Bump Time Origin

by Doug J. Cooper

  “Kiss my ass, Twenty-Six,” called Forty. The room collapsed into laughter, with everyone joining in except for Twenty-Six, who, realizing that he would be the permanent butt of the group’s jokes for years, looked like he was going to cry.

  Then Diesel had a different realization. “If there’s no one sending out T-box design and upgrade instructions, then we need to take ownership of that information. Everyone needs to dig out old copies of everything Ciopova had sent in the past about the T-boxes and T-discs, and we need to secure it across all the timelines for ourselves.”

  Through the murmurs of agreement, Sixty asked Diesel, “Would you take the lead on that, Thirty-Two? Let’s gather and organize everything into a maintenance manual.”

  As Diesel nodded his acceptance of the assignment, Twenty-Six called in a despondent voice, “Since I don’t have anything to do anymore, I can help.”

  * * *

  At the Big Meeting three years later, Fifty-Five’s Rose addressed the gathering. “The sisters have been working hard to recover our lost timelines. I’m here to update you on our progress.”

  The brothers had developed a “leave no timeline behind” mentality, likening the situation to leaving fellow soldiers behind on the battlefield. The missing timelines had grown to four—Twenty-Five through Twenty-Eight—and as a group, the Diesels felt duty bound to “rescue” them, believing they would want the same if positions were reversed.

  Despite their commitment to the goal, they deferred to the sisters, and especially the Roses, for implementation. The brothers recognized that their daughters had been blessed with greater intelligence, education, and drive. If the puzzle could be solved, they were the ones who could do it.

  The wall behind Rose changed into a huge display, and it showed a T-box in the older style Diesel still used. As the brothers murmured, she smiled. “Sorry to disappoint, but we weren’t exchanging recipes.” The murmurs became laughter.

  “I built this box from the designs being used in the Thirty-Two through Thirty-Nine timelines. It’s down in the basement. I invite you to check it out when we’re done here.”

  As she spoke, the new T-box flashed a quick sequence on its external monitor that ended in red, signaling a connection failure. She noticed it along with everyone else. “Every fifteen minutes, the box tries to connect with the missing timelines. As you can see, no luck so far.”

  “Why use an untested box?” asked Diesel from the audience. “You’re just adding uncertainty to your effort, especially when we have so many that we know work.”

  “Our approach requires that we modify the T-box internals. We thought it risky to do that on a machine being used for daily travel.”

  “Why a T-box at all?” asked Fifty-Five. “Why not a modern T-disc?”

  Rose shrugged. “The older technology is easier to understand, and that makes it easier to modify.”

  The image behind her changed to what looked like a simple ball on a string.

  “To communicate with the lost timelines, we built a transponder and attached it to an electromagnetic leash. Using the modified T-box, we dangle the transponder back near the missing timelines, then use it to broadcast messages targeted at Lilah’s phone. We’ve been sending a series of messages, explaining everything from how to win the lottery through how to build a T-box.”

  The image zoomed in on the transponder—the ball at the end of the leash. “But it’s a one-way transmission,” Rose continued, “so it’s like shouting into a well. We send what we think are the right messages at the right time, but we have no way to hear any response. We don’t even know for sure if anything is getting through.”

  “What if it works and the T-box connects with a lost timeline?” asked Forty.

  Switching the display behind her so it again showed her T-box, Rose scanned the group. “Then it’s back in your court. What do you want to do?”

  Diesel stood. “If you can modify the T-box to send a transponder, doesn’t that mean it could send you, or any sister for that matter, to another timeline?”

  Rose linked eyes with Diesel but didn’t reply.

  And then the T-box behind her attempted to link with the missing timelines. They all watched the display fail to red when a link couldn’t be made with the Twenty-Eight timeline, fail again for the Twenty-Seven timeline, and again for the Twenty-Six timeline.

  Then the modified T-box attempted to reach Twenty-Five’s timeline. As they watched, the display showed the connection in a steady, vibrant green.

  Twenty-Five had a working machine.

  38. Up Next: Book 2 - Bump Time Meridian

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  1. Diesel, Thirty-Five years old, Fifty-Five timeline

  Diesel gave Lilah a kiss and stepped into the T-box. He started to close the door, then paused to acknowledge her concern. “I’ll be back in time for a drink before dinner.” Tapping the screen in front of his face, he initiated his jump. “Travel to Fifty-Five.”

  As he waited the few seconds for the machine to engage, he imagined cuddling with Lilah when he returned. He smiled, then a tingle of static electricity signaled his jump.

  The dark confines of his T-box were replaced by the bright, open surroundings of Fifty-Five’s T-disc locker room. Alone, he stood still, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps. Hearing nothing, he called out. “Hello, I’m here!”

  Laundry mounded in the corner stood in testament to the Big Meeting the day before. Stepping to almost-bare shelves, he poked around, found a set of clean clothes, and dressed quickly. As he sat to put on slippers, he called again, “It’s me!”

  “Are you decent?” Rose’s voice came through the door.

  “They say I’m excellent,” he replied on impulse.

  Rose strode into the room. “I hope that wasn’t sexual innuendo, Dad.” Twenty-nine years old with a very pretty face on a petite frame, she looked like a sportier version of Lilah.

  Diesel turned red but brazened through it. “Of course not, which proves it’s your mind that’s in the gutter.”

  She laughed as he stood, and they exchanged a quick embrace.

  “Welcome back, Thirty-Five.” Fifty-Five stuck his head through the door long enough for a quick wave, then turned and continued down the hall. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  Diesel followed Rose on the short walk through the beautiful mountain home. Joining Fifty-Five, they descended to the basement. Shelves and boxes were pushed to the side in the cavernous room. Rose’s T-box sat in the cleared area.

  “It looks just like mine.” Diesel walked around the exterior, studying the walls of etched aluminum sheet. It had the same heavy door with latch handle, and same electrical cables running down the side, making connections at the top, middle, and bottom.

  “The internals are identical as well,” said Rose. “But as I explained at the Big Meeting yesterday, we’ve modified the logic controlling it. This unit can transport more than just Diesels. It should be able to send anything that fits inside, as long as there’s no metal to corrupt the energy field.”

  “It will take some guts to be the first one to try it,” said Fifty-Five.

  A buzz came from inside the machine, startling the three of them. The screen on the front of the T-box lit up.

  “Whoa,” said Rose as they stared at the message on the display: “Twenty-Five incoming in 4:58.”

  They speculated on who it would be. With ten-seconds remaining, Diesel heard a familiar hum followed by a static wash. The display on the T-box showed a new message: Twenty-Five Arrived.

  They waited for the door to open. When it didn’t, Rose stepped forward and tugged on the latch. They all could see that the cabin was empty.

  Then Rose crouched down and picked up a folded piece of paper from the T-box floor. She read it to herself, then held it for Diesel and Fifty-Five to see. Printed in
bold type were the words: “Please help! Come quick!”

  Diesel took the paper and raised it to the light, flipping it to see if there were any other markings. Then he handed it to Fifty-Five. “I wish they’d handwritten it so we could tell if it came from Twenty-Five or Lilah.”

  Rose wrung her hands and looked at her father. “This wasn’t part of the plan.”

  “If we send someone, it should probably be muscle,” said Fifty-Five. “Should we ask Forty if he’ll go?”

  “We aren’t ready to send anyone,” said Diesel, thinking fast because he was in the crosshairs if they decided one of them should travel to the new timeline. He studied the message for a moment more, then looked at Fifty-Five. “Let’s go to your T-disc and see if we can connect with them using our regular equipment.”

  Fifty-Five nodded. “I’m curious, too.”

  As they climbed the steps, Diesel reviewed what Rose had told them at the Big Meeting the day before. “The only difference between your box and mine is that you bypassed a filter? Anything else?”

  “That’s it. Just one tweak to the design. A significant one, though.”

  They reached the kitchen and Fifty-Five led them through the house.

  “And then you put a transponder on a string and dangled it near the missing timelines?”

  “We call it an electromagnetic leash,” she nodded. “We lowered the transponder back to the Twenty-Five timeline and used it to broadcast communications to that Lilah’s phone.”

  “I thought the transponder sent info to all the lost timelines,” said Fifty-Five.

  “It does. I was simplifying. We broadcast communications back, targeting the Twenty-Five through Twenty-Eight timelines, telling the Lilahs how to win the lottery so they can pay to build a T-box.” She paused and bit her lip. “But the transponder is a one-way transmission. There’s no feature to hear a response, so for months it felt like we were just shouting into a well.”

  As they entered the T-disc locker room, Rose waved the piece of paper that held the plea for help. “This note is a huge affirmation of our methods.”

  “Congratulations.” Diesel responded spontaneously, though he wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or serious.

  Fifty-Five stepped around Diesel, stood in front of one of the T-disc rings and said, “Travel to Twenty-Five.”

  The display showed the connection in solid green—the sign of a secure link.

  “Cancel,” Fifty-Five called to the air as he stepped back out. “I’d say it’s definitive. Twenty-Five has a functioning T-box.”

  “If I jump back here tomorrow from my timeline,” Diesel turned to Rose, “could I end up coming through your T-box in the basement by mistake? What decides whether an incoming transmission connects here or down there?”

  “The sending unit needs to be programmed to ask for my T-box. If it doesn’t send a specific pass code, the connection defaults to the production units.” She pointed at the T-discs to clarify the reference.

  “So how did Twenty-Five’s machine know to send the pass code? That paper showed up in your T-box.”

  Rose nodded as if to acknowledge his thought process. “That’s because what we sent through the transponder includes the code as part of the design. If any of the lost timelines build a machine, it can only connect with the box downstairs.” She shrugged. “Actually, it could connect to any old-style T-box if the unit’s been modified.”

  Diesel turned to face her. “With so many timelines to choose from, why did you pick my specific box as the model to copy?”

  “Your Lilah worked hard to help us understand how to bypass the filter, and she was the first Lilah to send me T-box design plans. You carried them here to me, by the way.”

  “I didn’t know that. This is all news to me, which means she’s also very discreet.” Diesel tried not to let his annoyance show in his voice. After the conversation died, he changed tacks. “Let’s send Twenty-Five a note asking what his emergency is.” He looked around the T-disc locker room “We need a pen.”

  “My office is just down the hall,” said Fifty-Five, starting for the door. “We should also ask who it is we’re talking to.”

  “Jeez, you two.” Rose shook her head. “T-discs can’t send paper, and I know you both know that. If you’re serious about sending a note, we’ll have to go back to the T-box in the basement.”

  Diesel led the way this time. “Would your T-box be able to connect with my box?”

  “You mean your unit in the Thirty-Five timeline?” She nodded. “Sure. I told you that your Lilah has been a leader in our efforts. Your T-box was one of the first we tested.”

  Perplexed by the news, Diesel concluded that he and Lilah needed to talk through what she was trying to achieve, and who would be the mother to nine-year-old Rose should her plans go awry. And why wasn’t he being included when she was making such big decisions in the first place?

  Fifty-Five brought Diesel out of his reverie. “Are you going to use Rose’s T-box to jump home?”

  Diesel shook his head. “Unlike how I’ve apparently been treated, I want to talk with Lilah before taking a risk like that.”

  Fifty-Five grabbed a pen as they passed through the kitchen. In the basement, he took the original message from Rose and asked Diesel, “what do we want to say?”

  “What we said upstairs. ‘Who are you, and what’s your emergency?’”

  “Ask them to send pictures,” said Rose. “That will tell us a whole lot more than a few sentences.”

  As Fifty-Five bent down to write the message, the T-box came alive for the second time that day.

  “Whoa,” Rose said again as the message displayed: “Twenty-Five incoming in 4:59.”

  The five-minute countdown took a century. After the static wash swept through the room, Diesel stepped forward, paused to see if Twenty-Five emerged, then pulled open the door when he didn’t. Squatting, he retrieved another slip of paper.

  “Hurry!” it said, again printed in bold type.

  Diesel passed it around. “This whole thing has turned dark. We’ve gone from shouting into a well, to being asked to jump into it.”

  “Let’s send our questions and see how they answer,” said Fifty-Five.

  Diesel supported the idea, if for no other reason than it delayed bigger decisions. He put the paper on the T-box floor, called, “Travel to Twenty-Five,” and shut the door. After the five-minute countdown, the paper was gone. An hour later, they still waited for a reply.

  “While I sympathize with their plight,” said Diesel at that point, “I’m not inclined to go investigate until we know a whole lot more.” Acknowledging his bruised ego for being shut out of so many consequential decisions by his wife, he sought to get home. “And I need to talk with Lilah before I do anything.”

  As they traipsed through the house yet again, Rose said, “I’m anxious to see pictures of their rig. I think that will answer a lot of questions.”

  “I’m interested in seeing the people,” said Diesel. “I’d like to know if it’s a Diesel or a Lilah who needs help. What if it’s some stranger? And the whole printed-messages thing doesn’t make sense to me. If it’s such an emergency, why aren’t they scribbling the notes?”

  In the T-disc room, Diesel peeled off his shirt and threw it onto the pile.

  Rose turned her back to him but remained in the room. “Don’t be angry with Lilah,” she said over her shoulder as he removed his pants. “We started this out of curiosity. There were no nefarious intentions behind any of it.”

  Diesel appreciated hearing that because he’d started to form conclusions about Lilah’s behavior. Breathing in through his nose and exhaling through his mouth to calm himself, he stepped into the ring and called, “Travel to Thirty-Five.”

  As the machine began to cycle, he said, “I need to have a long talk with Lilah. I should be back tomorrow unless that conversation becomes difficult, then it will be the day after tomorrow.”

  “Hopefully we’ll have heard from Twenty
-Five by then,” called Fifty-Five before everything went dark. An instant later, Diesel arrived at his T-box.

  As he stepped from the unit, his subconscious mind noticed the door looked and felt different. He dismissed the observation, thinking perhaps Lilah had performed some maintenance, or maybe his memory was playing tricks on him.

  But as the T-box door closed behind him, he reached for his robe—it should have been draped on a hook right there. That’s when he realized that everything was different.

  Turning, he looked back at the door, reacting the way someone might after stepping from an elevator on the wrong floor. He moved to step back into the T-box, but when he tugged on the latch handle, it wouldn’t budge. Pausing, he turned in a circle, taking in everything and trying to make sense of any of it.

  He stood in a room a little larger than the size of his basement at home. But this one was largely empty. It had clean, white walls, a light blue carpet, and diffuse light coming from overhead. The T-box sat toward the back of the room.

  The only furniture Diesel could see was a single office-style chair positioned at the front of the room. A middle-aged man sat in it—lanky, big ears, a shock of reddish hair on top of his head.

  A mesh-like barrier ran from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, splitting the room in half, with Diesel on one side and the man on the other.

  Disoriented, Diesel asked the man, “Is this the Twenty-Five timeline? What year is it?”

  The man broke into a grin. Standing up from his chair, he lifted his hands over his head and started to twirl.

  Bump Time Meridian is coming soon!

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  39. Also by Doug J. Cooper - The Crystal Series

  The Crystal Series is four full-length books of action and suspense where the emergence of self-aware AI and alien first contact occur at the same time.