A Dream From The Past

“Wait. Where is that?” Henry wanted to ask, but all he could get out was a, “Wait, Wh?”

Knowing his partner well enough, Aden saved him, “He means, where is that?”

“That is node 326A just in front the orbit of Mars at the Martian Lagrange Point 4 or M2L4 at the exact point in time I was jumped back from my near death experience.”

“What makes that point so significant? Wait! This means you are the one responsible for these disappearances. You did it in the past,” Aden says.

“I made that same argument myself, but if I am responsible why don’t I remember? Unless it is my future self doing it, and then there is the question as to what my motive would be. I have been round and round on these questions for days, but the dream finally answered the question for me,” Josh said.

“Your dream?” Shivu asked, “Really? This should be interesting.”

“What dream? Ok, can somebody fill me in here?” Aden asked, clearly lost and frustrated.

Josh lowered his thumb to the table and turned off the computer then he looked around the table at every face staring back at him, some with simply blank expressions others with puzzled looks.

In his typical fashion Josh softened his own expression into a gentle smile and then began to explain, “Ever since the day my space plane blew up on takeoff, well, maybe not that far back, but when I was jumped back from my deathbed, I have been having the same dream—ok nightmare—that I’m back on that exploding plane. Hence, the acute acrophobia, and my ‘mental stability’ has been in question. I finally realized that the dream wasn’t a chemical imbalance or some post traumatic reaction to my near death experience, rather it was a message. Something went wrong in that jump and I think I need to go back and fix it; furthermore, I have to get to that location by way of the Time Port.”

At first the room was quiet, and then there were gasps and finally Aden could not contain himself.

He stood up, raised his hands in the air and began to flail them wildly as he exclaimed, “No flapping way!”

Henry just sat there aghast; eyes opened wide and stared unbelievingly at his friend and partner, as he let out a shrill sound that almost sounded like, “Aden?”

“Calm down Aden!” Randy said, and for the first time during the whole conversation Josh realized he hadn’t had any input from the techs.

Apparently the others realized this too, and Aden just stared blankly at Randy. “What have you to say of all this?” he said.

“We were following the conversation,” Sheyla answered.

“From the moment Josh put up the holo images we were able to extrapolate where he was going with this,” Jackie continued.

“We were just waiting for the conversation to finish and for your responses,” Randy finished.

“Why do we have to use the Time Port?” Shivu had to ask the most obvious question, “Couldn’t we just use a regular telepod and calculate where and when another set of nodes will intersect with 326A?”

“But then Josh would be stuck there, along with anyone else within the vicinity of the telepod while the connection remained open,” Sheyla answered.

“Besides that, there is a rip in time,” Randy continued.

“…and it’s not entirely possible to seal the rip from within the current timeline,” Jackie finished.

“Are…are you really saying that the alarm at the Time Port started from a timeline rip less than 50 years ago?” Henry managed to ask.

“Yes,” HDL answered in unison.

“Then why did it take so long to register?” Henry asked.

“Best guess, it wasn’t a rip but instead just a snag in time, up until five days ago, when my wife became the latest victim, and…and,” Josh took a breath, “and that event spurred me into action.”

Once again Aden could no longer contain himself, “What the hell are we talking about doing!? If we step back in time to supposedly fix a known time rip, we could just as easily turn it into a fracture and unravel every event from then to now, potentially creating Armageddon.”

“Oh please! Aden contain yourself,” Shivu said, “that’s always thrown out there to scare us in line, but it’s a worst case scenario with a one in a million chance of actually happening.”

“It’s still a chance, and what if something happens and I’m never born—that’s just as bad for me as any end of the world scenario,” Aden rebutted.

“I...I agree with Aden,” Henry squeaked.

Josh stared sternly into Aden’s eyes, “While your argument seems a bit selfish, I understand what you are trying to say, but what if this rip turns into a fracture all by itself? What if events are already unraveling and Armageddon is in our future unless we do something? We won’t be able to fix it from here.”

“Fine, you win,” Aden conceded, “but now I ask you just how you propose to get into the Time Port. You know as much as I do just how locked down that place is, and we don’t have a clue where any of the other ones are.”

“We’ve actually been working on the problem, since the moment you arrived,” Randy answered.

“There may actually be a way we can breach the system,” Jackie continued.

“Something that was overlooked during the construction of the Port,” Sheyla finished.

“And exactly what is that?” Aden asked, still fuming.

“The polymorphic glass at the center of the port was designed to be impenetrable when hardened by sun light;” Randy answered.

“However, the same glass was used underground to surround and protect all the key systems within the Time Port,” Jackie followed.

“This glass never saw the sun which means it never received the necessary UV and IR radiation to properly harden,” Sheyla finished.

“That’s a huge oversight. How could someone have missed that?” Henry muttered, almost under his breath.

“It’s surrounded by rocks; no one really thought it would be a problem,” Randy answered.

“Oh goodie, so we’re supposed to tunnel our way in through solid rock—undetected by all the security systems in place,” Aden smugly added.

Sheyla began to answer, “Actually there is a maintenance pod at sub level 3 and we could port in to there…”

“Maintenance pods are for maintenance bots! Tiny ones and they’re only 10 by 10 by 20 cm! How the hell are we going to port into there? As bugs?!” Aden interrupted.

“We’ve thought of that, remember we’ve had this whole conversation to work out the details,” Jackie answered.

“To answer your question, yes, we will be just under 20 cm tall, and it will be somewhat disorienting,” Randy added.

“…and a bit problematic, as we will need to bring a portable power source, which should be quite heavy, given our size,” Sheyla continued.

“However, once we get into the Time Port, we can use the telepods within to reset us to our proper sizes,” Jackie finished.

“Ok, I’m intrigued. Please continue, and Aden, just be silent for bit and let us hear them out,” Josh said.

The techs spent the next hour or so going over their whole plan. Josh and Shivu added their own input on occasion, while Aden did his part and simply kept quiet. Even Henry had some advice to add to the plan with his background in the design and engineering of maintenance bots. Security protocols had to be overridden and alibi’s had to be created in case of failure and the possible necessity of a second attempt. It was a simple plan with a lot of complications. Toward the end of it all even Aden was asked to join in as the devil’s advocate and attempt to shoot holes in the plan; a role he played well. Once all the contingencies were worked through, it was time to put the plan into action. First, a call had to be made.

The arch lit up one more time at the HDL apartment, and a very special guest arrived.

“Uncle Albert! So glad you could join us for the party. I understand you have been linked in with HDL during our conversation,” Josh proclaimed, as he and Albert greeted with a hug.

“I was and I understand what must be done. I just wish I could go with you,” Albert said.

“Only seven can wander around in the Time Port at any given time; that’s the one security protocol we won’t be able to bypass,” Shivu said.

“Unless Aden would like to stay behind to be our alibi and keep the ‘party’ going,” Josh said.

“No way,” Aden exclaimed, “If something goes wrong with the time line, the safest place to be is in the Time Port.”

Josh turned to Albert and held both hands in his, “Thank you so much. I hope Salina doesn’t mind you coming to this ‘party’ without her”.

“Oh, she’s fine. She had some papers to grade anyway,” Albert said.

“With any luck, we can return and have a real swinging party to celebrate,” Josh said, and he turned to his team, “Time to go.”

One by one the team stepped into the arch at the HDL apartment; Shivu was first with the first piece of their portable power source. He was followed by HDL, each also carrying a piece of the power source, then Henry with a piece, and Aden with his.

Aden turned to Josh before entering to say, “I’m really not so sure about this.”

“I know, but this is the only way,” Josh answered.

As Aden stepped through, it was Josh’s turn to take a glance around and his eyes centered on Albert, “Farewell Uncle, I hope I get to see you again.”

Albert smiled and replied, “Me too, son, me too.”

With that Josh grabbed his piece of the power source and stepped through. When he stepped out of the maintenance pod, he was suddenly surrounded by giant robots seemingly five meters tall, and before he could react the robots grabbed the piece of power source out of his hands and whisked it away down a long hall. This was the maintenance bay they were talking about, but the place was so surreal, nothing looked right; it was just like what Aden said—he did feel like a bug. Everything was so huge, even the sounds of all the clanging machinery sounded louder and more ominous than he had expected. The only things that seemed right were the smells. Something like a musty lightly metallic and pungent machine oil with a dusty polymorphic glass smell wafted through the air for his nose to hungrily suck in, and he used those familiar scents to ground himself in the moment.

That’s when he realized that the robots were doing their job as they were programmed and assembling the power source. Those crafty techs had immediately hacked into the bots’ programming and set them to task as soon as the team arrived. Josh raced down the hall to catch up with the bots and the rest of the team. After what seemed like a three kilometer long jog, he finally met up with the team just outside the wall made of what was supposed to be impenetrable polymorphic glass. The bots were nearly finished with the portable power source assembly which included parts from the bots themselves and the HDL team were busy creating a program that would fool the glass into thinking it was going into rebuild mode. With a little luck they could then instruct it to make a hole in it just big enough to let the team through, and since this hole wasn’t going to be as big as a full size human, it shouldn’t set off any alarms… at least in theory. Amazingly the program worked and the glass opened up.

“Good work team!” Josh exclaimed over the machinery noise, and he and some of the others broke out into a high pitched laughter as his voice sounds like he had just sucked up a whole balloon full of helium.

Randy sobered them up quickly and yelled, or squealed rather, “Run! Quickly get through the hole! We can only keep it open for a second or two.”

Everyone complied and Sheyla pulling up the tail end narrowly squeezed through. As the hole closed behind them HDL launched three projectiles straight up in the air from carefully concealed belts at their waists. Ropes attached to the flying flotsam streamed behind like the wispy thread from a spider.

“Ok, so as planned we have to climb up three stories to get into the Time Port, which will seem like thirty at this size,” Jackie spoke.

The projectiles were actually magnetic grappling hooks and when they reached their destination they thudded and clanked with telltale sign that they had found something secure.

“I know we planned to have one of these for each of us, but each of these cables can hold all of us at once,” Sheyla explained.

Randy finished, “Obviously we will only have up to three per cable, so grab on to one of us and the belts will pull us up.”

Again everyone complied and the process was repeated with each level until they reached the base plate of the Time Port. Then it was just a matter of pushing the plate aside—a tall order for seven humans only 19 centimeters in height, but not for a maglev hooked to each of the tech’s belts. One more cable ride and the team was in. The tech’s climbed up to the console to make some quick adjustments and then the whole team stepped into the telepods. Within what seemed like a split second the team was back to their favorite sizes.

“Hurry,” Randy said, “We don’t have much time. The alarms could go off any second and lock down the console.”

Josh hurried over and stepped into the time pod and the tech’s entered the coordinates and this time his body dematerialized. Everyone was shocked.

“What just happened?” Aden exclaimed.

Sheyla somberly answered, “Apparently his body has been stored, but his mind has been teleported to the location in time and space that he specified.”

“That’s not right! It’s not supposed to work that way. Bring him back,” Shivu demanded.

Just then the alarms sounded, and the console powered down immediately.

“We can’t,” said the techs, “He is on his own, now it’s up to him to decide to come back.”