No Freebie this week because...

I can only post so many chapters without giving away the book. I'm sorry but I am trying to sell this book.

Another Freebie!

 This chapter takes place after the alternate version's first attempt to knockoff our main characters and also reveals a couple of things about the primary protagonist. It's also the first chapter to give us a glimpse into the far future. If it sparks your interest and you would like to find out more about the book or perhaps purchase it, click here  or wherever ebooks are sold.

Enjoy

Signed- Greg Wilhelm, author of What it's Like to Travel Time and The Pendleton Files

Chapter 6

   “What the hell was that?!” Candace said. 

Obviously, it was time to tell her. He couldn’t think of any other way to do it without it sounding bad, especially since it was incredibly unbelievable. Though after having traveled through time, you would think a person could believe anything. But this was definitely under the heading of unbelievable.

   “It’s us,” said the Traveler.

   “What?! Wait a minute. Where are we? Is this our lab?”

   “Yes. Five seconds after we left, to be exact. It’s a safeguard. I’m a firm believer in finding out how the brakes work before getting behind the wheel. Or in this case, making sure there are brakes.”

   Candace started pacing. She looked at everything around her, trying to see if she could find proof of what he said, seeing if she could find confirmation that they had actually returned only five seconds later. Then for no obvious reason, she stopped. She turned to the Traveler and said, “Double tapping activates emergency jump trip.”

   Damn those naNabots! “Yes,” said the Traveler.

   Candace thought for a moment. She looked at her arm. She took the index finger of her right hand and swiped the skin on the inside of her left arm. The Traveler’s display popped up. “Oh .. my God.”

   “It’s an access display. The naNabots can form any pigmented pattern on the skin.”

   She was hesitant and unsure. The display wasn’t that different from a smartphone. “So … how do they do that? I mean … it’s like there’s a futuristic holographic smartphone in my arm.” She looked at the display and read the titles under the icons. Then she swiped the screen from the left, bringing the main menu into view. “What?”

   “Candace, please. Be very careful.” But was it like he hadn’t said a thing. She winked out of existence, then phased back. “Candace! Stop!”

   She was surprised. “What happened? Did I do something?”

   “I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one messing with your display.” He grabbed her arm and tapped the part of her skin that was outside her display to close it. “Yes,” he said. “I need to tell you everything. They may have been my naNabots before but they became yours when I injected you.” He put his finger on her arm. And then he moved it in a circular motion. A different kind of display popped up. It was a circle within a square showing primary icons that govern the system’s main functions.

   “What the hell was that?!” said Candace. “Was that a gun? Why does it sound like a banshee?”

   “Damn!” The dust on the floor drifted inward to the spot where they had been. They traveled. The crowd in the courtyard of the food hall ran away in fear when he started shooting. It was nothing they had ever seen or heard before. They had no idea what it was.

   “Why did they look like us?”

   He put away his gun, meaning it had unfolded and refolded until it became design on his hip pocket. He turned to Candace and said, “That’s because it was us.”

   “Why are you trying to kill us? Is this how you wanted me to help you?” Candace started to think about it. She was beginning to understand. Her enhanced thinking helped her see that it was one of the necessities that come with time travel.

   “I needed to get a reading on her quantum signature from this universe,” he said. “But in order to do that, I had to inject you with my naNabots.”

   “So … you already got what you needed? Are you going to kill me too?”

   He didn’t know what to tell her. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. “No. I’m not going to kill you. It wouldn’t be right. You are the correct version. Those … those were not.” He saw someone peeking around a doorway, probably the equivalent of security. “We should leave.” He swiped his arm to bring up the display.

   “Wait!” Candace said. “So that’s it? I don’t have a say? It’s like I’m your hostage!”

   “You’re not a hostage. I would tell you or ask you about where we’re going but right now we have to leave.”

   Apparently, she also saw someone. “Oh,” she said. “Right. We have to go.”

   “So I swipe this menu to bring up this icon. Double tap it and this coordinate screen comes up,” said Candace.

   “Yes but don’t change anything,” said the Traveler. “Just tap the GO button. That’s all. You’ll be brought to a safe time.” He didn’t like having to split up. But it had to happen. It was an important part of what happens. They said it would be alright. It needed to happen this way. Everything will follow into their proper order, they said. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “I promise.”

   “And I can’t leave until I see you again?”

   “I know. I’m sorry. It shouldn’t take long.” He swiped his arm and brought up the menu showing the link option. He tapped it to turn it off. “I’ll be right back.” Then he tapped the GO button and vanished.

   Candace was surprised how alone this made her feel. She looked at the three white-erase boards that the Traveler had filled with his equations. There was one equation that held her interest. Of course. It’s so simple. I don’t know why I never thought of it. She got an idea. She went behind the desk and opened drawers. She found a pen and paper, dragged a chair over to the far corner, and started to copy the equations.

   “Oh wow!” said Candace. “Are we in space? This is a spaceship! How are we not floating?”

   “Uh, gaviplates? Duh.” The other Traveler rummaged through his desk compartments. Or he should say his other version’s desk compartments, considering that his timeline was gone. He was grabbing everything he thought he might need.

   “Whoa! I think there’s more spaceships out there.” She was looking out the viewport where she could see small points of light moving about in the distance, not far from a grayish planet that had a few patches of washed-out blue about its surface.

   “Yes. They are. And by the way, this is not just a spaceship, it’s a Weathership.”

   “What planet are we orbiting?”

   “Earth.”

   “Earth?! What happened to it? Why does it look so dirty?”

   “I would love to give you a history lesson but now is not the time.”

   “Hold on,” she said. He could see something was going on inside her head. “Oh. This is weird. Your nanites are way ahead of you. It’s like I’m being given part of your life. Wait. There was a war? What kind of war? Oh my God! They were right about global warming? I can’t believe this. How long did it take?”

   He was standing beside Candace. He had found everything he could think of, plus a couple he couldn’t. “I suppose I should thank you for destroying your planet,” the other Traveler said. “Sorry. I know it wasn’t your fault, your generation that is. Let’s just say the oil industry was too invested to change overnight and leave it at that.”

   “Did you just say your planet?”

   “Yes. Technically, I’m a Martian but I’m still considered an Earthling. We’re waiting for the bill to pass in parliament that would recognize us as Martians.”

   Candace didn’t how to reply to that. She was befuddled.

   He was about to take her to where the other versions of themselves had gone but thought he should do something else first. “Would you like to see the plus side of my time? Or I should say, what was my time.”

   “There’s a plus side?” she said.

   “Of course,” he said. “Apparently, when it comes to adapting to planetary evolution, it turns out we humans really can make lemons out of lemonade.” He summoned an AR version of his display, manipulated a few controls and tapped some indicators associated with an integral map of the ship. Then he splayed his fingers in an area to zoom in on that section. He studied it for a minute and then tapped outside it, causing the whole thing to disappear. Follow me.” They left the lab and headed for the Liftpod portbay. He would’ve taken his personal pod but he wasn’t sure if it would work for him. Everything appears to be his timeline but he knows it isn’t. He wasn’t even sure if it belonged to that other version of him.

   “I can’t help notice you tend to use the AR display more often now,” Candace said.

   “Yes,” was all the other Traveler said.

   “Why don’t you do that all the time?”

   “I don’t think that would go over too well with prehistoric people. Could you imagine?” he laughed and mimicked the movements he made when his display was up. “They would either lock me up or stone me.”

   Candace nodded and said, “Good point.”

   Candace couldn’t stop looking at everything. Not that there was much to see.

   The technology in the Traveler’s time is designed to be seen only when needed. And the only reason the intruder alert isn’t sounding is that she has his naNabots. It’s probably causing the computer to think he’s gained some weight. He didn’t want to tell her, mainly because it wasn’t necessary.

   Weatherships are very large ships. Their plush color coded walkways are wide enough to handle a lot of people. Doors might not be visible but the intersecting walkways are. You walk far enough and you’ll start to notice the slight curve that follows the contours of the ship.

   “Not a lot of stuff in the future,” she said. “Oh wait.” She slowed her pace as the naNabots answered the question she didn’t ask. She smiled and said, “No way!” The other Traveler could tell she wanted to test it out. She wanted to touch the eggshell white polyalucarbon coated wall to see if a computer screen really would appear out of nowhere.

   He grabbed her arm and said, “We don’t have time.”

   She pouted.

   “You’re acting like a child.”

   They came to an area where a portbay symbol was on the wall, indicating where the door was. The other Traveler was about to tap it but thought, She’s dying to try something. “Would you like to do it?”

   Her eyes lit up and her smile was beaming. She tapped the wall. The door seam appeared and separated with a whisper of air. Then the door panels slid apart revealing the walkway.

   “Whoooaa!”

   “Ladies first.”

   The walkways that connect to different outer sections of the ship are lined with holopanels. The holopanels have holographic images that relate to the section the walkway connects to. Because this one leads to a portbay, it’s displaying images of the space around them in real-time. But it’s not just for show. It also allows people to see what the traffic is like. Candace was amazed. It still amazed him, to be honest. It looks as though they’re walking across a walkway in open space. The other Traveler had to pick up his pace to keep up with her.

   “This is so cool!” she said. She jumped back when a pod drifted too close to the walkway after nearly getting bumped while jockeying for bay entry.

   A group of satellite techs coming from the opposite direction were smiling at her. One of them laughed. The other Traveler shook his head and felt a little embarrassed for her. “Careful, Candace.” She was so engrossed in watching everything happening outside that she almost bumped into the door.

The return of the Wednesday Freebie!

 At the risk of revealing too much, I thought I would allow everyone a free look at Chapter 16 of my latest book, What it's Like to Travel Time: Double Trouble. And if you like it, don't forget, January1st is the last day of the End of the Year Sale only at Smashwords, where you can buy this book for half the price! That's only a $1.49! Don't delay. Get it today! Click here.

Chapter 16

   Our Candace had returned to the lab at Caltech. To the Traveler, it seemed she merely winked from existence for only a few seconds. She wasn’t the same. It was as if a switch controlled her moods and the switch had been flipped. She stood where she appeared. It seemed like she wasn’t really aware of her surroundings.

   “Candace,” he said. He knew how she felt but didn’t think he should try to comfort her. He wanted to, but he thought he should wait until she clearly wanted him to say something.

   She noticed the chair in front of her and practically fell into it. She wasn’t facing away from the Traveler out of anger or spite. That was just how the chair was facing. Candace wasn’t thinking about being polite. It couldn’t be further from her mind. She felt numb.

   “Candace,” our Traveler repeated. “I know what you’re feeling. I don’t have siblings but I can imagine what it’s like to feel loss.”

   Candace turned her head towards him, perhaps because she felt compelled to acknowledge him.

   “She isn’t gone,” he said. “She wasn’t before and she won’t be again. Timelines are like Schrodinger’s cats. They’re both here and not here. It’s… all relative.”

   “What do you mean?” said Candace.

  “Well, surely you’ve heard of Schrod—”

   “Yes! I know what Schrodinger’s cat is! What do mean by it?”

   “Well… Unlike most people, we have an advantage. We can take a peek. We can manipulate events that can cause—”

   “Whoa, whoa, whoa, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

   “What? No! No, I’m not saying we should change the world to suit us. I’m saying we can make it possible to visit anyone we miss.”

   “What if I don’t want it to go back the way it was? What happens if I decide I don’t ever want it to change back?”

   Our Traveler had been caught. He was deceived by the situation and let his guard down. And they were so close. Events had been falling into place almost perfectly. There were a couple of times where it seemed like everything was starting to unravel and lose control but he was able to fix it. And now the one thing he felt he really needed to watch out for had gotten past him. Candace had done it. She backed it him into a corner. If he lies to her now, there’s a chance that she wouldn’t accept his answer and take matters into her own hands. If that happens, then things would really get out of hand. But… then again… if he tells her the truth…

   “I think I need to have a talk with myself,” Candace said. “Could you show me how to find her?”

   “Candace, please. Let me explain,” he said. “I was following orders. I didn’t know.” That seemed to make matters worse. He didn’t understand her sudden reaction. “What wrong? Was it something I said?”

   “You really don’t know, do you?” Candace said but not with anger. She sounded concerned. “You really don’t know how wrong you sound?”

   “Wrong? Why?” He couldn’t understand what was happening with her. Candace’s mood had changed. If he could find out what she was thinking by simply checking her status readings, he would’ve done it in a heartbeat.

   “I think I know what’s happening,” she said. “Let me ask you something.”

   “Yes?”

   “Is it possible… wait a minute.”

   Whatever her question was, it would seem the naNabots were giving her the answer. She brought up her display on her arm and started going through a couple of menus. She stopped to read something. Whatever it was, it was something that startled her. She closed her display and just stood there, not saying a word.

   “Candace,” he said. She didn’t answer. “Candace, what is it? Candace, talk to me. What did you find out? What is it?”

   After what seemed like forever, she said three words that scared the hell out of him.

   “You’re the anomaly.”

   “No. Y-you're wrong. That can’t be right.”

   “Not just you, both of you. You’re both an anomaly. Neither of you belong here.”

   “Once you’ve determined which one it is, you can search for the specific RF reading by the age of the decay signature.”

   “Oh, okay,” Candace said. “Well, that seems simple enough.”

   “You shouldn’t go alone,” said our Traveler. “It’s too dangerous.”

   “I’m sure it’ll be okay,” Candace said. “It’s him I need to worry about, not the other me.”

   “She hasn’t been far from him. It’s too risky.”

   “I’ll be okay. I promise. I’ll hit the emergency jump trip if there’s a problem.”

   Some people believe that if you say someone’s name often enough, strange things happen. For instance, if you had been thinking of calling your closest friend all day, the phone will ring. Then you answer to find it’s them on the other end. Or visiting your closest friend has been on your mind lately. Then your doorbell rings, and you open the door to find them standing there. Well, it would seem such strange occurrences are not just limited to normal dimensions. Not one second ticked by before Candace finished saying, ‘I’ll hit the emergency jump trip if there’s a problem,’ when suddenly the other Candace appeared right before them.

   “We have to go,” the other Candace said.

   Before our Candace had the chance to protest or question her motives, her other version grabbed her by the arm and they both vanished.

   The Traveler was astonished. “Well,” he said. “I didn’t know we could do that.”

End of the Year Sale!

 Hey, only one week to go 'til the end ofthe End of the Year Sale at Smashwords! So hurry and get two of my books at half off. https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/gwilhelm

It's Here!

 Today's the day! It's the first day of the End of the Year Sale only at Smashwords! That's right. Starting today until Jan 1st you can buy two of my books at half price! So hurry before it's over!

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It's almost here! Smashwords' End of the Year Sale!

   Starting December 18th 'til January 1st, Smashwords will once again have their End of the Year Sale. During which time two of my books will be available for discounted prices.

  

  On sale will be ...

    So between Dec. 18th and Jan. 1, click here for the sale, exclusively at Smashwords!

   Don't forget! that's December 18th - January 1st, only at Smashwords!

Another Freebie from the latest book!

  As promised, I am giving away another free look at a chapter from my latest book, What It's Like to Travel Time: Double Trouble.

That's right! It's another Freebie!

Enjoy

Signed Greg Wilhelm, Author of The Pendleton Files and What It's Like to Travel Time.

Chapter 19

   The Candaces arrived at their destination.

   They were standing on a sidewalk that ran along a busy street. It was a block away from the Book Depository. Cigarette smoke drifted in the air from people walking by mixed with exhaust fumes from cars on the street. This was Dallas Texas in ‘63, the day before Kennedy was assassinated. Other Candace had set a target time for a day before the anomaly occurred without consulting her double. She thought arriving at this time would allow them enough time to come up with a plan. Considering how well documented the events of tomorrow will be, changing things back to the way they were without it being obvious they had intervened should prove to be a great feat indeed. Everyone having a story of where they were and what they were doing when it happens didn’t help matters either.

   “Ok. If we’re going to work together,” said Candace. “We need to let each other know what we’re doing before we do it.” Right after she pointed out that a heads up would’ve been nice, she realized coming a day early was actually a good idea. Still, it would’ve been nice to know what date they were headed towards ahead of ‘time’.

   The other Candace had accessed the historical archive routine to figure out their next move. “It says the real assassin fired his shots from the railroad overpass. Maybe if we go have a look around there, we might come up with a few ideas. We should probably approach it from behind. So we’ll need to go one street over and down this block.”

   “I guess we’re really doing this?” Candace said.

   “I guess we are,” said her double.

   Fortunately for the Candaces, the weather was a pleasant temperature for November. They still hadn’t bothered to change their attire since they were “abducted” into their present situation. Things had been happening so quickly they hadn’t had time to consider it. Candace’s interview outfit wasn’t too obviously different for the time period but her twin’s clothes are another story. If you remember, this version of her was taken from a cliff overlooking the Pacific. Her outfit consisted of a powder blue pullover hoodie with La Jolla in big white letters across the front and black yoga pants with canvas shoes. Of course you would think that a young woman wearing such attire would stand out on the city streets of Dallas in the sixties. However, this was a time when everyone was starting to become acquainted with the idea of what a hippy was. And as luck would have it, most of those people thought hippies usually wore California style beachwear.

   The streets the girls were following were less active and therefore the air less acrid. They had gone around the corner and about halfway down the block when the other Candace decided to ask, “Have you had the chance to explore the naNabots menus?”

   “Oh, not you, too?” said Candace.

   “What?”

   “Why did you say it like that? You didn’t pick up his speech impediment, did you?”

   “Oh,” Other Candace laughed. “Yeah, that’s not a speech impediment. Apparently, the company that makes the naNabots owns the rights to the second ‘N’.”

   “What?”

   “Yeah. They’re not nanabots. They’re naNabots.”

   “You’re kidding.”

   “Nope.”

   “Hunh.” Candace wondered if she had made any subtle derogatory comments about his “speech impediment”. She thought about it and concluded that she hadn’t, not out loud at least.

   “So, have you?”

   “Oh, the menus! Um, no. Why?”

   Other Candace accessed her display and brought up the apps menu to show her. “Unless I’m mistaken, I believe these apps might be perfect for our needs.”

   Candace was amazed. She had no idea the nan—“naNabots” could do that. “Have you tested any to see if they’ll do that?”

   “Not yet.”

   The Travelers arrived at the Candaces last known location but of course, they were nowhere to be seen. “Great,” said the other Traveler. “I really wish they would stop wandering off like this.”

   “This never happened to me,” our Traveler said.

   The other one looked at him and shook his head.

   Our Traveler looked back at him, laughed and said, “Wait, I guess it did.”

   “Oh, funny, ha, ha.” The other Traveler checked the readings showing a realtime display of where the Candaces were. “They’re headed towards the Book Depository. If we go down the street here, we’ll be able to cut them off.”

   “Doesn’t it worry you what they might do?” said our Traveler.

   “What?”

   “You do know where we are, right?”

   “We don’t have time for games. We have to go!”

   Our Traveler grabbed his double by the arm and pulled him around to face him. “It wasn’t me,” he said. “But it was most definitely you.”

   “What are you talking about?”

   “Don’t you remember? There was an anomaly here.”

   The other Traveler looked around, trying to see if there was anything familiar. Then he remembered. The date! This is where I knocked that git with the funny name down the stairs. “You said it wasn’t you,” said the other Traveler. “How do you know about the anomaly?”

   “You created the foundation of our dilemma by transfixing both timelines when you thought you were fixing your anomaly,” said our Traveler, and let go of the other one’s arm. “If they screw it up, your timeline will be completely gone. You’ll never be able to get it back. Didn’t you notice the dekyon field when you got here then? It’s a clear sign of a distortion in the space/time continuum.”

   “Yes but it was gone before I could look into it. I assumed it was some kind of false reading.” The other Traveler was starting to worry. “Are you saying my timeline is the one that doesn’t belong at all? Once everything’s set right, it’s the one that’s going to go away?”

   “It’s no big deal,” our Traveler said.

   “No big deal?! But it’s my timeline. Won’t I go with it?!”

   “You’re not going to magically disappear. You’ll be around in your own timeline, just not in this universe. It was an accident. We’ll stop the Candaces from changing things and then the timelines can fix themselves.”

   “What? You mean I was freaking out about nothing?”

   “Yes. It’s the rest of the world that change, not us.”

   “So when they said, both of you cannot exist but they didn’t mean I won’t, they meant our timelines were crossed?”

   “Oh,” Our Traveler laughed and said, “You must’ve been shitting yourself! Did you really believe that was their funny way of saying it won’t hurt a bit?”

   The other Traveler found this hard to believe. He felt both relieved and stupid. Then he started to laugh along with our Traveler.

   Then our Traveler stopped laughing and said, “We still have to stop them.”

   “Oh. Yeah, right, of course.”

   The Candaces were walking through the unpaved parking lot of a railyard, just a few feet away from making things worse. Across the lot, inside a ’62 green Impala, were a couple of agents who were working for the conspirators. They were in the middle of going over their plans when they did something they weren’t supposed to do. They watched two identical women walk towards them dressed in clothing that seemed familiar but at the same time not quite familiar. Because of this, the conspirators had missed a vital piece of information that will ruin their operation. About this time of day, on the hour, every hour, a security guard, posted there for tomorrow’s event, does a quick walk around.

   The Candaces stopped. They turned to each other and said, “Did you hear that?”

   “It’s not an alert I’ve ever heard before,” said Candace.

   “I wonder what it means,” said the other Candace.

   The two Travelers stopped in their tracks. They turned to each other and said, “Shit!” then started running as fast as they could.

   “Well it must mean something,” Candace said.

   “It probably wasn’t something important,” said the other Candace. “I’m sure it would’ve been a more annoying alert if it were.”

   Candace wasn’t convinced. It was an alarm that meant something. Once again, without asking the question, the naNabots answered. “Oh no!” exclaimed Candace. “We have to stop!”

   “What?”

   “We have to stop NOW!”

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