The Third Ten

by Jacqueline Druga

  Exhaling, my eyes locked with Jack’s. “Let me and Bill discuss this and I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

  Jack nodded. “Thank you. I’m gonna head home.” He walked to the door and stopped. “Don’t stop fighting them. I’m not saying that. I’m merely saying let me find a place to protect human life so we are assured it will go on.”

  He nodded and left.

  In silence, Billy and I stared at each other.

  “Dan, you can’t let him do this. You can’t authorize the supplies.”

  “I know,” I sat down. “We actually need him to reenter the fight.”

  “Our elite team can train others. Yes, this will be a hundred year war. But if we don’t start pushing the lines back now. If we let them go, we’ll never reduce their numbers. We’ll be mere monkeys in a tree. We’ll be animals, outnumbered, running and hiding for our lives.”

  “What if we are heading that way anyhow? He has a point though. We need to pocket some people. Make sure that life goes on.”

  “People will survive anyhow.”

  “By becoming animals, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “If only we knew,” I said. "If we only knew what the future held, then we could make this decision.” I paused. “If we only knew.”

  Billy raised his eyes slightly and looked at me.

  28.

  The Aragon Window

  Jason Godrichson considered himself the Godfather of Time. And rightfully so. He invented and implemented the first working time machine.

  This is where my story really gets like a science fiction novel.

  After the Great War, when there was a debate to try to go back and save and warn Dean Hayes, a rebuilding council met. It was the first arm of a new government, with Joe as leader.

  They unanimously decided to outlaw time travel. With the exception of Jason Godrichson and any understudy he instructed to use the time machine as a testing device.

  Other than that, no more time travel. No more messing with fate.

  Jason was able to get most of his belongings and research out of Beginnings and just before they believed Beginnings was to be invaded, Jason blew up his lab.

  Some of us still believed he tucked away his remaining research somewhere.

  Jason was a brilliant man who was just about fifty at the time of The Great War.

  In 2025 time travel was outlawed.

  In 2028 Jason informed the Council that copies of his research were stolen, along with files copied from his computer.

  This bred a fear in the Council and Jason. Although no one was believed to be smart enough to implement a time machine, that chance could not be taken.

  Jason spent the next ten years dedicated to inventing a Time Tracer.

  Exactly how he was able to do it, no one knows. Or the details of how it worked. In a nutshell and basically, the time machine, any time machine, would release a certain ‘wave’, and the program he developed was able to pick up on that wave.

  He actually had the program developed by 2030.

  By 2035 he had perfected it. It linked up to a solar detection unit and was able to not only pick up time travel waves from anywhere in the world, it was able to detect where and when the time traveler was traveling.

  Locking in on that, the secondary invention called the Time Chaser kicked in. When the Tracer found the traveler, the chaser followed the signal and time traveled to the exact same spot.

  In theory, anyone caught time traveling would be stopped before they could create a ripple.

  The chaser would arrive at the same time as the traveler.

  Yes, time cops.

  Unfortunately, the only time traveler was Jason himself during the tests.

  This was a separate division set up by Frank. Jason was in charge of the Time Police, and trained the squads that would monitor time.

  For fifteen years this division was in effect. Their location was always a secret.

  Hal Slagel passed the reigns over to General Baker when Jason passed away in 2046. General Baker, to the best of my knowledge was still running it.

  Our government supplied the funds to the military, and the military diverted funds and soldiers to the program.

  I always believed this would be the worst job on the planet.

  How boring. To sit around and monitor time travel that wasn’t happening.

  But I remember General Baker telling me they ran tests weekly.

  To be honest with you, during my presidency, I received reports from Baker, but never really read them. My assistant would tell me, “From the TTP, all good. No time intrusion.” Then my assistant would pass the report to me.

  No need to read.

  I kind of thought it was a joke. A division in name only.

  That joke was about to be tested as funny or serious.

  Jason’s research was stolen, but by none other than Billy Hayes.

  When Billy heard that time travel was illegal, he didn’t want the brilliancy of that research to go unnoticed.

  He confessed his thievery to Jason once Jason started his time monitoring.

  Jason chuckled, so said Billy, and wished Billy luck. Although he did tell him they would catch him if he used it.

  Billy never really used a time machine for travel.

  For testing, yes.

  Jason always knew of the tests and approved them.

  This is what Billy told me when he showed me the Aragon Window.

  “It’s illegal,” I said.

  Billy, one hand on hip, the other holding back his hair, nodded. “Yeah, I know. But like I said. Jason knows about this. Hell, how else do you think I was able to test it to make sure it works?”

  “You know, I always wondered who stole the research.”

  “Was there ever any doubt?”

  I smirked. “No.” I stared at the contraption, which was so similar to Jason’s. It was connected to a computer. “How do you propose we do this without getting in trouble?” I asked.

  “You’re the President.”

  I nodded. “But still.”

  Billy lifted the phone. “I'll call General Baker. He knows I have the machine. I will tell him I am conducting a test of a new power source. That’s it.”

  “Won’t they track where we go?”

  “Only if they need to. Usually they don’t. Power up once a week, go back a few hours. Nothing ever shows.”

  I thought about it. Really thought about it. Billy had gained their trust. He had a working time machine and the perfect solution to my Jack dilemma.

  We could go ahead and see what the future had in store. If things were going well, then our war was correct. If things weren’t, then perhaps we did need to plan for a protected species future.

  I gave my approval and Billy placed the call.

  We had to wait two hours, and that was not a problem. During that time Billy and I joked about how the Time Travel Police was just a joke. How they really didn’t monitor time. And how we’d find out soon enough.

  “How far?” I asked.

  “My calculations using their rate of reproduction and our rate of removal, makes this a hundred year war. Add ten years … rebuilding phase,” Billy said.

  “So if the hundred year war plan is on its way to working, then we’ll know.”

  “The second we step through.”

  We were in New York City, not the destroyed part, the part that had been rebuilt. Surely, New York would be standing a hundred years from that point in time.

  Billy set the machine.

  We had the pendants ready for the return trip.

  I had to ask, “Billy, you told Baker we were only going two hours into the future.”

  Over his shoulder, looking so much like Dean, Billy replied. “Please. You really think they know where we’re going?”

  “Jason said …”

  “Fear tactic.”

  “Is this your knowledge or arrogance speaking?”

  “Both maybe.” Billy shrugged. “Ready
?”

  I nodded.

  We thought ahead. At first we were on the second floor. Then it dawned on us. What if the building wasn't there? We’d fall to our deaths. So we moved to the basement. Safe bet, especially since all basements in the new cities and rebuilt cities had escape routes.

  Prepared and armed with laser weapons just in case we faced the LEP, we embarked on our time journey.

  The flash of light.

  We stepped through…

  Darkness.

  The dark took us by surprise, not that we didn’t plan for it. We did. Billy lifted a flashlight.

  The basement we left was clean and new. Concrete.

  The basement we arrived in smelled of mold and the outdoors.

  “Something’s not right,” Billy said.

  Another voice answered. “You’re right. Something is not right.”

  We both spun around.

  Standing there was a man. He wore black and carried a weapon. A blue laser light on his chest lit him and the initials TTP.

  “Fuck,” Billy said.

  “President Hoi,” TTP said. “I must insist both of you leave right now.”

  “What is your name son?” I asked.

  “AGA-113.”

  It took me a second. Dear God ! He was one of the batch babies. One of the babies bred to be born, that didn’t have mothers or whose mother had died.

  “And people call you that?” I asked.

  “People call me Ag.”

  I nodded. “Ag. Aren’t you curious?”

  “It’s not my job to be curious, sir.”

  “But it’s my job,” I said. “To make sure we have a future. Obviously we do. I just need to know if we’re on the right path or not.”

  Billy interjected. “We can’t be.” He shined the flashlight upwards. “Roots.”

  Through the ceiling of the basement of what was once a four-story building, tree roots grew.

  “There’s no building here.” Billy said. “And judging by these roots, there hasn’t been for quite some time.” He shined the flashlight around. “No one’s been here for some time.”

  The place was overgrown with mold. The door we came through was encased in moss and hardened gook.

  Just then AG whispered out in a question. “Aragon?”

  We both looked at him.

  Adjusting his chest light he pointed across the room. “Does that say Aragon?” He walked across the room and to a wall. The words could barely be seen. He swiped his hand across the lettering.

  Painted in red letters read the words, “Aragon enter here.”

  He looked over his shoulder at us. “Isn’t the name of your machine project, Aragon?”

  Billy nodded and both of us walked nearer to Ag.

  Ag cleared more dust and growth to expose an arrow.

  Billy whispered . “The escape tunnel.”

  I cocked my head, looking around. Why would we need the escape route? Surely nothing had been done there or headed down there.

  When I turned back, Ag was clearing the seal of the escape door.

  I said. “I thought it wasn’t your job to be curious, son?”

  “It is now.” With a grunt, Ag pulled the open the door and dust bellowed out. He brightened his light, took a step and stopped. “There’s something here.”

  Hurriedly, we joined him. When we entered through the escape hatch, Ag lifted a tin box.

  Clearing yet more dust, he handed it to me. “It says it’s for Aragon.”

  As I took the container, no bigger than a shoebox, I noticed the escape route hall. It was like a jungle. Thickly over grown.

  I opened the box. A folded sheet of thick paper was in there. I removed it and looked.

  “It’s dated five years ago,” I said.

  “From who?” Billy asked.

  “Your … great grandson.”

  Billy chuckled. I knew the reason he did so at first. He was over forty and didn’t have a child. The smile soon dropped from his face. “What does it say?”

  “Dear Aragon,” I read. “I’m not sure that this is even true. That you will even show. I am the third generation descendant of Billy Hayes. I drop this here as instructed by my father and his father before me. Before my great grandfather died, he saw the change, and passed on the request. There was to be someone to meet you. But at this rate, I won’t be lucky much longer. Despite my best attempts, my weight has increased. So I take this opportunity now while I have not been chosen.”

  I paused. I didn’t know what that meant and I continued to read.

  “To understand, you must follow the passageway until you see where I have marked an ‘X’. There you will turn left. Slowly and quietly move fifteen paces until the next marking. Do not go any further. You need not. You only need proof. My mission for this date was to give evidence of this world with the LEP. Hence forth in your journey there shall be. God save us. Peter Hayes.”

  There was a silent moment between all three of us. I could see it on Ag’s face. The same trepidation that I felt. I folded the note and placed it in my pocket, nodding to Ag to lead the way.

  He did.

  There was no way to tell that it was an indoor passageway. It had the look and feel of the outdoors.

  When we hit the first marking, I heard noises. Voices. I couldn’t distinguish the words, they were distant.

  As instructed, moving slowly and quietly, we neared the second marking. And as we did, I winced. The smell was horrible, rancid. It smelled of animals and waste. We made it to the second marking, and just as the note said, we didn’t need to go any further.

  I lost every bit of my breath.

  From where we stood, I could see what lay ahead for mankind. The passage way was an ignored escape route, or maybe even one the people never thought of taking.

  It was huge, it actually looked like a prison, but the cells were cave like with no bars. There was some sort of attempt to create privacy within the caverns. But not much. It was four levels high and set up like a prison with a center court. The caves or small rooms couldn’t have been more than eight feet high and deep. I couldn’t see any furnishings.

  Men, women and children moved about. Small fires burned, their clothing was minimal. Whatever the place was, it must have housed thousands.

  The question came to my mind. Was this just here, or was this the fate of man everywhere?

  Just as I had that thought two things occurred.

  The first...

  “Ba.”

  A tiny, child voice called up with question.

  “Ba?”

  All of us shifted our eyes downward.

  A small child stood there, maybe three or four years old. His belly large, the rest of him thin. He was dirty and smiled. “Oom.” After a giggle, he darted off. We were on the second level and about twenty feet from the first cave. Our opening was covered with vines and weeds. He had probably spotted our shoes.

  I watched him run to the second cave as a woman and man came out hugging him.

  Then the second thing happened.

  A loud buzzing sounded.

  People scurried. Screamed. Ran.

  A door opened on the level above us, and through the big metal door walked six LEP’s.

  “Oh my God,” Billy whispered. “This is what happens.”

  I saw what he meant. The LEP had weapons.

  They carried weapons and they wore clothing.

  One called out an order in a language I didn’t understand, motioning with his arm. The other five fanned out.

  They went into caves, pulling people out and dragging them to the walkway of the level.

  Another shifting sound and the ceiling opened up. A huge crane-like arm reached in and where ever a LEP held a man or woman, the arm reached down, snatched onto the person and lifted them out.

  We all heard it because we all looked. The voice, the cry of the child that had greeted us.

  He sat crying outside his cave as a man and woman were dragged out and fed to the crane
. The LEP ignored the boy and moved on to another cave.

  They were selecting people for something. But what?

  Then I remembered what Peter had said in his letter.

  His weight had increased. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be safe.

  My God, it was a farm. A feeding arena. Like pigs in a bay.

  In the midst of those thoughts, I felt it, then saw it. Billy darted out.

  “Billy, what are you doing?” I yelled.

  Billy looked different from everyone else, and the sight of him along with my voice, caught their attention.

  Just as he snatched up the child, he was spotted.

  “Go, go, go,” Billy ordered as he raced our way, holding the child.

  Ag led the way, backwards from where we were. I followed as fast as I could and Billy caught up.

  We could hear the LEP behind us. We made the turn into the final corridor then through the door of the basement.

  Once in there, Ag stepped aside, and he slammed the door shut after Billy made it safely through. He pushed the slide metal rod to lock it.

  “Hit the code! Now!” Ag ordered. “Take us back. This won’t hold.”

  I lifted the pendant. The child cried, disrupting me for a second.

  “Hurry, Danny,” Billy said. The banging on the door growing louder.

  Code in. Enter.

  The Aragon window illuminated.

  Billy stepped through with the child, Ag lunged our way at the same time the door blasted outward and an LEP stood there.

  I went through.

  And luckily, the doorway closed before the LEP could join us back in our own time.

  When it came to the time police, there was an immediate trial and conviction. The second we stepped through we faced our destiny in our own time.

  The child was evidence of what we saw, and Ag’s testimony protected us from prosecution. Word would never get out. However, it didn’t stop the dismantling of the Aragon window.

  The time machine was done.

  But that didn’t mean we couldn’t change the future.