I park the car in front of the gate, leaving it unlocked since there’s nobody in sight, but I do close the door to prevent the insects from getting in. You never know and a spider never sleeps…
I put my hand in my front pocket, squeezing the pepper-spray tightly in case somebody else would open the door. There are only woods surrounding the house, so in the worst case scenario it would be a piece of cake for the attackers to finish me off. The pepper-spray wouldn’t save me, but maybe I could make a run for it, jump into the car and drive off.
I can’t see the doorbell and knocking on a wooden gate is nonsense, so I try banging with my fist. Shit, that was too much, I almost broke my hand.
„Hold on, I’m coming,“ I can hear the old man answer and I’m relieved that no gorilla jumped at me.
The door opens and a white head peeps out. The old man looks the same as the guy I’ve been talking to on the phone, and he is alone.
„Come in, Mr Kaulitz, I’ve been expecting you. Be careful while walking across the yard, it’s a little bit muddy, don’t get dirty. Would you like a cup of coffee?“ He’s talking to me on the way to his house. It looks kind of shabby and run down, maybe he’s a spiritualist of some sort or something like that.
„Yes, I’ll have a coffee, it can’t do any harm.“ I smile at the old bloke to let him see that I have come with good will and I’m not some big-headed celebrity. It’s true that I’ve always been good at communicating with the public.
We enter a room which looks like a kitchen and living room in one and there is a crazy mess all around. An old cuckoo-clock is hanging on the wall, an almost entirely covered fly trap is hanging from the ceiling and it looks like the place hasn’t been redecorated for a good twenty years. The old man’s things are lying everywhere.
„Sorry for the mess, but at this age a man has no energy to keep the place clean. Besides, I have everything I need right close by, I can find everything immediately, so there’s no use putting all the stuff into boxes when I’m about to take it out again, right?“
The old man grins at me and after throwing some stuff off a chair he pushes it towards me. I sit down and wait to hear what the old man has to say. He shuffles around the kitchen, probably looking for a clean cup he could pour me coffee into… yummy.
„Eureka, here is one clean cup for visitors,“ he says cheerfully and pours the coffee from an old coffee machine. It’s pretty rusty, but what could I possibly expect from a retired person.
„Do you take sugar?“ he asks.
„Yes, please.“ I’d better not ask for milk, there’s a chance he might need to go milk a cow first down in the barn. The coffee would get cold.
He sits down next to me and starts talking. „Well, young man, let me introduce myself first. The name probably won’t mean anything to you. Besides, I wrote it in the letter, but I have to say something about myself, so you know who you have the honor to meet here.
„My former profession was a technical engineer. I studied at the technical college in Berlin a few years after the war had ended, and then I was employed in a research institute whose name probably won’t mean anything to you, because you weren’t born yet at the time. I worked on everything related to technology, and believe me that even back then we were dealing with some seriously cool things people hadn’t even dreamt about. I had access to a lot of secret information, which led me to my current interests afterwards.“
So not a spiritualist, but an engineer, interesting, I think, but I don’t want to interrupt him.
„A coincidence brought me to one particular invention which comes from the time of the Nazi era, and because I participated in the project, I had no problem to copy certain documents to mess about with a bit during my retirement. It took me a long time, but just as soon as you finish your coffee we’ll go together to have a look in the barn.“
He looks at me, almost conspiratorially, and I don’t know how to react to that. I’m getting really curious about what is going to be in that barn. I hope it won’t be a cow… I take the last swig of my coffee and then stand up from the chair to discover the miracle.
On the way to the barn I realize I should have taken some overalls and boots with me not to soil myself to the ears, but after the old man has unlocked what looks like a fourth safety lock on the metal door, I realize I won’t find a cow here, nor cow-dung either. I look with amazement. This is a fully equipped laboratory and in the middle of this large area parks a car. Nothing modern, I know a thing or two about cars, but there’s something about the car I find disturbing. Somehow, it looks different.
„This is my Beda,“ reveals the old man, pointing to the car to introduce us. „I know it’s a stupid name for a car, I named it like that because of the registration number ‚BDA‘. I couldn’t think of anything else and I’m used to giving a name to my favourite toys. When I am locked here all alone all day, working, I talk to him so I don’t forget how to,“ says the old man.
„Hi, Beda,“ I greet it politely and double tap on the hood. „How old is it?“ I ask, not even that interested in the old car’s age but I want to show some polite interest.
„Well, this year he will turn twenty. I retired when I was sixty, had some money saved, so I bought him brand new, well almost, a bit second hand, but only a little.“
Grandpa’s going to be fun, I think, he looks pretty harmless. But the laboratory looks nice. There are computers everywhere on a sterile background, not like in the kitchen.
„You’re probably amazed at how clean it is in here, aren’t you?“ the old man blinks at me. „You know, my working environment must be clean, otherwise I can’t work properly. But let’s start with why you are here so we’re done with it sooner. Sit down and I’ll start,“ the grandpa prompts me. There are two chairs, so I take a seat and wait to hear the bullshit he’s about to give me.
„See, my Beda is not a normal car. In fact, he’s kind of a fiendish thing. The invention I told you about is something like a tour car. However, the travelling is about looking into the past or the future, depending on what you are interested in.“ He smiles at me.
„You’ll probably be interested in the past, because it’s impossible to find your brother in the future, obviously. Here and now, I can offer Beda to transport you there and allow you to see whatever you want. That would be up to you.“
My lips have frozen in an incredulous smile. I really haven’t thought about that possibility, somehow I began to bargain on the spiritualism crap. And I even believed him for a while, he looks so credible. But something else comes to my mind immediately. Now I’ll probably reveal grandpa’s true intentions.
„It wouldn’t be for free, am I right?“ I wink at him.
„Noooooooo,“ the old man fidgets a bit. „You know, I’m retired and I don’t have much money, I put everything I had in Beda, so I thought you could help me out a little. Beda is not finished yet. I’m missing quite an essential component, he won’t work without it,“ the old man finishes and waits for my reaction.
I could have guessed. The old bloke needs to finish his toy and he needs money, so he finds an easy target who has a few millions in a bank account to help him with his crazy invention. But that little hope that ignited in my head is forcing me to ask him for more details.
„Let’s say, hypothetically, that everything you’ve told me is true. How much would it cost, Mr Schultz?“ I ask him. Now he’s going to rap out some crazy sum and I’ll faint.
I’m waiting, the old man is wincing again, but eventually he realizes there’s no use beating around the bush, so he says straightforwardly: „Only around fifteen thousand Euros, but it’s not that much, if you consider what Beda can provide you with.“ He tries to convince me, as he notices the incredulous look in my eyes.
„To be honest, Mr Schultz, I expected it to be worse. This sum isn’t so big, I can handle it, but who can guarantee me that it will work? Is it tested? Has someone actually been to the past?“ I’m concerned.
„Yeah, we’ve already designed a couple of machines and I tried it myself. I was something like a crash test dummy; I risked my own life, because you can’t send an animal there, of course. Animal wouldn’t know how to enter the date and co-ordinates in the computer when returning back. It had to be a human, so I volunteered. As you can see, I’m still quite healthy. It scrambles you into vital primes and then puts you back together, so it’s kind of a spatio-temporal healer. All cells in your body are repaired and you come back as fit as a bunny. It’s a by-product of our work,“ says the old man and I slowly start to believe.
The chance to see Tom alive again captivates me. Taking fifteen thousand Euros from my account can’t hurt. I won’t even notice and it will help the old geezer. If it doesn’t work out after all, I will be pissed, but I can take it as charity work. But if it does work… That would be huge.
But I have another question. „How does it work in the past? Can I see him, talk to him and touch him?“ I hope that the old man won’t get how I mean ‚touch‘, but luckily, he doesn’t seem to care.
„No, no, it can’t be like that. You can only watch; you mustn’t touch or change anything. It would create a spatio-temporal paradox and that could lead to a serious change in the future. This would, actually, cause quite severe consequences for many people involved, because they might not even be born because of your indiscipline. If you changed structure of time by your own intervention, things won’t be like they used to anymore. Maybe even you could disappear, and it won’t be possible to return. You must be really careful with that, because we have had some wags recorded. They came here to change history and we went through a lot of trouble fixing it after them. You know, people have thought for decades that they were seeing UFOs flying over their heads, but if they only knew that these were just visitors from the future, they would probably freak out. You don’t have to hide, you can be seen, but don’t change anything,“ the old man finishes.
I am disappointed a bit, at least I’d like to hug Tom really hard, if not even to kiss him, but that would probably really change the course of history, so I won’t take the risk. But I would have to be there in order to do that in the first place, so I need to arrange for that journey with Grandpa now.
„Okay, when will you be able to finish Beda, if I gave you money for that component?“
„Well, let me see, it’s the particle accelerator I need to design; the material could be delivered within a few days… Give me a month. Then Beda might be able to work,“ Grandpa promises.
„Yeah, I also hope Beda won’t fall apart under my ass when I sit in it, since it’s quite an old fellow,“ I say doubtfully.
„No need to be afraid, the decomposition works on him as well, so when you get back, he will be like new. You look convinced, but come, I’d rather show you a few documents and photos from our previous trips to the past and the future, so you can trust me easier.“
He invites me to the computer and begins to show me pictures. They all look authentic and I finally believe. We make a deal. I leave him a check for fifteen thousand Euros, and he agrees that he would contact me as soon as Beda is ready to go. I’m kind of looking forward to it now, so I hope it’s all going to work out according to the plans.
