Laws of Time

by Jeff Yee

  “Was it quick?” Kris asked sheepishly, not wanting to hear the wrong answer. “Do you know if it was painless?”

  “I don’t know. It happened so fast, but by the time it was over, he was already gone. So, yes, it was quick. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay, if anything, I guess it’s comforting to hear that he went quickly.”

  “Don’t get down just yet. Let me run my idea past you. First thing you need to know is that the timing couldn’t have been worse. Ten minutes before or after the time that the rescue team entered the building would’ve made a big difference. So, it occurred to me, what if the mission was conducted earlier? What if the mission took place one hour earlier than its planned start time?”

  Alone in the corner of the CIA Director’s office, Sean waited patiently for a response from his son. He knew that it would take some time to register, but his son would eventually understand what he was asking.

  Then, Sean received the answer. Kris responded, “Do you mean that literally? Redo the mission an hour earlier?”

  “Yes! What do you think?” asked Sean.

  “Whoa! We have no idea what would happen. It’s well beyond anything that we’ve tried before.”

  “If there’s a time and a reason, this is it. If it works, it’s a chance to save Ryan.”

  “How? How would we do it?” asked a baffled Kris.

  “We just pulled the rat out of the machine yesterday. And he’s scheduled to be put into the machine tomorrow night, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “So we’re extremely fortunate to have a transport in progress that we can use. Extremely fortunate. Otherwise this couldn’t be done. What if we put a note with the rat tomorrow night that gives the CIA the information that they need? And we suggest that the mission start an hour earlier than the one conducted today?”

  “In theory,” replied Kris, “I suppose it could work. What time was the mission conducted today?”

  “About seven in the evening here, east coast time. It was early morning in Korea.”

  Kris did a quick mental calculation in his head. “Okay, four in the afternoon here in San Diego on a Friday. We put the rat into the machine with a note at six o’clock in the evening on Saturday and he arrives backwards in time pre-programmed for six o’clock in the evening on Thursday. That is twenty-two hours before the current mission was conducted.”

  “Right,” said Sean following along with Kris’ math.

  “So if you want to accomplish the mission at least an hour earlier, you have twenty-one hours between when the rat arrives on Thursday to the point when you need to have the mission start.”

  “Yes. Will it work?” asked Sean.

  “It’s dangerous. I honestly don’t know. We’re talking about the fabric of the spacetime continuum that we are playing with. If we change the past, who knows what will happen?”

  “Kris! This is more than a chance to save Ryan,” Sean exclaimed in support of his proposal. “This is also a chance to understand the impacts of time travel on history itself. Are there parallel worlds? Does this world live without Ryan Graves while in another world he possibly survives?”

  Kris thought about it for a few seconds and then answered, “If we go ahead with it, can we be certain that the CIA can pull off the mission earlier than their original plans?”

  “Hold on, let me ask,” said Sean.

  Walking from the far corner of the office back to the middle of the conversation between the general and the CIA Director, Sean angled his mobile phone in the direction of the two leaders so that his son could hear the discussion. “Lisa, if you had intelligence suggesting that the Koreans would have reinforcements arriving around nine o’clock, their time, could you have executed the mission earlier? Say eight o’clock instead?”

  The general interrupted to answer the question. “They were my men. My mission. And yes, we could’ve executed the mission earlier, if needed. We received the location of the lab yesterday and we put the forces into place overnight.”

  “General, we still don’t know if we would have avoided the reinforcements,” replied Lisa. “It’s a possibility that an alarm was tripped and that the backups would have arrived anyway – even if we had chosen a different start time for the mission.”

  “But if you had intel on the backups, General, would you have conducted the mission differently?” asked Sean.

  General Bradshaw took the opportunity to place the blame on bad intelligence, not the execution of the mission. “Of course! Had the CIA provided better information, my men would still be alive.”

  “Okay, thank you,” said Sean as he put the phone back to his ear and began walking to the corner of the office. Then, speaking into the phone, he said, “Kris, did you get that?”

  “Yes, but why did you not tell them about our idea to use the machine?”

  “It’s pointless to describe the experiment to anyone at this point. If we do this right, none of us will ever remember this conversation. Remember, that if we rescue Ryan, this conversation never takes place.”

  Sean sat down on a ledge near the window of Lisa’s office. He looked back at General Bradshaw and Lisa deVeas who were left hanging without an explanation for his line of questioning. Lisa looked at him with a squint of her eyes, unsure what he was doing.

  “Well, Kris, what do you think?”

  “Let’s do it,” said Kris. “It’s worth a try. If it will bring back Ryan, it’s worth it.”

  “Great. Let me finish up here and then I’ll call you to go over the specifics. We’ll discuss the details about the note that we’re going to place with the rat when he’s transported back in time.”

  With mixed feelings, Sean ended the conversation. Still in remorse about the loss of his friend, it was a deep, sinking pain. However, the potential for changing the course of events and the possibility of bringing Ryan back left him with a glimmer of hope. Will this work? Can information be sent into the past that will change our future? If so, what happens to the current present which has already taken a different path? Is there a fork in the road that leads to two separate futures?

  Chapter 30

  It was Friday, the third day of the Time Regulation Senate Committee hearings and exactly one week after the kidnapping of Tace Technologies Chief Scientist Ryan Graves. Sean Harrison was still in Washington D.C., but instead of attending the senate hearings, he had spent a curious morning on the phone with the CIA. Per their instructions, he waited in his hotel lobby shortly after lunch. Sean looked at his watch: 1:08pm. He’s late, thought Sean.

  At that instant, a black car cornered the turn into the entrance of the Westin Grand hotel. Sean recognized the face of the man that he’d met the previous day.

  “Good afternoon,” the man said to Sean as he pulled alongside the curb of the hotel. “Ready to go?”

  “Yes, I’m ready. It’s John, right?”

  “Yup, that’s right.”

  “John… it’s like déjà vu all over again,” Sean said with a smile.

  Before CIA agent John Clements pulled out of the hotel, he asked Sean, “Can I see it?”

  Sean retrieved a folded note from his pocket – a replica of a message that was unexpectedly attached to a rat in an experiment the previous evening. That evening, Sean had watched the Tace Technologies team conduct their first backwards time travel experiment by videoconference from his hotel room in Washington. The objective of the experiment was to send a rat backwards in time – forty-eight hours into the past. At six o’clock on Thursday evening, the team celebrated a major advancement in the science of time travel until they discovered a surprising message inside the time machine. The rat had arrived as the team had planned, but he arrived with a note attached to his neck, secured on a piece of thread that was wrapped around him like a fashionable necklace.

  Before handing it over to the CIA, Sean read the replica a final time – still stunned about its contents despite reading it twelve times prior.

  URGENT: FOR SEAN H. />
  Contact John Clements, CIA, immediately.

  Ask to speak to CIA Director, Lisa deVeas.

  Inform her that North Korean mission needs

  to start before 8:00am, Saturday, in Korea.

  Warn her of potential backups arriving by van

  shortly after 9:00am. If not avoided, Ryan dies.

  P.S. Avoid Senate hearings. Waste of time.

  In between traffic lights, John Clements read the note. Astonished, he asked Sean, “And this came back in time? We’ve already conducted the mission and this is telling us how to do it over?”

  “Yes, apparently so. This message would have been put into our time machine tomorrow night, after the mission. I received it last night when we stopped our first backwards time travel test.”

  John gazed at the paper again. Not knowing what to believe, he kept driving towards Langley, Virginia.

  Shortly before two o’clock on Friday afternoon, Sean reached CIA headquarters and began the lengthy security process. Walking down unfamiliar halls, he approached the war room. A strikingly beautiful brunette introduced herself as he entered the room, “Hello Sean, we spoke on the phone. I’m Lisa deVeas, director of this operation.”

  Looking around the room, Sean tested his memory to see if he remembered Lisa, the people, or any of the items in the room. He knew that he would have been the one that would have written the message to send back in time, but after a quick glance, he concluded that the room was foreign to him. It was his first time at CIA headquarters and his first time in the war room. Politely, Sean greeted Lisa, “Sean Harrison. Pleasure to meet you. This is some setup that you have here.”

  “One of the perks of the job,” said Lisa, amused with her gadgets and technology to conduct remote operations. “Sean, I have to admit, it’s quite a story. If I wasn’t already looking for you, and you had just come to me with the story, I wouldn’t have believed it. But the fact that you knew we were conducting the mission and knew the start time is remarkable.”

  “If it helps, I have a hard time believing it myself,” Sean responded while handing Lisa a copy of the text from the note that had traveled in time.

  Lisa scanned its contents. “Beware of backups… backups. Sean, if you ever write yourself a note like this again, please be more descriptive. It would have been helpful if you had told us how many men to expect.”

  “Sorry. But please recognize that you’re scolding me for something I have not done yet and I will probably not be doing if we execute this correctly.”

  “Good point.” Lisa looked at her watch. “We have a little more than two hours until sunrise in Korea. We’re still scrambling to get our men in place, but we should be able to get things started before eight, per your suggestion. I’m going to take care of a few preparations, so why don’t you take a seat. John can get you anything that you need while we’re waiting.”

  Not realizing that he had been in the same room before and that he had randomly selected the same chair to take his seat, Sean gazed at the technology and the video feeds with amazement, as if it was his first time seeing the room. Tace Technologies needs a room like this!

  After an hour of sitting and waiting for the mission to get started, Sean watched a dark-haired, burly man enter the war room with his two-man entourage. All three men wore dark green, well-pressed military suits, but it was apparent which one was in charge based on his medal count.

  With her right hand clasping a phone, Lisa motioned her location with her left hand to the new arrival. “General, over here,” she whispered.

  Sean watched as the general and his team crowded around a computer terminal where Lisa stood over an analyst, frantically working.

  After ending her call, she signaled to Sean. “Sean, I’ve got someone I want you to meet. This is Lieutenant General Bill Bradshaw. It’s his team that we’re feeding the intel to execute the mission.”

  Sean walked over to the general, offered his hand, and provided a firm handshake as a greeting. “Nice to meet you General.”

  “Pleasure is all mine.”

  Lisa debriefed the military officer, “General, from the intelligence that we’ve gathered, we’re nearly certain that Graves is in the building and being held by only two men. With the information that Sean provided, it’s possible that there may be reinforcements arriving this morning, which is why we’d like to begin shortly after the sun comes up.”

  “And when does that happen?” asked General Bradshaw.

  Lisa looked at her watch. “About an hour and a half from now.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. My men will be ready.” The general looked towards Sean and said with a grimace, “Your methods of obtaining intelligence are quite fascinating, Mr. Time. I hope that it will be useful.”

  “Mr. Time?” asked Sean, joking about his new nickname.

  “It’s short for the Father of Time. I read in a magazine somewhere that you are the Father of Time.”

  “You can call me whatever you want as long as you bring back Ryan Graves.”

  Waiting another hour for the mission to start was difficult for Sean; however, he killed time by studying the technology in the war room. He watched intently as satellites fed real-time information into large monitors on the war room wall. Slowly, the monitors carrying live video from the operation turned lighter with more clarity as the sun began to rise in Pyongyang, North Korea.

  Shortly after five o’clock in the evening in Washington D.C., General Bradshaw had his five-person Special Forces team in place. “Delta Team, hold your position until we give you the green light,” he commanded to his troops.

  Sean watched as additional monitors on the war room wall were configured with live video from each of the operatives. He was amazed, again, at the clarity of the video and the ability to watch the events as they transpired a half a world away – not realizing that he had witnessed the same technology before.

  “Delta Leader, we’ve taken heat readings and we’ve sent you an image to your PDA,” said Lisa deVeas, relaying instructions to the operatives in the field. “This image overlays your data with data we’ve collected about the building. We’ve circled the room where we believe the target is being held. We’ve also circled the room that is suspected to be the lab that must be destroyed. Have you received the download?”

  “Copy, I have the data,” responded the mission leader.

  “There are three men inside the building. Assume one of these to be our target. You may need to neutralize the other two.”

  “Copy.”

  “We also have data that suggests an unknown number of reinforcements could arrive by van to the south.”

  “Copy.”

  With the intelligence downloaded and the transfer of knowledge completed, General Bradshaw took over control from the CIA. “Delta Leader, position one of your men behind the structure on the southeast corner. It will have a good view of the parking lot if hostiles arrive. Divide your remaining team into groups of two. One team will neutralize the enemy and recover the target. The other will plant explosives in the lab.”

  “Copy,” said the Delta Team leader once again.

  General Bradshaw gave the order to commence. “You have the green light to proceed. Good luck Delta Team.”

  “Go! Go! Go!” came across the audio at CIA headquarters; direct from the microphone of the mission leader in Pyongyang.

  Sean watched the mission begin from his comfortable seat in Langley, Virginia. His hands gripped the arms of his chair tightly as he waited in suspense to see if Ryan Graves was alive and would survive.

  In Pyongyang, North Korea, one of the operatives took his position outside the building, as instructed, to monitor for reinforcements. The remaining operatives entered the building swiftly, divided, and carried out their objectives.

  The first team encountered two North Korean guards in the corridor only ten feet from the entrance of the room believed to contain the Tace scientist. Before the guards realized that their building had been com
promised, two quick direct shots from the American team took them down. The American operatives rushed to the fallen Koreans, kicked away their guns and checked for any sign of movement. Their training and expert marksmanship had done the job well; the men were clearly dead. With the guards no longer a threat, the first team found Ryan Graves in the exact room that the intelligence had suggested. Ryan sat up on his bed, badly bruised and tortured, waiting for his rescuers.

  “Let’s go home,” said the mission leader.

  The second American team had turned left into the laboratory before the first two operatives engaged in a short-lived battle with the Koreans. Their mission was to find any lab equipment, memos or other materials that could be used to construct a time machine.

  The first team was already returning back into the corridor, passing the laboratory, when the Delta Team leader turned to Ryan and asked, “Is this where the experiments were conducted?”

  Ryan nodded and mumbled a quick, “Y…e…s.”

  “We’re going to blow the place. Is there anything other than this lab that needs to be destroyed?”

  Ryan shook his head.

  “Okay, we’re outta here!” the mission leader yelled to the second team planting explosives.

  In less than a minute, the four Special Forces operatives and the scientist they’d rescued exited the building and met at the rendezvous point where the last team member kept watch. Once all of the men were outside and accounted for, Delta Three retrieved the trigger to the explosives from his pack and keyed the sequence to detonate. A loud bang signaled a successful detonation, but visibly there was little to acknowledge the blast or attract any attention other than a modest amount of smoke emerging from cracks in the windows of the building.

  Quickly, the six Americans departed in two cars. Once they reached the perimeter, one kilometer away from the extraction point, the mission leader reported his status back to CIA headquarters. “We have the target, the lab is destroyed and it does not appear that we are being followed.”

  The war room cheered.

  “Good work, Delta Team,” said General Bradshaw. “Now, come on home!”