Read The Machinist: Making Time for Free Online

hundred dollar bills spilled out onto the wood.
    “I—I —,” Scottie stammered.  “I paid my Brotherhood dues, man.  We… we’re good—“
    “Shut up and listen to me,” the old man said, turning on the light next to the armchair he was sitting in.  The wrinkled skin on the man’s face was stretched tightly over his skull.  “I’m going to change your life.”
    T he strangest feeling washed over Scottie, like he’d heard someone say that before.  But he’d never seen this guy in his life.  He shivered.
    How could anyone be so old? Scottie found himself thinking.  He took in the ancient man, studying his other features—the fancy black suit, the black steel cane—and he knew that this creep was a major player.  Scottie’s eyes rested on the high-tech wristband resting on the old man’s lap.  It was speckled with tiny, glowing lights, and hummed softly.  It was strangely familiar to him, despite having never seen it before.
    “ Take this.”  The old man said, wrapping the weird device over the hook of his crane and lifting it up.  “And do exactly as I say.  We don’t have much time.”
    Scottie reached forward tentatively before snatching the wristband.
    The old man smiled.
    ***
    Patton took great care to remain cryptic in his explanations to his younger self, never giving any hint to his identity.  He focused on the tricks of the technology—how the device could move the user forward and backward through time, but not space.  He explained how to adjust the configuration to move forward one minute, and nodded his approval as the boy followed his directions to a “T.”  He found himself nodding to no one: Scottie was gone.  A smell not unlike burnt metal hung in the air.
    The older Patton kept an eye on his watch, counting the seconds that ticked by.  His breath quickened with anticipation as the fifty seconds mark came and went.  He could feel his heart pumping twice its normal rate. His left arm tingled.
    S cottie reappeared with a blinding flash of light, back exactly where he had been standing one minute earlier.  The old man smiled.  “Right on time.”
    Patton was hesitant to tell his younger self about the next trick the armband could do. He was positive it was the cause of his advanced and untimely condition.  But then he remembered all the times it had saved his life.  Twirling the cane around in his fingers, he addressed the boy.  “Show me your hand.”
    The young man put his arm out, palm down.  Patton struck it with his cane, hard.  The young Patton yelped and grabbed his wrist.  The old man’s cane had broken the skin below his knuckles.  Blood trickled out and he protested, “What the fuck—”
    “Generate a low-level field and send it forward, I don’t know, five years.”
    Scottie complied.  The air around hi s hand turned a light blue as energy crackled about it.
    “Now ,” the old man leaned back into his chair, with a smirk.  “Look at your hand.”
    T he injury began to heal.  Over the course of a few seconds, the skin around it rose into a bruised welt, then the blood disappeared and the cut shrank into a small scar.  Scottie was taken aback, but the old man spoke to interrupt the younger one’s shocked gasp.
    “Try not to overuse that.”  Patton said, suppressing a grimace.  His left arm was numb, and he couldn’t feel his leg on that side, either.
    “Alright, cool,” Scottie nodded.  “So what can I do with this, I mean—to make money?”
    Patton chuckled.  “Start simple.  Go to the bank tomorrow, take a backpack.  Tell them you want a lockbox and want to deposit something.  When they leave you in the vault alone, you project yourself forward to 11pm.  Open up whatever lockboxes you want, dump ‘em in your backpack.  Then go back to the time you left, and walk out.”
    “Holy shit, ” Scottie said.  “That’s perfect.”
    “It is, isn’t it?”  Everything was going how Patton had remembered it from his own