Soul Source: Back and There Again

by Charles Vella

  "Forget it," she sighed. "Just take me there. Now. Please."

  "Take you there?" Dutch said, lowering his finger, his head still tilted. Like the Wizard of Oz. If he starts singing If I Only Had a Brain run for it.

  "To the launch."

  "Aah."

  She followed him toward the elevator. Pruitt. Had to be. Thank God for the terrorist threat that'd left them sitting on the runway and forced Rick to postpone the trip. What would've happened if she hadn't come back early? And would it make any difference? Was it too late already? She hadn't gotten to the prisoner. Could she count on Sarah trying to stop it on her own? Were they even sending Sarah? What the hell was going on? What would she give for something simple to deal with, like a burning orphanage or a derailed train plowing into a school?

  "Where're the security guards?"

  "Sensitivity training."

  "Sensitivity training?"

  "Yes," Dutch answered as they stepped onto the elevator. The door closed and it glided down. You didn't say what floor, but Dutch's words cut off the thought before she could give it voice. "They've all gone. I think it's in Las Vegas. They seemed very happy to go."

  "Las Vegas? All of them? Whose idea was that?"

  Dutch just smiled. The elevator came to a stop and they stepped out.

  Agnes's mind whirled. She barely registered the door sliding open without the retinal scanner. She followed Dutch's back as he led her down the hall and was almost surprised when they were there. Warren was standing at the door watching them approach.

  "What's going on?" she asked before she reached him. Dutch stood aside and she was facing Warren. "I set the launch for tomorrow. Who authorized this?"

  "Pruitt," Warren answered. "I assumed he'd discussed it with you."

  "Well he didn't. He doesn't have the authority to do this."

  "I'm afraid he does," Warren said, speaking slowly and calmly the way you'd say 'please put the gun down'. She took a deep breath. Calm down. "One of the documents we covered when you arrived was the delegations. In your absence Pruitt can't decide to send a mission or change the teams, but he can change the timing. With all the documents you reviewed it must've slipped your mind."

  "I remember," she said with a sinking heart. She did remember. Buried in the hundreds of documents she'd had to read. How could she've forgotten something so simple? She looked past Warren toward the door.

  "Did the policeman talk with the prisoner?"

  "I don't know."

  "Then we need to stop it." She moved around him to the door.

  "Stop it? Now?"

  "Yes." She stopped and glared at him. "You, and Pruitt, know perfectly well that I didn't want the mission using Pruitt's plans. I wanted..." she turned back to the door. "...there isn't time for this."

  Warren touched her shoulder. "This is..."

  "I know, I know," she snapped, "This is a level three area." She set her eye in front of the scanner.

  "Actually this is a launch level area."

  "I don't have to strip do I?"

  "No," he said. Hopefully his pained smile was at the thought of stripping in general and not her in particular. "You just need to scan your right thumb and eye simultaneously."

  "Fine," she said. She laid her thumb on the pad and leaned into the retinal scanner. "Do you have many eyeballs stolen here?" she asked as she passed through the door. Warren scanned his eye and thumb and followed.

  "I never have entirely understood the logic," Warren admitted as they stood and looked into the control room.

  Agnes stopped in spite of herself. So this was what time travel looked like. A long, narrow room with screens embedded on the walls along either side. Not projected screens, but wafer thin physical screens. A handful of young people moved quietly among the screens with the competent air of people who'd done this many times before. At the far end of the room an old style pick-up truck with the doors open idled on what looked like a huge treadmill. Agnes could hear the hum of its engine. A hose took the fumes from the engine through a hole in the wall and deposited them somewhere. Hopefully not outside or into the aquarium. Set in the wall to the right of the truck was a door.

  "Isn't she beautiful," Lemberger gushed as he rushed up to them. It took Agnes a second to realize he was talking about the truck. "We've only got two vehicles in stock. The other one's a little complicated to drive. This one should be OK. We roll it in neutral so it can ease into the closed timeline curve" he explained. "The treadmill can move at any speed and direction to accommodate differences in the speed and direction of the earth's rotation when they arrive. Although I do wish Veronica would let Sarah drive," he added in a lowered voice. He started going on about how hard it was to find vehicles from that era and how their shop wasn't set up adequately for vehicle prep. His voice settled into a distant buzzing in Agnes's ear as she scanned the room and tried to figure out what she was going to do.

  At the far end of the room, close to the pick-up truck, Eileen talked with Griff and Sturgell Bob. They turned toward her and Warren and gave preoccupied nods then went back to their conversation. Eileen pointed toward something and Griff nodded, turned and then drifted off toward a knot of young people hovering in front of a set of screens.

  "They're nearing the final launch sequence," Warren murmured what sounded like a warning in her ear. "We've never scrubbed a mission at this point before."

  And exactly how would she do that? Just scream STOP? And should she? Stop it? What if she did? Would she get another chance? She still had the meeting with the president in front of her. Five hours on the runway waiting for the all clear before Rick'd finally pulled the plug in disgust. The only reason she was back in time. In time? In time for what? If she scrubbed the mission she'd be out of here before she had a chance for another shot. And what if she let them go? Wouldn't Sarah still try to stop it? Was Sarah even going? She'd acted true to form against the attempted rape, why not here? OK. She was up against armed men, but other than Pruitt they were no doubt armed and stupid men. But, and the thought gnawed at her like a rat patiently eating through the insulation of her brain trying to get to the synapses, Pruitt knew all that too. So why was he sending her? The question stood just outside of her peripheral vision, tugging at her psyche.

  "Is Sarah still going?" she asked without turning.

  "Oh yes," Warren said. "Pruitt doesn't have the authority to change the team without your approval."

  That's right. He'd already said that. The delegation didn't allow Pruitt to change the team. Just the timing. So why wasn't he worried about Sarah? Agnes nodded absently and wandered over to where Sturgell Bob had been left standing alone as Eileen marched off giving orders to someone else.

  "How long do we wait for them to come back?" she asked. What to do what to do? She was running out of time and had to decide. Not deciding is deciding. Once they leave the die's cast.

  Sturgell Bob nodded as if he appreciated the question too much to notice that Agnes was sitting on top of a volcano.

  "One of the funny things about time travel in books and movies is exactly that. In most stories the time travelers leave and the story progresses on the same timeline in the past and present. I suppose that helps the dramatic tension." He chuckled at the primitive idea. "Interestingly in The Time Machine H.G. Wells had three hours elapse during the present although he was gone an extended period. I've always wondered how he decided on three hours."

  "So how long are they really gone?"

  "Oh we could keep the elapsed present and past time the same," Sturgell Bob mused. "And there's a certain logic to it. If you do that you don't end up with a difference between the chrononaut's age and how much she's aged, if you know what I mean." Agnes nodded and he went on. "Our missions are generally very short, a matter of hours rather than days, so aging isn't a big issue. Medical monitors the difference closely. If a chrononaut gets to a one-month age discrepancy she goes in front of a medical review board to decide whethe
r to pull her from time travel. We haven't had to pull anyone yet." He nodded as if confirming this to himself. "We actually have the chrononauts depart and return with no elapsed time in the present, which also eliminates some potential logic problems."

  "Logic problems?" Why was she stalling?

  "Begin launch sequence," a disembodied voice filled the room, setting off a flurry of activity. If she didn't do something pretty soon it wouldn't matter.

  "Pruitt's domain," Sturgell Bob grimaced, no doubt he intended it to be a smile. "Interpreting the deviations. Do the deviations occur as soon as the team leaves? Or when it returns? Or do they somehow occur over time while they are gone?" He shrugged. We've been working on a measurement system to figure that out. The idea is we'll start experimenting with different departure and return points once we can measure the impacts. It actually gets quite complicated because of the theoretical possibility of diversions if we open closed timeline curves too close to each other."

  "Diversions? It seems complicated enough to me already," Agnes went on when he didn't answer. More complicated than you can possibly know.

  "Until then though, it won't look to you as if you've seen much of anything. They'll reappear at the same time they disappear, so it will just look like..." The door to the right of the truck slid open and a young woman stepped out and walked up to them.

  "Have you two met?" Sturgell Bob asked.

  "Monica," Monica said, her hand raised in front of her.

  "Agnes," Agnes replied absently, raising her own hand. Monica? Ah, the one who'd written the report. Monica's eyes slid past Agnes, who turned. Griff glanced at them and quickly turned away. Ah. It's like that, is it?

  "Are they ready?" Sturgell Bob asked. Agnes braced herself for the answer.

  "Almost," Monica said with what came across as forced brightness. Even with the storm raging in her brain Agnes didn't have to work to imagine the disappointment this young woman had to be feeling.

  "Where is Pruitt anyway?" she asked suddenly as she realized he wasn't in the room.

  "Pruitt never comes to launches," Sturgell Bob said. "I suppose it's his little protest that any travel to the past is misguided."

  "Two minutes to launch," the voice intoned over them.

  The door Monica'd entered through slid open and a statuesque woman walked out to a ripple of applause from the assembled team. She twisted her head and sent a shimmer of blond hair waving around her. She was dressed in the kind of skirt and top that Agnes hadn't seen in years.

  "That's Veronica?" Agnes asked.

  "Yes," Monica said through clenched teeth. Monica'd just come from the prep room. Had seen Veronica not thirty seconds before. But watching her come out, taking the applause with the false modesty of a movie star. It was just. Just. Veronica stopped in front of them on her way to the truck. She smiled at Agnes.

  "You must be Agnes," Veronica purred with the smile of the wicked stepmother telling Hansel and Gretel what fun they'd have in the woods. "I'm so sorry Monica won't be joining us." Her eyes swept up and down Monica's body. "But I'm so glad that she won't be piling on any more difference between her real and chronological age."

  "You look great," Monica forced through her clenched jaw. "Authentic. The blond hair coloring will definitely help you fit in. Isn't it amazing how hair color from a bottle's stayed popular all these years?"

  Veronica stuck her nosed in the air and walked to the truck. Ha. It was dyed. Knew it. Monica pulled her eyes off the extra swing Veronica was putting into her way too tight skirt and looked up as the door slid open.

  "Sixty seconds to launch."

  "Agnes?" Monica's head swung back at the note of concern in Sturgell Bob's voice.

  "Are you alright?" Monica asked. Agnes had gone white as a sheet. Monica and Sturgell Bob each took an arm as she actually sagged several inches. Her eyes were wide, wild, and staring at Sarah coming out of the door to scattered applause. Sarah looked around, her eyes stopping momentarily at the three of them, then strode toward the truck. Monica felt her hands pulled off as Agnes lunged out of their grip and grabbed Sarah as she passed. Veronica stared wide-eyed through the windshield, her knuckles gripped the top of the steering wheel.

  "Who...What...Where are you going?"

  "Where am I going? What are you doing?" Sarah tried to pull away but Agnes had her arm in a death grip.

  "Thirty seconds."

  "What the hell's going on?" Eileen's voice shouted into the sudden silence of the room. Agnes dragged Sarah away from the truck as pandemonium broke loose. "What're you doing?" Eileen yelled over the klaxon that'd suddenly filled the room punctuated by voices exploding in a panicked chorus. Sturgell Bob and Monica grabbed Agnes's shoulders and pulled as Sarah tried to wrestle out of her grasp.

  "Something's wrong," a young woman called over her shoulder from the console she was jabbing her fingers at. She turned her head, a look of helpless panic on her face. "Nothing's responding. There's some kind of disturbance."

  A chorus of, "disturbance?" came from the knot of people milling around in the confusion as the klaxon blared. The struggle in front of the truck turned into a scrum as more people ran over. Eileen raced to the knot of people standing behind the young woman at the console with Griff at her heels.

  Monica skirted the wrestling crowd and tried to run to the truck but tripped and went sprawling on the floor.

  "Abort...Abort...Abort," the voice said calmly through the siren.

  "Isn't this exciting?" Dutch asked as he helped Monica up.

  "Do something Dutch."

  "ABORT," Eileen's voice yelled over the blaring klaxon. Eileen and Griff ran from console to console, touching, pushing, slapping icons.

  "What do you suggest?"

  "Nothing's responding."

  They all turned and watched the truck. The last thing Monica saw was Veronica's wide eyes, staring over her knuckles on top of the steering wheel. They seemed to stare into Monica's long after the rest of her had disappeared with the truck, and all Monica was looking at was an empty platform.

  "Well," Dutch said, looking around at the faces staring in shock at where the truck'd been. "Back to the drawing board."

  11

  Time Travel Protocol 8-28-2031* (Diversions):

  Missions will be separated by at least thirty days at both departure and arrival points to avoid the possibility of diversion.

  *(Highly Confidential: Paper Copies Only)

  "What...why...?" Eileen sputtered.

  "What the hell were you doing?" Griff almost shouted. He'd managed to wait until they got to a meeting room. He slammed himself into a chair, rolling back with the momentum before catching himself with a hand on the table. "Grabbing her like that?"

  "It's fortunate Agnes did stop Sarah Griff," Warren said. He eyed Agnes curiously as he lowered himself into a chair across the table. "But how did you know something was wrong Agnes?"

  Agnes slumped into a chair. How did she answer that? Premonition? Tea leaves? Woman's intuition? Maybe just tell them the truth? We've met before Sarah. Don't you remember? Oh of course not. I met you years ago but you haven't met me yet. Like walking through the looking glass. But all Alice had to deal with was late rabbits and wicked queens.

  The others filed in and fell into chairs like people shuffling into a funeral. A funeral? Was that what this was? Did they even know?

  "Do we have any idea where she is?" Agnes finally asked the air over their heads.

  No one answered, but the looks on their faces told her everything she needed to know.

  "What happened Eileen?" Sturgell Bob asked quietly.

  Eileen shook her head. "We started the sequence. Everything was fine. Then the controls stopped responding. When I ordered the abort..." she glanced at Agnes, shrugged. "No response. No readings. Nothing. All the instruments went dead."

  Sturgell Bob nodded. He swiveled in his chair and looked past Agnes.

  "Any information Dutch?
"

  Agnes turned to Dutch's shaking head. His face was weirdly expressionless. "I can only validate what Eileen said. The instruments showed no responses and no readings. It was quite unusual."

  "Quite unusual alright," Griff snorted.

  "Was it intentional Dutch?"

  Every head in the room turned, looked up, to where Pruitt stood at the end of the table. Somehow no one'd heard him come in.

  "Intentional?" Agnes snapped.

  "Who'd want to do this intentionally?" Sturgell Bob asked, his brow furrowed as if he'd encountered a math problem he'd never seen before.

  "Someone who didn't want the mission to take place," Pruitt said evenly, his eyes locked on Agnes. "Obviously."

  Obviously. And if that tape showed up it'd be obvious who'd had the incentive to stop it, wouldn't it? Agnes tried to tell herself that she needed to find Verma and get that tape. The question of where he was raced through her mind but kept running past her and she lost it in her crowded brain. What was it Dutch'd told her before this disaster? Security'd all been sent to sensitivity training? Why in the world...at what point did you just run out of energy to care? Maybe she was finding out.

  "You have someone in mind Pruitt?" Griff asked. "Or is this just an unsubstantiated attack to try to make everyone feel better."

  "Hold the phone," Dutch said. He looked up. "I realize you don't have phones. Actually that there aren't any phones anymore. Except of course in mus..."

  "What is it Dutch?"

  "Well Griff, it appears we've found Veronica."

  "Well thank God for that," Agnes sighed.

  "I wouldn't thank him yet," Dutch grinned. Agnes stared down his pointing finger with a sinking feeling in her stomach.

  "Where is she Dutch?" Griff asked through gritted teeth.

  Dutch's eyes went vacant for a second then snapped back. "Approximately ten kilometers and three months from the target site. From what we can tell the truck actually landed on a road but at an excessive rate of speed. It seems possible that Veronica wasn't prepared to control it." He looked up from the screen. "She hit a tree."