The Garden

by Craig W. Turner

  “Not all of us.”

  She laughed. “No, not all of us,” she said. “But we didn’t exactly go out of our way to stop those who were being irresponsible.”

  Keegan sat back and crossed his right leg over his left, stretching out in the chair. He took a sip of water before answering, then finally said, “I agree. But if it’s not about the trip, and it’s not about SATP, why are you sitting outside my door?”

  “It’s the confluence of the two,” she said. “Going on this mission is not the answer to the situation with SATP, or with Robert. But we’ve somehow forced it to be the answer. Even though that makes zero sense. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. So why is it happening?”

  “Because it’s our only chance.”

  She pointed at him. “Exactly. Our only chance to do what? Take this Eden trip. And then what? What else are we missing out on if SATP shuts down? What else should we be considering?”

  “Considering? You have another thought?”

  Claire sat back on the couch and stretched her own legs out. Yep, she was staying, Keegan thought. Now, it was just a matter of how quickly he could end the conversation, so he could get some sleep himself. In his mind, he was literally counting minutes he was losing.

  “No, I don’t have another thought,” she said. “I haven’t had time to put one together. But… Egypt. We are far more prepared to resume the Egypt mission than to take on a completely brand new one. It’s the logical next step. But no, now we’re diving into something because Reilly wants to push the program as far as it can go-”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s not about pushing the program as far as it can go,” he said, cutting her off. “This mission has a specific purpose. It’s not just looking at an ancient culture, or studying a long-forgotten society. This one’s about the origin of the universe – it’s about settling, in a very real way, the preeminent debate between science and religion. The universe. Mankind. Even the true existence of a higher being. Today, we have the opportunity to answer that question. Tomorrow, we might not.”

  “And what happens when we land in the middle of the desert, stand there for fifteen minutes, and then turn around and come home? What happens then?”

  Keegan laughed. “Then everyone gets arrested and Amy moves SATP to China. I don’t know. Isn’t that why you do scientific experiments? To find out what you don’t know?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, and now, Keegan noticed, fully reclined on his couch. “We do scientific experiments to evaluate the validity of a hypothesis. Unless the scientific method has changed recently.”

  “Well, yes, of course,” he said. He’d walked right into that one.

  “My bottom line is… I don’t trust General Reilly anymore.”

  Again, Keegan laughed. “I don’t think anybody trusts Reilly.”

  “But his motivation is wrong here,” she said. “This is not about the science for him. This is not about the debate.”

  “What’s it about?”

  Now her eyes were closed. “I don’t know.”

  Keegan looked at her for a moment. He wasn’t even really thinking about what she was saying. Not one word of this conversation mattered. Regardless of Reilly’s intent, they were going on this mission the next morning, and they would come out of it with some kind of finding. The communication of that finding could mean the difference between the continuation or the end of SATP, all of them going to prison or not, and Robert’s place in the history books being one of fame or disgrace. Claire’s concerns were not unfounded. But they were more-or-less irrelevant at this late stage.

  “You’re going to sleep there, aren’t you?” he asked.

  She smiled slyly – probably the first time she’d smiled in his presence since they’d broken up. “I always loved this couch.”

  Keegan sighed and stood. He turned and pulled a throw blanket from the chair he’d been sitting in and laid it across her. She grabbed it and turned onto her side, then he dimmed the lights and retreated to his own room to try to salvage four hours and twelve minutes of sleep.

  CHAPTER 27

  Robert hadn’t meant to terrify the kid, but surprising him was the only way to get him alone, and get his attention. Under different circumstances, he might’ve found the altercation comical, especially with Landon’s awkwardness in his first few days at SATP. But there was no time for humor anymore. They had about five minutes to motivate him to do his part. Probably less.

  Landon’s momentum carried him across the living room of what had actually been Robert’s quarters years and years before when the Einstein Building was still being constructed. No one had occupied the apartment since he’d left, though it remained furnished in case a new member of the team was added, and they needed somewhere to temporarily put her. But Robert’s biometrics to gain entry still worked, so he thought he’d take advantage of a few minutes in a place no one would expect to find him.

  Now, he released his grip on Landon, who carried an additional two or three steps before toppling into a dusty easy chair that probably hadn’t been sat in for at least five years. He caught himself and stood quickly, but Robert’s new partner-in-crime Dipin was suddenly on him, grabbing him around the torso with one arm and covering his mouth with his other hand.

  Landon tried to speak, but his words were stifled. Robert knew Dipin had always taken care of himself, but had never seen him in a situation that required any demonstration of strength. He was impressed, watching him tame the younger man, who struggled, trying to break free. After a moment, Landon stopped, the tension in his body leaving, and Dipin released him, his finger going directly to his lips telling him not to speak.

  He couldn’t help himself. “Dipin? Dipin Chopra?”

  “Yes,” Dipin said, emphasizing for Landon to be silent. “I know you have questions, but we don’t have time. They know I’m in the building and will be here within minutes.”

  “But why-”

  “Landon, listen,” Robert said, making eye contact with Dipin. He needed to be on his way out already.

  Dipin continued, “Landon, I know none of this is what you expected, and I know you’re terrified. But now is when you have to be a leader. You must take this mission. And you must be strong.”

  “I would think you would be advising me otherwise,” Landon said.

  “And yes, you may have been right at one point,” Dipin said. “SATP should not be taking on this mission. But they are. And the program itself is in grave danger. Reilly is out of control. But while Robert is being dragged down, General Reilly remains untouched. How do you think that is?”

  “Because he has something to do with what’s happening,” he said, rather than posing it as a question.

  “Of course he does,” Dipin said. “The dangers of time travel have been inherent since the outset of the program, but they become that much more dangerous with someone like Reilly in charge.”

  “But if they shut down the program-”

  “No, Landon, listen to me. The Americans will never shut down the program. What they’re doing is positioning it.”

  “For what?”

  Robert took a step forward and interjected. “Dipin, we have to go,” he said, though he, himself, wasn’t clear where Dipin was going with the conversation. But that they did have to stay mobile or he’d be caught. If that happened, this discussion was moot.

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “I know. You need to make this mission a success.”

  “What do I have to do with any of this?”

  Robert could see Landon was exasperated. “Let me get Dipin out of here, and you and I will meet in an hour. I will find you.”

  “Right now, this mission is about politics,” Dipin said as he took a step toward the door. “It needs to be about science.” He paused, looking intently at Landon. “Make it about science.”

  Robert grabbed Dipin by the arm and pulled him the rest of the way toward the door. He opened it and peered up and down the corridor. Seeing nothing, he pulled
him into the hallway and led him to the right. With security cameras positioned nearly everywhere throughout the entire campus, without question they’d been seen. He was still in disguise, so there was the slight possibility they wouldn’t realize who was ushering Dipin around the facility. It wouldn’t take much to figure it out, though – especially if they had the presence of mind to check the biometrics. That wasn’t a given, though, as they were likely drooling over the fact that their defector and biggest detractor was in the building.

  With Dipin in tow, he pushed through one of the emergency doors into a stairwell and headed toward the ground floor.

  CHAPTER 28

  The suggestion that sleep was a viable option made Amy seriously question Reilly’s judgment in general. Watching the media coverage of the fall of SATP from her sofa, she wondered if any of her colleagues were having any luck.

  This was not the way to approach a mission. Normally, the protocols for those doing the time traveling would kick in 10 days in advance, working to prepare them, mind, body and spirit, for the rigors of the process and the uncertainty of what they might find on the other side. That meant that their diet, their sleep, their water intake, their state-of-mind… Everything was being monitored and prepared. Here, Reilly had told them on a whim to “go get some sleep.” Surely, he had to know that the human body didn’t work that way. There was no on/off switch.

  For Amy, it wasn’t even the gravitas of the mission that had her blood flowing and her eyes open. It was the politics. Her conversation with Keegan echoed in her mind as she watched the news. Through the actions of the President, the United States was about to divest itself of its leadership in the program – believing, of course, that if it did so, the program would fail, and cease to exist. But Amy knew better. To opponents of the program in the U.S., that might have been a viable strategy. But what they didn’t realize was that the rest of the world didn’t see the program as one that had to exclusively operate under American leadership. China may have been the newest player at the table, but her home nation certainly had the wherewithal and financial resources to take the program on. More so than any other nation in the coalition.

  For Amy, personally, tremendous honor was within her grasp if she could deliver this for China. Certainly, the discussions would be kilometers above her pay grade in governmental leadership, but she could certainly get the ball rolling. Reilly’s last-second gambit to create a worthwhile scientific mission to demonstrate the importance of SATP in her mind only served to forward the U.S. exit. He was failing his own leadership test, playing right into the hands of the President and his operatives. However, for the rest of the team, Reilly’s miscue had offered them strategic advantage. To anyone watching – or, at least to the few who knew what was taking place – the Eden mission was set to be at best a flop and at worst an unmitigated disaster. Reilly would be disgraced either way for usurping the President and defying the impending order to cease and desist. But the rest of them, if the mission could be a success, would be well-positioned to lead the program into the future. She hadn’t thought about what any of that would look like yet, but-

  She was distracted by a flash from the holovid saying that “Breaking News” was upcoming. Aggravated that she was forced to receive news about her own future via the media, she sat up and watched for follow-up.

  The image in front of her faded and then reappeared, showing the press room at SATP, across the campus in Newton. From the camera’s point-of-view, the members of the media present were in a frenzy. More so than normal, she thought, but under the circumstances she supposed they’d be anxious to get any update at all from SATP leadership. The team’s media strategy so far had been lockdown, and Amy hadn’t heard a directive to change that stance, so she was a bit surprised and, admittedly, a little put off, that something was happening before they’d discussed it.

  As the activity on the screen grew to a fever pitch, she immediately understood why.

  Dipin Chopra appeared in the entranceway to the media room. Amy fell off her couch.

  She regained her composure quickly, crawling across the floor to get a closer look. Yes, it was Dipin, her friend and mentor, who hadn’t been seen for months. What was he doing, not only in the SATP facility, but making his way to the podium in front of the media? She thought she could see Caitlyn Bauer trying to impede his advance toward the stage, albeit in a futile effort.

  While the rest of Amy’s team had been wonderful to her from the outset, Dipin had been like a father. Not simply because of their age difference and common purpose, though he was 15 years older, but because of the way he’d shepherded her into and through the program. She knew all along that he’d taken on the role of caretaker to everyone coming into SATP, but had always felt that there was something more to their relationship. Maybe it was the cultural and often philosophical differences they shared – almost as though having to overcome that barrier somehow strengthened the ties between them – but his leadership and friendship had meant the world to her.

  In truth, it had started out as a gambit for her... When she arrived at SATP, she figured why not attach herself to the son of Jay Chopra, the man who’d invented time travel? Seemed like sound logic. If she was to learn anything from anyone, her scientific mind determined early he was the guy. Unlike the others, who were drawn naturally to Robert and his celebrity, she saw her allegiance to Dipin as a winning strategy. What she hadn’t expected was his dedication to her advancement in the program, which was so strong that she imagined only the loss of her own father would bring her more despair to her than when Dipin disappeared, presumably for good.

  Then, suddenly, here he was, back in the building, looking like he was about to make a statement.

  Dissatisfied with the idea of watching whatever was about to happen from her apartment, Amy pulled her tablet from the end table next to the couch and placed her hand on the device, which blinked to life. After a few swipes of her finger across the screen, the image from the holovid in the center of the room subsided and a 2D version of the news briefing appeared on the screen in her hand. Once she was satisfied with the connection, she leapt to her feet and darted across the room, sliding her feet into sandals that had been unceremoniously dumped when she’d arrived home. She opened the door and took off in a full sprint toward the media room, her eyes precariously on the screen as she ran down the hallway.

  She estimated about ten minutes at this time of night to cover the distance she had to cover to get there, if she went through the rear door. However, on-screen, it appeared that, to both secure the scene and not embarrass the program at its most critical hour, SATP security forces had gathered at that entrance, waiting for Dipin to finish whatever he was intent on doing. From Amy’s perspective, which was only the perspective of one of this particular news station’s cameras, they could have jumped him any time they wanted and ended his insurgence. But she knew Reilly wouldn’t want that, with cameras rolling.

  That meant, however, that she’d have to go around into the public area of the building and enter through the main doors that provided access to the media. It would add a few minutes to her route. She didn’t know exactly why she was making haste to get there – it wasn’t as if Dipin would be able to sit and chat after he was done. But she felt compelled to get a glimpse of him in person, and perhaps have him get a glimpse of her, as well. For whatever that would accomplish.

  With the screen bouncing in her hands as she ran toward the elevators, she watched as Dipin finally formally approached the podium and stood assessing the crowd. The din had quieted, and everyone in the room was poised to hear what he had to say. She’d always known Dipin as a straight-to-the-point guy, even in situations like these. There would be no pleasantries, no explanation of where he’d been and what he was up to. He clearly had something to say, and it was going to be short-and-sweet. Well, short. And no one was going to stop him from saying it.

  She turned a corner and was tempted to stop, to watch more closely as Dipin began
to speak, but pressed on instead, dashing out of Einstein and across the quad toward Newton. She held the tablet to her ear as she continued, and heard his familiar voice clearly.

  “I am here to address the accusations that have been made against SATP, and against my friend, Dr. Robert Mulvaney,” Dipin said, slowly, enunciating his words concisely. “It is my understanding that the Attorney General of the United States is currently in the process of seeking a warrant against SATP to force the program to cease and desist operations, based on claims of impropriety among the leadership of the organization. While there is little anyone can do to stop this from happening, I felt compelled to be here to offer my perspective on why these actions are misinformed and misguided.”

  Amy could hear the noise of quick typing in the background as she made the final turn toward the press room doors. There was a small crowd of people standing outside, trying to listen in, which posed a mild obstacle, but with her slight frame, she was able to maneuver past the group and into the room. Her size, however, was an obstacle in being able to see the front of the room once she was inside, but she stealthily climbed atop a speaker knowing she could stay there until she was asked to get down.

  “There is a danger inherent with time travel,” Dipin continued, “and that’s the fact that it cannot be controlled.” Now Amy could see his face clearly. A wave of familiarity and comfort flowed through her. She couldn’t predict how the next ten minutes would play out – though she sensed they weren’t going to go smoothly – but for a moment, her confidence level was at full capacity. Which was good, because her thoughts about the trip they were due to take in the morning were turning increasingly negative each second that she let them come.

  “My father knew this,” he said. “My father believed this. But once time travel was conceived and perfected, it was out there for use by anyone who could gain access to it. So SATP was created. It was created, yes, to advance the science of time travel and to reap the sociological benefits of a new resource for studying the past. The opportunity to learn from our mistakes in a way that we’d never been able to even imagine. But more importantly, SATP was created to make sure that time travel was not used in an irresponsible way. It was a coalition of leaders from all nations who wished to participate, providing fair and certain oversight over a technology that could spiral out-of-control, very quickly. And it worked… Until now.”