Only Time Will Tell
Copyright© 2025 by Charlie for now
Chapter 1
It was an interesting afternoon. I won a six-million-dollar lottery, drove down to the capital to get the check, stopped at the bank to deposit it, and upon my return home had yet another argument, a really bad one, with my live-in girlfriend of eight months. She didn’t know why I went to Jefferson City, and I had no intention of telling her at this point.
Things had been deteriorating for months and naturally I had been researching options. I pondered my situation, and after realizing I wasn’t really happy there anymore, I sent a million dollars to Tunnel to Towers and another million to Wounded Warriors, then went back out to the garage, sat in my “invention”, thought about my options for a minute, and then left.
Yes, I left. In my “invention”.
Out of sheer boredom, I had researched some possible uses of reverse serial diacronization in conjunction with a laser powered matter inverter and ‘voila!’, I was able to traverse distance and, to a much lesser degree, time. Minutes, later possibly hours, and maybe at some point days, but that was yet to be proven. With distance, however, it was a much more effective contraption. Experiments had already shown the capability for moves of as much as fourteen hundred miles.
So, in as much as I could, I did. Leave, that is. I left the nagging, the haranguing, the constant bitching, and the ever so present reminders that someone’s biological clock was ticking. Under the circumstances, especially the last several months of it, I wanted nothing to do with setting the nine-month alarm on it or even winding it for her.
She might not even miss me until she needs someone to complain to, or about, or at. The little bungalow I grew up in was paid for, the taxes were minuscule, and they and the small insurance premiums came out of an escrow account I had set aside which would take care of both for several years. Yeah, she might just be happier without me. I could only hope.
She used to be fun. She used to be interesting. She used to not know how much money I had. Being the girlfriend of a successful entrepreneur and inventor, once she realized that’s what she was, changed her. She needed more of everything, including me. She became demanding, uppity, all the things she wasn’t before, when I fell in love with her. Money changes people. It hurts relationships. It ruins families. Let’s be honest here, it creates monsters. Usually. Not always. I’d like to think I’m an exception to the rule, but I’ll leave that up to others to judge.
Enough about her. I left her. I abandoned her, for the time being, at the very least. Don’t think too poorly of me, please. I was just trying to survive.
I started to set the dials, laughing to myself about being in a real live way back machine, similar in some ways to what Mr. Peabody had when he and Sherman ran around fixing the world’s problems. I wasn’t going to do that. I decided, very earnestly, I might add, while I was successfully completing experiments, not to do much time travel. Distance only, as much as possible.
Theorists, physicists, philosophers, and even sci-fi fans the world over feel time travel is rife with problems. Relational paradoxes and ‘set sequence alteration’ related quandaries were not something I wanted to be involved with. Although I knew of no peers in this technology, I don’t think any of us wanted to be the guy that kept Ben from flying his kite, or George from chopping down that tree.
Think of what could have happened, or not happened, if major changes had occurred due to a decision in 1618 to go a different route. The possible outcomes are endless. None of us would be here, though, so, it wouldn’t really matter. The downside? No Booker T. and the MGs, no Supremes, no Bob Woodson, no Ben Carson, George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, Thomas Sowell, or Herman Cain. None of them. Obama? Sure. His mom was white and his dad from Kenya, so yeah, he might still be around. He damn sure wouldn’t have been president, though. Everyone else in the country, mostly, would have been the same, lily white, except for the natives of the land and migrant workers coming across the southern border at harvest time. The government handout system could have been different, so there might not be all the freebies drawing people across the border permanently. Again, endless possibilities and options, yet I digress.
The dials were set for an empty lot in the Catalina Foothills between Mount Lemmon and Tucson. I had the latitude and longitude set with an elevation set so I wouldn’t fall far when I arrived. Hopefully not at all, actually. I had some money, a bag with a change of clothes, a couple of guns, and a tent tucked in behind the seat. The tent was to put over the machine until I could get a shed built and then have a house built on the lot.
The lot, or lot of lots actually, was listed on the web as being for sale. Four contiguous acres in a new development at the very edge of civilization. Eight large lots of prime residential real estate. They wanted a hundred grand each. I was offering an even million for all eight of them, with only one or two of them going to be developed. I could only hope they bit on my offer. Naturally, I had wiggle room. Lots of it, but I didn’t want to pay gold prices for silver.
This was going to be fun. I’m only being slightly sarcastic. Starting over rarely is, but I was looking forward to it. I had a plan to work with a couple of military industrial complex bigwigs and make some seriously heavy-duty jingle while I began my new life. I had a few ideas up my sleeve that should keep me going and keep beer in the fridge. I had no intention of being single for very long either, but I was going to be a bit more careful this time.
The trip took all of about 7 seconds, and once the dust cleared, in a manner of speaking, since there wasn’t really any, and the tent was set up, I called for an Uber. The look on the driver’s face when he arrived was, to say the least, hilarious. Evening in a desolate part of suburban Tucson, a lone man standing on the curb, that cement curb of the yet to be paved street being the only sign of civilization, with a little bag in his hand and a family sized tent a hundred feet behind him. Yeah, the guy was surprised, but he took it well and delivered me to the Hacienda Del Sol on the north side of town.
As I checked in, I checked my phone again, and for the life of me, couldn’t figure out why I had no messages, no missed calls, no emails, no anything. Then it came to me. This was happening so quickly she still had not figured out that I’d left. I needed to take care of that the next day, for sure. I’d let her know I was having my office moved and she could stay there as long as she liked, but I was not coming back. That should work. I would have Mayflower Movers, or someone similar, take care of moving me after the fact. I thought, ‘It’s still going to be ugly, but maybe, just maybe I can start over without the complications.’
The desk clerk got my attention, had me sign for the room, a week’s stay, at a minimum, then gave me key cards and sent me on my merry way.
The room was wonderful. Very southwestern in motif, but what else could a person expect in Tucson at a resort made to impress that exact atmosphere upon its guests. It was going to be home for a bit, at least until I could make a deal and find something suitable for the period between then and until my new home was built.
Some background might be in order. I am Charlie, Charles Chapman, a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, and sometimes fighter pilot. Sometimes, I say, because I had several other flying assignments, flying everything from 757s and 737s, to little commuter prop jobs. I’d literally flown just about everything Uncle Sam owned, save the big 747 presidential planes and the big bombers.
I had fun. I liked flying, but I also liked inventing things. I have been referred to as a genius with no leadership qualities. My highest position as a military leader was as deputy commander of a squadron of misfits flying government people from the Washington D.C. area to wherever their chores took them. It was a loosely knit bunch of guys, half in flight rehab of one sort or another and the other half just tired of the wars and deployments. They volunteered to fly shuttles and since shuttle pilots are needed just like fighter jocks, there were positions available. I avoided the appointment as squadron commander when ours left by putting in for my retirement. I had a little over twenty-one years in, and all as a rated officer, so it wasn’t much of a problem.
At about the same time I put in my papers to retire, I had a couple of ideas that I shared with a friend who worked for one of the big aerospace firms. With his help I was able to turn my ideas into some pretty novel adaptations and updates to our airborne war fighting and threat warning capabilities. To say the least, I made millions. Some in company stock, some in cash, some in bearer bonds, and some in gold. You would be surprised how some people, a.k.a. corporations, pay their bills.
Just after I retired, I had one little gem come to mind that really hit it big. Once I had made sure it was viable and got it to where I knew it would work, I made some calls to a couple of contacts in the Pentagon I had met while working on the earlier projects. They were pretty excited about it and set me up with some meetings with a couple of guys that had been trying to do something similar. I wound up selling my work to a small startup company, a subcontractor to one of the biggies, for twenty percent of their company and eight figures, the first of which was a three, in cash. My idea went into space and proved itself so useful, the startup wound up as a prime contractor and my twenty percent became a very substantial asset with quite a bit of long-term value. Let’s just call it financial security to last well into my golden years and provide for anyone I leave behind.
Before I was forty-three years old, I had amassed about a hundred million dollars in liquid assets and well more than half that amount in stock options and company partnerships.
A year and a half later I found myself running away from a burned-out relationship in a machine that was worth thousands, or more probably millions, of times more than what I already had. I didn’t want to share it yet, though. I was afraid of what it could do and even more so what it could be used to do. Even though the country had stabilized a bit over the last ten years or so, I still didn’t want the technology abused.
So, there I was in Tucson, Arizona, in the year of our Lord 2032, trying to rebuild what I could of my personal life, hoping to meet someone pretty like Bethany, but more levelheaded and less demanding. I had no idea what my chances were of success, but ... It was worth a try.
I fell in love with Tucson early in my career during a stint flying the A-10 Warthog. I loved the place, loved that plane, and had a ball both living there and flying around the area, as well as my deployments to a few not so quiet areas of the middle east.
I remembered a couple of women I dated back then, too. I was in my mid-twenties and a bit wild, but I never got so close to them that anyone felt like settling down.
Angela was a hoot. She was crazy to the bone and loved country music. We spent quite a few fun nights at a bar down on Golf Links. They had a couple of live bands that rotated through there and another place up north.
Sandy was a lot more laid back, and she’s the one that showed me the beauty of Mount Lemmon and the many places one could hike up in there to find peace, quiet, and more than one private swimming hole where clothing would be optional.
I fell asleep my first night back, thinking about them and my plans for the future. I couldn’t wait to get started on Charlie Chapman, version two point oh.
I woke early, despite the late bedtime, and ate a hearty breakfast. It was going to be a long day. I already knew that. Financial negotiations and transactions of that magnitude are heavyweight activities.
At eight o’clock, I called the developer’s office and after the receptionist heard my plan, she immediately forwarded my call to their vice president of sales. He introduced himself on the phone as Dick Pierce. We spoke and when I mentioned all eight of the lots and which lots they were, on the back edge of the development, nestled up against the foothills, where no one would build behind them, he hemmed and hawed and stammered a bit.
“Those lots sell for over a hundred thousand each, but we build houses on them, Mr. Chapman. Big houses. Those are half acre lots and the homes are going for just under a million and on up. There’s a lot more money coming in on that development.”
“I understand that, Mr. Pierce, but I’m offering an additional twenty-five grand for each lot to cover some of that. There is plenty of building going on around here, and it doesn’t all have to be done on Eagle Lane.”
“I’m thinking more like a million six to cover our loss of revenue.”
“I’m thinking of maybe buying one lot in the next development over and giving up on my plan for Eagle’s Run,” I told him.
“I’ll tell you what. Let’s split the difference at a million three. That will provide us needed capital to finish the development’s infrastructure, the backside will be less congested. No one will ever be able to build back behind there. Sorry for sharing. I shouldn’t have done that out loud.”
“No problem, and I’ll keep it quiet. I’ll consider that price on a couple of conditions, one being exclusion from any zoning and HOA rules in effect in the subdivision. I don’t want some idiot telling me I can’t fly a flag on my own property whether it be American or Gadsden. On top of that, I plan on having an office and a lab built next door. They’ll look like a house, so no one will be the wiser, but it’s a deal breaker.”
“We can make that happen, Mr. Chapman. What is the other condition?”
“We do it now. Closing and all, cash up front, and you find me a builder that will complete the property for me. I know you have two good ones. A custom builder would be best, and I’m going to assume you’ll recover some additional fiduciary benefit from the effort. I can’t imagine my construction project will run less than two and a half million, to be truthful. I have ideas that I want to run by an architect and a builder and get it on the way to being finished.”
“You have a deal, Mr. Chapman. Can you come down to the office and get the paperwork started?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Pierce. Thank you. I’ll be there shortly.”
So, in a matter of minutes, I had spent one point three million dollars on enough land to keep myself in enough privacy to enjoy my life for a while. Then all I had to do was find a lawyer and an architect. I had basic plans, but I needed them finished, approved, and lastly ... Built.
Once that was all started, I needed to find an apartment with a double garage and get cracking on another of my lifelong desires. I hadn’t gotten around to it yet, but I really wanted my own plane, and Embraer was having another special on the Phenom 300 series. Buy a pretty one and get a Porsche 911 Turbo S to go with it. Limited edition package deal. Just my cup of tea. I planned on flying down to Melbourne to pick up the Porsche and having the Embraer folks deliver my plane to La Cholla Field north of Tucson. The Melbourne in question was the one in Florida.
My plan was starting to come together.
Pierce had lunch catered in, and the architect and lawyer I was able to find both made it just after lunch to get the deal done and the house and lab started. The developers were a little excited, or maybe I should say ‘apprehensive’, about me bringing a legal beagle, but when they digested the fact that theirs was sitting there at the same table, it made them realize it was just business as usual. We signed all the documents, I had a wire transfer completed to the account number they gave me, and the back end of Eagle’s Run was mine. The architect looked at my plans, made copies, spoke to Pierce’s custom home builder, then with substantial retainers in hand, the two of them went off together telling me they’d be in touch in a couple of days.
I was already feeling better about the future.
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