Chapter 20
“I’m tired.” Davey said to me as I entered the medium-sized room that had been hastily turned into sleeping quarters for all of us. Six cot-beds had been arranged with typical military wool blankets and thin pillows. Davey and the others, except Sean, had gotten here first and already the six cots were now arranged in pairs right next to each other. Our bags were at the foot of each set of cots.
“So am I.” I said softly, knowing full well our hosts would be listening to every conversation in this room. It was just after two in the morning by the time our interviewers had called a break. Already I’d been through the basic outline of my story, and filled in quite a few details about my plans for this timeline without giving away too many details about the future, or my original timeline. Davey and I sat down on the cots he’d claimed for us while I looked over to where Trevor and Todd were asleep already, and
“Did they say what time they were going to come get us again?” Davey asked around a wide yawn.
“Five o’clock for me.” I answered sourly. That was less than three hours away.
“Well, let’s get some sleep.” He said as the door opened again and Sean came into the room.
There had always been a possibility that something like this would happen, and we had planned for it in detail. We all knew what to say, and what not to say. Above all, we were always to tell the truth, and if something should not be answered, just refuse to answer it at all.
Questions like “Who will win this year’s election?” would be readily answered, while questions about 1992 would receive no comment whatsoever. What the goals of other time travelers were would also be readily answered, but questions about what happens in 2000, or other years would be met with silence. So far, they were going rather easy on us, although the lack of sleep we were going to experience was deliberate.
It was precisely five in the morning when we were woken up and taken for a quick breakfast in another room. Then we were shown to a shower that at least helped us wake up a little more before they once again separated us for individual questioning. Some people might have bothered complaining about the treatment, but I knew it was actually rather mild compared to what could be happening right now.
“Mr. Breckenridge, please have a seat.” A middle-aged man I had not met before said as I entered the interview room with two soldiers waiting outside as guards. The room had a small table, and six chairs. Five of those chairs were occupied, and I sat in the sixth. None of the men, and they were all men, were those who had questioned me into the early hours of the morning, but I recognized two of them from another timeline.
“Mr. Hoskins, Mr. Thornbull, it’s a pleasure to see you.” I said to the two of them and enjoyed the shocked looked on their faces.
“You know these men?” the first man who had spoken asked.
“Yes, and no.” I said with a slight smile while openly yawning. At least I was twenty now instead of eighty, where the short amount of sleep would have left me stupid with mental fatigue. “I knew them in my previous timeline, but I’ve never met them in the here and now. Mr. Hoskins would have been working in the State Department around this time, if memory serves, and Mr. Thornbull was an expert at the
“Your memory is accurate, Mr. Breckenridge.” The first man said while everyone looked startled while making notes. “Frankly I didn’t know what to believe this morning as I read through the transcripts of your debriefing last night. I trust you got at least some sleep?”
“Not enough, but I’ll sleep when there’s more time.” I said with a shrug. “We have a lot of work to do, I believe.”
“I am Will Lerner, and I work for the White House.” He said with a nod. “You already know Mr. Hoskins and Mr. Thornbull, and you were right about their current assignments. With Mr. Hoskins from State is Mr. Eldridge, and from the Department of Defense is Mr. Wolfowitz.”
“I thought I recognized you, sir.” I said to the last man. Maybe I was more tired than I thought. He was a man I should have recognized, but then again I’d never actually met him in person.
“You must imagine how skeptical we all are about what you and Mr. Rule claim to be.” Lerner said carefully. “Still, you have both shared knowledge that should not be known to college students, and given enough examples to lend credibility to your claims. We have some more questions for you this morning.”
“Please, I will answer what I can.” I stated.
“Good, now why are you refusing to answer certain questions?” Wolfowitz started aggressively, leaning forward as he asked.
“Certain questions of a political nature I will refuse to answer.” I shrugged. “I’m not going to see time travel information used for the personal gain of certain individuals.”
“But you’ll use it for your own personal gain?” Wolfowitz countered. “Did you not use your knowledge to buy a winning ticket for your… lover’s mother?”
“Yes.” I admitted.
“Did you not plan to do something similar with an even bigger lottery in the near future?” He continued.
“Yes.” I admitted.
“So you’ll use your knowledge for your own personal gain, but not for anyone else?” Wolfowitz spoke in clipped tones. “Isn’t that hypocritical?”
“Yes, but I’ve never claimed I could not be hypocritical.” I said with a shrug. “But there’s more to it than just financial gain. This country faces issues, and days ahead, that are vastly different than what we are accustomed to facing today. In past timelines, we were ill prepared to adjust our worldview to the new paradigms as they arose. As a result, we stumbled badly in our foreign policy decisions and greatly hurt American interests even though we thought we were doing the right thing. The lottery winnings will be used to help establish a foundation that will hopefully, over the course of several decades, help our country adjust to the changing world and not make the same mistakes. I certainly do not want to see the
“And you believe you’re wise enough to make these kinds of decisions?” Lerner asked.
“I’ve worked for the United Nations, and the U.S. State Department, as well as on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for most of my adult life.” I replied with a very slight shrug. “For sixty years I was heavily involved in this nation’s foreign relations. For ten years I was the spouse of the
“Or so you claim.” Wolfowitz spat out.
“We’ve just met, gentlemen, but you will find that nothing I’ve told you so far, or will likely tell you anytime soon is a lie.” I countered. “Proving you’re a time traveler isn’t the easiest thing in the world, nor is knowing how to make the most effective use of information. Sure, it’s possible to change things like who becomes President in a given election, but doing that does not necessarily fix long-term problems. To really fix long-term problems requires a different approach than any real, direct change to the timeline.”
“But you are not the only time traveler.” Lerner pointed out.
“Not anymore, which is why I’m sharing so much with you now.” I said with a slight shrug of my shoulders. “The Russian time traveler does not have the experience with previous timelines that I have.”
“But you claim this is the first time you’ve actually traveled in time.” Hoskins pointed out.
“That is true.” I answered. “My husband though, had experienced several different timelines. We were together for around seventy years, and during that time I learned a lot about his experiences. Sean, a different Sean if you will remember, had experienced a similar number of alternate timelines and also contributed to my understanding of the complexities of time travel and changing the future.”
“You’ve stated the goal of the Russian time traveler is to prevent the collapse of the
“Yes.” I confirmed. “You’ll know better than I how effective we were at changing what happens after the collapse of the
“Mr. Rule’s debriefing mentioned those events and stated that your efforts to ameliorate the effects of the collapse were less than successful.” Wolfowitz said in a tone of superiority.
“I’m still in college, I can’t expect to be able to shift the course of the planet just yet.” I shrugged. “It takes time.”
“That’s pretty much what he said.” Lerner noted. “He says that your plans were largely focused on the world after the turn of the century, and even after the first decade of the next century.”
“That would be accurate.” I agreed. “My goal isn’t to see any specific person elected or not elected, but to change how we look at the world and our role in the world. Hopefully, people will look at the situation differently, and make different choices, but ultimately it will still be up to them to choose. I will not use my knowledge to force change.”
“That is a fine line to walk.” Lerner said with a frown. “Still, you are right about the Soviet time traveler. We are hearing rumblings that a coup is happening as we speak. When we first received Mr. Rule’s strange call, we at first didn’t fully believe it, but we did investigate. Then we started hearing rumblings that something was going on in
“They did?” I stated in surprise, and started to worry as I thought about the timeline where the Chinese had sent assassins after Davey’s family, and mine. That made me really worry. “If they went after him, our families…”
“Are under observation and are fine for the present.” Lerner stated. “A massive manhunt is underway at this time. The KGB was forced to use agents from their
“I wouldn’t know for sure, but from what I’ve been told in other timelines, I’d tend to agree with that opinion.” I answered the unspoken question. Lerner noted as he checked something off on his notepad.
“How do we counter the moves this Shevardnadze will make?” Hoskins asked after the room had been silent for several moments.
“Kill him.” I answered emphatically without hesitation. All four men looked shock at the answer. “In the last timeline, Davey arranged a subterfuge. He convinced President Reagan and his own father that he was a time traveler, and then he convinced them that his young brain couldn’t completely hold the ‘advanced’ knowledge and that he would soon lose it forever. They acted on the information and managed to assassinate all the enemy time travelers before they came back in time, effectively ending their ability to go back into that timeline.”
“Doesn’t that create a paradox or something?” Eldridge asked with a pained expression.
“The way it was explained to me by another Sean still gives me a headache.” I said honestly and with a bit of sympathy. “Supposedly only one timeline can exist at any given moment, but all the instances of time travel coexist simultaneously, so if a time traveler from 2004 goes back to 1976, he creates a new timeline by any changes he makes, but a time traveler from a previous 2004 still exists and will still arrive in 1981. With enough time travelers, and time lines, it gets very confusing. Sean created this chart that showed all the time travelers and their originating time lines one time. I could recreate it for you, but it doesn’t really help. Why it doesn’t create a paradox I don’t know, but the jamming device we developed in my originating timeline was supposed to stop all other time travel, effectively erasing their ability to affect this timeline. Obviously it failed.”
“Yes, it did.” Wolfowitz gloated, but settled down after the other men in the room gave him reproachful looks.
“In every time line that Shevardnadze has been allowed to impact, a war has happened that caused huge losses of American life.” I pointed out. “Killing him might prevent that from happening now.”
“He has already begun changes in the
“That will work.” I agreed instantly. “I could help him with the jamming device.”
“Even if it means you won’t be able to come back in time again?” Wolfowitz asked with a gloating expression and I paused for a long moment before meeting his eyes directly.
“I’d rather… I’d rather a time line where I did not go back than a timeline altered by Shevardnadze.” I said in a firm voice, but I spoke slowly as if the words pained me greatly.
“You know, I almost believe that.” Wolfowitz said after looking at me for another long minute. “Why?”
“I’m not selfish enough to put my happiness over the lives of thousands, or millions.” I said with a shrug.
“But what about the changes you think need to be made?” Lerner asked.
“One thing about history is that it shows us there will always be conflict.” I said with a shrug. “The–the things that happen do cost lives, sometimes even thousands of lives, but none of them are as bad as a possible all-out nuclear war, or a direct war between the Soviet Union and the United States.”
“Why is that?” Hoskins asked as he leaned forward slightly with obvious interest.
“It’s difficult to believe, but the world really does change tremendously after the collapse of the
“Likewise, those of us who lived during the Cold War have a hard time adjusting to a world where the biggest threat to our country is that we might lose a skyscraper, or at worst a single city.” I continued. “We remember the perspective of losing our entire planet, and we subconsciously escalate the threat we face then with the threat we face now. So we react out of proportion to the real threat at hand.”
“You say that in the future terrorists manage to strike our cities with nukes?” Wolfowitz asked with a shocked look.
“In part because we badly handled the breakup of the
“Which you are trying to change.” Lerner added.
“Yes.” I agreed. “I know on the surface it looks like what I was doing seems solely selfish, and I won’t deny there is a selfish aspect to it, but in the long run it was to be for the betterment of our country, and by extension our world.”
“I see.” Lerner nodded. “Thank you for your candor, Mr. Breckenridge. We’ll take a short break for now, and begin again in about an hour, over lunch.”
“Thank you for listening.” I said politely as they left the room. A soldier poked his head into the room and I followed him out, back to the room I’d slept in with the others. Sean was there already, as was Davey, although the rest of our friends were gone.
“Where’s everyone?” I asked.
“Getting a tour.” Davey said with a frown. “I wasn’t invited.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“For some reason they think I know more than I’m telling.” Davey said with a groan. “They seem to think I’m responsible for all this time travel mess, but it was that other me, wasn’t it?”
“You’re right.” I assured him. “It’s not fair.”
“Nothing in life is fair.” Sean muttered with a shake of his head. “So, Brian, did they bring up the idea of rebuilding a time machine and another jammer?”
“Yes.” I said and Davey let out a groan.
“They asked me about it too, like I knew anything!” He moaned. “Still, I told them it was probably for the best, to solve this situation, but that maybe someone should go back just to make sure there wasn’t another time travel device, like you’d planned.”
“Which is how I’m here, and we’re all here in the Pentagon instead of in the hospital room.” Sean muttered.
“What hospital room?” I asked in alarm and Sean frowned.
“I didn’t want to tell the others, but on that night, on the way home from the game, there was an accident.” Sean said sadly. “Todd got hit by a drunk driver while they were walking back, and spent six days in a coma before he died. It was weird seeing him after all these years, but that’s at least one good change, although if we do this plan of building another machine, I don’t know what good it will be in the long run.”
“Gentlemen.” A voice called from the doorway and we looked up to see an Army Colonel standing there. “Would you please come with me?”
We followed the man through the bowels of the Pentagon and up into the actual halls of the regular portions of the building. Our friends were waiting outside a set of doors that I recognized as leading to the Secretary of Defense’s office, all of them looking a little worried. We waited there, not saying a word until the doors opened and we were escorted inside to find a room mostly empty except for a few Secret Service agents, and the President.
“I thought I’d come over here and take a look at you myself.” Ronald Reagan said in a slightly cheerful tone as I stepped forward a pace from my friends and moved to shake his hand.
“Mr. President, it’s an honor to meet you.” I said. “My name is Brian Breckenridge. These are my friends.”
He shook hands as I introduced each of my friends, and then invited us to sit down in chairs that had been arranged in a circle. He took one of the chairs, and I ended up sitting on his left hand. Sean sat on the other side of him.
“I find all this hard to believe, but my people assure me it is genuine.” He said after a moment of silence while we all got settled. “One thing that is bothering me: Why would supposedly smart young men like you be working on the Dukakis campaign?”
“He’s a loser, Mr. President.” I said with a chuckle as Davey laughed and gave me a knowing look. “There’s no way he was going to win this campaign, but working on it gave us the start of certain connections that will be needed later on. I hate to tell you this, but Republicans don’t hold on to the oval office forever, and well, the Democrats need a lot more help than the Vice-President.”
“They always are in need of help, Mr. Breckenridge.” The President laughed before turning serious. “There appears to be open fighting going on in the Kremlin, and we’re not sure which side is going to come out on top. My advisors tell me that the two of you can make another one of these infernal machines, and put an end to this time travel business once and for all.”
“Yes, Mr. President.” Sean said in a slightly awed voice. “I believe the problem was that a frequency was left open for Brian’s transport back. With his help, we can isolate all remaining frequencies and jam those too.”
“Are you willing to do this, young man?” He asked me with a very direct gaze. “I understand you have some issues.”
“I do, but they pale besides the comparison of a war between the
“Do you have a problem with this, Mr. Jones?” The President asked him.
“It’s just… my life is better than it would have been without his changes.” Davey said slowly but he shook his head. “Still, put up against a possible war with the Soviet’s, it’d be better for my life to go the way it was than for people to die in a big war.”
“I can sympathize with that feeling young man.” The President said with a kindly smile. “I asked myself, just to get an idea of what I was going to be asking you young men to give up, how I would feel if such actions meant I would never be President. In the end, I decided that it would be a price I was willing to pay in order to stop a World War.”
“We don’t know a World War is going to happen.” Todd argued and then he blushed when the President turned his attention to him.
“What do our two time travelers believe?” President Reagan asked.
“There will be a war.” I said at once and Sean nodded his agreement.
“If you’re sure about it.” Todd said at last with a sigh.
“Now, how long will it take to rebuild this time machine, and what resources will you need?” The President asked us directly and I looked over at Sean, who would be the one doing most of the work. I didn’t know half of what was needed, no, not even a quarter!
In the end it took five years to build the machine, and the world was a nightmare.
Shevardnadze’s hard-line faction won the shoot-out in the Kremlin, and the
The scientist who had invented the time machine was never found, until a CIA agent caught wind of him in
Sean shrugged it off as ‘no big deal’.
There was an Iraqi invasion of
It took nearly two weeks for two Marine Amphibious groups to arrive, and by then most of
In 1992, George H. W. Bush easily won reelection in a Cold War that wasn’t quite so cold anymore.
By the end of 1993, we were conducting our first tests with the new machine. The truth was that Sean was right about me. When it came to the theory behind time travel and its operations, or actually putting it together, I couldn’t help much. However, when it came to operating the machine, or the new ‘jamming’ device, figuring which frequencies, and similar things, I ended up being a lot of help.
Poor Davey, Brandon, Trevor, and Todd were stuck being with us, acting as moral support most of the time, although each of them helped in their own way. Todd and Brandon helped with different aspects of the computer components or software, working with the experts the government had assigned us as if they had already completed a full college education in their specific fields. Since they spent the first two years of the project going to classes at
Trevor helped in other ways, by helping relieve tension when it built up too high, or asking really basic questions when we were stuck, forcing us to think again in much simpler terms. (He called them stupid questions, but they were far from stupid and helped us solve several problems.) Together, all of us made an impressive team, and when the machine was ready for testing, the military took precautions, but did not deny us all a place in the chamber where the machine was waiting.
“You understand, no time travelers.” Roger Sazar, the President’s point man on this project said while we waited for the airlock to cycle. We were actually located in a remote facility in the backwoods of
“We understand.” I repeated for my friends one last time as the huge airlock door, nearly five feet of reinforced steel and concrete swung open. Sean and I led the way in, barely looking at the MRI-type machine surrounded by twenty armed soldiers. Davey and the rest followed us into the control room where a bank of control machines waited for us, and a thick glass window allowed us to monitor events in the machine room. There were more soldiers standing guard in here, and two Generals who nodded at us as we entered.
“General Crowley, are we ready to begin?” I asked. As head of the scientific team, I was to have the honor of actually giving the orders, but he was here to countermand anything I might do to stop events. Sure, I’d said I was willing to suffer the consequences, but the government was making sure.
“You may proceed.” He said as the airlock door closed with a thud. The room was sealed, and my ears popped as it pressurized to prevent any form of attack from outside. We knew the Soviets had gotten wind of our program, and my knowledge of the timeline where they used nukes in an attempt to stop Davey from going back again warned us that if they knew we were acting today, there would be nuclear war.
“Power her up.” I said with a nod to Davey. All of my friends had roles to play today, at the controls of the machine. Sure, we admitted it could be operated with fewer people, but the more hands on deck today, the more likely we could succeed.
“Um, General, you might want those soldiers to stand further away from the machine.” Sean said with a bit of muffled laughter.
“Why is that, son?” The General asked with a frown.
“The machine is a Magnetic Resonance Imager, General.” Trevor reminded him. “It creates a very high-power magnetic field that will…oops, too late.”
There was a great clatter, and muffled curses coming from the machine room as soldiers lost bits of metal, and their weapons to the magnetic field of the machine. The equipment flew across the room and attached itself to the machine, and the soldiers cursed as they tried to retrieve their gear.
“Damn it!” The General cursed as he turned to the other soldiers in the room. “Go help them. No! Leave your gear here! Can you shut the machine down?”
“Begin reducing power to the machine, gradually.” I ordered and Sean began moving a lever on the controls as the remaining soldiers in our control room dropped their weapons, and every bit of metal on their body before heading into the other room to help their comrades. It was a shame really, they were just following orders but it was necessary.
“What’s happening?” General Crowley asked as the door between the control room and the machine room closed.
“We’ve got a breach in the coolant system!” Todd’s voice sounded alarmed and the two Generals and Sazar, the only men in the room besides my friends, rushed to the control panel and looked out the window to where the soldiers were now choking as some gas spewed from the machine.
“Get them out of there!” Sazar shouted, looking around the control panel frantically.
“Sorry.”
“I feel…dirty.” Todd murmured as we looked out at the collapsed soldiers.
“None of them should be dead.” Davey murmured softly. “C’mon, we’ve got to clean up in there.”
Everyone except Sean and I left the control room after the gas was vented from the other room, and the door opened. The machine was powered down just long enough to remove all the weapons and gear attracted to it, and the collapsed soldiers from locations near the machine. Then it was powered up again to full power.
“How much power do we have?” I asked Sean who smiled happily.
“More than enough.” He answered.
“Let’s get this show on the road then.” I replied and went out to the main room, where Davey kissed me before helping me onto the machine’s platform. He handled the needle himself, and kissed me one last time before my eyes closed and I prepared for another trip back in time.
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