by Dirk Patton
“You have ten seconds,” the Admiral said. “Convince me why I should listen to whatever it is you have to say.”
“If you don’t, everyone will die. Major Chase. Most of the Australian population from a nerve gas release. Then, everyone here in Hawaii when the Russians nuke the islands. You missed a sub and it’s still out there!”
“How do you know that?” Packard asked, unfazed by the man’s claim.
“Because I watched it happen, less than two days from now!”
The Admiral stared at the prisoner, not wanting to believe what he was hearing, but unable to dismiss the man outright after having read the Athena file.
“Look, Admiral. You don’t have to believe what I’m saying. I’m carrying a data chip that holds evidence of what will happen if you ignore me.”
“You were thoroughly searched,” Packard said. “There was nothing found other than that suspect FBI badge.”
The man barked a laugh and smiled for the first time.
“It isn’t on me, Admiral. It’s in me! Bring an iPad and I’ll tell you how to access the data.”
Packard stared at him for a long pause, then turned to look at his reflection in the observation mirror and nodded. He knew Captain West would be watching and would quickly bring a tablet into the room.
Less than a minute later, the interrogation room door opened and Captain West hustled inside with an iPad in his hand. He glanced at the Admiral who nodded and tilted his head toward the table. He sat down across from the prisoner and looked up, mouth open to ask how to proceed. Before he could speak, the man suddenly vanished, the shackles that had been restraining him falling empty to the concrete floor with a loud clatter.
-----
“What the fuck just happened?” Agent Bering shouted as he stormed into the operations center on the Athena Platform.
Alarms were blaring, despite the frantic efforts of several technicians to silence them. For the moment, they were fighting a losing battle. As soon as they pressed a key to acknowledge one, another would pop up and add to the cacophony.
Dr. Anholts was bent over the largest console in the room, feverishly typing as she peered through reading glasses at the monitor. The Director and Agent Johnson stood slightly behind each shoulder, watching as she worked. When no one responded, Bering hurried over and pushed in next to Johnson to see what was going on.
“There it is again!” she said, stabbing a pencil-thin finger at the screen.
All three men leaned closer, but none of them could decipher the data that was rapidly scrolling in a small window. More alarms began sounding, drawing muttered curses from the technicians who were trying to quell them.
“Doctor, please translate,” the Director said in his usual, unflappable tone.
“One moment!” Anholts snapped, irritation clear in her voice.
As her fingers flew across the keyboard, several windows displaying numerical data opened. Leaning closer, she carefully examined each.
“Oh, my God!” she breathed.
She suddenly spun and pushed past the Director, nearly sending him sprawling as she raced to the far wall. A large, red button was protected by a pane of glass, a small hammer hanging at the end of a chain to its side.
“Doctor!” Patterson barked.
Anholts ignored him and grabbed the hammer. With a sharp blow, she shattered the glass and slammed her fist onto the button. The overhead lights flickered and a whole new series of alarms immediately began shrilling. She ignored them and dashed back to the console, leaning close and checking the data windows.
After nearly a minute, she sighed and straightened, turning to face the Director. He glared back, the concern on his face warring with irritation over not knowing what was happening.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Dr. Anholts said. “We were losing control and if I hadn’t scrammed the supercollider, we would have… well, the result would have been an unstoppable event which would almost certainly have created a singularity capable of destroying the entire planet.”
The alarms had finally been shut off and a stunned silence filled the room when she spoke.
“What happened?” Patterson asked after several very long moments.
“It is as I feared,” Anholts said, appearing truly frightened. “The incidents we have detected in alternate timelines are beginning to impact us. Several months ago, as you recall, I began monitoring gravitational waves that were inconsistent with anything we have seen before. They are growing in both strength and duration, and are having a direct effect on our systems.”
“Is that why I’m back early?” Agent Bering asked.
“Yes,” she said, turning to face him.
“So, the gravitational waves are affecting time?” the Director asked.
“No,” Anholts said, vigorously shaking her head. “It’s not that simple.”
“Then what?” Bering asked when she didn’t immediately continue.
“They are causing fluctuations within the temporal field. Warping space-time. In this case, the variation was significant enough that Agent Bering was brought back early, in a manner we’ve never seen before. This is actually quite disturbing and I’m concerned over the consequences to our own timeline.”
“Did you successfully deliver the warning?” Patterson asked, turning to face Bering.
“No,” he said. “I was about to give them access to my chip, but it didn’t happen before I got yanked home.”
“Doctor,” the Director said, spinning to face Anholts. “Can we send him back again?”
“No,” she said, looking at the floor. “With the supercollider scrammed, restarting and powering up to the levels necessary to achieve a stable wormhole to the past will take days. And, that’s if I don’t have to initiate another emergency shutdown because of rogue gravitational waves.”
“Are you kidding me?” Bering blurted. “We just watched the world die. We’re sitting on top of a fucking time machine and we can’t go back far enough to prevent it?”
Dr. Anholts met his eyes, not at all perturbed by the outburst. She opened her mouth to answer, but after a few moments, closed it without speaking.
“Is there anything we can do, doctor?” the Director asked quietly.
She looked at him, slowly shaking her head at first, then froze in thought.
“Maybe,” she said in a far-off voice. “Maybe. But I have concerns we might make things even worse.”
“Worse?” Bering interjected. “Everyone is dead! What could be worse than that?”
“Agent Bering,” she said, turning to face him with a sad smile. “We have been safe and secure for the past several months. Protected from the ravages that befell the world because of our location. And we have watched, in horror, as the infected tore through the surviving population like savage beasts.”
She paused, shuddering, obviously still not having accepted the fate of mankind.
“Your point, doctor?” the Director prompted.
Anholts took a deep breath before answering.
“My point is the gravitational waves. We know there have been catastrophic shifts in parallel timelines. This energy is now affecting us. It caused Agent Bering to be returned to real time far ahead of schedule. If it can do that, it has the potential to impact all aspects of our timeline.”
“Like what?” Bering asked.
“It will require some analysis,” she said. “To know for certain, we must review the data contained in the hardened archive and compare it to current events, otherwise we will not know that something is not what it should be. What it was originally intended to be. People that were dead may no longer be, and those who had survived could now be gone. Events that charted the course of survivors may now be different. The possibilities are virtually limitless. But whatever they might be, the people that are impacted the most may not realize things have shifted.”
“Like I asked, Doc,” Bering said. “What the hell’s worse than being nuked or gassed? So what if something gets changed becau
se of these gravity waves and someone that died is suddenly alive again? If we can save the few million people that are left, we have to! They’re all that’s left!”
“I must say I have to agree with Agent Bering,” the Director said before the discussion could continue. “Doctor, can you do this, or not? Can you restart the system and send Agent Bering back to deliver the warning?”
After a long moment of searching their faces, she sighed and nodded.
“I will do my best,” she said.
2
Admiral Packard and Captain West stared in shock at the empty chair across the table from them. Neither man reacted when the door suddenly burst open and Captain Black charged into the room. They were all stunned into silence, the Admiral walking slowly around the table and picking up one of the shackles that had been around the prisoner’s wrist. He gave it a sharp tug, the chain jingling loudly in the quiet.
“Captain,” he said, dropping the restraint onto the table. “Please tell me the video was recording.”
When there was no immediate response, he turned to face the Marine officer.
“Captain!”
“Sorry, sir,” Black said, shaking his head as if to clear it. “Yes, it was. Is.”
Packard nodded and turned to face his aide.
“Captain West, I want you to take personal possession of the video file. Make certain there are no other copies. What just happened does not leave this room! Understood?”
He looked each of the men in the eye as he spoke. Both acknowledged his order and, a second later, Captain West hurried out to retrieve the recording.
“What the hell happened, sir?” Captain Black asked, circling the table to peer at the empty shackles.
“I think the man just proved he was telling the truth, in the most indisputable way,” the Admiral mused. “Let’s get to the CIC!”
They quickly exited the MP building, a squad of Marines forming up around the Admiral and escorting him to a waiting Humvee. Before they pulled away, Packard sent one of the men to find Captain West and ask him to come to the CIC as soon as he had the video file.
Captain Black drove, a pair of Humvees loaded down with Marines bracketing the Admiral’s vehicle as they headed across the sprawling base. Overhead, a Super Cobra’s rotor pounded the air as it paced the small convoy.
“He said ‘everyone dies,’ ” Packard said softly.
Black nodded his head but didn’t respond to the Admiral’s musings. Packard slid open the side window on the up-armored vehicle and lit a cigarette.
“What happened to him, sir?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Captain,” the Admiral said. “I saw it with my own eyes and I’m not even sure I believe it.”
He fell silent for the remainder of the drive, jumping out and rushing up a short flight of steps when they arrived at the CIC. The security detail scrambled to keep up, not having expected the much older man to be moving so fast. Charging into the room, Packard made a beeline for the duty officer.
“Commander, do we have any indication that the Russians might still have operational launch capability?”
The surprised officer stared at the Admiral for a beat before responding.
“Negative, sir. Definitely not land based. We have carefully cataloged and reviewed every launch site and documented catastrophic damage from our Thor attacks.”
“What about boomers. Could we have missed one?”
The Admiral was referring to submarines capable of launching ICBMs. The duty officer didn’t immediately respond, earning a frown from Packard.
“Commander, I asked a question. Could any enemy boomers have survived?”
“Sir, according to the after-action report prepared by Admiral James, the only surviving sub-surface assets are attack platforms, not boomers.”
“What are you not saying, Commander?” the Admiral growled, stepping close and thrusting his face at the younger officer.
The man swallowed nervously, taking a deep breath before speaking again.
“Sir, I concur with the assessment presented by Admiral James. We have confirmed kills on every known Russian boomer.”
“Known?” Packard asked, glaring.
“It’s nothing definitive, sir. A report from the North Carolina a couple of days ago. If you recall, sir, they dropped off the SEAL team that was killed by Barinov and barely escaped a concerted Anti-Submarine Warfare effort by the Russians.”
“I recall very clearly, Commander. Continue!” the Admiral snapped.
“Well, sir, they’ve hung around in the area. Just keeping an eye on the Russians and their shipping traffic in and out of Sydney Harbour. Slightly more than four days ago, they detected a submerged contact on sonar and were able to track it for a few minutes. It had come above the layer very briefly and they picked it up as it was going back deep.”
“The point, Commander?”
“Sir, the computer was unable to classify the contact as anything other than a submarine. We’ve never heard this specific signature before, but the sonar operator aboard the North Carolina was able to determine that it was running twin, five-bladed, shrouded props. That is consistent with the enemy’s Delta IV class ballistic missile boats, sir.”
Captain West arrived as the duty officer was speaking and heard enough to understand what the Admiral’s concern was.
“Commander,” West said. “How many Delta IV’s did we sink?”
“Six confirmed, sir.”
“You’ve done some digging, haven’t you?” Packard asked, no longer trying to bore a hole through the man’s head with his eyes.
“Yes, sir. I have.”
“And?”
“Sir, our intelligence is that the Russians built six Delta IV boomers and that is exactly the number we destroyed. However, there is an uncorroborated report in the system that a seventh hull was under construction, but never completed. That, alone, isn’t enough.
“But three weeks before the attacks on the US, there was a finding generated by the Defense Intelligence Agency that claimed the Russians had completed the seventh Delta IV and it was undergoing sea trials. It does not contain any indication of the source of the information and was in the queue for follow up. That never happened. So, sir, it is possible that there is another Russian boomer running around off the eastern coast of Australia.”
Packard stared at the duty officer for several long moments, finally turning to look at Captain West.
“Your thoughts, Captain?”
“The evidence, circumstantial though it may be, is starting to pile up, sir,” West said.
Packard nodded and turned back to the duty officer.
“Commander, send flash traffic to the North Carolina. Locate and destroy the unidentified target. Highest priority, on my authority.”
“Yes, sir!” the man snapped. “Locate and destroy unidentified target.”
-----
“Your thoughts, Captain?” Admiral Packard asked as he lit a cigarette.
They were at the bench that overlooked the harbor. Captain West hadn’t taken a seat, knowing the Admiral would want to light up. There was almost no breeze, but enough to gently push the acrid smoke and he moved upwind before lowering himself onto the hard concrete.
“I’m still processing what we just witnessed, sir,” he said, watching Captain Black reposition himself away from the Admiral’s smoke.
“How long until the Reagan arrives at the platform?” Packard asked.
“I’ve already ordered Captain Morrow to proceed at best speed, sir. Within ninety minutes they’ll be in helicopter range and he will launch a Sea Hawk with the XO aboard. But, I’m not sure how that will help us.”
“Explain,” Packard said, squinting at his aide.
“Sir…” West paused. “If we operate under the assumption that everything contained in the Athena file is true and that the man who claimed to be from the future is indeed genuine, then the people on that platform will be unaware of his visit.”
“Excuse me?” Packard asked, burning cigarette paused inches from his mouth.
“If you think about it, sir, there’s no way they could know. The people that are there are at the same moment in time we are. But the prisoner would have had to come from the future to know what he knew. That’s their future as well. A time that has yet to come. How could they know what they’re going to do tomorrow?”
The Admiral took a deep drag and stared at the grass between his feet as he considered the idea.
“Assuming all of this is real and not some intel spook’s false flag operation to screw with the Russians,” he finally said.
“Sir, I was dubious at best in accepting the information that was in that file. But we just saw a man disappear into thin air with our own eyes. We weren’t under the influence of narcotics or alcohol. We weren’t in a religious fervor, or hypnotized, or anything else that might explain what we witnessed. Now, between the man’s statements and the fact that he vanished without a trace while shackled to a steel table inside a secure facility, with a squad of Marines outside the only door, I find myself forced to reconsider the possibility that everything in that file was true.”
Packard stayed silent, finishing his cigarette and stripping the butt. He played with the pack for nearly a minute, eventually lighting a fresh smoke.
“So, we accept everything at face value. Is that your opinion?”
“A statement the prisoner made led us to information about the possibility of an unknown Russian boomer prowling around out there. We thought we were secure from the threat of missile attack. While we have no firm evidence to the contrary, the very fact that the North Carolina detected what is likely a sub we’ve not encountered before is troubling, to say the least.”
The Admiral nodded and continued smoking.
“He said that Major Chase dies. That the nerve gas is released in Australia. How could he even know that the Major is in Australia? That was very tightly held information.”
“He could know it because for him, it’s history,” West said.
“Then what do we do with the information? How do we act to prevent the events he was here to warn us about? We have no way of knowing what precipitated them, or if we’re even to blame. Perhaps the nerve gas release was already planned.”