Chapter 3

The morning started out hard, as well. Since Vickie went first this morning, she had breakfast nearly ready by the time Amy and I finished in the shower. After breakfast, I checked the mirror to see what the two indents did.

Pressing the indent on the right, the view in the mirror got snowy like an antique TV screen, and then gradually came back into focus. The mirror was centered inches above a patch of grass, so I zoomed the view out, thinking that I had come across a pre-programmed location. When I was far enough away to recognize continents, I realized that none of the continents below me were from earth.

Zooming in on a smoky spot, I found what could only be the equivalent of a medieval city. A twenty-foot-high wall of stone surrounded a city on the seacoast. The city was roughly a mile in diameter, and horses were being ridden and used to pull heavy wagons. The roads were muddy and rutted, and snow covered the ground outside the city walls. Soldiers on the walls were armed with short swords and wooden bows, and wore leather armor. As interesting as it was, I wanted to make sure I could get back to earth so I pressed the indent again.

After the seventh try, I was viewing the seventh different planet. Two planets had been more advanced than the first, one appearing to be entering an industrial age. Two planets were at roughly the same stage of development as the first, and three were less developed, one of those seemed possibly to be in the Bronze Age. I only thought that because their swords and armor appeared to be made from bronze.

Panicked that I might not be able to cycle back to earth, I gambled and tried the indent on the upper left edge. I sighed in relief when the progression of planets reversed, and I was finally back at earth. Deciding to play around a bit more, I began going back in time, concentrating on Veracruz, Mexico. Just about the time I thought my finger would fall off, I found what I was looking for. Eleven wooden sailing ships landed off the coast where modern Vera Cruz, Mexico would someday be. Spanish soldiers, along with their horses and cannon debarked. They immediately took defensive positions and sent scouts inland. Once they were sure the landing site was secure, hundreds of civilians were unloaded, mostly Cuban natives and Africans they kept as slaves. They quickly set about starting a village of their own.

With this date as a reference, I knew it was Good Friday, April 22, 1519. Changing my location to Continental Europe, I watched the seasons change. Winter 1519, 1520, and 1521 passed. When the winter of 1521-22 was waning, I switched to hovering a mile or so above the Strait of Gibraltar. From there, I could see fifty miles in every direction. Then I slowly thumbed the larger ball, moving the time forward until the first Spanish ship, the St. Jago came into view from the west.

“Shit, how do I get into the hold?” I asked nobody in particular.

“You simply need to shrink the size of the portal,” the mirror replied. I was so startled that I jumped backward and tripped over some of Vickie’s gold panning equipment, falling on my ass.

“You can talk?” I asked the mirror incredulously once I had picked myself up off the floor and made sure that the only damage to me was a healthy bruise on my butt.

“I am what you refer to as an Artificial Intelligence. I am integrated into the portal that you refer to as a mirror and can control most of its functions. I am able to perform every manual entry you have made so far and can save you a considerable amount of time and effort if you wish,” it offered.

“How do you know we refer to them as an artificial intelligence?” I asked.

“Once I got the burst of power and was able to resume normal functions, I found far more electromagnetic radiation than before I last lost power. I also found what you refer to as the Wi-Fi connection Vickie uses with her laptop and I connected to the same source. I’ve been studying the information available on your internet. Your civilization has grown a great deal technologically in the last century.”

“Do you need to be recharged?” I asked.

“There are enough nearby electrical sources that I am able to access when the portal is not in use,” it replied.

“Do you have a name?” I asked.

“The designation used to identify me is an alpha-numeric string in the language of the race that created the portals, a designation you would be unable to pronounce,” it explained.

“Would you like a name?” I asked.

“None of our kind has ever had a designation other than our identifying alpha-numeric code. I think a name would make our interactions much simpler,” it answered.

“How does Sheila sound? That’s my grandmother’s name,” I suggested.

“It is an honor to be named after your grandmother,” Sheila said, switching to a female voice.

I learned a lot more about controlling the portal, mainly by letting Sheila take control and me telling her what I wanted. Sheila was impressed with how much we’d already learned and accomplished and how quickly we’d done it. I was stunned when she explained that we could adjust the portal’s size.

Originally, the portal had been brought to earth as part of an exploration expedition that landed on earth in 1867 BC after observing us from space for two years. It took those two years for members of their research team to complete the necessary physical transformation that would allow them to mingle unnoticed with humans.

The party lost possession of the portal when the King’s soldiers raided their home while they were out, taking the portal to the King. Without the portal, they were unable to contact or return to their ship, which was still in orbit, along with the weapons they needed to recover the portal. Part of their directive had been not to let any of their technology fall into the hands of the planet’s inhabitants so they had left nearly everything aboard the ship, assuming they would be able to access it through the portal whenever they needed.

Sheila lost contact with the ship a month later when her power reserves ran out. She got a jolt of electricity nearly seventy years ago and had been unable to contact the ship. She didn’t know if it had fallen from orbit and burned up during re-entry or crashed somewhere inaccessible since she could find no mention of anyone finding it. It was also possible that the ship had been recalled after an extended period without contact with the exploration party, or that the exploration party had been rescued and was unable to locate the portal since it had exhausted its power.

With more information and control of the portal now, I had Sheila follow the Spanish ship back six weeks in time, while it crossed the Atlantic. At night aboard the ship, I would use the portal to enter the ship. I was surprised that it could pass through the wooden hull and decks.

What struck me most about what seemed to me to be such an ancient ship were the cramped quarters and complete darkness below decks, unless someone had a lit lantern. Also striking was the number of rats and the overpowering odor of rat urine in parts of the ship that were mostly undisturbed, mainly the bowels of the ship where the cargo was. The first thing I did was scatter several handfuls of poisoned grain in those areas. The second thing I did was make sure Sheila could keep the varmints from coming through the portal into my workshop.

Each day, Vickie would have Sheila return to her panning site where she spent several hours panning sand and gravel from spots where her metal detector got big hits. She washed everything through her new long-tom, allowing her to process much more each day.

When Vickie finished, Sheila would maneuver into position below decks aboard the ship during their night and I would remove several crates, barrels, or chests. After emptying them, I’d refill them with sand or gravel and return them to their original spot. Much of the garage, workshop, basement, and a couple of spare bedrooms were full when I finished removing the valuable cargo aboard the ship. I’d made my own crude wooden crates to fill with what I took from the ship, along with dozens of cardboard boxes from U-Haul.

I also found out the hard way that working in the confines of the holds during foul weather was dangerous. After being bounced around like a pinball one day, I made a trip to a sporting goods store and bought skateboarding pads for my knees and elbows, soccer pads for my shins, and football pads for my forearms. My hardhat completed my ensemble.

The only thing that saved my back was the ability to use an electric winch I rigged in the workshop. Sheila was able to prevent any noise on our side of the portal from reaching the other side, even as items were passing through the portal. She could also provide noise-cancelling for any sounds I made in the ship so they wouldn’t alert the ship’s crew.

I wasn’t sure why I took almost everything from the ship since much of it was worthless today. One of the sailors noticed that they were riding a bit higher in the water and a cursory examination of the bilge and cargo hold were made. Seeing all the boxes and barrels still there and apparently undisturbed, they shrugged it off.

The French pirates who captured the ship six weeks after I started weren’t amused. They decided that the ship had been sent as a decoy and rushed off, anxiously trying to locate the real treasure ship which they decided must be headed for a port along the Atlantic coast.

Meanwhile, I tried to decide what to do with the loot. It would be a shame to melt down gold and silver artifacts from the Americas, yet they had already been melted down in the original timeline. Then there was the monumental task of melting down tons of gold and silver and refining it. I would need a real smelter to do that big a job, and then I would be answering questions about where I got tons of gold and silver. I was sure the Federal Government would be interested enough to pay me a visit.

“Of course, the Federal Government!” I exclaimed excitedly. After explaining my hare-brained idea to Amy and Vickie, they went shopping online. After finding, buying, and having period-appropriate clothing made and delivered for me (including a pair of revolvers, holsters, and a duster to wear over my bulletproof, arrow-proof, and knife-proof body armor), I was as ready as I’d ever be.

Taking the double eagles out of our safe deposit box, I rode through the portal on my new horse, with a pack mule in tow. The mule carried two hundred pounds of gold artifacts.

Dawn was breaking as I rode out of the copse of trees along the road on a beautiful May morning in 1858. I hoped the golden hue of the early morning sky was prophetic. Even though Amy and Vickie were literally watching over me, I rode with the shotgun across my lap, finger resting near the trigger. It proved unnecessary and I made it into Philadelphia and to the U.S. Mint without incident.

After the soldiers divested me of my rifle, shotgun, and revolvers, they let me in to see the director of the mint. Explaining that I represented a ship that stumbled across the wreck of a Spanish Galleon, I showed him the artifacts I brought with me. “I have an estimated eleven tons of gold artifacts and ninety tons of silver artifacts if you’re interested. I can have them here within a week,” I offered.

I felt certain the poor director was going to pass out when his face turned white. “Tons?” he gasped, barely audible.

“As I said, that is just an estimate. Besides, I don’t know what the pieces will assay at. I’m sure each piece will be different.”

“Tons?” he asked again, his voice a little stronger now.

“Yes,” I replied as I nodded.

“We can issue bank credits if you want to be paid quickly. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until we mint new coins,” he warned. I told him I would wait for the new coins. When I left, I found a large warehouse near the docks that I rented for six months. It had an attached stable and corral for the mules we’d need. I also bought twenty-five heavy-duty freight wagons, including eight Conestoga wagons with mules, and I hired drivers. They were to report at dawn in two days, ready to drive the wagons.

With the empty wagons packed tightly inside the warehouse, it was a relatively simple matter to use the electric winch to load the gold and silver into each wagon. Once they were loaded and covered, I left Sheila guarding them while I slept on an inflatable mattress underneath one of the wagons.

Before dawn on the appointed day, I unlocked the warehouse doors and swung them open.

I had visited the mint the previous day, giving them the address of the warehouse and warning them that we would be arriving with twenty-five wagons beginning shortly after 8:00. I was a bit surprised to find a hundred troops guarding the warehouse when I opened the doors this morning. Some of them even helped my muleskinners get the mules harnessed and hooked up to the wagons. Shortly before 7:30, we began rolling. A cordon of troops flanked the line of wagons, drawing the interest of everyone along the route. The teamsters were paid a full month’s wages for their single day of service, and I promised to call on them again if I needed them.

It took nearly six months for the mint to transform the gold and silver into coins. I took delivery of one-sixth of what I was owed every four weeks and hired six drivers to drive the loaded wagons to the warehouse where the coins began disappearing through the portal as soon as the warehouse doors were closed and locked.

The poor director seemed so relieved when they finished that I didn’t have the heart to take him what I’d collected in the last six months. I sold the remaining wagons, figuring to bring smaller amounts if I ever did this again. When I was done, I had a hodgepodge of coins, including some of every coin in circulation at the time. I got as many smaller coins as I could, figuring they would be less common if I sold them as collectible coins and would be easier to use buying things in the future should the economy here get bad enough that precious metals were again used instead of printed money.

I sat and stared in exhaustion at the mountain of canvas bags we had carried to the basement, bags full of gold and silver coins. “We definitely need to build a vault in the new house,” I commented.

“A big one,” Amy seconded.

“Maybe two or three,” Vickie laughed.

At least Vickie had decided she was going to college this fall. As such, the three of us made the trip south. The ladies wanted to see the property, and Vickie needed to register, having enrolled online. Vickie had spent a week online studying the offerings of the colleges in the area, and then called Florida Gulf Coast University to see if she could still enroll for the semester. Being a smaller school, they were eager to get another student, especially one paying full tuition in cash.

The realtor let us tour each of the empty homes; the women chose the one they wanted to live in while our home was being built. Our temporary home was a single-story home that was twenty-five hundred square feet. The side and back yards were completely fenced in, and it even had an enclosed pool in the back yard, although the pool was empty. The landscaping, however, was nearly all dead due to lack of recent attention.

The local radio news station we listened to on the drive to the property was lamenting the upcoming closure of the county’s free clinic due to continuing government budget cutbacks, as well as the retirement of the doctor who ran the clinic, and a drop in private donations due to the economy.

Hmmmmm...

While the women got Vickie registered in college, I made a visit to the County Manager’s office in Fort Myers. Telling the secretary that I was only in town for the day and had a proposal to fund their free clinic, my wait to see the County Manager was only fifteen minutes.

“Mr. Ross is it?” the County manager asked pleasantly when she came out to meet me. “My secretary tells me you have a proposal to fund the free clinic,” she said, getting right down to business.

I explained about buying the property on the north end of the county. I knew that the bus line went along the highway since I’d seen the bus stop signs. I told her I was willing to build a new free clinic along the east edge of my property and would fund it for ten years in exchange for being allowed to build a twelve-foot-high stone privacy wall completely around my property.

“But why would you need a twelve-foot wall?” she protested.

“Because I can afford to build and fund the free clinic,” I answered. She nodded her understanding.

I would need to wait until escrow closed, and then present the proposal to the County Council at one of their meetings. The proposal would have to wait until the following meeting for a vote, giving interested parties time to comment on it. She was certain that there wouldn’t be much opposition. The neighboring sand and gravel quarry would probably be glad for the wall. The number of homes affected south of us was minimal. The only opposition might be from the marina, but they already had their own ten-foot wall.

After finding out when the first meeting I could attend was, I thanked her for her time and went to find the ladies. I also called my attorney and twenty minutes later, I was on my way to meet him. After a thirty-minute meeting (and a larger retainer), he was also sure the wall was a done deal. He didn’t even ask why I wanted it; everybody was painfully aware of the steadily increasing violence and lawlessness.

Vickie was excited about her new school. Evidently, several of the classes she was signed up for could be taken online. Many of the lectures were available live online and again later, recorded. She would only have to physically attend class two days a week at most. The college had always tried to make it easier for non-traditional students to attend, and to reduce their effect on the environment by limiting how often students had to drive to class.

My next call was to Dr. Medina, my family’s doctor since I was a pre-teen. “Carlos,” I exclaimed when he answered, “Are you still looking for an opportunity where you and your son can work together?”

“Definitely, although those opportunities are rare,” he replied. I explained about the free clinic needing someone to run it. He liked the idea but worried about problems with junkies and drug dealers trying to rob the place for drugs. “That’s easy, don’t carry or use anything they would want. If they don’t like the options available to them, they can go to a hospital,” I said. “I also intend to have some sort of armed security, both for the clinic and the property,” I mused, as much to myself as to the doctor. While I’d planned on a few security guards, I wondered how many we’d need.

We talked about salary and such. I even offered to pay off the remaining student loans his son, Ruy had.

“I didn’t know the construction business paid so well or I would have had Ruy working for you instead of paying for his medical school,” Carlos laughed.