Timelines

by Bob Blink

  I looked at the small group of people who had shared our secret for the past decade. We had chosen carefully. This was not an average group from the 21st century. While the majority were American, more than a third were from other countries. Although many were academics, we had chosen people with a spirit of adventure and resourcefulness. Most had spend considerable time in the field, both back home before joining us, and then again exploring the various eras we had access to via the time complex. Self assurance, individuality, and confidence in their fellow explorers was a common factor in their character. They had faced hardship and the unknown, and found the challenges exciting and rewarding. These individuals had known all along that we would one day have to deal with the aliens. There were a few, however, who did not fit this mold. Especially in the last few years, we had brought in several people whose skills were felt important even if they didn’t have the same strength of character and sense of adventure we had sought in the beginning. These were the ones I worried about today.

  At the front of the assembly were Naiya, Carol, John, Al, Ed, Mike, and myself. We would lead the discussion, giving first a status, and then open the conversation so anyone could be heard. Those of us at the front of the room were of a like mind. It remained to be seen how the rest of the team would feel about the issues that faced us. The meeting was scheduled to start at 10:00 AM, but by ten minutes to the hour it was clearly evident that everyone was already present. There was no reason not to get started.

  Carol walked over to the mike while the rest of us slipped quietly into our chairs. The assembly was hushed, eager to get started. The past day and a half had provided everyone the opportunity to think through the surprising events surrounding the reappearance of the alien builders. Today the tone was more somber, as compared to the excitement and apprehension of the previous meeting.

  “Let me explain how we would like to approach this discussion,” she began. “There are multiple issues to be considered, as well as some information to be shared that has a direct bearing on the decisions we need to make. Most of you are aware of some of the information that I want to share this morning. A few of you know most of it. But it is important that everyone be fully informed, so I want to take a minute and summarize what we know. And what we think,” she added. Carol looked around the audience noting the general agreement her words had received.

  “The aliens established this center secretly, and have maintained it across thousands of years of earth’s history. Our group is still trying to understand their purpose, although in recent months we have started to uncover clues that indicate their actions have had a dramatic effect on the history of the human race. We all know the aliens returned without warning two days ago. Three of the alien beings entered the time complex for several hours. That is the first time we have seen any indication they are still around since the contact I had with them over fifteen years ago. On that occasion, I observed a total of four of the aliens. Two of the aliens kidnapped my brother for reasons that are still unknown, and one of the aliens was killed by me. I used a weapon that we have no access to anymore. That fact may be important later in this discussion. This time, the three aliens were captured on the video you have all seen, so for the first time we have a photographic record of their visit. Two of the aliens visited uptime, to the period where we have found an essentially deserted planet. They stayed about an hour. While they were gone, the third alien activated several of the computers in the control room, and somehow initiated the areas filled with the circling bands of color I’m sure everyone has had a chance to look at by now. Then they all exited through the same door through which they entered.” She paused for a sip of water. “That’s what we know for certain. We also have a variety of hints, clues, guesses, and thoughts, all with differing degrees of certainty.”

  A hand went up in the third row of seats, and a female voice asked without waiting to be acknowledged. “When do we think they will be back? I heard you had a theory that predicted their return.”

  Carol smiled briefly. “Your question is probably the first one that comes to everyone’s mind. I wish any of us knew when they will return. We can only guess. I have no theory that sheds any light on how long a visit typically lasts. There simply isn’t any data. What you are referring to is an inference I made using some very sketchy data that seemed to imply the visits were periodic. The periodic nature of that data indicated this year was a high probability for a return. Perhaps this visit validates that theory; perhaps the visit is simply coincidence. Now that they are here, we have nothing on which to base any assumptions regarding on how long they will be here.”

  “Are you sure they are even coming back?” insisted the voice. “Maybe they will be gone for another fifteen years!” I recognized her now. She was one of the timid ones. She had never traveled before, spending full time as one of the workers in the home office. She wasn’t one of the curious, adventuresome ones, but a superb programmer which is why she had been brought into the group a while back. She would be back in the 21st century soon, so she was only peripherally affected.

  “Of that I think there is little doubt. The brief visit the other day seemed to be a quick check of something that was of interest to them, and the initiation of an action that we must assume they will soon be following up. That leads us to at least three key questions.” She emphasized each one carefully. “First, when will they return to the control center? Second, how long will they be staying? We know they are sometimes absent for very long periods. Will they be here a day, a week, a year? We don’t have anything that helps us even guess. Third, what will they be doing while they are here, and what are the implications to us, and to the world?”

  A number of hands went up, but she shook her head. “Let me walk through this first, then we will get to questions. The first question is extremely important, because the answer determines how much time we have to prepare, and directly relates to whether the aliens will discover our presence in the control center. We don’t know when they will be returning to the control center,” she emphasized again. “The best guess of the group up here with me,” and she used her left arm to indicate the rest of us sitting beside her, “is that it won’t be immediately. We might be dead wrong. The aliens might be just outside that door, having their equivalent of a beer, eager to get down to work. If that’s the case, we are in trouble because we won’t have time to make any real preparations. We might not even have time to move people out. You have seen the security in the center. If the aliens come back today they will discover our presence, and we will have a confrontation. I’d bet it is a confrontation we would lose, because I don’t think we are ready yet. But I personally believe we have some time. Our experience with the complex and their long absence suggests they don’t move quickly. We think they are creating new tunnels. Our expectation is that the aliens won’t return until the new tunnels have been completed. Or perhaps just before.”

  Carol stopped and scanned the audience. Everyone seemed to be following her train of thought.

  “Progress on the developing tunnels is not obvious, at least so far. Some of us had thought we would see the tunnels growing, which might provide an indication of progress. Either they don’t develop that way, or there has been too little progress to be evident yet. That would actually be good for us, because it would imply it might be some time before they are complete. We simply don’t know yet. If, one or more of the tunnels complete, we should operate as if the aliens would be coming on the same day.”

  There were no questions for now. People were waiting to see what else she had to say.

  “The next two questions I suggested earlier are linked. While it might be very important for us to know how long they might stay, the answer appears linked to the third question. So let me talk about that. What will they be doing while they are here? Here again, we have to look at what we have observed about them thus far, and try and see if there is a pattern that suggests likely actions. Briefly we have observed the following. On the fir
st visit we know of, they kidnapped and most likely killed a military scientist, my brother. From the materials left in the center we have indications this wasn’t a unique event. Martin and his team left a few days ago to investigate references we found of another specific instance of the aliens removing another individual from the time line. Just a short time ago we found that Martin and his team left a message in the time drop adjacent to their tunnel cave. The conclusion of his team after many months of investigation is that the individual was almost definitely killed by an alien.”

  “How could they have spent months investigating?” a voice asked from the group. “They just left a few days ago.”

  Al spoke up, fielding the question. “We sent someone to check the drop yesterday even though it has been less than two weeks our time because of a theory that addresses some of the effects of closing the tunnel.” He didn’t mention it was his theory, and he had been right. “All of us have become used to events in the different eras being linked together. This is not natural time behavior. Somehow the presence of the tunnels changes the natural execution of events. Once the tunnel to the time Martin and his team traveled to was closed, that abnormal linkage was severed. For those of us uptime of Martin, everything he did the rest of his life has now happened. He has lived and died, and left every message he will ever leave. We found messages in the drop dated as much as ten years after the date he first entered the era. There are clues to the operation of the time matrix here, but they are not appropriate for this meeting.” He nodded to Carol, giving the floor back to her.

  Carol continued. “In addition to these specific events where an individual appears to have been targeted by the alien visitors, we have several partial translations of their documents that suggest that the aliens have made a habit of fooling around with the flow of our history. The history we now recognize as real appears to be the result of adjustments made to past events to cause the flow to develop along the current path. This is not confirmed, but is what several of us believe based on the progress we have made with their language and the few documents available to us. But it leads to an assumed answer to question three. We are guessing that additional tunnels are being opened into other periods of the earth’s history where the aliens have plans to make additional changes. If we are correct, the effect of this visit on all of us will depend greatly on what periods those new tunnels open into and exactly what actions are being considered in those eras.”

  “What do you mean how it might affect all of us?” asked Thomas. He was one of the older techs, and had been with us for years. I knew he understood the implications, but I suspected he felt some of the others weren’t getting the idea and he wanted Carol to answer in more detail to help some of the others to understand. A rugged, no nonsense individual, he seldom went all the way back uptime to the 21st century. I knew for a fact that he had taken all of his vacation periods exploring other eras, and had visited the post civil war era three or four times. Thanks Thomas, I thought to myself.

  Carol explained. “Suppose the aliens have decided that the current world in which the United States is the world leader is not producing whatever effect they seem to be searching for. Then, one of those tunnels may lead to a time where they could make an adjustment the result of which might be to remove the United States from known history. Perhaps the British retain control of the colonies. That’s a quick example, but consider how many of you would even exist in such a world. We don’t even know if such a change would affect just those uptime of the change, or whether even those of us downtime might be wiped from existence.”

  This caused a lot of small discussions to break out among the audience. Carol began again as the discussions died away. “As you can see, we suffer from limited information. The aliens return comes just as we were starting to make our first real headway with their language. But there is a potentially positive side to the visit as well.” Carol looked over to John as she continued. “John indicates that the visit has opened up a myriad of possibilities that should help us understand their system, and the aliens intent as well.”

  John took the opportunity to explain, along with a little pep talk. I knew that he was afraid people would want to back away, just at the time everything was starting to come together. “Take a minute and think back why each of us joined this project. We recognized a problem and a threat and wanted to find the answers behind it all. Didn’t we all expect one day to encounter the aliens?” he asked rhetorically. “And so it has finally happened. I guess we didn’t actually meet, merely came close. However, look at what they have left us. After so many years of trying, we have a control center with a least some of the equipment functioning. We have tapes and recordings of the aliens, and a chance to learn more about them than any time in the past. So far we haven’t had time to sort through all of the information gathered in the last two days. The clues are there. I think we now have the information in our hands to be able to activate their systems.” He paused for emphasis. “But to take advantage of the opportunity, we need to remain in the control center. Some aspects can be pursued offline, but the most significant opportunities exists only there.”

  “And if we elect to maintain a presence in the control center, we will be immediately obvious to the aliens should they return,” I reminded them. “That means we will have to prepare for a fight, in case they appear suddenly again.”

  “Most of us aren’t fighters,” one of the other programmers in the back objected. “We seem to be heading down a path that leaves no choice but a confrontation with the aliens. Are we sure we can’t just slip into the background and wait them out?”

  Mike spoke up before Ed had a chance. “We have enough people on the team that are trained and capable to handle any fighting that might become necessary. We are not proposing that each of you become actively involved in the fighting that might occur. The key in any fight will be to keep the aliens from the control center. If they are able to push us back and retake control, then the battle is already over. We all know there is only so much room inside the center, so it won’t take that many people to mount our defense. The fight will have to be sudden and decisive. Remember, based on the two instances Carol noted, the alien teams appear to typically be small groups.”

  We were getting ahead of things, but before I could say anything Ed spoke up. “We will be talking more about this later, but whatever path we decide, most people will be relocated, at least temporarily. Most of you will be going to facilities we maintain back to the 21st century, but some of you would be sent to other times on a volunteer basis. I’ll be talking about this backup plan and what it means in a little while.”

  I finally had a chance to answer the earlier question. “Waiting the alien team out has significant potential downside. Carol already pointed out that actions taken by the aliens while we were in hiding that could have consequences that we don’t like, or are completely unable to recover from. Also, once they take over the center, we have no idea how long they will be here. It could be a day, or they could be coming back to reoccupy the center full time. Even attempting to slip into the center to check and see if they have left would have significant risk. The only way to check is to enter the complex. If one of us were seen, then the whole plan is blown. The aliens might shut down all of the tunnels they aren’t using, effectively isolating us from ever entering the system again.”

  While I let the thoughts sink in, I thought of another point that had been raised. “If we elect to stay and gather as much information as possible, we aren’t committed indefinitely. There will be other opportunities to re-evaluate our position as we learn more.”

  “If we learn something that favorably changes our view of their intentions,” John suggested.

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “I really don’t think that will happen based on what we have seen, but it is one instance where we might pull back. If the reasons for being in the complex change, we always have the opportunity to rethink our plans. Of course, it’s more likely we will uncove
r something that confirms our fears.”

  “What if we are wrong, and can’t stop them. What if the defensive team is over-run? What happens then? Shouldn’t we consider having the military involved now, before the aliens return?” I was happy to note an almost universal shaking of heads by the team. Most were not going to buy the idea of government involvement.

  Mike wanted to respond to the question. “If we can’t stop this group of aliens, then it is unlikely the military would be able to either,” he stated positively. “We have already talked about the limited area for a confrontation. The defense we are proposing would not be what you have seen in the command center today. I am uneasy with that as well, but until we agree to go forward, we have only setup what we can quickly remove. I have on hand everything needed to mount a full military response, thanks to a few black market acquisitions that Carol has pursued the last few years.”

  “Consider the complications associated with attempting to bring in the military,” I added. “Also the time factor. Our group and this project is something we have kept hidden for years. The government is totally unaware any of this exists. Despite the fact we are known in government circles and have a certain credibility, imagine the reaction if we were to approach our contacts within the government with our story of imminent alien invasion. Can you see us being taken at face value? Our claims would be almost unbelievable. What can we do to support our story? Show them the video of the aliens. Hollywood could do better than our tapes.