John Cramer - Einstein's Bridge

“Some of this stuff is grounds for arrest on charges of counterfeiting or fraud,” said George. “The money looks like high-quality counterfeiting that somehow got the dates wrong. And the credit cards are just as bad.”

“The question,” said Roger, “is what to keep.”

George returned the knife and cutting laser to his pocket, put his watch back on, and looked at his driver’s license. “I think I’ll keep this,” he said.

“Okay,” Roger shrugged, “and I must keep my lapstation, too. It’s not a crime to possess a computer that nobody is making yet, even if it’s the most powerful computer presently on the planet.” He used his hand to dig a hole in the beach sand. He placed the currency, key rings, postdated coins, credit cards and chip cards, passport, green card, cellphones, and a few other items into the depression. George added his SSC key card. Roger fanned the cutting laser over the objects. The blaze sparkled colorfully for a time, then quickly subsided to a pile of glowing slag. Roger kicked sand over the hole, feeling depressed. It seemed that he had systematically erased all of the important events of his life, leaving himself an empty vessel with no past and no future.

In silence they walked along the beach for a while. “We need funds,” said Roger finally. “That’s the key to everything else. Otherwise we’re beach bums. Perhaps we could use the laser to cut open a vending machine to get some money. Or perhaps get currency from an automatic teller machine.”

“We’re not that desperate,” said George. “At least, not yet. Besides, we’d do unnecessary damage and probably trigger an automatic alarm that would end us up in jail. With no way of identifying ourselves or explaining our existence here, we might just stay in jail permanently.”

Roger nodded. “We have the ability to Write,” he said. “Perhaps we could Write a plant that grows duplicates of hundred-dollar bills instead of leaves.”

“That’s also a crime,” said George, “and when the fake money was noticed by federal agents it would attract a lot of unwanted attention. They’d probably track us down. We need to make something that isn’t illegal and that has intrinsic value in itself. Perhaps we could Write a device that would duplicate objects of value, maybe computer chips.” He looked at a jellyfish washed up on the beach. “Or maybe I could modify some filter-feeding organism like a jellyfish so that it extracts gold from seawater for us.”

Roger considered this. “I’m afraid there isn’t that much gold in seawater. Even if the organism had a large surface area, a perfect extraction procedure, and a high flow rate, it would take months or years to accumulate a quantity of gold that had any significant value. But you’ve given me an idea, George.”

He walked down the sand to the remains of a beach bonfire and picked up a lump of charcoal. “It wouldn’t be difficult,” he said, “to Write a nanomachine that reorganizes these carbon atoms into a face-centered cubic crystal lattice structure with a two-atom basis.”

“Carbon crystal structure?” George asked. “You mean graphite?”

“No,” said Roger, “I mean diamonds.”

At 9:01 the following morning, Roger entered the EZ Pawn pawnshop at the corner of Rosenberg and Broadway. He and George had walked for miles along the seawall as the sun was coming up, watching the antique trolleys pass but lacking the carfare to ride them. Finally the trolley tracks turned away from the beach, and they followed them to the intersection that Roger remembered, marked by a tall monument to the Heroes of the Texas Revolution done in florid Victorian style and the long blue awning of a pawnshop.

Roger was tired, hungry, damp, needed a shave, and itched in many places from salt on his skin. “Good morning, sir,” he said brightly to the blue-jacketed man behind the glass display counter.

The man nodded at Roger and smiled. “Howdy,” he said. “What can I do for you, friend?”

He looks like Clint Eastwood, Roger thought, noting the thin carefully trimmed sideburns. I wonder if he cultivates the resemblance. Roger placed a square of white cloth on the glass surface of the counter and opened it. On the cloth lay five round-cornered translucent octahedrons. They were uncut diamonds, one to two carats in weight, that a few hours before had grown in the moonlight from beach charcoal as George and Roger watched. Roger produce a shard of broken mirror from his pocket, showed it to the Clint person, and scratched the mirror surface with the corner of one of the stones to demonstrate its hardness. “I would like to pawn these top-quality uncut diamonds,” Roger explained. “My late father was a diamond merchant in England. He had a good business in King’s Lynn. When Dad died, he left me these stones. I’ve carried them with me for years in memory of him. But now, unfortunately, I’m in serious need of funds.”

“Real sorry to hear that, friend,” Clint said, grinning. “What’s the problem?”

“I’m afraid I had a bit of a row with my girlfriend last night,” said Roger. “When I woke up this morning, everything I had was gone. Money, wallet, watch, credit cards, car, everything. She even threw my clothes into the Gulf, but I found them washed up on the beach. Fortunately, she missed these. I suppose she didn’t know what they were. I wonder if you could loan me a spot of cash for them?”

“Well, now,” said Clint, removing a jeweler’s loupe from a drawer behind the counter, “let’s just have a look at these beauties.”

Roger was pleased and surprised to learn how easy it had been to slip into the role he’d been playing. He must have a talent for acting, he decided. Roger emerged from the pawnshop with $1,200 in cash plus a brown suede jacket that fit him nicely, two Stetson hats, and two used suitcases that he had persuaded Clint, after some bargaining, to include in the deal. George had estimated that the market value of the diamonds was closer to $6,000, but the $1,200 looked very good, particularly considering that there was no documentation for the stones and that the merchandise had until recently been lumps of charcoal from a driftwood beach fire.

They walked back toward the seawall. Along the way they had a nice breakfast, and Roger began to feel optimistic. At a discount store they bought some new clothes, underwear, and toilet articles. They emerged carrying suitcases of a more substantial weight. Roger’s suitcase also now contained a bag of charcoal.

They turned east at Seawall Boulevard and walked two blocks to the historic Galvez Hotel. When George couldn’t produce a credit card, the desk clerk was apologetic but firm in requiring him to pay for the room for two days in advance. The bellboy took them and their suitcases to the eighth floor in an ornate elevator and showed them into a spacious room with charming period furniture, modern plumbing, and a sweeping view of the Gulf.

Roger, freshly showered, put on his starched newly purchased pajamas, pulled the curtains to darken the room, and collapsed on the bed. “I’m dead tired,” he said after a few minutes, “but my body clock is disoriented from the time shift, and I don’t feel sleepy. I should have bought some melatonin at a drugstore.”

George, clad in a bath towel and lying on the other bed, said, “Not likely, Roger. This is 1987. As I recall, melatonin wasn’t available, with or without a prescription, until about 1995.”

“Really?” said Roger. “What did people do about jet lag before that?”

“They suffered,” said George. “But you don’t need to. Just Write yourself a clock adjustment protein.”

Roger put his palm to his forehead. “Of course!” he said. “I must be even more tired than I feel.” He put his fingertips to his arm and closed his eyes.