Chapter Prologue

“HappyBirthday!” said Steve placing a large heavy box on the table in front of theold man.

“Well, well,well,” said Crane frowning at the other man’s forced smile. “Steven M. Ferran, CEOof Vision Global; the man who was with me on that fateful night when…everythingwent blank.” He narrowed his eyes. “So, to what do I owe this dubious honor? Itmust be…what…fourteen…fifteen years since I last saw you in the flesh?”

“Fifteenyears exactly. Fifteen years to the day.”

“That so?Well imagine that. Shit, one of the nurses told me I was getting an importantvisitor today. I would never have guessed.” He held out a shaky hand and Steveshook it some more. “Actually, I don’t get any visitors, so in my case Isuppose anyone could be considered important.

“Apart fromthe doctors who see me once a month, and the few in-house nurses, I’m prettymuch a loner. Nobody wants to be friends with a weirdo like me; not even my ownflesh and blood sister. Well, actually it’s me that doesn’t want to be friendswith anyone else, especially in this place. I find them all rather irritating.”He waved a hand at the myriad of books that filled two entire shelved walls.“These are my only and true friends. Them, TV and the internet. They’ve helpedto fill in most of the gaps. Not the gaps of my past, you understand, but ofmankind in general. Hell, one moment I was six years old in ‘65; and the next Iwas fifty five in 2014; fifty five in 2014 and without any recollection of howI got there. I was a damn kid in an old man’s body.” Cornelius Crane indicatedto an open chair. “Grab a seat already. So, like I asked, what brings youaround to visit an obnoxious old fart in a boring old retirement home? It maybe fancy and all, but that don’t make this waiting-for-death facility anygoddamned less tedious and mind-numbing.”

“I’m here towish you well, and I brought you a birthday present,” said Steve seatinghimself opposite Crane. “Fifty five wasn’t such a terribly old age. Hell, Ionly recently turned sixty, and I still feel fit as a fiddle.”

“Oh, yeah?Well, it was pretty damned old to me. Suddenly having all those aches and painsin my joints and back. The bad eyesight. The poor hearing and the ringing in myears. The strange teeth in my mouth. Being repulsed by the smell of your ownbody. Finding out I suddenly have a sister and that she’s already forty eight.And not to mention the fact that both my parents had passed away.

“Of course,with time, I became familiar with it; got used to it; accepted it. But it tookplenty time to convince me. I realize now that I must have worn out thepatience of many doctors and tutors.

“I stillhave, and will never abandon, this great sense of being robbed of my mostprecious possessions…my entire existence was rudely ripped away…forever. Onemoment I was six, and the next fifty five. Without a single damn intermediarymemory, it’s as if I never had a life at all. Even painful memories would besomething to give a sense to my…having been. ‘Cogito, ergo sum.’”

“I beg yourpardon?”

“RenéDescartes’ popular philosophical saying. Translated it means, ‘I think,therefore I am.’”

“Oh, yes.I’ve heard that before."

“Well,actually it should be, ‘I remember, therefore I exist. What is man without hismemories? Are we not the sum of our individual pasts? Are we not who we arebecause of our experiences? Every single day is a learning experience. We aretaught by our mistakes as well as our successes. Are we not?” The question wasrhetorical, so Crane continued, “Not even the proof of my existence could jogmy memory.”

“Proof?”

“The picturesin the photo albums. The video clips. The newspaper and magazine articlestelling of the great technological and scientific empire that I had built. Eventhe house, the place where you found me, the great mansion that I had hadconstructed on Berkley Hill to my personal requirements meant nothing...andstill means nothing to me today. It has been like viewing the life of a twinbrother that I never knew existed.”

Steve turnedtowards the bookshelves. “Of course, you would have had to learn to readagain.”

“Of course.At six years I had not yet started any schooling. My sister informed me that Ihad begun to attend Jefferson Elementary only in the year after I turned six.”

“This isquite an impressive collection of books. Mostly non-fiction, I see. And quite avariety too. History, politics, medicine, memoirs, science… ”

“I have hadto do much…catching up,” interrupted Crane.

“It must havebeen like time traveling?”

“Exactly! Theonly difference being that my body had aged proportionately to the forty nineyears that I suddenly found myself rocketed into the future.”

“Your memory seems to be fine now?”

“Yours, onthe other hand seems awry. It’s not my birthday. I turned seventy…just overthree months ago.”

“Three monthsand eight days to be exact, but that was your physical body’s birthday. Do youknow what today’s date is?”

Crane placeda pair of gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose and squinted at the large-type calendarhanging on the wall behind and above the PC monitor’s screen. “August 17?”

“Exactly! The17th August 2029.”

“Of course,as you said, it’s been exactly fifteen years to the day that I lost mymind…literally.” Steve found it difficult to restrain his smile. Unaffected,Crane continued. “Everything since then I’ve managed to recall in absoluteclarity, but not a thing from before…except the memories that I had up to whenI was about six.”

“Six years,three months and eight days to be exact.”

Crane frowned.“That…is extremely exact. How would you know that?”

“On the nightthat you…lost your mind, you gave me this.” Steve patted the top of the largeheavy box. “Just before everything went blank for you, you had called me up andsaid that you had something of great importance to tell me.”

“I did? Howcome you’ve never told me this before? What was it?”

“You soundedquite frantic and desperate. Somehow your pleas had a ring of sincerity, andalthough I despised you immensely, I decided to drive up to your big mansion inthe hills and…humor you.”

“Why? Why onearth did you despise me?”

“Because,before you lost it all; that is, your mind and everything else as well, youwere undoubtedly the most despicable, conceited and arrogant bastard to walkupon the face of this planet. That was my own personal view of Cornelius Craneback then. The rest of the world considered the man behind Crane Global Visionsto be somewhat of a phenomenal genius and inventor.

“I’m notashamed to say that I was later thrilled when I heard that your sister had beengiven the custodial rights to all your property and assets. It was an evenbigger pleasure when, during the redistribution of the liquidation process, Iwas able to buy up the majority of shares in the Crane Global Visions company.I even had enough pull to change the name to Vision Global.

“At first,when you claimed that you could not remember anything, I thought you weretrying to make me the victim of some elaborate and perverted joke. It took sometime to realize that the fifty five-year-old man that was crying bitterly inthe fancy mansion’s huge living room was, in fact, a terribly frightened andconfused six-year-old child.”

“Yes, Iremember you being angry. You almost left me alone. It was truly the mostterrifying moment in all my life. Luckily you found my sister’s number on mycell phone.”

Stevelaughed, “Yes, you didn’t even know that it was your phone. Hell, you didn’teven know what a cellular phone was. You thought it was a walkie-talkie.”

“Yeah, Isuppose, in retrospect, it must seem kinda funny now.” Cornelius gave a quicksmile, but then quickly and seriously asked, “What happened that night? Whathappened just before my slate was wiped clean? What was it that I was sodesperate to tell you?”

“Somethingpreposterous and totally unbelievable.”

“What?”

“You saidthat in a previous life, you and I had been the greatest of friends. It was thenew turn of events that had changed things for the worse. You had hoped torepeat the mind projection procedure before the 17th August 2014, but yourarrogance and reckless actions…action had driven away the only man capable ofhelping you complete the project on time.”

“What mindprojection procedure? What project?”

“Don’t laugh!You claimed that the two of us together had managed to devise a meansof…traveling through time.”

“What?”

“I kid younot! That’s exactly what you told me.”

“I told youthat we had built a…time machine?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I guess mymind was already…on the way out?”

A seriouscast set onto Steve’s face, and after a short silence he said, “Maybe.”

“Maybe? Youdon’t seriously suggest…?” Crane shook his head slowly. “I lost my mind a longtime ago. Don’t you be doing the same now.”

“Don’t knockit before you’ve heard the whole story and had a chance to look through thestuff in this box.”

“Go on,” saidCrane frowning.

“Well, whenyou said that we had been friends in a previous life, I first thought you meantthat we had been buddies a really long time ago, like say two guys in theFrench Revolution or maybe a couple of sailors on Columbus’ Santa Maria. And wewere somehow destined to be friends yet again through…reincarnation orsomething. But no! Your claim was that we had been friends in this very samelife. A friendship that had lasted almost nineteen years from ‘95 to 2014. Thefriendship had ended in 2014 on the 17th August because it was on that day thatyou had used the…time machine to travel back to 1965. November 28th, 1965 to beexact. That is, according to what you told me. And also according to the contentsof this box.”

“Shit,really? What the hell’s in the box?”

“Diaries.”

“Diaries?”

“Diaries,”said Steve picking up the box and tipping out all its contents onto the floorin front of the old man.

“Whose arethose?” asked Cornelius gazing at the large pile of books and papers at hisfeet.

“Yours, ofcourse!”

“Mine?”

“All yours!Every single word!”

“What?”

“That’sright. You managed to keep quite an extensive record of your life before…theincident on 17th August 2014. This is that large gap in your life that you’vebeen wondering about.”

“Why have youkept these from me until today? Did you not think it possible that some of thestuff written therein might trigger my lost memories?”

“I’ve readthrough all the stuff, and after considering the material very carefully,thought that it would be best for you to become more…mature in your thinkingbefore reading what you wrote so many years ago. A lot of it israther…delusional, to say the least. And besides, today is your official comingof age.”

“Coming ofage?”

“Yes, it hasbeen exactly fifteen years since the incident. And since you were six yearsold, or only had memories from when you were six years old, it would now makeyou …”

“Twenty one!”said Cornelius finishing the sentence.

“Bingo!” saidSteve palms spread and raising his arms. “Think of these as your key to life.”

“Life? I’m atwenty one-year-old in a seventy-year-old body. Not much life left.” Corneliuslifted the diary lying on the top of the pile. He turned it over and opened thestiff cover. On the first page, printed in a fancy font, was the declaration,‘This diary belongs to.’ Beneath that, in the space provided, and in ahandwriting that he knew only too well, was written, ‘Professor CorneliusCrane.’ “‘Professor?’ Why on earth would I have called myself that?”

“Because, inthat,” Steve used his fingers to make a set of inverted commas in the airbefore saying, “Previous life…when we were apparently…,” More inverted commas,“Friends. You claim in the diaries that you were actually a…,” One last set ofcommas before stressing the word, “Professor! A professor of rather exceptionalnote who once graced the hallways of Dartmouth College.”

“Good Lordabove!” exclaimed Crane. “I must have been suffering from some form ofpsychosis even long before the incident happened on August 17th, 2014. Whathappened that night must have been my final descent into delusional darkness.”

“At present,it would seem that you are now a man of rational thoughts and actions.”

After a shortdeliberation Crane said, “Perhaps what happened that night was my brain’s wayof rebooting itself back to normal. Not too unlike resetting a device to itsdefaults.”

Stevelaughed. “You certainly seem to have done a splendid job of catching up on yourknowledge of all the new technology.”

“The doctorshave informed me that my I.Q. is much higher than most. They also claim that itcould also be the reason for my brain malfunctioning the way it did.”

“Like a typeof autism?”

“Uh-huh,”nodded Cornelius. “Or perhaps even a form of epilepsy. They were never certainabout the facts. There have been many people with memory loss, either throughinjury or trauma, but nothing quite similar or even close to mine has ever beenreported before…or since.”

“Well,although you may not be a bona fide professor, you should certainly be anhonorary one at least.”

“Oh?”

“Hell, yeah!You certainly…rocked the scientific world with many of your theories andinventions before the incident knocked your brain back into the Stone Age. Forthree straight years you managed to make it into Time’s Hundred MostInfluential People. God only knows what you may have accomplished if fatehadn’t dealt you such a bad hand? You probably would have made Fortune’sHundred Richest as well.”

“Ah, thefolly of hubris,” said Cornelius reaching for the book that lay on his bedsidetable. It was the Bible. He flipped open the thick book to where the bookmarklay and staring Steve in the eye, quoted the words perfectly that were writtenon the page below: ‘And I, even I, turned toward all the works of mine that myhands had done and toward the hard work that I had worked hard to accomplish,and, look! Everything was vanity and a striving after wind, and there wasnothing of advantage under the sun.’ That is from Ecclesiastes; chapter two andverse eleven. Of course, these words make much more sense to a man of seventythan one of, say…twenty one. Only when we sense our mortality can we trulybegin to appreciate the gift of being.”

“It’s hard tobelieve you’re the same man that I utterly loathed and despised so many yearsago. Right now it would almost seem possible that we could have been the bestof friends.”

Crane noticeda picture frame lying face-down amongst the pile of papers and diaries. “What’sthis?” he asked picking it up and turning it over.

“That,allegedly, is the first dollar bill that Scrooge McDuck ever earned.”

“What?”frowned Crane giving the dusty surface a wipe with his elbow. There was ayellowed handwritten note neatly centered on a piece of black velvet beneaththe glass. He read it aloud: “‘I am neither proud nor relish in the things Ihave done. So, when Judgment Day cometh – I pray that God forgive us both.’”Then he looked up at Steve. “This isn’t my handwriting. Who wrote this?”

“That,apparently, is a note written to you by Joaq Du Maille.”

“Joaq DoWho?”

“Du Maille, aserial killer who lived in the area where you grew up.”

“A serialkiller?”

“Uh-huh. Iactually did some research. The archives of the Sedgefield Oracle had quite abit on him. Raped and murdered some kids back in the sixties. He was finallyapprehended when he failed to kill a one-legged man by trying to strangle himwith a piece of piano wire.”

“What?”

“That’sright. And at the time of his arrest, you would have been a tender nine yearsold.”

“What? Shit!Why would a serial killer write a note like this to a nine-year-old kid?”

“Read thediaries.”

“What was theconnection between us?”

“Read thediaries.”

“Why does heask for God to forgive us both?”

“Read thediaries.”

“You soundlike a stuck record.”

Steve waved ahand over the pile. “The answer to all your questions is here. Only problem isthat you, like me, will have to decide whether or not the contents are true, orjust some elaborate joke that went terribly wrong?”

“Ah, yes, Iwas meaning to say earlier that even if it was possible for a 55year-old man totravel back in time from 2014 to1965, by the time he again reached 2014 hewould then be…a104. So, not only was I delusional, but my train of thought wasseriously tainted in its conception. Not very deserving of an honoraryprofessorship or any other significant academic award or title; would you notagree?”

“But what ifyour age was also to diminish? And this, at the exact same rate at which youare projected back into the past?”

Crane rolledthe thought around in his head before replying, “Under the circumstancesdescribed, the concept would then be valid if, and only if, the time travelerwas able to retain all his previous memories. For how else could he be awarethat he is traveling through the exact same period of time for a second time?”

“That, isexactly the way you have diarized the event.”

“Absurd!” Butafter another short deliberation added, “Absurd, yet brilliant.”

“Sorry?”frowned Steve.

“According totheorists, it would require far too much energy to rip a hole into the fabricof time to send a physical entity back into the past. Not to mention the addednecessity of the object being able to move through space. But…” Crane gazed at,but never saw, the ceiling above his head.

“But?”queried Steve concernedly.

The old mantapped his finger tips frantically together. “But…it would take far less energyto send an incorporeal entity; say for instance, just a person’sconsciousness.”

“But howwould the consciousness survive without a physical body. You’d be like a…well,a ghost. A disembodied thought pattern floating in the ether.”

“Correct! Andwithout the physical to contain it, it would eventually disperse and…mostcertainly perish.”

“So, onceagain the theory flops?”

“Maybe,” saidCornelius tapping his fingers all the more feverishly as his brain sort ananswer. “Not if…”

“Not ifwhat?”

“Yes! Not ifthe consciousness was projected back through time and into another suitablephysical entity. A host, if you will.”

“Suitable?”

“You couldn’tsend a human consciousness into a…dog for instance. The brain matter of a dog,or any other creature, is far too different to accept or retain a humansynaptic brainwave pattern. It would have to be another human.”

“But whatabout the…host’s consciousness? What would happen to that?”

The answercame swiftly. “The projected consciousness would have to displace the existingone.”

“This wouldobviously take place without the host’s consent.”

“Obviously.”

“And, ineffect, you would actually be killing the host without causing any harm to hisphysical body.”

“Perhaps.Then again it might just be that the new consciousness merely dominates theold.”

“Either way,it still sounds to me as if it would be the worst form of rape. A sort ofmindfuck.”

Crane staredat Steve for a moment, then he snapped his fingers and pointed at him with bothhands. “Actually, that statement has got me thinking. I was only recently goingover some of the files that were on my computer the night of the incident. Mysister was kind enough to hang onto them. It seems I was busy working on aproject that involved some extremely detailed brain scans. I’ve never seenanything else like them before. None of the new medical stuff I’ve seen or readthrough in the past five years has anything nearly as sophisticated. I musthave been working on a pretty fancy device at Crane Global Visions just beforethe mind-wipe occurred.”

“Oh?”

“You betcha.”

“Could I seethem?”

“The scans?”Steve nodded feverishly and Crane frowned. “Why?”

“Just curious.Vision Global has a room full of your stuff that our reverse engineers werenever able to figure out. This may help to shed some light. If you were workingon a way to achieve better brain scans, it could mean a lot to the medicalworld.”

“Then again,”said Crane removing the top data disc from a storage spindle and placing itinto his PC, “It might have been that very same device that was the cause of mymind being wiped clean.” A folder marked, ‘Project Trojan Horse’ appeared onthe monitor. Crane touched the screen and the folder opened to reveal yetanother 20 folders. He touched on the last one marked, ‘Brainprints – Series42.’ A series of thumbnail images appeared, and a shaky finger touched on the‘Slideshow’ option.

Both menstared for awhile as highly detailed 3D brain-scan images appeared anddisappeared on the screen. Below each image was a digital record of the date,time and subject.

“You’reright,” said Steve moving closer to the screen. “Those are damnedsophisticated. If the device that took these images is also, as you claim, thepossible cause of your dilemma, then how come nobody else was affected? Afterall, that’s quite a lot of scans you got there. Surely, at least, one otherperson would have suffered the same consequence. Yet you say there have been noreports of a similar occurrence.”

“The answerto that is quite simple. One thing is very clear about the synaptic map of thehuman brain. It’s even more unique than a fingerprint or retina scan. It’s theultimate snow-ice crystal. No two are the same.”

“That’sfascinating, but although I haven’t a trained eye in the matter, the images I’mlooking at all appear to be the same to me.”

“Exactly!That’s because they are.”

“Eh, but youjust told me that…”

“They appearto be the same because they are all of the same person’s brain. See here,” saidCrane pointing to the bottom left hand corner of each image.

As each newimage appeared, Steve read aloud the recorded data, “‘Subject: C. C.…Subject:C. C.…Subject: C. C.…C. C.…C. C.…C. C.…C. C.…’”

“And it don’tneed no rocket scientist to figure out who C. C. is either?” stated Crane.

“My God! Ofcourse! It’s you! Cornelius Crane!”

“Well done,my dear Watson. And now we can also see why the mind-wipe must have occurred?”

“Probably dueto the excessive exposure to the device.”

“Give the mana cigar!”

“Funny youshould say that?” said Steve bending down and scratching amongst the diaries.He found the cigar and held it towards Crane. “Apparently you once smokedthese.”

“What’s itdoing amongst the diaries?”

Steve foundthe cigar box. “There are a few other keepsakes in between there as well. Thiscontains a whole bunch of newspaper clippings. Some of Joaq Du Maille, othersof your brilliant achievements at Global, but the most fascinating anddisturbing items are the two video recordings of…”

Craneinterrupted. “For a brilliant scientist, it was extremely foolish of me tostick my head into an untested device. Whatever was I thinking? What the hellwas I trying to achieve? No scientist worth his weight in gold makes himselfthe subject of his own experiments.

“You everread The Invisible Man or The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Thoseso-called brilliant scientists both made the one same mistake. The term guineapig is pretty damn old in the…”

“What if ithad been a matter of life and death?” blurted Steve chipping in. “And what iftime…or the lack thereof was a motivating factor?”

“Eh? How…?”

“What wereyou saying earlier about projecting your consciousness back through time?”

“That wasjust an absurd theory I was entertaining; a great concept for science fictionfans and such. It could never be actually realized.”

“Why not?”

“Because, asI’ve been explaining to you, your consciousness, which is created by the myriadsynaptic connections in your brain, could not be projected into just any human.A man could not decide to go back and live his next life as a handsome filmstar or perhaps even as a woman. So, the theory is once again provenimpossible?” Then a revelation suddenly struck Crane. He pointed at the imageson the screen. “Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless…again,in theory, it could still work if a person’s consciousness were projected backinto themselves; back into a younger version at a time when the synapticpattern of his brain was firmly established and permanent. In this way a man offifty five could become himself again at, say, thirty. But now at thirty hewould have the memories of the fifty five-year-old man.” Crane got an insaneglimmer in his eyes. “My God, I actually think it could work. The identicalbrainwave patterns would even make it easier for the projected consciousness tofind its mark; just like placing two magnets inside a rotating barrel filledwith styrofoam balls. It is inevitable that they will find each other.”

“Shit!”

“What?”

“I may havemade a mistake bringing you the diaries.”

“Why?”

“I’mbeginning to expect that you just may have achieved the impossible; that maybethe diaries’ contents are actually true. You seem, if I may say, much too keenand excited about the concept. Still, what harm can a seventy-year-old do? It’stoo late for you to do anything about it now.”

“Harm? Whaton earth are you talking about?”

“If thetheory and the diaries are true, then you’ve already screwed up the naturaltimeline. Also, would you not attempt to construct a device that could send youback? Since you feel so cheated of your life, would you not make every effortto right that wrong?”

“Perhaps?Yes, of course!”

“Exactly! It’s really damned ironic then.”

“I fail tosee the irony of my predicament.”

“You claimnot to have had a life, when in fact you may be the only man to have had two.”

“Two?”

“Yes, two.Two very full and eventful lives. Also two very different lives.”

“Absurd! Onlya raving lunatic would believe or even suggest that it is possible that thetheory could actually work in practice.”

“Then perhapsthe only suggestion I have for you right now is to read the diaries after all.And, oh, by the way, start with the big black folder. The black folder containsall the earliest entries that were written on odd scraps of paper that wereapparently stolen from your father’s study.”

“What? Why?What benefit could they possibly have now?”

“Becausethey’ll afford you the peace of mind you seek in order to accept your death.”

“My death?”

“Shit, Crane,we all gotta go sometime, but I gotta hand it to you though - you damn nearmanaged to attain immortality.” Steve walked towards the door. “I have a strongfeeling you’ll want to contact me once you’ve finished reading them.” Then justbefore he left he said, “Don’t waste your time, because the answer to thequestion that you’ll be wanting to ask is, ‘No!’”

“Crazybastard,” mumbled Crane at the empty space where Steve had stood. “Hard tobelieve he’s the goddamned CEO of a big company like Vision Global. Maybe he’sbeen sticking his head in the same device that screwed up my brain.” He gazeddown at the pile of diaries. “Yeah, sure! Happy birthday to me. Let’s see whatthe raving lunatic was on about.”

Crane reachedtowards the big black folder.