Chapter 11

It seems like everything comes in bunches. That and ancestry. Suddenly, Andrea NEEDED to know her roots. Not wanted ... NEEDED. How and why did the Koenigsknecht's end up in Michigan? If you have a watch that travels in time, going back is easy. Time may travel but it only transports going home ... unless you have one of 'those' watches.

Time is supposed to go forward. Science says so. Yesterday, last week, last month, year, century ... they all are in the past ... and the past is history. So ... how hard would it be if your ancestors didn't leave records past, oh, say... 1300 ... how hard would it be to find out your roots? Only one way to find out.

So far, Andie's watch will do two ... no, make that three ... things. First, the number of clicks determines the amount of time back in the past. Second, winding the watch backwards makes the winder and vehicle invisible. Third, pressing the stem sends the ORIGINAL activator forward in time to within a few seconds of the start time. The important part here is that a figure from the past can not capture the watch and transport to the future. The watch holder and the watch owner are not necessarily the same. Both parties CAN transport to the future if it's the owner who has the idea ... OK?

(Ain't it cool? ... I can make up rules as I go ... I mean ... it's fiction, right?)

So ... Dr. and Dr., Mr. and Mrs. Slagle, William and Andrea, are just now beginning to understand the ramifications of the watch; you could travel back ... discover the winner of the Super Bowl ... drop back a few months and place a ten thousand dollar bet and bankrupt half the bookies in the US ... cool huh?

Or get the numbers for a 300 million dollar Monster Millions Lottery and drop another day and win it. Suppose you knew the day Microsoft went public and invested a million? How about knowing when the steel industry in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan was going belly up and selling all your stock the day before? The outcome of Waterloo? Sutter's Mill? Standing under the bridge when the Crown Jewels were lost? Strangling Hitler in his crib? World Cup? Killing Cromwell?

Here's the rub ... what if you weren't making a damn bit of difference on your planet but rising holy hell with a different dimension? Some things HAVE TO HAPPEN!! No Civil War? ... Six hundred fifty thousand men didn't die ... How much change would that make in the dynamics of Earth?

Andrea wanted to understand the dynamics that moved her kin from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the thumb of Michigan. How much trouble could it be?

Yeah ... THAT much!

Rather than starting at the beginning, she started with her father ... and her mother. Back to the thumb ... and the Neipperg's. History can have its anthropologic moments. Sometimes you need a storyteller. Mr. Neipperg surely fit that bill.

Bill had code to write and no amount of persuasion could convince him to abandon his duty. Andrea went alone. Should she take the bus? No ... absolutely not. She practically held him at gun point buying the thing ... Fifty dollars is not a great deal for the seller. Besides ... who knows what charmer she might find in the old barns and garages on the way. She took her pickup and trailer ... and money.