Only Time Will Tell

Jordan hid his head inside of his sleeping bag and lay on his tummy inside the large cardboard box that he had scrounged from an appliance store earlier that day. Good thing he wasn’t claustrophobic. Ironically, it was a refrigerator box, which was laughable considering he felt like he was encased in ice. A light snow was coming down on the street outside of his makeshift shelter. It rarely snowed in Vancouver, likely by morning it would turn to rain. It was cold though, currently -3 according to his cell phone. It was hard to keep warm in this kind of weather, but he had splurged on a new sleeping bag and it was supposedly good to -40. He snorted to himself. not that he would see temperatures that low here at the coast. Yet, he admitted to himself he would need a tent if he were going to spend the winter on the streets. He flexed his thigh muscles as he pondered his predicament, hoping the friction would help him to warm up. He had placed his cardboard box down a narrow back alley way tonight, in between two dumpsters, a green one and a red one, and they offered him some protection from the biting wind though the smell wasn’t so great. He could see out of one end of the box, but unless you knew someone was there, you couldn’t see him.

As he lay there, a racoon came along and sniffed at him looking for food, but Jordan didn’t have anything to feed himself with let alone to share with the wildlife. He shooed the critter away with a large stick that he kept next to him in the dark. His stomach rumbled. Trash Bandits as he liked to call them, were all over the city. They had little habitat left, but they had adapted as animals often will. He also saw a lot of stray dogs and cats and occasionally a fox. A while back he’d heard there were mountain Lions in Stanley Park, but he had never seen one thank God. He had been homeless for six months now, ever since he had been evicted for non-payment of rent and he didn’t see an end to his plight anytime soon. He had lost his job when the company he worked for went belly up and with the downturn in the economy no one was hiring. As a computer tech he had rarely been out of work since he had graduated from BCIT 5 years ago with a degree in computer science. But things were different now. Almost thirty and homeless. That was something to be proud of.

He was just starting to doze off, his body finally warm in his cocoon of poly cotton when he heard a noise near him. Peeking out from inside his box he could just make out the shape of a person as they lifted the lid of the green dumpster. They looked around furtively before throwing away what looked like a black backpack. Fortunately for Jordan they didn’t see him. The person had a slight build and was dressed all in black. Jordan couldn’t tell if they were male or female. He was shocked when after carefully closing the lid they took off running into the night. It seemed very strange, and more than a little cliché to him, like something out of the movies unfolding before his eyes. A few minutes passed and he heard more running footsteps and loud voices approaching his position. 3 Burly guys dressed in expensive suits came down the street shining flashlights down his alley, seeing nothing there they ran past him unaware of his presence. Just when Jordan thought it was going to be ok one of them peeled off from the rest of the group and came to investigate the piles of trash that lined the brick walls of the buildings in the alley, kicking them to make sure his prey wasn’t hiding there. Jordan lay unmoving in his cardboard box, suddenly way too hot and sweating bullets in his sleeping bag. His breathing was as shallow as fear could make it, but still it seemed impossibly loud in his own ears. The solitary figure shone their light on him as though they new by instinct alone that someone was there. Jordan froze. The thug looked him full in the face and seeing that Jordan wasn’t who or what he was looking for he seemed to lose interest in him to Jordan’s great relief. The man turned away and then changed his mind, deceptively casual. “Did you see anyone come by here just now? The guy said with an unusual accent that Jordan couldn’t place. “An old man with a beard, or a girl with red and black hair?” “No way man…I was sleeping” Jordan lied without hesitation and lifted a hand up to his eyes to protect them from the bright white glare of the flashlight. He was sure it wouldn’t go well for him if he told this guy the truth. “Who are they?” He said curiously hoping for answers. “None of your damned business” the guy said threateningly and gave the side of Jordan’s box a hard kick to emphasize his point, putting a dent in it. “ok I get it Jordan said throwing his hands up in the air as if in surrender and moving away from the angry bully. The big man swore and then ran off into the night, presumably to continue his search for the runaways. Jordan pretended to go back to sleep though really, he was waiting for the commotion to die down. He waited for more than two hours to make sure no one was coming back before he finally got out to investigate the green dumpster and see what the girl had left behind. He fished the bag out of the smelly garbage bin, shaking off potato skins and something that was green and slimy. He briefly thought about leaving the backpack where he had found it, but he knew he would never sleep again if he didn’t solve the mystery behind it. Once he took it out, he knew he couldn’t stay there, or he would risk getting caught. Rolling up his sleeping bag He hit the pavement at a quick trot, but not so fast to cause suspicion. His sneakers making squishing noises in the snow which as he had predicted it would, was turning to slush as the temperature warmed. Soon it began to rain, a steady hard downpour and water ran down the sidewalk eliminating his footprints. He made his way towards Stanley Park in the glow of the streetlights willing to face a chance encounter with a mountain Lion in order to avoid contact with the gun packing thugs who wanted whatever it was that he was carrying on his back. It was just after 2:00 am and the streets were empty. He kept his eyes open but didn’t see anyone following him. When he got to the park, he took the path to prospect point, and then veered off into the dense forest to hide out for a while. He found a spot that seemed relatively untouched and sheltered from the rain by an overhang of rock and hunkered down on the ground. He pulled out the contents of the backpack which fortunately for him included half of an uneaten sandwich, an unopened bottle of soda pop and a bag of chips. There was also a small laptop. The laptop included a charging cable but was completely dead. He’d have to go to an internet café in the morning to charge it up. Jordan bit into the sandwich, it was good, and he was hungry. ham and cheese, he thought. He dug around in the side pockets and found some small change and a little black book. Bingo!! He opened the book. There was a flash drive taped to the inside cover and the pages of the book were filled with writing. Most of it appeared to be technical drawings, mathematical equations and specifications. Most of it was well beyond his expertise, but some of it was familiar from physics classes he had taken. He used the light on his phone to read it, going to the last few pages in the journal first as he wasn’t much of a fan of suspense.

December 5th, 2021

Dad finally finished the plutonium drive and attached it to the time machine today and with a little tinkering it finally started up. It nearly shook the house apart lol. That was unexpected. We were ecstatic.

December 6th, 2021

We made our first trip back in time last night and Dad bought a lottery ticket on the big jack pot from two weeks ago, and of course we won. It was foolproof. 50% of 80 million dollars. Not a bad haul. I felt a little guilty for the person who had won it all to themselves the first time, but really who needs that much money right?

December 7th, 2021

Dad told his financial backers the time machine didn’t work, and that his theory of time travel was flawed. They wanted their money back. Dad paid them in cash. Big mistake. Now they know he was lying. I don’t know what he was thinking. They are coming for us. We can’t let the machine fall into the wrong hands. Their here!!!

Eight hours later Jordan walked into his favorite tiny internet café on Robson street near the outdoor ice rink. He plugged in the laptop. There didn’t seem to be anything special about it. It looked ordinary. It was running windows 10. He inserted the thumb drive into the slot not expecting anything to happen, but it began to hum, and then to buzz, soon it was vibrating so hard the building began to tremble like in an earthquake. Big chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling. A shimmering bubble of solid light formed around Jordan and to his great amazement everyone around him seemed to be instantly frozen in time. How was this possible? On the computer screen were flashing the words, add date and time to begin time travel. It was so simple a fifth grader could use it. Jordan quickly unplugged the laptop, and fortunately for him it shut down and everything returned to normal. He sat back in his chair with a sigh of relief and glanced around the room surreptitiously. He put the little black book back in his front shirt pocket. Fortunately for him the patrons of the coffee shop seemed to think they had been experiencing a mild earthquake, which although it was unusual in these parts was not unheard of. As he was wondering what to do next a young woman dressed all in black leather with shoulder length split dyed hair that was half red and half black sat down across from him in the empty chair and crossed her slender legs. “You have something that belongs to me” she said frowning at him with her lovely green eyes and inclining her head towards the laptop. He realized she was the same person who put the backpack in the dumpster. “how did you find me” he asked “GPS” She said and laughed, then put a familiar brown leather wallet down in the middle of the table and flipped it open. With a grin she said, “I believe that is yours”. How could I have been so stupid Jordan thought with a sigh when he saw his own face staring up at him from his BCIT student card. “you left that behind in the alley last night” she said. “and you are damned lucky I found it first” she said, or you’d likely be swimming with the fishes right now” she paused “let me introduce myself” she said as she extended her hand. “My name is Susan Wells, and that little black book you just put in your pocket…that is mine.”

The End.