Masters of the Broken Watches

by Razi Imam

  The general nodded. He was growing annoyed. “What’s the matter, son? Yes, you had lunch with me yesterday. And now it’s 1130 hours the following morning.”

  “Thank you, general,” Sebastian said. He turned to Cebrián. “Let me call you back.” He disconnected the call and sat down at the table and took a deep breath. “Does anyone want water?” he asked. No one answered. He walked over grabbed a couple water bottles from the kitchen fridge and sat back down. He drank half a bottle in one go. “Poseidon, what time is it?” he asked, clearing his throat.

  “According to my system clock on the plane, it is three fifteen p.m.” Poseidon’s voice reverberated throughout the hangar. “However, when I sync my onboard server system clock with the Andersen Air Force Base system clock, the two do not match. The base’s system clock is twenty-two hours ahead.”

  “How can that be?” Sebastian asked, not believing what he was hearing. “Do you think there’s been a malfunction?”

  “I have run diagnostics on my systems,” Poseidon replied. “There is no malfunction. In the hangar, twenty-two minutes have passed. However, all the system clocks I am connected to throughout the world have advanced by twenty-two hours.”

  “Guys, what’s happened?” Fabienne whispered.

  “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for all of this,” Sebastian assured her.

  “What do you mean, a logical explanation?” Fabienne said. “You heard Cebrián, the general—Poseidon. All three can’t be wrong. Something’s happened.”

  “Let’s get some fresh air and clear our heads,” Sebastian suggested.

  They all walked out and Sebastian noted that the sun was in a different position than when they’d walked into the hangar an hour ago. It should have been closer to setting, but in fact it looked like it hadn’t yet reached high noon. The same security guard stood nearby.

  Maria walked up to him. “Hi, how are you?”

  The guard smiled. “All good, thank you, ma’am.”

  “Have you been on duty for the last few hours?” Maria asked. The team stood at a distance, trying to look casual as they strained to hear the conversation.

  “Yes ma’am,” he replied. “I got here at 0700. May I help you with something?”

  “I do have a question,” Maria said. “When did you last see us?”

  The guard narrowed his eyes, trying to determine if it was trick question. “Ma’am, the last I saw you and the team was around 1300 hours yesterday, going inside the hangar.”

  Maria mustered a smile and thanked him, walking back to the team.

  Sebastian noticed the three masons eyeing Maria and Fabienne. He approached them as the team looked on. By all appearances, he seemed to be having a normal conversation with them. The masons pointed toward a wall, and the magnitude of what had happened hit the whole group at once. The bricks they’d seen stacked high on pallets an hour earlier were gone, and in their place stood a fifteen-foot-long, shoulder-height wall.

  Sebastian walked back to the group. “Let’s play it cool. Did you notice the wall?” The team nodded, eyes wide.

  “Things aren’t making sense,” Michelangelo said. “That wall couldn’t have been built in an hour.”

  “The guard also said he saw us yesterday,” Maria added.

  The all stood there in shock, unsure of their reality. After a few awkward minutes looking around, they walked back in and returned to their stations, restarting their computers, phones, and lab machines. Poseidon and the Gulfstream computer had to be reset to the proper date and time. Maria sat down and swung her legs up onto the table, and Fabienne joined her. “Nothing tells me we’ve been awake for twenty-two hours,” Fabienne said. “We’re not tired or hungry. We’re all operating normal. The guys don’t even have stubble on their faces.”

  Sebastian was quiet, looking at the monitor with its array of white dots, when the most logical thought took control of his mind. “I think we may have just experienced a time-dilation event.”

  “Time dilation?” Shiloh repeated. He sat down next to Maria, running his hands through his hair. “I can’t wrap my head around that. According to the laws of relativity, we have to be traveling at the speed of light to experience such a thing. Plus, the light from those frosted skylights in the ceiling didn’t even change with the supposed sunset and sunrise.”

  “Shiloh, I think we were surrounded by blue mist the whole time. That must have obstructed our view,” Fabienne said.

  “What blue mist?” Shiloh asked.

  “I’m sure I saw it,” Fabienne insisted.

  “I saw it too,” Nidal chimed in.

  Sebastian picked up a whiteboard marker, uncapped it, and then clicked it close. He did that a few times and then spoke. “Quoting Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ This whole experience is mind boggling, but let’s run the experiment again to confirm our findings.”

  “I’m not sure we should do that,” Fabienne warned. “We’re dealing with some serious unknown forces here. Guys, the world outside jumped ahead by twenty-two hours while we experienced twenty-two minutes in the hangar.”

  Nidal stood up. “What if we run the experiment for one minute and see if time jumps by an hour outside?”

  “Okay, let’s try it,” Sebastian said.

  All this time Maria stood in silence, observing the team dynamic playing out. Sebastian, true to his nature, was pushing the team to take risks, and they were adapting to his way of thinking.

  The team prepared the test again, this time with an added experiment. They set up two biological fungal reactions in separate Petri dishes. One was placed outside, where the time dilation wouldn’t have any effect. The other was placed on Fabienne’s table.

  The MALDI was set up to fire one-minute laser bursts. Poseidon synchronized the hangar server system clock with the base system clock.

  Sebastian flipped the switch. They heard the click of the laser, and a new set of particles registered on the sensing plate. This time, the team took note of the opaque blue-green mist that surrounded them.

  After a minute, the familiar click was heard again, and the next set of particles landed on the plate. “One minute has passed here,” Shiloh marked.

  “Poseidon, display the time of the base’s system clock on the monitor,” Sebastian said.

  The team stood in silence as they all saw that one full hour had passed on the base’s system clock.

  Maria ran outside and came back with the Petri dish, handing it off to Fabienne. “This is scary, guys,” Fabienne breathed, comparing it to the one on her desk. “The fungal reaction from outside has grown as if an hour has passed, and the one on my table shows a minute’s worth of growth.” She paused. “Do you know what this means?”

  Shiloh interjected, “Somehow, this one side of the nodule is emitting particles that are having some kind of weird effect on our time in the hangar?”

  Just then, Cebrián’s name popped up on the monitor, and Sebastian answered the call. “So, how’s it going?” Cebrián asked. “Were you able to solve how you lost track of time?”

  “We have a theory,” Sebastian offered. “I’m glad you’re sitting down. We just ran the experiment again and confirmed our findings. Cebrián, as absurd as this may sound, we think we’ve experienced time dilation.”

  “Time dilation?” Cebrián repeated. He was reading something on the screen. “Poseidon is sending me the reports.” He paused. “Wow, fascinating! How does it feel when you’re experiencing time dilation?”

  Fabienne spoke up. “Speaking for myself, I’m freaked out. It’s like I’m living an episode of The Twilight Zone.”

  “I’m sure,” Cebrián replied. “I can imagine how disturbing the feeling must be.” He began scribbling in his diary. “How about this? Let’s connect with the world’s leading authority on particle physics, Giulia Valentina, and share our findings with her. I would love to get her perspective.”

  “Sure
, we could use an external point of view,” Sebastian said.

  “Okay, let me see if I can get her this late in the evening,” Cebrián said. He put them on hold.

  Michelangelo jumped up from his chair and approached the screens. “Did he just say Giulia Valentina?”

  “Yes,” Shiloh said. “Why?”

  “Well, she was on the team that discovered the Higgs Boson—the God particle. She’s a legend in particle physics. This is so cool!”

  Minutes later, a rather chic-looking lady with olive-toned skin appeared on the screen. She wore a teal silk nightgown. Her blonde hair was tucked into a layered bob. She was quite graceful, appearing closer to Cebrián’s age, perhaps in her mid-fifties.

  “Hi, Giulia,” Cebrián greeted. “Sorry to call you so late.”

  “Not a problem, Cebrián,” Giulia replied. “You know I’m always here for you.”

  The team raised their eyebrows. She appeared to be flirting with him. Perhaps they had some history. “But what is so urgent that you made me throw on my gown? You know I sleep in the nude. Couldn’t it wait till tomorrow?”

  Cebrián smiled. “You Italians are a passionate people, but I appreciate you putting something on before joining the videoconference. Meet my team, at present time located in Guam.”

  She adjusted her hair and made sure her gown was now covering her. “Hi, team. My apologies about the nude comment. I thought Cebrián was the only one on the call. My system doesn’t always show every party, for some reason.”

  Cebrián continued, unfazed. “Giulia, you know about my work these days—”

  “Yes,” she interjected, “your name has come up. You’re doing some science fiction stuff. And you know I’m a big fan of your work.”

  Cebrián ignored her comment. “I’m sending you the results of some preliminary experiments performed by my team.”

  Giulia read the report with a causal expression of intrigue. She squinted and pursed her lips. “Cebrián, what are you saying? This looks like time dilation.”

  Cebrián grinned. “That’s why I called you so late.”

  “Okay, you have my attention,” Giulia said.

  Sebastian brought her up to speed on the specimen, the hexagonal nodule and their two experiments.

  Giulia listened. “Incredible. This might mean the other sides of the nodule have time properties too. Some of us at CERN believe that gravity is a particle. We’re searching for the elusive Graviton particle using the Hadron Collider. Maybe your team of—what did you say, Paramarines?—May have by accident discovered a time particle.”

  The team gazed at her, shocked, digesting the enormity of what she was suggesting. A time particle?

  Giulia continued. “This is big! If you’ve found a time particle, this will change our understanding of time as we know it. No one has ever come across a find like this. I recommend we transfer the experiment to CERN and continue your research here.”

  “Thank you, Giulia,” Cebrián said. “If what you’re saying is true, then they must stay in Guam, away from the press and government influence. We have to proceed with extreme caution.”

  “Really, Cebrián?” Giulia said. “How do you propose keeping this quiet? This discovery—if it’s indeed what I’m reading in these reports—will change the world from this time forward. No pun intended.”

  “Good point,” Cebrián agreed. “I’ll initiate the Honeycomb Protocol to safeguard our findings.”

  “Okay, if you invoke Honeycomb, then I agree,” Giulia said. “Let the team stay in Guam and conduct their experiments. Just keep me in the loop.” She smiled and blew Cebrián a kiss. “Ciao.”

  Cebrián disconnected the call with her and addressed the team. “So, how do you all wish to proceed?”

  There was a moment of awkward silence. Sebastian turned to Maria, Michelangelo, and Nidal. “Do you guys think you can help develop a plan to find the source of the fish? Where did Pham Kai catch it? If he caught one, there must be more.” The three of them exchanged glances and nodded their agreement.

  He shifted his gaze to Fabienne. “Fabienne, would you help me develop the protocols to test the remaining sides of the nodule and find out what other time-related particles may be hiding there.”

  Fabienne nodded, a slight frown creasing her brow.

  Lifting his head and speaking in the air he said, “Poseidon, I need you to figure out the parameters of the first particle. We need to determine and control the effects of the time dilation. Also, search for published quantum research that may shed some light on the type of particle we’ve discovered. I’d like you to develop the best scientific description of it.

  “And Shiloh, I need your help designing a portable device using the 3-D printer that allows us to utilize the time control capability of the nodule.”

  “What do you mean?” Fabienne interjected. “You intend to use these capabilities?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Sebastian answered, “but it would be good to be able to generate these particles without bulky lab machines.”

  “Okay, you guys. We’ll reconnect tomorrow,” Cebrián said, signing off. The team saw Cebrián’s lips curl into a hint of a smile. They knew what he was thinking—bringing Sebastian on board had been an excellent move.

  The hangar was quiet except for the humming of laptops and the rush of air from the ducts. Maria was the first to break the silence. She shot a glance at Sebastian. “You know what works for me when I’m stressed? A good run! You guys wanna go for a run before we call it a day and catch up on some sleep?”

  Nidal and Michelangelo declined, making up some story about having to stay back and process reams of data. Shiloh, Fabienne, and Sebastian welcomed the idea.

  Four of them gathered outside. Maria was wearing a red tank top and loose fitting hip-length black running shorts. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail. Fabienne wore running tights and a worn-out, loosely fitted UC San Diego T-shirt. Shiloh and Sebastian were dressed in their workout clothes.

  Maria recommended a five-mile run around the base and shared some basic rules. “We’re going to avoid roads and run on paths. Let’s try to stay in a two-by-two formation. And please don’t put on headphones.” There was an element of military precision to her instructions.

  Fabienne and Shiloh surprised Sebastian. It turned out they were runners—they kept pace without a struggle. About thirty minutes in, they reached a coffee shop called Island Girl’s Coffee ‘n’ Quenchers, a standalone structure with decorative bamboo siding in the middle of a strip mall parking lot, a drive-through on its side. It had a small table out front and big banners that read, COFFEE, SMOTHIES, and FRAPPES.

  They all got drinks and sat outside, taking in the warm Guam breeze. Shiloh opened up the conversation. “So, what should we call this particle?” Fabienne frowned at him, thinking he’d lost it. Sebastian and Maria were intrigued.

  Before anyone could answer, he continued sipping his drink. “I’ve been giving this some thought. Hear me out. We know it creates a time field that’s slower than the time outside of it, which I’ll call ‘normal time,’ for now. It’s as if normal time sped away from us when we were in this field. I’d like to call these particles Rahpido. It’s a made up word, but I like it.”

  “I like it too,” Maria chimed in. “How do you pronounce it? Run it by me again. Sounds Spanish to me.”

  “Rah-PEE-doh,” Shiloh enunciated. “And yes, it has Spanish roots,” he added, smiling. “Imagine this. We’re in a plane traveling from New York to L.A., and there are three classes—First Class, Economy and Rahpido class. It’s a six-hour flight. Passengers settle in First and Economy, and start watching episodes of Lost. Some start working on their laptops.

  “Passengers who paid extra to be in Rahpido class notice a device on the wall with a sign saying one hour equals six hours in normal time. When the plane takes off, this device emits Rahpido particles into their cabin and passengers are surrounded by this blue mist. Now, passengers in First class and Economy class sit
ting in normal time start watching episodes of Lost and experience the full six hours. They end up watching six episodes of Lost. The passengers in Rahpido class complete just one episode before landing in L.A. They paid extra to experience one hour of flight instead of the full six hours, even though it took them the full six hours to get to L.A.”

  “That’s pretty good,” Sebastian said.

  Fabienne taking a sip of her drink saw an object hovering several hundred yards away. “What is that?” she said, pointing.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Mist

  “Fling me across the fabric of time and the seas of space. Make me nothing, and from nothing—everything.”

  ~ Rumi

  MARIA DIDN’T EVEN turn her head. “It’s a drone. It’s been following us since we left the base. Courtesy of Cebrián and the brigadier general, I’m sure.”

  Fabienne’s eyes widened. “Are we in some kind of danger?”

  “No,” Sebastian said, “but let’s face it. It’s like Shiloh explained. If this specimen is capable of creating time particles, then the implications to our world are nothing short of astronomical. Until we understand all the aspects of the nodule and how to control it, having added security isn’t a bad thing.”

  They finished their drinks and headed back to the base. On reaching the hangar, there were two new guards stationed at the entrance. As they showed their badges, one of the guards informed them that a keypad security system had also been activated at the request of the brigadier general. He gave them the code and showed them the alert sequence in the event they needed to call for help. Word had spread that the team of scientists had discovered something big.

  The hangar was quiet. Michelangelo and Nidal were fast asleep. After they had all taken turns showering, they found a bottle of single malt whisky in one of the cupboards and spent a relaxing evening sharing their backgrounds and past lives.

  Maria kept quiet and sidestepped the conversation. They all called it a night except Fabienne. She sat there on the kitchen table reading news on her phone. She was too anxious to sleep. She wanted to know what happened in the world during the twenty-two hours they had lost.