The bright lights flashed their excitement as I drove by Circus Circus on my way home. I could feel the pull of the roulette wheel. The fire started to burn in me again. I wanted to stop and place a bet. I knew it would be a win, I just knew it would.

It had been six months since I had married Cindy and promised to give up gambling. But Cindy was in San Francisco visiting her mother; she would not be coming home until Sunday night. With her around, the promise was easy. But with her gone, I could feel myself starting to weaken. But still, I turned away from the casinos and headed home.

The lab had been in turmoil all day. Something had gone wrong with an important project. The engineers and managers were all in an evil mood. All day they had been taking out their frustrations on all of us.

It was a clear winter Friday in Reno: very much like the day I’d met Cindy almost a year ago. Thoughts of Cindy eased the tension of my day, and dimmed my craving to gamble. As I approached the house, I was ready to relax. A glass of wine waited within. Even without Cindy, this would be a good weekend.

The house seemed empty without Cindy there, I went to the kitchen to get the last bottle of Cabernet, but found it missing. After washing the day off my hands, I went to the study to relax and ponder the mystery of the missing wine. I stepped into the study and there he was, sitting in my chair and drinking my wine.

"Greetings," he said as I would have said it myself. "Some wine?"

"How did you get in here?" I started to ask, but was stopped by the realization that this man looked exactly like me. I felt as though I was talking to a mirror. "Who are you?" I asked.

"I’m Osmond Fitcher."

"You can’t be. I’m Osmond Fitcher."

"I know. We are both the same person, almost."

"What?"

"I’ll explain on the way. There is not a minute to lose. I have to do some preliminary scouting at the casinos and you have to get the money out of the bank."

"What?" I started to object.

"Let me put it in very simple terms," he said.

"I have lived through the upcoming thirty-six hours. I know most of what is going to happen: what bets to place. We are going to make a fortune. The Osmond I left last weekend cleared a cool half million."

The idea of moving back in time to gamble had been a fantasy of mine since my early teens. Now I was caught on the horns of a dilemma. The possibility of fulfilling a dream was pulling me away from my promise to Cindy.

"How does it work?" I asked, with a little too much enthusiasm.

"There’s less than an hour until the banks close. We’ll talk as we drive."

I paused for a moment; this whole thing was just too unreal. Yet, it didn’t seem a trip to the bank was too much to pay to see his next card.

"Okay," I said at last. "You have one trip to the bank to convince me."

He picked up a briefcase and we left for the car.

"What’s in the briefcase?" I asked.

"It contains the time displacement device, our betting instructions and a couple of log books. I’ll show it to you at the casino."

As we walked to the car, I thought back to my last conversation with Cindy. She had wanted me to go to San Francisco with her.

"No thanks," I’d said. "I want to do some skiing."

"Don’t gamble. Please."

The look in her eyes showed real fear. I assured her I would spend the weekend skiing in California. We had parted on that note.

I got in the car with this other Osmond. We drove off in the direction of the bank.

"It’s quite simple," he began. "I know the winning bets that were played on several roulette wheels last weekend."

"Wait a minute," I interrupted. "How’s what happened last weekend going to help us this weekend?"

"The weekend starts at 5 p.m. Friday and ends at 5 a.m. Sunday. I came from Sunday morning last weekend to Friday evening this weekend. It’s like moving backwards and sideways in time. But, more of that later. Time is short and I have to convince you to join me at the casino."

"Go on."

"The betting records are high probability prediction of how the betting will go this weekend. No two weekends are identical; there is variation. But the variation can be compensated for.

"The game we use is roulette. In roulette, the variation shows up as a drift. Over several weekends, the results of a particular spin of the wheel will change. One weekend the ball will fall in one slot. Several weekends later it will fall in the adjacent slot. But the drift can be stabilized."

We were just pulling into the bank parking lot as he finished speaking. I parked the car and sat for a moment.

"I like it," I said.

"I know you do, I did last weekend."

I thought of Cindy and her parting request: that I go to San Francisco with her.

"Last weekend’s Cindy asked me to go to San Francisco with her," he said quietly.

I was speechless. Could he read my mind?

"I was thinking the same thing at this time last weekend," he continued, "when last weekend’s Osmond laid this on me."

I didn’t know what to say. He had to be real. How could he know of my conversation with Cindy, if he were not who he claimed to be?

"But, if I brake my promise to Cindy, I---?"

"It’s not gambling when it’s a sure thing," he said. "Remember the half million."

"Is that how the last weekend’s Osmond explained it to his Cindy?"

"I don’t know, I left before she came home."

I had an uneasy feeling, as though there was something I wanted to ask but could not form the thoughts. The image of half a million dollars was seriously distracting me.

I sat for a moment longer.

"I really don’t need you," he said. "I can do a least half the bets by myself. Then when you move onto next weekend, you won’t have a clue of what to do."

I knew he was lying, or at least I was pretty sure he was.

"Okay, I’ll do it. How much of a stake do we need?"

"Three thousand dollars."

"That’s all I’ve got," I protested.

"I know, but if everything is optimized, we could take home as much as three quarters of a million dollars. Remember the half million from last weekend!"

That did it. I could offer Cindy anything.

"Get the money and meet me in room 251 at Circus Circus," he said.

I got out and watched myself drive away in my car. The possibility of ending the weekend with three-quarters of a million dollars or even half a million overcame all my fears of losing my life savings. Forty-five minutes later I was at the door of room 251 at Circus Circus.

"Come in. Come in," he said as he opened the door.

"So, how do things look?" I asked.

"So far everything is working out beautifully."

I could tell he was lying, and he must have known that, but he kept up the pretext

"I’m glad to here that." I lied.

The chance at a big win was clouding my thinking. If he was hiding something, I should walk away right now.

"What is the chance of something going wrong?"

"Small, but real," he said.

"What sort of things can go wrong?"

"All things happen at a slightly different time each weekend. This variation or drift can sometimes cause major changes in the sequences of events."

He didn’t let me answer the obvious question.

"One weekend a person just makes a flight the next weekend they miss that flight and have to take the next flight. This drift puts a lot of turbulence in the flow of things."

.

"Are there anything getting close?"

"Nothing I know about," he said as he turned to pick up the briefcase.

He set the briefcase on the table and opened it. The entire left side contained a black box and two batteries.

"The time displacement device," he said, pointing to the black box. "Except for the battery connections, it’s completely sealed. The batteries have to be changed at the start of each weekend."

"How does it work?" I asked. I was becoming very fascinated by the idea of time travel.

"I don’t understand all of it." He paused for a moment as though trying to collect his thoughts.

I realized, that although I worked as a technician at the laboratory, most of what I did was routing in nature. My understanding of science was rather limited. He would be in a similar situation.

"It has to do with turning photons sideways to everything," he said with a blank look on his face. "If the magnetic field of a photon is put at right angles to everything, a time field is pulled into this space. The result is an electro-time field. Anything associated with this field is displaced in time."

I was about to ask another question when he went off in another direction.

"I’ll explain more later, we have work to do," he said as he took some sheets of paper from the briefcase. "I’ll be playing here and you be playing at the Nugget."

He handed me a sheet of paper.

"This set is a control set. It must be played exactly as written. How well you do will test the drift. And will, hopefully, give us some clues as to what compensation is necessary. Memorize the sequence before you get to the casino. There’s time for a couple of quick questions."

The sheet he gave me was in my own handwriting.

"The W’s and L’s mean wins and losses?" I asked.

"Yes, and it’s as important for the losses to happen as it is for the wins. Now, give me fifteen hundred dollars and let’s be on our way."

"I’ll give you five hundred now, but it’s my money and I’m going to hold as much as I can for now."

"Look!" He said, almost sounding angry. "You’re either with me or you’re not. I’ve been through it; you have not. I know what needs to be done to optimize the take."

An uneasy feeling came over me. He was acting exactly as I act when I’m angry with someone for not obeying me. I really didn’t like what I saw.

"Well?" He said in a somewhat indignant tone.

I gave him the fifteen hundred dollars and left for The Nugget. This wasn’t gambling; I thought to myself as I walked. This was like digging gold out of a gold mine.

At the Nugget, I headed for the roulette wheel. I was to find a young woman wearing tan slacks and a white nylon blouse. The lady I was looking for was above average height; she had long blonde hair, and a slender build.

When I arrived at the roulette wheel, there she was. I was to place my first bet on the first spin of the wheel after her last bet. She seemed to be on a winning streak. After a very impressive win on double zero, she picked up her chips and left.

My first bet was three. I let the wheel spin for a bit before I placed my bet.

"No more bets," called the croupier.

I watched the ball intently as it fell to the numbers. It wasn’t a clean drop to three. It looked like it was heading toward fifteen.

"Three, red and odd."

So far so good.

The wheel spun and I placed a double bet on fourteen and seventeen.

"No more bets."

The ball hit the partition between seventeen and five, then fell into five. This was supposed to be a win. I went three more looses before I saw another win. And that win was on a bet that was supposed to lose. As the sequence progressed, I continued to lose. It seemed the winning bets were moving counterclockwise away from what they should have been.

My last bet was nineteen. I knew the ball would fall on twenty-one. I placed my own side bet on the red just to ease the loss.

"No more bets."

I held my breath and waited for the ball to fall.

"Twenty-one, red and odd."

I cashed in my chips and headed for Circus Circus. Midnight was approaching and I was down four hundred and forty dollars. I was in a most evil mood. As I walked, I thought of Cindy. If I lost, no explanation would work on her. By the time I reached Circus Circus, I had decided to get out while I still had some money left. I’d tell Cindy I’d lost my head and beg her forgiveness. I’d suggest we moved to California, to get away from gambling. I’d do most anything to keep from losing her.

"I lost money!" I said as I entered the room. "Everything was drifting counterclockwise away from what was written on the betting sheet."

He looked at me as though he was considering something.

"I quit!" I continued. "I lost four hundred and forty dollars. Give me what money you have left. I’ll confess to Cindy and beg forgiveness."

"I’m up ten thousand even."

"What?"

"I said, I’m up ten thousand. That means, together we way ahead."

"I still want out," I said thinking of Cindy.

"If you had been compensating, how would you have done?"

I paused for a moment.

"Quite well," I finally said.

"Okay, now that you’ve seen how the drift is working, you’re ready to start making real money."

I could feel myself being talked into it: just like I talked people into things. I resented being manipulated.

"How far off was your last bet?" he asked after a short pause.

"Seven slots."

"About the same with me, something may be about to happen."

He paused a moment, then continued.

"But to work: write down the results of your bets in the same manner as the sheet I gave you."

We both set to work recording the results of our bets. I finished first and started to ask a question, but he ignored me. I went over to the briefcase and started looking through it. Next to the time device were more betting instructions and some photographs. Most of the photos showed two men, looking a lot like me, standing next to conventional looking cars. But one of the photos showed two men standing next to a very strange looking vehicle.

"Who are they?" I asked as he finished writing.

"You and me."

He must have been anticipating me, for he continued before I could respond.

"Things change a little each weekend. This picture was taken over a thousand years ago."

"What do you mean: a thousand years ago?" I cried out, interrupting him.

"Thirty-six hours ago I was listening to a man that looked just like you telling me what I'm telling you. He and I shared thirty-six hours, just as you and I are doing right now. This, according to the logs has been going on for a long time."

"I think each of us reads a different part each weekend. Last weekend I was told several stories, most of which were not the ones I read. This one is told every weekend."

He paused for a moment as though trying to recall something.

"Think of a wave breaking on a beach," he said at last. "Now draw a line from the beach, through the wave and out to sea. That line is your time line. The wave is moving through time to the beach. The intersection of the line with the wave is you."

He paused for a moment.

"Are you with me so far?"

"I don’t know, but go on."

"Normally, when one thinks of time travel, it would be like moving along the line back out to sea, or forward to the beach."

He looked at me as though wanting some assurance that I understood. I motioned for him to continue.

"Now, move down the beach a short distance and draw a second line parallel to the first. The intersection of this second line with the wave is me. The whole wave is all of us: as many Osmond’s as there are slices of the wave."

"Then we’re not really the same person."

"This is true, but the differences are insignificant."

"Then the time device not only moves out to sea: back in time, that is. It also moves sideways as well."

There was a silence while I looked at the picture and thought about what I’d just heard.

"Is one of the men in this picture the builder of the time device?" I asked at last.

"Oh no. The first Osmond happened too long ago to keep track of."

I guess he saw the puzzled look on my face. He continued before I could say anything.

"Look up the beach as far as you can see. Somewhere beyond that is the first Osmond. All that is known of him is a legend that is passed from weekend to weekend."

"The first Osmond was an engineer at the lab. The lab had been working on time manipulation. After considerable investment, the project was abandoned. But the possibility of walking into a casino with a list of winning bets was too much for him. He put aside his promise to Cindy: not to gamble, and continued working on the time device."

I thought of the problem at the lab this afternoon. Could it be?????

"How did it work?" I asked without realizing how stupid the question was.

"The time device worked perfectly, and still is for the matter. But how he did with Cindy, there is no way to know. I don’t even know how my other self, from last weekend is doing with last weekend’s Cindy."

He returned the photos to the briefcase.

"We have some work to do," he said as he took some betting sheets out of the briefcase. "Pay close attention; you have to direct next weekend."

"What?"

"I thought you had it figured out already. At the end of this weekend I stay here and you displace back to the beginning of next weekend and start all over."

"Oh no. I’m not going anywhere."

"That’s exactly what I said, but you’ll change your mind."

"How does the time device know who to take back?"

"Apparently, it takes whomever is holding on to it."

"Are you sure?"

"When it comes to the time device, I’m not sure of anything. So, last weekend when I was told to hold it, I did."

With that, he went into a detailed explanation of how to compensate for the drift.

"The drift can be slowed somewhat by betting ahead of the expected win. With the proper combination of anticipating the drift and betting for the win, or betting ahead of the win for control, the take can be optimized. Bet size has to be watched. A large bet on a win speeds up the drift more than a small one. A large control bet slows the drift better than a small one."

"Any questions?" he asked after he’d finished his explanation.

"No."

"Here, these are your betting instructions for tomorrow. You start at seven-thirty, so you’ll stay here tonight. I’m going back to the house."

I started to protest, but he cut me off.

"Look," he said in the same slightly annoyed voice I sometimes use. "Last weekend does not determine this weekend. We still have our freedom of will to make our own decisions. But the closer we follow last weekend, the less drift we have to deal with. Also, the less we are together, the better! If you haven’t noticed, meeting yourself is a very strange experience. I'm finding you’re not a very likable guy. And that means I don't like myself very much. If you really want to know what might happen, look in the logs for something. Some of the earlier versions of us wrote quite a lot."

He tossed a couple of logbooks on the table and left. Had he stayed a minute longer, I might have hit him. His arrogance was getting to me. He was right, we weren’t very likable, at least to each other.

I was too upset to study the betting instructions. I picked up one of the logbooks and glanced through it. I read a paragraph here and there as I turned the pages. After about tem minuets I decided to go to bed and get up early.

I didn’t sleep well. I kept having the same dream over and over. It started by Cindy playing poker with a fifty-year-old prostitute and they were both betting on me. My other self was acting as the dealer; he dealt cards and side bets were made. When the hand was over and the cards were on the table, Cindy had lost me to the prostitute. She got up, put her arm around the other me and left with him, saying: "One’s as good as the other."

At this point, I always woke up in a cold sweat.

At five, I got out of bed and called room service to have a light breakfast sent up. I was tired and irritable, and didn’t feel like going through with the morning’s betting.

After a cup of coffee, I felt a little better. I sat down to study the betting instructions. If optimized, this set of bets could yield one hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars. By the time I got to the Nugget, I was feeling almost normal. The lure of one hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars can do a lot to bring a person up.

My key this time was a young man in blue jeans and a blue long sleeve shirt. He left on a fifty-dollar loss and I stepped up to the table. I placed my fist bet on double zero. The ball fell squarely on thirteen. If this was an indication of how things were going to go today, I was in trouble.

I increased my bet and placed it on two: one slot ahead of what the instructions called for. When the wheel stopped the ball rested in thirty-five: one slot behind the fourteen I was supposes to have bet. The control looked like it was working.

I let the wheel spin before placing my next bet. Just before the call for no more bets, I placed my chips on thirty-six. The ball fell and I had my first win of the morning. But I had to work too hard for it. The first three bets should have been winners: before the drift pulled it off.

The rest of the betting sequence was just as troublesome as the first three bets. Almost half of my bets were control bets. When I left the casino, I was only up twenty-one thousand dollars. But I felt good. Compensating for the turbulence in the drift had become a challenge: like a sailor pitting himself and his boat against gale winds and high seas. I felt I had weathered the storm well. And twenty-one thousand dollars can always make me feel good. But, when I got to the room, my other self looked worried.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"No, nothing’s wrong. How did you do?"

His whole expression changed to bright and sunny. I knew myself too well to buy that; I’d been a gambler for too many years.

"I’m up twenty-one thousand," I said.

"Not good. It should be much higher."

He turned and started looking through the papers in the briefcase.

"I thought I did rather well, considering the turbulence in the drift."

He ignored my comment.

"Bastard," I thought to myself.

"Here are your instructions for tonight," he said, turning from the briefcase. "You start at six-thirty."

With that, he turned and started to leave.

I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back into the room.

"I’ll go back to the house this time."

"No!" he shouted.

I could see the fear on his face.

"I go back to the house. It’s in the logs."

With that I turned and left without giving him a chance to say anything.

It was eleven o’clock on a bright, cold winter morning, as I left the casino. I had left the room with feelings of apprehension. But, as I drove back to the house, the success of the morning’s betting and the beauty of the day brought me back up. Nothing was so wrong that it could not be compensated for.

As I got to the house, my heart sank. Cindy’s car was in the driveway. My other self had been at the house last night. Had he been there when Cindy got home? If so, what had taken place between them? What did Cindy expect me to know of the encounter? Why had my other self not told me of this?

I went into the house and heard the shower running. Hopefully, Cindy had just gotten in. I went to the study to look over the sheets for tonight and wait for her to get out of the shower.

"Oh lover," I heard her call when the shower stopped.

I went into the bathroom. She had just finished drying herself. She dropped the towel and came up to me. She put her arms around me and kissed me tenderly.

"Last night was wonderful," she said. "I’ll have to go away more often."

"What?"

"We haven’t made love like that in months, where were you?"

Rage swelled up in me, but I held it in check; he had slept with Cindy.

"Forgotten already have you, well let me refresh your memory," she said and kissed me.

"Let’s save it for tonight," I said not paying as much attention to her as I should have.

She looked at me with her cute little look of disappointment as she said, "You up to something?"

"I’m preparing a surprise for you. But you’ve come home early and distracted me."

The way she looked at me, I knew she didn’t believe me.

"Are you gambling again?"

"No!" I said, with a little too much emphasis.

She stepped back and looked at me. Without saying a word, she turned and went about the business of getting dressed. Apparently, she was going to wait and see what happenes before passing judgment.

I went back to the study and tried to concentrate on the betting instructions. Thoughts of what he had done kept getting in the way: the anger boiled within me. I finally made a decision. He would pay. He would pay with his life. I picked up the journal and flipped through the pages. If I knew what was suppose to happen it might make it easier to face. I read for about an hour, then continued studying the betting instructions. At some point, Cindy said she was going into town. I'm sure I completely ignored her. I studied for a couple more hours

When I got to the room, I put on my best poker face and went in. We looked at each other; I could feel the tension. But we both ignored it and set to work planning our strategy.

"We’ll meet here when were done," he said.

"We meet at the house, it's in the journal."

"But Cindy’s there," he said.

"Cindy will be asleep. If she's not we’ll deal with it. I'm not going to choose to make any changes if I have to deal with the drift it will cause next weekend. Things are already to unstable as it is."

That said, I turned and left.

Nothing went right that night. The turbulence in the drift was greater than in the morning, and my concentration was off. When it was time to leave, I had lost most of the twenty-one thousand that I won that morning, and I was up about a hundred over the three grand I started with. I kept the three thousand and gave the rest to a panhandler.

When I got back to the house Cindy had already gone to bed. I went to the study to ponder my next move. My other self was not due back until just before five; the time displacement was to take place at five. I looked at my calendar clock: two hours to wait. I couldn’t go to bed without taking the chance of waking Cindy. So I sat down in the easy chair and tried to sleep. I finally dozed off, but woke out of a dream. A dream in which I had to live this weekend over and over forever. I tried to sleep again, but each time I fell asleep, I dreamt a disjointed collage of barely related imagery. A sense of doom was the only common thread. Finally, I woke to the sound of his footsteps in the house. I got up. The moment of truth had come.

"How did you do?" I asked as he entered the room.

"I’ve got a couple of thousand left. And you?"

"About the same."

We started at each other for a moment: then looked away. The tension in the room was nearly unbearable.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked.

Without waiting for a reply, he set the briefcase on the desk. As he took the money out I picked up a heavy bookend and slyly moved towards him, but he sensed me coming. He looked up before I was close enough to land a sound blow. Caught, I lunged and tried to throw the bookend at him; but because of it's weight, I ended up just pushing it towards him. I saw his head snap around as the bookend caught the side of his jaw. The full force of the blow hit him on the shoulder and caused him to let out a loud yell as he fell nosily against the bookshelf.

"Osmond, is that you?" I heard Cindy call from the bedroom.

"Yes. It’s me," I called back. I knew she would come out to see what had happened.

I dragged him over to the easy chair and set him down. He was still breathing, but he had a nasty gash in his head. I got the briefcase from the desk and came back to the chair. As I wrapped his arms around the briefcase, I noticed he had stopped breathing. A chill came over me as I checked for his non-existent pulse. Although it had been my intent to kill him, now that he was dead, I felt sick. I sat down at the desk. I could hear Cindy starting to open the door to the bedroom.

After a minute or so, I glanced back at the easy chair. A wave of relief swept over me when I saw he was gone. I got up to go to Cindy when I was startled by the sound of a car driving into the driveway.

"Cindy," I called as I started for the window.

Silence.

The calendar clock displayed: "5:02 PM, FRI."

"Cindy?!" I cried as I leaped to the window.

I looked out just in time to see myself get out of the car and start towards the house. I turned around and there, sitting ominously on the easy chair, was the briefcase.