by Teya Tapler
“Is this still about the 906 Inquisitors?” Emil asked. “Let it go! It happened over two months ago.”
“You’re not the one who missed them.… They were faster than me and had left before I even arrived at the warehouse.” Zander stared at his feet.
“Forget about them. Let it go!” Emil patted Zander on the shoulder. “After the capture of their leader, the 906 Inquisitors will have a hard time regrouping. For quite some time, they’ll have to worry more about their own skin than the pearls. The whole galaxy is looking for them. Every galactic cop and bounty hunter has their organic signatures.”
“Nice to see both of you,” a whispered greeting interrupted them.
“Chancellor!” Zander and Emil turned toward the greeter and bowed their heads slightly to show their respect to the Earth’s highest representative in the Galactic Committee.
“I would like you to seek out where the pearls are landing and ensure they never be misused again,” the Chancellor spoke in a low voice.
“But, Chancellor—”
“I consider you personally responsible for the disappearance of the 906 Inquisitors.” The cold eyes of the Chancellor stopped Zander’s explanation, his whisper threatening. Zander could feel how, under the long ultramarine robe, the Chancellor had his index finger pointed at him. “Discovering and securing the pearls is the way to compensate for your latest mishaps,” ordered the Chancellor, who then turned to Emil. “As his manager, you should take this personally and supervise the mission yourself. Following the protocol, I have cleared everything with your boss from the TTA, and I am expecting both of you in my office at 1400 hours local time today.”
Emil and Zander worked for the Time Travel Agency - TTA for short. The sole purpose of their team was to find and retrieve people or objects from various points in time and space, for various reasons. They had traveled far and wide throughout the galaxy. They had worked with the police and judicial teams from countless galactic nations, and were one of the elite retrieval teams on Earth.
“Yes, sir!” Zander and Emil said, looking after the Chancellor as he left; then they looked at each other and mouthed “Damn!”
“Place the fourth pearl on the transcaster.” The solemn voice of the Chairman came to them from the distance. The ceremony seemed to be progressing as planned.
Emil and Zander stood quietly for a while, their serious faces staring into the thin air in front of them, each in their own thoughts, not listening to the speeches and cheering just a few feet away. Then Emil whispered, almost to himself, “That’s a game changer!”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” Zander signed back. “They’re almost done and we’re wa-a-ay too late. We should’ve received this assignment long before they casted the first pearl. We could’ve asked Peter to capture the before-readings of all possible locations, and we would’ve only had to worry about the after-readings.”
“You’re forgetting the time dimension. If the transcaster sends the pearls into the past, even the before-readings of the locations might not be accurate, because they would’ve been taken afterward,” Emil said, putting quotation marks with two hands around his last sentence to indicate he was again mimicking Peter.
“Yeah—I’ve got to admit you’re correct, as usual,” Zander said, when a female voice rang in their ears.
“Hey, I’m so happy to find you here, guys!”
“Mary?” Emil and Zander looked at her simultaneously.
She supported herself on them, trying to catch her breath. Her deep-green, multi-pocketed cargo pants had a few dusty spots around her knees as though she had crawled through someone’s attic.
“I have been looking for you everywhere. You need to come with me. Now.” she said in a hurry.
“Where?” Zander said, not realizing how loud he sounded. Mary put her index finger on his lips just in time. Some of the people sitting in the front of the balcony loggia were turning toward them, bothered by the noise.
“We are sorry for bothering you!” Emil excused the group and dragged Zander and Mary outside. Once in the corridor he added, “We talked to the Chancellor.”
“If it’s about the 906-ers and the pearls, then it’s likely that what I came to tell you will be of interest,” Mary said quickly, without taking a breath. Emil and Zander looked at each other as she continued talking as fast as she could. “There has been a security breach in the transcaster administration area. Someone had tampered with the system settings and the pearls’ destination positions have been recorded and transmitted at the same time. Peter’s plotting the locations as we speak,” Mary finished.
“Can we stop it?” Zander rubbed his forehead.
The bracelet on Mary’s wrist vibrated and changed color. She pressed a button to answer the phone call and activated the microphone in her ear.
”Yes, Peter,” she said, then almost yelled, “What?!” She listened for a while. Her face turned pale and she started pacing. “Okay, we’ll be there.” Mary ended the call.
“Peter has all the details about the pearls. He had managed to patch himself into the transcaster administrator console,” she said quickly, looking up at Emil and Zander. “The pearls’ve landed on Earth. All of them.” She paused for a few seconds to give the two men some time to grasp that information then continued with her usual high speed. “Peter wants to show us the details. He had even started to monitor and compare the subconscious readings.”
“Let’s go. Don’t forget that we’ve to meet the Chancellor in six hours.” Emil said as they left the Galactic Committee Building.
Chapter 5
Emil, Zander and Mary made it to the team base in less than an hour. It was an all-time record for traveling the 10 miles from the Galactic Committee Building during the morning peak hours. Everyone seemed to leave their homes between six and nine in the morning, driving their little moveseats like crazy, rushing to reach their offices and beat the rest of the travelers. Nothing had changed for centuries. There were still traffic jams, and now they were everywhere—on the roads, in the air, on the water—thanks to the invention of the moveseats.
The moveseats did not take any parking space at all. The owner simply had to de-materialize them, and the vehicle, with all its content condensed into a tiny bracelet on the owner’s wrist. When needed, the moveseat materialized to its previous state. Small, compact, able to travel on the ground, in the air and on the water, the moveseats continued to disappear from the dealerships like hot cakes. It didn’t take long before all roadways were jammed the way they were before the introduction of the flying cars. Then the people remembered the existence of public transportation, which, due to the moveseat expansion, had decreased their services and vehicle parks. Long story short: all that could have been avoided if the usage of the transcaster was available for civilians. Because no one had yet tested its behavior in high volumes and close proximity, it hadn’t been approved by the Regulatory Commission.
The team base was a two-bedroom apartment in the upper city levels, in the area just below the highest level in the clouds. The neighborhood was considered good: there was virtually no crime and the inhabitants had upper middle class or lower upper class society positions. The apartment’s purpose had recently become twofold. In addition to being the operations center, it was now the place where one of the team members lived since he’d been kicked out of his place for coming home in the wee hours of the night. His belongings were piled in one of the bedrooms next to a floating bed. The other room was used for weapons and tools storage. The team’s collection of power and hand tools, simple weapons, board games, period clothes and shoes, small kitchen appliances and other items used during their assignments were neatly stacked or laid on shelves all the way to the ceiling. The living room was the area they used most. It had an old-fashioned sofa, brought back from one of their assignments, close to one of the walls. A dining room table, with legs cut short and of origins similar to the sofa, served as a coffee table in front of the sofa. Remote controls, computer
bracelets, flexi-threens and holo-threens, measurement devices and other tools and equipment were lying on that and other tables and desks lined up to the walls. Those days, the computers, whether they were credit-card-sized or bracelet type, were called threens because they all had tri-fold screens. The flexi-threes had flexible tri-fold monitors that could be bended in any shape or form as needed. They were great hit among the marketing and advertising industries and were plastered all over the buildings and vehicles. The holo-threens had holographic screens that allowed people sitting at any side of the monitor to see the images displayed. They were very handy when the computer was in the middle of a table surrounded by a group of people discussing the displayed information.
The team used both flexi-threens and holo-threens. Several holographic and flexible monitors were permanently expanded on the walls like paintings in a mansion, all different makes, colors, looks, shapes and sizes, each with its own purpose. Floating, rolling and stationary chairs were scattered throughout the room and were moved around as needed.
Today, Peter had displayed various diagrams, predictive and forecasting models, on most of the monitors. He had adjusted the flexible screens to match the purpose of the complex images helping the three-dimensional symbols to stand out. The two-dimensional representations indicated calculations in progress or showed status reports with pie charts and bar graphs.
When the team gathered before the largest monitor, Peter curved the flexible screen to avoid the reflection from the glowing ceiling and said. “We all know what ‘cast through time and space’ indicates. It literally means ‘throw an item in the vast space and forget about it’ because the random cycle of the transcaster generates indiscriminate and haphazard coordinates. If my calculations are correct, which they are, because I recalculated them more than five times, and the statistical error came below the allowable, infamous five percent…”
Mary rolled her eyes as Peter spoke. She liked Peter and his analyses, but as usual she was more interested in the summary and the conclusion. After all, time was a precious commodity in 2424. You could prepare a three-course meal for ten people and Peter would still be talking about the approach he took to reach a conclusion.
Emil was standing with his arms crossed on his chest and his eyes glued to the monitor, while Zander, soda can in hand, had propped his feet on one of the floating chairs and almost lying on an old-fashioned one, balanced it on its hind legs.
“With the confidence of the three sigma range, with 99.73 percent certainty I can tell you that all five pearls have landed on Earth, in different seasons, within a very vast period of time, starting with the first pearl landing in 1939,” Peter said, biting off the head of a red gummy bear.
Hearing the time and space location of the pearls, Mary snapped to attention. She tried to remember what she knew about that time period when she heard Emil say, “That was when the World War II started,” he commented, as if contemplating something.
If they were to land in Europe in 1939 or later, they had to be fluent in German. It was the time in the Earth’s history when one’s survival was contingent on his skin, hair and eye color, and the language he spoke. The physical changes were something easy to achieve; it was the language that worried Mary. Getting German translators implanted or learning the language the natural way in the short time they had before leaving on the mission tomorrow was not possible.
“You are correct.” Peter put the rest of the red gummy bear in his mouth and continued interrupting Mary’s thoughts. “I extrapolated the data to identify the exact landing location, and one of the pearls landed in Berlin in the spring of 1939.”
“Yeah, this is too much to be a coincidence. Did I hear you say all of the pearls landed on Earth?” Zander asked. He took his feet off the chair and leaned toward Peter, trying to make sense of the diagram on one of the holographic screens. He was able to identify the Moon, the Sun and the rest of the solar system elements at the background, but was confused by the too-many instances of the Earth popping out of the curved and flexible 3D screen.
“I didn’t believe it myself either. Here: one landed in Asia in the fall of 1941 AD, another in Mexico in the spring of 1944 BC. The third one fell onto Australia during the winter of 340 BC and the fifth one in Africa in the summer of 43 AD,” Peter explained pointing at four of the many instances of the Earth with his middle finger. He was holding another gummy bear between his thumb and index finger.
“Could you please stop doing two things at once?” Mary was irritated by Peter’s gestures. “Here, eat the last one and then we’ll continue.” She quickly put the remaining orange gummy bear in Peter’s mouth and threw the empty package in the trash.
“Yeah, she’s on a roll today. Is everything between you two okay?” Zander asked Peter quietly while Mary was not watching.
Peter shrugged in response as Mary pretended she didn’t hear the comment. “Aren’t those scattered?” She focused on the screen. “What d’you think? Where should we go: Germany, Mexico, Africa, China, or Australia?” She was now wondering whether obtaining a Spanish or a Chinese translator implants might be faster due to the number of people still speaking those languages. If it was up to her, she would have selected to go to Australia as the easiest option.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Emil said, but Mary didn’t listen. She had turned to Peter, speaking in a mollifying tone as if trying to make up for the gummy bear scene. “You’re saying the pearls fell at these five places, random numbers of years apart, but yet the Earth, due to the seasonal tilt and rotation offsets, happened to be in exact same location every time?”
“Yes, and you can see how-” In response to her overture, Peter pulled Mary’s chair closer to the screen to explain the details. They’d worked together for over six years now, and he knew exactly what she was thinking. “We might not have to catch up that much after all.” Emil and Zander overheard Peter’s explanation.
“I’m with you: this isn’t a coincidence. Someone sent all five pearls to Earth deliberately, almost certainly hoping to get them back, or just seeking to mess up the history a little bit more.” Emil said to Zander.
“Yeah, some of these pearls were the reason for pretty bad human behavior,” Zander pulled a yo-yo from his pocket and started playing with it. “What do we do now? Do we go back and pick them up after they land? Or—”
“I’d check the history files to see whether anyone found them then. Probably, the 906 Inquisitors went back and found them to bring them here and do the things that they did.” Emil entangled himself in the convoluted statement.
“It is even simpler,” Peter couldn’t resist chiming in. “Here, there are already records indicating that the last of the pearls was discovered by professor Shtuttgart and his wife in the summer of 2003.”
“All five of them were found?” Zander flinched and the yo-yo hit his knee. He rewound the cord and pocketed the toy.
“Yes, all five,” Peter floated on his chair to the other end of the team base, and two of the nearby screens switched from sleep to active mode. “After discovering by accident the first one in Africa, the professor spent five years, between 1998 and 2003, searching for the rest of the set. It is unclear how he came to the conclusion that there were more pearls out there, or even where to look for them.” Peter browsed old news feeds simultaneously on two screens. “In addition, no one had ever seen any of the pearls after the day each one had been discovered.”
“That Professor must’ve been working with the people who just casted the pearls.” Zander said.
Everyone stood behind Peter: Mary was leaning on the back of his chair, playing with his short, spiky hair, Emil with his arms still crossed and Zander with hands deep down in his pockets watched over Peter’s shoulder.
“After 2003, the professor periodically reported his attempts to assemble a device, and then it seems that he gave up in 2007,” Peter continued. “He was positive that the pearls were part of a device, but there is no indication of whether he expect
ed it to be a military device or not.”
“Could you find a recent picture of him?” Emil asked and Peter smiled. Talking about a recent picture of someone who lived more than 400 years before was pretty funny, but he knew what Emil meant.
After surfing the archives for a while, Peter put a family photo of the Shtuttgarts on the screen. The professor and his wife, pearl in hands, were standing behind their two daughters, who had knelt in the front. The family was dressed in work clothes with some kind of gloves on their hands and long-strapped bags across their chests. A smiley face on the elder girls’ T-shirts made it look more like a picture from the family album than that of the greatest discovery of their time period. The picture was taken among large tents, some of which were propped with branches probably freshly cut from the trees. Wheel barrows and shovels could be seen in the background. The image from the old newspaper was gray and grainy. The refined digitalization hadn’t improved it a bit and some areas of the Shtuttgarts’ faces were still blurred.
“This is from the day they discovered the last pearl,” Peter said.
‘Na-ah, the Professor doesn’t look like a bad guy.” Emil said. “The idea of him being linked to the people who casted the pearls to the Earth’s past was great but it doesn’t seem plausible now. Just look at his face or what you can see of it. He looks friendly.”
“He kind of reminds me of your father, Zander.” Mary said.
“What do you mean?” Zander retorted.
“They look like a great family. They must have been happy: doing this as a family, all four of them.” Mary explained.
Zander clenched his teeth and said as professionally as he could, “Peter, isn’t there a more recent picture?”
“I couldn’t find a more recent picture. There isn’t even one from the conference. The article talks about a telecast, but the TV archives are still scrambling to restore their 21st century collection after the big fire there last month.”
