by Zack Mason
***
September 23rd 2013, Boston, MA
Bobby Prescott was a graduate of M.I.T in Boston, which was the best technical school in the country. He held a PhD in Physics and was commonly regarded as one of the most promising, up and coming physicists in the United States.
The main reason Mark sought Prescott out was because he needed to know why their shifters had experienced such long periods of inoperability during their trip to the Middle Ages. Mark worried the shifters were running out of juice. If that were true, they needed to know it before they went after Ty.
He hadn't chosen Prescott haphazardly, of course, and had sought out not only the best of the best, but someone who could be trusted. Mark hoped that Prescott would not only be able to help them with their research, but also become part of the team and keep his mouth shut.
After having Prescott sign a confidentiality agreement, Mark had explained the nature of the watch on his wrist. Prescott listened, first in open-mouthed amazement, then with intense curiosity. As Mark predicted, Prescott was ecstatic about joining their team and studying the shifter.
"So, what's the problem you're having?"
Mark twisted his wrist so Prescott could observe the watch’s display. "The shifter will only work 6 times in fairly quick succession before shutting down for 24 hours. We think it's some kind of energy consumption protection, though you get violently nauseous by the sixth time, so it could also be a user protection.
"When the watch shuts down, the display turns a reddish color, and while you can manipulate the numbers, the "shift" button stops working. Every time we shift, the watch always shuts down like that, but usually only for a second or so. I think it's some kind of recharge mechanism.
"Anyway, it's never been a problem before, since a second passes so quickly, but Hardy and I just shifted back to the Middle Ages, and both our shifters shut down for much longer."
"What was it like?"
"What was what like?"
"The Middle Ages."
"Oh...exciting. Different. Dirtier than I expected."
"This is so incredible. Unbelievable."
"Look, some day I'll take you to meet Henry VIII in person if you want, but can we get back to the shifter problem?"
"Sure, sure. Sorry. How long was it inoperable?"
"We were a bit...distracted, you might say, so we're not exactly sure. Seemed like somewhere between 20 to 30 minutes? I'm afraid it may be running out of juice. When I shifted back to present day, it shut down for the same length of time."
"Have you ever gone back that far in time before?"
"No, the furthest we'd been before then was 1814."
"Unbelievable. You're talking about time travel nonchalantly, as if it were common place."
"I guess we're used to it by now."
"So, the most you'd traveled back before this was about 200 years. Okay." Prescott was scribbling notes furiously.
"There's something else. I don't know if this is related or not, but we can't seem to go into the future past the year 2029. When we try, we get this strange bouncing sensation. It's like the shifter tries to work, but then stops. You feel like you've dropped a foot, but you haven't moved and there's this strange sound like a low boom out of a sub-woofer or something, but it's only audible to the person trying to shift."
Prescott was still writing.
"You think they're related?" Mark asked.
"No idea yet. You wanna do some experiments?" Prescott was grinning from ear to ear. He was obviously thrilled by the opportunity to play with the space-time continuum.
"Sure."
Mark advised him that they needed to go to a place which wouldn't be likely to change much over the centuries, so they traveled to some remote country acreage in northern Massachusetts.
Bobby brought all kinds of equipment along, which he set up around Mark before he shifted, presumably to measure whatever fluctuations might occur at the moment of the shift. He had Mark hold a stop watch as he shifted which could measure to the hundredths of a second. First, Mark went back to the year 1900, starting the stop watch at the same moment he pressed the shift button, and stopping it the moment he finished shifting. Next, he went to 1850, and then 1800.
Since they had to wait 24 hours for the shifter to recharge, they rented some rooms at a local motel. Over the next couple of days, Mark got to know Bobby Prescott as a person and firmly decided he'd made a good hire. Prescott was a pretty neat guy, a good addition to their team. Oddly enough, time travel itself didn't interest the man nearly as much as the possibility of time travel did. He wanted to study the mechanics of the device more than he wanted to go back and meet Abraham Lincoln.
Bobby had Mark shift to a variety of years between the present and the year 1600. During their experiments, Mark learned something else he hadn't known. Not only did the length of time the watch shut down increase with the number of years he crossed, but it seemed that the further back he went in time, the fewer times he could shift within 24 hours.
He learned this the hard way, for on his fifth shift one day, he found himself stuck in 1650 for a full 24 hours. He had to spend a miserable, rainy night in the wild frontier of the 17th century Massachusetts woods completely unprepared and shivering to his very core. By the time he was finally able to shift back to the present, he'd learned a valuable lesson and had caught the beginnings of a cold.
Prescott had laughed at the suddenly soaked, dripping Mark Carpen that reappeared before him. For Prescott, only a couple of seconds had passed.
After a week of experimenting like this, Prescott announced he had enough data to analyze.
"So, what's the verdict?" Mark asked.
"It's all very interesting. I won't bother you with the details of my calculations, but to sum it up, you don't have to worry, you shifter is not running out of juice. Though I can't fathom how such a tiny device is conjuring the kind of power needed to perform such physical miracles."
"Then, what is it?"
"There's an exponential relationship between the power of your shifter and the number of years you can transverse. In short, the amount of time your watch will shut down will increase exponentially the further back you go. At this point, I have enough data I can predict accurately exactly how long you'll be shut down depending on your target year."
"Really?"
"Yep. It turns out, you don't actually shift as instantly as it feels. It takes you almost a full second to complete your shift. Interestingly enough, it doesn't seem to matter how far back you go, the actual shifting process only takes one second."
"After that, your shut down period will be 1.0078 seconds to an exponential power equaling the number of years you are traversing. That's why you didn't notice a change in the shut down period at first. From here back to about 1800, your shut down time will only range from between 1 to 4.7 seconds. 4 seconds is such a short time, you wouldn't have noticed a difference."
"However, exponential growth has a way of accelerating quickly. So, while there is only a 4 second variation for the first 200 years, when you went back to the year 1100 AD, your delay would have been 18 minutes 9 seconds. That's near the range you gave me."
"Seemed closer to 30 minutes to me."
"Like you said, you were distracted."
"Okay, that makes sense."
"If my formula is correct, and I've got no reason to think otherwise, I can predict that if you were to go back 1,000 years, you'd be stuck there for almost 40 minutes. If you went back 2,000 years, it would take a little over 2 months for your shifter to work again."
"That's a huge difference!" Mark exclaimed.
"Yes, you're lucky you didn't go back 3,000 years on a lark. If you had, you'd have been shut down for 420 years. You would have died, stuck in the year 1000 BC."
Mark let out a low whistle. Good thing Hardy hadn't wanted to go visit the Roman Empire instead of the Middle Ages.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Yes, it's a pretty straightforward
calculation."
"All right, change of subject. Do you think it would be possible to create some kind of detection device that could tell you what time a person had shifted to?"
Prescott rubbed his chin in thought while he considered the possibility.
"Yeah...it might be possible. I'd need to do a lot more experimenting. The electromagnetic fluctuations your shifter is putting out seem to be unique each time. Detecting those fluctuations is easy, the hard part is interpreting them into a day, hour, and minute."
"What would the range be for such a detector?"
Prescott turned to his desk, rifling through his notes.
"Based on the strength of the field being put out at the moment you shift, I'd say somewhere between 50 to 100 feet, if the device is unamplified."
"That's a big range. What do you mean ’unamplified'?"
"I mean a passive device running off a battery, like a radar detector for your car. Amplified means you add a significant power source, like a larger battery or plug it into the wall, in order to amplify the signal to be read."
"What if we amplify the signal?"
"Well, such a device would be a lot heavier, but your range could increase dramatically, maybe even up to several thousand feet. However, at that great a distance, you'd have to have the detector pointed directly at the person shifting, or the surrounding noise would drown out the signal you'd be trying to detect."
"So, if I wanted a detector I could easily carry around with me, its range wouldn't be more than 100 feet?"
"Not with today's technology and the strength of the field you want to detect being so weak."
"Why don't you go ahead and design a few of those devices for me, amplified and unamplified. How long would it take you to finish?"
"If funding's not an issue..."
"It's not."
"A couple of weeks, if I work on it by myself."
"Get started, then. I'll shift ahead to a couple of weeks from now and pick them up."
Bobby shook his head incredulously.
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up
- Ecclesiastes 3: 3
May 1st 2013, 2:00 AM, Boston, MA
They'd been afraid to return to headquarters right away, at least until they knew what to expect. Mark feared Rialto would be watching the street outside the building, and Mark was not eager to start the chase again. Hiring Bobby Prescott to develop detectors similar to Rialto's was their first act of defense.
Mark and Hardy then adapted these detectors into a state of the art security system. The four-story building in Boston which housed their headquarters had been built in the early 1900's. They traveled back to the year it was constructed and installed the new shift detection system throughout. Sensors were hidden out of sight in the attic, basement, and walls.
Prescott had also designed special, tiny signal emitters which Mark and Hardy attached to the underside of their shifters. These emitters operated on a completely different frequency from the waves given off by a shifter, so Rialto would never detect this secondary signal.
Their security system would automatically detect anybody shifting within 100 feet of its walls. If it simultaneously detected the secondary signals coming from friendly watches like Mark and Hardy's, it would do nothing. However, if a shift unaccompanied by the friendly emitters was detected, a silent alarm would be set off and could only be reset manually by someone with an access code. With this system in place, they could never be taken by surprise within the safety of their own building. It was a safe zone.
Mark also installed special bullet-proof windows throughout the building. These special windows were also designed to insulate against the small vibrations caused by human conversation, preventing anyone from eavesdropping in on their meetings with a laser listening device.
Their security system also monitored the electrical, telephone, and networking systems in the building. Any discontinuities or irregularities in service were noted as possible attempts to bug the building. Any wireless signals broadcast by hostile electronic listening bugs would also be detected.
Mark paid crews to install steel plating underneath the plaster in the walls throughout the building. He put in steel doors with tamper-proof locking mechanisms. From the outside, the building appeared perfectly normal, even back in 1910. However, if a person got past the foyer and front office, they'd be confronted with an impenetrable steel door and an impossible-to-crack security lock.
They also shut off all other possible access points, such as roof vents, with perforated steel plating.
In short, they created a camouflaged fortress in the middle of Boston. It was the only place in the world they could feel safe from any type of infiltration by Rialto or someone like him.
The only Achilles' heel to the whole setup was that Rialto could monitor the streets outside the building and snipe one of them before they ever got inside.
The solution was to create an underground access entrance in the sewers. Back in 1910, Mark had the sewers enlarged directly underneath the building to accommodate his plan. They added another steel vault door down there. Once past the door, stairs or an elevator would take you up to the headquarters.
Shift detectors were installed down in the sewers along with infrared motion detectors. If anyone tried to ambush them down there, they would have ample warning ahead of time from the security system.
Savannah came to work every day entering through the front door. She would be the only person seen coming in and out of the building each day. Mark, Hardy and Ty (if they could rescue him), would always come in through the sewer, never being seen. This was especially practical because the sewer could be entered from virtually any point in the city.
To facilitate the sewer tactic, Mark used several untraceable, dummy corporations to purchase other buildings at various locations within several blocks of the headquarters. He built access ways from these building to the sewers, again with coded entry locks on steel doors covering their entrances. They would randomly use these different locations to enter the sewer each time they traveled to headquarters, which would make it impossible for anyone to effectively plan an ambush.
They hoped they would only have to keep all of this up until Rialto could be taken out.
Mark and Hardy had been on the go for months now, first running from Rialto, then doing research with Prescott and turning their headquarters into a fortress. To say they were tired would be an understatement.
Satisfied with the defensive actions they'd taken, they shifted back to the night of the same day Hardy had originally left to rescue Mark from the Lincoln plot. They would pick up with their lives where they'd left off. Now that they had a safe house, the first order of business was to rescue Ty. After that, they'd begin an offensive plan against Rialto. Nobody ever won a war playing defense.
They decided to take the rest of the night off to recuperate before going after Ty. Mark crashed on his bed at headquarters. Hardy wanted to go back and see Laura.
He crouched in the dark shadows of the street below his apartment building for a long time. He peered through the darkness for anything or anybody who didn't belong. Rialto was just as likely to watch their residences as he was the office. Just being seen could mean death for any of them.
He waited for hours, but nothing seemed out of place. An occasional vehicle passed, mostly taxis bearing drunken revelers to their homes. He used high-powered binoculars to scrutinize the roof line of every building in view, including his own. The doorman visible in the yellow light spilling from the lobby was the same man he'd seen every day since he'd moved in.
He was going to have to duplicate the security system at headquarters for his and Laura's apartment. He couldn't go through all this trouble every time he wanted to come home. It would not be easy convincing her to move, especially to an older building. He certainly couldn't take her back to headquarters. Flaunting their relationship under Mark's own roof day in and da
y out didn't seem like a good idea.
Stealthily, Hardy crept to the rear fire escape, hugging the shadows all the way. He silently climbed the rungs up to the penthouse, one floor at a time. As he stepped onto his balcony, he sensed something was wrong.
The doors leading into their bedroom were flung wide open, cotton curtains slowly billowing in the breeze.
That by itself was normal. She liked to do that.
No, something else was up. He sensed it like a cat senses water without seeing it.
Sliding his pistol from its holster, Hardy advanced to the opening. He found the bedroom empty, a single lamp lit by their bed. The bed sheets were strewn as if Laura had been sleeping but had gotten up. Alarmed, he checked the bathroom. Nothing.
He made his way through the rest of the apartment, but every room was empty. His pulse raced. Her silk nightgown lay in a puddle in the floor of their closet. Her clothes had been rifled through. A number of empty hangers hung like silent witnesses to the truth, hangers that had been covered in blouses, dresses, and skirts this morning. He wasn't sure, but it looked like a suitcase was missing too.
The note in the kitchen clinched it, confirming a worse truth than the kidnapping he'd feared.
"Bye, Hardy," It read, scribbled in big red letters, like she'd written it with lipstick.
She was gone.
***
The worst part of her leaving was that he would have to face Mark and tell him what had happened. He hoped Mark wouldn't humiliate him. He might even get angry all over again. At a minimum, he'd probably act smug, feeling just deserts had been delivered. Mark didn't really believe Hardy hadn't stolen her from him.
Still, Hardy had no desire to spend the night in the empty, luxurious apartment. Wasn't his style. He'd really only bought it for her.
He was mildly surprised to see how little he was broken up over her leaving. He'd thought he cared for her, at least a little bit. Maybe the novelty of her had just worn off, like gold paint wears off a piece of fake jewelry. Sure, she was a looker, but he'd find someone else. No big deal.