Paycheck

[Jennings visits the bank to deposit his $92 million-plus dollars and to ask for some cash. Jane, the banker, hands him a large envelope, which he had mailed to himself]

Jane: Your personal items.

Michael Jennings: Yes?

Jane: [Smiling about the postage on the envelope] You only needed four stamps.

[He sees that there are five postage stamps with the picture of Albert Einstein on each one]

Michael Jennings: Oh. Well, I guess I can afford the extra fifty cents.

[She laughs. He shakes the items out of the envelope. They include a watch, a book of matches, a pack of cigarettes, sunglasses, a diamond ring, a bent piece of steel, a coin, and other items]

Michael Jennings: Um, I don't think this is my stuff.

Jane: It's not?

Michael Jennings: No.

Jane: I, I, I don't know what happened.

Michael Jennings: That's all right. Don't worry about it. I'll... um, it doesn't matter. Let's talk about my shares. Um, what I'd like to do is get some money now.

[They both laugh]

Michael Jennings: And, you know, put the rest away for long term, you know, to live off. So, how do we do that?

Jane: [puzzled] Mr. Jennings, you forfeited your shares.

Michael Jennings: I beg your pardon? What?

Jane: Yeah, uh, here. Uh, dated, um, four weeks ago. You surrendered the shares and stated to deliver only the envelope with personals. Don't you remember doing that, sir?

Shorty: But that's not the question you should be asking yourself.

Michael Jennings: No?

Shorty: The question that you should be asking yourself is, why did *you* give up all that money? That's the most bizarre part of this whole thing. 90 million dollars. Nobody changes that much in three years! Okay. All right, buddy. I wanna figure out what you built. All right, let's work backwards.

Michael Jennings: They told me that I was working on a design by someone named Decker.

Shorty: Decker?

Michael Jennings: Yeah.

Shorty: William Decker?

Michael Jennings: I think so.

Shorty: What I heard was, he was working on something Level 5 for the Feds when they came in one day and they just shot him down.

Michael Jennings: What was it?

Shorty: Consensus was a laser.

Michael Jennings: Why was that?

Shorty: Because Decker's drawings called for a mirror and a lens. Now, the only thing that uses those things is a laser. Some kind of satellite...

[Jennings is distracted by a wall television announcing the Lotto numbers]

Shorty: The lens required perfect optics. Uh, the mirror and the neutrino count... I mean, word was, the thing was going to cost 500 billion dollars. Now, who's going to spend 500 billion dollars just to see something?

[Shorty realizes Jennings has heard very little of his explanation]

Shorty: What?

Michael Jennings: There's no way I got out of that Extraction Room without the cigarettes and the glasses. I would have never gotten on that bus without the bus ticket. If I didn't have the diamond ring, I wouldn't have followed that kid to Reddy Grant.

Shorty: Right.

Michael Jennings: [excited] I gave up that money just to make sure that I would pay attention to these items.

Shorty: Why?

Michael Jennings: [whispering intensely] Because I know what you'd spend 500 billion dollars to see. The future.

[Astounded, Shorty looks at the winning Lotto numbers in Michael's hand, and then up at the TV]

Shorty: Look, if we know anything, we know that time travel's not possible. Einstein proved that. Right?

Michael Jennings: Time *travel*, yes. But Einstein was very clear that he believed time viewing, theoretically, could be accomplished.