by David Hunter
~ ~ ~
"Jeff, please come in. Have a seat and get comfortable. I'm pretty sure I know what this is about, though I want you tell me in your own words."
"Thank's Rachael, I prefer to remain standing. I really don't know where to begin with my feelings – so I'll just state the facts. I've been asked to prevent the marriage of one set of the grandparents of each of the two leaders of the terror plot. From what we know they were good people, leading good lives. If I go back to when they were young, alter their lives so radically, I may be doing them irreparable harm. All along we've known this was the objective of the second phase, and I accepted my part in it. I'm not having second thoughts per se, I just don't feel completely comfortable with it. On the other hand, to not meet the objective would be to condemn an entire planet of innocents." Jeff exhaled a sigh of relief, finally voicing his feelings.
Rachael spoke, taking advantage of the pause on Jeff's side of the conversation. "Knowing you as I do, I figured this might create a conflict for you. But we both know it has to be done. I'm certain you can find a way to do it in which the would-be grandparents still grow up to have happy, healthy lives and marry somebody completely different than in the current time line."
Table of Contents
27. Past, Present, Future
"Time goes you say? Ah, no! Alas, time stays, we go." – Henry Austin Dobson
Near Rishon L'Tzion, State of Israel
Dr. Itzhach Mendlesøn was comfortable in his new position, replacing the late Dr. No'am Abrams, having been fully briefed on The Project and the role his facility played in the larger plan. Mendlesøn was Dr. No'am's lead researcher so there was very little catching-up required for his newest duties.
The fact that their facility actually played a part in the honest-to-goodness successful human time travel trial came as no surprise to him. Everybody knew this to be the goal of their specific work in this facility even though nobody else knew it was already a proven success.
Thanks to his facility's advances in Quantum Entanglement and Nano Worm Micro technology and his position previous to this, Mendlesøn was fully aware that a book, then a tree, were sent back in time. Despite all that they knew, neither he not the rest of his facility – with the exception of No'am – were given the details with regard to the landing of this Jeff Stauffenberg character. Excitement built as Itzhach read Stauffenberg's full report of the landing, heavily annotated by No'am. Finishing the report, he reviewed reams of printouts comparing records time-altered to the records maintained in the temporal shielded archives.
Flipping through the printouts, he paused occasionally to read notations in the margins of the dozens of researchers making the comparisons. Some notations were marked as minor changes, others a little more important but of no particular consequence to this timeline. One notation, marked in red several hundred pages into one of the printouts, caught his attention abruptly.
A business named "Richmond Plumbing and Electric Supply LLC" was listed in the shielded records, but there was no mention of it in the timeline-changed twin records. If a large company ceased to exist when Martin McGlothlin's sons were removed from history this could have broader implications. Were the company a small operation it could have consequences down the road as well, but less likely so. It's impossible to know of a certainty one way or another. Dr. Mendlesøn compared the code to the list of names employed in his facility. Once identified, he asked his assistant to locate the researcher and bring him to the office right away.
"Dr. Mendlesøn, I'm David. You asked that I see you?"
"Yes David, please sit down, make yourself comfortable. Coffee?"
"Thank you, yes."
"Cream or sugar?"
"I take it black."
David was a little nervous being called into the Director's office like this. The offer of a cup of coffee set him slightly more at ease, as did Mendlesøn's casual approach.
"I appreciate you interrupting your work to see me David, so let's get right to it. B'seder?"
"B'seder." David replied.
"In this printout I see a note from you indicating that a company in the old timeline doesn't exist in ours, never has. What can you tell me about this company?
"Sir, not very much I'm afraid. It appears to have been a mom and pop business, run from their home." David went on, "They employed twenty people. According to tax returns they declared their garage as being used exclusively for their plumbing and electric supply company. Frankly, I forgot all about them. I reported this change to my supervisor weeks ago and never heard anything more."
"Why did you mark it in red ink?"
"I felt this to be a little more urgent than other old and new timeline discrepancies as there is no evidence that the woman who co-owned the business with her husband was born in the new timeline. By now, in the old timeline, they would have had three children and five grandchildren, and twenty-three great-grandchildren. In our timeline, only the man exists. He married somebody else, a woman named 'Miriam Greene' and moved to Idaho where they had one child, no grandchildren."
"Have there been other instances such as this?"
David responded as best as memory served, "Similar, yes, but on a lesser scale – in fact quite a few. They are marked in yellow. The difference between this and the others is that one of the sons in the old timeline became a pediatric surgeon, saving the lives of many children during his career. In our timeline some of those children survived their illnesses anyway while others probably died in the altered history. The outgoing ripple effect is beyond our ability to measure. It may be highly significant. I don't know."
"You've done excellent work, David. I see nothing to show this was escalated by your supervisor to anybody higher. Do you know if . . . your supervisor, what's his name?"
"Her name sir. It's Eliana. Eliana Romanof."
"Do you know if Ms. Romanof closed the case or escalated it higher?"
"I don't know sir."
"Please ask Ms. Romanof to join me at her earliest opportunity. Ask her to bring the files regarding this item and any others that may be similar."
Summarily but politely dismissed, David thanked Dr. Mendlesøn for the coffee and returned to his desk by way of Eliana's office. David liked Eliana, liked her a great deal in fact. He hoped that things would go well.