COMPLETE THE CIRCLE - Chapter 19

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Chapter 19

David Lutman and Deanne Clarkson eventually got up at 10.00am. They had not made it successfully out to a restaurant. But they were both extremely hungry, and Deanne suggested that they eat a substantial breakfast at the apartment. He would be sent out to get what was needed.

After receiving directions from Deanne, David Lutman drove to the local shopping centre for groceries. He also wanted to try and minimize the contrived circumstances that surrounded their impending marriage by finding a jewellers at the same time and buy an engagement ring.

He found a cash machine. But to his surprise, the machine rejected his debit card. He examined it, gave it a wipe with his hand and tried again. Once more, the ATM coughed it back out, but this time it gave a clear message on the screen: he had insufficient funds. Lutman was baffled. He felt certain he had enough money in his account to see him through the entire trek and beyond, although he had not checked his account recently. Fortunately he still had sufficient change to buy everything bar the ring, but decided to hold on the restaurant reservation.

He returned to the apartment with the news of his cash problem. Deanne reassured him that she had enough to see them through and to pay for their evening meal. Even so, Lutman decided to call his bank. To his horror, he was informed that three thousand dollars had been withdrawn from a cash machine in the States three days ago, from his card. Somehow, someone was able to make a copy of his card.

He immediately cancelled his account.

*

Deanne and her excellent presentation of a cooked breakfast ensured that Lutman’s spirits were soon lifted. As they settled down for breakfast, he asked, ‘Deanne, do you have any ideas as to what Dzizzy-R or DCCR could mean?’

‘Well, it could be an acronym involving my name,’ Deanne responded, ‘but what the other CR might mean, well, I don’t have a clue. Have you looked it up on the net?’

‘Already did that when this whole thing blew up all that time ago,’ he replied, ‘there was absolutely nothing on time travel.’

‘Well, maybe it’s changed since then,’ she suggested. ‘We’ll take another look after breakfast. Oh, by the way, I’ve just called my father and he’s going to be expecting us at his house this evening, and my presence back at the laboratory first thing Monday morning! He says dinner’s going to be at the best Italian restaurant in town and it’s all on him! He’s quite enthusiastic about meeting you, you know, what with you being from somewhere not far from Nottingham!’

‘Okay, that’s great! Look forward to meeting your dad. He sounds like a great guy.’

*

After breakfast Lutman sat himself down at Deanne’s laptop. In the search box he typed ‘Time Travel’, pressed the plus sign and typed ‘DCCR’. Although his previous searches had revealed nothing, this time the search engine appeared to hit gold.

‘Darek Carl’s Chronology Report – An interview with a top scientist about the possibilities of time travel’

Lutman clicked on the link to the web site, and there was the entire transcript that Carl Pickover had written some weeks before. ‘Deanne! I think I’ve got it! Come here!’

He printed out a copy and showed it to her. She read it through, smiling, after which she noted the e-mail address of Darek Carl. Immediately afterwards she drafted an e-mail and sent it to that address. ‘That, my darling, looks like the next piece to our puzzle,’ she said. ‘This blog’s only been up for a short time, so no wonder you never found it. Now… well, we can only wait and see what sort of response we’re going to get. And surely that is only going to be positive. Let’s see and see how quickly we get a response.’

But although the laptop was left on throughout the day, and it made the necessary noises indicating that it had received mail, none of it was from Darek Carl or Carl Pickover. ‘Maybe he’s out of town,’ mused Deanne. ‘So we’ll just have to wait.’

*

That evening Lutman and Deanne went to visit Patrick Clarkson, Deanne’s father, at his large house that was located just a five minute walk from Deanne’s apartment. Lutman was slightly taken aback to see that it was surrounded by high wire fencing, and the impressive residence lay in the middle of several acres of garden that itself was set back two hundred meters from the street. A security guard greeted them as they arrived at the ten-meter high metal gate. Deanne explained that, as the Hartington Physics Laboratories were the biggest and most advanced physics laboratories of their kind in the country, and that it had been working on a considerable number of hush-hush government projects, the administration felt strongly that the director should be assigned appropriate security.

The guard smiled at Deanne but grimly asked Lutman for identification. After a few seconds careful examination of his passport he was let through. They then walked unescorted along the tarmac road that led up to the main door where Patrick Clarkson was waiting for them on the marble steps.

A handsome man, the American roots of G. Patrick Clarkson - as he was formally known - began when his Spanish grandfather, on his mother’s side, married a Puerto Rican woman. He looked considerably younger than his late fifties would suggest, which was thanks to a trim build and a full head of greying dark hair. To Lutman’s surprise, he was greeting their arrival in a tee-shirt and jeans. He suddenly felt rather overdressed in his white polo shirt and brown cords.

‘Good evening,’ he said softly, offering his hand to Lutman, ‘you must be this Englishman Deanne’s been talking so much about.’

‘Hello,’ said Lutman nervously, taking his hand and shaking it. Clarkson had a very firm grip.

‘I always thought she’d finish up with a guy from England,’ he smiled, looking proudly at his daughter. ‘So, shall we go inside? We may be in the middle of the desert, but even at this time of year, it can get rather cold in the evening.’

*

After a brief conversation about Nottingham and Hensfield, Patrick Clarkson took Lutman for a tour of the house.

Lutman could not help but be impressed by the considerable, and sizable, number of rooms within its three floors, along with a conservatory that seemed to take up the same amount of floor space as an Olympic-size swimming pool. In the darkness, the gardens were well-illuminated by powerful wall-mounted halogen lamps, and even looking from the inside of the house Lutman could clearly see the lawns had been immaculately-groomed.

‘The swimming pool,’ added Patrick Clarkson proudly, ‘is behind those bushes over there, about a hundred feet away. Hopefully you’ll get the chance to try it before it gets too cool.’

‘That’ll be nice,’ said Lutman, still feeling slightly uncomfortable.

He turned to Deanne. She looked even more embarrassed. ‘Are we ready to go then Dad?’ she asked urgently.

‘Yes, of course,’ he smiled. ‘I’ve already summoned the car here.’

Lutman glanced at Deanne, bemused. ‘Summoned the car?’ he mouthed.

Deanne mouthed back, ‘security.’

*

It was a short chauffeured journey in the Cadillac to the local Italian restaurant. Their assigned security officer maintained a discreet distance as the group made their way to their reserved table.

After their starters and main course, Clarkson, upon a veiled cue from Deanne, excused himself for a few minutes.

Once they were clearly alone, Lutman had no hesitation in formally asking Deanne to marry him. She toyed with him for a minute, but without faltering, said yes. Lutman felt comfortably relieved that she did not respond with a line connected with a time machine. But there was a small measure of frustration on his part that he could not deliver a proper proposal without the ring, so he promised to do so as soon as he had the money.

‘Your dad’s got a massive place,’ he added, still impressed with what he had seen earlier. ‘So why do you live where you do? There’s plenty of room here.’

‘I just want a place of my own,’ she said quietly, ‘a place where I know where everything is and I don’t have to set aside time getting from one room to the other.’

‘So you’re not impressed with the house?’

‘It’s just so unnecessarily big,’ she said, ‘but it’s one of the perks, if you like, of the job. Along with all the security. And if I do well in my job, I’ll probably have to go the same way.’

Lutman grinned. ‘Don’t you mean we?’

*

At her father’s insistence, Deanne reluctantly agreed to spend the rest of the weekend at her father’s house. Lutman was not exactly unhappy about this: the prospect of being lazy, being doted on by the resident staff, and enjoying everything the place had to offer was not exactly unappealing.

By mid morning the following day, Lutman could no longer hide his curiosity and made his way to the swimming pool.

As temperatures reached the upper twenties, he could not help but think that this was, in fact, the day, and probably the time, that he should have been on the plane, on his way back to cold, wet, miserable London, back with his parents in their car and the drive home, and back to that dull, dreadfully dull, desk job, and talking to all those idiots that made up the general public and the local media. And no doubt getting some kind of official warning about his conduct by his idiot boss Meade. But he no longer cared. He was happy.
He and Deanne pledged that they would drop the subject of the time machine for the weekend (‘but I’ll keep monitoring the e-mail on my phone,’ she whispered.), as he would not be able to enter the laboratory anyway; no one would be available to arrange the clearances. (‘I thought you said it wasn’t considered that high a security risk?’ asked Lutman when told of this.) Deanne admitted that this would be a shame: there would have been very few people around her particular lab over the weekend, and thus it would have been an excellent opportunity to discreetly check out those baseball caps.

Chapter 20 >