Borrowed Time- the Force Majeure

by E W Barnes

  “Goodbye,” was all she said as she left.

  ◆◆◆

  Sharon felt dazed. This was a dream, a nightmare. She would wake up … wouldn’t she? Jonas and Miranda led the way. Sharon and Caelen followed them and two security guards were close behind to make sure they reached their destination.

  “Jonas,” Sharon whispered as she wrung her hands. He turned his head, making eye contact with the guard behind her, before jutting his chin up. The guard gave her a nudge, hard enough to get her attention, but not hard enough to slow her pace.

  “No talking,” the guard said.

  They reached the atrium. People crossing it furtively stopped when Caelen, Sharon, and their escort pushed through. Some watched them fearfully, some with a look of curiosity, and some with the smug expression of enjoying someone else’s misfortune. Walking in front of the staring eyes lasted forever. The atrium had never seemed so huge.

  They reached the agent unit hall. Once Sharon thought this hall was the most exciting place she’d ever been. Each door promised a new adventure. Now it was terrifying, black and cold. The doors represented the end of her time traveling and permanent separation from her friends.

  Miranda stopped in front of a room about halfway down the hall.

  “Stay here,” Jonas said to the security guards as Miranda opened the door. “No one is to know the coordinates where we are sending him except temporal security agents.” Jonas was inordinately proud of the responsibility given him, and it showed.

  The security guards herded Sharon and Caelen inside and Jonas closed the door.

  “Jonas, please listen,” Sharon tried again.

  “What will it take to shut you up?” he growled. She shrank back at the hostility in his voice. She looked at Caelen, who was watching Miranda.

  “Miranda,” Caelen said.

  “It’s good to see you, Caelen,” she answered with a smile. "You too, Sharon,” she added. Miranda’s eyes were the same pure silver they had been when Sharon first met her.

  “Yeah, yeah. Let’s get on with this,” Jonas said, heading to the temporal amplifier control panel. “We’ll send you back first, Sharon, so you won't know the year we’ll be sending him,” he said over his shoulder.

  “What did you learn?” Miranda asked Caelen.

  “The email was a fake. It was intended to elicit a panic in 2127 but someone sent it from this time frame, from 2204,” he answered. “There was no repeated Alexander Event.”

  “Do you know who?” Miranda asked.

  “Who what?” Jonas demanded. He had finished programming the temporal amplifier and was facing them.

  “Who sent the fake email that changed the timeline,” Sharon answered. The dynamics of the situation were changing before her eyes and Sharon dared to hope that things were not as bad as they seemed.

  “What do you mean?” he said suspiciously.

  Sharon and Caelen explained everything they had learned in 2126 with Agent Berg. Miranda nodded as facts fell into place. Jonas said nothing, watching them through narrowed eyes. When they finished, he took a deep breath.

  “You’re sure?” Jonas asked.

  “Yes,” Sharon said. “The email played on the fears of the invasion from the parallel universe. The world government had promised the earth of the parallel universe they would give them resources if they left this earth alone long enough to accumulate them.”

  “Their fear of ad colligenda bona, that the other earth would collect on the goods promised,” Miranda said to herself.

  “Agent Berg believed this?” Jonas asked.

  “Yes,” Caelen answered.

  “So, what do we do?” Sharon asked, her eyes bright. The team was back together.

  “Do? We do what we planned to do,” Jonas said.

  “Jonas, we don’t have to go back in time and change the laws,” Sharon said. “All we need to do is stop whoever sent the email.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “You were supposed to be so smart,” he said. “The granddaughter of the famous Agent Rose Sprucewood. But you’re really not, are you? What you are is a disappointment.” He looked at Miranda.

  “Director Zintel ordered us to return her to 2023. Shall we proceed Agent Noon?”

  “Jonas,” Miranda said. “If we stop the email, we can reset the timeline. Things will go back to the way they were. You can be the 20th century expert again.”

  “Even if I believed them, what if I don’t want to be the 20th century expert anymore? What if I like the way things are? This is the timeline, here and now. I see no reason to change it.”

  Sharon stared at him open-mouthed.

  “Perhaps you don't,” Miranda said. “But I do.” She pulled a temporal amplifier remote control out of her pocket and handed it to Caelen as Jonas shouted.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s programmed to shift both you and Sharon,” she said to Caelen. “Finish the mission,” she added as Jonas leapt toward the door.

  “I need help in here!” he yelled.

  Sharon stepped close to Caelen.

  “Thank you,” she said to Miranda as Caelen activated the device. Guards flowed into the room like water. The image warped and rippled and then the guards, Jonas, and Miranda disappeared leaving Sharon and Caelen alone.

  “Where did they go?” Sharon whispered.

  “They are still there, we shifted to the same room at a different time,” Caelen answered. He scanned the temporal amplifier control panel. “Miranda shifted us back one hour.”

  “That’s not very much time,” Sharon said.

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “But it should be enough.”

  “You could have told me,” Sharon glared.

  “Told you what?”

  “That you knew Miranda had not gone over to the dark side.”

  Caelen shrugged. “I didn’t know, but I suspected.”

  “Should I ask what you planned to do if you were wrong?”

  “Probably not,” he chuckled.

  Sharon sighed. “You said you had a plan. Let’s hear it.”

  “Our theory is that someone sent the email on the day we did your training, when we went to the snowfield in the 21st century,” he said as he tapped coordinates into the temporal amplifier. “We'll go back to that day in observation mode and watch to discover who sent the email. Then we can shift back and stop them.”

  “Can’t we just stop them when we find them?”

  “We can’t leave observation mode and enter real time,” he shook his head. “We must exit observation mode and shift back to when we need to be.”

  “They’ll find us, won’t they? They’ll learn where the temporal amplifier sent us and be waiting,” she said, exasperated that he was shaking his head again. This time he was smiling though.

  “Because there is no way to interact with the time frame, observation mode isn’t tracked by the system,” he said. “It will be like using the Director’s Prerogative device. They won’t know when we are.”

  “We still don’t know who sent the email,” Sharon said. “How’re we going to figure that out?”

  “What do your instincts say?”

  Her mind raced. Both President Rickert and Yorga Zintel had requested the investigation by Agent Berg in 2126, and together they had ordered Sharon and Caelen banished in time. It had to be one of them, but which one?

  In a flash Sharon remembered Yorga’s face when they first met, and the feeling she couldn’t tell if Yorga was for or against her as the Chestnut Covin expert.

  “Yorga,” she said. “My instincts say it was Yorga.”

  “I agree, though she may have been colluding with the president and acting on his orders. I think she’s the logical choice. She would have access to the equipment and expertise to send the email back in time.”

  “If we’re going to spend a day following Yorga around, we’d better get started,” Sharon said keeping her voice light while glancing nervously at the door.

  �
�It’s all set,” Caelen answered.

  “I’m ready,” Sharon said. Caelen activated the temporal amplifier, and the room warped away.

  They were standing in the atrium, bright with morning light. Agents strolled through talking energetically. The coffee shop was back, and several people were enjoying drinks under swaying palm fronds watching the dance of the water in the fountain.

  It was the atrium of the previous timeline. This proved their theory was correct and someone sent the email on this day. If they'd been wrong, they would still be in the dark side TPC, as Sharon called it.

  “I really missed this,” Sharon murmured.

  “Let’s start at the elevator bay,” Caelen said. “We can find her when she arrives for the day.”

  They walked across the atrium, the observation mode bubble moving with them, limiting their senses as if they were in a dream. It was only a few minutes before they saw Yorga step out of an elevator toward the atrium and head down a hall across from the windows with their view of the holographic grounds.

  “She’s headed for the executive offices,” Caelen said. They trailed behind her until she reached a flight of stairs which made a sharp right turn back toward the atrium. The top of the stairs opened into a broad hallway with skylights above.

  Yorga’s office was at the far end of the hall from the stairs. Her desk was perpendicular to a bank of windows overlooking the grounds. They commanded a view all the way to the back of the garden.

  “Remember when we went outside after the timeline changed? Yorga could have seen us out there from here,” Sharon pointed to the windows. The ring of concrete benches on which they'd sat was just visible from this vantage.

  “She came out because she suspected something was up,” Caelen agreed.

  Yorga sat at her desk tapping a computer panel embedded in the top. The desk was a beautiful grained wood, pale yellow, rippled with darker streaks. In the light from the windows it almost glowed.

  The rest of the office was as sumptuous and included cozy chairs and shelves with artfully placed antique books facing the desk. It must be nice to be Assistant Director, Sharon thought. Caelen eased them back until they were against the wall next to the shelves.

  “Now we wait,” he said.

  An hour passed. Sharon tried to remember the events of that day, where they all were at the time. She guessed that at this moment, she and Caelen were in the cemetery waiting for her to choose her training target. After that they would shift to 1951. Then they would have coffee in the atrium, laughing and enjoying each other’s company before the four of them shifted together to the 21st century. The last shift before everything changed.

  Another hour passed before Yorga stood up and, after looking both ways outside her office, closed the door. She tapped the panel on her desk and a small holographic image appeared.

  “That’s President Rickert,” Caelen whispered.

  “Good morning, sir,” Yorga said.

  “Save the pleasantries,” President Rickert answered. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Yes, sir. Ms. Johnson provided me with the relevant information, including coordinates and contacts.”

  “Good. When are you planning to proceed? I want to enter temporal isolation.”

  Temporal isolation? Sharon mouthed to Caelen.

  I don’t know, he mouthed back.

  “I will send the email shortly. How much time do you need to prepare?”

  “Give me 15 minutes, then proceed.”

  “Yes, sir,” Yorga said, and tapped the screen. The hologram of the president disappeared.

  “Ok, now we know,” Sharon said. “We can go back now and stop this, right?”

  Before Caelen could answer they heard Yorga’s voice. It was as if she was standing next to them in observation mode. Sharon jumped, staring at the Yorga at her desk, but that Yorga was still reading her computer screen. That Yorga was not speaking.

  “Attention Temporal Protection Corps agents. This is Acting Director Yorga Zintel. I regret to inform you there has been a serious breach of security. The seriousness of this security breach requires an immediate shut-down of the temporal nexus. This action has been taken in consultation with President Rickert, and after all other options have been considered.

  “All TPC agents, agents-in-training, and other authorized TPC staff are ordered to cease all temporal amplifier activities. Again, I order you to cease immediately all temporal amplifier activity pending a temporal nexus shut down.”

  Sharon turned to Caelen wide-eyed. Alarm turned to ice in her stomach when she saw his pale, scared face.

  “That was the Yorga from the time frame we left, wasn’t it? How could we hear her?”

  “She made a system-wide broadcast.”

  “What does a temporal nexus shut down mean?”

  “It means we go back now and surrender ourselves, or we stay here and die.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Die? What do you mean die?”

  “A shutdown of the temporal nexus… it… it’s never been done before, never happened before. Not since Dr. Alexander first brought it on-line. Shutting it down will result in an overload. It will destroy any temporal amplifiers in operation, perhaps even the temporal nexus itself.”

  “What happens if we’re in observation mode when the temporal nexus is shut down?”

  “We’ll cease to exist. In observation mode, we’re in a kind of limbo, existing in no time frame. We're neither here nor in the time frame we left. If the temporal nexus stops functioning… poof. We’re gone. We just stop.”

  “Isn’t there some way to get out of observation mode into this time frame? To stop Yorga from sending the email and save ourselves at the same time?”

  He shook his head. “No. There’s no way to leave observation mode. We stay or we go back.”

  His face grew stormy, and he glared at the Yorga in front of them as if his fury could reach her counterpart in the future.

  “What is she thinking? This is unethical and irresponsible. It’s reckless. It’s foolish…,” he ended, having run out of words to express his outrage.

  “They'll be waiting for us, won’t they?”

  “I’m sure that’s exactly what she’s planning.”

  “This is a bluff, right? She’s bluffing, she’s got to be,” Sharon said. A tight feeling crept into her chest.

  He scoffed. “What do you think?”

  Sharon stared the Yorga sitting at the desk, still reading her computer screen, keeping an eye on the time. There were only a few minutes until she sent the email.

  “I’m not going back,” Sharon said, surprised to hear her own voice say the words. She straightened up.

  “I’m not going back,” she said again. “Going back means never seeing you again. It means spending the rest of my life knowing there’s so much more than anyone realizes and never being able to touch it, to experience it. No, if my time traveling is at an end, I would rather end it here than linger there for the rest of my life.”

  Caelen looked back at Yorga and sighed.

  “I wish there was a way we could have stopped her.”

  The other Yorga’s voice overrode his.

  “Ten seconds to temporal nexus shut down. Stand by.”

  Sharon slipped her hand inside Caelen’s. He squeezed it once and then let it go, reaching up to put his arm around her shoulders. She rested her head against him and closed her eyes, waiting for the end.

  There was a low thunder. The hairs on Sharon’s arms stood up. Her heart thudded against her ribs. Caelen tightened his hold on her.

  She felt a crackle of electricity. It shot around the observation mode bubble and stung their skin. The air grew hot. Sharon bit her lip to stop from crying out. Her hands and face felt like they were burning. Caelen’s arm around her was a molten weight, pinning her in place. She squeezed her eyes and tears escaped, evaporating before they reached her cheeks.

  The burning turned to bolts of pain running up and down her limbs. Desp
ite herself, gasps and groans escaped her throat, but she barely heard them over the roaring sound in her ears. The bolts stopped running and joined together, like an army marching across a field. Dispassionate. Unstoppable. Was she screaming now? The howling was deafening. How long did it take for a temporal nexus to shut down? Surely this agony would be over soon. Death would be a relief, and an end to the pain.

  It stopped. It was simply gone. There was no pain, no sound. She was still standing in Yorga’s office in the past, Caelen’s arm still around her. She took a deep shuddering breath. Yorga Zintel looked up and shot to her feet, her face a study in alarm and anger.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  ◆◆◆

  “Answer me! How did you get in here?” Yorga was furious but there was an undercurrent of fear, a realization that cleared Sharon’s mind. By some miracle, they'd been kicked out of observation mode into the time frame they were observing. If they were fast, they could stop Yorga from sending the email.

  “I’m not sure,” Sharon said, holding her head in her hands. “One minute we were in observation mode in a training, the next minute we were here.” She turned to Caelen, hoping he would catch on to her subterfuge. “What happened?”

  “I'm not sure,” he answered. “Assistant Director? What are we doing here?”

  “Oh, my head,” Sharon said as she leaned on the desk. This part of her performance was not faked. Her body still ached from the effects of the temporal nexus shut down.

  “You need help,” Caelen said, walking out of the office before Yorga could move. Yorga’s demeanor changed.

  “Yes, of course, you need help. Let me get you to the medical facility,” she said as she came around the desk, intent on getting Sharon out of her office.

  “I need to sit down for a moment,” Sharon said as she slumped into a chair in front of the desk. Yorga would not move her from this room if she could help it.

  Yorga was fuming, only slowly getting control of herself.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked in a strangled voice.

  “A… a glass of water,” Sharon answered weakly.

  “Yes, of course,” Yorga left to find water.