15 June 2005 – New York

The two men appeared out of nowhere. Moments before they had been in the same spot, but years later. One of them calmly walked over to a table and laid a state of the art laptop on it and powered it up. The other rushed to a nearby trashcan and threw up in it.

“The first couple of times can really mess with you, like last jump. It gets better though.” Tommy said as the noises from James echoed through the room.

James quickly got up and went to the bathroom. It was where it was in his time. He washed up and came back out. “This place looks exactly the same.”

“I have it kept that way. When you arrive and the setting is the same, it makes it a bit easier. Also because I have no idea what would happen if I arrived and something was in the same space that I was in.”

“That does seem like is might be a problem. The whole two things occupying the same space kind of thing. Surprised it hadn’t happened to ya.”

“Before I had places to arrive specifically, I would get on a box or chair.”

“Seriously?”

“I sprained my ankle more than once from it. I usually just drop a foot or two. But yeah. Better a bum leg for a day or two than materializing into something. Anyway, get over here I have something for you.”

James walked over to the table and looked at the now turned on computer. “What am I looking at?”

“The best lawyers in the fields that you said you would need to make this thing work. Old Patterson junior did some digging for me. He assembled a lot of legal documents and names of people for us in our endeavor.”

James sat down and reviewed some of the information. “This is good. On a side note. Since we have this information now and he did all the leg work. What will happen when we use it and you won’t have to ask him to gather it in the future, thus basically making this computer its own paradox?”

“Really? More with the time stuff? Well I guess he won’t be asked to do it then will he? I mean I still asked him, so we both know it happened. The fact that he will never actually do it is of no consequence. The fact is this. We are outside of time, so is that laptop now. Anything that changes and affects the new timeline will alter everything that is a part of it. Since we don’t belong in it and any changes will happen before we get back, then we will know what happened and that laptop will keep the information on it. Does it create a paradox? I guess, but nothing like you see in the movies. Again, not sure why it all works this way, but it does. So enough with the twenty. Just go with the Doctor Who explanation, People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a nonlinear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff.”

James nodded, “As long as it works. I will need a bit of time with this stuff.”

“Sure. I am gonna call up the chef to let him know there are two for dinner tonight. You want anything in particular?”

“Whatever.” James dug into the screen and started reading. “Oh hey. What was that other laptop he locked in the desk?”

“That had all the current financials on it. There is a copy on that computer too if you wan to take a look later.”

“So you had him place it in the desk so we could reference it when we got back to see the changes?”

“Exactly, now you are getting the hang of this.”

“Not really, but it made sense. This one is the control group, the one back in our time is the test group.”

“Look at who paid attention in science.”

James continued to read. After a while the aroma of food came into the room. Shortly after that Tommy came in and told him it was time for dinner. He closed the top of the computer and made his was to the back of the penthouse to a dinning room with a table that could see twelve easily. There were to places set. He took a seat to the left of the head of the table. Tommy was already there. The chef brought out their food. It was the best smelling thing James had ever smelt, even the breakfast from his morning.

The pair ate in relative silence, as both men were far hungrier than they thought. When they were done the chef took their plates and brought wine for them. “That will be all Romero you can leave the mess for the maid in morning, and as usual an excellent meal.”

The chef smiled at him and departed. Tommy popped the cork from the win and poured some in the two glasses that accompanied the bottle. They both took a glass and drank. “You really know how to show a guy a good time,” James said as he placed his now empty glass down.

“Well, I figured you wouldn’t want to travel through time in coach.”

“So what other little secrets do you have lurking, you know little things that changed in the timeline.”

“Well, one of my favorites is that I gave Woz the last piece to make the Apple II.”

“Really? He didn’t do that himself?”

“Well he did, I just helped out about 6 months ahead of time. That got me a few shares of stock before Apple’s IPO back in 1980. Then I helped them out in 1997.”

“With what?”

“When Jobs came back, they were hurting. Originally it was Microsoft that loaned them the capital to get back on track. But I kind of usurped that, since I had an existing relationship with Jobs from the 70s I played that card again.”

“Gates helped Jobs?”

“Yeah, they weren’t the rivals everyone thinks. But anyway, I had sold stock during the IPO in 1980, then bought a ton back in 96 when they were low. After Jobs came back and did his thing, I made a killing when it shot back up, plus a nice return on my infusion.”

“You just make all the deals, don’t you?”

“When one knows when and how the deals are going down before the people that should actually be making them, of course. Oh hey I want to show you something before you get back to the grind.” Tommy stood up and poured them both a fresh glass, then walked down another hall that James hadn’t been down yet. At the end they came to a door, Tommy opened it and entered.

Inside were display cabinets from floor to ceiling. Tommy went to one in the center. James approached and saw it. A nice wood grain box, slightly open to reveal a book inside. The cover said Men & Magic. “Is that……”

“A first printing of D&D, oh yeah. I even have a certificate with Gary and Dave’s signature. They are actually amazing guys.”

“I think I hate you right now. What is all of this?”

“My personal collection. I also have a lot of, I guess you would call them time relics. You see once something enters a timeline it is not a part of, it just stays. Like how that laptop out there will just keep its information. Over here I have a Sony Playstation 1, 2, 3 and 4.”

“A what?”

“In the original timeline, Nintendo and Sony had a dispute so their joint disc-based game system never happened. I made sure it did in this one. Originally, Sony went off on their own and started to compete with Nintendo. So before I saved that deal, I got one of each of their systems to store here.”

“Jesus man, how much stuff have you altered?”

“Overall, hardly anything. But in our little world of geek, a fair amount. With potentially unlimited time on my hands I had to find something to do. I also like to take best selling games back and have them released about a year before they originally are.”

“How many pots do you have your hands in?”

“You will find out tomorrow.”