by Richard Todd
Kyle lowered his hands from his fighting stance and began to trudge toward Annika, not knowing what he would do when he reached her. She began to compose herself, rising to her feet as he approached. Her face was red, her eyes swollen. She looked at the bloody pulp of a man barely standing before her. She nodded approvingly, patted her gloved hand on his chest, and then walked out of the gym.
Kyle watched Annika walk away. She discarded her gloves on the mat on the way out the door, not caring that, for once in her life, she did not put something back in the precise place it belonged. She did not turn around to face him as she exited.
Kyle stood, alone, in the quiet gym, trying to envelope his mind around what had happened. An hour earlier, he arrived for a simple sparring practice. He had not expected a transcendental reawakening and his partner’s emotional breakdown. He shook his head. The Time Tunnel was a truly crazy place.
Kyle made the long walk back to his apartment, passing on the opportunities to use moving walkways or Segways to get home. People in the corridors gasped when they saw the battered and bleeding temponaut. They offered him assistance. He waved them on with a pained smile.
When he reached his apartment, Kyle went straight to his upstairs bathroom to survey the damage to his person. He splashed water on his face. Bloody water swirled down his metal sink drain. He looked in the mirror—his nose was broken and still dripping blood, and his eyes were swelling badly. He laughed—he looked like shit, but he hadn’t felt this good in years.
Kyle stripped and turned on the shower.
His doorbell rang. He threw a towel around his waist and went downstairs.
He opened the door—it was Annika, still sweating in her sports bra and pants. Her eyes and face were red and puffy from her big cry. Kyle didn’t say anything, but looked at her with a quizzical expression.
“Kyle?” Annika asked in an unfamiliarly forlorn voice, praying that he would know what to do next.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the apartment. Annika began kissing Kyle hard, bloodying her face, ripping off his towel. Before he could pull at her top, she had peeled off her clothes and was on top of him on his living room floor.
Time Tunnel Complex
Level 3
September 15, 2008
14:30 hours
Kyle sat at an “outdoor” table at the Starbucks next to the Level 3 park. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a black T-shirt. At a black wrought iron table, under a tree, Kyle studied his mission book while sipping a coffee. Names, faces, places, times—he was committing every known action of the terrorists between July and September 11, 2001 to memory. He knew the minute when Hani Hanjour and Majed Moqed used an ATM at the First Union National Bank in Laurel, Maryland on September 5. He knew when prostitutes visited Abdul Aziz al Omari and Satam al Suqami in their room at Boston’s Park Inn on September 7. He knew when Mohamed Atta and al Omari were having dinner in a Pizza Hut in South Portland, Maine on September 10. Kyle also knew the identities and locations of shadow gun dealers where he could quickly and easily acquire weapons. He couldn’t take a computer through the Tunnel, and his ability to instantly recall each and every one of these moments was a fulcrum point of success or failure for the mission.
Next to Kyle’s mission book was a Wall Street Journal. Newspapers weren’t delivered to the complex, though the Time Tunnel had its own media service that republished the major outlets. The Time Tunnel’s version of the Journal, reprinted twice a day, based on the latest online news, was actually more current than the traditional hardcopy version. The headline of the afternoon issue was “AIG, Lehman Shock Hits World Markets.” Lehman Brothers had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that morning. The largest bankruptcy in U.S. history had sent the stock market into a death spiral and world markets into full panic.
Across the walkway from the coffee shop, Kyle could hear a waterfall in the park. Birds flew through the enormous atrium. It occurred to Kyle that one thing he could not hear was an echo. Normally, atriums with artificial nature ricocheted sounds off their surfaces. This park seemed almost real, though, as was the case with everything at the Time Tunnel complex, it had a Disneyesque feel to it.
Three months had passed since Kyle had arrived at the Time Tunnel, and he was finally getting into the groove. His physical re-conditioning was progressing well and he was the most fit that he had been in years. A few nip tucks from the complex’s surgical staff had fixed his broken nose and turned back the clock on his face. When Kyle looked in the mirror, his 33 year-old self reflected back.
With the aid of his counselor, his emotional reconditioning was going well too. The first month had been very tough. For years, he had been terrified of facing the loss of his wife. Festering in his mind and body, the pain had exacted a terrible toll. General Craig made a bet that Kyle could be brought back from the terrible place where he seemed stuck. The bet was paying off. Kyle was on a good path. He owed General Craig a debt for bringing him back from the darkness.
“May I join you?” asked General Craig. The general was wearing his trademark khaki pants and a forest green polo shirt.
Kyle looked up, startled, “General! How did you creep up on me?”
“By being a sneaky bastard,” the general replied with a broad smile.
“Please, sit,” motioned Kyle to the vacant wrought iron chair.
The general sat down.
“How are you doing, son?” asked the general.
“Pretty good,” Kyle nodded with a smile. “I’m actually starting to feel a bit like my old self.”
“It’s a good feeling, isn’t it?” asked the general.
“Yes sir, it is,” replied Kyle. “I was gone a long time.”
A Starbucks barista with gorgeous long red curls approached, “Can I get you anything, General?”
“Black coffee, please,” replied the general.
The general looked around, “You’ve found one of my favorite spots,” he said.
“Yes sir. I like this place. I’m productive and peaceful at the same time,” said Kyle.
“How are you and Colonel Wise getting on?” asked the general.
“Better,” answered Kyle. “I think she may actually have a pulse after all.”
They laughed. Kyle did not let on that they had been sleeping together for the past month, though it would not have surprised him if the general already knew that.
The two men paused, looking at each other.
“You look like a man with a question,” said the general.
“I am, sir,” replied Kyle, smiling at the general’s insight. “Sir, there are no elected officials in the Time Tunnel Complex, correct?”
“Correct.”
“No president, vice president, cabinet, congress, etcetera, right?” Kyle continued.
“That’s right.”
“Will they be joining us before the jump?” asked Kyle.
“No, they won’t,” replied the general.
“So their timeline will change,” said Kyle.
“Yes.”
“Sir, they don’t know about this place, do they?” asked Kyle.
The general paused, looking at Kyle.
“No, they don’t,” answered the general.
Kyle nodded. Both men sat, silently. The barista broke the silence with the general’s coffee.
“Here you go, sir,” she said
“Thank you very much,” replied the general, with a big smile.
After the barista was out of earshot, Kyle leaned forward, “Sir, how can they not know? This place cost trillions to build.”
“It’s not nearly as big of a lump to hide under the carpet as you might think, the general explained, “We take a piece of the Area 51 budget. There aren’t a lot of line items. There’s no “Time Tunnel” line item. Keep in mind we’ve been building this place for over half a century, so there haven’t been any big spending spikes that would attract attention. We also get money from other sources. America’s lead in microproces
sors and composite materials wasn’t purely the result of having all the smartest guys in the room. We were able to quietly monetize some of our Gray reverse engineering research by licensing it out. It’s a win-win—America’s got a competitive edge in high tech and we make bank. Unlike the government, the Time Tunnel runs an impressive surplus.”
The general continued, “We toss a bone to the president from time-to-time about the marginal progress we’re making in our Gray research. His eyes glaze over a few minutes after we start talking about Carbon nanotubes.”
“But sir, if we’re changing the country and leaving our government out of the loop, isn’t this sort of…this is sort of a temporal coup, isn’t it?” asked Kyle.
The general mused the question, “Well, Colonel, that’s a strong way to put it, but there’s no denying that we’re changing things and they aren’t invited to the party.”
Kyle nodded and went silent, processing.
The general leaned forward and tapped on the Wall Street Journal Lehman crash headline, “Colonel, do you believe we could possibly do a worse job than they are?”
Kyle shook his head, “No sir, I don’t believe we could.”
“I’m glad you’re here, Colonel,” said the general rising from his seat and extending his hand.
Kyle stood up and grabbed the general’s hand firmly, “I am grateful to be here, sir. Thank you for bringing me along.”
The general smiled, picked up his coffee and strode off.
Time Tunnel Complex
Mission Control
October 1, 2008
10:05 hours
The general glanced at his watch. John Kaomea was five minutes late to the mission update meeting. He looked at Gus Ferrer with an irritated look. Gus got the message and reached for a phone on the conference table.
“This is Gus Ferrer. Please page John Kaomea to mission control.”
Moments later, a woman’s voice was heard over the complex PA system.
“John Kaomea, please call mission control,” the voice said.
“Perhaps you should send the MPs to collect him,” said Gus.
Gunther, seated in his wheelchair at the table, hid a grin beneath his hand.
As the PA message repeated, the vault door to mission control opened and John Kaomea entered. He was accompanied by an Asian woman in her mid thirties. The woman, Zhang Li, was Kaomea’s lieutenant, a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from MIT. They descended the steps to the conference room table at a leisurely pace. The general sat at the center of the table, his back to the giant screen, facing Kaomea and Zhang as they approached. Gus and Gunther flanked the general.
When the two engineers reached the table, Kaomea casually tossed a notebook on the table before taking a seat. His expression was smug. The general was not happy. Zhang sat next to Kaomea. Her expression was blank.
The general turned to Gunther, “Dr. Appel, am I correct in understanding that the time displacement system demands a very high degree of precision in order to function properly?”
“That is an understatement,” replied Gunther. “The tolerances required of all aspects of the system are exceptionally narrow and unforgiving. An infinitesimal fraction of variance from the specification in any of the subsystems could well result in a catastrophic event.”
The general turned to Kaomea, “That concerns me. I wonder if imprecision in one’s work habits might reflect imprecision in their work product.”
Kaomea laughed, “Sorry I’m late, General.”
The general glared at Kaomea, “You think this is funny? Because I can demonstrate just how un-funny this is, if you like.”
Kaomea understood the general’s threat, though he needed to balance the demands of his expansive ego against the unlikely possibility that the general would toss him in the complex stockade. The general needed him, and they both knew it.
The general didn’t like John Kaomea. In addition to his routine tardiness, Kaomea exhibited an arrogance that rubbed the general precisely the wrong way. The general appreciated genuine selflessness—people who understood the mission and were willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Kaomea was not that sort of person. The general’s perception of Kaomea was of a man more concerned with managing his image than the Time Tunnel.
Kaomea was not the first choice to be chief technical officer of the Time Tunnel. Gus Ferrer had recruited him, reluctantly, from DARPA after two other senior engineering managers had turned down the offer. Kaomea had been plucked from a particle beam weapon project, one in Gus’ former portfolio of projects. Though the project had demonstrated net forward progress, it was Gus’ only project that threatened to come across the goal line behind schedule and over budget. Gus found that Kaomea required micromanagement, something neither man enjoyed. Zhang Li had been Kaomea’s right-hand woman at DARPA. There were some who believed she was the real brains behind Kaomea, keeping him propped up. If so, she never revealed the emperor’s naked state. Zhang rarely spoke unless spoken to, and her icy expression never betrayed what she was thinking.
Unlike the general, Gus was more concerned about execution than sacrifice. His purpose for existence was the successful and professional completion of projects—preferably exceptionally difficult projects. He was the most disciplined man the general had ever met, an early riser who never missed a morning workout, a meeting start time, or project completion date. The muscular contours of his body belied his real age. He could easily pass for 10 years younger than his actual age of 57.
Gustavo Ferrer had learned discipline the hard way after briefly living a privileged life as a young child. His father, a Cuban sugar cane plantation owner had bet the on the losing side of the 26th of July Movement coup that overthrew the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship. With little more than the shirt on his back, young Gustavo, along with his parents and two younger sisters escaped from Havana to Miami in a flotilla of private boats only a few hours into the new year of 1959.
In America, Gus was no longer the son of wealth. His father went to work for a liquor distillery. Gus worked bussing tables in a Cuban restaurant, later learning to cook his native cuisine that fused Taino, Spanish, African, and Caribbean flavors. Cooking paid for his education enabling him to earn a degree in engineering from the University of Miami. His marks were high enough to admit him into Harvard, where he graduated with an MBA. His Harvard MBA, combined with his engineering degree, made Gus a hot commodity for recruiters of top technology companies and think tanks. He gravitated naturally toward the structure of government, and soon found a home at DARPA, where his orbit eventually intertwined with the general’s.
Kaomea adjusted his tenor to the bare minimum required to avoid escalating the situation.
“My apologies, General,” Kaomea said. “Shall we begin?”
“We shall,” replied the general. “Gus, get us started.”
Gus clicked a remote on the table. Numbers flashed up on the giant screen—the results of recent Time Tunnel tests. The numbers were aligned in three columns: “Specification,” “Actual,” and “Delta.” The “Delta” column highlighted the difference between the “Specification” numbers and the “Actual” numbers. If the actual numbers were within system specifications, they appeared in green, preceded by a “+” sign. Numbers outside specifications were presented in red, preceded by a “-“ sign. Nearly half of the Delta numbers were red.
“These are the results from the last system test. As you can see, we are outside specification on about half of the subsystem tests,” said Gus. Though the permanent scowl on Gus’ face was not a direct reaction to the second-rate test results, the results deeply embarrassed him nonetheless. The project and Kaomea were Gus’ responsibility.
“Gunther, what are the implications of these numbers?” asked the general.
“The implications are ominous,” replied Gunther. “As discussed, the system demands the most precise tolerances. Operating a space-time warp engine outside those specifications is potentially disastrous. At best, it
expands the range of space-time coordinates where the temponauts would land. They could land decades off target in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. At worst, if the antimatter reactor goes critical, we blow up the Earth.”