The two of them sat on a bench at a bus stop. Two blocks away a line was beginning to form to the courthouse complex. This early, most of the men and women were dressed in business professional attire, attorneys waiting their turn to pass through the security checkpoint. Other people were in line as well, most of them potential jurors. A few others were coming for their own court dates. It was a normal scene in the downtown area for an early weekday morning. There was only one thing unusual about it. No one was moving. In fact, nothing was. Birds were still in mid-flight, suspended in the air. People were paused in the middle of a step with one foot off the ground. Even a napkin from a food cart was captured in the moment it was blown from its perch next to what were claimed to be freshly baked muffins.
"Shall I play it forward or do you want the honors?" Makesha asked.
"Me," Leonard answered, almost curtly.
"You can do it one other way," she offered.
He turned his head to look at her, something bordering on surprise in his eyes.
"You have 24 hours," she continued. "That leaves you with another hour to get it done."
"No," he said firmly. "There are too many variables that way. This way is certain."
"It's your choice," she replied, making the last word ring with emphasis.
"Yes, for once I suppose it is."
Leonard lifted his right hand in front of their faces and moved it in a circle as though cleaning a window. In a moment a small, thin cloud appeared in front of them. About the size of a dinner plate, it floated in front of them, its edges slowly shifting but not moving away. The cloud increased in density as they looked at it, becoming almost a solid, gently moving mass. Then an image appeared on it.
"Richard Seward," Makesha said.
"Yes," Leonard said softly. "He chose to play soccer instead."
The images began moving, rushing by quickly. He hadn't been hurt playing dodgeball and had not been in the nurse's office to meet Donnie. Donnie had not steered Richard into the life that had culminated in crime. More importantly, Richard had never run across the man, an acquaintance of Donnie's, who would end up killing his sister. Shelly Seward would continue living, Richard would enroll in the military, and the connection that had been made between "Shaggy" Seward and the man who would provide bomb materials for a courthouse bomb many years later would never be made. But the connection between that man and the supplies wasn't severed.
Makesha shook her head.
"Even we cannot alter destiny, Leonard," she said.
"I beg to differ, Makesha. Destiny is where we end up. Fate, what we control, determines the path we take. In this case, a path that no longer runs through the ability to set a timer does indeed alter destiny."
Makesha raised an eyebrow in question.
"Continue," she said.
Lisa Daniels came next. She had taken her trip to Europe after all. There she met a man who had gotten her drunk. Her friends had come to her rescue just in time. The man had been arrested, but the event had left a mark on Lisa. She had come home changed, untrusting. Years later, as a law student studying to aggressively pursue perpetrators of violence against women, she had been asked out by a man named Miguel Villanueva. She had turned him down harshly. It had been just one of many such rejections for Miguel and had crushed him mentally and spiritually. He had turned to drugs and alcohol.
That image faded, replaced by a picture of Connie Wilson. She was in high school. Before classes started one day the two were approached by a pair of guys from the football team, asking them to ditch classes with them that day. Connie at first wanted to refuse, but her friend wanted to go. Connie gave in and went as well. The four had gone to a nearby canyon where the guys had produced drugs for them. But in the excitement, they had given Connie's friend too much and within minutes she was unconscious. In their panic, the guys had run off and Connie had been left to find help. She had saved her friend's life, but the incident had scarred her. She and her friend had drifted apart, and Connie's life had spiralled down. Whereas before she had become homeless at age 32, she was now homeless at age 29.
"You appear to be doing not so well," Makesha said with the hint of a smile. "You've sent both of them into earlier decline than they were before."
"Yes," Leonard admitted, dragging out the word. "Something about omelettes and eggs, I imagine."
"Spoken like someone who was never a chicken. Go on. I know how one ends, but the others intrigue me."
The image of Connie faded away and was replaced by David Villanueva. He was sitting at a bar. There was one, half-filled glass on the bar in front of him. As he moved to pick it up, his hand was shaking and he nearly missed the glass entirely on the first try.
"Miguel is David's brother," Leonard explained. "After trying to get his life back together, he ran into a bad patch. He called his brother David to ask for a loan to get him through a month. David agreed. That loan was followed by another and another. David loaned him too much money that was never paid back. It caused too much friction in his marriage. On this night, his wife left him."
"If only that had been the worst of his troubles. You really sent him into hell, Leonard."
Leonard give a bit of a shrug.
"Just earlier," he said at last. "And only by himself this time. Before, he brought others with him."
As they watched, David finished his drink, stood up, and left the bar. Once in his car, he began driving. Another car, driven by a woman who had been out celebrating a bachelorette party with her friends, was approaching on a course that would intersect with David. The two cars, however, would never meet. At an intersection about a block away from what would have resulted in a fatal collision, a woman jumped out in front of David's car. The woman was Connie Wilson, who had come to the conclusion that the best thing she could do was to end her life. David was unable to avoid her, and she died before any help could arrive. David was arrested and would be charged with manslaughter while driving under the influence. David would spend two years in prison. The woman driving the other car, the sister of a prison guard, would make it home safely.
"A wash at best," Makesha said.
"On the surface, perhaps, but you are ignoring the more subtle tangents."
"That being?"
Leonard stood up from the bench and walked toward the street as traffic and people began moving. Makesha followed him at a distance. At an intersection, Leonard paused. The pedestrian signal indicated not to walk. A car passed, then several more, then another. Leonard stepped off the sidewalk. There was a screech of tires followed by the sound of car horns. Leonard continued to walk across the street. On the other side, where traffic was going in the opposite direction, a car was late in noticing him. Unable to apply the brakes, the car swerved to avoid the well-dressed man crossing against the light.
Two other people standing on the corner barely got out of the way as the car careened up onto the sidewalk and hit a streetlight. The concrete base didn't budge as the car crumpled on impact. Leonard watched as the man in the driver's seat recovered from the shock of the impact. Then he suddenly grew frantic. The driver's door opened and the man made an attempt to get out. But he had forgotten his seatbelt. His eyes found Leonard's.
"Got you," Leonard said softly.
A fireball erupted from the rear of the car and quickly engulfed the entire vehicle. People ran, screaming.
"I cannot argue with the result," Makesha said from behind him. "Your next-to-last step was inspired."
Leonard turned to look at her. Something that might have been a ghost of a smile crossed his face.
"Yes," Leonard acknowledged. "This man, Carl Bunnett, was the one who planted the bomb. But he had to make a detour on his way. The prison guard, the one who would otherwise have been intent on slowly beating David Villanueva to death, had been sent to find him. Carl hadn't been able to stay at home and had to take a circuitous route here this morning. The timer he would otherwise have put on the bomb hadn't been installed yet."
"And the impact triggered it. How did you know he would swerve to miss you?"
The ghost of a smile turned into a full one.
"He couldn't risk hitting a pedestrian. He wanted to kill dozens, but killing one stopped him."
"Brilliant, Leonard. Brilliant."
END