An Excerpt from The Tomorrow Paradox (Book Two in The Adventures of Mackenzie Mortimer):
“I told Dad to use my watch to return to his own time.” Alex
shook his head. “But you know what he’s like. Do you think he’ll do it? Or will
he try to be the larger-than-life hero, as usual?”
“Mackenzie’s loyal, but he’s not stupid. He knows he’s out
of his depth and there’s nothing he can do. He’ll have no choice but to use the
watch, and in doing so, permanently remove it from the grasp of the
authorities.”
The pinging of the videophone interrupted their
conversation. Alex glanced at the phone. “It’s the secure line. There’s only
one person who could be sending us a scrambled call.” He accepted the incoming
call and an image appeared on the screen. “Dad, that looks like your car’s
interior. Are you back from London?”
The driver had only a touch of gray in his sideburns and
looked far younger than his sixty-three years. “Marlene and I landed an hour
ago. We were going to stop by the house but I thought I’d call and see if you
were still at the office.”
“It’s not safe here, Dad. We have a situation. The
authorities, or at least Lysander Bryant and his son, are heading here to
search the place and arrest us.”
Mackenzie Mortimer sighed. “I’ve had trouble with Bryants
since I was in grade school. Lysander’s father, Tucker Bryant, was the
schoolyard bully who made my life miserable until we eventually became friends.
Have you activated the contingency plans?”
“Yes, Grandfather and I are doing that now.”
“Don’t worry, we can be at the office within twenty minutes.
I’m sure the Fox can buy you enough time to get rid of any incriminating
evidence.” The video screen went blank.
“You were right, boy.” Raymond chuckled. “Mackenzie Mortimer
always has to play the hero. Still, I feel much better now that he’s home. I
have complete confidence in your father’s abilities to deal with the Bryants.
The Fox has gone up against much tougher opponents than Lysander Bryant, and
he’s outsmarted every one of them.”
Alex nodded. “Dad is amazing. Even more so, now.”
“What do you mean?”
“As I was growing up, I formed a picture in my mind of what
Dad must’ve been like when he was my age. But now that I’ve met young
Mackenzie, I can see when Dad was a boy he was nothing at all as I had imagined
him to be. How does that boy we met develop the necessary skills to turn into a
saboteur and anti-corporate freedom fighter, attacking the governing bodies in
the guise of the mysterious Fox?”
“I found young Mackenzie to be quite intelligent and
resourceful, for his age.”
Alex shook his head. “No, that’s not it. Dad has a certain…
hardness within him that enables him to do what he does. He’s like tempered
steel that’s been forged in a furnace. Something made him that way. Something
changed the boy I brought back from the past into the Mackenzie Mortimer of today.
When young Mackenzie returns to the past, he’s going to encounter whatever that
traumatic or momentous event was, and without the time viewer, we won’t be able
to help him. He’ll be entering that forge alone, and it will shape and mold him
into the man we know. I wonder what it was.”
“You could always ask your father, but I doubt he would
speak about it. I saw the difference in him; even in the depths of his
depression, I knew something had changed him long before Vanessa’s death or the
bankruptcy. But he would never acknowledge it, and I had been absent for so
much of his life that I didn’t feel I had the right to pursue it.”
“I suppose if he wanted us to know what he’d gone through,
he’d have told us. Still, I wish he had, so we could have warned young
Mackenzie what awaits him.”
Time is running out… fortunately, Mackenzie Mortimer has a few more minutes than anyone else!
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