Page 37 of Reversal of Fate

After ministering to Carter’s injuries, cleaning the encrusted blood from his face and hands, and giving him painkillers, Julie sighed. His handsome face still looked worse for wear and would need a few days to heal, but luckily the kicking he’d received from Todd and Steve hadn’t resulted in any broken bones. Bruises were another matter. She’d lifted his shirt over his head to examine him and realized how viciously he’d been beaten. Yet he’d raced to get to her to save her, ignoring his own pain.

“Thank you,” Carter said. “You’re a pretty good nurse.”

She shook her head. “You should probably go to the hospital, have them check you out properly just in case you have a concussion.”

“I can’t afford to go to the hospital.”

“You have no health insurance? You could go to Student Health Services. They’ll take—”

He took her hand and shook his head. “Like I told you last night, I’m not a student. Not here anyway.”

“Then where?”

“Not where, when.”

Confused, she asked, “What do you mean by that?”

“You might want to sit down for this.” Carter took a deep breath. He sat on the edge of the bed, while Julie put away her first aid kit.

Her heart began to beat faster. The serious tone of his voice was starting to alarm her. She pulled a chair up to face him, and sat down. “I’m sitting.”

“My name is Carter Ambrose, and I was born in 2065.” He made a pause, while she tried to make sense of the words.

“That’s not possible.” After all, 2065 lay in the future, not the past.

“I’m twenty years old. I traveled here from the year 2085. I’m from the future, Julie. I was sent here for you.”

She shook her head automatically. “No, no, that’s nonsense. You can’t be from the future. That would mean you time traveled. That’s impossible. That kind of technology doesn’t exist.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he confirmed, “not in 2025. But it does in 2085. I can prove it.”

He tapped on his wrist, and all of a sudden, a kind of hologram appeared floating over his arm. Julie choked on her own saliva and jumped up. Her sudden movement caused her chair to fall backward and she almost lost her footing.

Carter rose too, though his face contorted in pain when he did so. “Please, Julie, I won’t hurt you. You promised me a half hour to explain everything. Please.”

Her heart beat into her throat, but she nodded. “Okay… half an hour.”

He sat back down and patted the spot next to him. “Please sit here, so you can see what I want to show you on my holocom.”

“Holocom?”

“This device. In 2085 everybody over the age of five has one. It’s our version of a smartphone, though it’s so much more. It monitors my vitals and alerts me to any medical problems. It has hundreds if not thousands of functions.”

Hesitantly she sat down next to him and looked at the projection hovering above his arm. “It’s a hologram,” she said and leaned in to see more details. “But it’s way more advanced than any I’ve ever seen. The details, the clarity…” She was studying technology like this, and she recognized that what Carter was showing her didn’t exist. Not in 2025.

“Nanotechnology has come a long way,” Carter said.

She pointed to his wrist. “But you weren’t wearing anything, no watch, nothing…” Even when she looked at his wrist now, she couldn’t make out anything that could hide a device like this. “An implant?”

“No.” He tapped his wrist again, and the projection disappeared.

Then he gripped his wrist with his other hand and pulled it away a moment later. He was now holding a gold colored slim wristband no larger than a watch.

“But I couldn’t see anything on your skin.” Nor had she felt anything when she’d tended to the cuts and bruises on his hands and arms.

“Because it takes on the wearer’s properties. May I?” He pointed to her wrist.

She nodded and stretched out her arm. Gently, Carter placed the device around her wrist. A second later, the device had blended with her skin, making it invisible. She touched the spot, but she felt nothing. She tapped on it, but the holocom didn’t open up.