Ben glanced away again. “Not just any woman. It wasn’t something I planned on, but she was the love of my life.”
“Was; as in past tense. What happened? You got a Dear John letter?”
“She waited for a bit, but she was with child — our child. In these times, a woman cannot easily manage being unmarried, with a baby. She thought I was dead, and by the time I returned it was too late.”
“Wow, that’s a sad story,” Blake said. “Get to the part where you and the future version of yourself screwed my life over.”
Ben didn’t react to the barb. Instead, he seemed to contemplate his next words with care. When he looked back at Blake, his demeanor was chilling. “Every decision has been yours, but you may learn that you don’t have the free will you thought you did.”
His words carried the weight of something ominous, like an invisible, deadly hand was guiding this whole affair to a destructive end.
“I have free will,” Blake insisted. “What if I shoot you right here?” He aimed the gun at Ben’s face.
Ben stared into the barrel of the weapon for a long moment, then his eyes flicked back up to Blake. “It matters not.”
Blake pulled the trigger. Click. Out of bullets. How?
Ben gave a little smirk. He hadn’t even flinched. It was as if he’d already known.
Blake lowered his arm and stared helplessly at the other man. “I could kill you any way of my choosing.”
“What’s done is done, and it can’t be undone,” Ben said in a hushed voice, walking away to sit in the sand by a nearby seawall. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes from an inner pocket of his coat and offered one to Blake. “Smoke?”
Blake wanted to strangle the life from this man just to prove that he could do something different, but what purpose would that do, trying to prove something so trivial to a corpse? “So how do you kill yourself, Mr. Wallace?”
“P-tox-34.”
Blake frowned. “Come again?”
Ben waggled the cigarette package. “These are laced with them. Undetectable by smell and taste. Very effective. Even a toxicology test shows nothing.”
“So you just tried to poison me?”
Ben laughed softly. “Relax, I knew you would decline.” He opened the packet and pulled out two cigarettes. He tucked one of them behind his ear and held the other between his fingers.
“How is that?”
“Because of the timeline. This is not where you die — unless you’d like to demonstrate how wrong I am.” He offered up the pack of smokes a second time.
When Blake didn’t respond, Ben laughed again, and reached into another coat pocket. He withdrew an object and tossed it to Blake, followed by two more. “Take those.”
Blake looked down where the items had landed by his feet. Three bottles of pills lay in the sand, identical to the ones Wallace had given him back in 1986 before he made the ridiculous leap for mankind. He gazed back at Ben. “Why?”
“Consider it a gift. I won’t say more.”
Blake couldn’t fathom why getting stomach pills was a gift, but apparently this discussion was coming to an end. “I’ll ask again, what happens now?”
“I die,” Ben said flatly. “You tell me.” He retrieved a lighter and brought a flame to life, lighting the cigarette between his fingers. He hesitated only slightly before bringing it to his mouth and taking a long pull.
As Ben puffed out the smoke, Blake moved away from the exhalation, turning to face the crashing waves. He closed his eyes, savoring the pleasant feel of the night breeze on his skin.
He had no clue what he should do next. Amhurst was alive, and the lab was ruined — but it could be fixed, right? They had a fragment of the meteorite, so if the doctor could figure out the process, Blake could still make it home. And that was how he planned to prove Ben wrong.
“I have another question,” he said. “What does the message you leave behind mean?”
There was no answer. Blake looked down. Ben’s respirations had ceased. He was now in the slumped position he would be found in by a local passerby in a few hours.
It felt eerie to be witnessing this past in the making. Blake looked back out at the coastline and stood there for a long time, reflecting on what had just happened. Then he remembered something Ben had said, and turned, walking away from the Somerton Man.
He had a train to catch.
44
Double Infact
Blake retrieved and donned the discarded overalls he’d left outside Amhurst’s place before heading to the station. It wasn’t too far away; in another five minutes he’d be there. Blake refused to believe Ben’s claim that his choices didn’t matter. He was going to change history if it was within his power. He just hoped he wasn’t late and the train hadn’t departed. Maybe that detour for the overalls wasn’t the best idea.
In moments he was there, walking through the front door and scanning the waiting area. Blake’s mind attempted to de-age the face of his uncle. What would he look like in his twenties?
Then, by the bathroom entrance, he saw a familiar jacket — the one worn by the courier who’d delivered the message to Amhurst. Had that messenger been Tobias himself?
Blake strode forward, ready to confront the man. He didn’t know if this was his uncle or not, but at this point he didn’t care. He clutched the man’s shoulder and pulled him around so they were facing each other.
Both men’s eyebrows rose in surprise, then their eyes simultaneously widened and narrowed in a combination of shock and confusion. Blake wasn’t looking into the eyes of his uncle — he was staring right at a mirror image of — himself.
Blake’s fingers curled, digging into his twin’s jacket. He bared his teeth, and with something resembling a growl, shoved the other man toward the bathrooms. The identical men entered the room in a flurry, one stumbling backward, and the other charging forward.
They collided with the sink and almost tripped over the toilet. Blake’s twin lost his footing and fell. The room was a one-occupant-only facility, which worked to Blake’s advantage. In a flash of movement he locked the door and spun around to glare at the man on the floor.
“What is this?” Blake shouted, pointing to his own face, then the identical one that gaped up at him.
His carbon copy blanched, but remained mute.
“What the fuck is going on?” Blake demanded, but with more reserve in his voice now. He’d made enough of a scene in the main lobby. It wouldn’t help matters for security of any kind to arrive.
“I … I don’t know,” the man stammered.
“So I am correct in assuming your name is Ethan Tannor?”
The name appeared to mean nothing to this man. A puzzled look crossed over his face and he said, “No, it’s Tobias. Tobias Keane.”
Blake froze. He couldn’t speak, just stared, uncomprehending. Finally, he managed to form words. “That’s impossible.”
Tobias was shaking by now, either from fear or adrenaline, or both. Blake didn’t know. But the sight of the man trembling sent him into a sudden, renewed anger. He hauled Tobias to his feet, jerking him up by the coat collar so they were face to face.
Now that the initial shock had worn off, Blake studied his double with fixed concentration, noticing small differences between them. Although their faces were the same, their bodies were different. Tobias had a leaner frame, and his face was gaunt. Of course, Tobias also had two fully functioning hands. By focusing, Blake could almost see it now: if this man’s face aged and grew the mangy beard he always remembered, it could be the face of the man he’d called uncle for so long.