“You’re saying that what you’re looking for is worthless to us?” Shelley said.

“She’s catchin’ on, Billy-boy,” Theo said.

“This day is really starting to suck,” Keith said.

“Why is it worth something to you?” Shelley said.

“You might say Theo is a collector of sorts. An eccentric.”

“Fancy word, there, but I’ll accept it.”

“I need money for my daughter,” Shelley said. “I was hoping this would help.”

Theo smiled. “Well, if cash is what you need, I gotcha covered.”

“Money that works here?” Keith said.

“Yep. We always need cash on our adventures, don’t we, Billy-boy? No cred for the time jumpers.”

Falcon nodded.

“You’d do that? Just give us money?” Shelley said.

“Well, I reckon if you help us, that can be arranged, little lady. First, why don’t you tell us — ”

“Before we say or do anything,” Keith said, “Why don’t you tell us more about where you come from?”

“Can we at least get moving in the right direction first? We’re kind of in a hurry,” Falcon said.

“Where do we need to start? You have a general idea where to look, right?”

“I only know it was in a patch of what they call paw-paw trees,” Theo said.

“I know where they are,” Shelley said.

Almost in unison, the men asked, “How?”

“Like I said, my husband helped inventory all the trees in these woods. I helped him create the maps for his presentation.”

“You mean, ex-husband,” Keith said.

“Right, that’s what I meant. The point is, we need to go this way.” She pointed into the forest. Which direction, Keith didn’t know.

They walked, Theo and Falcon in front, Shelley and Keith behind. Dry leaves crunched underfoot. A woodpecker drilled for bugs in a decaying tree. Keith found himself expecting an ad bot to rush down and start hawking goods or services. Instead, the occasional swarm of gnats hovered at eye level, and birds flitted when they heard footsteps or voices.

As much as he enjoyed the change of scenery, Keith couldn’t quell his curiosity any longer.

“So, back to my question. Where are you guys from?” he said.

“Not where. When. Let’s just say we came here from the future.”

“But we can’t travel through time,” Keith said.

“Not yet,” Falcon said. He stepped away from the group just long enough to lean over and pick up several pecans near a tree loaded with them.

“If you’re from the future, then why do you have to dig up things here?” Shelley said.

“Like my pardner said, I collect things. Things that the law don’t exactly like me havin’ in our time. So, I bury them in the past and then dig them up in our time.”

“Why not just come back in time, get it, and take it back with you?” Keith said.

Falcon clamped his hands together and cracked a pecan. “Doesn’t work that way,” he said. “We use a time chamber to transport to a spot here, and then we just re-enter our time through the same spot. Only what came in can go back.”

“Take this nut,” he continued. “If I eat this now, and then make the return jump, it’s as if I never ate it. This broken shell wouldn’t be in my hand anymore.”

“But that doesn’t answer why you’re digging something up right now,” Shelley said.

“It seems that something we did the first time around, when we buried it, messed up history. In our time, these woods were here. But, after we got back from burying this particular treasure, we found an office complex instead.”

“I’ve heard of that. Timeline contamination or something,” Keith said.

“Right. So now we’re back to move it.”

“Why not just go back and change what you did in the first place?” Keith said.

“That’s tricky. My time chamber isn’t the latest and greatest, so jumps aren’t an exact science.”

“Such amazing technology, but it has bugs. I love it,” Keith said.

“So, what did you you do to mess up history?” Shelley said.

“We’ll just say it was an accident and leave it at that,” Falcon said.

Theo looked at his watch. “Um, pard, we need to get a move on.”

“Why such a hurry? That guy Wurlitzer’s not following you any more,” Keith said.

Falcon sucked his teeth, apparently trying to work free a pecan fragment. “It’s the biggest catch to time travel. We have only 24 hours before we make the return jump.”

“Or else what?” Shelley said.

He turned his head and spit, then looked back at her. “Or else we die.”

Keith whistled. “Whoa. That’s why you said Wurlitzer will disintegrate?”

“Yes. Just like anything living or sentient.” His lips pulled in more of the pecan from the palm of his hand. “These fresh pecans are delicious. I wish I could bury them to dig up later. But, some things just don’t keep that long.”

“Billy-boy here might seem rough around the edges, but he’s a gourmet. Likes funny coffees and such, too.”

With too much to process already, Keith kept further questions to himself. Just a day before, he had lamented not having the technologically advanced toys of the rich, the very devices he programmed every day. Now, there he was, walking in the woods with people who traveled through time. It seemed too far out to believe.

Soon the smaller trees gave way to towering behemoths, themselves travelers through centuries of human history. They had lived through wars, famine, and epidemics. More story to tell than anything else on Earth, yet no voice to share it.

His thoughts wandered from Earth to places off-planet. His mother, up there on Prodigia, with no trees or other natural wonders to see. Mars, with its barren landscape attracting travelers from every corner of the world.

“So you say this will become an office complex?” Keith said.

“A good chunk of it, as far as we know,” Theo said.

Falcon stopped and squatted beside a large boulder. He pushed aside leaves to reveal what had caught his eye. “What are these seeds?” he said.

The seeds were nearly flat, dark brown, and about the size of his thumbnail.

“It’s a paw-paw seed,” Shelley said. “We must be close to the paw-paw trees.”

“Well, shit fire and save the matches! I do feel like I’ve been here before. Let’s get to lookin’,” Theo said.

Shelley pointed at Keith’s backpack. “I’ve done my part. Now it’s up to his little buddy in there.”

“Not unless what we’re looking for is metal,” Keith said.

“It’s in a metal case,” Theo said.

Keith took off his backpack and eased it to the ground. He knelt and unzipped it, then hesitated for a deep breath. This wasn’t going at all as he had imagined, and he still wasn’t sure the strangers were being truthful. They weaved a good tale, but had no proof. Still, given the alternative — ditch Shelley and then try to face her in the office, he reached in and pulled out his fetcher bot.

Falcon and Theo laughed. The sound reverberated through the forest.

“That thing’s our saving grace?” Theo said. “Lord help us all.”

“Hey, it has it where it counts,” Keith said. “It can move faster than we can, and has a GPS unit that feeds back to this remote. We’ll always know where it is.”

“He didn’t mean to offend you,” Falcon said as he cracked another pecan. “Okay. Let’s set up shop and see what that thing can do.”

Keith activated the fetcher, then worked at the buttons on the remote. “I programmed it to search for metals and report the GPS coordinates of each find. I gave it a 200 meter radius, starting on the outside and working its way in.”

The metallic bot rustled away as straight as the trees allowed, and soon was out of sight.

Keith turned to Falcon. “He’s been calling you ‘Billy-boy,’ but I heard you tell him to call you ‘Falcon.’ What should we call you?”

“Falcon. It’s a nickname, but it’s what I prefer.”

“I’m Keith, and this is Shelley.” He motioned to Shelley, who was ripping leaves apart into piles of various browns.

“Name’s Theo,” Theo said.

“How long will it take you guys to get to your jump portal from here?” Keith said. He couldn’t believe he’d uttered those words.

“About 30 minutes,” Falcon said.

“How long until your time is up?”

“About two hours.”

(to be continued)