The Test

by Robert Longley

  When I woke from my drug-induced coma, we were in a small office. They wouldn't tell me where we were right away, so I just listened. I think they were playing a game of "let's see how long it takes him to figure it out.” Henry filled me in some of the details of his jumps through time. He also told me more details about project rainbow, and how it was not the first test.

  Project Rainbow was just the first test on a large scale. The original test took place on Long Island, New York and involved a single person. They did what Henry referred to as a loopback. This took place in the late 1930’s and person traveled back roughly 10 years to a few months before the depression. During that time, he made a bunch of strategic investments and set up a foundation with accounts that could be accessed later. Between shorting stocks and buying up real estate in Oklahoma and Texas that would be future oil fields, they set up a long-term income strategy. So, when the collapse came in 1927, the Foundation made a lot of money. By leasing and eventually selling farmland back to farmers (less the mineral rights) they continued to grow their wealth almost automatically, without a huge staff to keep track of things. That allowed for funding at Princeton in the early 1940’s, which would then allow for the completion of Project Rainbow. I always thought it was a military project, but apparently, the Foundation has connections in higher places. I don't know the exact details. The fact that we were headed to The Bahamas to do the larger test was not by coincidence.

  It is easier to do apparently when you can tap into the stream. They are like tunnels that connect certain points on the earth. That's why I ended up where I did. And as it turned out, there were several other individuals onboard that found their place in history as well. So, I made it back. Some did not. Henry and several others were briefed on the project and its true purpose before we headed to The Bahamas. They had specific instructions as to what to do, when or if they entered the vortex. My trip through time happened to be an accident as was the case with many of the others. Henry and his team were supposed to be the only ones to go through and come right back, but it never happened that way. Nobody realized how big an area it would affect. The problem with project rainbow is that no one came back during the experiment, unlike the earlier experiments on long island.

  They couldn't quite figure out why this happened, but the project was eventually shut down on the military side. Research by the Foundation continued in secret. It was well funded, but largely any time travel was deferred for about a decade. During the years following WWII, they focused on strategic investments. This was long ball thinking. Any formal relationship between the Foundation and military ended in 1949 when Admiral Forestall met with an unfortunate end. I don't know his exact involvement, but I think it ultimately cost him his life. Albert Einstein distanced himself from the project and destroyed any of his research before his death in 1955.

  During the 1960’s, some of the Foundation's money was put into the Apollo program as an emergency rescue protocol. If something went wrong in space, they could essentially skip the reentry part of the voyage. At least that's how it was sold to the government. Used discretely the American public would never know the difference. It still used the old approach from the Eldridge with a few modifications. It probably didn't work as advertised, but the government gave them funding and technology to upgrade it. That was probably the Foundation's ultimate goal.

  They had the money but not the technology. NASA was on track to create new things that the Foundation needed. It was not until the end of Apollo that a new working system was set up. Apollo 18 was essentially scrapped because the Foundation got tired of the NASA politics and they pulled their support. This was about the time that any Government oversight went out of the window as well.

  Their investment in NASA gave the Foundation things like integrated circuits which made the system smaller and less power-intensive. The new system worked correctly and could be used in a controlled fashion. It could also track travelers based on signatures they left in the timeline. Based on signatures that were created by the people left from Project Rainbow, crew members from the Eldridge started coming back in the early 1970s. Now all of this was off-book, nongovernmental work paid for by private funds. And that's probably where things started to go a little haywire because the government had paid for a lot of this stuff early on. It turned out were on a separate path developing the same technology.

  That's how I managed to come back. I didn't come through the same portal that most of the others that come through. I never did find out the name of the group that brought me back or who they worked for. They said they fixed errors in time that may have been caused by project rainbow. I was one of those and as Henry said, "I broke the first rule of time travel. You can't sleep with anybody.”

  I altered the entire DNA landscape of England by introducing Turkish and Italian elements. Not exactly the Anglo-Saxon origin story for the British Isles most people believe. Some researcher in Great Britain recently discovered this and I think that's how the government group found me. They started looking at the timeline when the new DNA was introduced and there I was. Well, lesson learned, but now I have 2000 or so descendants so that's a little bit hard to cover up.

  The Foundation had been quietly patching holes in time for the past couple of decades. But then I came along and messed up the whole thing by coming through one of the government portals. I had thought that the missile strike took care of most of my problems. But apparently, a communiqué had already been made before the explosion. The government knew somebody had come through, they just didn't know who. Based on the security of the organization, the Foundation didn't even know I had come back. That was of course until my son took a DNA test.

  Chapter 14 - Phone Home

  Henry says, "Better check in with the wife or she's going to get suspicious."

  "Can I call her?" I said.

  "Sure. Here's a phone that can't be traced and you can call her. Probably want to call you secretary as well."

  So, I call Home and Kelly answers the phone.

  "Where are you? Are you all right? I was about to call the police. You've never been gone this long before.”

  "I'm okay. I just had a little problem yesterday.”

  "That's what Shirley said. She called me from the office all worried cause you never came back.”

  I said, "Was there anything about a car accident just south of us involving a truck and an SUV."

  Kelly Says "No.”

  Henry looks at me and goes, "we're pretty good at cleaning things up.”

  So that didn't make the news.

  "Where are you?" Kelly said.

  "I can't tell you. Let's just say that the incident we were talking about the other night has kind of come back to haunt me. You know the paperwork we talked about? Put it somewhere safe and pretend that you never saw it." "Okay, I can do that. What do I tell the kids?"

  "Well, just tell them that I had to go out of town on business and I hopefully will be back this weekend.”

  And Henry nodded. "Yeah, that should work.”

  "Okay, that's one down. And now we've got to cover your secretary. So, what are you going to tell your secretary?" "She saw two guys wearing sunglasses show up at my office and escort me out of the building. Shirley is not one to keep her mouth shut.”

  "Just tell her that you were doing something classified during the Gulf War. It was a matter of national security and some of the people involved needed you to work on something dating from that. She already thinks you're a spy, so she'll buy it.” "Why does she think I'm a spy?"

  "We hear things. Just call her and tell her everything's okay. Tell her that you had to go out of town for a little bit of national security work. She'll buy it. All will be well. Tell her you talked to Kelly.”

  I picked up the phone and called the office.

  "Hi, Shirley… Yeah. Sorry about yesterday… Nope, everything's okay… Well, it's kind of a matter of national security. It can't talk to about it… You understand?... Okay. Well, I will be
out of town for a couple of days. … Yes, I already talked to Kelly. She knows about it…. We can't talk to anybody about this. Okay. …Yup. …Do you understand? …Of course, you do… So, all right… There are a couple of projects in the work. Please make sure the paperwork gets done over the next couple of days. I will be in touch, but you won't be able to reach me. Yep…. Because of the secret stuff. … You know we can't talk about that Shirley… Do you understand? …You're good… All right. Well, I will probably not see you this week, but I will see you first thing Monday morning… Sounds good… All right… Yes… You have fun fishing this weekend… Sounds good. Okay, bye.”

  Well, she bought it, hook, line, and sinker. I turned to Henry, "So now how about you tell me where I am.”

  We had been sitting in one of those clean white rooms with the one-way glass. Henry says, "Sure why not"

  So, he opens the door and we go through a series of vault doors and we're in what looks like a pawn shop.

  I said, "Is this a pawn shop too"

  "Mostly,” he says.

  "So, where are we?"

  "Look out the window.”

  I go to the window and look across the street. We're in Nebraska, across the street from my other office.

  "What the hell are we doing here? And what is this doing here across from my office?"

  Henry says, "The better question is, what is your office doing across from here? You didn't think you got that great deal on the solar company because of your negotiating skills, did you?"

  "Well, yes"

  "Sorry, we helped things along a little bit. We needed to keep an eye on you, and this was the easiest way to do it.” "So was the fact that the Chinese manufacturers were cutting into my electronic business so I would look for another option your handiwork too?"

  Henry just smirked

  "This is unbelievable.”

  "Kind of like time travel, right?"

  I was trying to take it all in. My life just seems to be one set of lies built on another set of lies. I seemed to be a puppet in my own life. The Foundation seemed to have controlled a good chunk of the last 20 years since my return. Henry says, "They just want to make sure that you stayed off the radar. We do this for all our clients. We just didn't see the DNA tests coming that your son bought. That was just kind of a mistake on our part. But then again, we didn't know that you had broken rule number one.”

  "I didn't even know there was a rule number one.”

  "Well, now you do. And here we are.”

  "Okay. So why am I here?"

  "Well, we didn't anticipate the governments' involvement. We were happy to just let you live your suburban life but now all that's changed. I guess we need you to join the team – or kill you – your choice." Henry looked rather serious for about 15 seconds and then cracked himself up. "We don't do that. We're the good guys."

  I didn't know what to think at that point. Then I thought back to the car crash.

  "So, I know you said you cleaned up the mess with the two guys, but those two guys knew probably two more guys and a few more that know about my situation. So how do I go back to my normal life? And who were those guys anyway? CIA, NSA?"

  Henry said "It's a three-letter agency. It doesn't make that much difference.”

  I continued with my rant, "What about my family? Are they safe?"

  "For the moment they are.” and then Henry says, "So how much did you tell your wife?"

  I said, "What? I never said I told my wife."

  "Well, we hear things.”

  "You told me that. Okay, so you're bugging my house or my phones",

  "Not everything - just some things.”

  "Okay. So, my life is a complete fake. I'm constantly under surveillance.”

  Henry jumps in, "We get bored with the cable package here. It's kind of like watching reality TV."

  I sort of laughed. Why should this surprise me? I was a 100-year-old time traveler. Why should I expect a normal existence?

  I took a deep breath, "Now what?"

  "Well, since your part of the family now, I think it's probably time that you meet some of the rest of the team.”

  Chapter 15 – Meet the Team

  Henry grabbed me by the arm and turned me around. "Well since you're already here, you might as well meet the team. You might be some few familiar faces in the crowd.” We walked in the back and behind a shower curtain was an elevator. This was a one-story shopping mall, so I was surprised to see multiple floor buttons. Henry pressed the bottom button and we headed down. When the door opened a guy with a beard was about to get in. Henry says, "You remember Grinder?"

  "Holy crap, I haven't seen this guy in forever.” "It's been a long-time buddy," he said. I never knew his real name. Grinder was a machinist and was always using a grinding wheel. We started to talk but Henry jumped in, "We're sort of on the clock. There will be time to catch up later.” He yanked me away and to the next person who was Tony Axel. He was another machinist, but really into cars. His last name was Alexander, but everybody called him Axel.

  Henry pushed me along, "This is Lisa, our CFO.”

  And I'm like, "she wasn't on the ship with us"

  I was a little confused.

  "No. She came later. And last, this is Benjamin Forester and he's the manager of the facility. Again, he was not on the ship with us. He came later too.”

  "And so, Henry, what is your role in this company?"

  "I just fix things. I don't like to manage. You know me.” "All right, I can see that. So, what exactly do you collectively do here?"

  "Patience Grasshopper – when you can grab the pebbles from my hand, then you are ready.” Henry apparently got caught up on old Kung Fu episodes in his spare time.

  My mind was filled with a million questions. I was trying to get a grasp on the growing complexity of my existence.

  "So, what's the connection with places like Stonehenge and the middle of The Bahamas?"

  Henry says, "We don't know the actual details. One of two things is possible. Either the tunnels are a natural phenomenon, or they were built by somebody in ancient times with technology we don't fully understand. They can be activated through a variety of means and we only discovered it through our technology. Apparently, in ancient times somebody else had that capability as well.”

  "What exactly do you do at this point?"

  "Well, as I said, these tunnels are natural or at least have been there longer than we have, and they can be activated by a variety of things. So, in our case, we created an artificial portal that accessed it and we're able to go to different times and locations. This also happens naturally from time to time.”

  "There are more than a few documented incidents of people jumping unintentionally. Fishermen in Scandinavia showing up in the South Atlantic. Skiers in New York showing up in California with their ski gear still on. Things like that. Those often happen within the same timeline. We don't know how many happen across timelines. It's not like we have the social media to document things in the past. We do know that thousands of people disappear every year beyond what is statistically possible according to actuarial tables. We scan time looking for things that may be out of place. This brings us back to rule one. You don't sleep with people in the past. That tends to be one of the most common problems that we see.”

  "We travel back through the portals to find people and undo what they might have done.”

  "Can you go forward in time?"

  "Not Exactly. If a portal opens in the future, you could go through it, but we couldn't connect to that point directly ourselves. Sort of like what happened with you. The government team was able to see you in the past, open the portal and pull you through. If we had done it, we would not necessarily have been able to go forward without being pulled, if that makes sense. The reason is that by looking into the future, you have no actual reference to do your calculations on. But by looking back, you always have a reference point.”

  "Why Nebraska?"

  "Well, we try to
maintain a low profile, except for the fact that we use enough power for a large city.”

  "And that doesn't set off any alarms with the power company?"

  "We kind of are the power company. We have a small nuclear reactor down here that does our power for us.”

  I didn't see anything that looked like a nuclear reactor.

  "Is this thing safe?"

  "More or less? It's something we borrowed from NASA or gave to NASA. Take your pick. Anyways, we're good for probably 20 or 30 years with the generation capacity that we have.”

  "Is this the only location?"

  "No, but we're not going to go into detail about that. In some respects, the less you know, the better.”

  "Well, that's fine with me. I would just like to get home to my wife and back to my everyday life that, you know, I've enjoyed for the last 20 years.”

  "Well, I'm afraid that since we've come back into your life, there will have to be a few changes in that area.”

  "What does that mean?"

  "Well, one of the problems is that even when we're traveling through time, we can't undo things that have already happened. We can prevent things from happening, but we can't undo things that have already happened. In your case, we have to find a way to make what happened to you disappear and we're going to need you to help do it.” "So, you kidnapped me and brought me down in Nebraska just to show me your little science project care. Oh, and the fact that you've been spying on me and my family for decades.”