It's Standard Operating Procedure not to tell anybody about
your time machine, so Linky and Dinky didn't.

Because it's also typical, once learning about your time
machine, friends and family members will want to use it.
They'll want to go back in time and buy Microsoft stock when
it was issued for 10 cents a share, or go briefly into the
future and snare one of those Sports Almanacs and bring it
back by way of Vegas.

Linky and Dinky argued about their time machine for hours
when they first found it:

"Let's go back and kill baby Hitler!"
"Stop Lincoln from getting shot!"
"Be at the crash site at Roswell just before the crash!"
"Take pictures -- no, VIDEO -- of the dinosaurs!"
"Tackle that guy on the grassy knoll!"
"Tell those dudes 'Iceberg right ahead' a minute sooner!"
"Meet Luke Skywalker!"

Apparently, ideas for using a time travel machine are
limited by one's knowledge of history.

Coulda shoulda woulda. Changing history. History is His
Story. It's already happened. You can't change it. Or at
least, you shouldn't change it, that's what they always
admonished on Star Trek. Mustn't "pollute the timeline" and
all that.

But we want to. It's irresistible. We crave to outsmart
history. Just a tiny twitch will make things better. We'll
be saving lives! Avoiding pain and suffering! Surely
providing the vaccine for small pox to the people in the
Dark Ages would be a GOOD thing! And how much harm would be
done by stopping Christopher Reeves from riding that horse?
And would we really irreparably damage the future if we went
back in time and kept the pretzels away from President Bush?

It seems to me the future can take care of itself. It's
doing so as we speak, one instant at a time.

But the fantasies are fun, to be sure, and everybody has one
(or more). There's the quick trip back 2,000 years ago to
barge in on the Last Supper party and see Jesus and all the
disciples. But if you could find them (they were hiding at
the time, weren't they?) the scene most certainly would not
look like Da Vinci's painting. They'd probably be squatting
on the floor, dipping porridge from clay bowls with their
hands, and Jesus (like every other man in the Ancient Middle
East) would be dark skinned with curly black hair (not a wit
like the famous caucasian portrait). So you have to brace
yourself for disappointment every time you witness an
historical event, because it won't be quite as cool as you
imagined. The great stories are always embellished in the
re-telling.

Always, always, always.

And don't think time travel is easy: Try finding George
Washington's cherry tree. You can't do it. Wanna attend the
wedding of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas? Good luck, it
never happened. To see the apple fall on Newton's head, you
first have to find Newton and then follow him around for
months or years until he sits under a tree... sadly, the
actual "big events" often turn out to be anti-climatic or
impossible to locate, because history isn't accurate, and
it's usually foggy on the exact time-space coordinates.

How about Adam and Eve? How wonderful to visit those perfect
people in the Garden of Eden amongst all the splendor of
nature... so what year do you dial up on your time machine
to get there? And what are the GPS coordinates? You see what
I mean.

Time travel can be real tough, once you start to make a
trip-tick.

Brainiacs point out other possibilities, postulating that
the great advances in science might be due to the influence
of time travelers. Suppose a mischievous "Chrono-Historian"
walked into the Wright Brothers' bicycle shop and quietly
tossed a paper airplane across the room. Hold the phone!
Wilbur and Orville had never seen such an incredible thing!
Why did it fly like that? What mechanism held it aloft so
smoothly for such a distance?

A paper airplane -- at the right time and place -- is
possibly all that would have been needed to start the
aeronautics industry on it's way.

But this story isn't about Chrono-Historians or Temporal
Repairmen or Time-Travelling Humanitarian Conquistadors,
it's about Linky and Dinky.

***

The time machine was found in the root cellar of Linky and
Dinky's house, which is actually Uncle Url's house, which
he inherited from his father, Ramford (may he rest in
peace). Of course, Linky and Dinky were never supposed to go
into the root cellar, yet they often did. In previous
visits, the time machine was not there. On this occasion it
was.

Dinky wanted to jump right in and go for a ride.

"Let's do it! How do you set this thing for tomorrow?" His
eyes flew around the indecipherable control panel of lights
and textures and indentations. Nothing was labeled.

"How do you even know it's a time machine?" Linky asked, and
with good cause. "We don't really know WHAT it is. It could
be a futuristic Porta-potty."

The object they discovered was, indeed, the size and shape
of a Porta-potty, if a bit wider and monolithic. The walls
appeared to be rough-hewn rock, but to touch it, it felt
like metal or iron. A palm-sized notch in one corner acted
as a doorknob, but it took the huffing and puffing strength
of both the boys to open the heavy door.

Dinky was still examining the interior. "These doo-dads must
start something. This big round spot must turn it on..." and
he pressed it, before Linky could even cry out "Waaaiitt!"

It started to hum and the door started to close. Dinky
jumped out as fast as he could before the panel fully shut.

When it did, it hissed.

"It just pressurized!" Linky yelled. "Way to go, buttbrain,
you just locked us out."

They stood watching the object, and Linky was about to
launch a retaliatory strike on Dinky for botching things up
when they heard a loud "Pishhhhhhh"

And the door bumped open again.

"It knows nobody is in there," Linky realized. He walked
around the box, deep in thought. "Maybe we're supposed to
talk to it like on Star Trek."

The boys pulled the door all the way open again, and Linky
searched around inside for a microphone port or something to
speak into.

"Computer!" he ordered, hoping the time machine would
hear and obey.

Nothing.

"Activate Oral Interface" Dinky barked.

Nothing.

They tried a few more phrases with the same disappointing
results until Linky remarked "You know, by the time we
figure this thing out..."

A mechanical voice suddenly boomed:

"YEAR 2003 DAY 270 ELEVEN HUNDRED 34 HOURS"

The boys jumped back, startled. "Time!" Linky gushed, "I
said the word 'time' and it answered!"

"YEAR 2003 DAY 270 ELEVEN HUNDRED 34 HOURS"
"YEAR 2003 DAY 270 ELEVEN HUNDRED 34 HOURS"

Dinky might be stupid, but he's not dumb: "INSTRUCTIONS!" he
called into the rock box, waiting for a response.

He tried again: "DIRECTIONS!"

"HOW TO GO SOMEPLACE" He looked over at Linky.

Linky smirked, "Try 'help'"

"HELP!" Dinky ordered.

"OPERATIONAL COMMANDS:
ADVANCE with DURATION.
RECEDE with DURATION."

(We could continue dramatizing how Linky and Dinky learned
to use the time machine, but that still leaves fundamental
questions unanswered: WHERE DID IT COME FROM? WHAT DID THEY
DO WITH IT? The answer to the first question is "from the
future, of course". The answer to the 2nd question is as
follows...)

"I know what I'm doing!" Dinky pushed Linky aside and threw
himself into the time machine.

"ADVANCE 1 DAY!" he shouted in a loud and steady voice. As
Linky climbed up from the floor, the massive door swung
closed, the air pressurization system hissed briefly and
without so much as a ping or a flash it was gone.

And Dinky was gone with it.

(Suffice it to say Linky was distressed, didn't know what to
do, where to go, who to tell and so forth. Uncle Url was
away on "business" in Atlantic City for a few days, and
since Binky always ALWAYS goes with Uncle Url when he visits
Atlantic City, the boys had the run of the house. After
several minutes of ponderous worry and distracted, panicky
ideas, Linky decided that since the time machine obviously
appeared to be functioning, he would wait one day and see if
Dinky showed up. Tomorrow. One day in advance of this day.
24 hours. That decided, he turned to trudge up the stairs to
the kitchen to finish off the package of Oreos he had placed
in hiding.)

Before he reached the top of the stairs, Linky heard a
"PISSHHHH" from below... THE TIME MACHINE HAD RETURNED! He
rushed back down.

Dinky stepped out of the box, "I got scared."

"What?" Linky asked, running over to him. "What did you say?
How come you're back so soon?"

Dinky sat on the floor. "The door to the time machine opened
by itself, I walked out into the root cellar. I called your
name, you didn't answer, I got scared and went back inside
and said 'RECEDE ONE DAY' and the door opened again and here
I am."

After much discussion, argument, name-calling and a few mild
punches, Dinky had an evil wish and Linky figured out
a diabolical way to make it come true...

***

Uncle Url flung the dice across the Craps table, "Dinky
needs a new pair of shoes!" he called as the bones bounced
and settled. "Eight the hard way" announced the dealer, and
began his hand-to-table flurry of action. The other players
around the table fidgeted, counted their chips, placed some
bets. One guy left and another guy immediately filled that
void. Uncle Url wiped his sweaty palms and got ready to
throw again.

Meanwhile, Binky had found a Jacks or Better Video Poker
machine with the most favorable payoffs and was punching
away. Occasionally he'd stretch his legs, slowly walking
around the casino with his head down, searching the carpet
for lost coins and chips. Earlier he found two quarters and
a $5.00 red one. "You can't hit the jackpot if you don't
gamble," Binky said to himself. "And you can't find lost
treasure if you don't look for it." He was also armed with
coupons for free buffets, drinks, matchplay chips, even
glamourous Las Vegas-style shows, and some of those he and
Uncle Url would use that evening... but not until they tired
of the games.

Binky kept two kings, drew, got a third King and scored for
three-of-a-kind. On and on it went, keeping the pairs,
drawing to four-card straights and four-card flushes,
drawing desperately with a 3-card royal flush, never holding
a kicker, inching up in his winnings, falling back at times,
such is the action of a video poker player.

Binky's cell phone vibrated on his hip. He glanced over at
Uncle Url, still throwing dice at a craps table. It wasn't
he on the phone.

"Hello?" Binky said.

"Binky, listen, this is Linky. We've got a plan, but you
have to cooperate, and we get half the money."

"Who is this?" Binky asked, rolling his eyes. "You must have
the wrong number, and I'm busy." It was sarcastic.

"Listen to me, Binky, listen, please! This is greatest thing
in the whole world!" He wasn't kidding.

"Alright, what is it?" Binky could tell something hot
was in play.

"Do exactly what I tell you. It's very easy, but you have to
follow my instructions exactly!" Linky stopped and took a
break. "Now, is there a Roulette table near you?"

"Yes, it's full." Binky replied.

"That's okay, what time does your watch say?"

Binky checked his wristwatch, "Guess what -- it says almost
exactly what yours does!"

"Just tell me, it's very important to the plan," Linky
scolded.

"Five minutes to three," Binky answered.

"Okay, great. Now listen very very carefully..." Linky went
on speaking, and laid out the most preposterous idea Binky
had ever heard. It was improbable, unlikely, screwy and most
surely a waste of time. But if it worked... wow!

Naturally, Linky failed to mention that a time machine
figured prominently in his little scheme, so Binky had no
clue as to what was going to make this caper work. But he
was certainly willing to try it, the potential payoff was
enormous!

Binky walked over to the roulette table as instructed, as
non-chalantly as he could. The table was encircled with
people, shoulder to shoulder. Even glimpsing the number
board was difficult.

So Binky moved around and stood at the head, behind the
wheel, or as close as he could get without violating the
velvet rope. Now he had a clear view of the numbers and the
wheel.

He looked at his digital watch (a freebie, of course,
collected off the internet). 3:00:10 pm. Ten seconds after
three o'clock.

The lady Croupier flicked the ball and it spun madly around
the rim of the roulette wheel. After a dozen seconds it
began to slow, she waved her hand over the mounds of chips,
calling "no more bets". The ball fell, bounced around
haphazardly and settled in slot 27. Black 27.

"27 Black" announced the tired and bored Croupier, plopping
her marker onto the appropriate square. An empty square,
meaning no one had chosen or bet on number 27, so all bets
on the inside were losers. A few people won on Black and
Odd, but they'd give it back in just a moment. With a
practiced flourish she wiped away all the casino chips from
the table.

Binky stepped back, checked his watch again, then made his
way out past the Taj Mahal's poker room (made famous in the
movie "Rounders" starring Matt Daman) and out the big brass
doors onto the Boardwalk. The bustling Atlantic City
boardwalk was living up to it's reputation.

Binky stepped over to the sea rail and dialed up Linky.

"27 Black. Now what?"

"What time did they start the ball? Exactly!"

"10 seconds after three," Binky answered. "Why do you need
to know? What's going to happen?" He was exasperated. He had
done everything asked of him, yet he still didn't know why.

You'll find out shortly. Bye!" Linky hung up.

Uncle Url flung the dice across the Craps table, "Dinky
needs a new pair of shoes!" he called as the bones bounced
and settled. "Eight the hard way" announced the dealer. It
was a busy night at the Taj Mahal. Uncle Url wiped his
sweaty palms and got ready to throw again.

Elsewhere in the same casino, Binky had found a Jacks or
Better Video Poker machine with the most favorable payoffs
and was punching away. Occassionally he'd stretch his legs,
slowly walking around the casino with his head down,
searching the carpet for lost coins and chips.

Binky's cell phone vibrated. He glanced over at Uncle Url,
still throwing dice at a craps table. It wasn't he on the
phone.

"Hello?" Binky said.

"Binky, listen, this is Linky. You must do exactly what I
say!"

"Who is this?" Binky rolled his eyes

"You know who it is! Now you've got to do me... a favor.
I'll pay you back. But you've GOT to do it!" Linky said
urgently.

Binky paused, then sighed into the phone as loud as he
could. "What is it?"

"I want you to go to the Roulette table that is closest to
where you are sitting... it MUST be the table closest to
where you are sitting..." Linky gulped. "... and put $10 on number 27."

"What? I don't have a $10 chip," Binky said, "and I'm not
going to go get one. Go to casino.com if you want to
gamble."

"No no no! This is a very special situation!" Linky continued,
"You MUST do it! And you have to do it at exactly three
o'clock! What time is on your watch right now?"

Binky checked his watch, "Curiously, it's five minutes until
three."

"Okay, go stand at that table -- it MUST be that table! --
and at 10 seconds after 3 o'clock the dealer will start the
ball spinning." Linky was panting now, it was going to work!

"That table is full, there are no seats." Binky told him.

"You don't need a seat! You're only going to place one
ten dollar bet on number 27 at EXACTLY 10 seconds after
three o'clock. Got it?"

Binky briefly considered telling Linky he would do it, but
actually NOT do it, tell him the bet lost, then beat the $10
out of him once he got back.

But Linky made that idea vanish: "Binky, I absolutely
promise you that number 27 will win on that table at the
first spin after 3 o'clock. You'll win 35-to-1 odds,
$350.00. You HAVE to do it." Linky stopped, waited, Binky
said nothing.

"Please."

"Okay, okay" Binky said. "But you better be right, because I
WILL get my ten dollars out of you."

"Call me right after it happens. This is great! Thanks.
Bye!" Linky hung up.

Binky looked over at the closest roulette table. It was
really full. He'd have to reach in between people. This was
a lot of trouble.

He took off his left shoe, dug into the toe and pulled out
two crumpled five dollar bills. Mad money. He slipped his
shoe back on and headed toward the Roulette pit.

Binky watched for a minute as best he could over the
shoulders of the people at the table, then he checked his
watch: 3:00:05 pm. Five seconds after three o'clock. "This
is crazy," he mumbled to himself.

Precisely five seconds later, the lady Croupier flicked the
ball and it spun madly around the rim of the roulette wheel.
Binky was amazed. How did Linky know that? It must be a
magic trick of some sort...

He realized he had a matter of seconds to get his bet on the
table, so he reached in between two grizzled old ladies,
saying "excuse me, excuse me". They ignored him.

The ball started to fall. The Lady Croupier's hand was in
motion over the table, she said "No more b..."

Binky lunged in, rudely knocking the two old ladies to the
side, and placed his crumpled bills on number 27. "Lordy!"
one of the women called out, and the other startled players
watched Binky barrel his way onto the table.

(Sudden, unexpected quick movements inside a casino are
frowned upon and cause quite a bit of attention.)

"No more bets!" The Lady Croupier called with authority, and
her hand went to Binky's bills and positioned them solidly
on number 27. "You'll have to use chips next time sir," she
ordered. The other players were happy to see Binky
chastised. Imagine, pushing old women around like that. How
rude!

The ball fell, bounced around haphazardly making a
clickity-click noise and finally settled. For a moment
nobody moved, then every face turned to look at Binky as the
Lady Croupier announced "27 black is the winner."

Her marker came crashing down Binky's bet on the number 27
spot, and she turned to give him a suspicious look. One of
the players said "that's more than lucky." The pit boss was
already on the scene, having heard the commotion during the
spin. The Lady Croupier finished her job of wiping away the
chips, and then picked up Binky's bills and exchanged them
for two $5 chips which she replaced on number 27. She looked
over at the pit boss who made some sort of face she seemed
to understand. As if in response, she stacked and counted
$350 in black and green chips and pushed them over to
Binky's bet, removing her marker in the process. This time
the two old ladies voluntarily moved aside, and Binky
reached in with one hand and grabbed up the winnings.

"Excuse me, thank you, thank you," Binky said, a bit
sheepishly. He stuffed the chips into a pocket and quickly
stepped off. Somewhere in the background he heard a voice
say "nice tip", but he didn't know where it came from and
kept walking.

It's commonly known how casino security keeps a videtape eye
on every inch of it's floor space, and well beyond, such as
elevators, restaurants, and all conceivable public areas. (We
don't think cameras are in the lavatories, but we wouldn't
bet the house.)

What's not so commonly known is that casinos keep an EAR on
their properties, too. Sophisticated, directional, parabolic
listening devices can pick up whispers from any corner of
the slots department, any blackjack table, any restaurant,
even the courtesy couch in the high-rolling Bacarat pit.

And they monitor radio transmissions, too.

RF signals, ultra low frequencies, microwave, shortwave,
high frequency, infrared, UHF, VHF (they've even got a
device which can spot magnetic pulses over a certain
strength). If you broadcast a signal, they're listening.

So it's a cinch they heard Linky say "Black 27".

"I've got him, passing the outer slots, grid four, yellow
shirt, stupid grin on his face" a voice in the camera room
said into his desk microphone. The security agent's earpiece
picked up that transmission, he turned and spoke into the
microphone on his shoulder: "Roger that. I'm on it."

The guard signalled across the room to another security
agent, and within 10 seconds Binky was shuffled through an
invisible door between a wall of slot machines, pushed down
a hallway, shoved into a hard metal chair and secured
tightly with a binding strap. The men left, the door thunked
heavily shut.

The room was white. The door was gray. The lights
flourescent. Up to this point Binky had said nothing. His
bottom lip had quivered a bit during the bumpy ride, but
once they strapped him to the chair and left the room, he
regained control of his lower face.

And there he sat. He labored to remove the straps holding
his arms and chest to the chairback, to no avail. He deduced
they got him for cheating, but now he was in the back room
of a casino. No man's land. He had no idea what to expect.

Looking around, he noticed something: No cameras. Ominous.
What happens in this room that they don't want recorded? And
that's when he spotted the drain on the floor, directly
beneath his chair. "To wash away the blood?" he feared.

They kept him there an hour. He had to pee. He wanted a
cigarette even though he didn't smoke. His butt was numbing.
If they were watching him, he couldn't find the camera.
Maybe that's the plan -- they leave him here to die, then
put him in a hotel room and let a maid "discover" the body.
Or maybe they just go out to sea for a swim with big black
plastic bag, chains and anchors weighing him down...

The door burst open and two very serious men in black suits
stepped in.

"'Binky' is your name?" the tallest and meanest one asked
with a snear on his face. They must have taken his wallet
in the struggle.

Binky nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"I see." the man circled the chair slowly, raising Binky's
fright level quiet a bit when he saw a quick motion out of
the corner of his eye. But the blow didn't come.

"You have committed a crime. A cheating crime. A very
serious cheating crime which carriers a high penalty." The
man paused, but continued to walk slowly around Binky's
chair.

"Having foreknowledge of the outcome of a game of chance
and wagering upon that knowledge is a felony in the state of
New Jersey, punishable by 10 years in prison and a $250,000
fine."

"I..." Binky started, but was cut off.

"It doesn't matter HOW you knew what the outcome was going
to be, the law doesn't distinguish or care." The man was now
in front of Binky's chair, and he bent down to be
nose-to-nose.

"You received a cellular telephone call, in which you were
told to place a wager on the number 27 at a specific
Roulette table in our casino at a precise time. You followed
those instructions, and you won." The man stood back up.
"It's on audiotape, it's on videotape, and you're going to
jail for ten years."

Binky looked down. He wondered how people in his situation
in the movies could be so brash, spitting into their
captor's faces, or mouthing off "I'll see you in hell!" or
"You'll never get a word out of me!"

It was all he could do not to cry.

"Just last week," the man continued, "we had a very sweet
young girl in here, very attractive, very healthy, just turned 21
years old. She had a wonderful family, a college
scholarship, a new car she had just received for her
21st birthday, a boyfriend in law school and a vacation scheduled
for Paris, all paid for by her wealthy parents." He paused
for effect. "But she can't see her family anymore, or her cat, she won't
be needing her scholarship or her new car, her boyfriend
probably already has a new girlfriend and her parents will
be taking that trip to Paris instead of her. Why? Because
last Tuesday night she reached over and grabbed somebody
else's chips at a blackjack table when they weren't looking,
and now she's in state prison wearing a bright orange
jumpsuit working in the laundry, and she'll be there, every
single day, for 9 more years and 11 months."

"I want to make a phone call," Binky stammered out.

The towering man smiled, "You're not under arrest. There are
no police here. You are our captive. You have no rights. If
I want to leave you tied to that chair for six days, that's
where you'll be."

Binky grimaced.

"But..." the man said. "there is a way in which we might be
inclined to let you leave Atlantic City with all your body
parts." He stopped. It wasn't a question, but he
wanted a response.

Binky looked up at him, "Yes?"

"You'll tell us exactly HOW you and your telephone friend
knew to bet on lucky number 27."

"And then you'll let me go?" Binky inquired, trying to sound
confident and business-like.

"If we're convinced we're getting all the information." he
answered, his tone now noticably more congenial. "Surely you
understand we can't allow people to win at our games by
cheating. We have to know all the ways of cheats and thwart
them. And we will."

***

Uncle Url passed the dice to the next player, trayed his
chips and headed to the cashier.

"... one thousand three hundred twenty dollars," the cashier
announced. Uncle Url reached into the cage, swept up the
bills, folded them once and slipped the wad deeply into a
pocket. Now to find Binky.

He walked all around the casino, checked the men's room,
each of the several liquor bars, and the poker parlor.
Nothing. He used a house phone to call up to the room. No
answer. He called Binky's cell phone. No response. He looked
around outside on the boardwalk, no trace of Binky. He sat
down on a bench. Binky was nowhere to be found. He decided
to check in with Linky and Dinky.

"So you won, didn't you?" Linky answered.

"What? Hello? Linky?" Uncle Url said.

"Oh, it's you," Linky said. "Hi."

"Yes, who did you think it was?"

"I was expecting a call from Binky," Linky explained.

"Me too! I can't find him anywhere," Uncle Url told him,
frustrated. "But why was he going to call you?"

"Oh, just because."

"I know better than that. What do you have going with
Binky?"

"Just a thing."

Uncle Url became stern: "What kind of thing? Maybe it will
help me find him."

"Well, he just placed a bet for us, that's all."

"A bet. I see." Uncle Url didn't see. And he knew he wasn't
getting the full story. "Well, I can't find him anywhere,
and he doesn't answer his phone."

"Uh..." Linky started. "Uh, did anybody get arrested?"

"What? Why would Binky get arrested?" Uncle Url was shocked.

"Uh, he's a cheater you know. Maybe they caught him."

"No he's not. He's cheap, but he's not a crook." Uncle Url
was really confused now. Linky knew a lot more about this
situation that he was letting on.

"Okay, now listen. Binky is missing and he might be in
trouble. Tell me EXACTLY what you know, and I mean
everything!" Uncle Url meant it.

"Well, funny thing, you see, we found a time machine in the
cellar, and..."

Uncle Url was nearly shouting: "Stop it! You tell me right
now EXACTLY what is going on!"

"I'm trying to!" Linky cried. "There is a time machine in
the root cellar, I swear to God! We figured out how to use it, and we were
doing an experiment where we went back in time ten minutes
because we knew what the winning number on the Roulette
wheel was and Binky was..."

"I'm not buying a word of this," Uncle Url said, exasperated. He
paused for a long time. "Are you going to tell me another
story, or are you sticking with this one?" he asked.

"We really did find a time machine..." Linky said.

"Okay, fine. We'll see about that later. But the bottom line
is you were helping Binky cheat the casino and you think he
got arrested?"

"That's about it."

"How is Dinky?"

"He's here, he's fine."

"Okay, I'm going to check this out with Security," Uncle Url
told them. "Don't you DARE do anything else. You get your
butts out of that root cellar and go to your rooms until you
hear from me. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Linky answered.

"Do it. Bye." Uncle Url hung up, and headed to the
Security office which he had previously noticed was
right next to the cashier's cage.

The kept Uncle Url waiting about five minutes before
they ushered him into a back office.

"Mr... Url?" a man in a black suit asked. It was the
same guard who had been interrogating Binky.

"It's prounced as "Earl". That's right."
Uncle Url didn't feel he had to explain his name.

"Yes sir, we're holding a... Mr. 'Binky'. He's been caught
cheating." The security officer peered at Uncle Url,
searching all over his face for clues.

Uncle Url shook his head, "Binky wasn't cheating. He was
merely placing a bet for his cousin back home. Is
that a crime?"

"Well sir," the security man started, now satisfied that
this Uncle Url character was in on the whole scheme. "as a
matter of fact it is. Booking bets across state lines using
the telephone is, in fact, a federal crime. But that's not
all of it. We have evidence
that Binky knew in advance what the winning conclusion
would be to the game, he placed a wager on it, and that's
a felony in the state of New Jersey and we are going
to prosecute."

"What? Wait wait wait..." Uncle Url said. "This is some
gigantic mistake." He leaned forward, "Are you saying just
because Binky was told what number to bet on by his cousin,
and he won, that's a crime? What if he had lost -- would you
be buying him a drink?"

"Mr. Url, I'm not a liberty to discuss the evidence we have
on Mr. Binky. That will come out at the trial and through
the disclosure process with your and his attorney." The
security man gathered up the papers on the desk and shoved
them into a drawer. "However, we have concluded that
you were intimately involved in this crime, and we're having
you arrested, too." The Security Officer stood up, while
three giant uniformed guards entered the office behind Uncle
Url. Within a minute, he was in the room with Binky, the
door bolted shut behind them.

Binky looked up at him, still strapped to the chair, sitting
cross-legged to hold in nature's call. "So, what did they
get you for, loaded dice?" Binky said.

"Binky! What the HELL is going on?!" Uncle Url shouted.
"This is a nightmare!"

It didn't take the police long to show up. Binky and
Uncle Url were read their rights, cuffed, and marched
through the casino the long way, out to a squad car.
They never stopped talking the entire way.

Comparing what they knew, the two deduced that Linky
and Dinky were just lucky. The odds of winning on a
single Roulette number was only 35-to-1, certainly
not impossible, and a great deal more probable than
the time machine story.

Once again, Linky and Dinky had managed to turn a
fun idea into disaster.

At the police station, they were allowed to make
a telephone call. Uncle Url called Linky.

"Linky, we're in jail. This is my one phone call.
I want you to immediately call Bob Matthews, our attorney,
his number is in my Rolodex on my desk..."

"But why are you in jail?" Linky asked.

"Why? WHY? Because they listen to cell phone
conversations and they heard you tell Binky
to bet a certain number and that it would win.
They don't like that! It's called Cheating!"

With that information, Linky visualized the entire
scenerio. In a heartbeat he had a solution:

"Uncle Url," Linky interrupted. "I can make this
all go away."

"How?"

"By just going back a little further in time and
this time not call Binky and not do any of that."

"Oh Linky, this is now a very serious situation,
I don't have time to endulge your stupid story
about a time machine."

"Don't worry, Uncle Url," Linky said. "I'll take
care of this. It will all be over in about two
minutes." And with that the phone clicked dead.

Amazed, frightened, incredulous, confused and livid all at the
same time, Uncle Url slapped the phone back in the cradle
and turned to Binky:

"You better use your call to get Bob Matthews
up here, because Linky just hung on me."

***

Dinky was snoring, his real snore, not the fake snore he
used when trying to pull a fast one. Linky let him be and
walked quietly down to the root cellar.

There it stood, waiting patiently, the cause of all the
trouble.

Linky approached the open door of the time machine and
stepped inside. "RECEDE ONE DAY" he commanded.

The door closed, the unit pressurized... then it
depressurized, and the door opened again.

"Am I here? Did it work?" Linky asked, stepping out into the
root cellar. He had to know, and fast. He ran upstairs and
dialed Binky's cell phone. If a cop answered, he'd know they
were still in trouble. But if Binky answered...

"Hello?" Binky answered.

"Binky! Hi! Wonderful! How are you?" Linky gushed into the
phone.

"I'm fine..." Binky replied suspiciously. "Why wouldn't I
be, and why are you calling?"

"Oh, no reason. Just missing you."

"Yeah, right!"

"How is Uncle Url? Is he winning?" Linky asked.

"He's been throwing the dice for quite a while, so I figure
he is."

"Okay, tell him I called and everything is fine here." Linky
said.

"Yeah, I'll be sure and do that."

"Bye now!" Linky said happily.

***

Finding a time machine is usually a tough job, but getting
rid of one can be quite difficult, too. So Linky decided to
just hide it -- in the future -- a year from now. His
reasoning being that a year will give him enough time to
figure out the best way to use the thing.

The time machine wouldn't go anywhere unless it thought a
person was inside, so Linky piled a bunch of bricks and
concrete blocks into it to simulate the weight of a person.
He called inside: "ADVANCE ONE YEAR" several time, having to
add more weight each time the device failed to vanish. But
eventually it did.

The time machine was safely tucked away in the future.

***

EPILOGE: Think about how this must work: Say you've come
into possession of a time machine and it's installed in your
living room. It's Friday night, and you and your friends
want to joy ride into the future or the past. Well, better
put on your space suits! Because the Earth is revolving. And
as the Earth is revolving, it's also orbiting the Sun. As
the Earth revolves and orbits the Sun, it's also hurtling
along with a band of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. And as
the earth revolves, orbits and hurtles, the entire Milky Way
galaxy is expanding out into space. That's a very
complicated movement, and it also means that the Earth is
never in the exact same place from one instant to the next.
Therefore, when you tell the time machine in your living
room to go back even an hour, it's going to materialize in
open space, because the Earth will have long moved on during
that period, and the spot where your living room was is now
several 1000 miles away.

That's one thing.

Also, Linky should have forgotten why he went back in
time to save the day, just like Binky forgot about the
previous telephone call in the other timeline. Let's just
say if you are the person who actually enters and exits
the time machine, you keep your memory. Everybody else
forgets. As we left it, Linky and Linky alone remembers
what happened with Binky, Uncle Url and Dinky. And so
far, he ain't talking.

The number 27 on the Roulette wheel is Red, not
black. If you knew that, you gamble too much.

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