Jeremy Robinson - The Didymus Contingency

David smiled.

“Sally approved this?” Tom asked.

“She had nothing to do with it. In fact, she made sure to warn me about him. Though she did say to leave you here if Roberts found us.”

“How kind of her,” Tom said with a grin.

“The point she was making,” David said, “is that Roberts will shoot first and likely not care about asking questions.”

“You didn’t think of mentioning this before?” Tom asked, looking around for anyone with a crew cut.

“Well, he’s going to the crucifixion, so-” David stopped himself too late.

“So we don’t even need to worry about him for a few years?” Tom asked.

With a sigh, David said, “No. Unless he figures out how to track us with the watch. But he didn’t strike me as being that intelligent.”

Tom thought for a moment while David caught his breath. “If we stay…and I’m right, then you’ll have to give up your silly beliefs. But… If we stay and you’re right…and Jesus rises from the dead…well, then I’d be a believer.”

“Tom, you can’t-what did you just say?”

“If you’re right. If I see him alive after I see him die, I’ll believe.”

David’s mind raced.

“C’mon, we’re smart guys. We can do this right. If we’re not going to observe the past, what good was inventing time travel devices in the first place?”

David shifted. Tom was getting through.

“Look at it this way,” Tom continued, “The risk of staying here, of witnessing these events unfold isn’t set in stone. We control our exposure to this world. We control the impact our presence here has. But if we go back now, in your mind, my fate is sealed right? I’m going to Hell.”

David shifted again and Tom moved in for the kill.

“Are you willing to take the risk to save my soul, David? Are you?”

David was silent. He had dreamed of the day when Tom would share his faith, his beliefs. And no matter how truly he believed that if they stayed Tom would indeed see Jesus die and rise from the dead, he couldn’t risk the lives and souls of countless people that might be affected by he and Tom playing time tourist.

“Tom, no matter how much I’d like to-”

“C’mon, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“You two bicker like a farmer and his ass,” said Jesus, as he caught them by surprise. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”

David attempted to play it cool, “No, no, of course not.”

“Do you know what I was just doing over there? With the people?” asked Jesus.

David felt sick to his stomach as he lied to God, face to face, “Umm, no?”

“I called eleven to follow me, to learn my ways and the ways of my father that they may continue to spread the good news when I am gone,” said Jesus.

“Eleven?” David asked.

Tom forgot they weren’t supposed to be in the know and said, “Looking for a twelfth, huh?”

Jesus raised an eyebrow as though he were impressed with Tom’s apparent intuition. “Indeed,” he said.

Tom said, “I’m sure there are plenty of good men to choose-”

“I’m afraid you don’t understand. I’ve already chosen the twelfth,” Jesus said.

“Who’s the lucky guy?” Tom asked.

David began to sweat with panic as he suspected what the next words out of Jesus’s mouth would be.

“You, Didymus.”

Tom stared at Jesus, waiting for the punchline. It never came.

“You’re not serious?” David begged.

Jesus nodded. “I am.”

“But I…I can’t.” said Tom, “You don’t…I…David?”

The portion of David’s brain that sent the signals to his mouth had shut down. David watched silently as Jesus put an arm around the baffled Tom and led him away. Suddenly a thought slammed into his cortex and he snapped out of his daze.

“It can’t be…” David said aloud to himself.

David ran to Tom and Jesus and said, “Tom, I’ll be back. I have to check something at home.”

“What? You can’t leave!” Tom was near panic.

“I’ll be back!” shouted David as he ran down the hill.

Tom was beside himself with horror. He now completely understood all of David’s fears and reservations. He had violated time in a way that might change every facet of the future he knew. He had gone from a respected quantum scientist to the destroyer of time-his own specialty! Tom was sure that even if they discovered that Jesus was in fact the savior of the world, he would still burn in Hell for what he’d done. Tom’s thoughts were shattered when a strong voice interrupted.

“Come, Didymus, let me introduce you to the others,” Jesus said, as he led Tom toward a group of men who looked just as wide-eyed as Tom.

Arizona

David spent an hour walking through the wilderness in an effort to make sure he wasn’t observed by any ancient Israelites. He thought about the ramifications of a man or woman seeing the light and sound show created by time travel and forming a new religion around the spectacle. Until his percolating theory could be proven in the future, he wasn’t going to take any chances.

After scoping out the area, David tucked himself away in a thick patch of trees and sat down to formalize a plan. The equipment he needed was in LightTech’s Receiving Area Alpha. But it was a small window of opportunity between the time the equipment arrived and when Tom stole the watch. Almost every hour before and after these events would reveal David’s actions to LightTech and possibly worsen their situation with the ruthless Captain Roberts.

While Roberts wasn’t currently a threat in ancient Israel-he’d actually jumped to the time of Jesus’s death, two and a half years later than Tom-David himself could still be dangerous in his own time. The presence of two Davids at LighTech could trigger a security response before Tom ever got a chance to leave. More than that, David’s actions now could make things hard for the David at LightTech and potentially keep him from following Tom into the past. If his activities were discovered, LighTech would A thought struck David and he smiled. He knew exactly where and when to go because he had already done it! The second time distortion that was detected when Tom stole the watch! David knew it was himself who had caused the second and third disturbances-the supposed ripplesbecause he was seconds away from creating them. He worked his watch with quick fingers, setting the date, time and exact location for the most technologically advanced theft in history.

David normally frequented the bathroom several times before events like this, when he was about to embark on something dangerous, but this time he was unusually calm. He knew the outcome. He knew he would succeed-because he already had. He would get in and out of LightTech with the equipment he needed and no one would be the wiser. And then his future/past self would actually advise against researching the event! David was smiling ear to ear. Birds rocketed into the air as David pushed the final button and exploded back to the future.

With a flash of light, David appeared, and then the receiving area went dark again. The lab had been shutdown for the past few hours and the morning shift would soon fill the premises, not to mention Tom’s theft incident. David fell to the floor and struggled to keep from throwing up. Any evidence left behind would be quickly found and scrutinized.

The nausea passed and David got to his feet, searching through the room, which was lit only by a dim red light from the control room. He quickly found the equipment he needed, a machine he had learned was a Time Recorder. It looked like a fancy external hard drive and much to David’s delight, appeared to be compatible with a PC serial port as well as a USB port. From what little David read of the notes from his future self, he knew that the Time Recorder worked by recording time. If time was altered completely or partially, the Time Recorder’s storage unit, which was shielded from space-time itself, would remember the way things were. David planned to access the information recorded on the device and attempt to detect the minor, or major, distortions he and Tom might have already created without even noticing. And now that he had found the time recorder, he had to abscond with it without being noticed.