what differentiated this particular room from any of the conference rooms he’d been in in his life previously – featured bands of fluorescent lights that were dimly lit, shining a light blue across the room. They were immediately mesmerizing.

Victoria sat at one end of the table, a tablet computer propped up in front of her. She motioned with her head for him to take one of the chairs to her left, which he did, sitting and crossing one leg over the other. He specifically noticed how he sat, getting the feeling right away that he was being psychoanalyzed through every move he made. Immediately, the sensation started to irritate him. He wanted to be in control of the conversation. He was annoyed with himself, as well – he hadn’t even gotten thirty seconds in, and he’d already ceded power to her.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “We had a long way to walk.”

“Dr. Jacobs,” she said with a discomforting tone, “I know that you going through the program is a bit of a facade, but I hope that your intent is to take things seriously.”

“Absolutely.”

“Alright then,” she said, tapping at the screen on her tablet. The lights on the wall slowly faded from the light blue to a soft pink, the room dimming around him. “I’m going to start by showing you some images on the screen behind me. For each one, I want you to tell me what emotion the picture elicits from you.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding. Sounded easy enough, though he found himself trying to imagine Benjamin Kane sitting in the chair and going through the exercise, with the colored light reflecting off his face. He couldn’t picture it.

The screen illuminated with the first image – it was the famous Norman Rockwell painting of the boy and the girl sitting on a bench, their backs to the artist. He’d seen it many times before. In fact, he remembered his grandmother with a print of the painting on the wall in her family room. “Happy?” he said.

“You sure?”

“Yes, why?”

“Well, you didn’t say ‘happy,’” she said. “You asked me a question, like you’re looking to me for validation of your answer.”

Oh great.
“Well, ‘happy’ then.”

She switched the screen to the next image. It was a photo, which he recognized as the infamous riots in Tiananmen Square. While it wasn’t a graphic photo, it showed Chinese military forcing back the throng with shields and weapons. “Angry.”

“That’s what you feel? Don’t tell me what the people in the picture are feeling. Tell me what you feel.”

“Concerned?”

“Again, are you sure?”

He shook his head and laughed. “Are there right answers to these?”

“Do you want there to be right answers?”

He laughed again, thinking that the conversation was already too ridiculous for him. “Is this what our relationship was like?”

She wasn’t smiling. “The question is pertinent, Dr. Jacobs. Do you prefer there to be black-and-white, right-or-wrong answers, or do you lean toward some degree of gray area?”

He made himself serious. “I think that, given what my life has become, I have no choice but to accept gray areas.”

“But what do you prefer?”

“Well, that’s not really a fair question,” he said, already regretting doing this altogether. “Sometimes you have to play the hand you’re dealt.”

“Playing the hand you’re dealt doesn’t mean you have to like it.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Can I see the next picture?”

“We’re not done with this one yet,” she said, not breaking stride. “What concerns you about this picture?”

He pointed at the screen. “The people. They’re being hurt. They’re oppressed. They’re suffering. They need help.”

“So someone being harmed causes you to be concerned?”

“It does, yes.”

“Even if you don’t know them? Even if they’re faceless people on the other side of the planet that lived thirty years ago?”

“Well, sure. I have compassion.”

“What if it was someone you knew who was being caused pain? Would that enhance your emotional reaction to the picture?”

He hesitated. “I suppose so. Yes. That would be natural, wouldn’t it?”

“You would think.”

He looked at her sitting there, her hands on the table, poised to touch the tablet and move on to the next slide. It didn’t happen, though. After a moment, he said, “I feel like there’s an underlying message here.”

“How very astute of you,” she said, and Jeff saw that she wasn’t going to hold back on the sarcasm, despite her professional facade.

“I can’t imagine that all of the participants in the program have had to endure questioning along these lines.”

“No, you’re right,” she said. “But that doesn’t make it not relevant.”

“Explain to me how it’s relevant.”

“Jeff, why did you choose the California Gold Rush as your destination? Why that specific place and time?”

He sat back in his chair and sighed. “I see where you’re going with this, and you’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

“Alright,” he said. “You know why I chose that destination? Because I want to put this system to the test. You can’t use our conversation walking on the beach against me. And, not to put too firm a point on it, if this interview here today is really about the science, then you really shouldn’t use something the other Jeff told you against me, either.” He impressed himself, having not realized ahead of time that he’d be up for taking such a stand. Though, he knew he’d pushed the envelope with his choice.

“So this destination is all about the science?” she asked, unfazed. “Testing the system? It has nothing to do with you already having been there? Has nothing to do with that woman?”

She wasn’t ignorant, but there was no way he was going to admit that she was right. Instead, he shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. This, in fact, is a perfect test for the program. There should be little or no physical evidence that links me to that moment in time. But, as you’ve pointed out, there’s a real link. So how does what you know play into the calculations that would approve or deny me going on this mission?”

“With what I know about your lady friend in California, I wouldn’t recommend you for the mission.” She emphasized “lady friend” as scornfully as she could.

“Victoria, I’ve never met her. I don’t know anything about her.”

“How is that possible?”

“I’m telling you, I don’t know who she is. I went back to 1849 and saw her. She had my time travel device, which she threw into the forest with her cell phone, and then disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yes. Like gone. I’m not sure what happened, but she was gone. So I grabbed the phone and came back to the present.”

“Why didn’t you grab the time device?”

“Because, at that point, I didn’t know what would happen. The device was what led the FBI to me. I figured if I brought the device with me, when I got back to the present there would be a hole. I didn’t know where I’d end up.” He hesitated slightly, thinking that perhaps he shouldn’t be having this conversation at all, given his current environment. Still, he’d made the decision to use 1849 as his destination and had felt good about it the night before, so he allowed himself a deep breath to refocus.

“What did you do with the phone?”

He laughed, trying to anticipate her reaction. The story was so ridiculous, he could hardly tell it. “I brought it with me to Russia. But when the events in Russia went screwy and history changed... Well, I’d left it sitting in my hotel room, and the circumstances of my time travel mission made it so that I never got back to the hotel. The phone is lost in some reality, somewhere, I suppose. I don’t have it.”

She analyzed him for a moment. “That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Keep asking questions,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll beat it,” he said defiantly, almost enjoying himself in the challenge. Without losing eye contact, she tapped the screen of her tablet. The lights on the wall turned yellow. It was uncomfortable. “What’s with the colors?”

“Your moods in response to certain stimuli are consistently being addressed,” she said. “Since we can’t predict the atmosphere of a time and location in advance of a participant’s mission, we need to establish a comfort level so that you won’t have an emotional reaction which could jeopardize the mission. Kind of like someone getting claustrophobic on an airplane and going crazy, only far more dangerous. The lights, the room, my posture, even the line of questioning are stimuli. Your reactions are being measured.”

“Really?” he asked, nodding. “That’s actually pretty cool. But what do you do with other participants, where you don’t have this kind of personal insight into their lives?”

“People generally open up pretty quickly.”

“Even the billionaires? I wouldn’t think they’d be that accessible.”

“Everyone wants someone to talk to. No matter how rich they are. This is a safe environment for them.”

“Wow,” he said. “Doesn’t feel all that safe to me. How about Kane? What was he like? How did he respond to the lights and these pictures?”

“We really should get back to you.”

“Why’s that?” he asked. “We’re just two USTP employees talking here. Right?”

“Dr. Jacobs, I never saw Benjamin Kane.”

He stood up from his chair, sending it rolling backwards. “I knew it!” he said, pointing at her. “I knew he didn’t go through the program. That just proves-“

“Dr. Jacobs, please sit down.” Hearing the tone in her voice, he silently retrieved his chair and sat. “I never saw Benjamin Kane because he hasn’t taken a mission. You’re referencing a different reality.”

Jeff sighed, suddenly very tired, and put his head in his hands. For the first time, his mind was cloudy on what had actually happened, and he tried to focus – not only on what was real and what wasn’t, but how he’d let himself make such an error in front of Victoria. He’d been cocky, and would have to stop immediately if he had any hope of following through on his plan. “You’re right,” he mumbled. “You’re right.”

“Clearly you have a suspicion that in the other reality Kane didn’t follow the process,” she said. “Would you like to expand on that?”

Still with his head in his hands, he shook his head. “No. Not now. Just a conspiracy theory. Nothing to get excited about.” He looked up at her. “So, is this what we’re going to do for the rest of the time?”

“No,” she said. “We’re actually going to go through the procedures,” she said. “It’s what you requested. But before we get back into the slides, can I ask you to indulge me for just a few minutes? I have some other questions unrelated to all of this.”

“Will you still be analyzing me?”

She shrugged, then showed a half-smile for the first time since he’d been in the room. “Well, yes, of course. That’s what we’re here for. And it’s what I do, whether I mean to or not... in any situation. I’m sure you understand.”

He was apprehensive about the smile. “Well then, go ahead. I suppose I could justify that, on behalf of my other self, I owe you at least that.”

“I should say so,” she said. She pulled her hands away from the table for the first time and set them on her lap. Then she looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out how to say what she wanted. She started to speak, then stopped. Finally, she came out with it. “I’m asking you again. Is that where he went? To find her?”

So this really wasn’t about him at all. He shook his head. “Victoria, I told you. I have no idea. Isn’t there
any
way of knowing?”

“No, there isn’t,” she said. “Not without someone going back and checking for sure. But it’s a big timeline out there. You can’t haphazardly just go searching. Or, at least, that’s what they tell me is the issue.”

“No way to track the coordinates that were entered into the device?”

“Not that I know of. Besides, the way Dr. Bremner describes it, the original coordinates might not matter because someone could always jump to one time, then jump to another. After Jeff ran, they changed all the devices to have two-way batteries instead of four-way. Meaning-”

“I get it. Enough power for just two trips instead of four.”

“Yes.”

“That’s what we did to go back to 1849.” He decided to give her something. “In order to get away from the FBI, I went into a restroom and met Dexter. We went back three months, flew to California, went back to 1849, then did the same thing in reverse to get back.” He laughed. “It was actually pretty genius. To them, we were in the bathroom for, what, ninety seconds. But to us, it was two days and a cross-country trip. Not to mention a shot in the leg and a trip to the E.R.”