She had been the 9th girl with whom his mother had arranged dates.  The first 3 were disasters.  He showed up, was not up to being his usual charming self and his dates had walked out on him bored and angry.  He had completely forgotten 3 of the dates.  He intentionally scheduled other events to avoid 2 others.  So his mother pulled out all the stops.  She cracked open her retirement account (she was rich; she came from money)  and splurged for a Physics seminar, bringing in the premiere minds in the field speaking, including Hawking and Pasterski.  It was a little amusing to consider that she was using two eminent physicists … as bait.  The final kicker was sending Duncan the invitation with a Plus One.  Then she began the frantic search for the future mother of her grandchildren.

And she found a prospect.  She made the arrangements.  It was a “blind” date.  Or rather Duncan was the one who was blind.  His mother had prepared cheat sheets on all of Duncan’s vital statistics going all the way back to high school. She included some of his high school pictures from his yearbook - and the facebook data the cheerleaders kept on him that he never saw.  He didn’t DO social media.  One rumor was that he was gay, but that was probably started by a cheerleader he had ignored.  Duncan had described the girl as a ‘vain and vacuous airhead.’

He had been quite social in high school.  He became the high school bands ‘rock star.  He played guitar and owned his own Gibson and Martin.  He became a football star.  The year he had arrived the school had announced it would be the team’s last season.  He became a kicker and for a while the top scorer.  Even though the team wasn’t even on the radar of scouts, he had a few scholarship offers.

His mother wasn’t sure why he had become so anti social.  The withdrawal from the public eye started about 3 years ago, shortly after his senior high school year had ended.  He had suddenly turned down 2 research grants for no reason.  He had become secretive.  His father worked at Sandia Labs, which did weapon systems research for the military.  Duncan himself consulted with the military.  It was possible that he had been pulled into some difficult research.  Tensions had been rising for years with the new Cold War.  But his father had no idea why Duncan was withdrawn.

His parents tried to question him, but he remained stoic.  He simply look serious for a moment, relaxed the next, and told them not to worry about it.  He was just going through a phase.

Duncan’s mother told Girl #9 not to give up easy.  She described how the previous dates had gone.  Duncan could be stubborn, but he would come around.  The first date was almost a total flop.  He left the seminar early claiming boredom after speaking to both of the physicists briefly.  His questions had been about tachyon condensation and Einstein-Rosen bridges.  Their responses may as well have been in some alien language.  Duncan seemed to understand it, but was bitterly disappointed, though silent in his annoyance.  He seemed to have hoped for a different response.

He practically ignored his date as he departed the seminar.  It wasn’t until he got to his car that he realized she was still there.  A simple “why don’t you tell me about it” got his attention as he stared in shock for two full minutes.  Then he shook his head and started to tell her she wouldn’t understand.  Duncan’s mother had warned of this and explained that there had been a time what Duncan would never have said that to anyone.  He would have tried to explain things in terms a layman would understand.  That had been his greatest gift.  And so his date took the advice and suggested he give it his best shot - over dinner.  She dared him and smiled refusing to budge and told him she was still hungry.  That was when his stomach growled.  He finally smiled.  And the expression he had as he finally noticed her and gave every indication that rumors that he was gay were completely in error.  “Am I that bad?”

She never understood a thing he tried to explain merely nodding as if she was following anything he said, but thanked him for trying.  Then she warned that if he didn’t call she would sic his mother on him.  That got a laugh.

He called.

It was 2 dates later when he stopped almost an hour into completely mystifying physics discussions and asked her what she was studying.  It had finally dawned on him that he hadn’t chased this girl off.  And if her major wasn’t physics or math….  Her response shocked him.  She didn’t have a clue about anything he’d said for days.  All that nodding had been the girl equivalent to a husband reading the morning paper and giving his wife the Yes Dear treatment.  He pointed this out, clearly amused.

It was the 7th date during which he seemed to be a changed man.  He was actually grinning.  All he said that he had had a good day at the lab.

Date 9.  He had been so excited about some sort of breakthrough he had literally picked her up off the ground and kissed her solidly.  Then he had stopped suddenly, looking pained, his expression haunted.

He didn’t call for three days.  She had to show up at his Lab and demand to see him.  

[b][color=f7941d]Sep 23, 2020[/color][/b] (Duncan turns 21 in two days)

Three days ago he had finally succeeded in sending a probe through the time portal and retrieving it.  That meant he was finally ready to make a journey through time.  And he had a means to return not that returning was truly an option - not for much longer anyways.  But when he had gone to his new girlfriend he had realized that he a choice to make - whether take her or leave her behind.  If he took her, she would have to leave everyone and everything she knew behind as well.

He had considered taking his parents.  He had considered handing the project over to the government.  Only there really wasn’t time.  The world as he knew it would be gone by Jan 20, 2021 … the day the next president would take office.  Over the course of the past 3 days he had narrowed down the timeframe for WW III to  Jan 4, 2021, a Monday.

The time portal filled up about half of a 1 million square foot warehouse.  A large part of that space was occupied by portable fusion powerplants, negative energy collectors, tachyon condensation projectors.  And they would all be gone in a little over 3 months.  Even now he was trying to make sure they could survive a nuclear holocaust.  But truthfully, he needed a place deep underground - a bunker - in which to hide them.  And there simply wasn’t time to create one, move the equipment, then reassemble and recalibrate it.  The complexity of anchoring the portal to the local gravity of Earth, the shape and changing geography with the movement of any specific point on the planet  through space had been a nightmare.  He had finally found a way to do this through the application of a gravitic anchor and begun a topological mapping of the Earth’s surface for the past billion years and developed a coordinate mapping system similar to latitude and longitude as well as a chronologically localized calendar to allow for changes to the Earth’s rotation. 

There was still more work to do before they could travel through safely.  One thing he had to do was choose a time and calibrate carefully - unless he wanted to come out of the portal in the past over a ravine or a mile underwater or the vacuum of space.  Heck, it was possible to use the same portal to reach the Moon or Mars.  At least he was pretty sure it was.  And once he had created the Membrane to make sure he wouldn’t allow biocontaminants to pass through - or toxic gasses - he had actually locked on to the Moon and measured pressure differentials.
 
And now she was waiting “patiently”.  Make that stubbornly.  He smiled painfully and headed to the front of the building.  When he got there he looked both tired and sheepish.  “Hey there.  I’m in trouble.  Sorry.  Lot on my mind … and I know that excuse is getting old.  Come on in.  Don’t worry.  Wear this.”  He handed her a badge.  “Keeps the security sensors happy so they don’t freak out and call for the cavalry.”

His Lab looked like something out of science fiction. She had no clue what most of the equipment was.  But she could see the mathematics on the transparent whiteboards and the weird graphic scenes in a holographic display.  That display was far more advanced than anything on the market.

“So, I guess you have questions.  The short answer.  Time.  I am working with time.  You ever read HG Wells?”  His face looked strained, like he knew things no man should know.