Gordon was alone in the conference room sipping coffee, his mind furiously thinking when Diane Kramer entered the room.
"Travis wants to see you", she said "I think he's found a way out of this mess".
"Hopefully he has", said Gordon "Things are just getting worse".
Travis was one of Gordon's best computer technicians and had been hired right when Gordon had become president of ITC. Amazing with computers and always had come up with good solutions to problems. Gordon had never thought about coming to Travis for an idea about the major problem that ITC was having right now. Sipping his coffee he followed Kramer out of the room and down a hall way.
"Did Travis tell you any thing", asked Gordon.
"No, all he said 'was get Gordon', I could tell by the way he was smiling that he had something in his head", Kramer replied.
Travis was in the lounge sitting on the last leather couch. Gordon had to sell the rest to scrape of a few extra hundred dollars. He had black hair, a baseball cap on, and wore a blue sweatshirt. He was twenty six years old and had two folders in his hands.
"So Travis, Kramer said you had an idea", Gordon said, not wasting any time.
Travis beamed at him, he had a rather happy-go-lucky attitude "Yes Gordon I think I do", he said the smile never falling from his face.
"Hit me", Gordon spoke anxiously.
"Gordon ITC has developed an amazing technology one that I think can come in use. Technically you have the technology to travel back in time", Travis paused and cleared his throat "I think the past is the way to get us out of this mess".
"How so", Gordon spoke impatiently.
"Back then people had currency as well, gold coins, diamonds… you name it the past has it and it's very valuable in modern times. Also the currency wasn't as well guarded", Travis smiled.
"You're saying that we go back to the past and take money" Gordon raised an eyebrow.
Travis tossed him the two folders that he had been carrying. "Look at these", he said.
Gordon looked at the first one it was labeled "Klondike" he opened it up to see old photographs of creeks, sluice boxes, gold nuggets…
"The Klondike was the place of the 1897 gold rush, people say that each creek up in the Klondike was full of gold", Travis said "If we travel back right before the gold rush we can take all the gold that we can carry, it's simple but genius at the same time, look at the second folder"
Gordon exchanged the first folder for the second one it was labeled "Caribbean" Gordon opened it up to see a couple of pictures of giant pirate ships one was labeled "English treasure galleon".
"The second idea may seem a bit more complicated but it's still quite easy", Travis said "The Caribbean was full of pirates and large amounts of treasure. A treasure galleon like this one had its hulls filled with gold enough to easily get ITC back in business. We could land the machine right in the hull, stuff are faces with doubloons and diamonds before any one notices."
"Any more ideas?" asked Gordon.
"Sorry I only had time to show you these two, couldn't think of more options. We don't have any more time though." Travis looked around; the lounge still had the indents of all the leather chairs and couches that had once been there now replaced with fold out chairs.
"Don't worry Travis these two are actually really good and I think I've already made my decision…"
Two days later the boardroom was silent members of ITC sat interested as Gordon; sitting at the head of the table explained his plan "The Caribbean in the age of pirates was home to many fleets of ships from all different nations; Spanish, English, French. Many ships where used to transport riches from one place to another usually in large fleets to protect the treasure from pirate attacks. In 1687 one English treasure galleon called "The Angler" traveled alone because it was making such a short journey…."
"Is this the ship where supposed to be landing on", interrupted one of the board members.
"Yes we'll land our machines in the belly of the ship, our team will then go to the captains quarters where there are supposed to be the three treasure chests, of course we'll be doing this at night", Gordon continued "The team will consist of five members from the staff of ITC and I will be one". Gordon hoped that would be a sign of leadership. "Any questions? No okay….. I don't suppose any of you would want to join the team?" It was a long shot but worth a try.
The boardroom members all turned down his offer politely. Gordon walked out of the room. He had already known that board people would say no now he needed to find some people eager enough to visit the pirate ages.
That's when Travis came up to him, out of nowhere. "I want to join the team" he said seriously.
That was the last thing Gordon would expect, Travis knew all the dangers of this mission, why would he want to go?
"Gordon I want to help ITC, you trust me the most I'll watch you're back out there and you can watch mine", he continued.
Gordon was lost for words he didn't know if he was grateful that Travis had volunteered or nervous that Travis had volunteered either way he knew he had the first member of his team.