by Steve Hertig
Chapter 13
Prime: 22 Aug 2068
John found Angstrom curled up on his bunk; the cat barely acknowledged his return. John scratched behind his ears anyway as he tossed his duffle on the bunk. Someone installed a large cat flap in the door next to a bright-red sticker indicating clearance by the level's fire warden.
"Well boy," John told he cat, "I guess you've made yourself at home."
It was good to be back. A few kilos lighter, he felt well and his sore muscles would not last forever. His screen was active and announced he had three meetings scheduled for the day. The first was a NGA weekly status update; he missed that one already. The second, the conclusion of the Martinique debrief, was in twenty minutes in the lab. Jenny insisted, even after everyone filed their official reports, the team run through the mission verbally. After that, there would be a strategy session for Jenny's team about their role in the Minus contact mission. In addition, General West's aide left a message indicating the general wanted to discuss John's new science advisor job that evening. He would just have time to shower.
John met Dutch outside the STS lab's door. "Master Guns, long time no see."
"Likewise, Captain. Have fun at boot?" Dutch grinned.
"Not half the fun as the rest of the required NGA briefings," John said sarcastically. "Give me PT, guns and ammo any day."
"Be careful what you ask for Captain," Dutch said holding the lab door open for him.
John noticed a green, rectangular emblem attached above his sergeant stripes as they entered the lab. "New patch?"
"It's Prime's color designation. Plus is yellow and Minus is blue."
"Good idea, things will get confusing enough, no sense adding to it."
Mikael came over to greet them. "Look what the cat dragged in."
"Very funny," John replied dryly, acutely embarrassed by the cat's presence.
Jenny smiled and then said, "Welcome back, John."
"Good to be back, thanks," he said.
"Master Guns" Jenny said, "Croft was looking for you earlier."
"He found me," Dutch replied. "There's another test firing of the latest blaster prototype this afternoon."
"Blaster? As in Buck Rodgers Blaster?" John asked with a chuckle.
"Yeah and it's proving a stubborn beast," Dutch replied.
"Let's finish up the Martinique debrief so we can get to the Minus pre-transit plan," Jenny said to everyone. "And don't worry, you've got time before you run off to DC," she told John.
"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," he said truthfully.
The meeting progressed through the details of the team's landing in Minus and up until Mikael's accident when Jenny asked, "What did you notice about the quad our friend with the candy bar was riding?"
"It was a big e-quad," Dutch replied, "a Honda, red with black trim, dirt grips, not mud grips. It looked new, not even much dust on it."
John added jokingly, "I agree. It was red."
Mikael nodded in agreement.
"Are you two being funny?" Jenny asked.
"Never," Mikael said and John just shook his head trying his best to suppress a grin.
She continued, "John, have you ever seen an e-quad on Martinique before?"
"I don't think so."
"Tye, see if there were any e-quads imported into Martinique in the last twenty years," Jenny asked her analyst. She then said reaching into her uniform pocket, "This Snicker wrapper was from Plus—"
"Implies a double transit," John finished her sentence.
"Yes, but does that mean the tangos had to be from Plus?" Jenny asked and placing the wrapper on the table.
"I guess they could be Prime tangos supplied with Plus snickers," Dutch replied.
"Or Minus tangos with Plus snickers, obviously in cahoots with Prime as well as Plus tangos," Mikael added.
"Do you guys hear yourselves?" John laughed.
"Regardless of from where the tangos came," Jenny said, "this Plus Snicker wrapper found in Minus means there is an enemy transit hub somewhere in Prime."
"Ma'am," Tye said to get Jenny's attention. "There is no record of any e-quads imported into Martinique between 2056 and 2046. We're still searching beyond that range."
"Keep me updated," Jenny told her. "If the enemy is using TRs with separations to accommodate a quad, this would be a huge tactical advantage for them."
"It could have been re-assembled. Louisa Andrews said they had been up there for a few months," John said. "Our TRs have a separation of about 800 millimeters. I'm guessing that is a technological upper limit?"
"Correct," Dutch confirmed. "The bigger the TR separation the bigger tactical advantage. Moving large equipment to the next fractime with sixteen hundred mills and not our eight hundred could be almost ten times faster, not twice. Imagine what two meters would allow. You wouldn't have to disassemble and then reassemble a nuke. If true, their supply-chain bottleneck, a huge tactical equalizer for us, has improved greatly."
"And that's not good news," Jenny admitted. "There's something else. A week ago, I added a mission to a standard Minus recon. They paid a visit to a storage facility outside Jackson Michigan."
"Don't tell me they found 13-C," John said.
"Actually, there were no C-series samples at all," Jenny said.
"Well now we know why the TIA wasn't discovered in Minus," John said, "there was never a third field season to find it."
"Makes sense," Jenny said.
"So was the enemy trying to find the TIA to stop TR tech in Minus before it began?" Mikael asked.
"Just another obscure piece of the puzzle," Jenny said flatly.
Running his hands through his GI hair, John said, "The similarity baseline begins to change between Minus and Prime in the 1930s and the TIA net theories began in 2052."
"That's about the start," Jenny confirmed.
"Is there a graph of the actual data?" John asked, knowing Tye had been on the Chronos team almost since its inception.
"Sure, one sec," she said. "We've collected a massive amount of similarity data over the years," she added and activated a holographic chart to show an obvious departure from a baseline of about 95 percent by the late 1930s.
"Is that another trend defection?" John asked as his finger past through the holographic graph.
"Where?" Dutch asked staring at the data points.
"At '64," John said. "Can we just see the r-squared trend lines?"
Good guess, John thought, as slope breaks in the trend lines appeared at roughly 2053 and 2065.
"Overlay the average mission counts per month from 2050 to present," Jenny requested. "Assuming each mission affects Minus the same, this might show if we are guilty for the digression of similarity."
A stream of dots appeared roughly horizontal below the dipping lines.
"Doesn't look like we're responsible for the '65 change," Jenny said, "but we need to look at the mission data closer."
"I bet I can guess who's responsible," Dutch said.
"That's the startup date of your hub." John added, "Maybe that will help locating it."
The afternoon's first contact planning session did not start on time; Major General West was late.
"You've hit the road running after boot," Jenny remarked as John approached West's conference table with a tray of coffees.
"You could say that," John said joining the rest of the team.
Mikael updated John, "We've decrypted Henrys' hyper drive."
"Interesting?" John asked.
"You could say that," Tristan said with a smirk. "We'll have a look after the general is done with us."
John could tell the contents of the drive troubled the SecDef.
"What are we thinking about for first contact?" John asked the group.
"The contact mission will be critical," Mikael said, "and although incomplete, the Prophesy's citations we have don't focus on contingencies for alliances made before stage three invasions. Apparently, it's a rare occurrence."
"We'l
l take anything we can get," Tristan added.
"We've got a small break on a hub that may be related to the North American invasion," Jenny said updating the SecDef. "It seems there is a subtle rate change in Minus similarity occurring in 2065. That could be the hub startup date, so thinks the Doc here."
Major Timberin added, "Anything's possible, it's definitely a lead."
"Any ideas on how that helps?" Tristan asked.
"A couple of citations mention the tactical importance of early transits of nuke materials for use later," Jenny said. "The plus linguist indicates their nuke delivery systems take an extended period of time to manufacture in the tight secrecy that surrounds their bases.
"I'm thinking the historical radiation-detection data from the UN satellites used to monitor the no-nuke treaty members could be interesting. There's still plenty of power-generation material around not to mention what's in research labs, but it might show something. Mikael is chasing it down for the period around '65."
Tristan nodded approval as West finally arrived.
"Mr. Secretary, glad you could join us again," he said seeing Tristan.
"General," Jenny said, "I've asked the captain to sit in."
"Your prerogative," he said flatly. "Jenny, you'll be the Prime tactical expert on TR tech. The major is your Plus counterpart. The President wants minimal military presence this trip, so you two are it. The rest of the mission team is still under discussion, as is the method of first contact. Any questions so far?"
"What's the current thinking about the method of contact?" Jenny asked.
"The Secretary of Homeland will be on the team," West explained. "He'll contact his counterpart, and then arrange a meeting."
"The President may have to transit at some point," Jenny said.
"That option is not on the table at this time," Tristan said firmly.
"Pardon me, Mr. Secretary," Jenny said, "Minus is going to see transit technology and the concept of fractime very suspicious coming from the outside. I can only imagine how we'd react if approached with such claims twenty years ago."
"We can't afford a delay," West said. "If what you're thinking is correct, the enemy is in the final stages of planning their invasion."
"I'd be able to convince my twin," Jenny said confidently.
"That's more than I can say," the major added.
"I believe her, General," Tristan said as John nodded agreement.
"I'll try to ensure you have the opportunity to meet her," the general said. "There's debate on when to make contact. Any thoughts?" he asked.
"Integrating weapon systems with Minus would be easiest the closer we are in time," Timberin said, "as Center and Prime are having difficulties with just a seven-year gap."
Jenny spoke up, "We have a combined technological advantage that diminishes the farther separated in time we are."
"Our analyses of the Prophesy suggest the speed of each invasion has increased during the last few centuries' upline," Timberin added. "An average of just over twenty years has tightened to be just eleven."
"They've optimized their war strategy to converge on the transit range average," John pointed out. "Maybe that's the limit?"
"Does that suggest they have not discovered the monopole modification?" Jenny asked.
"How is that possible? Are we really that lucky?" West asked, but no one would answer.
John wondered just how long their luck would last.
"All I know," Jenny said, "is the faster they run, the easier to trip them. But we have to act quickly."
"I take it then," General West said, "you all are in agreement that the first contact mission should be a minimal transit and as soon as possible?"
Everyone agreed and then the general ended the meeting and dismissed them.
"Mind if I tag along," Timberin asked catching up with John and Jenny in the hall after the meeting. "I've got some information on one of the unknowns."
"More the merrier," Jenny replied as they made their way down to the STS lab.
"Henrys' drive contained four profiles," Jenny said as everyone converged around the lab's central worktable, "as well as correspondence between Lutzger—"
"Lutzger!" John said remembering the supremacist from a FBI file on Henrys.
"Yeah, how about that. It seems someone called Zaman was doing a deal with him," Jenny explained. "They were about to extort their Prime Leadership with the threat of exposure. There's no doubt that would cause a significant delay in their invasion plans." She activated the holographic screen and displayed two of the subject's images.
"Damn! That's Vice President Hudson," John said.
"And unfortunately, until '58 he was the FBI director of counter terrorism," Jenny said.
"I guess this explains the news reports of an unexpected vacation he and his family just began," John said.
"That's probably a good guess," Timberin said stoically.
"The other?" John asked.
Timberin pointed to the second picture. "Subject two called himself Aaron Limpkin in Plus. He headed up the logistical side of things post-invasion, and we're not sure of his earlier role. I've already updated Mikael," he said.
Jenny then displayed the next two profile images; the first still classified as unknown. Pointing to the second image, Jenny said, "This woman—"
"Victoria something," John injected as her remembered her face.
"Johnston," Jenny said staring at John. "You know her?"
John leaned closer to the display, "She was with the US Geologic Survey. She's tall, one ninety, maybe one ninety-five centimeters."
Jenny and Mikael exchanged glances. John had just confirmed part of Johnston's driving license details.
"She controlled the last part of my Martinique funding," he continued, "and pretty much forced the sample locations on Piquet on us."
"Where Carl found 13-C?" Jenny asked.
"The very same," John acknowledged.
Jenny paused and then said, "Now we know why there wasn't a third field season in Minus Martinique."
"Shit," Timberin said crossing his arms and staring at her picture. "Why would they want the TIA found in Prime only to suppress it in Minus?"
Looking at Johnston's image, John thought about how extraordinary Carl's discovery had turned out, but didn't have any answers.
"Homeland has her under surveillance in Cedar Rapids, Iowa," Jenny said.
"How do we know she's not an innocent fractime twin in Prime?" John asked.
"We don't, but she's our only lead at the moment until we can find Limpkin," Jenny said.
"And the VP is not talking," Mikael said.
"It's our experience," Timberin said, "that any innocent twins are murdered immediately unless they cooperate."