Meeting Dr. Stowel

Shit, what would she think? She’d probably want to call the police—after all, there’s some sort of conspiracy here and she’d want to separate us from it. But I knew I couldn’t do that. The problem was that I believed it, and I wanted to know more. I wanted to know why he gave this knowledge—this power—to me. "She’ll think I’m crazy," I said to myself out loud, in a voice so hushed that I could barely hear the words myself, knowing that if I really did believe this… it was so far-fetched, so "X-Files", that it just might indicate a lapse into insanity. I drained my glass and got another, and waited.

There was another knock on the door, followed by some activity from the yard. I had left the dogs out, and I rushed to the door to pull them off of whoever was there. Their barking subsided right away, however, and when I opened the door I found them alone, sniffing a letter that had been left on the porch. The envelope, which had not been sealed, contained a single sheet of plain copy-paper, folded neatly. It read, "You must tell the story" and was signed "Dr. Trenton Stowel."

Trenton Stowel… that must be what the TS stood for. So RS-TS01-A had a name. And he wanted me to tell his story, a full two years before it had even happened. I hadn’t written a single word—other than an occasional technical note or network design—for over a decade. It’s true that I used to write when I was younger. Ironically, I mostly wrote science fiction. Of course, Trenton Stowel would probably have known that, as he is apparently a bona fide time traveler. Maybe that’s why he chose me, maybe he wanted someone with an open mind, or someone who could write the story in the only way that it could possibly be told, if he really expected anyone to read it—as fiction. For the first time in years, my brow relaxed.

A few hours later, the chaos of excited canines exploded in full force as they heard the sound of a familiar engine pulling in the drive. A few minutes more and the slightly exasperated voice of my wife called loudly through the house, "You didn’t put the dogs out? Oh—damn it, girl, you pissed on the floor!". There was some more commotion as she put the dogs out and began to clean, but I didn’t hear it. "Are you home?" she called out, sounding a bit concerned. The house was large, so it demanded some volume in order to communicate throughout the place. I was only two rooms away, but as I was being relatively quiet she didn’t realize I was there until she began to look room to room, a roll of paper towels still in hand. She found me in the office, using my laptop for something that it had never known until now. I was writing with passion.

"What in the world are you doing?" She asked, in a tone that meant she wanted a decent explanation. I was writing furiously, surrounded by so many notes and papers—strewn about from the two files that had been entrusted to me—that it looked as if I were trying to file about six years worth of tax returns. Her stare, more than her words, brought me to attention and I looked up at her. I smiled—a soft and honest smile.

"I’m writing a story," I said, sounding and feeling young again, and before she could respond I added, "I think you’d better sit down."