The Pod

Dale does not know what the next 17 years will hold for him, but in some cases, he knows exactly what will happen.

He sits at his elegant dining room table, with a newly opened bottle of Beaujolais in front of him. Gleaming in the light of the chandelier is a shiny-black object, roughly the size, and shape of a rugby ball. He stares at it as he pours himself a glass of wine. He takes a drink and thinks back to an earlier time.

It was June 10, 1990, when the Pod entered his life. Dale had recently graduated from college and had landed a job at an accounting firm. He had just managed to purchase his first home: a little one-bedroom fixer-upper in Piedmont. He was in the process of opening up the walls to repair leaky pipes, when he spotted an object wedged between two studs. At first, he thought it might be some sort of networking gear, but then he figured the last time these walls were open was likely in the 1920s when the home was built.

He pulled the strange object out of the crevice and blew off the dust and gypsum powder. On one side he found a small label. He wiped the dirt away and to his astonishment, it read: “To the attention of Dale Peterson.”

Dale’s mind reeled as he carried it into the other room. He had bought the house on the open market, so there was no family history. How could his name be on something within the wall? Could it just be a coincidence?

He found a latch on one side and fiddled with it. Then the Pod opened like a clamshell, releasing a sharp smell of vinegar, and a bit of mist that quickly dissipated. He thought for a brief second he should exercise more caution, in case it was some kind of dangerous device, but his curiosity quickly overruled prudence. He peered inside.

There was a leather pouch and a small, black notebook. He removed the book and fanned the pages; the first third of the pages were covered with handwriting, and the rest were blank.

He opened it to the first page. On it was a list of dates, and next to those dates were some notes. The first line read: “Jun 2, 1990: Outbreak of 88 tornadoes across Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. 9 dead.” It struck him that there had been something in the news recently about tornadoes in the Midwest—but how could that information be sitting in his wall?

The next entry read “Jun 9, 1990: ‘Go and Go’ wins the Belmont -- 2:27.2” He went to the kitchen to get the morning paper, turned to the sports section, and found the results for the previous day’s running of the Belmont. Sure enough, “Go and Go” won it…in a time of 2:27.2!

There were a total of nineteen dates on that first page, two of which being passed, and the remainder in the near future. All listing some sort of event, like the outcome of a baseball game, the winner of a horse race, a celebrity death, and earthquakes.

He sat down, stunned. It must be a prank, he thought--but how? Then he went back to the notebook and flipped to the second page. There in very legible, determined handwriting, it read:

“I listed the events on the preceding page to prove to you that I am not a crazy person, which is undoubtedly the conclusion that you will draw. For that which I am about to tell you strains the limits of belief.”

“I am a quantum physicist writing to you in the year 2048. I have exhausted my resources in the creation of a prototype device capable of sending inorganic matter across time. I have sent this information and money to you in the hope you will use it to create wealth that can be used to further my research once you reach this timeframe.”

“Money?” thought Dale. He set the notebook down and picked up the leather packet. Upon opening the flap and peering inside, he could see it was jam-packed with currency--mostly $100 bills from the looks of it. With trembling hands he counted it out, arriving at the sum of $20,000. He felt his chest heaving and realized that he was hyperventilating. He slid the cash back into the pouch and turned back to the letter.

The physicist, who called himself “Kali,” presented a plan by which Dale would use the privy information contained in the notebook for financial gain. Through a series of horse races, lottery wins, and stock market transactions, he would slowly build a portfolio of great wealth. Finally, he was instructed to meet Kali in person at 3 pm local time on September 4, 2048—at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, beneath the south-facing clock. As payment for his efforts, Dale would be allowed to have a lifetime of luxury and comfort.

Then came the warning: “Failure to meet on the designated date would result in the sending of an empty pod to an earlier point in time--which would supersede this one. As a result, the timeline will be changed such that this will never have happened.”

The letter was signed “Your partner in time, Kali.”

The many pages of writing that followed contained lists of information and a timetable of action items. All the predictions had specific dates spanning the next 58 years. The stock market transactions involved a number of company names that Dale had heard of, but many he had not. He thought somebody is seriously going to create a company named “Google?” The math term?

At first, Dale didn’t believe it—any of it. But then in the coming days the “future events” from the notebook started to tick off, one after another. John Poindexter sentenced to six months in prison for lying to Congress. Dame Eva Turner dying. Moldavia declaring independence, plane crash in Cove Neck, NY—killing exactly 73 people. Upsets at Wimbledon, firings of baseball managers, sporting feats…things that would be impossible to predict days in advance, and yet in each case they occurred exactly as foretold. Then there were the earthquakes. A 7.6 in Iran on June 20th, with 50,000 dead. Check. On July 16th, a 7.7 near Luzon in the Philippines, with 400 dead. Check.

Dale’s skepticism eroded as each event came to pass, until finally he had no choice but to accept the information the notebook presented. Over the first few months, he somehow managed to resist the temptation to spend the money frivolously. He then began to follow the plan as given to him by Kali. It started with some horse races, a couple of lottery wins, and some other sports betting. Then came a systematic series of investments in the stock market. He would buy stocks at bargain prices, and then sell them off just as they peaked…then reinvest. Over time, his confidence in the plan grew and the money piled up.

For the first decade or so, Dale stuck pretty close to Kali’s script. It was a fairly conservative approach designed not to attract too much attention, and to avoid creating ripples in the timeline--which might change the events of history. Eventually Kali’s pool of money swelled to tens of millions of dollars, and Dale lived a luxurious life without having to work a single day of it.

However, in recent years he found the temptation towards extravagances overcame him, and he began to dip a bit deeper than the plan called for. He started taking risks, like the time he bought extra stock shares with his “allowance” so that when he sold them later he could buy a new jet he had been lusting after.

He has also had some close calls, like the accident in 2007 where he totaled his Jaguar. It made him think about what would happen if he were to die. The money would never make it to Kali, since he couldn’t exactly file a will leaving his estate to someone who might not be born yet, with mention of a mysterious meeting under a clock tower in the middle of the 21st century. All his efforts would be for nothing.

Dale refills his glass for a third time and stares at the Pod, which sits in the middle of the table like an inky-black Thanksgiving turkey. An incident the previous day is weighing on his mind. He had gone online to place a bet on the fourth race at Santa Anita, which according to the notebook was supposed to be won by a horse named “Never Saw Him Coming.” However, he could not find that horse in the list of entries. He thought maybe there might be a last-minute substitution, but the horse never showed up. When he later checked the registry, he found absolutely no listing for a horse by that name.

Had Kali made a clerical error? Or had he purposely given Dale false information to keep him honest, figuring that he might be deviating from the script too much? Or worse--could something in the timeline have changed? He thinks about some of his recent activities, and he begins to fear that he might have somehow altered history.

Suddenly Dale catches a glimpse of something out of place: a little sliver of white at the base of one of the Pod’s hinges. Carefully, he extracts a folded bit of paper that had been wedged under the hinge. Unfolding it, he gasps. It is a torn-out section of a photograph—one he recognizes instantly. It shows the top half of his head and a sign in the background that reads “Giant Dipper.” It is from a picture that was taken on a family outing to the boardwalk at Santa Cruz in the 1970s.

How did that get here? He goes into the library to dig out an old photo album, where he finds photos similar to that one, but not the same. Obviously taken the same day…but slightly different. How could that have gotten inside the Pod? Is this a message from Kali, perhaps to remind him of the control he had over Dale’s life?

He slams his head against the table in anguish, knocking over his wine glass. This is only the latest of many puzzles Dale has encountered over the years—paradoxes that he could not wrap his head around. Maybe the Pod has been sent back numerous times, and he put that there in a different, failed timeline--what, to warn himself? A message?

He slams his fist on the table and glares at the Pod. “What do you want from me, Kali? Haven’t I done enough?” He brings his hands to his face and rubs his eyes. “Over halfway there…just 17 years to go. And what if I don’t make it to our meeting? You say you will erase this timeline, and all this will never have happened. But it’s happening now. I am here, and I exist…NOW. And I’m healthy…and wealthy…” He slumps in his chair, then reaches forward and rights his glass. “…and wise?”

He refolds the bit of photograph and slides it back into its hiding place under the Pod’s hinge. Then he drains the last of the bottle into his glass. Nothing else he can do but wait…only time will tell.