by I. T. Eren
Mark asked, “What type of training? I’m unable to picture it.”
The councilor frowned; he didn’t enjoy Mark’s question at all. Then he said, “Even if you end up being one of the two finalists, you will still not know anything about those trainings until they actually happen. We prefer to keep this information as secret as possible for security reasons. If you’re eliminated at the end of those long training sessions, we won’t let you leave immediately. We’ll give you another short training to prepare you for life again.”
Mark “, Getting me prepared for life again? What does that mean? Do they make people go totally nuts during the training program that they need to be prepared for life again?” Of course, he couldn’t ask any of these questions to this icy guy. Instead, he asked the old man what came to his mind first, hoping it would lead the conversation to a more interesting place.
“Since the detective who’ll retire has six months only,” he began, “and since it will take you a year to decide on the next candidate, aren’t you going to be without a substitute for six long months?”
The councilor smiled for the first time and said, “Well, that’s our risk, isn’t it? We didn’t want to start the search before making sure we had good candidates. That’s why we might have lost a few months.”
The prospect of heavy competition and the mystery of the entire situation totally attracted Mark’s interest. He was curious about his rivals and asked who they were, but he immediately received a cross reply.
“You’ll never see your rivals under normal conditions, and you’ll never know who they are. We suggest that you should start being curious when—if—you are selected to become a detective.”
In spite of this disturbing guy, Mark had a positive attitude, thinking that such an opportunity would come along once in a lifetime. In fact, he had no idea how this experience would change his entire life. At the end of their conversation, he agreed to continue going through the process. Mark was going to finalize all his current tasks in one week and then officially become a candidate. A totally new period in his life was just beginning.
CHAPTER 7
Mark had been given just one week to complete his tasks, and it had passed in the blink of an eye. But after finishing all his work in the office, he was ready for this new adventure. This time, he didn’t go to the Department of Security headquarters but to a new building for the test program. He still knew nothing, but he was excited to find out what was in store.
The building was a gray, ordinary, and unattractive one outside the city, and it had no names or ads on its facade. He had only been able to find the place by looking closely for the door number mentioned in the address they gave him. He pushed the door and entered the building.
When he told his name to the security guards at the front desk, he realized they were already waiting for him. The men took Mark immediately to another floor that looked like a hospital or a modern laboratory. The only thing different was that there were no patients—or really any other people—around.
First, a nurse took some blood from him. Then they ran him through what resembled a usual health check-up. They told him that the tests would not be completed right away but that they would be done one by one, in time. Mark thought this was perhaps because they wanted to prevent him from coming face to face with the other candidates.
He returned to the building many times for these tests. At each place he visited, they informed him about the date and time of the next examination. Sometimes they made appointments with him for one or two days later.
One day, during the course of a routine test, they told him they would be calling him at midnight about the following test and that he had to remain awake until the test was administered.
When midnight rolled around, someone called to inform him the next test would be at four in the morning! Thinking that the caller was joking with him, Mark said, “Yeah, sure!” But he was assured this was not a joke. Afterwards, Mark thought that if there were one test he could fail, it would be one he had to take at such an early time of the day.
At four the next morning, he muttered to himself on the way to the test. They gave him a training suit. Then they had him climb a moving wall. Next he had to run as quickly as possible for fifteen minutes. After they took some blood work, they gave him a few problems that sounded like puzzles and asked him to solve them while he was still out of breath and sweating from the physical tests.
“That’s it,” he said. “I guess all the curses my teachers gave me in the past are coming true now. No one would have been able to force me to study, especially at this point in my life, but it seems I swallowed this bait willingly.”
He solved the problems, one by one, while almost falling asleep in the strange environment. They thanked him and said he had done enough for that day. Mark headed home, thinking that the test was probably designed for assessing one’s patience.
When he arrived home, a message was waiting for him on his answering machine. It said, “We’re waiting for you for the no-gravity environment tests. Please call us back as soon as you have enough rest.”
A no-gravity environment? He wondered whether he would have to travel to the moon or Mars to capture criminals. He made an appointment for the tests mentioned in the call and then went to bed for some much-needed sleep.
The place where the no-gravity tests would be carried out was outside the city, as usual. But this time it was in a building that was clearly labeled: “The Government Center for Space Research.” After a security check, they had Mark take off his clothes and put on a white outfit. Then they took him to a huge, underground hall where the tests would be administered. He was told that he had to go through the test that astronauts had taken in the past.
Mark felt a little tense now. He hoped he wouldn’t throw
up. He sat on a device that reminded him of the rotating swings in fairgrounds, the testers secured him tightly. In fact, he found that except for being able to use his fingers, he couldn’t make the slightest move. They put a device into his hand. He could press the button on it to stop the machine. Then they placed two small cameras on his head so that they could follow his eye movements. A tester told him that although they didn’t expect it to happen, the cameras would help them realize immediately if he passed out and would know to stop the machine.
Later, when they left Mark in the hall all by himself, the silence caused him to shiver. Moments after their departure, the machine started to rotate slowly, gradually gaining speed. After starting to carry a load of more than one G,
[1] he didn’t get sick but felt that every single inch of his body tense up. Thankfully, he was able to endure the whole thing, and they stopped the machine without him having to push the button.
After taking a short rest, they took him to the utterly strange no-gravity room. After staying in the room for a while, he realized that gravity disappeared, causing the few pieces of furniture to float in the air. When Mark also started levitating, they wanted him to make certain movements they had explained to him beforehand. At first he had to turn around, and then they had him do a few calisthenics. He performed them without a problem. Although he couldn’t perceive the connection between these tests and being a detective, he found them interesting.
As the results of the test came in, he heard the testers commenting on his execution, “Really good! Congratulations!” But he couldn’t tell whether these were real expressions of admiration or they were standard stuff told to anyone who took these tests.
In the following days, the people in the assessment center had Mark take various additional tests that involved solving problems while he had electrodes attached to his head. Sometimes three different people sat across from him, taking notes while observing him. Based on what he knew about scenarios like this, he assumed the people in the room weren’t actually taking notes but checking whether his concentration would be affected under stress. They also had him take tests that resembled games, in order to see how he made decisions
when stressed. For someone who was a wizard at games just like these as a child, Mark aced them easily.
Meanwhile, he was trying find out how he would work as a detective by observing case studies he had to complete during this testing period. Their aim was to observe how he approached problems and which alternatives he chose.
Three months passed that were filled with interviews, tests, problems, and physical exercises. On the last day, they took Mark to a meeting room for one of the assessments. They asked him what he thought about the entire process so far.
Mark said, “It was fun.”
After that, they told him, “A short vacation is awaiting you. Get some rest and then we will resume our assessment. Then they made an appointment with him for one week later.
He was excited about finally finding out the results. Would this odd period of three months he had spent be of use? Or would they thank him for all his efforts and dismiss him, turning these three months into just a memory (albeit one he would remember for the rest of his life)? He hoped he had passed, for he had actually enjoyed these past few months, with the exception of a couple of meetings they had really pushed his limits to assess how much stress he could deal with.
One week later, he returned to the same room in the same building where he had first met the councilor. After ten minutes of waiting, the old man came in with a frown on his face. If Mark didn’t know the guy by now, he would have been positive he had been eliminated from the project. On the contrary, however, Mark took the man’s attitude as an effort to maintain a serious composure.
The councilor said, “Mr. Spinner, this three-month period showed us that those who nominated you were not wrong. Especially the decisions you made under overwhelming conditions were much better than those of the other candidates. However, I must say that you still have to develop in terms of physical endurance. Eventually, we have decided to host you for another nine months.”
Mark thanked him with joy, thinking that the games he had wasted his pocket money on as a child had not been for nothing. The councilor gave Mark an envelope and asked him to open it. It was a check written out for a generous amount, and Mark thanked the guy again. Now he better understood what “financial fulfillment” meant. In the future, he would come to realize why the government made sure to please detectives financially.
Mark happily rushed home to share everything he had been told that day with Ally. After spending difficult three months completing rigorous testing, he was excited to continue the project. Ally put aside the wooden coffee table she was painting (a hobby of hers). She listened to Mark with an expression that revealed she wasn’t quite as happy as he was.
When Mark paused for a moment, she said, “Mark, do you think this is really a good idea? Since they have been testing you like a guinea pig, maybe they’ll do something with you in the future that will harm you. I’ve read enough to know that what government does secretly may not always be innocent.”
Mark smiled. He liked that Ally was worried about him. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do.”
At that moment Ally hit one the coffee table causing it to fall on the floor. One of the painted edges smeared when it touched the oilcloth she had spread to protect the floor. Ally barely noticed, for she was more concerned about her discussion with Mark than her art project.
She said, “Mark, you had a job with a promising future. You can still have a great future without getting entangled in this shady stuff that we don’t know much about. If I were you, I’d give it another thought.”
Mark didn’t want to be like those contestants on the TV show who give up halfway without trying to win the biggest prize. He said, “I feel that continuing with this will be good for both of us. I cannot leave people who trust me in the lurch.”
Seeing that her insistence didn’t even cause Mark to question his decision, Ally gave up. “Your call,” she said and went back to painting her coffee table in an effort to conceal how upset she was.
CHAPTER 8
The second term was going to begin with a meeting Mark would hold with the councilor. He wondered whether he should arrive ten minutes late since the old man would probably make him wait anyway. But he was there on time as usual.
The councilor appeared at the door ten minutes later. He said, “Mr. Spinner, I hope you’re well.”
Mark replied by saying, “Thank you.”
“Mr. Spinner, now I’m going to tell you about something you never knew existed, and you can’t tell anybody about it. It’s something that’s really hard to believe. But first, I’ll ask you to sign the pages of this nondisclosure agreement. This is a protocol that prohibits you from sharing this information, even with your immediate family, for your entire lifetime. By signing this protocol, you authorize the government to take all and any necessary precautions to prevent this information from spreading in the event we find out you’ve shared it with others. And also you consent to not taking any legal actions against the government, no matter what happens.”
Mark felt the man exaggerated a bit. The guy had probably watched too many movies. After all, he was giving his voice a slightly deeper tone now to sound more influential. Mark didn’t like what he was just told, but he knew that he wasn’t in a position to negotiate at this time. He read the protocol, and upon seeing the gravity of what he read, he signed the papers with some concern.
The councilor started to explain, “Mr. Spinner, we’ve been successfully running programs like this for a couple of years. It’s actually through this very one that crime rates have seriously dropped. When I tell you more about it, you’ll probably not believe me until you experience it for yourself. But I guess you know by now that this is no joke. I don’t like joking—at all.”
Well, Mark was sure about that! He nodded.
The man continued, “Mr. Spinner, under certain circumstances, it is possible to travel to the past and then return to the present day through technology we have developed a few years ago.”
Mark was totally bewildered, but he listened intently.
“At the moment, we’re able to do this only for short periods of time, and we strive to be very careful. We actualize such travels, not for pleasure or scientific goals, but only for situations that will serve humankind. The people we call detectives do not carry guns or rifles. They are people who eliminate crime by traveling to the past. What these people essentially do is make small changes in the past and thus eliminate any negative results that affect today. They prevent criminals by stopping them this way.”
Mark was trying to fathom in what kind of a plot he was involved. He asked, “Is murdering someone part of what is done to make people ineffective in the past?”
The councilor said, “No. Our fundamental principle is not causing any chaos in the past—not even for saving the present day. Otherwise, the people who will take our place in the future can make today chaotic in order to organize the future. We cannot harm ourselves.”
Mark said, “But how are detectives able to change the past? How do they come back to the present time? How are they not noticed? Don’t they face any danger?”
The councilor said, “I think you can guess that this task is not danger free. However, we enable the detectives to go to the past as if they are specialized doctors, for instance, if they are making a genetic change. And we prepare the entire infrastructure for them to become a doctor who’s working at the designated hospital at that time. Other than that, detectives must complete their tasks without embarking on any adventures or taking any risks. So far, only one of our detectives lost his life during a travel to the past. But by carrying out a very fast operation, we sent another detective to an earlier date in the past and had him do the necessary changes to change the line of events and saved the life of the first detective. In other words, we haven’t lost anyone so far.”
Mark needed time to digest what he heard. The councilor continued, “We’re going to inform you about all the details you need dur
ing a theoretical training that will last three months. And during the sixth-month, hands-on training, you’ll be traveling to the past just for the aim of practicing it. By the way, it’s not allowed for anyone to go back to their own past or the pasts of their loved ones. This is in an effort to prevent any emotional implications. Of course, we all have some pet or relative whom we’ve lost in the past and would love to bring back. But it is of utmost importance that the limited opportunities of our state are used solely for maintaining order..”
Mark knew that working for the government and emotions should not be mixed, but even before the councilor mentioned this, he had already thought about how nice it would be to go back to his own childhood and observe it. But he realized that this rule made total sense because everyone had something in his past he would wish to see again. In fact, watching legendary soccer matches, for example, would be amazing! His mind was already racing to different thoughts, but he pulled it together to hear what else the man had to say.
The councilor said, “You have a fifty percent chance of getting eliminated by the end of this particular process. If that happens, we’ll offer you an amazing job opportunity that will prevent you from being too upset. On the other hand, the opportunities we offer our detectives to make sure that they use their power to our benefit consist of a significant place in our budget. In other words, from this moment on, you will definitely win financially—whether you win or lose the competition. But still, I think you have quite a few reasons to wish to win.”
Then the councilor gave Mark some additional information about what to tell people, in order to conceal what Mark would actually be doing. Traveling to the past was available only for short periods of time at the moment, so he wouldn’t have to disappear for days. Since even the secretaries would think that detectives are at a meeting in the office, they would tell that to the families and friends of the detectives who called them. Besides, Mark would even be given a course on how to make up a fake story, so that he would learn how to enable complete secrecy.