Borrowed Time- the Force Majeure

by E W Barnes

  “I’m sure you will see them again, sometime, during your work with the TPC. Are there any further questions, Agent Gorse?”

  “No, I guess not.” Sharon ached to say goodbye to her friends but didn’t want to endanger the agreement by making demands.

  “Oh, and we've deactivated your personalized Holographic Interface and Security Program.”

  “Mrs. Bower?”

  “Yes. The program needs a small amount of AI to function and sometimes it can get too… involved. It's been replaced with the default program.” She gestured to the remote control. “Unless there is anything else, you are dismissed Agent Gorse.”

  Sharon took her laptop bag from Yorga and then, not knowing what else to do, she pressed the button on the remote control. Yorga was outlined in red as the room warped and wavered and then Sharon was in the library of her own home.

  ◆◆◆

  She'd returned at night. The library was dark. She had not looked at the remote control before she pressed the button and didn’t know what day or time it was.

  “Mrs. Bower?” she called before she remembered Mrs. Bower had been deactivated. There was only silence in response.

  She pulled the bookcase away from the wall to read the temporal amplifier control panel. The data on the screen told her it was the evening before they left for 2126. They should have all been there, laughing over dinner, arguing about costumes, preparing for their shifts, but the house was silent.

  “The temporal amplifier protects against paradox,” she murmured to herself. With a sigh, she turned on the lights and went to the kitchen to fix a solitary meal.

  She gave up trying to sleep just before dawn. She removed all the flip chart pages from the walls in the dining room, cleaned the dishes, and changed the sheets on the beds her friends had used. By mid-morning she was finished. There was nothing else to do. She sat on the couch across from the bookcases.

  She sat for hours waiting for something, though she didn’t know what. Her first assignment from the TPC? An update on the Chestnut Covin? A hello from Miranda, Jonas, or Caelen? Something, anything to reassure her that all was back to normal. But there was nothing. The bookcases remained bookcases.

  She didn’t move until after 1:00 p.m. when her grumbling stomach drove her to eat again. As she stood, she heard a whirring sound so low she believed she'd imagined it. Then she heard a chime from the temporal amplifier control panel.

  “Upload in progress,” a computerized voice said.

  “What upload?” Sharon asked.

  “A scheduled system-wide update has resulted in an upload from this unit.”

  “The analysis Mrs. Bower did for Miranda?” She ran to the control panel which displayed the report.

  “Upload complete,” the voice said.

  She'd forgotten about the scheduled upload. She paced back and forth in the library, distressed that it had slipped her mind. But what could she have done? She was forbidden to use the temporal amplifier without TPC authorization. She couldn’t travel back in time again to avoid the upload. If she did, they would remove the temporal amplifier and terminate her from the TPC. She would never time travel again.

  Maybe it didn’t matter anymore, she realized. They'd avoided the upload so the TPC wouldn't learn what they were doing. It was over now. The TPC had stopped them, the mission had failed. Knowing what the analysis said wouldn't tip off the TPC – it already knew.

  Just as she was relaxing, the voice spoke again.

  “Incoming shift.”

  They are coming, she thought in a panic. They read the analysis and were coming to take the temporal amplifier. She looked around for a way to stop them but couldn’t think of anything. At the last moment, she grabbed the remote control from its spot on the control panel and jammed it in her pocket. The air in front of the bookcases rippled and warped and then solidified into a figure.

  It was Caelen.

  ◆◆◆

  She tried to hug him, but he held her at arm’s length, his face unreadable.

  “I thought I would never see you again,” she said in relief.

  “That was the plan,” he said. His voice was rough and angry.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They sent you here with instructions never to use the temporal amplifier unless authorized by the TPC, right?”

  “Yes…” she said.

  “They were never going to send you on any missions. They were going to let you sit here, never hearing from the TPC or seeing any of us again. And if you time traveled to try to find us, they would remove your temporal amplifier and cut you off forever.”

  “What? Why would they do that?”

  “Punishment? Control? I don’t know. But you outwitted them,” he said shaking his head.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The upload,” he grinned. “Mrs. Bower’s analysis. You uploaded it from your temporal amplifier.”

  “I didn’t,” she admitted. “It was an accident. I forgot the upload was scheduled.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The report uploaded and was received by the temporal mainframe. That changed everything.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I was still in custody in 2126. Agent Berg read the report and released me.”

  “Yorga told me you were going back to work at the TPC, in 2204. That’s what we agreed to.”

  “That’s not what happened. Yorga left me in 2126, telling Agent Berg she needed time to determine if I had any other accomplices in 2204 before I could return to my own time.”

  “Yorga lied to me!”

  “Yes, she did. But when the report uploaded, Agent Berg accessed it from the temporal mainframe. It seems she believed you about why we were traveling in time and was investigating anything that supported your story. The report confirmed it.”

  “I’m so glad Agent Berg let you go. Now what are you going to do?”

  “You mean what are we going to do? We have a mission to complete if you’re still willing.”

  She smiled a slow smile. For the first time that day, she felt a sense of calm. She was herself again.

  “You’re right. What are we going to do?”

  “We have to leave here. The TPC will track your use of the temporal amplifier and any temporal shifts in your vicinity. We don’t have long.”

  “Wait! Where are Jonas and Miranda?”

  He frowned. “I don’t know. Agent Berg released me and gave me access to the temporal amplifier in 2126, telling me to get you and bring you back as soon as possible. I assume she released them, too, but I didn’t see them before I left.”

  “Do you need anything before we go?” he added.

  “I’m ready now. But what about the TPC—they are monitoring my temporal amplifier. If I use it, they will remove it.”

  “I’m guessing they already know I’m here and will remove it anyway. We should hurry.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back to where we were - the day after the World Government resolutions were submitted,” he said as he programmed the temporal amplifier. “That’s what I agreed to. Agent Berg was adamant that we not change the terms of the resolutions. We’ll have to find another way to correct the timeline.”

  “Incoming shift,” the computerized voice said again.

  They looked at each other in alarm and Sharon moved closer to Caelen who put one arm around her and positioned his hand to activate the temporal amplifier. They could shift out at a moment’s notice if they needed to.

  The air warped and shimmered and then two figures were standing in her library. One was Jonas. The other was a man she didn’t recognize.

  “Jonas!” Sharon breathed in relief. She took a step away from Caelen to greet Jonas, but Caelen held on to her.

  Jonas did not smile, watching Caelen through narrowed eyes.

  “Good. I don’t need to explain. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I think I do.”

  “Understand what?”
Sharon said.

  “I’m here to arrest you,” Jonas said.

  “Arrest us? What do you mean?”

  “You made a deal with Yorga,” Caelen said.

  “Yes, I did,” Jonas answered. “She told me there was no longer a place for a 20th century expert at the TPC, but there was an opening in temporal security.” He looked at Sharon with a snarl. “And since you blabbed to Agent Berg everything about our mission and sealed our termination from the TPC, it seemed the logical decision.” He snorted and shook his head. “I never imagined you would betray us. I don’t think I ever really knew you.”

  “Jonas, you don’t understand. I didn’t betray you…” Sharon started.

  “Stop talking,” he said in a flat voice. “The TPC detected a shift in the vicinity of your temporal amplifier. I suspected it might be lover boy here, and I was right. You will both be detained, taken back to the TPC in 2204 where you will face the consequences. Perhaps you won’t be terminated as agents with the TPC. Perhaps they will put you on probation. Or not. I honestly don’t care. But until they render a decision, you will not have access to time travel.”

  He gestured to his companion who was carrying a bag full of equipment - something to extract the temporal amplifier from the bookcases, she assumed.

  “Jonas, you can’t,” Sharon whispered.

  “Yes, I can. And if you leave now,” he said nodding at Caelen’s hand hovering over the control panel. “You will lose any chance of redeeming yourself. You’ll be terminated—and you know what that means.”

  “He’s leaving us no choice,” Caelen said.

  “I agree,” she said as Caelen let go of her.

  “I was hoping you’d see reason,” Jonas said trying to hide a gloating smile. He took a step toward them, gesturing with his hand for the man with the equipment to follow.

  “Oh, we do,” Sharon said. She reached up and pushed on Caelen’s hand, activating the temporal amplifier. Jonas shout was lost in time as they shifted away in a shimmering mirage of blue.

  ◆◆◆

  They shifted into a large meeting room underground, with windows overlooking what Caelen had told her was part of the Large Hadron Collider. Agent Berg was sitting at the conference table and stood as they materialized.

  “Welcome back,” she said, gesturing for them to sit. She had chosen a seat not at the head of the table, but across from them, Sharon noted. She took it as a sign that Agent Berg now saw them as colleagues, not prisoners.

  “I read the report you uploaded to the mainframe,” Agent Berg began.

  “I didn’t upload it,” Sharon said. “It was scheduled for automatic upload.”

  “Intentional or not, it supported what you told me and gave me an opportunity to figure out what is really going on.”

  “We know this all started with an email, an email that almost everyone on the planet received, or will receive in 2127,” Caelen started. “The email caused worldwide panic. That panic resulted in a complete change in the timeline, which included the establishment of martial law and a radical change in the mission of the TPC.”

  “What we don’t understand is what the message means. There are no records to explain why it caused a panic. What can you tell us? What does the debt is now due mean?” Sharon propped her hand on her chin, her elbow resting on the table.

  Agent Berg looked down at the table and clasped her hands in front of her. She chuckled.

  “Cutting to the chase is your thing, isn’t it? It’s a good characteristic for a TPC agent, I think.”

  “Most of the time,” Caelen murmured. Sharon kicked at him under the table but missed. Agent Berg pressed on.

  “You understand what the Alexander Event was, yes?”

  “Something about when time travel was discovered, it accidentally opened a rift to a parallel universe,” Sharon said.

  “Yes,” said Agent Berg. “Did you learn why protocols were developed to avoid ever accessing, either accidentally or purposefully, another parallel universe?”

  “No,” Sharon said. She’d been so distracted by the thought of another reality overlapping her own, she’d never asked why it was important not to repeat the error of the Alexander Event.

  “The world we discovered, the parallel earth, differed greatly from ours. That world had failed to come together as a united humanity as we had. They were contentious, amoral, and aggressive. Their world consisted of battling states in constant wars, terrible overpopulation, rampant pollution, and environmental decay. Before we realized what was happening, they used the fracture between universes to invade our earth. They saw an opportunity to plunder our resources, to take whatever they wanted, and were willing to enslave or kill everyone to get it.”

  She met Sharon and Caelen’s horrified eyes.

  “Our leaders made a deal. In exchange for the specifications for the technology that created the rift between the universes, the other earth would leave our world untouched until we amassed the resources they demanded. They would return at an unspecified time to collect what we owed based on that agreement. The debt that is due is every thing and every one of value on this earth.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I don’t understand how this is possible,” Caelen said. His eyebrows contracted and his face was pale.

  “I agree,” Sharon said. “How could your leaders sell out the entire world? It doesn’t make sense. People would rather fight than just give up.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Caelen said scratching his chin. “There are safeguards built into every temporal amplifier and in the temporal nexus itself to prevent a recurrence of an Alexander Event. It’s no longer possible to access a parallel universe, nor can a parallel universe ever access this one. That other earth should no longer be a threat.”

  “I don’t know of these safeguards,” Agent Berg said puzzled. “When were they implemented?”

  “The safeguards were developed and implemented in 2145,” Caelen answered. “I’m guessing world leaders made the deal with the parallel earth to buy themselves time to ensure they never had to pay the debt.”

  “You’re saying that once the safeguards were in place, there was no way anyone from the parallel universe could send an email demanding the debt be paid?” Sharon asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “The history in your timeline has no mention of the email, right?” Agent Berg asked.

  “Right. The parallel earth never came back in our timeline.”

  Sharon stood up and walked to a whiteboard on the wall.

  “I need to lay this out. Are there any markers?”

  “You use your hand,” Agent Berg said.

  Sharon ran a finger across the board, leaving a dark gray line behind it.

  “Cool. Ok, when was the Alexander Event?”

  “2121,” Caelen and Agent Berg said in unison.

  “And it’s 2126 now,” Sharon continued making a second mark on the line. She added a star to 2127 when the email was received. “We discovered the timeline change in 2204.” She made a mark at the far end of the “And in 2145 the safeguards will be added which make the agreement with the other earth moot,” she said, adding another star. She paused and stared at the board.

  “What would happen if the other earth tried to open the rift between universes once the safeguards were in place?”

  “I don’t know the technical details of how it works, but I don’t think anything would happen. The attempt would simply fail,” Caelen answered.

  “They must've figured out a way around it,” Agent Berg said. “During the Alexander Event, the rift between universes was opened using time travel technology. Our leaders gave the other earth that same technology. They could've figured out how to defeat the safeguard sometime in the future, even centuries from now, and traveled back in time to demand payment.”

  “Except that didn’t happen,” Sharon said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, think about it. In the changed timeline, they received
the email. The population panicked, and they declared martial law. But there was never any debt paid by anyone. There was never any invasion. It’s like the humans of the parallel earth demanded the debt via email and then never came to collect it.”

  Sharon turned back to the white board. “We’re missing something, something important.”

  They watched as she paced between each point in the timeline, muttering to herself. She stopped in front of the star positioned on 2127.

  “So, when was the email sent?” Sharon whispered.

  “What do you mean?” Caelen asked. “It will be sent next year.”

  “No, that’s not what I was asking,” Sharon said as she turned toward him. “It was, or will be, received next year. But we don’t know when it was sent.”

  “You don’t think someone sent it just before it arrived?” Agent Berg asked.

  “We don’t know, do we? They could've sent it at any time, right? With an instruction to be delivered on a specific day. I mean, email systems in my time can do that, I’m guessing they can do that in this time frame, too.”

  “The email could have been sent from the future,” Caelen said in dawning realization.

  “This is starting to smell like a conspiracy,” Sharon said.

  “To accomplish what?” Agent Berg asked.

  “When time travel was developed and the Alexander Event occurred, it led to the birth of the World Government,” Sharon started.

  “Right. The enormity of the crisis brought the world together,” Caelen nodded.

  “Exactly. The fear of the Alexander Event was channeled into worldwide unity. What if someone is using the fear of Alexander Event for their own purposes?”

  “How did you get the assignment to find us in time?” Caelen asked Agent Berg.

  “Like I told Agent Gorse, someone from your TPC contacted us and asked for help.”

  “Who was contacted at your TPC?” Sharon asked.

  “The request was made to Director Constantine.”

  “Who made the request to your director?”

  “I don't know. Director Constantine called me in as head of temporal security and gave me the assignment after he agreed to do it. I didn’t see or hear who made the request to him.”