petermaize

The Jubilee Machine Part IX

 

It took Ellen awhile to track Badri down. She’d rung him from the airport, but got no response. Finally, as she was nearing the university, he answered.

“Badri. I believe you. Or I believe Benton, at least. I want to come see you. Where are you?”

Badri’s voice was infinitely tired and epically sad.

“On the run, I guess.” There was a short pause. Ellen turned off the freeway, headed for the campus. Badri spoke softly. It was difficult to hear him.

“Tomorrow they’re officially locking us out of the decelerator. I suspect that Mellon will call us all together and ‘try to get to the bottom of this’” he mimicked Mellon’s genteel inflections.

“Is there anything we should do before then?” Ellen asked.

Badri stopped walking. He’d been pacing around the football practice field on the north side of the campus. Now he spoke intently.

“Well, if you’re willing, I could use your help to make one last jump.”

“Where do you want to go, Badri?”

“I don’t know yet. You can help me figure it out. The main thing is, we have to stop James.”

“How quickly do we need to act?”

“We’ve got until Monday morning, Ellen. One day. Mellon has issued an edict that our team won’t be allowed access to the decelerator beginning on Monday. Simultaneously, several departments and agencies will begin examining our team’s recent activities. I think once they start paying attention, they will very quickly realize that some of our members are missing, and that we’ve been using the decelerator in unauthorized ways.

It will take them weeks to figure out that we’ve actually been traveling back and forth in time, because it’s not in their frame of reference that human time travel is even possible today. But eventually it will become apparent to them what we’ve been up to. But that doesn’t matter, because if we can’t fix this in two days, it won’t matter even if we had two years. So plan to get a lot done as soon as you get here.”

Ten minutes later Ellen was standing beside Badri in the large, empty parking lot on the north side of the stadium. Ellen still felt uneasy around him. There had been so many lies, and so many professions of sincerity and concern, that the good and bad were mixed together in her mind, and no one was clean.

“You made a jump right after Benton, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, drawing out the syllable.

“But you wouldn’t tell me where you went, or why.  What’s the truth, Badri?”

Badri plunged his hands in his coat pockets and looked up at the night sky. The few available stars winked through the haze.

“There was an epistle. Jeremy told me about it two days after Benton jumped.”

Ellen nodded. So it was true.

“As you know, we’ve been looking for epistles for months. It wasn’t unexpected that it might take awhile to find one, because they were buried hundreds of years ago, and got covered with all kinds of debris, layers of soil and layers of humanity. But when Jeremy came into my office with news of an epistle, I did find it quite coincidental that it had been found right after Benton jumped.”

“Who was it from?”

“Me. Of course, at that moment, I had yet to make a jump of my own, and I still believed that only Benton had jumped. My conversation with Benton at the mental hospital raised a host of questions, and he was adamant that James himself had been using the decelerator. So within the space of a few hours I was presented with proof that Benton had returned, that he had been sent to coordinates that were way off the original plan, and that an epistle with my name on it had been discovered. I was shell-shocked!

“The Tel Aviv team had contacted James to tell them of the epistle discovery, as they had been instructed to do. Obviously, we didn’t want Mellon and his people to get a call out of the blue telling them that one of their staff had apparently left a message in another century. But I couldn’t be certain of any specifics about the epistle,” Badri said, pacing in the dark parking lot. “James had shared the information with Jeremy, his confidant, because it served his interests.”

Ellen could see Badri’s breath as he spoke.

“I went back to the decelerator and checked the coordinates for Benton’s jump. I already knew that he had been sent to a completely different time and place than we had agreed on. And of course, James had been at the controls. I then ran a review of the decelerator’s activity in the days prior to Benton’s jump. And it became clear that it had been used by others to travel to the past, on more than one occasion.”

He glanced up at Ellen, to see how she would react. Her face was a mask.

“I now believe that James needed me to make a jump. I think it’s been his overall plan to set me up ever since he recognized how accurate the jumps could be. James found a reason for me not to be in the decelerator when Benton jumped, which of course allowed him to alter the coordinates. But he knew Benton was coming back, right? Benton confirmed that he had harassed James when he was a boy—that’s initially what got Benton thrown into custody.

“When he joined Cassandra, James probably didn’t know why Benton had sought him out as a child, but it was a moot point: James would still have done the same thing once he discovered that the calculations I put Benton on would lead to amazing turnaround times with the loops. James had to keep that a secret, so the best way to do so was to send Benton to the wrong coordinates, and James knew that he’d eventually end up back here in a mental institution. Which was useful for him. Then James needed me to be suspicious enough to make a jump on my own.”

Ellen had no trouble following what Badri was saying, but she was struggling not to succumb to a sense of doom and helplessness. Badri continued.

“Of course James was the first person to go back. Partly it was ego—to be the VERY first person to travel through time. But there was also another purpose: to test the alternate set theory. James believed that he could go back in time, create a new universe, and then jump forward to a point prior to the time space that he originally left. In that case he would still essentially be in the same universe—things wouldn’t have changed too much. Then he could interact with himself. I don’t have to go over this point, I assume.”

Ellen’s face relaxed into a wry grin. “I’m well-versed in the theories, doctor. Even if alternate set theory is correct, the universe that James created by entering it would be identical for all intents and purposes, until James set about changing it. So returning to 2009 in an alternate universe would be essentially identical to returning to 2009 in this one.”

“Right. With the added twist that there would be multiple James who could interact with each other. That’s the development we didn’t predict. We thought the outcome would be either alternate set or a singular universe. It’s both. Once James satisfied himself that he could pull this off, he had to take the steps to ensure no one got in his way. Not an easy task, considering the secrecy around what we were doing, the small team we have…had.”

Badri shook his head and for a moment Ellen thought he might break down.

“James made sure that I knew about Benton, and that I knew that James had made a jump. I never saw the epistle from myself: it was supposed to be shipped from Jerusalem, but between delays from their Antiquities department and other factors, it hadn’t arrived when I made my jump. Of course, James was counting on this. He made sure that all the events happened almost simultaneously. That way I was so focused on the urgency of what was happening, I would just react without thinking it through. Which is what I did.”

Badri shook his head, and laughed without humor.

“How wrong I was. I walked right into his trap. I was unravelling the puzzle without realizing that I was becoming enmeshed in it. Because, finally, the pieces started falling into place. I realized that of course James made the first jump. And it was easy to figure out that Jeremy helped him. James planned to make as many jumps as possible, then get the Cassandra project shut down, so that no one could follow him. By that time he would be bouncing around different universes. I guess he was worried about some sort of time traveling policeman who would arrest him and bring him back to this epoch if the decelerator was still online. A reasonable concern.”

“But why would he go to all this effort, and risk?” Ellen asked. “Why not just secretly make jumps and keep it hidden, instead of creating all this intrigue with epistles showing up, and leading people to Benton?”

“Because the odds were that he might be exposed and stopped early on, if he just tried to sneak in some jumps on his own. And his worst nightmare would be to be caught in this epoch. So James very quickly created chaos, where no one was sure what to believe. Right? For several days you weren’t sure whether you could trust me, and wondered who the bad guy was. That gave James enough time to maneuver, make his jumps, and set me up. Then he even planned to have this all happen over a weekend, so he would have a couple more days to wrap up his work before everything descended on me on Monday. As it will. He’s pinning all the mayhem on me.”

Ellen didn’t seem to understand. “How…how could he?”

Perhaps he shouldn’t continue. Ellen wasn’t registering. But Badri wanted to say the words.

“Ellen, officially, no one on the team has ever made a jump, right? So where have Jeremy and Benton gone? Where is Ken right now?”

“Do you think he killed Ken?”

“Hell yes, I do.”  Badri’s face was anguished, perspiration forming above his eyebrows, his eyes bloodshot.

“James anticipated that Benton might make it to an epistle site, in whatever century he was in, and leave an epistle implicating him. Even if Benton placed the epistle in the third century, that was fine. All James had to do was send one of his confederates, or go himself, retrieve Benton’s incriminating epistle, and the evidence would disappear.”

“What exactly was the trap?” Ellen asked.

“The trap was that I would feel compelled to go back to Jerusalem to interdict any false epistles that James or his confederates left. Which is exactly what I did. Like a fool, I took the bait. By going back and leaving an epistle of my own, I didn’t succeed in implicating James—I looked like a guilty man trying to cover his tracks. Next week, when Mellon’s team looks at the anecdotal accounts, the only things that will be certain will be that I wasn’t present at the time of Benton’s jump, but made a jump myself shortly thereafter, and that I left an epistle.

“No one will ever be certain that James made a jump—hell, he weighs about the same as Jeremy, so no one can be sure who was jumping when. But it won’t matter. James won’t be found tomorrow, or ever. I guarantee he’s taken the last loop out of Dodge and will never be seen in this century again. Then Benton, Jeremy, James and maybe Ken will have all disappeared. And I’ll be the only one they can question about these suspicious disappearances. And I’ll be the only one who left an epistle. Hell, Ellen, I don’t even know yet if the epistle they found is the one I left! James has had several days to determine the precise coordinates of my jump. He could easily have made a jump to Jerusalem after I left the epistle, and replaced it with a forgery. The epistle they found is still in Israel at this moment, I believe. Doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter, Ellen.”

He was pacing back and forth now, talking primarily to himself.

“Let’s review the facts. There’s a crazy old man in Illinois who says you’re dead, but of course you are here. I never saw a corpse at the epistle site, and I have only Benton’s word to go on. The authorities could soon have a phony epistle with my name on it. What do I tell them? ’Oh no, I left a different epistle when I made an illegal foray into the past!’  My story seems unbelievable, even to me.”

Badri stared up into the night sky. The lights of the stadium obscured most of the stars.

“James needed me to make that jump. I thought I was being so clever dressing up as a traveling merchant, in a turban and cloak.”

“A turban?”

“At the time, I needed to make sure I could get ahold of an epistle that was real, not a forged one left behind by James or one of his confederates. Up to that moment, I still held the belief that James hadn’t made a jump himself. We all thought he was a coward—which in hindsight, is what he wanted—needed—us to believe. I ran off to find an epistle, to get some independent proof of what he was up to.

“Although I fell into his trap, I was able to procure a piece of solid evidence, for whatever it’s worth. It won’t be enough to save me, but it might be of importance at some time…” he paused and grimaced, “in the future. Benton, of course, also anticipated that James or one of his helpers would want to eliminate all the evidence. So Benton hid another message at the epistle site, inside a bit of glazed clay with a simple clue on it, so that someone looking for an epistle might overlook it—but someone looking for a hidden clue might find it. I found it.”

Badri reached inside his coat, and withdrew a crumpled and faded piece of parchment.

Without comment he handed it to Ellen. She opened it and immediately recognized Benton’s sprawling, round script, written on soft, thin leather. She read out loud.

 

To Badri and the team,

If you read this then there is still a chance that much disaster and suffering can be averted. I hope that James McPherson has not retrieved my epistle before you do, but if he has, he will no doubt replace it with a forgery intended to lead you away from the truth. I expect that this has already happened.

James sent me to the wrong coordinates. In a message to me, buried along with Ellen’s body, he made an attempt to explain his actions. He wanted to ensure I could never contact the rest of the team.

I realize now that he had to get rid of me in order to pursue his plans. James was aware that my earlier calculations would reveal that the decelerator was amazingly precise—far more precise than anyone had dared hope. Then once he had made sure I was the first jumper, James deliberately sent me to a place where he thought I could never return. He may be proved right. I will continue to attempt to create a loop. You can figure out from your end how you might help.

   I am now sure that James used the decelerator prior to my jump. He has been back several times, I imagine, including once to kill Ellen.  He could have buried her anywhere. But James deliberately chose to leave her body at an epistle site. Unfathomable cruelty.

Perhaps I will never return to the same time and dimension as you. But I hope with all my heart that you will see this note and be able to stop James.

Ellen could no longer cry. Her tears had all been used up during the initial stages of this tragedy. Now she moved, shell-shocked, from moment to moment, doing what she had to. She turned to Badri.

“I hope alternate set is correct, because then I might get the change to kill James twice. Let’s get to the decelerator before they lock us out forever.”

 

********************************************

,

It was cold in the decelerator room. James and Antoine had sneaked in through the fire exit, to avoid any contact with the night watchman. James didn’t want to cause any unnecessary questions this close to the finish line.

James was punching coordinates into the decelerator, as Antoine leaned against the wall.

“You know what gets me? Antoine blurted out. “That all the universes seem so identical. In some cases we’ve inserted serious anomalies into a version, so that should have shown up in later centuries. But everything ends up the same.”

James was barely listening.

“Look at the phone book,” Antoine said.

“Huh?”

“I mean look at the damn phone book. We’ve altered the universe by our actions, by definition, right? And all those anomalies would pile up, people not marrying the same people, etc. Look at the phone book, James. Its identical. Nothing has changed. Nothing.”

Antoine hurled an empty pack of cigarettes toward the trash can.

“So much for multiverses.”

“How do you know? You can’t remember every name in a phone book! I…”

Antoine stood up. “I don’t have to. I took some pages with me. Funny, huh? Taking pages of a phone book back in time? But I’ve done it twice now, James. You’d figure I’d be in a different universe, right?  Or even if it is the same universe, we’ve made some serious ripples that over time would have caused noticeable differences, even if they are small. Well, I’ve got twenty pages from the Pasadena White Pages, 1989 edition, back when they still made those things.”

He picked up a sheaf of crumpled papers from the desk. James hadn’t noticed them before.

“Absolutely identical, James. So identical that there is not even one discrepancy. Let’s see. End of page 47. “Lipton, Ida. 1402 Mission St.”

He looked at the pages in his other hand. “Page 47. Lipton, Ida. 1402 Mission St.”

Antoine looked up at James menacingly.

“Whaddya think that’s all about, bright boy?”

James was still dismissive. “You are focusing on minutiae, my friend. You are wasting your time.”

“On the contrary, my friend, you are wasting yours. It seems that for some reason, no matter what we do, the future is always the same. Ever think about that when you went to the future? Or, did you really visit the future, James?”

Antoine had never considered the fact that James might be lying, until now.

“Tell me all the futures are different, James. And if they are, explain why the versions we’ve been in end up identical. Tell me why, James, that when we come back here it’s always exactly the same as the way we left it. You’ve noticed that, haven’t you? We come back and everything’s exactly the same, from the football team to U.S. politics to where Jeremy’s aunt lives in Michigan. Each universe is identical.”

He was up in James’ face now, which annoyed James. He hated it when someone invaded his personal space. Antoine continued.

“I’m guessing James doesn’t like to go to the future, because he can’t control it. Too many intangibles and uncertainties. That’s one thing. But there’s another reason, isn’t there James? It frightens you that there is no evidence of our project—it appears that Project Cassandra never existed. There is no mention of time travel. If you want to play God, you have to do it where you are omniscient. James can do that in the past. But in the future, he’s at a disadvantage.”

James smiled calmly.

“Gee, I’d love to have an intellectual debate with you Antoine, about things you’ve never experienced. But I’ve got places to go and people to meet. And I’ve saved my best trick for last, Antoine. You raise an interesting question.  It just so happens that, at this very moment, I’m on my way to answer it. You can send me back to Jerusalem, 33 AD, just outside of town, late March. Get as close as you can, won’t you Antoine?”

“No.”

James smiled. “Why are you getting so worked up, Antoine? There’s nothing to lose. All you have to do is send me to the past, one last time.”

He moved a step closer to Antoine.

“Look, I’m not coming back after this jump. Think what you will about the alternate set and what the future has to say about the Cassandra Project. For me the evidence is already in. I’m going now, Ken, and I’m never coming back here.”

“Because Badri’s on your trail?”

James decided to play his ace.

“Yes, in a manner of speaking, Antoine. All of us have been using this project for our own purposes. We all joined up knowing we might die in pursuit of our goal, so our goals had to be pretty dear to us. You have yours, I have mine. Yes, I broke some rules. And I got you to break some, too. Now your choice is whether to have an attack of conscience, and refuse to help me, or to let me go and avoid the nasty consequences that will inevitably occur. Believe me, if I am confronted I will name names in order to protect myself. Yours will be among them. Save yourself the trouble, Antoine. Help me this one last time. Then I’m gone and won’t trouble you anymore.”

Antoine just stared at James.

“You know that our whole little game is over, don’t you, Antoine? There will be no more Cassandra project to get on with after tomorrow.”

James smiled, casually and confidently.

“Antoine, Badri will take all the blame, and you know it. You want me gone. You need me gone. If I’m not here, Badri is the sole focus of every investigation. And he’s got a lot of explaining to do, since I and two of my colleagues will have disappeared without a trace. Badri won’t have me to pin anything on. It will remain an eternally perplexing brain teaser as to what happened to three scientists. Eventually they’ll just stop looking, and you can get on with your life. So send me on my last jump, Antoine. I’ve created enough loops that I no longer need to come back to this year, or this place, ever. While you brood about how the alternate set theory and single universe theory can co-exist, I’ll be living it. And by the way. I’ve got one more proof for you that the theory does indeed work. I killed Jeremy twice. Once in the 14^th century, and once a few days ago. So believe, me, alternate set is in full force.”

He walked away from the control panel toward the decelerator.

“I’ve been a busy boy. There is more than one of me now, Antoine. That’s something special, isn’t it? So just send me to those coordinates. If you don’t then I’ll make sure one version of me comes back and kills you. We got a deal, mate?.”

He locked his eyes on Antoine’s. Antoine returned the gaze without blinking, then nodded slowly.

“You’ve got a deal.”

In Case You Don’t Like Science Fiction

We’ve just passed the halfway mark in my new novella, The Jubilee Machine.

I’ve been uploading a few new chapters every day here on my blog, and now we’re in the stretch run to see if James can actually create parallel universes, if Ellen can prevent herself from dying again and if Benton will be successfully evangelized by a 3rd century Christian from Sidon.

Not your cup of tea? No worries. I have more books in the pipeline, and there are a couple that are already available for a pittance on Amazon. One of them is an adventure story set amid the backdrop of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. It’s called Zoom Out. The other is Nine Dragons Belly Up, a novel that takes place during the Dotcom frenzy at the turn of the century.

In the meantime, you can continue to enjoy The Jubilee Machine for free, right here on my blog. The first 8 instalments are ready for you to read at your convenience, in chunks that are just the right size. Part 9 is just around the corner…

 

The Jubilee Machine Part VIII

“You wanted to see me, Badri?”

James stood in the doorway of Badri’s apartment. The older man stepped back and held the door open.

“Yes, James. Come in, and have a seat.”

James stepped across the threshold. He knew that security had already sealed Badri’s office, but no further action would be taken until Monday. For the moment, Badri was still head of the Math Team, second in command of the Cassandra Project, and James’s boss. Of course, that meant nothing now, and within hours Badri’s world would be permanently dismantled.

“What can I do for you, sir?” James said, trying to control his disdain. Badri stared at his younger colleague from behind his round-framed glasses.

“It took me awhile to figure it out, James. But then when I realized that you were using the loop for unauthorized…”

“Travel?” James finished the sentence, gleefully. “Oh no! I’ve been charging unauthorized travel to my expense account, and I’ve been caught. I do hope you don’t discover the entertainment expenses, too. You might take away my company credit card.”

Badri had never seen James like this. The normally taciturn young man was giddy, buoyant. Badri looked at him, then calmly asked, “What have you been using the decelerator for, James?”

“I’ve been busy creating universes. It’s fun.”

James was filled with confidence and brimming over with arrogance. His well-constructed plans were playing out on all levels, and Badri was only beginning to piece together the enormity of his scheme. James enjoyed toying with his mentor.

“It amused me so much, the narrow and limited focus on going back in time, then always returning here. Always returning here, just like they did in all the movies. Right?”

James was becoming very animated, waving a hand as he described the movements in time.

“I mean, why come back to the precise time you left? Why not jump from the Middle Ages to the Wild West? Or from Renaissance Europe to Carthage? Or better yet, from Carthage to the 22^nd century!”

“You’ve gone to the future?”

James pursed his lips.

“Mmmm. Sort of.”

“What do you mean sort of?” Badri demanded.

“Badri, let me let you in on a little secret, okay?” James said quietly, standing and walking slowly around the room. The large window on the far wall was just beginning to illuminate with the fading rays of the sunset. A shaft of light found its way through the half-drawn curtains and onto the floor.

“It turns out we can be much more precise with our targeting than we originally thought.” He reached the end of the carpet and swiveled around, glancing over at Badri only for a second as he resumed his perambulation around the living room.

“A few hours, perhaps, in some cases. Certainly can keep it within a week, and still maintain geographic accuracy. Figure two weeks and 100 miles in even the most demanding cases, for example. That’s not bad, you have to admit.”

He looked up to catch Badri’s reaction. The middle-aged man rested impassively on the sofa, arms tightly folded across his chest. He did not offer a comment. James continued. “Benton’s early work proved that. But I thought it prudent to withhold that information at the time, until we had a few jumps under our belts.

“With practice, the accuracy improved tremendously. Really, Badri, it would be very interesting to study why we can be so accurate with such a rudimentary machine. Scientifically, this level of accuracy should be impossible. Oh well, something for the future.”

He laughed at his joke, then continued.

“Until Jeremy disappeared, we were able to send each other back and forth probably a dozen times…”

“You what?”

That’s the reaction James had been waiting for.

“Oh yes. You see, I needed a confederate. Jeremy was the likely choice from the beginning. You know it really only takes one person to operate the decelerator.  It worked quite well. I think you found that out when you got Ken to help you, didn’t you?”

“Where is Jeremy?” Badri suddenly demanded, leaning forward, as if ready to spring from the sofa. James stopped his pacing and looked at his colleague with a twinkle in his eyes.

“I believe there was an accident. I’m not sure. It’s possible the coordinates were misapplied, and poor Jeremy was sent to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in the 11^th century. Who knows, maybe Leif Ericsson found him bobbing around in the frigid waters!”

He laughed loudly, head tilted back, one hand lightly on his chest. The light in the window began to recede rapidly as the sun disappeared behind the Admissions building.

 

“You know what drove me crazy about all those awful time travel novels? They missed the real opportunities. Do you know what I mean? They invariably involved people getting trapped in 14^th century Scotland or the Pleistocene, or one of the ancient locals coming back to wreak havoc in the present age.”

He shook his head.

“Didn’t anyone see where the real opportunities lay? Certainly not Jeremy. He wanted to use the decelerator so he could become a medieval despot. Can you believe it?” James shook his head in obvious incredulity. “We’re better off without him, don’t you think?”

Badri looked directly at James. “You have an agenda, James. Spell it out. You’re describing sabotage, murder, deception and betrayal. You’re telling me this for a reason.”

“Of course, Badri, of course.” James nodded, instantly regaining his composure.

“This little talk is just for your edification. As they say in the movies: you can’t pin anything on me. But I needed to reveal a bit of what’s been happening so that I can achieve my larger goal.”

He waited patiently for Badri to ask, but the older man chose not to gratify him, so James continued.

“I also need a stooge, a fall guy.”

He leaned forward until his face was inches from Badri’s. James was oozing contempt.

“And you’re it, old man. I’m pinning everything on you.”

Badri’s face barely responded to the news, which disappointed James. No matter. He leaned away from his colleague and continued talking.

“Remember. James McPherson has been here all along, attending the meetings, briefing Dr. Mellon when you weren’t around—covering for you when you couldn’t be found. But of course, suspicions have been growing, Badri. All your unexplainable disappearances, lack of accountability.

“I’m clean. But you,” he pointed, “you, Badri, are the titular head of this program, the man who bears all the responsibility. I.” James paused, cocking his head thoughtfully. “I am just the boy wonder. The blame lies with you, old man. That’s what I told the Senate Select Committee in my letter.”

This time he got a reaction out of Badri. It appeared to be anger, not shock. Badri was tough, no doubt about that. He fired off a few questions.

“So what’s the big picture, James? Not fame and fortune obviously. You have an epic plan? A grand scheme?”

“Of course,” James replied brightly. “To alter destiny, to put it in clichéd terms.”

He leaned forward. “Or better yet, change God’s plan for humankind. That’s why I was always in favor of choosing first century Jerusalem over ancient Egypt. It was never a case of learning whether Jesus was really the son of God, you know. Because even if we had experiential evidence of the various miracles, it still comes down to faith. You must agree that a mass conversion of humanity could never be accomplished by ‘evidence’ anyhow. Faith, Badri. That’s the core of the Christian religion. It’s not designed to attract adherents through logical proofs. It’s a religion based on miracles and divine intervention.”

His face was glowing with excitement.

“The attraction, then, is to engineer a little human intervention into the scenario, see what happens.”

“You mean you want to kill Jesus.”

“God, you drive me crazy, Badri. You are such a scientist.”

James waved his arm. “You don’t kill Jesus. You kill Peter. And Paul and one of the Johns for good measure. Be creative for once in your life! Think of the possibilities! I am making designer universes, Badri! I can’t supersede God’s plan.  But I can mess with God’s plans. Think of it! This is what it’s all about, Badri. To determine how much I can alter or influence God’s plan. Along the way, I get to create multiple versions of the universe, all with outcomes determined by me, and which respond to me. What other purpose is there?”

The two men locked eyes and the room was silent for some time.

Then James smiled

“You know who is the most misunderstood being in the universe?”

He didn’t expect Badri to answer, and the old man didn’t. Badri’s jaw was set, his eyes fixed on James. James was loving it.

“Satan.  Yes, the devil. Beelzebub. Look, it is simplistic to merely categorize him as pure evil.  That misses the whole point. How mundane, to think that Satan only wants to go around causing car crashes or wars or murders or making little children trip over their shoelaces. His is not an unfocused mission! He merely wants autonomy and control! And indeed, my friend, isn’t that what we all seek? To be accountable only to ourselves? But God himself rebels against this simple desire; he demands that we dance to his tune. If you have your own universe, then you don’t have to do that.”

“All of us know this, Badri, even if we never admit it, or we deny it, or we go to the priest when we feel guilty and confess to him our sins.  The epic universal challenge is the conflict between self-will and God’s will. I take Satan as my role model, although again, not out of a love for evil or a predilection for malevolence. Satan is the ultimate manifestation of personal freedom and opposition to the concept of submission to God’s will. Satan believes the Created can and should be free of the control of the Creator, after the creation process is finished.

“Now, why the devil didn’t just invent his own time machine and go off and create alternate universes, I’m not sure. His choice was to battle it out on God’s turf.”

He shrugged.

“So be it. My method of escaping God’s will is by creating my own universes.  Or more precisely,” he smiled, “to take a pre-fab world and make it my own. Nice of God to do the heavy lifting. Now that the creation is through, I get to jump in and customize.  I don’t want to be God,” he said. “God, wouldn’t that be a task! No thank you! I am in pursuit of self. Yes, I certainly want to make others do my bidding, but the point is that I don’t want to care about others, one way or another. I want complete, unfettered freedom of action. This is what Satan was up to. He had an exalted position in heaven, but what was it worth? He was doomed to bending to God’s will. He wanted autonomy—not parity.

 

“Badri,” James said softly. “This is the ultimate expression of the human will. To be able to determine the fate of the universe. For the first time, it is actually possible, and I am doing it.”

 

Badri was appalled, speechless. He realized his mouth was open. James stopped talking, and looked intently at Badri. He’d said too much. For once, he’d let his control slip. The team had been through countless discussions of this nature, but James had always remained detached, clinical. But now he’d told Badri everything. That meant James would have to add a new element to his plan.

He would have to kill Badri, too.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Benton had finally found a friend in this hostile, hateful world. Bartholomew was an intelligent, kind and happy man. Benton learned that he had a family back in Sidon, and regularly traveled between Syria and Palestine arranging business deals involving grain, wood and simple wood products. A traveling salesman, Benton mused. They talked as the cart bounced along the rutted roads. When they got tired of the constant jolting, the two men would walk beside the cart. Bartholomew told Benton about his religion, and the savior named Jesus who had died so that all men might live. Benton was intrigued by this early understanding of Christianity, from an academic standpoint. He knew that at this point in history the New Testament was yet to be codified. A man like Bartholomew would never have read the Gospels, although he most likely would have heard portions of them spoken. Bartholomew said he had seen copies of some letters from Paul, as well as a letter from Iranaeus, a 1^st.  century bishop.

Bartholomew was a Gentile, so he wasn’t much interested in the Torah, or the other Jewish books. It was enough for him to know the story of how Jesus had died for him, and how the Holy Spirit was now available to all people.

Benton was intrigued by this primitive Christianity—especially when compared to the 21st century version he knew. It was about belief—not dogma. Churches were more likely to exist in homes than in big buildings. And Christians were still persecuted. It would be more than 50 years before Constantine would make Christianity the state religion of the empire, and the church would embark on a tortured path of power, privilege and prosperity. For now, many Roman officials were antagonistic to Christians, even as the young religion spread like wildfire.

“Do you face hardships, being a Christian?” he asked Bartholomew.

“Oh, we keep our heads down,” his plump partner responded. “Where I live, it can be quite sensitive. There are town leaders who call us troublemakers, and demand that we at least acknowledge that all gods are equal.”

He looked up at Benton.

“And that we cannot do.”

Benton nodded. Centuries of religious wars lay ahead, with sects and dogmas set against each other in violent conflict. But those would be exercises in power politics, global confrontation. Here in this quiet and dusty corner of the Middle East, that level of conflict could not be imagined. For Bartholomew, it was all about the basics. He had his beliefs, he refused to change them to suit the prevailing political reality and sought only to worship as he felt led.

“We are almost home,” Bartholomew said. He knew the crippled stranger had heard enough about religion. “Would you like to get back on the cart?”

Benton nodded. As uncomfortable as the cart was on the rutted, rocky roads, it was less painful for him than walking. Bartholomew called out to the driver, and helped Benton lift his body onto the rough wooden planks.

“Thanks,” he said. Then Benton surprised himself by adding, “I think your Jesus is good, Bartholomew. And your belief makes you good.”

Bartholomew laughed. “Good?  No one is good but God, Nahon. I am a sinner with a piece of God inside me. Imagine that! And you can be, too!”

He was still laughing as the cart started down the long hill toward Sidon.

 

 

 

 

 

The Jubilee Machine Part VII

Badri figured he had at least 48 hours to track James down, correct the damage he’d done and prevent him from doing any more. Although Badri couldn’t go to his office, Ken wasn’t under suspicion yet, so he had unrestricted movement. There was no need to go to the decelerator. Badri had no intention of making another jump himself.  That was no longer necessary.

When Badri had first learned that James was making jumps, he wasn’t sure what his intentions were. Perhaps James was merely a renegade who desired to be the first human to travel through time. He certainly wouldn’t do it for mundane reasons like amassing a fortune or becoming a petty tyrant over awestruck primitives in the past.

No, James would have big, big plans. And Badri needed to know how dangerous he was. So he took the risk of going to Jerusalem to search the epistle site himself. He needed to see what James was up to.

Badri had chosen the 19^th century for several reasons: first, he would not draw too much attention with his South Asian complexion and odd accent. In the late 1800’s, the British ruled large parts of Asia, including Egypt and India. Badri would be able to masquerade as the envoy of the semi-autonomous rulers of Rajasthan. He could speak English in most situations and his limited ability with Near Eastern languages would not be a major liability.

Those were the logistical reasons for choosing the 19^th century. But there was one other reason: to outwit James. Badri had not seen the epistle that had mysteriously turned up in Jerusalem only days after Benton made his historic jump—he’d only heard about it, and was unsure of the exact content of the epistle. Badri assumed that James was responsible for planting the epistle, and he was alarmed because everyone said the epistle was left by Badri. Surely this was part of James’ scheme.

Badri knew that Benton had made it to Jerusalem in the 3rd century. James would also have known that Benton reached the Jerusalem drop site, because of his conversation with Benton in the Illinois mental hospital. Of course, Benton would have left an epistle behind, and it would have contained his allegations that he was deliberately sabotaged. James would have to remove that epistle, and replace it with one that incriminated someone else. When Badri had arrived in Jerusalem, the location of the drop looked much as it would have when Benton found it. They had selected a very good location. This part of Jerusalem outside of the original city walls would not be developed until the 1950’s. Prior to that it was rural, easy to find because of landmarks, and remained undisturbed.

Badri had not found Ellen’s body, much to his relief. The body would have been just bones after 17 centuries, but he was not eager to find those bones. To his surprise, Badri didn’t find any epistle—no forgery that bore his own name and nothing from any other team member. He found only one tiny clue. Carefully searching the entire site, Badri noticed a shard of clay with a faint, crude outline scratched on it. Badri immediately recognized it as the logo of the San Diego Chargers football team—a curved lightning bolt. James hated all sports and wouldn’t recognize even the New York Yankees insignia. An innocuous scratching that looked like it could even have been naturally created, would not have attracted James’ attention. But Benton knew Badri was a big Chargers fan, having spent many years in San Diego as a student and later professor. When Badri examined the piece of pottery he recognized the Hebrew letter בּ

It was the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, analogous to the English letter B. Badri surmised that Benton had left it as confirmation that he had been there, knowing that later jumpers might remove any other obvious messages that he left behind. Such a clever young man! And such a waste of a life!

Badri’s mission had been a failure. He didn’t locate the epistle that incriminated him, and found nothing that revealed James’ activities or intentions. When Badri returned to the present (amazed that he really could plot a return loop to bring him back within hours of his departure) he knew that the Cassandra project was over, and that terrible developments had already been set in motion.

His only goal from that moment on was to stop James. That meant he had to find him. and confront James directly.

But where was James?

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Dr. Mellon had ordered that none of Badri’s team would be allowed into the decelerator as of Monday. As a lifelong government employee, he hadn’t considered that some people might work on weekends, especially those who were clandestinely traveling through time. The weekend security staff hadn’t been informed of any restrictions. In the orderly world of university research, people followed the rules. At this moment, the rules said that the Math Team (Mellon’s uninspired term that no one used unless they were talking with him) had unrestricted, all-hours access to process calculations and conduct simulations until Monday at 9am.

So when James and Jeremy walked into the decelerator room, no one was there to stop them. James knew that in a matter of days, Dr. Mellon would order a full investigation into how the team had been using the decelerator. Already Mellon had ordered the computers in Badri Singh’s office to be seized and examined, following a formal complaint from James that Badri was transferring information from the computers in the decelerator room. James had also implied that something dire was taking place, and that Badri couldn’t be trusted.

They switched on all the machines and began cycling the decelerator. It was hilarious that no one from the Cassandra team ever actually came into this room—the room that housed their time machine. For the dozen researchers outside Badri’s team, the decelerator was something that had been built for the future—similar to the way a toddler might view a bicycle. Someday they would be allowed to ride. Right now, the training wheels weren’t even attached.

“Tell me how Budapest has changed, Jeremy,” James said, as he punched calculations into the control grid.

“The first time I could hardly detect any change. Which is what I expected, of course.

But then after I returned, and arranged the treaty with Duke Hrad, I think I really set something in motion.”

Jeremy had served a useful purpose by returning to the same point in time and making alterations, so that James could assess what happened. From Jeremy’s viewpoint, he was ‘setting up house’ for his own personal future.

“So the second time you were there you could see the results of your intervention in the epoch.”

“I think so. But for example, there was a surprising lack of systemic change…” Jeremy began.

“Good to hear it,” James muttered, leaning over the control panel. He stood up. The decelerator was ready. He hadn’t heard a word Jeremy had said.

“You created some problems for us in Paris, you know. Your rather impetuous attempts to intimidate the gendarmerie required some attention on my part.”

James leaned over and stared into Jeremy’s eyes.

“That’s why I had to kill you.”

Jeremy froze.

“What?”

“I killed you. It was easy.”

Jeremy moved around the desk, wide eyes fixed on James. James waited patiently for the full impact to take hold. There are so many layers in these things, he thought. Jeremy put his hands on the desk, supporting himself.

“You shouldn’t joke about something like that, James.”

“I’m not. You can tell I’m serious, can’t you, Jeremy. And it scares you, doesn’t it?”

“Stop it, James.”

“You’re not trapped in that Grandfather Clause, are you?” James sighed dramatically.

“Multiverses, my boy. You’re dead in one, but you’re alive here, and that’s all that matters. Alternate Set theory. It was correct. I was correct. The beauty is that both theories are correct, similar to light being both a particle and a wave simultaneously. We do create universes when we arrive in the past, but we can also, through careful calculation, re-enter our original universe. That, of course, should be obvious, or else we would never have known poor Benton’s fate, and you and I would not be here conversing in the same world that produced our wonderful machine. We’d be in a universe of our own creation. But actually, to paraphrase the old line, we have the best of both worlds!”

Jeremy couldn’t speak. James’s smile faded and he stepped toward Jeremy.

“You should have seen your face,” James said softly and coldly. “You were drunk, so it was easy to lure you to a secluded place with some ridiculous promise. Then—poof—I caught a loop back here. Safe and sound. Impossible to convict me in the 21^st century for a murder committed several hundred years earlier. They’ll know you were missing, but they won’t figure out what happened to your body.”

James smiled broadly. “Perfect alibi, eh?”

“But you couldn’t have….” Jeremy was puzzling through the implications with a mind slowed by dread.

James had taped a pistol to the top of a beam shortly after the decelerator had been built. He could see the value in having a weapon for special emergencies. Times like this.

“Get in the decelerator, Jeremy.”

Jeremy wouldn’t move. He was shaking, which didn’t look too much different from his usual jittering.

James sighed with exasperation. “Jeremy, the game is over. I’m offering you the chance to go back to your precious 13^th century and live like a king. There really is no alternative. Remember, I’ve already killed you once.” He pointed the gun at Jeremy’s chest.

Jeremy meekly climbed into the sphere and assumed the crouch. James closed the door.

“Now I get to do it twice.”

He pressed the button and Jeremy disappeared.

“Isn’t time travel remarkable?” James said, as he put the pistol back in its place. “So efficient.”

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

It took Benton several months to make his way to Israel. He travelled at night, scavenged for food as he could, a mutilated outcast always on the edge of civilization. He nearly starved to death after leaving Keshdah’s caravan. Already malnourished and sick, Benton stumbled through the desert, but eventually he reached the Euphrates river and was able to forage or steal enough food to survive.

Then slowly he made his way to Judea. Every piece of land he travelled through was under the sovereignty of the Roman Republic. Rome was still in its prime at this time, with more than a hundred years until the Vandals and Huns and Goths over-ran the empire. Even then, the Eastern empire would continue to exist for three hundred years after that.

None of this historical knowledge was of use to Benton as he made his way through Syria and Scythia. Only one thing mattered: to reach the Epistle Drop.

Once he arrived in Judea and buried his epistle, Benton planned to find a way to create a loop on his own. It was theoretically possible, but he would have to calculate the time and location. For the master mathematician this would be an epic challenge, similar to an average person trying to multiply 50-digit numbers in their head.

But Benton would have nothing but time to create a loop in time.

His first goal was to get to an epistle drop point and let the Cassandra project know what he was doing—tell them what had happened, that he was a traveler blown drastically off course, but seeking to find his way safely to home port.

Then he might need to find a job. If anyone was willing to trust a mutilated beggar with a funny accent, they would find that the investment was well worth it. Benton knew a few things that would come in handy to 3rd century entrepreneurs.

Damascus offered the first opportunity to improve his lifestyle. Damascus was a bustling trade centre, filled with Christians and Jews, Romans and Arabs, all pursuing their own spiritual and mercantile destinies. Benton found work in a granary, at first as an unpaid servant who delivered parchments and fetched food and cleaned away the manure when the horses had departed. He was fed once a day and given a place to sleep under a table.

But soon the overseer was intrigued by Benton’s calculating ability. The invention of algebra was still nearly a millennium away, and calculations of volume and space were conducted by hand, with simple weights. But Benton repeatedly astonished his bosses by his ability to correctly estimate how much grain occupied a specific space, along with other feats. Within a few weeks Benton was able to buy his freedom, and become an assistant to the granary owner.

Benton was constantly depressed, though. Now that his focus had transcended daily survival and avoidance of pain, he was able to focus on non-essential parts of human life, and this provoked despondency. He was an alien beyond imagining. No one he spoke with could understand him, even when they could share a language. No one could guess that this damaged man knew secrets that they couldn’t fathom or even imagine. The very foundations of worldly knowledge that sustained the Arabs and Jews and Persians that Benton met were no more than childish notions. Their thoughts on life, society, nature and law were primitive. The people were so simple that Benton couldn’t bear to be around them.

After he had put a few denarii together, Benton left suddenly, buying a place on a cart headed to Jerusalem.

The very night he left Damascus, Benton met the first person that he could tolerate. He was a Syrian named Bartholomew. Bartholomew sat next to Benton at a splintery wooden table in a filthy inn, where the lamb was gristly and tough, and the wine was disgusting.

Benton sat alone, as always. He hated speaking to anyone, because everyone he met wanted to know what country Benton was from. His Aramaic had gotten pretty good, but it obviously wasn’t his native tongue. Benton was afraid that he would meet someone who would be able to debunk whatever story he concocted, raising suspicion and possible trouble with the law.

So when a man with short hair and beard and a clean, simple tunic sat on the bench across from him, Benton didn’t even look up. He was trying to find an edible scrap of lamb on his plate. But Benton’s attention was caught by the man’s clasped hands and bowed head, as he prayed over his food. Probably a Jew, Benton thought, until he heard the muttered word “Yeshua”.

Benton hadn’t met any Christians since he had arrived in the 3rd century. He knew they’d been present in Damascus, but Benton stayed near his granary and seldom explored outside the neighborhood where he worked.

Benton was not a religious person. He had no use for organized religion, and the only reason he was not an atheist was because scientifically the possibility of a supreme being or Initial Cause could not be ruled out. But sitting next to a Christian somehow provided a tenuous cultural link for him. Like most Americans, Benton grew up in a culture permeated with the worldview, beliefs and traditions of Christianity. There was some comfort, as if the man shared a common bond with Benton. At this moment, having been tortured, discarded, shunned and outcast, this was as close to fellowship as Benton had been.

It was the other man who spoke first, though.

“Brother, it seems that you have suffered in life. I pray that your suffering has come to an end.”

Benton looked the man over. He had a large nose and large brown eyes. Put him in a T-shirt and he could have fit right in at a Dallas Cowboys game or a shopping mall. He seemed serious and sincere.

“Me too.” Benton replied. The man smiled.

“I am Bartholomew, son of Racahn, of Sidon,” the man said. In 20^th century America they would have shaken hands. Here, Benton had learned it wasn’t done when strangers met in inns.

“I am Nahon,” Benton said, using the name he had given himself, borrowed from a trader in Damascus.

Bartholomew smiled, and asked questions as he began eating his lamb.

“Where are you from?”

“Europe.”

This response sometimes brought another slew of questions, but overall it was the safest story, since no one Benton had met in this epoch had ever been to Rome’s European possessions, or knew anything about them. Benton was free to describe them as he wished, and he had a ready-made excuse for all his peculiarities.

“My, my,” the man nodded. “Europe. So far away. I pray that your journey will go well.”

Benton had to ask.

“You are a Christian?”

“Yes, I am. Are you?”

“No, no. I am familiar with your religion, and I think it has many fine points. But I’m not a religious man.”

“But you have a soul, don’t you?”

Benton believed he had a soul. Whether and how it survived beyond his death were unclear to him—always had been.

“Don’t we all?” he asked in reply.

Bartholomew took a swig of wine before answering.

“Of course. And you must make sure that your soul will be safe for eternity.”

Benton nodded. He wasn’t bothered by this third century proselytizer for some reason.

“My friend, don’t try to make me a Christian tonight,” he said. “You will be wasting your time.”

Bartholomew grinned.

“Fair enough, then I will try again tomorrow. Perhaps we will share the road for awhile. I am on my way to Jerusalem. And you?”

“Jerusalem.”

“Hmm,” the man mused, eyes straying to his plate.

“Well, then. We will share the road. But I promise I will not drive you away.”

“You have a deal.”

 

Badri figured he had at least 48 hours to track James down, correct the damage he’d done and prevent him from doing any more. Although Badri couldn’t go to his office, Ken wasn’t under suspicion yet, so he had unrestricted movement. There was no need to go to the decelerator. Badri had no intention of making another jump himself.  That was no longer necessary.

When Badri had first learned that James was making jumps, he wasn’t sure what his intentions were. Perhaps James was merely a renegade who desired to be the first human to travel through time. He certainly wouldn’t do it for mundane reasons like amassing a fortune or becoming a petty tyrant over awestruck primitives in the past.

No, James would have big, big plans. And Badri needed to know how dangerous he was. So he took the risk of going to Jerusalem to search the epistle site himself. He needed to see what James was up to.

Badri had chosen the 19^th century for several reasons: first, he would not draw too much attention with his South Asian complexion and odd accent. In the late 1800’s, the British ruled large parts of Asia, including Egypt and India. Badri would be able to masquerade as the envoy of the semi-autonomous rulers of Rajasthan. He could speak English in most situations and his limited ability with Near Eastern languages would not be a major liability.

Those were the logistical reasons for choosing the 19^th century. But there was one other reason: to outwit James. Badri had not seen the epistle that had mysteriously turned up in Jerusalem only days after Benton made his historic jump—he’d only heard about it, and was unsure of the exact content of the epistle. Badri assumed that James was responsible for planting the epistle, and he was alarmed because everyone said the epistle was left by Badri. Surely this was part of James’ scheme.

Badri knew that Benton had made it to Jerusalem in the 3rd century. James would also have known that Benton reached the Jerusalem drop site, because of his conversation with Benton in the Illinois mental hospital. Of course, Benton would have left an epistle behind, and it would have contained his allegations that he was deliberately sabotaged. James would have to remove that epistle, and replace it with one that incriminated someone else. When Badri had arrived in Jerusalem, the location of the drop looked much as it would have when Benton found it. They had selected a very good location. This part of Jerusalem outside of the original city walls would not be developed until the 1950’s. Prior to that it was rural, easy to find because of landmarks, and remained undisturbed.

Badri had not found Ellen’s body, much to his relief. The body would have been just bones after 17 centuries, but he was not eager to find those bones. To his surprise, Badri didn’t find any epistle—no forgery that bore his own name and nothing from any other team member. He found only one tiny clue. Carefully searching the entire site, Badri noticed a shard of clay with a faint, crude outline scratched on it. Badri immediately recognized it as the logo of the San Diego Chargers football team—a curved lightning bolt. James hated all sports and wouldn’t recognize even the New York Yankees insignia. An innocuous scratching that looked like it could even have been naturally created, would not have attracted James’ attention. But Benton knew Badri was a big Chargers fan, having spent many years in San Diego as a student and later professor. When Badri examined the piece of pottery he recognized the Hebrew letter בּ

It was the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, analogous to the English letter B. Badri surmised that Benton had left it as confirmation that he had been there, knowing that later jumpers might remove any other obvious messages that he left behind. Such a clever young man! And such a waste of a life!

Badri’s mission had been a failure. He didn’t locate the epistle that incriminated him, and found nothing that revealed James’ activities or intentions. When Badri returned to the present (amazed that he really could plot a return loop to bring him back within hours of his departure) he knew that the Cassandra project was over, and that terrible developments had already been set in motion.

His only goal from that moment on was to stop James. That meant he had to find him. and confront James directly.

But where was James?

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Dr. Mellon had ordered that none of Badri’s team would be allowed into the decelerator as of Monday. As a lifelong government employee, he hadn’t considered that some people might work on weekends, especially those who were clandestinely traveling through time. The weekend security staff hadn’t been informed of any restrictions. In the orderly world of university research, people followed the rules. At this moment, the rules said that the Math Team (Mellon’s uninspired term that no one used unless they were talking with him) had unrestricted, all-hours access to process calculations and conduct simulations until Monday at 9am.

So when James and Jeremy walked into the decelerator room, no one was there to stop them. James knew that in a matter of days, Dr. Mellon would order a full investigation into how the team had been using the decelerator. Already Mellon had ordered the computers in Badri Singh’s office to be seized and examined, following a formal complaint from James that Badri was transferring information from the computers in the decelerator room. James had also implied that something dire was taking place, and that Badri couldn’t be trusted.

They switched on all the machines and began cycling the decelerator. It was hilarious that no one from the Cassandra team ever actually came into this room—the room that housed their time machine. For the dozen researchers outside Badri’s team, the decelerator was something that had been built for the future—similar to the way a toddler might view a bicycle. Someday they would be allowed to ride. Right now, the training wheels weren’t even attached.

“Tell me how Budapest has changed, Jeremy,” James said, as he punched calculations into the control grid.

“The first time I could hardly detect any change. Which is what I expected, of course.

But then after I returned, and arranged the treaty with Duke Hrad, I think I really set something in motion.”

Jeremy had served a useful purpose by returning to the same point in time and making alterations, so that James could assess what happened. From Jeremy’s viewpoint, he was ‘setting up house’ for his own personal future.

“So the second time you were there you could see the results of your intervention in the epoch.”

“I think so. But for example, there was a surprising lack of systemic change…” Jeremy began.

“Good to hear it,” James muttered, leaning over the control panel. He stood up. The decelerator was ready. He hadn’t heard a word Jeremy had said.

“You created some problems for us in Paris, you know. Your rather impetuous attempts to intimidate the gendarmerie required some attention on my part.”

James leaned over and stared into Jeremy’s eyes.

“That’s why I had to kill you.”

Jeremy froze.

“What?”

“I killed you. It was easy.”

Jeremy moved around the desk, wide eyes fixed on James. James waited patiently for the full impact to take hold. There are so many layers in these things, he thought. Jeremy put his hands on the desk, supporting himself.

“You shouldn’t joke about something like that, James.”

“I’m not. You can tell I’m serious, can’t you, Jeremy. And it scares you, doesn’t it?”

“Stop it, James.”

“You’re not trapped in that Grandfather Clause, are you?” James sighed dramatically.

“Multiverses, my boy. You’re dead in one, but you’re alive here, and that’s all that matters. Alternate Set theory. It was correct. I was correct. The beauty is that both theories are correct, similar to light being both a particle and a wave simultaneously. We do create universes when we arrive in the past, but we can also, through careful calculation, re-enter our original universe. That, of course, should be obvious, or else we would never have known poor Benton’s fate, and you and I would not be here conversing in the same world that produced our wonderful machine. We’d be in a universe of our own creation. But actually, to paraphrase the old line, we have the best of both worlds!”

Jeremy couldn’t speak. James’s smile faded and he stepped toward Jeremy.

“You should have seen your face,” James said softly and coldly. “You were drunk, so it was easy to lure you to a secluded place with some ridiculous promise. Then—poof—I caught a loop back here. Safe and sound. Impossible to convict me in the 21^st century for a murder committed several hundred years earlier. They’ll know you were missing, but they won’t figure out what happened to your body.”

James smiled broadly. “Perfect alibi, eh?”

“But you couldn’t have….” Jeremy was puzzling through the implications with a mind slowed by dread.

James had taped a pistol to the top of a beam shortly after the decelerator had been built. He could see the value in having a weapon for special emergencies. Times like this.

“Get in the decelerator, Jeremy.”

Jeremy wouldn’t move. He was shaking, which didn’t look too much different from his usual jittering.

James sighed with exasperation. “Jeremy, the game is over. I’m offering you the chance to go back to your precious 13^th century and live like a king. There really is no alternative. Remember, I’ve already killed you once.” He pointed the gun at Jeremy’s chest.

Jeremy meekly climbed into the sphere and assumed the crouch. James closed the door.

“Now I get to do it twice.”

He pressed the button and Jeremy disappeared.

“Isn’t time travel remarkable?” James said, as he put the pistol back in its place. “So efficient.”

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

It took Benton several months to make his way to Israel. He travelled at night, scavenged for food as he could, a mutilated outcast always on the edge of civilization. He nearly starved to death after leaving Keshdah’s caravan. Already malnourished and sick, Benton stumbled through the desert, but eventually he reached the Euphrates river and was able to forage or steal enough food to survive.

Then slowly he made his way to Judea. Every piece of land he travelled through was under the sovereignty of the Roman Republic. Rome was still in its prime at this time, with more than a hundred years until the Vandals and Huns and Goths over-ran the empire. Even then, the Eastern empire would continue to exist for three hundred years after that.

None of this historical knowledge was of use to Benton as he made his way through Syria and Scythia. Only one thing mattered: to reach the Epistle Drop.

Once he arrived in Judea and buried his epistle, Benton planned to find a way to create a loop on his own. It was theoretically possible, but he would have to calculate the time and location. For the master mathematician this would be an epic challenge, similar to an average person trying to multiply 50-digit numbers in their head.

But Benton would have nothing but time to create a loop in time.

His first goal was to get to an epistle drop point and let the Cassandra project know what he was doing—tell them what had happened, that he was a traveler blown drastically off course, but seeking to find his way safely to home port.

Then he might need to find a job. If anyone was willing to trust a mutilated beggar with a funny accent, they would find that the investment was well worth it. Benton knew a few things that would come in handy to 3rd century entrepreneurs.

Damascus offered the first opportunity to improve his lifestyle. Damascus was a bustling trade centre, filled with Christians and Jews, Romans and Arabs, all pursuing their own spiritual and mercantile destinies. Benton found work in a granary, at first as an unpaid servant who delivered parchments and fetched food and cleaned away the manure when the horses had departed. He was fed once a day and given a place to sleep under a table.

But soon the overseer was intrigued by Benton’s calculating ability. The invention of algebra was still nearly a millennium away, and calculations of volume and space were conducted by hand, with simple weights. But Benton repeatedly astonished his bosses by his ability to correctly estimate how much grain occupied a specific space, along with other feats. Within a few weeks Benton was able to buy his freedom, and become an assistant to the granary owner.

Benton was constantly depressed, though. Now that his focus had transcended daily survival and avoidance of pain, he was able to focus on non-essential parts of human life, and this provoked despondency. He was an alien beyond imagining. No one he spoke with could understand him, even when they could share a language. No one could guess that this damaged man knew secrets that they couldn’t fathom or even imagine. The very foundations of worldly knowledge that sustained the Arabs and Jews and Persians that Benton met were no more than childish notions. Their thoughts on life, society, nature and law were primitive. The people were so simple that Benton couldn’t bear to be around them.

After he had put a few denarii together, Benton left suddenly, buying a place on a cart headed to Jerusalem.

The very night he left Damascus, Benton met the first person that he could tolerate. He was a Syrian named Bartholomew. Bartholomew sat next to Benton at a splintery wooden table in a filthy inn, where the lamb was gristly and tough, and the wine was disgusting.

Benton sat alone, as always. He hated speaking to anyone, because everyone he met wanted to know what country Benton was from. His Aramaic had gotten pretty good, but it obviously wasn’t his native tongue. Benton was afraid that he would meet someone who would be able to debunk whatever story he concocted, raising suspicion and possible trouble with the law.

So when a man with short hair and beard and a clean, simple tunic sat on the bench across from him, Benton didn’t even look up. He was trying to find an edible scrap of lamb on his plate. But Benton’s attention was caught by the man’s clasped hands and bowed head, as he prayed over his food. Probably a Jew, Benton thought, until he heard the muttered word “Yeshua”.

Benton hadn’t met any Christians since he had arrived in the 3rd century. He knew they’d been present in Damascus, but Benton stayed near his granary and seldom explored outside the neighborhood where he worked.

Benton was not a religious person. He had no use for organized religion, and the only reason he was not an atheist was because scientifically the possibility of a supreme being or Initial Cause could not be ruled out. But sitting next to a Christian somehow provided a tenuous cultural link for him. Like most Americans, Benton grew up in a culture permeated with the worldview, beliefs and traditions of Christianity. There was some comfort, as if the man shared a common bond with Benton. At this moment, having been tortured, discarded, shunned and outcast, this was as close to fellowship as Benton had been.

It was the other man who spoke first, though.

“Brother, it seems that you have suffered in life. I pray that your suffering has come to an end.”

Benton looked the man over. He had a large nose and large brown eyes. Put him in a T-shirt and he could have fit right in at a Dallas Cowboys game or a shopping mall. He seemed serious and sincere.

“Me too.” Benton replied. The man smiled.

“I am Bartholomew, son of Racahn, of Sidon,” the man said. In 20^th century America they would have shaken hands. Here, Benton had learned it wasn’t done when strangers met in inns.

“I am Nahon,” Benton said, using the name he had given himself, borrowed from a trader in Damascus.

Bartholomew smiled, and asked questions as he began eating his lamb.

“Where are you from?”

“Europe.”

This response sometimes brought another slew of questions, but overall it was the safest story, since no one Benton had met in this epoch had ever been to Rome’s European possessions, or knew anything about them. Benton was free to describe them as he wished, and he had a ready-made excuse for all his peculiarities.

“My, my,” the man nodded. “Europe. So far away. I pray that your journey will go well.”

Benton had to ask.

“You are a Christian?”

“Yes, I am. Are you?”

“No, no. I am familiar with your religion, and I think it has many fine points. But I’m not a religious man.”

“But you have a soul, don’t you?”

Benton believed he had a soul. Whether and how it survived beyond his death were unclear to him—always had been.

“Don’t we all?” he asked in reply.

Bartholomew took a swig of wine before answering.

“Of course. And you must make sure that your soul will be safe for eternity.”

Benton nodded. He wasn’t bothered by this third century proselytizer for some reason.

“My friend, don’t try to make me a Christian tonight,” he said. “You will be wasting your time.”

Bartholomew grinned.

“Fair enough, then I will try again tomorrow. Perhaps we will share the road for awhile. I am on my way to Jerusalem. And you?”

“Jerusalem.”

“Hmm,” the man mused, eyes straying to his plate.

“Well, then. We will share the road. But I promise I will not drive you away.”

“You have a deal.”

 

The Jubilee Machine Pt. VI

Ellen looked out the plane window at the patchwork of fields below. Occasionally a tiny vehicle could be seen plodding along a country road. Rectangular fields of green corn spread out beneath the plane.

Ellen told herself that she wasn’t running way. She was seeking knowledge. It was impossible to discern who was telling the truth when both sides claimed that the other was perpetrating diabolical plots on a monumental scale. There was little doubt that everyone was lying—at least some of the time. And it was possible that both Badri and James had sinister plans for the decelerator. It wasn’t necessary to believe that one was bad and the other was completely good. These were brilliant, driven men who had been given the keys to the universe. There were plenty of shades of gray to go around in this cosmic play.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve begun our descent into Peoria Regional Airport. At this time, would you please make sure all tray tables…”

The routine announcement prompted robotic activity in the passenger cabin. Ellen buckled up. The cornfields were coming closer. In a few hours she hoped to have some of the answers she sought.

The Reverend Wyatt Wilfong was waiting in the arrival hall as Ellen emerged. They hugged affectionately, and were still touching as they drew apart for verbal greetings.

“It’s great to see you, Wyatt. Thank you so much for coming to meet me.”

“It’s my pleasure, really. Any chance to see you is worth the trip.”

Wyatt worked in Minnesota with Native Americans. He had been an undergraduate anthropology student with Ellen. They dated and at one time were serious. But Wyatt increasingly felt drawn to spiritual pursuits, while Ellen became increasingly absorbed by the esoteric enticements of academia. She remained a Christian, but the focus of her life was not on the Lord, and Wyatt knew he couldn’t share his life with a woman who put career and personal ambition ahead of Christ. For awhile they stayed in touch, but Wyatt eventually stopped hearing from Ellen. He pursued his calling, and had graduated from seminary a year ago.

Prematurely balding, he was still quite handsome. Ellen had forgotten how handsome, or how much he had meant to her. When the pleasantries were over, she spoke quickly.

“I’m going to take you to meet someone. He’s in a state mental institution.”

“Okay.” Wyatt was used to taking situations at face value. “What’s my role?”

Ellen didn’t reply for a moment as they walked toward the parking lot. Oh, what the heck.

“He’s a time traveler.” Ellen looked at Wyatt, who nodded noncommittally.

“I mean real time travel. That’s the top secret project I’ve been working on. It seems everyone on the team except me has jumped back into the past. Benton was sent to 3rd century Persia, which wasn’t supposed to happen. So it took him years to get back to the future, and now he’s in a nuthouse, because when he got back he was a little…damaged. Anyhow, he might know some things that are valuable for us to know. Because it looks like one of the team members is…behaving irresponsibly.”

Wyatt said nothing, just kept walking.

“Sounds unbelievable, I know,” Ellen offered.

Wyatt still didn’t respond for a moment, then he stopped, drawing Ellen to a halt next to him.

“You’re messing around with time?”

He appeared to believe her.

“Yes,” Ellen responded.

Wyatt nodded and turned to walk the remaining 50 yards to his pickup truck. As they got in, he said, “I’ll believe you if you say you have found a mechanical or physical means of traveling to different times. But when you say one of your colleagues is acting irresponsibly, I hope you understand the eternal implications of the situation. You cannot change God’s plan.”

God’s plan. Ellen hadn’t given much thought to God’s plan recently, or her Christian faith. There was a time, when she first joined the Cassandra team, that she spent long hours thinking and praying about the correctness of time travel, its implications and her own motivation for getting involved in it. She hadn’t had those thoughts for a long time.

Unlike the rest of the team, Ellen wasn’t a physicist or mathematician. And unlike the others, her Christian faith featured prominently in her life. Ellen had chosen to become an anthropologist so she could understand cultures, learn why they functioned the way they did and why they differed on crucial issues like faith, human rights and social roles. She saw no conflict between her own religious views and her profession.

Most anthropologists, Ellen knew, were atheists, or uncommitted on the issues of a supreme being and innate human values. They felt this allowed them to assess varied cultures impartially. For Ellen, being a Christian gave her a focal point, a base from which to view the world.

But she was most interested in the societies and religions of the Middle East. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all sprang from a single tiny region. Ellen wanted to examine the forces and factors that shaped these religions in their primordial forms.

Ellen was not a romantic. She hated science fiction, had never seen a Star Wars movie and thought time travel was an impossible dream—until she read a paper published by Badri Singh in Scientific American. This was a few months before the Cassandra team was officially formed, and Badri was trying to drum up support and money for the project. In his article, Badri not only proposed that there really was a way to travel back in time, but also discussed the moral and sociological implications of doing so: he even suggested that a primary use of this nascent technology might be to visit 1^st century Jerusalem, because “we have to know the answer to the most important question ever posed. Faith is vital, but faith can be based on fact as well as belief. If you see a shooting star, you have faith it can happen again, because you’ve seen it happen once. And religious people increase their faith when they see the positive results of interacting with their God. They would call it being blessed.”

Badri’s article presented an intriguing concept: slowing the speed of light to almost zero. In their experiments, his team had succeeded in slowing a beam of light to 60 kilometers and hour. Ellen was amused by the concept of being able to drive her Toyota faster than the speed of light. Apparently, this was the key to time travel.

Ellen was familiar with the general theory of relativity. In one of her science classes she learned that if a person left the Earth moving at nearly the speed of light and returned one year later, they would find that much more time had elapsed on Earth while they’d been gone. But according to what little she knew, the faster an object traveled, the heavier it got. An object traveling at nearly the speed of light would be immensely heavy, and immensely difficult to propel. To travel back in time by going faster than light was impossible according to special relativity, and physically impossible according to basic physics.

But Badri’s research was based on a concept of time being looped, which was not contrary to the principles of general relativity. Just as space could be curved, in theory time could also be curved. In a curved time environment, time could become a loop, so that it would be possible not only to travel to another time, but to return to the initial starting point. Slowing the speed of light was the answer.

Ellen was intrigued enough by Badri Singh’s article to take one of his classes. When she learned that the Cassandra project would be based at the university, she felt compelled to drop by and have a look. At that point, the team was indeed slowing the speed of light in order to create anomalies in time, and having enough success to secure many millions of dollars in government research funding. As the CTC was being built down the street from Badri’s office, Ellen made the decision that this was where she was meant to be. The idea of including an anthropologist among the techies appealed to Badri. Over time, he came to see her as uniquely qualified to become a member of his special, secret team.

 

Wyatt and Ellen passed through the sliding glass doors into the stark and sterile reception area. A nurse checked their identities and smiled.

“He’s in Ward B. Just check in at the nurse’s station and an orderly will accompany you to the correct room.”

“Ward B?” Ellen said. “He was in Ward A last time.”

“He’s in the medical ward now,” the nurse replied, “with respiratory problems.”

Ellen and Wyatt were directed down two long hallways. A sullen orderly led them to a heavy door with a small window. Wyatt motioned for Ellen to go in first. She walked up next to the bed. Lying still, covered up to his chin by a clean white sheet, was the tormented body of Benton Scott. Because he was now in his 50’s, and his face was badly mutilated, Ellen found it easier to treat him as a different person—not the intense young genius who tried to coax her into bed, who was eager to give his heart to her.

His breathing was shallow and labored. Benton’s eyes flickered open, but he didn’t seem to recognize Ellen. He stared at her, without expressing any emotion.

Ellen tried to smile. Between her immense sadness about Benton’s fate and her dread of what the Cassandra project was wreaking in the world, she couldn’t manage one.

“Hello, Benton. It’s Ellen.”

The dry mouth croaked the words, “you came back.”

“Yes, I did. I need your help, Benton. Things are going crazy over at Cassandra. I think a lot of people are making jumps, but I’m not sure who. Definitely Badri, and probably Jeremy.”

“And James.”

Ellen bit her lip. She knew that Benton was obsessed with James, and blamed him for everything. It might be impossible after all these years to get him to think objectively about James.

“I’ve brought a friend, Benton. He didn’t know anything about the Cassandra project before today. But he knows about the ancient Near East, and about Christianity.”

Ellen needed more information from Benton—some clue as to which man was sabotaging Cassandra: Badri or James. Although Benton clearly blamed James, it might be possible to see behind his curtain of resentment and malice and spot a singular truth. Having another, impartial observer could help.

Benton looked at Wyatt and said nothing.

“Benton, it seems that the team members are taking up sides, either with Badri or James. I haven’t taken a side yet.”

He just stared at her. Ellen’s throat caught, because she suddenly wondered how much longer Benton would live.

“If I could know what went on before you made your jump, maybe I could piece together the chain of events.”

Benton began coughing, and didn’t stop for more than a minute, ultimately producing a wad of mucus, slippery, clear and thick. Ellen looked away. She wondered why she had come here, but forged ahead.

“Before you went on the jump and were sent to the wrong time, did you have any reason to suspect James?”

Benton’s milky eyes peered at her. He shook his head no.

“What about Badri?”

Again no.

“So how can you be sure that James deliberately changed the coordinates and sent you to the wrong time?”

Benton sighed, and closed his eyes. He didn’t speak for awhile. Then he opened his eyes and softly said, “I told you I found your body, didn’t I? I can’t remember.”

Ellen shivered.

“Yes, Benton. The last time I was here you said that. I…I didn’t really understand what that was all about.”

“Well let me tell you, young lady.”

It sounded so odd. This man, who was now decades older than her, just a few weeks ago was acting like a love-struck teenager. Now, when he called her young lady, it was like an elder addressing a child.

“I made it to Jerusalem eventually. I got a job in Damascus first, made enough money to get to Jerusalem, and eventually found the epistle site.”

He took a deep breath.

“At that time—ahem—at that time I wasn’t sure what had happened. I assumed that the decelerator didn’t work as planned—that this new contraption had flaws.”

He coughed again for half a minute. It seemed to sap his strength.

“Ohhhh. Ah. Okay. So anyhow, I wanted to get to the epistle site. I could leave a message and suggest a location for a loop intersection, then go there. If the decelerator was working properly, then there might already be something available for me, since you guys would have picked up my epistle from the third century, and maybe someone could get to Jerusalem in the first century, where we already had established coordinates, and maybe leave me a hint about where I could go to find a loop. But if Alternate Set were true, then I’d be toast.”

Wyatt was taking all this in, leaning silently against the door. Ellen remained motionless.

“I found your body, Ellen. It was at the epistle site. It was placed there deliberately.”

She didn’t respond.

“So, that confirmed that the decelerator worked. It looked like you’d been dead awhile. I’m no expert, but it looked like decades.

He glanced up at her. In his one good eye Ellen saw a trace of the young man she’d loved. He smiled slightly.

“I always liked to believe that you’d come back to rescue me. That kept me going for years when I was trying to manage a loop out of there. I at least wanted to avenge your death.”

This was getting too strange. Ellen straightened up.

“Benton, why would someone leave a body at the epistle site? It’s like leaving evidence at the scene of a crime. And why didn’t we find the body when we started looking at all the epistle sites?”

“Because someone went back and moved it.”

She shook her head. This angered Benton.

“Never mind. The bottom line is,” he hacked again, phlegm spilling onto his pillow, “that James did it. The first time he visited me here, he just seemed curious about me. That was a few years ago—I have no idea when. He was young, probably a post-grad student. But of course, he knew that he would eventually work on a time travel project that successfully sent me back in time, et cetera et cetera. But this was long before he knew you or any of the team. He had probably heard about Badri. Who knows.”

Benton was astonishingly lucid. Ellen marveled at his ability to clearly express the complex circumstances of years past. She expected that this was only a temporary window, and she wanted to make the most of it. But even though it was her death that Benton was recounting, Ellen was more eager to learn details about how James was able to manipulate the jumps.

“Benton,” she began.

But he was not through with his soliloquy. Benton coughed loudly, then continued, although he was obviously short of breath.

“So at that time he didn’t know you or that he killed you. I tried to attack him, and probably shouted something like ‘You killed Ellen!’

“I remember they pulled me off him. I wasn’t very mobile back then. Not much different than the pitiful hulk you see before you know. So I wasn’t really a threat to James.”

He cleared his throat.

“And my words wouldn’t have had any meaning to him. James was probably checking me out to determine whether I really needed to be part of the program. It was feasible that even though a deranged old man could show that he had been sent back in time, that didn’t mean they had to include me in the project. There is nothing inevitable about any of our circumstances; history does not have to repeat itself, ever.”

Benton paused, shifted and groaned.

“My guess is that James still doesn’t know he’s killed you. He comes back to this time space after each jump, and doesn’t know about the note he left by your body.”

“What!?”

“You know, I can’t do math anymore. Can’t even add. Like, what’s 7 times 7?”

Ellen just stared. Wyatt looked away.

“Fifty-four?” Benton guessed. “That part—the part that once made me special and valuable, is gone. And so is the rest of me.”

Benton sighed deeply, followed by a coughing fit.

Ellen felt like reaching out to touch him, to reassure Benton, but she didn’t move.

“Funny, huh?” he said after he had caught his breath. “That ability got me stuck here. James recognized that the math I was doing in the months before my jump was the missing link. But only he knew. Badri had directed me to pursue those calculations and give my findings to James. Badri never knew about the accuracy of the calculations, because James pretended that they actually weren’t worthwhile. Only when Badri came here—was it last month?—did he learn that I was sent to Persia by James. I guess that’s when James’s plans started unravelling and that’s why you’re here now. Oh, how pleased James must have been that only he knew how accurate the decelerator could be. He had to get rid of me, so he could use the decelerator as he wished, bouncing around time and coming back right where he started, or pretty close to it. I don’t know how long he was able to keep that a secret, or what he’s been doing with the knowledge I gave him. But I know he killed you and tried to kill me. And how many more, Ellen?”

“Benton, even if a body was left at an epistle site, you said it had been there for decades. How could you prove that James was responsible?”

Benton fixed her with a stare. One eye gazed opaquely and sightlessly across the room. The other zeroed in on her.

“I told you. He left a note, Ellen.”

Benton had grown tired from the exertion of talking. He turned away and refused to speak. Ellen tried various methods of engaging him: brief updates on who was siding with whom. Benton did not respond.

Wyatt began asking Benton simple questions about the time period he had been stuck in—how he was able to survive and exist in a strange and harsh world. Benton provided a few short sentences, then he eventually stopped answering those questions, too, and began getting combative. Ellen tried one more time, gently asking Benton how he was able to find a loop back to the 20th century.

“I’m a mathematician, all right? It took me 7 years to do it. I spent 7 years living as a stranger in a world I hated, doing calculations in the dirt, on old sheep hides and in my head. Then I come back, and within a few weeks I’m in prison, and then in the loony bin.

And James is still loose. I wish I’d died, Ellen. Died that very first night.”

He turned away and refused to speak. Eventually they left him, curled up on his bed, coughing quietly.

 

“So what do you think?”

It took more than a minute for Wyatt to respond.

“I can tell you one thing. He’s definitely not crazy.”

Wyatt looked up to see Ellen’s mouth tighten. He wasn’t sure why this information would make her tense, but he continued.

“I’ve only spent an hour with Benton, but I do have lots of experience with the mentally ill, and people who exist on the fringes of society. For a man who has been institutionalized for many years, he is coherent, his thought patterns are logical, and he shows no underlying symptoms of psychosis.”

Ellen leaned back in her chair, bumping the small table and sending the coffee in their cups into a mild swirl.

“Certainly he has experienced trauma, both physical and mental. His symptoms are similar to anyone who has experienced post-traumatic stress disorder. But to get to the point, Ellen, it seems possible that this is the same man who existed as a twenty-something mathematician just a few weeks ago. I am willing to believe that. I mean, how else could a 50-year old man who’s been locked up for 20 years be able to describe with such accuracy events that took place a few weeks ago in your university?”

Wyatt was speaking for his own benefit, talking it out.

“So I am willing to accept this whole time travel scenario. And his descriptions of that time and the people are so vivid, so compelling. Of course,” he said, pacing, “he could be making it up, or have done lots of research on the subject. But how? He’s a crazy middle-aged man, locked inside a nut house. Some of the information he has shared has just now come to light. In the last few months, I mean. There is no way a man in his position could know that. And other than you and Dr. Singh, the asylum’s records indicate his last visitor came by more than four years ago.”

Ellen put her hand on Wyatt’s arm.

“I really want to thank you for taking the time to see Benton with me, Wyatt. I’m, I’m in way over my head. When I got into this project it seemed like it was a daring new frontier of science, like the first test pilots who tried to break the sound barrier. But those were controlled experiments, carried out with planning and supervision. Now,” she shook her head, “now I’m involved in a situation where no one is sure what is happening, or who is in control. And people are getting harmed. Like Benton.”

Wyatt watched her grapple with the weight of her dilemma.

“I suspect more people might get harmed. I’m not sure how this will unfold. I know someone has to stop it. The big question is: who do I believe?”

Ellen thought about calling Badri before she got on the plane, but decided against it. Although she now felt that Badri was not a traitor to the program, there were still too many unanswered questions. Was James really up to something sinister? Had the tight bond of the team broken down so completely that individuals were making jumps as they pleased, and for personal gain? Was there a murderer among them?

The best thing to do was to get back to the university, assess the situation, then talk to Badri.

 

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

 

When campus security arrived at Badri Singh’s office, they found a note tacked to the door.

GONE TO 1^ST CENTURY. BACK AFTER LUNCH

 

The three men gathered outside the door read the hand-lettered sign with folded arms.

“Very funny,” the sergeant said. “Okay, open it up.”

One of the officers had a fistful of keys. He extracted one and inserted it in the lock. The door didn’t budge. He tried another. Then his colleagues took several turns trying the keys, emitting various epithets as they labored to open the door. Finally, the sergeant took his walkie-talkie and spoke into it. From their hiding place on the floor above, Badri and Ken could not hear what he said. They peered out from behind a granite column next to the stairwell. Eventually the team of officers walked over to the elevator and got in.

“They won’t be gone long,” Badri said. “The chancellor will give permission to break down the door. This just buys us a little time.”

They walked down the stairs to Badri’s office. The physicist took out a key and quickly unlocked the door.

The office was quiet and dark. The curtains were drawn and only the computer monitor emitted light.

“Sit down.”

Badri motioned to the couch, and Ken plopped into the middle of it.  Ken recognized that his initial dreams of fame and glory had been shattered in the confusing struggle and combat of competing wills. Ken had chosen to follow Badri, and he would see this thing through. He did not expect it to end well, but Ken was willing to accept the consequences.

Badri settled into an over-stuffed chair opposite Ken.

“Okay. We know there have been a total of how many jumps?”

Seventeen,” Ken replied.

Badri shook his head. “I cannot believe it. Ten would have been astonishing.”

Badri was playing catch-up, trying to assess what had already taken place, and what might happen next.

“Based on mass, who’s done the jumping?”

Ken checked his notes.

“Benton once. Jeremy five times. I’m guessing Antoine once, based on the date and mass. You, once.”

“And James, nine times.”

They looked at each other.

“The man they said was too chicken to step inside a decelerator.”

Badri exhaled in a long gust.

“Thanks for helping me check the data. I know it was a lot of work. But hopefully in the process you have come to believe what I’ve been telling you.”

“Well, a lot of people have been jumping for quite a long time, that’s for sure,” Ken said. “And it looks like James was the first one. He probably figured that no one was going to check on how often the decelerator was used, since this was all supposed to be so controlled and regimented.”

“Yes,” Badri said. “Only when his colleagues began to suspect that things weren’t right would they begin to look for evidence of previous jumps. And by that time, James anticipated that it wouldn’t matter. I think he was right.”

“So James made the first jump,” Ken said, looking at his notes. “Jeremy must have helped him.” He looked up at Badri. “Then Benton took the first ‘official’ jump. I don’t understand why James would have gotten rid of Benton so early. Benton’s work would have been valuable to James as we started compiling results from the jumps.”

“Indeed. But James needed to get rid of Benton as a first step. James realized from Benton’s calculations over the past few months that the accuracy of the decelerator could be made very precise. He quickly moved Benton on to other calculations to hide this fact. If Benton had been allowed to return to the calculations, he would have made this fact known to others. When only James knew the truth, he could use it to his benefit.”

Badri looked carefully at the young scientist who sat sprawled on the sofa. He looked like an average nerd, perhaps cooler than most and with a better dress sense.

“Are you still talking to Antoine?”

“No”, Ken said. “He’s bought into the theory of opposing camps, and James has convinced him that you are the bad guy. So right now it’s you and me against James, Jeremy and Antoine. I don’t think Ellen has joined them, but she sure ain’t on our side yet. I talked with her yesterday, and she’s not ready to believe anyone.”

Badri’s head ached. He needed sleep, but there would be none tonight. He checked the computer. The calculations were finished. He printed them out, just to be sure he had a copy if the campus police (or real police) came by in the next few minutes. He would make no attempt to take or erase the hard drive. Maybe one day other scientists could use it to learn what caused the destruction of the Cassandra project.

“Let’s get out of here.”

 

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

James and Jeremy sat quietly for awhile, watching the pedestrians move slowly down the Champs d‘ Elyesses. The clip clop of hooves reverberated on the pavement.  At length James spoke.

“How’s the Beaujolais?”

“Excellent.” Jeremy held his crystal glass gently between thumb and forefinger. He winked at a pretty young woman wearing a large sunhat. She blushed and turned away. “When does the Moulin Rouge open?”

“Not for another ten years, I’m afraid,” James responded, annoyed that his young colleague was unable to raise himself above carnal desires even when confronted with the majesty and profundity of time travel.

“Bummer,” Jeremy responded. His knee began jittering under the table. He turned to look at James, who was resplendent in a light gray morning coat, complete with waistcoat, pocket watch and fob, top hat and stick pin. “How long have you been here?”

“You mean in real time?”

Jeremy nodded, simultaneously taking the last gulp of wine.

James brushed a speck of lint from his sleeve. “Only a few days. I had to buy the flat on St. Germain, fix it up a bit, and get some clothes for you. I must admit, you looked like a refugee from a Shakespearean play when you turned up.”

James couldn’t help smiling at the memory of Jeremy appearing in a field in Orleans   dressed as a medieval lord.

Jeremy frowned. “Sorry, boss. You know carry-on baggage in the decelerator is a little limited.”

“Yes, I know, my friend. Don’t take it personally. You’ll need those garments when you return to the 13^th century to become master of all you survey. Although how you can abide those uncouth provincials is beyond me.”

James sipped his wine, then looked at Jeremy.

“You know what I noticed the most?” he mused, a quizzical smile flickering on his lips. “The ancient world is so boring. Seriously.”

James leaned forward. “There is nothing to do. At least by the 15^th century there were books available, and a certain amount of music. But 1,000 years ago? Nothing. No books.  And nothing I’d call music. Just storytelling.”

He shrugged. “Some of which I have to admit was pretty good. But for God’s sake, you can’t listen to storytellers every night.”

He shook his head. “Every night! There was nothing whatsoever to do. Talk to some peasants, who think the world is flat and angels live on those shiny lights in the sky?”

James turned to Jeremy, leaning in. “No thank you, m’boy. I learned a valuable lesson. Anything prior to the 1600’s is out of bounds for me. I can’t spend time among superstitious morons.”

Jeremy smiled drowsily. He’d had plenty of wine.

“Yeah, I’d have to agree. But I think you’d have to agree that it’s more fun visiting cultures that haven’t…how shall we say it…been encumbered by the sticky issues of human rights, democracy—things like that.”

Jeremy hefted himself to a slightly more upright position.

“It is so much easier dealing with institutions that have absolute power, and the ability to determine the fate of every individual without constraint. You know what I mean. Power speaks to power. If one has money and prestige, one can accomplish many things.”

“Oh yes, oh yes,” James replied. “I can see you’re adapting to the climate. But first you’ll need to help me make another jump back at Cassandra.”

“No problem, boss. You give me the numbers and I’ll make sure you get where you’re going.”   “That’s my boy.”    James planned to set more loops so he would be able to travel between epochs without having to return to 2009 each time. Jeremy’s loop from 13^th century Hungary to 19^th century Paris had confirmed the practicality of the endeavor. James would need to spend some time on the calculations—a pity Benton wasn’t still available; he would have been so helpful in this area, but sacrifices had to be made—but then James should soon be able to bounce between pre-selected epochs at will. At that point, when Dr. Mellon learned that Badri’s team had been making unauthorized jumps, it would have no impact on James’s plans.

He smiled, as Jeremy chattered about something inconsequential. Before them lay the City of Light in its prime. Although James had far greater purposes than mere time tourism, he was still moved by the scenes he was able to witness.

“…and they never even questioned my credentials. How could they? It would have taken 3 months to travel to Milan to confirm what I told them. So…”

James hid his contempt as Jeremy rattled on. That someone so intelligent could have such a mundane worldview was a source of aggravation to James. Fortunately, he would not have to put up with Jeremy much longer. He had a new assistant now, one with much more decorum and sensibility. Jeremy was now disposable.

The Jubilee Machine Pt. V

 

Antoine had a lot of thinking to do. He was already complicit in deceiving the federal government and obstructing congressional oversight merely by being part of Badri’s team, a team that had been consistently undertaking a multitude of unauthorized activities.

That was a risk that all the team members had willingly accepted, given the reward that was on offer: each of them would have the opportunity to transcend the bonds of time. Definitely worth it. But now a series of unsettling developments cast an unexpected shadow on their clandestine project.

James had texted Antoine, asking him to take part in a secret mission. Those were the exact words James had used: secret mission.  Jeez. This thing was becoming more and more like a bad science fiction movie, Antoine thought. James had offered few details, and he hadn’t been answering his phone, which was extremely unlike him. Antoine wasn’t sure what to make of all this. He wanted to talk to Ken, even though James had warned him pointedly not to speak to anyone about this mission—an endeavor that James equated with life and death. Another B movie phrase.

Antoine walked down University Boulevard, shoulders hunched against the autumn chill. He tried to place James’ strange request in context. Antoine reviewed the chain of events. He had been the second person to join the team, being tapped just a few weeks after Jeremy. Then came Ken and finally Ellen. Benton had been in the shadows, doing some math stuff for Badri, but he hadn’t been considered a time traveler until just before Ellen had signed on. Badri viewed Benton as support staff: someone who could provide analysis and solutions. If abnormalities were identified, or –God forbid—a jump failed, Benton had the genius and flexibility to interpret the data and respond effectively. And if anyone had the ability to get someone back from the past if something went wrong, it was Benton.

James became increasingly adamant that Benton should be one of the jumpers, if he could acquire all the language and cultural training that the others had mastered. Benton made it clear that if he didn’t get a chance to jump, then he wouldn’t stick around very long. So Badri gave in. Antoine had been impressed by how hard Benton worked on his preparation. Each team member had to undergo rigorous survival training, learn several archaic languages, become an expert on ancient culture and perfect their abilities to travel by the stars. Benton had won his place on the team, and the respect of his colleagues.

Now he was gone, and so, apparently, was Badri. In his text message, James informed Antoine that someone had helped Badri use the decelerator within the last 24 hours. James had discovered it, and the tracking data confirmed that someone of Badri’s mass had been kicked into the past.

Antoine had never trusted Badri. He knew about the epistle that had been found in Jerusalem. Jeremy had told him about it, but then the news was quickly hushed up. When Antoine asked Badri, he had dismissed the idea that an epistle had been discovered, and laughed at the suggestion that he had been the one who left it. James had also denied knowledge of the find, and later Jeremy refused to discuss it.

“I don’t want to talk about it, man,” he said when a puzzled Antoine returned to him after receiving only denials from the bosses. “It’s ancient history, ha ha ha”.

Antoine wondered how many jumps Badri might have taken. He had been inexplicably absent on the day that Benton made his historic jump. Was that because Badri was in another time space? Antoine developed the theory that Badri had planted the Jerusalem epistle because he wasn’t sure he would find a loop back, and wanted to leave a record of his successful jump for posterity. Then, after he returned safely to the present, Badri tried to cover up his secret incursion into the past. Now he was gone again. That was not cool. As project director he had to uphold the rules or anarchy would quickly ensue. But who had helped him make the jump? Antoine was guessing Ellen. James and Antoine knew about Badri’s jumps—maybe Jeremy, too? In that case, everyone on the team was either involved in this deception, or aware of it, except Ken.

Antoine continued walking until he reached Martha’s Café. It had just started to rain when he stepped into the nearly empty restaurant. Ken was already sitting at a booth in the back.

Antoine and Ken had ended up becoming friends by default. Ellen and Benton had become lovers; Jeremy was busy brown-nosing James and Badri was unapproachable. That left the two of them. Fortunately, they got along well, despite the huge disparity in their backgrounds. Antoine was Southside Chicago, devout Baptist parents, his life scarred by gangs, anger, resentment, making it out through tenacity and ultimately a scholarship to the University of Chicago.

Ken was blueblood Boston, Martha’s Vineyard every summer, prep school, yacht racing, fraternities and MIT.

Two completely different men. Two individuals fixated on the same idea: slowing the speed of light to a near-standstill, thus creating the possibility of time travel. They had joined the Cassandra Project at the same time nearly a year ago. Each young scientist had been approached separately by Badri with vague intimations that maybe a small group was going to risk some unauthorized tests before the project was fully functional. They jumped at the chance.

Now here they were, waiting their turns to visit the past. The team members hadn’t been together as a group since the day Benton jumped. But they would be gathering again soon. Jeremy had been selected to make the next jump; he had the inside track because of his relationship with James.

“Sycophancy pays, man,” Antoine remarked scornfully as they sat in Martha’s watching the rain pour down outside.

Ken nodded, sipping his latte.

“I can’t believe we have to deal with that basic kind of politics when we’re involved in changing the entire world—revolutionizing history, and maybe everything in the universe…”

“Not to be too hyperbolic,” Ken interjected.

“I’m serious, man. Jeremy just wants to weasel his way in ahead of everyone else.”

“Then he’s attaching himself to the wrong person, Antoine. James doesn’t call the shots, and he doesn’t have a clear plan for the project. He’s a dabbler, a dilettante.”

“No way,” Antoine said. “Without James we’d still be creating research committees to discuss parameters for curved time displacement.” He wanted to tell Ken about James’ unsettling request but he needed to wait for the right moment.

Ken smiled. The rain had stopped falling on the other side of the window. He looked out onto the gray boulevard.

“You’re right, James has the political wiles to get things moving. But you’ll have to agree that’s not what ultimately counts. What counts is getting people to destinations in the past, and getting information back. Badri is still in control, Antoine.”

Antoine quickly assessed how to respond to that assertion.

“I guess you’re right. I’ve heard that maybe Badri’s made a secret jump of his own. But of course, he’d need a confederate, someone to handle the controls.”

He waited for Ken to respond. Instead, Ken raised his hand, signaling the waiter.

“No thoughts on the matter?” Antoine asked him.

Ken took the check from the waiter’s hand, looked at it briefly, then dropped a twenty on the Formica table top. He grabbed his backpack and stood up, all the while looking Antoine straight in the eye.

“None at all.”

He left Antoine sitting alone, as the rain started to fall once more.

Antoine watched as Ken walked quickly out of sight, hunched over against the rain.  Knowingly or not, his friend had just made Antoine’s decision much easier. If alliances were forming, Antoine would be comfortable choosing James over Badri. He reached for his cell phone.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

“It’s nice they leave the system running for us, don’t you think? Twenty-four hour service.”

“Quite convenient, yes.”

Jeremy took his place inside the decelerator, heart thumping. Now it was his turn, his chance to change the world.

The whirring started, and Jeremy inched onto the platform. He felt the steel launcher press against his back. He wrapped his arms around his legs, squeezing himself as small as he could get.

“Ready!” he shouted.

Ooh, Jeremy. Get ready for the time of your life. Europe is about to get a new emperor.

He suddenly felt sick. The pressure was like G-forces, gripping his internal organs. Jeremy winced, then gasped as a pain shot through his chest. He couldn’t open his eyes. Jeremy began to panic.

Maybe something’s gone wrong. Maybe he’s…double-crossed me.

Jeremy’s head throbbed and his ears roared. He couldn’t breathe.

Then he was gone.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Ellen couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. She could barely think.

Benton had been gone two weeks now, with no report. But what did that matter? She already knew what happened to him. Yes, he survived the very first time travel mission. Whoopee. Unlike the first astronauts, he would receive no tickertape parade, no hero’s welcome. Benton’s welcome was a padded cell and a couple of decades in a personal hell.

Now Badri was gone, and Ellen was sure that he’d also made a jump. There was no other logical explanation for his disappearance. Suddenly the close-knit team was splintering. Jeremy seemed to come and go at random: never where he should be, then suddenly showing up at the decelerator, ready to pitch in. Antoine was on edge. Ken was increasingly withdrawn.

Ellen couldn’t believe this was happening. She stumbled back from a solitary dinner late one night, after eating nothing, jumping at every little noise, running scenarios through her head that were increasingly paranoid and extreme.

Ellen fumbled for her keys as she walked down the short concrete path to her apartment. She should have gone to the store. There was no food, she was even running out of toilet paper. But Ellen sought only sleep and temporary escape from the anxiety and fear. Her lover had been brutalized and damaged, in the past and the present. The memory of Benton’s condition appalled her. And his words, “I found your body” haunted her.

She shivered in the cool night air, as she nudged the door open. She couldn’t get the images and the words out of her mind. Ellen tossed the keys on the table and reached for the light. Then she saw it.

The shape of a man. A large man, seated on her sofa, barely ten feet away. She gasped, clutching for the doorknob.

“Ellen. Don’t be afraid. It’s me.”

Her confused mind told her it was Benton, somehow freed and sitting in her home. But that wasn’t possible. And the voice wasn’t Benton’s.

“Ellen, I’m sorry to frighten you.”

“Badri.”

“Yes. I had to see you, and I had to do it clandestinely.” Badri remained seated on the sofa, but she could begin to make out details of his face.

“Why? Where have you been? James and Ken have been covering for you, but folks over at Cassandra are starting to wonder what we’re up to.”

Badri remained motionless across the room. Ellen flipped on the light. Badri glanced down until his eyes grew accustomed to the brightness. He was dressed as he normally would be for a day at the office: slacks and dress shirt.

Ellen had much more she could say to Badri, but she wanted to see what he was willing to reveal. Antoine had implied that Badri had already made a jump. “The old man’s not as overweight as we thought,” was one of the expressions he used. Ken was acting strangely, so Ellen assumed he also knew a secret that he wasn’t willing to share. On top of that, during one of his random visits to the decelerator, Jeremy had told Ellen about the epistle that had been found in Jerusalem. He wouldn’t give details, but the little he said confirmed its authenticity. Badri’s team had hired a group of archaeologists to do the digging for them once they chose a site for the epistle. It was a place that James knew about, a few miles from the Old City. All excavations in Jerusalem had to receive government permission, so James had cleverly selected a site that was already part of a dig by researchers from Tel Aviv. According to their plan, if any of the jumpers had made it to Jerusalem, then they would leave a simple pottery shard with a code written in Aramaic carved into the pottery. To any archaeologist the series of words would look like alphabet soup—an unintelligible assortment of random letters. But to anyone who knew the code, the otherwise unimpressive piece of pottery would hold clues about date, circumstance and the identity of the jumper.

The fact that an epistle had been found was confirmation that the decelerator worked. But Ellen already had proof of that from her meeting with Benton. The question now was: who left the epistle in Jerusalem? Jeremy wouldn’t say, which only increased the atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust on the team.

“I’ve made a jump, Ellen,” Badri said matter-of-factly. “I just got back.”

The meaning of that statement hit Ellen like a sledgehammer, and she crumpled into a chair next to the door. The decelerator shouldn’t have that level of precision. There was no way anyone could find a return loop that would bring them back anywhere near the place and time they had left from.

“That shouldn’t be possible,” Ellen stated. “You couldn’t just leave yesterday and come back today.”

“Actually, I left three days ago. I was gone for several weeks, but the loop placed me back here a few hours ago.”

“Not possible, Badri.”

“I am not asking for your scientific acceptance, Ellen. I am here to seek your help.”

That surprised her. Badri Singh always had the answers, the way out of problems. He was kind and gentle, but supremely confident in his ability. He didn’t need the help of a post-grad anthropology student.

“Where did you go?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Who helped you?”

“That’s not important.”

“Damn it, Badri!” Ellen exploded. The pain and shock of the past few days erupted from her.

“Either talk straight or get out! Don’t come around breaking into my house, hiding in the dark, then asking for help while not telling me anything about what’s going on and claiming you’ve done the impossible! Unlike the rest of you, I can actually live without this cursed project. I can exist if you walk out the door and don’t tell me another thing. I can quit right now and go home. So either be straight or say goodbye.”

Tears started to form and her breath caught. Ellen glared at Badri and he lowered his head, looking at the floor for several seconds before turning his eyes up to capture Ellen’s gaze.

“Then so be it, Ellen. The project is over, anyhow. The worst has happened. Forget any ideas that we will all politely take turns making research jumps into the past, then report our findings like good little scientists. Ellen, that scenario is long gone, destroyed. So, if you choose to leave the project, I suggest you do so immediately. The real issue is whether we are able to interfere with the plans of some people who want to use the CTC for their own personal, corrupt purposes.”

“Why did you make a jump, Badri, and why didn’t you tell anyone about it?”

Badri slowly rose from his chair, keeping his eyes on Ellen.

“I made the jump because I had to. At that point I thought I could control the damage, interdict those responsible for the damage and keep this project alive. But I know now that it’s too late.

“And what do you want me to do?”

Badri was several feet away from Ellen, but he loomed large over her. He seemed dangerous.

“I need to stop James. And I need someone I can trust.”

Ellen stood up, uneasy about sitting while Badri stood menacingly above her.

“So do I, Badri. Word around the team is that you are the one who hasn’t been open about your actions. James isn’t the one making unexpected jumps—disappearing without telling anyone why. And let me ask you this: why was Benton sent to Palestine instead of Egypt, as planned?”

Badri’s face fell. He didn’t answer.

“The lying started there, Badri, even before anyone made a jump. We always planned for Second Dynasty Egypt to be the first jump. But Benton himself told me he’d agreed with you and James to change the coordinates the day before he jumped. He blames James for sending him to the wrong century, but I’m not sure I believe that. Who gave the coordinates to James, Badri, and why weren’t you there on the glorious day we sent Benton back in time?”

Badri seemed deflated, no longer threatening.

“Benton’s correct, Ellen. We did intend to send him to Palestine. It was James’s idea. He…”

“He made you do it, huh? You’re the project manager, and your assistant has the power to suggest, ‘hey, why don’t we change our plans at the last minute, and not tell anyone?’

Then I find out about epistles suddenly appearing…” Ellen had entered a state of rage. “Aaagh! And you want my help! I can’t trust you, Badri! I can’t even look at you right now. She moved past him, and opened the door.

“Show me I’m wrong, explain why things have happened this way. But do it another day, Badri. I can’t talk to you anymore.”

Badri said nothing as he walked out the door.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

It was Antoine’s turn to run calculations at the decelerator. This was the work that ostensibly kept Badri’s team busy, and kept the Cassandra Project management from suspecting that they were occupied in other ways. Even though the numbers were no longer important, someone had to show up at the decelerator every night to cycle imaginary loops and record the outcomes, postulating what would happen if a water molecule were sent back 1000 years, or 900 or 700. Tonight it was Antoine’s turn. He went through the usual security protocols, waved to the elderly guard and flipped on the lights of the decelerator room.

“Hey, Bro.”

Antoine jumped. Hair raised on the back of his neck. Standing by the decelerator was Jeremy, smiling casually.

“Where have you been?” Antoine asked, as forcefully as he could.   “Oh, around. Mainly 13^th century France.”

He was so blatant that Antoine didn’t know how to respond. He was overwhelmed by Jeremy’s audacity.

“Nice place. I’ve grown a little attached to medieval France. I’m thinking of settling down there.”

Antoine’s anger surfaced and he felt like punching Jeremy in the face. Jeremy hadn’t been showing up for his scheduled stints at the decelerator, but had been appearing randomly on campus or in James’s office. The Cassandra team wouldn’t notice: they saw the young people in Badri’s team as interchangeable automatons. The physicists in the larger Cassandra team who seldom got near the decelerator were convinced that they were the ones who were making history. Dr. Mellon only seemed to notice if James or Badri didn’t attend one of his meetings; he was oblivious to the chaos that was being created in Badri’s team: Benton was gone, Jeremy came and went and Badri had taken jumps without explanation. The system had collapsed.

“This whole thing is a toy for you, is it?” Antoine demanded.

Jeremy leaned forward, and the smile left his lips.

“Get a clue, Antoine. The team no longer exists. It’s every man for himself. Any pretense that we are all working together to altruistically explore the boundaries of time travel has vanished. Vanished like Benton. It’s time for you to choose sides.”

Jeremy’s demeanor had completely changed. The wiry young man looked suddenly dangerous and cunning.

“You go with James, who offers you a vast menu from which to choose a lifetime of adventure and wonder, or you choose Badri, who is an egotistical killer who has been masquerading as a benevolent leader.”

Antoine stood up and closed the door. He ran a hand over his shaved head.

“What do you mean, killer?” he demanded.

Jeremy moved closer to Antoine. The control room was large, and intimacy was essential for a conversation like this one.

“Antoine, Badri deliberately sent Benton to the wrong time, when he made his ‘groundbreaking’ jump two weeks ago. He was trying to get rid of him.”

Two weeks. Had it only been two weeks since this had started? Already it had completely spun out of control—far worse than Antoine had even imagined. Antoine’s suspicions of Badri had been growing, but he had never considered Badri capable of murder. Deceit motivated by a thirst for personal glory, definitely. Sending a team member to perish in an ancient land didn’t seem possible, though. Jeremy continued.

“You can go visit Benton now, in a mental hospital in Illinois. He’s been there for years. Miraculous, really. The guy is a genius to be able to find, or create a loop, considering where he was sent. But he’s a physical and mental wreck, Antoine, and Badri is responsible.”

“Wait a minute. Badri wasn’t even in the decelerator room when Benton made the jump!”

Jeremy raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Yep. A little odd, wouldn’t you say—the project leader isn’t there when the historic first jump is made? He was covering his tracks, Antoine. James has been to see Benton, and Benton told him all about it. Turns out Badri has been using the decelerator longer than anyone expected…”

“Ken.” Antoine turned away from Jeremy, but he wasn’t looking at anything.

“You got it,” Jeremy replied. “Maybe Ellen, too. I don’t know. I have a feeling that Ken has only been helping Badri since Benton jumped. Could have been Ellen before that. Doesn’t matter.”

Jeremy bent toward Antoine with a look of grave sincerity.

“It really doesn’t matter, Antoine. As soon as James saw what was going on, he threw away the rule book. I sent James on a jump, with the quid pro quo that he’d do the same for me. Worked out just fine, my friend. I got very close to my destination on the first jump. You’d be amazed at the level of accuracy. That’s another thing Badri kept from us. Wasn’t he always saying that we could end up decades away from where we wanted to go, and hundreds of miles? Forget it! I was right around the friggin’ corner!

“I got back two days after I left, Antoine. Two days. That’s unbelievable. No one thought that was possible. But it is, Antoine. It is.”

Jeremy waited to gauge Antoine’s response, but the young man only stood silently and shook his head. It was time for Jeremy to close the deal.

“Look. We could use someone else’s help in setting jumps, and you deserve an opportunity to share the wealth. This thing is falling apart. The Cassandra people may be fuzzy-brained idiots, but they’re eventually going to figure out that we’re all disappearing at random times, and in Benton’s case, disappearing forever. Maybe me, too. I might just stay in the past. Anyhow, Badri can’t pull this thing off. James wants him to be punished for what he did to Benton, so he’s notified the Select Committee.”

Antoine gasped. Jeremy nodded.

“So you see, my friend, it will be over soon, one way or another. If you want to make a jump before the university or the feds pull the plug, you’ll have to do it now. There’s no time like the present.”

Jeremy couldn’t help himself. He burst into laughter at his own joke.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Benton was strong enough now to hobble along next to the cart. The merchant Keshdah gave him enough food, although it was mainly tasteless or rotted or cold. But at least he was out of prison, and not being tortured.

Benton stumbled along beside the cart for hours, legs and back aching. Although he was out of prison, Benton was still in hell. He was a slave in a distant time in a strange land. He had lost all hope, and his will had been nearly destroyed. The horror of his last few weeks had shattered him. Now all he had to look forward to was a life as a slave in foreign households with no chance of reaching the things he loved, to return home.

Suddenly the cart stopped. Keshdah climbed stiffly from the seat and lowered himself to the ground. The camel drivers reined in their animals and waited for instructions. Keshdah spoke to them in Aramaic. Benton could understand a few words, but the accent was so strange to him, and the words came so fast, that he could only comprehend a small portion of what Keshdah said. But he heard the words ‘food’ and ‘rest’ clearly.

The camel drivers herded their beasts over to a row of date trees, and Keshdah hitched up his belt.

“You can sit there,” he said in Greek, pointing to a bench outside a mud brick building.

“I’ll send some food out to you when I’m ready.”

Keshdah walked into the building, which Benton took to be an inn of some sort. He lowered himself to the ground, in pain. Benton leaned against the wall, partly shaded from the bitter sun by a small awning. He closed his eyes, and slept immediately.

He was awakened by a stick poking his face. Benton jerked away instinctively. The prodding stopped. Keshdah stood above him. Benton had been dreaming about Ellen, in a dream that was so real and sweet, that the shock of returning to his waking nightmare sent waves of despair through his body. He stared mutely at Keshdah.

“Here’s some bread,” the fat trader said, tossing half a loaf to Badri. “You can eat it while we walk. I need to reach Nineveh by nightfall.”

Nineveh. Benton knew the name. It was in Iraq, in 21^st century geopolitics, across the river from Mosul. In this time space, it was just outside the boundaries of the Roman empire, part of Parthia. Keshdah was headed west.

The cart started moving and Benton followed along as they took to the dusty, uneven road.

They were getting closer to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem Benton had a chance to find a loop and gain release from this anguish. Suddenly, he had a small reed of hope to grasp for.

“And after Nineveh?” Benton asked.

Keshdah paused and decided whether he would answer the slave.

Keshdah was ultimately headed for the Mediterranean port of Tyre. In addition to trading silks to buyers representing Roman cities, Keshdah would see if his new slave might be worth something.

If indeed he was a Roman spy, then Keshdah could get a good reward for returning him to the safety of the empire. Or if his family was rich, Keshdah hoped to sell Benton back to them, or at least to a Greek merchant who needed a translator. Keshdah was willing to gamble that his new slave had been a man of some importance, and could fetch a decent price. He’d heard the stories that the odd interloper had been found carrying gold and strange implements sewn into his clothes. Perhaps he was a Roman spy, as the Persians suspected. In any case, Keshdah could probably make a penny off him. If not, he’d only cost 12 denarii. He could be killed if he proved to be worthless. The slave was unsuitable as a laborer. The Persians had wrecked him too badly.

“Where we are going is unimportant to you. You need only think about how you can best make me happy,” Keshdah said, then poked Benton again with his stick, hitched up his money belt and walked on ahead.

Three nights later, Keshdah allowed Benton to sleep by the oxcart, instead of with the oxen. He was far from the fire, but the weather was warming up now, and the nights were no longer bitterly cold. The traders slept in a semi-circle on the far side of the fire. The single guard sat on a large boulder about 20 yards beyond them, his back to Benton.

After a meal of old bread and olives, Benton attempted to get some sleep. It was always difficult for him to sleep comfortably, because his back and ribs had been severely damaged. He shifted on the ground, pulling his cloak tighter.

“Ow.” A pain shot through his spine. Benton finally succeeded in easing the pain by lying on his back. He looked up at a sky packed with stars. A shooting star briefly skidded from Perseus to Orion. He figured he was no more than four day’s journey from Damascus. When the caravan arrived there, he would likely be sold immediately—probably to another merchant or storekeeper who needed someone who could think and count. Benton shifted again.

Or he could make a break, find his way into Jerusalem and become a beggar at the Sheep Pool or one of the markets. Keshdah wouldn’t spend too much effort trying to track him down, so Benton wouldn’t have to hide indefinitely. He still had his mind; he could find some way to support himself in Jerusalem while he searched for the epistle site. Then he could leave a message telling his colleagues where he was.

Benton had convinced himself without much effort, and without any prior plan. He just decided.

Rolling over, Benton gazed at his fellow travelers, all now asleep as the fire burned low. The guard was slumped against the rock. No doubt he, too was falling asleep. Benton waited, glad that his body was so wracked with injuries. The pain kept him awake.

It took an hour, but the guard eventually leaned back against the rock, snoring softly.

Benton saw his chance. He silently crept around the oxcart, through the grass, and over a small hill. He ran as fast as he was able, not looking back, heading straight west. He knew exactly where he was going.

 

 

 

 

The Jubilee Machine, Pt. IV

 

The door swung open. Ellen swallowed hard and stepped inside. She wasn’t prepared for what she saw. The figure crumpled on the cot wasn’t recognizable as Benton Scott. One of his ears was missing, his head seemed misshapen and scars were visible on his hairless skull. The figure turned his head toward her, eyes mute and lifeless.

Ellen stood in the doorway for a moment, the guard a few feet behind her, hand on his baton.

“Hello, Benton. I’m Ellen. Ellen Garzio. Do you remember me?”

The man turned his head to stare at the wall. Silence.

Ellen waited more than a minute before she spoke again.

“Benton, Badri Singh asked me to see you.”

The crumpled figure spasmed involuntarily. Ellen tensed. The guard stepped forward slightly. But Benton didn’t look up. Ellen edged into the room, speaking softly.

“He told me that you…”

“James is going to kill you,” Benton interrupted. He spoke in a hoarse whisper.

Ellen had been warned by the doctors that Benton suffered from severe paranoid delusions. She wondered if she’d get anything useful from him at all. She decided to indulge Benton initially and see where that led.

“Why do you say that, Benton?” Ellen asked softly as she lowered herself onto a bench along the opposite wall. Benton didn’t respond for several seconds, then he sighed and turned over onto his back. Ellen could clearly see his ravaged face. A long, irregular scar ran from his left cheek to the corner of his mouth. One of Benton’s eyes was lifeless, the lid half-closed and battered. Benton’s face was red and pockmarked. The young, cool mathematician who had invited her to raves was unrecognizable. Benton Scott was gone, replaced by a brutalized figure with shaven head and pummeled features. He looked at Ellen with his one good eye. She shivered involuntarily.

“What year is it?” he asked. She hadn’t expected this question.

“2009,” she replied evenly.

“Sorry,” he said hoarsely, “I lose track sometimes.”

Benton heaved himself upright, groaning loudly. “Doesn’t matter. He’s prepared for all this. He told you I’d say something like that, didn’t he? Warned you that crazy old Benton will spout nonsense about conspiracies and treachery.” It appeared that Benton was trying to smile. He had no teeth.

“I haven’t spoken to James, Benton. Badri told me you had been through a lot, that your health was bad,” she responded with a portion of the truth.

Benton coughed. Then he seemed distracted by a thought.

“Have I left yet?” he asked. Ellen knew what he meant.

“About two weeks ago.”

“When did Badri tell you I was here?”

“Benton, he’s not hiding anythi…”

“WHEN DID HE TELL YOU?” Benton roared.

The guard, who had been following the conversation intently, jumped. Ellen was jolted by the outburst, flattened against the hard rubber wall. The guard advanced from the doorway, but Ellen lifted her hand, eyes trained on Benton’s face. He was glaring at her, breathing heavily.

“Just a few days ago. About ten days after he came to see you.”

“Ten days,” Benton repeated. He sighed. “You know, I came back 18 years ago. Saw James as a boy. Then they threw me in here. James came to visit about…oh…I guess five years ago. Been here a few times.”

Ellen had checked with the hospital. James McPherson had never visited Benton, not once.  Nor had anyone from the Cassandra project before Badri’s visit.

“Only he didn’t use the name McPherson.”

Benton and Ellen leaned toward each other. “’Course, I didn’t know he was using an alias. And I didn’t help my cause much by trying to rip his head off the first time I saw him.”

Benton groaned and shifted. Ellen realized he was trying to sit up straight, but his body was so bent that he could barely uncoil his crumpled frame.

“Ellen, I’ll spare you the details. James has covered his tracks quite well, and he’s willing to do anything to carry out his plans.”

He saw her twitch slightly. “Yes, James is designing his own little world, defining the future. But unless you take action, there’s no future for you. James will kill you, Ellen. You’ve got to kill him first. It’s the only way.”

Ellen tried to remain calm. She had to remember that Benton had been through hell. It was natural that over the years he might come to blame James for what went wrong. James had been at the controls when Benton made his jump. The man who came to visit? She’d check into that.

The wretched old man was staring at her, and Ellen’s discomfort increased. She was about to ask him about Persia, when he blurted out, “Did you wear the necklace just for me?”

“What?”

Benton grimaced. Which facial expression he was attempting was unclear.

“The necklace I gave you. Did you wear it today to be nice?”

Ellen’s hand went to her neck. She had forgotten she was wearing it. And she’d forgotten that she was talking to the same man who had given it to her just a month ago. But in his reality, nearly 20 years had passed since that act of kindness.

“No, actually, I always wear it.”

She could see that Benton was crying. Long streaks emerged from his eyes. She swallowed.

“You were wearing that when I found you.” At first Ellen didn’t understand what he meant.

“Please, Ellen. These are not experiments you’re involved in. It is evil. Pure evil. James has his own plans, and none of you have any idea. Please, you must stop him.”

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Chester Mellon was not a man to be trifled with. A former NASA project manager, he expected accountability, precision and obedience from his staff. Mellon had accepted that James and Badri would be off in their own world of theoretical calculations without strict oversight. As long as they filed their weekly reports, he was willing to allow them far more freedom than the rest of the Cassandra team. But when they started missing reports, then the lenience ended. Mellon would not tolerate disobedience.

“Where is he?” Dr. Mellon asked, arms folded and feet planted in the doorway of Badri Singh’s office.

“He just had to run home, sir. Some kind of emergency. He didn’t tell me what it was, but Badri said he’d be back by 7pm when we begin the next round of slowdowns on the decelerator.”

Ken knew that Dr. Mellon couldn’t be at the decelerator at 7pm, because he needed to fly to Washington for a late inter-departmental meeting. He also knew that Mellon would not accept that excuse.

“Why isn’t he answering his cell phone? All staff are required to be available 24/7. Dr. Singh more than anyone else is aware of that requirement, and the need that it be strictly enforced.”

Chester Mellon’s face was growing ominously stormy. Ken moved a step back.

“Of course he is, sir. I’m afraid though, that…” he paused uncomfortably. “Um, well, he forgot his phone.”

Ken gestured to the small cell phone lying in the middle of Badri Singh’s desk. Mellon’s jaw clenched, but before he could say or do anything, Ken reached quickly for a manila envelope lying next to the phone.

“He was in such a hurry, he must have forgotten it,” he explained, simultaneously extending the envelope toward the granite frame of Chester Mellon. “But before he left, Badri made sure to instruct me to give you the weekly report. That was foremost in his mind, because he knew it was a day late.”

Ken’s arm was extended, a solicitous smile on his guileless face. Mellon did not extend his. The muscles on either side of his jaw flexed and contracted. The envelope remained in mid-air.

“Two days late,” he corrected sternly. Mellon grabbed the envelope and turned to leave. “I will leave another message with Dr. Singh requiring him to call me immediately. When you see him, you make sure he does so.”

Ken nodded emphatically.

“I’ll tell him tonight when I see him, sir. He won’t keep you waiting.”

But Mellon had already marched down the hallway. His steps echoed for several seconds, then disappeared. Ken slumped onto the desktop.

Oh, man, Badri. Benton’s been gone for weeks with no trace. Now you’re gone.

He straightened up, and picked up his cell phone from the desk.

“Badri, I don’t know what you’re up to, but it ain’t good. You are a few hours away from destroying everything we’ve been working for. I hope it’s worth it.”

 

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Jordan had Nine Inch Nails blasting out of the speakers, so he didn’t hear the stranger enter his room. For a few moments, the man remained motionless. Then he reached inside his coat and withdrew a semi-automatic handgun and folded his arms.

Jordan looked up from his book and saw the man standing in his dorm room, arms crossed, gun plainly visible. He looked like a businessman, conservatively dressed. Jordan thought he recognized him, but he couldn’t remember where they’d met.

“Jordan, you’ve been very unkind to your roommate. This is unacceptable.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Who are you?”

The stranger didn’t answer. Instead he leaned over slightly and turned up the volume on the stereo. Anguished howls, crunching guitars and pounding drums filled the room.

“It’s time you learned some manners, Jordan,” the man called above the din.

He pulled the trigger, and a hollow point .45 slammed into Jordan’s chest, tore through his left aorta, mushroomed and splintered, coming to a rest just under his left shoulder blade. Jordan winced, then looked down at his chest, where a rivulet of blood was already staining his white T-Shirt.

“Let this be a lesson to you. Never mistreat those whom you consider unusual or unfashionable.”

Jordan’s eyes were wide, but already they were unseeing. He sat slumped against the well-worn corduroy couch, bleeding, dying and quiet.

The stranger calmly returned the pistol to his pocket. He turned off the stereo. The sudden absence of grinding industrial rock left a sonic void in the room.

“I never did like that group”, he said, opening the door just enough to slip through.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

James McPherson wasn’t in a good mood. He’d been forced to spend extra time with Dr. Mellon and the CTC group for the past two days, covering for Badri and pretending he cared about the group’s meaningless research. Sometimes it was all he could do to prevent himself from bursting out in laughter as the somber scientists earnestly discussed their plans to use the decelerator to move a molecule a few seconds into the past, maybe as soon as the following month.

You fools. You pathetic fools.

“Are you sure you’re ready for it?” he asked Dr. Mellon, straight-faced.

The somber scientist nodded slowly. “Yes, James. The variances are within tolerable limits, and we are consistently able to get the speed of light down to 70-80 kph.”

James brightened and looked at the faces around the table. “I’m very proud of you all. I’ll tell Badri the exciting news tonight. And I’m sure when Benton Scott gets back he’ll be amazed by the advances you’ve made with your algorithms.”

Patrick Corrigan, Dr. Mellon’s uptight assistant, piped up at this point. “When do you expect him back?”

James stood up and collected his papers. This was his cue to leave. He’d already lied to the group about Badri’s absence, saying he’d been called away to India for a few days. He was not going to get sucked into a series of questions about why members of his team were no longer coming to the project lab on a regular basis; didn’t even seem to be on campus anymore.

“Tomorrow. His father is much better now, and Benton is eager to get back to work.”

He nodded to the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to check the new panels the technicians installed in the decelerator. See you tomorrow.”

Everyone thanked James for his time and smiled.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Benton could not understand what his jailers said, but he always knew what

they meant. He had picked up a few words of Persian in the past few weeks. Come. Sit. Silence. And a few epithets that he imagined to be along the lines of “You cursed devil, you will wish you had never been born.”

They hadn’t tortured him for several days. Hadn’t fed him, either. Benton took this as an indication that he would be executed shortly. As he lay on his side, ribs still aching, he thought of Ellen, and hoped that she would be okay, all those centuries in the future but really right now. A rat waddled over to him and sniffed. Benton didn’t have the strength to make it go away.

The sound of heavy sandals clumping down the stairs indicated that his jailers were back. Benton was only slightly surprised to find himself hoping the guards had come to lead him to the execution chamber. He heard their voices, and closed his eyes. Let them kill me. Let it be over. I can’t take the pain anymore.

The heavy bolt was hurled back and the door swung open. Benton did not roll over. He remained on the floor as the guard he called Grumpy shouted at him. Probably “Get up, you filthy swine!” One of the other guards, Dopey, seemed to be speaking with a third person. Grumpy came over and kicked him, spat on Benton’s neck and ordered him to get up. Benton recognized the phrase. He tried to, but was unsuccessful. All he could do was roll over on his back, but that made it even more difficult to get up. Benton opened his eyes. Next to Grumpy and Dopey was a middle-aged fat man with a short grey beard, a large mole on his left cheek, a single eyebrow hovering over his dark eyes, and rings on almost every finger. He spoke to Benton in Aramaic.

“Do you speak Aramaic?” he asked.

“A little,” Benton responded. It hurt to talk.

“Are you Greek?” the man asked.

Benton’s mind focused. The fat man didn’t strike him as Persian, although Benton was by no means an expert on 3rd century Middle Eastern accents.

“Macedonian.” He’d planned that response before his jump, figuring it would be the safest answer in most situations. Might account for his odd accent.

“I thought so,” the man replied, pleased. “Good, I’ll take him.”

The fat man tuned and walked away as Dopey unclasped the shackle from Benton’s right ankle. Grumpy grabbed Benton’s arm and hoisted him aloft. Benton cried out, then stifled the scream. He’d learned that cries of pain led to the infliction of more pain. Still, his ribs ached fiercely and he could barely stand. Grumpy punched him in the face, then punched him again. Benton buried his head as much as he could in his right shoulder, but Grumpy didn’t hit him again. The two jailers dragged him out of the cell, up the stone stairs and into a courtyard. Grumpy took one last shot that left Benton unconscious as he was loaded into the back of an oxcart.

The Jubilee Machine, Pt. III

   Badri Singh was reviewing the latest slew of questions from the Senate Select Committee on Security when Jeremy barged into the room. The young dynamo was nearly bubbling over as he slammed the office door and slid into a chair. His left knee was jiggling rapidly up and down as he announced the news.

“We found our first epistle.”

Epistle was the term that Badri’s team had adopted for messages from time travelers. Numerous locations had been selected around the world where time travelers could deposit dispatches to the future. It had been obvious that as soon as the team agreed on the locations for the epistles, they would already be there—assuming that their time travel project was successful.   Badri remembered the air of giddy amusement when the team decided on the first three locations. The moment the locations were agreed upon, he grinned and announced, “Okay, let’s go get ‘em!” knowing that epistles should already be there waiting to be found.

For simplicity, one of the locations was behind the football practice field, four feet underground. Eager young scientists ran out into the cold morning air and hacked away at the ground. But there was no epistle. The same was true when they searched in the moors of England. They found nothing. Each location they had chosen as an epistle site remained barren of messages. That could only mean one of two things: either the experiment was a failure, and every time traveler would be destroyed by the CTC, or it was proof that the alternate set theory was valid.

James and the alternate set theorists believed that any incursion into the past created an alternate universe. At the moment of incursion, the two universes would be identical, but they would also be distinct. So messages planted by time travelers could be discovered, but not by the version of the universe they had left from.

James loved these esoteric concepts, as did most of the team. They were discovering the rules as they went— ‘like finding out how gravity works for the first time’ as Badri liked to say. But this particular theory presented a distinct problem for any time traveler: you could go back in time, but you couldn’t report back what you’d seen. At least not to the same version of the universe that you’d left.

That’s the way it seemed until Jeremy burst into Badri’s office. Knee jiggling, eyes wide and vibrant, he waited for Badri to respond. The veteran scientist put down his forms and raised one eyebrow.

“And?”

“It’s from you,” Jeremy replied.

Badri leaned back in his big leather chair. He hadn’t expected that.

“From me?”

“Yep.” Jeremy said, knee still jiggling.

“Where was it located?”

“Jerusalem.”

Jeremy stopped jiggling. Badri sat motionless in his chair. The sound of a lawnmower permeated the large, ancient windows of his office. Badri Singh stated the obvious.

“But I’ve never been there.”

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Benton stared up at the stars. The night sky was ablaze with tiny chips of light. Even when he’d gone camping as a boy, Benton couldn’t remember seeing as many stars as this. He could understand how ancient civilizations would believe that their gods lived up there, in the shining, unreachable firmament.

The night was cold, but he didn’t want to build a fire. Not until he had a better idea where he was. In a way, it was scarier being alone in the middle of nowhere than to be a stranger in a foreign town. Benton felt exposed, vulnerable. As he sat cross-legged in the dirt he gripped his pistol for reassurance. If anyone tried to sneak up on him, boy would they get a surprise.

Benton scanned the sky for Orion and the North Star. He wanted to figure out exactly where he was, and when he was. With a little help from his portable pocket sextant he should be able to pinpoint his location in time and space with reasonable accuracy.

Benton had been unnerved when the caravan had crossed his path a few hours earlier. He’d been able to stay out of sight, so he wasn’t worried that he’d been spotted. What concerned Benton was the dress and language of the travelers. The five men who trudged along next to their camels were dressed in brightly colored robes with turbans and curved swords. They were definitely not speaking Aramaic, or any of the other ancient Near Eastern languages he had been exposed to. They didn’t look the way they were supposed to; they didn’t sound the way they were supposed to. Maybe Benton was in the wrong place.

The sextant was really too small to work effectively, but Benton didn’t have much choice. Every item he carried was valuable: his gun, gold for bartering, simple instruments, and the calculator that would let him find the loop that would carry him back to the future. In order to get their travelers home, the decelerator was programmed to run on an ‘empty’ cycle at regular intervals in the times/spaces that the travelers were operating in. It was analogous to sending an empty chair around a ski lift every once in awhile, so a traveler who was in the right position would be picked up. It had never been tested in reality, but in theory there should be no problem—if the traveler was in the right position.

Benton lined up the sextant. He scanned the western night sky for the North Star. Got it. Now, Orion would be a few degrees lower on the horizon. He moved the sextant

to the left, and it was…not there. Nowhere near. Benton checked to see where he’d made a mistake, went through the steps again. And again. The constellations were all in the wrong place. A chill swept over him. He was not just in the wrong year. He was off by centuries, and the stars were so far off that he couldn’t even figure out where he was…and…

Benton began breathing hard. Take it easy. We knew this was a possibility.

 

It took another hour, but Benton eventually determined he was at approximately 40 degrees longitude and 25 degrees latitude. With his calculator he figured out that the sky he was looking at existed in the northern hemisphere in the late 3rd century AD.

Benton was dumbstruck. He was irretrievably lost; so far away from his target position, in both time and space that a loop would never come around. He would never get back.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Ellen tapped on the open door, but Badri didn’t look up. She knocked again, louder. The gray-haired physicist with the prizefighter’s build and John Lennon glasses looked up.

“Ellen.”

“Hi, Badri. You got a minute?”

Badri sat up and logged off his computer. “Sure.” He could guess what was coming. Benton had been gone for eleven days, and there were no indications that he had left any epistles, or any traces of his existence in another time. Nothing had come down to them, and Benton didn’t appear to have taken a loop back from Egypt. To Ellen, it looked like he was gone—the experiment was a fatal failure.

Ellen sat down. She was calm, unemotional. All of them knew this was a possibility—even a likelihood in these pioneering days. But Ellen needed to talk, to get some closure.

“Doesn’t look like Benton left any clues for us, does it?” she said, then conjured up a small smile. “Maybe he’s having too good a time in Egypt. But you’d think he’d at least have left a ‘wish you were here’ card somewhere.”

Badri smiled and leaned forward on his elbows amidst the papers and folders, but said nothing.

Ellen continued. “I mean, I never expected him to pop up two days later and say, ‘hey, I just spent three years in Alexandria!’ And if the alternate set theory is correct, he’s not coming back to this universe at all.”

“I didn’t think you believed in alternate set,” Badri replied.

Ellen looked out the window. Badri had a nice view of the university common and the old administration building.

“I’m open on the subject. I guess all of us in a way are hoping it’s not true. If it is, we’ll never know if these stupid jumps work or not. Or at least, we’ll never be able to tell anyone in this universe that it works.”

Badri got up from his chair, stretching as his body adjusted to the new posture after three hours in a chair. He walked around and stood next to Ellen. Badri placed his hand gently on her shoulder.

“Ellen, Benton came back. He’s alive.”

Ellen gasped. She couldn’t speak as she processed Badri’s words. His brow was furrowed and his mouth was taut as he paused to let the statement sink in.

“But, but…well, he’s in bad shape. He was stranded in Persia 18 centuries ago and went through hell.” Badri shook his head, partly in astonishment, partly in sadness. “Somehow he created a loop that would work, but he returned to the early 90’s, half crazy and yammering about time travel and the future. He’s been institutionalized for the past two decades. He’s getting worse. Benton’s health and mind are both failing. He’ll never recover.”

Ellen was shaking her head. “When did you find this out? Did you know even before you sent him? Did he know what was waiting for him?” Her face flushed.

Badri chose his words carefully.

“We’ve been running checks ever since we chose all of you to be on the team. In all cases, there have been no abnormalities—no traces of any of you existing in any other time frame, leaving epistles or clues of any sort. It was really just a pro forma exercise. But I got a call two weeks ago from an institution in Illinois. Why they just now put the name together with the national identity search, I’m not sure. Benton’s been there a long time, so I imagine that years ago they diagnosed him as delusional, and none of the individuals he told them about ever turned up when the institution checked out his story. Of course not, since we all were young when Benton first returned. I was living in India, and the rest of you were children. The existence of the Cassandra project has never been acknowledged. You can imagine a raging, deformed middle-aged man mumbling about time travel…” He stopped.

Badri took his hand off Ellen’s arm.

“I went to visit him the day before he took the jump. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? As much as we’ve been dealing with these concepts, my mind is still overwhelmed by the mere idea that I could be meeting a 45-year old man whom the very day before I had been conversing with as a 25-year old. And they were both living in the same time, a few hundred miles from each other.”

Badri paused for a moment and looked down, as if debating what he should say next.

“That’s why I wasn’t at the jump. I raced over to see Benton. I was prepared to cancel the jump—hell, cancel the project—depending on what he told me. Of all the things he said, the one thing he was most certain of is that I should not cancel the jump. I had been prepared to do so, although with the realization that preventing Benton from jumping would not help the troubled and wounded man I saw in the asylum.”

“But why on earth would he persuade you not to cancel the jump?”

“Perhaps you should ask him yourself,” Badri said softly.

Ellen looked at him, then gazed out the huge window at the students walking on their way to class.

“I want to see him,” she said, standing up.

“I figured you would,” Badri said, withdrawing a slip of paper from his coat pocket.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Ken stepped out of the shadows by the Student Union.

“Badri, is that you?” he said softly.

Badri Singh walked briskly toward him down the wide, landscaped sidewalk. His teeth gleamed in the lamplight as he smiled a greeting to his young colleague. Badri extended his hand, which Ken thought was an odd thing to do. Ken shook it briefly.

“Thanks for meeting me,” Badri said softly. “We can talk while we walk.” The two men turned and headed for the Electromagnetic Research building a few hundred meters away. A university patrol car slowed down as it approached from the Engineering complex. Recognizing Badri, the security team moved on down the silent street.

“I know this seems very conspiratorial, having to meet at midnight on a secret rendezvous. But I need your help to keep the program on course.”

“What’s up, Badri?” Ken asked. He’d been surprised, and a little flattered, to receive a late night phone call from the project leader, requesting an urgent, clandestine meeting. Ken admired Badri for his intellect, tenacity and devotion. If he needed help, Ken was happy to oblige.

“Let’s go to the decelerator room. This concerns the very core of our project,” Badri said ominously.

Security was perplexingly low after business hours at the Cassandra project. During the day, security was airtight, as the facility buzzed with technicians and researchers, all unaware that they were focusing immense amounts of time on theoretical minutiae while a group of 7 cowboys was already beginning to explore the parameters of time travel. Badri and Ken passed a lone, sleepy guard as they went through the security scans in the foyer of the building. Once they had been authorized, the two men walked into the main research room, where only a few lights shone, accompanied by the low hum of equipment. Another set of security barriers occupied them for a few seconds, then Badri and Ken were alone in the decelerator room. Badri turned to Ken, his face suddenly grim.

“Someone has been using the decelerator, Ken. I’m not sure when it started, or how many jumps have been made. But I have to make it stop.”

“That’s impossible!” Ken exclaimed. Badri didn’t respond, just stared at him. Ken wondered how Badri knew. And more importantly, he wondered how anyone had been able to pull it off. Only one person—Benton—had ever been authorized to make a jump. Now Badri was saying that someone else had also been using the decelerator clandestinely. But they would require an accomplice. Because the team was so small, the options were very limited.

“Who do you think it is?” Ken asked.

Badri turned his head and gazed at the empty CTC. In the dim light it looked like a submersible that oceanographers used. He was still gazing at the sphere when he responded to Ken, “I can’t tell you that.”

Ken’s instincts quivered, sensing deception.

“Badri, there are only a few of us. Benton has already jumped, and there’s no indication when…or if…he’ll be back. Other than you, that just leaves me, Jeremy, Ellen and Antoine.”

He didn’t bother mentioning James, because everyone knew James wouldn’t step inside the decelerator for all the treasure in the world.

“Ken, I am asking for your trust.” Badri suddenly assumed the forceful, uncompromising persona that he only used in critical situations. “I am head of this project, and the project is in jeopardy. One of your colleagues has put everyone, including you, in danger. I am going to go find out what’s happening, and I’m going to make it stop.”

“How?” Ken demanded.

“I will need to make a jump. The details are not necessary at this point.”

Ken shouted, “Wait a minute! You think I’m going to send you back in time because you say ‘trust me’? You’re not giving me enough information, Badri, I….”

“Do as I say!” Badri shouted. “Damn it, Ken, I’m about to risk my life to save this program. The least you can do is help me make the jump!”

Badri was standing at the controls of the decelerator, copying in data from a piece of paper in his hand. Ken watched him for a moment, letting the drama abate somewhat, and trying to grasp what was going on. Finally he spoke.

“Badri, I cannot assist you if I don’t know what you’re doing and where you’re going. So the project leader disappears? Do you think the Cassandra team, Dr. Mellon and the others, won’t be wondering what happened to good old Badri Singh when you haven’t shown up for a few days? They’ll learn that I was the last person to be seen with you; they’ll know that I was with you when you disappeared. They’ll know you used the decelerator. What do I tell them, Badri?”

Badri looked up from his piece of paper. His dark eyes flashed. Badri Singh was an imposing man. A former boxer, he still had a powerful build, even after years of inactivity. His closely-cropped head glistened.

“You will give them this.”

Badri extended the sheet of paper, and Ken stepped forward to take it. Most of the sheet was filled with numbers. Ken knew what they were for. At the bottom of the page Badri had written:

‘I have used the decelerator to make a jump because I deemed it to be in the best interests of the project and the lives of those involved. Destination: Jerusalem, 1850 C.E. I bear full responsibility.’

Badri had signed his name below that in large, smooth loops.

“Now help me,” Badri commanded.

Badri ran Ken through the sequence, which was surprisingly easy.

“…and then you’ll see the decelerator kick in, and the sine waves will start to align. The speed is an approximation, but once you see these numbers stabilize around 13,” he pointed to one of the LED readouts, “then you’ll have a window of about 30 seconds where it will remain steady. You need to act during that window, before any fluctuations can set in. I won’t be able to hear you. Just press this little red button when you’re ready.”

The little red button. Both men smiled. Badri’s grin was intended to express gratitude and confidence. Ken’s was a nervous reaction.

Badri began unbuttoning his trench coat.

“Please remember to take this coat with you when you leave tonight. I’ve left something for you in the right pocket. Keep it secret unless it’s absolutely necessary, or in the event that you don’t hear from me.”

“What about the guard. He saw both of us…” Ken stopped when he saw what Badri was wearing. In front of him was a large Indian man dressed in an old-fashioned military uniform. Badri unfolded a turban from the trench coat pocket and placed it on his head. He looked like a character from Gunga Din.

“I’ll let you know how everything goes. Wish me luck.”

“Badri, please. This whole thing doesn’t make sense to me. I can’t understand your motives or what the danger is. I’m an unwitting participant in…”

Badri had already climbed in the decelerator, squeezing himself inside the sphere. Ken stood still for a moment, then sighed and closed the decelerator door. He stepped over to the control panel and initiated the sequence.

After Badri was gone, Ken made sure the decelerator was idling properly. He quietly exited back through the Cassandra main room, past the sleeping guard. As he left the building, the two other guards nodded to him.

“Night,” Ken said. He could see his breath in the cold night air.

“Goodnight, sir” one of the guards replied. No remark concerning the fact that two men went in the building and only one had come out.

Ken walked swiftly down University Boulevard, clutching the trench coat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jubilee Machine Pt II

 

James handed Benton an iced tea, then settled down on the grass next to him. James felt and looked out of place with his crisply-pressed khaki pants, button down shirt and preppy haircut. Benton had already taken his shirt off, revealing at least four tattoos that James could discern. James perched stiffly on the grass as Benton reclined on one elbow, sipping tea through the straw. University students strolled by on their way to class.

“So it’s ready?” James asked.

Benton shrugged.

“We lack precision, James. It’ll work, but our hardware isn’t designed to handle significant mass, and that prohibits sufficient accuracy.”

James nodded. He’d anticipated that. “Yes, we initially…”

Benton interrupted. “I mean, I can fine tune the coordinates until the variance is negligible, but the problem will be when the agents are inserted into the loop. The CTC’s not big enough, you know. It was never designed for humans. Hell, the Cassandra team is unsure about sending a paperclip back in time.”

James didn’t like Benton. The man was a mathematical genius who could intuitively spot flaws in calculations and respond with innovative new approaches—just what the project had demanded. But he was rude, confrontational and aloof. And he showed no respect for anyone. Just like his girlfriend.

“Yes, we know, Benton,” James said crossly.

Benton looked at the yuppie administrator through lavender-tinted sunglasses.

“So using the calcs we’re currently working with, you also know that the likely error will be at least 40 years, and hundreds of miles. And that’s best-case, Jimbo. Gets worse the farther back you go.”

James stared impassively at Benton, although he couldn’t see the mathematician’s eyes through the glasses. James wanted to jerk them from Benton’s face. He remained calm.

“Yes, that’s exactly right. And we can wait another 40 years for more money to fund an even more powerful decelerator, or ask the Europeans to join in. Or…”

He shifted on the grass, aware that he was probably getting stains on his pants. His back was getting stiff.

“…we can take our chances now. In some cases—worst case scenario—one of you will arrive a couple of decades off target and have to do some hiking. But for the first target—Second Dynasty Egypt—we can afford to be a little bit off, don’t you think, Benton?”

If James had thought that invoking the aura of ancient Egypt would fire Benton’s imagination, he was wrong.

“I’m just saying you can’t determine with sufficient certainty where you’re going to end up. I’ve done all I can with this set of calculations. It won’t get any better if I spend more time with them.”

Benton drained his ice tea and rattled the ice cubes in the cup.

“I’d like to focus on the stuff I was doing for Badri a few weeks ago. That stuff shows real promise. That’s where we might have a chance to narrow the window.”

“That won’t be necessary, Benton. You’ve already answered all my questions.”

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Benton was leaning against the hood of Ellen’s Jeep as she exited the main door of the Electromagnetic Research Building. She shouldered her purse and walked toward him across the parking lot. As she approached he straightened up.

“Congratulations,” he said, removing his sunglasses.

“For what?”

Benton put the glasses in the pocket of his leather jacket.

“Good girl. Deny all knowledge. Now, let’s go celebrate. I know an excellent Thai restaurant in town. But it’s too far to walk, so we’ll have to take your car.”

“Are you on drugs?”

“Not yet,” he grinned.

He went and stood by the passenger door. Ellen just stared at him.

“Excuse me, but I’m going home now. Have a nice evening.”

Benton hunched his shoulders impatiently, like a kid.

“Ellen, Badri told me this morning. Welcome to the team that doesn’t exist. I’m glad to see Badri’s death threats have had an impact on you. Now, let’s go have some caustic tom yum soup, extinguish it with some ice cold beers, and make fun of James McPherson.” He drummed his fingers on the roof of the Jeep.

Ellen paused. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about, but the Thai idea sounds good. You can treat me.”

She beeped the locks and they got in. Benton looked Ellen over as she started up the car.

“How much you weigh?”

“About one-ten. You doing a survey or something?”

They turned out of the nearly-empty parking lot and bounced over the speed bumps.

“I bet they let you go first.”

“Say what?”

“Your mass,” Benton said. “It’s the smallest of all of us. Better chance that you’ll arrive intact and be able to leave some sort of indication that it worked.”

Ellen steered toward the campus exit, then glanced over at Benton.

“I don’t care who goes first. I just wanna go. How soon?”

Benton turned to look out the window, then turned back.

“It’s ready now, Ellen. The great thing is, it is so risky that the techs who built the decelerator have absolutely no idea that we would ever put a human being in there. I mean, these guys are still drawing up detailed plans for introducing molecules into the loop to see if they disappear.”

He laughed, a hearty, smoker’s laugh.

“How long have you been with Cassandra?” Ellen asked him.

“I joined up officially just a month before you did. But I was working with Badri on specific calculations for about, oh, I guess four months before that. Interesting stuff, but nothing we’re using now.”

“What do you mean?”

Benton shrugged. “James took one look at what I was doing and told me I was wasting my time, so now my attention is directed elsewhere.”

Ellen pondered that information for a moment, then asked, “Do you think James is really the brains behind this?”

“No way,” Benton stated flatly. “James is the figurehead, my dear. Badri Singh is the Cassandra project. And let me tell you, I have no doubt that he will do anything to ensure total secrecy—in other words, to allow us to proceed undetected and unrestrained with our project. So, you’ve been warned. But I’m not worried that anyone on the team will talk. We all love this thing too much to spoil it. I’m betting the first time traveler departs next month. We just don’t know who it’s going to be yet.”

Ellen drove out of the university and down the boulevard. Next month, she thought. Unbelievable.

“Turn left here,” Benton said suddenly. Ellen braked quickly and turned down a street that only seemed to contain auto parts shops and restaurant supply companies, all dark and closed for the night.

“There,” he pointed. There was no illuminated sign, but as they got closer Ellen saw the lights in the window and a hand-painted sign that promised Real Thai Cwisine.

“This had better be good. I could be home right now watching The Walking Dead.”

   “It’s a repeat.”

Inside it was packed. The waitress seemed to know Benton. Cool glasses of lime juice arrived immediately and Benton offered a toast.

“To the newest member of the team. Welcome.”

“Thanks.”

Benton’s eyes flashed. “James says if we play our cards right, we can each be master of our own universe.”

Ellen’s brow furrowed. “What?”

Benton smiled and shrugged. “Well, you know James.”

“Not really,” Ellen replied, leaning back. She assessed Benton as he sat slouched in his hardback chair with the sparkly upholstery. She didn’t know him very well, either, and she needed to be careful. The elite team she was joining was the most secret of societies. They were fooling everyone—the government, the scientific community, and the entire Cassandra team—for the chance to pursue a goal without restrictions, disregarding safety or prudence; acting with no constraints, just the pure motivation of discovery in the most esoteric of scientific realms. Like Marie Curie, or the 19^th century scientists who tested their hypotheses on themselves, they were willing guinea pigs. Secrecy among the group was paramount. Ellen didn’t even want to risk gossiping, so she didn’t pursue the opening regarding James.

“You afraid?” Benton asked, eyes homing in on hers.

“Of what?”

“Dying anonymously in a strange land; getting caught doing what we’re doing; me.”

Ellen sipped her juice before she answered. She set the glass back on the stained placemat.

“No to all three,” she said without a trace of emotion. Benton smiled.

“I believe you. Ellen. We just might get along.”

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

James was a big believer in the strategy of hiding in plain sight. And what could be less suspicious than a group of colleagues gathering together in a pizza parlor?

“We’ve come a long way in the art of disguising top secret projects,” he mused, munching on a slice of Hawaiian pizza. “These days, the surest way to attract attention is build a big, secret facility with lots of barbed wire and armed guards. But if an obscure group of researchers dabbling with funny ideas about slowing the speed of light gets a few million dollars to pursue ideas with no practical application, then no one pays attention. Just scientists being scientists. Bang! You’ve got a fully functional program that’s operating in plain sight.”

“Dumb as foxes, eh?” commented Jeremy, sipping a glass of wine. Jeremy had very obviously latched onto James recently, which annoyed the other team members. James seemed to enjoy having a sycophant, especially this evening. He’d consumed two glasses of wine, which was more than he usually ever drank at one time. Still, he was in control; no slip-ups tonight.

“Yes, like foxes,” he smiled. James looked around the table. Badri was deep in discussion with Ken. Antoine was lost in thought, sitting at the end of the table.

Ellen and Benton were laughing merrily. James was not pleased that the mathematician and the anthropologist had recently embarked on a rather obvious romance. Extremely unprofessional. Fortunately it was a moot point. James stood up and cleared his throat.

“Thanks everyone for coming. It’s been fun. It’s good to see each other outside the research environment. I’m afraid I have to leave, but please feel free to stay and have some fun. You deserve it.”

James scanned the smiling, attentive faces.

“Oh, and one last thing: we’ll make our first attempt on Tuesday. Benton goes first.”

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Benton turned off the laptop and pushed the screen down until it closed with a click.

“I’ve got something for you.”

Ellen lifted her head and looked at Benton through a tangle of hair.

“For me? What is it?”

Benton reached over and opened the drawer of his desk. He pulled out a small box.

“Oooh.”  Ellen sat up and brushed the hair from her face. “Looks like jewelry. Unless this is a mathematician’s tie clip or something.”

By his smile Ellen could tell it was not a tie clip.

Gently Ellen opened the box. Inside was a necklace. At first Ellen thought the pendant on the chain was in the shape of an infinity sign. Then she realized it was two entwined roses.

“How beautiful! I never knew you were such a romantic.” She kissed him.

“Well, I didn’t want to give you something cliché, you know, ‘time related’. So I opted for the traditional romantic route. Besides…” he said, reaching out to tuck a shock of hair behind Ellen’s ear, “I think I may be in love with you.”

Ellen’s cheeks ignited with red. She ducked her head, and the honey-blonde tangle covered her face again. She said nothing.

Benton grinned, and peeked under her canopy of curls. “Didn’t mean to make you blush. Just thought I’d tell you how I felt, seeing as how…” They both knew the rest of the sentence, but neither wanted to hear the words: I might never see you again.

Ellen looked up, and took his hand in both of hers. “Yeah,” she said softly, “it’s possible I’m falling in love with you, too, Benton. But maybe it’s just a shipboard romance or something like that. We’ll have to give it time.”

They both grinned at the incongruity of that word. Time was their vocation, their livelihood. They treated time the same way a stockbroker treats money or an engineer treats steel.

For a moment they just sat in the bulky metal chairs, under the fluorescent lights amidst the computers and boxes. Benton broke the silence.

“You know; I never would have expected I’d fall for a girl like you. You’re so…nice.

I usually get the biker chicks or attitude problems. Never thought I’d lose my heart to the president of the glee club.”

“You’re not half as surprised as me. I’ve never had a boyfriend with a tattoo before, let alone one with a criminal record.” She paused to assess his reaction. Benton wasn’t smiling. He was looking directly into her eyes.

“But it’s not exteriors or resumes that I’m looking for. It’s what’s inside. And over the past few months I’ve gotten a good look at your heart, Benton. I like what I see.”

She raised her hand to stroke Benton’s cheek, then left her palm against the rough, firm skin. “Just don’t get any more tattoos.”

They both laughed and leaned back, breaking the tension that had formed around them.

“Okay. At least not until I get back from Egypt.” Benton looked at his watch. “I need to get some sleep. You sure you won’t join me?”

This was the wrong question, even stated in a jovial fashion. Ellen stood up.

“That’s another thing that makes us different, Benton.” They’d had this conversation before. She slipped into his arms and they held each other for a long time.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Yep. I really do love you, you know.”

“Ditto.”

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Benton exhaled, then curled up in a ball. Ellen could see the tendons tensing in his arms as they gripped his calves. The image of the Wright Brothers popped, unbidden, into her head. Years from now, she thought, this will seem so primitive. My God, we’re like the first pilots, braving the sky in the ricketiest contraptions imaginable, unsure exactly how it will work out. Just taking flight, taking chances. Incredible.

But for all the seeming absurdity of the lone individual crouched on a platform, the precision needed to transport him anywhere near the intended target was astounding. Ellen looked up at James and Jeremy, who were leaning over the monitors, intensely focused on the numbers. She wondered again why Badri wasn’t here for the moment of triumph. It didn’t make sense.

There was no sound in the big room. Benton was motionless in the sphere, pressed against the launcher. Ellen shook her head. Another primitive tool in this crazy mixture of advanced technology and cowboy adventurism. Benton was about to be shoved into the past by a metal prod. Not very elegant.

“Ten seconds!” James shouted. Ellen realized that Benton couldn’t hear him inside the sphere. To him, the lunge into the past would come suddenly, without warning. She wished he could see her, that their eyes could meet just once before he disappeared—forever? But Benton’s eyes were closed, his head down.

“That’s it. That’s it.” James repeated, nodding his head and staring at the monitor. “Get ready.”

James placed his finger on the button, another arcahic device utilized in this monumental task. A button. A push. Good Lord.

Everyone was frozen stiff, as if a slight motion from an onlooker would tip Benton into the wrong century.

“GO!” James shouted, and he pushed the red button. Red, of course. Of course.

Benton disappeared.

Ellen didn’t detect the push: no forward movement of Benton’s body being thrust into the loop. One moment he was crouched motionless in the cradle, the next he was gone.

The room remained silent. Everyone stared at the empty space where Benton had been. Eventually they began looking at each other, some with smiles, others shaking their heads in awe at what they had just witnessed, at what they had done.

   James dropped his head and sighed loudly, exhausted.

“And so it begins,” he whispered.

 

Benton thudded to the ground and rolled. He put out his hand and touched warm, rough sand. Eyes flipping open, Benton quickly looked around. He was lying on his side in an open, arid expanse of land. The sky was deep blue with wisps of cirrus clouds. The air was warm, but not hot. He was breathing heavily.

So, where am I?

Benton slowly got to his feet, weighed down by all the supplies, gold and instruments hidden in his clothes. A sudden breeze rustled his robe. Standing up, he looked slowly around the landscape. It looked like Palestine. Dusty, irregular hills. Minimal vegetation.

No sign of life.

For a moment Benton wondered if James had chickened out and actually sent him to Second Dynasty Egypt, had abandoned their last-minute agreement to reconfigure the loop for Palestine. That thought was shoved out of his mind by a surge of emotion.

I’ve done it. I’ve gone back in time. I am the first time traveler! I am alive.

He felt an exhilaration, a euphoria, that he had never known before. All the times he had imagined this moment, he could never have conjured the emotions he was now experiencing. For an instant, he felt like weeping. Benton took a few steps forward. He reached into his vest pocket for the compass. As he took it out, he heard the sound of voices in the distance.

.