Time Camp Episode 1: Family Time

by John Huegel

As they munched on dinner, the family debriefed on the actions of the day. Finally, Tom called for silence. They all knew what he wanted. “So what are your decisions?” he asked each of the three Watson kids.

  Andy said, “I want to do it, for sure.”

  Jenna said, “I think so, but I think I’ll miss my friends when I’m not here.”

  Laura said “Me too. I’m very connected. But it sounds super exciting.”

  Their mom asked, “So is everyone in?”

  A show of hands indicated that the whole family was in!

  Tom said, “Excellent. I’m proud of all of you for your courage and the thought you put into this.”

  Laura piped in, “So, how soon until we get to time travel? I’m excited to go!”

  Liz explained, “Well, we think the best time to travel is over school breaks, where you may not see people for a while. That way if you grow, or ahem, ‘change’ over the trip, it’s not so noticeable. So our next opportunity is Spring Break, and we think we may be able to squeeze in our mandatory Time Camp training trip then. Is everyone up for that?”

  A chorus of “YES!” met the question. The Watson family was going to Time Camp!

  BOOK TWO: THE WATSONS GO TO TIME CAMP

  Chapter 16: Preparation

  Spring Break was only three weeks away. After the family decision, the kids had a fresh infusion of energy, and they each worked really hard to make sure their grades were good and no one got sick or hurt. They peppered their parents with tons of questions about Time Camp, some of which they could answer and some they knew nothing about. It was difficult to keep their friends out of their secret, but they had made a family promise, and they kept it.

  On Tuesday evening after the meeting, Tom called a number that connected him to the Tonawanda TimeStation operator, and confirmed to the agent that the family was in. They arranged to return on Friday night of the four-day school break, so Tom and Liz would not miss any work, and they would have the weekend to recover in Erie after the trip.

  As break approached, the kids started packing. Their parents had to tell them that they really shouldn’t take anything with them to Time Camp – they would be provided with everything they needed, and they would have to leave their stuff in the Van in Buffalo. They were worried that their phones and electronics would be stolen, but Liz assured them that they would only be in the building for a few minutes of elapsed time. They booked a hotel for the Friday night after their return, so they wouldn’t have to drive in the dark.

  Friday came, and the kids were home from school and practically bursting with energy and excitement. They cleaned and organized their rooms, arranged to have the dogs watched, and told their friends that they were going to see a hockey game, which was partially true – they planned to see the Sabres on Saturday if all went well.

  The trip to Buffalo was uneventful in the sunny midwinter thaw that sometimes interrupted the normal blanket of snow. As they rolled up to the warehouse in Tonawanda, Andy said, “I’m nervous. What if something bad happens?”

  “I can’t say there’s no risk, Honey,” said his mother, “but I know these people run a tight ship. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  Chapter 17: Off to Camp!

  Tom took a deep breath. “Are you ready for this, family?”

  “As ready as we’ll ever be, Dad,” said Andy, and they all climbed out of their red van.

  Then, they locked the car, walked toward the warehouse, and as they opened the door, Liz and Tom’s enhancements activated.

  *Welcome, Liz and Tom,* sent Abby, the receptionist. “Hello Laura, Jenna and Andy. Welcome to the team!” she said aloud to the kids. They smiled and Laura said, “We’re kind of nervous. This is our first, well, time!”

  Everyone chuckled at that, and the ice was broken. Liz sent, *Abby, do we need any other prep before we head to Time Camp?*

  Abby shook her head, and sent, *No, you are ready. Give the orders and we’ll get you all going!*

  Liz said aloud, “Abby, please set up the booth for Time Camp, Era 47, to follow our last return.”

  Abby replied, “Time Camp, Era 47. Return in +1?”

  Liz followed up with the TimeStation protocol: “Return in +1. Have a Good Day!” Everyone smiled.

  The portal opened, and the family filed into the booth. On the way in, Jenna asked, “What was that all about?”

  Tom replied, “The operators need to know exactly where and when to send you, and how to program the units for your return. We told them to send us to Time Camp, and to arrive just after our last time we left there. The ‘Plus 1’ was to indicate that when we return here, we are to come in a minute from our departure, so we don’t catch ourselves coming and going. There’s a kind of protocol that operators and travelers use, to avoid mistakes. It’s adapted from the interchange that pilots use with air traffic controllers.”

  “Cool,” said Andy. “I’ve always wanted to be a pilot.”

  “Ready to go to Time Camp?” Tom asked the family. They nodded in agreement. “Here we go!”

  The booth’s display flashed blue and the far door opened on the huge station of Time Camp. Kara and Jade were waiting for them and greeted the parents with a hug.

  Tom introduced them all. “Kids, this is Kara, our training guide, and Jade, our medical advisor. This is Jenna, Andy and Laura.” Greetings were exchanged all over, and the kids stared wide-eyed at the huge facility, bustling with activity.

  “This place is huge!” exclaimed Laura. “Wouldn’t this building be visible from satellite photos?”

  Kara replied, “It would in your time. But we’re over 2 million years in your past, and the hunk of rock this is built on will be covered by ice in your time. We’re pretty safe here, and well hidden in time.”

  Jenna was next. “How did this place get built?”

  Jade answered. “It’s actually been destroyed and rebuilt several times in its life. It started out as a smaller research station for beings, well, people, from the far future. As they worked backwards and discovered the boundaries in time, they developed different versions of Time Camp to accommodate the research and other needs of the teams working each side of a boundary.”

  “What’s a boundary?” asked Andy.

  Kara said, “The timeline is broken into many eras. Each era is separated from the ones before and after by some major change in technology, human development or a huge cultural shift. In general, people in one era can communicate or work in close eras, because communication is difficult across the boundaries. The exception is your time period, which is called Era 47. Era 47 is the last civilized pre-joined era, meaning you can communicate well with most eras that came before you. That’s why the Temporal Guild is so excited to get people from our time to be observers and agents – we can go pretty far into the past and fit in, with the proper training, and we can pick up on much of the technology. We can go where the future people can’t!”

  Tom said, “Our first guide, Lana, was from a future era, and it was a bit obvious that she was not ‘one of us’. I gather that learning to fit in is very important when you travel in time!”

  “Well said,” replied Kara. “Let’s do a tour before we get down to business!”

  Jade excused herself from the group and told them to find her when they were done.

  Chapter 18: The Grand Tour

  They began by wandering around the huge open departures and arrivals room. In the center were the operators, who arranged the trips for the travelers. Along much of the outside were the time travel booths. Most of them were the same size, and numbered in several languages. A couple of the booths were very large. Blue displays occasionally showed departures and arrivals.

  As they watched, they saw mostly individuals, but sometimes couples and rarely a family move into or out of the booths on their way to another time and place.

  “Dad, look! Cowboys!” hollered Andy, as he pointed at a couple of men decked out in chaps, boots with spurs, hats and pistols in hol
sters. Tom activated his enhancements, and sent a mental greeting to the cowboys, who stopped, turned and walked over to the family.

  “Howdy Andy. Evenin’ Miss Jenna, Miss Laura,” replied the first man. The girls blushed and smiled at the men. “We’re trying to stay in character as we’re headed out to keep an eye on things in Colorado Territory in 1870. I’m Jake, originally from Detroit, recruited in 1980. Bobby there was from Denver, recruited in 2020.”

  “I’m looking forward to seeing the old Denver City,” grinned Bobby, tipping his hat at the ladies. “You kids study hard. We need good strong families watching and keeping things right downtime.”

  The men shook hands with Andy and Tom, and headed back to their booth which was waiting for their departure.

  “Wow! Do you think I’ll ever get to be a cowboy?” asked Andy.

  “Only if you get over your fear of horses and cows,” said Jenna. Andy glared at her.

  “Hey, hey. There’s plenty of time to work on that stuff. Let’s keep looking.” said their mother.

  As they walked around the huge room, they noticed an African American family with two boys emerging from a booth. They caught the eyes of the boys and approached them. Jenna said, “Wow, other kids time traveling! Where were you? I mean when were you? I mean…”

  “You’re new aren’t you? You can’t send yet.” said the younger boy, about 10. “I’m Jacob. This is my brother Clay. We’re from 2008 Los Angeles.”

  Clay, 15, interjected, “We just got back from Harrisburg, witnessing the Three Mile Island incident in March 1979. It was a minor disaster, but it had a huge impact on public opinion of nuclear power in the late 20th century.”

  “Wow. I just read about that in American History,” said Jenna. “How was the trip?”

  “It was fine, no problems. Harrisburg is not the most diverse place in 1979, but we got through OK.” Replied Jacob.

  “It’s a little tougher for us to go back, owing to our skin color,” commented their father. He introduced himself as David Johnson, and his wife Elaine. “Our perspective is very important, but we do run into a lot of discrimination, and our trips have to be planned very carefully before 1970.”

  “Well, welcome back to Time Camp. I hope your trip was good,” replied Tom. The Johnsons said their goodbyes and headed off for debrief and Brain Dump.

  Chapter 20: A Future History Lesson

  As they continued the tour, they saw many branching hallways extending off into the distance. Kara led them to one labeled “Education”.

  “Here’s where we fill your heads with information before your trips,” said Kara. “If you are going close-time, we just brief you on the things that have just happened, and especially about the things that have not yet happened, so you don’t disclose information to people in the timeline. If you are headed further back, you’ll need cultural and maybe language training, so you will know how to behave and how to talk.”

  Andy said, “Aww, do you mean we have to study?”

  Kara laughed. “Well, we put most of it in your head for you, but you will have to practice some things out loud with us to make sure that your accents and mannerisms are close enough that you won’t be easily discovered as a traveler. Then we can let you go without risk that you’ll blow your cover. But your first couple of trips won’t require a lot of education.”

  Laura replied, “Wow. You mean that you can fill my head with information? That I don’t have to read it all?”

  Kara smiled and replied, “That’s right. In fact, once you have enhancements, you can request downloads of just about any material. Then, if we have enough material about an era, we’ll help you learn it. Maybe someday, you will be the pioneers in a new place or era, and get to bring back fresh recordings, and provide the clues that help us prepare others to work in that time. Maybe ancient Egypt or Colonial America!”

  Liz asked, “So just how many families do you have that can observe in our eras?”

  Kara replied, “Well, the number changes all of the time, and since we are out of time, we continue to recruit in your time and up and downtime from you. But believe me that we need many people from your time who can adapt and help us map out and explore your past. Since no one after Era 47 can go back, we need lots of recruits from the late 47th like you, who understand technology but can fit into older cultures.”

  “What happened after our era? You mention Era 50, but that means there are two eras between the tattoo people and us,” asked Laura.

  Kara frowned. “You’ll learn more later, but I’ll tell you this. There was a huge world war after your era. It pretty much destroyed the planet and nearly wiped out the human race. That and the reconstruction after it took around 100 years. Once that was past, we eventually grew up as a species, and the era of joining and huge technological and cultural change took place, leading to the discovery of the time travel principles and the establishment of the Temporal Guild. But those of us from Era 47 are discouraged from going past our era. We’re free to move into the past as agents and observers, but the future is pretty much off limits.”

  That bothered the kids, and the parents as well. “Aren’t we good enough to go into the future?” asked Jenna.

  Kara said, “It’s not that. Era 48 is terribly dangerous for most people. There is no law, and the land is poisoned. Hundreds of future explorers lost their lives pushing back into that era from the future. Their first stable station was at the end of our era – right before the War, and there are no TimeStation portals in Era 48. Era 49 is very temporally sensitive, as we literally clawed back from barbarism to civilization and established a new, enlightened culture. So Era 50 is the first ‘clean’ timeline after ours, and the people there have a hard time dealing with us as we’re not joined like they are. A few 47’s have gone there, but more as historians or translators than as visitors. We just don’t fit in there.”

  “Hmmph. Maybe someday we’ll change all that,” commented Laura.

  “Moving on,” replied Kara, as she led the family across a connecting corridor to an area marked ‘Wardrobe’.

  In this area, they saw many rooms labeled with different dates: ‘Era 47, 1960-1964’ and similar labels. Kara noted, “If you are going into the past, we keep the master costumes here so we can outfit you and work with you on the dressing and daily routines of the time. Your cowboy friends came here before they left, and learned how to dress and how to act in their time.”

  “Will we get costumes when we travel?” asked Jenna.

  Liz mentioned, “We did when we went to see the Berlin Wall come down. It was not a huge change for us, but my clothes in particular were too new for that time. We selected some items from 1989 and they duped them in our sizes and filled our suitcases for our trip.”

  “Cool,” said Jenna. She was fascinated with clothing and fashion and this was right up her alley. She led a brief exploration of several rooms, taking great delight in the many items of clothing and other props found there. It was like a huge museum of culture and fashion!

  After the wardrobe tour, they visited an immense area called ‘Recreation’. In it were gymnasiums, ball fields, gaming rooms, and pools. Laura, the most athletic of the family, was very interested in this area, as were all of the kids. “Do we get to play here?” she asked.

  Kara replied, “Certainly. We use this area for two purposes. First, when you are here as Campers, you’ll need a place to relax after training and procedures. And second, if you are traveling to a time where sports or games are different, you may need to learn the rules and practice, so you may be pulled into events to help people and families get accustomed to sports and recreation over the timeline.”

  “Wow. So we could play any sport from any time?” asked Andy.

  “Pretty much,” replied Kara. “I’m sure we’ll be back here in a few days, so keep that as a reward for hard work.”

  The tour continued. “Here’s Medical, and it’s about time for your appointments with Jade,” mentioned Kara, as they entered
the medical suite. They went across to Jade’s suite and went in. She looked up from her desk and said, “Perfect timing. Let’s get started!”

  Chapter 21: Medical

  Each of the kids had a separate private meeting with Jade. She screened them and performed a thorough Era 50-enhanced biological screening on them. They all passed, and joined their parents in the large sitting room.

  Jade began, “You are all healthy, which we pretty much knew. It’s time to start the enhancements. “

  Laura interrupted, “So just what are these enhancements? Are they dangerous? Can you see them?”

  Jade smiled. “As your parents can attest, they are perfectly safe, and you can turn them on and off at will. They are invisible from the outside, and in fact, your Era 47 medical capabilities can’t even detect them. They are biological in nature, but have some artificial components. They integrate with your brain and nervous system, and actually talk to your various body parts. They store information in your unused brain neurons. You only use about ten percent of your brain’s storage, so there’s lots of room for additional information!”