“I see,” said Vargas, who seemed satisfied by this answer. “So how long until your actual demonstration?” he asked. “And do I get to choose which object you send back?”
“You’re not getting this, are you?” said Knight. “I’m not sending an object back. I’m sending you.”
Vargas’s eyes widened, but he otherwise retained a stoic expression.
“No proof is more convincing,” continued Knight. “Forty-five millionths of a second. When you arrive in the past, it’ll be like a trip down memory lane,” he added with a grin.
“Your time machine is in the back of the trailer,” said Vargas, “isn’t it?”
“Very good.”
“But it’s above ground,” said Vargas. “Won’t something that goes back in time end up a few feet too high?”
“No. Objects don’t end up inside solid matter, and they don’t end up in mid-air, either, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Has to do with gravity.”
“So you can time travel from an airplane?”
Knight shook his head. “We tried. The time machine has to be closer than about seventeen feet to the ground or it won’t work.”
“It’s all so . . . arbitrary,” said Vargas.
“It only seems that way,” said Knight. “Once we have a full understanding of the underlying laws of nature, it will all make sense. That’s why Nathan Wexler’s work is so important. Not just for extending the distance we can travel back in time to a half-second. It will help us derive a universal theory to explain this, to manipulate it.”
Knight paused for a moment and then continued. “At one time the motion of the planets in our solar system seemed arbitrary. Then Kepler came along with his laws of planetary motion. Newton followed with his laws of gravitation, improving upon Kepler, allowing us to precisely explain what we were seeing and to predict the future. All except for the planet Mercury, whose orbit was slightly different than Newton’s equations predicted. Then Einstein came along. His work, which gave us a better understanding of gravity, was able to precisely explain why Mercury’s orbit was off. That’s how science works.”
“You can skip the history lessons,” said Vargas bluntly. “I’d like to remain focused on the present.” He arched an eyebrow. “And what you have in mind for the future.”
“Good,” said Knight. “Then let’s get right to it.”
He and the gun-toting version of Jack Rourk climbed back into the trailer and then motioned for the colonel to do the same.
Once Vargas had joined them, Knight peeled adhesive from a flat piece of black plastic, the size of a nickel, and stuck it on Vargas’s shirt. “The sensor I was telling you about,” he explained. “It will communicate directly with the time machine once you land. The time machine has its own sensors that will detect you and abort a second firing, but it’s better to have redundancy.”
Knight gestured for his guest to enter the device that filled the back ten feet of the trailer. “There’s a comm system inside,” he explained. “So we can communicate without shouting.”
Vargas entered the transparent Plexiglas compartment and closed the airtight door behind him, his expression skeptical. Talk about unimpressive. The device didn’t just look low-tech, it looked no-tech. Where were the spinning vortices, lights, and space-distorting visuals he had come to expect from time travel movies?
“Stand on the small X in the center,” said Knight, manipulating the computer on his small table. “Time travel will commence in exactly two minutes.”
Knight began to exit the vehicle.
“Where are you going?” asked Vargas.
“Two of the Jacks and I will be greeting you when you arrive back in time.” He gestured to the third Jack Rourk, still in the trailer, still holding his gun, although at least now that Vargas was behind Plexiglas, the weapon was down at his side. “This Jack will make sure you don’t get lonely in there.”
Saying this, Knight exited the trailer, not waiting for a response.
Vargas remained glued to the small white X in the middle of the Plexiglas chamber, feeling like an idiot. There was no way this could really work. The contraption just seemed too simple.
After a period of time, a computer voice filled the small chamber. “Time travel commencing in ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . ”
Vargas braced himself for whatever was to come. He had asked Knight questions about the how of time travel. Perhaps he should have asked about its safety, its effect on the human body. He supposed he was about to find out.
“. . . one . . . zero,” said the computer, and before the final number had even fully registered Vargas was standing on dirt, with Edgar Knight and two Jack Rourks just a few yards away. There was no disorientation, no visual distortion, no sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
One instant he was in the truck, the next he was here. Unbelievable.
“Welcome to the past,” said Knight. “If you need help understanding our ancient version of English, let me know,” he added wryly.
“This isn’t about time travel at all,” said Vargas. “It’s about teleportation.”
“It’s mostly about duplication,” Knight corrected. “Which is great on its own, but a negative when it comes to teleportation. Let me show you what your dislocation in space has wrought.”
Knight led the group the fifty-eight feet back to the truck, where Jack Rourk had already escorted Colonel Hank Vargas back out of the trailer and to the ground.
“Holy shit!” said the Vargas who had just exited the vehicle as he watched his double and Knight approach. “I thought it had failed,” he said to Knight when they arrived. “I thought you were playing me for a fool.”
“That’s because it did fail. The you it worked on is right beside me. Once it worked on him, it failed to work on you.”
Both versions of Vargas considered this statement in silence.
“Go ahead and talk to each other,” said Knight. “Ask each other questions. Whatever it takes to convince yourselves that the man you’re looking at is as much you as you are. That he knows everything about your past that you do. Your deepest, darkest secrets. Your most forbidden desires. I’ll wait.”
“No need,” said both men in unison. “I’m convinced already.”
Both were taken aback as they realized they had issued identical responses, further underscoring that they weren’t just identical in appearance.
“That’s great to hear,” said Knight, removing a silenced gun from a hidden holster and firing without an instant’s hesitation. He pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession, and the Vargas who had not traveled through time fell to the soil, his blood adding further nutrients to the fallow ground.
“What the fuck?” shouted Hank Vargas, taken completely by surprise. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Don’t tell me you got attached to him already?” said Knight. “You only just met.”
“Why?” said Vargas. He knew Knight was dangerous and cold-blooded, but even he hadn’t guessed the man could kill with such ruthless, emotionless efficiency, even given that the victim had been a duplicate.
“The why should be obvious. I only need one of you. And you only need one of you. Unless you wanted to share your life and your paycheck with him. I made an exception for Jack, but we can’t have any freelancing Hank Vargas’s running around. Besides, I want you to feel special.”
Knight returned the gun to its holster. “I can’t say I didn’t enjoy that,” he added with a cruel smile. “When you were my boss, you could be a real asshole.” An air of menace came over his features. “No offense.”
“None taken,” spat Vargas, his guard now fully up where it belonged. Knight had acted friendly and had lulled him to sleep. He wouldn’t be lulled again.
“I’m disappointed by your lack of backbone,” said Knight. “Duplicates are expendable. The time machine giveth, and you and I taketh away. If you’re going to be joining me, you need to toughen up.”
Var
gas’s expression darkened further. Be careful what you wish for, he thought, but aloud he said, “I’ll make sure my toughness never comes into question again.”
32
Knight escorted Vargas into the farmhouse along with all three Rourks, who stood guard as unobtrusively as before, just beyond the family room where he and Vargas took up residence.
Knight sat on a red leather sofa and gestured for Vargas to sit in a matching recliner across from him. He had paid extra to buy the farm fully furnished, but this was for convenience only. This was the first time he had actually seen the inside of the farmhouse, and he hated it, both the furniture and décor.
Knight was the future. This ugly piece of Americana was the rural past, decorated by someone whose tacky tastes could only appeal to the idiotic brood he had left behind at a young age.
The family room walls were lined with an alternating pattern of chickens and roosters, in yellows and reds, which he found hard to believe. Didn’t farmers get enough of the real thing to leave these unappealing fowl off of the wallpaper?
Knight shook his head and turned to face his guest. He was well pleased by how things were going so far. He had tried to get into Vargas’s head by killing the man’s double, and he was certain he had succeeded. He needed Vargas to respect him. To know that he was deadly serious. To never doubt his resolve, his threats, or the lengths he was prepared to go to get what he wanted.
“So why am I here, Edgar?” said the colonel. “You mentioned us working together. How? Why do you need me?”
“To help me achieve my goals.”
“I’m listening.”
“I have a plan to get you inside Q5.”
Vargas considered. “For what purpose?”
“First, revenge. Admittedly, the more petty and irrational of my goals. I know intellectually that completing my grand vision takes precedence, and that this is relatively unimportant. Emotionally, it’s another story. Cargill and the Bonnie-and-Clyde couple responsible for the attack on Lake Las Vegas, Aaron Blake and Jenna Morrison, need to suffer. They outmaneuvered me. I can’t let that stand.”
“Outmaneuvered you?” repeated Vargas in disbelief. “Their Op failed. They hit everything but the target.”
“Only because I got lucky,” replied Knight. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t tell Vargas that he had been a backup copy, and that Cargill’s attack had succeeded in killing Knight One. Pride? An instinct to never disclose more than was necessary? It was unclear. “Cargill doesn’t know he missed me, by the way, and he can never be told.”
Vargas nodded. “So you want revenge,” he said. “I get that. But what’s this grand vision you spoke of?”
“I plan to transform the world. Lift it to new heights. Dramatically improve the human condition.”
Vargas smirked. “No, seriously,” he said, “what are your goals?”
“I’ve never been more serious. These are my goals.”
Vargas’s smirk vanished, replaced by a look of incredulity. “And how do you intend to do all this?” he asked. “By releasing your time travel technology to the world?”
“No. Far too dangerous. I want to control the world’s morons, not arm them. I want to unite the countries of the world under a single global government. With me at the helm.” He raised his eyebrows. “And with you as my second-in-command.”
Vargas shook his head and frowned deeply. “Can’t be done. Not even with your time travel tech.”
“I agree,” said Knight evenly. “Not this moment it can’t. But very soon. Because if I can get my hands on Wexler’s work, increase my range to a hundred twenty miles, no world leader will be safe from me. From my organization. After that, the way forward is clear, the chances of success, regardless of how wildly improbable my end goals sound to you at the moment, are extremely high.”
“Even then it can’t be done,” countered Vargas. “It’s absurd. One private citizen taking on the collective might of the entire globe? Even you can’t manage that.”
Knight sighed and began to massage his forehead. Was there no one who had any vision other than him? Vargas’s daring military thinking in the weapons realm had impressed him, but the colonel’s inability to see the big picture now was highly disappointing.
Knight already possessed the brilliance of a god, but he needed to develop the patience of one, as well.
He took a deep breath and launched into a lengthy description of what he had in mind. He explained how he had duplicated the greatest minds of the time, creating his Brain Trust, and the breathtaking advances they had made. How time travel could create unlimited wealth. How he could use this wealth to buy a small mercenary army, describing the one he had begun to put together that had been largely destroyed at Lake Las Vegas, despite this disclosure tarnishing an earlier assertion that Cargill had killed only innocents when he had attacked.
“And as you’ve seen,” he told the colonel, “with a time machine, I can turn a small, handpicked group of mercenaries into the largest army the world has ever seen. I can borrow thousands of copies of each soldier from forty-five microseconds in his future.”
“Is this what you intend to do?” asked Vargas.
“Not at all. I bring it up just to emphasize that I can do as much as I need to do with the human resources I have.” He smiled. “I’m my own force multiplier.”
Knight went on to explain why he wouldn’t need an army to accomplish his goals. With the ability to teleport a hundred twenty miles, he could easily demonstrate to world leaders that they would never be safe from him, would never be beyond his reach. He could seduce them with unlimited wealth and power, and threaten them with physical harm, a potent combination.
Initially, all he would ask was for leaders to push to create a joint cooperative body, similar to the UN, but broader, and one contemplating greater trade and military cooperation. A European Union with far more countries, even if a majority of the public in a given leader’s country was against such a move.
He would reward leaders who pushed for this world body, and punish those who refused. He would spread wealth to rig elections, and see to it that this new world body had success after success. He would use time travel and other advanced technology to destroy terrorist regimes, and wipe out dictators and their governments, making sure all credit for such victories accrued to the world body.
The early president of this emerging worldwide government would be elected by the body itself, but Knight would be the one pulling the president’s strings, and in due course would come out of the shadows to take the reins of power himself.
By having this governing body cleanse the world community of rogue nations and weed out Jihadists with unprecedented thoroughness and finality, and by channeling unprecedented wealth, prosperity, and Brain Trust technology through this group, the idea of a worldwide government would become celebrated, heralded as something long overdue. The group could accrue legitimate governing power, slowly and inexorably, under cover of world leaders and the media—all of whom Knight would control.
Ultimately, the recipe for world government wasn’t that complicated, if you had the means to produce the ingredients. Rid the world of the cancer of dictatorships and terrorist states. Spread unlimited wealth. Usher in a new age of peace. Control leaders and information flow. Mix liberally. Then, add in mountains of sugar—or tenderize with an iron fist—as needed.
It wouldn’t happen overnight, but Knight was certain he could achieve his goals within ten years, turning the globe into what was essentially a magnified version of the US, except without term limits for the president. Not the United States of America, but rather the United Countries of the World. Just as with individual states in America, every country would have a certain level of autonomy, but would be under the enumerated powers of the central authority.
And Knight would be above it all. The perfect ruler. A man possessing both a love of knowledge and a keen intelligence. Plato’s philosopher king.
Vargas still didn’t seem entire
ly convinced that this would work, but Knight could tell he was now taking the idea much more seriously.
The strategy Knight laid out was good, as far as it went, but he left out a few key elements to ensure maximum palatability. He purposely failed to mention that he would wipe out those with inferior intelligence in favor of millions of geniuses, whom he would duplicate to fill the void, a substantial upgrade for the species.
Knight knew better than that. Anything that smacked of eugenics would be rejected immediately as being Hitlerian, a bridge too far, even by those who should have known better. He had no doubt that even Vargas, a man who treated his people like slaves, whipping them to create ever harsher weapons capable of mutilating millions, would be appalled by eugenics.
Hitler had given this idea too bad of a name for it to ever recover. But the difference between Knight and Hitler was that Hitler had gotten it backwards. Ironically, he had killed off the exact wrong group, the group that had the most to offer Germany—possibly due to jealousy over this very fact.
Knight, on the other hand, respected only genius, not caring what god a man foolishly preferred to believe in. Not caring if he preferred to wear a silly beanie on his head rather than a symbol of a man being tortured to death around his neck.
Had Einstein not felt forced to leave Germany because he was Jewish, he would not have lent his genius to America’s Manhattan Project, along with seven other key Jewish contributors who had fled Europe, including John von Neumann, Edward Teller, and Leo Szilard. All in all, twenty-seven Jews assisted in the creation of the atom bomb—including seven future Nobel Laureates—and the likes of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Richard Feynman.
Had Hitler not been obsessed with killing Jews, Germany could well have developed the atom bomb first, winning the war.
When Knight thinned the human herd, he would do it right. He would thin the most feeble-minded, and cultivate the geniuses—not thin geniuses and cultivate psychopaths as Hitler had done.
Eugenics wasn’t the only motive Knight concealed from his guest. From his perch atop the world, after duplicating multiple copies of the greatest collection of geniuses in history, he would push this group to extend the human lifespan and eventually conquer death itself.
Time Frame Page 17
