Soldier Mine (Sons of War #2)(64)

“Good thing we’re in the here and now.” I glanced at his nametag. Carter, History Interrupted, Inc. “You’re the one doing the survey?”

“I’m Carter. It’s nice to meet you, Josie.” He stuck out his hand.

“I’m …” I trailed off, realizing he’d already said my name. “… not wearing a nametag.”

“Oh.” He turned red once more. “You look like a … Josie.”

“No one looks like a Josie,” I said with a laugh.

“Fits the period.” He appeared relieved I wasn’t freaked out, his smile large and dimples larger. “Lucky guess.”

This is strange. “Nice to meet you, Carter, I think.” I picked up the tablet again. “Is this one of those surveys where you try to sell me a timeshare before you give me my gift card?” I was cute, petite and quick to smile; it was how I always managed to get away with talking to people the way I did.

“It’s an absolute honor to meet you, Josie. And no, there’s no timeshare involved. Can I at least give you my pitch?” he asked hopefully. “I’ve always wanted to talk to you. To someone like you. To someone who …” He was flustered again.

“Wait, stop there! Let me put you out of your misery.” I smiled, taking pity on the socially awkward man. “Tell me about the survey or your project or whatever it is you’re doing.”

There’s something odd about this guy. Not in a bad way, just like a lost puppy that clung to the first human to show it kindness. The combination of Hollywood looks – but no clue how to talk to women – and his over the top enthusiasm about meeting me were endearing. I liked him almost immediately.

“What if I told you that all this” he waved at the pictures on the window “could’ve been prevented? That one man started a chain of events that ended with the near destruction of the native peoples of North America?” His eyes glowed, and he became animated, his hands complementing his words with flourishes. “Just one man. Someone who may not have known the impact of what he did? Maybe he made one tiny choice, like you did this morning when you put on black yoga pants instead of jeans.”

I wasn’t able to stop my smile. His passion was apparent. “I’d say that’s an amazing discovery. But … does it matter now?” I asked, puzzled.

“Have you ever seen Doctor Who?”

I laughed. “Yeah.”

“Just … pretend I’m the Doctor and you’re my companion and we can go back to any point in time. Okay?”

I nodded.

“One man in the eighteen forties made a single choice that forever changed the landscape –”

“His pants,” I said, grinning.

“- right or something else. Whatever it was, he did it on September twenty fifth, eighteen forty-two. So he does this one thing, and bam. The lives of nearly a million Native Americans and tens of thousands of pioneers are lost over the course of a century.”

My eyes returned to the pictures. This … speech, if it could be called that, was a bit morbid. I understood his point, even if I didn’t really get why we were playing this hypothetical game.

“What would you do if you could go back in time?” he asked. “Would you stop him if it saved a million lives?”

“Yeah. Who wouldn’t?”

“There are some people who think history is chiseled in stone, that it shouldn’t change, even if we could.”

I shook my head. “I don’t agree with that at all. I mean, assuming we one day had the ability to time travel, why shouldn’t we go back and help those who didn’t have a chance? We could do so much good, save the planet from all the abuse we’ve caused during the industrial age, stop men like Hitler. Of course I’d change things.”

He was smiling. “Good. You’re very idealistic.”

“My uncle says the same,” I said and rolled my eyes. “I’m not totally na?ve. I know there are bad people who might try to go back and change things to make themselves billionaires or get revenge on the Homecoming queen who rejected them or whatever. But I’d like to think humans are naturally good and if given such a power, we’d use it wisely.”

Carter looked at me a little too long, his features glowing again. I was always friendly, especially since I understood he was probably uncomfortable talking to me or other humans in general. “Is that … it?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to stare.” He shifted feet like an excited child on Christmas Eve. “Just if you could, take the survey, so I get credit for something today. It’s only three questions.”

“What kind of research are you doing?”

“It’s a relatively new discipline of history. Humanitarian history. There’s a lot of psychology that goes into determining how our outlooks of our world have changed over the years. What we once viewed as moral and just is now barbaric, and so on.”

“That sounds interesting,” I said. But not my thing at all. Such a complex subject seemed right up the alley of the man I suspected was a genius behind all his blushing.

“It’s so beyond fascinating, I could spend days … but I won’t. I’ll let you complete the survey.” He moved way to give me space.