The Garden

by Craig W. Turner

  THE GARDEN

  A NOVEL

  Other Books

  by Craig W. Turner

  Border Troubles

  Wilton’s Gold – Book One: Fortune

  Wilton’s Gold – Book Two: Fulfillment

  Wilton’s Gold – Book Three: Fate

  Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold or destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher have received payment for it.

  Wilton’s Gold is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Craig W. Turner

  ISBN 13: 978-1986802932

  Cover design: Cassandra Santa Maria

  Printed in the United States of America

  For “Bootstrap Bill” Turner

  Human time travel will either finally allow humanity to reach its full potential, or bring about its demise.

  - Javesh “Jay” Chopra, the “father of time travel”

  Yale University, September 14, 2067

  CHAPTER 1

  July 18, 2109

  Arms, legs, head. Robert Mulvaney instinctively patted down the various parts of his body. They were all there. He was home.

  As happy as he was to be, though, he didn’t rush to move. He was bathed in sweat, his thin clothing pasted to his skin. Normally, he would blame the heavy cloak that enveloped him, but this was very different.

  His hand slid to his right thigh, and he winced. It was tender to the touch, though miraculously he didn’t sense a break. What was that weapon? He cursed not having anything to defend himself. Especially because that very concern had been under discussion for nearly a year.

  Knowing there would be a flurry of activity once he crawled out from underneath his cloak, Robert took a moment to gather his thoughts and calm his pounding heart. More precisely, to hide. The second he was out, friends and colleagues would be wanting details about his trip, the media would be demanding interviews, and official reports would need to be filed almost immediately. He never wanted to minimize the importance of his role – it was always an honor to be received with such celebration. But this, his 33rd trip, had by far been the scariest. He fantasized about transporting himself past the waiting hordes and to the safety of his apartment.

  Out of all of Robert’s missions, never had he been so eager to come home. Each destination he visited offered its own level of fascination, certainly, but this was the first where he’d encountered what was really another world. A way-of-life that was so foreign to anything anyone on the team had ever experienced. As a sociologist, he felt he had a good handle on people’s views of the world in the present time, and even 100, 200 or 300 years before. The goals were the same – commerce, longevity, tradition, family. But for as much as they believed they knew about ancient Egypt, Robert was ashamed of how far off they’d been. In that world, the focus was on dominance, conquest and ensuring that your gods’ priorities were at the top of society’s agenda. He’d never personally come up against anything like it, and the look in the eyes of his attackers was like nothing he’d ever seen. Or cared to see again.

  He’d experienced something for the first time on one of these missions – fear. Not the normal anxiety that was reasonably associated with human time travel and the understanding that your cells were being scrambled and reconstituted. He’d gotten over that a long time ago. But fear of being too easily recognized as a stranger. He didn’t look like the Egyptians. They were of a different stature, and carried themselves in a far more animalistic way. The men were stronger, built to survive on what today would be called street smarts, positioning against not only each other, but the inhospitable desert environment. They had no choice. Failure meant death. There were no social programs for families in need. There was only exile and death. And it made them grow stronger and fight harder out of necessity. He’d felt weak, almost pathetic, in comparison, because life had become so much easier.

  Robert’s fear had ultimately been warranted, and it took the narrowest of escapes for him to even have had the luxury of contemplating what it all meant.

  It had shaken him. More than he was used to being shaken, and only now in the safety of his own time did he feel himself starting to recover. He’d known it would be risky going that far back in time when the directors suggested the idea in the first place. But once the trip was in motion, how could he have passed it up? It was too irresistible an opportunity. Seeing what he’d now seen, though, he knew this mission’s debrief would be less about pharaohs and pyramids than warnings about the program’s ill-advised ambitions. Which he was well aware didn’t stop with Egypt.

  He heard heavy footsteps outside of his dark solitude, and a feint voice calling his name. His limited moments of personal reflection were over, as the all-clear had apparently been given for the team to enter the time portal. He’d been lingering just long enough to make everyone worry and, while he could have used more time, he reached forward, adjusting the visor on the cloak to meet his eyes. Filling his field of vision was the colorfully-tattooed face of Dr. Keegan McIntyre, the team’s molecular physicist and lead engineer.

  Robert took a deep breath and slapped on the most excited smile he could create, for his colleague to see. He was pleased Keegan was the first on the scene, because of anyone on the team, he’d “get it.” Despite his obsession for greater opportunity and the career roadblock that Robert might’ve been for him, Keegan was dedicated to the science, and to his teammates. He gave a thumbs-up, letting Robert know he could remove his cloak.

  The first few trips Robert had taken, years before, were done pretty much in privacy – just a small team of scientists on-hand, supervising the jump and the return. It had only been five years since the Space and Time Program (SATP, or SAT-pee) partner nations agreed to allow media into the facility. That Robert was about to be whisked away to the press briefing room, with every manner of digital and holographic recording device pointed at him, only made him wish for simpler days. While he was never one to shy away from an interview opportunity, with the trauma inflicted on one’s body and mind during time travel he often thought it would have been nice to be able to return home into a slightly more peaceful situation.

  But at least the vultures weren’t allowed into the time portal itself. Which was their loss, because the bear hug that 6’7” Keegan gave him after helping him de-cloak would have gone viral. Provided they didn’t catch the look on Robert’s face as pain raced through his leg during the embrace.

  Some members of the technical crew followed behind, congratulating him as a small crowd assembled and applauded his return. Robert felt a wave of cool air as he was completely freed from the heavy cloak, and stabilized his footing to avoid giving away that he was injured. He glanced up at the mirrored glass that stretched from wall-to-wall of the enormous room a level above and waved. All part of the show.

  “How was it?” Keegan asked quietly enough for only Robert to hear after tossing his cloak to the side. “Pretty cool?”

  He looked up at his colleague’s face and considered for a moment how he was going to answer. He knew his story standing there would be different from the one he would tell the media in a few moments, and maybe even what he’d ultimately present to the rest of the team. “It was eye-opening,” he said.

  Keegan grunted, picking up the we’ll talk later vibe. “The media’s all here,” he said. “Do you need a few minutes? You’re a mess.” He could see Keegan inspecting the tunic he’d used to quite unsuccessfully “blend in” on his mission.

  He started to answer, but General An
drew Reilly, head of SATP, approached him from the side, his hand extended in congratulations. “You did it,” he said, an overplayed grin on his face. “What a great day for the program.” One of the original leaders of the time travel program, Reilly had greeted Robert similarly after almost all of his missions. In time, Robert had witnessed Reilly grow into his role of steering an organization that had more masters than you could count. He knew that the gray in Reilly’s hair and stress lines on his face had been the result of hours spent in the political trenches in the present time, rather than the actual work of SATP.

  Robert nodded and accepted the handshake. “Yes, it was something,” he said, realizing immediately that his voice was not portraying his typical level of confidence, so he took another run at it. “Very exciting.”

  “Can’t wait to hear about it,” Reilly said, still beaming. “You probably want to rest and crack open a beer. Let’s get you over to the media folks so we can finish them up and get them out of here.”

  “Yes, a beer sounds nice,” he said.

  Waiting impatiently to grab his attention was Caitlyn Bauer, SATP’s Director of Communications, who took advantage of a slight pause to jump in. “Welcome back, Robert,” she said. “Are you ready? The media can’t wait to hear from you.” All business. Robert had probably been doing press conferences longer than she’d been potty-trained, but for Caitlyn and the press people who’d come before her, the job was not easy. SATP’s public message had worldwide implications every time one of them spoke publicly, and it was critical at all times to be buttoned-up. She was good – or, at least, he couldn’t complain about her work. Making a face at Reilly and Keegan, he followed Caitlyn the taskmaster out of the time portal.

  Surrounded by the SATP press team, Robert was quickly ushered through a long security corridor and to a small conference room where he was greeted by the United States Senator from SATP’s home state of North Carolina, Margaret “Maggie” O’Neill, chair of the Senate’s Science Committee and the program’s foremost political champion. In her fourth term as senator, O’Neill had delivered billions in research funding to the program and, as a result, was generally invited as quid pro quo to participate in any good news events. Though it was, for the moment, difficult for him to buy into it, Robert’s return from Egypt was arguably the biggest good news event the program had ever seen, so it was expected that she’d be present. In the media briefing room, there would also be other congressional reps standing with the scientists who actually made the thing work, but they were not invited to speak and were not given access to the prep room. That privilege was earned.

  “Very exciting,” O’Neill said, violently shaking his hand. Still strikingly beautiful in her 60s, the senator had put her political career on the line to support SATP’s flow of capital, nearly losing her bid for her first re-election. So, positive press always queued up her “I told you so” spirit that she was highly skilled at turning into campaign dollars.

  Robert could hear the din of the media and those anxiously waiting to hear him speak on the other side of the wall as he shook the O’Neill’s hand, smiling. He tried to separate the noise from the turmoil in his mind, which continued to plague him with visions of what he’d seen, and the sounds of his attackers as he’d fumbled for his cloak’s ignition to return home. Their strength. Their fear and intensity. The notion that there was no responsibility for putting someone to death. The sound that warriors make when they feel an outsider is in their presence. It was impossible to block out. Fortunately, he only had to make it through one press conference, a briefing, interviews, a party and endless conversations with his colleagues before he’d get a moment to himself.

  “Are you okay?” the Senator asked, looking intently at his face. He’d been daydreaming. They’d known each other long enough that he’d have to do a better job of hiding his concerns.

  “I’m great,” he said.

  She used her eyes to push for a better answer.

  “Really, I’m good,” he said, then smiled his best political grin.

  While instinctively pulling his tunic down to hide whatever damage had been done to his leg.

  CHAPTER 2

  “You sure picked some day to start,” Amy Cheng said as they found an open spot on the floor to stand in what Landon assumed had to be the SATP press room.

  “Well, I didn’t exactly-” Landon Tripathi cut himself off, trying as quickly as possible to decipher the politics and personalities of his new team. “It wasn’t my choice.” He considered himself at a tremendous disadvantage, beginning his tenure at SATP on the very day that world-renowned time-travel hero Robert Mulvaney was undertaking the most aggressive mission in the program’s existence. But even though no one had warned him before he’d landed in Greensboro the night before, Landon as a rule did not make excuses for himself. He believed without question that he would never have had the opportunity to be standing there if he did.

  “I can’t say I’m sorry,” Amy said, her eyes fixated on the dais at the front of the room, which had yet to be populated with speakers. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment and you should be thrilled to be a part of it.”

  “I am,” he said. “I am.” Landon peered forward just as she was doing, waiting for Mulvaney and the accompanying dignitaries to make their way to the stage. Dr. Cheng, who Landon had only known for about a half-hour, had fetched him from a conference room where he’d been temporarily stowed with SATP reading materials, and had rushed here with him in tow. He imagined how difficult it must have been to return from a mission and almost immediately have the media thrust upon you. He breathed easy, knowing he would never have to deal with that.

  While he didn’t know which of his new teammates knew it yet, Landon was an anomaly at SATP – one of the few on the central team who were completely satisfied with their heads buried in data and research, in stark contrast to the majority of the program’s top people who had dived headfirst into the dream of time travel once it became an actual area of experimentation. For Landon, the danger was too great. Not the danger of changing time and potentially damaging history, the present or the future. He was comfortable with that because he believed, if they were careful, they were smart enough to avoid hazardous temporal conflicts. It was the danger to himself that petrified him. First, scrambling your atoms into an indecipherable amalgamation of matter, with what were previously your fingers crossed, in hopes that when you’re reconstituted everything will turn out the way it was. Then, it was entering a potentially tumultuous environment as a stranger who, despite all SATP’s best efforts in preparation, would indubitably stand out and be an immediate target for negative attention, or worse. Finally, a return to the present time going through the entire scrambling of atoms process again to land precisely in a tiny room (relative to time and space) that may or may not, based on the events following whatever changes could have been made, intentionally or accidentally, during the excursion, actually be there.

  But the science… The science fascinated him, and he was good at it. Only five months before, Landon had learned that Dipin Chopra, the brilliant son of Javesh “Jay” Chopra, the “creator” of time travel, had retired from his position with SATP, and that India, one of the 14 members of the coalition that provided global oversight for time travel science, would be naming his successor. It was the highest honor for Landon to be chosen, after rigorous examination, out of 150 of India’s brightest scientists to represent his country in the program. Though he would never admit it to anyone in Greensboro, Landon believed that his unwillingness to participate in the time travel experiments as an actual time traveler had given him a leg up on his competitors, who largely came across as being motivated by the opportunity to get suited up as quickly as possible and start exploring history. Landon’s area of interest, beyond, of course, the actual science of how time travel was possible, was analysis of the impacts of time travel, and the science of understanding the past to better foresee the future. After he was chosen, his family had appreciated
his admission to them that, while he wished his apprehension for time travel had been strategically crafted, in truth, the process simple terrified him.

  Dipin Chopra’s would be enormous shoes for him to fill, but he felt he was ready. As ready as anyone could be, of course – one didn’t just walk into the SATP facility and pick up where a two-time Nobel Prize winner left off. But Landon believed he was up to the challenge. While he’d been blessed with his mother’s analytical skills, she being a professor of mathematics at the University of Delhi, his father, a former Bollywood actor who at one point also had enjoyed a very successful career in politics in the Karnataka region of South India, had passed on his charm. Landon hadn’t gone into the interview process relying on charm to land the position with SATP, but his skills as a researcher and vision as a thinker. He did know, though, that his ability to eloquently deliver his resume and his hypotheses before the selection committee hadn’t hurt his chances.

  Strangely, though, the fact that he had been called upon to succeed an incredibly important human being made it seem odd that his “welcome” to the organization that morning had been nothing more than a handwritten note on his desk from General Andrew Reilly instructing him to connect with Dr. Amy Cheng, who would “get him set up.” Amy, who he knew only from research he’d done as he was prepping for the selection committee, had found him first. He’d barely sat for ten minutes before being whisked away to the rear of this crowded room.

  His first impression of Amy was that she was a little harried, though he afforded her the excuse of the urgency of the morning. She walked fast and she talked fast, and Landon could see immediately that her expectation was that others kept up with her. He knew that she was China’s representative at SATP and had been with the program for about six years, and reasoned she was probably doing the best she could at babysitting him under the circumstances.