by E W Barnes
“How?” Sharon asked. “Is someone hiding in the bushes? Or are there recording devices in the trees?”
“The latter is more likely,” Caelen said.
“Why would someone bother to bug a park?” Sharon said, eyebrows raised.
In response, Caelen picked up a small white rock, part of a decorative border around a group of plantings. He tossed it into a large fern behind Miranda’s head. The fern rippled and bent as if it were under water and then grew still again.
Sharon gasped. “What is it?”
“It’s a projection,” Miranda said. “The boundaries of the grounds are holographic.”
Sharon reached for a flower near the bench on which she was sitting. It felt real to her.
“The plants are real,” Miranda said with a smile. “Only the perimeter is holographic.”
“What would we see if there were no holographic projections?”
“You would see rock. TPC Headquarters is located deep underground - didn’t you know? The holographic projections provide us with a lovely setting should we wish to leave the building and connect with the natural world without going to the surface.”
Sharon glanced at the… roof? It looked like a partly cloudy sky with a sun slowly moving toward the horizon. She swallowed her questions about how they created weather deep underground and tried not to feel claustrophobic.
“If the timeline has been changed, what do we do?” Sharon asked quietly.
“Do? We do nothing!” Jonas burst out hoarsely trying to keep his voice down. “Caelen said it was an Alexander Event! What if that’s true? If we change the timeline, we could make things worse.” He looked around him as if he expected something terrible would leap out of the holographic walls.
“That’s impossible,” Caelen said. “There are safeguards in place to prevent an Alexander Event. It cannot happen.”
“What’s an Alexander Event?” Sharon asked.
“The scientist who discovered time travel and created the temporal nexus was named Dr. Andres Alexander. He was a physicist working on creating artificial micro-black holes. It’s a long story, but in developing a working time machine, Dr. Alexander unintentionally opened a rift to a co-existing parallel universe. That accident nearly destroyed the world.”
“Parallel, like the parallel timeline I was shifted to in 2022?”
Caelen shook his head. “No, that’s a different phenomenon. A parallel timeline is like a street running parallel to the one you are standing on. A parallel universe is like a whole other city existing on top of the one you are in, except you can’t sense it.”
Sharon’s newly discovered claustrophobia from being underground was not helped by the thought of another reality on top of the one she was in.
“How can you be sure the safeguards will prevent another Alexander Event?” Jonas was not reassured by Caelen's statement.
“I’m certain another Alexander Event could not happen,” Caelen said forcefully.
Jonas subsided, but only for a moment as he took another tack.
“What makes you think Director Veta is involved in whatever happened to the timeline?” he demanded.
“Miranda!” A voice called out across the small grassy hill leading to the circle of benches. A woman approached, breathing heavily as if she’d been running.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you! You’re late for a meeting.”
“Everyone, this is Yorga Zintel, Assistant Director of the TPC. Yorga, you've met Agent Caelen Winters and Agent Jonas Fernley. And you remember Agent-in-Training Sharon Gorse.”
“Oh, yes, the Chestnut Covin expert,” she said. She took Sharon’s outstretched hand. Sharon couldn’t tell if she approved or was disdainful of Sharon’s role. The Assistant Director’s expression cooled as she turned to Jonas.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on leave, Agent Fernley?”
“He was on his way home when I stopped him,” Miranda said smoothly before Jonas answered. She stood and nudged Jonas to join her.
“I’ll walk you to the elevator, Agent Fernley,” Miranda said.
Assistant Director Zintel took a step back, her hauteur gone. It was clear that Yorga Zintel was intimidated by Miranda. Jonas wisely said nothing. He allowed himself to be led away by Miranda, whose posture was stiff as she walked down the grassy hill back toward TPC Headquarters, followed by Assistant Director Zintel.
“What if they stop him because he’s not supposed to be here?” Sharon whispered in fear.
“I don’t know,” Caelen murmured.
“Are we supposed to be here?”
He sighed. “I don’t know.”
“We have a lot of unanswered questions,” Sharon whispered after taking a deep breath. “And I, for one, am not happy when I don’t have answers.”
“We can’t talk here,” Caelen said, looking around.
“Then we need to go to a place where we can talk,” Sharon said.
“Would you like to have dinner with me?” Caelen asked in a louder voice. Sharon blinked with her mouth open.
“What?”
“Would you like to have dinner with me?” he repeated.
Belatedly she realized there was something else going on. There was a look in Caelen’s eyes urging her to say yes, and not ask any more questions. She nodded her understanding.
“Uh, yes, that would be nice,” she answered.
“Great!” he said. “We can talk about your last training shift over pizza. I know a great place,” he said as he stood up. His voice was light and pleasant, but the caution did not leave his eyes.
◆◆◆
The security officers barely glanced at them, but the guard dog watched them closely as they crossed the atrium to access a hall Sharon had never visited before. The hall was not long, and Sharon nearly ran into the back of Caelen when he stopped in front of a set of doors.
“It looks like an elevator,” Sharon said.
“It is an elevator. We’re going to the surface,” he answered as the doors opened.
It was like any elevator Sharon would have used in the 21st century. The walls were like glasstic except that they were light gray instead of white. There were only two buttons. One for up and one for down, Sharon guessed.
Caelen pushed the “up” button, and the doors closed. Sharon waited for the lurch into motion and the sensation of her head, stomach, and feet being pushed downward, but it never came.
“Are we moving?”
“Yes,” he answered. “We use a mag-lev effect, so it feels motionless. We’re moving quite fast. In a moment you’ll be able to see the other levels and we’ll slow down to reduce motion sickness.”
Before Sharon could ask What other levels? the gray glass cleared, and she could see through the elevator walls. On first one side then the other there were large hallways, and what looked like laboratories and meeting rooms.
They passed through a layer of rock and then there were more hallways and meeting rooms. Suddenly the space around them opened on all sides. They were in an enormous cavity filled with metal work - what looked like huge pipes, and smaller pipes running next to them, scaffolding and catwalks, beams, and trusses. They were painted bright colors, orange, blue, and red interspersed with the shining silver of metal.
“What is this place?”
“This was part of the Large Hadron Collider in your time. It’s where the first temporal amplifier was created.”
“By Dr. Alexander.”
He nodded. “Yes. Now the facility houses the temporal nexus.”
The large space vanished, and they were facing rock again. As they neared the surface, the glass turned opaque gray. The doors opened and Caelen stepped out with Sharon close behind.
“Identification,” a voice said. A security guard was sitting at a desk in front of the elevator doors.
“Caelen Winters, TPC agent. This is Agent-in-Training Sharon Gorse,” Caelen said, placing his thumb and scanning his iris on a computer screen like the one Miranda always
carried. Sharon did the same, her stomach in knots, waiting for the guard to question them or arrest them. Apparently satisfied, the guard grunted and gestured to a set of double doors.
“Curfew starts in 91 minutes,” the guard said almost as an afterthought as he pushed a button which opened the doors. “See you are inside before then.”
“Thank you,” Caelen said.
“Curfew?” Sharon whispered.
“Not here,” Caelen hissed as they hurriedly walked away from the desk.
They entered a long hall and the double doors closed behind them with a thud. The hall was empty, and their footsteps echoed off beige tiles and blue-white walls.
The hall seemed to go on forever. Sharon’s fear was pressing against her chest making it difficult to take deep breaths. Caelen was walking quickly, casting quick glances behind them, and peering intently ahead.
Eventually they arrived at another set of double doors which opened automatically. Beyond was a long flight of stairs going up and a brightness that looked like daylight. At the top of the stairs was a reception area with sunlight reflecting off walls and shiny floors.
Turning she saw bank of glass doors leading to the outside behind them. Another officer was there with another alert dog by his side. The officer opened a glass door as if he expected them.
Through the doors was a space very much like the grounds around TPC headquarters far below. Caelen led them on a straight path through greenery toward a single-story building where the garden ended. Looming behind the low building, was a huge globe made of slats of rusted iron. It was dull in the afternoon light.
They stopped at a kiosk and Caelen scanned his iris again. A small vehicle, like a short subway car, glided to a stop in front of them, its doors opening. Once Sharon and Caelen were seated the doors closed and the car drove away. The car hummed as it moved along a road that Sharon could have sworn was glowing a pale yellow. While they were close to the ground, the car was not in contact with the earth.
“More mag-lev technology?” she asked.
Caelen nodded and looked out the windows. After clearing several multi-storied buildings, they passed into an open space that looked like farmland. There were green fields, with rows of trees serving as wind breaks. It looked altogether ordinary just like the earth she knew in 2023.
In the distance, a city rose up in the center of the farmlands, a group of buildings towering over the green squares of cultivation, trees, and fences.
“So, we’re in Switzerland,” Sharon said, remembering that in her time the Large Hadron Collider was in the CERN facility near Geneva.
“What was Switzerland, yes,” Caelen said.
“It’s not Switzerland anymore?”
“No. Assuming nothing has changed in this timeline, when the World Government was established, the people of the world chose to give up individual nationalities in favor of world citizenship.”
“But what about all the different cultures of the world? I can’t imagine people willingly giving up their national histories, or their social beliefs and ideologies.”
“That’s not what happened,” he smiled. “The World Government was established through a series of resolutions voted on by everyone on the planet. One of the resolutions adopted was a choice to differentiate culture from nationality. All citizens retained their cultures as they chose – their histories, beliefs, and ideologies as you put it, but agreed to eliminate the political construct of individual nations. We’ll go over this in more depth when you receive your 22nd century history training,” he added.
“Switzerland was always so independent. I bet it was one of the last to agree,” Sharon mused.
“Actually, it was one of the first,” Caelen answered looking out the window again. “It was ground zero for the Alexander Event. A rift to a parallel universe opening in your backyard tends to change perspectives.”
As Sharon digested this information, the car slowed almost coming to a stop. Sharon scooted forward on her seat, thinking they were getting out. Instead the car rose in the air, following the upward lines of a skyscraper on the edge of the farmlands.
When it had nearly reached the top, three floors from the roof as far as Sharon could tell, the car stopped. A large platform extended outward from the side of the building, almost like a jet bridge at an airport. The car positioned itself next to the platform, and the doors opened. Caelen stepped out, Sharon behind him moving more slowly, breathing fast, her palms sweaty. Both the car and the platform were steady as she stepped from one to the other and followed Caelen into the building through what looked like a sliding glass door.
Once inside, after the glass door sealed behind her, she overcame her vertigo and looked back. The platform retracted and the car lowered slowly back to the ground.
She was standing next to a wall of windows. Across the farmlands, Sharon could just make out the round form of the iron globe, smoky in the distance, and behind that clouds were overtaking the setting sun. Everything was eerily deserted. Besides the security officers, she’d seen no other people once they’d reached the surface. There was no one taking an afternoon walk, no mag-lev cars floating by, no figures or faces in the windows of nearby buildings. She shivered.
“Where are we?” she asked turning around.
“My apartment,” Caelen said.
He was on his knees opening a small chest next to the sofa. The chest had been used as an end table with a lamp, but the lamp was now on the floor and Caelen was moving things around inside the chest.
“Why are we here?”
“To get this,” he said as he pulled a small brown box from the bottom of the chest.
“That’s the box Director Veta gave that boy during the rescue,” Sharon exclaimed. “But that means…”
“I was the boy, yes,” Caelen answered.
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve never opened it all these years?”
“I didn’t have it until now.”
“I don’t understand. The director gave it to you years ago.”
“That did not happen until we witnessed it,” Caelen said standing with the box in front of him. “Director Veta traveled in time to give me the box when I was a child. I think she gave it to me for safe keeping until we needed it and I think that time is now.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I didn’t know if she intended for only me to know or not,” Caelen shrugged.
“But we all saw her. She looked right at us,” Sharon sputtered. “You could have told us you were the kid she gave the box to.”
“I wanted to talk with her first, but then things changed…” he trailed off.
“Wait. Let me get this straight. We time traveled to your 3rd grade school field trip in the 22nd century to watch you get a box from Director Veta?”
“Fourth grade,” Caelen said with a grin.
“Did that shift have anything to do with my training at all?”
“Yes, it did. I wasn’t expecting to see Director Veta there - she wasn't there the first time. As soon as I saw her, my memories changed, and I remembered her giving me the box.” Caelen stood up, setting the lamp back on the chest.
Sharon pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to wrap her head around having one’s memories changed in an instant, and then gave up.
“Ok, then. What’s in the box?” she asked.
“Let’s find out,” he said, moving to a table next to the kitchen. It was an airy, open space behind a counter facing the room. Everything in the apartment was designed to encourage inhabitants to take in the magnificent view from all angles.
Caelen set the box on the table and they examined it together, trying to figure out how to open it.
The box was a dark brown, like bitter chocolate. It felt like wood, but the seams were sealed, as if the wood had been folded over rather than joined. There was no sign of an opening, latch, or hinges, and there were no designs on
any side.
“Have you seen anything like it before?” Sharon asked.
“No,” Caelen said, stumped.
“It reminds me of a puzzle box I once had,” she said holding it up. “You had to push the sides in a certain way and then it would open.”
She pushed experimentally on three sides at once and the box began to glow.
“Where did you get that puzzle box?” he asked.
“My grandmother,” Sharon answered, astonished it had worked.
“Why am I not surprised?” he said as the glow grew brighter. “HASAA, privacy mode,” he added, and curtains closed over the windows.
“Hasah?”
“Home and Apartment Security Automated Assistant,” Caelen said, focusing on the box.
“Another of your future acronyms that just trips off the tongue,” she muttered.
“Sh,” he said as the glow expanded into a holographic figure.
“Hello Agent Winters and Agent Gorse,” the image of Director Ferhana Veta said.
“Director Veta,” Caelen said, relief and satisfaction in his voice. Sharon understood how he felt. They would finally learn what was going on.
“Thank you for keeping the box safe for all these years,” she said with a smile.
Caelen didn’t answer but nodded.
“Director, what’s this all about?” Sharon asked.
“This is about a secret mission,” Director Veta answered. “It will be an off-the-record assignment.”
“Off-the-record? Like shifts that no one knows about?” Sharon asked.
“It’s impossible to make shifts off-the-record,” Caelen said. “The temporal mainframe records every shift. It’s built into the programming, as a security and transparency feature. There’s no way to get around it.”
“Except for the Director’s Prerogative,” Director Veta said. “When the programming was first designed, it was anticipated there might be a need to not record a shift on the mainframe, in extremely rare circumstances. A protocol was developed to allow only directors to override the security feature and allow a shift to take place off-the-record.”
“Off-the-record shifts have happened before? What about TPC policy?” Caelen said.