by gerald hall
A few moments later, a faint rumbling could be felt throughout the complex.
“What the hell was that?” One of the technicians in the control room quickly asked.
“Is there something wrong with the Tokamak?” James then asked.
“No, Sir. That happened a long distance from us. Somewhere in the vicinity of Darwin, I think.” Alan Caldwell, another one of the engineers responded.
“Could it been an earthquake?” James asked. The area around the test site was not known for seismic activity, but he had to consider the possibility still.
“No. It’s not, I’m sorry to say. It appears that a major military conflict has started in various parts of the globe based on the reports that I have just received. I’m afraid it is what we have all feared.” Clarence Whittaker, the chief communications officer for the Stevenson Corporation bitterly replied.
He then spent a more than an hour searching on his computer in addition to listening on a short wave radio in the control room. While Clarence attempted to find out more information, the entire control room was completely silent. This was in spite of probably the most important discovery in human history. Clarence finally looked up, his face pale, and began his report. Everyone else in the room was also in shock as he told them what was happening throughout the world.
“Here is what I have learned. The news started with reports of fighting between Chinese, American and Russian forces. The fighting then quickly spread among other nations including England, France and Japanese. There was a launch of strategic ballistic missiles by the Chinese against America. Of course, the Americans retaliated. The Russians then fired strategic missiles at the United States as well in support of the Chinese. The limited missile defenses of the Americans were being totally overwhelmed by the incoming Chinese and Russian missiles. From that point, things just got worse. Within twenty minutes, there were reports of large numbers of ballistic missile launches from every nuclear weapons power before all of the satellite communication networks just went off line.
The Pakistanis and Indians have also initiated a nuclear exchange between the two nations. I guess that the Pakistanis felt that they did not have anything to lose at this point by destroying the Indian rivals. The Iranians even launched missiles towards Israel, though the Israeli counterstrike will have surely destroyed Iran in return.
I have also been monitoring local activity as well. Based on what I have learned, I think that Darwin has been hit by a nuclear warhead because of the naval base there. We had received communications from Melbourne and Sydney as well, but now they have gone silent as well.”
“Do you have any communications at all coming in, Clarence?” One of the other technicians frantically asked.
“I’m getting some scattered reports coming in on the short wave. It is worse than you can possibly imagine. Virtually of the world’s major cities have been hit by nuclear warheads. Everything is on fire out there. Between the radioactive fallout and the smoke plumes, the indications are that Earth is going to be a dead planet in a few weeks. It is a virtual certainty that there will be a nuclear winter in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The initial predictions are already that it will last for more than a decade.
Even if a handful of people were able to find sufficient stocks of food and adequate shelter, they won’t be able to hold out until the skies clear up. There aren’t enough fully fueled nuclear reactors that survived the nuclear strikes to provide heat and power for the survivors either for the period. The small nuclear power station that we are getting power from is one of the few units still operating, I believe.”
“So we have managed to condemn ourselves to extinction, haven’t we?” James sadly asked.
“Yes, Sir. I’m afraid so…..the arrogant fools that we have become brought all of humanity down.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know yet. For now, shut the Tokamak and the super collider down.” James grimly replied.
After the equipment had all been shut down, most of the people sadly walked out of the control room, not knowing what they were going to do with the last remaining days that they had. The local news reports told of rioting and extensive looting in the cities and towns that had not been hit or had not yet been directly affected by the rapidly darkening skies.
Chapter Two: Stevenson Industries Test Site Number Four Halls Creek, Western Australia
December 15, 2040
James had a small office in the project complex that he often called home. It even had a cot in the back where he would sleep when he wasn’t away doing business or on one of his ‘walkabout’ sabbaticals. James went there and sat down at his desk, staring at his portable computer. There really wasn’t much to look at online anymore. Virtually all of the overseas Internet hubs had been destroyed in the nuclear blasts. There were a few local Australian nodes still online, but that number was growing fewer by the hour. As power failures and rioting destroyed even more of the infrastructure, there were fewer and fewer online resources available.
James was still sitting there when Jonathan Adams walked into the room. Jonathan had been James’ personal aide and confidant for many years, even before Judith’s death.
“James, are you alright?”
James continued to look down at the computer screen for a few moments. Then suddenly he looked up at Jonathan. The look on James’ face was not very far removed from how he appeared when he first learned of Judith’s death.
“I don’t know. I can’t just sit here and do nothing, even as hopeless as things appear.” James said before looking back at the computer screen.
“I know. You’ve always looked for solutions when everyone else around you only saw problems. You would come up with some off the wall idea that would somehow work. It’s just that now, the problems are so overwhelming that I don’t know if even the most radical solutions would work.”
The look on James’ face suddenly changed. It was the face of someone willing to do anything to accomplish the mission. Jonathan had seen this determined look before.
“Maybe I can do something, my friend. It may seem crazy, but these are not sane times anymore. I’m going to need your help in any event.
Jonathan had always been dedicated to James through both good times and bad. Now he was about to be tasked with helping his friend do the unthinkable while the world was ending around them all.
“Jonathan, I need for you to go to every single jewelry store that you can find and buy every single loose diamond and other precious stone that they have. The same goes for precious metals as well as any very old gold and silver coins that you can find. Don’t spare any expense.” James Stevenson told his loyal aide.
“What if they don’t want to sell?”
James almost laughed at the thought of a jewelry store owner who wouldn’t sell his goods in the face of imminent disaster.
“Tell them that I would much rather do the honorable thing of purchasing their goods from them rather than simply coming in and taking them by force. One way or another, I need them now.”
“They will want to know what you want the precious stones for. For that matter, I am curious about what you want them for, Sir.”
“Tell them whatever you have to. In any event, I am going to try to fix things and prevent our world from being destroyed, Jonathan.”
“How will you do that?”
“You don’t want to know. You might try to convince me not to go.” James grimly replied.
“Sir, you go do what you feel that you need to do. It’s not as though we have much left here anymore. I’ll go out and obtain whatever you feel that you will need.”
James began to gather everything that he thought that he might need if he were to survive going back in time through the portal. Food and water were a given. Of course, he had to try to be careful not to use items that would appear so far out of place as to draw unnecessary attention. Some of the selected items James felt that he absolutely had to have to surviv
e on his own in an uncertain time. So he quickly took measures to conceal the modern appearance of much of what he planned to bring with him.
But there were other certain items that James needed to bring with him to give him the edge in the mission that he wished to accomplish, wherever he found himself. Chief of these would be his portable computer, a pair of backup data storage devices and the rolled up portable solar panel that James would take with him on his previous journeys into the Outback. These would have to be very carefully hidden from public view. He also carried a compass, a sextant and a device to purify any water that he found.
Jonathan came back a few hours later with three fist-sized black cloth bags.
“I bought everything that I could find.” Jonathan said as James opened up each of the bags to see what was inside. Inside were a wide variety of diamonds, rubies and sapphires, both cut and uncut. Most of the diamonds were fairly small in size, but there were a few larger stones of up to four carats in size. There had to be more than thirty million dollars of precious stones alone there.
James placed a few kilos of gold and silver, mostly in old coins but also some in very small bars, in a pair of leather purses and in his rucksack. Finally, he packed the hundreds of diamonds and other precious stones in various hidden pockets of this clothing. These were the most compact form of wealth that he could easily carry and still would be of value whatever period of time that he arrived in.
Finally, he opened up a locked cabinet hidden in the back of his office. James had kept a small collection of firearms that had belonged to his family for many years. Most of these firearms had remained hidden because of the draconian gun control laws that had been enacted in Australia during the early years of the twenty-first century. James pulled out a Webley Mark VI revolver in .455 caliber, a Norinco-produced replica Winchester Model 1887 lever action shotgun in 12-gauge and a Lee-Enfield rifle chambered in .303 caliber. He also pulled out and packed over one hundred rounds for each of the weapons.
After carefully packing everything in his rucksack and a couple of other bags, James then gathered up a few essential staff and went with them to the project control room.
“I need for you to turn everything back on for a full power run.” He told the assembled staff.
“What for? There is nothing to be gained here, not after what has happened out there.”
“There’s nothing to be lost either by doing this. How long will it take to get everything running, Sam?” James asked.
“It will take us about two hours to get everything up and running. Our external power has been coming from a nearby nuclear power station, so that should remain available for a while even with everything happening out there. We were very fortunate that the power station was among the few that were not targeted.”
“Good. Let’s get started immediately. I also want you to get that robot with its sensor pack ready as well. If you can set up a few more sensors on it to test atmospheric conditions, please do so. I also want a cargo pallet prepared to attach to the robot as well. Here is a list of supplies that I want included in the pallet.” James ordered before handing Sam a handwritten list, then turning to walk out the door.
It was just over two hours later when James walked back into the control room.
“Are we at full power yet with the Tokamak and the super collider, Sam?”
“In a few moments, Sir?”
“And the anomaly?”
“It has already started to reappear.”
“Good. Get the sensor pack on that robot into the anomaly and see if it is getting the same readings as before. Be sure that the batteries on the robot are fully charged. I also want the cargo pallet set up on the robot.”
“I am going down into Chamber 3 on C Level. In thirty minutes, I want everything permanently shut down. Whatever happens, no one else is to go into that chamber. Is that understood?” James ordered the half-dozen people still there at the control room.
Most of them still had a somewhat blank look of shock on their faces over the events of the past twenty-four hours. But all eventually nodded in agreement, even if only a little.
After the robot arm was inserted into the anomaly, a rapid flow of sensor data began to display on one of the control room consoles that had been set up to receive the information.
“The data coming in now matches up with the previous readings with over ninety-nine point eight seven percent correlation. We are also picking up some visual spectrum readings from our electrooptic sensors as well.”
“Let’s see them please, Sam.” James asked.
The image was all too familiar in many ways to everyone in the room. It was a hot, barren desert with scrub brush for vegetation with rocky hills in the background. But there were no signs of human habitation at all. The clear, blue skies were totally free of the long jet contrails from airliners that everyone had been accustomed to all of their lives.
“If I am successful, nothing of what has happened over the past few days will ever exist. But it is important that none of you go into that chamber after I leave, no matter what. It is just too dangerous. I wish you all the best back here. You have plenty of power available for now with both the Tokamak and the nuclear power station. Maybe you can build something to grow food and make it through the hard times to come. God be with you all.” James said in an authoritative voice tinged with anger, fear and sorrow.
James then left the control room, grabbed his bags and went down a stairwell to Level C. About one hundred meters down the hallway, he saw the control cable for the robot snaking its way around the corner to Chamber 3. James then followed the cable into the chamber.
There, he saw the anomaly with his own eyes for the very first time. It was a large shimmering oval surrounding a field of blackness. James’ view of the anomaly was partially obstructed by the tracked robotic vehicle that stood just over a meter in height. The robot had a pair of robotic arms, one of which was holding a long metal pole that held the sensors scanning inside of the anomaly.
James quickly pulled out a long cable with a control box on one end from one of the bags that had dragged down to the chamber. The control box was similar to one used by radio control airplanes except the box also had a multi-function LCD screen in the center. He then unplugged the existing control cable that had connected the robot to the complex’s control room before plugging in the new control box. Now, James was in direct control of the robot.
Back in the complex’s control room, the display and data stream from the robot suddenly went blank.
“What the hell is he doing?” One of the technicians asked. Like everyone else, he terrified about what was going on deep inside the complex as well as the outside world that was crashing around them.
“Who knows? All that we can do now is pray that Mister Stevenson is successful with whatever he has in mind.”
Another one of the technicians muttered, “If he goes back in time, he can ruin everything by changing history. Maybe even I will never be born as a result of Stevenson’s meddling with events.”
“I don’t know, mate. At this point, I really doubt that things would get any worse than they are now.” An older woman replied in response.
James loaded everything that he could not easily carry onto the cargo pallet mounted on the back of the robot. This included both the rifle and shotgun, most of the ammunition, food and water as well as a myriad of other supplies that James had gathered up. James carried the old Webley pistol in a leather holster on his right hip. James then began to work the controller’s joysticks to move the robot forward into the anomaly. The entire vehicle slowly crawled through the threshold of the anomaly and disappeared. There was a momentary loss of data, but then everything returned to normal.
James was still receiving data from the robot’s sensors, including those that were built into the robot itself. Everything appeared to be fully functional.
Still holding the controller to the robot, James put on his back the large rucksack that he brought
with him along with another large bag that he carried in his other hand. He then took a deep breath and stepped through the anomaly.
Suddenly, James felt what appeared to be an electric shock running momentarily throughout his body. Then he stepped unexpectedly down about a foot to the ground below. He stumbled for a moment and almost fell with the bags that he had been carrying. But James was finally able to regain his footing and remain upright, about a meter behind the robot that had passed through first.
The desert heat hit James like a wave for a few moments before he became accustomed to it again. It seemed so much like the Outback that he had walked through dozens of times before however. He could almost see the same orange and black striped domes of the Bungle Bungles off in the distance that had often been his destination during the long walks of his youth. But more importantly, James could see another set of hills that he knew would be very close to the old town of Halls Creek.
James knew this because he saw a peculiar rock formation that had acquired the nickname of the China Wall because of its appearance was that of a large rock wall coming down the side of a hill. But first, he would need to find a place out there to hide the robot and the vast majority of his supplies for the time being.
“Now that I am here, what am I going to do to stop humanity from destroying itself?” James asked aloud. He had brought supplies, information on future events in addition to available resources and even enough portable wealth to give himself a good head start. James knew that he would need to establish some form of financial foothold if we was going to influence future events in any significant way.
But knowing what exactly to do in order to prevent the cataclysmic nuclear war that destroyed the future world that James came from was an entirely different matter. There were so many factors that contributed to the war, most of them the results of the Second World War’s outcome.
A neo-communist government had controlled the Russian Federation since the days of Vladimir Putin. Combined with the ninety year hold on power in the Peoples Republic of China and North Korea, they had been the drivers of the conflict that had led to the nuclear holocaust that James had barely escaped. It would be a tremendously difficult task to destroy the nascent Soviet Union. James knew from his historical studies that even with the Great Powers aiding the White Russians, the Bolsheviks managed to retain and expand their control. From there, Lenin and his associates managed to spread their political doctrine over dozens of nations, causing considerable problems even after the end of the Cold War. This included the Communist takeover of the most populous nation on the face of the earth, China.