Fate (Wilton's Gold #3) Read Online Free Page B

woman.”
    “You and I have never met before today,” Fisher said, shaking his head.
    “How can you say that? I wouldn’t have gone on that cockamamie trip if it hadn’t been for you.”
    “Well, you’re either mistaken or you’re fabricating a story. Either way, I’m not going to allow this conversation to go on-”
    “Jeff,” Dexter said, interrupting Fisher and motioning to the room around him, “none of this would have happened without you. You and I spent a year-and-a-half building this program after the government folks came to see us. How could you not remember that?”
    Jeff pointed at Fisher. “The government folks? No, it was Agent Fisher here. He’s the one who came to us.”
    “Never happened,” Fisher said. His impatience was not subtly delivered.
    “Then who was it? How did we end up here?” Jeff looked back and forth between Dexter and Fisher.
    “It was Dr. Bremner,” Dexter said. “We met at your lab?” Dexter looked between Fisher and Jeff, clearly flustered. “Nothing?”
    Jeff ran his fingers through his hair, tugging at the roots. He had no idea what was going on. “But… Evelyn Peters... The Russian woman in the psych hospital? Where was she?” He could tell from the looks on both of their faces that they had no idea who she was. But how? He paused and took a deep, exaggerated breath. “Tell me what happened. Tell me how I started the Time Program and what happened then.”
    Fisher loosened his threatening pose with an impatient sigh and sat back in his chair, then Dexter began. “After the U.S. government found your device, you and I were approached by Dr. Bremner, who I guess you’ll meet soon since you apparently haven’t met him yet, to create a partnership and create the Time Program with your invention. You reluctantly agreed, and I came along for the ride. Really, none of this rings a bell? No? Well, since the technology was already established, the next priority was setting the rules of time travel. Which was no small task. You and I spent a year in development of the program while the government built this facility. Everything came together about a year-and-a-half ago, when the program was opened to the public.”
    “To the public?”
    “Well, ‘to the public’ in the sense of it being open to anyone who had the means to participate. A trip costs a minimum of a million dollars.”
    “What?!” His mind flashed back to every terrifying thought he’d ever had about the time travel technology leaving his control. People could demand trips randomly, now?
    “It was an easier lift than raising taxes to pay for the research. Anyway, we ran our first trip for the public – a Texas oilman who wanted to see the Oklahoma land rush. Everything went very smoothly and the program was underway.”
    “How’s it work? You just give him the device and he goes on his way?”
    Dexter was shaking his head. “No. He’s accompanied. I went with him.”
    “As a guide?”
    “Well, as a guide, yes, but also as a watchdog. When you were contracted to implement the program, I was hired to head up a research team that clears every traveler before they can go.”
    “What do they have to clear?”
    “Well, the rules that we put into place. The person can have no familial connection or financial interest in the destination. The trips are for sightseeing and experiencing history only. No changes are to be made to history. The trips are in-and-out, with a duration lasting between one and three hours.”
    “We took a year to put those rules together?”
    “Lawyers.”
    “Sounds like the best rule we could’ve come up with was not to do this at all,” Jeff said, disapproval intentionally creeping into his voice. “Alright, so you take this first trip and get back. Then what?”
    “Well, after a few successful missions, you ran.”
    “I ran? What does that mean?” He glanced at Fisher again.
    Fisher leaned forward. “It means you made an unauthorized trip using one of the time