by Jeff Yee
“No. It could be months, maybe even years. Apparently everything is technically ready, but there could be a number of approvals required to make it happen.”
Alyssa excused herself from the table to enjoy the cool evening air outside on the deck of the home. She anticipated the next discussion between her mother and grandmother and thought it would be an appropriate time to allow them to have a discussion between themselves.
“Stacey, I would like us to spend more time together before the date,” Julie told her daughter sternly after Alyssa was gone. “I don’t know if I will be around when you return in the future, and if I am, I’ll certainly be much older. I would like to enjoy my time with you now while I still can.”
Stacey looked at her mother and said with sincerity, “You will be around when we return, Mom. You will be here.”
Despite her bold statement, Stacey understood the risks. For one, it was quite possible that she and Sean would not survive the process. The second risk was her mother’s age. She knew that her mother would be somewhere between eighty-one to one-hundred-and-six years old when they completed the cryogenic process, with it more likely being on the older end of the spectrum due to the current state of time travel science.
Stacey continued to comfort her mother with positive encouragement and promised to visit frequently in the remaining time they had together. She thought about Sean, and how he was fortunate to not have to experience the same conversation with his parents. Sean had lost his parents in a fatal car accident ten years prior – one of the reasons that she often found him staring into the stars from the rooftop of their San Diego home – wishing that he could travel back in time to see his parents. Stacey realized that Sean had a much easier time detaching himself from the present than she did. She would be leaving behind many friends and family members, just like Sean, but Sean did not have the burden of leaving a widowed mother behind. Although it was not visible to her mother, Stacey hurt inside. Her stomach felt like it was tied in a knot and her palms were sweating beyond control. It felt like a lie and Stacey did not want to lie to her mother. Stacey was simply trying to comfort her mother, but she knew that she lacked the ability to confirm their plans for the future. Fortunately, her mother was unaware. Julie Bartells believed in her daughter.
Chapter 6
Once a year, employees of Tace Technologies gather at the Town & Country Resort in San Diego for their annual convention. It is their opportunity to network with fellow co-workers and to hear the company’s results and objectives for the future.
On a hazy morning in San Diego, the employees convened again for their annual meeting at the resort, and slowly filled an auditorium designed to seat roughly five thousand people. By start time, the room was nearly at capacity to listen to the key speakers.
Sean Harrison, Steve Kuhl and the company’s public relations coordinator, Kelly Rogers had just finished a quarterly earnings conference call with members of the press; conveniently timed just before the employee annual meeting. Within minutes after their conference call, the company’s major announcement was spread across the Internet through blogs and news stories. However, employees in the auditorium were unaware of the shocking news – due to a blackout of phones and communication devices while they were in the room.
Kelly started the meeting with her typical charm. “Good morning Tace Technologies! We have some exciting news for you today. Minutes ago, we completed our quarterly call with analysts and I think it’s safe to say that we left them with a shocker. We have a lot to share with you this morning, so let’s get started. First, Steve will lead us through our quarterly results. Then, Sean will cover our special announcement. Finally, I’ll help to wrap things up with a question and answer session. So, let’s get going Tace! Here to kick things off this morning is your Chief Operating Officer, Steve.”
The Tace employees quickly realized that it was going to be a dramatically different meeting than previous conventions. It was normally Sean’s role to cover the company financials and quarterly results. This time, it was Steve’s task to lead the business accomplishments and highlight the company’s revenue and profits for the past quarter.
Sean sat nervously on stage as he watched Steve walk to the podium to deliver a speech that he was accustomed to presenting. He glanced into the sea of employees and smiled to give them assurance. He was very proud that the company he founded had grown to its current size, filling the room at the Town & Country Resort.
The room was silent as Steve presented the financial results. He outlined key sales accounts for the quarter that contributed to revenue above their initial targets and displayed graphs that continued a positive trajectory for all of the important company metrics. Steve presented the numbers with such charisma that each employee felt they had a significant contribution to the success of the company. Yet, each waited patiently for the special announcement that would follow the COO’s presentation.
Steve concluded his speech by saying, “We have performed well against all of our internal goals and the results that are expected of us by Wall Street. By all of the indicators that we use to gauge our success, this company is a leader in our industry and we will continue to be long into the future. Now, speaking of the future, let me turn the microphone over to Sean for an announcement.”
The room cheered with applause as Steve’s presentation came to an end. When Sean made his way to the podium, the cheer came to an abrupt end. Silence. Everyone remained unusually quiet to hear the announcement that was hyped at the start of the meeting.
“Good morning, Tace!” Sean began. “As Kelly mentioned at the start of our program, we have exciting news to share. As many of you are aware, we founded this company with a mission dedicated to the science of time and space. They are the frontiers we wish to explore. They are the mysteries we wish to solve. In the time since the creation of the universe, man has only witnessed a fraction of its life and is left to theorize its past and to predict its future. Despite the universe’s vast space, man has traveled a fraction of its size, barely making it out of our own solar system with satellites and not even past our own moon if you consider manned missions. Space is a frontier. Time is a frontier. Everyone here in the room has dedicated themselves to the science of space and time and to expand our knowledge of the world that we live in. We have been very, very fortunate to build a successful business around these principles by creating useful products using our research in these sciences. Today, we have a new product that will lead to significant advancements in space travel. Let’s have a look…”
Sean stepped back from the microphone as the giant screen behind him started a video that had been specially prepared for the annual meeting. The lights dimmed in the room when the audio started. The video began with visuals of the Apollo missions and Neil Armstrong’s historic first step on the moon. It was followed by footage of additional space missions from the launch of the space shuttle to rovers covering the surface of Mars. Then, the video paused to ask a simple question. When will man visit Mars?
The video continued to play while Sean interjected an answer to the question, “Soon. Very soon.”
Employees in the room continued to watch as the video transitioned from old NASA footage to current clips of Tace Technologies employees working on components of the Mars mission. It highlighted teams working on the electrical systems for the specially designed inter-planetary ship, followed by teams working on the new spacesuits that would be needed for the mission, and lastly it focused on a team working with lab animals. In the last segment of the video, a team of five Tace employees holding a rat and a chimpanzee smiled at the camera and said, “Congratulations Tace Technologies!”
The video came to an end and the lights were turned on. Sean continued at the podium, “To make space travel easier for astronauts and to reduce the necessary provisions required for long-term travel, we have been researching and experimenting cryogenic suspension techniques that would allow an astronaut to be suspended during his or her j
ourney. We were among three companies that were awarded a bid by NASA for the first phase of this project. For security and competition reasons, we kept the results of this project a secret. But as of today, that changes. Over the last couple of months, we have found a successful solution to cryogenics, presented our findings to NASA and have been awarded more than two billion dollars for a project to advance our research and complete a cryogenic suspension solution for the Mars mission. With our technology, the astronauts of the Mars mission will be frozen shortly after take-off from Earth and reanimated, as it is technically called, days before they reach Mars. This is a tremendous accomplishment for the science of space travel.”
Sean then paused to recognize the team that accomplished the feat. He announced the names of the project team beginning with Ryan Graves and ending with his son Kris. “Congratulations and our sincere gratitude to the team as we recognize their scientific achievements.” Applause filled the room for minutes.
When the room was quiet again, Sean continued with another startling announcement. “There is more. As I mentioned earlier, we built this company on the foundation of time and space science. Cryogenic freezing will help our advancement of space travel. It may even be considered by some to be time travel, but it is not. It is a suspension of time moving in one direction only – forward. I stand by my goal of developing a true time solution that allows one to visit any period of time within the history or future of our universe. I reiterate this challenge to each of you. And, today, I back this up with a new objective and I make it your goal as well.”
Sean could feel the suspense in the room. Although it was already news to millions of people around the world reading earlier coverage of the company’s conference call, there were few people in the room that were aware of Sean’s plans.
“Along with my wife, Stacey, we will be the first humans to suspend ourselves in time using the cryogenic methods developed by this company. It is my desire to wake to a future world that has advanced the science of time travel such that it is possible one day to visit the future or the past. Stacey and I have made a commitment that we will suspend ourselves for up to twenty-five years while we await the advancement of time sciences. If a time travel solution is developed first, we will be reanimated. Therefore, my challenge to you is to determine a solution before our twenty-five years expires.”
The room was no longer quiet. Startled employees were discussing the impacts with their neighbors. A handful of employees were shouting questions from the back of the room directed towards Sean.
“Please, let me go on. We’ll handle questions at the end.” The volume in the room lowered and then Sean continued, “Beginning today, Steve has assumed the role of CEO of our company. Please join me in wishing him congratulations in his new role. Along with this organizational change, we are making another significant change. A new Time Science Division is being created, led by Kris Harrison, which will focus on all aspects of time travel science.”
Sean continued to outline the plans for the transition and the creation of the new division that would focus exclusively on the development of a solution for time travel. It was followed by a half-hour of questions by employees, which Sean and Kelly answered one-by-one until all of the major concerns were addressed.
When it was over, Sean stood on stage and watched the room slowly empty over the course of a half hour until the last employee left the building. It was his final annual meeting at the helm and he wanted to savor every moment of it. It reminded him of the time that he left his last day of sixth grade, staring from his bicycle through the chain link fence to the elementary school that he was leaving behind. Now, the company that he founded was being turned over to a new CEO and he was leaving the auditorium for the last time as the company’s leader. However, there was a key difference between the memory of his youth and his last annual meeting as CEO. When he finished the sixth grade, he knew where he was going next – to join the big kids in intermediate school. As he stared at the empty room, Sean realized that his path was very much uncertain. He silently thought to himself, I don’t know where I’m going or when and if I’ll arrive there one day. My fate lies in the good people of the company that I now leave behind.
Chapter 7
The day after making the surprising announcement to his company, Sean was back to work planning his transition and beginning the slow process of leaving his office. Suddenly, his assistant rushed into his office without knocking on the door first.
“You need to watch this,” said Monique as she turned on the TV in his office. “It’s about you and Stacey.”
After putting down his work, Sean turned to see what had prompted Monique to get so excited that she felt compelled to stop him from his tasks. She changed the channel to a local news station.
Breaking News: Attorney General to enforce laws requiring bodies to be declared officially deceased before cryogenic suspension is allowed.
Monique and Sean watched as reporters gathered at a press conference at the California Attorney General’s office, awaiting a briefing from Matt Clark, the Attorney General. A minute later, Matt arrived at the podium and provided a statement to members of the press.
The California Attorney General read from his prepared notes. “It has come to the attention of my office that plans for cryogenic suspension methods on men and women are being planned by a corporation in the state of California. Under current law, any suspension method is illegal until after a body has been declared deceased. In our review of the law, the plans announced by Tace Technologies yesterday to cryogenically freeze and suspend an individual before his or her death is in fact illegal. Therefore, my office will take action against any individual in the state of California that assists in the suspension of a human body before its death.”
While the Attorney General fielded questions from reporters, Monique glanced at Sean to see his expression. His eyes widened in disbelief, his cheeks became red and he scrunched his lips tightly together. Monique had worked with Sean long enough to know that he was angry and upset.
“When Stacey and I met with our lawyers, they warned us that this was a possibility,” Sean explained to Monique. “I am not too surprised. Nevertheless, I can’t put the employees of Tace Technologies in a position where they are prosecuted for my actions. I cannot ask that of them.”
The weather outside was a typical warm and sunny San Diego day. Sean looked outside his window, deep in thought. He picked up a rubber ball from his desk and bounced it carefully off the glass window. It was a habit of his when he was brainstorming.
He paused and then asked Monique, “Can you get me John Simmons from NASA on the line? I’d like to speak with him as soon as he is available.”
Monique walked back to her desk to arrange the call. Sean looked at his plasma screen where Matt Clark was still fielding questions from reporters. In another look of disgust, Sean proceeded back to the window and continued bouncing the rubber ball against the glass to calm his nerves. These attorneys have no right to stop the progress of science and the advancement of mankind.
“Sean, I have John Simmons on the line. He’s available now.”
“Great. Please transfer the call.”
Sean picked up his phone, “John, thanks for the time on such short notice.”
“No problem. How are things?”
“Not good. Have you seen the news lately? There’s a briefing right now about plans to prosecute any of my employees who assist in the suspension process that we have planned.”
“Yes, I just saw it come across my PC and was reading it as your assistant called. I haven’t finished the brief yet. What’s the impact?”
“I don’t see how we can move forward with our plans as they currently stand. I will not put my employees in a position where they could face charges.”
“I understand. This may have an impact on our experiments and plans here at NASA as well.”
“John, this project was initially funded by the government. If you have plans
to use this technology for your missions, we need the Feds to step up and get these laws reversed. They’re outdated laws and they need to be rewritten.”
“I’m sure they will. However, this process is going to take time. It could take years to change the laws. I will push as hard as I can on my end to make sure that it eventually gets approved for our planned missions, but I can’t guarantee anything about timing.”
It was not what Sean wanted to hear. He squeezed the rubber ball he was holding and threw it hard against the window, bouncing it clear off the glass and out of his room towards Monique’s desk.
“For your mission, you should do what you need to do,” Sean said sternly to the NASA project lead, irritated, but knowing that there was nothing that John Simmons could do. “I wish you luck gaining your approvals. For me, a year or more is not acceptable. I’ll search for another alternative. Thanks for your time John.”
Sean ended the conversation even more frustrated than it began. He realized that it wasn’t NASA’s fault for the difficult position that he was in. NASA’s mission to Mars was still years away. They had the luxury of time to gain necessary federal approvals to reverse the outdated laws preventing cryogenic freezing before death. However, Sean had already made his announcement and had begun a corporate transition plan. He was not going to back down and wait years for federal approval – assuming it would even be approved. He also realized that it ran the risk of not being approved and that the laws would remain the same even if he waited years for a potential reversal. Sean decided that he did not want to wait.
As Sean looked out his window across the grounds of his corporate campus, he thought of the many buildings and offices his company had built in growing their successful business around the world. Then, in a flash, he had the solution to his problem.
“Monique, can you get Len, my personal lawyer on the line please?”
