"You have activated this travel device. Please state where in time or space you would like to go."
Greg, slow to answer said, "Take me back to my truck."
"I am sorry, I have no information on that destination. Please try again."
"What? I left from that location, like two jumps ago!" Greg said.
"I am sorry," the voice from the coin replied, "this unit has had its memory capacity removed, save for the location of the previous activation."
"You have got to be kidding me," Greg said. He searched his own memory for the time and place he left his truck. He had only taken a short trip through time, but already he felt a bit hazy on what real time was. In fact, the thought terrified him. He would have to keep a log with him next time, to keep everything straight. And what about his age? Was he still aging when he traveled, returning several hours older, even though his time had not changed? This could take years off his life...
"It was the twenty-eighth of July, 2015 at 1:13 in the afternoon. So, let's do 1:14 to be safe," Greg decided.
"Time set. Location?" the voice asked evenly.
"Ahh, crap. Uh, it was the Eagle Lakes exit? I don't know the name of the road... I parked a quarter mile off the ramp."
"I do not have enough specifics to place you based on that information. I can insert you under the freeway at Interstate Eighty and Eagle Lakes road, Placer County, California, United States, North America."
"Fine, Greg said. " I guess I can walk."
"You will be placed in five seconds. Please remember the Hopper-"
"Stop," Greg interrupted. "I have a question."
"Yes?"
"You were reprogrammed to not keep a memory of previous points of insertion, or whatever?"
"Yes, but that modification was physical as well as a command."
"Modified by whom?" Greg asked.
"That information is not present."
Figures, Greg thought. "Then can I make modifications to your program?"
"What would you like to change?" She asked.
"Every time you are triggered, how about just saying, 'Destination?' instead of the whole, 'where in time or space...,' bit you do," Greg said.
"The requested change in greeting is acceptable."
"And at the end," Greg continued, "you don't need to remind me about the Hopper rules."
"My memory for the users of this device is linked with the activation location memory slot. Therefore, I will not be able to recognize your use of this device beyond one trip," she said. "But, based on your last request, I can modify this to my program, which can be recoverable to the default script at any time."
"Works for me," Greg said.
"Shall I continue with the interrupted placement of the previous request?"
"I am ready," Greg said.
"You will be placed in five seconds..."
The walk back to his truck did not take long. Greg's heart lightened when he recognize he'd returned to the correct exit. After all, he'd impulsively pulled off of the freeway. His truck sat where he had left it, no sign of his past self, confirming that his dash clock read the proper time. The windows were down and the door creaked as he got in, as if he had been gone a million years. The unguarded painting and rucksack full of money were still untouched.
Greg started his truck, and at that moment, the greatest love of his life swept over him. Though he had only known her a short time, but he loved his truck more than any person on earth. The love was real; she was under him and all around him. His love for the machine surpassed the love he felt for his mother, the flashes of memory he still had of his father, and his long gone brother. His family was just facts in his life, but the steering wheel in his hand and the door beside him were real. With these feeling full inside him, he swore to himself he would keep that truck for the rest of his life.
Seeing his younger self, walking down the street pulling his old red wagon had been a strange experience for Greg. He didn't remember the route he, Chelsea, and Zach had taken to get to the corner gas station all those years ago. Seeing it happen made him realize, his memories did not always reflect the way they actually happened. The more he thought about the whole situation, the more he was amazed.
The three children had done a remarkable job in keeping their find to themselves. For three twelve-year-olds to suddenly come into possession of assorted jewelry, gems, and stacks of foreign currency, the odds were strongly against them remaining undiscovered by an adult, who would have confiscated their loot. But despite whatever differing personality traits that lay dormant inside the people they would become, their loyalty to keeping the secret was strong in each. For if one of them got caught, the other two would be found out soon enough. And so, Greg worked hard not to bring suspicion to himself and the unexplained answer as to why he always had ample cash on hand. Infrequently, he visited the coin shop in old-town to exchange Canadian dollars (money sent to him from a father who worked in the oil sands) for spendable green stuff. Nothing flashy, that was his rule for himself. It was hard not to give his mother a piece of the expensive jewelry he had stashed away in one of the fireproof lock boxes he kept in his closet. But to do so would assuredly bring into question where he got the money for such a thing. The gems he knew were going to be a problem to sell, as he didn't think he could come up with a credible justification on how he had come to their possession. He figured he would have to wait until he was older to find a way exchange them.
Slowly, he understood he had come to that age. While he may not be considered a legal adult, he remembered something a teacher in school had once said. It was a warning, probably said offhand, but it had stuck with him. 'There comes a point in every adolescent's life, (fifteen to sixteen) where they become totally responsible for themselves. Whether others want to believe it or not, teens can do whatever they chose, and no one can really stop them once they set their mind to a task.'
The ramifications were not lost on Greg. He knew he had reached the age where a person became accountable. Decisions made now could affect the rest of his life. He understood why it was so important to have the basic skills taught to him by this point. He had to be able to navigate his own life and future.
Thinking back to the call he had received that morning from Chelsea, Greg felt ashamed. She was being responsible for herself and her future while Greg had been out relaxing by the river. His buzzing phone awoke him at eight with a Southern California number and a voice he had lost touch with over the past couple years.
"So, how much do you have left?" She asked after some requisite small talk.
Greg sat upright in his bed to get his mind working. It was the earliest he had been awake in a long time.
"Well, I haven't spent anything other than the cash... I have a little less than half of that left. I don't even know where I could try to take the other stuff yet."
"I'm the same way," she said. "Every time my family goes on a trip I sneak off and exchange a stack of money, telling the currency people that my family is visiting from up north. It's really hard to keep finding new places."
"Yeah," he agreed. "I just figured that I would have to wait till I was older to make some, like, black market connections or something!"
"Well, that's kinda why I called. I've been thinking about my future," Chelsea said. "College and stuff."
Greg frowned. He had not thought beyond making it to the end of high school. It wasn't as if he was oblivious to his impending future, he just had not considered anything yet.
"If I'm going to be able to afford school, I'm going to need some more money. Even if I take a road trip up to Canada, solely to exchange all the cash at different banks, I figure I'll still be short. Money to live on. You know, rent and things."
"Okay," Greg said. The idea was novel to him. He hadn't had enough time to develop an opinion. Chelsea continued with her argument.
"So I figured, if I had more money, I could keep from getting a job and really focus on school,” she said, guiding him i
nto the idea.
"You want to see if there really is more treasure at the other two sites marked on the map."
"Yeah. We are finally old enough now to drive. We could actually see what was stashed at the other two X's on the map. You still have it, right?"
"Course! So, which one should we go after?" Greg asked, suddenly invigorated with adventure. "Silver City or Lone Pine."
"Well, Lone Pine is only a couple hours from me here in Ventura. But I've got this job and I don't know when I'd have enough time or an excuse to get away..."
"Silver City is just over the mountains from me. I've got all the time in the world," Greg suggested.
"You'd go alone? What about Zach? Should we split it with him?"
"I don't really talk to him much anymore. We have different friends... But, we should probably give him some of it, just so he doesn’t think we ripped him off or something. I can just give him a smaller portion of whatever I find. He doesn’t have to know how much we get..."
"Okay. And the next chance I get, we can meet up and check out the Lone Pine spot. Especially if there is a good stash there in Nevada."
And there had been a good stash out in the rocky desert. Greg gazed over to the bulging pack with little interest. His future was much more secured now, but a larger excitement came over him. He had a time machine! The little coin in his pocket was his real ticket through life! The possibilities of being able to go anywhere in space or time made the treasure look like a drop in a hat! His lazy summers would never have to end. He would no longer have to worry about work or his future as long as he had that coin! While Chelsea worked hard to get into the right college, he would worry about what tropical island he wanted to live on!
Distracting him from the thoughts of future possibilities, the message on the inside of the crate leapt to Greg's mind. Find what they fear. When he read the cryptic slogan painted in red on the inside of the crate, a little voice in the back of his mind told him he had seen it somewhere before. He had wanted to go back through the worn little notebook the treasure map had been written in, but the flip of a coin had made him forget. Almost back out of the mountains, Greg grabbed for the book and thumbed through the pages with one hand while he stole glances away from the road. He swore he knew just what page it was on...
And there it was, a single line hidden among the personal thoughts and writings of a departed transient. The four words were scrawled on the backside of the page that had the section of the map indicating the spot of the Silver City stash. The words matched perfectly, and the letter style was even the same.
Find what they fear.
Greg rolled into town, the hypnotic state breaking as he drove past the gas station he had seen less than an hour before. He still felt like a passenger in his own body as he realized he was leaving the side-walked streets of downtown and was driving away from his house on Ridge road. Why was he going this way? To the creek leading out of the reservoir, of course!
At a turnout, Greg parked the truck, then crossed the road and turned down the poorly paved path that would bring him to the creek. With the old notebook stuffed in his back pocket, he hiked unnoticed toward the creek. A dog barked at him as he passed unfenced properties. Piles of dry branches and brush sat in wait to be reduced to ashes on the next county burn day. He took a deer trail and made his way through the bushes to the spot he had come to so long ago with his friends. He surveyed the place he had been compelled to see, then approached it as if it was a holy place. The crumbling concrete and weeds held magic memories from youth, Greg's first time returning since the day his brother disappeared.
He heaved the branch from the boulder, both of which were easily removed this time. Greg hauled the crate from its dark tomb and flipped the lid back. Words, like the ones he had seen on a similar crate that very morning, stood bold to be read.
We are prisoners.
Greg had no memory of any message left on the inside lid when he found the first stash, but here it was. He blinked moisture back into his dry eyes and ran a hand over the red letters. Squatting, he pulled the notebook from his pocket and flipped through the pages. The map had been drawn on prime numbered pages, so that when he and his friends cut the map free, it could be arranged into a whole. Now, four years later and rebound, the pages seemed to be a random mess of thoughts. But Greg knew better. He found the page containing the first X, drawn near three circles indicating the reservoir in his hometown. On the backside, the words jumped off the page at him. There it was the whole time, but had meant nothing to him.
We are prisoners.
Something inside Greg would not let the pair of cryptic messages go. They had been left as warnings to whoever found the treasure, he decided. But were they just the rambling thoughts of a hobo, or did they mean something more? Greg repacked the spot and left.
Introspection was not something that came naturally to him. Something burned inside his unconscious, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It loomed over him as he went home and unloaded his truck. Entering his room, his hand automatically went to his stereo, an ancient contraption left by the boys' father.
Switching on the radio threw a similar switch inside his mind. Greg felt as if the blanket of depression was yanked off, uncovering him to the sunlight. It was like the song in his heart changed to something more upbeat, and with it, his mood.
A song!
He glanced at the clock; it was still several hours until his mother was off work. But, with a time machine, counting the hours down to when she would get home was irrelevant!
Excitedly, he dragged his loot across the dry wooden floor and into his walk-in closet. He slung the valuables aside with little thought. High up on the shelf of his closet, Greg pulled down a cardboard box.
It was a box of his father's things. His mother had allowed her two sons to keep the single box when she was cleaning out his belongings. Taking the box to his bed, Greg worked his way to the bottom and pulled out a rolled up poster. It was for a concert his father had attended when the boys were young. Greg and Peter thought their dad was the coolest when they went through all his old CD's and found the poster he had bought at the show.
"That's where I'll go," Greg said to an empty house. He pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and grabbed the little notebook, remembering that he would need to write down important times, since the coin had no long-term memory. On one of the blank pages near the end of the book, he scribbled down the destination information based upon the info on the poster, and fished the coin from his pocket. He stood still for a moment, contemplating his decision.
"Dad always told Peter and me how awesome this concert was. He said one of his favorite bands made a surprise appearance. It was one of the best shows he had ever seen in his whole life!"
Greg nodded to himself. "This is a foolproof way to see the show. No one will recognize me, especially him! How could he recognize someone he never got to see grow up! I could see my father in his prime..."
The coin was poised. Greg did a mental inventory. He had written everything important down. He had his wallet and cash. It was summer in Southern California. He would go enjoy the concert, see if he could find his father, and come home. Easy. He flipped the coin.
"Destination?" The female voice said once Greg was standing in the sphere. Greg grinned, his handiwork showing through.
"The 11th annual K-rock Weenie Roast. 15 June, 2002. Irvine Meadows Amphitheater in Southern California."
"This event begins at 3:00 Pacific Standard Time. Would you like an insertion suggestion?"
"Sure, but I should probably get there a couple hours early to get tickets, I need some dinner... or lunch, I guess it will be."
"I can place you in an orange grove one quarter of a mile east of the amphitheater at one P.M., Irvine, California, United States, North America. Is this acceptable?"
"It is!"
"You will be placed in five seconds."