He leaned down toward her ear. “Is this standard protocol? Is there always a press conference right after a mission?”
She smiled. “There’s always one right after Robert’s missions,” she said, smiling broadly, then went on. “The SATP media strategy is to strike while the iron is hot. The media get no advance notice of a mission. It’s too dangerous for a variety of reasons. They are only alerted after Robert’s already left, which gives them very little time to get here. It’s intentional. Like today. Robert only left for Egypt an hour or so ago, with only necessary personnel present. But the major outlets have a bureau here in the complex. We play our cards very close to the vest, and give the media enough timely information that they are content, but not enough to do harm.” She paused. “You’ll learn more about all of this as we go.”
“You said Robert’s missions get coverage,” he said. “Do you go on missions?”
Amy stood on her tip-toes to see the front of the room over roughly three dozen cameras aimed at the dais. She was petite – only about 5’ tall – and the room was starting to uncomfortably fill. “I’ve been on a dozen missions, yes,” she said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance.”
“Oh no, I-” He was cut off as the crowd began applauding. He looked up to the front to see a handful of people step up a small flight of stairs to get onto the platform, among them General Reilly, who he’d met several times during the interview process, and the hero of the day, Dr. Robert Mulvaney. He also recognized from news coverage United States Senator Margaret “Maggie” O’Neill, who took the seat to the far left.
He watched as Mulvaney soaked in the crowd, still dressed as he would imagine an ancient Egyptian would be, in an off-white tunic with cloth shorts and a rope belt, waving and pointing at key people, accepting their adulation. Though Landon was behind most of the people in the room, he scanned the crowd to see nothing but appreciative faces. Even members of the media were openly celebrating with their colleagues and competitors. They were in love with this man, and he appeared to carry an uncanny balance of humility and confidence to absorb and reflect their affection for him. In India, the public did not view celebrity in quite the same way as they did in America, so the crowd’s reaction was fascinating to him. There was pure, unadulterated joy in the room.
Quietly, Landon relished in the knowledge that he’d be working alongside the great Robert Mulvaney. He wasn’t above being starstruck.
“Something’s wrong,” Amy said, though she was applauding with everyone else.
“What’s wrong?” She’d seen something that he wasn’t seeing.
She was shaking her head. “I don’t know. He’s not himself.” She finally looked over at Landon for the first time since they’d entered the room. “Something happened.”
He laughed. “I suppose I have a lot to learn,” he said. “He seems perfectly happy to me. Who wouldn’t be with a greeting like this?”
“I’ll have to talk to him later,” she said, her eyes deep in thought. She turned back to the front as the noise of the crowd subsided and Mulvaney took the center seat at the table.
Landon stared at her face for a moment, surprised to see her genuinely concerned. Which, in turn, made him genuinely concerned. But not for himself. Here, he didn’t even know these people yet, and he was already feeling a camaraderie. It was a warm feeling in a way, but also one of dread, knowing that in this role he would not just share the successes of the program, but the failures, as well.
But Robert Mulvaney was about to speak and, even coming from halfway across the world in India, Landon knew that when Robert Mulvaney spoke, the world was suddenly a better place.
CHAPTER 3
As customary, Keegan took his place to the side of the dais after handing off Robert to the media. He’d done his own share of press conferences, but nowadays, unless the mission blazed new trails, the public interest was not as great. Keegan always thought back to his history books and the “race to the moon” in the 20th century, which quickly lost all cachet the moment someone got there. It was Robert that got the big-ticket missions; and it was Robert that got the big-ticket press events.
Not that his jealousy – he would admit it, he was jealous at times – was about press opportunities and notoriety. While he liked the attention, and thought himself to be reasonably adept at managing it, it really was about the missions for him. Robert’s missions pushed the envelope of scientific research, while his own missions, many of them following up on Robert’s work, were more of the grunt work variety. One example, Robert’s trip the late 1800’s to explore the origins of America’s industrial process, had yielded a good deal of time travel work for Keegan and the rest of the team, but all behind-the-scenes. Granted, Robert was a better actor, and he didn’t require hours of make-up artistry to cover up facial tattoos, so integrating into the various time periods was less of a challenge. But logic was never a reasonable deterrent to envy.
Of course, Keegan considered himself to be extremely self-aware, so he never allowed his jealousy to dominate his mood, except for those rare times when he’d had a bit to drink. Confirming his ability to get past himself, seeing Robert up on the stage was having a different reaction on him this time – a sense of pride for the accomplishment (Keegan’s work was as responsible for this moment as Robert’s), but with a bit of worry. In the brief opportunity they’d had to speak, Robert had insinuated that not everything had gone smoothly on this mission, labeling it “eye-opening.” There was an awful lot to be read into that simple statement – nearly as much as could be read from his demeanor up on the stage. Normally, no matter what the scope of the mission was, Robert emanated confidence, strength and poise. Here, his shoulders were hunched. He’d dragged his feet walking to his seat. Keegan also thought he might’ve noticed a limp favoring Robert’s right leg. For the first time since they’d been working together, Keegan was able to completely dismiss the jealousy that made him wish it had been him that had taken the mission. Whatever Robert had experienced had been enough to shake a generally unshakeable person.
The crowd’s applause subsided, and the members of the media returned to their seats, tablets, recording devices and holocameras in hand. Keegan remembered the days before the time travel process was opened to the public. Yes, the program had advocated transparency from the outset, but with the first missions that he and Robert had worked on together the media had been brought into the conversation after they’d debriefed – maybe even after they’d had time for something to eat and a shower. Providing immediate access was a brilliant move when it came to sustainably funding the program for the future, but it often put the team in an awkward way.
The knock against time travel science, of course, was the damage that could be done without anyone knowing that damage had been done. Keegan had focused his entire doctoral program at Stanford on that very concept. The original director of the program before General Reilly, former Presidential Science Advisor Abigail Fisher, understood this struggle and built a political barrier during SATP’s early years, believing that distractions from the actual science would ultimately derail the program altogether. It was a strategy that had been effective, but ultimately cost Fisher her job when Congress began to inquire more forcefully what was happening. One could argue that her battles in the trenches had also cost her much more than her job, as she died eight months after leaving SATP. Upon his arrival, Reilly had reasoned that the most effective way to silence critics of the program was to open it up and let the public in. That meant not only the media, but the other nine, and now 13, countries that made up the SATP leadership group. “Inclusion” was his big word. Though, it still took him almost 15 years to get to the point where the media had almost instant access to the time travelers. It was a big win, as many in the program, especially those representing the partner nations, had been reticent.
For Keegan, Robert and the rest of the team, though, as long as they were guaranteed the ability to maintain their scientific integrity, they didn�
��t care how it was spun. Reilly had been a champion for them, and to this day had remained steadfast about it.
Past the seated media, at the back of the room, he noticed Amy Cheng standing with the team’s newest member, who’d arrived the evening before from India. Keegan recognized him from photos, but hadn’t had the chance to meet him yet. He’d studied up on Dr. Landon Tripathi extensively, and had even been offered the opportunity to make a cursory review during his selection process, which he declined. He knew some of his colleagues wanted to frame the selection process, weighing personality traits and sociological assessments to facilitate the person who in their view would be the optimal choice to fit in with the team. Keegan felt differently. He’d always believed that the best advancements would come from the mix of experience, knowledge and approach that each of the different members of the team would bring. Out of the finalists that he’d studied, he’d identified a handful that he thought would be good additions to the program – Landon among them. He’d been pleased with the selection when Reilly had told him.
Amy had taken a different approach. She’d dived into the search process the moment that Dipin Chopra disappeared, claiming a pressing need for the exact right person to be selected to represent India. She was overly exuberant, which Keegan interpreted as a control issue. China’s admission to SATP had been begrudgingly accepted by some of the partner nations, and to Amy’s credit, through her hard work and enjoyable personality, she had overcome any preconceived notions that may have existed on the team. However, Keegan knew that she regularly received pressure from her sponsors to cement – and augment – China’s standing in the program, and she was strategic enough to know that having a colleague loyal to her wouldn’t hurt. Once she’d read Landon’s resume, she’d been hell-bent on getting him, eventually backing the right horse in the race.
Keegan smiled, thinking how appropriate it was that she was now given the responsibility of carting him around during his first week on campus.
He turned his attention to the dais as Robert leaned forward onto the table, his hands resting professionally in front of him, scanning the crowd. After a moment waiting for the reporters to get settled, he forced an obvious smile onto his face and spoke. “I bring greetings from King Tutankhamen,” he said. The crowd roared with delight and Keegan rolled his eyes before catching himself. He didn’t need a candid shot of that. “No, seriously,” Robert continued. “I want to thank everyone for being here. I’m going to do things a bit differently today and I hope you don’t mind. I’m going to keep my comments a little bit shorter than usual. The trip back was particularly strenuous, and my head is swimming. So, please, bear with me. I’ve spoken with General Reilly and our communications team, and I’ll be happy to do individual interviews tomorrow.”
A murmur of disappointment ran through the reporters, who realized they now had to figure out how to put coverage together without details. Robert could get away with evading them because he was Robert. Keegan was certain it was a cover, though, and perused the faces of the media to see if they realized it, as well.
On the other side of the room opposite Amy and Landon, he spied Claire Devereaux and quickly averted his eyes. Didn’t need that headache today.
“You want to know about Egypt,” Robert continued, his voice serious now. “It’s not like you’ve seen it in the movies. While Egypt was among the more civilized regions of the world during the time, its wealth was not widespread. Egypt is a dry, barren country today in many regards. I encourage you to consider that, but then add the lack of modern conveniences and industry.”
Keegan studied him as he spoke. As he’d suspected, there was clearly something wrong with him. Not that anyone who hadn’t worked side-by-side with Robert would be able to tell, but he never mumbled, and he certainly never leaned on his hand as he addressed the media. It almost made Keegan wonder if he was doing it intentionally, as a show, since it was such a far cry from his normal presentation. But he couldn’t see a reason why he would do that.
“As I expected, this mission was different from any others we’ve taken,” Robert continued. “Not the actual time travel. Everything with the technology worked out fine. Or, well, I haven’t been checked out yet, but I’m assuming everything turned out fine.” He glanced at Reilly across the dais and shrugged, drawing a laugh from the crowd. “No, the difference was in what I found there. Civilization itself was quite different. And what was most interesting was our interpretation of what the early global powers were like. In the movies, we define Ancient Egypt in the way that we define ourselves, and our own views and dogmas. But our depiction couldn’t be more inaccurate.
“I think back to a story in The Bible – you know it – where Moses caught an Egyptian abusing a Hebrew and saved the Hebrew by killing the Egyptian with his bare hands.” Keegan noticed Robert was now literally looking down as he spoke, then he scratched his head. “I’d generally read that story as a bit of a fable, not really thinking too much about the details. But despite what movies would have you believe, it’s hard to kill a man with your bare hands. After seeing the men in Egypt, though… Their size and their strength, and their agility and quickness… If Moses was indeed raised as an Egyptian prince, there’s no doubt in my mind anymore that he was more than capable of doing it.”
Robert paused, thinking and leaving a moment of awkward silence. Reilly must have sensed something was wrong, as well, as he started to say something to rescue him. But just as he opened his mouth, a flurry of hands shot up in the air. Robert appeared to be stuck back in Ancient Egypt for a moment, so Reilly changed direction and recognized one of the reporters, a young brunette, in the front row.
“Dr. Mulvaney,” the woman said, “obvious question. Did aliens build the pyramids?”
The question brought Robert back to the present, because he smiled, and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry. We can put that one to rest. What I saw were scaffolds, built one on top of another, piece-by-piece.” He motioned with his hands the building of a tower. “I’m not an architect, so I can’t give you an educated answer, but it was pretty impressive the way they did it. We’d purposefully set the mission to coincide with the construction of Khafre, which was the second of the pyramids of Giza. Khufu, which you know as the Great Pyramid, was already complete. Which was an unbelievable thing, being able to see the largest of the pyramids, in its entirety, and the second as it was being built. Thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands of men were working on the construction, pulling blocks of limestone that had to weigh 10 tons up a ramp hundreds of feet in the air.” He shook his head again. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Dr. Mulvaney,” a man in the third row called out, taking advantage of Robert’s brief pause. “Why was it decided that Ancient Egypt would be SATP’s next mission?”
Robert glanced at Reilly, who held up his hand to show he would field the question. He leaned in to his microphone. “The time travel program has achieved significant success in previous missions, which has given us – us, not being SATP, but us, humankind in the 22nd century – more knowledge of the past than we’ve ever been able to have before. The sociological breakthroughs that SATP has been able to achieve have told us more and more, every mission, about how we got to where we are today. But in pursuing those goals, we’ve gotten away for some time from the actual physical science of time travel. The Egypt mission was designed to push the boundaries of what we already knew was possible. It’s now set the stage for a whole new line of research.”
Robert pointed to a man in the front row. “Ronnie?” he said, namedropping Ron Rose, an aging Washington Post reporter who’d covered SATP from its beginning. Keegan had interviewed with Rose several times, himself.
“If my memory serves me correctly, previously SATP’s most ambitious mission took you to the time of the explorers… 1550 or so?”
Robert was nodding. “Close. 1573.”
“The further you go back in time, the larger the margin for error,” Rose
continued. “Wouldn’t it be safer to focus on the time periods where you know you’ve had success and not risk a disaster?”
It had been a standard question from the Post for as long as Keegan could remember, and Reilly had a standard answer for it: “Ron, we take all precautions and don’t jump into any mission without being certain that the science is sound,” he said. “You know very well that we have not lost-”
“Yes, I know,” Rose said, holding up his hands to demonstrate that he did know. “But there’s always a first time. The way you guys handle the media, though, bringing us in after the fact, Robert could disappear somewhere in the past and no one would ever be the wiser.”
Reilly was shaking his head. “This isn’t the place for a debate on SATP protocols,” he said, “which, I’ll add, no one present in this room created. SATP is an internationally-operated organization with several nations providing guidance on how the program should be run. We answer to a collection of stakeholders who believe that our media relations procedures are well-thought-out, and in the best interest of the program.”
A murmur went up from the crowd. Keegan tried to ascertain if people were unhappy with Reilly’s answer, or the fact that Rose had raised the question… again.
“C’mon, people,” Reilly said. “This is a celebratory moment. Anyone have a question about Robert’s mission?”
Hands flew up in the air again, and Reilly, now, recognized an Asian woman in the third row, who spoke in a pronounced accent. Keegan recognized her from the Chinese media. “General Reilly, there are reports that India has named its successor to Dipin Chopra. Can you confirm if those are true?”
Keegan laughed out loud, while at the same time trying his hardest not to look toward the back of the room where Landon was standing and give him away. He stayed focused on the stage, and noticed even Robert was laughing.
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