The Garden

by Craig W. Turner

  “No, no, it’s okay,” he said. “I understand you were dealing with something. Though, I’m looking forward to finding out what’s happening.”

  “I’m sure you are,” she said. “I also figured you wouldn’t know how to get to Reilly’s office, so I thought I’d give you a lift. We can chat while we walk.”

  “Both would be helpful,” he said, reaching for the controls to close the door.

  She stopped him. “Can I come in for a moment first?”

  Confused, he stepped aside and let her in. “Okay?” he said, following her with his eyes as she walked past him and into his apartment.

  She took about five steps in and then turned around. “I needed to talk with you quickly before we go into the meeting.”

  Landon nodded. “Sure,” he said, wondering where the conversation might go. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, then thought better of it and stood. “Can I get you something?”

  She looked at him cockeyed for a moment, then laughed. “No,” she said. “We don’t have time for that.”

  “Thank goodness,” he said. “I have nothing to give you anyway.”

  The look of seriousness returned to her face. “I wanted to talk in here for a moment so that we didn’t run into any eavesdroppers in the hallway. Something’s happened. Something that could put all of SATP in danger. I’m not going to go into details on that right now because you’ll hear about it upstairs. But you are critical to what happens next. I want to encourage you to speak your mind when we’re together as a team. I can’t tell you why because it’ll be out of context, and you’ll have more questions than I can answer right now. But I don’t want you to think that because you’re the ‘new guy,’ that you should stay mum. You are here for a reason.”

  It was perhaps the most convoluted and esoteric speech he’d ever been given, and despite her amorphous attempt at encouragement, his guard immediately rose. Claire was taking advantage of having built the first real relationship with him at SATP to manipulate him to see her point-of-view on a topic that he hadn’t even been made privy to yet. He started to respond, just to say something, but stopped himself. Better to see how this played out.

  Though, Claire seemed to be waiting for a response – a question, a nod of the head… something. When he didn’t offer it, she herself nodded uncertainly and motioned for them to leave. Landon followed, sliding his door closed behind him.

  What had originally been billed as a chat while they walked turned into a hurried gallop through the halls and elevators to make it to Reilly’s office on time. When Claire, watching her timeband the entire way, realized that there was no chance they’d be there for the start of the meeting, she slowed to a quick walk for the home stretch.

  Still uneasy about the way the situation was playing out, in between breaths, Landon asked, “What am I going to find when I go in that room?”

  Claire did not break her focus. “Thirty seconds more and you’ll know,” she said. A moment later, she stopped at one of the black-and-gray doors and pressed her thumb against the panel to its left. The door slid open, and Claire led him inside. She attempted to explain their tardiness with a flourish, “I’m sorry we’re late. I wanted to make sure-”

  She stopped before Landon could get in the room, so it took a moment for him to see what had disrupted her. When he had a full view of the entire room, it was Keegan, his new friend from the ping-pong game, where he focused his attention, and not because of his size and tattoos. He was looking at Claire, shaking his head solemnly.

  After scanning for who was in the room, Landon looked up at the far wall where a large screen showed a man standing at a podium giving a speech. The volume was muted, but Landon saw the ominous headline crawling across the bottom of the screen: “ROBERT MULVANEY ACCUSED OF MANIPULATING TIME FOR PERSONAL BENEFIT.” His attention went immediately to Robert, sitting in the seat closest to the screen. Robert caught his eye for a moment, then turned away. The man was in pain.

  “What happened?” Claire asked. “I thought this wasn’t happening until morning.”

  “Change of plans,” Reilly, who sat across from Robert, said. “Someone in the AG’s office leaked it to their wife, or their friend, or their paperboy, and it’s all over now. He held this press conference ostensibly so that the media would have some idea what the world was talking about.”

  “How long?” Claire asked. Landon noticed that she stood motionless.

  “It’s been out for about an hour,” Reilly said. “According to preliminary metrics, the news has already reached 11 billion people in 135 countries, and is, as you would expect, the top news story in the world. Helluva week to start at SATP. Am I right, Dr. Tripathi?”

  Not expecting to be called upon, Landon jumped, but caught himself and nodded. “Indeed,” he said, before Reilly motioned him to a seat. He eased into a soft chair at the closer end of the table, with Claire taking the seat across from him.

  In front of him, through the glass tabletop, a monitor showed the same image that was on the larger screen. It was a distraction, so he waved his hand across its surface and the screen went black.

  “Landon, I don’t know who you’ve met and who you haven’t, so before we get into our discussion, let’s just go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves.” He motioned to Robert.

  “General, with all due respect,” Robert said, objecting, then must have read something in Reilly’s eyes, so he turned to Landon. “Robert Mulvaney, project leader.”

  “Keegan McIntyre, Project Operations Manager.”

  “Amy Cheng.”

  “Claire Devereaux.”

  Landon seemed to know everyone on the other side of the table, but no one on his own side.

  “Chester Davies, Head of SATP Research,” the man to his right said in a rich British accent.

  “Caitlyn Bauer, SATP Communications.”

  “Denton Barney, Legal.”

  “I am pleased to meet you all,” Landon said, nodding in Namaste, his palms pressed together reflecting Hindu tradition. He took everyone in, taking note of the diverse array of presentations, from the tattooed goliath choosing to stand while everyone else sat to the sprightly blonde PR director. To Landon, the attorney was predictably dark and mundane. He’d never been a fan of lawyers.

  “When is he coming?” Claire said, continuing her line of questioning.

  “Hold on,” Reilly said, holding up his hands to slow her down. “Before we start making assumptions, let’s make sure everyone in this room is on the same page as far as what we’re facing, what’s real and what’s not, and what our options are. Keegan?”

  Reilly turned the meeting over to Keegan, who moved to the center of the room. “About four hours ago, we received word through a trusted source that the Attorney General of the United States intends to arrest Robert and place a moratorium on SATP’s time travel experiments. At that point, it was hearsay, but our source is a credible one within the U.S. government, so we mobilized the team to create a plan of action. General Reilly leaned on his connections in Washington to ascertain the truth of the report, and found out that the AG is seeking a cease-and-desist warrant from the U.S. Supreme Court to shut down SATP. It’s possible he could secure that warrant by morning.

  “About an hour ago,” he continued, “an unidentified person in the Attorney General’s office tipped off a DC-based blogger of what was going to happen, and he posted – the name of the blog is…”

  “EyeonGovernment.com,” Caitlyn said.

  “Eye on Government,” Keegan repeated. “As General Reilly mentioned, within the hour the report had spread globally. With the news out there, there’s no doubt now that the AG will carry out this plan.”

  “Did they leak it on purpose?” Claire asked.

  Keegan shook his head. “We don’t know. Probably. But it doesn’t matter. Our intelligence tells us that they intend to charge Robert with just about every heinous crime and assassination in history. It’ll create an overload of
casework that will take years to sort through, and effectively shut down SATP. Shut us down.”

  “On American soil,” Amy added. Landon turned to study her face. She was cloaked in determination.

  “Yes, on American soil,” Keegan said.

  “Let’s not confuse ourselves,” Reilly reprimanded. “This is about the next 24 hours. Denton, what’s the reality here? Can they accuse Robert of this?”

  “No,” the attorney said, leaning forward. “Not technically, because in this country Robert is innocent until proven guilty, which of course they can’t possibly do. But that’s not what they’re doing here. What they’re doing is raising the question about time travel. This has nothing to do with Robert. It’s all about whether time travel is safe for humanity or not. If the U.S. Supreme Court decides that that question has not yet been sufficiently answered, we’re out of business until it is.”

  “But if we can’t experiment-” Robert said, but Barney cut him off.

  “Robert, let’s not waste time on a logical discussion here. This is about perception being reality. Bottom line is – prove to me right now that you didn’t assassinate President Kennedy. Or start the fires in Kuala Lumpur. Or sabotage the Brazilian team at the Johannesburg Olympics. You can’t. Don’t think for a second this is about whether you’re guilty or not. It’s about whether you could possibly be guilty. Enough reasonable doubt – which they have because you can’t prove otherwise – and we’ll have to stop.”

  “And Robert?” Reilly asked.

  Barney shook his head. “Robert’s an outstanding citizen. If SATP is shut down – which is their goal – then Robert technically can’t do anymore ‘damage.’ There would be no reason to hold him, but I would anticipate a record-setting bond to keep him out of prison and years of investigation. Maybe a decade. But let’s not fool ourselves. If the AG shows up here tomorrow with a piece of paper from the Supreme Court, it’s over. Notwithstanding Dr. Cheng’s point about jurisdiction.” He motioned across the table to Amy.

  Reilly stood and returned to the front of the room, moving Keegan back to the side. “Caitlyn, where are we with the public?”

  “Well, it’s less important right now where we are, than where the President is,” the young woman said. “Fitcher’s favorables in the last poll were around 55%. What will be telling is the public’s view of him for pursuing this path. While no one wants Robert to be under attack, we do have the good fortune of it being Robert, who is well-liked, both here in the U.S. and around the world. It has been several years since a major political figure has been involved in a high-profile scandal, so the media is all ready to go on this. This President’s base will support him in this, which may have already given him the comfort level he needs to have the AG move ahead, but I believe he’ll lose swing votes.”

  “That’s not what I asked. What about SATP?”

  Landon watched as Caitlyn took a deep breath and started over. She reached to the screen in front of her and touched it. The monitor at the front of the room displayed a word cloud – a group of keywords from a defined internet search, with larger words denoting higher usage. Landon read the words “Mulvaney,” “SATP,” “scandal,” “dirty,” and “sad” as the most prolifically-used words. Statistics on usage appeared to the side.

  “Yikes,” Keegan said.

  “Not good,” Reilly said, agreeing. “We’ll need to fix that. This is from… When?”

  “All media in the last few hours,” Caitlyn reported. She held up her hands. “But I want to caution everyone not to jump to conclusions. This is an initial reaction that happened without SATP having a chance to respond. Regardless of what happens over the next 24 hours, we will have the opportunity to present our side of the story.”

  “Which will be?” Keegan asked.

  She smiled. “Well, of course, that Robert is innocent.”

  “Not good enough,” Barnes said, shaking his head. “Remember, this isn’t about Robert.”

  “Feels like it’s about me,” Robert said. “Feels like it a lot.”

  “With all due respect,” Caitlyn said, turning her chair toward the attorney, “the first thing we need to establish is how unfounded these accusations are. That’s the only way the program is saved.”

  “A press release is not going to save the program,” Barnes said in response. “We can’t spin this. We need, right now, to get our heads around the fact that tomorrow morning SATP is done. Doors are closed. And start approaching all of this from that perspective.”

  “Alright, stop,” Reilly said. “Denton, your points are worth noting, and I agree that we should be keeping the mindset of the worst-case scenario. We still do need a public statement. I want the two of you to develop something and get it to me in an hour.” He paused, letting that sink in as Landon tried to hide from the time bomb of tension to his right. After what seemed an appropriate amount of time, Reilly spoke again. “Now, we have time travel for about… 16 more hours. What are we going to do with it?”

  Landon sat forward in his chair, feeling compelled to speak for the first time. “I’m sorry – did you ask what we’re going to do with it? You intend to time travel? An unscheduled mission, with everyone watching?” He didn’t know if he was speaking at Claire’s urging, or because something simply needed to be said.

  “It’s the only possible thing we can do to save the program,” Keegan said. “We don’t have a choice.”

  He thought for a moment. “You’re going to go back and… What? Assassinate the Attorney General?”

  “No,” Reilly said. “That’s not an option.”

  “Well then, where could you possibly time travel that would have an impact on what’s happening here?”

  “Well, that’s where you come in, Dr. Tripathi,” Reilly said, picking up a packet of papers and sliding it down the table toward him. They landed in front of him, covering his personal screen.

  Landon immediately wished Claire’s advice had been for him to keep his mouth shut.

  CHAPTER 20

  The elevator doors opened and Robert emerged from the box into the park-like setting atop the massive Newton Building, 118 stories above the ground. Newton was the third tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, only behind New York’s Rockefeller IV and Steel City in Pittsburgh. But the impressiveness of Newton was not simply due to its height, but its girth, as well, covering enough of a footprint to contain a 4.5-acre park on its roof. During construction, it had been described to Robert as the length and width of two football fields.

  While the facility itself was a work of architectural genius, the park was in Robert’s opinion the most brilliant thing that SATP had created – and he had to remind himself every time he came up here and was awestruck that the organization had also created human time travel. The elevators from the lower floors by design deposited visitors in the center of the roof, where they were entrenched in one of America’s most beautiful landscapes. From this vantage point, other than perhaps a touch of vertigo only from knowing in your mind that you were on top of a skyscraper, there was no reason to believe you were anywhere other than a premier and well-kept park.

  Though time was absolutely not a luxury, Robert took in his surroundings for a moment. He watched fellow SATP colleagues roam the various trails that had been carved through lush greenery, and more than one young couple readying to take in what was promising to be a glorious sunset. To one side, a gaggle of schoolchildren – their parents finishing up their workday in the building below – played on a jungle gym, chasing each other around with screams of joy while their teachers attempted to corral them.

  It made him sad that it could all end the next morning. These buildings that made up the SATP campus employed and housed more than 24,000 people, all of whom made their living based on the sustainability of the program. While he knew in his mind those people were not his responsibility, as he was merely a piece of the overall puzzle as they were, in his heart he felt he weight of each of their careers, their livelihoods, and their
families on him. He wasn’t being fair to himself, he knew. But even as people passed by him – those who clearly weren’t paying attention to the news – and smiled in recognition, or pointed in excitement at the celebrity among them, he was well aware it was something he wouldn’t be able to shake.

  Reminding himself of the ticking clock, Robert left the elevator bank and headed across the park. None of them were sure where Landon would go when Reilly offered him “a minute” to collect himself, but when a minute turned into twenty, it became apparent they’d have to hunt him down. In a secure facility like SATP, that was relatively easy to do, and within minutes a camera had picked him up in the park near the fountains. Why he’d ended up there they didn’t know, though they knew he’d toured the park during his interview process. Reasoning that he’d gotten him into this mess, Robert offered to chase him down and talk with him.

  After about a five-minute walk across a courtyard surrounded by stone walls designed to be reminiscent of those you would find across battlefields in the South, Robert spotted Landon against the exterior fence of the rooftop, staring out at the rest of Greensboro more than a quarter mile below. The fence was made of stone – the motif for the rooftop park – but with an endless line of arched windows that were too small for a human to fit through but large enough to provide one of the premier views on the planet. Landon had chosen to face west, so beyond the shorter Curie and Edison buildings, the skyscrapers of Winston-Salem, which had become a bedroom community for SATP suppliers, rose high into the air, and beyond them some of the greenest earth that could be imagined. Robert himself had chosen this location to watch the setting sun on many occasions – generally by himself, as Landon stood there now. The lonely life of a celebrity.

  “Didn’t take you long to find me,” Landon said, without turning toward him.