All the time in the worl.., p.7
All the Time in the World, page 7
Jax sidled up to him. "I suppose you arrived through a wormhole and you’ll need a lift back to Davao?"
"Could be the case," he said, with a devilish grin.
There was an obvious magnetism between them.
"I’ve missed you, babe," Jax whispered.
"I bet you have, is that why my phone hasn’t stopped ringing?" he said sarcastically.
"I’m sorry … but after Tahiti … I … Oh, I don’t know … we just seemed to go our separate ways."
"We sure did."
"I’ve been meaning to ask," she eyeballed him, "have you always known I was with the firm?"
"Uh-ha," Blake confirmed. "Did you know I was a field operative for Oceana?"
"Yes."
"So that makes us even," he said, with a cavalier smirk.
"Are you having a scene with her?"
"Of course."
Her phone rang. "Hello, yes Amaya … good, thank you. Bye." She eyeballed Blake, "An Airbus AS-250, at first light this morning."
Blake acknowledged, "Makes sense, he moves quick."
"How did he find out about it?"
"He knows who to bribe. As soon as the original LiDAR scan came in someone would’ve told someone else until an official heard of it on the bush telegraph, smelt a buck, and called Bolt. So, where is he?" Blake asked.
"Why should I tell you?"
"Because you and Bozo Holman would have Buckley’s of handling him on your own, that’s why."
"It’s Buddy, not Bozo," she corrected.
"No, it ain’t. It’s definitely Bozo."
Chapter 8
THE TIME BEING
ALICE HAD WAITED for Robert to wake from his afternoon nap. Cheyenne took him to the old man’s quarters. It was a large room with three smaller rooms. Al sat on the living room lounge and studied the decor while Cheyenne fetched her great grandfather from the bedroom.
One wall decorated with photographs attracted Al’s attention. He got up for a closer look. Robert being a methodical academic had laid out the photo prints in chronological order beginning with the launch of Kairos. Then shots of moments from each OTT mission, from the perspective of the control room at Kairos. A few selfies and shots of Robert with Mal and of course Robert with his family, then, the launch of Tempus … many of his kids and his wife, then one of her funeral service. As Al walked along the cavalcade of memories, there were more of Rob with Larry, and celebrations of variants of Tempus, I, II, III, IV, V. He stopped at a picture of the launch of Tempus VI, with Rob and staff members in the Tempus control room, however the photo had been torn, missing was the person who’d been standing beside Rob.
"Funny how in all those years on that wall one torn photo would grab your curiosity above all others, Alice," said a raspy old voice.
Al turned to face Robert in his wheelchair. Cheyenne wheeled him over to the lounge setting. Al sat down opposite him.
"Cheyenne, go make us some tea, would you? Sorry, we don’t have coffee Alice. I remember how we used to drink gallons of the stuff at Kairos, especially when President Ri was there. Didn’t he love exotic coffee? And what about that programmable wallpaper in his office Secta invented? Could sure do with some of that here."
"Coffee?"
"No, the wallpaper. These four walls have been slowly closing in on me for years … eventually they’ll compress me until nothing remains but ooze," he said, with a sinister chuckle.
"Some great memories there Rob, even better than programmable wall paper, I reckon."
"I suppose so, but it does get a bit tiring reliving old memories."
"Yes mate, but they sometimes get you through."
"Sounds like the lyric of one of your songs, Alice. You still compose them?"
"Yep … so mate, who was so blatantly edited out of that photo?"
"There’s that inquiring nature of yours again. I always thought of you as a rock ’n roll time tripping detective Alice. The sort of hardboiled private eye my grandfather liked so much reading like in Raymond Chandler and Carter Brown pulps. The person edited out as you put it, was Captain Cyrus F. Gordon, a Texas Ranger."
"He was at the launch of Tempus VI? When was that?"
"Huh, an easy date to remember that one, April, Fools Day, 2080 … the day war broke out, I’d turned eighty-six only the week before."
"Why edit him?"
"We had a run in."
"Can you expand on that, mate?" Al asked.
"A private matter," Rob said, dismissively.
Al eyeballed him. "Robert, you are still the director of Tempus, which is under the auspices of OTT. You are obligated to answer my questions."
"Ah, so is this an inquisition?"
"It is," Al confirmed.
He asked facetiously, "Pulling rank on me Al?"
"Sure am."
"Okay, okay," he said, irritably, knowing Alice was right—in effect he was outranked. "He wanted to know the whereabouts of the TL-100, and I wasn’t prepared to part with that information. Furthermore, he claimed that because Tempus is a joint venture with Time Travel America, he figured he was entitled to have access to it," he explained, "well, that was just incorrect … UNTT delegated that responsibility to us holus-bolus."
"Let me get this straight, by the tense you’re using this is ongoing … did you prevent outsiders from using the TL-100?"
"No, they just needed to apply through the correct channels. But then quite suddenly all the TL-100’s went off-line."
"What do you mean off-line?"
"As you well know they were put in capital cities around the world."
"No, I didn’t know that … it hasn’t happened yet back in my time," Al admitted.
"Right, well they were, and each linked to a UN satellite for operation. Well, when that satellite went down during the war, so too did all the TL-100’s."
"Are you saying only some people were cured of Red Wheel?"
"Yes, well it’s not prevention … it’s a cure … by the time people discovered they had it, the TL-100’s were already down."
"So, what happened here?" Al asked.
"We of course had advance knowledge from you actually. So within hours of the nuclear strike, I put everybody here, the staff … one hundred and ten of us, through the TL-100."
"What happened to Captain Gordon and his staff?"
Robert fell silent with a guilty look. He averted his tired old powdery blue eyes from Alice’s.
Al insisted. "Robert, what happened?"
Disgruntled, he snapped his answer. "We locked them out."
"Was that before or after the TL-100 went off line?"
"Before."
"Aha, so now I get it. Is that why these people Cheyenne calls the Rangers still have a bone to pick with you?"
"Yes."
"And are they cannibals like she said?"
"We think so. We captured one a long time ago and he admitted it."
Al badgered him, "Interrogated?"
"Yes, interrogated." The old man said, sorrily.
"You really don’t know do you? He might have said anything under stress possibly, torture."
"Yes, possibly," Robert reluctantly admitted.
Al sat back in his chair. He’d gotten to the bottom of the problem and it wasn’t looking pretty. Captain Gordon had every right to be upset with Robert. His people and everyone else on the surface were going to be exposed to Red Wheel, and Robert had withheld the cure. There was nothing Al could do for now other than continue with the mission. Reprimanding Robert wouldn’t alter anything.
"Okay, here’s what’s going to happen … we’re going to move the TL-100 into a room on the ground floor and your people are going to organise all the sufferers of Red Wheel to pass through it."
"You haven’t been listening Alice, it's off-line."
"I will have the Professor find a way around that. As well, I want you to fire up Tempus. I want to check out other TL-100 sites around the country."
Robert snapped. "Can’t be done."
"Why not?"
"In 2047 after you left Japan, the UNTT implemented a boot-up code mandatory for every quantum supercomputer running a time travel facility around the globe. By then there were many … it was the only way to control time travel. Whenever the computer driving the operation was booted up, an algorithm logged on to UNTT for a unique start-up code, which provided authentication for the mission. If the authentication hadn’t been approved, there would be no start-up code issued and the computer simply wouldn’t boot. It was infallible—the perfect solution to stop Zen’s Aquila from sending unauthorized missions. However, it also relied on the same satellite as the TL-100 network. Once that satellite went down, along with it went everything dependent on it."
The revelation gave Al cause for concern. Thinking it through, he needed to get the UN satellite back on-line. With his mind made up, he said, "Right, new plan. This is what we’re going to do…"
An hour later, Alice met with Turk and Toeghan to fill them in on the situation. It was imperative to contact the Rangers. Ultimately, they would need the UN satellite reactivated, but the quicker fix for now would be to determine a way around the UNTT encryption for mobilization of both the TL-100 and Tempus, and only the Professor could provide that.
Alice used the remote to open the vortex back to Kairos and sent a handwritten message through.
Christina was leaving for the day when Kairos activated and a piece of paper materialised in the event room. She immediately phoned Secta, and within minutes, he, the Professor, and Hope had responded to her call and joined her in the control room.
Christina handed Secta the note. He read it and passed it over to the Professor.
"Well, we hadn’t counted on that!" Vic acknowledged. "We haven’t even designed encryption like that to know what it is."
"What if they send the TL-100 back to us?" Christina suggested.
"Good idea. I keep forgetting we have the capacity to do that now," said Secta. "Quick, let’s get a note back to Al."
When Al received the message from Secta, he realised it made total sense and confronted Cheyenne. "Can you take us to the TL-100?"
Several hours later, the TL-100 unit materialised through Kairos. The Professor had hands on standby to manoeuvre it onto a trolley. It was then wheeled to the Professor’s lab for the waiting team to reverse engineer.
The Professor's own handiwork impressed Vic; the TL-100 was almost a scaled-down replica of Kairos. The hoop was two metres tall with a radius of a metre. There were two steps up to it on one side and two down on the other. This was because it was mounted on a platform that held the processing components. The hoop was made of black carbon fibre, as was the platform. Simple in appearance, it performed a very complicated function.
The Professor had his assistants lay the unit on its side so he could access the cover plate on the underside of the platform. Down on hands and knees, he used an Allen or hex key to open the panel. Once removed, Vic marvelled at the innards. "Look at this Hope, what an incredible piece of ingenuity."
"It’s not like you to gloat, Vic," she joked.
He glanced up at her. "It’s still only an idea, and here I am looking at it. One can’t help but marvel."
It took only six hours for Vic to solve the problem and build the component required to fix it. A change to the CPU on the motherboard bypassed the log-on encryption key, and it was ready to go.
Al was in the canteen with Toeghan and Turk having lunch when a vortex opened wide enough for a note to pass. He grabbed it and read it out. "Vic said it’s done. He’ll now duplicate the fix so it can easily be fitted to other TL-100s … Brilliant. He’ll send it through in twenty minutes … Okay, let’s go to the reception area to receive it."
The problem of getting Tempus back on-line wasn’t going to be as easy. The OTT brains trust of the Professor, Secta, Hope, and Christina would now burn the midnight oil trying to come up with a solution.
Electra had chosen to travel to 2112 as Daniel Walker. He was shocked by his surroundings when he stepped out of the vortex in Angel City. Standing amidst the rubble of a destroyed high-rise building and accessing the memory of Gorrick, he quickly determined that the building had been Zen HQ, the designated target. To locate Dr Mennis, he accessed the metadata on Gorrick’s OSCI to set up a ping that would rebound off the doctor’s implant and lead him to her.
Navigating through the debris, stumbling over rubble and twisted scaffolding, he finally cleared the obstructions and made his way toward a cluster of low-rise houses several blocks away.
Honor was alerted to the sound of footsteps outside and went to the door. Armed with a pistol, she took aim and then wrenched it open.
"Honor."
"Commander Walker?" Honor questioned, stupefied by his presence and slowly lowering the weapon.
"May I come in?" he asked, courteously.
"Are you alone?" she asked, distrustfully, trying to glimpse past him.
"Yes, I am."
"Come in," she said, and ushered him inside, quickly closing the door behind him.
As they walked, following her to the kitchen, he commented, "You seem on edge."
"We are a target … they blame us for their miserable existence," she complained.
"I see. Where is Dr Mennis?"
Honor sat at the kitchen table, and Walker took a seat opposite her. He wasn’t used to seeing her dressed in rough clothing: jeans and a T-shirt.
"She is out foraging for food. Did you come through Aquila?"
"Yes."
"To take me back … I hope?"
"Yes."
Her thin lips struggled to vaguely curve into a smile.
"What food is she searching for?" he asked.
Her eyes searched him in a silence that lengthened past light-hearted banter. "Mostly rats. There’s not much else to eat in this godforsaken world."
"That doesn’t sound very appetising."
"Beggars can’t be choosers," she snapped.
The front door opened, and a man entered. It took a few seconds for Walker to realise it was actually Dr Mennis dressed as a man. She was carrying two dead rats by the tails in one hand and a shotgun in the other. She stopped abruptly upon seeing Walker.
"Who is this?" she asked, impertinently, flopping the dead rats onto the kitchen table.
"This is Commander Daniel Walker. He has come to take me back to my time," Honor said, curtly.
"No, it is not," Ursula said, propping the shotgun against the table. She took a seat. "Are you?" she added, scrutinising him.
"You tell me," Walker returned serve smugly.
"You, are Cronus. I should know … I created you."
Honor flinched when Walker suddenly morphed into Electra, but without hair—bald.
"This is my form in the past," she said, her voice changed to feminine. "I am Electra. I replaced Gorrick, who is dead, and I host En-Lil. Hello, mother."
Her referring to Ursula as 'mother' shocked Honor. There was a pause while the three of them took stock of the situation.
Then Electra said, "You will both return with me." She morphed back into Walker. Her voice changed to male. "Shall we go?"
"Absolutely," Mennis said, proudly.
Honor glimpsed at the two dead rats on the table and grumbled, "Let’s get out of here. I never want to see another of those ugly things again."
A Philippine Navy chopper landed in the vacant car park of a disused single-storey ex-military warehouse on the outskirts of Davao City. It had flown over the area once to reconnoitre. The pilot had spotted a semi-trailer with a shipping container loaded, parked at the rear of the building. They assumed Handerson Bolt was inside, perhaps preparing to load the sarcophagus and the treasure if it hadn't been moved already.
Jax had immediately called Amaya for backup, and help was on the way. However, as the chopper descended, the pilot spotted movement—one of the large sliding doors to the warehouse was opening. Fearing that Bolt had detected the chopper and was about to escape, they had no choice but to land and confront the situation.
Chapter 9
ARACHNOPHOBIA
WHILE ALICE WAS speaking to Cheyenne, he was suddenly interrupted by a voice in his head, a voice he instantly recognised as En-Ki.
"Another distraction, Alice. Do you know how difficult it is to locate you when you alter your temporal continuum?"
Cheyenne was wondering why Alice was standing dazed as if in a daydream after he'd asked whether they had any vehicles. She was about to answer when she noticed his eyes glaze over, and even though he was looking at her, he was actually staring at a point past her, at nothing.
"Alice? Alice? Are you alright?" she tentatively asked.
"What do you want, En-Ki?" Al asked mentally.
"The sarcophagus must not be destroyed by En-Lil. It is elemental to the quest."
"Why don’t you just transport the thing then?" Al said psychically.
"Alice!" Cheyenne shouted, beginning to worry.
"That’s not feasible, Alice," En-Ki claimed.
"Why is it important, and who's inside it?" Al questioned.
"Alice!" Cheyenne insisted and was about to walk away when he snapped out of it. En-Ki had gone.
"Oh, sorry Cheyenne. I have an implant that sometimes interrupts me."
"I’m glad … that was freaky," she said, relieved, hands on hips. "They say before the war everyone was fitted with a neural implant."
"Yep, that’s true," Al said, vaguely, still mentally trying to process En-Ki’s warning.
Cheyenne had been rattled by the sudden change in his attitude. "You asked about vehicles. No, we don’t have any other than Great Grandad’s collection."
The statement revitalised Alice somewhat. "What’s he got?"
"Come, I’ll show you."
On the way to the elevator, Al stopped at the door to his lodgings and knocked. "I’ll get the others."
Turk and Toegs came out of the room and joined them.
During the elevator ride up to the first floor, Alice was still noticeably introspective.
