Special thanks to Malady for his help in editing and ideas.

The Letters Chapter 4

"Yeah. I've got a lot of questions."

"’How is this possible?’ I've really got no idea. If I did, I'd be a millionaire."

"Okay. How..."

"Do I know what you're thinking and doing all the time? You've considered that. Remember what Sherlock Holmes said." His Grandfather held out his hand, inviting Greg to complete the thought.

"When you've exhausted all the other possibilities, then the impossible, no matter how crazy, must be the answer."

"Well... Close enough."

"So, are you me?"

"Bingo!"

"Is Grace your wife?"

His Grandfather, or rather Future, sighed and said, "and here you were doing so good."

"I see. I'll have to work on that."

"Yeah. I think you'll figure it out eventually. Just think about it."

"What do you mean you think I'll figure it out eventually. You're me, I thought." Greg was confused, now.

"And here we have some of your misconceptions," Future said, laughing.

"What do you mean?" Greg wondered.

"Well, you think time is fixed. The fact is, you can change it."

"How so?"

Future chuckled. "Just what I said. You might not lose your leg like I did." He laughed a bit more. "You might take the knowledge you gained from me, and avoid what I did."

Greg shook his head. "I don't know that I understand this. So one of me could die early. Or one of me might live longer."

"That's a possibility. Just because you know that my version of you lived into his sixties, doesn't mean all of us do."

"Wait a minute!" Greg suddenly had an epiphany. "I'm transgender. So is Grace me?"

"I couldn't tell you. Maybe. I know she's a version of us, but are you that version? I couldn't begin to say."

Greg sighed. "This is so weird. I always thought she was a real woman."

"Well, she is," Future told him. "Remember how I said medical tech has really advanced in the future? They've learned how to recombine DNA. They can rearrange your DNA so that you're female. They can take you back into your childhood so you grow the way you should have."

"How come you didn't do that?" Greg asked.

"Think about it. I can be made younger. I still have time."

"How come I saw one of you… I mean, us die?"

"From what I can tell, there are flaws in the recombining of genes. Eventually, they can't do it anymore."

"It develops problems?"

"Sure, Kid. Even the first time, there are variances in the combinations. You keep building those up, it's eventually gonna get really bad."

Greg nodded. “Sort of like that Michael Crighton story, Timeline. The more they…”

“Yeah, Kid. I know the story. Just as well as you do,” Future said, frustrated.

“How do I know that? You just said we aren’t necessarily the same person.” He stared at Future as if daring him to contradict him.

“Okay. I get it,” Future said. “You’re right, you might know something I don’t. Think you’re a cocky little…”

He was cut off as a female voice came from within the house. “Gregory!”

A moment later, Grace walked out, carrying a small table. She set it on the grass, walked back into the house, then came out with a chair in one hand and a cooler in the other. She set up the chair, and then sat down.

This was a completely different Grace than any Greg had ever seen. She was maybe twenty. Honestly, she could have been Greg’s sister. His younger sister.

“Don’t worry, Greg. You - well, maybe you - will get to look at this body as much as you want.” She gave him an impish grin. “Kinda confusing never knowing which of me I’m talking to.”

“Don’t you mean which of me?” Greg asked.

“Maybe. Are you one of me?”

“I hope so!” Greg told her.

Completely straight-faced, she asked, “Are you trans?”

“Of course, how would I not be?”

Future shook his head. “You don’t get this do you, Kid?” He shook it in disgust again. “Hell, I don’t even get it. Explain it, Gracie!”

“You don’t get it, Gregory. I told you, don’t you ever give me orders again.”

“Oh… You’re that Gracie. You must have been regressed again. How many more do you have? Kinda getting worn down. Aren’t you, girl?”

She glared at the old man. “Not like you, you bastard. You’re the one who didn’t watch where he was going and ended up losing his leg. Pissing his pants while he stood there screaming for his mommy because he wanted a warm shoulder as he cut his own leg off.” She looked away, and Greg thought he saw a tear in her eye as she kept muttering about the ‘pain in her ass’.

What the hell? Greg thought. My different selves can’t even get along?

“No, we don’t always get along,” Future said, as if reading his mind. “Sometimes, we get like this particular Gracie and me. We don’t hate each other, but we don’t always get along.”

“Speak for yourself, Gregory. I haven’t liked you since I was your age.”

Future laughed outright. “She gets a bit cocky. She built the time belt. Says we males are too primitive to understand how it works.”

“That’s impossible,” Greg said.

“No,” Grace said. “Men really are too primitive.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Greg explained. “All of this is because of the time belt, but if you’re some future version of me, or one of me, then you can’t have invented it. It’s a paradox.”

“Listen to that, Gregory. He was listening!” She turned back to Greg. “You get a gold star! Except, you’re making a huge assumption. Which came first, Greg? The belt or me? It’s the old chicken and the egg stuff.”

“Well, I’m going to say, the belt didn’t just jump into being.”

“No, it didn’t, but don’t dismiss things just because they sound ridiculous to you.” She gave him a radiant smile.

“You seem to think I’m a future version of you. Your being transgender is a biological accident.” She shrugged her shoulders. “What if that’s just an assumption?” What if you’re a future version of me? Or of him? Have you thought of that?”

"How could that be the case? I'd remember!"

"Not necessarily. There are reasons someone might forget things," Grace suggested. She seemed to enjoy making his head spin.

“Oh, this is starting to hurt,” Greg said, putting his head down on the table in front of him.

Future shook his head. "You know, I brought him here to explain things. Not confuse him more."

She turned to Future. "You couldn't explain hair to a dog."

"I'm assuming," Greg said looking up, "that this is just a mental exercise."

Future guffawed at that. "Mental is right."

Grace gave him a dirty look, then shook her head. "The part about Gregory being a previous version was. He's obviously a future version as he seems to know your thoughts."

"What about you?" The young man asked.

"Have I displayed a penchant for knowing what you're thinking?"

"That's hardly conclusive. You may just be hiding things from me. Besides," he said, feeling he finally was beginning to get a handle on things. "You asked if I was trans."

“So? We’ve done so much with this belt, there are literally thousands of different versions of us. It means nothing.”

He felt deflated. “So am I a later version or an earlier version of you?”

She shook her head “I really don’t know,” she answered. He started to say something, but she shook her head. “Wait, Greg. What I mean is, I really have no idea if you and I are the same person. There’s no way to tell.”

"What about those Star Trek or Stargate things, where they'd check the person's signature thingamajig?" he asked.

"Doesn't work that way, Greg. We're all here in the same universe. Time is a dimension. Nothing more. That's what's changed with the belt. The dimension of time. We aren't flung to a different universe," she explained. "That's just science fiction."

“I don’t know either, Kid. We may be directly the same person, but there could be a divergence somewhere in between us," the old man said, shaking his head.

Greg barely picked up on what Grace was saying, when she muttered, “There’s a divergence with you, alright.”

Future glared at her, so it was quite apparent that he had heard her words as well.

Greg had to stifle a laugh as he asked, “So can you tell me the truth about my situation? Am I a previous version of some female, or a later?”

“Ha!” Future scoffed. “I think we’re our own line. Not a version of a female at all.”

“It’s nice for you to think that, isn’t it, Gregory?” Grace asked the old man.

“Well, it’s better than thinking I might have come from you!” he almost shouted at the girl.

Then Future leaned forward to Greg and spoke in an icy calm voice. “I have come to the conclusion that I am me. There’s no future or past as far as I’m concerned. Only the me that is sitting here, talking to you.”

Grace giggled. “I suppose that makes sense in a twisted way. None of us knows whether someone that we meet along our journey is us or someone entirely different.”

“Precisely,” Future told her. “Finally, something we can agree on.”

“So,” Greg said, hesitantly. “You really don’t know how our life has progressed? Why wouldn’t I know if I’m a future version of either of you?”

“You must have realized by now, Kid. When someone is regressed, problems can arise. The thing is, none of the companies who specialize in regression want to admit that something bad has happened, so if it does, they regress the person to a very young age, and send him or her out into the world as a new child. New papers and everything.”

“We can determine that someone is one of us by their look, and verifying their DNA, but that’s about it,” Grace added.

“That doesn’t sound like a very reputable business,” Greg observed.

“No. None of them are.”

“Why do you go back to them.”

Future was silent for a bit, and finally said, “We just do.”

Greg turned to Grace. “Why?”

She simply shrugged.

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