Timelines

by Bob Blink

  “We have weapons not available to you,” he insisted.

  “Don’t bullshit me colonel,” I shot back. “You don’t have shit! You forget what we have here. We have a time machine. We have been to the future where all of your little secrets are not so secret anymore. We can read about what you have in the library. Don’t think we didn’t do just that when we were considering our defenses. We know exactly what is available now. Surprise! What you have hidden away in your arsenals are no better than B-B-pistols against this enemy.”

  For once the man was quiet. The others were silent as well, considering their options.

  “Don’t you people understand?” I asked. “What is coming is not just another of their work ships. It isn’t manned with just more of their technicians or scientists or workers or whatever those aliens were. This ship is going to be massive. From what we have been able to deduce from the activities underway, this ship carries up to a dozen of the ships you explored yesterday as work vehicles. It is going to have hundreds of the aliens on board. They aren’t going to be surprised this time. They will arrive expecting a problem, and be prepared to deal with it. We don’t know what weapons they will have. What we have seen thus far might be the equivalent to a sidearm as opposed to a full scale combat weapon. The ship itself will probably be armed. Hell, they might have a king sized version of the rifle they can use to take out everyone on the station before they even board. A hand-full of marines with your best equipment will be crushed like ants.”

  “So what are you suggesting?” asked army colonel Thompson.

  “Exactly what Jeff here must have briefed you on already. We wanted you to come here and see this facility and recognize the fact the situation is real and dire. Well, you have. You can’t have any doubts about the capabilities of this complex even though you have only scratched the surface of what is here. Recent events should have made the urgency equally clear. So, given the change in events, I can see no point in delaying your return. Time is now working against us.”

  “You want to destroy the facility?” summarized Colonel Wilson.

  “Precisely,” I agreed. “You have been told about the timetable they are constrained by. You can see for yourselves we haven’t a chance to stand against them, and they aren’t interested in being our friends. Our only hope is to take away their ability to manipulate us. We are lucky they have this constraint. Otherwise they would simply rebuild what we destroy and would come back and manipulate history to undo all we are going to attempt.”

  “They might do that anyway,” someone insisted.

  “They might,” I agreed. “And if they do we are lost anyway. But this seems our best chance.”

  There was more discussion of course. These weren’t the kind of men that like being directed. In the end they knew we were serious. They had no lever to work against us, and we would simply lock them out and make our own attempt. In the end they agreed to take what they had learned back to Washington and make their recommendations. We explained that unless they were willing to supply a couple of nuclear weapons, ten megatons or better, we didn’t need any further discussions. Jeff was to stay here as a liaison. Less than an hour later they were outside and on their way to the airport. I wasn’t at all comfortable how this was going to play out.

  Chapter 51

  Time Complex

  52000 BC

  [Seattle Time: Wednesday, 4 October 2006]

  It was just past noon and we once again had the place to ourselves. We had returned to the residence a bit earlier after completing the meetings at the complex allowing our visitors to make plans for the trip back to the East Coast. The change in plans and the departure from the residence had happened quickly. While a couple of the colonels would have liked to stay and see more of the facility as we had originally offered, the importance of hurrying back with what they had seen took priority. The events that had led to the alien ship changing direction back towards earth were not lost on them. We had departed the complex as a group, with Naiya and I escorting them back to the residence and answering any relevant last minute questions. With the exception of Jeff, who had somewhere along the way seemed to become one of us, the others had packed their few belongings, jumped into their rental cars, and headed back into town where they would catch the waiting ride back to Washington. It was interesting that they each had brought their own vehicle out here rather than share a car or two among the group. Your government dollars at work I guess. Jeff explained there was a military transport standing by and the plane would be ready to hurry them back to their respective superiors where they could tell their stories. No need to wait for the slower commercial transport. I would have liked to listen in on those conversations. Well, either way I suspected we would know the response in a couple of days.

  I still had trouble associating Jeff with the uniform he now wore. Despite the fact he had told us the truth of his employer, we had known him as an agent, then as a prisoner of sorts. The last couple of days were the first time we had seen him in his true role, and the uniform was part of that. It didn’t fit him in my mind.

  “You want to move back into the base with us?” I asked him as we made our way back into the building after watching the last of the cars drive away.

  He shook his head. “I’d like to, but I’m going to need to stay where they can reach me,” he indicated. “Unless you have gotten phone service into the facility.”

  No such luck. It would have been a great help. However, we had absolutely no progress getting the alien communication devices to operate. Al was starting to wonder if that’s what they were at all. While we had found some operations manuals for equipment, so far nothing on the gear the aliens seemed to carry with them on expeditions away from the complex. That meant we had to communicate outside the same way we had been doing all along. Someone had to exit the tunnel in the appropriate era and make contact via our secure systems. It was cumbersome, and meant we were out of contact most of the time. It didn’t look like we were likely to find an answer in the short time that remained to us.

  “But I’d like to come back for the afternoon,” he added sincerely. “I’d like to see some of the people that I couldn’t talk with the other day.”

  Naiya smiled and took his arm, leading him back inside. “Why don’t we have some lunch, and then head back,” she suggested.

  I was encouraged by her reaction. She could read people far better than I ever could. The fact she showed such warm feelings toward Jeff told me she was certain where his true feelings lay. I hadn’t been as certain. With everything that had happened, I didn’t know if his loyalties might still be with the group that had left. While they were here he had been forced to remain a bit distant. I had invited him back in hopes of probing at bit to see what I could learn.

  The staff, including the extras that had been hired from a local catering company for the duration of the stay of the visitors were still available, so we asked them to prepare a simple lunch for the three of us. Jeff asked if he could slip away for a minute, and returned shortly there-after in his usual clothes. He looked far more comfortable in Levis and sports shirt, and when we sat down for lunch he seemed his old self. Conversation was mostly personal, with Jeff telling a bit about his background, but soon shifted toward the adventure that had almost stranded Naiya uptime. Jeff hadn’t heard the details and was fascinated by what had happened. A bit later we picked up and headed back to the complex

  Back inside, Jeff headed to the base while I headed upstairs to catch up on status. We planned to have a meeting in an hour, which we had invited Jeff to attend. With only a few weeks now before the aliens returned, we had to make whatever preparations we could. That meant making sure the team was happy where they had chosen to live. Soon they would have to commit. In a couple of weeks the complex was no longer going to be available. Either we would have succeeded in destroying it, or the aliens would have retaken control. Anyone that wanted to change where they would live out their lives needed to relocate now. Anyone
going through the 21st century tunnel now had to worry about being observed by the government. Naiya had gone with Jeff as she was supposed to see Doc this morning for a quick check-up. John had arrived from town while we were seeing the guests off, and Al was bringing him up to speed when I climbed the ramp up to the control area.

  “Jim,” greeted John, his face a bit drawn. It had been his man that had been carried away with the ship this morning. I knew they had been friends, so the loss was very personal for him.

  “I’m sorry,” I replied, but it seemed empty. There really wasn’t much I could say. The past week had been costly on friends and co-workers.

  “There’s no way we could have known,” he responded. “I just keep thinking what he must be feeling.”

  “I had similar thoughts, but had tried to put them aside. It was likely John’s friend was alive, and would be until the ship encountered the alien fleet. That left him a lot of time to think about what was coming. The ship’s air supply matched the oxygen rich atmosphere of the station, which would keep him alive. There was water on board, and while there wasn’t any food, he could well survive for the duration of the trip. We had removed all weapons, so he had nothing with which to defend himself when he encountered the creatures.

  Al interrupted and shifted our thoughts to the more immediate concern. “The ship is moving faster than we initially thought,” he informed me. “I was just showing John the latest estimates. The distance traveled used for extrapolation is still short, and we are calculating it from the display, so I can’t say how accurate we are, but I would estimate we have at most three weeks. Oh, and based on the velocity we are seeing out of the ship that left here, it will meet up with the mother ship in ten days or so.”

  Not good. The time for preparations was rapidly being eroded away. Even if we got the desired response from Washington, how quickly could they move? All we could do was continue with our own plans for damaging the station. No workable approach had been devised to totally destroy the facility if the government didn’t come through. I told them of the get together to sit down and walk through the status of everything. They agreed to meet me and I wandered over and took another look at the displays before heading to the base. The ship from the station was already a significant distance from the earth. The alien mother ship had also moved a detectable amount since this morning. Al had run the scale to full magnification to get a better measurement. I hoped the morning wouldn’t yield us an even worse estimate.

  It took less than a half an hour to walk through the options available to us. We had covered the ground often enough before so it was mostly a matter of setting the plans in motion. Mike, Jeff and Naiya were surprised by the update in the arrival time. Jeff promised to forward it to Washington after he got back to the residence a bit later. John had an automatic monitor set up to check for any messages that might come into the station, but otherwise there was little to do. Long ago we had copied the information stored in the on-board systems. He would have his people remove all of the computers that weren’t involved in controlling the tunnels themselves. In addition to planning as much destruction as possible, we would strip the station bare of everything we could to make operations more difficult. It was probably a futile gesture. From what we had seen of the utility ship, they had lots of spares.

  We had a brief status on Thomas and his attempts to track down the alien. They were convinced now the alien knew they were looking for it. It had been extremely successful in staying hidden. There were thoughts that its extended range of vision made it fully functional at night when they were limited. It still looked like it might be slowly working its way back toward the tunnel, so we should remain alert against its returning. It was at least four days away though. Jeff suggested the use of night vision equipment. The military had some very effective portable gear these days. It was a possibility, but the idea of sending in troops didn’t appeal. They might help locate the alien, but with only normal rifles, we would probably just have a large number of dead soldiers for our trouble.

  Jeff had listened carefully to everything we had discussed. If we were right about him, then he would have full knowledge of what we faced to try and sway his superiors back in Washington. We didn’t know for certain, but it was a common belief that at least some of the individuals that had visited us were dead set against supporting our requests. We still didn’t know for certain where he stood. As he told his story, most of us became convinced he was with us.

  Jeff had arrived in Washington late the day he left here. He went in the next day, even though it was a Sunday, knowing his boss would be at work anyway. He hadn’t called ahead, feeling it would be best to catch his boss, brief him, and then decide how to proceed. His reception had been awkward, to say the least. Most thought he was dead, and then to appear in perfect health after weeks without communication had some people wondering. People wondered why he had disappeared after the accident. Like any organization there are levels and a chain of command one is supposed to follow. Jeff had remained firm. What he had to tell, was for his boss only. It had taken most of the morning, but the respect that had developed between the two of them earlier paid off. His boss came to see him. Jeff explained just enough that a closed meeting was set up. Just Jeff, his boss, and the second in command of their organization.

  “They didn’t believe me of course,” Jeff said. He smiled as he recalled the doubt that had greeted his initial disclosures. “But once I started bringing out the videos the feeling of the meeting started to change. So much of the footage would have been hard to fake. But the doubts remained. It’s not something that one accepts easily.” He smiled at Al. “It was your little package that really made believers out of them.”

  I smiled. It had been clever, and while it had taken a bit of work to gather the data, it was something they couldn’t argue with. Jeff needed to convince them that time travel was real. Enough to get them to come and see for themselves. Al had sent one of his people uptime to dig into the historical files. Earthquakes aren’t predictable. But people keep detailed records of them. Every day there are hundreds of them, mostly small events that go unnoticed. Each day there are a number of medium magnitude quakes as well. So we gathered the data for all the quakes around the world for the week ahead of Jeff’s return to Washington. All the earthquakes above 3.5 were listed. The time, location, magnitude was all listed in the files. Jeff took a print-out with him. During his meeting he presented this as partial proof. It wasn’t something he could fake.

  “They didn’t understand at first. When I explained that it was a list of earthquakes that were going to happen the next several days they expressed doubts. I thought for a bit that I had lost them. I insisted they contact the International Seismological Center [ISC] office that tracks earthquakes world wide and have hourly updates sent to them of all the earthquakes in the range specified. It didn’t take long. There were several over the next couple of hours. Each time the data that came in matched the advance listing I had given them.” He smiled as he remembered the realization dawning on them that the list he had given them was an accurate indication of what was to come.

  “I had to go over the story again. Lots of questions this time. My boss was convinced it was essential to meet with you.” He stopped his narrative for a minute and told us. “He was really impressed while he was here. By the way, he agrees with your assessment. Had the military been in charge during the first attack they would have lost. They would have under estimated the enemy’s capability and been poorly prepared.”

  “You boss was here?” Naiya asked.

  “Colonel Wilson,” Carol guessed correctly. I had just guessed the same.

  Jeff pointed his finger at her acknowledging the correctness of her guess. “Except it’s really General Wilson,” he explained. “Three stars.”

  “Why did he pretend to be a colonel?” asked Naiya. “And should you be telling us this?”

  “He gave me permission to bring you up to speed,” Jeff replied. “And the
others don’t know who he is. It’s one of the reasons they kind of stayed away from him while they were here. The others had all heard of each other at least. He didn’t want them to know. Since they were all colonels, he felt it was best he be one as well, a junior colonel in fact. Had he come as a general, the dynamic of the situation would have been totally different. He wanted to see how the various organizations were going to approach this situation. What we saw in Washington wasn’t encouraging.”

  This was something I wanted to hear. The visit hadn’t ended in a way that made me confident. Too much was riding on the next couple of weeks, and I feared that Washington politics were going to be a significant factor in deciding how things would be decided. “Tell us what you saw,” I asked.

  “Where to start,” Jeff mumbled to himself. “After my boss became convinced of the importance, he used his channels to get word to the president. That’s when things started to move quickly.” He smiled at us. “Well, you wanted high level attention. Anyway, after the basics were presented in a private meeting, the president wanted the joint chiefs in on this. And the FBI. The NSG is very much out of favor with the President at the moment. We tried to dissuade them of bringing the FBI in, but to no avail. That was where things started to slip away.”

  He paused for a drink of water. “The FBI learned that I had been held for several weeks. That’s kidnapping. That’s all it took to set them off. They started building a list of your crimes, at least the ones they knew of. Your team had covered up information on the Kurt Morris killing. Members of your team had been there when it happened and had not come forward. You had also kidnapped Kurt Morris and held him. That’s another charge of kidnapping. Records also indicate two of Kurt’s employees had disappeared. Maybe that means a couple of murder charges need to be added to the list? This had been a case that had embarrassed them publicly for over a year. They also did some digging and found you had threatened that private detective. He admitted to having been shot at by Naiya. Even if she didn’t mean to actually shoot him, the threat was enough in their minds. There were lesser crimes, and they expected a full investigation to uncover a long list of other violations. They wanted to arrest the lot of you. Nothing else seemed to matter to them.”