The Theta Prophecy (13 page)

Year: 1961

A month after his meeting with the Director of Central Intelligence, President Kennedy traveled to New York, where he intended to meet with William Martin, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Most of the men JFK had spoken to were either new appointments, designated to serve under the Kennedy administration, or else they were people who had distinguished themselves under the previous administration and deserved to stay where they were. But Martin was different. Not only had he served as the Fed Chairman all eight years of Eisenhower’s presidency, he had also held the role during Truman’s time in office. It took a special kind of person to hold onto power that long.

For a while, Kennedy listened to Martin talk about how his father had helped write the original Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which had given a few financiers a tremendous amount of authority, controlling U.S. currency and monetary policy.

“It changed the political landscape,” Kennedy said.

Martin nodded and grinned, taking the comment as a compliment. Knowing Kennedy had served in World War II, he also spoke about his own experiences in the war. Instead of saving the lives of men while nearly dying in open water, as Kennedy had, Martin had held a supervisor’s job, far from battle, where he watched over the disposal of raw war materials.

“But I was happy to serve my country any way I could,” Martin said.

Kennedy wasn’t interested in talking about World War II. Even as he spoke to the chairman, the pain in his back, a result of his heroics in the war, made him want to lie down flat on the floor and take more medication.

Instead, he said, “Did your father think it odd that much of what would become the Federal Reserve Act was written in secrecy and then brought to Congress for a vote when most of Washington was gone for the holidays and couldn’t object to it?”

Martin rolled his eyes and gave Kennedy a playful wink. “He did not. I can guess what his response would have been. He would have said, ‘They should have waited to take their vacation if they wanted to raise objections to it’.”

“Tell me a secret,” Kennedy said, and for a moment he thought he saw Martin suck in a breath of air. Had he somehow heard about the conversation with Dulles?

“Sure,” the Fed Chairman said, grinning and leaning forward with his forearms propped against the table.

“Tell me how you’ve remained in the same position for so long. What’s the secret to being around after everyone else who started the same time as you has retired?”

“Oh, that,” Martin said, swatting his hand in the air to wave the question away. “I’m good at what I do. I have the best interests of the American people at heart. And I never let myself get caught up in any of the nonsense in Washington. As a great banker said long before I was around, ‘Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.”

It was said as a light-hearted comment, but Kennedy squinted and leaned heavily on one elbow.

“Do you ever worry the Federal Reserve may have too much power?” he said, his mouth curling into a frown when Martin burst out laughing.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the Chairman said. “I thought you were joking. No, I do not think we have too much power. And,” he added, still smiling, “like I tell every president I’ve served under, we are always accountable to Congress.”

“Of course,” Kennedy said, not bothering to add that the largest and most powerful banks, who worked with and benefited from the Federal Reserve’s policies, helped almost every member of Congress get elected, so of course most senators would be willing to turn a blind eye if it meant they could remain in office.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Truman and Eisenhower,” Martin said, offering a smile so large it looked like his jaw was going to fall away from the rest of his face. “I’m happy to work with you as much as our interests are aligned. But my ultimate goal is doing what’s best for the country.”

“And how do you decide what’s best and what’s not?”

“My faith in our economy and that our banking institutions are what keeps the country running.”

“And if we differ on what we think is best?”

“Well, like I said, we’re always accountable to Congress, aren’t we?” After a moment of silence, the Fed Chairman said, “Ah, come on now. Don’t look at me like that. We’re friends, I promise.”

“We don’t have to be friends,” Kennedy said. “But you do have to understand I’m the president of the country.”

“Oh, trust me. I do.” The grin was so large now that if an animal were released into the room, Martin would surely swallow it whole and let his stomach digest the creature while it was still alive.

Kennedy tucked his upper lip into his mouth and breathed out through his nose. Why was it that someone always wanted to test his authority? Surely, this man, as rich and successful—and yes, powerful—as he was, knew he had to answer to the President of the United States.

“Mr. President,” Martin said, “there’s that face again. Please, don’t think of me as an adversary. I’m only here to help. I can even prove it.”

“And how would you do that?”

“I can tell you about the book you’ve been asking about.”

Kennedy knew which book Martin was referring to without having to ask. During the course of his visits with various Agency heads, Dulles hadn’t been the only person who had heard that such a book existed. All of them had heard the same rumors—that it was written by someone from the future who wanted to change the course of history. None of these people had actually read the book, though. Kennedy was also trying to figure out how Martin had heard he was asking about it.

“And?” the president said.

“And I can assure you it is very real.”

“How can you do that?”

“Because I’ve read it.”

Kennedy leaned forward, close enough to smell Martin’s aftershave.

“You’ve read it?”

“Certainly. I have it in my possession.”

“You?”

“Of course. Who better than someone who is independent from Washington and doesn’t have to worry about politics?”

“I would be very eager to see it,” The president said.

“I’ll see if I can find it for you.”

“I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll have some of my men pick it up and bring it to Washington for me.”

“Mr. President,” Martin said, his head bobbing slightly from side to side as he smiled. “If only it were that easy. I’m not even sure which safe it’s locked in. I promise I’ll try to find it for you, though. But until then, you must take my word that the things Dulles and others are doing to find any potential time travelers are of the utmost importance. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t go to the trouble of having people infiltrate every segment of society.”

So that was how it was going to be
, Kennedy thought. Martin had to know exactly where the book was, and yet he was offering a polite dismissal of the president’s request, probably hoping more urgent matters would take his interest away and cause him to forget all about it.

Martin was still talking: “The important thing is that you trust me: the person who wrote that book and anyone else like him have to be stopped at all cost. They are a danger to our way of life. And no matter what you do, you mustn’t tell anyone about the book. The fewer people who know about it, the better.”

“Because the American people can’t be trusted with the information, right?”

The Chairman smiled, but didn’t say anything. Kennedy guessed all of the possible things the Chairman could be thinking. That he didn’t have to answer to the president. That the Federal Reserve was separate from the government. That politicians needed bankers more than bankers needed politicians.

But none of those things were what Martin ended up saying: “I have seen the future, or, rather, I have read about it, and I think you’ll find that it really is best to keep as much information from the public as possible, at least when it comes to the way the world works and the things our government has to do to keep them safe.” And then, for good measure, “Mr. President.”

“We’ll see,” Kennedy said, standing and pushing his chair away from the table. Why did his back have to hurt so much? Why did it seem to hurt even worse when meetings like this took place, as if the literal weight of the world was trying to press him back down?

“Have a pleasant evening,” Martin said.

And then JFK was gone.

Year: 1956

The San Francisco Psychiatric Hospital was a four-story brick and stone building that loomed over anyone who approached it. The gargoyles on top of the building did nothing to help it seem more welcoming. Rather than actual goblins and monsters, each one was designed to look like an infant who was possessed by the devil or else was horribly disfigured and grotesque. Ironically, across the street from the hospital was the Bank of California, the city’s oldest bank, with the sculpture of a stone angel above its entryway.

Although the time traveler was no longer handcuffed, the police officer next to him kept looking at him out of the corner of his eye, making sure the man he was escorting didn’t dart away, as if he was a fugitive instead of someone who had been found in the middle of the bay with a broken nose. At the hospital, as a doctor reset his broken nose and bandaged it up, his police chaperone hadn’t let him out of his sight for a single moment. Now, at the mental institution, the police officer put a hand in the small of the time traveler’s back and gave a gentle push toward the front door.

After walking up a set of ten steps and through the thick wooden double doors, the police officer motioned to a set of chairs in the lobby and said, “Sit there. I’ll be right back.”

He was the only person in the lobby. No family members were waiting to visit with afflicted loved ones. No patients traversed the hallways. No receptionist to sign him in. Only him. There were no pictures on the walls. The chairs, he noticed, were bolted to the floor as if someone might come in from the street and steal them. Were college students daring each other to race into the lobby and steal whatever they could from a place that looked more intimidating than a real-life haunted house, or did the psychiatric hospital simply not care about making a good first impression?

Through a small plastic window he could see the cop talking to one of the hospital’s staff, at various times shrugging his shoulders and at other times pointing to the time traveler. A minute later, the police officer re-entered the lobby, but only long enough to wink at the time traveler and continue through the front door and back to the station.

“And you must be our guest,” a middle-aged man in a white lab coat said, also walking into the lobby.

The time traveler stood and extended his hand, but when he did, the other man took a quick step back as if he had no idea what his guest might do next.

“Please, this way,” the man said, regaining his composure and ushering the time traveler into the main part of the hospital. As he followed the doctor, a large man in scrubs filed in line behind him, making sure their visitor didn’t do anything crazy.

“Right in here,” the doctor said, opening the door to his office and pulling out a chair for his guest. After the time traveler was sitting down, the doctor added, “We won’t have any problems here, right?” and the large man stepped forward to see what the response would be.

“I’m not sure what they told you,” the time traveler said, “but I’m here because I lost my memory, not because of any deviant mental condition.”

“We’ll be the judge of that,” the doctor said, sitting down behind his desk. And then to the giant: “We should be okay. But keep an ear open.”

The orderly lumbered out of the room, leaving a smell of bleach and hydrogen peroxide behind him.

“So, you lost you memory?” the doctor said, smiling.

Behind the doctor were degrees from three different colleges and universities, as well as letters of recognition, the signatures too small for the time traveler to see who had endorsed them. There were no family photos, nothing to show that the doctor had a wife or children or, really, anyone at all he loved or who loved him.

“Yes,” the time traveler said. “That’s correct.”

“Well, let’s start with introductions. I’m Dr. Martin. What’s your name?”

If it had been the first time he was asked this question, he would have needed a moment to think of the best answer. But after having just come from the warden’s office, he knew exactly what to say.

“I don’t remember.”

The doctor scribbled something into a notepad on his desk, then looked up at the man sitting across from him and said, “A lot of people come in suffering from memory loss. It can be part of a much more serious mental problem.”

The time traveler thought back to how lucky he had been to pass through the Tyranny’s checkpoints without being pulled out of line, how fortunate he had been just to go undetected by the AeroCams and make it to the site where he would be sent back in time. The Thinkers, himself included, had to be absolutely diligent in making sure none of them said or did anything in the weeks leading up to their departure that would be overheard by the Tyranny’s vast array of microphones and cameras. They spoke in codes that sounded like normal conversation. They referred to each other by nicknames that sounded like actual people or places.

There had been so much hope in the eyes of the ten men who had lined up against the stone wall to be sent back in time. Now, if the averages held up, seven of those men had died immediately after disappearing from their own time. Only three of them would have a chance at preventing the Tyranny. One of them might be sent back too far in time, reappearing in the age of dinosaurs or primitive man. One of them could easily be sent back too little in time, reappearing minutes or hours before he left instead of decades. Only one of the ten men would have a legitimate chance at changing the path of the future away from a reality in which the rich and powerful were excused for their crimes while everyone else could be found guilty of crimes they didn’t even commit, where the leaders passed laws that rewarded the men who had gotten them elected and punished everyone else. And the wars, spreading blood across the entire world. Always the wars.

Now, instead of having a chance at giving his parents and his brother a different life, he would spend the rest of his life in a padded room, his arms tied to his sides, yelling about how he needed to be set free so he could change the world. If he weren’t already crazy, they would make sure he turned out to be. It was sheer lunacy.

He thought about darting out of the doctor’s office, back down the hallway he had been led through, and out the front door into the San Francisco streets. But he knew the bull of a man would be just outside the door, waiting for that exact kind of desperate act. And then his fate would be sealed because trying to escape from a mental hospital, even if it was only for a routine exam, would mean he
had
to be crazy. Instead of preventing the Tyranny, he would have to eat mashed potatoes with his bare hands because he wouldn’t be trusted with holding a fork or spoon for fear of what he might try to do with it.

“That may be true,” the time traveler said, “but I already had a preliminary evaluation at Alcatraz”—he doubted the doctor would call to see if this was true—“and they gave me a clean bill of health. They sent me here just to see if you could help jog my memory.”

The two men stared at each other for a moment. To the doctor’s credit, he had probably heard the same line before from genuinely crazy individuals, but the time traveler hoped a trained professional would be able to differentiate a crazy man from a sane one just by looking at his eyes. The time traveler also knew that nothing the doctor might say or do would be able to bring his memory back because he had never lost it.

“And if you can’t help with my memory,” he added, “I would think the next step would be for me to go to the police station to see if there were any missing person’s notices.”

“Just you relax,” Dr. Martin said. “We’ll determine the next steps for you.” And then he smiled, revealing a line of mismatched, yellow teeth. “Since you cannot remember your name, is there anything you would like me to call you in the meantime?”

Was there any harm in picking his real name if it was only temporary?

“Winston seems as fine a name as any other,” he said, after a rubbing his chin and looking up at the ceiling.

“Okay, Winston. Very good. It’s nice to make your acquaintance. Why don’t we start by you telling me the last thing you remember?”

“I don’t remember anything before coming to in the water.”

“Complete amnesia?”

“Yes.”

“That’s very rare indeed. Even with some kind of head trauma, there is only limited amnesia, not an entire life.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve found that in most cases, people claiming to have complete amnesia are suffering from some kind of delusion.”

Here it comes
, Winston thought.

“Do you hear other voices? Do you see people no one else can see?”

“No.”

“Do you think people are out to get you?”

Winston shook his head. If Dr. Martin had any idea about how the Tyranny’s men really had been out to get him, he wouldn’t ask such silly questions.

“What is your favorite color?”

Jesus Christ
, Winston thought.
Is this guy for real? If I say red does it mean I’m crazy? Is the doctor just looking for a reason to lock me up? Are other Thinkers locked in padded cells just because they appeared out of nowhere one day and happened upon a medical professional who wanted more patients?

“What’s
your
favorite color?” Winston said.

“I don’t have one,” Dr. Martin said, smiling.

Winston returned the smile. “Mine changes from day to day.”

“Right now, would you say you’re more nervous or more paranoid?”

“Neither.” And then, for good measure, “I’m just eager to return to my old life. Whatever that was.”

“Why did the guards at Alcatraz have to subdue you when they first found you?” Dr. Martin said, nodding with his eyes toward the lump and gash on the side of Winston’s temple that had required seven stitches to close.

“They didn’t have to. They were confused and thought I might be an escaping convict.”

The doctor scribbled more notes. “Can you see how that story may sound fanciful? You just happened to wash ashore at a Federal penitentiary, without your memory?”

Winston took a deep breath. It was very possible that no matter what he said, even if he could prove without a doubt that he was sane, Dr. Martin would call for the ox of a man and have their guest dragged away to a cell where no one would ever see him again.

“You’re right. If someone told me the story, I’d be skeptical myself. But imagine how I feel, since it really did happen to me.” And then, before the doctor could write something else into his notepad: “But I made a friend of the warden. In only a few hours we became good buddies. He even invited me to his house to have supper with him and his wife. And he seemed like a pretty good judge of character.”

The lies could easily be disproven. All it would take was one call from the doctor to the warden, in which he asked if the dinner invitation had taken place, for the entire story to fall apart. But it was important to let Dr. Martin know, before his impulse to lock up everyone who came through the door became too strong, that someone on the outside world would be expecting to hear from him again. That thought, that the doctor’s new toy might bring people looking for him, would be the only thing keeping Winston out of the mental institution for the rest of his life.

Dr. Martin scratched at the side of his nose, then picked at his finger, and Winston saw that it was infected after weeks, if not months and years, of being picked at. The doctor pulled a long strip of a hangnail away from his finger, then let it fall to the floor. The finger began bleeding again. Dr. Martin saw his guest looking at it and immediately hid it under his desk.

“So, you made a favorable impression on the warden?” he said, not smiling, all traces of congeniality gone.

The doctor stared through Winston as if seeing the possibility of all the things he could have done to a new resident. Electroshock therapy until Winston was making up memories just so he was left alone. Weeks at a time in a cell without any human interaction just so the doctor could see what it did to his patient. And in some other reality, those things may have been exactly what did happen to Winston. But not this one.

“Well, you made the same impression on me,” the doctor said, gritting the words through his teeth. “I’ll have one of the nurses contact the police department. They’ll send someone by to pick you up and you can go from there.”

“Thank you,” Winston said, standing up, ready to head back to the lobby.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What’s that?”

Now it was the doctor’s turn to extend a hand. “Normal people, people who aren’t deviant from society’s norms, shake hands with one another.”

“Of course,” Winston said, and did just that.

On his way back to the lobby, he noticed Dr. Martin’s blood, from the open wound on his infected finger, and wiped it on the bare white walls before he walked through the doorway and out into fresh air. He was more than content to wait on the front steps until a police officer arrived. Above him, the grotesque stone children lining the psychiatric hospital beckoned him to reconsider and stay a while longer. Across from him, the stone angel above the Bank of California laughed at him.