Timelines Intertwined

Clayton Ambrose (Clay), is the genius son of a Bill Gates-type father, Jon Ambrose from Texas, and an intellectual mother, Jessica Brinkley from Boston. When he is at the age of five, his mother thinks that she is steering him toward a life of her same highbrow pursuits. Instead, she unknowingly instills his fascination for science, putting him on a lifelong quest to achieve time travel. He fulfills this goal but with terrible consequences.

As a small child, Clay’s father had created a protocol that stops hackers, allowing him to become a very rich man. His son, through his accidental misuse of his time travel creation, his TYMESuit, undoes that protocol, resulting in the hackers taking down the electric grid. This sets up the conditions for terrorists and renegade states to do further harm to the United States, as well as the world.

At first, Clay doesn’t recognize what he has done. It takes the realization that he has lost the love of his life, the beautiful and intelligent Melissa Fairchild, to force him into a new reality. He spends the rest of his efforts trying to undo the damage. This takes him to his father’s ranch in Texas, Boston, where he grew up, and Europe, all taking place at different times in the future. These interim efforts fail only to generate new timelines that take him further from his goal of returning to normalcy. He finally achieves mixed success with the help of his dead father, his robot Clarence, and the Vatican.

The story is told interspersed with predictions for the future, adding to the intrigue and humor, breaking the suspense. Many of the characters serve multiple roles as they travel through the different timelines. The question is, which one will prevail?

-- R. Scott Rice