April 9, 2001
"How was work, honey?" Andrea Treborn asks her husband as she stands on the tiled floor inside their kitchen.
"Great," replies Jason Treborn, putting his arms around his wife's waist. "I had some meetings, and tomorrow I have to fly to Houston to meet with some business executives."
"The one in Texas?"
"Of course."
"How are you feeling?" asks Andrea, sitting down on a chair next to the kitchen table.
"Fine. I haven't had headaches or numbness or anything."
"Remember, Jason. No more flashbacks."
"Sure thing. Maybe you can come with me to Houston. To leave you in this big house, all by yourself, especially since Evan's off to college on his own?"
"I can spend time with my friends here. Maybe even drive to Pennsylvania to see my parents."
Jason nods, having last seen Andrea's parents the previous Thanksgiving.
Ooooooooooooo
June 4, 2001
"Now sit still, Mr. Treborn," says Dr. Harlon Redfield as he watches the CAT-scan machine.
The scan is taken, and Scott Treborn is wheeled out.
"Why do we have to do this again?" asks Scott, who is visiting relatives in the area with his wife, Dana. "I got better things to do, you know."
"They say that strokes run in families, Mr. Treborn," says Redfield. "Your father was here last week. And your sister was here two days ago."
"Anything wrong with them?"
"Not that I can detect," replies the doctor. "In any event, I do want to ask you a question."
"What?" asks Scott, clutching Dana's hand.
"Have you had flashbacks?"
"Flashbacks?" asks Scott. "What would be strange about that? Other people have flashbacks, you know."
"Come on, Mr. Treborn," says Redfield.
"Well, there was one time, I think. I was watching a video of my daughter's wedding, and it was as if I was actually there."
"Any other flashbacks that you can recall?"
"Uh, no."
Dr. Redfield scribbles notes onto a yellow notepad. "That will be all. And I strongly advise that you bring your children here."
Redfield leaves the Sunnyvale lab, going to his office. He views some of his reports that he had created using Microsoft Word.
He has an idea about what is happening; he will need test results from an outside lab.
Oooooooooooooo
June 5, 2001
"I want to thank you all for coming to celebrate our 20th anniversary," says Andrea, looking at the eighty-plus people in the ballroom. "We have been through a lot; we are going to make it."
"May you have many more," says Chris Treborn.
Jason and Andrea stand in front of a long table covered in a tablecloth. In front of them are relatives from all across the country, gathered into this hotel ballroom in Rye, New York. It has been a long twenty years of marriage. There are so many great memories.
The two of them dance on the varnished wooden dance floor about an hour later. The same song that played during their fist dance as husband and wife now plays. Their hearts pace together, feeling close. It is still the same feeling that existed twenty years ago, now with twenty years of memories.
After the song is done, Jason leads Andrea off the dance floor. Andrea sits back on her seat.
What could take the past twenty years away?
oooooooooo
July 17, 2001
Dr. Redfield opens the manila envelope and reads the report from the lab.
This is interesting, he thinks.
The doctor opens an Adobe document on his Power Macintosh G4. The document has a chart that he himself made, listing the known descendants of Matthew Treborn.
Redfield had ordered several CAT-scans, both from test subjects and from his staff as a control. Two of the subjects, Matt and Jason, had massive neural reconstruction in the outer lining of the cerebral cortex. Some of the other subjects had some neural reconstruction in that part of the brain, though not as pronounced as Matt's or Jason's, and still other test subjects had scans not much different from the control subjects.
The DNA testing results had confirmed a certain genetic marker in the Y-chromosome from some of the subjects who were tested here but not others.
It confirmed my suspicion.
Chris, his sons Scott and Jason, and his grandson Evan all test positive for this genetic marker. However, one of Matt's other grandsons, who was born from one of Matt's daughters and was available for testing, tested negative. Obviously, this trait was passed from father to son.
Still, there was a question of what this genetic marker could lead to. Matt Treborn had a stroke and suffered from permanent, short-term memory loss at the age of fifty-two, never remembering anything that happened after that. Chris, however, suffered nothing of the sort even after seventy-four years of life.
Perhaps another factor is involved. Matt's the only one I know of who is institutionalized. If only there was a larger sample.
Redfield is treading new ground. The vocabulary to describe what is happening does not even exist.
Ooooooooooooooooo
October 23, 2001
"According to your chief financial officer," says Jason, on a conference call with other major investors, "you reduced your assets by over one billion to correct an accounting error on your Raptor partnerships. Furthermore, the SEC is conducting an inquiry into your accounting practices- that is what your company admitted. Isn't there a conflict of interest?"
"Oh, no, Mr. Treborn," says Kenneth Lay, chairman and chief executive officer of Enron, an energy trading company based in Houston, Texas. "There is no conflict of interest; the directors continue to have the highest faith and confidence in Mr. Fastow."
"But the inquiry," says another investor.
"It is standard procedure. There was an accounting error and they investigate."
"And what about your former CEO, Jeffrey Skilling?' asks another investor.
"Those were for personal reasons."
The conference call goes on for quite some time. Jason then hangs up by pressing the speaker button on the phone.
"So what do you think?" Jason asks Bob Schnaufer, who is sitting across from him.
"They're an energy trading company, and everyone needs energy," answers Schnaufer. "They have a solid business record. One little accounting error isn't gonna cause problems."
Ooooooooooo
November 28, 2001
The staff of Temporal Financial Services all meet inside the conference room on the 27th floor of the Temporal Financial Services building.
Jason sits down on the leather seat at the end of the table. "Just today, it was revealed that Enron inflated its financial statements, hiding its debts and losses," he says. "As a result, share prices for the company dropped below one dollar. Our mutual funds invested quite a large sum of money into Enron, money that is now gone."
"This is a perfect opportunity for a takeover!" says one of the executives, a fresh-faced man in his mid-twenties. "We should contact other investors, buy out the company, and replace the management. We could still make money off of this."
"Oh, please," says another executive, an older man wearing an expensive-looking suit. "I read that they are going to file bankruptcy. All of their assets are gonna be sold to pay off debts. I mean, Dynegy withdrew its offer to buy out Enron."
"And now I'm going to have to explain this to the directors," says Jason. "They all e-mailed me, telling me they are flying here to White Plains to conduct a board meeting."
He looks at some articles that he had printed from the Hewlett Packard LaserJet printer in his office. They are all about Enron. He reads an article, dated October 31, about the Securities and Exchange Commission launching a formal inquiry into Enron's accounting practices. On November 8, Enron announced that it had overstated its profits by five hundred eighty six million dollars over five years. Dynegy had offered to acquire Enron for nine billion on November 9, and had just retracted its offer today.
Today is when the shit hit the fan. The news about the extent of Enron's accounting practices became public 10:30 A.M.
"Meeting is adjourned," says Jason, picking up the articles. "Mr. Schnaufer, meet me in my office."
Bob Schnaufer follows Jason into his office, sitting on a leather chair in front of the chairman's desk.
"Those bastards!" yells Jason. "How could they do this? Now I'm gonna have to explain this to the board."
"It's okay, sir," says Schnaufer. "We trusted them, and they broke it."
"The board will probably fire me for being suckered by them. They were jealous, jealous of my success. That's why they wanted to screw me over. They wanted to destroy my company! They wanted to ruin me!"
"Not just you, Mr. Treborn."
"Do you know how much of my personal assets were invested into Enron?" asks Jason.
"Sir, I've been in contact with some lawyers in the city," says Schnaufer. "We're gonna sue the fuck out of them."
"You handle things with the lawyers, Schnaufer. Dismissed."
Schnaufer leaves Jason's office. Jason immediately opens a folder in his Power Macintosh G4. He opens a file for a picture he had taken in January, when he had returned to work after recovering from his stroke.
This could be dangerous.
Then again, it had been nearly a year since he had a flashback.
He stares into the picture, and his office seems to vibrate.
Ooooooooooo
January 29, 2001
Jason finds himself holding the digital camera. He looks outside the window of his office; there is snow piled on the sidewalks.
He immediately opens the TeachText program to create a new text document.
From: November 28, 2001
To: January 29, 2001
Make sure to sell your Enron holdings; the company will end up on the verge of bankruptcy.
From the future,
Jason TrebornJason saves the text document, as well as the JPEG file of the picture that his younger self had just taken minutes ago. All he has to do is wait, his younger self should be able to read the message, since the computer will still be here for eleven more months.
ooooooooooo
November 28, 2001
Jason clutches his head upon flashing forward just one day shy of eleven months. Using a handkerchief, he wipes blood off of his nose.
After a minute, the headache clears.
He uses the computer to access the history of his company's financial transactions.
I did it!
By the time Jason sets foot inside his mansion, he had already buried the flashback deep into his memories.
Ooooooooooo
March 5, 2002
Finishing his bowl of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Jason puts the bowl in the sink. He is already dressed in his three-piece business suit, with expensive Gucci loafers on his feet.
"I'd better get going now," he says, looking at his Guess watch. "Got a couple of morning meetings."
"Remember we're going out to dinner to celebrate Evan's birthday," says Andrea.
Jason kisses Andrea, grabs his overcoat from the closet in the living room, and then gets into his 1995 Lincoln Continental. A few minutes later, he parks the car into his assigned parking spot at Temporal Financial Services.
He gets out, feeling the brisk air. A handful of people wearing overcoats enter through the glass doors of the building.
Jason makes his way towards the entrance.
"Excuse me," says a male voice.
Jason turns and sees several men wearing overcoats over business coat.
"May I help you?" asks the Temporal Financial Services chairman.
The man takes out a piece of leather and shows a metallic badge. "FBI," he says, "Jason Treborn, you are under arrest for insider trading, fraud, and conspiracy to commit fraud. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. If you can not afford an attorney, one will be provided for you."
Handcuffs are placed on Jason's wrists before he is placed inside a blue Ford Crown Victoria.