Billy Benson framed the image of his girlfriend, Susie, in the two-inch LCD screen of his new digital camera and said, “Smile.”
Fed-X had just delivered Billy’s new camera and he wanted the first picture taken with it to be that of Susie, his first love. He pressed the shutter button and the screen blinked. When the image returned, it was a picture of a baby.
“What the heck is this?” he asked as he showed Susie the picture on the screen.
She looked at it and said, “Where did you get a picture of me as a baby?”
He looked at the picture again and asked, “This is you?”
“Yes, where did you get it?”
“I just took it!” he exclaimed. “You stood right there and watched me.”
“This has got to be another one of your silly jokes.”
“I swear it’s not. Here, let me take another one.”
Billy reset the camera to the picture mode, framed another, pressed the button, and as they both stared at the second picture he asked, “Is this you as a baby again?”
Susie just nodded affirmatively.
Re-setting the camera, he handed it to her saying, “You take one of me.”
Susie took the camera, stepped in close, framed his portrait, and pressed the button. This time the picture was a close up shot of a baby’s face. Billy exclaimed, “That’s me! But how?”
She reviewed the three the pictures and said, “Billy, look at the date on the bottom of the screen. It’s set for 12 years ago.”
Billy pressed the control button and scrolled through the options until the date setting option displayed on the screen. “You’re right,” he said, “I forgot to set it, but I’ll do it now”
Susie considered carefully and said, “Before you do, set the date to August 7, five years ago, and see what happens. He changed the date and took another picture of Susie. This time they saw her wearing a party dress and blowing out candles on her birthday cake.”
“Billy! Susie excitedly exclaimed, “It’s just as I suspected. This camera is recapturing an event that occurred on the date set.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Impossible or not, that’s me at my birthday party, five years ago.”
Billy corrected the date to the present and took another picture of Susie. This one was a perfect representation of exactly how she looked.
Susie thought carefully and said, “Now reset the camera’s date to, say – five years from now.”
Billy changed the date to five years in the future, set the automatic timer, placed the camera on the picnic table, and ran to stand beside Susie. This time the resulting picture displayed four people. Standing between Susie and Billy was a young man dressed in a naval officer’s uniform. There was also a beautiful young lady standing beside Billy.
They looked at each other and Billy asked, “Who’s that guy in the fancy sailor suit you’re with?”
“Billy – you’re so darn jealous!” she said. “Besides, who’s the woman with you?”
When they stopped laughing, she asked, “Where did this camera come from?”
“I ordered it over the Internet from Digital Unlimited a week ago and it arrived this morning.”
“I have a feeling someone screwed up and sent you the wrong camera.”
“Should I send it back?”
“Don’t be foolish. Do you have any idea of what we have here? This camera is capable of taking pictures of past, present, and future events. The possibilities are unlimited.”
Four days earlier, Garry Sparks, a design engineer working for Digital Unlimited, spoke with his supervisor who asked, “How’s it going with that new XZ-II-E (E for experimental) prototype?”
Garry stated, “Without a doubt, this new design will be the finest digital camera on the market.” Then added, “Just as soon as I figure out what’s causing the automatic color balancing silicon filter diode to fail. I’ve had to replace it three times so this afternoon I substituted the silicon filter with a natural quartz crystal diode of my own design. I’ll test it again in the morning.”
Later that evening Jeffery Barns, an overly ambitious but not too bright nightshift stock-boy, picked up an order for an XZ-II digital camera. Not finding one in stock, he went to the research and development department where they stored the refurbished cameras. When he found one sitting on a workbench, he carried it to the shipping department where he completed the order and packed everything in a shipping carton.
When Garry Sparks returned the next morning and discovered the missing camera, he immediately contacted security. The entire Digital Unlimited facility was in turmoil. Had a competitor breached security and absconded with their latest design? It was not until the stock-boy, arrived for work that security determined the truth of what happened. R. J. Watson, Sales Manager, fired Jeffery on the spot and ordered him out of the warehouse. A check of the shipping records disclosed that five XZ-II digital cameras had been shipped out that day and the race to recall them began. R. J. Watson immediately issued an order to the shipping manager, “Send an E-mail message to the five customers as follows: ‘Thank you for purchasing from Digital Unlimited. We have inadvertently shipped an experimental model that may have defects. For this reason, we are recalling all XZ-II series cameras. We will replace, at no cost to you, a brand new XZ-II digital camera. Please contact us immediately for an RMA shipment authorization number. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. R. J. Watson, Sales Manager.’”
What R. J. Watson did not know was that the stock-boy had failed to complete the order forms and there was no record of where the experimental camera actually went.
Susie said, “Just think of all the things we can do with this camera.”
“Such as?” Billy asked.
“When’s the next home game?”
“A week from Saturday, why?”
“Set the camera for that day and come with me.”
They went to the football field where she said, “Take a picture of the scoreboard.”
Suddenly Billy understood what she was doing. He zoomed in on the scoreboard and snapped the picture, but when they looked at the screen image, all they saw was the blank scoreboard.
“What’s wrong? Billy asked, “Isn’t it working any more?”
Susie took the camera from him and said, “Show me how to operate this thing.”
After Billy explained the basic functions, Susie said, “I think I know what happened. This camera is more precise that I thought. You set the date, but not the time. It’s still set for 10 o’clock.”
She reset the time for 5:30 and took another picture. This time the scoreboard displayed, ‘Home – 21 and Visitors – 14’.
As Billy stood in stunned silence, Susie stated, “Now we know who will win the game.”
Billy was bubbling with excitement and asked, “What next – what else should we take pictures of?”
Susie calmly said, “I think it’s time to go home and download these pictures into your computer.”
When they got to Billy’s room, he installed the software that came with the camera and downloaded the pictures into his computer. With that task out of the way, he asked, “What should we do now?”
“We’re not going to do anything right now, but whatever you do, don’t say a word to anyone about what we did today – promise me, Billy.”
“OK, I promise, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Tomorrow we’ll play with it and see what the future has to offer.”
In corporate headquarters of Digital Unlimited, R. J. Watson reviewed the e-mail responses to his missing camera query. From the five possible recipients of the prototype, he received five responses. He immediately ordered that security dispatch a recovery team to hand deliver a replacement camera to each customer and retrieve the suspected experimental model. Meanwhile, Jeffery Barns, the now out of work stock-boy, remembered the name and address from the order form and took it upon himself to rectify his mistake, retrieve the camera, and hopefully get his job back.
On Saturday morning, with the camera tucked safely in its carrying case, Billy ran to Susie’s house where she was waiting for him. “Where do we go first?” she asked.
“Let’s go down Center Street and get some pictures of the town before it was built.”
After taking a series of pictures at five-year intervals up to the present, Billy exclaimed, “Susie, look at this! The last picture I just took shows the Continental Hotel with smoke and flames coming out of the basement windows.”
Susie took the camera and checked the date. “Billy,” she said, “you haven’t changed the day or month since the picture of the football scoreboard, only the years. That means there will be a fire in the old hotel next Saturday, about 5:30.”
“What do we do now? We’re not supposed to tell anyone about the camera.”
“I don’t know. Give me a minute to think.”
On that same Saturday afternoon, Jeffery Barns stepped off the Greyhound bus in Billy’s hometown, still wondering how to rectify his mistake. First, he had to find the customer and then he had to somehow expropriate the camera. However, still unsure of his plan, he was working on that part.
Susie said, “My dad has a poker buddy in the fire department – Bob Armatage. They get together once a month to play cards. I think we have to trust him with our secret.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but we have to tell someone about the impending fire and he’s the only fireman I know.”
“OK then, let’s find him.”
They ran up Central Avenue to the firehouse. When they arrived and approached the man polishing the fire engine, Susie asked, “Is Mr. Armatage here?”
“No,” the burly fireman answered, “this is his day off – can I help?”
“No, thank you, sir,” Susie said, “We have to talk to Mr. Armatage.”
The fireman gave them Bob Armatage’s home address. When they arrived there, Bob was in the backyard preparing a barbecue for lunch, and as the two kids came through the back gate, Bob said, “Hi, Susie. What brings you here on this beautiful day?”
“Hello, Mr. Armatage. This is my friend Billy and we have a problem we need to tell you about.”
“Come on in and have a seat, how about a soft drink?” He opened two cans of orange pop and said, “Now tell me about your problem.”
Susie began, “Billy has a digital camera that…” she handed Bob a print of the hotel fire, “that takes pictures of future events.”
“What did you just say?”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but look at the date on the picture.”
“If this is some sort of prank, it’s not funny.”
It took Susie and Billy several minutes of picture taking to convince Bob that the picture of the fire was legitimate. Then Bob said, “I have several people coming over for an afternoon get-together, but I’ll meet you at the fire station at three o’clock.
Jeffery Barns checked into the Continental Hotel, picked up a city map, and walked the few blocks to Billy’s address. He knocked on the door and when a woman answered, he asked, “Does a Mr. Billy Benson live here?”
“Why yes, that’s my son, has something happened to him?”
“No, not that I know of, I just need to talk to him.”
Now suspicious of this young man, she asked, “What about?”
Jeffery, reluctant to say, finally asked, “Did your son recently receive a new camera from Digital Unlimited?”
“Yes, it arrived yesterday morning. Is there something wrong with it?”
Feeling a little surer of himself, Jeffery continued, “I’m afraid so, the camera he received is defective and I’m here to get it.”
Billy’s mother, now sure there was something terribly wrong with the young man’s story, said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to come back later when my husband is here and explain the problem to him.”
“O-Ok,” Jeffery stammered, “I’ll come back later.” As he walked from the house, he commented to himself, “Damn, this is going to be harder than I thought.”
At three o’clock, Billy and Susie were waiting for Bob as he drove up in his car. “Get in,” he said, opening the passenger door. Susie slid onto the seat with Billy following. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“To the hotel to take more pictures.”
Bob parked the car across the street from the Continental Hotel. After they all got out, he said, “I want you to take a series of pictures, starting about Wednesday noon and around the clock at hourly increments up until a day after the fire.”
Billy did not question the time period but handed Susie the camera saying, “Here Susie, you take them, you’re better at resetting the date and times than I am.”
Susie adjusted the camera and took all the required pictures. When she was finished, Bob said, “Now I’ll take you home.” To Billy he said, “After you get them downloaded into the computer, I want you to make printouts of each one and bring them to me at the station in the morning.”
When Billy and Susie entered the house, his mother told them all about the boy who came looking for the camera. They went directly to Billy’s room without a word and closed the door. Billy said, “They’re on to us, Susie. They know about the camera and want it back.”
“Not necessarily,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“If they actually know about the camera’s capabilities, you can bet they wouldn’t be sending some kid about our age to get it. Especially with the lame excuse that it was defective.”
“What should we do?”
“Do exactly as Mr. Armatage wants us to – download the pictures and make the prints.”
“Then what? What about the guy looking for me?”
“We’ll deal with him when he comes back to see your dad – that is, if he comes back.”
In his hotel room, Jeffery Barns was frustrated and fuming mad at himself for being so stupid and telling that woman he wanted to talk to her son Billy – now the father would be involved. Muttering to himself, “I guess the best thing to do is just watch the house from a discreet distance and when the kid comes out… talk to him alone.
On the corner of Billy’s block the next morning, Jeffery impatiently paced in circles while watching for Billy to leave his house. “Finally,” he sighed as he saw a boy leave the house and run down the street in the opposite direction, “now, where’s he going in such a hurry?” Jeffery jogged down the opposite side of the street, keeping the boy in sight until he disappeared into another house. Seconds later, the boy came back out accompanied by a girl. Jeffery followed them as they walked toward the center of town and entered a firehouse.
Bob Armatage was waiting for them when they entered through the open bay door, and said, “Come with me to the office”
They followed Bob through a lounge area until they entered an office with “Asst. Chief” stenciled on the door’s frosted glass. Bob asked, “Have you got the pictures?”
“Yes,” Billy said, removing a stack of papers from an envelope, “but there’s something wrong with these.”
“What’s that, Billy,” Bob asked.
Susie said, “There’s no fire in any of them.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Bob, “that’s why I had you take pictures beyond the time you saw the fire. Let’s have a look at them.”
“I don’t understand.” Susie said.
Bob shuffled through the prints and lined them up across his desk as he explained, “If my theory is correct, you took your original picture before anyone knew about the fire. Now that we know it could happen, there will be no fire.”
“I still don’t understand,” she said.
“All we have to do is figure out who or what caused the fire and prevent it.”
“Now I get it,” the two kids said in unison.
Bob picked up a picture and said, “Look here, the time and date indicates Saturday afternoon and there are three police officers putting someone in the back seat of their patrol car.”
“Who is it?” Susie asked.
“It looks like Kid Bellows. We’ve suspected him of arson for some time, but have never been able to prove anything.”
“What do we do now?” Billy asked.
“Neither of you have to do anything, thanks, I’ll take it from here.”
Billy and Susie were in the fire station for less than twenty minutes, but to Jeffery, who nervously waited for them to come out, it seemed like hours. Determined to speak to them, he practiced several ways to approach them but to no avail, because when they did emerged, Susie walked up to him and asked, “Are you the guy that went to Billy’s house yesterday about a camera?”
Totally thrown off guard, Jeffery stammered, “Ye-Yes I am.”
“What is it you want?” Susie demanded.
Jeffery blurted out, “I lost my job because of that camera and I need to get it back.”
“Your job or the camera?” Susie calmly asked.
“Both.”
“Come with us.” She said, “Let’s go to the donut shop and talk about this.”
After they seated themselves in a booth, Jeffery explained how he had shipped an experimental camera by mistake and that Digital Unlimited fired him.
Susie questioned, “What make this camera so special?”
“I don’t know,” said Jeffery, “just that it‘s their latest prototype. They’re afraid it will fall into the hands of their competitors.”
She asked, “Then they don’t know what this camera can do?”
“No, what can it do?”
“Why, take pictures of course.”
Jeffery asked, “Do you have the camera with you?”
“Right here,” Billy said as he put it on the table.
Susie took the camera out of its protective case, checked and reset the time and date to the present. She then carefully framed Jeffery in the viewfinder and pressed the shutter button. To her amazement, the picture displayed on the two-inch LCD was a beautifully sharp image of Jeffery, but it was without color – merely shades of gray. She turned in her seat, pointed the camera toward the outside, and quickly took another; it was also a black and white picture.
Susie handed the camera back to Billy and pointed at the display, saying, “We have to talk.”
Billy asked, “How did you do that?”
“Do what?” Jeffery asked.
“Make a black and white picture.”
Jeffery seized the opportunity to say, “I told you the camera was defective. Maybe now you’ll let me take it back.”
“Not so fast,” Susie interjected, “it’s been working just fine until now.”
She reset the date two days past and took a picture of Billy. The image was of Billy, but instead of the colorful plaid shirt he wore then, it was a drab pattern-less gray. Susie said, “I guess you are right, the camera is defective; but before we give it to you, what are you going to replace it with?”
Jeffery said, “I’ll call the office and tell them I found the camera and see about getting a new replacement. I’m sure they will be glad to do that.”
“That’s all right,” said Susie, “we’ll call Digital Unlimited and report a defective camera and let them replace it.”
“But, what about my job?” Jeffery whined.
“We’ll mention that you were here and told us about the mix up.”
After R. J. Watson learned that none of the five recovered cameras was the experimental one He was about ready to give up all hope of ever finding the missing prototype when he received the news that Jeffery had located it. He was ecstatic
The next day, a man from Digital Unlimited drove up in front of Billy’s house with a new camera along with their latest version of Digital Darkroom software. Jeffery rode back home with the courier and because of his ingenuity and tenacity in going after the camera, R. J. rehired him; only this time, as part of the company’s security team.
When Garry Sparks examined the XZ-II-E experimental camera, he found that his color filter crystal diode had also failed, so it was back to the design-board for a different solution to the problem.
That Sunday, the feature article in the local paper read, “Thanks to an anonymous letter to the Chief of Police, Kid Bellows was apprehended in the process of starting a fire in the basement of the Continental Hotel. Kid Bellows has been a suspect in several other….”
Bob Armatage invited Billy and Susie along with their parents to a Sunday afternoon barbecue. He took the kids aside and said, “I’m sorry that it was impossible to give credit where credit was due. You can understand that no one would ever believe the story that actually led to Kid Bellows’s arrest.”
Susie said, “That’s all right, Mr. Armatage, we understand.”
Bob continued, “Billy, I was sorry to hear about the recall of your camera.”
“That’s okay,” Billy said, “it quit working anyway.”
Bob concluded, “I hope it’s reward enough to know that you two are responsible for saving thousands of dollars worth of damaged property plus the possibility of having saved countless lives. You also made it possible to take a pyromaniac off the streets. Now, let’s go get some of that food.”
As they walked to the backyard, Billy said, “I still want to know who that guy in the fancy sailor suit was – is – or going to be!”
Susie laughed and said, “I don’t know, but I still have his picture and will recognize him when we meet.”