She had been the 9th girl with whom his mother had arranged dates. The first 3 were disasters. He showed up, was not up to being his usual charming self and his dates had walked out on him bored and angry. He had completely forgotten 3 of the dates. He intentionally scheduled other events to avoid 2 others. So his mother pulled out all the stops. She cracked open her retirement account (she was rich; she came from money) and splurged for a Physics seminar, bringing in the premiere minds in the field speaking, including Hawking and Pasterski. It was a little amusing to consider that she was using two eminent physicists … as bait. The final kicker was sending Duncan the invitation with a Plus One. Then she began the frantic search for the future mother of her grandchildren.

And she found a prospect. She made the arrangements. It was a “blind” date. Or rather Duncan was the one who was blind. His mother had prepared cheat sheets on all of Duncan’s vital statistics going all the way back to high school. She included some of his high school pictures from his yearbook - and the facebook data the cheerleaders kept on him that he never saw. He didn’t DO social media. One rumor was that he was gay, but that was probably started by a cheerleader he had ignored. Duncan had described the girl as a ‘vain and vacuous airhead.’

He had been quite social in high school. He became the high school bands ‘rock star. He played guitar and owned his own Gibson and Martin. He became a football star. The year he had arrived the school had announced it would be the team’s last season. He became a kicker and for a while the top scorer. Even though the team wasn’t even on the radar of scouts, he had a few scholarship offers.

His mother wasn’t sure why he had become so anti social. The withdrawal from the public eye started about 3 years ago, shortly after his senior high school year had ended. He had suddenly turned down 2 research grants for no reason. He had become secretive. His father worked at Sandia Labs, which did weapon systems research for the military. Duncan himself consulted with the military. It was possible that he had been pulled into some difficult research. Tensions had been rising for years with the new Cold War. But his father had no idea why Duncan was withdrawn.

His parents tried to question him, but he remained stoic. He simply look serious for a moment, relaxed the next, and told them not to worry about it. He was just going through a phase.

Duncan’s mother told Girl #9 not to give up easy. She described how the previous dates had gone. Duncan could be stubborn, but he would come around. The first date was almost a total flop. He left the seminar early claiming boredom after speaking to both of the physicists briefly. His questions had been about tachyon condensation and Einstein-Rosen bridges. Their responses may as well have been in some alien language. Duncan seemed to understand it, but was bitterly disappointed, though silent in his annoyance. He seemed to have hoped for a different response.

He practically ignored his date as he departed the seminar. It wasn’t until he got to his car that he realized she was still there. A simple “why don’t you tell me about it” got his attention as he stared in shock for two full minutes. Then he shook his head and started to tell her she wouldn’t understand. Duncan’s mother had warned of this and explained that there had been a time what Duncan would never have said that to anyone. He would have tried to explain things in terms a layman would understand. That had been his greatest gift. And so his date took the advice and suggested he give it his best shot - over dinner. She dared him and smiled refusing to budge and told him she was still hungry. That was when his stomach growled. He finally smiled. And the expression he had as he finally noticed her and gave every indication that rumors that he was gay were completely in error. “Am I that bad?”

She never understood a thing he tried to explain merely nodding as if she was following anything he said, but thanked him for trying. Then she warned that if he didn’t call she would sic his mother on him. That got a laugh.

He called.

It was 2 dates later when he stopped almost an hour into completely mystifying physics discussions and asked her what she was studying. It had finally dawned on him that he hadn’t chased this girl off. And if her major wasn’t physics or math…. Her response shocked him. She didn’t have a clue about anything he’d said for days. All that nodding had been the girl equivalent to a husband reading the morning paper and giving his wife the Yes Dear treatment. He pointed this out, clearly amused.

It was the 7th date during which he seemed to be a changed man. He was actually grinning. All he said that he had had a good day at the lab.

Date 9. He had been so excited about some sort of breakthrough he had literally picked her up off the ground and kissed her solidly. Then he had stopped suddenly, looking pained, his expression haunted.

He didn’t call for three days. She had to show up at his Lab and demand to see him.

Sep 23, 2020 (Duncan turns 21 in two days)

Three days ago he had finally succeeded in sending a probe through the time portal and retrieving it. That meant he was finally ready to make a journey through time. And he had a means to return not that returning was truly an option - not for much longer anyways. But when he had gone to his new girlfriend he had realized that he a choice to make - whether take her or leave her behind. If he took her, she would have to leave everyone and everything she knew behind as well.

He had considered taking his parents. He had considered handing the project over to the government. Only there really wasn’t time. The world as he knew it would be gone by Jan 20, 2021 … the day the next president would take office. Over the course of the past 3 days he had narrowed down the timeframe for WW III to Jan 4, 2021, a Monday.

The time portal filled up about half of a 1 million square foot warehouse. A large part of that space was occupied by portable fusion powerplants, negative energy collectors, tachyon condensation projectors. And they would all be gone in a little over 3 months. Even now he was trying to make sure they could survive a nuclear holocaust. But truthfully, he needed a place deep underground - a bunker - in which to hide them. And there simply wasn’t time to create one, move the equipment, then reassemble and recalibrate it. The complexity of anchoring the portal to the local gravity of Earth, the shape and changing geography with the movement of any specific point on the planet through space had been a nightmare. He had finally found a way to do this through the application of a gravitic anchor and begun a topological mapping of the Earth’s surface for the past billion years and developed a coordinate mapping system similar to latitude and longitude as well as a chronologically localized calendar to allow for changes to the Earth’s rotation.

There was still more work to do before they could travel through safely. One thing he had to do was choose a time and calibrate carefully - unless he wanted to come out of the portal in the past over a ravine or a mile underwater or the vacuum of space. Heck, it was possible to use the same portal to reach the Moon or Mars. At least he was pretty sure it was. And once he had created the Membrane to make sure he wouldn’t allow biocontaminants to pass through - or toxic gasses - he had actually locked on to the Moon and measured pressure differentials.

And now she was waiting “patiently”. Make that stubbornly. He smiled painfully and headed to the front of the building. When he got there he looked both tired and sheepish. “Hey there. I’m in trouble. Sorry. Lot on my mind … and I know that excuse is getting old. Come on in. Don’t worry. Wear this.” He handed her a badge. “Keeps the security sensors happy so they don’t freak out and call for the cavalry.”

His Lab looked like something out of science fiction. She had no clue what most of the equipment was. But she could see the mathematics on the transparent whiteboards and the weird graphic scenes in a holographic display. That display was far more advanced than anything on the market.

“So, I guess you have questions. The short answer. Time. I am working with time. You ever read HG Wells?” His face looked strained, like he knew things no man should know.

Olivia didn’t pine. Of course, before it had be she neglecting to reply to friend’s emails from California. Even so it was hardly in her nature worry much as to what others thought of her, and certainly not in her routine to get distracted over a man.

“Narrows? The bloodwork?” Oliva blinked, horrified at herself and quickly tried to make sense of the data rolling across her screen.

“Right, everything looks normal. Slightly anemic maybe.”
“Four people didn’t hemorrhage from their diets.” No that would have been the faulty implants he’d helped develop. Some thoughts where better kept quiet, instead of speaking she looked up to the dead body lying four feet away. The skull had been surgically opened on the right side and some obviously decaying brain was spilling onto the table. Doctor Layne still held a bone saw, frown telling that his mask wasn’t doing much for the smell either.

“Did you get it out yet?” The doctor held up a small metallic device about the same size as a thumb in his other gloved hand.
“Power piece still in his spine, but I figured you want to take a look at this first.” He took a step closer, apparently expecting her to pick up the tech which still had bit of brain clinging to it. She did her best not to wrinkle her nose at the idea and instead offered a petri dish for it to be dropped in. The dish was in turn dropped with haste to the counter, Layne pretended not to notice, but even with a mask the corners of his eyes showed signs of a smirk. “It’s getting late, I’ll get the other piece out and you can get a fresh look at them tomorrow.” Olivia alright tapped out of the computer system and was on her way out of the lab. Normally she would be the first to volunteer staying late, normally there weren’t two month dead corpses being dissected. The doctor who couldn't deal with the dead, or the sick she'd found while visiting the residency hospital. It was just something she’d have to get over, preferably before she got into residencies.

Half an hour of washing hands and tending to her lab-coat later, and Olivia allowed herself to reach into her pocket for her phone. No calls, no messages. It wasn’t a surprise, but that didn’t much help the sting. Everything had been going too well for it to be personal, but there was little other way to take the sudden silence. She decidedly turned her thoughts away from Duncan and placed the phone in her pocket, considering possible side effects of neural implants. It lasted until the exited the front door and the buzzing against her tigh evaporated thoughts of work.
Not Duncan. His mother. Enough, she dismissed the call and muted the phone, and continued the walk to her car with a quicker pace. She knew where his lab was, but it wasn’t something she’d planned to visit, especially uninvited. Duncan’s work absorbed him completely but left her grasping, it was his own interest in it which she appreciated more than the material itself. But receiving three calls from his mother in the same time he’d apparently forgotten about her was too much. She punched the address into the GPS system, sanitized her hands then the steering wheel, and pulled out of the parking lot.

It was bigger then she’d imagined. Her expectations had been more in line with an office building, filled with short sighted men hunched over equations for hours. Not an entire factory building decked out in even more security then her own employer’s private company labs. There where two security checkpoints at the entrance of the building, and the handling of her bag and phone by strangers did little to improve her mood. None the less she attempted a smile at the uniformed man behind a large desk.
“Hello, would Dr. Moran be in today?” The man looked at his watch, sighed, then opened a program on desktop.
“Hasn’t checked out yet, but he’s way down in the warehouse. We can’t really reach the guys down there. Aren’t supposed to bother them either.” He looked her over, apparently looking for a missing limb or any sort of emergency that would require him to bend these ‘rules’. Olivia’s smile turned to a full grin, with clenched teeth.
“I’m sure you’re familiar with Dr. Miller by this point, Mr…?” At the name of Miller the formidable man seemed to shrink half a size.
“Keen. Tedd Keen.”
“Well Mr. Keen,” She placed her cellphone on the desk in front of him, clearly displaying a missed call from the doctor. “She’s been trying to reach me for some time now, and I’m not going to explain to her that no one has heard from her son in three days on my own. So unless you find some way to reach the warehouse, you’re going to have to tell both myself and Dr. Miller exactly why that is, when she calls again in about fifteen minutes.” Isabella Miller’s influence went further than just her son it seemed, as Tedd Keen reached for a large walkie-talkie on his desk, then hesitated.
“Your name miss?”
“Olivia.” She gave the poor man one last smile before moving back to stand beside the seats placed just after the second security point. The small victory had rallied back her optimism and it actually took Duncan’s appearance several minutes later for her to remember that she was annoyed. Not that she had a chance to express as much before he began talking and practically dragging her back wherever he’d just come from.
“Thank you Mr. Keen!” was the only full sentence she managed to get out before disappearing through a series of hallways leading to what appeared to be a set for a science fiction movie. It truly was a warehouse, but in size only. Computers and boards with foreign math where just about the only things she could recognize. “Duncan-“ She tried for the fifth time with the same results. It was possible here that he just couldn’t hear her, everything was buzzing and he looked awfully tried. Her eyes however drifted to the giant holographic interface. The amount of money needed to fund a project- or whatever this was- would be astronomical. Duncan pulled her attention back with half of an explanation she answered nothing. She stared at him with utter confusion and more than a touch of concern, had he even left the lab since she’d last seen him?
“You’re talking about the Time Machine story? I might have read it in high school, scientists invites friends and colleges to see an invention and they all think he’s crazy…” Her eyes wandered again despite herself, he couldn’t be building a time machine, looking for anything that would help explain what the entire operation actually did.

Duncan looked at Ted Keen. “Thanks Ted.” Then he looked back at Olivia. “This is my private lab or you’d have gotten nowhere. The rest of the place is Top Secret and guarded by private security - mostly ex-marines. Ted’s an ex marine too. But this is my private lab. Still a lot of classified stuff in here. So anything you see is not to be discussed outside the door we are about to enter. If you do is it treason. Not my rules. Mom and Dad have no influence here. Really they never had any legal influence on me. I was emancipated before I met them. Long story for another time.”

“Dr Moran? You know how long we haven’t heard from you?” Ted’s tone was inquisitive and a little worried. “Who’s Dr Miller?”

Duncan laughed. “Probably my mom. Regular force of nature with whom you can never win an argument. Dad always says never to try. And sorry about the time. Uhm ... yeah. Didn’t mean to take so long.” He turned back to Olivia handing her the badge and explaining its purpose. “Let’s discuss this inside.”

++++++++

“So, I guess you have questions. The short answer. Time. I am working with time. You ever read HG Wells?” His face looked strained, like he knew things no man should know.

“You’re talking about the Time Machine story? I might have read it in high school, scientists invites friends and colleges to see an invention and they all think he’s crazy…” Her eyes wandered again despite herself, he couldn’t be building a time machine, looking for anything that would help explain what the entire operation actually did.

Duncan almost stared at Olivia. “Yeah … book by HG Wells published in 1895. They made a few movie adaptations.

Duncan almost tried to hug her, to reassure her. But he feared she just might be angry enough to think he was coddling her. Mrs Miller had been wrong - or rather half right - on one matter concerning Duncan. She had described him as not being the hugging sort. He never hugged people with both arms except his shrinks - which he hated doing - and his parents. But he had, in fact embraced Olivia on more than one occasion. He had even realized why the move had surprised Olivia and discussed it, almost conspiratorial in his explanation that his mother didn’t know everything. Girls, especially cute ones, were a definite exception to the rule. Though he politically asked if he could just limit his attentions to one dark haired girl named Olivia. He had thought he was being cute.

Now, however, was not the time. Olivia had every reason to be upset under ordinary circumstances. But these weren’t those. Instead he just looked at her,h is eyes a little haunted. “I couldn’t call, but the explanation as to why …” He shook his head. “I’m not even sure where to begin. Until several hours ago I wasn’t ready to tell anyone. I’ve been sleeping for several hours. I am still pretty exhausted. But where I was there were no cell towers operating. I debated long and hard whether to tell you before …” He stopped.

Then he started up again. “I need to go back to the beginning. I am sure Mom told you I wasn’t always this intense. Now I need to explain why. To be honest I had been trying to avoid people … just because it would have been easier not to care. Then you came along. I almost chased you away. For a time I wished I had - not because I didn’t like you, but because I did.”

He shook his head again. “The beginning. That will make things clearer. What I am going to tell you - show you - you can’t tell anyone. It would cause a panic, probably get us both killed. The government would be all over this building. It started when I was researching a quantum scanning system as a guidance system for an Alcubierre Drive. I actually produced the negative energy collector they need for the star drive a few years ago. During my experiments I realized I could scan across time. Naturally I decided to look forward.

“Now the hard part was locking the scanner to a specific location on Earth. The movement of any one geographical point on Earth through space and time is extremely complex. The Earth spins, wobbles as the moon orbits, revolves in a helical fashion around the Sun as the Sun moves around the Milky Way as the galaxy moves towards Andromeda. The trick was simply locking the scanner to a local center of gravity. Simplified the process considerably. Once I did that I had a chance to look into the future.”

Duncan’s face contorted. “What I am going to show you, you can’t tell a soul.” He led her over to a flat screen monitor and opened up a file. It was a scene of nuclear devastation. There was smoke and fires here and there. The date and time were visible at the bottom of the screen along with geographical coordinates.

Jan 4, 2021 0845 AM
35.096, -106.616

“That is Albuquerque in just over 3 months. Most of the northern hemisphere is - will be - like that. Near as I have pinned it down the War hit us a couple hours after midnight. The time I travelled to was well into the future after this. The world is - was - will be - still in ruins. One problem with transferring the mass of a human being. They can’t just jump right back to the same instant they left.

“I’ll see if I can make that clearer. Imaging time is like clear spring water over a bed of silt. You can look at two different locations with clarity, so long as you don’t touch anything. But to move a mass, imagine taking a bamboo pole and slamming into the silt at one location and then dropping the pole into the water at another point elsewhere. The silt is disturbed on both ends and until it is allowed to settle you can’t see clearly.

He turned the display off. “And now you know why I been so … “ He shrugged. “I couldn’t tell my parents. It wasn’t as though I could have done anything to prevent the war, not in 3 years. And I couldn’t escape it - at least not back then. Then … well I had a breakthrough 4 days ago. I managed to send a drone through and retrieved it. More to the point, IT sent the signal to reopen the portal. That meant I could go through and return. So for the past few days … I have been in the future - where there are no working cell towers. Satellites have fallen from the sky. There was no electricity, food, water …”

He looked embarrassed. “No excuse though. I should have called and said I was going to be out of town and out of cell range or something. It’s been killing me. I have had no idea how to tell you all of this. And I didn’t realize the full effects of sending mass through.

“And … it’s been killing me how to tell you any of this. I can’t save the world. My portal isn’t very large and if I fill it up I’ll be lucky to manage one jump, maybe two. I have been hoping to reserve time for a second jump in case the first one goes bad.”