Rick Shelley: State of the Union

“There is one other consideration that my clients have instructed me to mention,” Zarelli said when I didn’t respond immediately. “We did not discuss your fee for undertaking this project. Over and above the costs of your work, and a salary matching that which you receive from the university, you will be paid a half million dollars when you demonstrate your proof‑of‑concept model. When you have a full‑scale apparatus working, you will be paid an additional one million dollars. And, at the successful conclusion of the tests that my clients desire to undertake, you will be paid a final five million dollars. All sums will be paid, in whatever form is acceptable to you, with all federal, state, and local taxes already paid on them, with proper evidence of those payments.”

Over the weekend it had occurred to me that Zarelli and Pastor might represent organized crime—the Mafia, if you will—and the offer of six and a half million dollars convinced me of it. Neither Zarelli nor Pastor had blinked at the amounts I had quoted during our first meeting and, apart from the government, only the mob might be able to come up with that much money.

That deduction did not affect my decision. As I said before, a researcher has to be open‑minded about getting funds. I wouldn’t be the first to take money from sources such as that to do research, or to turn research into something more concrete. And it wasn’t as if they were asking me to construct a machine for making drugs or anything like that.

Six and a half million dollars, with the taxes already paid. It was that last, I think, that convinced me that the immediate (if not the ultimate) sources of the money would be beyond reproach, from legitimate organizations of one sort of another, money as legally pure as that which pours into the election campaigns of honorable men and women running for public office. And, as I have already said, I had the first glimmers of, shall we say, a private sting operation—just in case.

I needed seventeen months to build my proof‑of‑concept model and get it working to my personal satisfaction. Satisfying my patrons took most of another month, but, finally, they gave me the go‑ahead to construct a full‑scale machine. The first model took seventeen months of steady work. I was due a year’s sabbatical, so I took that the following school year or I might have needed twice as long to get the first model built and operating.

Since my patrons were satisfied— delighted is a more accurate word— with my model, they made it possible for me to take a second year off from my duties at the university without pay. It was not all that much a sacrifice on my part since I had received my first bonus for my work on the time machine. I needed to be free of university responsibilities. Even working more than full time—sixteen to eighteen hours a day, six or seven days a week—it took a year to scale up from the proof‑of‑concept device to a full‑size working apparatus. The difficulties were technical, not theoretical. A sufficient power supply was the biggest problem. It takes a lot of electrical energy to rip a few threads from the skein of time and reach through the gap.

It was just last June, little more than seven months ago, when I first looked on the completed device, as certain as I could be that it would work. After several calibration tests, attended by representatives of my patrons, a time was set for the first major trial of the machine—the first of the runs that were to be conducted for, and at the direction of, my sponsors. I had suggested a series of smaller tests first, to make absolutely certain that there would be no glitches in the operation, but my patrons were far too impatient. They had already waited two and a half years, I was reminded.

“The test is simple,” Zarelli told me. Even though a number of his clients were present, he remained their spokesman. “We wish to bring an individual from the past to the present in order to obtain his guidance on a problem that my clients have. After their meeting, this individual will be returned to the exact time and place he was picked up from. Does that pose any ethical problem for you?”

“As long as he is returned to the same time and place, there is no possibility of changing the past, except through whatever knowledge of the present he might gain during his visit,” I said. That did worry me, but... all I can say is that after two and a half years of absolute concentration on the project, I was not as picky as I might have been in other circumstances.

Zarelli shrugged. “His position would not permit much interference. Consider, if you will. You know nothing of time travel. Without warning you are yanked from one time and place and deposited in another. Then, after a brief time in this new place, you are returned to exactly where you were, and are left with no evidence of the reality of your excursion. Tell me, Dr. Wilson, would you believe what you had just experienced?”

I grinned. “ I might, but I can see that most people would not.”

“The gentleman in question is, was, a very pragmatic sort,” Zarelli continued. “It is unlikely that he would ever mention the event to anyone, lest it be seen as a sign that he was... not in complete possession of his faculties. In addition to which, in the time following the point at which we wish to intercept him, he had troubles enough to deal with. He would not be looking for additional difficulties.”

I was curious about the identity of this troubled pragmatist that my patrons were so anxious to consult, but I knew better than to ask for his name. Zarelli gave me a date and time, and very precise spatial coordinates.

Although I have refrained from including any technical information about my apparatus, I must at least briefly describe how it functions. My machine is not the sort of thing you might imagine from whatever exposure you have had to films or novels about time travel. There is no mobile machine that flits about in time or space. The apparatus occupies much of a very large warehouse, and requires a considerable supply of electricity. The operation of reaching back in time and bringing a person or object forward consists of two distinct stages. In the first, a window (if you will) is opened on the past scene, and displayed on a computer monitor. That allows final calibration and permits me to pick up precisely what, or who, I want to collect. The second stage consists of translating the target to the destination. That can be the location of the apparatus in the present, but the apparatus does not have to be at one terminal of the operation. An object or person can be transported from one remote time and place to another without ever being brought physically to where the time machine is. The operation can also be done in reverse, sending something or someone from the present to any time and place in the past.

The past and present are the only eras available. It is, both practically and theoretically, impossible to go forward in time. The past and present are set. The future is only a quantum cloud of possibilities.

The date I was given was February 14, 1929. The time was 10:27 a.m. The location was in Florida. Zarelli remained at my side throughout the operation. I assumed that he was there to make certain that I did not back out, refuse to complete the procedure once I saw who the target was.

To be honest, the combination of the date and my suspicions about my clients should have given me enough data to anticipate the identity of the target. It did not. But when I saw the man on the monitor, I did recognize him.

“That’s him!” Zarelli said, more excited than I would have thought him capable of. “Bring him in, Doc. Hit the switch.”

If I hadn’t, Zarelli would have. No more than thirty seconds later, Al Capone was standing in the lab with us.