Laws of Time

by Jeff Yee

  Ryan thanked his friend and closed the door behind him. The military security detail assigned to the Graves family accompanied them in their SUV. The crowd watched as the car drove off with two police escorts; one police car led the brigade and the other car tailed the SUV.

  Alyssa, overhearing the last conversation, asked her brother, “So you don’t think this is over yet, do you?”

  “Nope,” replied Kris. “We only have the pawns. Despite our protective services, until we have the decision makers, it will be hard for any of us to sleep at night.”

  Chapter 33

  It was a few minutes past nine o’clock in the morning on a Monday when Sean bounced into his son’s office at Tace Technologies. “Good morning!” he said.

  “Hey, welcome back,” said Kris, who was busy signing paperwork at his desk. He put the pen down and asked, “How was the flight?”

  Motioning his hand like an airplane flying through the air, Sean said, “Quite an experience. Those new Boeing blended-wing airplanes are very different. Felt more like going to a movie in a theater than a cross country flight.”

  “Yeah, the tube style planes are out of style now. They’ll eventually be replaced by blended-wings because they’re thirty percent more fuel efficient.”

  Sean looked surprised. “Thirty percent, huh?”

  “Even better than that, Airbus has a commercial plane coming out soon that’s sub-orbital. Trips to Europe and Asia will only take a few hours soon.”

  “Wow,” Sean said excitedly. “That’s the benefit of sleeping for a quarter century. This is what I’d hoped for.”

  “How about the hearings? How’d they go?”

  Sean, taking a seat in the office, answered, “Long and draining. It wouldn’t surprise me if they call upon you or others to testify from Tace. They have this week’s agenda lined up with more physicists and who knows what. I’m not expected to be called upon until next week, so I’m here in San Diego this week.”

  “Good. It’s nice to have you home. Mom’s missed you.”

  A handful of mints were arranged in a cup on the corner of Kris’ desk. Sean leaned over, grabbed a mint, unwrapped it and continued the conversation as he sucked on a mint. “Nice to be home. Washington is so political. I may be paranoid, but it seems like everyone is out to get us there.”

  “I agree.”

  “And I’m glad that things are going slowly – it gives us a little bit of time – but I still worry that our days our numbered.”

  “If they’re numbered, we need to complete as many of our experiments as we can before they get shut down,” Kris said, concerned about the future of time travel. “I’ve had our guys working nights and weekends to prepare the next few experiments and to move them up on the schedule.”

  “Great, what’s the timeline?”

  “I think we’re going to have the second machine ready by Wednesday. To limit confusion between the machines, the guys have given the new machine a nickname – Barney.”

  Sean chuckled. “What’s the nickname of the first time machine?

  “Betty. They’ve been calling her Betty for a while now.”

  “Great, so when Barney is ready, are we ready to execute the first round-trip travel to the future and back?”

  “Yup. We can get started with the monkey as soon as it’s ready. Hopefully on Wednesday. We’ll put him into Betty for a few days and if all goes well, Barney will bring him back.”

  As excited as a kid in a candy shop, Sean responded, “Terrific! This is it. This is the one that’ll give us the ability to go to the future and return.” He thought about it for a moment and then replied, “Wednesday… and a few days… that should work. That puts us into the weekend. The hearings will go into at least next week, if not the following, so we should be able to complete this experiment. Terrific!”

  Sean slipped out of his chair and began walking aimlessly around the office. As he paced the room, thinking about time travel, he asked Kris, “How’s Ryan doing?”

  “Beaten pretty bad. He’s at home now and he’s asked for a few days before having guests. He just needs rest.”

  “Should we let him know about the potential to kick off the first round-tripper on Wednesday? He was a big part of it.”

  “Yeah, we should. I’ll call him sometime today to see how he’s doing and to let him know. If he’s not up to coming in, perhaps we can postpone it a day or two until he’s able to see it for himself. I think it’s the least we can do.”

  Sean stood at the window, with his back towards Kris, staring into the morning sky. “You’re right. As much as I want to see it done as quickly as possible, it’s not right to start it without Ryan. Hopefully, it’s Wednesday. If not, we’ll move it.”

  “Dad, there’s something that Ryan told me yesterday that I find odd.”

  “What is it?” Sean said turning to face his son.

  “He told me that when he was first nabbed that the men in the car spoke Korean to each other. But after they dumped the van and switched cars, one of the men made a phone call to report their success. And Ryan said this call was in English.”

  “What did they say?”

  “There isn’t anything in the conversation that helps us. But the fact that it was conducted in English is a major clue.”

  Sean collected his thoughts and then responded, “You know… I had my doubts that it was the work of the Korean government. If you think about it, the rescue operation was too easy. It wasn’t a military facility and there were only two guards? Why?”

  Kris shrugged. “If not the Korean government, then who? A Korean company wanting our technology?”

  “That’s what I was thinking until now. But if that call was in English, maybe it’s a multinational? American perhaps? At this point, who doesn’t want our technology?”

  “I think you’re right,” said Kris. “But who?”

  Sean wished he had his old rubber ball to bounce off the window in the office while he was thinking. Instead, he took a blank piece of paper and crumpled it into the shape of a ball and bounced it off the window. But the rebound of the inelastic paper ball didn’t make it past the windowsill. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I haven’t the foggiest.”

  With his leather chair reclined backwards, Kris folded his arms behind his head. “Well, here’s what we do know. We know the general location where the phone call took place, we know the approximate time it occurred and a rough estimate of its length. It must have been only a couple of minutes long to provide an update, right?”

  “Right!” exclaimed Sean, talking enthusiastically while he walked the length of Kris’ office. “And if it happened right after the transfer to the car, it would have been made around the Mission Hills Park area – which was rather empty when we arrived. So it may be pretty easy to narrow down a call that was placed from that area that matches time and length of the call. Brilliant, Kris! Brilliant!”

  Kris shared his father’s enthusiasm. “I get it! Let’s see if we can find someone that can investigate the calls. Immediately.”

  “I’ll get it to the CIA right now.”

  “Dad, if you don’t mind, can we try a local approach first? This is our company asset. We hired an investigator a few years ago for something here at Tace. It’s a long story that I’ll tell you about later. But, the guy is really good. I’d like to give it a shot with him first so that we can keep this information to a handful of people.”

  “Okay, your call. But we can’t let the trail get cold, so if he doesn’t find something quickly, let’s move onto Plan B.”

  Kris hurried to the door of his office, opened it and mumbled something to his assistant. Meanwhile, Sean leaned against the window, holding onto his crumpled ball and thought about the phone call. Ryan also received a phone call that prompted him to go outside the restaurant. Was that call also made from the van?

  When Kris returned to his desk, Sean asked, “Kris, did the FBI track the call that convinced Ryan to leave the restaurant?”
<
br />   “Yeah, the phone that was used to call Ryan was found abandoned in the glove compartment of the van. It was an anonymous prepaid phone, so the FBI wasn’t able to do anything with it.”

  “Bummer.”

  “The only phone call in its records was just the call to Ryan. No other data.”

  “No other data? So they must have used a second phone for their status report call?”

  “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “Well, if they were smart enough to use an anonymous phone for the call to Ryan,” said Sean, “they were probably smart enough to do the same for the second phone.”

  “Possible. But, we may be able to track down who they were calling.”

  Buzz. Buzz.

  Kris answered his desk phone and put it in speaker mode. “Hi Sally, did you reach him?”

  “Yes,” answered his assistant. “I’m going to transfer you through to Mr. Hartley right now.”

  Click.

  “Hello, Alex. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” responded the husky voice on the phone.

  “It’s Kris Harrison, Tace Technologies. If you recall, we met a few years ago when you did some work for us.”

  “Of course I do,” recalled Alex Hartley. “What can I do for you Kris?”

  “We’d like to hire your services for another project. Are you familiar with the kidnapping of one of our scientists here?”

  “Couldn’t miss it. Big news. But he’s already back now, so why would you need me?”

  “Because we’re not at the root of it yet. We don’t have all of the answers that we need.”

  “Alright, so how can I help?” asked the private investigator.

  “We want to track down the person or organization responsible for the kidnapping. We still don’t know who’s behind it. We’ve recently learned about a phone call from the kidnappers to a source that could lead us to that answer. We know the general location and time of the call, and how long it lasted. We’d like you to help us take this information and track it back to the source.”

  Alex Hartley thought about the proposal for no more than a second before he accepted the offer. “Okay, I think I should be able to help you. Can you get me the details?”

  “Yes,” answered Kris. “I’m going to have my assistant work with you on a contract and provide you with all of the information that you need to get started. If you find anything, let me know immediately. Otherwise, can we target a few days from now for a follow up?”

  “Yes, sounds good. Thanks for the opportunity.”

  “Thanks Alex. Transferring you back to Sally now who can take care of the rest. Bye for now…”

  Kris released the phone back to its cradle and looked at his father.

  Sean gave his son a sly wink and said, “We’ll shake the rest of them out of the trees and put this one to bed.”

  Chapter 34

  It was not a typical Wednesday morning commute in San Diego traffic. Fortunately, with Stacey at his side, Sean had the ability to take the carpool lane and together they sailed past cars that were stuck in stop-and-go freeway traffic. As he was driving towards the Tace Technologies campus, his phone buzzed. It was a text message.

  Stacey quickly grabbed the phone before Sean could read the message. “Keep your eyes on the road!” she said. “It’s from Kris. I’ll read it to you.”

  Barney was completed last night and is fully functional today. Ryan is coming in shortly.

  “Good… we’re on,” said Sean.

  Stacey handed her husband his phone. “I hope Ryan is feeling well enough to make the trip.”

  “This is the big one. It’d be hard to miss this one.”

  Using the carpool lane, it took Sean half the time that it normally would have taken to get to the Tace campus. He was thrilled, for many reasons, to have his wife accompany him to watch the first roundtrip time travel experiment. Upon their arrival at Building Twelve, special security clearance had to be granted to Stacey to gain access to the special labs. Unlike her previous visits, two Army soldiers now stood in the lobby securing the entrance to the building. After receiving clearance, and passing even more soldiers in the hallways, Sean and Stacey found a group of Tace scientists huddled in the room fondly named after one of the first cryogenic rats – Lab Nelson.

  “She’s a beauty!” said Sean sarcastically about the new time machine, announcing himself as he walked into Lab Nelson.

  “You mean ‘he’,” said Kris walking over to greet his father with a handshake and his mother with a kiss on the cheek. “He’s a beauty. This one is Barney.”

  Although the expensive time machines were given names indicating that they were of the opposite sex, they were in fact identical to each other. Betty and Barney were designed from the same specification. It had been difficult to determine the full cost of Betty, the first time machine developed, because of engineering costs that included many years of trial-and-error research. However, Barney proved that multiple machines could be constructed using the same designs at a whopping cost of $270 million per machine.

  Stacey immediately recognized Ryan Graves, who was sitting and resting near a computer workstation. “Ryan, how are you feeling?” she said as she walked to greet him.

  Cuts, bruises and bandages were still apparent, although Ryan tried to downplay the pain. “Better, thank you. Nothing that would hold me up from being here today.”

  “You’ve been through a lot, dear,” Stacey said kindly. “If there is anything that I can do for you or your family, you just let me know. Okay?”

  Regaining his sense of humor, Ryan joked, “Well, I was thinking about Korean food for lunch. How about some kim chee?”

  Fourteen people, including Sean and Stacey, stood by to watch the final preparations in Lab Nelson. Like the similarities between Betty and Barney, Lab Nelson and Lab Murray were also intentionally identical. The focal point in the lab was an iron sphere held by four Kevlar braces – the second time machine known as Barney. Looking from the entrance of the room, a large monitor to the left of the time machine carried live video of the contents within Barney. And to its right, desks lined with computers were busy performing calculations, with the primary numbers for the experiment being driven by the nearest workstation.

  Looking around the room, Sean found one item to be missing. “Where’s the monkey?” he asked.

  “He’s with Krishna in Murray,” answered Kris. “They’re getting ready for Betty.”

  Stacey looked at her son extremely puzzled, but she said nothing.

  Seeing a look of curiosity on his wife’s face, Sean laughed. “He means that our test monkey is next door in the other room being prepared to enter the time machine.”

  “Okay, we’re all set here,” said Ryan. “To make sure that we give ourselves enough time and that we leave room for error, we’ve just set Barney for exactly one hour from now. That’s when we’ll reaccelerate. That’s when we’ll bring back our monkey.”

  That was the cue for the group to move to Lab Murray, next door, where the first time machine was being prepared to transport the monkey into the future. One-by-one, the scientific party moved between the labs, passing through the intimidating line of soldiers securing the hallway.

  Inside Lab Murray, only three feet from the time transport, sat an anxious monkey locked in a cage. Krishna gently stroked the top of the monkey’s brown and white hair on his head to keep him calm.

  “Oh, he’s so cute!” exclaimed Stacey, falling in love with the little monkey. “Sean, do you remember the TV show Friends? He looks just like the monkey on the show. What was his name…”

  “Marcel,” answered Sean.

  “Good memory! I think it was Marcel.”

  Sean looked at the monkey and then the rest of the room. Everything seemed in order. “Krishna, how are things looking here?”

  “We’re all set,” replied Krishna.

  “Kris, do you mind if I kick this off?” Sean asked his son softly, leaning in so that only Kris could hear
his request.

  “By all means,” answered Kris. “You’ve got honors.”

  The Tace team huddled in the small lab to listen to the founder of their company speak. Outside in the halls, Sean could see a group of curious soldiers gather to eavesdrop on the conversation. Ignoring them, Sean cleared his throat and began. “I think we all understand the importance of today’s test. This will be our greatest moment! First and foremost, with a second time machine, we now have the ability to travel to the future and back. Besides Stacey and I, who would ever want to do just a one-way trip? It’s like an airline flight. Odds are that you’ll want a roundtrip flight to return back to your starting point.”

  Sean got a few laughs out of the audience, but the largest snicker was from an army soldier listening behind him.

  He continued, “Today, we have the ability for the first time to do roundtrip time travel. In addition, we have our first test with a primate, which is a closer resemblance to humans than previous tests that we have conducted with other animals. Although we believe that our machines are safe for human travel, this will get us one step closer to having that confidence. And lastly, we will have our first opportunity to observe a monkey who meets himself in the present. Three days from now, we will have two identical monkeys when our current primate arrives into the future. Unlike Project Rat Backwards, we specifically did not let the two rats meet when we sent him back in time. This time, we will run tests to observe their behavior when the two meet.”

  Simultaneously, everyone looked at the poor, unknowing monkey who was unaware that he was about to become famous.

  “We’ve combined a number of separate tests into one experiment,” Sean said concluding his speech, “but I think everyone here realizes that we may not have the luxury of time to proceed with our original plan. We must be cautious and careful about our work, but at the same time we must act swiftly and gather us much information while we can. It is your tireless efforts that have gotten us to this point. It is this team that has brought us this wonderful technology. And today, we demonstrate the true, full potential of time travel!”