Timeline: A Tale of Altered History

By Jeremy Jones

Robert had never used his father's invention for personal gain, but saving the life of his brother was a risk he just had to take. Unfortunately, no matter how much preparation is involved, things can never go as planned when you're playing with the very fabric of the space-time continuum. If Robert succeeds, he will rob the family who is plotting to kill his brother of their power from the moment they acquired it, deep in the past. But if he fails, it could be more than just his brother's life that is in jeopardy. Either way, he will certainly alter history and create a new timeline of events, which in turn will radically change the life he has always known. But will there be a price to pay for his actions? Consequences for "playing God?" Perhaps most importantly, if things go wrong, could any of the damage ever be fixed?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781635753752

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Timeline

A Tale of Altered History

Jeremy C. Jones

ISBN 978-1-63575-374-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63575-812-2 (Hard Cover)

ISBN 978-1-63575-375-2 (Digital)

Copyright © 2017 by Jeremy C. Jones

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

296 Chestnut Street

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Chapter 1

The Mission

November 5, 1996

Robert knew he was breaking a vow that he had made over ten years ago to his brother, Jonathan. But after learning of the plot to kill his brother, Robert believed he had no other choice. He had spent nearly two weeks in seclusion researching, seeking to determine the best way to prevent his brother’s murder. He obtained every history book and newspaper article that he could find on the family that was going to try to kill Jonathan, and he’d studied every page thoroughly. Few people on earth would have the power to do anything but run and hide from a sinister crime family like the ones who had put the hit out on his brother. But Robert was one of those few.

He couldn’t stop them today. They were way too powerful, and their influence stretched throughout the state, especially in the city where he and Jonathan lived. This family owned everything from businesses to the politicians. The mayor’s office and city council members, judges and magistrates, even Jonathan’s boss, the chief of police, were all in their pocket. They ran the casinos and controlled the flow of illegal narcotics into the city. The street-level drug dealers all answered to them.

They were the Clugstons, and their reach seemed to have no end. They were sinister, vile, and corrupt, a modern-day crime family on par with the Genovese and the Gambinos. Robert could try to stop this particular plot to kill his brother, and he might succeed. But a new scheme would soon take its place. He had no doubt they would eventually end his brother’s life.

Robert came to the conclusion that the only way to stop the Clugstons would be to rob them of their power from the beginning when they had first obtained it. That was why he had poured over the words from each page of recorded history and carefully chronicled everything he could learn. What he couldn’t find in writing, he had learned in person.

At last, everything was ready. The information gathering was now complete. Well, as complete as it was going to be. Robert then carefully and meticulously devised a plan. Now the last thing to do was to execute it.

Thirty feet below ground in an underground bunker his father started building in the early 1960s, Robert sat at his desk. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead. The stale, dry, uncirculated air provided no relief from the heat in this rectangular room. It was a large room with no dividers, 950 square feet, cinder block walls, and two rows of columns running through the center to support the overhead weight.

To the right of the desk, where Robert sat, was the staircase that led down to this secret place. On the opposite side of the room from his desk sat two folding tables with three top of the line IBM desktop computers neatly lined up on them. Robert stood and walked over to them and one by one he powered them on. Each CRT monitor slowly booted and came to life, displaying the Windows 95 startup. Cables leading from the back of each computer tower ran to the far end of the bunker, opposite the stairs. The cables were connected to a large semioval yet hollow-shaped object, which butted up to the cinder block wall. This object was six inches thick and eight feet in circumference at its widest point. Cables and wires seemed to run in and out of, or connect directly to, every square inch of this alien-looking device.

Robert walked over to the breaker box on the wall to the left of the device. There were two power levers: one inside in the box next to the breakers and one on the wall next to the box itself. Robert raised the power lever on the wall to the Up position. A single blinking red indicator light flashed five times as the device warmed up. There was a faint humming sound followed by a slight rumble that Robert could feel through his shoes before it was absorbed into the concrete floor beneath him. The device was now ready.

Robert stared at it for a moment and then turned to look at an old black-and-white portrait of his family on his desk. In the picture, he stood between his parents while his mom held his baby brother in her arms. The clothing and hairstyles were indicative of the mid to late 1960s. Next to the portrait sat a vintage comic book in a glass frame. The comic was worn, tattered, and in very poor condition. On the front cover were two young boys stepping out of a circular device bearing a striking resemblance to the very device in front of Robert. Above the animated characters was the title A Journey through Time: The Tale of Two Time Travelers. The glossy finish to the front cover had worn off decades ago, but much of the animated detail was still there. Robert walked over to the family portrait and lifted it up. Gently he caressed the frame with his thumbs. A single tear formed in his left eye as he stared into his father’s eyes.

Dad, Robert said aloud as he swallowed a hard lump in his throat. "Jonathan and I finished your life’s work, your Mona Lisa, if you will. You never told anyone about this place, but we found it after you died. We wondered what it was and what you were doing down here because it wasn’t finished. I kept searching through your stuff until I finally found your notes. You discovered time travel, Dad. You proved that it was possible. Well, at least on paper you proved it. You were in the process of building this place when you left this earth.

So Jonathan and I finished building what you never could… and it does work. You did it. You did it, Dad. For the last ten years, your sons have been witness to some of the greatest moments in history, and we did it the way you wanted it done. We were observers only. We never changed a thing. Jonathan and I made a vow never to use this for our own personal gain. We agreed never to alter the past. We’ve traveled throughout history, witnessing everything from the Gettysburg Address to the assassination of JFK and hundreds of events in between. And never once did we disrupt the space-time continuum.

Robert’s breathing suddenly became very deep, and his face contorted as he was nearly overcome with emotion.

"And that’s what makes this decision so difficult, Dad. The temptation to go back in time and save you has always been there. It is one that I have battled for years. I’ve resisted it and never given in, but things are different now. They’re going to kill him, Dad. They’re gonna kill Jonathan. I just can’t lose him too. After you died, Mom lived the rest of her years as a recluse. She eventually died of cancer. Well, that’s what the doctors said anyway, but I think that it was just her body that left us then. I believe her soul died the same day you did.

Jonathan is the only family I’ve got, so I have to do this, Dad. I have to save him. Over the last few days, I’ve gone back to several points in time to observe. I just wanted to figure out how they did it, how they came to power. I’ve studied everything in print on these people, and I’ve narrowed it down to one single event. Now I have to go back one last time, but this time I’m going back to change things. I have to take their power from them. Dad, I understand the law of unintended consequences… and I take full responsibility for my actions.

Robert kissed the photograph and placed it back on the desk. He walked over to a large standing portable closet to the right of the Time Portal and opened it. There were several outfits from different eras hanging there to choose from. There were two sets each of business suits in roaring twenties style, hippie bell-bottom pants, police officer’s uniforms from the early twentieth century, also farmer’s clothing from the thirties.

These were just some of the outfits that he and Jonathan had worn over the past decade when they were jumping through time, observing history. Always one for detail, Robert took painstaking steps to ensure that they always fit in no matter the era that they were visiting. One by one he moved the outfits from left to right until he found what he was looking for: Western attire. He removed a shirt, vest, and a pair of pants from the hangers. At the bottom of the closet sat a stack of matching shoes for the corresponding outfits hanging above them. There were two pairs of cowboy boots, one smaller than the other. Robert grabbed the smaller pair and a gun belt with a six shot revolver in an attached holster. He stripped off his clothing down to his boxer shorts and began to put on the outfit then took his street clothes that he had just removed and laid them on the chair in front of his desk.

After he had the complete outfit on, he checked his appearance in the full-length mirror on the inside of the left standing closet door. Then he picked up a can of neon yellow spray paint that was on top of the stacks of shoes and tucked it into the gap between his gun holster and his body. Lastly, he placed a pair of binoculars in his left pocket. He kept noticing a musty odor and pressed the shirt against his nose. The outfit had obviously been hanging in the closet for some time. Part of Robert’s plan was not to come in contact with anyone, and he really didn’t need anything drawing attention to himself, including his own smell. He had to get in and get out without leaving a trace of his presence. He looked over at his shaving kit lying on the floor next to his desk, but quickly decided against spraying a shot of cologne on his clothes or even using deodorant. He was traveling back over a hundred years in the past to a point in time when personal hygiene was given little consideration by many in society. The smell of cologne or deodorant could definitely give him away.

Robert paused and took a deep breath. He had spent the past two weeks studying what he believed was every possible outcome and scenario down to the very last detail. The mathematical probability of something going wrong was relatively low. Now the only thing left to do was execute the plan. And yet his mind was playing games with him. He had had very little sleep, and there were enough amphetamines flowing through his system right then to make the average speed freak jealous. He knew that he had to focus and not get sidetracked.

Stick to the plan, he mumbled to himself.

Robert walked back over to the computer closest to the portal and double clicked on a desktop icon he had named

zeno

. This is the computer program Robert wrote that operates the Time Portal itself. After opening the program, he began typing in a set of GPS coordinates followed by the date April 25, 1890. His finger hovered momentarily over the Enter key long enough for him to put some darkly tinted eye protection on his face. Then his finger dropped. A brilliant flash of light momentarily illuminated the room, but the light faded quickly. Next a sweltering heat surged past, leaving every corner of exposed skin on his face and hands feeling partially sunburned.

Instantly the device appeared to contain an image much like a large television screen, only this was semicircular. Next came the image of a busy street. Robert immediately recognized it as Main Street. He could see the buildings of downtown Breton, Georgia in real time.

This was the road that he traveled on every day on his way to the college where he was a professor of mathematics. He watched in real time as cars traveled down the road and pedestrians walked along the crosswalk. The lights from the buildings, street lamps, and traffic lights were all in perfect view. Then everything froze. Much like a picture taken from a camera without an image stabilization feature, the objects not moving remained clear while the objects that had been moving were in varying stages of blurriness depending upon how fast they were moving at the moment the image froze.

Slowly the objects began to reverse course. Cars now traveled backwards. People walked backwards. As the seconds ticked by, the speed at which the scene rewound gradually increased. The night sky vanished as the sun came back out from the west and traveled across the sky to the east. Watching this part of the process had become one of Robert and Jonathan’s favorite aspects of time travel.

Once at full speed each second represented approximately two weeks in time, so every fifty-two seconds Robert was able to watch two years of history in reverse. He glanced down at his wristwatch and did some quick math in his head. He would have just shy of twenty-eight minutes to wait before the Portal arrived at 1890.

He walked over to the couch under the breaker box and dragged it over in front of the Time Portal then sat down and began to study the scenery. It was fascinating to watch as the landscape slowly changed. His thoughts drifted to his brother. He and Jonathan called this The History Show. Up until these past two weeks, they’d always watched this together but now he was alone. He knew that if Jonathan were there he would oppose Robert’s actions. This was what they had promised never to do. The consequences could be so far reaching that they could never actually measure the extent of the damage should something go awry.

Robert closed his eyes and held them shut tightly. Focus, he said to himself.

Moments later he opened his eyes just in time to see the largest building in the city as it looked when it was originally under construction several years ago. Fifty-five stories high. Robert watched as the top came down, followed by story after story of windows. The exterior walls were first, followed by the interior metal frame. Column after column disappeared. It was comparable to watching a time-lapse video in reverse. All the way down to the massive foundation, everything vanished before his eyes. One by one the buildings in view were brought down to their foundations.

The parking lots were next. All of them disappeared. The cars people used could occasionally be seen if they were left in a parking spot long enough.

Robert always enjoyed watching the modern car era transform into the post-war era and then the pre-war era cars. From the gas-guzzlers of the seventies, to the muscle cars of the sixties, to the thirties roadsters and everything in between. If he stared hard enough, Robert could usually catch a glimpse of each.

He looked down at his watch and saw that he was fourteen minutes in. Fifty-three years had traveled by. It was now the early 1940s, and Robert could see the original County Courthouse. It was surrounded by a series of relatively small buildings compared to the mid-90s counterparts that Robert had observed a few moments earlier. There were a few mom-and-pop stores and one main grocery store. Main Street was now only a two-lane road.

Robert’s eyelids began to close under the weight of fatigue. This was the first time that he had sat idle in several days. He’d pushed himself mentally to the brink of exhaustion and now he was paying the price. All of his muscles slowly relaxed, and his head slumped forward and bounced after it had fallen as far as it could physically go.

The jarring woke him up in a panic, and he jumped up from the moment of slumber and stared at the Portal. The Time Portal had arrived at the designated date and time that he had entered into the computer: April 25, 1890, 7:25 p.m.

The image on the screen was dark. The silhouette of tall grass gently moving from the evening breeze was visible just on the other side of the Portal. The cloud-free sky allowed for the moon and stars to provide the most natural light possible.

Robert looked at his watch. It was 7:28. Again he panicked when he realized that he was three minutes behind schedule. He’d closed his eyes for what felt like a second, but in reality was a seventeen-minute power nap.

Quickly he stepped into the Portal. Beginning in the center of the image a ripple flowed outward from his body all the way through until it reached the outer edge of the Portal itself. Much like a stone tossed into a motionless body of water. From the 1890 side, Robert turned around and witnessed the same ripple, but that was the only evidence of the Portal from that side of time.

The landscape looked normal. Behind him, the Portal was not visible. So to ensure that he could find his way home, Robert reached down and removed the can of neon yellow spray paint. He bent down and painted two twelve inch lines making an X on the ground directly in front of the Portal. The neon color sparkled from the bright moonlight above. He quickly put the cap back on the can of spray paint and tossed it back into the Portal. Robert watched a small ripple run through the Portal just like the one he’d created when he stepped through. He didn’t hear the can land on the other side; he just watched it disappear.

Robert looked toward a dirt road off in the distance. He then crouched down and turned to the right and began carefully low walking parallel to the road.

He could see a large oak tree with the silhouette of a horse and rider under it. The rider was a twenty-nine-year-old William Clugston. With his youthful, clean-cut appearance, no one would have guessed that he was such a vile, sinister, and corrupt man. He was dressed in formal attire and sat facing west, the opposite direction from where Robert was low walking.’

William opened up his pocket watch and looked at the time then slammed it shut. A look of anger seared across his boyish face. Robert wasn’t the only one running behind schedule. William’s older half-brother was too.

In the distance, to the west, the faint sound of hooves striking the dirt road gradually grew louder. A strange silhouette of a horse and rider appeared. It was strange because the horse appeared to be carrying a wide load. Slowly the black mustang came into view carrying Conrad Clugston. He was rough, filthy looking, and two years older than William. They shared the same mother in common.

Conrad stopped his horse in front of William’s and spit a large stream of tobacco juice onto the ground. William grimaced at the sight and wondered how the two of them could ever have shared any of the same gene pool.

In front of Conrad, draped across his horse, was Otis Wells. He was unconscious with his hands tied behind his back, feet bound together and his mouth gagged with a handkerchief. Conrad had been keeping Otis hostage for several days and now he was going to be used as part of their plan. Otis was going to be beaten and framed for a crime that he had no knowledge of, much less had actually committed. And what did Otis do to deserve such punishment? He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Otis was a criminal, but nothing like Conrad or William.

This was how the Clugstons operated. They used whoever they wanted to use, however they wanted to use them, to get whatever they wanted.

Conrad grabbed the back of Otis’s shirt and lifted up until Otis slid off the horse and fell on the hard ground below. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he moaned in pained.

I was gonna ask if he was dead, but I guess that answers my question. So who is he? asked William.

Of course he’s alive. I’ve had to feed him every day just to keep him that way. I know we was gonna use Wild Joe from my crew, but he’s really good with a gun and with blowing stuff up with dynamite. I’m gonna need him on some future jobs, William. So then I found this here horse thief and I figured that he had volunteered for the job and I could let my man live. It was like a sign from heaven, ya know?

No, I don’t know. God doesn’t normally talk to men like us, Conrad. So how do you know he’s a horse thief?

’Cause I caught him trying to steal my horse. So I brought him with me from back home. And by the way, since I’ve had to feed him for the past few days, my cut of the money just went up, said Conrad.

Oh don’t worry, brother, you’ll get what you deserve.

Conrad smiled halfheartedly. He didn’t fully trust his brother, but the money he was promised for pulling off this job was too much to pass up. He had traveled from Arkansas and had been holed up one town over for the past few days getting ready for tonight.

Do we need to go over the plan again?

No, I know what to do, said Conrad.

Good. But let me remind you that we only have one shot at this. If anything goes wrong, anything at all—

Nothing will go wrong. Not on my end. You just make sure that woman of yours—

"Don’t talk about my woman and don’t you dare interrupt me again. Tonight is just the first step in the process. There will be more to do. But when this is all said and done, we will be wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. So don’t get any wild ideas, Conrad. When you get the jewel, you know what to do with it. You bring it here and you leave it. I promise you if you try to steal it and run off, if you try to double-cross me, I will hunt you down and I will kill you myself, even if I have to kill your entire gang in the process!"

We both know you ain’t gonna try to kill me. Don’t worry, brother, I’ll do my part. You just better make sure I get paid, said Conrad.

The rage in William’s eyes could ignite a fire had he stared at anything long enough. William did not like surprises and he was furious with his brother for using this so-called horse thief instead of the man they had originally agreed to use. William was starting to see his brother as a liability instead of an asset. Once this was over, he would likely have to have his brother killed. He might even pay Wild Joe to do it since Joe’s life had been spared without William’s approval. There was no time to make those decisions right now though because, unfortunately, he needed his brother for this job. Plus, Conrad was an amazingly fast and accurate marksman. The last thing William wanted to do was get into a shootout with him. William would likely lose, and he knew it. So after tonight he would work on a plan to eliminate him from the equation, but in the meantime, he had to work with him. They were too far into the plan to change things, and right at that moment it was go time.

William sat up straight on his horse and smiled at his brother then nonchalantly turned and began riding his horse down the dirt road in the same direction that Robert was low walking. With one strike of his leather strap against his horse’s leg, his speed changed from a trot to a gallop and within a few seconds he had crested the first of a series of hills and was soon out of sight.

Conrad’s hands trembled as he climbed down off his horse. He was furious. William was the only person alive whom Conrad would allow to speak to him that way. But he was reaching the end of his rope and didn’t know if he was going to allow it to go on much longer. He took his anger out on Otis by kicking him in the stomach then he reached down and removed the gag from his mouth in case the injured man started to throw up. Since Conrad still needed him alive for a while, he didn’t want Otis choking to death on his own vomit.

The kick had knocked the wind out of him, and Otis struggled to catch his breath as Conrad dragged him over to the oak tree. He left his hands and feet bound. The wounded man looked up at Conrad’s soulless stare and started to beg for mercy, but before he could utter a word, Conrad stuffed the handkerchief back into his parched mouth.

Stay here and don’t run off, said Conrad.

He reared back and punched Otis directly in the chin, causing his eyes to roll back in his head again. Everything went black, and Otis was again unconscious.

Conrad then walked his horse back to the west a short distance and tied it off to a tree on the other side of a row of thick bushes mixed with small- to medium-sized young trees. He stepped off into the tall grass and began running parallel with the dirt road in the same direction as Robert.

Ahead in the distance from Conrad was Robert. His back was hurting so much from the low walking that he was now standing up, hoping to make better time than what he had been making while running in that position. He stopped again when he felt blisters beginning to form on the back of both of his heels. In all of his meticulous planning, he had failed to buy some shoe inserts, and his feet were definitely not conditioned to running in cowboy boots. But he was already committed to the cause, so he was just going to have to tough it out even though he now had to slow his pace due to the pain in his feet.

Suddenly he heard the sound of a galloping horse. Until that moment he had only heard his own labored breathing and all of the loud ruckus his clothing and gear was making as he ran over the uneven terrain. Robert turned and looked as William was coming over the hill that he had just crested. He fell to the ground and prayed that the tall grass would be enough to conceal his location. Thankfully, William trotted by, never even slowing his pace.

Robert stood up and looked in both directions. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel his pulse throbbing in the veins of his temples and forehead. It was a combination of the nearly mile and a half run from the Time Portal opening to the mansion, and the fear of getting caught and killed back there in the past that had his heart racing at such a frenzied pace.

Robert closed his eyes and thought only of his brother, Jonathan. He believed his cause was noble and just and knew he had to succeed. This helped him to overcome his fear enough that he felt like he could move on, even though his hands were still trembling uncontrollably.

Robert took a deep breath and exhaled as he walked forward. In the distance he could hear the faint sounds of stringed instruments mixed with the voices of a crowd of people. One more hill to crest and then he should be able to see the mansion.

Robert, much like his father, was a tremendous fan and student of history. With the invention of the Time Portal, he had discovered that there was nothing like actually being there, actually experiencing the moment. Reading about it or watching a reenactment on television just wasn’t the same. The sounds, the smells, watching people and events as they happened, seeing everything as it actually played out in real life, was exhilarating. He loved every minute of it.

No longer running but now walking because of the pain in his feet, Robert reached the top of the last hill. The dirt road took a sharp left and quickly vanished into the darkness where it looped around and ultimately tied in with the road that led to the front of the mansion. Robert could finally see the mansion. He was on the backside of the massive house.

From everything he’d studied and from what he’d learned on previous trips to the past, he believed that this was his best vantage point to keep an eye on Conrad. As he began his final descent toward the backside of the mansion, Robert began to wonder if he’d missed Conrad or if perhaps the man was running on the opposite side of the dirt road. He was three minutes behind schedule after all. He stopped and turned to see if he could spot him.

Just then Robert could hear the sounds of footsteps beating the ground, trampling over grass, coupled with heavy breathing. There was no time to search for a place to hide. Conrad was about to come into full view, and Robert again dropped to the ground. The tall grass did provide adequate concealment, but only from a distance. If Conrad got too close he might notice a large section of grass pressed down, and if he did and chose to investigate, that would surely spell the end for Robert.

Robert was brilliant and he could do a lot of things, but fighting was not one of them. In fact, he was terrified of physical confrontation. He was the brains of the family, following in his father’s footsteps. His brother Jonathan was the fighter.

Robert lay motionless as Conrad slowed his pace to a walk and then stopped. Robert stared straight ahead as Conrad’s boots stood inches from his face. The foul mixture of body odor and manure was more than enough to make him