Upon hearing this the crowd gathered outside the Supreme Court Building gasped.
"Consequently," the lawyer continued reading, waving for the crowd to quieten, "...whereas we recognise that the Pirates of Puerto Rico from A.D. 1699 cannot possibly be American Citizens and are therefore not guilty of treason, it is our desire to set an immediate example which sends a message that discourages others from repeating what they have done. It is therefore our determination, that the goods and assets collectively described as the 'Pirate Treasure' that have appeared within our borders as a result of temporal asset transportation are subject to immediate seizure by the American Government under the rules laid out by the new laws passed by Congress this morning, with no consideration of compensation or appeal by the Pirates of Puerto Rico."
Once again the crowds gasped, and people began to boo, hiss and protest against the decision.
The lawyer standing on the steps of the courthouse waved wildly, urging everyone to be quiet: "There's more...," he shouted. "There's more!..."
Slowly, they began to quieten down, and once again silence returned.
"Granted, however, that the circumstances surrounding the Pirates of Puerto Rico are unique, and in understanding that those who have traveled through time from the past to the present did not do so willingly, and now find themselves in a world not of their choosing, of which they have little or no understanding and in which the United States Government has confiscated all their financial assets, we recognise that in the months and years ahead the Pirates of Puerto Rico will have special needs. It is our further determination therefore, that in consideration of their needs and the issues they will face in coming to terms with their new lives and this new world, and desiring to support both them and prevent problems for the communities in which they will live, that we will support an act of law this morning passed by Congress with Presidential approval that rules that a unique and special award will be made to each and every surviving member of the Puerto Rican Pirates in the form of a tax-free sum of $3 million."
Upon hearing this, the crowd cheered wildly.
The lawyer on the steps waited a while, then waved once again. The crowd quietened.
"In closing this judgement, with the approval of Congress and the President, the United States of America would like to extend the hand of friendship, provide an offer of citizenship to each individual, and welcome the Pirates from Puerto Rico to the year 2014. We wish them happy, prosperous and productive futures!"
--------------------
Earlier, as the judgement of the court was read out, the 'Pirates from Puerto Rico' sat together in their seats in the court, listening as their fates were determined for them.
In spite of repeatedly being reassured by their lawyers, several of the pirates were convinced that they were about to be sentenced to death by hanging. When the judgement was finally read out, they cried tears of joy and relief.
Captain Robert McGregor listened impassively as the decision of the court was read out. The past eight months had been a blur of betrayal, legal-speak, and frustration. His initial reaction to their arrest and imprisonment had been a cloud of anger that shrouded all his judgments. At first, his fury at their betrayal by the Governor had blinded him from rational thought for weeks on end, until one day he awoke with the startling realization that nothing in this world had changed.
People were exactly the same now, in the year 2014, as they were in the year 1699.
And the Governor and Superintendent of Puerto Rico were pirates just like they were.
With the realization that human nature now was the same as it was in the world he came from, Captain Rob McGregor began to perk up. His attitude changed. He smiled for the first time in days.
In 1699 he had survived by his wits and using his brain. If the basics of survival had not changed, he would do it again!
He would learn the ways of this strange new world, and become more successful than ever before.
For now, he would keep his mouth closed. He would watch and learn from those around him, and then one day he would exact his revenge on the Governor and the Superintendent. That day would come.
Captain Rob was a patient man.
As the decision to set the pirates free was announced, Captain Rob had looked across the courtroom and caught the gaze of Miss Sally, who was smiling and looking back at him.
When the verdict on the ownership of the treasure was read out, en masse the pirates rose to their feet and started to protest. It took the policemen and their lawyers in the court several minutes to quieten them down before the judge could continue.
Minutes later, on the assurance from their lawyers that $3m was a fortune in this world, the pirates once again rose to their feet and cheered.
This time the judge let them celebrate for a while before smiling at them and requesting personally to be allowed to carry on and conclude his judgement.
This had been a case like no other!
Thirty minutes later, the pirates were allowed to walk free from the court room, emerging into the sunlight and the blinding flashes of the paparazzi as the world's press clambered to get a slice of the action.
Standing there, in the city of Washington D.C., dressed in new suits and smart ties, the pirates had begun to look like so many other citizens of the world.
Already they had begun to integrate and adapt.
Nevertheless, perhaps it would be a while before they each felt the desire to take out their gold earrings, cut their pony tails and long hair, and have the gaps in their toothless smiles filled with the best orthodontic technology of the year 2014.
At the top of the steps, ignoring those all around him, and forgetting the attention of the world media, Captain Rob McGregor turned to Miss Sally and smiled at her.
Her eyes twinkled as she smiled back at him, and when the Captain bent towards her and kissed her on the lips for the first time, she did not pull back.
"So, Captain Rob? What will you do? Where will you go now?" she asked.
"Back with you, if I may, to the Blue Emerald Bay Resort. I have booked a room there for the next few months."
"You want to come back to Puerto Rico? Why?"
"I shall tell you when we get back, and we are sitting together on the beach, sharing a bottle of fine wine as the sun is setting. Believe me, Miss Sally, I have plans. I have big plans..."
Chapter 48
Four months later
AD 2015
Level 3
Class Five Secure Laboratory
U.S. Army Underground Bunker
Colorado
Tuesday
2 p.m.
The metal mesh suit that Derek Martin wore was beginning to make him sweat. The bags of antique gold coins and diamonds strapped to both his legs were heavy, and the seat he was sitting in was uncomfortable, and too small for his frame. But they were the least of his worries.
Today was the day.
This was not a trial.
And this time they were not going to use a monkey.
This time, the animal sitting in the metal sphere at the heart of the 'Vortex Emulator' was none other than himself, Professor Derek Martin.
There had been times in the past few months when he had started to question his own sanity, wondering if all of this could actually be true. Questioning if perhaps he had somehow banged his head and fallen into a coma and was dreaming everything around him.
This was surely the stuff of science fiction.
Surely none of this was possible!
And yet, whenever the doubts grew too much, he would remember the portrait hanging on the wall in the Bluebell Mansion in Jamaica. He would think of the image of Kate, and their children, and of himself, and he would derive comfort from the fact that everything they were doing now, had in some strange way been pre-ordained: this was going to happen, they were not going to fail. They had already succeeded!
It had only been a year since his first visit to the Bluebell Mansion. Since then he ha
d been back several times...just to make sure...just to check..., and often to think and find inspiration to help solve the theoretical problems that had to be overcome to make the project succeed.
Sometimes he almost felt as if Kate was talking to him, helping him find the answers, and each time when he had returned to the laboratory in Colorado, the answer to his problems had materialized in his mind.
In truth however, most of the hard work had already been done.
When the Colonel had first described the secret research project that he had been driving in his government funded laboratory deep underground in Colorado, he had not exactly told him the complete truth about how far they had already progressed.
The first time that Derek had followed him into the subterranean complex - almost a year ago now - he had been astounded to discover that there was not just one laboratory, but many. The mountain was a veritable hive of tunnels and advanced research laboratories, full of the world's top scientists, many of whom Derek knew by name and reputation.
It astounded Derek that this place had been built and existed without anyone knowing, and his mind boggled to think of all the projects that must be going on within the complex, which was simply known collectively as 'Level 3'.
On the second day after his arrival in the laboratory, the Colonel had taken him into his complete confidence. He had told Derek everything about the research they had completed so far, and he had shown him the prototypes of the 'Vortex Emulator' that they had already built.
Derek was speechless.
He was stunned by the achievements that they had made, and the scale of the project and the investment.
Most incredible of all was the full scale prototype model that they were building for the Vortex Emulator.
It was amazing.
The Vortex Emulator was effectively a small metal chamber that surrounded a cradle, upon which sat a metal sphere that was large enough to hold initially a monkey, and later a man.
A very large nuclear fission reactor built underground and near the Level 3 facility provided an almost infinite amount of power, which was used to increase the electromagnetic energy in the space around the sphere, until the Hunraken Amplitude was breached and a Hunraken Vortex was created.
Standing in the laboratory in front of the Vortex Emulator almost a mile underground in Colorado, a shiver had run up and down Derek's spine.
Derek was looking at the first time travel machine to be built by mankind, and he Derek Martin, was going to be its first human passenger.
--------------------
Later that evening, on the day that Colonel Patterson had shown him the Vortex Emulator, they had sat in the Colonel's office and talked frankly.
A bond had been formed between them now, and both men knew that their individual futures depended upon each other.
"You were not my first choice for this project, Derek," the Colonel had told him. "In fact, I had never even considered you, until I saw you in the picture in Jamaica. We've already selected several candidates and we've been training them for the future role for over six months. Now you will have to join the program and catch up."
Derek laughed.
"Do I have a choice?"
"Yes, you do. And no you don't. I wonder, have you given any thought to the implications of this all?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, have you considered what would happen if you decided not to go through with this? If you decided not to travel back to Kate and marry her?"
"Yes, I have."
"Good, because what we have got here is the classic time travel conundrum, the sort of time travel dilemma that until now you have only been able to read about in popular fiction or see in the cinema. Except this time around, it's real."
"I know. Believe me, I've thought about it. Although I actually want to go back in time to be with Kate, I also realise that I don't actually have much choice about it. History has recorded my death in the year 1738...don't be shocked...of course I researched it on the internet...and I already know the names of all my children, even though I have not had them yet. I can read about it all on the internet, or in lots of history books about that time period in Jamaica. I have five children, they have children, and their children have children of their own. And so forth and so on. I am the father of generations of people who are alive today. If I don't go back in time, those people will never be born. I don't know who they are or what they do, but what if one of them is a pilot today, flying an aircraft...if I chose not to go back in time, our past will be altered, the world will be different, and perhaps that pilot who is in the airplane will suddenly disappear. One moment he is there, then our reality changes, and one moment he is not, because history changes, and suddenly, he was never born! Then the plane crashes, hundreds of people die, and all because of me. Except it won't just be an airplane... Who knows how much the world we live in today is dependent upon actions or events or inventions or discoveries resulting from the descendants of my children. And if I never had those children? None of those things would have occurred. The world would instantly be different!"
"Exactly. I've been doing my own research on your lineage Derek, and it would seem that you sire a long line of clever people! In particular you might be shocked to learn that one of the scientists who was a key contributor and worked on the Manhattan Project was a direct descendent of yours."
"You're kidding. Who?"
"Sadly, I am not at liberty to tell you. I'm sorry. But this means that if you don't go back in time to the year 1699, then there is a possibility that the contribution he made to the project to create and build the atomic bomb would not be made, resulting in the possible failure of the project. In other words, America fails to build the Bomb, and the war with Japan doesn't end in 1945. Who knows? Perhaps Russia builds the first Bomb, turns against America, and wipes us out? …If you don't go back in time, God knows how many people that are alive today would never have been born, which inventions would never have happened, what wars would never have been fought or even which new wars would have been fought that haven't been in our timeline. Who knows how the whole course of history would have been altered? If you don't go back in time, who knows what will happen? Does our world today just spontaneously cease to exist? Or does the fabric of our existence begin to alter step by step as your non-appearance in 1699 slowly ripples down through the ages?"
"Stop, please. I know. I understand. I have to go back. I have no choice. And I want to! I really do. I love Kate and I want to be with her."
"Good. Then there is not going to be a problem. Except for one thing. From studying the records I've been able to guess how old you were when you arrived back in the year 1699. How old are you now?"
"Thirty-one."
"Actually, I knew that. And you are thirty-two when you emerge for the first time in Jamaica."
"Thirty-two? But that's only a year away from now!"
"Exactly. We have a year to build the Vortex Emulator, get it working, send you back...and save the world."
"No pressure then."
"None. None at all."
"But the good news is, our success is a foregone conclusion, because history records that we are successful. It has already happened."
"True...but you don't win the lottery unless you buy a ticket!"
"Which means that we have a lot of work to do over the next year, and we'd better get on with it!"
--------------------
It was another week before Derek had realised that there was a problem. Building a machine to simply transport an object or a person back in time was not enough. If Derek sat in the Vortex Emulator in Colorado and was sent back several hundred years in time, in exactly the same spot, he would simply end up on the inside of a mountain in Colorado, transfused by molecules of stone.
The obvious consideration of building a portable Vortex Emulator was a non-starter, simply because building a transportable nuclear fission reactor that could generate the power needed to create the Hun
raken Amplitude was not possible.
This meant that before the project could work, the project in Colorado would also have to master the ability to transport matter through space as well as through time.
In other words, General Patterson's research project had only one year to learn how to transport matter from Colorado to Jamaica.
And according to the Colonel, their track record in teleportation was to date, not that great... to say the least.
This said, once again Derek was reminded of the fact that whatever the difficulties were that lay before them, collectively they would be overcome: he knew this, because history had already recorded the fact that they had succeeded.
It was a mind-blowing puzzle that reminded him of the expression he had first heard as a child: 'Which came first? - The chicken or the egg?'
--------------------
Almost a year later and Derek was sitting in the Vortex Emulator, primed and ready to go.
The past year had flown past in a whirl of theory, experimentation, discovery and failures.
When Derek had joined the project, the research being done at the Level 3 complex had been focused on using magnetic fields to generate the Hunraken Vortex. However, Derek had persuaded Colonel Paterson to engage in a very subtle but important shift in focus: they had started working with electric fields instead of magnetic fields.
It was a game changer.
From each failure they had learned. From everything they learned, they improved. And eventually, six months ago, they had succeeded.
One day, at 3.32 p.m. in the afternoon, a chimpanzee had suddenly materialized in the middle of Lab 2, one of several laboratories which had been built to act as 'targets' for their temporal teleportation experiments.
The chimpanzee had carried with it a card, on which was written the time and date it had originated from, the time and date that had been targeted, and the words 'Project Beta'. The day which had been written was six weeks ahead, and the words 'Project Beta' referred to the second of three different prototypes that were currently being built and investigated.
TIME SHIP (Book Two) - A Time Travel Romantic Adventure Page 24