“What do you think about leaving?” Cara asked, taking the seat across from him at the table as he mowed through a pizza, his eyes fixed on the television.
“Sure, leave if you want to. Makes no difference to me,” he replied, picking up another slice.
“Not me, Morgan, you. I think you should leave.”
“Why the fuck should I leave? This is my house,” he insisted, flinging his food back into the box and picking up a beer. Leaning back, he swung his long legs up onto a corner of the table and stared at her with narrowed eyes.
“This isn’t about the damn house, Morgan. I can well afford to buy my own,” she snapped, rising and grabbing the box off the table. Stomping to the kitchen, she threw the whole thing into the trashcan and slammed down the lid. “This is about you checking out,” she said, returning to the dining room and facing him, her hands on the table.
“And you’d like me to check in, say at a hotel,” he drawled sarcastically.
“Checking out of life, you bastard,” she shouted, slapping her hand on the table. “You do nothing save sit around, watch the damn TV, and study that reeking old album. I don’t think you even process what you’re seeing. You refuse to talk to anyone, not me, not your doctor. Hell, you even tape the money for the delivery guy on the front door and retrieve your take out after he’s gone! You’re dying, Morgan; you’re just too stupid to lie down. And you stink!”
“Big deal, it’s not like you’re interested in touching me.”
“Do you want to touch me?” she asked quietly, watching him intently.
His silence alone spoke volumes, but he answered just the same. “No.”
Cara turned away and brushed a tear from her cheek before squaring her shoulders. “Then I have a proposition for you,” she said, sinking onto her chair.
“I’m listening.”
“We’re ready to run a top secret test at work and we need a volunteer.”
“So you need a guinea pig?” He snorted and picked up his beer. “What makes you think I’d be interested?”
“I don’t, but then you’re not interested in anything anymore are you? That makes you the perfect candidate. You have no friends to speak of, your parents and brother are gone, and your wife, me, would be the only one to file a missing persons on you, which I wouldn’t do. Basically, you could disappear for an extended period of time and no one would notice. The government would backup any story I give. I have their assurance and protection.”
“And just where would I be going?” he asked, stunned. He knew he wasn’t much of a husband, but it almost sounded like he could die and she had the power and backing to cover it up.
“Where would you like to go?”
The cool tone of her voice stunned him.
“You’re crazy,” he snapped, dropping his feet to the floor and standing.
“Morgan, hear me out. I’m not crazy. I’m offering you an opportunity to make history, and believe me it wasn’t easy to get my colleagues to go along with my suggestion. The only reason you’re even being considered is you already have a death wish.”
“Oh, so that and the fact that no one would miss me, makes me an acceptable candidate?”
“Essentially, yes,” Cara replied, looking directly into his eyes.
“And if something goes wrong, what, I’m vaporized?”
“We’ve sent other things back in time and have been able to retrieve them with no problems.”
“Living things?”
“Well, no, mostly inanimate objects. Our experiments with primates have not been entirely successful, but that’s because they don’t stay in one place and tend to run as soon as they are in unfamiliar territory. Once we lose their location, we aren’t able to pull them back. A human subject would have enough sense, hopefully,” she continued as she narrowed her eyes and glared at him, “to return at the appointed time for retrieval.”
For some strange reason Morgan did not fully understand, he found he was not opposed to the whole idea of leaving this century. He felt a little spark of interest. “Go on.”
“You can go wherever you want. You pick the year and location. We have the capabilities to control that,” she replied, feeling cautiously optimistic. “You’d be doing a great service to our country, Morgan, and maybe when you came back you would be willing to rejoin the land of the living.”
“How long would I be gone?” he asked, moving to the window and staring out into the blackness.
“Again, that depends on you. On our end we have the capabilities of sending you back for as little as a week or for several months. Although, it’s possible staying to long might put us outside of our range of transfer.”
