Laws of Time

by Jeff Yee

  Alyssa Moreau, Vice President.

  “Did you see your father’s testimony before the Senate yesterday?” Stacey asked her daughter as she toured her office. She was impressed by the cleanliness of her daughter’s office, although she needed to rearrange a picture on the wall that was slightly off-center.

  “No, but I did read a summary of the hearing last night,” Alyssa replied. Her mother was still wandering around the office looking for something to fix. “Mom, have a seat. Don’t worry about my office. I’ve got it the way that I like it.”

  “Sorry,” she said regretfully, and took a seat in one of the two chairs facing towards Alyssa’s desk and computer.

  “What’s on your mind Mom? What’d you want to talk about?”

  Stacey clenched her fists in frustration and began to vent. “I don’t even know where to start! It’s everything. I’m worried about Kris. Worried about your father. And I don’t know who to turn to. I don’t have a lot of friends. I left my good friends twenty-four years ago. Most of them have changed with the times and I don’t feel like I can talk to them.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. You can talk to me.” Alyssa warmly responded to her mother in a comforting and relaxing tone. “I’m here for you.”

  Stacey took a deep breath and relaxed.

  “Are you worried about Kris because of last week’s incident?” Alyssa asked referring to the kidnapping of Ryan Graves.

  “Yes. He’s the CEO of the company. I’m sure that he’s a target himself. But it’s hard for me to even talk to Kris right now. Between the investigation and search for Ryan, and the fact that the Tace campus now looks like a military fort, I have a hard time getting any of his time. I fear for his life.”

  Alyssa reassured her mother, “Kris will be fine. He has military protection and so does his family.”

  “That’s another thing that I don’t understand. If Kris and others at Tace have military protection, why does that not include your father? I’m worried that he’s at risk and he’s vulnerable because he does not have the same security as the others.”

  “Yes, but Dad is probably not at risk. He doesn’t know how to recreate a time machine like the others.”

  “Are you sure about that? I think your father has a pretty good idea about how to build the machine.”

  “Guess not. I could be wrong.” Alyssa knew that her answer did not help to calm her mother’s fears. She had to backtrack. She explained to her mother, “Even if he does have inside info, the outside world doesn’t know it. He’ll be fine.”

  “He was the special witness to start the senate hearings yesterday!” Stacey said rejecting her daughter’s suggestion. “I think the outside world sees him as an expert now.”

  “If you’re worried about Dad then let’s get security for the two of you. I can assist with private security. Would that make you feel better?”

  Stacey rose from her chair and walked to the picture on the wall that she had previously rearranged. Changing the subject, she said, “I love the pictures of the kids. This is a great shot.”

  Alyssa looked at her mother, still waiting for an answer to her question.

  “Okay, maybe,” Stacey finally answered. “Regarding security. Maybe. But to be honest Aly, I don’t think that is what is really bugging me.”

  “What is it?”

  “I talked to your father last night after the hearings. He’s very upset at the direction this is going. He’s afraid the government is going to assume control of the program.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Alyssa responded after thinking it over. “At least we don’t have to worry about Dad time traveling.”

  “It’s more than that. Your father has some very good points. To get here, we’ve made so many sacrifices – myself included. We’ve missed a quarter of a century. Tace sacrificed billions of dollars while Kris put his job on the line. And for what? Is our government really better at determining the right people to travel in time?”

  Alyssa understood the argument, yet she felt relieved about the potential of her father being forced to stay. She had already missed half of her life without her parents and she did not want to risk losing even more time. With a sense of comfort, she replied, “Mom, I understand the sacrifices. I do. But maybe it is what is necessary. Look at what happened to Ryan. Maybe our government has a valid point to control this world-changing technology.”

  “If it is a world-changing technology,” Stacey challenged her daughter, “then who is the person that you would trust most to travel to the future, learn from it, and bring it back to help our present world?”

  “Sure, Dad. But certainly there are others.”

  “I don’t know who can be trusted, but certainly not a member of Congress. The potential for abuse of power is significant.”

  Alyssa nodded her head and began to say, “I…”

  “I think you need to consider the ramifications of the wrong person being chosen,” Stacey continued before Alyssa could finish her thought. “To be the first to travel in time and then you’ll understand why your father is so upset.”

  “Stop, I know where you’re going with this,” said Alyssa, visibly upset. Her eyes began to water. “You’re trying to justify Dad traveling again. You two should just be happy to be here now!”

  Stacey reached out her hand to touch her daughter’s hand. “I promised you that I would stay, and I am. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

  Reassured, her daughter responded, “Okay. I know I’ve said it before, but I can’t stand the thought of losing you again.”

  The pain was still there. Despite a promise to her daughter, Stacey knew that Alyssa’s fears would continue to persist. Twenty-four years of hurt left a deep wound. She knew that it would take time to rebuild the trust with her daughter. Instead of making another promise, she said nothing, replacing words with actions. She caressed her daughter’s hands and stared into her eyes. It was a sign of trust.

  Alyssa understood her mother’s loving, committed stare. In her youth, she might have challenged her mother like the teenage daughter that refused to be home by curfew. However, age and wisdom taught Alyssa many things, including patience and understanding. She wanted to be selfish and protect her family from leaving her, but a sense of selflessness overcame her. “Mom, I don’t want Dad to go either, but I understand your position,” she said calmly. “If there’s anything that I can do to help, let me know.”

  “I think we will need your help,” said Stacey with a devilish smile. “I have something in mind, but let me get back to you when the time is right.”

  Chapter 27

  It was late in the afternoon on Thursday, the second day of the Time Regulation Committee senate hearings. Sean paced the room of his suite in the Westin Grand in Washington D.C. The rooms were spacious and the bed was comfortable, but he would rather have been at home. He spread his barefoot toes across the soft carpet as he walked the length of the room and back, waiting for a phone call. Finally, it rang.

  “Hello, Kris?” Sean answered his phone, already knowing the caller based on the call display.

  “Yeah, hello. How are you?”

  “Fine. Thanks for returning the call. What’s the latest in the search for Ryan?” Sean asked impatiently.

  “Unfortunately, not much more to report since we spoke yesterday. If the FBI has more information, they’re not sharing it with us.”

  “Well, I have a strange update. Just an hour or so ago, I was approached by an agent from the CIA, who caught me in the hotel lobby as I was returning from the hearings. They are involved somehow as well.”

  Kris, looking for any new information about his friend, was sincerely hopeful when he asked, “Did they find Ryan?”

  “I don’t know. He wants to meet tomorrow and he’s picking me up at my hotel. But not until sometime in the early evening tomorrow night. He’s going to call tomorrow to confirm a time.”

  Enthusiastically, Kris replied, “Might be a breakthrough!”

&
nbsp; “Don’t get your hopes up yet. I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, let me know if there are any changes on your end. One way or another, we’ll find Ryan.”

  Although it was a conversation across the continent, Sean could tell without seeing his son that he was biting his tongue. Kris was looking for any sign of hope that his friend was still alive.

  “How were the committee hearings today?” Kris asked, changing the subject of their conversation.

  “Not good. I don’t know when I’m going to be called again. I’d consider returning to San Diego now, but I’ll stay through to meet with the CIA to see what they have to say.”

  “Right,” mumbled Kris.

  “From what I saw today at the hearings, it’s a witch-hunt. They’re after the program to shut it down.”

  “No! Really?”

  “Yes. The chairman leading the charge, Senator Rob Cordeiros, is against the private sector having control over the technology. It’s pretty clear in his statements. He’s also the one apparently that put the moratorium on human testing.”

  Sean’s phone was quiet. No response.

  “Hello, Kris. Are you still there?”

  “Yes, sorry. Just thinking.”

  “Okay.”

  After considering the potential government response, Kris asked his father for advice. “What do you think we should do?”

  “Did the last experiment complete successfully this morning?”

  Kris replied, “Yes, we pulled the rat out of the machine on schedule. This was the rat that was put into transport before Ryan’s disappearance. As planned, he came out healthy after exactly one week.”

  “That’s great. Congratulations. But that also means that the machine is now available, right?”

  “Yes, why?”

  Sean explained himself. “I know that the team is not in favor of conducting new experiments while we’re focused on Ryan, but I fear that we’re going to be locked out of any time travel experiments shortly. Not just human travel, but any time travel experiment.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “The next experiment is a very important one. Our first backwards time travel experiment, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need to complete it before next week. At the rate these proceedings are going, Cordeiros could lock things up before we have a chance to see the results of the first backwards time travel test. Can you complete the next experiment before Monday?”

  Kris thought about the proposed change to the schedule. “We just completed the one-week-forward experiment. The next one is supposed to be the one-week-backwards experiment. But even if we started today as the end point for traveling back in time, the starting point to travel back would be next week Thursday, which is three days past Monday.”

  “We might not have that long. Let’s change the plans. Can we run a shorter time duration? Can we start it immediately and run it for two days?”

  “I suppose. We can always run a week-long experiment again later.”

  “Good. It’s still early afternoon there, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Kris answered.

  “Any chance that the team could prepare the next experiment and have it ready to start by tonight?”

  “It’ll take a few hours, but since the machine is not in use right now, it’s possible. I’ll get Krishna on it right away to prepare.”

  Sean was excited. “Backwards travel could be quite different than any test we have seen thus far. If possible, I’d like you to put me in video conference when you get started so that I can watch it.”

  “Yeah, we can do that,” Kris replied. “How about I call you in a few hours after we get everything ready?”

  Impatient to get started, Sean agreed reluctantly and finished the call with his son. He would need to determine how he would utilize his time as he waited anxiously for the start of the next experiment. His first thought was his stomach. A steak dinner in the hotel restaurant killed off an hour of time. After polishing off every last bite of his filet mignon and a cup of red wine, Sean returned to his hotel room. Damn, at least another two hours, he thought.

  Sean used the spare time to call his wife to catch up on the day’s events. Although Stacey was disappointed that he would not be on the Friday night flight back to San Diego, Sean was glad that she understood the importance of the CIA meeting and the need to fly home the following day. Then, Sean thumbed through every channel on the television until he decided that he would read the news instead. Logging onto his computer, he read news reports from the senate hearings. The views were all the same, he determined. The media was simply capitalizing on fear to attract viewers. After the first two days, it was clear that it was going to be an uphill battle to keep time travel unregulated and in the hands of the private industry.

  In the middle of reading Senator Cordeiros’ detailed biography, Sean’s mobile phone rang.

  “Hello?” he said.

  It was Kris on the other line. “Everything is just about ready to go. Let’s get your video set before things get started here.”

  “Tell me what I need to do.”

  “It’s easy. Press the icon on your phone that says Video Share. Do you see it?”

  Sean pulled the phone away from his ear and tapped the phone screen to get the main menu to light up. There it was. Video Share. He touched the icon on the screen. “Okay, now what?”

  “You should be on speaker now. Can you hear me while you watch the screen?”

  “Yes!” Sean replied enthusiastically as he saw the first images from the San Diego laboratory come across his phone. The rich display of his phone offered stunning details of the activities thousands of miles away.

  “Ha! I can see your carpet,” Kris laughed. “You’ve got your camera pointed towards the floor. Doesn’t matter. We just need to get you set up so that you can see our end. What do you see?”

  Sean replied, “I can tell that you are in the lab. I see the machine clearly.”

  “There’s also a way to project the video onto a wall so that it’s larger, but I don’t recall the instructions for your phone.”

  “I don’t need it. I can see everything clearly.”

  “Okay then, hang tight for a few minutes. We’re just about there.”

  In the small screen on his mobile device, Sean could see the activity in the room clearly. To the right of the time machine, he could see two members of the technology team finalizing calculations at the controlling computer. There was too much background noise to hear any of the conversations in the room, with the exception of Kris, who was nearest to the phone.

  Kris asked his teammates, “Are we ready now?”

  Sean was not able to hear their answer.

  “Okay, we’re set,” Kris stated loudly, speaking to everyone in the room, including his father who was on the phone. He summarized the experiment for the team. “Everyone, listen up. We have three minutes ‘til six. Let’s start rolling the cameras.”

  The video on Sean’s mobile phone shifted left and right like a view from a man who had too much to drink. However, Sean understood; he knew his son was organizing the project and acting as the historian at the same time.

  Over the phone, Kris continued his full account of the upcoming experiment, documenting every detail for the video that was capturing the moment. “At exactly six o’clock, we will execute Project Rat Backwards. Unlike our previous experiments where we traveled forward in time, this time we will increase the energy of the system. As you can see, we are now closing the doors of the empty transport. There is nothing inside. On Saturday at six o’clock, exactly forty-eight hours from now, we will insert a rat into the machine. By decelerating the energy inside the system at that point on Saturday, we will be sending our rat backwards in time. In order for this test to be successful, we must know exactly when the rat will be brought out of his deceleration, which is why we must specifically set up the reacceleration now.”

  Sean knew that Kris was speaking to scientists in the
room that already understood the technology. As he listened, he thought to himself, I think I would have explained it in layman’s terms for the average viewer watching the documentary. It’s an empty machine now. Two days from now a rat will be put in the machine and sent backwards. But the rat can only re-enter the present by defining a point in time to bring him back. The machine is being configured to bring him back at this very moment – at six o’clock today.

  The voice over the phone spoke with clarity once again, “We now have one minute left. If we have done our job correctly, we will see our rat in one minute.”

  The suspense was killing him. Sean knew the risks associated with backwards travel were far greater than forward travel. It was unexpected what would happen a fraction of a second after the rat was brought back to the present, because after that moment in time there would be a rat traveling backwards in time and a rat that had completed travel. It was a strange and complex question that no one could answer until the test was complete. At one minute after six, would there be two of the same rat – the rat from the present and the rat from the future? When they pulled the future rat out of the transport, it would overlap in the machine for a few seconds of time when the rat was also traveling backwards in time. Would this be a conflict? He held is breath waiting for the moment to arrive to answer the lingering question.

  Finally, that moment came. Five, four, three, two, one…

  The light indicator at the top of the sphere changed color once again. It had been green, indicating no activity. Suddenly, at exactly the top of the hour, it briefly turned red. The red status meant an energy shift was taking place within the sphere. The red light disappeared immediately and the status turned back to green; one of the differences between forward travel and backward travel – forward travel would have been locked with a yellow light indicating transport in progress.

  Sean could hear a roar in the background, but all that he was able to see was the time machine and a green LED light. Then, he realized that he was not able to see what the rest of the team was looking at. He exclaimed, “Kris! Point me towards the monitor!”