Time Frame

by Douglas E. Richards

  The ex-soldier, ex-private eye had certainly given everyone much to ponder, and Cargill left the group alone with their thoughts for almost a full minute. “Thanks, Aaron,” he said finally. “This helps put things in perspective. I hadn’t considered this era, but it does give one food for thought.”

  He turned to Jenna. “So back to our own actions. I believe we made the best decision we could at the time. The most moral. We didn’t make this choice because we get off on killing. We made it despite how much it sickens us.”

  Jenna nodded woodenly.

  “I pushed you and Aaron into it,” continued Cargill. “Not that this absolves you, but it puts this into further perspective. The bottom line, Jenna, is that I need you. We need you. So maybe let’s shift the focus of your job. Instead of focusing solely on ethics, maybe focus instead on the broad goals Q5 should be pursuing going forward. With the ethics of these goals being a key component of the analysis.”

  “You’re really willing to delegate something as important as our future goals?” said Jenna.

  “My plate is full,” said Cargill. “I have to focus on the specs for the new headquarters. I have to pull strings and create cover stories so you and the other new members of our team can seamlessly leave your old lives and join us without causing any eyebrows to shoot up. Aaron has agreed to let me erase any evidence that he even exists. I could go on and on. But even if I had the time, I’m not the right person. I’ve been at this too long. I need a new set of eyes. A different perspective.”

  “So you’ll just agree to adopt whatever goals I come up with?” said Jenna.

  “Absolutely not,” said Cargill with a wry smile. “You’ll get to set the tone. To lead the conversation regarding where we go from here. But I expect that you’ll consult liberally with all of us as you perform your analysis. And I expect the goals to change and evolve as we all give our input. I want your ideas, your framework, as soon as you feel like you’ve completed a solid first-pass analysis. Folding in ethical considerations as needed along the way.”

  He paused. “But this isn’t a democracy. So I’ll have final say as to our direction. Even so, I could well agree to follow your exact prescription. At minimum, it will serve as a good starting point.”

  “What do the rest of you think?” said Jenna, her head swiveling to take a survey of the meeting participants. “Are you comfortable with me doing what Lee has asked?”

  The response around the table was immediate and unanimous. All wholeheartedly supported her playing this role.

  Jenna sighed. “Okay,” she said to Cargill. “I guess I’m in. I’ll try to deliver something as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you,” said Cargill. “And remember this is supposed to be a work in progress, so don’t wait until you think it’s perfect.”

  “Understood,” said Jenna.

  “Before we adjourn,” said Cargill, “I do have one other topic I’d like to address. I mentioned that Nathan’s discovery opens up other possibilities. The obvious is going back in time a full half-second, which functionally allows us to project matter a greater distance. Another possibility that isn’t as obvious is using the fifth dimensional connection we believe we are creating to develop faster-than-light travel, which Daniel and Nathan are evaluating now.”

  “Sure,” said Blake, rolling his eyes. “Because everyone knows the fifth dimension is a magical place. Whatever that is.”

  Wexler laughed. “Sorry, Aaron. I know it sounds like total bullshit,” he said, surprising all but Jenna with his down-to-earth phrasing. Only she knew that the most brilliant man in the room would never put on intellectual airs.

  “The term, fifth dimension, sounds like new age hooey to most people,” continued Wexler. “But it isn’t. It’s a very real concept, with very real mathematical implications. Now isn’t the time, but I’ll prepare a quick presentation for everyone on what this means. It will help you understand what might be going on. The mathematical framework is intensely complex, but I can provide a conceptual framework. Enough to help you understand why bizarre things can happen in higher dimensions, and why it even makes sense—sort of.”

  “If you can get a dumb grunt like me to understand any of it,” said Blake, feigning humility, “then you’re an impressive teacher.”

  Wexler shook his head. “You forget that your double helped me escape from Lake Las Vegas, Aaron. He was about as far from a dumb grunt as it’s possible to get.”

  “Well, he was forty-five millionths of a second more experienced than me,” said Blake with a grin.

  “Just to finish my point,” said Cargill before this side discussion could continue, “there’s another new possibility that’s come up. One Daniel realized had come out of Nathan’s work.”

  “It’s no longer just a possibility,” corrected Tini.

  “Right,” said Cargill. “It became a reality just hours ago, when Daniel finished testing some recent modifications.”

  “What possibility are we talking about?” asked Wexler.

  “Daniel used your theories to solve what we call the nesting problem,” replied Cargill. “One that you and the other newcomers to the team didn’t even know existed.”

  “Here’s the problem in a nutshell,” said Tini. “We can use a kettle to send an object back in time,” he said, using kettle as a convenient shorthand for time machine, one that had begun to catch on within the group. Q5’s time travel devices didn’t resemble kettles in the slightest, but the term had been chosen to pay homage to a very old time travel novel that was a favorite of several scientists on the team. “As you know,” he continued, “when we send something back, we end up with two copies. But there is one object we were never able to send back.” He paused for effect. “A time machine itself.”

  Wexler nodded in sudden understanding. “Ah, I see how this would be useful. This would allow you to use a time machine to duplicate an unlimited number of slightly smaller time machines, basically at no cost.”

  “Except this turned out to be against the rules,” said Tini. “Like using one of your three wishes to ask the genie for more wishes.”

  “Which we all know is the ultimate, unbreakable genie rule,” agreed Blake with a grin.

  “The devices can only operate if they have a continuous connection to dark energy,” continued Tini. “If they’ve opened a tiny hole into the fifth dimension, so to speak. We couldn’t send back a kettle within a kettle because the dark energy connection of the inner kettle always interfered with the outer one, and disrupted the process. We couldn’t figure out a way around it.”

  “So we had to construct each device from scratch,” said Allen.

  “But you’re saying that my theory allows you to circumvent this supposed rule,” said Wexler.

  “Exactly,” said a beaming Tini. “As Lee mentioned, I just finished testing it before I got here today, and it works like a charm. Time machines for everyone,” he finished with a smile.

  “Not as exciting as the possibility of faster-than-light travel,” said Joe Allen, “but a huge development.”

  Cargill frowned. “But one that also makes future security more difficult,” he said. “We guarded against infiltration by Knight or his men by ringing our facility with dark energy sensors. Far enough away that we’d have plenty of warning if a kettle was being maneuvered to within fifty-eight feet of us to attempt to teleport in. Even inside a fast-moving truck.”

  “But now you have to deal with over a hundred-mile range,” said Blake.

  “That’s right,” said Allen. “The good news is that we’ve continued to improve upon the original dark matter sensors that Knight invented. They’re now so cheap and sensitive we can deploy enough of them to make it feasible to detect dark energy in a three-hundred-mile radius around us.”

  “But nesting still leaves us vulnerable,” said Wexler, catching on with his customary speed, “even with a three-hundred-mile sensor perimeter. Without nesting, any enemy time travel device—um . . . any kettle,” he a
mended, like the rest of the newcomers still becoming used to this odd stand-in, “crossing the perimeter would trigger our alarms. Since the enemy would still have to travel almost two hundred miles to be close enough to use their device to breach, we’d have plenty of time to stop them. But when an enemy can nest kettles like so many Russian dolls, they can get within range in less than a minute, taking multiple hundred-mile jumps.”

  “Meaning we’d be totally exposed,” said Blake.

  “Not just us,” said Cargill. “Everyone in the world.”

  “That sounds even less good,” said Blake.

  Cargill actually shrugged. “Don’t worry about it too much. I just pointed it out as an academic exercise. With Knight out of the picture this isn’t an urgent problem. For this to come into play, someone from Q5 would have to go rogue. Even if this happened, only the people in this room know how to program the devices for longer than forty-five millionths of a second. And at the moment, only Daniel knows how to get nesting to work. Even if a rogue learned how, I’m the only one with the codes necessary to work the devices. So it’s not something we need to panic about at the moment.”

  “That would be a nice change of pace,” said Jenna wryly.

  “Even better,” added Cargill, “I think we might ultimately be able to protect ourselves, even from this.”

  “Hard to imagine how,” said Blake.

  “Q5 began life under the auspices of Colonel Hank Vargas,” explained Cargill. “He’s in charge of all black secret weapons programs in the country. After Q5 became . . . independent . . . Vargas and I both built Chinese walls around our organizations. But when I was part of this larger group, I was aware of a team making great progress upping the power, speed, and precision of lasers. I’m pretty sure they’ve perfected a laser system fast enough to stop a series of nested kettles from getting close enough to reach us.”

  “The reason we have any chance,” said Tini, “is that once a nested kettle is sent back through time, there’s a little over a six-second delay before it can repeat this with another nested kettle inside of it.”

  “Why is that?” asked Jenna.

  “I’m not sure,” replied Tini. “I suspect Nathan will be able to figure that out.”

  Blake eyed the head of Q5 skeptically. “So what are you saying, Lee? That Vargas’s lasers can kill these devices in less than six seconds?”

  “Again, I’m not fully up to speed on recent advances,” replied Cargill, “but I’m pretty sure they can. The laser’s computer should be able to receive a signal from a dark energy detector and pinpoint the kettle’s location in under a second. The laser system itself is designed to be powerful enough to reach down from low Earth orbit. If we mount it on a tower centered near headquarters, it should have more than enough stopping power to kill the kettle in two or three seconds.”

  Blake nodded appreciatively. “Impressive,” he said. “I heard rumors about this Colonel Vargas in my past life,” he added. “Supposed to be a real hard-ass.”

  Cargill smiled. “I didn’t interact with him all that much, especially considering I reported to him for a time. Hard-ass for sure, but also hard to read. I can tell you that he had a reputation for killing weapons programs. Not because they were too terrible to use, but because they weren’t terrible enough.”

  “Sounds like the kind of warmonger who makes Edgar Knight look like he’s Amish,” said Jenna.

  Cargill laughed. “Unfortunately, this is true. But if his laser program ends up helping us stay secure, then he’ll have done a good deed.” He paused. “But, again, a problem for another time.”

  The meeting continued for almost thirty minutes. When it ended, Cargill thanked everyone for their time, making sure to catch Blake before he filed out behind the rest of the team. “Aaron, could you hang back for a while,” he said quietly. “I’d like to speak with you privately for a few minutes.”

  Blake frowned. “Why do I have the feeling that I’m not going to like what you have to say?”

  Cargill forced a tired smile. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to hate it,” he replied. “But I’m glad to see your intuition is as good as ever.”

  12

  Blake waited for the last few team members to exit and close the conference room door behind them before turning to Cargill, who was gesturing for him to take a seat once again.

  “To what do I owe this honor?” said Blake as he sat.

  He had been impressed with the first formal meeting of the new senior management team. Cargill had known they were all second-guessing themselves regarding the loss of life at Lake Las Vegas and had made it a point to address this head-on, in the context of asking Jenna to be a planner/watchdog. In a sense it had been group therapy, and more effective than most, especially for Jenna Morrison.

  Wexler and Tini each had a clear conscience, since they weren’t involved. He, Cargill, and Allen had all made life-and-death calculations before, so could handle things better. Not necessarily well, but better than a lifelong civilian.

  Blake had killed many times, and had made peace with the necessity, as long as he deemed he was killing the right people, for the right reasons. He had given up war—or at least had tried to—because he found that battling fellow humans, especially gifted warriors, was the ultimate challenge, and had become so stimulating that everything else seemed boring by comparison.

  Except for time travel. That had yet to become mundane.

  Blake was grateful to Cargill for pulling Jenna back from the emotional brink. In the short time he and Jenna had worked together, he had come to develop quite an affection for her.

  His friend, Greg Soyer, had surrendered to the fairer sex and would be tying the knot relatively soon. He was worried about Blake’s lack of dating, which Blake had excused by saying he was putting all of his energy into getting his nascent Private Investigator practice to be taken seriously. The cases he had been forced to take while building his practice could sour anyone on the idea of a relationship.

  Before Jenna had come along, he might as well have been a porn photographer he had taken so many videos of cheating spouses—soon to be divorced spouses—screwing other people. Not exactly an endorsement of relationships, nor of the PI business. He could never have guessed when Jenna Morrison had walked into his apartment office, looking like a battered wife, how profoundly she would change his life.

  “Aaron,” began his new boss, “you know I meant what I said to Jenna. I want her to help guide us. I want to get back on track helping the world rather than killing people. I want out of the monster business.”

  “But?” said Blake warily.

  “But . . . I want to act the assassin one last time before I hang up my spurs.”

  “I take it you mean you want me to act the assassin one last time before you hang up your spurs.”

  Cargill displayed a reluctant smile. “Okay, that is a more accurate description, I’m afraid. Before we get ourselves out of the muck, the least we can do is take out the two most dangerous men on Earth. We’ve taken out the most dangerous—Edgar Knight. And I take full responsibility for not doing more to limit the collateral damage. But we now have the means to take out the second most dangerous. This time with far less breaking of glass. We have the chance to make partial amends for any stains we have on our souls. To potentially save millions of lives, in addition to the millions we’ve already saved by ending Knight.”

  “You mean in addition to those you believe we saved?”

  Cargill shook his head emphatically. “No. In addition to those I’m certain we did,” he insisted.

  Blake stared into Cargill’s eyes for several long seconds, and was happy to see that the man’s conviction on this point was unwavering. “What do you have in mind?” he asked.

  “You mean who do I have in mind. Given he’s now the single most dangerous man alive, it should be obvious.”

  Blake paused to consider, but only for a few brief seconds. If he had been asked to name the second most dangerous man
left after Knight, this would have been tricky. But the most dangerous was head and shoulders above the rest: Kim Jong-un.

  This tyrant, considered evil even by those who abhorred the use of this label, wielded considerable power and was thought by many to be insane, an unholy combination. But there was an even more chilling possibility—that the dictator was, in fact, quite sane, and also extraordinarily cunning. That the persona of this chubby, grinning dictator with the stilted walk and ridiculous haircut was one that he had purposely cultivated.

  There were credible sources who claimed that the once-trim Kim Jong-un had purposely packed on pounds to match the weight of his grandfather, the first North Korean monarch to come to power after Russia liberated the country from Japanese rule in 1945. After gaining weight and adjusting his hair and mannerisms, Kim’s resemblance to his grandfather was uncanny. Since this first monarch had been considered semi-divine, and this divinity was passed on through the bloodline, many were convinced that Kim’s striking resemblance to his grandfather was the single biggest factor in cementing his ascendancy over his two older brothers.

  Scarily sane or utterly mad, either way he was erratic, unaccountable, and utterly unpredictable, seemingly willing to burn down the world if it achieved an objective. The dense population of the metropolitan area of Seoul, South Korea, only a stone’s throw away, gave him the equivalent of twenty-five million hostages to kill if anyone tried to use military force to rein him in or remove him from power.

  And few doubted that he would destroy Seoul without hesitation, at minimum, before turning his sights on America and other targets. He was known to have conducted purges in his government, to have ordered hundreds of brutal executions, including orchestrating the deaths of his uncle and half brother, all in an effort to settle scores or consolidate his power. He was relentless in his saber-rattling and his pursuit of nuclear weapons, ignoring those in his country who were literally starving to death as the fruits of the economy were spent on weaponry and lavish palaces.