“What? They’re dead? You said the team was on a mission and returning now. What just happened?”
Dipin wished he knew. Apparently, a lot had changed since they’d been separated, including another mission taking place immediately after the first mission had returned. Somehow, the time portal had been reset and prepped for them to leave again. He took a deep breath and looked at the attorney general seriously. “Let me answer all of your questions,” he said. “First, a person cannot be in the time portal as a mission is engaged without being inside one of the pods. They are affected by the time displacement, but unfortunately without the targeting mechanism that the pod provides.”
“Which means what?”
“Which means their molecules are scrambled as if they’re going through time travel, but unfortunately, since they’re not targeted, they dissipate into space.”
“They dissipate?”
“Sir, you can’t say I didn’t warn you about-”
“So, what was this second mission?”
Dipin shook his head. “Honestly, I’m as lost about that as you are. Something must have happened in between the time we left the control room and the time we arrived here.”
“Well, you’d better find out what happened.”
He looked at the SATP security guard, who motioned to the comm on the far wall. “Let me call up to Dr. McIntyre in the control room and see what happened.” Dipin would have preferred to not have the conversation publicly, but the system didn’t afford him the option of a one-on-one conversation with Keegan. He pressed the code to reach him, though.
A moment later, a voice he didn’t recognize responded. “Control room.” Must have been one of the agents that had infiltrated the room.
“Can I speak to Dr. McIntyre, please?”
“Dr. McIntyre’s not here.”
Where would he have gone under the watch of the agents? It had only been some fifteen minutes. Perhaps Keegan had picked up on his cryptic advice when he was leaving the room and found some way to make it work. “Well, who’s in charge there?”
There was a pause as the Attorney General sidled up next to him, as curious as Dipin was to know what was happening. Some static, and then a woman’s voice: “This is Senator O’Neill,” it said.
“Oh, man,” Dipin said, turning to look at the Attorney General as he tried to put his fist through the concrete wall of the security room.
CHAPTER 76
Apparently, cramming two people into a pod not suitable for their combined size had the effect of violently forcing them apart as they arrived at their time travel destination. Keegan felt himself tumbling at least a dozen feet from where they first appeared, and when he gathered himself to look back, he saw Reilly the same distance away in the other direction. They were in the middle of an empty football stadium, lying on artificial turf. The sun shined brightly overhead, and the air was warm, but not hot. Comfortable.
“What would you call that phenomenon?” he said as glibly as possible.
“I call it you going to jail for the rest of your life,” Reilly said, standing. He was furious. “Where in God’s name are we?”
“September 14, 2067.”
“That means absolutely nothing to me.” He was seething.
“We’re at Yale University.”
Reilly, now storming towards Keegan, held his hands out and shook his head. He had no clue. Keegan looked for a glance away, or anything that might show he was hiding something.
“Look, General,” Keegan said, “you have some options here. Before I tell you why we’re at Yale University in 2067, you’re going to tell me what’s going on at SATP. I think you know a hell of a lot more than you’re letting on.”
Reilly reached him. “Get me back home immediately, or I’m going to have you-”
Keegan shook his head. “No, I hate to tell you this, but you’re not in charge right now,” he said. “I’ll deal with whatever happens when I get back, but right now, I have two cloaks here, both set to return to 2109. You’re not getting the second one if you don’t open up to me and right now.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“It was the only way I could get you alone,” he said. “Back at SATP…” He paused and looked off into the distance. “I don’t know what was about to happen. But I’m pretty certain that you’re in on it, and I knew I was never going to have the chance to find out if I didn’t get you away from the rest of them.”
“What makes you think I’m in on it?” Confirming there was something going on.
“Let me ask you a question, General,” he said. “When you returned from your mission – just a few minutes ago – and it was just you and me standing there, why did you ask me why I was there?”
Reilly let out a sigh and shook his head. “I don’t understand why you’re-”
“The first question you asked was about me. Why didn’t you ask where the rest of the team was? You were supposed to be arriving with all of them, at the same time. If it were me, that would’ve been my first question.”
Reilly raised an eyebrow. “Well, point in question, Dr. McIntyre, why haven’t you asked that of me?”
He laughed. “Because I know exactly where they are,” he said. “But you don’t. And I don’t think you care. Because I think you’re working with the President.”
“That’s preposterous. I built this program. Why would I let it be shut down?”
“General, I have about forty-five minutes to get where I need to be,” Keegan said. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to disappear with your return trip here, and you’re going to get to live the last 40 years over again.”
He was shaking his head. “You’d never do that. Leave me alone here with nothing to do but exact revenge on you?”
Keegan pointed at him. “You’re right,” he said. “But that’s not the reason.”
“What’s the reason, then?”
He paused, not having a reasonable answer. “Because I’m not going to do that, Andrew,” he said. “Because it’s wrong. I’m not going to leave you here. But, I do need you to tell me what’s happening, and I, unlike you, I imagine, am willing to stay here until I find out.”
Reilly looked him in the eye. “I can get that pack from you,” he said.
“Don’t bet on it,” Keegan returned, smiling.
He put his hands out to the sides. “What do you want me to tell you, Keegan?”
“Well, wait,” Keegan said. “We have to walk while we talk.” He turned and started across the field toward the tunnel where the Yale football team would come out before home games. “Are you coming?”
Reilly, unsure, took a few steps toward him, then committed to the venture.
“The Eden mission was a cover, wasn’t it?” Keegan asked as they walked. “I’m going to hope that’s the case, and not what my fears are-”
“The Eden mission was something we’ve talked about for a long time,” Reilly said. “In fact, if you’re not blinded by conspiracy theories, you’ll remember that it was your idea in the first place.”
“Yes, yes,” Keegan said. “But that’s not what drove this. I know you too well. You would never have authorized such a haphazard mission, thrown together at the last minute. Especially the most ambitious mission we’ve ever taken. Plus, with two team members who had never time traveled before. In retrospect, I’m amazed that we went along with it.”
“You didn’t ‘go along with it’ – you jumped at the opportunity,” Reilly said as they entered the tunnel. Keegan started to look for a way out. “You couldn’t wait to go, and you talked everyone else into it.”
He was nodding as Reilly talked. He was right. His ambition, or his jealousy of Robert or his desire to be the leader had gotten the best of him. “I can’t argue that,” he said. “I can’t. But I don’t think I was aware of the stakes. What is it? Are the President and the Attorney General really going to shut down the program?”
“Yes.”
“Is anothe
r country going to pick it up?”
“No.”
Keegan knew the public gates to the stadium would be locked, so he looked for access doors as they walked through the empty corridor. Eventually, he saw an “Exit” sign, and pointed toward it.
“What are you doing?” Reilly asked. “We can’t walk around dressed like this?” He tugged at his tunic to emphasize his point.
“I have an idea for that,” Keegan said. “I just hope it works.” He pushed the door open and they walked back into sunlight. “Andrew, you said it yourself – you built this program,” he said. “Are you going to just let them rip it apart?”
“I have my boss and he has his boss,” Reilly said. Keegan thought he sensed a hitch in his voice. Was he conflicted?
It was an interesting answer, suggesting to Keegan that perhaps he was not one hundred percent on-board with whatever was happening. He stopped walking, and turned to face Reilly, who also stopped, and was looking down to the ground. “General,” he said, going back to the formal address in hopes it would demonstrate to him that the conversation had taken a positive turn, “we’re safe here. You and I are the only ones who can fix the situation.” He paused, looking at him, before Reilly looked up. As he made eye contact, it suddenly came clear to Keegan what was happening. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “He’s going to shut the program down, and take control of it himself.”
Reilly looked away.
“Andrew,” back to the informality, “you have been the most protective steward of time travel technology other than, maybe, Jay Chopra, himself. How on Earth could you be a part of this?” He paused, a thousand thoughts filling his mind with the potentially horrible possibilities of an ambitious politician having the ultimate weapon at his disposal: the ability to change his enemies’ past. “This is what Dipin found out, wasn’t it? That’s why he disappeared.”
Reilly was now shaking his head. “I didn’t want any part of it,” he said. “I didn’t. And neither did Dipin, of course. They threatened to…”
“Threatened to what?”
“Well, not threatened, but tried to… to lose him in time.”
“What does that mean? Lose him in time?” Keegan saw a large crowd of young men and women congregating toward the baseball stadium in the distance. He looked around and saw what he needed. “Great,” he said, rushing off to his right toward the Yale Store situated on the edge of the football stadium property. “I figured there had to be a store near the stadiums.”
“For what? Clothes?” Reilly said, trying to keep up. “We’re going to steal them?”
“No,” Keegan said, reaching the glass door of the storefront, a standalone building with a giant bulldog emblem hanging over the entrance. He led Reilly inside, where they quickly swept through the showroom, each grabbing Yale-licensed pants and t-shirts – Keegan’s plea that they could possibly have big-and-tall apparel in stock coming true. Keegan grabbed a Yale hat, too, only because he saw one he liked.
“Are we using our good looks to pay for these?” Reilly asked.
“We’re using your thumb,” Keegan said. “It hasn’t changed, right?”
Reilly looked at him for a long moment, then nodded slowly. After changing in the dressing room, Reilly used his thumbprint to charge his younger self for the purchase, and within five minutes, they were joining the crowd headed for the baseball stadium.
“What did you mean, they were going to ‘lose’ Dipin in time?” Keegan said, having bookmarked exactly where they’d left off the conversation.
“It’s exactly as it sounds,” he said. “Dump him somewhere in time where he couldn’t influence what was happening and wouldn’t be able to find a way back.”
“They told him this? To his face?”
“No. He found out.”
Keegan noticed he was getting some looks for his face tattoos. They wouldn’t come into style for about thirty years. “So, he disappeared,” he said. “Did they threaten you with the same thing?”
Reilly shook his head again. “No, I didn’t get that far,” he said. “I was already part of the new administration’s team, as they demanded a review of the program…”
“I remember,” Keegan said.
“As the head of SATP, I was brought into the conversation early. It became clear to me quickly that their interest in the program was not to keep it running as it was, but to make significant changes. I don’t hold any ill-will against Dipin for doing what he did, but I couldn’t. I thought the only hope for the safe preservation of time travel was if I stayed involved.” He paused. “I thought I could keep them at bay from the inside. Figured I had years. What political initiative moves quickly? But I couldn’t. The President went into action immediately. What’s it been? Six months, since he’s been inaugurated?”
“Seven.” The crowd was getting thicker, filling in a web of walkways separated by lush, green grass, as they neared the Yale baseball stadium.
Reilly laughed sarcastically at Keegan’s penchant for precision. “Well, yes, seven,” he said. “Unfortunately, like a new employee trying to impress the boss, I pitched to them the possibility of a world-altering Eden mission in one of our early meetings. Even gave you the credit for coming up with it. I never expected it to be expedited the way it was. I gambled and lost. Just like that, I was being called upon to do things that weren’t in the plan.”
They reached an impasse in the crowd and casually got into a line funneling into the stadium. There were 100 or so people waiting to get in.
“You authorized me months ago to do the background. Why did Landon’s arrival make the mission a priority?”
Reilly shook his head. “No, Landon’s arrival had nothing to do with it. It was the success of the Egypt mission. Knowing we could reliably travel to ancient times and beyond. We needed to test the time portal to learn its capacity before attempting the mission.”
“But you were insistent on Landon going on the mission against his will,” he said, realizing he should probably keep his voice down amongst the crowd. He glanced around. No one seemed to be paying attention. “Why did you make him-” He cut himself off. “Please tell me you didn’t.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “I was supposed to, but I didn’t.” He paused, then looked up at Keegan. “I thought you said you knew where they are.”
“I know where they’re supposed to be,” he said whispering angrily. “I didn’t know you were going to try to leave them there.” That one got a look from a brunette a few feet away. Keegan used his body to shield her from the conversation. “What happened?”
“I was in the middle of figuring out a better plan and we were attacked – well, we weren’t attacked, but we were stampeded by a pride of lions,” he said. “I had the gun with me and it fell out of my pocket. Robert found it and gave me a pretty good thrashing. You have to trust me that I never intended to use it. I was trying to find a way out, but next thing I knew, I was the enemy, they’re taking away my return cloak and that big oaf Davies has me in a headlock.”
Keegan had to choose between asking about the gun and the lions. “Lions?”
“Yes,” he said. “We found it.”
Keegan looked around to check for listeners again, then leaned in closer to the General. “You found it? The Garden of Eden? It was there?”
Reilly nodded. “That was the victory. The silver lining in this whole thing.”
“Adam and Eve?”
Now Reilly himself looked around, scanning the vicinity. “It’s not really time for that right now,” he said. “We can debrief later. Right now, I need you to fill me in on why we’re here and how I can help.”
Keegan stood back to his full 6’7” frame and exhaled, looking over the crowd. They were getting closer to the entrance gates. He looked back down at Reilly. “Please tell me you’re on the up-and-up,” he said.
“Keegan, I’m going to prove it to you,” Reilly said, then paused and took a deep breath. “You don’t have to threaten to leave me here in the past beca
use I’m not going back with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’ve rescued me in a way,” he said. “I had two choices back in 2109. I could carry out the President’s plan and destroy not only the program I have safeguarded for twenty years, but people I care deeply about, and probably millions of people around the world… Or, I can disobey my commander-in-chief, and be eliminated for doing so.”
Keegan shook his head. “For a million reasons, I can’t let you do that.”
Reilly laughed. “A minute ago you were fine with leaving me here.”
“Yes, but that was never going to happen. General, you have to come back.”
He shook his head again. “I’m not coming, Keegan. Trust me, I know the dangers of time travel and of changing the past and the future. I’m 63 years old. SATP is all I have. I will start a new life for myself here, and it will be distant from the life I’ve had. Believe me. I’m not going back to support the President.”
Keegan let out a breath again. This was a twist he hadn’t anticipated, and he was not certain what his reaction should be.
“Now what are we here for?”
He paused for a moment before answering, then said, “Something a little different than what I’d originally planned.”
CHAPTER 77
“We’re not the stealthiest pair here,” Keegan said as he and Reilly made their way through the crowd looking for a reasonable way to reach the Yale baseball team’s home dugout.
“You were going to try to find the President in this mess?” Reilly asked. “You were hoping for some pretty good luck.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t have much time to plan,” he said. “And I didn’t know everything that you did about what was happening.” As they’d waited in line, Keegan had explained to Reilly that the address that was being given this day – September 14, 2067 – was the one specifically mentioned in President Fitcher’s autobiography as a turning point in his political life. In his haste, Keegan had envisioned finding the future President and doing whatever he could to steer him away from attending the event. Upon arriving, though, he had realized that his chances of finding him were somewhere between none and none. “This is a better plan, anyway.”
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