Three hours of training videos and lab reports followed. Dean was exhaustively briefed (“He’s rubbing my face in it!”) about time travel theory and practice. Three Jack Newt penned research treatises: “Time Travel and You”, “Linear Algebra and Fourth Dimensional Mechanics” and “Quantum Singularity, Dipole Moments and Matter/Anti-Matter Recall Progression: The Three Tools” constituted the bulk of his reading. Most of these documents, while peer-reviewed, had not been published due to the national security risk. Dean had absorbed as much as he could and then went home.
His trip was mostly uneventful. The sun boiled red along the horizon as clouds hung low telling of impending rain. How much his work had changed in just that day and now the weekend stretched out before him. A Tuplen bus inched along ahead of him as he headed down his street. He pulled in to his small one bedroom condo’s garage. He walked inside and was greeted by the answering machine light. It flashed brightly to reveal one important message. Dean pressed the button and was not at all surprised to hear his brother’s voice chirping triumphantly.
“Hi, Dean. This your brother. Guess what?”
“I’m an uncle?” Dean managed to get out.
“You’re an uncle.” Dean pressed STOP. In just one day, his whole life was shaken all over. There was so much nothing in his life right now and what he had was just taken from him and what he got was Jack Newt, a pompous self-satisfied jerk. Dean decided that he’s had enough excitement for one day, so he put himself to bed by drinking large quantities of alcohol.
...
That night, as he slept, a thought entered Dean’s mind. Dean had been alone so long – hadn’t been cared for. His work was his life and now he’d be under the thumb of the man whose fault it was that he in this situation. He knew that he would have to kill Jack Newt. Just those words made his blood boil and he realized that killing him would put him in charge of the project. He’d have enough money to find a wife from some desperate woman near his age. He’d even get the soft serve machine. To him it was a perfect plan. There was only one catch. He would have to commit the perfect murder.
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