“Thank you.” Keegan nodded diplomatically. It was a show. He was long past needing actual approval from 99% of the people at SATP.
“I’m leaving with my team, though,” she said. “If you’re doing something illegal, I don’t want to have any knowledge of it.”
“Well, we’re not doing anything illegal,” he said. “But I understand your reason for leaving. We’ll do a briefing with you after we’re done.”
“I may not even want that,” she said, then motioned to her team that they were abdicating. The two men rose, tucked their chairs under the desks they were using, and followed her out of the room.
The doors had barely closed before Keegan and Amy sprang into action, attacking the various systems in the control room. Though, in the back of his mind, Keegan was cognizant of the security flaw they were taking advantage of – that if the head of the program and his team had intentions of misusing time travel, there was little anyone could do to stop them. It was the same argument that the Attorney General would be making when he arrived in the morning, and here they were, putting it into practice. Did Reilly alone have the authority to call this mission? No, he didn’t. But was there anyone in the building who could refute his instructions in a limited timeframe? No, there wasn’t.
Keegan blocked the thought from his mind and began activating the coordinates.
CHAPTER 22
Claire felt like she was the only one who knew what was happening, and it scared her.
Of course, she had an advantage over everyone else, having been much closer to Keegan than any of them. But she was astounded how each one of them had permitted him to back them into a corner, so he could fulfill this childish dream to time travel to the desert in the middle of nowhere 10,000 years ago. Talk about opportunistic – he’d been positioning this for a long time, getting Reilly and Robert on side. He’d confirmed it when he’d blurted out that they’d already identified the coordinates for the trip. They’d been taken advantage of, no one was admitting it, and it was too late to do anything about it.
He knew better than to lean on her for support, though, and Amy was wishy-washy on the topic. So, nothing had been guaranteed. But when Davies, who she was sure would put the kibosh on this ridiculous notion, jumped onto Keegan’s side, she’d accepted that there wasn’t much she could do but keep her mouth shut and tell them, “I told you so,” after it was over, SATP was shut down and Robert was sitting in prison.
Unsure, herself, of the environment she’d be encountering in Reilly’s office, she’d tried unsuccessfully to prep Landon. Her hurried speech, formulated on the way to pick him up from his apartment, hadn’t been clear. Trying to find some mythical garden created by some mysterious bearded man in the sky was a bad idea, and if the rest of them were going to follow Keegan blindly toward danger, she’d been hoping to lean on her only teammate who’d done some research in the area. But unfortunately, he couldn’t handle being put on the spot – a deficiency she’d been concerned about during his interview process, and what had compelled her to try to rev him up before the meeting. She’d failed. She’d taken a risk by remaining ambiguous with him, and it hadn’t gotten the job done.
So, instead of gearing up the SATP legal team for the war that would begin the next morning, the squad was prepping for an ill-advised mission that would at best accomplish nothing, and at worst cost them everything. Claire believed that danger could manifest itself in both the past and the present –from an unsuccessful and perilous mission, to only enhancing the ire of the U.S. Attorney General and the President. Keegan’s enthusiasm would ensure that not only would Robert be on the hook for the accusations directed toward the program, but the rest of them, as well.
Rather than dwell on what was ultimately a losing argument in the debate, Claire challenged herself instead to discern what attire might be appropriate for a visit to the magical Garden of Eden. She’d asked Davies to shed some light on the topic before leaving the room, but he’d offered nothing. He’d said there was nothing in their research that suggested what the earliest people’s clothing might have looked like, according to Biblical history. Then he’d made a comment about whether SATP had any fig leaves in their wardrobe department, and left the room.
SATP had a rather extensive and talented wardrobe team, but given the circumstances, Claire didn’t have access to them – not that there was enough time to start from scratch anyway. She’d have to repurpose garb used on a previous mission, or find prototypes. None of this, of course, was her area of expertise, and she tried with all her intellect to dismiss the notion that kept creeping in that she’d been put in charge of clothing because she was a woman.
She did that by taking advantage of the fact that they’d given her carte blanche over the choice. And since she wholeheartedly believed that this trip would yield zero results, she made the decision to have them dress appropriately for a desert wasteland.
The wardrobe department was on the 30th floor of Edison, and contained every brand of state-of-the-art equipment possible. Since the “official” business of the department was to prepare for specific missions, it left a great deal of downtime. Understanding that, and eyeing a revenue resource, the SATP marketing team years ago had created a line of licensed merchandise to replicate the types of apparel that the time travel team would wear on their missions. It was a wildly successful program, and she’d seen a note on social media that Egyptian costumes were already flying off store shelves across the world in honor of Robert the Hero.
Not only did all the design happen here on the campus, but just off-campus was a full manufacturing facility constructed specifically to mass produce apparel. Claire had read at one point that the SATP facility was the third-largest clothing manufacturer in the U.S., which always made her wonder how the private clothing companies felt about government competition. But she was paid to think about other things, not politics.
Muttering to herself because she knew she was short on time, she searched through the on-site wardrobe connect to the main design floor, which was currently empty. Unless there was an impending (scheduled) mission, many of the departments at SATP worked an 8:30-4:30 schedule daily and shut down for the evening. It was part of a programmatic philosophy that overworked people were ineffective. They had some percentages to justify that claim… Something about every hour over eight that someone works without a break diminishes them of six percent of their effectiveness. Which never sounded to Claire like a lot, but the way Human Resources explained it, how that percentage multiplied over several days, made some degree of sense. Right now, though, it was advantageous that the floor was clear for her.
Her hope was that the wardrobe team had begun to prepare for the follow-up mission to Egypt. Standard protocol for the time travel missions was an exploratory mission by Robert, and then a series of investigatory missions by the rest of the team, which would take place several weeks later after Robert’s report had been analyzed and accepted. Claire imagined that wardrobe would already be set up for the rest of the team’s missions, and searched through the large closet-like room to find their work.
Her logic was that ancient Egypt was about as close as they’d come to the time period they were targeting. It was a similar physical environment, Middle Eastern, and she anticipated lots of sand and sunshine. Lightweight linen jumpsuits with shorts and sleeves for the men, which was what Robert had worn for his mission, with the women wearing a similar one-piece outfit but with a skirt on the bottom. From Claire’s thinking, when they got there and found themselves in the middle of nowhere, these clothes would keep them cool in the desert sun until they could get the time cloaks set up and be on their way home. Their appearance would be irrelevant.
After several minutes of searching, Claire found what she was looking for – a section of the wardrobe dedicated to SATP’s current initiative. At first, she began to assess people’s sizes, but then realized they hadn’t even begun to determine who would be going. She assumed Robert and Keegan, Amy and her, but s
he didn’t know about Landon. So, instead of wasting time guessing, she spotted a dolly across the floor and dragged it over to the Egypt section. She began heaving garment after garment onto the cart, then collected several leather belts that were close by, and 20 pairs of sandals of various sizes. She looked around to see if there were any other pieces of equipment that might be attributable to the time period, but saw nothing else but a gaping hole in the wardrobe that was sure to raise questions in the morning. But one way or another, there would be more important things to be worrying about at that point.
Claire glanced at her timeband to see that she was running late to reach the first deadline. And Claire Devereaux met deadlines. She rolled the cart across the floor and out into the design area. A moment later she’d locked the door behind her and was headed for the time lab.
CHAPTER 23
"Are we better?” Reilly asked as Robert and Landon reentered the conference room.
His sarcastic tone told Landon all he needed to know about what was expected of him, regardless of how he felt about it. Since sarcasm was never a tool of communication that had been particularly effective with him, he simply nodded. He noticed Reilly look to Robert for affirmation, which he secured with a nod of his own.
“Good,” Reilly said. “We’ve got lots of work to do.” He motioned toward one of the seats at the conference table.
Landon knew he wasn’t going to get another opportunity to question Reilly with no one else around, so against his better judgment, he refused to sit, standing defiantly with his arms crossed. He may have allowed Robert to cross a hurdle with him to get him to come back into the building, but there was no way he was going to negligently send his new teammates into a situation wrought with uncertainty. “How did we come to this?” he asked.
Reilly had already taken a seat and was thumbing through screens on the tablet in front of him. He looked up. “I’d say it was inevitable,” he said, looking at him. “We’ve had a good run with the program because we’ve been able to find political champions. But there have been opponents all along. We didn’t do a good enough job of-”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Landon said, cutting him off. To his credit, Reilly didn’t get defensive. He simply stopped talking and looked questioningly at him. “You know what I’m talking about.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Eden,” Landon said, not willing to play the game. “How did SATP get to the point where Eden is a viable mission? During the recruitment process, we talked about all kinds of fantastical missions that SATP had on its docket in the near future – to destinations that were well-vetted, well-researched and well-thought out. Never once was a mission to Eden discussed, or mentioned off-hand even as a possibility. Yet, here we are ready to embark on what is a wildly dangerous proposition that everyone else seems to have had on their radar for some time. My question to you is: how did we get here?”
To his side, Robert laughed. “Funny,” he said. “Sometimes I ask myself the same exact question.”
“Let me ask you something first, Dr. Tripathi,” Reilly said. “What’s the purpose of time travel?”
“I don’t understand-”
“No, it’s a simple question. We have the most revolutionary technology that mankind has ever created. What do we use it for? How do we justify the billions and billions of dollars that have been spent to create this campus and the whole SATP program?”
“Research. Enhancing human knowledge to not duplicate the mistakes of the past.”
Reilly tilted his head. “C’mon. Really? Seems like we overspent.”
“That’s not my judgment to make,” Landon said.
“Well, the good thing is that’s not what time travel is for. It’s great copy for SATP brochures and for seventh graders touring the facility, but it’s not realistic. We can accomplish what you just laid out with documented history. We have accomplished it. We’ve been doing it for tens of thousands of years. We don’t need SATP to do that.” Landon was distracted for a moment as Robert sat, leaving him standing alone. “No, there are really only two possible reasons why human time travel is valuable. The first is to go back and not learn from the mistakes of the past, but actually change them. But, of course, that’s illegal and unethical. And we’ve designed the rules and procedures of the program to ensure that doesn’t happen. Which means there’s only one other reason why time travel is important.”
“And that is?”
“To solve the mysteries that have confounded us about the evolution of man, of society and culture,” Reilly said. “It’s no secret why our team leader is not a military expert or a historian. He’s a sociologist. Because sociology is the biggest hole in our current understanding of our world. Our mission is to find out how people lived at various periods of time and why. What drove people to build communities, and what drove them to conflict. Human nature does not change. We just create different problems for ourselves. The Eden mission is a natural next step for us after Robert’s mission to Egypt. Back to a time before cities were built. Before agricultural science was discovered. Before organized religion was envisioned.” Though Reilly was speaking peacefully, his demeanor was strangely challenging. Perhaps it was their current time constraints and his impatience, but Landon felt as though he seemed exceedingly driven – even more so than two hours before.
But he determined he wasn’t going to fall for it. “I have no intent to debate you, General,” he said, knowing that engaging him only made a stronger case for the validity of the mission. “But you’re making inferences about cities, agriculture and religion.”
“I know I am,” Reilly said. “Absolutely, I am. But we won’t know the truth until we get there.”
The door opened behind Landon and Claire entered, carrying an aluminum tray that she set on the cabinet along the far wall. The smell of spices quickly filled the room. “Last supper,” she said. “Before we go, I mean. Eat up.” She looked around the room at everyone’s faces. “What did I miss?”
“Any chance you grabbed plates?” Reilly asked.
“That’s it?” Claire said. “Plates? What’s going on? Are we good?” She looked at Landon.
“We’re chatting,” Robert said, before his timeband flickered with a new message. He checked it, then quietly stood and left the room.
“Alright, someone’s got to tell me what’s going on,” Claire said.
“Landon was just asking for the background on the Eden mission,” Reilly said. “I was enlightening him on why we do what we do.”
“Keegan’s grabbing plates and utensils,” Claire said. “I don’t eat the crap that you guys eat, so I don’t pay attention to what accoutrements you need.”
“Keegan’s got too much to do to worry about plates.”
“And I don’t?” Claire said.
“I’m sorry,” Reilly said, getting up from his chair and peeling back a layer of foil from the top of the tray Claire had delivered. “Well, it smells good,” he said. “I appreciate you thinking of it. We have to eat, and it wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Landon?”
Now, he laughed out loud. Reilly was seriously talking about food. “No, thank you,” he said. “I’ll wait for a plate.” He wondered if their conversation was over.
The door opened again, and Barney entered. “I just heard from Maggie O’Neill,” he announced. “The AG is nervous that we’re going to try to smuggle Robert out and hide him. He’s coming first thing in the morning. Early.”
“Early like when?” Reilly asked.
“First thing. That’s all I know. Expect him to have an entourage of FBI agents and attorneys with him, and expect him to come in here like a hammer.”
There was silence for a moment while everyone reacted to the news. Or, rather, the confirmation of what they’d already expected. Landon studied the attorney, having never been formally introduced to him. What was this man’s conflict of interest, and how far would he go to fight for the program? As far as Landon c
ould ascertain, Barney wasn’t Robert’s attorney, but a SATP attorney – meaning he was a U.S. federal employee who would report to the very people who were trying to shut them down. In itself, delivering this intelligence was probably a breach of confidence. But, at least on the surface, he seemed to be dedicated to the cause.
If his assessment was accurate, it meant that on this team there was only one person who wasn’t wholly committed to doing what everyone had accepted it would take to protect Robert, and that was him. Seeing Barney standing there waiting for Reilly to unveil the next step in the strategy gave Landon a different perspective. He’d signed on to be a part of this organization, and while he hadn’t had the time or the opportunity to build any kind of camaraderie with these people, they’d put their trust in him by bringing him on-board, and they saw him as a critical player in this ill-advised mission they planned to take. As the fire fled from him, he let out a breath, audible in the quiet room and drawing everyone’s attention. He made eye contact with Reilly.
“What do you need me to do?” he said, with reluctance in his voice, but with slightly more optimism than he’d felt up until just moments before.
Before Reilly could answer, though, the door opened again. Keegan and Amy entered.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Keegan said, heading for the serving tray. “I thought we were running out of time to eat.” Landon had been educated on the rules for prepping for a mission in the 101-level orientation materials they’d sent him. They could not ingest anything within ten hours of a trip to give their bodies time to digest. Anything undigested would be sent through the time portal as if it were a body part. “Anybody grab plates?” Keegan asked.
“You were supposed to get them,” Claire said with annoyance. “We had this conversation.” Landon had noticed animosity between the two of them in their conversations, and had ascertained earlier that they’d dated at some point, maybe even recently.
The Garden Page 15
